[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 147 (Wednesday, October 16, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H6609]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      WHY WE MUST DEFUND OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Hall) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HALL. Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago, when the President and the 
Democratic-controlled House and Senate forced ObamaCare into law 
without a single Republican vote, my constituents wrote and called my 
office, telling me they didn't want a government takeover of health 
care. They expressed many concerns, including losing a health care plan 
they liked, higher costs, overbearing regulations that would prevent 
businesses and their owners' ability to hire workers, and the 
government making health care decisions for citizens, just to name a 
few.
  My constituents' concerns proved true. The ObamaCare Web site has 
been up for 2 weeks or more, and for those who were able to get the Web 
site to work, the reports have proved disappointing and anything but 
affordable: rate hikes of 260 percent, $12,600 deductibles, copays up 
to 40 percent, and zero competition. Perhaps that is why, according to 
the Daily Mail, on October 11, in the first week, only 51,000 people 
completed ObamaCare applications.
  My constituents continue to write me about their concerns with this 
bad law, and today, I would like to read a letter from one of my 
constituents, Lee Stanley. Mr. Stanley is a small business owner from 
Atlanta, Texas, who is facing difficult decisions due to ObamaCare. Mr. 
Stanley wrote to my office as follows:

       Dear Congressman Hall, I don't know if you are getting any 
     input from small business owners like us regarding ObamaCare. 
     We are really in a dilemma here at Guard-Line.
       We found that there are items that we can manufacture here 
     at the same cost as we currently import from Mexico, China, 
     and Pakistan. We would like to bring these jobs back here, 
     but looming in the background is ObamaCare. We employ 85 
     people in our Atlanta facility. We compete in a world market 
     with distributors or importers that maybe have 15 to 30 
     employees, and they fall below the 50 employees and, 
     therefore, do not have to pay the $2,000 penalty for not 
     providing health insurance.
       Our industry business model does not provide for employee 
     benefits as it is mostly a minimum-wage industry with profit 
     margins very low.
       The situation we are in is that we would have to pay 
     $170,000 in penalties under ObamaCare. This is another 
     example of the government picking the winners and the losers, 
     and we begin to show up here totally as the losers. There is 
     no way I can be competitive if I have to raise my prices to 
     cover the $170,000.
       Here are my options:
       One, don't pay the penalty;
       Two, raise my prices and go out of business--85 people lose 
     their jobs;
       Three, lay off 15 to 35 employees to get under 50 in order 
     to not pay the penalty, and move more production out of this 
     country;
       Four, reduce 35 jobs to part-time, under 30 hours a week, 
     and move more production out of this country.
       As you can see from the above options, there is really not 
     a good one. We are having to run our business in a way that 
     does not make very much business sense as we have to always 
     keep in mind the effects of ObamaCare. We are in a position 
     that we can add more jobs here in the USA, and are being 
     penalized for doing that. This country will never be able to 
     completely recover with restrictions on business like that. I 
     am sure we are not the only employer in this situation. I 
     don't know what we can do except express our concerns to our 
     representatives.

  Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents, I will continue to fight 
to defund as much of this bad law as possible. ObamaCare remains 
widely, completely unpopular across the country for good reason--it is 
hurting jobs, hurting pocketbooks of already struggling Americans, and 
preventing people from making their own health care decisions.
  The American people deserve better. Responsible health care reform 
should do better, that offers true health, job, financial, and personal 
security.

                          ____________________