Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the tenor and substance of the debate we have in this House over the next few days will be worthy of the American people and reflect well on this Congress.

Many of us believe we should focus our efforts here today on measures to help put people back to work, rather than on a bill that takes away important patient and consumer protections. And we don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to debate a bill that, thankfully, will go nowhere in the Senate and would certainly be vetoed by the President. However, the Republican majority is entitled to use its time here as it chooses. And while we believe we should be doing that focused on jobs, perhaps this debate will clear up many of the myths and misinformation about the health care law that was signed by President Obama.

I'm interested to hear my colleagues say that they can identify with all the problems in the health care system. Between the year 2000 and year 2006, premiums in this country doubled, health insurance company profits quadrupled, and this Congress did nothing. Why not put your plan on the table first so everybody can see it before you begin taking away the important patient protections in this bill taking effect just since last March? And within that 9-month period, that law has made an important and positive difference to millions of Americans.

In fact, we wish our Republican colleagues would take a few days, maybe even just a few hours, to have congressional hearings to listen to those individuals and families. The new Republican majority said it wanted to listen to the American people, but it has not invited a single American outside this Congress to a hearing to testify on the repeal bill we are debating today.

As a result, we on the other side of the aisle have had to schedule an unofficial hearing. It's going on right now, not 100 yards from where we debate, in the Capitol Visitor Center. And I encourage all of you to drop by, because if you do, you're going to hear some stories. You're going to hear the stories from moms and dads of young people who will tell you how they are relieved that their sons and daughters are no longer kicked off their insurance policies when they turn age 22 or graduate from college and cannot now stay on their parents' insurance plan until the age of 26. As a result, if their 20-year-old child gets sick or hit by an automobile or another terrible accident, they can get care without the family going bankrupt.

You will hear from moms and dads with kids who have cancer, asthma, diabetes or other preexisting conditions telling you they're relieved that finally insurance companies can't deny their children coverage because of preexisting conditions. And you will hear from senior citizens who are unable to pay for the huge prescription costs of their bills, and then as of January 1 of this year, they are getting a 50 percent discount and they can afford to pay for the medicines their doctors say they need.

You will hear from small businesses. The number of small businesses using the tax credit has exceeded everyone's expectation. You will hear from those small businesses saying they can now afford to purchase affordable coverage for their employees and, as a result, hire more people. You would hear all that and more.

That is why it is such a mistake, it's an historic mistake, to take away these patient protections and throw these individuals back over to the whims and the many abuses of the insurance industry. There's no doubt that the insurance industry will be popping champagne bottles if the health care law was ever to be repealed. Let's put the interests of our constituents, patients and consumers first in this debate.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

And let's make sure that as we do this, we tackle the deficit and the debt. I listened to my colleague talk about the debt, but we all know that the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in a letter to Speaker Boehner dated January 6, 2011, indicated that repealing this bill will increase the deficit by over $200 billion over the first 10 years and by another $1.2 trillion over the second 10 years.

Our colleagues have criticized those findings, but they're the same people who they applauded when the numbers came back their way.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear this attack on the CBO numbers that came out when many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle just 9 months ago, when the CBO was reporting deficit numbers and the cost of the bill, were singing CBO's high praises. Now let's look at some of the items that were just mentioned. Let's look at the doctor fix payment. Let us look at the SGR. We know that has been an issue that has been with this House for years and years. It has nothing to do with the health insurance reform bill that was signed by the President. We are going to have to deal with that issue whether we had health insurance reform or didn't have health insurance reform. And, Mr. Speaker, they know that.

We also heard that we front-loaded the revenue in this bill and disguised the out-year costs. If that were the case, how is it possible that CBO would say that it actually reduces the deficit by more in the second 10 years than in the first 10 years?

The fact of the matter is this bill will increase Social Security revenue as employers provide more of their compensation in the form of wages that are subject to payroll taxes. Double counting is not the issue. The fact is it reduces the deficit, and CBO says that.

Now, CBO is the independent referee that we use in this body. They are like the guy on the football field, the referee, who calls the plays, calls when there are penalties and no penalties. Sometimes we like the call and sometimes we don't. But it is an unprecedented step to say that we are going to totally ignore the decisions and judgment of the independent CBO and we are going to replace that with our judgment for the purposes of deficit reduction calculations in legislation that goes to reducing our debt. That is a recipe for budget anarchy. It is a recipe for fiscal chaos. We should not go down that road.

The CBO has been very clear that the fiscally responsible thing to do is to move forward with the law in its place. We obviously can fix things as they come up that need to be addressed, specific items. But to repeal this wholesale will--the folks that we rely on as the independent, nonpartisan judges here say that repealing this bill as our colleagues are proposing to do will add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 20 years.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. HUELSKAMP. Mr. Speaker, as a result of this law, employers across America have discovered that onerous reporting requirements will force them to file 1099 forms for every vendor with which they do $600 worth of business. This past weekend, I visited with an accountant in my district who indicated he would have to expand his staff by 25 percent to accommodate all the extra redtape and paperwork.

Mr. Speaker, this is not the type of job creation American envisioned.

Additionally, businesses and labor unions alike have realized that ObamaCare is a bad deal, and at least 222 have sought waivers from having to comply with the law. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has approved special privilege exemptions for dozens of labor unions and the half a million union members they cover. Even more troubling is that Secretary Sebelius has been tardy in responding to a FOIA inquiry regarding the secretive details of these waiver requests.

Fortunately, rather than selective waivers for the politically connected, we have a universal remedy--repeal the law.

I urge my colleagues to heed the calls voters made last year during the debate and at the ballot box.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman that this body voted on a majority basis to repeal the 1099 provision.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I notice the gentleman mentioned CBO. What CBO said in that regard was that, because of the exchanges, there would be some people who would not seek their health care through employment. They would be liberated to be able to get it through the exchange. I'm glad the gentleman confirmed the importance of CBO numbers.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, all the charts in the world can't wish away the CBO letter of January 6 of this year which says that the premiums will go down in the employer market, that people, on average, will pay less in the individual market, and that this legislation will reduce the deficit and the debt over the next 20 years. Again, that is the call from the nonpartisan experts we have. We shouldn't be substituting our judgment for theirs.

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