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Wicker Continues to Oppose President’s Health Care Law on First Anniversary

Mississippi Senator says law is full of broken promises

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said today that the deeply-flawed health care law continues to remain unpopular and is full of broken promises. Wicker’s remarks came ahead of the first anniversary of the most sweeping health care legislation in America’s history. President Obama signed the law on March 23, 2010.

“Even though most of the major provisions of the health care takeover will not go into effect until 2014, Mississippians are already experiencing its harmful effects,” said Wicker. “Once fully implemented, the negative implications will be even more far-reaching. This government takeover is the wrong approach to lowering health care costs, which remain the greatest barrier to care. Earlier this year, I voted to repeal the President’s unpopular health care law. The Senate had an opportunity to show the American people that we are listening by overturning the measure, but the vote failed.  I remain committed to repealing it and replacing it with solutions to bring down health care costs.”

The health care law includes a string of broken promises:

• President Obama promised that Americans who liked their current plan could keep it, but seven million seniors will lose access to their Medicare advantage plans, families in 20 states will no longer have access to “child only” health insurance plans, and employers will drop sponsored health insurance for as many as 35 million Americans due to the burdensome regulations.
• President Obama promised that reform will lower the cost of health care for our families. However, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that when fully implemented, the law will increase insurance premiums on a family policy by an average of $2,100 per year.
• Nancy Pelosi promised the health care bill would create 4 million jobs. The Director of CBO testified before Congress that the bill will actually reduce employement over the next decade by 800,000.
• One of the biggest broken promises is the cost. Obama’s health care overhaul is estimated to be $100 billion more expensive than first reported.

Less than half of Americans believe the law will make medical care better for them personally.  More believe the law will make things worse rather than better, according to recent Gallup polling. Only 2 percent believe their health insurance premiums have been going down, while half say their costs are going up, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

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