Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership and that of the full Rules Committee on having to field some really strange notions masquerading as proposals to improve the lives of the American people. We see a lot of that these days.

This one on the floor today really takes the cake because it is essentially to pull the plug on the Affordable Care Act. While it says that they want to delay the cancelations that the insurance companies have written to policyholders, the bill does not mandate.

This is a conversation that is not an action, but it does violence to the bill in other ways. The idea that it was helping consumers was sort of the Trojan horse whose underbelly is poisonous in terms of the health and well-being of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to speak on the rule because I think it is really important for Members to vote against the rule as a point of fairness. If we reject this rule and allow the Rules Committee to come back to the floor with an opportunity for there to be a Democratic alternative, that would be fair. What we would do in the vote on the previous question, which I urge people to vote ``no'' on, would be able to vote ``yes,'' or consider voting ``yes,'' on a bill that does exactly what consumers need in terms of this cancelation area.

First of all, it would say that there would be a real delay--a real delay--for 1 year for the implementation in terms of the individual policyholders. That is just this piece of the bill that is the question--individual policyholders.

Ninety-five percent of the American people, as has been said, who have policies that they like can keep them. It is this 5 percent--and that is a lot of people, I don't want to minimize that--but, nonetheless, it is a discrete market.

Let's address that discrete market and in our previous question we bring up a bill that addresses that discrete market not only by enabling them to hold their policies for a year, but by requiring that the insurance companies must tell people not that you are canceled and we want to sign you up again at a higher cost; instead, insurance companies would be obliged to tell people what their options are, what their options are under the Affordable Care Act in terms of having no lifetime limits on their policies, no annual limits on their policies, no preexisting condition, increasing the cost of their policy, or preventing them from holding their policy should they become sick, A;

B, it would also make sure that the insurance companies tell people what their options are in the exchanges, that they may qualify for a subsidy. In that marketplace the insurance companies are competing--this is a free market, this exchange--they are competing for their policy; and, therefore, that has already lowered cost to consumers.

So they may have a better policy with better benefits at a lower cost and, if they qualify, get a subsidy to do it.

In addition to that, it is really important in every respect in everything we do, not only just for this individual marketplace, for people to understand the benefits of the Affordable Care Act that are available to them. I mentioned no preexisting condition, no annual limits, no lifetime limits, but also that already for over the past year young people can be on their parents' insurance. Over 3 million people have benefited in that regard. Tens of millions of seniors have benefited from the free prevention check-up--mammograms, whatever kinds of things--prevention and wellness exams free, no co-pay, no deductible.

Already seniors are experiencing lower costs for their prescription drugs because of the Affordable Care Act. Already small children cannot be discriminated against, nor their families, in seeking insurance because they have a preexisting condition.

Imagine a child born with a defect for life. They have a preexisting condition which will cost them dearly in terms of premiums, if they can even get insurance, and then it would be with limits. Not so. That has all changed.

That is why on this Upton bill which, as I said, not only does bad things to the Affordable Care Act in terms of disrupting the risk pools, it tries to masquerade as something that does something positive, which it does not. That is why the Upton bill is opposed by a broad coalition of groups: the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society Action Network, National Partnership for Women and Families, Paralyzed Veterans of America. Anyone with a preexisting medical condition--100 million people, families with people with preexisting medical conditions, all of them benefit. The stories are so glorious and so beautiful about what a difference the Affordable Care Act has made to families, especially those with small children or those with preexisting conditions, and to seniors. And, again, being a woman is no longer a preexisting medical condition.

So this is politics; it is not about policy. It isn't any attempt to improve the Affordable Care Act. One way to improve it, though, is what we have in our previous question: give the State insurance commissioners the authority, all of them--some of them have it--but ensure that all of them have the authority to investigate and act upon rate increases, as well as the nature of these letters that were sent out without the integrity that they should have had.

Again, we require that also in these letters the insurance companies make sure that people know what their opportunities are.

So what we are proposing today really does make a difference. In fact, we wanted to get this requirement of the insurance commissioners in the underlying bill, and then we said, okay, we will do that as an improvement. Today is the day that we can do that by voting ``no'' on the rule, enabling us to bring a bill to the floor that would do that.

I urge our colleagues to support the Affordable Care Act, support what it does for American families, stand with those who fought for Social Security, for Medicare, and affordable care for all Americans because these are three pillars of equal weight in terms of the economic and health security of the American people. They honor the vows of our Founders for life, a healthier life; liberty, the liberty to pursue your happiness so that you are not job locked, constrained by a policy, but free to follow your passion to be self-employed, to start a business, to change jobs, to be entrepreneurial--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Vote ``no'' on the rule.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I commend him for his great leadership in helping to pass the Affordable Care Act, honoring the vows of our Founders for liberty, the freedom to pursue their happiness. It is life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. A healthier life and freedom to pursue that happiness.

It is a funny thing when people talk about Washington, D.C., and how people don't get along well, we disagree. We have major disagreements on policy, and one of them is whether health care is a right for all in our country or a privilege for the few, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we are people and we serve in this institution, and we have some areas of agreement one day and the kaleidoscope changes the next day to the point where people are always surprised when I say to them, ``I pray for the Congress every day, and on Sunday especially. I pray for our Republican colleagues, as well as our Democratic colleagues, as well as the President of the United States, Barack Obama or George W. Bush, or whoever he may be, because the success of the President and the success of all of us is a success for the American people, if we can work together to find common ground for the public good.''

When I pray for all of us, I have wishes for us. I wish that my Republican colleagues could see how successful the Affordable Care Act is in California. I wish you could hear the stories of family after family after family being liberated, freed from the constraint

of being job-locked because the family has a preexisting condition so that now they can follow their passion and not be chained by a policy, follow their passion to be self-employed, to start a business, or to change jobs.

I wish you could hear all of these stories. I wish you would not close your mind to them because this initiative has been transformative. I would have hoped that whatever had been proposed would be to strengthen or improve it, and we all have the humility to know that any bill, whatever our pride of involvement in it is, can be improved.

That is why it is particularly disappointing to come to the floor today to see a bill that says to the Affordable Care Act and all of these people with all of their stories, we are going to unravel this, we are going to unravel all of the good things, whether it is preexisting conditions, ending that discrimination, whether it is lifetime limits, whether it is annual limits, whether it is being a women no longer being a preexisting condition, whether it is for seniors or for kids 18-26 years old or for little children, even now, before the bill is fully enacted. So I hope and I pray, and I wish that our colleagues could see the evidence and that the decisions would be evidence-based rather than politically motivated.

I think it is really important what this Congress does today. Each Member has to make his or her own decisions, but the fact is that in this body, our words weigh a ton and our votes are even weightier than that. I hope the message that comes out of this Congress is that there is a discussion going on, but there is a values decision that has been made in favor of the American people. If we have to thread a needle to get a result, let's do that, but let's not unravel the whole sweater because that would not be a comfort to the American people.

Let's act to strengthen, not weaken. Let's vote ``no'' on the Upton bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source