OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of Veto Message From the President of the United States

Floor Speech

Date: Feb. 2, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Women

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Mr. SCALISE. I thank my colleague from Georgia for yielding, for his leadership, and for bringing this important bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, this is a historic day. This is the first time that the House of Representatives has had a vote to override President Obama's veto. If you look at what the veto is about and what the legislation that was vetoed is about, it is about letting the American people actually determine their own healthcare destiny. It is about stopping taxpayer money from going to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

What this bill does is something very historic by gutting ObamaCare and returning that power back to families.

I see in my district, and my colleagues share the same stories, all across the country, millions of Americans have lost the good health care that they had. They were promised by this President ``if you like what you have, you can keep it.'' Everybody knows that that is a promise that was broken by this President in his own healthcare law. We restore that ability back to the American people with this bill.

With this bill, we also say that abortion providers like Planned Parenthood should not be able to get taxpayer money. We completely defund Planned Parenthood in this bill. If this is something that is so vital, look at what the bill does. It actually transfers the money to federally approved health centers all across the country--many more, by the way, than Planned Parenthood facilities that exist. These are facilities that actually provide services for women that don't include abortion. So if you look at what this bill is doing, it shows very clearly to the country what is at stake this November.

We sent a bill to President Obama's desk that guts ObamaCare and that defunds Planned Parenthood, and he vetoed it. We are going to have the override today.

If it is not successful in the vote today with a two-thirds vote, it makes clear what is at stake this November. Just by changing the President, by having a President who shares our values, Mr. Speaker, who wants to gut this law that is failing Americans, who wants to defund Planned Parenthood, by having a President with those values, we can accomplish those important objectives.

I urge everyone to vote ``yes.''

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