On the recordJanuary 29, 2014
I wish to express my appreciation to Senator Boozman and Senator Thune for being down here this morning to talk about an issue that is extremely important and an issue we certainly are hearing a lot about in our Senate offices and hearing a lot about when we travel back to our home States; that is, the whole issue of ObamaCare. The President, of course, mentioned this in his State of the Union last night, and I think he truly hopes he can change the subject here. But the reality is he cannot because so many people are being hurt by this legislation. Over 4 years ago, when the health care law was being debated, there was one concern that dominated the discussion when we talked to our constituents back home. That concern was cost. They talked about the rising cost of health care and wanted to see what we thought in terms of this law's impact on that. But since this year's rates were posted, it has become absolutely obvious that this law did not hold true to its promise to reduce costs. Our Nebraska insurance director was asked to comment about this when the rates were coming out. He said: ``Basically, the rates are going up.'' No truer words could have been spoken. A CNBC headline read: ``Consumers say they're shelling out more for health insurance.'' But it is not just those headlines or the opinion of our director of insurance. It is what is happening to real people in their lives.…





