Roy Blunt: “I want to follow the comments made by the President pro tempore of the Senate--the Senator from Utah--talking about…”

“I want to follow the comments made by the President pro tempore of the Senate--the Senator from Utah--talking about problems that people have and problems that grow every day with their future look at healthcare and what it may mean for their families. This is a top-of-the-mind issue for families in Utah, or Missouri, where I am from, or Montana, where the Presiding Officer is from, or Massachusetts. Anywhere in the country, anyone who is looking at this system and hoping to have a system they could rely on is finding that it is just not working. This is a plan that clearly has failed. It was a plan that gave all kinds of assurances, virtually none of which have been kept. In our State today, we got some bad news in Missouri about what that health insurance exchange looks like next year. Blue Cross Blue Shield serves 30 counties in our State. Another Blue Cross-related group, Anthem, serves the rest of the State. But today, Blue Cross Blue Shield announced that it is going to pull out of the exchanges next year. Some 31,000 people in 25 counties around Kansas City will have no insurer at this moment who is willing to sell policies on the individual exchange. This is devastating news for those families--maybe they are already on their second or third insurance company in as many years--trying to wade through yet another individual plan that tells them what might or might not be covered.…”