WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today delivered a floor speech on the failures of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and its harmful effects on Kansas families.

“Today, we see less choice, less competition, insurers coming and going and rising premiums,” said Roberts. “Kansas families are not secure in their health coverage. I don’t know any state that is. These are not just headlines – real folks back home are hurting.”

“We must triage the pain this law is inflicting on hard-working Americans. We must repeal, and we will, replace this failing law.”

“The failings of Obamacare cannot be corrected with more government intervention, more restrictions, and more regulations. I will continue working to provide freedom from its mandates and increased taxes to all, and enact reforms to our health care system that will actually lower the cost of coverage and increase access to care for individuals. It is our job to correct it and we will continue fighting to do so.”

To view or download a video of Roberts’ remarks, go here.

Earlier this Congress, Roberts voted in favor of and the Senate passed the Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act, which would have repealed the Affordable Care Act through budget reconciliation. Roberts warned that, “Without a strong foundation – of mandates and taxes to finance this massive overhaul – the law will likely crumble under its own weight.” The bill was vetoed by the president.

Since the health care reform debate in 2009, Senator Roberts has been an outspoken opponent of Obamacare. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Roberts fought against the flawed plan in both committees, and voted against the legislation on the Senate Floor. Senator Roberts, the co-chair of the Senate Rural Health Caucus, has supported several measures to repeal Obamacare in the six years since its enactment.

Roberts’ full remarks, as prepared, are as follows:

I rise today, to share some flashbacks - or throwback Thursdays - with regards to Obamacare.  Specifically, I want to look at the facts about Obamacare as we all know them now, more than 6 years after it was signed into law – and remind the country what the president and my colleagues across the aisle promised all of us when they pushed this bill through the Congress – without one single Republican vote. Certainly not mine.

First – the reality. All summer long we have read the headlines about drastic premium increases being requested, insurers pulling out from different states – and patients being caught in the middle.

My state of Kansas has not been immune.

Last year, United Healthcare announced it would leave our state. Aetna was going to start offering coverage next year, then announced a massive exit from exchange markets across the country – including Kansas.

We were at risk of having just one insurer in many parts of the state – with no competition on pricing.

In June, the state insurance department announced the proposed rate increases for next year.  The good news, a new insurer – Med-ica, was proposing to offer coverage in Kansas. 

The bad news, premiums could be increased by nearly 50 percent next year for some individuals in the state.

Last year, the highest approved increase was 24.5 percent.  Next year’s rates are still being finalized. 

Now, let’s throw it back. In 2013, President Obama said about the law, “The result is more choice, more competition, real health care security.”

Today, we see less choice, less competition. And with insurers coming and going and rising premiums, I think Kansas families would agree they are not secure in their health coverage.  I don’t know any state that is.

These are not just headlines in a paper or on the internet; real folks back home are hurting. 

A nurse in Miltonvale wrote to me about what she calls the devastating effect Obamacare is having on her patients and loved ones. She says, “I am very concerned that continuing along these lines will further limit care and accelerate a decline in health care in our state, as well as our nation.”

But again, let’s throw back to what we were initially promised.

On the campaign trail in 2008, then-candidate Obama promised that he would enact health reform which would lower a typical family’s premiums by $2,500 per year.  I don’t foresee any way those savings could be realized if a Kansan’s premium is going up over 40 percent.

Looking back to 2013, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said the implementation of this law was quote, fabulous.  Fabulous indeed.

This was of course before open enrollment started and the failed launch of the healthcare-dot-gov website.

More issues of concern to me come from recent regulations that have been issued to implement this law.

The law has two thousand pages – we are now over ten thousand pages of regulations.

The administration has proposed changing how they verify individuals as being eligible to receive taxpayer assistance for their premiums under the law.

Discrepancies between what a person claims their income is, and what is received from “trusted data sources” must now be off by 25 percent – previously 10 – in order for the administration to investigate possible fraud.

So I guess you can be fraudulent up to 24.9 percent now…

The administration should not be lowering the standard by which it verifies eligibility for folks to receive our scarce taxpayer dollars.

It is unacceptable for implementation of this law to further burden taxpayers by failing to protect against fraud and abuse.

Another recent regulation gets at one on my biggest fears from the law’s passage, the ability of the government to ration care.

There were four provisions of the law I believed would decrease individual choice and open the door to rationing, one of which was the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation – C-M-M-I.

In March, this outfit issued a proposal to test, as the agency calls it, how we pay for prescription drugs for our seniors under Medicare Part B.

Patient groups, doctors, and many of us in the Congress are gravely concerned about how this test could affect patients’ quality of, and access to, care.

As the Kansas Medical Society explained to me – and I’m going to quote here - this so-called demonstration “will force Kansas Medicare beneficiaries with serious, sometimes life-threatening conditions to participate, disrupt their treatment processes, and impede their access to needed medications with no evidence of improved health outcomes or finance gains for the Medicare system.”

Such a so-called test is now allowable because of the rationing provisions of Obamacare.

This law simply isn’t working for the large majority of Americans. Insurers are pulling out sighting large losses in covering the population of people that are seeking coverage on the exchanges.

So, Americans are left with fewer options in selecting their health coverage, and most concerning, they are paying more for it. A lot more.

Looking back to December of 2015 - when this body sent legislation to the president’s desk to repeal Obamacare – the president’s statement of administration policy stated, “The Affordable Care Act is working.”

Yet last month, he wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association that “too many Americans still strain to pay for their physician visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles, or pay their monthly insurance bills.” 

Mr. President, thank you for waking up to this nightmare.

Despite his new revelation that the Affordable Care Act is in fact un-affordable for most, the president, and his party’s candidate to succeed him, say the answer is greater government control - a public option.

Folks, that is government healthcare.

The failings of Obamacare cannot be corrected with more government intervention, more restrictions, and more regulations.

We must triage the pain this law is inflicting on hard-working Americans.

We must repeal, and we will, replace this law.

I will continue working to provide freedom from its mandates and increased taxes to all, and enact reforms to our health care system that will actually lower the cost of coverage and increase access to care for individuals.

The law is failing. It is our job to correct it and we will continue fighting to do so.