Daniel Coats

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. I yield to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. COATS. I thank the Senator from Kansas. He mentioned signing up here and the frustrations so many people had. Kathleen from Mooresville, IN, called my office in Indianapolis and said: Help. She said this: I have spoken to someone at the 1-800 number helpline for the Federal exchange 21 times since October 21--when she first began to try to enroll on the healthcare.gov Web site. Twenty-one times she had tried this, so she called our office in desperation and told us: Well, at one point I asked if I could be transferred to this advanced resolution group--which was some other group set up to help people who couldn't get into the Web site, I guess--and the customer service representative said that he did not know how to transfer her to that site. She said: Well, I need help. How can I get it? So she finally then called the insurer directly to try to enroll, and they said: Well, the only way you are going to get this done is if you bypass the whole ObamaCare Web site because we can't do it either. So they finally figured out that she had enrolled through the insurance company, but she felt she needed to let the government site people know so they would not put her on the list that she hadn't enrolled.

Mr. COATS. Autographed.

Mr. COATS. So she called up there and finally got through to somebody, and he said one word--``fine''--and hung up. Well, he probably was so frustrated.

Mr. COATS. I thank my colleague from Kansas. I am glad he mentioned his own personal experience and our experiences together. It is more than about the Senator from Indiana or the Senator from Kansas. It is about this institution. It is about the future of the Senate. What kind of a body are we going to be? Are we going to be the Senate which has been the Senate for 225 years, with the rights of the minority being able to be expressed? How the majority leader can look across the aisle and say: The former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, the former Secretary of Agriculture can't have a say in the farm bill. It is a treasure trove of experience, it is a treasure trove of knowledge of the whole agricultural sector, and the majority leader whimsically just simply says: Because I am in power and I can tell you what you can do and what you can't do, forget it. Forget your adjustments to this. But that leads us right into the most egregious power grab of all, and that was when, under total Democratic control both in the House and the Senate and at the Presidency in White House, Democrats decided they were going to tell us how we should reshape our health care system and readjust one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy and, by the way, we have all this expertise--or we think we have this expertise--and we will wrap all this up in one 2,000-plus page bill and we will run it down your throats without any input from the other side. Oh, we had input. But the rules were adjusted, the vote was changed, and it was passed by a simple majority and, therefore, had no constructive impact from those who did not think this was the right way to address our health care system. Now look at the mess we are in. We have been talking for days about calls--not reflecting just our views but calls from constituents saying: What in the world have you done? The reason I ran in 2010 is I was so upset about two major things: One, the way the Democrats have essentially taken this health care bill: Don't worry about reading it, as Nancy Pelosi said; we will find out later. Boy, are we finding out about it later. Frankly, those who wrote it are finding out about it later. The people it has been imposed upon, the people we represent are now finding out about it later. I have a whole packetful of responses. I don't know if they are Republicans, Democrats, liberals or Conservatives. All I know is they are my constituents--I represent all of them and am trying my best to represent them--and they have flooded my office with tweets and Facebook and all this social stuff that I have a little trouble grasping right now--but emails and letters pouring in, phone calls jammed, people saying: What have you done to us? What are you imposing on us? I can go through and read horror stories about people and the broken promises. I think as the Senator from Kansas knows--we have both been in this business here for a while--you better be careful if you fall into the trap of going home and promising what you can't deliver. It is so easy to walk in front of groups and say what they really want to hear so they will like you and vote for you in the next election. It is so easy to go home and promise something that makes people feel good so they will feel good about you, but you better be careful because if you overpromise and underperform, they are going to say: Wait a minute. No one has overpromised and underperformed more than this President of the United States regarding health care. He said, ``If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.'' I bet the President wishes he had not said ``period.'' I am sure he wishes he had not said, ``If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.'' Thousands of people in Indiana are saying: I can't keep my doctor. Mr. President, you promised, and you said ``period.'' What does ``period'' mean? Hey, take it to the bank. Count on it. Finally, finito, no more questions need to be asked. I am telling you: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period. Nothing more needs to be said. The same was said about: Don't worry, your premiums won't go up. Don't worry, you can keep your plan. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. I don't know how many hundreds of letters I have received from people who say: I love my plan. Why do you think I chose it? If I didn't like my plan, I wouldn't have selected my plan. Now those people are getting letters saying: Your plan is no good. You have to go into the government's plan. You have to go into the ObamaCare plan, and this is going to be affordable. Don't worry, folks, no money will be spent. Were we told about the $400 million that was spent just to fashion the Web site? Can you imagine how they screwed up the Web site. After 3\1/2\ years they cannot even put out a Web site. I am getting horror stories about the Web site, which are continuing, by the way. If you can't do that, how are you going to manage the program if you do get people signed up? On and on it goes. But this idea of promising, and now having these promises broken, just feeds into the cynicism and the lack of trust among the American people and in the institutions of government, their elected representatives, and in their President. That is just a cancer in this country. If you can't put your faith and trust in the promises of what is said by the people who represent you and who are making the laws you have to comply with, that is a sad day. I yield to the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. COATS. Not everyone calls me distinguished, but I am happy to yield to someone who does but also a good friend.

Mr. COATS. Yes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am here to talk about legislation I have introduced that I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting, but first I would like to make a couple of comments about the terrific storms that roared through the Midwest, including my State, yesterday afternoon and evening. Mother Nature was in full fury and caused significant damage to my State. Fortunately, no deaths were reported, but there were injuries, destroyed buildings, turned-over cars, and downed trees and power lines. There was quite a bit of damage across our State affecting a significant number of towns--Muncie, Kokomo, Marion, Lebanon, Washington, Lafayette, and others. It was a line of storms that packed a lot of power and did a lot of damage. We were fortunate in Indiana not to suffer loss of life. Our neighbors to the west in Illinois took the brunt of this storm. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those families and those loved ones who were lost in that storm. There has been a good response by FEMA. People are on the ground already. Assessments are being made and Hoosiers are rolling up their sleeves and cleaning it up, as we fully expect them to do. The response has been terrific. I certainly have to acknowledge that this caused some severe damage but the response addressing it has been terrific.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. The bill I would like to talk about is S. 1471, the Alicia Dawn Koehl Respect for National Cemeteries Act, which hopefully will come before the Senate this week. I wish this legislation were not necessary. It should not be. Tragic events happened on May 30, 2012. Obviously, we wish that had never happened and wish there never had to be a bill named after Alicia Dawn Koehl. I regret that the Department of Veterans Affairs made a mistake that resulted in even more pain and heartbreak for this family who is already suffering from heartbreak from the loss of Alicia Dawn Koehl. These are the circumstances. On May 30, 2012, Michael LaShawn Anderson went on a shooting spree at an Indianapolis apartment complex, injuring three people and taking the life of Alicia Dawn Koehl, a devoted wife and loving mother of two children. As police were arriving at the scene, Anderson then killed himself. Shortly after the Koehl family faced the unimaginable--putting their mother and wife to rest--they discovered that the local Department of Veterans Affairs had made a very disturbing mistake. The VA erroneously granted the shooter a burial with military honors at Fort Custer National Cemetery in Augusta, MI, on June 6, 2012. Although Anderson was a U.S. veteran, his unthinkable act made him ineligible by law to be buried in a national cemetery. We passed a law prohibiting a veteran who has committed a federal or state capital crime, even though they have given service, from benefiting from the honors of a military cemetery burial. After learning that Anderson was given this distinct honor of being buried alongside our country's heroes in a national cemetery, the Koehl family requested that the VA disinter his remains. They contacted our staff, me, and for over a year, together, we worked and we have been working with the VA and the Koehl family to remove Anderson's remains from the Custer National Cemetery in Michigan. However, earlier this year the VA informed me personally that it could not exhume the remains of Anderson because the Department does not believe it has the legal authority to do so without the Congress passing legislation and signature by the President. In other words, the VA was not permitted under current law to bury Anderson at the national cemetery, but the Department's legal interpretation of the law says it does not have the legal authority to fix that mistake and exhume the remains of this ineligible veteran. Legislation had to be offered to right this wrong. The bill that is being presented here would grant both the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense the authority to disinter ineligible veterans buried at national cemeteries who have committed a Federal or State capital crime. It would give the VA the authority it needs to exhume the remains of Michael Anderson. Last month I testified in support of this bill before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing, and I was pleased to be joined by Alicia's father-in-law Frank and mother-in-law Carol, who traveled from Fort Wayne, IN, in support of this particular bill. I thank chairman Bernie Sanders and ranking member Richard Burr and members of the committee for immediately grasping the nature of this and being willing to do everything possible to help us move this legislation. It could not have been done without their support, and their efforts have been advanced and expedited by their commitment to support this and to have Senate action on the legislation as soon as possible. I am here today to urge my colleagues to support and pass this Alicia Dawn Koehl Respect for National Cemeteries Act. The victims and family members of this tragic shooting have suffered enough and should not be forced to wait much longer to have their requests met. As a veteran myself, I have the deepest respect for those who have worn the uniform to serve and defend our country. But no veteran who commits a capital crime should be given the honor of a military burial and being laid to rest next to our Nation's military heroes. That is the law today, and we need to make sure that law is followed. By passing this legislation, we can resolve an unacceptable mistake and help provide the family with a sense of peace and closure. My Indiana colleague, Congresswoman Susan Brooks, has introduced legislation in the House and is working to carry this across the finish line. I urge my colleagues to pass S. 1471, the Alicia Dawn Koehl Respect for National Cemeteries Act, and ensure that our fallen veterans can rest in peace next to loved ones and fellow servicemembers, not criminals who were guilty of such a horrendous crime. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, the President has publicly promised all Americans: If you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep that doctor. The only change, he said, you will see is falling costs. Well, Donna, a senior citizen from New Albany--senior citizens are not supposed to be affected by this ObamaCare--received a letter telling her that she and her husband could no longer keep their Medicare Advantage plan. It was terminated. So they found another plan--much higher cost, much higher premium, much higher deductible. Cynthia from Lafayette, IN: I am self-employed and purchase health care privately. I am a single parent with a mortgage payment and a child in high school. My plan was canceled, and I was given an estimate for a replacement plan that is almost double what I am paying today. Mr. President, you have not kept your promise to seniors. You have not kept your promise to single working mothers. You have not kept your promise to families. You have not kept your promise to the people whom I represent. How can Americans trust that this government takeover will work if you cannot keep your promises to the American people?

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, there is an old expression used by many Hoosiers and others across America that is time tested: Your word is your bond. In Indiana, as in so many other places across our country, we value honesty and good old-fashioned truth-telling, even if it hurts a little bit to hear the truth. Having spent the previous 4 days in Indiana listening to Hoosiers, it is clear to me many people in my State--and as I am reading, nationwide--are pretty fed up with Washington right now, and they have good reason to be. They are frustrated because the promises that were made to them are being broken and outright guarantees have been disregarded. President Obama, both before and after his signature legislation--now called ObamaCare--passed, promised all Americans they could keep their health insurance plans if they liked those plans. It was a promise repeated over and over again. For many Americans it was the sole reason they supported the Affordable Care Act. But the President's guarantee, announced publicly by him several times, simply was not true. In recent months, millions of Americans have received notifications their plans are being canceled because of the ObamaCare law, and reports indicate now the White House has known this for over 3 years-- that these cancellations were coming. So when the American people found out the White House knew the bad news was coming all along, they were, to put it mildly, not happy. It is clear that some of those who voted for ObamaCare and continued to support it are now agreeing with the majority of Americans that the President's health care law simply is not working. One such Member has floated the idea of having the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services conduct ``a complete, thorough investigation to determine the causes of the design and implementation failures of HealthCare .gov.'' We need to talk about the fundamental policies and provisions that undermine this law going forward. Fixing the Web site, if that happens--it can happen and eventually it would have to happen--is not the real problem. The real problem is a flawed design. Two Democrats have introduced a bill entitled ``Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise Act.'' A House Democrat recently stated, ``I think the President was grossly misleading to the American public'' when he promised Americans they could keep their health care coverage if they liked it. Even former President Bill Clinton has said he thinks the President's pledge to allow Americans to keep their coverage should be honored. In an interview this week, former President Clinton said: So I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the President should honor the commitment that the Federal Government made to those people and let them keep what they got. There is a growing admission from the supporters of ObamaCare that we are dealing with more than just a Web site glitch; that we are dealing with fundamental policy design flaws. So I agree with President Clinton. Regardless of whether you support ObamaCare, there should be 100 percent bipartisan support for letting Americans keep what they have been promised--that they can keep their existing health care insurance plans if they like them. It is time to acknowledge, however, as Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, that it goes beyond this; that the Affordable Care Act is beyond repair. This disastrous law needs to be repealed and replaced with real reforms that drive down the cost of health care, increase the quality of care, and put patients, not Washington bureaucrats, in charge of their health care decisions. Unfortunately, this President and Senate Democrats have made it clear they will never allow a full repeal to pass, despite all the broken promises to the American people and despite the fact the law simply isn't working. Given this reality, the appropriate step, I believe, and one with growing, bipartisan support is for a 1-year delay of the implementation of ObamaCare. I have offered a bill to delay the individual mandate--to join with the decision already made by the President to have a 1-year delay of the employer mandate--so all Americans can have the same relief, not just business. By delaying the mandates--all the mandates in this health care law--we can give the American people a fundamental choice when they go to the polls in 2014: continue ObamaCare or replace it with sensible, affordable reforms that drive down the cost of care, increase the quality, and, most important, put patients, not Washington bureaucrats, in control of their health care decisions and their health future. In closing, I would say this to the President: Your word needs to be your bond. As Albert Einstein once said: Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss the topic of religious freedom. This issue is an important component in the debate on the legislation that we are currently considering, but it's also an issue that defines, I believe, who we are as a Nation as well as the rights granted to us in the Constitution. To paraphrase what Thomas Jefferson said in 1807, for Americans, he said, `Among the most inestimable of our blessings' is the blessing `of liberty to worship our Creator in the way we think most agreeable to His will; a liberty deemed in other countries incompatible with good government and yet proved by our experience to be its best support.' From Jefferson's time to today, freedom of religion has been a core American principle, a principle our founding fathers put their lives on the line for and a principle that generations of Americans in uniform have defended so that we can all enjoy this cherished freedom. Unfortunately, this principle of religious freedom is under attack across our country today. Though in many cases these attacks may be subtle, make no mistake, we are seeing the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech constrained and restricted. We have seen it in the administration's rule regarding church- affiliated groups to facilitate insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs despite their deeply held religious beliefs. I think about my alma mater, Wheaton College in Illinois, which is a school from which Billy Graham graduated years ago. I appreciate the Senate's Majority Leader and Minority Leader's reference to his life as he celebrates his 95th birthday. Billy Graham had an important impact on my life and millions of people--not just Americans, but people around the world. I appreciate the recognition that has been given here by our leaders. I also think about Indiana-based University of Notre Dame. Despite conscious objections and the clearly outlined standards of these colleges and universities--the College's Community Covenant at Wheaton and the values of the University of Notre Dame--they have been told by the government that they are not considered religious institutions and must comply with the Health and Human Services Mandate. Let me describe a little bit the thread of faith that runs through every aspect of a school like Wheaton College and the values of faith expressed frequently in a number of ways by the University of Notre Dame. If you tune into the Notre Dame football programs on Saturday afternoons, as I do every week, or intend to do, you will see an ad by Father Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, that talks about the component and element of faith that is essential to the beliefs of what the University of Notre Dame is trying to address through its education process. Whether it is professors or students, administrators or groundskeepers or others that thread of faith and values runs through the university and throughout my alma mater as well. There's such a thing as, it's been described by former president of Wheaton College, as umbrella universities--those [universities] that have a faith component perhaps in a theological school or a religious program. The thought is well, certainly, they can exercise their constitutional rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. But what about the doorkeeper or receptionist at the administration building or the coaches of the teams or the professors? Sure the professor of theology and the professor of religion, but what about the professor of science, professor of economics, or the professor of business, how does that apply? Or what about the groundskeepers or those who serve the meals in the cafeterias to the students? Well, there are those types of institutions, and there is an argument that it is not systemic, it is not the thread that runs through every aspect of the program. And this applies to homeless shelters and faith-based institutions across America. Some are secular related. Some are a mix of secular-religious. And some are systemically faith-based where a thread of faith runs through every aspect of their program or the institution. So what we're talking about here is a situation where institutions of education, like Wheaton College and the University of Notre Dame, or faith-based institutions reaching out through homeless shelters, food kitchens, any number of programs provided by faith-based institutions or individuals engaged in this that believe that the thread of faith is important to their success and that's why they're there. These faith-based institutions have been told by the government that they're not considered religious institutions and must comply with the Health and Human Services Mandate. Last year administration officials said they worked out a compromise on this rule, but the fact is the mandate still exists. These institutions should not have to facilitate insurance coverage for products that are counter to their moral beliefs. In my opinion, to require faith-based institutions to betray the fundamental tenets of their beliefs and accept this violation of their First Amendment rights guaranteed by the Constitution is simply wrong. I think about the health care professionals who have been required to participate--required by the government--to participate in medical procedures that violate their rights of conscience and their deeply held religious beliefs about the meaning of life and when life begins. I think about the recent efforts in many States to force churches and religious professionals into performing rituals or ceremonies that run counter to their faith. So what is at stake here is of extreme significance. Established in our nation's founding days and sustained for over 200 years, this principle is at the very core of our system of government, as Jefferson was trying to say. We can't pick and choose when to adhere to the Constitution and when to cast it aside for cheap political prerogatives. We must consistently stand for these timeless constitutional granted privileges and rights. The legislation before us raises very serious concerns regarding religious freedom. The so-called protections from religious liberty in this bill are vaguely defined and do not extend to all organizations that wish to adhere to their moral or religious beliefs in their hiring practices. For example, the religious beliefs of faith-based childcare providers and small business owners would be disregarded under this legislation. Faith-based daycare providers could be forced to hire individuals with views contrary to the faith and incorporated values of these daycare providers. Do we really want to support policies that discriminate against an employer's religious beliefs and require employers to hire individuals who contradict their very most deeply held religious beliefs? This bill also would allow employers to be held liable to workplace environment complaints opening the door to the silencing of employees who express their deeply held beliefs. This possibility runs counter to everything America stands for in the realm of free speech. Now I know there have been some efforts, including amendments offered by my colleagues, Senator Toomey from Pennsylvania and Senator Portman from Ohio, to clarify the existing religious protections in this bill. Some Members believe that these amendments go too far. I frankly believe they don't go far enough. However, they are at least a first step, and I will support these two measures not to make a bad bill better, but to highlight the importance of the freedom of religion principle involved in this legislation. Let me quote from Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. He wrote this: A steadfast commitment to one's religious scruples was once lauded as a virtue, but in the current public discourse, religious objectors are often chastised as seeking special treatment that would impose their values on others. The apparent unpopularity of the expression of religious values through actions or words brings to mind Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' observation that: ``We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death and the Supreme Court's more recent reminder that the First Amendment protects expression, be it of the popular variety or not.''' The Supreme Court's recent reminder and I quote again, ``the First Amendment protects expression, be it of the popular variety or not.'' It is an important thing for us to remember from a very respected Supreme Court judge. I oppose discrimination of any kind, and that includes discrimination against individuals or institutions for their faith and values, which often gets lost and has been lost in this discussion. So there's two types of discrimination here we're dealing with and one of those goes to the very fundamental right granted to every American through our Constitution, a cherished value of the freedom of expression and religion. And I believe this bill diminishes that freedom. So I feel it's vital for this body to stand up for our country's long-standing right to the freedom of religion and speech. For these reasons, I am not able to support this current legislation, and I hope my colleagues would stand with me in protecting our religious freedom and oppose this legislation. Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. I will, and I apologize for not recognizing my colleague, who is standing in the back row. My eyesight is not as good as it used to be.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, among the many promises the President made when he and congressional Democrats enacted their unpopular health care law nearly 4 years ago--which, by the way, was enacted without any bipartisan input or support--there is one thing in particular Americans definitely have not forgotten. It was the promise President Obama repeated over and over again to the American people at rally after rally. You can't turn on the TV or radio or pick up a newspaper these days without this promise the President made so definitively being played over and over again because it was so ingrained in the thoughts of the American people: If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. By saying ``period'' behind it, it is like he puts a stamp on it: That is it. No disagreement. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep it. Period. Well, here are the facts. The ObamaCare online marketplace has been in place for 1 month and a couple of days. Already, at least 3.5 million Americans have received cancellation notices from their insurance companies. Lord knows how many more letters are in the mail or will be in the mail, arriving in Americans' mailboxes in the coming weeks and months ahead. So when the President says: If you like your health care plan, you can keep it--already 3.5 million Americans have been told: No, actually you can't keep your health care plan. Thousands of Hoosiers are receiving those letters, and many more will receive them as well. Rebecca from Muncie received a letter saying that her individual health care plan will be canceled. She also learned that the premiums in the government-approved plans are double and triple what she is paying now. Do you remember when the administration said ``This won't cost one penny more''? Dwight from Indianapolis wrote to me and shared a similar story. Dwight also received notice in the mail that his health care plan is being terminated. When he started looking for an alternative government-approved plan he experienced sticker shock: dramatic increases in the premiums he would have to pay for having to buy an ObamaCare plan now that his plan has been terminated. That sticker shock was felt by Garth in Marion, IN, as well. Garth told me his family's health insurance costs will be more than three times as much under ObamaCare as they are paying now. Rebecca, Dwight, Garth, and tens of thousands of other Hoosiers now have found out that the promise the President made is a broken promise. But despite the repeated promise by the President for several years to the American people--that you can keep your health care plan if you like it, period--we have now learned the administration knew all along this wasn't true. For at least the past 3 years the administration has known that millions of Americans would receive cancellation notices and lose their current health care coverage. Yet the President has continued to package this flawed product with false advertising and apparently deliberate dishonesty to sell it to the American people. We wonder why Americans are losing confidence in their government? We wonder why there is such an alarming trust deficit in the country today? As Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza wrote recently, ``When you're the President, words matter.'' Mr. President, words matter. Your words were: If you like your health care plan, you can keep it, period. Mr. President, that was a false promise, and it has undermined the confidence and trust of the American people in this President and in this government. The fact is that you can only keep your health care plan if the Obama administration likes that plan, and apparently there are millions of plans already that they don't like. The ones they do like are their own creation, with multiple doubles and triples of premium costs. In 2009 the President also said: We will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor, period. The President keeps enunciating his promises with a period. That means that is it, final, nothing else to say about it. The fact is that under ObamaCare many individuals are not going to have access to the doctors they have trusted for years. If the White House had been honest with Americans, would the administration have promised people could keep doctors they like? Many individuals and families are seeing higher premiums, higher copays, and higher deductibles under ObamaCare. If the White House had been honest with Americans, would it have told the public the health care law would save families up to $2,500? We haven't seen any of those stories yet. What is the President's response to all of this and to the millions of Americans who have had their insurance coverage canceled? He says: Just shop around. Well, first of all, maybe the President has forgotten that Americans can't even shop around because his Web site doesn't work. Maybe the President hasn't tried shopping around himself because he and his political appointees are not required to join ObamaCare. That is right. Everybody else is forced into ObamaCare but not the President nor his appointees and his team. They think it is good enough for the American people, but they are not going to be forced to join it as the rest of us are--including Members of Congress. Congress and the administration should be forced to join ObamaCare because if we are going to impose this on the American people, it needs to be imposed on us so that we feel the pain just as they are feeling the pain. But the President? He exempted himself. The President's appointees? Exempted. What kind of leadership is that? Individuals and families who have been able to shop around are finding that many of the Obama-approved health care policies are going to cost them more money, not less. Middle-class families are getting hit with massive premium increases and outrageous deductibles. Remember, the point of health care reform was to lower the cost of health care and increase access, but we are seeing just the opposite of what the President promised. I think it is now clear that if the White House had been honest with the American people, this law would never have been passed in the first place. It was Abraham Lincoln who said: If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Unfortunately, today many Americans believe they have been fooled by a series of promises by this administration and its supporters that were simply not true. Given the many problems and broken promises with ObamaCare, given the law's negative impact on American families, the sensible course of action at this time is to take a time-out from implementation of this law. Recent polling shows that nearly three in four American voters now support delaying ObamaCare's individual mandate. In September I introduced a bill to delay that mandate for 1 year. The House has already passed similar legislation offered by my Indiana colleague, Todd Young, to delay both the employer--and the individual--mandate. By the way, 22 House Democrats supported it. The first step we should take today is to pass this legislation to delay the ObamaCare mandates and put people over politics. There is a lot of work ahead to deliver real health care reform. We need to bring down the cost of health care, not raise it. We need to put patients in control of their health care decisions, not Washington bureaucrats. We need to increase competition, reform medical malpractice, allow people to buy insurance across State lines, create risk pools, and a number of other initiatives that have been put forward that would make it an affordable health care reform and not the unaffordable, overpromised and under-delivered health care plan that the American people got from this administration. Delaying the individual mandate will give the American people an opportunity to voice their displeasure over this false information by the President and the chance to start over with a real, honest approach to health care reform. It is time to start now. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. COATS. Madam President, I have come to the floor many times over the past several months to outline the problems that we are facing with the rollout of the ObamaCare law, problems that my constituents are facing, as are people all across the country. While it is important to discuss the generic and macro effects of this law--and we see it unrolling before us every day--it is also important to understand what the direct effects are on people at a personal level. Last week, during our break, I traveled throughout Indiana and talked to a number of people. Many of them came up to me voluntarily to tell me the effects of the confusing, complex, and seemingly intractable aspects of ObamaCare. Let me read for the record just a couple of statements that were made. An email that I received from Daniel in Elkhart, IN, summarizes the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers and millions of Americans are having with the Web site alone. He wrote: I have tried for two weeks to apply through the marketplace, only to electronically sign my application and be kicked back to my profile page. This is the most bizarre system I have ever experienced. If a company put a business Web site together like this, they would go out of business. Anthony in Indianapolis shared similar concerns. He said: I have been unable to get through the healthcare.gov Web site. My wife must notify our insurance company by November 15 if she will keep her existing plan . . . I understand there are problems with the Web site. I think we all understand that at this point. I heard the President say you could sign up in person, on the phone or on paper. But the two navigators I called said that until the Web site works, they cannot help. I called the 1-800 number but the healthcare.gov rep [said his] computer froze up and could not help. I hear about the tech surge, how there will be a few rough spots--Another understatement-- and how they will be fixed. Senator, if you listen to the news the problems with the system are much deeper than the President let on [in his] Tuesday [address]. I need help and I don't think the system will be in operation in time for me to make an informed decision. These are two statements from only two of the many Hoosiers who described similar problems to me--which is probably why, when asked about the ObamaCare Web site, an experienced online and database programmer told CBS News, ``I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that.'' We know this law passed the Senate on Christmas Eve in 2009 without any bipartisan support. One party alone put this law into place. We now know that over $400 million have been spent to create a Web site so Americans who are mandated to enroll in ObamaCare can go and sign up for it. We know that nearly 4 years of notice has been in place to get the Web site up. This roll-out, as one Democratic Senator said over the weekend, has been a disaster. If the administration, after nearly 4 years of effort and over $400 million, can't get the Web site right, how in the world can anybody believe that the Federal Government can manage this monstrous and dysfunctional law that has been imposed on the American people? Despite the Web site's numerous glitches and many other implementation problems, the administration still insists on fining taxpayers if they do not sign up and purchase ObamaCare under the mandate. What an irony it is. You need to sign up or you are going to get fined. The Web site is so dysfunctional you can't sign up, but you are still going to get fined. That is mind-boggling, head-scratching, and simply unacceptable. We know that there have been numerous attempts to repeal this law and replace it with something far more acceptable, affordable, and implementable. We now know that the defund effort, that resulted in the shutdown, failed to gain the necessary votes to achieve that goal. But attempting to repeal this law is the responsible thing to do. In September I introduced a bill to delay the roll out of the ObamaCare mandates for a year. As the problems with the health care law pile up, I am going to continue to push for this delay. The delay makes sense because the program is simply too dysfunctional to be implemented. The bottom line, however, is that I want this delay so the American people have another chance to learn what is in this law, to evaluate as to whether or not they want this to go forward as the health care law of the United States or whether they think a viable alternative is that we have the responsibility to put forward--and many of us have advocated components of that--whether or not that alternative is the better way to go. I know it has been said by the President and others that in 2012 the public went to the polls to vote for the Presidential election. Therefore, that vote certified that the American people supported and wanted ObamaCare. First of all, that was not the primary issue. It was one of the issues that was a determinative factor in the outcome of that election but not nearly ``the'' factor, because most Americans at that point still had not had the opportunity or the experience that they are having now, finding out exactly just how this law works and does not work; finding out all the dysfunction and learning that all of those campaign promises made or promises made when the law was passed have simply been broken. ``You can keep the insurance policy that you have now. No problem. Won't cost a penny more. No problem.'' On and on it goes. ``Keep the doctor that you want.'' Americans are finding out that none of this is true. ``Premiums will not rise.'' Premiums are rising for many Americans. ``This will be easy. Go to a Web site, sign up, punch in, put your name in, you are on board. Everything will be great.'' None of this has worked. Why not delay this process, not just to learn what is here, but to give the American people another opportunity to vote, to walk into the polling booth. A number of Members will have to stand up and either explain why they supported this or why they didn't support it. Americans will have a choice. We will put alternatives in front of them. That is the purpose of the delay for a year: No. 1, because it is dysfunctional; No. 2, because Americans deserve a second chance to express their opinions on this bill. This has already been passed by the House of Representatives. My colleague, Representative Todd Young of Indiana sponsored that. It gained bipartisan support, and 22 Democrats, House Democrats, recognized the need to give Americans the same relief from ObamaCare that businesses are receiving. Delay on the employer mandate, which the President has proposed and put into practice, and doing that for the individuals and families who do not fall under the employer category only, is a matter of fairness. That also is something that has to be addressed. Recently, several Senate Democrats have come out in support of delaying parts or all of the President's health care law as well. I think the opportunity is before us to put the brakes on trying to jam through something that simply is dysfunctional and not working and secondly to give the American people the opportunity to go back to the polls and decide whether or not this is the way they want their health care programs to go forward. We have had nothing but broken promises. We are learning about how difficult it is for the Government to manage even the first step, let alone the one-sixth of the economy that deals with our health care. This is important for all Americans. I am urging my colleagues to support this effort to give the American people another chance to look at a more viable and more affordable alternative. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I answer to my friend from Florida, who did work with a group of us, Democrats and Republicans, in past efforts to address the larger question which I am addressing, I know he is as disappointed as I am that we were not able to come to a resolution. Republicans do not want a shutdown. We want a solution. We have found in the past that the leverage of a financial situation often gives us the opportunity to raise the issues and hopefully reach at least a partial solution. That has happened in the past. I stand with those who simply say: I want to find a solution to the larger problem, including the shutdown of the government. I was focusing my efforts on the debt limit we are reaching because it is very hard to make a case for asking the American people for yet another trillion dollars of debt loaded on their shoulders without some efforts to address why this debt is being accumulated and why it continues to go forward. Why has the Congress not stepped up to address this spending? It is like having a credit card and the bank calls and says you have hit your limit. You have asked us several times in the past to raise that limit, and we have done so, but you keep reaching the limit and you keep asking for more credit. At what point are you going to amend your reckless spending so you do not have to keep coming in here and so we do not have to keep giving you more credit? How do we know you are ever going to pay this back? How do we know you are not just going to declare bankruptcy and insolvency because you have simply hit the point where you do not have the means to pay this back? We might be willing to give you some increase in your credit, but first you have to give us something back; that is, you have to get off your addition to spending that keeps driving you into this situation. What I was trying to address here is, yes, a solution to get this government back to work combined, hopefully, with a renewed effort--by the Senator from Florida, myself, and others--to strip out the unnecessary spending, the duplication, the egregious misuse of taxpayers' dollars for nonessential functions of this Federal Government. There is no disagreement between us that we need to fund our national security. There is no disagreement about some of the essential cancer research and a number of other things this government engages in that cannot be handled at the State level, cannot be handled at a private level, substantially. But there is a lot of concern about excessive spending that continues to push us more and more into debt. In answer to the question from my friend, Republicans do not like this shutdown any more than Democrats. We want to have some solution to the underlying problem. The underlying problem is the merger of not only excessive spending but the debt limit that is the result of that spending. I know my time is rapidly running out, down to zero here. Let me conclude by saying I believe we have a duty--a duty to the American taxpayer but beyond that a duty to the future of this country, which is not just our children and grandchildren but everybody's children and grandchildren, all the generations to come. We have a duty and a moral responsibility not to so laden them with debt that they will not have the opportunities many of us enjoyed, simple opportunities of owning a home, saving money for our kids so we can give them a good education, getting the bills paid on time, and living the American dream. That is not to become a millionaire or billionaire--maybe for some, but for most, to live just a quiet, normal, peaceful life, passing on those values and giving our children those opportunities we have found for ourselves. I suggest that until we summon the political will to do so and until, frankly, we have a President who has that same will, we will not solve that problem. I will conclude with this. It is a story--maybe you heard it before. A man walks into the doctor's office and says: I don't feel well at all. The doctor gives him all the tests and all the exams and calls him back in and says: The disease you have is terminal. It is going to kill you. There are two ways to address this. There is a cure. It has some pain attached to it. You cannot just ignore it. But if you will agree to this medicine we are going to give you and these procedures, we can save your life. If you are not willing to do that, if you do not have the will to go through that process to get yourself back to health, there is another alternative. The alternative is that we can transplant that disease into your children and into your grandchildren and then let them deal with it. That is exactly what we are doing here by not having the will, summoning the will to do the things we all know need to be done to prevent this country from becoming insolvent, from denying and destroying the American dream. The future of this country rests with our decisions. To date we have not made those decisions. I yield the floor.

Mr. COATS. I would be happy to yield for a question.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have been on this floor many times over the past 2\1/2\ years, and here we are again, talking about yet another fiscal cliff, another drama, another soap opera playing out before us. The American people are wondering what in the world is going on down there in Washington? How come we can't get resolution to some of these problems? Why can't we remove the dark cloud of uncertainty about the fiscal future of this country? It is stifling economic growth. We are growing at an anemic 4-to-5-year rate of less than 1 percent. That does not put people back to work. That does not solve our unemployment problem. It only makes it worse. That does not revive an economy. Even with all the new discoveries in energy and the lower cost of manufacturing and more competitiveness, we have not revived the economy for the American people--whether they have just graduated from school with a degree and can't find a job except at maybe a fast-food restaurant, or whether they are a middle-aged man or woman who had their hours cut back, or they have been laid off; whether it is a family trying to save for their children's education--people are hurting all the way up and down the line and it is frustrating. It is frustrating for all of us. It is particularly frustrating for the people I represent in Indiana, and I think for all Americans, to watch the dysfunction taking place in Washington, this inability to come together to find a solution to our problems, and this careening from cliff to cliff, debt crisis to debt crisis; with people on edge and markets on edge, up 300 1 day and down 250 the next, waiting for any glimmer of hope for some solution--or, reacting with gloom and doom if we fail to come forward with a solution. Now we have a government shutdown; now the clock is ticking toward the debt limit expiration, and we have not yet come to any resolution or solution to these problems. People are sick and tired of this broken process here in Washington, DC. I am sick and tired of it. My colleagues are sick and tired of it. Yet we have not been able to find a solution that addresses the problem. Republicans just came from a constructive 2-hour meeting at the White House with the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of Treasury. It is a step forward. It is not a Neil Armstrong step forward because it is not a giant leap for mankind. It is a baby step forward. And it is an important first step forward because unless you come to the table to negotiate, unless you are willing to open up where you are in the same room together sharing your concepts, your thoughts, and your concerns, you can't even begin to find a solution. So this was a step in the right direction. The President met with House Republican Members yesterday and Senate Republican Members today. Our meeting was candid and transparent. Most everybody was able to say what was on their mind and talk about possible solutions. I wish I could say we walked out and stood together, as has been done before in solving these types of problems between Presidents and Members of the leadership in both the House and the Senate. I wish I could say we were able to do that, but we weren't. But going from ``I will not negotiate, period, don't even bother to even think about it,'' to, ``Let's sit down and at least talk this through and see if we can come to a resolution'' is a step forward. So I take some hope from that. I made the decision in early 2010 to come back to the Senate to try and solve what I thought were some of the most fundamental issues affecting the future of this country that perhaps we faced in a long time; namely, this continued deficit spending and plunge into debt, this accumulation of a debt that is so jeopardizing our future and our children's future and the future of America. The passage of ObamaCare by one party without any bipartisan support, jammed through the Congress by a waiver of the rules, has turned into a nightmare--a nightmare of implementation. It is part of the fiscal problem. I didn't come here today to necessarily talk about that. I have been here before talking many times about what I think we need to do to address our health care problems--clearly in a different way than the Affordable Care Act. We see unfolding before our eyes yet another dysfunctional piece of legislation that can't even be implemented, even though the party that passed this law has had 3\1/2\ years to implement it. We hit the October 1 date when people can start to enroll, and the systems aren't even up and ready. Now if this law had been in effect for 3 or 6 months, we could say they rushed it. It has been 3\1/2\ years--actually 3\3/4\ years, and they still don't have it right. There still are major questions. This is an issue we must continue to deal with. We haven't been successful so far because we have not gotten any bipartisan support to make any significant reforms. That is part of our fiscal issue, and that fiscal issue is eating up the promise of America which has been given to every generation in the history of this country, and stands ready to be denied to the next generation and succeeding generations because of our inability to summon the political will to do what we all know we need to do. We cannot keep spending more than we take in. We cannot keep borrowing money to cover that difference. We have seen in just the last 4\1/2\ years of this administration a staggering increase in the amount of debt we have accumulated--from just a little over $10 trillion to now $17 trillion in the space of one administration, with 3 more years to go. It is unsustainable. I doubt there is a Member of this body-- Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative--who could simply ignore it and say this is not a problem. It is a huge problem. Every day, every week, every month, every year we postpone it, the problem becomes worse. We have made effort after effort--bipartisan effort, Simpson-Bowles, Domenici-Rivlin, laying out plans as to how to address this over a period of time to put us on a path to solvency, the Gang of 6, all the efforts of a Republican, Saxby Chambliss, and a Democrat, Mark Warner, and those of us who supported those efforts to try to find a way to solve this problem, the supercommittee, the dinner group which I was part of, substantive discussions with the White House, with the Chief of Staff, with the President himself over a 7-month period of time--we have been unable to reach a resolution, unable to even come to the conclusion that this problem is so great it needs to be dealt with now, not pushed down later for some other administration. It has been too many Congresses and too many administrations simply saying, We can't get it done.'' We will have to push it off for yet another term, yet another election, yet another President. Well, time is running out. So despite all these efforts, we have failed. In my opinion, and I think in the opinion of most, the reason why we have failed is because we have not had Presidential leadership. The kinds of changes that are needed to address a problem this large, to bring parties together, to put us in the position where we are willing to risk our careers, willing to stand up and do what is right for America regardless of the political consequences, willing to stand together--Republican and Democrat--to basically say this problem transcends politics, and not use it against each other, but stand together and say this problem is of such magnitude that we have to stand together and have the will to go forward--that can only be accomplished, and only has been accomplished if you look to past history, by Presidential leadership. I was privileged to be here as a Member of the House of Representatives when we faced not as great a problem, but still a significant a problem with entitlement spending--in this case Social Security. The trust fund was running dry. The case was made to the American people. A Republican President reached out to a Democrat Speaker of the House of Representatives--a divided government, Democrats in one House, Republicans in the other--reached out and said, We have a problem and it can only be solved if the two of us stand together in a bipartisan way. And that they did. It wasn't easy, but it was successful, and through it we made a substantial, meaningful change to our Social Security system, which bought about 35 years from insolvency. Now we face an even more dire crisis than that, but the solution will be the same--and that is, we need to have Presidential leadership. I have proposed a number of things. It looks as though we are going to be limited. I did not get any indication from the President that he is willing to take these kinds of risks to so-called go big. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 more minutes.

Mr. COATS

Mr. COATS. Reserving the right to object, I think my colleague, the Senator from Illinois, has made an important point. There are agencies that relate to the role FEMA plays when a natural disaster or our homeland security is threatened. I don't disagree with that. Therefore, I would be willing to modify my amendment to include the Coast Guard, the National Weather Service, and those agencies listed by the Senator from Illinois as a part of this. So directing this toward applying to natural disasters and threats to our homeland security, I think we should include those agencies. I think we could go forward with that request. But I don't think that is what the Senator has offered. He offered a total CR, which we know is not going to go forward under the current circumstances, even though all of us want to get to that point. But as was discussed earlier by my colleagues, the regular order is usually to take appropriations--pieces of appropriations--and pass them on an individual basis. That simply is what we are doing, given the constraints we have that prevent us from doing that and coming forward. I would say this: Three times the House has sent over opportunities to take up the full CR that have been rejected by the other side and a fourth opportunity to sit down and negotiate how we would go forward, which has also been rejected. So it works both ways. If the Senator would be able to acknowledge the addition of what was listed directly related in his statement, then we could give that consideration here.

Mr. COATS. It is sort of a Ping-Pong game.

Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am not able to modify the request that has been made, as I understand it, by the Senator from Illinois, because he goes beyond what he listed as being needed to just address natural disasters and threats to homeland security. He listed a number of agencies that play into that role. My understanding--and he can clarify this if I am wrong--is that he wanted to expand my request that he consent to adding the limited portion of what he mentioned relating to the role of FEMA and our national security issues and homeland security issues that we are faced with, but he added to that the request for funding of the entire functions of government, and that I cannot consent to. Therefore, I object.