Senate to Vote on Protecting Choices for Health Care Consumers
‘Today, the Senate will also vote on an effort by my Democratic colleagues to strip away health insurance options for families whom Obamacare has failed… I urge every one of my colleagues to vote against this resolution. Our constituents deserve more options, not fewer. The last thing we should do is destroy one of the options that’s still actually working for American families.’
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding a Senate vote on the Democrats’ plan to prevent additional choices in health care:
“Today, the Senate will also vote on an effort by my Democratic colleagues to strip away health insurance options for families whom Obamacare has failed. The first four years of the Obamacare experience was one of failure after failure: skyrocketing premiums, broken websites built on broken promises. Many families were caught right in the middle of the Obamacare mess -- those who earn too much to receive subsidies, but not enough to keep pace with premiums.
“So it became even more important to look for alternatives. The American people are resourceful. Some held onto so-called grandfathered and grandmothered plans. Others looked for lower-cost short-term plans that could be held for up to a year. But we all know that ‘big government’ doesn’t like it when citizens try to avoid the micromanagement and run their own lives as they see fit. So in the waning months of the Obama Administration, Democrats issued a new regulation that cut these plans from 12 months down to 3 months and made them non-renewable.
“I guess the goal was to force even more Americans into Obamacare. The real effect was just to punish these people twice for Democrats’ bad policy. Fortunately, this year, the Trump Administration righted the ship. They undid the restriction and restored the status quo that was in place from the 1990s through most of the Obama Administration. It was a simple fix. It doesn’t take away the choices they have under Obamacare, but empowers Americans to use this alternative choice if they prefer it. And according to even the liberal Urban Institute, more than 1.7 million Americans will likely be insured with this option, who otherwise would have gone uninsured.
“But apparently our Democratic colleagues can’t tolerate even this modest step away from top-down government control. They’ve introduced a resolution of disapproval to overturn the Trump Administration’s fix and snatch these options away from families once more. We’ll be voting on it today. I know my Democratic colleagues are embarrassed by the state of Obamacare. It’s been more than eight years since they passed their signature law that was supposed to make it all better. Instead, working Americans are saddled with increasing costs and decreasing choices.
“But surely they must have a better answer than snatching away one of the remaining options that some Americans still prefer to anything Democrats have come up with. This is an easy decision. I urge every one of my colleagues to vote against this resolution. Our constituents deserve more options, not fewer. The last thing we should do is destroy one of the options that’s still actually working for American families.”
Related Issues: Health Care
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