[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]




                              {time}  2115
                 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.

                              {time}  2130

  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.

                          ____________________