mr. barrasso: well, that's it. the deductibles and the co-pays, i would tell my colleague from arizona, is exactly one of the reasons that people are saying they are disaapproving of the health care law. one of the premiums have continued to go up. but on top of that, even if you get a subsidy that president obama says is helpful, it doesn't touch that first dollar or the second or the5,000th, because people before they actually get to use the so-called insurance, they have to come up with -- for families sometimes it is up to $10,000 oust their own pocket -- out of their own pocket before -- so the inurns is not really use -- so the insurance is not really useful. it is empty coverage. it is not what people want, which is affordable care. mr. mccain: so, if you're an average citizen and you see your deductible -- a couple of how to dollars, it seems to me that your only other option is to go to the emergency room, the most expensive form of health care. is that -- mr. barrasso: that's very often the case. we're se

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, as you hear in montana and i hear in wyoming weekend after weekend as we go home, as we travel the state over the summertime, we're hearing from more people, we're seeing more articles in the newspaper about how the obamacare health care law is falling apart. every member of this body, every member of this body probably hears the same stories that i hear and heard again today visiting with people from wyoming. stories from people who can no longer afford their health care premiums, their health care coverage, their co-pays, the deductibles, all of the things that have happened because of the obama health care law. so i think it's interesting, mr. president, to reflect on that new survey done by the gallup organization, well-known pollsters from around the country, with a long history. they released numbers last week about what people are seeing around the country with regard to obamacare, the things that we have been hearing at home every weekend. the first thing that we fo

mr. barrasso: i ask that the quorum call be vished. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i have six requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have approval of the both the majority and minority leaders. without approval -- without objection? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent that the senate stand? recess as if under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senate stands in recess until senate stands in recess until education secretary john king sent out a letter to students explaining administered decision to close the school in parsing ultimately we made a difficult choice to pursue additional oversight in order to protect you, the students and taxpayers will potentially worst educational and financial damage in the future if itt was allowed to continue operating without increase oversight to better serve students. massachusetts and elizabeth warren tweeted remarks about the school sank the only

mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor having seen the minority leader and then the minority whip both on the floor this morning talking about the president's health care law. it's a law that the president said people should forcefully defend and be proud. and what i heard was in defense of a bill today, now a law, that was passed solely along partisan lines a number of years ago, and it's very hard to be proud or defend that law based on what the american people are experiencing. so i come to the floor noting that the president is from the home state of illinois. the minority whip is from the home state of illinois. and there have been a number of stories in the press recently from that state about just how horrendous the impact of the law has been on the people of the president's home state to the point that just yesterday there was a story in the "washington examiner" with the headline "illinois gets ready for huge obamacare rate hikes." people say what's not to lik

mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senar from wyoming. mr. barrasso: i came to talk on a sirch topic. i saw a story in the paper not too much weeks asmght headline "inside bill clinton's nearly $18 million job as hono honorary chancellor of a for-profit college." just heard the senator talk about somebody signing something. this article refers to this for-profit college signed bill clinton to a lucrative deal as a consultant and honorary chancellor paying him $17.6 million over five years. it's very disturbing, mr. president, because it says the guest list for a private state department dinner on higher education policy was taking shape when secretary of state hillary clinton offered a suggestion. it says, in addition to recommending invitations for the leaders from a community college and for church-funded institutions, clinton want add representative from a for-profit college company called laureate international universities, which she explained in her e-mail to her chief of staff -- was released just last year -- that the fastest-growing n

mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: constitution, mr. president. i ask consent that the quorum call be vitiated. officethe presiding officer: spr without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you. over the past several weeks i spent a lot of time traveling over my home state of wyoming. i know you spent a lost time traveling over your home state of oklahoma. i spoke to a lot of people about one of their top concerns. that's been the obama health care law. the disastrous problems that people are facing. you know, people now tell me that some of them are paying more for their health insurance than her for their -- than they are for their mortgage. that's a problem all o across te country. that's now. but what we're they're also doing is reading stories in the paper, front-page stories, that are saying that the rates next year are even going to go up again, and not just a little but a lot. so i know that my senate colleagues from all across the country, republicans and democrats, are hearing that because of the disastrou

mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, people all around the country know that the world is a very dangerous place. it's become more dangerous over the past 7 1/2 years and even over the course of this summer. as a member of the foreign relations committee, i come here again to the floor because i've seen one example after another, examples of how the obama administration seems to not know what's going on when it comes to foreign policy. i believe the obama administration and specifically secretary clinton, as well as president obama, have been embarrassingly knee naive with regard to the russian reset. i think it has been awful this disastrous iran nuclear deal. this country has had an inadequate response to north korea, which led to another nuclear test just last week. the president's foreign policy should secure america's national interest and demonstrate america's leadership around the world. the question is, has the obama foreign policy done that? it really has not. look at what former president jimmy carte

mr. barrasso: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. the senate minority leader, senator reid, came to the floor a couple of days ago and talked about health care. he said if people -- this is a quote. he said "if people would just look at the newspaper, they would see that obamacare has changed america" in senator reid's words "for the better." well, mr. president, millions of americans do pick up the newspaper. i hope many of them saw your editorial in today's "wall street journal" about some of the travel and some of the things you've seen about our nation's security. but i'd like to point out to senator reid that there have been headlines in the paper repeatedly, including one in the "reno gazette journal" this month that said nevada, his home state, ranked 48th in health care by a finance web site. a finance web site. they're talking about just how bad the health care law has been for the people of his home state of nevada. it was about a new survey that looked at things in health care costs and a

mr. barrasso: people ask for hope. they want hope. they need hope. as a young doctor, my training and worked at a children's hospital, a muscle disease clinic. and what i saw were families -- families because muscular dystrophy, specifically duchenne's runs in families. families come into a clinic. and you knew that the day you were seeing that young person, it was going to be the best day that person ever had because this is a progressive disease. and they're looking for hope and they look to you as a physician for hope. they look to the researchers for hope. and that's what this right to try legislation does. it provides hope. and i believe it goes further than that. it's not just hope. it's also help because the research we've seen with this drug for muscular dystrophy, for duchenne's muscular dystrophy and you talk to the parents and you talked to the patients and i met with the parents and i met with the patients, what they're seeing that that day in the clinic is not that person's best day with declining after that. they've actually seen a reve

mr. chairman. thank you both for your service. i want to continue on senator barrasso's report. i understand some of this is things are hard. even a boy scout, eagle scout can get some things done. let me move onto some of the other major points. it says we were slow, u.s. government slow to recognize the problem, the way it threatened core u.s. goals. even when the united states acknowledged corruption as a strategic threat security and political goals consistently trumped anti-corruption actions. and when the united states so the to combat corruption saw limited success in the absence of sustained afghan and u.s. political commitment. so as someone who has been very supportive of our efforts here, and its resources, this undermines my sense of commitment, because you say, mr. sampler that we recognize it in 2004. that's 12 years ago. so more than a decade later, i don't see a lot of greater success in this regard. that's why working with chairman corker, legislation the senate passed in april to address many of these concerns that laid out this in a number of quarterly reports

mr. barrasso: mr. president, i have about eight or nine minutes of remarks, but i don't see the senator on the floor yet -- mr. leahy: he wanted me to speak and then he was going to speak. so, mr. president, if i might continue -- and this will be fairly brief -- i'd like to ... mr. president, the reason i'm coming to the floor today -- and i will be joined by senator grassley -- is to share my concern and his about the eb-5 regional center program. this program's authorization is set to expire at the end of the month. but senate leadership wants to extend the eb-5 program as part of the continuing resolution. i want senators to know that if this flawed program is not reformed, i believe it should end. i can no longer support a straight extension of the program. for years i strongly supported the eb-5 program. i even championed its reauthorization. i did so because eb-5 was designed to bring investment and jobs to underserved rural and urban communities. and for sometime that's what it did. in my home

mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thanks, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to speak up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. last year our country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the voting rights act, one of the most important pieces of legislation that was passed in the 20th century. it opened the door to millions of americans to exercise their constitutional right to vote, but this year will mark the first presidential election in a half-century without the full protection guaranteed by that landmark law. one of the worst decisions this corporate-dominated supreme court made was shelby county v. holder, which struck down a key part of the law, taking the teeth oust provisions that protect -- out of provisions that protect voters from oppression laws. since that misguided provision disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of americans. 1