State Health Care Premium Reduction Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1017, I call up the bill (H.R. 1425) to amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to provide for a Improve Health Insurance Affordability Fund to provide for certain reinsurance payments to lower premiums in the individual health insurance market, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

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Mr. PALLONE. 1425, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, as Americans continue to face the COVID-19 pandemic and a severe economic downturn, they are justifiably concerned about their health and their financial future.

Today, we are here to provide more relief to the American people, and I rise in strong support of H.R. 1425, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act, legislation that will make healthcare and prescription drugs more affordable and will expand access to health coverage.

Madam Speaker, this legislation strengthens the Affordable Care Act for the future, which is critical at a time when the Trump administration and Republicans continue to support a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that would strike down the entire ACA.

These actions could result in 23 million Americans losing their health coverage and the elimination of critical consumer protections for more than 130 million people with preexisting conditions during the middle of a pandemic. Sadly, this is nothing new.

Madam Speaker, over the last 4 years, much of the ACA's progress has been halted and, in some cases, reversed by the Trump administration's sabotage campaign.

Thanks to the ACA, the uninsured rate fell to a historic low. However, the Trump administration's actions have driven up the uninsured rate. Today, millions more Americans are uninsured and afraid they will not be able to afford the cost of care if they become sick.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act will reverse these trends. This legislation is a commonsense, fiscally responsible one-two punch that uses the Federal Government's savings from lowering prescription drug costs to lower health insurance costs for Americans.

The bill does this by empowering the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate a fair price for prescription drugs. This legislation stops the gouging at the pharmacy counter and ensures that Americans no longer pay 4 or 5 or 10 times the amount people in other countries pay for the exact same drug. This negotiation not only levels the playing field, but it also saves hundreds of billions of dollars.

H.R. 1425 will then reinvest these savings to lower healthcare costs for consumers and to expand access to affordable care. More middle- class Americans would receive financial assistance with monthly premiums. A family of four, for example, with an annual income of $60,000 would save $2,000 annually, and a family of four with an annual income of $100,000, who previously did not qualify for subsidies, would save $8,000 every year.

Now, this is in addition to the savings that they also had under the underlying ACA. This is, under this bill, in addition to what they normally saved--and that is real savings to hardworking families.

This legislation also lowers Americans' healthcare costs by reversing some of the worst sabotage from the Trump administration. It reverses the administration's expansion of junk insurance plans that leave patients saddled with thousands of dollars in medical debt. It restores critical outreach in enrollment funding that was gutted by the Trump administration, and it reduces racial and ethnic healthcare disparities.

H.R. 1425 also builds on the ACA's Medicaid expansion and further strengthens this important program and provides for additional incentives to States that stubbornly refuse to expand their programs. And for political reasons, many of the red States have done that; they just refuse to expand Medicaid. But these holdout States, if they expand Medicaid, 4.8 million people would gain Medicaid coverage overnight, including 2.3 million uninsured Americans.

This bill also takes an important step to address the country's maternal mortality crisis by extending Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to 1 year. Simply put, this policy will save lives.

Madam Speaker, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act lowers healthcare and prescription drug costs, expands coverage for millions of Americans, and reverses the Trump administration's years- long effort to undermine Americans' access to quality and affordable healthcare.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), a longtime champion of the ACA.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell), another member of the committee.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly), who is a member of the committee and chairs the CBC Brain Trust.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Craig).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I neglected to mention that Ms. Craig is actually the prime sponsor of this legislation.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ruiz), who is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and has long worked on the ACA enhancement.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Bustos).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Malinowski).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Mucarsel-Powell).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I respect, greatly, my colleague, the ranking member, but I have to say, the tragedy that we face is the President, President Trump, who has totally neglected the situation here.

The tragedy is not this Congress. This Congress passed the HEROES Act, but we have a President who simply ignores the COVID crisis, who doesn't want to take the bull by the horns and actually do something nationally to deal with testing, to deal with medical supplies, to deal with what needs to be done, and continues to suggest that somehow the pandemic has gone away.

This Congress took action with the HEROES Act. The tragedy is a President who continues to seek repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, Madam Speaker, had led to over 90 percent of Americans having health insurance when President Obama left office. That number is going down. Last week, the Trump administration filed a brief again to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The tragedy is what he has done, what President Trump has done to encourage junk plans, which basically don't allow people with preexisting conditions to even get health insurance. This is the tragedy. And we in this Congress are doing things to reverse this sabotage of the Trump administration, beginning today, again, with this enhancement act.

Now, I just want to say that one of the things that we are doing here that is so important is reversing the Trump administration's pushing of these junk plans. The Energy and Commerce Committee did a report investigation of it last year, and what we found was that these junk plans discriminate against people with preexisting conditions. They rescind coverage if they have to pay out too much. They limit coverage.

Remember, the Affordable Care Act provided an essential benefit package, robust coverage, that you would have mental health coverage, that you would have hospitalization, that you would have the things that people expect to have in their insurance policy; but instead, the Trump administration is pushing out to millions of people--and the numbers keep growing every year--these junk plans that discriminate and do the opposite.

And we are going to bring down prescription drugs.

Madam Speaker, I urge support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against the Republican motion to recommit.

This motion to recommit is a distraction, and it provides cover to the pharmaceutical industry to continue to raise prices, just as we have seen them do on thousands of drugs this year alone.

Moreover, my Republican colleagues would have you believe that it is the pharmaceutical industry alone that is responsible for innovation and for funding innovation in this country, which omits the critical role that the Federal Government has played and will continue to play in drug development and the discovery of novel therapies.

Let me be clear, Madam Speaker: The investments in research for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines aren't being put on the backs of the pharmaceutical industry. It is Congress and the American taxpayer who have made unprecedented investments as we race to find a cure for COVID-19.

In response to COVID-19, Congress has invested over $8 billion for innovative biomedical research development and the purchase of new vaccines and therapeutics, including $4.4 billion in the CARES Act, and $3.8 billion in the Supplemental Appropriations Act in the last month or so.

This Enhancement Act combined with the HEROES Act, which the Senate has still not taken up, would more than double this historic investment, bringing it to over $19 billion. And the manager's amendment to this bill is another $2 billion.

So, based on the claims by Republicans here today and this motion to recommit, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have you believe that we are forced to choose between two competing alternatives: either finding vaccines and treatments for diseases and viruses like COVID, or reducing drug prices that are gouging American families at the pharmacy counter every day. This is a false choice.

From the Republican perspective, we have no choice but to allow the pharmaceutical industry to continue to go unchecked and rake in record profits at the expense of those who need lifesaving medicines. But it is fear-mongering at its worst, and it is blatantly untrue. This Nation can and is doing both. There is more than enough spending in the system to reduce drug prices and ensure we do not impact research and development for treatments and cures, including a vaccine for COVID-19.

We know that most big pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing, sales, and overhead than research and development, and there is no reason why American families are forced to pay 3, 5, or 10 times more for the same treatments as those in other countries. It is simply unfair.

That is why new polling has shown that 9 out of 10 Americans support direct negotiations by the Federal Government for the price of a treatment for COVID-19 and why people are scared that they are going to be gouged for coronavirus treatment when it is available, just like they have been so often gouged by other drugs that their families have needed to stay healthy.

So the bottom line, Madam Speaker: We can have innovation and lower costs, and that is what this underlying bill does. This bill will establish a fair price negotiating program that rewards true innovation by directing the Secretary to prioritize a drug's research and development spending, as well as the extent to which a drug represents a true therapeutic advance over existing drugs.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to recommit. We know that, in the last few months, drug prices have gone up tremendously around the country, and drug prices increasingly take a larger percent of your healthcare cost. People simply can't afford it, and that is why this bill is necessary. Do not believe the false choice of my Republican colleagues.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against the motion to recommit.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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