Time for Healthcare Solutions That Lower Costs and Empower Patients

Floor Speech

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for the past 2 years, my email inbox, mailbox, and phone lines have been flooded with reports of canceled health insurance plans, soaring premiums, increased deductibles, and exasperated constituents trying to navigate the confusing Washington bureaucracy that is ObamaCare.

Members of Congress have to buy their health insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges along with millions of other Americans, and I experienced many of the same frustrations, including the nightmare of navigating a confusing, unfinished Web site.

Despite its central promise, the Affordable Care Act has proved to be anything but affordable for many North Carolinians, and the Supreme Court's recent decision in King v. Burwell doesn't change that fact.

House Republicans are continuing our efforts to minimize the damage caused by ObamaCare. We have passed legislation that would permanently repeal ObamaCare's 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, which has hindered innovation as well as restricted growth and job creation in an industry that has improved the quality of life of millions around the world.

We have voted to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which was created under the President's healthcare law and gives a panel of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats sweeping authority to slash Medicare payments to providers or eliminate payments for certain treatments and procedures altogether.

The House has passed legislation that would change ObamaCare's 30-hour definition of full-time employment and restore the traditional 40-hour workweek. From adjunct professors to hourly workers, I have heard from constituents across North Carolina's Fifth District who have one thing in common: their hours are being reduced.

ObamaCare has placed an undue burden on employers and their employees by undermining the 40-hour workweek, which has long been the standard for full-time work.

We have voted to make it easier to hire veterans by exempting those who already have health insurance from being counted as full-time employees under the President's healthcare law. No employer should be penalized for hiring a veteran, and no veteran should be unemployed because of ObamaCare.

However, the best approach to solving the multitude of problems resulting from ObamaCare is to unite behind a complete repeal of the law and replace it with solutions that lower costs and empower patients to choose the care that is right for them.

I recently signed on as a cosponsor of H.R. 2653, the American Health Care Reform Act. This bill would repeal ObamaCare completely and allow a standard deduction for health insurance that treats individually purchased plans and employer-sponsored plans the same, making sure that all Americans receive the same tax benefits for health care.

H.R. 2653 would return decisions about healthcare and insurance coverage to patients. It is people, not government, who can best determine the coverage and services that meet their needs.

A government takeover of health care is not what Americans asked for and certainly not what we can afford.

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