State Health Care Premium Reduction Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, I think we all remember: If you like what you have, you can keep it. Remember that phrase? Probably the most broken promise in political history.

Millions of people lost the good healthcare that they liked because Washington bureaucrats came in and said not ``if you like what you have, you can keep it,'' but ``if Washington likes what you have, you can keep it.'' And they took it away.

After that, you still see, years later, they are trying to pull more people out of the private insurance market who actually like what they have, and say, ``Get back on this.''

If it works so well, by the way, Madam Speaker, wouldn't people be going in droves to it? In fact, it works so poorly that, under this bill, they have to bribe you with over $400 billion more in taxpayer money.

That is how much this costs, more than $400 billion to take you off the private health insurance that you like. This is free market. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere else. But most people like their private health insurance, so they are going to push them onto this at the expense of over $400 billion.

If that isn't bad enough, Madam Speaker, what else do they do? They pay for it--get this--by limiting the amount of drugs that will come to market. Yes. The Council of Economic Advisers has advised ``as many as 100 fewer drugs entering the United States market over the next decade, or about one-third of the total number of drugs expected to enter the market.''

Can you believe this? In the middle of a global pandemic, when we are trying and rushing to find a cure and a vaccine for COVID-19, they are going to bring a bill to the floor to stop drugs from coming to the market, over 100 of them.

Let's read more. This ``would reduce Americans' average life expectancy by about 4 months.'' My God, what are we doing, bringing a bill to the floor right now when we are trying to find a cure that will make it harder to find a cure? All to push more people, including wealthy people who would be eligible under the bill that already have private insurance, onto a heavily taxpayer-subsidized program that has been failing under its own weight, failing so much they need to add $400 billion to try to entice you to take it and, in the process, limit the ability to bring lifesaving drugs, like a cure for COVID-19, to the market.

This is absurd. This is psychotic that we are even debating this right now. We should be focusing on helping expedite a cure, not making it harder to bring that very cure for COVID-19 to the market.

Madam Speaker, I would strongly urge a ``no.''

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