Rob Portman: “I appreciate the Presiding Officer allowing me to speak this afternoon. I am speaking in the context of a nomination we…”

“I appreciate the Presiding Officer allowing me to speak this afternoon. I am speaking in the context of a nomination we are likely to consider on the floor this week. I am told on Thursday we are going to be asked to confirm the President's nomination of Sylvia Burwell to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a very important job for a number of reasons. One reason is it is the job in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. Therefore, I think it is an appropriate time to talk about the urgent need for us to address some of the continuing problems we have had with implementation. This whole subject of ObamaCare of course has divided this Chamber pretty sharply over the last few years. Part of the reason is it was forced through the Congress without a single bipartisan vote; in other words, all Democratic votes and not a single Republican vote. Also, it was pushed through quickly, so it resulted in a lot of problems. We have seen that in terms of the implementation of ObamaCare generally, including some of the computer problems and some of the concerns people have about having their health care canceled and so on. I wish to speak about a specific issue with regard to implementation, one on which I hope we could be together, that this issue would unite us as Republicans and Democrats--that we would take forceful action to deal with it.…”