[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 19, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H344-H347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 27 minutes.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, allow me to claim the time. I do have a few 
things to set up, so I will be right back.
  Mr. Speaker, let me thank the Speaker for allowing and granting me 
the time. It is a pleasure to come in front of the American people.
  My name is Congressman Keith Ellison, and I want to talk a little bit 
about the Progressive Caucus tonight, the progressive message which we 
convey to the American people every week. We want to come before the 
American people to talk about progressive values and the 83 members of 
the Progressive Caucus.
  The Progressive Caucus stands firmly in the position of supporting 
health care for all Americans. And therefore, we look at this repeal 
today, conducted by the majority, the Republican Caucus, as quite an 
unfortunate event in our Nation's history.

                              {time}  2110

  They repealed the health care reform bill, but the bill is not 
repealed. It's important for the American people to know that health 
care reform is being implemented and it is the law. But in order to 
make the law into the law, you have to pass it through the House, the 
Senate, and then be signed by the President. This repeal that they did 
today stops here. It's not going anywhere. Really, it's political 
theater. But it is an important indication as to what they would do if 
they could.
  What they would do, and this is something I would like to describe 
right now so the American people can get an idea of what Republican 
leadership and Republican expansion of their power would mean.
  First, let's talk about the deficit. You hear a lot about the 
deficit. And the deficit is important. The impact of repeal on the 
deficit is that it would increase the deficit by $230 billion this 
decade and a trillion the decade after that.
  When you listen, Mr. Speaker, to the speeches of the Republican 
Caucus and they say something about job-killing deficits, it's always 
important, Mr. Speaker, to turn your attention back to what the 
Republican Caucus did today on the House floor, because it indicates 
how they really feel about expanding the deficit. They're okay with it.
  The impact of repeal on the deficit expands the deficit by $230 
billion this decade and a trillion dollars the next.
  What does this say about credibility? What does it say about real 
intention? What does it say about who was actually trying to lower the 
deficit?
  Health care reform is cost-effective and helps lower the deficit. 
Health care reform actually helps not only lower the national debt and 
deficit, but individual American's personal debt and deficit.
  We can never forget, Mr. Speaker, that 60 percent of all of the 
people who filed for bankruptcy filed for bankruptcy because of medical 
debt. A majority of the people filing for bankruptcy filed for 
bankruptcy because of medical debt. This is an amazing statistic.
  We can talk about the national deficit. We can even talk about the 
national debt, but let's talk about family debt. Family debt being 
driven sky high because of medical debt, people going into bankruptcy 
because of medical debt.
  Now, with the health care bill, we will have exchanges that will 
compete and have price and quality transparency for people so that they 
can evaluate a good product that is affordable, so people who don't 
have the income can get a subsidy so they can go buy health care 
insurance. When we have all of these important provisions in place, 
we're not going to see people going into personal bankruptcy because of 
medical debt. This is something the Republican Caucus has not talked 
about, how Americans are drowning because of what the insurance 
industry has imposed upon them.
  It's important to say that today our Republican colleagues repealed 
health care reform. I hope, Mr. Speaker, the American people watch with 
interest where their particular Member of Congress voted. Did your 
Member, the individual Member of Congress, Mr. Speaker, vote to say, 
You know what? We're going to allow the insurance companies to rescind 
your insurance policy if you get a breast cancer diagnosis? Because the 
Republican Caucus' repeal today says that they want that to be able to 
happen. They want the insurance company to be able to say, You, ma'am, 
we found out you had breast cancer. Your insurance is going to be 
rescinded.
  That's what they voted in favor of today by voting for repeal.
  Today, they want to tell 24-, 25-, and 26-year-olds and their parents 
that, You know what? We're not going to let you be on your parents' 
health care insurance policy. You are on your own.

[[Page H345]]

Yeah, we know this is a tough market. Yeah, we know graduating from 
college or high school now is not easy because, you know what? There's 
not that many jobs out there. Unemployment is still very high. But you 
know what? Too bad. You've just gotta figure out what you're going to 
do because you will not--we're going to take a benefit away from you 
that the Congress has already given to you, and we're going to snatch 
it out of your hands.
  This is what the repeal means.
  Today, seniors who can benefit from free preventative care, they're 
not going to be able to. The Republican Caucus has indicated that 
that's not what they want. Now, they haven't taken it away because they 
haven't repealed the law. They'd like to by the repeal they passed 
through the House today. But the fact is is that they're telling 
seniors, No, no, no. You're going to have to pay a big cost in order to 
get some preventative care which obviously will help--will encourage 
low-income seniors not to seek that care, and then they, of course, 
will end up being sicker and it will be more costly.

  But not only by repeal did they hurt seniors, did they hurt young 
people, they're telling small business people, You know what? Those tax 
credits that we gave you, we're taking them back. Those tax credits 
that the Democratic Caucus and the Democratic Congress and Senate and 
the Democratic President gave to you, we Republicans, we don't want you 
to have that, small business. We're going to snatch it out of your 
hands even after you have made plans to actually take into 
consideration the tax credits that are available to you this year.
  So they're snatching benefits out of the hands of small business 
people, snatching benefits from young people who are post high school 
and college, snatching benefits away from our seniors, snatching 
coverage away from people who can't afford it, thrusting people back 
into the arms of personal debt, and throwing our whole economy back 
into the throes of national debt and deficits.
  This is what the Republicans would do if they could. Thank goodness 
they can't do it because the President and the Senate remain in 
Democratic hands. But if they could, Mr. Speaker, it's very clear what 
they would do.
  Now, the Democrats' top priority is not repealing anything. It's 
extending more rights, more protections for the American people, and 
then, of course, allowing the American people to make their own choice 
so they can be free, so you can be free as an American and not have to 
worry about health care because you have health care because the 
government is protecting you from insurance companies who would throw 
you into the street, give you an over-cost product and would rescind 
you and deny you coverage.
  The Democrats' top priority would not be to monkey around with 
undermining health care. The Democratic priority would be to create 
jobs and put America back to work. That is what Democrats are working 
on right now, Mr. Speaker, and would work on even more so if we had the 
majority.
  Today, the Republican majority, they have other priorities other than 
jobs. Their job, as they've already revealed today on the House floor, 
is to repeal patients' rights, to put insurance companies back in 
charge, and to explode the deficit as I've already indicated with this 
particular graphic.
  The Republican priority is to look out and protect insurance 
companies. The Republican priority is to make sure that insurance 
companies have what they need. And the insurance companies spent $14 
million a day to try to defeat health care after they, in fact, were 
defeated, and we passed health care. We're quite confident that they 
did not just take that defeat lying down. Here they are back again with 
the wholly owned subsidiary known as the Republican Caucus trying to do 
the bidding of the insurance industry once again.
  The Patients' Rights Repeal aims to take away new health care 
freedoms that take us back to a system that favors the insurance 
industry. The Patients' Rights Repeal bill takes away something that 
people have already expected to get and takes us back to a system in 
which the insurance industry is in control.
  Children with preexisting conditions are denied coverage in the bad 
old days. Young people aged 26 can't stay on their parents' insurance 
plans in the bad old days. Pregnant women and prostate cancer patients 
would be thrown off insurance rolls in the bad old days. Seniors pay 
more for their drugs. As a matter of fact, in the new health care bill 
we're filling in the doughnut hole, which is something, apparently, the 
Republican Caucus doesn't like, because they want to dig out the 
doughnut hole so seniors can fall back into that doughnut hole. And, of 
course, we already talked about exploding the deficit and making small 
businesses pay higher taxes.
  Why would the Republicans want to do that? It seems so unfair, but 
that is exactly what they did today.
  Republicans are focused on repealing health care reform instead of 
making jobs, and making jobs is what they should be putting their time 
and energy into.
  Their agenda for America is not health care. It's no care. It's 
status quo care. No care if you lose your job. No care if you or your 
child have a preexisting condition. No care if you're a senior in the 
doughnut hole. That's what the Republican Caucus has in mind for you 
and your family. No care if you're under 26 on your parents' plan. No 
care if you get sick and your insurer drops your coverage. No care if 
your insurer hikes your premiums higher than you can afford. You are 
just out of luck with no care.

                              {time}  2120

  Now, the Congressional Budget Office does carefully show that the 
repeal of the Patients' Protection and Affordable Care Act would add 
$230 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and a trillion after 
that into the future. And the American Medical Association has 
recognized this problem. What they have said is the AMA does not 
support initiatives to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  Who is the AMA? The American Medical Association. Who's that? That's 
America's doctors. They know how dangerous it is to repeal health care. 
They know because they are in the healing arts. Now, the insurance 
companies, many of them are in the money-making arts, so they got a 
different take on this thing. But the American Medical Association has 
come together and said that they do not support initiatives to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act.
  Expanding health care coverage, insurance market reforms, 
administrative simplifications, and initiatives to promote wellness and 
prevention are key to the new law that reflect the AMA priorities. So 
the people who do healing, actually heal people--let me tell you, no 
insurance company bureaucrat ever healed anybody. All they do is deny 
coverage to people and process claims. But the folks who actually bring 
healing, the docs, the people who the AMA represents, they are against 
repeal, as the Democratic Caucus is against repeal. And it's so 
unfortunate that we had to sit here today and witness the House effort 
to repeal health care reform.
  They didn't do it. They're not going to do it. They're going to fail. 
This is all political theater. This is all showing off. It's all just, 
you know, political theater. But the truth is that it does indicate 
what they would do if they could. And we are bound and determined to 
stop them, to protect the American people, and to make sure that we 
have those important health care reforms in place that are going to 
make sure that Americans continue to go to the doctor, to get 
preventive care, to fill in the doughnut hole, to offer coverage to 
people until they are age 26.
  As I said before, you know, I was privileged earlier this week to 
meet two little girls. They were suffering from leukemia. And these 
little girls, brave as they were, said, you know, look, if we didn't 
have the Affordable Care Act we would be denied or could well be denied 
health care coverage. These two little girls' father, who had to take 
family medical leave in order to help meet all of the medical needs of 
the family, as well as they had other children who didn't have those 
medical needs, that family ended up going into bankruptcy because of 
the piles of debt that were thrown on their shoulders.
  And so the Affordable Care Act comes to address these problems; yet 
the repeal comes to heap those problems back on those families. And 
it's

[[Page H346]]

too bad that it happened. They're not going to succeed, but it's very 
clear that by their repeal vote today what they would do if they could.
  Now, the AARP, which represents our American seniors, they weighed in 
on this debate. And what AARP has said is: ``As the House prepares to 
vote this week on repeal of the Affordable Care Act, I am writing to 
make clear AARP's position. While we respect there are those who do not 
support the Affordable Care Act, AARP opposes repeal because the new 
law includes many vital provisions important to older Americans and 
their children.'' So there again, not only did the organization that 
represents America's doctors say no to repeal, the American Medical 
Association; but AARP, which represents America's seniors, says no.
  And of course they should, because America's seniors need health care 
reform, the reforms that are in the Affordable Care Act. For example, 
seniors under the Affordable Care Act, we are filling in the doughnut 
hole, making prescription drugs affordable for our seniors. We have a 
wellness visit for every senior in America once a year to make sure our 
seniors are healthy. Wellness visits, dealing with prescription drugs, 
free preventive care means we have healthier seniors. Healthier seniors 
are happier seniors because they got enough money and they got more 
money than they would if we were under the reign of the insurance 
companies, as we were before. And so AARP is doing what they are 
supposed to do, representing the best interests of America's seniors.
  The Heart Association: this is an association that deals with the 
functioning of the human heart, a vital organ in the human body. And 
this Heart Association comes to make sure that our hearts are 
protected. The Heart Association has this to say about this repeal 
debate: ``Patients have already benefited from the reforms that have 
been implemented in the last 10 months.'' And by the way, the 
Republican Caucus didn't even give the Affordable Care Act a chance. 
Ten months after we passed it, they're trying to get rid of it. They're 
not even waiting to see where it could be fine-tuned here and there. 
They just want to get rid of it all.

  Now, that's not a good-faith approach to this debate. Some of them 
even came to the floor and said there are certain things about the bill 
they like. But they don't want to tweak the bill. They don't want to 
fine tune the bill. They just want to repeal it. So that indicates to 
me another key indicator of where the Republican Caucus's mind is with 
regard to Americans and health care.
  But as I was saying about the Heart Association: ``Patients have 
already benefited from the reforms that have been implemented in the 
last 10 months. We believe these reforms, and additional forthcoming 
patient protection provisions, were long overdue.'' So the Heart 
Association says, hey, we didn't get this Affordable Care Act passed 
fast enough. That's their position. Long overdue, and needs to be given 
an opportunity to work. Absolutely, they are right. And if necessary, 
improved.
  And of course nobody on the Democratic Caucus side says this bill was 
perfect. There has never been a perfect bill. Never been a perfect 
bill. But the Republicans don't want to say, look, let's get our heads 
together and make the bill stronger. They say repeal. And I voted 
``no'' and was very proud to do so.
  Back to the Heart Association: ``Repeal of the Affordable Care Act 
will have devastating consequences for patients and their families.'' 
That's according to the Heart Association, an association dedicated to 
the wellness of people's hearts. People who focus their time, 
attention, and resources on good heart health are opposed to repeal, as 
they should, because they have good intentions and are operating in 
good faith.
  Of course, only 18 percent of Americans support full repeal, 
according to the latest Washington-ABC news poll. Only 18 percent. 
These are probably the folks who still believe the bill has death 
panels in it, which it never did. That was not true. Massive 
misinformation and disinformation around the Affordable Care Act. But 
only 18 percent support full repeal.
  And the fact is that I would imagine that if you were able to sit 
those 18 percent of Americans in a room and really tell them what the 
bill did, they probably would be significantly lower than that. Of 
course, there was another AP poll that said 26 percent support full 
repeal. Still a significantly small number.
  So the bottom line is that whether you talk about your average 
family, the Heart Association, AARP, American Medical Association and 
many others, this repeal bill that passed through today, but doesn't 
repeal the law--make sure, Mr. Speaker, everybody knows that--was a low 
point in this Congress.
  I look forward to a day when we can return to a Congress that says we 
believe that the American people have a right to be healthy, a right to 
be strong, a right to go to the doctor, a right to seek out preventive 
care, a right to have insurance companies be accountable, a right to 
make sure insurance companies don't just throw people off coverage when 
they need it most.
  And I look forward to a day when that happens, Mr. Speaker, because 
on that day Americans will be in a much, much better place than we are 
today with the majority in the House that doesn't feel that the 
insurance companies need reform or accountability.
  Now, I just want to talk a little bit, because some people mistakenly 
believe that somehow members of the Republican Caucus are more pro-
business than the Democratic Caucus. That's not true, never been true, 
and we prove again and again that it's not true. But they say that 
stuff and some people believe it. So let me just share with you some 
personal stories about people who are looking at this issue from the 
perspective of small business.
  Because despite the Republicans' rhetoric about the Affordable Care 
Act, business and business groups across the country are speaking out 
against the Republican efforts to repeal health care reform.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. Speaker, I don't want to be the one that goes--not to the U.S. 
Chamber of Commerce, because they are a little different--but to those 
local chambers of commerce, Rotaries, all across this country. I 
wouldn't want to be the one to go to them and say, you know those tax 
credits the Democrats got for you for health care? We are taking them 
away from you. I wouldn't want to be that Representative on that day, 
Mr. Speaker.
  Anyway, Helen Darling, who is the president of the National Business 
Group on Health and a former Republican Senate staffer, said about 
business executives who called for repeal, she said, If they really 
understood it, they wouldn't. I don't think we will get a better 
solution in the U.S. in our lifetime. If it gets repealed or gutted, we 
will have to start over, and we will be worse off.
  This is what Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group 
on Health says about the bill. She says that small business people will 
suffer because of it.
  Now, if you are a small business person and you can get a tax credit 
to help you with 30 to 50 percent of the cost of health care, you go 
get that, that means that you may save the money that you need to 
invest in your small business, maybe hire some more people. That's why 
when the Republicans were calling the health care bill a job-killing 
bill, all of us looked at each other and said, what bill are they 
talking about?
  The fact is that the Affordable Health Care Act is a bill that is a 
job-enhancing bill. This is a pro-job bill. This is a bill that trains 
people to go to their health care professions that helps small business 
so they can hire more people. Helen Darling knows that, and she ought 
to know because she is the president of the National Business Group on 
Health.
  Small Business Majority, which is an organization dedicated to 
supporting small business, their letter to lawmakers characterizes the 
repeal bill as ``an affront to our Nation's small business community.'' 
Well, of course it is. If you are a small business person, trying to 
add another employee, trying to buy some new equipment, and do it all 
while offering health care to your employees in your business, maybe 
you have got three, four, maybe you have

[[Page H347]]

got 25, 30 employees? Of course it's an affront to you if the House 
Majority Caucus, the Republicans, want to take away your tax credit.
  Absolutely, that's an affront. If you are trying to make it, imagine 
yourself working for some company for years. You say, you know what, I 
don't want a boss, I want to be my own boss. I am starting my own 
company and you know what, I am only going to have to have one or two, 
maybe three, four people with me when I get started, but we are going 
to make a go of it. And you know what, you guys? Human beings get sick 
sometimes so we have got to have health care.
  And then the Democrats come and say, we are going to help you pay for 
that health care. And then the Republicans say, no, we are not and they 
snatch it away. Of course that's an affront to our Nation's small 
business community. The Small Business Majority is absolutely right in 
their letter.
  The tax credits and health insurance exchanges in the Affordable 
Health Care Act will help drive down the cost and offer small business 
owners more choices, more freedom when purchasing insurance which will, 
in turn, allow them to ``spend less on insurance premiums and more on 
growing their businesses and creating jobs.''
  Now, the caucus that claims to be about jobs and the deficit actually 
is operating directly opposite to both the deficit and jobs. That means 
that we have got to read the fine print. We can't just go by what 
people say because people sometimes say anything, Mr. Speaker.
  The Small Business Majority has recently released results of a 
November 2010 survey of 619 small business owners. In their survey the 
key findings highlight that one-third of employers who don't offer 
health insurance said they would be more likely to do so because of the 
small business tax credits.
  So, there again, the small business tax credits in this bill are 
designed to help small businesses take care of their employees and meet 
their bottom line and, will hopefully, turn a profit, so that they can 
help grow our community.
  It's been a pleasure, Mr. Speaker, talking about the danger of repeal 
and the importance of the Affordable Health Care Act.

                          ____________________