Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business and engage in a colloquy with my colleagues for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I do week after week, as a physician who has practiced medicine in Wyoming for almost one-quarter of a century to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law, a law that I believe is bad for patients, it is bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients--and terrible for taxpayers.

March 23 of this year, a little over 2 weeks from now, will mark the second anniversary of the President's health care law being signed. Two years ago at this time, Democrats in Congress said the Americans would learn to love this law. As a matter of fact, on March 28, 2010, the senior Senator from New York Mr. Schumer said: As people learn what's exactly in the bill, 6 months from now by election time--the election of 2010, remember--this is going to be a plus. Because the parade of horribles, particularly the worries that the average middle-income person has that this is going to affect them negatively, those will have vanished and they will see it will affect them positively in many ways.

Here we are 2 years later. We know that is definitely not the case. The health care law is more unpopular today than it was when it was passed and Nancy Pelosi famously said: First, you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. The more the American people have learned about the President's new law, the less they like it. Maybe that is why the White House and Democrats in Congress are hoping this 2-year anniversary of the health care law passes quietly and without great fanfare, while Republicans believe the American people deserve to know exactly how this law is going to impact them as well as the health care they receive.

So in the lead-up to the second anniversary of the law, I am going to talk about specific ways the law has actually made it worse for the American people--something I believed from the beginning would happen and now, 2 years later, we are seeing is specifically the case: It has hurt jobs, it has driven up costs, it has given Washington more control over Americans' health care, and I believe it has weakened Medicare.

Today, Senator Cornyn and I are going to focus on how the law threatens Medicare and specifically our seniors trying to get a doctor, our seniors trying to get health care, and how this new Washington board, called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, has had that impact. It is an unaccountable board. It is a group of unelected bureaucrats who will decide how to fund the care that is covered by Medicare.

So I come to the floor with my colleague Senator Cornyn. He has been traveling around the State of Texas as I have been traveling around the State of Wyoming talking with seniors, visiting with them, asking about their needs. They have great concerns about what is happening with this health care law, to the point that this week the House of Representatives is actually working in a bipartisan way to repeal this Board, these unelected, Washington-appointed bureaucrats. To me,

it is the commission that is going to ration seniors' care and make it harder for our seniors to see a health care provider and get the care they need.

I know Senator Cornyn is leading the effort in the Senate to work with the House in an effort to repeal this payment board. I know Senator Cornyn is doing this in an effort to protect our seniors, to make sure our seniors get the care they need. So I would ask that the Senator possibly share with me and others the concerns he has and the concerns he has heard and ways he is hoping to address them.

My experience is exactly what the Senator describes. He said the words ``the illusion of coverage.'' When the President talked about the health care law, so often he wasn't actually talking about care; he was using the word ``coverage,'' and he was trying to use those words interchangeably. But coverage is not care, because someone having a card doesn't mean they can actually see a doctor. We see that with Medicaid now, with its low levels of reimbursement. With seniors already having trouble getting in to see a physician, this has a significant impact when a board, an independent payment advisory board--15 unelected bureaucrats--decides they are going to decide how much to pay for a doctor's visit, how much they are going to pay a hospital for a bypass surgery or a hip replacement, which is an area of my specialty. That hospital has to decide if they are going to provide that service. That doctor gets to decide whether they are going to see that patient.

In rural communities, if the reimbursement is so low--and I have heard this from hospital administrators in Wyoming. If the reimbursement level is so low for a procedure that is primarily, if not exclusively, done on people of Medicare age--and we can think of those things that are more likely to happen with someone over the age of 65-- the hospital may ultimately decide they cannot continue to afford to provide those services and keep the doors open to a hospital. So seniors in that community will then be denied access to the care in their own community because the hospital will no longer do or provide that service, whether it is bypass heart surgery, whether it is total joint replacement. That senior then has to travel greater distances to try to find someplace to do that. The hospital may look at reimbursement for a procedure or different kinds of technology and say: The reimbursement is so low we are not going to upgrade our x-ray equipment or our MRI machine. Again, that community would suffer.

Even during the debate of the health care law, we heard in many rural communities that 1 in 10 hospitals was likely to actually be so financially stressed by the health care law that they may end up having to close their doors over the next 10 years. I am hearing that in Wyoming. But it is because of this Board that the President wants to be the one to essentially, it looks to me, do the rationing of care.

I think the two key words I heard the Senator from Texas say are ``choice'' and ``competition'' because those things put the patient at the center. It is patient-centered care, not government- centered care, not insurance company-centered care but patient-centered care. It is something we have been talking about for years on the Senate floor, at least on this side of the aisle, to put the patient at the center to give them the choice, as well as have the availability of the competition.

The concern I have--and I was at a statewide meeting in Wyoming with a number of our veterans and their families and I asked the simple question: How many believe, under the health care law as passed, that they are actually going to ultimately end up paying more for their health care? Every hand went up, every hand. Over 100 people there in Casper and over 100 hands went up. They all believe they are going to end up paying more under the President's health care plan than they would have had it not been passed. That is what we are seeing from a lot of the research as well, the admittance that the costs are going up even faster under the health care law than if it hadn't been passed.

Then we ask the critical question the Senator from Texas has referred to about the availability of care, the quality of care. If we asked the question: How many believe the availability of their care and the quality of their care under the President's new health care law will go down, again, every hand in the room went up.

These are all people who believe this health care law, crammed through Congress, crammed down the throats of the

American public at a time when they were shouting: No, we don't want this--the American people believe it made it worse and that they are going to end up paying more and getting less for something they didn't ask for at all.

The American public did have concerns from the beginning, which is what generated the whole discussion about health care and reform. What patients are looking for is the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a cost they can afford. Under the President's health care law, they are losing all three.

I believe there is going to be bipartisan support. We see bipartisan support in the House. I would like to see bipartisan support in the Senate. When you look at what fundamentally this board does, they make recommendations, and it is practically impossible for the recommendations not to automatically become law. We were elected to make laws, not having independent parties make the laws. American patients are going to be forced to accept whatever this unelected board's recommendations are. It is very hard for Congress to override. I expect, in a bipartisan way, people would say: Let's completely eliminate this board, which I know the Senator's legislation is designed to do.

If American patients, people all across the country, suffer from the recommendations of the board, the way the law is written, they cannot challenge this unelected board in court. Americans have a right to challenge things but not this unelected board, as was written into the health care law.

Those are the sorts of issues I hear about when people say: What if I can't get a doctor? What if I can't get the care I need because of the decisions made by the board?

This fundamentally gets to the issue of the whole health care law, which took $500 billion from our seniors on Medicare not to save and strengthen Medicare but to start a whole new government program for someone else. This board, which I think we should eliminate and which I think is going to be hurtful for our seniors, is the group responsible for making the sorts of very challenging cuts from our seniors on Medicare--again, not to help save Medicare but to start a program for someone else, which is why this program is even more unpopular today than it was the day it was passed.

I do believe we have a bipartisan reason to eliminate this, and that is why I am supporting this legislation.

My view is that people will still get a Medicare card in the mail, but whether there will be doctors or hospitals or nurse- practitioners or others who will accept that card is the bigger concern. Because of what this board may do and is likely to do under the demands of the health care law, those on Medicare today and those coming onto Medicare may have a harder and harder time finding a doctor and a hospital to care for them.

Let's face it, today about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65. Yesterday about 10,000 baby boomers turned 65. Tomorrow about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65. We need to make sure Medicare is there and secure for the current generation as well as the next generation and generations to come.

My concern is that this board, which I know my colleague is trying to repeal and which I am trying to repeal, is going to make it that much harder for our seniors to receive the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford.

I thank the Senator for the efforts on his part to repeal this terrible idea that was a fundamental part of the President's proposal. It is one reason I think the health care law is even more unpopular today than the day it was passed and signed into law almost 2 years ago.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about something that is on the minds of people in my home State of Wyoming and people across the country, the high cost of

gasoline. When I filled up on Sunday evening in Wyoming and on Monday morning on the way to the airport I noticed that the price of gasoline in Wyoming was 10 cents higher per gallon than it was Sunday night when I filled the tank. I am heading back this weekend, later today, to Wyoming, and we will see what the cost of a gallon of gasoline will be. I know absolutely that the price of diesel fuel is much higher, almost by a dollar a gallon, than the price of regular unleaded gasoline.

I think it is something that is happening all across the country because even in this morning's New York Times, Thursday, March 1, 2012, on the front page, a headline reads ``Tensions Raise Specter of Gas At $5 a Gallon.'' That is on the front page of the New York Times. It says, ``Gasoline for $5 a gallon? The possibility is hardly far- fetched.''

It goes on to say:

With no clear end to tensions with Iran and Syria and

rising demand from countries like China, gas prices are

already at record highs for the winter months--averaging

$4.32 in California and $3.73 a gallon nationally on

Wednesday, according to the AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. As

summer approaches, demand for gasoline rises, typically

pushing prices up.

Again, ``no clear end to tensions in Iran and Syria and rising demand from countries like China. . . .''

It is interesting because, obviously, China is the country that told the Prime Minister from Canada recently: We will buy all that extra oil you have that apparently the President of the United States isn't interested in, as he continues to block the Keystone XL Pipeline.

That is what the American public is facing today, rising prices and an administration that continues to block access to an important source of safe, secure energy, as opposed to sending so much money overseas. Here we are with high gasoline prices, which is continuing to cause additional hardship for American families and American businesses. When families pay more at the pump, it impacts the quality of their lives. Families are dealing with mortgages, goods and services, and their kids as they continue to see the money going to fill the tank. This also hurts economic growth and our ability to create jobs.

When companies pay more for gasoline, they have less money to expand their businesses and create new jobs. Wyoming families and businesses know this all too well because in Wyoming we drive longer distances than most Americans. The President also knows this impacts the economy. That is why he continues to give speeches on energy.

It is clear the President is defensive on this issue, and it is understandable because the average price of gasoline, regular unleaded, the day he became President--today it is 103 percent higher, over double what it was the day President Obama took office just 3 years ago. Again, the price of gasoline is 103 percent higher than the day the President took office.

There are a lot of factors at play. What this does show is that the President's policies are at best ineffectual; at worst they are contributing to the higher gas prices. People on both sides of the aisle know this and are hearing it at home. This week, actually, one Senate Democrat wrote to the Obama administration and pointed this out. Specifically, he pointed out that these are ``the highest prices we have ever seen for this time of year.''

Unfortunately, that Senate Democrat's solution is to request that Saudi Arabia produce more oil. I will repeat that. His solution is to have the Secretary of State ask Saudi Arabia to produce more oil.

Of course, the President is also considering other proposals as well. Like asking Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, the President's ideas would put national security at risk. There I am referring to the President's threat to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will be the second time that President Obama has tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Prior to the President's decision to do that last June, it had only been tapped twice for emergencies since 1975. So between 1975 and 2011, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had only been tapped twice for emergencies--in 1991 upon the outbreak of the Persian Gulf war and then again more recently following Hurricane Katrina.

In both of these instances we are talking about actual supply disruption. However, when President Obama tapped the Reserve last year, there was no substantial prospect of a supply disruption. The decision was based on politics, as would be the decision this time. That is why Jay Leno, earlier this week during his nightly television show, called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve President Obama's strategic ``reelection'' reserve.

A number of my colleagues and I think there are other ways to address high gasoline prices. We understand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is for emergencies, not political disasters.

It is interesting because just earlier today, the House minority leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve-- not because of an emergency or a crisis or supply disruption, but she says ``to combat rising gas prices.''

There is only so much oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The amount that was taken last year was never put back in to fill the tank. The amount taken out last year was sold. If we use that money to fill the tank, it is not enough--almost $1 billion more this year to fill the tank than what they got for selling what they took out last year.

So we have a tank at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is not full, still waiting to be filled from what was taken from it last year. Now, here we are a year later, and the President, as well as Nancy Pelosi, is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve again, drawing it down again, making us that much more vulnerable in case of a true emergency.

The President actually has some options that make a lot of sense to a lot of Americans. An option, of course, is to increase American energy production. The President can begin to follow through on his words in Miami a week or so ago, when he said, ``I'll do whatever I can to develop every source of American energy.''

The President can provide more access to Federal lands and waters. This week we learned the oil and gas production on Federal public lands and public waters is down. In 2011 there was a 14-percent decrease in oil production on public lands and water from 2010--less energy produced in Federal lands and waters. There was an 11-percent decrease in gas production from 2010.

In Miami, the President said he has ``directed my administration to look at every single area where we can make an impact and help consumers in the months ahead, [including] permitting. . . .''

Again, the President needs to follow through on his words. He can begin by increasing the number of permits issued for development in the Gulf of Mexico. I understand that the administration has issued only 21 permits so far this year. In 2010 the administration issued 32 permits by this time.

The President can also increase access to other offshore areas. He can provide access to offshore areas in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, not just the Gulf of Mexico. In November he proposed an offshore leasing plan that excluded the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. What kind of offshore leasing plan is that? The President excluded areas off the coast of Virginia, even though both Senators and the Governor of Virginia supported such energy exploration. The President said no.

The President can also increase access to onshore areas. The President can open areas in Alaska, and he can support proposals to open ANWR. Both Senators from Alaska--one Republican and one Democrat-- and the Governor strongly support opening ANWR for exploration. The President should too. The President should also take steps to facilitate onshore exploration in the West. Specifically, he should scrap new regulations requiring what is called ``master leasing and development plans.''

These regulations were put into place over 2 years ago by the Secretary of the Interior. It is unclear why the Secretary issued such regulations. They add more redtape and cause more bureaucratic delay and slow down American energy production.

Of course, there are other regulations that drive up the cost of American energy--specifically, the EPA's forthcoming tier III regulations which will affect America's refineries. A recent study says this rule could increase the

cost of manufacturing gasoline, which will add to what Americans are paying at the pump and will add to the pain at the pump. They could also raise operating costs for refineries by anywhere from $5 billion to $13 billion a year. They could force as many as seven U.S. refineries to shut down and could lead to a 7- to 14-percent reduction in gasoline supplies for American refineries. These policies, by this administration, are completely unacceptable. The President should, at the very least, delay the issuance of this current rule.

In addition to providing more access to Federal lands and Federal waters and eliminating burdensome regulations, the President should follow through on his words--his words--and address what he called delivery bottlenecks. Specifically, he should address the bottlenecks the Keystone XL Pipeline would relieve. I am referring to 100,000 barrels of oil a day that the pipeline would be able to ship from Montana and North Dakota.

That is right; we are talking about homegrown American energy. Of course, the President ought to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline coming in from Canada. It is North American oil from Canada but specific and significant amounts of oil--100,000 barrels a day--from Montana and North Dakota. Right now, there isn't sufficient pipeline capacity out of North Dakota and Montana. They are shipping the oil on trucks and trains, and that is much more expensive than shipping it by pipeline. Approving the Keystone XL Pipeline is an easy decision and the President should make this decision immediately.

It was interesting today to see in Politico--one of the local papers on Capitol Hill--an article quoting Bill Clinton as saying, ``We should embrace'' the Keystone XL. The first sentence of the article says:

Bill Clinton says it is time to build the Keystone XL

Pipeline.

Perhaps President Obama ought to listen to President Clinton.

Finally, the President says there are no silver bullets. That doesn't mean the President should sit on the sidelines. It doesn't mean his only options are asking Saudi Arabia to boost production or opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The President needs to promote American energy production. He can eliminate costly regulations and he can approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Those are the steps the President needs to take, and he needs to do that in the very near future because I believe we are going to continue to see headlines such as the one in today's New York Times: ``Tensions Raise Specter of Gas at $5 a Gallon.''

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the quorum calm be rescinded.

Madam President, I come to the floor today as I do week after week to talk about the health care law and offer a doctor's second opinion about this health care law. I do that as someone who has practiced medicine in Wyoming, taking care of families across the Cowboy State for about a quarter of a century, and I do it today because we are now approaching the second anniversary of the President's health care law, and, as predicted by many on my side of the aisle, the negative results continue to roll in and billions of taxpayer dollars continue to roll out.

Each week we learn more about how this law is going to break another one of the President's promises. He made a lot of promises, one of which is he said it would not add a dime to the deficit. It is now clear that the White House and Democrats in Congress completely underestimated--possibly intentionally but certainly vocally underestimated--how much the President's new entitlement program is going to cost the American people.

I come week after week because Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.'' This past week a story came out that talks about the high-risk pools, designed and established to cover people who were not able to buy health insurance in the individual market prior to the health care law. The goal was admirable. The plan, though, they came out with was horrible.

First, the new Obama high-risk plans created more bureaucracy, more government, and undermined what States like mine, Wyoming, were already successfully doing.

Next, the White House and the Democrats who crammed this bill through Congress and down the throats of the American people set aside $5 billion for this program. The money was supposed to last, they said, until 2014--no problems. The bad news is that the Medicare's Chief Actuary, the official who actually tracks the spending that goes on as a result of this law, estimates now that the funding could run out much earlier than expected.

Last week the Washington Post explained how this could happen. It reported that ``medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law's high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions''--more than double the initial predictions by the Democrats who voted for this health care law. So the cost for enrollees are expected to be more than double what the White House and the Democrats predicted when they drafted the law, as the American people remember, behind closed doors.

The President promised this would be open--C SPAN--people would be able to see the discussions and the debates. Everything was done behind closed doors. Yet our debt as a nation continues to skyrocket. It is completely unsustainable, and it is irresponsible. You know, it could have been prevented if the White House and Congress had just let the American people participate in the process.

So here we are, 2 years later, a second anniversary coming up of a health care law, a law that the American people are now learning what is in it because, as Nancy Pelosi said, ``First you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it.''

The American people also know that this administration and this President and this Congress used about every budget trick and accounting gimmick in the book to turn it into law. They ignored the real costs, they ignored the red flags, and they ignored reality. Two years later, the American people understand that we cannot afford the high cost of the President's health care law and health care mandates. The longer it stays in place, the more expensive it will get.

That is one of the reasons Americans from both sides of the aisle are speaking out against this health care law. When I say both sides of the aisle, I want to talk about a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. This was Monday's--Monday, February 27--USA TODAY, front-page story, right at the top: ``Health Care Law Hurts Obama.''

My concern is that the health care law is hurting the American people. That is what the impact of this law is. It is hurting the American people.

What the poll shows is that a clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage ``a bad thing.'' They support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November.

Eleven percent of voters in battleground States have said the law has actually helped their families, but 15 percent say it has hurt them. Looking

ahead, they predict by a number of 42 percent to 20 percent, so two to one, that the law will make things worse rather than better for their families and for their lives.

Americans overwhelmingly believe the individual mandate, which is a key part of the Obama health care law, is unconstitutional, the mandate that every American must buy insurance. Americans believe it is unconstitutional by a margin of 72 percent to only 20 percent. An overwhelming number of Americans believe that what this Senate and the House, under Democratic control, and the President in the White House, Barack Obama, have forced on the American people--they believe, and I agree with them--is unconstitutional. Even a majority of Democrats and a majority of those who think the health care law is a good thing believe that provision--that people across the country be forced to buy health insurance or to buy any product--is unconstitutional.

Instead of heaping more debt on the backs of the American people, we need to repeal the law. We need to replace it with health care reform that allows Americans to have a bigger say, a patient-centered health care approach.

It is interesting. When you look at this USA TODAY article, there is a picture of a family, a father and mother and three children. Robert Hargrove of Sanford, NC, said: You have to have insurance or pay a penalty? ``That is not the way the country was set up.''

That tells the story I heard around the State of Wyoming last week as I traveled, as other Members traveled around their home communities, their home States. They remember the President's promises. He promised, No. 1, that the cost of insurance for families would go down. The President promised it would go down by $2,500 per family per year. That is not what the American people have seen in the last 2 years since it has been passed. They remember the President promising that if you like the care you have and the insurance you have, you can keep it. That is not what American families are finding. Broken promise after broken promise.

Now, with the Chief Actuary coming out this past week in the Washington Post, reporting that the high-risk pool is doubling the costs that were predicted--once again, the President promised that it would not add a dime to the deficit--another broken Obama promise.

Here we are. I go to townhall meetings, visit with people, and ask for a show of hands: How many of you believe that under the President's new health care law, your costs are going to go up? Every hand goes up. Obviously, they do not believe what the President has told them.

How many of you believe that as a result of the new health care law, actually the quality of your care and the availability of your care will go down? Again, every hand goes up.

It is not what the President promised the people of this country.

That is why, when the USA TODAY headline on Monday says ``Health Care Law Hurts Obama,'' my concern is that it is hurting the American people. People asked for health care reform in this country. What they asked for was the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a cost they can afford. This health care law has provided none of those things. This health care law is bad for patients, it is bad for providers--the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients-- and it is terrible for the American taxpayers. That is why I come to the floor week after week with a doctor's second opinion, saying it is time to replace this health care law with reforms that will put health care under the control of patients--not insurance companies, not government, but under the control of patients.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor as someone who sat through the President's State of the Union and I have just come from a Senate Energy Committee hearing. I sat through the State of the Union near the Secretary of Energy and was happy when I heard some of the comments of the President when he talked about an ``all of the above'' strategy, needing all of the sources of energy. But this Monday the President's budget came out which is very different than that. It is a budget I would like to discuss this morning and talk about because, as I read through it, it looks to me as though the President has abandoned his role as leader of the Nation by not being honest with the American people about the significance of the debt that we as Americans face. To me, this budget ambushes the American people. The President, under the pretense of economizing, promises to cut $4 trillion of deficit over 10 years, but the budget itself actually piles $11 trillion of new debt in that same timeframe.

Under the pretense of helping everyone to prosper, to me the President's budget buries every single American under a mountain of debt and that is a debt that is going to rob more and more from their paychecks with each passing year. The savings the President promises are not going to come. The spending he demands is for things we cannot afford. It seems to me this President's budget is another painful step on the road to bankrupting America.

We are in the fourth year of the Presidency, and for each of those 4 years the deficit has exceeded $1 trillion; $1 trillion in each of the 4 years of this Presidency.

How does that match with what the President has been saying? In February of 2009, the President had been President about a month, he made a pledge. The pledge was he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. Here we are, the final year of the President's first term in office, and this deficit is still above $1 trillion. Once again, what the President has said to the American people is very different than what he has delivered to the American people. I am still waiting for a chance in this body, in the Senate, to vote on the President's budget. The majority leader, who sits in the front row, has said he doesn't intend to even bring it to the floor of the Senate for a discussion or a debate or a vote. The law is pretty clear: The President has to introduce a budget by a certain date--the President missed that deadline--and the Senate and the House have to go ahead and pass a budget, which this body has not done now for over 1,000 days. Multiple years and no budget has passed this body.

There actually was a vote last year on the President's budget. It was one where the budget itself was called irresponsible, and there were a number of press renderings on it. The majority leader refused to bring it to the Senate floor, so the minority leader brought the President's budget to the Senate floor. Not one Republican voted for it, but not one Democrat voted for the President's budget either. The total count on the President's budget last year in the Senate: 0 votes for the President's budget, 97 votes against the President's budget. Yet the President introduces another budget this year ignoring the two major tidal waves we face, the tidal waves of Social Security and Medicare.

It is interesting. You read in the New York Times:

Obama Faces Task of Selling Dueling Budget Ideas.

President Obama more than ever confronts the challenge of

persuading voters that he has a long-term plan to reduce the

deficit, even as he highlights stimulus spending.

Challenging to persuade voters that he has a long-term plan to reduce the deficit. What did he promise? What did he deliver? What we see is a health care law where he promised one thing and delivered something very different. We see it now in the budget, and the numbers are so large. The numbers are so astronomically large that it is hard for one to comprehend how much a deficit of $1 trillion truly is. You can visit with high school students or service clubs or go to townhall meetings or senior centers, the number is so large it is hard to wrap one's mind around it.

The President tries to make people believe that everything would be OK if he could just raise some taxes--just a little bit, he says--on some other people--not you but other people--and everything would be fine. When you actually look through this, to get to $1.3 trillion, which is what the President has proposed in this year's budget as a deficit, you could take all the millionaires and billionaires--things he likes to rail about--and you could take every penny they earn over that $1 million, all of them combined, and then on top of that sell off all the gold in Fort Knox, add it all together, and that would not be enough to cover just the deficit, that $1 trillion the President plans to spend over and above what comes in. It is completely irresponsible, but that is what we have seen from this administration.

So we have a President who makes presentations, gives speeches, and yet what the American people see is something very different. So this morning in the Energy Committee, we had an opportunity to visit with the Secretary of Energy specifically on budgetary issues relating to the budget and the future.

Of course, the President said he supported an all-of-the-above energy plan for the country. Well, I support an all-of-the-above energy plan for the country, but when you go through the details, that is not exactly what the American people see. What the American people see is the cost of gasoline at the pump continuing to go up. They see an administration that is blocking an opportunity to move oil from northern parts of our country, as well as from Canada, to the United States for use here.

Take a look at the front-page headline of USA Today from a couple of days ago:

``Chaotic spring'' predicted for gas. Average prices likely

to hit $4.05 a gallon.

People care about that. People all across the country drive around, they see the signs up, they see what the cost of a gallon of gasoline is, and they see it impacting their daily lives.

Today a number of us visited the Energy Committee and talked about today's Wall Street Journal article this

morning. ``Oil Rise Imperils Budding Recovery.'' We want this country to recover. We want people to get back to work. We want to make it easier and cheaper for the private sector to hire people and get America working again. The price of energy goes up, the price of oil goes up--``Oil Rise Imperils Budding Recovery.''

What does it say? ``The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 13.1 cents to $3.51 cents in the past month.'' So gasoline at the pump is up 13 cents in the last month. This is according to AAA.

It goes on to say:

Some parts of the country have seen even bigger increases,

with prices approaching $4 a gallon in parts of California.

Higher prices at the pump--and this is where it really hits home. This is what I hear about at home in Wyoming when the price of gasoline goes up. And we drive great distances, Mr. President, in your home State and my home State. People notice it because it impacts on other things for which they can use that same money.

It says here in the Wall Street Journal:

Higher prices at the pump force consumers to cut back

spending on discretionary items like restaurant meals, hair

cuts and family vacations, hurting those industries.

Isn't that what it is really about as the price of gasoline at the pump goes up? It hurts the ability of families and the quality of life--they could spend that money in other ways.

It says:

A prolonged increase can drive up inflation and drive down

hiring.

We are a country that wants people to get back to work. We want to give them those opportunities, and it just seems that the President's budget and the policies of this administration and a rejection of things that would actually help us with American energy are going to make it harder for families. When the price of gasoline goes up, the impact on an average family is over $1,000 a year in terms of their ability to have disposable income. If it is a family dealing with a mortgage and bills and kids, that is a huge difference in the quality of life for those American families.

States around the country get it. I look at Wyoming. We are in our legislative session there right now. We balance our budget every year. The constitution demands it. If less money comes in, we spend less money. They make the tough decisions.

The President said he is ready to make the tough decisions, but I don't see tough decisions in this budget. What I see is a political document, a campaign document, something that has more stimulus money in it, money so he can promise people things. We all know how that first so-called stimulus program went. To me, it was a failure. We had spending of about $800 billion. The President promised that if we passed the stimulus program, the unemployment rate would stay less than 8 percent. They put out charts, and by today, from those charts, the unemployment rate should be 6 percent. The unemployment rate is still 8.3 percent. It has been over 8 percent for 36 months now.

When you look at this and look at the President's budget, to me, it is debt on arrival. The budget spends $47 trillion, it borrows $11 trillion, and it increases the national debt to $26 trillion by 2022. It is debt upon debt upon debt. So from were do you borrow the money? A lot of it you borrow from overseas. A lot of it comes from China. So what role is China playing now? Well, they are continuing to lend us money.

By the way, when the President blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline, what did China say to our northern neighbors, our big trading partner, Canada? If the United States doesn't want it, if President Obama isn't interested, we will take the oil in China. The Prime Minister of Canada was in China last week doing exactly that--cutting a deal with the Chinese for energy that will be sold from Canada. I think we should want it. I think if we want to be energy secure and work on energy security, which, to me, is an issue of national security, we should want that energy. Good jobs; the amount of money in terms of jobs that are available--this isn't government money, it is private money to put people back to work. We haven't seen it, and this administration, through its budget and through its policies, continues to oppose those efforts for American jobs.

So what we see is that under the President's 10-year budget proposal, the spending goes up every year without stop. Every year from now to over the next 10 years, spending goes up and we see trillion-dollar deficits year after year after year.

What is most disturbing to some of my colleagues who have accounting degrees--especially the senior Senator from the State of Wyoming, who is an accountant, who has run businesses; he looks at this, and he can easily point out the budgetary gimmicks, the accounting tricks that have been used over and over to make this budget, as irresponsible as it happens to be, look not as bad as it really is.

This budget is bad for America, and it is a continuation of a number of policies that have come out of this administration that have made it harder and more expensive for the private sector to create jobs. What I am trying to do is look for ways to make it easier and cheaper for the private sector to create jobs. We have not seen it in the President's budget, we have not seen it in the policies of this administration, and we have not seen it in this President.

Thank you very much.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I come to the floor because of a new report that has come out by the chief economist of Gallup, the polling organization, dated today, February 15, 2012. The headline is: ``Health Costs,

Gov't Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring.''

As a Member of the Senate as well as a physician who has taken care of families across the State of Wyoming for about a quarter of a century, I am concerned about jobs in this country, the economy in this country, and also the health care needs of the American people, which is why week after week I come to the Senate floor with a doctor's second opinion about a health care law that was supposed to give people what they were looking for, which was the care they need, from the doctor they want, at a cost they can afford.

Regrettably, what this President and this Senate and this House--at the time controlled by the Democrats--gave them is something very different. So the result of this report today--first line: U.S. small business owners who aren't hiring, that is 85 percent of the 600 who were surveyed, those small business owners who are not hiring are being asked: Why not?

Nearly half the small business owners point to the potential health care costs and government regulations as two big reasons. Those worried about the potential cost of health care: 48 percent. Those worried about new government regulations: 46 percent.

But yet when the President addressed the Nation about health care, what he promised was that if people liked the care they had, they could keep it, and they would see their premiums drop by $2,500 a year a family.

When I have townhall meetings, I ask how many people believe the health care costs are going to go up as a result of the health care law. Every hand goes up in the room. So the President has misled the American people both in terms of the cost of the health care law as well as he misled the people in regard to regulations. He stood in front of us in the House of Representatives as he gave his State of the Union Address and talked about removing expensive regulations. But that is not what the small business owners, those who create the jobs in this country, that is not what they are finding.

Then the President came out with his budget on Monday. It is his fiscal year 2013 budget. As I have said before, it is ``debt on arrival.'' The Obama budget spends $3.8 trillion. It runs a deficit of nearly $1 trillion. It raises taxes by nearly $1.9 trillion. It is the largest tax increase in the history of our country, and it is the fourth year in a row to run a deficit of over $1 trillion.

Yet the President goes on. To me, this is another clear example of President Obama's lack of leadership and his bad habit of saying one thing and doing the exact opposite. Instead of saving money, which he promises, he just spends more. Instead of leveling with the American people about our fiscal future, he misleads them.

So I would like to focus on one specific part of this budget. It is the part referring to and regarding the President's health care law. As we all remember, the President promised the American people repeatedly, not just once but repeatedly, that his health care reform would not add a dime to the deficit. Two years later, the American people know that is just not true. In fact, the President's new budget asks for almost $1 billion--$1 billion, that is 1,000 million--$1 billion to fund his health care exchange.

As The Hill newspaper recently reported, ``The health reform law did not set aside any money specifically for the creation of the Federal exchanges.'' Let me repeat that. The health care law did not set aside any money specifically for the creation of the Federal exchanges.

Two years ago, did the President and my friends on the other side of the aisle seriously believe Washington would be able to implement an unprecedented health care exchange for free, that it would just be free? Of course not. But the fact is, they knowingly--knowingly-- ignored the costs of the President's major new entitlement program. Why?

To try to score a political victory. What do we know about that victory? We know it is going to be bad for patients, bad for the providers, the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients, and bad for the American taxpayers. The health care law, when it was crammed down the throats of the American people and forced through Congress, we knew it was unpopular then, and we know it is even more unpopular today.

The whole time the Democrats were drafting the bill behind closed doors, right outside this Senate Chamber, they knew it would cost American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars. But they did not want to admit it. They did not admit it. They refused to admit it. So they shaded the numbers. They punted this down the road. Here we are 2 years later and now they are finally trying to pay for it--listed in the President's budget.

To make matters worse, the 2013 Obama budget wants to spend $290 million for ``consumer beneficiary education and outreach'' within the exchanges. What does this mean? It basically means they want to educate Americans about the exchanges in the health care law to the tune of 290 million of taxpayer dollars.

I think it is important to keep the American people informed. But my question is: Why are President Obama and the Democrats in Congress focused on educating people about the health care law now? Why? Why didn't they take the time 2 years ago to educate the American people about the exchanges and the costs of doing this?

We know the reason. The reason is because they knew the American people would never support the new law, would never give up their freedoms. Instead, the White House and Democrats in Congress covered up the costs, drafted the bill behind closed doors, and jammed it through Congress.

Now the financial bills are coming due, but the checks are not in the mail. The United States is running out of money and running out of money fast. Instead of proposing a serious budget that would get our country back on the right track, the President has put forward not a serious budget but a campaign document. No matter what he says, he is much more interested in winning votes now than in winning what he calls the future.

Earlier this week, the President spoke to students at a community college. He said his budget would make their futures brighter. I watched on television as he said that. His words could not have been further from the truth. The fact is, the President and his budget will make these students have to work even harder to pay off the Nation's increasingly growing debt. These students and all future generations of Americans will pay for the choices they never made and programs they do not want.

The new $800 million pricetag on the exchanges is bad, and that is just the beginning. In fact, the cost of the President's health care law is going to continue to skyrocket each and every year. When we are already $15 trillion in debt, we cannot allow this health care law to move forward. When we look at trillion-dollar deficits for each of the 4 years of the Obama Presidency, we say this cannot continue. Yet when we look at this budget, it adds $11 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

We need to repeal this health care law. We need to replace it with something that will not make it harder for future generations to get out of debt, and we need to pass a law that will allow Americans to get what they wanted in the first place; the care they need, from a doctor they want, at a price they can afford.

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

Madam President, I come to the floor today, as I do week after week, as a physician who practiced medicine in Casper, WY, taking care of families in the community and across the State for about a quarter of a century. I come as a doctor providing a second opinion about the health care law. Since this health care law was signed by the President almost 2 years ago, the public has been overwhelmingly opposed to it. The Democrats in Congress drafted this health care law. They did so quickly and behind closed doors. In spite of the President's promise that the discussions would be held on C-SPAN, no one saw what was happening.

Now the bill is law and, as Nancy Pelosi said, first you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. We have, as Americans, witnessed week after week the unintended consequences of the rush of the Democrats to score what they thought would be a political victory. So I continue to come to the floor with a second opinion because week after week there is another new finding of this monstrous law, and it is why week after week this health care law remains incredibly unpopular. The list of victims of this law continues to grow longer each week. Small business owners, families, people who get their coverage through their employers, and patients all across the country have already been impacted by this health care law.

But on January 20, the third anniversary of the President's inauguration, the President's health care law found a very new target, and that target amazingly is religious liberty. Now this administration is mandating that religious institutions provide services that undermine the beliefs of religious institutions across the country. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many across this Nation, this ruling tramples one of the amendments of the Constitution. I would say it is an easy amendment to find since it is the first one. It is the one which protects the rights to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. Reading from the Constitution, Amendment No. 1, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If you take a look back at our Nation's history, the right to freedom of religion is one of the main reasons that many people came to America in the first place, and it is one of the reasons people have fought and have died for our Nation.

So what is someone to do? Well, Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl has expressed the dilemma many institutions face, and he did it in a letter last week. The archbishop in Washington said the mandate will allow a Catholic school only one of three options: No. 1, to violate its beliefs by providing coverage for medications and procedures that Catholics believe are immoral; No. 2, to cease providing insurance coverage for all of its employees and then face ongoing and ultimately ruinous fines; or, No. 3, attempt to qualify for the exemptions by hiring and serving only Catholics, exclude everyone else.

Many Americans understand all three of those options are indefensible. Americans from across the political spectrum are speaking out against President Obama's big government power grab. One of my Democratic colleagues, Senator Joe Manchin, called this mandate un- American. Another, Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, objected to forcing Catholic institutions to violate their religious beliefs. Then we have former Representative Kathy Dahlkemper, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who voted for the health care law in the House of Representatives, who said she would never have voted for the final version of the health care law ``if I expected the Obama administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic colleges and universities to pay for contraception.''

Even liberal commentators such as E.J. Dionne and Mark Shields have criticized the administration for being unwilling to offer a broader conscience exemption to religious-affiliated institutions.

Now that the President's liberal allies are even opposed to this unprecedented power grab, the White House is trying to clean up the mess. It has signaled that it is willing to compromise on its decision. Instead of a mild compromise, the regulation--and the entire health care law--needs to be fully repealed. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board points out:

In any case HHS would revive this coercion whenever it is

politically convenient sometime in Mr. Obama's second term.

Religious liberty won't be protected from the entitlement

state until Obamacare is repealed.

I think all Americans should be afraid of the course this White House is on with this regulation. This debate isn't about women's health; it is about power. Washington should not have the power to force religious people and religious institutions to take actions that contradict their beliefs.

What we are going to continue to see as the health care law and the mandates and the regulations continue to come out is a government and an administration that continue to expand the government reach in terms of its size, in terms of its scope, and in terms of its grab for power.

The health care law was supposed to be about people and health care-- the care they need from the doctor they want at a cost they can afford. Instead we have a lot of IRS agents but no new doctors and nurses. I go to townhall meetings and ask: How many of you under this health care law who are hoping to get the care you need from a doctor you want at a price you can afford--how many of you believe the cost of your health care, because of this health care law, will increase, the costs to you will go up? All the hands went up. That is what the people believe when they hear more and more about this health care law.

Then I say: How many of you believe the quality and availability of your care will go down? Again, the hands went up.

These are the American people knowing everything they do about the health care law, which is very complicated and has not given them what they asked for: the care they need, from a doctor they want, at a cost they can afford. What they find and believe is that they are going to be actually paying more and getting less. That is not what the American people have been promised. It is not what they want. It is not what they expected. But it is what they are finding out they have received now that the law has passed.

So this clearly explains why Republicans in the Senate and in the House continue to be committed to repealing the President's health care law.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I honor Captain Jake Holland, United States Army, for his service in defense of Wyoming and our Nation.

Captain Holland of Casper, WY, was an Army Ranger assigned to the 48th Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Advance Team 88, Headquarters, Military Assistance Command--Vietnam Advisors, Military Assistance Command. He was stationed in the Central Highlands of Phuoc Long Province as a MACV advisor to the South Vietnamese.

The Central Highlands were a critical supply route for the Viet Cong through the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The MACV mission was infamously known as one of the most dangerous missions for ground troops. They deployed deep into the jungle in small teams of four to train and assist the South Vietnamese Army and the indigenous Montagnard fighters.

Early in the morning on February 9, Captain Holland and his men came under attack. They were outmanned and outgunned by the Viet Cong but that did not dissuade their determination to resist the attack on Bu Dang Compound.

As the enemy advanced closer to the compound demanding surrender over loud speakers, Captain Holland established a perimeter with his remaining forces. He picked up a .50 caliber machine gun and moved from position to position, exposing himself with each burst of fire. After all of the ammunition ran out, Captain Holland and his men succumbed to their wounds but they never gave up the fight. He was 36 years old.

Forty-seven years ago today, on February 9, 1965, Wyoming suffered its first casualty of the Vietnam War. For his valiant actions on this fateful day, Captain Holland was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest honor in the Army. His decorations also included the Purple Heart Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal.

Today, Captain Holland lays in rest with his brothers in arms at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 35, site 3621. His name is engraved on Panel 01E, Line 86 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In Wyoming we never forget. It is through this tradition that we make every effort to honor and remember those who have selflessly made the ultimate sacrifice. We hold Captain Holland's service and valor high.

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

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I do week after week, as a physician who practiced medicine in Wyoming for a quarter of a century to give a doctor's second opinion about the health care law.

I was thinking last week, while sitting in the House Chamber when the President was giving his State of the Union Address, about something he said. He said:

We will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing,

bad debt, and phony financial profits.

Repeating, he promised not to go back to an economy weakened by phony financial profits. That is why today, in the next hour or so, the House of Representatives will answer the President's call. They will agree. They will vote to repeal the CLASS Act--a program that is the perfect example of phony financial profits.

Let me explain further. President Obama's health care law established the CLASS Act--a brandnew Federal long-term care entitlement program. CLASS pays a stipend to individuals enrolled when they are unable to perform daily living activities, such as dressing, bathing, and eating. The issue is that to qualify for the CLASS benefit, an individual would have to pay a monthly premium for 5 years before the Federal Government starts to pay out any benefits. Well, that sounds great, but not so fast. It turns out that the math for the program doesn't add up and it will not work.

The worst part about it is that the administration has known from the very beginning that this CLASS Program--and the President's entire health care law--was built on phony financial profits. Specifically, the Obama administration hid behind a Congressional Budget Office estimate showing that this program would reduce the deficit by $70 billion over a 10-year period. These savings are entirely mythical, and they come from premiums collected over the first 5 years. During that time, the program isn't required or even allowed to pay out individual benefits. Over its first 10 years, this program, the Congressional Budget Office estimated, would collect $83 billion in premiums but would only pay out $13 billion in benefits. But then instead of holding on to the $70 billion in excess premiums collected to pay out future expenses, the Washington Democrats used it as an accounting gimmick, a budgetary trick to pay for the President's health care law. Adding insult to injury, Washington Democrats then tried to claim that the same $70 billion could also be used to pay down the deficit. Talk about phony financial profits. This is the very practice used by the President that the President now objects to.

The good news is that the administration finally admitted late last year that the CLASS Act was a complete failure and they could not make it work. The bad news is that the phony financial profits continue.

Just because the program won't go forward doesn't mean that the costs of the President's health care law don't go forward, because they do. Now the American people are stuck with the bill, and it is a much more expensive bill than the one they had been promised and the one they had expected. In fact, just yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the health care law is now likely to cost $54 billion more than expected between 2012 and 2021.

As Politico says:

The big change that makes the law more expensive is the

Obama administration's decision not to implement the CLASS

Act, which means the government will not collect $76 billion

in premiums over the next 10 years.

I applaud the House for taking the lead and voting to repeal the CLASS Act. I call on President Obama and my colleagues in the Senate to do exactly the same. Senate majority leader Harry Reid should bring H.R. 1173, the Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act, to the Senate floor for a vote. This bill will repeal the CLASS Act so that the American people have a clear understanding of the cost of the President's health care law.

It is time to end the phony financial profits in the President's health care law that continue to burden our economy and our Nation. It is time to finally find out if the President truly does believe in fairness because if he does, he will repeal the CLASS Act and make it clear that he has the same accounting standards for Washington as he has for the private sector. Washington should not be able to cook the books and to make the President's health care law look more financially sound than it really is.

The American people are sick of phony financial profits, and they are demanding fairness in the public sector as well as the private sector. That is why I will continue to come to the floor and fight each and every day to repeal and replace the President's broken health care law--replace it with a patient-centered plan, a plan that allows Americans to get the care they need from a doctor they want at a price they can afford.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate recess at this time under the previous order.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today, as I have week after week ever since the President's health care law was passed, to bring a doctor's second opinion about the health care law.

I traveled the State all the last week in Wyoming talking to people about the things they look for in a health care law, which is what they want as patients, as citizens. What they are looking for is the care they need from a doctor they want at the price they can afford. Across the board, they do not believe they are getting that with the health care law that was passed in this body and then in the House and signed by President Obama during the last couple of years of the administration.

It is interesting, as we went to the floor of the House in the House Chamber this past week for the President's State of the Union speech, it was almost 7,000 words, and he focused very little on the health care law.

One might say: Well, why is that? Well, it seems pretty obvious it is because that law was unpopular when it was passed, and it is actually more unpopular with the American people today than it was the day it was passed. The more people find out about it, the less popular it becomes.

Even the White House understands this law is deeply flawed, it is extremely unpopular, and it actually makes it harder for small businesses to create jobs. So when the President wants to talk about job creation in America, he realizes his health care law isn't helping, and it is actually making it worse.

I had townhall meetings in different communities around Wyoming last week, where you gather a group of people together. My colleagues ought to do the same in their own communities and their home States and ask the group of people: Do you believe, under this health care law--you remember, the one the President promised that if passed that the cost of your insurance would go down? Do you remember that law? Do you believe that after that was passed, that your health care costs will actually go up? How many believe the cost of your care will go up and your insurance will go up? Every hand went up.

Then ask those same people, who now say they are going to end up paying more: Do you think the quality--because there is a lot of discussion about quality and access and concerns about care. Do you believe the quality of your care will go down? Again, the hands went up.

So we have people who are saying: We are going to be paying more and getting less, and that is not what I want.

So today I am here to discuss something about the health care law that the President did leave out of his big speech on Tuesday night, and that is the issue of waivers.

On January 6, while we were all back in our home communities, many people talking to folks around their home States--on January 6, while Congress was not in session, the House was not in session, the Senate was not in session--the administration ended their program that has been a major embarrassment to the Obama administration. Month by month, the President has had to announce that he had to issue more and more waivers from his health care law, waivers that the President granted to unions, to businesses, and to insurers. Each and every waiver served as a clear admission that the health care law, as written, didn't get the job done and doesn't work.

Well, as of January 6, 2012, the administration has issued a total number of waivers that covers more than 4.1 million Americans. Over 1,700 waivers were given covering more than 4.1 million Americans.

Now, interestingly, of all of those people, a very small percentage of workers in this country are union workers. Yet over half of all the waivers given, 2.2 million of those people were those who are covered with union insurance. So we have 4.1 million Americans given waivers. So 2.2 million people with union insurance got a waiver; that is, 54 percent of all of the waivers went to union employees who supported the health care law. These are the people who were out in the streets rallying, saying: We want the health care law. They have it on their Web sites. They had celebrations when it was passed.

Then, do you remember what Nancy Pelosi said? First, you have to pass it before you get to find out what is in it. As all these people getting their insurance through unions found out, if they complied with the law as written it would break their policies, break their programs, and they said: We cannot afford to have this law apply to us. Please give us a waiver. And 2.2 million people with union insurance got a waiver. As they say, they let the word out January 6, 2012, while Congress was not in session and while people were focused on other things.

The rest of America's small business owners were not so lucky. A new poll from the Chamber of Commerce found that 78 percent of small businesses surveyed reported that taxation, regulation, and legislation from Washington made it harder for their businesses to

hire more workers. These are the small businesses of the country, the people who are the job creators. In that same poll, 74 percent of small business owners said the recent health care law makes it harder for their business to hire more employees.

Now, aren't these the very people we are asking to go out and hire more workers to get America back to work? Yet the President's and Democrats' health care law is making it harder for 74 percent of small businesses in this country to hire more employees.

So how did we get here?

Well, in May of 2011 I came to the Senate floor, right here, and explained that the waiver recipients, under the way it worked, had to reapply because they were getting annual benefit waiver limits year after year after year. Realizing what an embarrassment this drip, drip, drip of new waivers was going to be by the administration, in August of 2011 the administration switched course. The Department of Health and Human Services announced at that point that if people wanted a waiver, they were going to have to apply for a final waiver that would carry on all the way through 2014--a 3-year waiver. They wanted to get all of this out by the beginning of 2012 so it wouldn't be a continued election year embarrassment for this President, this administration, and those who voted for it. This scheme allowed the administration to dodge issuing more waivers leading up to the 2012 Presidential election.

It is clear these waivers were going to be an election year embarrassment for the President. They are an embarrassment because each and every waiver was yet another reminder to the American people that President Obama's health care law wasn't working.

The President promised, and we remember hearing him loudly and clearly: If you like the health insurance plan you have, then you can keep it. Well, what he meant was, to keep the coverage you have, if you like it, you may need a waiver from Washington.

I also want to talk for a moment about what happens now that this September deadline has passed and these 4 million waivers have been granted.

It is now no longer possible to apply for an annual benefit limit waiver. It is no longer an option for business owners in this country. So that means it leaves hard-working Americans who want to start a new business forced to choose between two options. I think they are bad options.

One, they can offer high-cost, government-approved health insurance. Well, that is going to make it very expensive for them to try to open a new business and hire workers. The expense of opening that business may likely be too great. So those jobs are not created, and unemployment rates stay high. No. 2, they could not offer coverage at all because they cannot afford the health care law's onerous mandates. If they chose that second option, what happens ultimately? The American taxpayers will end up footing the bill.

With a $15 trillion debt and unemployment hovering around 8.5 percent, the last thing we should do is adopt policies like this health care law and then this waiver that discourage America's best and brightest from starting new companies and hiring new workers. But that is exactly what President Obama's health care law does. It stifles innovation, strangles the market, and it saddles the American people with more debt.

This is just another example showing how the President's health care policies are making the situation worse. His policies are hurting America's economy. His policies are making the standard of living in America worse. His policies are making health care in America worse. His policies are making America's debt worse.

Almost immediately after President Obama signed this health care bill into law, the employers around the country began to sound the alarm. They said the health care law's annual benefit limit policy would force them to stop offering health insurance to hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families. That is why the administration came up with this waiver idea. Nowhere in the health care law is the Secretary of Health and Human Services granted explicit authority to start an annual benefit limit waiver program--nowhere in the law. What the administration should have done is come to Congress and ask for help to fix the problem they had created. That would mean, however, the President and Washington Democrats would have to admit their health care law was flawed.

Washington Democrats crafted policy mandating that everyone must buy government-approved health insurance. In many cases, it is insurance these individuals do not need, do not want, and cannot afford. The President pushed his mandates on the American people without understanding how limited health insurance products work in the marketplace. The administration simply ignored the fact that many employers cannot afford to offer the Cadillac health insurance coverage to their workers that the government is mandating.

Now, if those businesses do not have a waiver already, they will not be able to offer their employees any insurance coverage at all, and new business startups will not have the opportunity to ask for a waiver. Those employers might have wanted to offer some basic level of health insurance coverage to their new employees, but thanks to the Obama administration they will not be able to offer anything at all because of the expense.

This is just another example of Washington Democrats pushing a one- size-fits-all, ``we know best'' policy where they think they know what is best for all of the people of this country. How many more disruptive, ticking timebombs are there lurking in this health care law? We do not know because many of the provisions do not even go into effect until 2014 or later. That is why I come to the floor week after week giving a doctor's second opinion, to mention and to tell that I intend to fight each and every day to make sure the American people will never have to find out, come 2014.

I am committed more than ever to repealing the health care law, repealing it and replacing it with health care reforms that help American families get the care they need from a doctor they want at a price they can afford.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a true American Cowboy, Jhett Johnson. At the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Jhett and his teammate, Turtle Powell, took home the gold buckle in the team roping competition after 10 rounds of competition against the best of the best.

Those of us in Wyoming talk about the Code of the West. As a sixth- generation Wyoming rancher and now a world champion rodeo cowboy, Jhett Johnson personifies the code. He lives each day with courage, takes pride in his work, and rides for the brand. Jhett has demonstrated this in all aspects of his life, not just his rodeo career. When still in his twenties, Jhett survived cancer. He approached his illness, and his recovery, by living the code. He wanted to finish what he started, and he intended to do what needed to be done. He knew that there were hundreds of rodeos ahead of him, and he wasn't going to let cancer slow him down.

We can all learn from Jhett Johnson and his teammate, Turtle Powell. Team roping is not an individual sport. You must trust your partner. Team roping takes in incredible amount of practice and skill, but you must acknowledge that sometimes you catch one and sometimes you don't. Competing requires miles and miles of travel to rodeos across our great Nation, which means time away from family and loved ones.

When he is not rodeoing, Jhett enjoys training horses on the family ranch near Casper, WY. He is the devoted husband to Jenny and father to three sons, Kellan, Carson, and Cress.

Mr. President, join me in congratulating Wyoming's world champion cowboy, Jhett Johnson, on his terrific accomplishments.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, are we in a quorum call?