Correcting the Enrollment Of H.R. 1473

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, instead of working to create jobs, reduce the deficit and do the business of the American people, this majority has been consumed for months now with trying to repeal health care reform. Like the attempted repeal we saw in the first week of this Congress, like the Tea Party budget passed in February and like the many attempts we have seen to decimate health care reform piece by piece since, this concurrent resolution, once again, tries to take away the consumer protection of the Affordable Care Act and tries to put insurance companies back in charge. It is a further demonstration of the majority's special interest priorities and of their hypocrisy on job creation and deficit reduction.

Passing this resolution will destroy jobs in the health professions. It will slow job growth by 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year. It will increase medical spending and add nearly $2,000 to the average family's insurance premium. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it will add $230 billion to the deficit within 10 years and $1 trillion more within 20 years. Let me repeat that. This amendment adds billions and ultimately trillions of dollars to the deficit, starting with $5.5 billion this year.

This is not what we promised the American people. They want us to cut the deficit, to get rid of special interest waste, like oil company subsidies and breaks for corporate lobbyists. Instead, the majority wants to let insurance companies discriminate against people with preexisting conditions, even children with preexisting conditions once again. They want to see women denied coverage because they survived breast cancer or were victims of domestic violence or had c-sections. They want to see 4 million small businesses lose $40 billion in tax credits and seniors' health care and drug costs continue to rise at staggering rates.

We are here to serve the needs of the American people, not the whims of the health insurance companies. This resolution will cost money and cost lives, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

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Ms. DeLAURO. I am delighted to hear the gentleman from Montana say he opposes cuts to Medicare. That means, I am going to assume, that he will vote against the Ryan budget as well.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

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Ms. DeLAURO. In that 15 seconds, let me just say they will defund health care. They will end Medicare. They're going to kick seniors out of nursing homes and send our health care back to the insurance companies. It shows you where my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this measure.

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