Repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. PALLONE. Well, first of all, let me thank you, my colleague from California, and each of the other speakers here for the contribution they have made tonight, and particularly when I listened to my colleague from Tennessee talk about those particular cases of individuals that were impacted, because that's really what this is all about.
Again, it is amazing to me that the first act of this new Republican majority is to try to repeal a bill, health care reform, that really is making a difference for people on a personal level, particularly with the patient protections.
You know, I thought to myself when I was coming down here: Who benefits from repeal? Who could possibly benefit from repeal? Because, as many of you talked about, all the people who are going to be harmed by it, who would benefit from it? And the only group I could think of that would benefit from the repeal are the big insurance companies because, if you think about it, what do they want to do? They want to keep increasing premiums. I read that in your State--I don't know, you may have already mentioned it--Blue Cross/Blue Shield, whatever, is talking about a 50-something percent increase. I cannot fathom these double-digit increases.
And, of course, as this health care reform kicks in, it's going to be more and more difficult for the types of increases that we've seen in premiums that these big health insurance companies have put forward. And the reason the insurance companies want to get rid of the Patients' Bill of Rights and reinstitute all of these discriminatory practices, whether it be denying care because of preexisting conditions or reinstituting lifetime caps or, you know, the different protections that we've seen kick in, the reason they want to do that is also money-oriented. In other words, they have to pay out money. You talked about the cancer person.
I was up at the Rules Committee earlier, and Ms. Slaughter was talking about someone who had cancer and was treated and ran into the lifetime cap, and then the cancer reoccurred and she didn't have any more coverage because she had hit the lifetime cap. And that's a perfect example. They want to have lifetime caps. They want to have annual caps. They don't want preexisting conditions. They don't want your kids on your policy because it saves them money. The way that they make profits and pay dividends to their shareholders is by raising premiums and having discriminatory practices that eliminate the people that cost money because they need health care. I mean, it's that simple.
And already, and just in the last few weeks, provisions have kicked in that go against that. The President announced--or the White House announced, I think around Christmastime, new regulations that say that any premium increase that's over 10 percent will be scrutinized. And under the provisions of this bill and the new regulations, these increases are not allowed to go above 10 percent. On January 1, the provisions kicked in that said that 80 percent of your premium costs had to be used for benefits, couldn't be used for insurance company profits, couldn't be used to pay back dividends to the shareholders. So all of these initiatives that are already kicking in, they basically make it more difficult for the insurance companies to make a big profit, and the consequence of that is that health insurance becomes more affordable.
I was up at the Rules Committee earlier. It was interesting because, I think you mentioned, my colleague from California, or one of you mentioned that we, under this bill, under the health care reform that's in place now that they want to repeal, we get the same health insurance, as Congressmen, as any other American.
You know, I still have people write to me and say, well, you know, You have your own policy, but you want to give me this lousy coverage that I'm going to get under the health care reform. And I have to write back and say, No, that's not true. You may hear that on some TV station or something, but it's simply not true.
We specifically wrote into the bill that we have to go into the exchanges just like everybody else. We are going to be different from other Federal employees, as Congressmen, because we go into the exchanges.
So, at the Rules Committee today, one of the Republican Members who is very supportive of repeal said that he specifically wasn't going to take health insurance as a Congressman, and he wanted me to know that because he was voting for repeal. And I said, Well, that's very nice and that's commendable for you, but I, frankly, think that every Member of Congress who votes for repeal should say, I don't want health insurance from the Federal Government, because if you are going to deny it to everyone else, you should deny it to yourself. Just the way we're saying that we are going to get the same coverage as everyone else, well, if you don't want anyone else to have the coverage, then you shouldn't get it yourself.
And I know that some Members have already taken issue. There was one Member from Maryland who came to the orientation, a Republican Member from Maryland who apparently was a big advocate for repeal. And he said that he was inquiring because his Federal health insurance didn't take effect, as a Congressman, until February 1. We were sworn in yesterday, but I guess it takes 30 days before the insurance actually kicks in. He was complaining about the fact that had he to wait until February 1 to get his health insurance, as a Congressman. Well, you know, again, if you're going to vote for repeal next week, you shouldn't be worried about when it's going to kick in. You shouldn't be taking it at all, in my opinion.
So there is a lot of--I don't know what the phrase is--smoke and mirrors or whatever the word is that is going on around here on the other side of the aisle in how they are viewing this. And my point is, you know, there is a lot of protection here for people. Don't deny them that unless you're going to deny it to yourself. But more than that, think about who is helped by this repeal--only the big insurance companies. They are the only ones that are going to benefit.
I know you were the insurance commissioner, and so you know exactly what I'm talking about.
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Mr. PALLONE. Well, I just wanted to talk a little bit about prevention, and particularly in terms of seniors, which you mentioned, and what it means in terms of people's health and also the cost to the government, because some of the things that we've mentioned with regard to seniors have already taken place.
This summer under the bill, seniors who fell into the doughnut hole got a $250 rebate. Beginning January 1, they get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs if they fall into the doughnut hole in 2011.
You mentioned the copays for preventative care, whether it's your annual wellness treatment or other kinds of tests like mammograms or colonoscopies, for example. The reason that we are eliminating the 20 percent copay for these things, the reason we are trying to fill up the doughnut hole, it all goes back to prevention. Because if people get their drugs and they don't end up getting sick and going to the hospital, if they get these tests or they have the annual wellness checks, they stay healthy, they don't go to the hospital. And when they go to the hospital, if they are on Medicare, it just costs the government more money.
So this is the way we save money. We save money. And what does that mean? It means that the debt is decreased. It means that the solvency of Medicare you have on the chart is extended.
I don't know if we have talked much about that. One of my amendments in the Rules Committee today is--a lot of seniors tell me, they come up to me and say they are worried about the fact that Medicare may become insolvent and there wouldn't be enough money in the trust fund to pay for it. The bottom line is that the health care reform bill extends the judgment day, if you will, when the solvency problem becomes an issue much further. And if you have the repeal, the solvency problem hits us 6 years from now, in 2017, from what I understand.
So another problem with repeal is not only does it increase the deficit, but it also is only 6 years from now that we would have to deal with this Medicare solvency problem. And what is that going to mean? That is going to mean probably cutbacks in benefits for senior citizens. Because if you don't have the money, you are going to have to cut back on the benefits. It is amazing to me how they can continue to talk about this repeal.
The other thing they keep saying on the other side of the aisle, the Republicans say, well, the reason we want the repeal is because this health care reform is killing jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact of the matter is that under this health care reform because the cost of health care premiums for employers will be significantly reduced, they will be able to hire more people. Part of the problem that we have with competition with other countries, you mentioned all these other countries, all these other industrial countries that have free health care, universal health care. That means that the employers don't carry the burden of that. So when they hire someone if the government is paying for it, they don't have to worry about that for their employees necessarily. If the cost of premiums go down, then the costs of hiring somebody goes down in the United States.
In addition to that, there are all kinds of jobs created in the health care professions because, as everyone gets covered and everybody needs a primary care doctor, you're going to need more doctors, more nurses, more health aides because people will get that kind of preventative care. So there are jobs created with the preventative care in handling people, to make sure they stay healthy or they stay well.
It is unbelievable to me when they talk about repeal. What the Republicans should be doing is spending the first few days of this session talking about how to improve the economy and create jobs, not repealing health care. I think the American people have moved on. They don't want to hear this. They want to know what this Congress is going to do to create jobs and improve the economy. We've already dealt with the health care issue and they want us to move on.
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