Date: 2011-01-19
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. many of us believe we should focus our efforts and energy on measures to help put people back to work rather than on a bill that takes away important patient and consumer protections. And we dont think it makes much sense to debate a bill that thankfully will go nowhere in the Senate and would certainly be vetoed by the President. However. the new Republican majority is certainly entitled to use its time here as it chooses. And while many of us believe our time would be better spent focusing on jobs. I do believe that this debate may help clear up many of the myths and misinformation about the health care law signed by President Obama. The issue of health care is personal to every American individual and family. That is why this debate can become so emotional and heated. Let us have a vigorous. spirited debate. But let us work to ensure the debate generates more light than heat. and illuminates rather than obscures the key issues. The insurance reforms that have taken effect since last March are already making a huge and positive difference in the lives of millions of American families. We wish our Republican colleagues would have taken a least a few days. a few hours to have Congressional hearings to listen to those individuals and families. The new Republican majority said it wanted to listen. but you have not invited a single American outside of this Congress to a hearing to testify on the repeal bill we are debating here today. As a result. those of us who oppose the efforts to strip away important patient protections had to organize an unofficial hearing to listen to testimony from our fellow Americans. We heard stories from across America about why it is such a bad idea to repeal. to take away the many protections patients and consumers finally have to fight the abusive practices of some insurance companies. We heard the moms and dads of young people tell you how relieved they are that their sons and daughters are no longer kicked off their health insurance policies at age 19 or when they graduate from college. but can now stay on their parents plan until age 26. As a result. if their 22yearold gets very sick or gets into a terrible accident. that 22yearold can get care they need without the family going bankrupt. We heard from moms and dads with kids who have cancer. asthma. or diabetes or other preexisting conditions tell how relieved they are that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to those kids. We heard senior citizens who were unable to pay huge bills for essential prescription drugs tell you how relieved they are thatas of January 1stthey are now paying less and can afford the medicines their doctors say they need. We heard from small businesses that are already using the tax credits to be able to purchase affordable health care coverage for their employees. And as a result of being able to purchase more affordable health care. small businesses have been able to hire more employees. Now the new Republican majority has used a lot of supercharged and inaccurate rhetoric to support their claims. They even named their bill the "Repealing the JobKilling Health Care Law Act"-as if putting those words in the title and saying them over and over somehow makes it true. It doesnt and they arent. Let me be clearthere is only one job that will no longer be available as a result of the health reform bill. and that is the job of the guy at the insurance company who was told to examine the fine print in your insurance policythe kind you can only read with a magnifying glassand come up with reasons why the insurance company will not pay for the care you need when you need it. even though you had been dutifully paying your premiums all along. The reform bill signed by the president banned those abuses. With that solitary exception. the health insurance reform law will create jobs. More people will be providing more cost effective health care services to ensure that more Americans are healthy and productive at work. And the health reform billwhen it fully kicksin in 2014will finally give Americans the freedom to move from job to job without fear of losing their coverage. That means more Americans will be able to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams and start their own businesses without fear of losing their health insurance. Now. we all recognize that ever rising health insurance premiums are making insurance less affordable for millions of Americans. Indeed. between the years 2000 and 2006. health insurance premiums doubledwent up 100 percentand the profits of the major health insurance companies quadrupled. The insurance industry loved that pattern. What did the Congress do during those years to stop those skyrocketing premiums? Nothing. By contrast. the health reform bill signed by President Obama finally provides the chance to stop those skyrocketing premiums. Thats why it was so bitterly fought by the insurance industry and why they would like to see it repealed. Now some critics claim that the continued rise in health insurance premiums this year is proof that the health care bill is not working. But that claim exploits widespread confusion about how the bill works. Anyone who has read the billand I do encourage all Members to read the billknows that the key insurance market reforms in the bill dont even take effect until the year 2014. That is because the market reforms cannot be implemented overnight without disruption to the system. But when those reforms are fully implemented in 2014. premiums will no longer accelerate at warp speed. Those reforms will change the very inefficient system that contributes to rising premiums. As of today. all of us who have health insurance coveragewe pick up the tab for those who dont. We pay higher premiums because of those who pay none. but get their primary care in the emergency room. That broken system results in less preventive care and higher premiums. Those premiums will come down in 2014 once everyone takes personal responsibility for purchasing their own coverage and the risks are pooled throughout the population. Now. when market reforms kickin fully in 2014. the nonpartisan. independent CBO has indicated that individuals and families will be able to pay less for their health coverage. In their letter to Speaker BOEHNER. CBO projects that premiums for employer based coverage will rise if you repeal the bill. And CBO indicates that the majority of people in the individual market will get fewer benefits and pay more for coverage if you repeal the billbecause you eliminate the tax credits. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Officethe CBOhas also said something else about the health care bill signed by President Obama. They have calculated that it will reduce our national deficit by over $1.4 trillion over the next twenty years. Now many people ask how that can be possible. How can a health reform bill that provides more affordable access to health care for millions of Americans reduce the deficit? The answer is simple: those expansions were more than paid for by eliminating huge taxpayer subsidies that were flowing to certain health insurance companies. by incentivizing more efficient care. and by having the top 2% income earners contribute more in payroll taxes. That is the budget math of the health care reform bill. This means that by repealing the bill signed by President Obama. Republicans would add over $1.4 trillion to the deficit. adding to our debt to China and others. Now. because they dont like the CBO deficit numbers they have tried to discredit them. But these criticisms are coming from the same people who praised many of the CBOs earlier estimates during the debate on the health care bill. In other words. when they like what the CBO has to say. they endorse their numbers. but when the CBO presents an inconvenient budget truth. they trash the numbers. CBO is the independent budget referee for the Congress. Just as in football. sometimes you agree with the referee. sometimes you dont. But you dont get to kick the referee off the field and substitute your own call. Yet that is exactly what our Republican colleagues seek to do. Only this is not a sports game. they are playing these games with the federal budget. It is unprecedented and fiscally reckless. It is Enronstyle accounting that will lead to budget anarchy and fiscal chaos. So much for fiscal accountability. Mr. Speaker. those of us who support the health care reform law know that it is not perfect and certain adjustments should be made as we implement the reforms. In fact. last year this House tried to remove the burdensome 1099 provisions. and the Senate was unable to pass similar legislation. But making necessary adjustments is one thing. Completely eliminating important patient and consumer protections that are currently benefiting millions of American families would be a historic mistake. The insurance industry would celebrate at the expense of the American people. Lets put health care providers in charge of health care decisions. not the insurance industry. We have seen this narrative play out at other times in our history. After the historic passage of Social Security in 1935. its Republican opponents called it "a cruel hoax" and "a fraud on the working man." After the historic passage of Medicare in 1965. we heard the same distortions. Mr. Speaker. let us not make the mistake of repealing health care reform. I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided and mislabeled bill. Mr. Speaker. this House is a place to have great debates where we can openly air differences of opinion. But we should try in the process to separate differences of opinion from the facts of the case. Earlier this month. with the passage of the Rules package. there was an effort to provide a whole new approach to accounting when it comes to the budget deficit. In essence. what the rules say is that we are going to exempt the budgetary effects of certain measures. including repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The majority has written into the governing rules of the House a mechanism to disguise the true budget deficit impact of repealing this legislation. And as a result. today the Chairman of the House Budget Committee inserted a statement into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD which asserts that H.R. 2. the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. will have no budgetary effect at all. In fact. CBO s preliminary estimate of the bill is that it would increase the deficit by $230 billion over ten years. What the majority is doing is rank budget gimmickry of the worst kind. It is the job of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to inform us of the deficit impact of legislation we pass in this House. Sometimes we agree with their estimates. sometimes we disagree. But the whole budget process will collapse in chaos if we decide to write the political budget estimates of individual Members of Congress into these bills and ignore the estimates of the professionals. It is like being at a football game and when the referee makes a call. and you dont like the call. you throw the referee off of the field and think that your team gets to make the call instead. We should all recognize. as Republicans and Democrats. that we will have budget anarchy if we think that we can have Members of Congress in a politically charged environment substitute their own judgment for that of CBO. With this action. the majority is committing budget malpractice. It is a surefire way to run up the red ink in this country over a period of time.