[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 30, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H6709-H6710]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          EXCHANGE INCLUSION FOR A HEALTHY AMERICA ACT OF 2015

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. The Pope visited America and he inspired a lot of 
people, even cynical Washington, D.C. For one, he inspired Speaker 
Boehner to wake up the next morning and announce his resignation.
  As I said last week, it must be hard for a decent man like Speaker 
Boehner to be head of a new know-nothing party of increasingly extreme 
measures to cut health care for women and to round up and deport 
millions of undocumented immigrants. It remains to be seen how 
Republicans in the House will conduct themselves without adult 
supervision, but the Speaker is going out on a high note.
  Having the Pope speak to America from the floor of the House of 
Representatives was a crowning achievement for the Speaker. Now that 
his job is no longer on the line, I hope we will see immigration reform 
as the jewel in that crown and act before he steps down. But we all 
know that is unlikely. The concurrent hysteria on the campaign trail 
makes action by these Republicans or any Republicans unlikely.
  Even though I still believe we have the votes--like we did for the 
last several years--to pass immigration reform in the House, I don't 
think the Speaker, even as a lame duck, will allow a vote. But the 
Pope's visit certainly inspired me to think about the moral example he 
sets.
  Look, the Holy Father simply reminded Members of Congress about the 
Golden Rule--``Do unto others as you would have them do unto you''--and 
he could not even complete his sentence before he got a standing 
ovation.
  If we had a daily reminder of the Golden Rule, we could cut through a 
lot of the bull in Congress and have a better country and a better 
world. It is the Golden Rule I am here to discuss. Treat your brother 
and your sister and your neighbor with compassion as you would like to 
be treated yourself.
  And in the case of health care and access to health care, it is not 
simply out of a sense of moral altruism, although that is part of it. 
Rather, it is out of the reality that treating our brothers and sisters 
and neighbors as we want to be treated when it comes to health care and 
access to health care and access to health insurance is in our own 
self-interest as well.
  That is why I am introducing the Exchange Inclusion for a Healthy 
America Act of 2015, a bill to give complete access to the Affordable 
Care Act regardless of their immigration status. The Exchange Inclusion 
for a Healthy America will extend healthcare insurance access to 
millions of our neighbors and family members who live here, work here, 
raise families here, and will probably live here for the rest of their 
lives, but who lack legal immigration status.
  It gives them access to healthcare exchanges in ObamaCare under the 
ordinary rules of residency in the States in which they live and makes 
them eligible for subsidies if and when they file taxes, just like the 
rest of us. It also subjects them to the individual mandate that 
requires individuals to have health insurance.
  The goal is to make integration and inclusion real for millions of 
families that are locked out under current law.
  Now, if I remember correctly, the President was standing right here 
in 2009 talking about his healthcare reform proposal would exclude 
undocumented immigrants and one of our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle interrupted him by shouting, ``You lie'' to the President of 
the United States of America, who, we should all note, was reelected 
comfortably in 2012.
  I do not expect that Member of Congress to join me as a cosponsor. 
But, in fact, as we all know, he was dead wrong about the Affordable 
Care Act. In addition to death panels and a number of other fictions, 
the Republicans were wrong that undocumented immigrants were included 
in ObamaCare. They just weren't.
  I am and have always been an advocate for the single payer approach 
to universal health coverage, and I fought to include all of the people 
who live in this country in the Affordable Care Act, but they were 
written out. As it stands right now, undocumented immigrants are not 
subject to the individual mandate and cannot buy into the

[[Page H6710]]

health insurance exchanges, even if they use their own money.
  My legislation will change that. It says that we stand for inclusion. 
It says that we understand the principle that, if you are here, if you 
are working and caring for your family and contributing to society, you 
should be healthy. Not only that, but your health and your protection 
from diseases, injuries, and preventable illnesses impacts my health 
care and the health care of my family.
  As a nation, we all benefit when we spread the risk, invite younger, 
healthier workers to join our exchanges, reduce the costs of 
compensating hospitals for caring for the uninsured, and reducing the 
number of uninsured who live and work here.
  Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you means moving 
forward with no restrictions on which brother and sister and neighbor 
we think of as eligible or deserving or is, in fact, considered my 
neighbor, my sister or my brother.
  My party and the vast majority of my country understands that getting 
immigrants on the books and into the system and integrating them into 
today's American society should be the goal, just as we have done with 
every other group of immigrants throughout our history. My legislation, 
the Exchange Inclusion for a Healthy America Act, is a step in that 
direction.

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