[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 82 (Thursday, May 29, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H4926-H4927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
KENTUCKY NATIONAL MODEL FOR AFFORDABLE CARE ACT
(Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for
1 minute.)
Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, Kentucky has been a national model for the
Affordable Care Act. In the first 6
[[Page H4927]]
months of Kentucky Kynect, the State exchange created by the law, we
enrolled nearly 415,000 Kentuckians in new health coverage.
That is one in 10 Kentuckians and nearly half our previously
uninsured population; but rather than help inform his constituents of
life-saving options now available to them, Senator Mitch McConnell has
spent the past 4 years working to repeal that coverage while misleading
Kentuckians about the law.
Now, he is suggesting Kynect's overwhelming success can remain, even
if he succeeds in repealing the law that created it. That couldn't be
more disconnected from the truth.
If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, more than 300,000 Kentuckians
covered through the law's expansion of Medicaid would lose their
coverage. Insurers would no longer be required to cover preexisting
conditions, and private plans through Kynect would become unaffordable
for most Kentucky families.
Mr. Speaker, health reform has been so successful in Kentucky that
Mitch McConnell now says we should keep Kynect, but his claim that we
can keep Kynect and still repeal the Affordable Care Act is as absurd
as it is disingenuous, and our constituents deserve to know that.
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