Floor Statements

Later this week we will hit the 1-month anniversary of the launch of President Obama's health insurance exchanges. My question is, what have we learned the past 4 weeks? We know the rollout of the exchanges and the healthcare.gov Web site, Americans would agree, has been disastrous.

Last week the Associated Press ran a headline about what people in my home State of Wyoming had experienced. It said: ``National health insurance site sputters in Wyoming.''

The article goes on to talk about the health care law, the Web site, and says: ``Wyoming Insurance Commissioner Tom Hirsig said Monday that he's personally been unable to register on the Federal Government's Wyoming site despite trying every day.''

The insurance commissioner from the State of Wyoming has been unable to register on the Federal Government's Wyoming site despite trying every day starting October 1. This is the same story we have seen all across the country.

We have also learned over the past 4 weeks that the President's health care law is much more than just a failed Web site. What we know is that there is sticker shock hitting people all across the country as they start shopping and find that higher premiums are what they are facing. They are going to be paying much higher premiums if they are able to buy health insurance, if they are able to get through the exchange.

CBS News had the story of one woman in Florida whose health insurance will cost 11 times what she is currently paying--from $54 a month to $591 a month.

Over the past 4 weeks, another thing we have learned is that many people have received notices in the mail--cancellation notices--from their insurance companies. They are being told that the insurance policies, the coverage they have had, is being cancelled. Only a small number of people have been able to get insurance through the government exchanges so far. We have seen that over the last month.

In testimony today in the House hearing, a person from the administration said they cannot tell us how many people have been unable to get insurance through the exchanges, but we know that hundreds of thousands of people are losing the insurance they had.

Here is what one woman told CBS: ``What I have right now is what I'm happy with, and I just want to know why I can't keep what I have. Why do I have to be forced into something else?''

Like many Americans, this is a person who actually believed President Obama when he promised that if people liked the insurance they had, they could keep it. Now she learned under the President's health care law, it is not only a Web site, it is a broken promise. It turns out if the White

House likes your plan, then you can keep it. If the White House doesn't like your plan, then you are out of luck, you can't keep it.

Yesterday the Obama administration finally admitted that millions of people across the country will lose their insurance. We know all of these ways that the President's health care law is more than a failed Web site, so the big question now is what don't we know yet? What is there that the American people don't know about the health care law? How much worse are things going to get before the White House admits the entire law is broken?

We have seen one headline after another about problems with the health care law that the Obama administration knew about and would not admit. There has been one revelation after another about troubles they hid from the American people and did so deliberately. What else is this administration not telling the American people?

The White House may have finally said publicly that millions of people are going to lose the insurance they have but, according to NBC News, the Obama administration has known that for at least 3 years.

When the train first went off the tracks, the White House said its Web site crashed because they said millions of people tried to use the Web site at the same time. According to the Washington Post, the limited testing the administration did before the launch found the site would crash if only a few hundred people used it.

It is fascinating. The Democrats' whole law was based on the idea that Washington, government, is capable of running America's health care system competently. What we have seen is gross incompetence. It turns out that Washington can't even set up a Web site competently, and it looks as if they knew it.

Computer programmers warned about the rush to get the Web site done by October 1. Instead of hitting the pause button, which they should have done, hitting the pause button until it could get things working, the White House pushed on. This is what we learned from some of the contractors who built the Web site. This Web site cost the taxpayers over $400 million so far and the bills are still coming in.

These contractors testified last week in the House that full tests of the site should have started months in advance, but testing didn't happen until the last 2 weeks of September. Who decided to go ahead anyway? President Obama's administration. They are the ones who decided.

Contractors thought if the registration process wasn't going to work, then maybe it would help to set up a way for people to shop for plans and get information without registering. The administration told them to ``deprioritize'' that plan. What a government word, ``deprioritize'' that plan.

Then when the Web site turned out to be a complete disaster, a systems failure, the Obama administration tried to hide how bad it was. It asked the largest health insurer in North Dakota not to tell anybody how many people have signed up for insurance through the exchange--the administration telling the State: Don't open up, don't tell people the truth. Why not? Because as of last week only 14 people had been able to sign up for the companies' plans. The numbers are so embarrassing for the administration they have been trying to cover up. They continued to cover up today when there was testimony and no numbers were given. It is the same reason the administration won't say how many people have signed up nationwide. They know how many people have signed up, but they refuse to tell the American people, the taxpayers, the people who pay the taxes and see their money being wasted by this administration and this government. There are new problems with this health care law every day.

The Web site was supposed to be the easy part, but to me it is the tip of the iceberg. The Web site failures are just the tip of the iceberg.

What else does the White House know about? By now they should know about cancelled coverage because it looks as if millions of Americans have already received notices from their insurance companies that they have lost their insurance, their insurance has been cancelled.

There have been premium increases. People have talked about the fact that their premiums are going up, and there are higher copays and deductibles to deal with. People are losing access to the doctor. Plus there are always the issues of fraud and identity theft.

What else are we going to learn this week when Secretary Sebelius testifies in the House tomorrow? Will she actually open up? Will she give them the truth? Will she give them the real numbers, or will she not admit to what is actually going on and refuse to answer the questions?

How much worse does the Obama administration's incompetence get? What will it take for the President to admit that his health care law has been a train wreck and they will have to delay it for at least a year? We know he is going to have to do it eventually. There is no way all of these problems are going to get fixed quickly, and he is going to have to delay the individual mandate--the mandate that says every American must buy or have and prove they have health insurance. And who is the enforcer? The IRS--the Internal Revenue Service. The President should just go ahead and do it now and also delay all the other parts of the law, not just the mandate.

It is time for President Obama to really come clean with the American people about what his administration knew and then come to the table to work with Republicans and give people the real health care reform that they need, want, and deserve so people can get the care they want from a doctor they choose at a lower cost.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask consent to speak in morning business.

Mr. President, it has now been 2 weeks since the launch of the insurance exchanges that were created by President Obama's health care law. After 2 weeks of delays, error messages, things the President calls glitches, the American people are united in saying that this is what a train wreck looks like. A recent poll by the Associated Press found that only 7 percent of Americans say this rollout has gone either very well or extremely well. The Obama administration continues to say the problems were just because of too many people trying to check out the Web site the first day.

I bring to the floor the front page of Sunday's New York Times, Sunday, October 13, now 13 days into the exchange, with the headline above the fold, front page on Sunday: ``From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal. Many Deadlines Missed. Web Site Problems May Imperil Finances of Insurance Market.'' This is a front-page story. It continues inside the paper. It says:

In March, Henry Chao, the chief digital architect for the

Obama administration's new online insurance marketplace, told

industry executives that he was deeply worried about the Web

site's debut. ``Let's just make sure it's not a third-world

experience,'' he told them.

Two weeks after the rollout, few would say his hopes were

realized.

For the past 12 days, a system costing more than $400

million and billed as a one-stop click-and-go hub for

citizens seeking health insurance has thwarted the efforts of

millions to simply log in. The growing national outcry has

deeply embarrassed the White House, which has refused to say

how many people have enrolled through the federal exchange.

Even some supporters of the Affordable Care Act worry that

the flaws in the system, if not quickly fixed, could threaten

the fiscal health of the insurance initiative, which depends

on throngs of customers to spread the risk and keep prices

low.

``These are not glitches,'' said an insurance executive who

has participated in many conference calls on the federal

exchange. Like many people interviewed for this article, the

executive spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying he did

not wish to alienate the federal officials with whom he

works. ``The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At

the end of our calls, people say, `It's awful, just awful.'

''

At the time, the President of the United States--he and I talked about this directly face to face on Friday at the White House. He said we just have a problem with the cash register. I would say this is a Web site with major flaws. It goes way beyond the cash register.

One online database programmer told CBS News:

It wasn't designed well, it wasn't implemented well, and it

looks like nobody tested it.

That is from a computer expert who says he supports the law but the Web site needs a complete overhaul.

I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization

delivered something like that.

Remember, they spent $400 million of hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This guy says he would be ashamed and embarrassed to deliver something as bad as the Obama health care exchange.

I think the Obama administration should be embarrassed about the whole law. The law wasn't designed well, hasn't been implemented well, and it looks as if nobody tested it. The problems we have seen are not just first-day glitches. The problems have continued. People still cannot sign up easily. It is still not as easy to use as Amazon. Remember the President of the United States promised it would be as easy to use as amazon.com. Why are there problems 2 weeks later?

The CEO of Aetna Insurance said yesterday--this is 2 weeks into it. He said:

There's so much wrong, you just don't know what's broken

until you get a lot more of it fixed.

We still have no idea how many people have been able to enroll successfully. What is the Obama administration continuing to hide?

Wolf Blitzer came out last week on CNN and said:

If they weren't fully ready, they should accept the advice

the Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it

ready, and make sure it works.

Even Jon Stewart was asking why the Obama administration gave a 1- year delay to big businesses but not to the American people. Mr. President, if you are the Obama White House, when you have lost Jon Stewart, you know things are not going well.

The problems do not end with the media or professional comedians. A Democratic Member of the House who actually voted for the health care law called the launch of the exchanges ``excruciatingly frustrating.'' Robert Gibbs, President Obama's former Press Secretary, said yesterday:

I hope they fire some people who were in charge of making

sure that this thing was supposed to work.

The biggest cheerleaders for the President's health care law are now turning against it, the American people do not like it, and people are not buying the administration's excuses for why it has failed. This is, of course, bad for the President, but the American people have even bigger problems, and that is what we should be really focused on.

The White House is worried about how this looks from a PR standpoint. We should also be talking about the real harm this health care law is doing to hard-working Americans and their families and their jobs and their paychecks. Many of them are going to lose their doctors--doctors who are not included in the insurance plans sold in the exchanges. Many are already seeing that their premiums are going up because of all the Washington mandates.

Remember the President and his promises in passing this health care law? That is not what the people are seeing today. One mother told a TV station in Allentown, PA, that when she went to sign up on the Web site, she was told her premium would be almost $950 for her family. That is $765 more than she pays now. She told the station, ``It would take food out of our mouths to be able to afford this coverage.'' This is what the President of the United States and Democrats in this body have foisted on the American people.

People are finding that not just the premiums are going up, but many of their other health care costs are also higher.

The Chicago Tribune had this headline on Sunday:

Obamacare deductibles may cause sticker shock. Insurance

companies are requiring higher out-of-pocket expenses to pay

for complying with new rules.

Expenses to pay for complying with rules--not expenses to give you health care, not expenses to keep you healthy, not expenses to prevent injury or illness, but expenses to pay for complying with the rules. That is the Chicago Tribune, the President's hometown newspaper.

As if all that weren't bad enough, the administration is still insisting it is going to fine people who don't have insurance, even though people can't sign up on the ObamaCare Web site successfully. The administration was saying that this is a long process and people have until the end of March of next year to enroll in the exchanges, but even that changed last week. Now it turns out people will actually have to sign up 6 weeks earlier than that--by Valentine's Day--or pay the tax penalty. What we are looking at is a tax penalty at 1 percent of income or $95, whichever is greater that first year. That could be a sizable amount of money for some families who thought they were going to get affordable insurance under the President's health care law because that's what the President promised them. He stood in Congress and told the American people that. He stood in front of groups all around the country, and the American people feel misled and deceived. All of this frustration, expense, stress, and pain was all avoidable.

Democrats in Congress and President Obama need to swallow their pride. They need to admit that the problems with the health care law are not limited to a bad Web site. The problems with the health care law run much deeper, and they are only going to get much worse. We must do something to stop this terrible law from doing more damage to people's jobs, their care, and our country.

The President will be held to the promises he made as recently as 2\1/2\ weeks ago: If people like their doctors, they can keep their doctor, the cost will be less than a cell phone bill, and that it will be easier to use than amazon.com.

This health care law has failed miserably. We needed health care reform so people could get the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower costs. They have not gotten it. It is time to repeal and replace this terrible health care law.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments by the distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee. As she said, she is ready to meet, ready to negotiate, ready to compromise, ready to work together.

I come today to say tomorrow Republican Senators are finally going to get a chance to talk with President Obama about reopening the government and dealing with the debt this Nation has, dealing with the debt limit.

Until very recently, President Obama has been far more interested in speaking with the press than in actually speaking with Republicans. Then we have this invitation to the White House. This morning in the Washington Post, what the administration

says--it is a front-page article and it continues over to page 4--it says the White House ``emphasized that Obama will not be negotiating.''

We have the chair of the Appropriations Committee saying she is ready to meet, negotiate, and compromise, and the White House says President Obama will not be negotiating.

The question is, why are we going over to the White House in the first place if the President is not interested in negotiating? Is it just to give him a photo op? I went to meetings like that during the health care debate more than 3 years ago. The President at the time would invite Republicans to a meeting and then he would reject every idea we would offer. If he had been more willing to accept Republican ideas, negotiate then, we would have had a bipartisan health reform bill that was accepted by the American people instead of a law that continues to have more people opposed than in favor of it.

That is going to be my message to the President tomorrow morning when we meet. This needs to be a real discussion, a real negotiation, when we agree on how we can reopen the Government, reduce our debt and help our economy grow. This is the sixth time in 5 years that President Obama has requested an increase in the debt ceiling. How much is he asking for? According to the majority leader, I understand it is $1 trillion to extend between now until after the 2014 election.

That is an incredible amount of money. Just trying to figure out how much money that is, it is over $1 million a minute. It is $1 million every minute between now and 14 months from now. The President needs to realize that is unsustainable. We have a $17 trillion debt. It is a debt on the back of our children and our grandchildren. We have families all across the country who have aspirations, anxieties, and anger about even the idea that their children and grandchildren will not be able to get careers, get jobs.

If we as a nation are going to incur more debt, we also have to find real savings. We cannot continue to increase our credit card debt, another new credit card after the President has maxed out the last one, and send this bill to the American people. It is time to set priorities. We want to get moving on real solutions, not just to our short-term problems but the long-term issues that face us as a nation as we try to work together in governing this Nation.

The House of Representatives has passed 12 individual continuing resolutions. These bills would open many different parts of the government right now, parts that we all agree should be kept operating. The House voted to pay for FEMA, Head Start, the National Institutes of Health, to open our national parks. Those bills have been sent to the Senate. They have been sitting here without action at all.

Here in the Senate I know a lot of Democrats are saying they support these functions. We see this picture on the front page of the Washington Post this morning with the mayor, Mayor Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington, DC, on the steps of the Capitol, talking to the majority leader saying, ``Sir, we are not a department of the government. We are simply trying to be able to spend our own money.'' Yet the majority leader, who is blocking these votes to allow the District of Columbia to do what they are requesting and what the House has said yes, they should be able to do, the majority leader is saying, ``Don't screw it up, OK? Don't screw it up.''

The majority leader continues to object to votes on these bills. History supports bipartisan action of the House and not the stonewalling of the President and the Democratic leadership in the Senate.

In the middle of the last government shutdown, Congress passed and President Clinton signed laws to allow a wide variety of specific programs to function. It is a precedent we should be following today.

The President also keeps saying he will not negotiate on the debt limit. He tries to make people believe that never before has Congress included ``issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt''--this is the President's quote--in its negotiation over the debt limit.

The facts are not on the President's side. Even the Fact Checker in the Washington Post gave the President four Pinocchios on that claim, essentially saying it was completely not true. Negotiations have actually occurred many times on the debt limit.

From 1978 until 2013, the debt limit has been raised 53 times. Of those votes, the debt ceiling increase was linked to something else more than half the time. So more than half of the debt limit increase votes since 1978 carried other provisions. They were not, as the President claims, clean increases.

The President wants to ignore that history. The President wants to pretend that raising the debt limit is something that has to be done without any deliberations, negotiations, dissent, and on his terms alone. He says he will not negotiate at all.

It is strange to be coming from his mouth because that is very different from the position that came out of his mouth when he was Senator Obama. That was not that many years ago. In 2006, Senator Obama voted against a debt limit increase because he said it was a sign that Washington cannot pay its bills. Senator Obama complained that the Federal debt had increased by $5 trillion in 5 years. Under President Obama, Washington's debt has grown by more than $6 trillion in 4 years.

Senator Obama said, ``The more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.''

Under President Obama, foreign holdings of Federal debt have increased by 82 percent.

Senator Obama said that, ``Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.'' He said at the time, ``America has a debt problem, and a failure of leadership.''

A debt problem and a failure of leadership.

President Obama is now asking for his sixth increase in debt in less than 5 years. Why is this, then, not a debt problem and a failure of leadership?

Senator Obama was right to say at the time we have a debt problem. President Obama should remember what made him say that in 2006, and do something about it now. He should join Republicans willing to talk about real entitlement reform as part of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling. He should be willing and anxious to talk about his health care law and how it is going to become a major factor driving Washington's debt even higher in the future if we do not replace it with responsible reforms today.

The President should embrace bipartisan continuing resolutions passed by the House as a way of reopening as much of the government as possible while we have responsible and reasonable discussions, deliberations, and negotiations. President Obama should stop posturing, stop playing games, and stop punishing the American people as he has been doing under this current government shutdown.

Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Illinois, and I have heard him make reference to the insurance exchanges that opened last week. It was 1 week ago President Obama's health insurance exchanges opened, and by all accounts it was a complete disaster.

The administration had 3\1/2\ years to prepare for the big launch. It spent months and millions of dollars advertising the start date. Yet on October 1, the American people had their first chance to sign up, and the exchanges flopped. It was a complete fiasco.

The administration tried to say it was caught off guard. They said they were caught off guard by too many people going to the Web site on the first day. Even Saturday Night Live ridiculed the excuse. They said: That is like 1-800-Flowers getting caught off guard on Valentine's Day.

There were glitches the first day, but they lasted the whole week-- the entire first week. The question is, Did the administration finally get its act together? Well, actually, no, it didn't. The past weekend they had to pull down the Web site to try to fix some of the worst problems. USA TODAY, a newspaper whose editorials have actually in the past supported the health care law, had as yesterday's headline: ``Health sites generate more error messages than coverage.'' That was the headline. The subheadline: ``Exchange launch turns into an inexcusable mess.''

An inexcusable mess. And they go on:

. . . the administration managed to turn the experience for

most of those visitors into a nightmare. Websites crashed,

refused to load, or offered bizarre and incomprehensible

choices. Even though the system was shut down for repairs

over the weekend, Monday's early reports continued to suggest

an epic screw-up.

The front page of the Wall Street Journal on Monday read: ``Software, Design Defects Cripple Health-Care Website.''

One does not take down a Web site for minor glitches. These are signs of major trouble. Some of us have been warning that the administration has failed to prepare properly. We said there would be security holes that would expose people to fraud and identity theft. It turns out the administration didn't even get to the point where the security flaws would actually matter early on because people couldn't even start entering their personal information. The exchanges were failing to launch. People got repeated error messages, and they couldn't fill out forms or applications. They couldn't create an account to start looking at the most basic of information to even make comparisons. When they tried to telephone to get help, they found long wait times and they got disconnected entirely. Even the administration's biggest cheerleaders admitted defeat. One reporter at MSNBC spent so much time trying to show viewers how to sign up for the exchange Web site on line that she actually gave up. They were playing this on television. She finally threw in the towel saying:

If I were signing up for myself, this is where my patience

would be exhausted.

The Wall Street Journal tried to find out what went wrong. It talked to computer experts, who looked at the healthcare.gov Web site, and what the computer experts said is, ``The site appeared to be built on a sloppy software foundation.'' According to those experts, ``such a hastily constructed website''--and, of course, they had 3\1/2\ years-- ``may not have been able to withstand the online demand last week.''

Even the far-left Wonkblog at the Washington Post couldn't believe how badly the administration had failed. One of its columnists wrote:

The Obama administration did itself--and the millions of

people who wanted to explore signing up--a terrible

disservice by building a Web site that, four days into

launch, is still unusable for most Americans.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. President Obama promised using the exchanges would be like, in his words, shopping on amazon.com. Well, Amazon can handle 13 or 14 million transactions every day with no problem. There are over 5,000 Web sites generating more traffic than health care.gov.

So how many people were able to successfully enroll in the health care exchanges on the first day? We have no idea. The administration doesn't want to talk about it. First, they said: We are thrilled so many people were checking out the Web site. By Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was on multiple television shows refusing to answer questions about how many people had enrolled and just repeating the White House talking points. He claimed 4.7 million people had visited.

If they are willing to tell us how many people have visited the Web site, why won't they tell us how many people actually got coverage?

The administration says they won't provide any data to back up its claims until at least November.

Remember, California claimed 5 million people visited their Web site for its own State exchange for the first day. They later had to back up and say that wasn't true. It turns out they had 645,000 visitors--less than 1 million, not the 5 million they claimed. That is a State that spent $313 million on their site and it couldn't handle even that many people, because they had trouble.

President Obama said he was going to have the most transparent administration in history. The health care law is this administration's signature accomplishment. October 1 was the day they had been working toward for more than 3 years, and now the President won't tell the American people--won't tell any of us how many people have even signed up for health insurance. Why not? What is the President trying to hide?

CNN looked into the 24 States that set up their own insurance exchanges under the law. They found that as of last Friday, about 52,000 applications had been started. That is not how many people have actually completed their application successfully; it is just they have started. It is not how many people have gotten insurance; that is just how many people get to the point of starting their application.

Even if the Obama administration fixes the technical problems with its health insurance Web site, it will not have fixed the many problems with its health care law. The law will still not give people the lower cost, high-quality care they wanted--which is the reason we needed health care reform in the first place. But I think the American people will hold the President to his promises and hold the Washington Democrats who voted for this law to their promises.

The President, right before the exchanges opened, said coverage in the exchanges should cost less than your cell phone bill. He said you should be able to keep your doctor. And he said it would be as easy and secure as amazon.com. So far, the President's health care law has failed on all of these. That was exactly what many of us warned would happen.

It doesn't matter if the ObamaCare exchange system failures happened because of heavy traffic or because of design flaws. The administration officials should be embarrassed, but they should not be surprised. Republicans warned the exchanges were not ready for prime time, but the President and Democrats ignored calls for a delay.

Why is the administration insisting now on fining people--fining people who don't have insurance, even though they can't sign up on the Web site successfully? The President unilaterally gave big businesses a 1-year delay in the employer mandate. Workers should get the same break that bosses get. If bosses get a 1-year delay in penalties, why shouldn't hard-working men and women all across the country get a 1- year delay of the individual mandate?

President Obama should have delayed the launch of his insurance exchange until it was ready. That would have been the fair thing to do. It is still the right thing to do. It is also the fair and right thing to give individual Americans the same delay of the mandate that the President has unilaterally--without the action of Congress--given to businesses all around this country.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today, because Americans all across the country today are speaking out about their personal experiences with the ObamaCare exchanges yesterday. Instead of it being as easy as buying something from Amazon, which the President had promised, Americans ran into roadblocks and technical disasters State after State.

Instead of getting good coverage, their computers crashed. These were not just glitches, they were system failures to the point that in the Casper Star Tribune, on the front page today, it was talking about people spending time working their way just trying--on the computer-- one little section had a little cartoon at the bottom. The one guy worked so hard trying to work the computer that he ended up getting carpal tunnel syndrome, while trying to get through the computer to find out more about the costs of the Obama health care law through the exchanges.

The Obama administration has had 3 years to prepare for the launch that occurred on October 1. Even if the technology finally gets fixed, the issue of health care will not. After people finally get a chance to examine what is being offered to them when they make a decision about enrolling or not under the mandates of the law, Americans are still going to find that the exchanges do not match the President's promise.

Let's think about what those promises were. Last week, the President was in New York with Bill Clinton. They had what seemed like an infomercial to me. What the President said is that: Most people will be able to shop and compare. For many people it is going to be cheaper than an average cell phone bill.

The people are not going to find that it is cheaper, even with government subsidies, than the average cell phone bill.

The President has also said: The process is going to be as easy as Amazon. Even if the administration is able to paper over the many problems with the exchanges, it is not going to be as easy as shopping on Amazon.

Remember, from the beginning the President said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. We are now seeing in State after State that the exchanges are such that, to try to get costs down, they are limiting the market in a way and the networks in a way that fewer doctors are included, fewer hospitals are included.

That is causing an uproar. Instead of doubling down on a broken system, the President should grant all Americans a 1-year delay--the exact same delay he gave their bosses.

The President talks a lot about a ``fair shake'' for all Americans. We heard it in his campaign speeches, and we hear it as he goes around and talks to groups. He uses the words quite frequently.

ObamaCare, unfortunately, delivers the exact opposite. What the President has done unilaterally is gone outside the law to grant special deals to almost everyone except to people who need it the most, which is the hard-working American public. He basically, I believe, shut down the Federal Government in order to continue his own policy of his health care law, picking winners and losers. This can't continue.

The good news is that today, after once again attempting to lead from behind in a crisis, the President is finally having congressional leaders down to the White House within the next hour to meet with him. This is an opportunity for the President to do the right thing, to open the government, and to finally deliver fairness for Americans under the health care law. After all, if we are going to give people's bosses a break from the mandates of the health care law, the President ought to give hard-working men and women of America the same break. The same for Members of Congress. If the President decides that his own administration, White House employees, and Members of Congress have special treatment under the health care law, that shouldn't be so. That should be eliminated.

I do want to talk for a minute specifically about the government shutdown. Over the past week Senate and House Republicans have voted overwhelmingly for legislation passed by the House of Representatives that keeps government operations running. It keeps parks open, and it keeps Americans working. Senate Democrats have overwhelmingly rejected these proposals and have allowed to have the government shut down, to have the gates closed at America's national parks, and to have critical services for America's veterans go unfunded through the Veterans' Administration.

Today or tomorrow the Senate will have the opportunity to pass legislation from the House that will immediately open our parks, fund services offered through the Department of Veterans Affairs, and provide time-sensitive funding for the National Institutes of Health. We should pass these bills. We should make sure Americans can use these essential government services right now.

I also would like to talk for a minute about another looming issue that is important to the American people, to our Nation, and one that the President has recently addressed. Later this month Congress will begin debate on the President's sixth debt limit increase, the sixth time he has come to increase the debt limit in his 5 years of office. The President has said he is refusing to negotiate on this issue. Instead, I believe the President should accept that our country can no longer avoid a bipartisan agreement to reform entitlements. The President can no longer avoid a bipartisan agreement to reform entitlements. It is the President's job, responsibility, obligation, and opportunity to lead the effort.

If the President is unwilling to seriously deal with our country's debt, Congress is left with little choice but to use the debt limit to force him into fiscal solutions. The debt ceiling is merely a symptom of a much larger illness, which is Washington's addiction to spending. On spending, the status quo is not sustainable.

It is interesting how the President has seemed to change his tune. The President gave a number of speeches in the Senate when he was a Senator. We can go back and see what he said about raising the debt ceiling. He said that adding to the debt--of course, this was when George W. Bush was President--his key word was ``irresponsible.'' President Obama as a Senator said it was unpatriotic--raising the debt ceiling--unpatriotic and unacceptable. This was Barack Obama in this body, in this Chamber, in 2006. President Obama--at the time a Senator--actually called raising the debt ceiling ``a failure of leadership.'' Isn't that what the President himself should be accused of right now as he tries to do what he so vehemently objected to when he was in the Senate?

How bad is the situation? Well, in September the Congressional Budget Office reported that in the long term defense, education, infrastructure, and all discretionary spending will be squeezed by entitlement programs as well as interest on the debt. Over the next 75 years discretionary spending

will increase by 39 percent. This makes the sequester cuts look like child's play. Medicaid and other health spending increases will be by 159 percent; interest on the debt increases 823 percent; Social Security spending rises by only 37 percent only because CBO assumes drastic benefit cuts in the year 2033.

The President recently spoke about making cuts, though, to discretionary spending. That number is underestimated. The President failed to mention that by refusing to make much needed changes to entitlement programs, he is guaranteeing that these investments, as he calls them, will continue to shrink.

Entitlement reform is needed not only to preserve other Federal spending but in order to slow our ever-expanding debt. President Obama has bragged that he is no longer setting up the record-setting deficits he did in his first 4 years. Those self-congratulatory statements will be short-lived, as the Congressional Budget Office has predicted that deficits will soon start to rise unless real reforms are made today. Without real reform, America's debt will continue to grow, and America's interest and entitlement payments are on course to overwhelm the entire Federal budget.

The American people deserve to hear the truth about the tough choices we must face together as a nation. They also deserve an open and honest discussion about how we are going to make those choices. The President and congressional Democrats ought to rethink their strategies of leadership via blame game and saving via spending.

The President and Democrats have an opportunity today at the White House to put the games aside and work with us on opening the government, on delivering fairness for all Americans, and on actually reducing our debt. I hope they use this meeting to finally do what is right and to help the American people.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, as my colleague from Missouri said, as we are here on the floor today, much of the Federal Government has been shut down. It is shut down because of the Democrats' unwillingness to compromise on keeping the government open and delivering fairness to all Americans.

While employers got a pass from the President on his health care law, the American people still face a mandate that they start signing up for Washington-approved health insurance and the exchange is open today. The House of Representatives took the reasonable and responsible step of keeping the government open while eliminating the health care law's unfairness.

It is unfair that the mandate for health care law will not be delayed for individuals for a year but does delay the mandate for businesses. It is also

unfair to refuse to eliminate special exemptions under the health care law for Members of Congress. That wasn't in the health care law at all. Yet the President has granted special exemptions that I believe show the unfairness of the approach by the Democrats.

President Obama saw that other parts of the health care law won't work and weren't ready. He has currently signed seven different bills which will repeal and defund other parts of his law. In the interest of fairness, he should deal with these parts that are seen all across the country as very unfair.

The President has allowed exemptions and changed the laws for specific groups. He has delayed the employer mandate for a year. The question is: Why does he oppose delaying the individual mandate for a year as well? Why do the bosses get an exemption but not the workers? That is what someone asked me at a health fair in Lovell, WY, over this past weekend.

The American people already know the health care law is unaffordable, unworkable, unpopular, and now families are also saying the health care law is unfair. The House has asked us to treat all Americans fairly, but the President and the majority leader refuse to do that. If you look at their rhetoric over the past week or so, Washington Democrats seemed eager for a government shutdown. Well, they got their wish. Meanwhile, the administration is still promising people great benefits from the new government-run health insurance exchanges. Today hard- working Americans get to see which promises are kept and which have been broken. I think what people are going to learn today can be summed up in two words: Buyer beware.

Here is how the Wall Street Journal put it yesterday. This is their front-page article: ``Late Snags on Eve of Health Rollout.''

The article says the Obama administration officials are scrambling to get the health law's insurance marketplaces ready to open on Tuesday but keep hitting technical problems, while government-funded field workers across the country say they are not fully prepared to help Americans enroll in the program.

The reports in the news today show a system failure across the country as the exchange goes live. Remember what the President said in his address to the Nation Saturday. He said they are opening on Tuesday no matter what--no matter what, they are opening today.

Well, I think the people across the country are going to have more than just technical problems. First of all, people are going to see significantly higher costs. Last week, the President promised to give Americans, and I quote, ``high-quality affordable health care for less than their cell phone bill.''

Remember, the average monthly cell phone bill is $71. In Cheyenne, WY, the least expensive plan a 27-year-old man can buy will be $271. The President said less than $71. Why is it $271 a month in Cheyenne, WY? And that is for a healthy 27-year-old. So before the health care law, before the exchanges, they could buy a plan such as that for $82; now, $271--a lot more than a cell phone bill.

The White House isn't even disputing anymore that prices will be higher for many people. Now the White House is arguing that consumers will spend more, but they will get, as they say, better insurance.

The administration is also saying that prices are going up less than they had previously estimated. They previously estimated they were going to go up a lot. Now they are estimating they are not going to go up quite as much as a lot, but they are still going to go up. A smaller increase isn't what the President promised. He said families could pay $2,500 less a year. That is what the President promised. It is not what is happening.

Prices in the exchanges are up all across the country. In California, the cheapest plan at the silver level will cost a 40-year-old in Los Angeles $242 a month. That same person, because of something in the law called community ratings, buying the same plan in Sacramento, CA, would pay $330 a month. I see the astonishing looks on faces of folks in this Chamber. They can't believe it. They say, How can it be true? Perhaps they should have read the law, read the bill before they voted to pass it. The price is 38 percent more in Sacramento than in L.A. for the same identical policy, for the same 40-year-old person.

In addition to the higher cost of insurance premiums, there are also higher out-of-pocket costs, higher copayments, higher deductibles--all things that are going to make people look at this and say, Cheaper than my cell phone bill? Not a chance. All of that means more money out of the wallets of hard-working Americans and more sticker shock.

The second thing people are learning today as they sign up in the exchanges is that many of them will actually lose their doctor. I practiced medicine for 25 years. I know how important it is for patients to have a long-term relationship with their caregivers. The exchanges--the mandates coming out of this President's health care law--break that bond. That is because insurance companies needed to find ways to keep rates from going even higher. So what they have done is limited the doctors and limited the hospitals that patients can visit.

In New Hampshire, Anthem BlueCross BlueShield is excluding 10 of the 28 hospitals in the State from the exchange. A young mother may not be able to keep seeing the pediatrician whom she knows and trusts with her children's care. That wasn't supposed to happen. The President promised that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor. Today, many Americans are finding out that is just not the case.

On Sunday, a few days ago, Howard Dean, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, admitted that one of the unintended consequences of the law is that small businesses are going to dump their employees into the exchange. The people who work at those small businesses don't get to keep the insurance they had, and they may not get to keep the doctor they had either.

A third thing people are going to start to see today as the exchanges open for business is that there is a definite risk of fraud and identity theft. How can that be? The administration has hired so-called navigators--people to help enroll consumers in the exchanges. It turns out that these workers aren't well trained or even subject to consistent background checks. Even the Obama administration has been warning that con artists will take advantage of confusion over the law to steal people's identities. As I said earlier, buyer beware. Security may also be inadequate in the giant government ``data hub.'' These are the huge databases of detailed personal information about everyone in the exchanges. The information will be available to people in many different government agencies, in the whole chart of all the different places that this data is going to be sent all throughout government. The administration promises that the data hub will work, but they will not talk about what they have done to ensure that it is secure.

Finally, we know that today there are going to be a lot of customer service system failures. President Obama said that buying insurance through the exchanges would be like shopping at Amazon.com. It is shaping up to be much less consistent than that. Instead of simply clicking a few buttons online, many people are spending hours following up with phone calls, e-mails, and faxes. Faxes?

As recently as two weeks ago, government software couldn't reliably tell people the correct price for their insurance. Late last week, the administration delayed enrollment of some of its small business exchanges. Washington, DC, said last week that parts of its exchanges also weren't ready. In the State of Oregon, State officials say the software problems will force them to delay their Web site. People there will have to find other ways to get help for signing up.

That is not how Amazon.com works. That is not what the President promised.

It didn't have to be this way. The American people knew what they wanted from health care reform. They wanted lower costs and more accessible, quality care. President Obama could have drafted a law that actually addressed Americans' concerns. Instead, he forced through a law making health care more complicated, more uncertain, and more expensive.

Now is the time for the American people to hold the President to his promises. Coverage in the exchanges, as he said, should cost less than your cell phone bill, be as easy and secure as Amazon, and let people keep their doctors. How well those promises hold up will be the real legacy of the Obama health care law.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided between both parties.

Thank you, Mr. President. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, this morning, upon coming in, I found this morning's copy of Politico with the front-page headline: ``ObamaCare: One Blow After Another,'' with a picture of a pill bottle that says: ``Promises vs. Reality.''

I am going to read a little bit of the way this article begins.

The ObamaCare that consumers will finally be able to sign

up for next week is a long way from the health plan President

Obama first pitched to the Nation. Millions of low-income

Americans won't receive coverage. Many workers at small

businesses won't get a choice of insurance plans right away.

Large employers won't need to provide insurance for another

year. Far more States than expected won't run their own

insurance marketplaces. And a growing number of workers won't

get to keep their employer-provided coverage.

What is the President going to do about it? He made all the pitches, he made all the promises, and the American people have found out it is not true. So today President Obama is going to turn one more time to his so-called ``secretary of explaining stuff'' to sell his health care law. The President and former President Bill Clinton will be holding a pep rally attempting to convince people to sign up for health insurance in the new exchanges that open 1 week from today.

This health care law was supposed to be the signature achievement of the Obama Presidency. Why does the President need to call for backup to explain it? It was supposed to be overwhelmingly popular by now. Why does the Obama administration need reinforcements to sell it? Maybe because there are new polls out every day showing the new law is more unpopular than ever. In an NBC poll, only 31 percent of people said the President's health care law was a good idea. CNN found 57 percent opposed most or all of the proposals in the law.

Washington Democrats have been spinning their hardest but the American people know the health care law is unaffordable, it is unworkable, and it is very unpopular.

The last time Bill Clinton took to the stage to sell the health care law was about 3 weeks ago. This was the Washington Post headline on that speech. It said: ``Clinton on Stump for Health Care Law: Obama has dispatched ex-president to drum up support as crucial stage nears.''

Bill Clinton spoke for 50 minutes. He repeated a lot of the same old broken promises about what the law will do. He also gave the same old tired excuses for why it will fall short. He said there might be some glitches, there might be some unanticipated issues, but he said there were simple fixes to all of these. In 50 minutes--nearly an hour of talking--what Bill Clinton didn't do was honestly and seriously talk about the real problems with the Obama health care law. He never spoke directly to the American people who will be hurt by the law.

So when Bill Clinton takes to the stage again today I hope he will finally talk to some of those folks. For starters, he should speak to the workers who have had their work hours cut because of the law. It is a direct hit to their paychecks. It is happening all across the country. Many towns, counties, and school districts have had to cut back the hours of their workers. They need to keep more employees at a part-time status to reduce the burdens and the expenses of the health care law. They are limiting the hours they can pay bus drivers, librarians, coaches, substitute teachers, and other middle-class workers.

More than 250 different employers across the country have had to take steps to reduce the burden of the President's health care law. President Obama owes part-time workers an explanation and he owes them an apology. And if he won't do it, Bill Clinton should.

The last time he spoke, President Clinton failed to mention the serious economic consequences of the law. The Obama administration did the same thing. They said there was only anecdotal evidence. Well, the heads of three major labor unions happen to disagree with the President. They sent out a letter recently to Democrats in Congress warning about the damage the health care law is doing to their care and to their paychecks. They wrote this, saying the health care law--

. . . will shatter not only our hard-earned health

benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek

that is the backbone of the American middle class.

Even the President's strongest supporters are being hurt by his health care law. They are getting hit in their paychecks and they are getting hit hard. I believe President Obama owes union members an explanation. And if he won't do it, Bill Clinton should.

Those union leaders are also upset that a lot of the generous health care plans they have had will have to be cut because of the law. They said the unintended consequences of the health care law are severe, and ``perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios.'' That is from the unions.

But it is not just the unions. Walgreen's, Home Depot, IBM, Sears, Darden Restaurants--one company after another has had to make changes to their insurance plans under the Obama health care law. President Obama owes those middle-class workers an explanation and he owes them an apology. And if he won't do it, today Bill Clinton should.

The next group President Clinton should talk to are the spouses who are losing their insurance coverage. The University of Virginia recently announced plans to drop spousal coverage for some of its employees. The school said it was the President's health care law, and that it would add $7.3 million to the cost of its health plan in 2014.

In a recent memo to employees, the shipping company UPS said it also plans to exclude 15,000 spouses from its insurance plan. The company, of course, cited the health care law as the top reason for this switch. It said the increased expenses and the government mandates have made it too difficult to keep offering the benefit. So just as the University of Virginia, if a worker's husband or wife can get insurance from their other employer, then UPS won't be covering them.

President Obama owes those spouses an explanation. And if he won't do it, Bill Clinton should.

Finally, I hope President Clinton will be honest and speak directly to the young people who are going to see their insurance premiums skyrocket. The health care law needs healthy young people to sign up for these exchanges in record numbers or the whole thing will collapse. That is what is at stake for the Obama administration. So they are spending millions of dollars in advertising to convince young healthy people to buy expensive Washington-approved insurance.

The Los Angeles Times ran a headline over the weekend: ``Hollywood plays key role for health law: White House counts on the entertainment industry to promote its plan, especially to young people.''

Hollywood celebrities and Bill Clinton are trying to convince young people to sign up. Many of those young people will be paying more, they will be buying coverage they may not need, and that might not be right for them. But they have to do it. They have to do it to help subsidize insurance for older individuals.

This is happening at the same time these young people can't find a job--can't get full-time work. Why? Well, a lot of that is due to the perverse incentives of the health care law. President Obama owes those young people an explanation and an apology. And if he won't do it, Bill Clinton should.

The American people deserve more than sound bites and talking points and excuses. They deserve better than what they have gotten under this terrible health care law. A few months ago the White House saw its employer mandate was a bad idea, so they delayed the mandate for 1 year. Republicans think all Americans deserve a delay.

There are real problems with this health care law and there are a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of unintended consequences, and a lot of ways the new health care law can do more harm than good for middle- class Americans. We should delay the law permanently and work out a better replacement that actually reforms health care the right way. The American people wanted health care reform. They wanted the care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower cost. But as the polls are showing, the American people know the Obama health care law didn't give them what they asked for.

President Obama failed to keep his promises and he has failed at changing the public's opinion. So now he is going to be Bill Clinton's warmup act in a last-ditch sales job. Well, what former President Clinton should do is talk to the American people, whom President Obama has ignored.

You only have to look at yesterday's New York Times front page: ``Lower Premiums To Come At Cost Of Fewer Choices. Impact Of Health Care Law. In New Plans, Insurers Often Leave Out Many Providers.''

The President said: If you like what you have, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

Even the California plan the President touts, when we look at what is offered there in the insurance exchanges, the new network for thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of doctors across the State, it does not include the five medical centers of the University of California or the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills.

There is a furor in New Hampshire regarding the exclusion of 10 of the State's 26 hospitals from health plans that it will sell through the insurance exchange.

I think it is time for the President to admit the health care law is terribly flawed. Promise after promise has been broken, and it is time for Democrats and Republicans to work together to give the American public the care they need and deserve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today, just 6 days now before the Obama health care law exchanges go into effect, to point out that even those who may support the law say with regard to the exchanges, expect trouble. It was interesting that today the District of Columbia--their health exchange announced it is not going to be able to be ready to go October 1 for those seeking information regarding tax credits, for those asking about Medicaid coverage. People will still be able to submit applications online but apparently they need to then have this information go to so-called experts with an eligibility determination not to be made until sometime in November.

I applaud the District for pointing this out, that this is what they found because what they attributed the delay to was a ``high error rate'' discovered during testing. I am delighted that they were actually doing testing, discovered this high error rate and made that decision. But as people take a look at the upcoming exchanges as they open, I believe these exchanges open doors to fraud and to identity theft. The reason I say this is we are hearing this actually reported from supporters, again, of the health care law.

I will quote someone who has worked in support of the law in Chicago who says that, ``Fraudsters are poised to take advantage of widespread confusion over the Affordable Care Act--also known as ObamaCare--to take advantage of widespread confusion to steal Americans' credit cards, Social Security numbers, and other personal information.''

My goodness, how can that happen? It happens for a number of reasons. One is because of all of these so-called navigators, people who are hired by the government or people posing as those hired by the government to help folks sign up on the exchange. When they fill out the paperwork or fill out the computer forms, the information they are going to send in is to go to the data hub--tax information, income information, employment information, patient record information, Social Security number, welfare information, family size, demographic data-- and then where does all this information go?

No. 1, to the Department of Justice. Also to the Social Security Administration. Also the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship. Of course the Social Security Administration will validate birth, validate the person is not dead, validate the Social Security number. The Department of Justice will check on criminal history. The Health and Human Services Department, another recipient of the information, will check enrollment or eligibility for entitlement programs, collects and analyzes medical data. Then of course the IRS, who are the folks who are the enforcers of the Obama health care law-- the enforcers will, along with the Treasury Department, verify employment stats, individual income stats, determine premium subsidies, all with the potential for significant fraud and all because of a lack of providing the privacy safeguards that the law mandates this administration to provide. Yet the administration is not doing so. A number of us have been asking for months to see what is involved with these so-called navigators. What kind of education do they need? What kind of background checks are there? We still have not been able to get the information we are seeking.

We want to know: Do these people have to have a driver's license? Do they have to be of a certain age? Do they have to have a high school diploma? Do they have to have a criminal background check? Yet this administration will not give out that information about those individuals. Even the census takers have to have completed a certain level of education and have a criminal background check.

Yet this administration is not asking of those who were supposed to be the navigators handed very confidential information, of course, subject to fraud and identity theft when you give that sort of information--and I say to people all around the country it is time to beware next Tuesday when the exchange is open.

I just quoted a couple of things that supporters of the health care law have said, such as expect trouble and worry about con artists. Here are some other things that some of the supporters have said--people who supported the adoption of this law in the first place. They said: It will destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle class. These, of course, are union folks who are saying: Hey, this is going to end up forcing millions out of their multi-employer plans. It will create unstoppable incentives for employers to reduce weekly hours for workers. We see that all across the country.

Just last week the Cleveland Clinic--a wonderful health care institution and one of the major employers in the State of Ohio-- announced that because of the health care law and because of the cuts in reimbursement, the Cleveland Clinic is going to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from their budget and actually reduce their workforce because of the President's health care law and the things they are learning about the law as time goes on.

It is interesting to see a union leader say: In its rush to achieve its passage, many of the act's provisions were not fully conceived. People on this side of the aisle were telling Members of this body that very thing a number of years ago before the law was passed in this body on a sole party-line basis.

Yesterday, President Obama, once again, tried to bring in help, and he provided essentially the warmup act for an infomercial with President Bill Clinton, the so-called secretary of explaining stuff, because the President has failed to explain benefits of the health care law to the point that it would actually convince the American people it was good for them. Currently, the President is under water in the polls regarding his leadership on health care, and this health care law continues to be very unpopular with the American people.

More people think their costs will go up and their benefits will go down than the other way around. So they are looking at their own quality of care and what it means to them: paying more, getting less, something that the American people don't want.

So in an effort to try to provide some solace to the American people, this is what the President said yesterday in New York: Make your own decision about whether it is good for you. What we are confident about is when people look and see they can get high-quality affordable health care for less than their cell phone bill, they are going to sign up.

I would say if you use that criteria, you are going to have very few people signing up for your health care law.

According to the 2012 report issued by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry, the average monthly cell phone bill was about $47. So make your own decision--less than your cell phone bill. So what the President is saying is that for less than $47 a month, people will be able to receive insurance.

The interesting thing is that, of course, the President says that is with the subsidies. But for many people the subsidies are not in any way going to reduce the cost of their insurance at all, and it may not go up as high as many people had feared, but it is still going to be higher than they are paying now because of the sticker shock that is coming.

This is today's Wall Street Journal. This is coming out of the administration:

Prices Set For New Health-Care Exchanges.

Across the country, the average premium for a 27-year-old

nonsmoker, regardless of gender, will start at $163 a month

for the lowest-cost ``bronze'' plan.

That is just about four times the average of a monthly cell phone bill. So could the President of the United States be mistaken?

Let's look around the country. They say:

Likewise, the least-expensive bronze policy would rise to

$195 a month in Philadelphia for that same 27-year-old, from

$73 today.

So it would go from $73 up to $195.

Let's look at my home State of Wyoming. I am still reading from the front page of today's Wall Street Journal.

In Cheyenne, Wyo., the lowest-cost option would be $271 a

month, up from $82 today.

This just goes to prove that when Washington comes up with something, it does not one-size-fits-all across this country, and in rural States around the country there are huge problems related to the very fact that one size doesn't fit all.

In spite of the President's comparison to a cell phone bill, what we are seeing is that people all across the country are going to be paying excessive amounts of money for insurance in spite of the President's promises that if you like what you have, you can keep it. We know that is not the case for many people, as the unions have spoken of, and we know that what the President promised of lowering insurance premiums by $2,500 per family by the end of his first term never materialized and the costs continue to go up.

So this health care law has turned out to be terrible for patients, the providers, the nurses, and doctors who take care of them, and it is going to be terrible for taxpayers.

There was an interesting story on the front page of the New York Times on Monday: ``Lower Premiums to Come at Cost of Fewer Choices.'' In new plans, insurers often leave out many providers. I think that is the key: leave out many providers. Because what we are seeing is that in many locations around the country, hospitals have been excluded, doctors have been excluded, and there is going to be significant explaining to be done when people realize that they are not going to be able to continue to go to the pediatrician that their children have been going to since birth. They are not going to be able to go to the hospital in their community. They are not going to be able to keep the health care plan they have.

So it is interesting to see in a Blue Cross/Blue Shield in New Hampshire, one of the Nation's largest insurers has put a plan together that is consistent with the health care law, and it has created a furor. The reason it has created this furor is that it excludes 10 of the State's 26 hospitals from the health plans it is going to sell through the insurance exchange.

The insurance exchange, regardless of what the President promises, is going to be something which potentially causes fraud, abuse, and loss of the care that you have, the doctor that you have, and the hospital that you have.

The article points specifically to the State of California. In California, it says the statewide Blue Shield developed a network specifically for consumer shopping in the insurance exchange.

The executive vice president of Blue Shield of California said the network for its exchange plans had 30,000 doctors or 53 percent of the doctors in the State. So they only include about half the doctors, not all the doctors, and they said the new network you get through the exchange in California--remember this is a State-run exchange that the President has touted as a successful exchange--``did not include the five medical centers of the University of California or the Cedars- Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills'' that are all well known for their excellent reputation. It is a place that patients want to go for care.

So go to the exchange in California, sign up for something the President has promised you, and then if you need to use that insurance card, you will learn that you are not welcomed and your card is not accepted at the five medical centers at the University of California or the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills.

That is what we have under this health care law, and that is why we need to repeal it and replace it with patient-centered care so patients can get the care they need from a doctor they choose at a lower cost.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the fine work done by all of our colleagues.

I wish to support this bipartisan helium bill, S. 783. This is a bill which is critical to maintaining a stable supply of helium now and into the future. This bill accomplishes that.

As a physician, I know how important it is that helium is available for the newest technologies, specifically for use to cool MRI scanners and manufacture products such as semiconductors and fiber optic cables.

Helium also has important applications for the Department of Defense, for NASA, and the scientific research community. This bill extends the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to sell helium from the Federal Helium Reserve in Texas, including important reforms such as provisions already outlined by the chairman of the Energy Committee: The Secretary sells helium at market prices and the Federal Government gets out of the helium business once and for all. This, to me, is one of the key components of this legislation.

In June, the Energy Committee, on which I serve, voted to report the helium bill by voice vote--22 members of the committee. There were no objections stated. This was bipartisan.

The House has already passed its own helium bill, which is different than this. I think the Senate should pass its helium bill as soon as possible today so we can have an opportunity to negotiate with the House, get something passed, and then to the President for signature.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I would like to follow up on some of the comments by Senator Cornyn about these massive burdens on American families, how it is impacting their lives, their quality of life. Those are burdens forced upon them by this administration.

I rise to talk about an amendment I filed to the energy efficiency bill that we will be debating today on the floor. This amendment would stop President Obama's attempt to impose a massive increase to the national energy bill. It will affect all Americans because, in a sense, essentially what we have is a huge energy tax caused by government regulations.

My amendment blocks the issuance of new carbon pollution standards for new and existing coal-fired powerplants. Those standards are due out from the Environmental Protection Agency this very week. They can do great harm to the American economy and to American families.

We need to make America's energy as clean as we can as fast as we can. Everyone knows that. It is important, though, that we do it without hurting our economy and without costing thousands of middle- class jobs. The American people, through their elected representatives in Congress, have rejected President Obama's reckless energy policies in the past. This past June President Obama issued a Presidential memorandum directing the EPA to issue carbon pollution standard regulations.

My amendment would require the approval of Congress for any regulations causing increases of our national energy bill, just like the one the EPA would create with these regulations. If these regulations are allowed to take effect, they will increase energy costs for the people who can bear the burden the least--seniors, low-income families, small businesses.

High energy costs will destroy thousands of jobs in places such as my home State of Wyoming but also in Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Montana, and many other States. We have already seen coal-fired powerplants shut down and reduce capacity, putting many people out of work. That has been the President's plan all along. These new regulations would be the latest step.

Remember, President Obama said that under his plan ``electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.'' Skyrocket. That is his word, not mine. He said energy producers could still build coal-fired powerplants, but that the cost would be so high it would bankrupt them. The President should be looking for ways to help businesses grow, to help create jobs, not pushing his regulations to find backdoor ways to bankrupt them.

My amendment accomplishes a number of goals, beginning with protecting American jobs. That has been our focus in this difficult economy. The Nation's recession ended more than 4 years ago. We have not had the recovery, though, we should have had because the President's policies have failed. The President promised he had a plan to create so-called green jobs. People have seen that those green jobs never materialized.

Now the President is going after the red, white, and blue jobs that continue to power our country. The Obama administration and its allies in the fringe environmental movement say we need to get rid of those jobs to make way for new ones. They say coal miners and powerplant workers should fade into history along with the men and women who built stagecoaches, telegraphs, and record players. Their idea is that if we simply let coal die, those folks can start making something new.

That kind of thinking is a luxury a lot of Americans do not want and cannot afford. When excessive Washington redtape crushes a coal mine or a coal-fired powerplant in a small community, those jobs are not the only thing that go. The town loses its revenue base. That hurts its public schools, its police, its fire departments, senior busing services for those who cannot drive. Everything that town does to serve its people suffers because of decisions made by this administration in Washington, DC.

Before long, people start to move away, looking for a better chance somewhere else. Small businesses do not have enough customers, so they shut down, and the town withers away. When Washington uses the heavy hand of excessive regulation, there are a whole host of ways it hurts American communities. One of those ways is its impact on public health.

Studies consistently show unemployment increases the likelihood of illness, hospital visits, and premature death. Families where a parent is out of work are more likely to fall into poverty. Children in poor families are four times as likely as other children to be in fair or poor health.

The bureaucrats at the EPA can shake their magic eight ball to predict health impacts of carbon pollution on virtual people who have not been born yet, years into the future. But if their predictions are wrong, and I expect they are, they will simply shake their magic eight ball again.

Meanwhile, the health effects caused by their excessive regulations are very real for real families, real children, real seniors. My amendment addresses this public health issue. It does it by preventing this massive unemployment that would result from new redtape and higher energy costs.

Finally, my amendment is clear that Congress should act on an affordable energy plan. Nothing in my amendment says Congress should not work with State and local governments to protect communities from severe weather events where lives are at stake. My amendment is clear that these kinds of decisions should be for Congress to make, not for the President to make on his own. That is true whether the President is a Democrat or a Republican. I hope to get a vote on my amendment to ensure that the Obama administration does not impose an increase in our national energy bill on the American people.

Along the same lines, I want to speak briefly about another opportunity we have to ensure a stronger energy future for our country. This week will mark an anniversary that I hope will spur the American people to demand some action from the Obama administration. Five full years ago TransCanada first applied for permission to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. President Obama still cannot make up his mind to approve the permits. He dithers, he delays, he makes excuses.

It is time to act. It is time finally to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline so America can start to get the benefits of this important energy project.

According to the State Department analysis, the pipeline's construction could support 42,000 jobs across the country. The President should be grabbing any opportunity he can to help the private sector create jobs. Instead, he says the jobs the Keystone XL Pipeline would create are ``a blip relative to the need.'' Is this how the President sees the livelihoods of 42,000 American families, a blip?

This is the fourth major pipeline project between Canada and the United States since 2006. All the others were approved and the process took between 15 and 28 months for each of them. The permit process for Keystone XL is now 60 months and still counting. Why is it taking so long? In October 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her department was ``inclined'' to approve the project. In July 2011, the administration said it was ``publicly committed to reaching a decision'' before the end of the year. That was 2011. The deadline came and it went.

This past June, the President suddenly raised the bar. He said the ``net effects of the pipeline's impacts on our climate will be absolutely critical'' in his decision. We know today what those effects would be. Studies show the Keystone XL Pipeline would not have a substantial impact on greenhouse gas emissions. That is because even if the pipeline does not get built, the energy is still going to be developed. China has absolutely offered to buy the energy from Canada. This pipeline has the support of more than 70 percent of the American people. It has the support of major labor unions, of every State along its route.

A bipartisan majority in the House and 62 Senators support it. Still, President Obama cannot make up his mind. He delays his decisions on this vital infrastructure project and at the same time orders regulations that would impose what amounts to a national energy tax. He stalls a pipeline that would create thousands of jobs and at the same time orders regulations that would destroy thousands of jobs. He stalls a pipeline that would help middle-class families while he promotes a policy that would take more money out of the pockets of hard-working Americans. We need to improve America's energy picture, without destroying jobs or bankrupting our country.

President Obama can help do that. He can do it today by doing two things. First, he should drop his plan to impose a new increase on national energy costs and let it be debated by Congress. Second, he should immediately approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. If the President is serious about helping middle-class families, he will prove it. If he is not ready to join Democrats and Republicans in Congress in making reasonable energy policies that help American families, then the Senate should act.

Struggling middle-class families are asking for our help. It is time to give them the help they need.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to add to the comments. In Wyoming we have what is called the code of the West. While Dave Schiappa may be the man of Washington, he abides by the code of the West. There are 10 points, and I won't name them all, but it is to live each day with courage, take pride in your work--and we see that year after year--do what needs to be done, if you make a promise, keep it. We also say ride for the brand.

Finally, we say--and this really applies to David--it is: Speak less and say more. When he speaks, we all listen, just like the old EF Hutton commercial. But he does epitomize what we look to in terms of leadership, and his guidance has been so wonderful for all of us. So I wanted to rise from the West to say that David Schiappa has done a remarkable job for all of us, both parties, and a wonderful job for this country.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, many of us will be leaving in the next day or so and heading to States across the country. As we travel across our States, we will be listening to our constituents and hearing what is on their minds.

One of the things I hear about every weekend in Wyoming is that people are concerned about the President's health care law, and specifically how the law affects their lives, their families, and their jobs. People all across Wyoming--and I believe all across the country-- are angry. They are angry that the White House is unfairly giving employers a 1-year delay in the mandate to offer insurance but did not delay the individual mandate that says every American must buy or hold Washington-approved insurance. For many of these people this is very expensive insurance.

Instead of granting a permanent delay or helping all Americans, President Obama and his supporters are trying to convince the American people that this health care law is working fine. Once again, the Obama administration is lecturing the American people instead of listening to the American people. They think if they give more speeches and deliver more sales pitches the American people will finally like this law. It is not going to happen.

Look at how far the Obama administration is willing to go with its latest sales pitch. Last week CNN reported the administration called together a bunch of Hollywood celebrities to help convince young Americans to buy expensive health coverage. The youth of America are not going to fall for it. Even though many of these Hollywood stars are great actors who always remember their lines, young Americans understand that ObamaCare is the wrong script for America. Even though some of these stars deliver funny jokes on ``Saturday Night Live,'' they are about to find out that this health care law is no laughing matter.

In fact, Americans of all ages believe the law is unworkable, unaffordable, and deeply unpopular. They are also finding out it is unfair, and that is what CBS found out last week. They did a poll. They found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the law. They also found that only 13 percent of the people say the law will actually help them personally. Three times as many Americans in the poll believe the law will hurt them personally. Three times as many people believe the law will hurt them personally than the people it will help. So over the next couple of months the American people can expect a barrage of advertising.

There was a big story about it today in the New York Times. Musicians are playing songs on the west coast and trying to get people to sign up for the exchanges. It was all aimed at trying to distract the American people from the health care train wreck that is coming.

According to the Associated Press, at least $684 million will be spent nationally on publicity, marketing, and advertising for the law. The Washington Post found that the States will be running ads not just on TV and radio--and you are not going to believe this--they are also putting slogans on coffee cups, on airplanes flying banners across beaches, and even, believe it or not, on portable toilets at a cost of nearly $700 million. It is a windfall for advertising agencies and a hard sell for hard-working taxpayers.

The administration is picking the pockets of the American people for advertising while the health care law is shrinking the paychecks of the people who can only find part-time work.

Speaking of part-time workers, I wish to talk about a new story that is out that demonstrates the height of hypocrisy surrounding the President's health care law. Frankly, the story is so outrageous that it is one of those things a person can't make up. The headline of the article reads ``Half of Affordable Care Act call center jobs will be part-time.'' Here are the details.

The article is about a new call center in Contra Costa County, CA. This is part of the effort to have so-called navigators who will answer Americans' questions about the health care law. The call center ran ads for more than 200 jobs that said all of these jobs would be full time. That is what people are looking for in America--full-time jobs, full- time work. But once the new workers started training, some of them got a different story. They found out that they would actually be part-time employees with no health benefits.

Let me emphasize that point. Even the ObamaCare navigators are not going to be covered by the health care law and are not going to be provided health care. Even some of the navigators will not know how they can get affordable health care coverage even though they are the ones who are supposed to be giving advice to Americans. Some navigators are being forced to work part time because the company cannot afford to provide the expensive government-mandated, government-approved insurance they are supposed to teach others how to get. It turns out the ObamaCare navigators need their own ObamaCare navigators.

The article even quotes one worker saying, ``What's really ironic is working for a call center and trying to help people get health care, but we can't afford it ourselves.'' That is what this

administration has done to this country. I don't call that ironic; I call it outrageous.

So the question is, Who are the navigators going to call for help and how are they going to answer Americans' questions when many of them don't know how they are personally going to be able to afford the health care coverage the government and the President of the United States mandate they have?

The bad news is this story is only one of many new examples of hypocrisy recently surrounding the President's health care law. Week after week we have seen labor unions--one after another--that originally supported the law now express concerns about how the health care law will impact their members' access to care. Late last week we even heard from something called the National Treasury Employees Union. It is important to know that this union represents most of the IRS workers--the 100,000 IRS workers--who are going to be enforcing the health care law. What about these IRS workers? What are they saying? Well, it turns out the IRS employee union said they are very concerned they might actually have to buy their own health insurance in the exchanges, just as other Americans will. These are the exact same IRS agents who will collect massive amounts of data--personal data--on people's individual lives and their health care choices. They will investigate whether people have the right coverage. They will apply the tax penalties to anyone who doesn't. These are the agents who now say they want no part of the health care law's exchanges for themselves. They actually have sample letters the union has sent to the IRS agents to send to Members of Congress to say: I am one of your constituents, and we don't want it to apply to us, and we want to hear back.

This health care law is bad for all Americans. Each of those stories demonstrates again that the President's health care law is fundamentally broken. Instead of spending the rest of the summer trying to sell an expensive failing product, the President should simply listen. He should listen to young people who are about to see their premiums soar. He should listen to ObamaCare navigators who can't find affordable health care. He should listen to the IRS agents who enforce the law and who don't want to live under the law. He should listen to the American people and what they have to say about the high costs of their health insurance coverage. He should listen to what Americans have to say about how hard it is to find a doctor who will take care of them.

Front-page story: So many people on Medicare cannot get a doctor to take care of them. Why? Because of the health care law. Twenty percent of family physicians in this country--this story was reported in the Wall Street Journal--20 percent of family physicians are not taking new Medicare patients. Thirty-three percent are not taking new Medicaid patients. But a big part of the President's health care law was to force people onto Medicaid--a program that is not working already.

The President should listen to what Americans have to say about how hard it is to keep their current coverage. And the President should listen to what the American people have to say about trying to make ends meet on a part-time salary--a part-time salary because of the health care law, because of the incentives of the health care law to knock down employees' work hours to less than 30.

Then the President should come back to Washington after he actually listens, not lectures, and sit down with Congress--Republicans and Democrats working together--and work on real solutions that will give Americans what they wanted in the first place with health care. Americans want the care they need from a doctor they choose at lower cost. These are the things that have not been provided under the health care law.

Remember what Nancy Pelosi said: First we have to pass it to find out what is in it. The American people now know more and more what is in this health care law, which is why it is even less popular today than it was the day it passed and why; for every American who thinks they will be helped by the health care law, three Americans believe their lives will be made worse by the law forced through this body.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I will soon be attending the 101st Wyoming State Fair. During the Ag Hall of Fame Picnic, Senator Enzi and I will have the honor of recognizing Jw and Thea Nuckolls as they are inducted into the Wyoming Agriculture Hall of Fame for 2013. I cannot think of two people more deserving of this recognition.

The Nuckolls family came to Wyoming from Virginia in the early 1900s. Jw's parents sold 100 horses in order to purchase the original ranch in 1917. In 1943, the family entered the sheep business by purchasing 500 head of sheep to stock the ranch. Jw was only 12 years old when he began trailing ewes from Moorcroft, where the sheep were bought, to the family ranch 26 miles away.

Jw returned to the ranch after graduating from the University of Wyoming. He was in the market for more sheep, when he met his future wife, Thea. He purchased part of her family's Corriedale flock. The future couple subsequently ran into each other again at the Wyoming State Fair in 1958 and were married the following year. How fitting it is for them to be honored together in the same place where their lives with one another began 55 years ago.

Over the past five decades, Jw and Thea have built a strong, diversified ranching operation. Thea brought registered Angus cows into the family and together she and Jw have built herds of high quality cattle and sheep. Their contributions to agriculture go far beyond their own operation, however. Jw

and Thea helped to start the Mountain States Lamb Cooperative and Center of the Nation Wool Cooperative which serves 1,700 participants and markets approximately 5 million pounds of wool each year, resulting in gross sales of nearly $10 million. Jw continues to serve as a board member to this day. In addition to the cooperative, Jw has also been active in Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Farm Bureau, and the Wyoming Wool Growers Association. Thea has served many years as a 4-H club leader, serves on the Wyoming Cattle Women's Association, Wyoming Wool Growers Auxiliary, and Crook County Farm Bureau.

Jw and Thea have been stalwart representatives of the agriculture industry in every way. Wyoming Stock Growers Association executive vice president Jim Magagna has said that the sheep industry is stronger because of Jw and Thea's involvement. This couple embodies what Wyoming is all about. Honesty, integrity, and hard work are second nature to them. Their willingness to share their knowledge and experience with others ensures that the sheep industry and agriculture in general will continue to be strong in both Wyoming and America for years to come. I would like to extend my congratulations to Jw and Thea and thank them for their dedication to the Wyoming way of life.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to tell you about one of Wyoming's own, Brian Scott Gamroth. On the radio, television, or at any number of events, folks all over Wyoming are familiar with his deep, resonating voice. Brian is more than a radio personality; he is an enthusiastic advocate for Wyoming and her people.

Brian spent his youth first at a ranch near Medicine Bow and then at a ranch near Saratoga. His family finally settled in Casper in the mid- 1970s. In the early 1980s, Brian had a chance to take on Chicago. He worked for CBS Records, PolyGram, and Geffen Records before the call of Wyoming brought him home to Casper. Brian took over the K2 Radio morning show almost 20 years ago. It remains one of the top rated morning shows anywhere.

Brian is always first to lend his voice to efforts raising awareness for veterans, children, and the needs of the community. No cause is too big or too small for him to show his support. Whether it is the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation, the Wyoming Down Syndrome Association, Special Olympics, or many other organizations, Brian generously supports causes that make Wyoming a better place to call home.

Given his impressive resume of generous service, Brian has been selected by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming as the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award. Through his talents as an entertainer, master of ceremonies, and a community leader, Brian has raised millions of dollars for local and State charities. Last year alone, he was the master of ceremonies at 38 events in four States. Brian has the reputation of being the first to donate his talents, time and treasure for causes that enhance the lives of folks in Wyoming and the region. He joins a distinguished group of alumni who have been recognized with this award, including former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynne, former U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala Tom Stroock, and Governor Mike Sullivan.

This year marks the 15th annual Boys & Girls Clubs Recognition Breakfast event. For the last 12 years, Brian served as the master of ceremonies. It is fitting that Brian has been chosen to receive the prestigious award this year. On behalf of the children he has helped, the families he has embraced, and friends he has made, I offer my heartfelt congratulations. I am honored to know him and call him my friend. Casper and Wyoming is a better place to live and work because of Brian Scott Gamroth.

Mr. President, I would like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation to Hallie Bell for her hard work as an intern in my Cheyenne office. I recognize her efforts and contributions to my office as well as to the State of Wyoming.

Hallie is a native of Cody, WY, and is a graduate of Cody High School. She currently attends the University of Wyoming, where she is an art and English major. She has demonstrated a strong work ethic, which has made her an invaluable asset to our office. The quality of her work is reflected in her great efforts over the last several months.

I want to thank Hallie for the dedication she has shown while working for me and my staff. It was a pleasure to have her as part of our team. I know she will have continued success with all of her future endeavors. I wish her all my best on her next journey.