WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate Floor regarding the nomination of Sylvia Burwell to head the Department of Health and Human Services:

“Today, the Senate will vote on President Obama’s newest choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services. In other words, the person he’ll be sticking with the impossible task of trying to make Obamacare work.

“By most accounts, Sylvia Burwell is a smart and skilled public servant. But her embrace of Obamacare calls her policy judgment into question.

“And when it comes to the task of implementing this ill-conceived and disastrous law, the President may as well have nominated Sisyphus. Because, as I indicated, Ms. Burwell is being asked to do the impossible here.

“Obamacare has already inflicted tremendous pain on the lives of countless Middle Class Americans, including many thousands in my own state.

“It’s increasing costs for families all across the country – despite endless promises to the contrary.

“It’s reduced access to the doctors and hospitals my constituents relied on – despite endless promises to the contrary.

“And it’s caused Kentuckians to lose the plans they liked and wanted to keep – despite endless promises to the contrary.

“Like a constituent of mine from Pulaski County, Kentucky.

“This constituent wrote to tell me that as a result of Obamacare, he’d lost his insurance, and that he was ‘floored’ when he saw the cost of the Obamacare-approved plan to replace it.

“With a spike in his premium and a $6,300 deductible, he wrote to ask me how ‘[he] or any working man [could] afford the Affordable … Care Act.’

“He makes an important point.

“Nearly every major Obamacare promise from several years ago is a broken Obamacare promise today.

“Even more recent promises from the Administration cannot be relied upon either.

“In January, the Secretary certified to Congress that she would verify that people were actually eligible for Obamacare subsidies before they were sent out. In recent weeks, we learned from media accounts and testimony that many of the systems needed to protect taxpayers against inaccurate or fraudulent payments still have not been built, tested, or used.

“And yesterday we learned that nearly one in four applications may have an inconsistency that could affect the accuracy of these payments from American taxpayers.

“Any wasted tax dollar is a problem, but when you consider that many of these are dollars raised from tax increases or raided from Medicare to make payouts by mistake or through fraud, it’s enough to make your head spin.

“This is just the kind of thing everyone warned about as Washington Democrats tried to ram this law through.

“And it will only get worse if we give up now and just accept the giant mess they’ve made of health care.

“I mean, if they can’t even get a website fixed – after spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars – how can they possibly regulate such a huge sector of our economy in any effective way?

“How can any Administration official possibly repair all the broken Obamacare promises?

“The question answers itself: they can’t.

“The nominee before us can’t.

“No one can.

“The problem is the law itself.

“Obamacare is what prevents the successful implementation of Obamacare.

“And Americans don’t want it. They want real health reforms – reforms that can actually lower costs, increase choice, and help the Middle Class.

“So, in my view, the Senate shouldn’t be focusing on a new captain for the Titanic. It should focus on steering away from the iceberg.

“As HHS Secretary, the nominee would oversee many important programs aimed at protecting public health, promoting medical research, and providing a safety net for seniors and working families.

“But she’d also be the Chief Operating Officer of Obamacare implementation — a law that’s doing incredible damage to Middle Class families in this country.

“And her embrace of this disastrous law is reason enough to oppose her confirmation.

“I’ll be voting against this nominee, because I think we need to focus on repealing and replacing this law, not trying to do the impossible by pretending we can make it work.”