[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 38 (Tuesday, March 16, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1505-H1510]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEALTH CARE REFORM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for
60 minutes.
Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate the opportunity to come up and
continue the discussion on health care from a little different
perspective than my friends on the other side have been giving the
American people.
I want to talk about the need for health care reform in the United
States of America and what we need to do here in the Congress to get it
done.
We had a nice discussion yesterday in Cleveland with the President of
the
[[Page H1506]]
United States. I've been one who has said that if we're going to do
this, we need to do it. We have got other issues that we're dealing
with simultaneously now with jobs, passing a second jobs bill. My
community back in northeast Ohio has benefited a great deal from the
original stimulus package that has passed here. But we need to continue
the work of getting the American people back to work. And in the short
term, that means job packages, that means financial reform so we should
bring some integrity back.
But in the next week or so, we have to pass this health care bill.
And I know there's been a lot of controversy surrounding this bill.
There's been an extended discussion over the course of the last year or
so on this issue. We have talked about all of the issues, and now it's
time for us to have a vote in the House of Representatives--hopefully
here in the next week--and pass this bill so that we can move the
country forward and start addressing the other issues with regulatory
reform on Wall Street, trying to bring some discipline back to the
financial system. It's also allowing us to go back and continue to
focus on the jobs issue.
But under this bill, you talk about long-term economic growth as we
try to be competitive in the United States, globally competitive
competing with China, competing with India. The American businessperson
now has an anchor strapped around their neck in the form of health care
costs. And if we think that we can continue to grow our economy, hire
American workers, make the proper capital investments, make the
investments in technology, if our businesses are asked to compete while
dealing with the health care system that over the last 5 years has
increased over 120 percent for small business people, we are asking our
small business owners to go into the shark-infested waters of the
insurance market so that they can cover their citizens, their workers,
and then ask to compete on the global playing field.
{time} 2045
They can't do it. The small business people are screaming for health
care reform. Now, you want to get into an ideological battle, but what
we are trying to deal with on this side of the aisle are practical,
pragmatic solutions to the problems that are facing us, looking at the
facts, looking at the issues that are facing our country, and
addressing those issues in a bipartisan way.
I know many on the other side have said, well, we have been locked
out of the debate. I want to know one time when the last President
spent 7 hours sitting around a table with people from both parties to
discuss any issue, let alone health care. President Bush never sat
down, Madam Speaker, for 7 hours. President Bush never came to our
caucus and had the kind of discussion and question and answer that
President Obama had a few months ago when he went to the Republican
Caucus. And I think this shows why he is the President of the United
States, by dealing directly with their questions. He was able to do
that and has included the Republicans and tried to include the
Republicans every single step of the way.
But the Republicans are getting their marching orders from their
pollsters and their consultants. And one of the memos was leaked early
last year, as many of us remember, that said to the Republican Caucus,
do not let Obama pass health care, because he will succeed, and the
Democrats will succeed, and you will be in the minority for decades.
That is what their consultants told them.
So right from the get-go, our friends on the other side of the aisle
had no interest in being part of the solution here because their
pollsters were telling them that they had to defeat this bill before we
even knew what the bill was. Our friends on the other side were calling
it socialism and government-run medicine before we even had a bill to
actually look at and discuss.
So they got the media machine all cranked up, got everybody all fired
up before we even had something to talk about. So fast forward through
a long discussion, long talks where we included both sides of the aisle
to try to solve these problems, and now we have a solution. We have a
compromise that President Obama has submitted for us to vote on. And we
continue to get some numbers, hopefully here tonight, on the exact
scoring, but we are close, we know give or take a few bucks where we
are at, and we know that this bill will cover 30 million more Americans
and this bill has a number of issues in it that are going to benefit
the American people.
Let's look at some of the issues, some of the pieces of this
legislation that will be implemented within the year. Small business
tax credits, the President's proposal will allow small businesses tax
credits up to 35 percent. We close the doughnut hole in Medicare. Now
our seniors have $2,000, $3,000, where it's covered through Medicare
part D, and then they fall into a doughnut hole for months and months
and months until part D picks back up again several thousand dollars
later. Our Medicare recipients have to come out of pocket. We close
that hole up. We close that doughnut hole up.
We end the rescissions so that insurance companies can't kick you off
the rolls once you get sick. We eliminate insurance companies from
being able to deny people coverage because they have a preexisting
condition. That is in this bill. We have a provision in this bill that
says no child can be denied health insurance because they may have a
preexisting condition. We eliminate the lifetime caps of policies so
that when someone in your family gets sick and they need coverage, that
all of a sudden the insurance company can't say, well, you have spent
your allotted amount of money, you're on your own.
It is our moral responsibility to prevent millions of Americans from
getting hurt, from getting hurt under the current health care system.
And there is no denying it: free preventative care under Medicare under
this provision, free Medicare under private plans in this piece that we
are putting together here.
Also for people who are 55 and older, between 55 and 64, this creates
a temporary reinsurance program until we get the exchange up and
running to help offset the cost of expensive health claims for
employers that provide health care benefits for those people between 55
and 64 years old. That's what's in this bill. Those are the things that
just come online this year. And the improvements will continue.
This is a good bill. Is this a perfect bill? Of course it's not. But
we have people on the left saying it doesn't go far enough and voting
against the bill, and we have people on the right saying it's
socialized medicine. But if it were socialized medicine, people on the
left would be voting for it.
This is a pragmatic bill, a pragmatic solution to the health care
crisis in the United States of America. And our friends on the other
side of the aisle and our friends in the insurance industry say that we
should start all over, we should start from scratch, get out a blank
sheet of paper. Well, maybe the insurance industry should start from
scratch and go back to 1992 and '93 and revoke all of their increases
that they have given to the American insurance consumer over the last
20 years or so, rescind all of those increases. You start over. Let the
insurance industry start over, and then maybe we can consider starting
over.
But people in my district over the last few months, few days, few
weeks, were getting 20, 30, 40, 50 percent increases. Small businesses
are almost going bankrupt because of the increase of 50 percent to
their health care costs. This fixes it. This allows small businesses to
go into the exchange, to get tax credits so that they can provide
insurance for their employees.
Now, some of those things that I read, and I know a lot of our
friends on the other side say that people don't want this, here is the
poll that says American people don't want this. And I'm the first to
recognize and acknowledge that we probably haven't done a very good job
of telling the American people what's in this bill. And that was the
essence of Speaker Pelosi's comments about when you pass the bill
you'll find out what's in it, meaning that when we pass the bill, the
rhetoric and the fiction that has surrounded this bill for the longest
time will fall away, and there will be a document that we can all point
at, and the American people between now and November will be able to
look at what has passed.
We know what's in this bill. We've been debating this for a month. I
like how our friends on the other side in one breath say we're trying
to jam it
[[Page H1507]]
through, and then you look, and the American people are tired of the
debates. But you can't have it both ways.
Now all of those things that I mentioned, here is a Kaiser poll: tax
credits for small business, 73 percent of the American people more
likely to support the bill. Tax credits are in the bill. In fact, these
are all in the bill. Insurance exchanges, 67 percent of the American
people support the insurance exchanges. The ability to keep what you
have, 66 percent of the American people are more likely to support this
bill if you can keep what you have. You can keep what you have in this
bill. Ban preexisting condition denials, 63 percent are more likely to
support this provision of banning preexisting conditions denials.
Expanding Medicaid, which is what we do, 62 percent; dependent coverage
through 26 which means if you're 26 or under, you can stay on your
parents' insurance. How many people support it? Sixty percent. Closing
the Medicare doughnut holes, as I mentioned earlier, 60 percent;
subsidy assistance to individuals, 67 percent more likely to support
the bill.
So we have not done a good job of messaging this bill, but I will
tell you what is going to happen. We are going to have an election in
November, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the
debate because in the debate our friends on the other side are going to
want to repeal this piece of legislation. They are going to run their
campaign in November about repealing health care reform.
So they are going to have to go out and run commercials saying, those
small businesses tax credits are up to 35 percent, we want to repeal
them. The ban on preexisting conditions, we want to repeal that. The
ban that says no kid, no child can be denied because they have a
preexisting condition, they're going to run a campaign in the fall
saying, we want to repeal that. The lifetime caps that we're going to
eliminate so you can get coverage no matter how sick you get, our
friends on the other side are going to run an election saying, we want
to repeal that.
The subsidies that people are going to get so that they can afford
health insurance, our friends on the other side are going to run a
campaign in November saying, we want to repeal that. Helping people 55
to 64 get reinsured, they're going to want to repeal that. Closing the
doughnut hole in Medicare, I can't wait to go to the senior centers in
my district when this has already been implemented and we've started to
close that doughnut hole and the seniors have seen some of the
progress, and we go in there and we say, our opponents want to repeal
that provision where we closed up that doughnut hole.
Let's have this debate. Let's have this discussion. Let's do it.
That's what this is all about. We implement our agenda, then we go out
and defend it. And we know what happened. The 8 years, more like almost
two decades, 14 years, 12 years actually, that our friends on the other
side were in charge, and then with President Bush controlling the
House, the Senate, the White House, our Republican friends on the other
side had an opportunity to implement their political philosophy.
House, Senate, White House, we got their supply side economics, we
got their foreign policy, we got their health care policy, we got their
energy policy and we got their education policy. And look what
happened. We got their Wall Street policy, and look what happened. We
had a collapse of the financial markets, we had college tuition balloon
through the roof, we had energy costs balloon throughout the roof, we
had health care costs balloon through the roof, the collapse of our
economic system, a prescription drug bill that was not paid for with a
doughnut hole you could drive a truck through, and a foreign policy
that forced us to a war, an elective war in Iraq.
All of these things were implemented when our friends were in charge.
And we had elections on those. And now we are going to pass health
care, and we are going to pass our agenda and you look and you see what
happened with this stimulus package, the economy is starting to open
up, trying to straighten up Wall Street. But we know we can't move
forward until we get health care costs under control. We know small
businesses are never really going to be able to grow at the pace and
the capacity that they need to grow to with this health care anchor
hanging around their neck.
Now, I believe that, and many of us on this side of the aisle
believe, the government has a moral mission, a mission, a moral mission
to protect its citizens. Whether it be terrorists or criminals on the
street, there is a moral mission to the government to protect people.
And that doesn't stop at the borders. That doesn't just stop with the
issues of crime. That responsibility hits every aspect of our society.
And if we have an industry that is hurting people, then we have a
responsibility to step in and push back that industry and say enough is
enough. You're hurting people.
In our country, the government has a moral mission to stop that from
happening. That is what this debate is all about, yes, the role and the
responsibility of government. And the government is not allowed to just
completely step aside while industry abuses happen and happen and
happen.
{time} 2100
And that is what this debate is about. That is what this bill of
rights, health care bill of rights is all about.
And our friends on the other side say, We are for this stuff. They
say, We are for it. You pull it out; we are for it.
Well, that is interesting, because we had some votes over the last
day or so in committee. This is the House Budget Committee that is
starting to pass the legislation that is going to be needed.
Here we go. Protecting Medicare for America's seniors and closing the
prescription drug doughnut hole, 15 Republicans voted against it.
Closing the doughnut hole, voted against it. If you talk to them,
Well, we are for closing the doughnut hole. We have got to close the
doughnut hole.
Protecting Americans from insurance caps, as I just talked about, and
banning annual and lifetime limits on health care coverage, 15
Republicans voted ``no,'' we don't want to do that.
Holding health insurance companies accountable, 15 Republicans voting
``no.''
Bringing down the cost of health insurance for everyone and providing
tax credits to small businesses, all of them voted ``no.'' Every
Republican on the Budget Committee voted ``no'' for giving tax credits
to small business people.
I mean, this is the equivalent of our friends on the other side who
all voted against the stimulus package, and then they go back to their
districts when money is coming in and they say, This bridge, this road,
this money is going to create jobs in our district.
But you voted ``no'' against the stimulus package. Don't tell
anybody. That is the kind of thing that has been going on in
Washington. That is called the old Potomac two-step. The old Potomac
two-step.
So we have these provisions in this bill that, when you pull them out
and you explain them to the American people, have anywhere from 57 to
73 percent. This is what the American people have been crying out for.
And when this bill passes, we are going to have a lot to campaign on
and run on.
But our friends on the other side like to talk a little bit about
polarizing issues. One of the most recent polarizing issues that they
have tried to pull out is the issue of abortion and trying to say that
this is going to publicly fund abortions.
Well, we have a letter here from, I believe, 25 or so of the top pro-
life citizens in our country: Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland
Church. I believe he was head of Focus on the Family at one point; Jim
Wallis from Sojourners Magazine; a lot of evangelical and Catholics;
the former associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops, all saying that this Senate health bill upholds
abortion funding restrictions. The Catholic Health Association, 600
Catholic hospitals.
I went to Catholic school for 12 years. I know where the Catholic
church and the Catholic hospitals stand on the issue of public funding
for abortions, and believe me, believe me, I had a lot of nuns and a
lot of priests and a lot of brothers going to Our Lady of Mount Carmel,
in Warren, John F. Kennedy High School, and I will tell you that those
nuns and those administrators who run Catholic hospitals, 600 of
[[Page H1508]]
them, would not support this legislation if they believed that there
was public funding for abortion.
And I think the head of the Catholic hospitals said that--we are all
pro-life, but they believe that the language in the Senate bill, some
of the language that we kicked around here early on in the House
version, will sufficiently prevent public funds from being used for
abortions.
That is 600 Catholic hospitals saying that. That is not me saying
that. That is not the Democrats say that. This is Joel Hunter and a
variety of others who are professors of Christian formation and
disciplines, discipleship, Pentecostal, theological seminary,
Leadership Institute, Loyola University, University of Dayton,
Duquesne. These are some of the leaders. Jim Wallis from Sojourners;
Ron Sider, Evangelicals for Social Action; Catholics and Alliance for
the Common Good, on and on and on.
But our friends on the other side, because I know, I was getting
calls in my office today, getting people all hopped up on the abortion
issue. Let's look at the facts. Let's look at what is in this bill, and
we are going to have that debate. And just like the discussions in
August about death panels and we are going to kill people's
grandparents and all that nonsense that we heard in August, where did
that go? It dissipated. It just disappeared because it wasn't the
truth. And so it just faded away. And all of these arguments that our
friends on the other side are making now are just going to fade away
because they do not reflect the facts. What reflects the facts are the
things that we are trying to deal with here.
Now, look at some of the stuff that we are trying to address. Between
2009 and 2010, monthly prices in the doughnut hole increased by 5
percent or more for half of the top 10 brand-name drugs. So increased
by 5 percent or more for monthly prices for these drugs that most of
our seniors get.
Now, from 2006, full negotiated prices for top brand-name drugs
between 2006 and 2010, and I will just use some of the percentages
here: Plavix, for example, 25 percent. Lexapro went up 25 percent;
ADVAIR, 32 percent. Unbelievable increases in prescription drugs. And
we are asking our seniors to continue to pay these increases that
happen when they fall into the doughnut hole.
So, Madam Speaker, we have got a moral responsibility because so many
people are being hurt in our country today, and I stand here this week
as we stand on the brink of passing a significant piece of legislation
that is not perfect, and I don't think anybody says it is. We are all
human here in this Chamber and in the Senate. The President and his
team, we are all human. We are going to make mistakes. It is not going
to be perfect. But what we are doing is moving forward in a significant
way.
One of the huge issues we have in this country is that we have
millions and millions of Americans who don't have health care, so what
they do is they show up at the emergency room and have no money. They
are not on Medicaid. They are not on Medicare. They don't have private
insurance. They are not a veteran, so they go into the emergency room
when they get sick. This is what happens.
Not only is that inhumane and not only, I would think, do we have
some kind of moral duty as elected officials in the United States to
say, you know, that is just--I have got a problem with that. That is
just not right. What do we do? We have got to do something.
So this bill is an attempt for us to do that, to step in and help
people, empower them to be able to afford insurance, and create a
system where they are able to afford their health insurance and go into
this exchange and be able to afford insurance. Because some people say,
Well, I don't want to pay for those people. I got mine and I got my
health insurance and I am cool. I have got a job and it is all right.
But you are already paying for them, because what happens is four or
five uninsured go into the hospital, go into the emergency room, costs
a lot of money but don't have any way to pay for it, and then you walk
in behind them and you have your insurance card. Guess who is paying
for their treatment that they didn't pay anything for? You are and the
next guy who walks in with an insurance card and the next person. These
costs all get shifted and so you see these huge increases.
So we have a system where we don't prevent anything. We wait until
people get deathly sick, go into the emergency room, stay there for a
week instead of getting a $20 prescription that would have saved us all
a boatload of money.
This is not a discussion about whether the government is going to run
the health care industry or the insurance companies are going to run
the health care industry. This is about doctors running the health care
industry. This is about making sure doctors don't have to call up the
insurance companies and haggle with them over what is covered and what
is not covered.
It is 2010 in America. We are the wealthiest country on the planet,
and we have the most dysfunctional health care system going. Yes, we
have got tremendous high-end care. But if you were setting up a system,
you wouldn't certainly say to 30 million people in your country, Just
wait until you get absolutely deathly sick, then show up at the
emergency room and we will take care of you then. That is not how you
would set it up.
And our friends on the other side love to have this discussion about
we are losing your freedom. You are losing your freedom. You are not
losing your freedom. How free are you when you are sick and you can't
get anybody to take care of you? How free are you then? How free are
you when you want to leave your job and go get another job, but you
can't because you have a preexisting condition or your spouse has a
preexisting condition or your child has a preexisting condition and you
are stuck? That is not our idea of freedom.
How free are you if you want to go start a business and create wealth
and jobs in the United States, but you can't because you have a
preexisting condition? How free are you as a small business person? If
you are just the average small business person, you had a 126 percent
increase over the last 5 or 6 years. Now, how free are you to run your
business the way you see fit, to make the investments that you want to
make into capital, into technology, into worker training, into wages
for your workers, more into the pension plan for workers, hire more
workers? How free are you?
And these folks that can't afford health care and they get a lot
sicker than they would normally have gotten, what kind of quality of
life is that? Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. These things mean
something. And when you talk about what the Founding Fathers meant when
they said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they meant that
government has the responsibility, a moral responsibility to protect
people's lives, liberty, and their ability to pursue happiness. And
when we have a system in place now where an industry is limiting that
freedom, reducing that quality of life, the government has an
obligation to protect them so that they can be free, and that is what
we are doing with this piece of legislation.
I mean, look at what is happening here, the issues that we are
addressing. Think about this. This is what is in the bill. This big
bogeyman that you hear about on Fox News that is going to end western
civilization as we know it if this thing passes has a 35 percent tax
credit for small businesses. It says that children cannot be denied
health insurance because the kid has a preexisting condition. It is
going to say that the lifetime caps that people have on their insurance
will be eliminated so, no matter what, kids will get covered. It
will extend coverage so that young people can stay on their parents'
insurance until they are 26 years old. If they are getting out of
college and want to go on to get an advanced degree or they hit a rough
patch with the job market or they are trying to figure things out, you
are not going to be booted. And how many parents aren't going to have
to worry about that anymore? Free preventative care under private
plans, free preventative care under Medicare so we can prevent a lot of
these problems from happening.
If you are 55 to 64, there will be a reinsurance opportunity for
employers who are employing people 55 to 64 to make sure that those
people have coverage. The doughnut hole will be closed over time so
that senior citizens can afford their prescription drugs. And
[[Page H1509]]
when you look at all these things, from time and time and time again,
these are very popular among the American people.
Tax credits for small businesses, 73 percent more likely to support.
Insurance exchanges, 67 percent. Keep what you have, 66 percent. Ban
preexisting conditions, 63 percent. Medicaid expansion, 62 percent.
Dependent coverage through 26, 60 percent. Close the Medicare doughnut
hole, 60 percent. Subsidy to individuals, 57 percent. And all of these
things, as we start to vote on them, our friends on the other side say,
Well, we are for those.
So in the last day or so the House Budget Committee was working on
this legislation and they had some opportunity to vote on these issues,
and so I just want to share with Members of the House how our friends
on the other side on that committee voted.
Protecting Medicare, closing the prescription drug doughnut hole, 15
Republicans voted against that.
Protecting Americans from insurance caps, banning annual and lifetime
limits on health care coverage, 15 Republicans voted against that.
{time} 2115
Holding health insurance companies accountable; 15 Republicans voted
against that. Bringing down the cost of health insurance for everyone
and providing a tax credit to small businesses; 15 Republicans voted
against that.
These are the basic provisions of our health care reform bill that
between 57 and 73 percent of the American people support. This is not
Medicare for all. This is not single-payer. There's no public option in
this bill. Many of us on this side don't like some of that--the fact
that those aren't in there. But this is a significant step forward,
some basic reforms, and when we have 15 members of the Budget Committee
on the Republican side consistently vote against tax credits for small
business to get health care, you know they're doing it for one reason:
They're doing it for politics. Madam Speaker, this is all about
politics. Go back to the memo that someone left somewhere in some room
that the press got a hold of that told the Republicans, Do not let
Barack Obama pass health care reform. Do not let them. Do not let the
Democrats get this big victory because you will be in the minority for
another decade or two.
And so right out of the gate they had no interest, Madam Speaker. Our
friends on the other side had no interest in cooperating. No interest
in adding to the debate. They were against this bill before there was
even a bill written. They were calling it socialism before there was
one item printed on this piece of paper here telling us what was on
this bill.
That's not what the American people want. The American people want us
to sit down, work together--no one is going to get everything they
want--and pass something and move it forward that's going to help the
American people, that's going to allow us to meet our moral obligation
to protect the American people, to protect those kids who are being
denied because of a preexisting condition, to protect those seniors who
fall into the doughnut hole, to protect those families who get denied
because of a preexisting condition, to protect those families who hit a
lifetime cap and get thrown out on their own.
This is what this is about--to help empower thousands of small
businesses who've got the anchor around their neck because they get 20,
30, 40 percent increases in health care. That's what this bill is
about. It's about protecting our citizens, it's about empowering our
citizens, it's about making our citizens freer than they are today when
they're trapped in this ungodly health insurance system that hurts many
of them. We can't stand by and stick our finger up in the air and see
which way the wind is blowing and allow millions of people to go get
hurt, and then 30, 40, 50 years from now go sit on the rocking chair.
Our children are going to ask us what we did when we were in Congress.
What did you do to move the country forward? And we're going to say
what? We failed. We didn't muster up the courage to make the tough
votes. We didn't have the ability to look through the clouds and the
smoke and the mirrors, look past the bogeymen that have been created on
this bill.
I love it. I love how these arguments have just fallen apart, from
death panels, now abortion. They're saying everything is publicly
funded abortion here. And 600 Catholic hospitals are endorsing the
bill. Now how do you say that this is public funding for abortion when
600 Catholic hospitals have endorsed this piece of legislation? So our
friends on the other side need to go to all these 600 hospitals and all
the sisters that are there, intimately involved in the health care of
their patients, and all of the Catholic administrators of all of these
hospitals and say, You're pro-abortion. Good luck having that argument.
It's a phony argument that's being created for politics, just like the
death panels were, just like the illegal immigrants were going to be
covered under this bill. All of those issues have been demagogued in
this House and across this country to try to scare legislators and the
American people. And the dust is going to settle, and we're going to be
able to look back on this vote.
I look forward, Madam Speaker--I will tell you this--I look forward
to the debate in the fall discussing with the American people exactly
what is in this bill. I look forward to talking to my Chamber of
Commerce, my friends in small business, that they're going to get a 35
percent tax credit, and they're going to be able to go into this
exchange and negotiate with a bunch of other small business people,
thousands, to have some bargaining power to reduce their health
insurance costs. I look forward to going into a debate saying, You know
what was in this health care bill? We made sure that no insurance
company could deny any child because they have a preexisting condition.
No insurance company could deny a citizen of this country because they
have a preexisting condition. That our seniors are going to get more
prescription drug coverage. That our citizens, when they hit a
catastrophic health event in their life, that there won't be any
lifetime caps or limits to how much they can be covered. Madam Speaker,
that is what this health care debate is about.
No matter how many times our friends on the other side try to say
they want to work with us, they have been given the opportunity to sit
down and work. And they say they're for a lot of these things but,
again, already in committee, peeling out the votes, closing the
prescription drug hole in the Budget Committee, 15 Republicans voted
``no,'' we don't want to close the doughnut hole. Protecting Americans
from insurance caps, banning annual and lifetime limits on health care
coverage. This is the vote. That's all the vote was on. Fifteen
Republicans from the Budget Committee voted ``no,'' we don't want to
protect Americans from the caps and ban annual lifetime limits. Holding
health insurance companies accountable, 15 Republicans said, No, we
don't want to hold them accountable. Bringing down the cost of
insurance, providing a tax credit to small businesses, 15 Republicans
voted ``no'' for a tax credit for small business because their
consultants and pollsters told them they couldn't let this bill pass.
So out of 15 Republicans on each one of these votes, a majority of
the Republicans on all of these votes, out of the 15, voted ``no,'' we
don't want to do it. In some instances, it was close to all of the 15.
Madam Speaker, we have an opportunity here to make history. But
that's not why we're doing it. We're doing it because this government,
from its inception, this government from its inception has had a moral
mission; a moral mission to protect and empower its citizens. And when
an industry and their unsavory business practices are hurting the
American people, we have a moral obligation to intervene. And we have a
moral obligation to empower by making sure that our citizens are free
to go in and have expanded choice, that they are free from an insurance
company saying, You're off the rolls now because you got sick. You're
empowered because you can be healthy and get access to care and you can
experience the liberty that this country has provided--life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. That's what this bill is about, and I
look forward to having an opportunity to continue to advocate for it.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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