WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor today regarding the pitfalls of Obamacare:

“Obamacare is a direct attack on the Middle Class of our country. It’s a partisan law that puts ideology before people, that hurts many of the very Americans it was supposed to help.

“It resulted in millions of cancellation notices for hardworking Americans who had plans they liked, and who'd done nothing wrong.

“It raised premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and taxes for Americans who were already struggling.

“It restricted choice and access to doctors and hospitals for patients in need.
We see the pain and hurt of this law all across the country. We see it where we live.

“In my home state of Kentucky, health costs have spiked. Obamacare first caused tens of thousands of Kentuckians to lose the health care plans they were promised they could keep during the first year of implementation, then victimized 50,000 more when the commonwealth’s much-vaunted Obamacare co-op collapsed. Obamacare has also contributed to Kentucky hospitals being forced to cut jobs, reduce wages, and even shutter altogether.

“Some in Washington may have cheered when a Democrat administration in Frankfort poured a quarter-billion dollars of tax money into Kentucky’s Obamacare exchange, or when our Democrat governor confidently declared it an ‘undisputed fact’ that Obamacare's Medicaid expansion had added 12,000 jobs to Kentucky’s economy.
But like so much of Obamacare, it was just another broken promise.

“Those jobs numbers were not an ‘undisputed fact’ at all, they were just projections—and they failed to materialize. Healthcare jobs have actually declined in Kentucky.

“Today, few of those Obamacare cheerleaders are cheering anymore.

“Nearly 80 percent of Kentucky’s enrollees were simply shoehorned into an already-broken Medicaid system, and many of the remaining 20 percent found themselves stuck with unaffordable Obamacare coverage.

“Listen to what this Mom from Breckinridge County wrote to say:

“‘My family is being pushed out of the middle class by the Obamacare law,’ she said, ‘How can we pay almost $1,200 a month on health insurance?’

“Listen to what this father of two boys from Owensboro wrote to tell me:

Before the Affordable Care Act, we paid around $100 bi-weekly for the family plan. That has now increased to $235 during the same timeframe,’ he explained. ‘It seems these days there is no incentive to work. We are punished for working hard and trying to provide for our children while others are encouraged to not further themselves because if they do they would be in our situation.

“‘What happened,’ he wondered, ‘to being rewarded for working hard in America? What happened to the American dream?’

“This Kentucky Dad isn’t the only one wondering this.

“Americans across the country continue to demand a better way forward.

“Americans made that clear last November. Kentuckians made that doubly clear again last month.

“This is simply the reality.

“Democrats can deny it.

“Democrats can again dismiss Americans' real-life experiences as ‘lies.’

“Democrats can continue to lecture Americans about their supposed inability to understand just how great Obamacare has been for them.

“But Americans are intimately familiar with the painful reality of Obamacare. Americans want a fresh start. Americans want to see Washington build a bridge away from Obamacare and toward better care for them.

“That’s what the bill before us would do.

“It’s something every Senator should support, Republicans and Democrats alike.

“Democrats may have forced this law on the Middle Class.

“Democrats may own the pain they’ve caused across the country, especially in states like Kentucky.

“But it’s not too late for our Democratic colleagues to work with us to build a bridge to better care.

“This is their chance, and President Obama’s chance, to begin to make amends for the pain and the hurt they’ve caused—for all the broken promises, for all the higher costs, for all the failures.

“This is America’s chance to turn the page and write a new and more hopeful beginning.

“This is our chance to work toward a healthier and more prosperous future with true reform that moves beyond the failures of a broken law.”