Instructing Certain Committees to Report Legislation Replacing the Job-Killing Health Care Law
Floor Speech
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Madam Speaker, I rise in very strong opposition to this resolution and very strong opposition to the very closed process in which we are discussing this resolution. Once again, I am deeply disappointed that instead of working to create jobs and strengthen the economy, the new Republican majority continues to focus on reopening old wounds and fighting old battles. The resolution before us today is allegedly the replace component of the Republicans' repeal and replace strategy. I say allegedly, Madam Speaker, because this resolution is not a serious legislative effort. It is a series of talking points. It is a press release.
What this resolution does is ask the committees of jurisdiction to hopefully, maybe someday, if they would be so kind, to report legislation to the House that meets certain vague goals. Instead of repeal and replace, this is repeal and relax. Trust the Republicans to do the right thing. No thank you, Madam Speaker.
Yesterday, this House voted, without a single hearing or markup, without a single amendment, to eliminate the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. The Members who voted for that bill voted to return to the days when insurance companies could discriminate against people based upon preexisting conditions. They voted to eliminate the ban on annual and lifetime limits on care. They voted to eliminate the ability for young people to stay on their parents' insurance plans up to the age of 26. They voted to reopen the doughnut hole in Medicare. Basically, they voted for a tax increase on senior citizens who need prescription drugs. They voted to eliminate tax credits for small businesses who want to do the right thing and provide health insurance for their workers. All of that, Madam Speaker, would have the force of law. All of that was done with real legislative language. But not the resolution before us today.
Instead of real language that would provide real benefits to real Americans, this resolution is simply a collection of empty promises. And the ironic thing is that most of the provisions included in the resolution were actually addressed in the Affordable Care Act. According to this resolution, we should, quote, ``lower health care premiums through increased competition and choice.'' Well, the Affordable Care Act already does that. Of course, many of us argued for a public option, which would have lowered premiums even further with increased competition and choice, but my Republican friends didn't want to have anything to do with that.
The resolution before us today says we should ``preserve a patient's ability to keep his or her health plan if he or she likes it.'' Well, the Affordable Care Act already does that. Increase the number of insured Americans? Well, we did that by 30 million people. Protect the doctor-patient relationship? We did that. And so on and so on.
On the critical issue of people with preexisting conditions, however, it's interesting to see the language that my Republican friends use in this press release that they call a resolution. They say they support, and I quote, ``provide people with preexisting conditions access to affordable health coverage.'' Well, that sounds nice. But what we did in the Affordable Care Act was to actually ban insurance companies from discriminating against those people. I will be very interested to see how my Republican friends handle that critical issue and how much influence the big insurance lobby has around here now that they're in charge. And the doughnut hole? The resolution is absolutely silent on the doughnut hole.
Madam Speaker, health care is of vital importance to every single American. It is a big deal. And to treat health insurance reform as just another opportunity for happy talk and wishful thinking is not the way to do business in the people's House.
I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
Madam Speaker, I think our objection is not with the idea of having a serious debate on these issues. There are areas where we can come together and hopefully make the bill even better. Our objection is the fact that my friends on the other side voted to repeal everything, voted to allow insurance companies to once again discriminate against people with preexisting conditions.
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I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.
They voted to take away the benefit from senior citizens that we put in there to help try to close the doughnut hole in the prescription drug bill. And what do they do in terms of replacing it? They come not with an alternative; they come with a press release. That's not serious legislating. That's politics as usual.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his comments in recognizing the fact that the provision that allows parents to keep their children on their insurance until they are 26 is a good idea. But he voted yesterday, along with all the Republicans, to repeal that, to take that away. And this press release that they're now saying is a bill on the House floor here doesn't even address that issue.
So I wish the gentleman would have actually voted with his convictions yesterday and voted against repeal, because what he did, if, in fact, this bill becomes law, will deny parents to be able to keep theirs kids on their insurance until they are 26.
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Madam Speaker, what is before the House today is not a serious legislative effort. It's a series of sound bites that mean nothing. Committees don't have to do anything. Speaker Boehner is quoted in The Hill basically saying that he's not going to hold any of these committees accountable. They can do it if they want to; whatever. If they don't, so be it. What we are dealing with here today really is kind of a political ploy, not a serious legislative effort to replace anything.
My friends on the other side of the aisle have gotten up over and over and over again and said, we're really with you on preexisting conditions, we're really with you on the doughnut hole, we're with you on allowing parents to keep their kids on their insurance until they're 26. But yet they're really not. Because if they were, they wouldn't have voted yesterday to repeal all those protections. And if they were really with us, then we would be talking about today coming to the House floor with a series of initiatives that would actually continue to protect those benefits for consumers. But they voted to repeal all of that. I want to know, how could anybody in this House, how could anybody, in light of the protections that have been put in place, go back to an individual who is now able to get health insurance because we prohibited insurance companies from discriminating against them for a preexisting condition, how can you go to them and say, well, we're going to change our mind; we're not going to do that anymore?
How do you go to senior citizens who are struggling with that doughnut hole--and we've begun to close it--how do you go to them and say we're going to raise your taxes? How do you do that?
How do you go to a parent whose child can remain on their health insurance because we've extended it to allow them to stay on it until they're 26 and say, well, that doesn't matter anymore? It just doesn't make sense.
That's not what people voted for in the last election. They didn't vote for you to repeal all of those things. What they voted against was this distortion of a health care bill that you put out there, my friends on the other side of the aisle, that was very well funded by the most expensive advertising campaign funded by the insurance companies in the history of our country, this distortion out there. Everybody was against that distortion. That is not the reality.
As the months have gone by and as the reality has become clear to people, as they have seen the benefits and the protections, as people have been able to wrest control of their health care from the insurance industry, as consumers realize they have more and more rights, as there are more and more protections that are built into law to protect people of all ages, people say, well, we don't want you to change that; we want that to be saved.
I will just say one thing. When my friends say, well, we can just do a little bit of this and a little bit of that, you really can't, because it's kind of like a domino effect. Everything has an impact.
So this is a serious debate. And if there is some indignation on this side of the aisle, it is because we know that this is a big deal, and real people who have real challenges affording their health care and dealing with the complexities of the health care system and the inequities of the health care system are now getting some relief, and they will be hurt by what you are doing.
So let's be honest here. What happened yesterday was my friends on the other side of the aisle went on record as saying, We're against everything.
Today, we're going to pass a resolution, I guess, that doesn't do anything, doesn't even require committees to do anything, but it's just for all these nice, feel-good sound bites. That's not a serious legislative effort. That's why people are cynical.
We can do better. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this.
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