Marsha Blackburn: “I appreciate being recognized for the time, and I appreciate the recognition that this Chamber and my colleagues are…”

“I appreciate being recognized for the time, and I appreciate the recognition that this Chamber and my colleagues are putting on the issues before us. As we look at Federal spending, what we have to do is say: What is causing us to be in a position where we are borrowing $2 billion a day? And if we are borrowing $2 billion a day, we have to ask: Is that a sustainable practice and something that we as a Nation can continue? Of course the answer to that is, no, it is not sustainable. Therefore, we have to look at what is causing us to spend more money than we are taking in, and one of the things that is at the top of that list that is too expensive to afford is the ObamaCare program, the Affordable Care Act. What I would like to do today is focus my comments on what we are seeing from the Affordable Care Act and what has happened with the cost of this program and why it has become too expensive to afford and why we have to talk about it and focus on it and put it on the table as we talk about what our Nation spends. Now, we all remember supposedly ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, was going to be a $900 billion program, roughly, that was to give access to affordable health insurance for those who didn't have access to health insurance, but let's look at what has happened. This was the estimate: under a trillion dollars, $900 billion, when the program was passed. But, oh, remember, we had to pass it in order to read it to find out what was in it.…”