[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H2670-H2681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 45, REPEAL OF PATIENT PROTECTION
AND AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 215 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 215
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 45)
to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and
health care-related provisions in the Health Care and
Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. All points of order
against consideration of the bill are waived. The amendment
printed in the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying
this resolution shall be considered as adopted. The bill, as
amended, shall be considered as read. All points of order
against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. The
previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill,
as amended, and on any amendment thereto to final passage
without intervening motion except: (1) two hours of debate
equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs
and ranking minority members of the Committees on Education
and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means;
and (2) one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 1
hour.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Slaughter),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
General Leave
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. BURGESS. House Resolution 215 provides for a rule to consider the
full repeal of the flawed, ill-conceived and inappropriately named
Affordable Care Act, a bill whose final language was written by staff
on the Senate Finance Committee and the actual legislative text of
which received not a single committee hearing or markup in this body.
While many hearings and markups were held on other iterations of other
health care bills, the legislation that was signed by the President
received not a single moment of scrutiny in this House and contained
none of the bipartisan amendments that were accepted during the markups
of other health care bills, including H.R. 3200, which passed the House
but was never considered by the Senate. As such, only a full repeal is
acceptable, and that is what this rule provides for.
The rule provides for 2 hours of debate, controlled by the Committees
on Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Education and the
Workforce. Further, the rule self-executes the Bachmann amendment,
which provides for a clean repeal of the entire ACA, consistent with
the provisions of the opening day rules package of this Congress. The
rule further provides the minority one motion to recommit with or
without instructions.
This approach, a full repeal, will give the House, particularly
Members who were not here in the past two Congresses, an opportunity to
have an up-or-down vote, an affirmation or a denial, of the Affordable
Care Act.
Americans should have the freedom to make their own health care
decisions. In March of 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act was signed into law. It was drafted quickly and behind closed doors
at the end of 2009--behind closed doors in the other body, in fact. It
included secret deals, loopholes, drafting errors, and allowed entirely
new Federal agencies to be created without congressional knowledge or
oversight.
The bottom line: it was not the way to achieve meaningful reform. In
addition, the Supreme Court ruled last June that the law is, in fact, a
tax. This is after President Obama continually told the American people
that it was not a tax.
The health care system in America needs reform, and it needs
improvement; but the law that was passed will cost American taxpayers
and patients millions of dollars. It will not improve care, and it will
not make care more affordable. We need to start fresh and address the
issues with commonsense improvements that will focus on the real issues
at hand--creating a health care system that is focused on patients
instead of payment, quality instead of quantity, affordability instead
of cheapness, and innovation instead of stagnation. The first step is
eliminating bad legislation that simply does not work and that today
stands in the way of any real improvement. That is why, today, I
strongly support the repeal of the President's health care law.
[[Page H2671]]
The President did repeatedly tell us that the penalty associated with
the individual mandate was not a tax. It was repeated several times in
the run-up to this bill's being signed. In June, the Supreme Court
affirmed that the only way that this bill could remain law was that it
was, indeed, a tax, and Congress has the infinite power to tax. In
fact, Congress can tax morning, noon, and night. It can tax the
American people back to the stone age if that's what it wishes, and
that's what the Affordable Care Act does. When millions are unemployed,
this is, indeed, the last thing we need.
It's not just the tax. It's the effect on premiums. Up on the Energy
and Commerce Web site this week is a study showing how the Affordable
Care Act is going to affect premiums in the individual market, in the
small-group market, and in the large-group market; and almost uniformly
those premiums are going up, and in some cases they are going up a
staggering amount.
Last summer, the Supreme Court's decision leaves in place a costly
and unworkable health care scheme that is hurting America's families,
that is hurting America's workers, that is hurting America's job
creators, and that is damaging America's patients. We will all have to
live with that ruling. If we do not repeal, then we will have to live
with the law as written. The time has come to step up and do the right
thing. I urge support of the rule.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30
minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, before I discuss the value of the Affordable Care Act,
commonly referred to as ObamaCare, I must acknowledge the sad fact that
this will be the 37th time in 29 months that the majority has voted to
repeal or defund the law, and they know it will not happen. Recent
estimates are that each vote to repeal or to defund the Affordable Care
Act has cost $1.45 million in taxpayer money. So today's debate will
bring the total cost of repeal votes to--wake up there--$53 million and
counting.
Now, while the majority wastes our tax dollars, think what we could
do with $53 million. The agriculture bill we were all talking about
this morning is ready to take $20 billion out of food stamps, feeding
poor people, while we waste that kind of money here doing a bill month
after month after month that we know is not going anywhere. Yet we
don't have any positive agenda to put forward here. For the last 2 or 3
months, all we've done are one-House bills that everybody knows are not
going to get passed, and it really is a tragedy because a CBS study
says it costs $25 million a week just to run the Congress--and how
deplorable that kind of waste is with all the problems we have in the
country.
We are told that the freshman Republicans would like, once again, to
have an opportunity to vote to kill health care. I wonder if the
freshman Republicans, as I know the freshman Democrats do, wouldn't
like to vote to repeal the sequester or to maybe do a jobs bill, which
we haven't had in 2\1/2\ years. We are not going to do anything about
the budget either when we've heard all the time, Why doesn't the Senate
do a budget? The Senate has done a budget. The Senate has asked over
and over again for the House to appoint conferees so that we can get
the budget put together and pass it into law. No action there either.
Then, because of the sequester cuts, at least 70,000 children have been
denied access to early education, and thousands of cancer patients have
been denied their regular cancer treatments.
The majority says it is holding today's vote, as I said, so that the
freshmen can repeal the Affordable Care Act. I wish to goodness that
they would give them something that would really pass and something
good to vote on.
Instead of voting to repeal the sequester, the majority is voting for
the 37th time to repeal a law--and this is very important--that has
already done so much already. It has given 100 million Americans access
to free preventative health care, procedures such as mammograms and
colonoscopies. That's 100 million already. They are voting for the 37th
time to repeal a law that saves seniors $6.1 billion in prescription
drug costs already. They are voting for the 37th time to repeal a law
that has provided 3.1 million young adults with health insurance
already that they otherwise could not afford.
The Affordable Care Act has been particularly beneficial for
America's women. Did you know that prior to the passage of this law in
eight States and in the District of Columbia, domestic violence was
classified as a preexisting condition and you could be denied
insurance? They were denied insurance because they had been abused and
because, perhaps, they would be again.
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Did you know that thanks to a practice called ``gender rating,''
women were charged as much as 46 percent more in premiums for the same
level of insurance as a man? Maybe you didn't know that. But lots of
women in the country are getting rebates for that very reason.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, both of these discriminatory
practices have been outlawed. In addition, the Affordable Care Act has
already returned money to the pockets of millions of women thanks to
the rebates required by insurance companies under the health care law.
Finally, the Affordable Care Act outlawed lifetime and yearly limits,
insidious insurance practices that capped the amount of health care an
insurance company would provide. But because of health care reform,
Americans no longer have to worry that they will be denied health care
that they need simply because insurance companies refuse to pay for
their continued care.
And did you know that 85 percent of your premium dollar will go to
health care and not to other things that the insurance company wants to
spend it on?
The majority has claimed that the Affordable Care Act is bad for
America's small businesses. The truth is that for any small business
that has less than 50 employees, it requires them to do nothing
different, nothing at all from what they're doing today. But small
businesses with less than 25 employees are eligible for a tax credit of
35 percent right now. And on January 1, that tax credit will increase
to 50 percent. You will get a tax credit on half of the health
insurance you pay when you have under 25 employees.
The majority has also claimed and will continue to claim that the
Affordable Care Act was passed in the dark of night through a closed-
door process that denied their side of the aisle the opportunity to
participate in the legislative process. This charge is categorically
untrue. The Affordable Care Act was the product of nearly 100 hearings
and 83 hours of committee markups, including both Republicans and
Democrats making amendments. The House heard from 181 witnesses, both
Democrat and Republican. There were 239 amendments considered in House
committees and 121 that were adopted.
And while some on the other side of the aisle charge that the final
version of the law was rushed through the House, the final bill was
available for 72 hours before any Members were asked to vote on it.
In contrast, the Patients' Rights Repeal Act, which we're doing again
today as I said for the 37th time, is being considered after no
committee hearings, no committee markups, and under a closed rule. That
means there will be no amendments on this bill. Even if one were
sympathetic toward the majority's goal, the complete abuse of the
legislative process should give every Member of this Chamber pause.
Mr. Speaker, today's vote is just the latest in the majority's all-
out effort to undermine the process of implementing the health care
law. Their efforts have taken many forms, but central to it all is
their refusal to provide the necessary funding to fully implement the
law and a gleeful willingness to criticize an implementation process
that is underfunded and undermined at every single turn.
Despite their best efforts, I believe that in the years to come, the
majority will find that they stood on the wrong side of history, just
as they stood on the wrong side of history when Social Security was
passed and when Medicare came into being.
Indeed, the opponents of the Affordable Care Act have already had
their day in court. Last summer, the Supreme Court affirmed the
constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, putting to rest any false
legal concerns that opponents had.
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With the constitutionality of the law no longer in question, one
might expect opponents to criticize the law's impact on our Nation's
finances. But here again, the facts will stand in the way. Over the
last 3 years, U.S. health care spending grew at 3.9 percent. That, Mr.
Speaker, is the lowest growth rate in 50 years. And according to the
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, repealing the Affordable Care
Act would actually increase our Nation's deficit by more than $100
billion over the next 10 years. Please think of that and understand
what they are trying to do away with today--the things that help you.
Mr. Speaker, providing safe, secure, and affordable health care for
our citizens has been the goal of both Republican and Democrat
lawmakers for generations. As far back as Theodore Roosevelt, we have
acknowledged the need to provide our citizens with a health care system
that puts their health before industry profits, that has as good
outcomes as other parts of the world provide for their citizens. We
need to treat health care as a right for all, not a privilege for the
lucky few.
Under the leadership of a Democratic Congress, we managed to realize
at long last this long-awaited goal by passing the Affordable Care Act
through an open, deliberative, and thorough legislative process. And
from reducing our Nation's health care spending to expanding health
care to millions of Americans who could not afford it, the Affordable
Care Act is succeeding.
It is in this light that the majority's 37th vote in 29 months to
repeal health care should be judged. And it's hard to judge their
politically driven vote as anything other than a disservice to the
American people, a waste of taxpayer money and a way to spread
misinformation.
I urge my colleagues to reject today's rule and the underlying
legislation. And I reaffirm my pride in supporting the law that is
already helping to save lives and already providing American people
with secure and affordable health care. And after it is fully
implemented next year, all Americans will benefit.
I reserve the balance of my time
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, now I would like to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas, a member of the Budget Committee, Roger Williams.
Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of freedom and free
enterprise, the hallmarks of our great American democracy. A government
that places high value on these principles does not force its citizens
to hand over their hard-earned money for a mandatory product, in this
case health insurance. This is not how it's done in America.
Mr. Speaker, Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues rushed this
bill through Congress more than 3 years ago. Democrats and Republicans
can agree on one thing, that this is very flawed and is not even what
Americans asked for in the first place. Even President Obama has signed
into law seven bills that dismantle provisions of his health care law.
Defying common sense, the President and Democrats and Congress
continue pushing forward with implementation of this disastrous law.
And who wants it? Members of Obama's own party are now doubting how the
law will work. Some of the key players who wrote the bill don't even
want it. Senator Max Baucus said the health care law is a train wreck,
and Senator Jay Rockefeller said that it's overly complicated and
beyond comprehension.
Architects of this law don't want it, insurance companies don't want
it, the majority of the public doesn't want it, organized labor doesn't
want it, and as a small business owner of nearly 42 years, I can tell
you that small businesses don't want it.
No business owner would run their business like the President is
running this government and this massive health care overhaul. I can
say from firsthand experience that small businesses--the backbone of
our economy--are literally hurting.
As a job creator, I know how businesses can no longer hire. They
can't take risks that would grow the economy. I've heard from people
all over my district who have work available and positions ready to
fill, but they can't hire anyone or else they risk going over the
number of 50 employees and being subject to the ObamaCare employee
mandate. Everybody wants to be at 49.
How is this good for Americans and America?
The struggling economy has already forced families to cut back and
tighten their budgets. How does the President expect these hardworking
taxpayers to pay an additional $3,000 each year for ObamaCare?
I've had employees come to me in tears wondering how they're going to
provide coverage for their families. And even the few Americans able to
keep their current insurance will see their premiums rise by an average
of 73 percent.
Again, I ask, how is that good for America?
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to quote Patrick Henry. He
claimed:
The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to
restrain the people. It is an instrument for the people to
restrain the government--lest it come to dominate our lives
and interest.
Let's put an end to the chaos and do what's right for our families,
our businesses, and our tax dollars. Repeal ObamaCare today--the
quicker the better.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Matsui).
Ms. MATSUI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the rule and the
underlying legislation.
Well, here we go again. In fact, I've lost count of how many times
we've had to vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
The underlying legislation before us today would deny my constituents
and the American people access to affordable health care. It would
increase health costs and reduce benefits for millions of American
families.
It's particularly ironic that during Older Americans Month, we are
here voting on a bill that will eliminate benefits to seniors,
including preventive services and savings on prescription drugs.
It would allow insurance companies to deny coverage to Americans with
preexisting conditions, drop coverage when people get sick, reinstitute
lifetime limits on coverage and charge people more based merely on
gender.
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The Affordable Care Act has already created long-lasting benefits for
many of my constituents, including Theresa, a single mother of four
whose youngest child is 20 and lives with a preexisting condition.
Prior to the Affordable Care Act, Theresa was personally spending over
$10,000 a year to pay for her care. Her daughter's medical condition
prevented her from attending college. But thanks to the Affordable Care
Act, she was able to be added back on to her mother's health plan. This
has meant tremendous savings for Theresa, who was worried she might
lose her home, along with the care her daughter desperately needed.
A vote against this rule and against the underlying legislation is a
vote to protect our constituents from unfair insurance company
practices, to provide relief to Americans, young and old alike, to
protect job growth and creation, and for a fiscally responsible future.
It is time for this Congress to move forward, not backwards.
I urge my colleagues to vote down this rule and the underlying
legislation.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for
yielding.
I rise in strong support of this rule. And as a proud cosponsor of
this bill to repeal ObamaCare, I think it is very important that we in
this House have this vote. Yes, we've had this vote many times. I think
it's important to have it again this Congress because so much more has
come to light since the last time that this vote was held in the last
Congress. What are some of those things? Well, of course, when Nancy
Pelosi was Speaker, she famously said, ``You have to pass the bill to
find out what's in it.''
Well, we're seeing more and more every day just how many devastating
things are happening in our economy because of ObamaCare. In fact, how
bad is it? It's so bad that one of the Senate architects of the bill,
Senator Max
[[Page H2673]]
Baucus, said: ``I see a huge train wreck coming down.''
Now, when they were in the back room writing this bill, he was the
guy with the pen. He wrote the bill in the Senate, and he said it's a
train wreck coming down.
Why would we want to do this to the American people? The system of
health care that we have today has some problems, but why would you
want to destroy the things that work? You fix the things that work.
This bill, ObamaCare, is actually scheduled to increase health care
costs dramatically for American families. In fact, what will it do to
our health care system? And this is what families are finding out, all
across not just southeast Louisiana, the area that I represent, but all
across the country. This chart shows all of the different Federal
agencies that come in between a patient and their doctor in health
care. It used to be the patient talking to the doctor, and they made
the health care decision. That was the sacred relationship in health
care. Now you've got all of these Federal agencies.
And who's at the top? The IRS. The IRS is the enforcement arm of
ObamaCare. And, of course, just in the last few days we've seen the
corruption at the IRS where they've literally gone and picked winners
and losers, picked partisan fights, and literally tried to enforce the
Obama administration's will, punishing the enemies of the Obama
administration. This is not the agency that should be running health
care.
We need to repeal this law and fix the real problems in health care.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I thank the gentlelady for
yielding, and for her extraordinary leadership. I rise today, Mr.
Speaker, in opposition to the Patients' Rights Repeal Act and in
opposition to the rule.
Mr. Speaker, at a time when the American people would like Congress
to focus their attention on increasing and growing the economy and job
growth, we are instead, for the 37th time, involved in partisan
politics.
It is especially troubling that our Republican colleagues have chosen
to celebrate National Women's Health Week by attempting to undo the
important gains that were made for women's health in the Affordable
Care Act. A study issued by the Joint Economic Committee while I was
chair found that across this country, under the old status quo, an
estimated 64 million women lacked adequate health insurance, and 39
percent of all low-income women had no health insurance coverage at
all.
A repeal now of the Affordable Care Act could mean that millions of
American women could find it nearly impossible to gain insurance if
they had a preexisting condition, such as pregnancy. A repeal now would
take away benefits women are already receiving such as free mammograms.
A repeal now would mean the end of lower-cost prescription drugs for
our seniors. A repeal now would yank young people between the age of 23
and 26 off their parents' policies. A repeal now would send us back to
the bad old days, to the days of preexisting conditions, gender
ratings, and lifetime caps. It would mean that in this next year alone,
over 1.9 million people would not have access to quality, dependable
health insurance coverage.
Vote ``no'' on this repeal.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I now am pleased to yield such time as she
may consume to the author of the bill and a true leader in this effort,
in this fight, the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann).
Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge all of my colleagues on
both sides of the aisle to listen to the clear, distinct voice of the
American people. They have spoken loudly. They have spoken clearly.
They heard the words of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi when she
famously said we must pass ObamaCare before we can know what's in it.
As my colleague, Steve Scalise, said, now we know what's in the bill,
and now we know why ObamaCare is less popular today than even before it
was passed for the first time. Because you see, Mr. Speaker, the more
we learn about ObamaCare, the more unpopular it becomes.
Even a Democrat, Max Baucus, who helped write ObamaCare said:
I just tell you, I see a huge train wreck coming down.
Well, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, 7 months from now when ObamaCare comes
fully online, when people's health care premiums will soar through the
roof, in some cases increasing 417 percent, what then, Mr. Speaker?
We see this coming, just like the Titanic. We see the iceberg, only
it's not just in a mist, shortly in front of our eyes. We have time to
turn. That's why we're here. We're here to make the turn from a train
wreck.
So why not repeal that bill today? Repeal it in the House, but repeal
it in the U.S. Senate, and force the President of the United States to
repudiate his signature piece of legislation under his watch, which his
own party calls a train wreck. It's now. Now is the time to listen to
the American people.
You see, Mr. Speaker, President Obama told us, he promised us that
ObamaCare would fund insurance for people with preexisting conditions.
As a compassionate people, we want to help people in this very
difficult situation. But ObamaCare, the truth is that it is so poorly
thought out that the funding for preexisting conditions has already run
out. You heard me right, Mr. Speaker: less than 1 percent of the
American people with preexisting conditions got the funding and now the
door has been slammed in their face.
And so I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what now? What are the remaining 99
percent of the American people with preexisting conditions supposed to
do now? Now they're told we've already run out of money, and the bill
hasn't even fully come into effect, the centerpiece of compassion under
this bill.
And now we've learned that the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service--and
I used to be a Federal tax litigation attorney, and our client was the
IRS. I was involved with this agency. Now we've learned that the IRS,
which is tasked with enforcing this very unpopular bill of ObamaCare,
the IRS admitted they targeted Americans. They targeted conservative
groups. They targeted Christians. They targeted pro-Israel people. They
targeted people who are pro-business who are against accumulating debt.
And, yes, they targeted Tea Party groups based upon their political and
religious beliefs.
And so this gargantuan government expansion known as ObamaCare will
allow bureaucrats access to our most intimate, personal health care
information. It will be a huge database that government is putting
together and building right now.
Under ObamaCare, the average American will pay more, they'll get
less, and now they have to worry that their government may punish them
because of their beliefs.
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This is America. We don't do that in this country.
We want real solutions. We want cures for Alzheimer's. We can have
it. We want cures for Parkinson's disease. It's within our grasp. We
want cures for juvenile diabetes.
Spend our money there. We deserve better. The American people deserve
better solutions and real reform in health care. Now is the time.
Listen to the American people, and let's give them what they deserve.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).
Mr. CICILLINE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding and for her
extraordinary leadership.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Patients' Rights
Repeal Act and the underlying rule.
More than 3 years ago, following months of vitriolic debate and
perpetual Republican talking points on socialized medicine and
government-sponsored death panels, Congress passed, and the President
signed into law, a historic health care reform bill that was designed
to extend health care to millions of Americans and, over time, bring
down the costs of health care.
Opponents of this new law didn't give up. They took their case all
the way to the Supreme Court, and they lost. In the House, they held 36
votes to repeal or defund this law, and they failed.
According to an analysis from CBS News, these empty attempts at
repeal
[[Page H2674]]
have cost taxpayers a total of $52.4 million, even as my Republican
friends argue for cutting important programs like Head Start and
critical nutrition programs for those most in need.
Yet here we stand, about to vote, for a 37th time, on repealing a
bill that is already providing real benefits for our country.
Contrary to what my friends on the other side of the aisle may argue,
we've already seen a slowdown in the overall growth of health care
spending since the enactment of this law.
And just in my home State of Rhode Island, more than 170,000 women
have guaranteed access to preventive services without cost-sharing;
374,000 Rhode Islanders no longer have to worry about lifetime limits
on their coverage; and 9,000 young adults have gained access to health
care coverage because of this law.
Let's reject this proposal, stop playing these political games, and
get back to the really serious and urgent work of creating jobs,
preventing gun violence, fixing our broken immigration system, passing
a budget by regular order, and ending the sequester.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, may I ask as to the time remaining.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 17 minutes
remaining. The gentlewoman from New York has 14 minutes remaining.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).
Mr. HUELSKAMP. Mr. Speaker, President Obama and his legislative
supporters promised us many things in ObamaCare. Some folks might call
this misinformation, but today I call them whoppers.
Whopper No. 1: we were promised ObamaCare will reduce the deficit.
Instead, according to the report from the nonpartisan GAO, ObamaCare
will increase the Federal deficit by $6.2 trillion.
Secretary Sebelius, whopper No. 2: health insurance for all. She has
now admitted up to 24 million Americans will lose their current health
insurance.
No. 3: we were promised it will not fund abortions. Yet for the first
time in decades, Americans will be forced to fund abortions through
Federal insurance subsidies.
Whopper No. 4: it will create jobs. A recent nonpartisan study
concluded that ObamaCare's employer mandate can put up to 3.2 million
American jobs at risk.
No. 5: we were promised it will strengthen Medicare but, instead,
ObamaCare contains $700 billion in cuts to Medicare and allows a
bureaucratic, unelected, unaccountable panel to make these massive cuts
to Medicare.
Whopper No. 6: we were promised that ObamaCare respects religious
liberty. Nineteen courts disagree because the HHS mandate requires all
employers to pay for insurance, including abortion drugs, irrespective
of any moral objections.
Whopper No. 7: health insurance will go down, they promised. But
instead, every estimate, every estimate provided by insurance providers
indicates premiums will increase anywhere from 20 to 400 percent.
Whopper No. 8: it is not a tax. If it's not a tax, why does the IRS
need 2,000 more agents just to implement ObamaCare? Because of the 21
tax hikes included in the bill.
And last of all and, most importantly, the biggest whopper of all: if
you like your health care plan, you can keep it. My constituents, your
constituents have shared real life story after story about how they
will lose the coverage they like once the individual mandate goes into
effect. And the CBO estimates up to 7 million Americans may lose their
employer-sponsored health insurance plan.
Mr. Speaker, it's time to stop telling whoppers and start speaking
the truth. It's time to repeal ObamaCare now.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the
Patients' Rights Repeal Act. This is the Republicans' 37th callous
attempt to derail health care reform.
Rather than work to create jobs and to improve our economy,
Republicans are focused on taking away key patients' rights and
benefits that are already improving countless American lives.
With this vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act, House
Republicans are saying that they don't mind if insurance companies drop
patients as soon as they get sick, or if our seniors can't afford their
prescription drugs to stay healthy.
Three years after the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress,
signed into law by the President, and upheld as constitutional by the
Supreme Court, millions of Americans, particularly our Nation's women,
are seeing meaningful protections for their health and well-being.
As a cancer survivor and as a mother of three young children, this
law isn't about politics for me. It's personal.
When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 41, 5 years
ago, it was like my world was coming down around me all at once.
My colleagues must understand, and we were reminded again this week,
there is nothing in the world more gut-wrenching as a parent than not
being able to assure your children that their mom is going to be okay,
or that they won't have to worry about getting cancer someday
themselves.
I was fortunate to have exceptional health care coverage, but too
many women in our country have never had the ability to see a doctor,
and so many face true financial hardship with a diagnosis like mine.
Over the past 5 years, I've had so many women come up to me and
confess that they haven't had a mammogram in years because they can't
afford the expensive co-pays or they fear the prohibitive cost of
treatment. That is unacceptable in the United States of America.
Imagine how many millions in our country face terrifying health care
decisions every day. This Congress has the power to protect them from
uncertainty, instability, and financial ruin. That power lies in the
provisions of the Affordable Care Act, tools like free preventative
care and cancer screening services that help save women's lives.
We cannot waste another minute with more of these meaningless
attempts to repeal a law that has already made a difference for so many
of our constituents. For our children, and all families across this
Nation, we must come together and work to implement this historic
health care reform that is the law of the land and that is not going to
be repealed.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).
Mr. HURT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of the full repeal of the
President's health care law. I believe we must repeal this law and
replace it with patient-centered, market-oriented reforms that will
improve patient care, broaden patient access, and reduce patient costs.
From the beginning, the President promised that his health care law
would improve the quality of health care for all Americans. He said if
you wanted to keep your doctor, his plan was for you. If you wanted to
keep your health care plan, his law was for you. He said that if you
wanted lower insurance premiums, his law was for you.
Well, the bill passed, and the people of Virginia's Fifth District
are getting a full dose of it, and they don't like what they see. As
I've traveled across Virginia's Fifth District, I've heard from our
constituents, our Main Street businesses, our local governments, and
our health care providers that this law is not living up to the
President's promises.
In fact, people are not able to keep the health care plans that
they've always counted on. People are being hit with spikes in
insurance premiums, and people are having to take second jobs because
they can't afford to live on a 29-hour workweek.
This repeal bill is important because it is an expression of the
sentiment of the people I represent. They want real health care reform,
not government mandates.
I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and support this bill.
{time} 1330
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Swalwell).
Mr. SWALWELL of California. I rise in opposition to the Patients'
Rights
[[Page H2675]]
Repeal Act, the 37th such time that the Republican House leadership has
had us consider this.
Before I came to Congress, I was a prosecutor. And as a prosecutor, I
would take my case, present evidence to the jury; the jury would reach
a verdict, and the case would be closed. The same has occurred with the
Affordable Care Act.
In 2009 and 2010, this body debated the Affordable Care Act. Evidence
that the Affordable Care Act would increase access to quality care was
presented. Evidence about eliminating preexisting conditions was
presented. The law was passed by a majority of democratically elected
Representatives. It was signed into law by the President of the United
States, and recently it was upheld by the Supreme Court. We had an
election where the President and the candidate who ran against him
talked about these, and they had two very different positions, and this
President who signed it into law was reelected. The verdict on the
Affordable Care Act is in. The case is closed.
Mr. Speaker, the benefits are also real. In California, 5.6 million
people will have access to health care.
There are very serious issues facing our country: growing and lifting
our economy, having a green energy policy that makes us independent
from other foreign sources of oil, and passing comprehensive
immigration reform. But this House Republican leadership is acting like
a frivolous litigant wasting our time voting over and over and over--37
times--to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The 37th time will not be a
charm.
The definition of ``insanity'' is doing the same thing over and over
and over and expecting a different result. I urge my colleagues to
oppose H.R. 45, and I urge the House Republican leadership to stop the
insanity, and let's move forward on the issues that will grow our
economy, make us independent from foreign sources of oil in how we find
our energy, and fix a broken immigration system.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Virginia.
Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, Dr.
Burgess, for his leadership on this issue and for yielding me this
time.
We just heard the speaker talk about the definition of ``insanity,''
and Americans woke up the last few weeks and realized the definition of
``insanity'' is giving massive amounts of information to thousands of
new Internal Revenue Service agents who can use it as leverage over our
lives.
I hope that, despite the fact that this bill is increasing costs on
individuals and businesses, at least we ought to agree we don't want to
hire thousands of new Internal Revenue Service agents and give them all
of this information that they can use as an abusive process over our
lives. In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, I have introduced the Prevent
IRS Overreach Act which would at least take the Internal Revenue
Service out of this provision.
I hope that we'll adopt this rule and we'll support the underlying
bill.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the gentlelady for her leadership.
I rise today in opposition to the Patients' Rights Repeal Act. I want
you to see the face of those who have been served across America. They
are, yes, low-income, some are impoverished, but many are middle
income. In fact, there was an article in the Texas newspaper that said,
part of what drives the need for health care are Medicaid, expanded
Medicaid, which is part of this great bill, the Affordable Care Act, is
the fact that people are impoverished.
And so here is what my friends want to do today for the 37th time.
They want to take away from 13 million Americans the health insurance
that they need, that they were able to secure with rebates from the
health insurance companies. They want to take away from 105 million
Americans, 71 million Americans in private plans, who have received
free preventative services. They want to be able to tell the women who
needed mammograms and additional tests for breast cancer that you can't
go in and get the preventative care that you need to save lives. Oh,
yes. They want to tell 17 million children with preexisting disease you
cannot go in anymore and be covered.
The conversation over here is plain foolish. They're only talking
about their economics--their economics of wealth. Yes, maybe their
districts have not felt the pain of racial disparities which they're
going to eliminate if they get rid of this bill. Maybe they are not in
one of these States, 10 States like Texas that has 28.4 percent
uninsured, along with the Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and many others,
Florida, that have uninsured people who need this. Maybe they'll tell
the 6.6 million children that have taken advantage of the law today to
obtain health insurance for preexisting disease that they cannot do
that, or maybe they'll tell the seniors that you can go back into the
doughnut hole again.
I don't know why we're doing this, but I will tell you that I see
that lives are saved.
I introduced an amendment to make sure that we didn't lose the
federally qualified health clinics. When you repeal this bill, you will
dash the hopes of those who have been walking into their neighborhoods,
going into federally qualified health clinics and getting the good care
that they need.
All this is is spoiled grapes. That's what this is. Drink the wine
and leave us alone, and make sure that we keep the Patients' Bill of
Rights and Affordable Care Act.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Dr. Burgess, thank you for yielding.
The ObamaCare law must be ripped out by its roots, and it needs to be
replaced with something that makes sense for my patients and my
colleagues so that we can deliver good quality health care.
ObamaCare is a destroyer. It's going to destroy the doctor-patient
relationship. It's going to destroy the quality of health care in
America. It's going to destroy budgets: personal budgets, family
budgets, business budgets, State budgets, and even the Federal budget.
It's a big spending bill. We've got to stop this outrageous spending.
I just got off the phone with our Governor, Nathan Deal, and he told
me that the cost of health care for State employees in Georgia has gone
up 12 percent because of ObamaCare, and it's going higher. I just got
an email from a businessman in Georgia who said that his premiums have
doubled since last year because of ObamaCare.
We must rip it out by the roots and replace it with my Patient OPTION
Act that's a market-based, patient-centered health care plan that will
literally make health care cheaper for everybody in this country. It
will provide coverage for all Americans, and it's going to save
Medicare from going broke. ObamaCare is going to break the bank for
everybody, and it just must be repealed and replaced with my Patient
OPTION Act.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself 30 seconds to respond
to the previous speaker.
I feel very badly about his constituent whose health care price has
gone up, but I want to say that that's because the insurance companies
raise those prices. ObamaCare is not yet in effect for small
businesses.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentlelady yield?
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I'm sorry, I haven't got the time. It's all allocated.
But I will talk to you later about it.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. It's ObamaCare that's running the cost up, not
the insurance companies.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. No, it's not. It's the insurance coverage.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut
(Ms. Esty).
Ms. ESTY. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the Patients' Rights Repeal Act and the
rule.
Now, there's nothing wrong with working to improve the Affordable
Care Act. We should work to make quality health care more affordable
and more available to all Americans. But repeal is not a solution and
has real and serious consequences for folks in Connecticut. Even worse,
this vote is a tremendous waste of time when we
[[Page H2676]]
have serious work to do for our constituents.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is the 37th time--the 37th time--Congress is
voting to repeal health care reform.
Five months after the tragic attack in Newtown in my district, House
Republican leaders continue to refuse to allow a single vote--a single
vote--on commonsense gun legislation to reduce gun violence. Instead of
voting on enhanced background checks, a reform supported by over 90
percent of the American people, Congress has now devoted 15 percent of
its time to trying to repeal health care.
Mr. Speaker, it's time for Congress to stop wasting time on pointless
political gamesmanship and to get to work for the American people.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Iowa, Steve King.
Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
And as I listen to the gentlelady talk about enhanced background
checks, it just occurs to me, Mr. Speaker, that if we repeal ObamaCare,
we can save more lives by bringing real health care reform to this
country and restoring the doctor-patient relationship, providing
incentives for research and development, and letting our health care
system continue to modernize instead of freezing its development and
atrophy, as it will, under a government-controlled program.
As I listened to the gentlelady earlier offer her opening remarks on
the rule for the Affordable Care Act, it occurred to me, Mr. Speaker,
that it really isn't the name of it. It is the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act, that long lingo that nobody knew what it was, so
it was market tested and reduced down to the Affordable Care Act.
{time} 1340
We know it's the Unaffordable Care Act, that's why we call it
ObamaCare. It was passed by legislative shenanigans, and it passed in
the dark of the night. They had to split some of it out and pass it by
reconciliation because even the voters in Massachusetts, to replace
Teddy Kennedy's seat, elected a Republican to put a block to ObamaCare.
That's an extraordinary event to happen in America. Eighty-seven new
freshman Republicans came into this Congress as a result of it; the
Blue Dog Democrats became essentially politically extinct because of
ObamaCare; and the promises that were made were obviously not kept.
We remember the President's promises. There were three big promises
that he made: if you like your doctor, you can keep him--or her. No, we
all know that's not true.
If you like your insurance and your insurance premium, you get to
keep it. Your premiums aren't going to go up. We know that's not true.
The costs have gone up. The premiums are going up. There was a
discussion about a 73 percent--apparently an average number that the
earlier gentleman spoke about--premium increase with ObamaCare. I can
tell you that those numbers that say up to 400 percent, they are real.
Two and a half months ago, I sat down with the health insurance
underwriters. They gave an example of a 28-year-old woman who's
satisfied with her share of her individual policy premium today at $200
a month. If she smokes, she would see the premium go up from $200 to
$800 a month. It is a malignant tumor that's metastasizing on American
liberty. It must be ripped out by the roots and completely repealed.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).
Ms. CHU. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Patients'
Rights Repeal Act.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different
result, that's insanity. This week, House Republicans are trying to
repeal the Affordable Care Act for the 37th time. Thirty-six failed
attempts weren't enough?
More than 105 million Americans have had arbitrary lifetime coverage
caps lifted because of this law. Up to 17 million children with
preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage. And more than
6.5 million children up to the age of 26 now have coverage on their
parents' plan, about half of whom would otherwise be uninsured.
Why would anyone want to roll all of this back? Why would anyone
waste 43 days--as Republicans have done so far--to repeal a bill that
does so much for the American people? It's not smart; it's not logical.
More importantly, it's not right.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I'd now like to yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson).
Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Speaker, I think there is one thing America needs
to know that simplifies this debate very clearly. The only people
exempt from ObamaCare is the President, the Vice President--the
committee staff that wrote the bill exempted themselves from the bill,
and the Federal agencies that are implementing ObamaCare are exempt
from the very law that they're shoving down the throats of the American
people.
The Democrat majority that passed this bill over the objections of
the overwhelming majority of the Nation didn't even bother to read it.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said we have to pass the bill to see what's in it.
They have no concept of what was in it.
I had the chance to ask the financial genius Charles Schwab recently
what are two things we could do to really create jobs and grow the
economy. He said: repeal Dodd-Frank and repeal ObamaCare--two of the
most destructive pieces of legislation ever passed by the United States
Congress, done by a Democrat majority that didn't even bother to read
it and exempted themselves from it. The committee staff that wrote the
bill exempted themselves from it. The Federal agencies that are
implementing it are exempt from ObamaCare, but they stuck it on all the
American people, including the Members of Congress. We're all under it,
but President Obama and Vice President Biden are not. And that's all
you need to know.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. To respond to what we just heard--and none of us are
exempt; I don't know what in the world that's all about--I would like
to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ANDREWS. The House deserves a vigorous debate on any question. It
also deserves the factual record.
The President, the Vice President, and the employees of the executive
branch are subject to the law in the following way: because they
receive coverage through their employer, their employer is subject to
the rules of the law.
The second thing I want to make very, very clear: no Member of the
House of Representatives is exempt from this law in any way, shape, or
form. None. As far as the committee staffs are concerned, the committee
staffs that you refer to are members of the Federal Employee Health
Benefits Program. Nothing in the law changes that. Just as any other
person in America who is insured by their employer, they have to live
by these same kinds of rules. This just isn't true.
Mr. CULBERSON. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. ANDREWS. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
Mr. CULBERSON. The committee staff is exempt. The President of the
United States is exempt.
Mr. ANDREWS. No, they're not.
Reclaiming my time, this is just not correct. There is no one exempt
from this coverage.
Does the gentleman agree that he is not exempt from this coverage?
Are you exempt?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentleman 30 seconds.
Mr. ANDREWS. I would yield to the gentleman. Are you exempt from this
law, sir?
Mr. CULBERSON. Members of Congress are covered, but the committee
staff that wrote the bill are exempt.
Mr. ANDREWS. Reclaiming my time. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Jersey controls the
time.
Mr. ANDREWS. The committee staffs who were involved in writing the
bill are Federal employees subject to the Federal Employees Health
Benefits Act.
There have been many distortions about this law; this is just one of
them.
[[Page H2677]]
I want to point out that one of the earlier speakers said that
there's a GAO study that says this increases the deficit by some
imaginary number. The scorekeeper around here for deficits is the
Congressional Budget Office. They say it reduces the deficit by $100
billion.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the status of time for
both sides.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 8\1/2\ minutes
remaining. The gentlewoman from New York has 3\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the
chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Sessions), for his consideration.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, today we're having a vigorous debate about
President Obama's health care bill. The reason why we're doing this is
that there have been seven or eight different provisions already that
have been repealed from this bill in the last 2 years because either it
was fraud, it was onerous, or it would not work.
The reason why we are on the floor today is not to waste time, but to
give the American people, through representative government, an
opportunity to say we now know more about that bill that was not read.
Here's what we know: we know that it is a trillion-dollar-plus
spending bill--trillion dollars that would have been in Americans'
pockets to make their own decisions about their health care, but now it
is flowing to the Federal Government. And what it is doing is
arbitrarily causing our country--and this is based upon the laws that
are already in place in this country of what will happen to the debt of
our country. President Obama and Democrats have led us to trillion-
dollar deficits every single year the President has been in office.
This is just the beginning. At some point our country will cease to
become what it is--a great Nation--because we will join the likes of
Eastern Europe. And it is directly because of tax increases and
ObamaCare, which limits the size of small business and businesses that
want to get under this threshold of 50 employees. So it arbitrarily
will diminish the dreams of Americans who want to build their business
from a small business to a larger business simply to avoid the IRS, who
will be in their business about health care.
So the Rules Committee is, rightfully so, bringing this bill to the
floor--another time--for the American people who are saying--not only
publicly in polls, but through their Representatives--this is not a
pathway we want to keep going on.
We have to stop the bankruptcy of American business. We need to go
back to where we have a vibrant economy, where college graduates at
least stand a chance to be able to have a job and to move our country
forward.
I thank the gentleman from Texas for the time.
{time} 1350
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I
will offer an amendment to this rule that will allow the House to vote
on what the country really needs right now: a bill to create more
American jobs. The SEAM Act would help to not only create more jobs,
but more American-made products, by creating tax credits for productive
American manufacturers in the energy innovation industry.
I ask the majority to stop these political games--this bill has had
no committee action and no discussion; it is simply brought back over
and over--and work with us for a change to put some smart policies
forward.
To discuss our proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Arizona (Ms. Sinema).
Ms. SINEMA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
I do not believe that the Affordable Care Act is perfect. I also do
not believe that Congress serves the American people by engaging in a
partisan fight on this floor for the 37th time.
Is the law perfect? No.
Can we--and should we--come together, stop fighting, and get back to
the work of the people? Yes.
There is broad agreement in our country that the Affordable Care Act
is not perfect. So let's start there. Instead of fighting, Congress
should work together to fix this law and make it work for Americans.
Today, I believe our time is best served by working together to
create that which our country so badly needs--jobs. Hardworking
families are waiting for us to deliver on a promise that brought many
of us to this Chamber--a jobs bill that puts Americans back to work.
My amendment, the Security in Energy and Manufacturing Act, creates
high-paying clean-energy jobs. It supports American businesses that
create innovative energy products and hire workers here in America.
This is a jobs proposal to help American businesses grow and stay
competitive in a global marketplace. I want businesses in my community
to put their innovative energy products right into our economy.
Energy innovation is quickly becoming one of the world's largest
industries. Countries all over the world purchase billions of dollars
worth of innovative products. I want to see those products made in
America, not China. I want Arizona and America to be globally
competitive.
By defeating the previous question, we have the opportunity to
restore U.S. manufacturing jobs. Our constituents sent us here--
Democrats and Republicans alike--to work together and get Americans
back to work. My proposal does just that.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am pleased to yield 1
minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Rice).
Mr. RICE of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to start out by
saying I ran a small business for 25 years before entering Congress,
and I always carried health insurance on my employees. But the required
coverages under ObamaCare are far in excess of the coverage I ever
carried. We never carried mental health coverage. We didn't carry
substance abuse coverage. We didn't carry vision or dental.
Guess what, employers? You won't have that choice anymore. The
Federal Government will dictate to you what coverages you must carry on
your employees.
My colleagues across the aisle speak about jobs. This act has had a
horrible stifling effect on hiring in this economy. Seventy percent of
small businesses indicate this act has created doubt as to whether or
not they will hire additional employees. Small businesses are cutting
hours of their employees from 40 back to 30 so that they won't be
considered full-time employees under this act.
Hardworking Americans are suffering today because of this act.
Doctors, physicians, are already dropping out of the system. It's been
estimated that up to 15 percent of hospitals will close if this act is
ultimately implemented.
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire if my colleague
has any more speakers? If not, I am prepared to close.
Mr. BURGESS. I have an additional speaker, and then my close.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Then I will reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
Mr. LaMALFA Mr. Speaker, I'm from northern California, which is the
land of the original 49ers. That was based on the Gold Rush of about
160 years ago.
Now I see we are creating a new group of 49ers, and it is certainly
not heading towards a gold rush for the country. These new 49ers are
the people that have to limit the jobs of their small business to 49 or
less in order to stay out of the clutches of ObamaCare.
We also are creating a group called 29ers, who have to see their
hours cut to less than 30 hours because their employer is out of
options; again, because of ObamaCare.
As a farmer, I know that when things aren't going right with the farm
you have to learn to cut your losses. In this situation here, we need
to have the good sense to not spend good money after bad. It is time
that we take a good, hard look at this Obama health care takeover and
decide to repeal it.
In California, we seem to have a lot of boondoggles, to include the
high-speed rail project, which prices could quadruple over its original
cost. We are seeing the same type of boondoggle with this Obama health
care takeover.
Let's do the right thing to preserve jobs and preserve people's
health care plans as they are and not have this boondoggle upon our
entire country.
[[Page H2678]]
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
I want to be very succinct. What you have heard today is probably the
same kind of debate that took place in this Chamber on both Social
Security and Medicare. Those two programs, Medicare operates with a 2
percent overhead. Most private insurance operates between 20 and 25
percent. It is a bargain, and it has lifted millions of seniors in this
country out of poverty.
This bill will provide for us the type of health care that we deserve
and that we need based on outcomes and not on a plethora of tests each
doctor gives.
I am absolutely astonished on what we have heard today, but there are
a couple of things I really want you to remember. One, today we have
spent $53 million on this debate on just to repeal this law--$53
million. If you are frugal at all--and I am--believe me, that burns me
up. I can think of many, many things we can use that for.
Almost 7 million jobs have been created in health care since this
bill passed--7 million. Four million more are to come. The two things
that we really want to do is provide good health care and good jobs in
this economy.
For heaven's sake, let's not see this bill up again. Take a good,
hard look at it. See all the benefits in it for all of your
constituents. You don't want to go home and tell the women and tell the
seniors and tell the people with preexisting conditions that you don't
care about them.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Vote ``no.''
Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time.
It was, indeed, a very dark day 3 years ago in March when this bill
was brought to the House floor, 11 o'clock at night, 11:30 at night,
and passed this House of Representatives after members of the
Democratic conference, the majority Democratic conference, were lied to
by the administration about an executive order to prevent the funding
for abortion. That is what tipped the balance. That is what brought
those last few wavering votes.
How did we get to that point? Well, throughout 2009, throughout the
year, the House had, indeed, considered the health care question. My
Committee on Energy and Commerce did have a markup on H.R. 3200. They
took a lot of amendments. Some amendments I offered; some amendments
were bipartisan. All of those amendments that were accepted by the
committee at some point evaporated at the opening of day, whatever
happened over in the Speaker's Office, and they were gone. The health
care bill which the Energy and Commerce Committee passed out at 1,000
pages grew to 2,000 pages in the Speaker's Office, and all the
Republican amendments were stripped out.
And then what happened? Well, H.R. 3200 died. It is gone. Nobody has
ever seen or heard of it since. That was the House health care product.
What, in fact, happened was, down at the White House in July of 2009,
there were secret meetings that took place. There were six special
interest groups that met with the President's folks down at the White
House--Nancy-Ann DeParle, Rahm Emanuel's brother. These are the folks
that constructed the basis of what has now become known as ObamaCare.
The insurance companies don't hate this law. They like this law. Look
what has happened to their insurance stock since the law has passed.
They have doubled or tripled in value. That is because they had a seat
at the table when this thing was crafted, and it was crafted according
to their liking. But who really wrote the nuts and bolts of the bill
was the staff on the Senate Finance Committee between Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
{time} 1400
H.R. 3590, which passed the floor of this House 3 years ago, was a
bill that had never had a single hearing in the House of
Representatives. It had never had a markup in a single House committee.
H.R. 3590 had passed under suspension in the House of Representatives
in July of 2009 as a housing bill. It went over to the Senate to await
further action. The further action was an amendment offered by Harry
Reid to ``strike all after the enacting clause and insert,'' and the
health care language was inserted. It came back over here and
languished for 3 months. Nobody read it. Then the Speaker forced it
through the House of Representatives a few minutes before midnight on
March 18 of 2010.
That's why we're having this debate today. Sure, there have been
other efforts to repeal this. There was a full repeal in January of
2011, remember? Republicans won 84 House seats, so it was natural to
have a repeal vote. After the Supreme Court had their ruling, it was
important to reiterate that position. Now we're doing it again.
The other repeal votes that have happened, many of them have been
bipartisan. The 1099--you guys liked that? Do you want that paperwork
requirement to come back? The President signed the 1099 repeal. What
about the CLASS Act? You all voted for that. I didn't. The CLASS Act
was repealed on the fiscal cliff vote. The President signed it. The
repeal votes that have happened in between have been relatively minor
in scope, perfecting amendments, if you will.
The fact of the matter is you can't perfect this thing. It was a dog
at the beginning, and it's a dog at the end. We ought to do the right
thing. Let's bring up the bill. Let's pass it. Let's send it over to
the Senate.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Rule and
the underlying legislation because this bill would repeal the
Affordable Care Act. The American people have been engaged in a debate
over universal healthcare for six generations.
In 1949, Harry Truman became the first sitting President to propose
universal healthcare for all Americans as part of the ``Fair Deal.''
On March 23, 2010, with the stroke of President Obama's pen, the
American people received this part of the ``Fair Deal.'' This bill did
not become law in the dead of night, but in the full process this body
affords serious consideration of legislation. There were committee
hearings, staff and member meetings, amendments and a final vote in
both the House and the Senate before it was sent to the President's
desk.
The Affordable Care Act has been affirmed to be law by every means
provided by our nation's constitution:
On March 21, 2010, the House passed the Affordable Care Act following
Senate Consideration of the bill.
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act
into law.
On June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion
in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, affirming
the constitutionality of the law--leaving intact the majority of the
incentives to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Americans.
The Affordable Care Act was a central issue in the Presidential
election of 2012. The candidate who signed the Affordable Care Act into
law won the election by 51.1 percent of the popular vote and 62 percent
of the electoral vote.
Why are we here for the 37th time in three years to again vote to
repeal the Affordable Care Act?
It is difficult to recall any series of actions within a short time
period that have overcome every hurdle that our system of government
has to establish and affirm that a law--is the law of this nation.
I believe Mr. Speaker it is important to remind new members of this
body and those who are closely watching this debate that the Affordable
Care Act is law. People living in each of the Congressional Districts
represented in this body are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act.
The leadership of this Congress may want to give new members of
Congress the opportunity to tell the people back home that they voted
to repeal ``Obamacare.'' Unfortunately, they are also toying with the
emotions of people who know that without the Affordable Care Act they
have no other option for healthcare.
Because of the Affordable Care Act, Americans are already seeing
lower costs, better coverage, and patient protections that Republicans
want to repeal:
13 million Americans benefited from $1.1 billion in rebates sent to
them from their health insurance companies last year.
105 million Americans have access to free preventive services,
including 71 million Americans in private plans and 34 million seniors
on Medicare.
Millions of women began receiving free coverage for comprehensive
women's preventive services in August 2012.
100 million Americans no longer have a life-time limit on healthcare
coverage.
Nearly 17 million children with pre-existing conditions can no longer
be denied coverage by insurers.
6.6 million young adults up to age 26 have health insurance through
their parents' plan, half of whom would be uninsured without this
coverage.
6.3 million Seniors in the `donut hole' have already saved $6.1
billion on their prescription drugs.
[[Page H2679]]
3.2 million Seniors have access to free annual wellness visits under
Medicare, and
360,000 small employers have already taken advantage of the Small
Business Health Care Tax Credit to provide health insurance to 2
million workers.
Because of the Affordable Care Act 3.8 million people in Texas--
including 2.2 million seniors on Medicare now receive preventative care
services. Over 7 million Texans no longer have to fear lifetime limits
on their healthcare insurance. Texas parents of 300,731 young adults
can sleep easier at night knowing that their children can remain on
their health insurance until age 26.
The protection provided by this law is a guarantee to 5 million Texas
residents that their insurance companies will spend 80 percent of their
premium dollars on healthcare, or customers will get a rebate from
their insurance company.
In my state, there are 4,029 people who had no insurance because of
pre-existing conditions, but today the Affordable Care Act has provided
them with access to coverage. The Affordable Care Act means that many
Texans are free of worry about having access to healthcare insurance.
However, the list of benefits from the Affordable Care Act is not
completed. In 2014, the Affordable Care Act's final provisions will
become available to our citizens. Insurance companies will be banned
from:
discriminating against anyone with a preexisting condition
charging higher rates based on gender or health status
enforcing lifetime dollar limits
enforcing annual dollar limits on health benefits
In 2014, access to affordable healthcare for the self employed or
those who decide to purchase their own coverage will be easier because
of Affordable Insurance Exchanges. There will be a one stop marketplace
where consumers can do what Federal employees have done for decades--
purchase insurance at reasonable rates from an insurer of their choice.
This will assure that health care consumers can get the care that they
need from the medical professionals they trust.
I do not believe that the healthcare law is perfect--but what is
worse--is the imperfection of the House Leadership in allowing this
continued rehashing of a debate over a law that is not going away.
Congress should be working to mend the Affordable Care Act where we
believe it can be improved, and not end healthcare security for
millions of our constituents. Healthcare is the difference between life
and death for too many of our constituents. The bill that needs to be
amended or rejected is the one before us: H.R. 45.
For this reason, I offered amendments before the Rules Committee to
address minority health disparities, medical payments to small
physician owned hospitals, and a plan to study the impact of the
healthcare law.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 1 would have removed all of the bill
text following the enacting clause of the legislation, which would have
ended this exercise to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This legislation
is so bad it cannot be salvaged and the United States would be better
off without it.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 2 would have ensured full Medicare
reimbursement to all hospitals including physician owned hospitals with
at least 100 beds, provided they could produce reliable records to
document their claims for reimbursement.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 3 would have authorized additional
funding to establish Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). These
centers are the last line of defense provided in the bill to make sure
those living on the margins of society--the poorest of the poor had
access to reliable healthcare. FQHC programs would be based in clinics,
community based health care centers and pro-active outreach programs
that target the homeless or marginally housed with information on how
to get access to good healthcare.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 4 would have expanded state use of the
Medicaid option of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care law when
the uninsured rate of qualifying residents of a state exceeds 20
percent. States wishing to opt-out of Medicaid would have the option of
submitting a plan to reduce the rate of uninsured to 20 percent or less
to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This amendment would
have benefited Texas enormously since it leads the nation in uninsured
residents at 28.8 percent. In fact Texas has held this number 1
ranking, of the state with the highest number of uninsured residents,
for the last five consecutive years.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 5 would have established a program to
conduct studies of minority health disparities. The Amendment directed
the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit an annual report
of findings regarding minority health disparities and make
recommendations on how disparities may be reduced.
Jackson Lee Amendment Number 6 expressed the Sense of the Congress
that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is law in the
United States of America. The amendment enumerated each step that made
it the law including a decision by the United States Supreme Court. The
amendment then directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services to
report to Congress on the impact of the law on those it is intended to
help. The Amendment would have not allowed this Congress to revisit
repeal until it had research on the impact of the law to guide its
further deliberation of repeal.
This Congress has work that needs to be done, and it has work that
should be taken up to restore workers, their families and communities
to sound economic health.
The healthcare law has many benefits--but I will redouble my efforts
to mend the parts that need additional work and educate my constituents
so that they can take advantage of the benefits of having access to
healthcare.
For all of these reasons, I urge my Colleagues to join me in voting
no on the Rule and the underlying legislation.
The material previously referred to by Ms. Slaughter is as follows:
An amendment to H. Res. 215 Offered by Mrs. Slaughter of New York
At the end of the resolution, add the following new
sections:
Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the
Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare
the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on
the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.
1424) to require the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary
of Labor to establish the Make It In America Incentive Grant
Program, and for other purposes. The first reading of the
bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against
consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be
confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally
divided among and controlled by the chair and ranking
minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means. After
general debate the bill shall be considered for amendment
under the five-minute rule. All points of order against
provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion of
consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee shall
rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as
may have been adopted. The previous question shall be
considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to
final passage without intervening motion except one motion to
recommit with or without instructions. If the Committee of
the Whole rises and reports that it has come to no resolution
on the bill, then on the next legislative day the House
shall, immediately after the third daily order of business
under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the
Whole for further consideration of the bill.
Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the
consideration of H.R. 1424.
THE VOTE ON THE PREVIOUS QUESTION: WHAT IT REALLY MEANS
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous
question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote.
A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote
against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow
the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a
vote about what the House should be debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of
Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the
previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or
control the consideration of the subject before the House
being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous
question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the
subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling
of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the
House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes
the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to
offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the
majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated
the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to
a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to
recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said:
``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to
yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first
recognition.''
The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous
question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an
immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no
substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.''
But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the
Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in
the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition,
page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous
question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally
not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member
controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of
offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by
voting down the previous question on the rule .. . When the
motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the
time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering
the previous question. That Member, because he
[[Page H2680]]
then controls the time, may offer an amendment to the rule,
or yield for the purpose of amendment.''
In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of
Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special
Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on
such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on
Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further
debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues:
``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a
resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control
shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous
question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who
controls the time for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does
have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only
available tools for those who oppose the Republican
majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the
opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
Mr. BURGESS. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hultgren). The question is on ordering
the previous question.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule
XX, this 15-minute vote on ordering the previous question will be
followed by 5-minute votes on adopting House Resolution 215, if
ordered; and agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 228,
nays 193, not voting 12, as follows:
[Roll No. 150]
YEAS--228
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barletta
Barr
Barton
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (AL)
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coble
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Culberson
Daines
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
DesJarlais
Diaz-Balart
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Pearce
Perry
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Pompeo
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Reed
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Scalise
Schock
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walberg
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NAYS--193
Andrews
Barber
Barrow (GA)
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bera (CA)
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown (FL)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DeLauro
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Gabbard
Gallego
Garamendi
Garcia
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hahn
Hanabusa
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Higgins
Himes
Hinojosa
Holt
Honda
Horsford
Hoyer
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kirkpatrick
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney, Carolyn
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Peters (CA)
Peters (MI)
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sinema
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--12
Campbell
Clyburn
Cohen
Duckworth
Duffy
Johnson, Sam
Keating
Labrador
Markey
McCarthy (NY)
Quigley
Wagner
{time} 1430
Mr. LANGEVIN changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mrs. McMORRIS RODGERS changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the previous question was ordered.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 226,
nays 192, not voting 15, as follows:
[Roll No. 151]
YEAS--226
Aderholt
Alexander
Amash
Amodei
Bachmann
Bachus
Barletta
Barr
Barton
Benishek
Bentivolio
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Bonner
Boustany
Brady (TX)
Bridenstine
Brooks (IN)
Broun (GA)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Burgess
Calvert
Camp
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Cassidy
Chabot
Chaffetz
Coble
Coffman
Cole
Collins (GA)
Collins (NY)
Conaway
Cook
Cotton
Cramer
Crawford
Crenshaw
Culberson
Daines
Davis, Rodney
Denham
Dent
DeSantis
DesJarlais
Diaz-Balart
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Ellmers
Farenthold
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gosar
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grimm
Guthrie
Hall
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (WA)
Heck (NV)
Hensarling
Herrera Beutler
Holding
Hudson
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (OH)
Jones
Jordan
Joyce
Kelly (PA)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kline
LaMalfa
Lamborn
Lance
Lankford
Latham
Latta
LoBiondo
Long
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lummis
Marchant
Marino
Massie
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul
McClintock
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
Meadows
Meehan
Messer
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Mullin
Mulvaney
Murphy (PA)
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Palazzo
Paulsen
Perry
Petri
Pittenger
Pitts
Poe (TX)
Pompeo
Posey
Price (GA)
Radel
Reed
[[Page H2681]]
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Rice (SC)
Rigell
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross
Rothfus
Royce
Runyan
Ryan (WI)
Salmon
Sanford
Scalise
Schock
Schweikert
Scott, Austin
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shimkus
Shuster
Simpson
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Southerland
Stewart
Stivers
Stockman
Stutzman
Terry
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tipton
Turner
Upton
Valadao
Walden
Walorski
Weber (TX)
Webster (FL)
Wenstrup
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Williams
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Yoder
Yoho
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NAYS--192
Andrews
Barber
Barrow (GA)
Bass
Beatty
Becerra
Bera (CA)
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Brady (PA)
Braley (IA)
Brown (FL)
Brownley (CA)
Bustos
Butterfield
Capps
Capuano
Cardenas
Carney
Carson (IN)
Cartwright
Castor (FL)
Castro (TX)
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke
Clay
Cleaver
Connolly
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Courtney
Crowley
Cuellar
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis, Danny
DeFazio
DeGette
Delaney
DeLauro
DelBene
Deutch
Dingell
Doggett
Doyle
Edwards
Ellison
Engel
Enyart
Eshoo
Esty
Farr
Fattah
Foster
Frankel (FL)
Fudge
Gabbard
Gallego
Garamendi
Garcia
Grayson
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hahn
Hanabusa
Hastings (FL)
Heck (WA)
Higgins
Himes
Hinojosa
Holt
Honda
Horsford
Hoyer
Huffman
Israel
Jackson Lee
Jeffries
Johnson (GA)
Johnson, E. B.
Kaptur
Kelly (IL)
Kennedy
Kildee
Kilmer
Kind
Kirkpatrick
Kuster
Langevin
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis
Lipinski
Loebsack
Lofgren
Lowenthal
Lowey
Lujan Grisham (NM)
Lujan, Ben Ray (NM)
Lynch
Maffei
Maloney, Carolyn
Maloney, Sean
Matsui
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McNerney
Meeks
Meng
Michaud
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Murphy (FL)
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Negrete McLeod
Nolan
O'Rourke
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Payne
Pelosi
Perlmutter
Peters (CA)
Peters (MI)
Peterson
Pingree (ME)
Pocan
Polis
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Richmond
Roybal-Allard
Ruiz
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schneider
Schrader
Schwartz
Scott (VA)
Scott, David
Serrano
Sewell (AL)
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Sinema
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Speier
Swalwell (CA)
Takano
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Titus
Tonko
Tsongas
Van Hollen
Vargas
Veasey
Vela
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walz
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Welch
Wilson (FL)
Yarmuth
NOT VOTING--15
Brooks (AL)
Campbell
Clyburn
Cohen
Duckworth
Duffy
Johnson, Sam
Keating
Labrador
Markey
McCarthy (NY)
Pearce
Quigley
Wagner
Walberg
{time} 1440
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________