Repealing Mandatory Funding for State Health Insurance Exchanges

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this attempt to defund one of the central cost-cutting reforms of the Affordable Care Act. Like so much in the majority's budget, this bill takes money out of families' pockets and gives it to the health insurance industry.

The exchanges will give all Americans the chance to prosper from what Members of Congress and large employers have enjoyed for years: large group rates, lower administrative costs, greater transparency. They also expand choices, giving everyone access to a much fuller range of plans. The exchanges work to create real competition in the health industry and thus drive costs down for everyone.

But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to place the control again in the hands of the health insurance industry and the insurance companies. Given what they are prepared to do in the Republican budget by ending Medicare and throwing seniors to the private insurance market, this is in the same vein.

This bill wants to eliminate this free market reform and allow insurers to continue to act as monopolies. According to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, which is independent and nonpartisan, it will knock 2 million people out of the exchanges, increase health insurance premiums, and leave 50,000 more Americans uninsured. In fact, 85 percent of the so-called savings here comes from cutting off Americans' access to health insurance.

This is not the direction we want to go. We want to cover more people, reduce health care costs. This bill raises premiums; it raises the number of uninsured in America. I urge my colleagues to reject it.

A final point. We in this body are very fortunate. We have health insurance. Our kids have health insurance. When we get ill, we go to the head of the line, the same as our families. Every single time we take to this floor, the majority in this body wants to repeal health care reform, wants to take away the opportunity from millions of Americans to have the same kind of health care coverage that Members of Congress and their families have.

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