Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 116th Congress
Floor Speech
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I want to begin by welcoming my good friend from Florida, first, to the Rules Committee, congratulate her on her first rule on the floor, and, finally, thank her quite sincerely for the distinguished service she rendered to our country when she was a member of the Cabinet for former President Clinton. It is wonderful to have the gentlewoman in the people's House.
Madam Speaker, we are here again, this time on the third and final title of the rules package for the 116th Congress. Title III authorizes the House to intervene, otherwise appear, or take any other steps in the case Texas v. United States, the lawsuit currently pending over the legality of the Affordable Care Act. In essence, if this passes, the House will be giving Speaker Pelosi the authority to intervene in this lawsuit on behalf of the entire House of Representatives.
I spoke briefly about this matter during the debate of the overall rules package last week, and I am sure my opposition to title III comes as no surprise to my friends on the other side of the aisle. Today, we have several speakers on our side from the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, all of whom are deeply familiar with these issues and who will be able to tackle this in more detail. But for now, I will make a few key points.
First and foremost, it really isn't a surprise that the Democrats' poorly written healthcare law finds itself, once again, in legal trouble. The lawsuit this time arises from Texas where 20 States have filed suits on the grounds that, because there is no longer a tax penalty in place for failing to purchase health insurance under the individual mandate, and because there is no severability clause, the law itself is unconstitutional.
Last month, a district court judge in Texas agreed with the States and struck down the Affordable Care Act. That ruling has been stayed pending appeal.
This really should not have come as a surprise to the majority. At the time the Affordable Care Act was passed, many of us on the Republican side raised similar concerns. The act, as drafted, was too poorly written and too precariously balanced to stand up under its own weight.
The succeeding 9 years have caused those predictions to come to pass. Premiums have skyrocketed; insurers have fled the market; and for many Americans, the care they thought they were accessing under the Affordable Care Act has become anything but affordable.
Before Republicans acted last Congress to repeal the tax penalty for the individual mandate, literally millions of taxpayers made the decision to pay that penalty instead of buying health insurance they could not afford.
No matter what the outcome of this lawsuit will be, House Republicans have over and over again expressed their support for protections for those with preexisting conditions. Should the Texas decision be upheld, Republicans stand ready to work with Democrats to build an insurance system that protects people with preexisting conditions, increases transparency and choice, and lowers costs across the country.
That is exactly what we tried to do in the last Congress with the American Health Care Act, which we in the House proposed and passed as a solution to the broken law that is the Affordable Care Act. While it fell short in the Senate, its passage in the House clearly shows Republicans were ready to take steps to fix this broken system.
Rather than taking those steps today, Democrats are asking us to grant Speaker Pelosi a blank check to intervene in this lawsuit. Rather than allowing the States to continue to pursue this litigation, as is their right under the Constitution, Democrats want this House to intervene. But the majority has not said why intervention is necessary and why the House of Representatives must jump into this litigation against some of the States. Other States have already made the decision to intervene in support of the Affordable Care Act, rendering intervention by this House unnecessary.
At best, this proposal is a political exercise intended to allow the majority to reiterate their position on the Affordable Care Act. At worst, it is an attempt to pressure the courts. Either way, there is no real justification for doing what the majority wishes to do today.
Madam Speaker, the best way for the majority to protect Americans and to protect access to healthcare is to pass a constitutionally sound law that is well considered, well structured, and that will result in lower premiums and better access to health insurance. It is not what they have proposed here, which is a wasteful expenditure of taxpayer dollars to defend the indefensible.
Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of both the Rules Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, who also happens to be perhaps the foremost expert on the ACA in the House of Representatives.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), my good friend, who is also the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and current ranking member.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), my good friend, the former chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee and now its current ranking member.
Mr. DAVID P. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to title III of the Democratic rules package, which will allow House Democrats to file a motion in Texas v. United States defending the constitutionality of the ACA.
This lawsuit, which was filed by more than 20 State Attorneys General, is about individual liberty and whether the Federal Government can force individuals to purchase a product.
When the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the ACA 6 years ago, it did so under the logic that the individual mandate was a tax. I disagreed with that rule then, but because we now have repealed the tax, the Supreme Court's rationale for upholding the law was applied by the district court when it found the mandate inseverable from the law and struck it down.
The promise of the ACA, which we can all agree on, was to increase access to, and lower the cost of, healthcare. In my State of Tennessee alone, the average premium prices have gone up 176 percent in 8 years, with deductible levels that are nothing more than the equivalent to catastrophic coverage.
Let me give you an example, Madam Speaker. The majority of the uncollectible debt in the hospital where I work are people with insurance, not without insurance. Giving people access to a card does not necessarily equal coverage. That is why, in my district alone, you had nearly the same number of people who paid the tax that actually got the benefit.
In the ruling in Texas v. U.S. the courts are giving Congress an opportunity for a much-needed do-over. I spent over 30 years of my life taking care of patients, and in that time I never saw a Republican or Democratic disease. Preexisting conditions can affect anyone. All of us in the House want to ensure those affected by serious illnesses can access affordable care.
Rather than keeping the cost burden on the middle class, let's work together to protect those with preexisting conditions while also trusting Americans to make their own decisions when buying coverage that best fits the needs of their family.
How can we find common ground?
Well, if you have ever received your health insurance from an employer in the private sector, you were covered by ERISA and its updates under HIPAA, which protect people with preexisting conditions from being denied coverage. Unfortunately, the rules weren't the same for the individual and small-group markets, and that is where the problem arose.
A simple solution to this problem is to apply those large-group ERISA protections to individual and small-group markets and the preexisting coverage question is solved.
Whether you are for or against the passage of the ACA, it should be clear that the law is broken. Instead of continuing to support a law that clearly isn't working, why don't we come together and enact a real patient-centered, free-market healthcare system that treats individuals and small groups like big corporations.
The bottom line is that the ACA has failed, at least in my State. The House of Representatives has more important work to focus on than getting involved in litigation to resuscitate a law that is broken and is causing problems for many individuals and families across America.
If we defeat title III of the Democratic rules package, I am hopeful this will be the first step in agreeing that we should be focusing on bipartisan reforms to our healthcare system, instead of wasting our time on litigation. I urge opposition to the rule.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup), my good friend, who not only provided lifesaving care to men and women in uniform in another career, but has actually done that in this body as well.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington), my good friend.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Texas an additional 30 seconds.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes), my very good friend and former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and current ranking member of that committee.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume simply to make a quick point.
Actually, a vote against this provision is not a vote against preexisting conditions. It is a vote to limit the power of the Speaker--not to allow the Speaker to, on her own, decide whether she is going to intervene in law cases where, frankly, the intervention of this House isn't necessary. There are States litigating against the ACA. There are States litigating for the ACA. The idea that either side is unrepresented, I think, just doesn't bear serious scrutiny.
So, you know, not only is it an exercise in futility, in my opinion, it is an exercise that is totally unnecessary because we have already given the Speaker that power. The majority has already seen fit to do that. So why we are wasting time, money, and effort in this particular exercise eludes me.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, to my good friend, the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means, I think that offer is made quite sincerely, and I think it will be taken up by our side. We can work together in a bipartisan way to do exactly what the gentleman suggests.
In my opinion, this particular measure doesn't do that. It doesn't get us anywhere. It involves us in litigation unnecessarily, and it doesn't--by the way, for the second time, since we gave the Speaker this authority--I didn't vote for it, my friends did, that is their right, she has it, so why we are here on the floor today arguing about it mystifies me.
But, again, I know my friend's offer is made in good faith. I think it will be taken up in good faith. We should work together to do exactly what my friend suggests, that is, guarantee that every American is protected from preexisting conditions and able to go into the marketplace and buy insurance at a practical and reasonable rate that they can afford.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I am always delighted when my friends on the other side believe in judicial restraint, so it is nice to see we have some new converts in that.
I just make my basic point again, Madam Speaker. We are here for no particular reason debating something that we did last week, giving that power to the Speaker. I didn't agree with that vote. We had an opportunity last week, actually, to take up a Republican measure that would have legislatively guaranteed protections for preexisting. The majority chose not to do that. So I have just forced back on the conclusion that this is much more about political theater than it is about genuine substance.
I will say, though, in disagreeing with my good friend from New Jersey, I am not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be able to be an expert judge of the legal merits, but I do think I would not so blithely dismiss 20 State attorneys general and a court that ruled in their favor. It tells me that there are significant legal issues here and that those legal issues are going to be litigated in due course.
What mystifies me is why we need to be involved in it since there is high-powered law from different States with different points of view that are in this right now.
So, again, I see no particular reason to do this, although, with all due respect, my friends have already given the Speaker the power to do it, so I don't know why we need to do it a second time. But, again, I am here to represent my colleagues on my side of the aisle, and we will continue to do that.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, let me advise my friend, I am prepared to close. I see she has additional speakers, so, for the moment, I will simply reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, actually, I know I informed the gentlewoman differently, but my good friend, Mr. Burgess, got so excited by the debate he came back and asked for an additional minute. So if I may, Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge opposition to this measure. The majority is asking the House of Representatives to authorize the Speaker to intervene in a lawsuit over the legality of the Affordable Care Act. Such an act is unnecessary and wasteful.
It should have been obvious to the majority that the Affordable Care Act was and is poorly written and precariously unbalanced as Republicans warned them at the time it was passed, and the intervening years have brought those predictions to come about. Premiums have skyrocketed. Insurers have fled the market. The American consumers have suffered as a result.
The appropriate solution is not to intervene in a lawsuit but, instead, to spend time working with Republicans to craft a replacement fix to this broken system. And moreover, it is certainly not to do today, in a rule, what we have already done in the same rule last week.
Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed the debate, but I am not exactly sure why we had it. Again, it is always worthwhile to spend time on the floor with my friends.
So, Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' on the previous question, ``no'' on the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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