Breaking the Gridlock Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Massachusetts talked about not seeing the Republican bill. There was a bipartisan provision in there that would lower premiums by 11 percent per the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan budget office. This is a provision that the Democrats all supported. They know we have to make the ObamaCare market work. It doesn't work today. The facts belie that: double premiums, double deductibles, one out of five claims rejected, limited choice. It has failed. That experiment has failed.

The only game in town that has actually lowered costs of healthcare, reduced premiums is what Republicans passed out of the House. There was not a single Democrat vote to join us.

Here is what I can't understand for the life of me, and I have some good friends over there, and I am not mad. I am miffed that Democrats would all talk about affordability in healthcare and bring to this Chamber the idea, the notion that Congress take a COVID-era program that Democrats all designed to expire when COVID was over, that every watchdog group has said is loaded with fraud and waste--as the chairman said, Social Security numbers from tens of thousands of dead people--it is siphoning money out of the taxpayers' pockets, away from the vulnerable, and enriching insurance companies.

There are millions of ineligible people, billions of dollars of fraud, and people are watching what is going on in the country, especially in Minnesota. How could my colleagues across the aisle, in good faith, call this affordable healthcare and stewardship of the sacred treasure of our fellow Americans?

Republicans have a plan. It works. It is not perfect. There are some things Congress could work together on. But for the love of God and country, please, it is intellectually dishonest to tell the American people that this COVID-era, fraud-ridden program is somehow going to make healthcare affordable any more than the underlying bill itself, ObamaCare, which everyone knows hasn't.

I said it the last time, I will say it again: Ronald Reagan was spot on. Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem. This is a case study for that. America needs less mandates, less taxes, less regulations, and people need more freedom, more choices, more competition.

Republicans are willing to work with Democrats, but this is beyond the pale, and it is audacious to call it affordable healthcare. I am amazed. I am surprised. I encourage my colleagues to roundly, soundly stand firm and reject it, and no Republican should ever support this. They didn't support ObamaCare when it was designed. They shouldn't support doubling down on a failed policy, and I encourage them to not begin now.

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