[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 29, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6893-H6895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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MORE PROBLEMS WITH AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, to follow on my dear friend Mr. Franks from
Arizona's discussion about the so-called Affordable Care Act, I
continue to hear from people who have lost their insurance, had
insurance go up significant amounts, it is not affordable.
Now, I did hear from one of my constituents tonight that about 30 out
of 147 people at his place of business actually were helped by the
Affordable Care Act, and that is great. Eighty percent of Americans
seem to have gotten no help or been greatly harmed by the Affordable
Care Act. Their insurance has gone up dramatically. They didn't get to
keep their insurance. They didn't get to keep their doctor. They didn't
save $2,500. Most Americans have been harmed by the Affordable Care
Act.
It is just very hard for me to call it the Affordable Care Act, but
in this body so often there have been bills which had for a title, such
as the Affordable Care Act, had a name that was exactly opposite of
what the bill actually was going to accomplish. The cap-and-trade bill,
as it was called, certainly didn't help trade, but it sure did cap a
lot of commerce that could have taken place and would not have been
able to if that bill had been passed.
There are just all kinds of bills. Some people are pretty creative in
the way that they put a name on. There is no law that says the title to
a bill has to be truthful, and that is how you can end up with a bill
calling it ``affordable care'' when the majority lose their insurance
and don't get the care that they need or, for example, find out that in
3 to 5 years, when they need a new pacemaker, the new law will not
allow them to get it. Those are problems.
What I have also found more and more of are senior citizens who are
now beginning to figure out that when the AARP-endorsed ObamaCare--and
I don't think it is disrespectful to the President to call the bill
ObamaCare, just as the President and others called the bill that
Governor Romney signed in Massachusetts RomneyCare. I don't consider it
disrespectful to former Governor Romney to call it RomneyCare, and I
don't think it is disrespectful to call the un-Affordable Care Act
ObamaCare. So no disrespect to the President intended by referring to
his signature bill.
But people have been hurt. People have been moved from full-time
employment to part-time employment. They liked their insurance policy,
but then they found out they didn't get to keep it. They have lost it.
They found out their deductible shot up dramatically, and now they
don't think that they can afford the thousands of dollars that will be
required before their insurance policy kicks in.
We have seen news reports repeatedly about companies that have had to
drop spouses from coverage or families from coverage or drop coverage
altogether. We found out that there may be as many as 80 percent of
those who individually bought their insurance that will or have lost
their insurance. And so when I see a number projected like 14 million
Americans will lose their insurance, my understanding is that most of
these projections about the millions that are losing their insurance
are actually talking about millions of policies that are lost. So, for
example, if it were my family when my children were growing up, then it
would mean not just one policy was lost, but it would mean five people
lost their insurance. So I think we will continue to see millions and
millions losing their insurance rather than getting to keep it, which
is a broken promise.
Now, there was an article written by Lisa Meyers, and it is
referenced here in the blog of Ace of Spades, and I don't have the
article itself here, but a great point is made that it is bad enough
that we were told over and over: If you like your insurance, you can
keep it. If you like your insurance, you can keep it. If you like your
insurance, you can keep it. If you like your insurance, we will make
sure you can keep it. You want to keep your insurance, you can keep it.
We were told those types of things over and over by the President
himself and people speaking for the President as well. And the point is
made that actually the law itself did not destroy as many insurance
policies as have now been lost, but so many of the lost insurance
policies have been forcibly lost by this administration by the law but
also by the thousands of pages of regulations that have been written.
And this article points out:
In other words the ACA, Affordable Care Act, did make it
incredibly hard for insurers to continue plans for the
millions of Americans who don't want comprehensive insurance.
Financially, insurers almost certainly had to adjust them in
such a way that they would lose the grandfathered status.
This isn't ``normal turnover in the insurance market,''
although there is plenty of that in the individual market.
There is a reason why an exceptionally large number of
Americans are getting cancelation notices this fall.
It points out that very often insurance companies will keep premiums
down despite rising costs of insurance by raising deductibles or
copayments, and that is precisely what Obama's regulations say makes a
policy automatically ungrandfathered. So people were told, if you like
your policy, you can keep it because we are going to grandfather them
in. The President himself used that term, ``we are going to grandfather
in these policies.''
Then his Health and Human Services wrote the regulations in such a
way that it forced insurance companies to have to change their
policies, mandated some new coverage if it was going to comply with the
law, but there were so many things that were written into the
regulations that forced insurance companies to change their policies
which meant they could not be grandfathered. So it was bad enough that
people were promised, if you like your insurance, you can keep it, and
then there were going to be some people who lost their insurance
anyway, but then the regulations were written in such a way that it was
going to force and has forced people to lose their insurance.
So the President's own Health and Human Services Department has
created more lost policies by the way they have written the
regulations. They could have been written in such a way so that the
President would have been allowed to keep his promise. And all it would
have taken from a strong leader who wanted to make sure that no
Department made a liar out of him would have been to either pick up the
phone or write a letter or have an email sent saying, Hey, don't make a
liar out of me. Don't you write these regulations in such a way that it
causes people to lose insurance policies when I promised them they
won't lose their policies.
That could have happened, but it didn't happen. In fact, what the
Health and Human Services Department did, by virtue of the Secretary
who is in charge, they made sure that millions and millions and
millions of Americans would lose their health insurance. So it makes
that point, the Affordable Care Act as written and passed, would have
protected the grandfathered plans for a longer period of time and with
more freedom for adjustment, but the Obama administration filled out
the Secretary's ``shalls,'' and there are so many ``shall this,''
``shall do that,'' ``shall do this'' in such a way as to make it that
much harder, if not basically impossible to do.
The Obama administration's original June 2010 rules were actually
even stricter and have, for example, made it impossible for an insurer
company to change the firms it uses to manage and administer the plan,
which needn't affect coverage and is a simple way to lower costs. But
those ludicrous restrictions were eliminated, but enough rules remained
that it is again near impossible to maintain a grandfathered health
insurance policy.
Very tragic. Promises made were not kept.
And also, I had some folks tell me that, gee, it seems disrespectful
for Republicans to say, to talk about President Obama without
mentioning the word ``President.'' It seems disrespectful. And so, Mr.
Speaker, I certainly don't mean any ill will any time I have used the
shorthand, and I try to use
[[Page H6894]]
``President Obama,'' but I also hope that my friends, probably every
one of the Democrats in this body and probably all of the Republicans
in this body that have referred to anything that happened in the Bush
administration or used the shorthand rendition ``under Bush'' without
saying ``President Bush,'' that those people who want President Obama
to always have ``President'' before ``Obama'' said that they will go
ahead and apologize for ever referring to Bush without ``President'' in
front of that.
But the reason that doesn't necessarily need to happen is I know most
people didn't mean any ill will by that. Obviously, those who hung
President Bush in effigy or said some of the most mean-spirited, nasty
things about President Bush, it never crossed my mind that they might
be racist, because I thought they just disliked the man. But we are
hearing now from so many people that if you say something about the
President, then you must be a racist. I just look so forward to the day
when the dream of Martin Luther King, one of them, will be realized
that people will be judged by the content of their character and not by
the color of their skin.
I testified today before the Senate Subcommittee of the Judiciary
about the Stand Your Ground Act, and actually that language comes from
an 1895 Supreme Court case where the Supreme Court said an individual
could stand his ground, so that is not a new invention. But I was
reminded, when people began to talk in terms of racism from stand your
ground laws, that, as a prosecutor, we didn't care what anybody's race
was, not as a defendant nor as a victim. Everybody deserved to have
protection regardless of race, creed, color, gender, national origin.
But it did remind me that back when I was a judge, judges did not
select the grand jury, their grand jury members. Those were chosen by
grand jury commissioners the judges chose, but the commissioners chose
the panel members for the grand jury.
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There were some defense attorneys that decided to attack the system
by claiming judges were by a disproportionate number appointing too
many Anglos as grand jury foreman because that is something that judges
did in Texas. A judge selected the foreman for the grand jury. He did
not select the members. But among the members, they would choose who
the foreman would be.
I was subpoenaed at one time back then without the defense attorneys
doing their homework, and they intended to put me on the stand in their
attack on a racist grand jury foreman system and use that to establish
that, gee, it was grossly unfair, the disproportionate number of Anglos
that were chosen as grand jury commissioners. Then, after I was
subpoenaed and before I testified, they did their homework, and they
found out that actually it was a disproportionate appointment if you
only looked at race. I had appointed proportionately more African
Americans as foremen of my grand jury than the percentage of African
Americans in my district. The reason I did that was because I did not
care what anybody's race was. It didn't matter to me. I had to look at
the backgrounds of the individuals, look at the individuals that were
on the grand jury, and then select from among those someone that I
believed would be a leader, would be good at organization, would have
the respect of the other grand jurors, and be able to work for 6 months
as head of the grand jury and make good decisions as a peacemaker and
an organizer.
I never looked at their race. I didn't care about that. But I
happened to know the people that I appointed as grand jury foremen.
Sometimes they were women; sometimes they were men. I couldn't have
told them, but they went back and checked and, wow, I had appointed a
majority of African Americans during the time I was in charge of the
grand jury rather than Anglos. Once they found that out, that blew
their theory as far as me as a witness. So they quickly sent word that
my subpoena had been dismissed and my testimony was not desired
because, clearly, I wasn't going to help them establish a case of
district judges being racist.
I can remember a couple of the grand jury foremen I selected. It had
nothing to do with race. They were good people. One I remember was a
community leader, was in so many organizations that everybody respected
her. I knew she was amazing in organization, a former assistant
superintendent. Anyway, I feel like so many times people want to use
the term ``racist,'' and they are like those defense attorneys that
don't bother to check the facts before they start mouthing off.
Another article that I saw in the last couple of days disturbed me
greatly because it follows along in a pattern of abuse of law
enforcement, of the tools of the administration. It follows along in
what really amounted to the weaponization of the Internal Revenue
Service. We still need a special prosecutor to go through and indict
anyone and bring them to trial, anyone in the IRS that abused their
positions, anybody that has committed perjury. We need a special
prosecutor to do that. Obviously, the Justice Department will not, and
we need someone to do that.
We have seen how abusive this administration can be using the powers
of its office to go after people. We also know, despite the promises
before being elected that this administration would be the most
transparent in history, it has not been so. More and more mainstream
reporters are starting to realize that, wait a minute, these guys are
not even as open as the Bush administration was. I am sorry, the
President Bush administration.
This story by John Hayward in Human Events is entitled ``DHS Raids
Human Events Alumnus, Seizes List of Whistleblowers.'' We also know
this administration, instead of being the most transparent, has the
dishonor of having prosecuted more whistleblower or leakers than any
other administration, in fact, than all other administrations put
together. It is ruling with an iron fist.
This article points out that:
Human Events alumnus Audrey Hudson was the target of a
Department of Homeland Security raid in August that was
ostensibly related to firearms, but in a new interview with
the Daily Caller, she revealed that DHS and the Maryland
State Police also just happened to confiscate her files and
notes, which included information about whistleblowers inside
Homeland Security.
Hudson says the files were taken without her knowledge and
without a subpoena. The Daily Caller confirmed that the
search warrant pertained to firearms and ammunition. Even
that part of the story seems rather flimsy, but then we get
to all those juicy files that got hoovered up during the
raid.
At about 4:30 a.m. on August 6, Hudson said officers
dressed--
That is 4:30 in the morning. It is hard to believe that people
sleeping peaceably, law abiding citizens, a reporter who has written
stories using sources within Homeland Security that the administration
didn't like, they bust into her home with a subpoena and say we are
here to look for firearms, and instead, without the consent--I would
say that if the subpoena did not allow for them to take her notes
pertaining to DHS whistleblowers that provided this reporter
information, it begs the question that perhaps these law enforcement
officers acting under color of State law or Federal law stole these
without due process.
So it bears looking into. If we had a Justice Department that was
going to do justice in such an abuse of power, the same kind that would
actually prosecute people who brought a billy club and intimidated
voters at a voting location--but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Anyway, the article says:
After the search began, Hudson said she was asked by an
investigator with the Coast Guard Investigative Service if
she was the same Audrey Hudson who had written a series of
critical stories about air marshals for The Washington Times
over the last decade. The Coast Guard operates under the
Department of Homeland Security.
Hudson said that investigator, Miguel Bosch, identified
himself as a former air marshal official.
But it wasn't until a month later, on Sept. 10, that Hudson
was informed by Bosch that five files, including her
handwritten and typed notes from interviews with numerous
confidential sources and other documents, had been taken
during the raid.
In particular, the files included notes that were used to
expose how the Federal Air Marshal Service had lied to
Congress about the number of airline flights there were
actually protecting against another terrorist attack, Hudson
wrote in a summary about the raid provided to The DC.
The Coast Guard was involved because Audrey's husband works
for them as an ordnance technician. What was the reason given
for grabbing his wife's files?
[[Page H6895]]
She said she asked Bosch why they took the files. He
responded that they needed to run them by TSA to make sure it
was ``legitimate'' for her to have them.
I am sorry. Legitimate for a reporter to have her own handwritten
notes? What kind of a country are we living in that busts into
somebody's home at 4:30 in the morning to take her notes regarding
whistleblowers at Homeland Security? We are living in a scary time.
Back to the article.
This guy basically came in here and took my anonymous
sources and turned them over--took my whistleblowers--and
turned it over to the agency they were blowing the whistle
on,'' Hudson said. ``And these guys still work there.''
Hudson says none of the documents were classified, and no
laws were broken in obtaining them. She said the government
papers in her possession were obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act request, an assertion the Coast Guard
confirmed. And how did they confirm it? They handed the
material over to the ``source agency'' for review--or, as
Hudson put it, they turned the whistleblower information over
to the agency that had the whistle blown against it.
It wasn't just official documents that were seized,
however. Hudson says they also ``took four other files with
my handwritten and typed interview notes with confidential
sources, that I staked my reputation as a journalist to
protect under the auspices of the First Amendment of the
Constitution.'' One of her major reasons for coming forward
with the story is to give the whistleblowers a heads-up,
because she's ``terrified to contact them'' directly.
This is unbelievable. This is happening in America. Mr. Speaker, I
think we should defund the Department of Homeland Security until such
time as they start being honest about what they are doing and we get
answers from the Justice Department. They need to be addressed until
they provide the information that the Attorney General has been held in
contempt for. We want to make sure law enforcement services are done,
we fund those, but we don't defund the Attorney General himself or the
head of DHS until such time as they start complying with the
requirements of the law, like Americans across the country are required
to do without this kind of abuse.
We have got to stop the abuse. We have the power to do it. All we
have to do is defund it until they come within the letter of the law
themselves.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________