Repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. COHEN. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you, and I want to first start because this day has been a day that started with the reading of the Constitution which is a document that we all revere. I have a little pocket copy of it right here, and we revere it. We pledge when we take our oath of office to protect and defend and support the Constitution, but we all know that it's interpreted by our Supreme Court, and it's Supreme Court history would have been better today for people to understand.
And you mention that the foundation of the particular health care bill is in the preamble: We, the people of the United States, to form a more perfect union, establish justice, et cetera, promote the general welfare.
Also, in article I, which is the legislative article, section 8, it says that the Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce among the several States; and further, it says in article I that the Congress shall have the authority to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by this Constitution of the Government of the United States, in either Department or office thereof. So, in my opinion--I'm a lawyer, but there's lawyers on both sides--there's plenty of justification for this health care bill.
Do you know next week when the Republicans will try to repeal this opportunity for Americans to get health care and wipe out these pre-existing conditions clauses, et cetera, will they be coming under the idea that health care is not part of the general welfare? Will they be coming basically on a constitutional argument that they may make that this wasn't allowed to require a person to buy insurance even though we can, of course, require a person to sign up for the draft and lose their liberty for a while and serve in the Army--and we can do that, we can conscript soldiers, but we can't make them buy insurance. Is that what they're going to say, or are they going to come and talk about these things that Mr. Scott talked about and say that we don't think it's good policy for parents to have their children on their insurance until they're 26 or it's not good policy for women with breast cancer to get treatment at a certain amount? What are their tactics?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I would assume that they will try to go into their interpretation of the Constitution and avoid the very difficult argument of forcing or eliminating the Patient's Bill of Rights and allowing the insurance companies to engage in gross discrimination based upon sex. Clearly, women are discriminated against by the health insurance companies unless the Patient's Bill of Rights is there to protect them. Similarly, the two examples that you gave, pre-existing conditions, I cannot imagine that they would even attempt to successfully or even would be unsuccessful to argue that somehow these protections for the individual are not worth having.
I think they will go into some obscure interpretation of the Constitution. We'll see. There's going to be a debate on the floor. Unfortunately, there will be no hearings to precede that, and there will not be a discussion of the details.
Mr. COHEN. And they will control the amendments that will be permitted to be discussed on this floor. I know Speaker Boehner said we were going to be able to have amendments and be able to have good discourse.
Mr. GARAMENDI. As you know--I saw you in Rules Committee earlier today--it is my impression that the Rules Committee is going to prohibit any amendments on the floor. We'll see. I mean, that has yet to be decided by the Rules Committee. We don't know, but surely the one amendment I would propose is: don't do it, maintain the Patient's Bill of Rights, maintain these protections that we all need.
There's not a person in this Nation that is not subject to the possibility of an incident that would become a reason for rescission. That's my experience. Eight years hammering the insurance industry, you have got to honor your contract. Yet because of the laws, they were able to wiggle out of an expensive incident.
Mr. COHEN. When I was a child, I had polio when I was 5 years old in 1954. I was fortunate. My father was a doctor, and so sometimes professional courtesy, but I'm sure he had insurance that covered my hospitalization. But there were years later, I think it was 11 years later I had a tendon-lengthening operation that was immediately related to my polio and necessary on my Achilles tendon. That wouldn't have been permitted necessarily if they could use the pre-existing condition such as polio to have denied coverage; and whether or not how my father dealt with the expense and whether it's because he was a physician, I don't know; but I'd hate to see children in the same situation and parents in the same situation not be permitted to get that type of coverage later on.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I don't know if you were a Member of Congress at the time, but we all under this law would have the same policy that every American would have. We wouldn't have any different policy than the American public would have, and the question about rescission, and you're a prime candidate should you lose office, which you shouldn't, to be uninsurable if the Patient's Bill of Rights were repealed.
Under the Patient's Bill of Rights, if you were to leave Congress, you could get an insurance policy because the pre-existing condition that you have, polio, and an operation resulting from the polio would go into play as a pre-existing condition, and you would not be able to get an insurance policy.
Mr. COHEN. Let me, if I can, read something that I've had prepared for today that came from a constituent's story, John Hopkins; and I know John Hopkins. He's a very important and active member in my
community and contemporary. He sent me an email, and Mr. Hopkins requests I share this story with the House as we consider repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I want to share it with everybody here on C-SPAN.
John was diagnosed with two unrelated cancers during his life. If you know anything about cancer, getting it twice for unrelated reasons is almost unheard of, but it happened to John Hopkins. Midway through his first bout with cancer, he was, of course, dropped from his health insurance plan. He was left with a medical bill that wiped out his and his wife's entire retirement savings, as well as the value of their house. They were never able to repay the debt in their lifetime. When he was diagnosed with a second bout of cancer 2 years later, he had no health insurance because there was no insurer anywhere in the market who would offer him a policy because of the pre-existing condition.
He got some coverage in Tennessee because of a plan called Access Tennessee for uninsurables, but it was limited to $250,000 a year. As we all know, annual limits are set to be phased out by 2014 because of this law, and lifetime limits are already a thing of the past. A quarter of a million dollars may seem like a lot of coverage; but when somebody needs something like a bone marrow transplant to cure their leukemia, that single treatment would exceed the annual cap.
My Republican colleagues have decided their first priority as the new majority will be repealing the Affordable Care Act; and when they vote to do this, they will be voting for the following: denying Mr. Hopkins the ability to enroll in a health insurance plan that doesn't discriminate against him for daring to be diagnosed with cancer again. They will deny John Hopkins the ability to enroll in a health plan that will actually continue to cover his treatment after he exhausts the current annual cap of $250,000, an amount that many cancer patients meet in a matter of weeks upon diagnosis, let alone those who are fighting two cancers over a number of years.
And it will send a message to John Hopkins and every other single American who has ever been diagnosed or will ever be diagnosed with a disease like cancer that they're on their own when it comes to coverage, that sure they're free to get treatments and meet with their doctors, undergo laborious and life-saving surgeries year after year, just so long as they can foot the bill or try to keep it under the annual cap, because when it comes to cancer, budgeting your treatment should surely take precedence over anything else. Right?
Mr. Garamendi, I am ashamed that we are considering repeal of this affordable health care bill; and when I see these numbers about $250,000 and I think of the fact that the Republicans were against any caps on taxes, they realize $250,000 annual income in many places is a middle-income salary, but for limitations on health care, they think the insurance company should determine that and that's enough; and if you have got cancer, it's not enough.
Another friend of mine Facebooked me, Jimmy Barrasso. Jimmy worked for a long time for a company in Memphis. He's always been successful. He lost his job with that corporation. Because he had high cholesterol, he had difficulties getting insurance, and it took him a long time to find private insurance because of that pre-existing condition. He just sent me this on Facebook. He was friending me and he mentioned it, and I wanted to relate it.
There are so many people in this country who are getting benefits and will get benefits and many of the benefits don't go into effect until 2014, and the idea that this Congress, the 112th, as its first act would do such harm to the general welfare of the American public is hard to fathom.
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Mr. COHEN. I wanted to ask you a question. Because I had said, and I was, I think, incorrect, when I suggested that the first thing the Republicans wanted to do was repeal the affordable health care bill. It's one of their first major priorities. But the first thing they did was today, and we joined with them. It was bipartisan. It was to cut 5 percent from our Members' representational allowances, a small amount of money in the big picture, of course. But the deficit was the issue that they were highlighting.
What would the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act do to the deficit? That's the big issue, because that's one of our big issues.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, Mr. Cohen, it just happens that we prepared this little blue chart here. Actually, it probably ought to be in the red. The repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act obviously deals with the Patients' Bill of Rights, but it also deals with the deficit.
This week, the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, not Democrat, not Republican, they answer to neither party. They answer to the general public. They said that the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act will increase the deficit by $230 billion, $230 billion in the next 9 years, and in the out years, the next 10 years, well over 1 trillion, $200 billion increase in the deficit.
Mr. COHEN. And that's money we owe China; is that right? So it's okay to issue these securities and pay the Chinese the interest to be able to finance it, and our children and their grandchildren will be paying this if they don't have preexisting conditions where they can get insurance to cover the illnesses they may have to stay alive to pay these taxes.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Our children, grandchildren, and indeed those of us that are living for another 10 to 15, 20 years, we're going to pay twice. We're going to pay the insurance cost, the health care cost that's not covered by the insurance programs. The example you gave of the individual with two bouts of cancer going to pay the full cost of that because the limitation goes back into place, so you get to pay for your health care, and you're going to have to pay off the deficit also, makes no sense whatsoever. But, hey, that's what they want to do, without one hearing by any of the relevant committees.
Mr. COHEN. Consistency is the hobgoblin. Right? Thank you, sir.
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Mr. COHEN. Let me ask a question. I was just thinking here, it's an honor to be in the House of Representatives and with a Constitution that's so beautiful that it says we are to promote the general welfare.
We are among other industrialized nations on this earth. What do the other industrialized nations on the earth do about health care for their citizens?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I'm not sure I heard your question, so please say it again.
Mr. COHEN. What do the other industrialized nations in the world do for health care? Do they program policies like ours, where 32 million people don't have health insurance reform and they are not mandated to get insurance? What do they do?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I think you are asking me a rhetorical question, because you know the answer and I think most Americans know the answer, that all the industrialized nations--we are not talking about China, but we are talking about Korea, Japan, the European countries, the European Union. All of those countries provide universal health insurance coverage. Universal.
Everyone, including tourists who happen to show up--and this I know from one of my daughters who fell off a stair at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. She fell, went into an emergency room, they took an MRI, bandaged her up, and said, ``Get out of here.'' And she said, ``Well, I haven't paid.'' ``Well, you are covered.'' That was in Italy.
Mr. COHEN. And does the United States not have one of the greatest discrepancies of wealth between the richest and the poorest in the industrialized world as well? So are we saying to our wealthy people, ``You can afford health insurance so you can get it,'' but for those people who are poor, ``Too bad''?
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Mr. COHEN. I just wanted to add one thing. Thank you.
The gentleman from New Jersey brought up an issue, and he said that it was not true that it was costing jobs. There is some respected group, I think it's called FactCheck. They were on national news giving the biggest lies told in politics in the last year. The number one biggest lie--this independent group--was the Republican mantra of government run or government mandated health care. It's just a fact. That's the biggest lie told the American public. And it came from the leaders on the other side, it came from these halls where they are immune from defamation suits. Because it's not government run health care. It's unheard of, unfathomable, that the other side would use the fact that they're immune from prosecution in any other jurisdiction or court for words that aren't true to do that and in politics to say it was government run health care, the biggest lie of 2010, and it comes to the floor next week.
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