Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me just say that the plans to which the Senator from Wisconsin is referring are plans that tens of thousands of people are buying, and one of the reasons they are buying them is because it…
Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me just say that the plans to which the Senator from Wisconsin is referring are plans that tens of thousands of people are buying, and one of the reasons they are buying them is because it allows them to buy the insurance they want at a price they can afford.
I can tell you, as I am sure the Presiding Officer can and probably everybody here can, when they travel across the country and talk with the farmers and ranchers and people who are buying their insurance on the individual market, the individual market has blown up. It has exploded. People are paying $3,000 a month in premiums--$36,000 a year--and have huge deductibles. So what they are doing is they are dropping coverage because they can't afford it. One of the reasons they can't afford it is because, under ObamaCare, there were so many mandates and requirements, it drove up the price. So they have these skyrocketing premiums, higher deductibles, and higher copays.
I think that is precisely why the administration decided that, let's take these plans and give people an opportunity to buy the insurance they want at a price they can afford.
Literally tens of thousands of Americans are now in these plans. What the Senator from Wisconsin is saying is, we are going to throw all these people off these plans. What does that do? That puts them back out, probably uninsured, which is what a lot of farmers and ranchers in places in South Dakota are doing--they are just dropping coverage because they can't afford it. Who can afford to pay $3,000 a month? That is what ObamaCare has left us. That is why we need new solutions. This solution is one that allows people to buy a plan they want at a price they can afford, coupled with association health plans--which Democrats, I think, here in the Senate are also objecting to and opposing--which are also giving individuals opportunities to join larger groups and spread their risk and drive down their premiums. We need plans that people in this country can afford, or more and more people are going to be in the ranks of the uninsured.
So, Mr. President, I object.