Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1213, Repealing Mandatory Funding for State Health Insurance Exchanges, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1214, Repealing Mandatory Funding for School Health Center Construction
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I guess I don't understand. I don't understand what our Republican colleagues want to accomplish here.
They talk about free market. They talk about the need to provide options and opportunities. I think that is exactly what an exchange does, so I don't quite understand what this is all about.
I was the insurance commissioner, the elected insurance commissioner in California in 1991, and we set up an exchange. Unfortunately, Governor Wilson vetoed it; otherwise, we would have had this exchange years ago. And 1 year ago, the California legislature, with the signature of a Republican, Governor Schwarzenegger, created an exchange based upon the Affordable Health Care Act and they want to put it into effect.
The Republican proposal here on the floor would make it impossible for California to do what it wants to do; that is, set up a marketplace in which people have access to insurance. The notion being that, by creating the exchange, you spread the risk over many, many different populations so that, like a huge corporation, you have an opportunity as an individual purchaser or a small business to participate in a large pool and accept the lower rate of insurance.
So what is this all about? What are you trying to accomplish here? Is it some ideology that you just simply can't stand the Affordable Health Care Act and you want to rip it apart piece by piece? Apparently so. And you just don't want to stop there. You are going after Medicare, a program that has been in effect for 42 years, that provides a universal insurance policy to anyone over 65. You are going to terminate Medicare. What is that all about? And give it to an insurance company and not have an exchange?
So what is an individual going to do when they are 65 and possessing all kinds of preexisting conditions? Go without insurance? Be at the mercy of the insurance company? And, by the way, you want to repeal all of the insurance reforms, all of the protections that individuals have in the Affordable Health Care Act.
This doesn't make much sense to me. I don't understand what your goal is here, except maybe to have some political scorecard you can say, yeah, we repealed the Affordable Health Care Act. Good for us. But what effect to the population of America? No exchanges? They are gone. No opportunity for small businesses to enjoy a large market, a large pool in which they can have a lower price? They are gone.
Oh, I see. You can have an association health plan. I spent 8 years of my life chasing after association health plans that were frauds. They were out and out frauds, sold across State lines.
Is that what you want? Apparently so. I don't get it.
I don't understand what the goal is here. The Affordable Health Care Act establishes an exchange allowing individuals and small businesses to be part of a large pool, to have four different options on their insurance. And you want to do away with it. I don't get it. You want to do away with clinics in schools so that kids can have access to health care. I don't understand.
You have cut all the money out from the community clinics so that people have to go to the emergency rooms in a more expensive situation. What is this all about? I don't understand what the goal is that our Republican colleagues have in mind. The exchanges make sense. They create a marketplace for small businesses.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. POLIS. I will be happy to yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from California.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The exchanges create a market, ladies and gentlemen. They create a market. It is a market-driven program in which competition occurs, competition between the insurance companies who have to offer quality and price.
Have you got a problem with competition? Apparently so. You want to do away with the exchanges. Apparently what you really want to do is to hand the entire game over to the insurance companies, removing all of the controls, removing all of the necessity for them to compete, and apparently create some sort of an association plan so the public can be ripped off.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's be very, very clear about this. The Republican proposal, the Republican budget proposal that is before this Congress, terminates Medicare as we have had it since 1965. For those young men and women who are not yet 55, they will never see Medicare. It's over. And instead of having Medicare, which is a guaranteed health insurance program, when they retire at the age of 65, they will be given a voucher that will be worth a percentage of what the insurance will cost. They will be thrown into the market at an age where they have preexisting conditions. And under the Republican proposal, there are no--there are no ways in which they are going to be protected from the insurance companies, who we know have one motive, and that is profit before people. Profit before people is the way it has been for the health insurance companies from the get-go, and that is precisely what the Republicans want to give us.
We will not have it. While they're at it, they want to take those reductions in Medicare expenditures and continue giving money to the wealthiest people in America so that the wealthiest people in America can continue to enjoy ever more wealth, while the middle class enjoys ever more poverty. It is an abomination, and there is no way this Nation should abandon a proven program that for 42 years has provided quality medical care to seniors.
Now, do you want to go after the cost in medicine? Then let's go after the overall cost of medicine, not deny tomorrow's seniors the benefit of Medicare. It is time to understand precisely what the Republican budget does. It terminates Medicare, while giving benefits to the wealthiest Americans. It should not happen.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source