Congressional Record, Volume 158 Issue 93 (Tuesday, June 19, 2012)

[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 93 (Tuesday, June 19, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H3797-H3804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

OBAMACARE'S BROKEN PROMISES

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mrs. BLACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with many of my freshman
colleagues to talk about the impact of a very important bill, the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called ObamaCare,
on our economy, our caregivers, and most importantly, the American
people seeking care. Any day now the Supreme Court is expected to
announce its decision on ObamaCare. And while I hope that the Supreme
Court rules on the side of the Constitution and the American people, no
matter what happens, the fact remains, this law is bad policy. It's bad
for health care, it's bad for the economy, and it's bad for the future
of our country.
The rhetoric of the bold promises used to pass ObamaCare into law
simply cannot be reconciled with reality. The more the law is
implemented, the more the American people don't want it. The
President's promises on quality of care, lower insurance premiums, no
increase in taxes, and no effect on the deficit, in just 3 years have
been broken time and time again.

{time} 1920

Broken promise number one: President Obama said in March of 2010:

If you like your doctor, you're going to be able to keep
your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan.

The reality is, President Obama's very own administration now
estimates that the new regulations contained in ObamaCare will force up
to 80 percent of small businesses to give up their current plans by
2013. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that between 3
million and 5 million people will be dropped from their employer-based
coverage by the time the law is fully implemented.
When I visit businesses in my district, I always ask: Have you done
the math? Will you keep your insurance or will you pay the fine? Time
and time again I get the same answer: We'd like to keep insuring our
employees, but it doesn't make good business sense to do so.
Yesterday, in fact, I participated in a field hearing in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the effects of government regulation on the
economy. We heard from several business owners and State leaders. A
gentleman by the name of H. Grady Payne of Conner Industries, which has
a plant in Fayetteville, discussed the impact of ObamaCare on his
business. He said his company has about 450 employees, and he struggles
each year to encourage them to participate in health insurance. The
company has had to create different employee groups in order to create
an employee base which would have 75 percent participation as required
by most insurance companies.
Now, Payne said that the nondiscrimination provisions of the health
care reform would prohibit this, forcing the company into several
expensive options. It could switch from full insurance to self-
insurance; it could expand coverage to all employees and have the
employee cost set according to an affordability formula; or it could
stop offering health insurance altogether and instead pay a penalty of
$2,000 for each employee. Payne said any of the three options would
cost the company more than $1 million compared to current costs.
I'll talk about other broken promises, but I would like to yield 5
minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young),
representing the Ninth District of beautiful Bloomington.
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. I thank the gentlelady, my hardworking
colleague from Tennessee, who is also a health care professional and
quite conversant on these issues. You speak with some authority. So
thank you very much.
I come from the State of Indiana with internationally renowned
medical device manufacturers, manufacturers like Cook Group in
Bloomington, or smaller entrepreneurial companies like MedVenture in
Jeffersonville. Indiana, in fact, is a global leader in the medical
device industry. Scores of successful medical device businesses are
headquartered in the Hoosier State, and they provide nearly 20,000
hardworking Hoosiers with good-paying jobs. Now, these jobs, by the
way, provide wages that are over 40 percent higher than the State
average. These are exactly the sort of businesses we need to expand and
grow right here in America if we want to create a healthy economy.
I bring this up because the President's health care law--what most
Americans now know as ObamaCare--would shrink the number of American
jobs in the medical device industry. This is because the law contains a
2.3 percent industry-specific excise tax that will cripple the sale of
these medical devices. It would cripple the entire sector and hurt
American jobs.
Now, back in October, a bipartisan group of us from Indiana held a
field hearing in Indianapolis to discuss this very issue with industry
leaders. The response from businesses was unanimous: this device tax
would be, across the board, harmful to these manufacturers throughout
the industry. Many admitted that they would have to move jobs to
Europe. Now, when is the last time that we heard it was cheaper to move
American jobs to Europe?
For the sake of keeping these high-paying, advanced manufacturing
jobs here in the United States, this tax must be repealed. In fact, the
medical device excise tax is so harmful to the American economy that
the House voted just 2 weeks ago to repeal this narrow part of
ObamaCare. It's one in a long string of votes that we've cast in this
House to repeal or replace a portion of this law.
Now, there's a better way to address increasing health care costs
than by imposing additional taxes on the American people. I say, let's
start over. If the Supreme Court doesn't do our work for us, let's
repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then, let's get to work and pass
bipartisan legislation that would actually bring down the cost of
health care--what this whole exercise was supposed to be about in the
beginning. Our constituents deserve no less. They expect us to engage
in this effort. I'm certainly committed to it, and I know my colleagues
here on the Republican side in the House are committed to it as well.
Mrs. BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Young. I appreciate his comments about
starting over. Certainly, we do feel that that is the direction that we
need to go. As a matter of fact, we've had over two dozen votes on
repealing and replacing this very onerous bill that has affected our
businesses, as has just been said.
Now I'd like to yield 5 minutes to our class president, as a matter
of fact, Austin Scott, who represents the Sixth Congressional District
in Georgia, and he represents Warner Robins.
I yield to my colleague from Georgia.
Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. My father, as you, is a health care
professional, an orthopedic surgeon who came out of med school when I
was just a child. I spent a lot of time in a physician's office and in
a not-for-profit hospital watching my dad take care of patients and
helping them. And certainly that doctor-patient relationship is
something that has been stripped away in this bill.
But I want to talk about the numbers, not just the relationships
right now, because I think it's important to reflect on what happened
833 days ago

[[Page H3798]]

when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the American public that Congress
must pass the bill so they could find out what was in it.

Now, I have no doubt that the President, in his endorsement of the
bill, surely he read it and knew exactly what was in it. And the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, it would have been
irresponsible for her to endorse a bill without knowing what was in it.
They had to understand it would negatively affect our economy.
The gentleman who was just in the well talking about Americans
wanting to going to work, he's absolutely right. The Republicans in
this House have passed a tremendous number of jobs bills that would
help put Americans back to work, help reduce the cost of petroleum in
this country; and yet they sit over in the Senate idle, along with a
bill that would actually repeal this national health care law that has
kept us in a recession.
Now, they forged ahead with this legislation instead of working on
the economic issues that so many Americans needed them to work on and,
quite honestly, despite the protest of the American public. They simply
thumbed their nose at the American citizens. That's why, when it came
time to go to the polls, 87 new freshman Republicans came to
Washington. Districts where the President had gotten almost 60 percent
of the vote, those people, who Americans who understood that their
rights had been stripped from them, absolutely rejected the President's
health care bill.
Now, 822 days since the Democratic-controlled House passed the
President's health care bill. I would remind you it was just a few days
before that when, in order to get the votes to pass it, he met with
pro-life Democrats and assured them that in no way, shape or form would
abortions be funded in the bill. That was his commitment to pro-life
Democrats to get them to vote for the bill. Obviously, we now know that
that wasn't necessarily true. We all know where the mandate has come
out that he has told people that he really doesn't care if it violates
their faith or their religious principles, they're going to do what he
says, not what their faith tells them to do--certainly a direct
violation of people's constitutional rights.
Now, it's 820 days since the President signed it into law. There's
been no recovery, and there could have been. There's no ifs, ands, or
buts about it: more Americans would be at work today right now if that
bill had not been passed. And the sooner it is undone, the sooner
Americans will be able to get back to work.
Eighty-nine days since the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments
about the constitutionality of the law, 89 days. Now, Mr. Speaker, the
American people began feeling the negative impact of this bill, quite
honestly, as soon as it was passed on day one. Unfortunately, they will
continue to feel the impact of this legislation until Congress fully
repeals and replaces it.
Some more numbers for you. In the past year, the average cost of
health care per active worker rose to $11,176. The increase was $800,
almost $1,000 a month per worker. The employee share of premium
contributions increased by 63 percent, and there was a 62 percent
increase for dependent coverage. Yes, all of this, all of this because
of the increasing cost and the mandates in the health care bill.
Eighty-one percent of companies said the health care law had
increased administrative burdens on their human resources department;
and they are not, in many cases, hiring people because of the unknown
cost of the legislation. One in six firms said the cost of complying
with the law is one of their top challenges in maintaining affordable
coverage.
Mr. Speaker, while it's my firm hope that the Supreme Court will find
this law unconstitutional--which I believe it is--we must continue the
effort to repeal and replace this bill.

{time} 1930

We can't wait for the November election, Mr. Speaker. The American
people need this bill repealed right now.
Mrs. BLACK. Thank you so much, Representative Scott, for coming here
today and talking about the negative impact on our economy. Certainly,
we know that that is true.
I want to talk about broken promise number 2, and how this is a
negative impact on our seniors.
Broken promise number 2 is proponents of ObamaCare claimed that it
would protect Medicare. That couldn't be further from the truth. The
health care law cuts more than $500 billion from Medicare, and it
threatens the choice seniors currently have in deciding which kind of
health care best fits their individual needs. And thanks to ObamaCare,
Medicare Advantage enrollment will be cut in half by 2017. The only
thing this law does for Medicare is ensures bankruptcy in 8 years.
Now, instead of structurally reforming Medicare and building on what
is working with Medicare Advantage, ObamaCare further weakens
Medicare's fiscal state and punts the difficult health care decisions
to unelected bureaucrats. This is clearly not the way to preserve care
for our current or future retirees. Real, sustainable reforms must be
made for those under 55 in order to keep our promises to current
seniors.
This law hurts seniors today, and it stands in the way of protecting
this program for our future children and grandchildren.
Now I'd like to yield 5 minutes to a friend of mine from Las Vegas,
Nevada, Representative Joe Heck, representing Nevada's Third District,
who is a physician and a health care provider.
Mr. HECK. I thank my colleague from Tennessee and my fellow health
care practitioner for heading up this most important discussion this
evening.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to talk about something that a
majority of Americans actually already know. The health care overhaul
that was forced through Congress on a party line vote in the dead of
night with special interest provisions like the ``Cornhusker kickback''
and the ``Louisiana purchase'' is a bad piece of legislation that
should be repealed. In fact, a recent New York Times poll showed that
68 percent of respondents want to see the law partially or fully
repealed.
It's no surprise that the American people are frustrated and want to
scrap this law and start over. The law has failed to deliver on all of
its major promises. We were told that the law would reduce costs,
reduce the deficit, create jobs, and allow people who liked their
insurance plan to stay on it. Well, we now know that it has fallen far
short of these goals as we continue to read stories and studies
outlining just how harmful this law will be for patients and for the
economy.
We know that this law will not reduce the deficit. In March, the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in which they
projected the costs of the health care overhaul out to the year 2022.
They found that the bill will cost $1.7 trillion between now and then.
That is twice as much as the bill was originally intended to cost. And
this, of course, would be added to a national debt of over $15
trillion.
We know this law will hurt access to care for patients, especially
our seniors. In addition to gimmick accounting that essentially cuts
$500 billion from Medicare and disproportionately affecting Medicare
Advantage beneficiaries, the health care overhaul established the
Independent Payment Advisory Board. This board of unelected Washington
bureaucrats, this Medicare IRS, will be handpicked by the
administration to cut funding for Medicare.
Make no mistake about it. The bill is very clear about the aim of
this board, and I quote:

It is the purpose of this section to, in accordance with
the following provisions of this section, reduce the per
capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.

The board will be unaccountable to the American people. It will be
unaccountable to the Congress, and it will even be unaccountable to the
President, and will stand between seniors and the services they receive
from Medicare.
As a doctor, I fear that when forced to reduce the Medicare costs,
the actions of this board will have serious implications for access to
care for seniors. That is not what my constituents and the people of
Nevada want in a health care system.
We know that this law is going to increase health care costs for
patients. As was mentioned, we just voted to repeal the medical device
tax contained

[[Page H3799]]

in the health care overhaul, one of many such taxes contained therein,
that would have imposed a 2.3 percent tax on medical device
manufacturers and was projected to increase taxes by $28.5 million over
the next 10 years. This tax would result in higher costs for medical
device manufacturers and would be passed on to patients in the form of
more expensive medical bills. Increased costs for doctor and hospital
visits will widen the access to care gap, even as individuals and
families are struggling to keep pace with the current skyrocketing
health care costs. In my home State of Nevada, this increased tax on
device manufacturers would put over 1,000 jobs at risk.
We know that this law will cause people to be dropped from coverage
plans that they like. I have heard from concerned small businesses in
my own district like Imagine Communications, a marketing firm in
Henderson, Nevada, that employs 11 people. When they started out, they
paid 100 percent of their employees' insurance premiums because they
saw it as a way to attract and retain quality employees. But due to
skyrocketing costs, they have been forced to cut back to only providing
50 percent of premiums, and they hope they can continue to do just
that. But the way things are going, they aren't sure how much longer
they will be able to be sustainable. They are looking at having to drop
employees from coverage because of the increased cost of providing
insurance.
As we stand here today, we await a landmark ruling from the highest
court in the country on whether key components of the law are even
constitutional. The individual mandate, the provision that forces every
American to buy insurance or pay a fine, a tax, is the wrong approach
to take on health care reform. Instead of penalizing nonaction, we
should be incentivizing people to take responsible action in making
their own personal health care decisions.

I stand with the nearly 70 percent of Americans who want to see this
law repealed and replaced with commonsense, patient-centered reforms
that truly increase access to primary care and help people avoid costly
procedures and trips to the emergency departments.
Instead of injecting more government into our health care system, our
focus should be on patients, especially our seniors who rely on access
to quality health care.
Our system is working for most Americans. Almost 85 percent have
health insurance, and it can work for all Americans through commonsense
reforms like moving coverage towards an individual-based model,
increasing competition by allowing the purchase of insurance across
State lines, incentivizing the purchase of insurance through tax
credits, reforming medical malpractice laws, and letting people, not
government, decide what services they need and want.
Second chances don't come along very often, Mr. Speaker, but we have
before us a great opportunity to get health care reform right.
As a practicing emergency medicine physician, I have worked on the
front lines of health care, caring for all, regardless of chief
complaint, time of day, or ability to pay. I have seen firsthand what
works and what doesn't work in our health care system. That's why I've
introduced two pieces of legislation aimed at repealing the onerous
provisions that hurt individuals and businesses, repairing the elements
of the law that have merit, and replacing the broken pieces of the law
with reasonable reforms and strengthening Medicare. I look forward to
advancing these pieces of legislation in the wake of the Court's
decision.
We have the best health care system in the world, and we should look
for ways to include as many Americans as possible in it. But we also
have a duty to uphold the Constitution and pass laws that will achieve
their stated goal. The Affordable Care Act missed the mark in both
respects, and I look forward to joining my colleagues in delivering a
health care solution that will benefit the American people.
Again, I thank my colleague from Tennessee for organizing this
Special Order.
Mrs. BLACK. Thank you, Dr. Heck.
And Dr. Heck talked, as we all know, about the major costs that are
involved in this ObamaCare, and I want to talk about broken promise
number 3. It will not add, and I quote, ``one dime to our deficit.''
That was a laughable assertion then, and now, 3 years later, it is
clear that it could not be further from the truth. The law will add
trillions to our deficit in the years to come.
Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin
estimates that the law will increase the national debt by at least $500
billion in the first 10 years, and over $1.5 trillion in the second
decade, not to mention the $115 billion needed to implement the law.
That is more than $2 trillion in new debt that will be passed on to our
children and our grandchildren.
Now I would like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend, Mike Kelly,
who represents Pennsylvania Three, and he hails from Erie,
Pennsylvania.
Mr. KELLY. I thank my colleague from Tennessee.
I really appreciate the opportunity to talk tonight. And I think what
I've found unusual in my 18 months here is that when I look at a lot of
the legislation that comes forward, a lot of it is proposed by people
who've never actually done what they're mandating people to do.
For most of my life, I was a small business person, still am. And
when I get back home and I walk in the district and I talk to the
people that are doing the same things that I've done all my life--I'm
talking about small business people--they keep talking about the same
thing. And the one thing that resonates with me all the time is the
uncertainty of what this government does to them, the uncertainty of
what this law, in particular, does to them.

{time} 1940

When I talk about uncertainty in business, you cannot begin to
project what your future costs are going to be on legislation for which
the rules and regs still haven't been put in place. So we ask people to
take this blind-faith leap--to go ahead, to go along with it.
The truth of the matter is you can't. You can't when it's your own
skin in the game. You can't when it's your business that's at risk. You
can't hire people when you don't know ultimately what the cost of those
people is going to be.
Now, people say, Why is that a big problem? It's because it drives
the cost of whatever it is that you do. Your personnel costs have an
effect on whether it's the service you provide or the goods that you
provide.
So the confusion that goes along with this bill is what puts job
creators, small business people, in a quandary. They just don't know
what to do because the law doesn't specifically tell them what it's
going to cost. Again, because I've done it all my life and it has
always been my skin in the game and it has always been my blood on the
floor at the end of the day by making a bad decision, if it were about
jobs, if it were about creating jobs, then this legislation surely
didn't get the job done:
Between January of 2009 and April of 2010, private sector job
creation improved by about 67,000 jobs a month. President Obama signed
the PPACA into law at the end of March 2010. Since May of 2010, private
sector job growth has improved at a rate of only 4,600 jobs per month.
Once people get a look at this law, it puts them on the sidelines.
Once again, a law passed by this House and by the Senate and signed by
the President puts the people who really do create jobs in a quandary.
They look at us and they say, Please do something about this. Please
get the government's boot off our throats. I can't continue to plan for
the future with a law that doesn't project the total costs.
Look, we can talk about this on and on and on, but the American
people know better than anybody else the effect that this has had on
them. The job creators know better than anybody else what effect this
has had on them. People in business who were never at the table know
better than anybody else. Now I've gotten to the point where I
understand, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. I've got to
tell you that job creators were put on the menu. They are getting eaten
alive by a piece of legislation that drives their costs of operation up
and that mandates them to do something under penalty of law or to pay a
fine that they don't want to pay.

[[Page H3800]]

The funny thing about it is, a guy like me, I wasn't given the
opportunity. I wasn't given a waiver. Do you know what, Kelly? It may
not work for you, so we're going to give you a waiver. But who did get
waivers? There were some people who got waivers out there. But who were
the people who got the waivers? Why did they get the waivers? We wonder
why the American people don't trust this government and this
administration. Why would you trust people who pick and choose winners
and losers and who say, You will follow the law. You get a waiver?
Really? Why? It's because we can do it.
That's not the America I know. That's not the America that my father
fought for. That's just something that's inherently wrong with the way
business is being done in this town.
So we can talk about this, and we can talk about all the good things
and the bad things and the pieces we ought to keep and the pieces we
ought to reject, and we can talk about the fact that we don't know what
it's going to ultimately cost us. I'll tell you one thing: if you're
starting a business now--and people start businesses all over the
world--at one time, we were No. 4, the country that people wanted to
start a business in. Now we've fallen way down. We trail now Macedonia,
Georgia, Rwanda, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, and Armenia.
It's more attractive to start a business in those countries than in
the United States of America. And we wonder why? We wonder why so many
millions of Americans are out of work? We wonder why job creators,
small business people, won't hire people? We tell them, You're going to
follow the letter of the law, or you're going to be fined. Then we
wonder why they leave our shores and go to other countries?
If we're still wondering, we're either poorly informed or in denial.
We have made it too hard for job creators to stay here. We have made it
too hard for businesspeople to make decisions to hire people. We have
made it too expensive for them, and we leave them no alternative but to
stay on the sidelines. So when the President asks, Why are these people
on the sidelines? Why aren't they investing? I will say, Please find
the nearest mirror. Look in there. It is this administration and these
laws that have put a choke hold on our economy.
Too many Americans have been waiting too long now for answers from a
government that just doesn't have the right answers, but that tells
them the way it's going to be without ever bringing them to the table
in order to ask them, What is the effect on you, Mr. Businessman? How
badly does this hurt you? At the end of the day, it's not about how bad
it hurts the businesspeople. There is very little consideration given
to us.
I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for taking the time to bring
this up in order for us to talk about it. We need to continue to talk
about it, and we need to fix something that is very badly broken.

Mrs. BLACK. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, who is a job
creator.
We are talking about how this bill is affecting our job creators and
our economy, which leads right into my broken promise number 4.
It was said that it will not raise any of your taxes. The President's
health care law broke this promise with 20 different tax hikes, placing
a tremendous burden on American families and small businesses--the
engines of job growth. Americans are already facing a barrage of
Washington-created headwinds from the avalanche of new regulations to
the impending fiscal cliff on January 1. On top of that, job creators
also must work against the velocity of the massive $5 billion ObamaCare
tax increase that will be coming at them over the next decade.
This year, the ObamaCare tax burden comes in at around $15 billion,
as you can see here on the chart, which represents about $190 for each
family of four, but we see it increase 20-fold by the year 2040 when
the tax burden will be $320 billion and when the amount for a family of
four will be $3,290.
With the cost of living--with gas and food and all of these other
crushing burdens on our people--they just cannot afford another
increase in taxes. Every dollar businesses are holding back in
anticipation of this tax hike or new regulation is a dollar not spent
on hiring Americans who are out of work.
With that, I would like to yield 5 minutes of my time to Rob Woodall,
my good colleague from Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Mr. WOODALL. Thank you very much. I thank my friend from Tennessee
for yielding.
I just have to say, for folks who haven't been following your short
15 months here closely, they don't usually put freshmen on the Ways and
Means Committee. They just don't. I mean, this is not a meritocracy.
This is an organization that's often run by tenures, a little like a
labor union shop. You put in your time. You play by the rules. You
eventually get promoted. Yet, when this freshman class came in and when
you looked at the kind of challenges that were facing the Nation, they
looked at folks like you, Mrs. Black, who have invested a career in
health care--not in talking about health care, but in implementing
health care--they said, Where can we make folks the most valuable?
I hear that time and time again back home. Folks say, Rob, why is it
all the bureaucrats are making all the decisions in Washington, D.C.?
What I get to say to them is, You know, that might have been the way
it was, but today we have folks like Dr. Bucshon, like Dr. Heck, and we
have folks like Diane Black, who are in the places where they can bring
their real-life experiences to bear.
I listened to my colleague, Mike Kelly, talk about how folks just
discount job creators as they're passing legislation like this. You
wonder why it is we're in the worst recession in my lifetime. We have
folks who you could consult. We have folks that you could speak with.
We have folks whose advice you could seek and employ. Yet Washington
knows best.
I actually saw your tax chart from my office, so I came down here. I
thought that was going to be something about improving outcomes. I
thought that was going to be something about how more folks have health
insurance today than yesterday. What I see is that it is a chart of tax
burdens--tax burdens. We knew that was going to come. We knew that was
going to come because the promise was within that that we were going to
provide more care to folks, that we were going to do more things for
folks; and, more importantly, health care premiums for the average
American family were going to come down by $2,500 per family. That was
the promise the President gave us.
I see you've brought out another chart. I would ask my colleague,
what are we seeing here?
Mrs. BLACK. Yes, that's exactly what you're seeing here. It is the
rhetoric versus the reality on premium costs.
We can see that the promise was that we'll bring down the premiums by
$2,500 for the typical family. We see here is the line of the rhetoric
and here is the reality, and we can see that it did not bring it down.
As a matter of fact, they're going to continue to go up. It's
estimated, by the time we reach 2015, the premiums will actually have
increased by almost $2,400. A broken promise.

{time} 1950

My concern is when folks see that chart back home, they are not
aghast. Because candidly, that's what they expected. They expected good
rhetoric out of Washington, D.C., and they expected abysmal results.
Candidly, I don't know why they wouldn't. It doesn't matter whether
it's a Republican administration or a Democratic administration,
Washington, D.C., is famous in its one-size-fits-all solutions for
overpromising and underdelivering.
But you always have hope. You always have hope that this time it's
going to be different. Say what you want to about hope and change. I
remember when the President was rolling out this provision. I thought,
Golly, if we would just pass this bill 10 pages at a time, there
probably would be some meritorious parts of it, there would probably be
some provisions that the American people would want. I might not want
them, and leave me alone in the world that I live in, but other folks
would want them, it would pass by 218 votes, If we would only look at
it one small part at a time.
But there were some ugly things in the bill, ugly things that I hope
the Supreme Court solves and releases to us

[[Page H3801]]

next week and shares with us. There were things that folks wanted to
hide in all of these other provisions in the health care bill. One of
the things that I pride myself on in this Congress, what we've seen out
of the Ways and Means Committee, is we haven't seen any 2,000-page
bills in the 15 months that you and I have been in Congress. We haven't
seen any 1,500-page bills when my freshman colleague from Alabama has
been here in Congress. We've seen limited bills with limited ideas that
the American people can digest and understand.
I know that we can deliver that, with the help of colleagues like the
gentlelady from Tennessee, with the Doctors Caucus here in this House,
the largest Doctors Caucus that we have ever had in this House. I know
that we can implement solutions that make sense 10 pages at a time in
consultation with the American people, not an end-run around the
American people.
I just keep staring at this chart behind you--promises that insurance
costs would go down, and the reality that a command-and-control
government structure has driven those costs up.
I was a staffer here before I ran for Congress, and I was here when
this bill was being passed. I remember the phone calls coming in, when
folks started to say, What's the rush? I'm a Democrat. I'm an
independent. I'm someone who wants the government involved in health
care, but what's the rush? I'm concerned that there is something hidden
in there that you folks in Congress want to push it all through before
we've had a chance to see what's in it.
Chart after chart that you brought down here tonight brings back
those memories, that that's exactly right. There were things hidden in
there. Folks did not know what was in it. But we now have a chance to
do it better. With your leadership on the Ways and Means Committee, I'm
certain that we will.
I thank the gentlelady for the time.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank my colleague from Georgia for all those kind
comments.
Once again, looking at this chart, we see the broken promises over
and over and over again. And not only the cost to our job creators,
which certainly is affecting our economy, but also those to the typical
families who are already struggling to get health care. Now we have
increased that cost to them by almost $2,400 in just a few short years.
Now it is my honor to yield to a gentlelady from Alabama, Martha
Roby, who represents Montgomery.
Mrs. ROBY. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for your leadership
tonight on this most important and timely subject. And to the gentleman
from Georgia, I appreciate all of your remarks because I do believe
that we have shown through our campaign promises that we were going to
put forth legislation that's not just commonsensical, but that all
Americans have the ability to digest and understand in a way that gives
them the ability to provide feedback to us as Members of Congress as to
what makes sense and what they are for and what they're not for.
The 3-day rule that we implemented certainly has provided us with an
opportunity to give our constituents time to learn. So we're not
finding ourselves in the same situation as they were in the previous
Congress with this massive health care law. I'm proud to say that one
of our first votes in Congress was to repeal this law in its entirety.
Most of us can agree that this law has very little to do with
commonsense health care reform, but that it translates into substantial
costs, well over $500 billion that has to be paid by hardworking, tax-
paying Americans.
I would think that if this room was filled with colleagues from this
side of the aisle and the other, that what we could all nod and agree
upon is that we need health care in this country, that it's more
accessible and more affordable. We just have different ways of getting
there. And over the course of this Congress, all of my colleagues here,
we've cast over 27 votes to repeal or defund this current law.
Soon--and maybe sooner than later--the Supreme Court is going to hand
down this landmark decision regarding the constitutionality of this
very law that we're discussing here tonight. Of course, just like all
of your districts, it will affect my home district in Alabama. And
regardless of the Supreme Court's decision, I believe that many of the
problems that we have with health care in this country will continue to
be present, and they have a significant impact on small business in
this country. Despite rhetoric, we have a responsibility in this
majority to maintain our focus on jobs and the economy because that is
what Americans are concerned about.
Today, I asked in anticipation of being here with you tonight, my
constituents from the Second District of Alabama, to share with me on
Facebook their concerns surrounding ObamaCare. So I just want to quote
a few of my constituents:

ObamaCare violates the Constitution and the rights of the
American people.
ObamaCare is not the answer.
A board of laymen should not decide what treatment I can
get. That is between me and my doctor, not some committee
with no medical experience.

One of their largest fears is IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory
Board, labeled by critics the ``death panel.''
Under current law, this 15-member board will be empowered to find
cost savings in Medicare by rationing health care services to senior
citizens. You know what? Like the President's czars, this board will be
handpicked by the President and will not be accountable to the American
people or any person that they elected to the Congress to represent
them.
One Montgomery, Alabama, physician, who provides care to Medicare
recipients claims that the cuts in payments to doctors will be
devastating to his ability just to stay in business. We've heard
testimony about how difficult it will be to then recruit family
practitioners and internal medicine doctors into the community. IPAB's
recommendations to reduce health care costs will unfairly and
disproportionately fall on physicians just like him, since the law
prohibits any reductions in payments to hospitals and hospices until
2020.
So many doctors in Alabama are already faced with the painful
decision of staying in business or not seeing Medicare patients, all
because of ObamaCare. Not because of the decisions that this Republican
majority in this House have made. Not only will IPAB have a devastating
effect on businesses, it will have a disastrous effect and negative
consequences on a patient's access to care.
Another concern of my constituents is the employer mandated health
insurance provision. The Obama administration is encouraging employers
to retain and expand health care coverage to their employees by 2014.
My question is this: How can a business owner retain insurance coverage
if it forces him into bankruptcy? This is what all of us here, when we
travel throughout our districts during district work week, this is the
number one concern of uncertainty provided by this law.
I recently heard from another constituent who owns independent
grocery stores throughout Alabama who employs over 500 workers. This
means 500 families are making a living from this business. And when
he's required by law to provide all of his employees with health
insurance, his grocery stores will go bankrupt, causing significant
layoffs to his employees. When a kumquat producer from a southern State
is threatened to go out of business, this is evidence that we have left
no stone unturned when it comes to the loss of jobs.
On a national perspective, the employer mandated health insurance
provision could cause the elimination of 1.6 million jobs, with 66
percent of those coming from small businesses alone. Who wins in this
situation? No one. Every thriving business that is able to sustain the
heavy financial burden of this law is not hiring and growing their
workforce due to the uncertainty.

{time} 2000

As we continue during this 112th Congress, we must remain committed
to reforming health care without the threat of new taxes and
regulations that burden small businesses and the American people.
Congress must be aggressive but responsible and make these reforms as
we stay focused on making America strong and prosperous for future
generations.

[[Page H3802]]

I look forward to working with all of you here tonight. And to the
gentlelady from Tennessee, thank you for your leadership. It could not
have come at a more important time. We need to continue this
discussion.
Again, I cannot emphasize enough that the uncertainty surrounding
this law is stifling job creation. And as we are accused day after day
of not presenting jobs bills, this is it. This is the number one jobs
bill. When we repeal this law, we will lift the heavy hand of
government. And we believe--and I know--that the private sector will,
with that certainty, once again begin hiring those people who
desperately need these jobs all over this country.
Mrs. BLACK. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for coming to the
floor and giving us some very real situations and quotes from people
right back in your district. I was writing down here that you had folks
who were providers of health care, people who were job creators. I'm
talking about the patients, talking about whether this is really what
our government was set up to do, and bringing these very real
situations here so that we can let the American people know how this
bill is affecting every segment of our society. I thank you so much for
coming, especially with those remarks of the people from your district
because these are the people who are living this and are every day
having to deal with what is being placed as a burden upon them. So
thank you so much for sharing that. That's the purpose of this Special
Order tonight.
I would now like to yield 5 minutes to my good friend and colleague
from Cincinnati, Ohio, Steve Chabot.
Mr. CHABOT. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee for yielding. I
also want to thank her for organizing this Special Order this evening
on such an important issue.
None of us knows for sure what the United States Supreme Court is
going to do in the next few days, the next week, maybe 10 days. None of
us even knows for sure when it's going to happen, but I think we all
anticipate that it will be soon. I think none of us would disagree with
the fact that whatever they do, it's going to have significant and real
implications to an awful lot of people all across this country.
I think it's important to remember how we got into this position--
this mess, quite frankly--that we're in right now relative to health
care and what happened. The Democrats were in complete control.
President Obama had been elected, and they controlled the House and the
Senate. And rather than act in a bipartisan manner on something as
important as this, which is what they should have done--they should
have gotten input from both sides and done what was in the best
interest of the people when you are dealing with something as important
as health care--they basically rammed through a bill. Unfortunately,
few had even read the bill, as we heard over and over again. And in
fact, Speaker Pelosi, who was Speaker at the time, even made a
statement that it was important that they pass the bill so they could
find out what was in it. What an incredible statement to make.
And unfortunately, deals were made to get people to vote for this
legislation. The ones that came out that seemed to be the most
egregious were maybe on the other side of the Capitol building, in the
other body, some of the things that we heard about there. But this is
really not the way that legislation is supposed to happen, especially
something as important to people's lives as their health care is.
And I think they thought that--in fact, statements were made that--
the people would like it; they'd fall in love with it once it was
passed. Well, that clearly hasn't happened. There was a poll out, a New
York Times and CBS News poll that just came out recently that indicates
that two-thirds of the American people hope--they'd like to see the
Supreme Court either strike down this health care legislation, or
ObamaCare or whatever terminology one prefers to use, but they'd like
to see it struck down either altogether or at least in part.
Unfortunately, when they focused so much attention on this health
care bill, or ObamaCare, they should have been focused on an even
bigger issue, and that is how the economy is so weak and so many people
are unemployed. They were back at that time, and they still are now.
Instead of devoting attention where it should have been, on the economy
and on getting Americans back to work, they passed this so-called
economic stimulus package, spent over $800 billion. And it did grow one
thing, and that's government. But unfortunately, it did not grow jobs
in the private sector.
After passing that monstrosity, they moved to health care and then
passed this piece of legislation. It took them basically a year to get
it passed. And what has happened is it didn't, as you indicated--and I
think you did an excellent job in pointing out what was said and what
actually happened. They said it's not going to raise taxes. Well, it's
raised 20 different taxes. They said it was going to drive down health
care costs. It's increasing health care costs. They said it was going
to create jobs. It's reduced jobs. In fact, it's been a wet blanket
over the whole economy.
I've talked to a lot of small business people in my district back in
Cincinnati and in the greater Cincinnati area, and I have heard over
and over again that small businesses are afraid to hire people. They're
afraid of the new regulations, the new taxes. So people aren't getting
hired and the jobs aren't being created. And this isn't the only
reason, but this is one of the biggest reasons that you hear our small
business folks say why they are not hiring folks.
In the small business community, about 70 percent of the jobs created
in our economy over the last few decades have been in the small
business sector, and those are the folks that are going to be
particularly hard-hit by this ObamaCare if the Supreme Court upholds
it.

Now, of course, as our colleague from Alabama mentioned previously,
in the House, we passed legislation earlier in this Congress to repeal
this bill. But the other body wouldn't take it up. And even if they
had, I think most of us speculate that the President would have vetoed
it, and we wouldn't have had two-thirds to override the repeal. So we
hope the Supreme Court acts. But even if they don't, we hope that this
body and the body on the other side of the building will act to repeal
it.
Now, relative to one particular thing, the employer mandate, it's
been estimated that that has resulted in the loss--or will result in
the loss of 1.6 million jobs if that ultimately is imposed on
businesses, that they have to move to this ObamaCare. And I think we
all know that a lot of businesses are just going to drop coverage
altogether. People that have insurance now will not have insurance if
or when this goes through.
We also know there is going to be more red tape. There are going to
be more regulations. There are going to be higher taxes. And it's been
estimated the higher taxes alone are going to be over $500 billion--
$569 billion, to be exact.
And what is all of this for? It's a law that puts government ahead of
people. It's a law that consolidates power into the hands of 15
unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that are going to decide how much
of our seniors' Medicare is going to be cut. And that estimate is about
$500 billion of cuts also in Medicare. So it's just an awful piece of
legislation which we certainly hope the Supreme Court strikes down in
the very near future.
There were alternatives to ObamaCare, things that Republicans have
been pushing for a long time. For example, allowing insurance companies
to sell insurance across State lines. That means more competition. That
drives the cost down so people have more access to health care
coverage. Also, association health plans. That means that small
businesses can join together in order to negotiate with the insurance
companies. They have more power to get lower rates for their workers
and their employees. Medical malpractice reform. We have far too many
doctors ordering tests, very expensive tests just to prevent themselves
from getting sued. At least half of these lawsuits are probably
frivolous. We need medical malpractice reform. And then, finally,
health savings accounts, which more and more people are finding more
and more attractive, saving them money and giving them more control
over their health care dollars.
Those are a few of the commonsense reforms that have been proposed
over

[[Page H3803]]

the years but, unfortunately, have been blocked. And they put all of
their money and all of their eggs in the basket of this ObamaCare, and
I really think the thing is likely to be struck down in the very near
future.

{time} 2010

The decisions ought to be made by the people back home around their
kitchen tables--people--mothers and husbands and fathers talking about
what is the most important thing to their family with health care.
That's where the decisions ought to be made, not in backroom deals up
here on Capitol Hill.
So yes, we need health care reform. We didn't need this big
government cop out, really; this monstrosity, this takeover. I know
that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cringe when
we say takeover of health care, but that, in essence, is what it is--
not a complete takeover, but a heck of a big takeover by Big
Government. And that's the last thing we need.
So this is bad public policy. It's bad for the American people. It
needs to go.
I just want to thank you again for organizing this Special Order this
evening and look forward to doing future ones talking with the American
people.
Mrs. BLACK. Thank you. I thank you for coming here tonight to talk
about this program and how it has put a wet blanket on our economy. Not
only that, you did talk about some real solutions that really could
help to deliver health care and make it more accessible, increase the
quality of the care, and at the same time lower the cost. So I sure do
appreciate that.
Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Farenthold). The gentlewoman from
Tennessee has just under 7 minutes remaining.
Mrs. BLACK. I'm going to go quickly to my last points here.
In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to release their
decision regarding the constitutionality of ObamaCare. And I stand
firmly with those 26 States and the National Federation of Independent
Businesses who have laid out convincing evidence that this bill
seriously violates our Constitution and our founding principles. For
the last 3 years, no one has known how or when the court would rule on
ObamaCare so the House has worked tirelessly to repeal and defund the
law. Because every day this law stands is a day that jobs are being
lost, Americans' health care insurance premiums are going up, job
creators and consumers are bearing the brunt of ObamaCare's tax hikes.
And in just 3 short years, ObamaCare has already resulted in fewer
jobs, higher health care costs, and more debt.
My first act here in Congress was repealing this law in its entirety.
Subsequently, I have voted more than two dozen times to either defund
or repeal ObamaCare since being elected to Congress. Unfortunately,
these amendments and others like them have been blocked by the
Democrat-controlled Senate. But due to the steady stream of broken
promises, the growing and unrelenting public outcry, and Republican
lawmakers' unwavering determination, we have been successful in getting
several of the most egregious portions of ObamaCare repealed or
defunded and signed into law. In fact, one of those successes was my
legislation that closed the loophole in the health care law and saved
taxpayers $13 billion. My bill was signed into the law by the President
last November.
Six other ObamaCare provisions have been repealed or have had funding
rescinded and signed into law. One of those that many of us will
remember is the onerous 1099 tax provision that would have drastically
affected especially our small businesses.
Now Republicans are not going to stop here. We will continue to
pursue opportunities to get these and other defunding and repeal bills
to President Obama's desk. Before coming to Congress, I worked in
health care as a registered nurse for more than 40 years, and I have
seen firsthand the problems and the obstacles that patients and the
health care providers face. But ObamaCare is only serving to exacerbate
the current problems and creates entirely new problems. Repealing
ObamaCare is a very important first step that must be accomplished, but
that simply is not enough.
For the past two sessions of Congress, the House Budget Committee has
produced full repeals of ObamaCare and has also set in place a
constructive framework to replace the government takeover of health
care. House Republicans have built on principles that empower patients
with policies that have proven records of success.
Now the House Republican budget passed last year heeds the warnings
of economists around the world. The simple truth is that ObamaCare is
one of the single most destructive things to happen to our economy. We
cannot try to micromanage 17 percent of our economy through a maze of
mandates, taxes, and price control. Our project uses models that foster
competition, innovation, and choice as driving principles behind
improving our health care system.
A critical part of implementing real, patient-centered reform is
Medicare reform. The premium support structure would be a constructive
approach to defending and saving Medicare for current and future
retirees. Premium support would reflect the structure of the
overwhelming successful Medicare part D program. Now Medicare's
prescription drug program is succeeding beyond all expectations. It's
delivering needed prescription drugs to the Medicare beneficiaries at a
lower cost than expected due to the strong competition--yes,
competition--among health care plans that work to keep costs down and
negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for savings.
This market-based program is seen by policymakers as a model for how
to restructure health care entitlement programs. The CBO estimates show
that part D is costing far less than the initial projections. Total
costs for part D are now estimated to be 43 percent lower than the
initial projections for the initial 2004 2013 forecast period,
according to CBO Medicare part D baselines for 2004 2013.
In March of 2012, the CBO reduced its Medicare part D spending
projection from 2013 2022 by $107 billion. This was due to ``an
increase in the number of high-volume drugs with generic substitutes
available and changes in drug utilization.'' At the same time, CBO
increased its projected spending for the rest of Medicare.

Now let's take a look at the average beneficiary part D premiums in
2012 that are far below the original projections. As a matter of fact,
you can see here on the chart that the average monthly beneficiary
premium for part D coverage is about $30 in 2012, virtually unchanged
from 2011 and far below the $56 forecast that was originally projected.
According to the CMS administrator, Don Berwick, these consistently low
premiums, ``are going to make medications more affordable to the
Medicare beneficiaries,'' and CMS officials reported in 2011 over 99
percent of part D enrollees had access to the plan with a premium that
is the same or lower than their 2010 premium. And you can see that very
clearly here on this chart of what the projections were and what the
actual amount is coming in. The same amount of the premium in 2011 and
2012. Just remarkable.
Now research shows that increased access to medication achieved
through part D is actually lowering beneficiaries' health care costs. A
new study in JAMA found that the implementation of the Medicare
prescription drug program was followed by a $1,200 per year decrease in
nondrug medical spending among those who previously had limited drug
coverage, which has been reported to generate over $12 billion per year
in savings to part D from less use of hospital and skilled nursing
facilities.
As a matter of fact, what this has shown is that because patients are
receiving their medication and can afford them, they are not going to
the hospital as much, therefore saving costs. Beneficiaries are also
highly satisfied with part D. Recently released surveys showed that
Medicare part D enrollees are overwhelmingly satisfied with part D
coverage. Eighty-eight percent of the part D enrollees are satisfied
with their coverage, and 95 percent say this coverage works well.
Additionally, vulnerable beneficiaries who are dually eligible for both
Medicaid and Medicare exhibit the highest satisfaction.
Now should the high court fail to overturn the law, or sever parts of
this

[[Page H3804]]

disastrous piece of legislation, the House Republicans will continue to
fight to defund and repeal ObamaCare. While the country continues to
suffer from failed policies and broken promises of the Obama
administration, my Republican colleagues and I will not only continue
to undo the damage, but we will also rebuild a health care system that
puts patients and their doctors in the driver's seat rather than the
unelected bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the remainder of my time.

____________________