No Subsidies Without Verification Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, this administration's been very proud of the work that they have done to reduce fraud in Medicare, that they have done to reduce fraud in durable medical equipment. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a huge bust in Puerto Rico trying to deal with Social Security disability fraud that has happened there for years.

But for whatever reason, they have chosen, on this piece of legislation, to look the other way, to actually turn away and say we're going to allow people to self-verify whether they're eligible for the subsidies, when right now people don't even know if they're eligible for the subsidies.

If I walked up to 100 people on the street today and asked them the two questions on that--does your employer provide you a qualified health plan--most of them would say: I have no idea. What's a qualified health plan?

And then if I said, Do you qualify for the subsidies?, just about every American would say: I don't know. I have no idea.

Yet, they're being asked, when no one knows right now, to self-verify that you know one way or the other. They don't have the information. They don't know the information. We don't even know what's going to happen on the exchanges yet. That's not been released yet, and it starts in 3 weeks.

So to say to people something that doesn't even exist yet, you've got to be able to say whether you certify for it or not, whether you can say that, yes, I do qualify for, this is absurd.

We're just asking the simple question: Shouldn't we stick with the original plan on this if we're going to do this?

The law itself said that it had to be certified. Then they created a waiver out of thin air and said, no, this is going to be too complicated; we're going to delay that for a while.

Then people say, what's your plan?

I can tell you, my State is begging to keep our own plan for Insure Oklahoma. We're having to go back to the Federal Government and request that we can keep the plan we've had for a while taking care of those in poverty. This is absurd.

There is a straightforward, simple way to do this that can be done; but, instead, we've created this convoluted mess.

Just this morning I've heard people on the other side say that the train has left the station on this. I've heard health care reform, that train is rolling.

Well, I can tell you, in the Senate the Democrats are saying, at least some of them are saying, this is a train wreck. And I agree.

The train has left the station, and if we don't step out and say this has to stop, then we'll continue to have more and more fraud. We have got to take this on and take it on right now.

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