Instructing Certain Committees to Report Legislation Replacing the Job-Killing Health Care Law

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I am just amazed. I listened to the gentleman from Georgia who just spoke, and he said that in his district all of the focus is on health care and health care repeal. Well, I don't know, when I go home all I hear in my district is jobs and the economy. People are concerned about the economy. They want us to create jobs, they want us to focus mostly on that issue, not on repeal of health care.

The other problem I have with the gentleman from Georgia's comments is he seems to think that because the House passed this repeal yesterday that the health reform is repealed. Well, let me tell everyone it's not, and this is just a ruse. This bill, this health reform wasn't repealed. The Senate isn't even going to take it up. The President has said that he would never sign a repeal bill.

So the Republicans are just wasting their time, rather than focusing on what we should be focusing on, the jobs and the economy. They keep talking about this false repeal that is never going to happen.

Now, I also wanted to say something about what Mr. Dreier said before. He talked about increasing access, increased choices. That's not what goes on if this bill was ever repealed. The choice is now for people who have preexisting conditions, they can't get insurance. They have to pay more if they try to get it, or the kids that are on the policies that would be taken off if we had the repeal, or the people that would again face lifetime caps.

You don't have choices under the old system because you were denied care through the insurance companies' discrimination. The only way you have choices and access is under the health reform that this House and this country have put into law where you are guaranteed you get insurance, even if you have a preexisting condition. You don't have to worry about lifetime caps. You can put your kids on the policies.

So don't talk to me about choices and access. People don't have choices and access with those discriminatory policies that would be put back in place by the insurance companies. As they continue to raise premiums, more and more people will not have access to health care and have access to health insurance. The only way you have access and choices is if we keep the health reform in place.

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Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of Mr. Matheson's amendment.

I do want to point out, though, that the Democrats, when we were in the majority, many times tried to pass a permanent fix and did not receive support, I believe, from many Republicans--except I think in one case we did have Dr. Burgess from Texas' support.

Back in November of 2009, we passed a permanent fix, a doctors' fix. But because we could not get any Republican support--any real Republican support--we had to continue to rely on short-term fixes. We did however, as you know, at the end of the last session pass a 1-year fix, which is in effect now.

But I do think that this is a very commendable response that Mr. Matheson has, and I certainly intend to support it.

But the difficulty is that the many years when the Republicans were in the majority, they had the opportunity to pass a permanent fix and to deal with this issue, and they always kicked the can down the road and then did not cooperate with us on a bipartisan basis when we were in the majority to try to achieve a permanent fix.

I certainly intend to work with the Republicans to do that, but they are the reason we don't have it now.

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