Response from my Senator on Bam Bam care voting. Just in case you care.

[R J]

111 7TH AVENUE, SE, BOX 13
SUITE 6800
CEDAR RAPIDS, IA 52401-2101
(319) 363-6832

201 WEST 2ND STREET
SUITE 720
DAVENPORT, IA 52801-1817
(563) 322-4331

307 FEDERAL BUILDING
8 SOUTH 6TH STREET
COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA 51501-4204
(712) 322-7103


CHARLES E. GRASSLEY
WASHINGTON, DC 20510-1501
721 FEDERAL BUILDING
210 WALNUT STREET
DES MOINES, IA 50309-2140
(515) 288-1145

120 FEDERAL BUILDING
320 6TH STREET
SIOUX CITY, IA 51101-1244
(712) 233-1860

210 WATERLOO BUILDING
531 COMMERCIAL STREET
WATERLOO, IA 50701-5497
(319) 232-6657

Thank you for taking the time to contact me with your thoughts on the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As your Senator, it's important for me to hear from you. Please accept my apology for the delay in my response.

First, I want you to know that I've had serious concerns about this law from the beginning. I voted against it when it first came before the Senate in 2009, and have since then voted many times to delay or repeal the law. As you may know, a series of continuing resolutions to fund the government recently came before the Senate. I voted in favor of measures which would have funded the government while defunding and delaying the ACA, forced Members of Congress and their staff into the exchanges and give up their employer subsidy, delayed the individual mandate, stricken funding for abortion and the mandate compelling religious groups to pay for services that violate their conscience, and repealed the medical device tax. I'm committed to using every tool to stop the law because of what's at stake for America's economy, jobs, and our country's unparalleled quality of health care.

The Affordable Care Act does not live up to its title, nor the many promises the President made while advocating for the law. For instance, the American people were promised multiple times that if they liked the health insurance plan they had, they could keep it. In reality, people who had health insurance are now being forced to seek it from the health insurance exchanges set up under the ACA. By way of example, the grocery store chain Trader Joe's has always extended health care coverage to its part-time employees for years. Now, the company is telling workers who log fewer than thirty hours a week that they will need to find insurance on the exchanges in 2014. In addition, the leaders of major unions wrote to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader Pelosi saying that if changes to the law weren't made, "the ACA will shatter not only [their] hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class."

I've heard from thousands of Iowans whose work hours have been cut as a direct result of the ACA's requirement that "large employers" (businesses with 50 full-time or full-time equivalent employees) offer health insurance to employees. Since the health care law did nothing to address the underlying costs of health insurance, rates continue to rise and some employers have been faced with the decision to cut hours, cut wages, raise prices on their goods and services, or pay a fine for not offering health insurance. Some entities, such as cities and schools, don't have the option of raising prices on their products and are forced to make up the costs elsewhere.

Perhaps the most telling sign that the Affordable Care Act as enacted isn't working is how much the Administration has re-written the law on its own-a highly dubious proposition. The Congressional Research Service recently noted that this Congress has passed - and President Obama has signed into law - fourteen changes to the health care law since it was enacted, and he's taken five independent steps to delay the ACA on his own. These delays and changes prove that there is bipartisan consensus in Congress and by the President that things are not right, and barreling ahead as though everything is just fine strikes me as a total disregard for the facts of the matter.

The federal government should work with the states and private industry to address these problems in a bipartisan and fiscally responsible way. Rest assured of my support for common-sense approaches to reform that address important issues like price transparency, allowing insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines, pre-existing condition exclusions, medical liability reform, and coverage of older dependents, but also maintaining all the things that are working well in the American health care system.

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Input from Iowans is invaluable to me as I continue my work in the Senate. It is only through dialogue with constituents like you that I am able to make the decisions that will allow me to best serve Iowa. Please keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Chuck.