Date: 2015-10-23
Speaker: TOM PRICE (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Georgia

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. this year. for the first time in over a decade. Congress adopted a 10year balanced budget agreement. The House and Senate were able to agree on a plan that would reduce spending by over $5 trillion. save and strengthen important health and retirement programs. provide for a strong national defense. and support a growing economy with greater opportunity for more Americans to achieve their dreams. It is a bold plan at a time in our Nations history when we face tremendous fiscal and economic challenges. challenges that are being fueled by an ineffective. inefficient. and unaccountable government bureaucracy right here in Washington. It is this bureaucracy that is interfering in the daily lives and livelihoods of the American people. The most prominent example of how intrusive Washington has become is the Presidents healthcare law. ObamaCare imposes taxes and onerous mandates on individuals. families. and job creators. It undermines the sacred doctorpatient relationship. It is driving up the cost of health care with higher premiums and higher deductibles. while destroying access to quality. innovative healthcare choices. It is discouraging work and making job creation and economic growth more challenging. All this. Mr. Speaker. at a time when we are experiencing the worst economic recovery in the modern era. Now. when Congress passed our bicameral budget resolution earlier this year. we initiated a powerful process called reconciliation. Under reconciliation. we are able to move legislation through the House and the Senate in an expedited manner and put a bill on the Presidents desk. So with the legislation before us today. the Restoring Americans Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act. we are using this powerful budgetary tool to help end ObamaCares attack on Americans health care and its attack on our economy. We are doing so to pave the way for a more appropriate. responsive. patientcentered healthcare system that puts patients. families. and doctors in charge of health care. not Washington. D.C. Under the guidelines of our budget and the rules governing reconciliation. three committees in the Housethe Education and Workforce Committee. the Ways and Means Committee. and the Energy and Commerce Committeeproduced individual pieces of legislation to repeal major components of ObamaCare. The House Budget Committee then took those pieces and combined them into a single bill that we have now brought to the House floor today. The Restoring Americans Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act repeals the individual and the employer mandates. It repeals the onerous Cadillac tax. it repeals the medical device tax. and it repeals an ObamaCare slush fund. as well as undue demands on employers and employees. Additionally. it prohibits. for 1 year. taxpayer dollars from being used to pay abortion providers that are prohibited under the legislation. while dedicating additional resourcesthat is. more money. Mr. Speakerto community healthcare centers across this country for womens health care. Taken together. the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that this legislation will lower deficits by $130 billion over the 10year budget window. Roughly $51 billion of those savings would come from the positive macroeconomic effect of what we are proposing. CBO and JCT estimate that this bill will lead to an increase in the labor supply. an increase in economic growth. an increase in capital investment. and an increase in total compensation. That is takehome pay. Mr. Speaker. It would also eliminate work disincentives while decreasing Federal borrowing. The major components of ObamaCare that are repealed under this legislation represent the core of the coercive nature of the Presidents healthcare law. policies that are forcing people into a healthcare system that Washington is simultaneously making more expensive. less accessible. lower quality. and with fewer choices. Nothing in what we are proposing would take insurance coverage away from Americans or their families or preclude anyone from purchasing coverage. What we are doing is freeing Americans from government coercion. The provisions included in this legislation also share another important distinction. and that is that they all fall within the limited scope of the reconciliation process. This is vitally important. Reconciliation is not a silver bullet. There are limitations. And if a piece of legislation breaches those limitations. it runs the risk of derailing the entire process. Ultimately. however. Mr. Speaker. this discussion is not about process. It is about people. It is about the men and women. the families that we have the privilege of representing who know that the only folks who should be making personal healthcare decisions are individuals. their doctors. and their families. This debate is about the millions of Americans who have seen their premiums go up and their deductibles go up and their outofpocket costs skyrocket after being told that the law. in fact. would bring those costs down. which it has not. This is about lowwage workers. Mr. Speaker2.6 million. according to the Hoover Institutionwho are at risk of seeing their working hours cut because of ObamaCare. This is about those Americans. particularly the one in four Americans living in rural parts of our country who found that. in many cases. their healthcare coverage comes with such narrow provider networks that they have to travel long distances to find the treatment that they need and run the risk of even higher costs. Mr. Speaker. we can do better. We can do better by these Americans and all Americans who long for a healthcare system that is responsive to their needs. that is accessible and affordable and not contributing to the decline of economic opportunity and job security. There are positive patientcentered solutions that would advance the cause of quality health care in this country. and none of them require handing more authority over to Washington. ObamaCare puts Washington in charge. We want to put the American people in charge of their healthcare decisions. and an important step in that direction is this legislation that we have before us today. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation. I look forward to this debate and moving forward on this effort and putting a bill on the Presidents desk. I reserve the balance of my time.