COCHRAN:  MULTIPLE RED FLAG WARNINGS
ON HEALTH CARE REFORM LAW WARRANT CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

Backs Bill to Suspend Reform Law Implementation as One-Year Anniversary Nears

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) today said the growing number of problems arising from implementation of the federal health care reform law should serve as notice that the sweeping reform enacted a year ago is seriously flawed.

Cochran is cosponsoring an amendment to stop implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), which became law on March 23, 2010.  The amendment, offered by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), is currently being debated as part of the Small Business Innovation and Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Program Reauthorization Bill (S.493).

The amendment was crafted following two federal court decisions that found PPACA unconstitutional.  The Senate amendment would stop implementation of the law at federal and state levels until the judicial resolution of lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.  The state of Mississippi is party to one of the major suits against the statute.

“In the year since this law was enacted, multiple red flags have been raised about the costs, scope and unintended consequences created by the health care reform law.  It seems to me that these red flag warnings should make us pause and reconsider this flawed law,” Cochran said.  “Senator Hutchison’s amendment would provide that pause by allowing the courts to carry out their duties. It would also give states a reprieve from the costly mandates in the law.”

The amendment is based on Hutchison’s Save Our States Act (S.281) that Cochran cosponsored.  The measure would delay provisions and regulations of the Obama health care law not in effect on the date of the amendment's enactment, while allowing features of the law already in effect to continue.

“Mississippi’s state budget is already under pressure and that pressure will only increase with the costs associated with implementing the mandates in this law, including establishing health insurance exchanges and accepting tens of thousands of new Medicaid subscribers,” Cochran said.

Since Public Law 111-148 was enacted, more than 6,500 pages of new federal regulations have been issued to instruct states, businesses and individuals on complying with its mandates.  The U.S. Health and Human Services Department has also issued more than 1,000 waivers exempting more than 2.6 million people from insurance mandates, at least half of whom are enrolled in union health plans.  As health care premiums continue to increase, an interim final rule by the Departments of Labor, Treasury and HHS indicated that 51 percent of all American workers could lose their current health coverage by 2013.

Since the start of the 112th Congress in January, Cochran has cosponsored a number of measures related to PPACA.  He cosponsored the Repeal the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act (S.192) to completely overturn PPACA and the health care-related sections of the subsequent Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (PL.111-152).   He also signed onto three other measures (S.18, S.19 and S.20) to repeal certain provisions of the law, including employer and individual mandates regarding health insurance coverage.