Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this piece of legislation and strong opposition to the fact that we are back here again rehashing the same old issues that aren't going anyplace. It has been pointed out they are probably not even going to be taken up in the Senate; and, if by some chance they were, they are certainly not going to be signed into law by the President.

We are not going anywhere if we keep wasting the time, as we have been wasting the time trying to repeal ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood. It is a terrible situation because we have some real important things that we need to do.

Next year a third of our Nation's Medicare beneficiaries--that is people in every one of our congressional districts--will face the steepest premium hikes in the history of the program if this Congress doesn't act.
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We have got a transportation bill that has been long due to be passed. We keep kicking the can down the road, and it is a very bumpy road because we don't pass a transportation bill.

If we pass that bill, we put people to work. About 14 million jobs hinge on the passage of a long-term transportation bill. This is for improving roads and highways, making our overpasses and our businesses safe.

Fourteen million jobs will help the economy; but, instead, we are dillydallying on the floor today with this piece of go-nowhere legislation.

It is long past time that we put the American people ahead of the political gamesmanship and address the real issues facing our Nation.

Majority party, let's get to work. Let's fix the issues that are hurting the American people and stop doing this partisan nonsense.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for affording me the opportunity to address

such a critical issue.

This reform package will protect taxpayer dollars while reforming some of the most egregious portions of the Affordable Care Act. As a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, I am proud to support language included in this bill that would repeal the harmful auto enrollment mandate of the ACA. This provision, which would apply to companies with 200 or more employees, would otherwise move employees into a preapproved government-managed health insurance plan.

Mr. Speaker, creating more red tape and mandates was never the solution to curb rising healthcare costs and to increase access to insurance markets. I was a freshman Member in Congress in 2009 when many of the individuals speaking today took part in a 24-hour-long markup of an earlier version of the ACA.

Mr. Speaker, some of these provisions lacked all common sense and that holds true today. Half a decade later the Department of Labor is still struggling to find a way to enforce auto enrollment.

Say what you want about the Affordable Care Act, this is plain unworkable. Repealing this provision will save $1 billion and maintain flexibility for employers in structuring health insurance benefits for their employees.

Mr. Speaker, my Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle are just in denial. Since its passage, the ACA has been amended more than 50 times, and the bulk of these were changes they supported and were signed into law by the President. We should not stop there.

H.R. 3762 is the next great change to the ACA, and the American people deserve as much.

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