[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 28 (Thursday, February 16, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1292-H1295]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Woodall) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, we see so much on TV. I was watching the 
President's press conference a little while ago. We see so much discord 
out there, and this opportunity that we have in the afternoon to really 
delve deep into the issues is so valuable to me. It is one of the only 
opportunities that the American people get to see us delving deeply 
into the issues.
  You and I know that we are in the committee room, we are behind 
closed doors in a bipartisan way grappling with all of the hardest 
issues that face American families, but folks don't see it and they 
don't feel it. Why it is we celebrate the discord instead of 
celebrating the discourse is a mystery to me.
  I bring, Mr. Speaker, today some stories about the Affordable Care 
Act from my district at home. It is not going to be a surprise to you 
that these are stories of challenges.
  In Cumming, Georgia--it is up in Forsyth County, Georgia, just north 
of

[[Page H1293]]

Atlanta--I heard from a single mom. She has two kids, ages 11 and 13. 
They have a family physician that they want to hang on to.
  She says: I work part-time as a paralegal. I earn $25,000 a year, and 
I also receive child support payments.
  She said that she was encouraged by a health insurance company to go 
out and enroll in Medicaid instead, but neither of her children's 
doctors accept Medicaid.
  How often do we hear that?
  The solution for everything is to dump everyone into Medicaid. 
Medicaid is not a healthcare system. It is a healthcare payment system. 
You have to find a doctor who will accept a payment. This young woman's 
doctors do not.
  She said she went on healthcare.gov, filled out an application, and 
was offered a plan for $464 a month with a $12,600 deductible. She 
makes $25,000 a year, and what we have offered her is a $500-a-month 
policy, $464 a month, with a $12,000 deductible. That is not 
affordable, she said. She called an insurance broker and looked for a 
similar policy. They were priced the same way.
  She said: I have decided to pay the ObamaCare fines instead.
  Mr. Speaker, I tell this story because I know that every single 
Member of this body wants to serve the constituency that sent them 
here. Every single Member of this body wants to find solutions for 
folks back home.
  As we look at the numbers across the country, we find that more 
Americans that we purported to help with the Affordable Care Act have 
decided to pay a fine instead of join the exchange system.
  Mr. Speaker, we have more Americans opting out of the system than 
opting into the system because we have failed those very people we 
purported to help.
  From Buford, Georgia, Mr. Speaker: I'm a full-time student with a 
part-time job that doesn't offer health or dental insurance. I can't 
get health insurance through my parents because they are on Medicare. I 
shopped for health plans, but all of the ones on the exchange are out 
of my budget. I shouldn't have to pay a fine because I can't afford 
health care.
  Now, think about that, Mr. Speaker. This young student says: I 
shouldn't have to pay a fine because I can't afford the health care. If 
I can't afford the health care, I certainly can't afford the fine.
  These are the people that we purported to help with the Affordable 
Care Act, and they are not being served.
  Back in Cumming, Georgia, Mr. Speaker: Today I have been in my office 
for hours trying to find affordable health care that accommodates my 
primary care physician. Prices start for me at $750-plus. Before 
ObamaCare, I was paying $365 with more access to doctors.
  It is not just about the money, Mr. Speaker. These networks, as you 
know, are closing. More than one-third of the counties in America have 
no choice of insurance whatsoever. The networks are narrowing. Folks 
are not just finding it hard to pay for care, but they are finding it 
hard to choose their physician.
  A retired couple in Peachtree Corners, Mr. Speaker: I retired last 
year, and my husband retired this year. Both of us are in our sixties. 
We knew we would have to pay a lot for health insurance, but I was 
stunned when we signed up for the Affordable Care Act to the tune of 
more than $1,200 per month. I recently received a notice from our 
insurer that premiums for 2017 will go to over $2,000 per month.
  This family played by the rules their entire life, Mr. Speaker. They 
retired, needed access to health care, and went to the exchanges that 
were purported to help people find affordable health care. They found a 
$1,200-a-month policy that this year rises to $2,000 a month.
  I say this to the young people planning for their retirement and 
thinking about putting something away for a rainy day: This couple pays 
$2,000 a month simply for their premium.
  Another family in Cumming, Georgia, Mr. Speaker: Six years ago, we 
had a perfectly acceptable high-deductible plan with an HSA for $300 a 
month. As ObamaCare has been implemented, it has gone from $300 to $450 
to $950 per month, and our only remaining option is a $1,450-per-month 
plan that provides effectively the same coverage.
  Mr. Speaker, I added that one because these folks weren't looking for 
help. These folks weren't uninsured. These folks didn't have a problem 
finding insurance. They had it under control themselves. In the name of 
helping the uninsured, the Affordable Care Act came in, re-regulated 
the entire insurance industry, even for people who already had health 
care, and drove this family's premiums from $300 a month to $1,400 a 
month.
  Mr. Speaker, who defends these things? Who defends these things?
  I tell you, I will not have a colleague from the Democratic side or 
the Republican side who would say that any of these consequences were 
intended when the Affordable Care Act was passed. They might have been 
inevitable, but they were not intended.

  So we can agree there is a problem. We can agree there is a problem. 
And if you don't think that we can agree, let me refer first to former 
President Barack Obama. Just last fall, he said this: Despite this 
progress, too many Americans still strain to pay for their physician 
visits and prescriptions, cover their deductibles or pay their monthly 
insurance bills. They struggle to navigate a complex, sometimes 
bewildering system, and they remain uninsured.
  That's right. They remain uninsured. The trillion-plus dollars that 
we spent to solve the issue of the uninsured solved nothing. We 
continue to have a problem with the uninsured, yet we have added 
problems to those who are insured.
  Democratic Governor Mark Dayton from Minnesota in October of last 
year, Mr. Speaker: The reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer 
affordable.
  The reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable--these 
are words of folks who supported the Affordable Care Act.
  Former President Bill Clinton: ``So you've got this crazy system 
where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and then 
the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, 
wind up with their premiums doubled with their coverage cut in half. 
It's the craziest thing in the world.''
  There is a group of people, mostly small-business owners and 
employees, who make just a little too much to qualify for Medicaid 
expansion or for the tax incentives who can't get Affordable Care Act 
premiums in a lot of places.
  Former President Bill Clinton says that there are guys out there 
busting 60 hours a week trying to make it work for their families, and 
we have failed them.
  It is not that they had a problem to begin with. Many of these folks 
had insurance that they liked to begin with. We failed them when we re-
regulated them into problems instead of solving problems.
  Mr. Speaker, the broken promises began right away. You will remember 
the fact check organization that named ``If you like your doctor, you 
can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep 
your health care plan'' as the Lie of the Year.
  Overpromising and underdelivering has been the nature of ObamaCare. 
We were promised premiums would decline by $2,500. The average family 
premium has increased by $4,300. We were promised the cost of health 
care would go down, but deductibles have risen more than 60 percent. We 
were promised you can keep your doctor, but 70 percent of us find 
ourselves in narrower networks today than we did before. Middle class 
Americans were promised we wouldn't see a tax increase, but as we just 
heard from this young student, when you can't find a plan that meets 
your needs, then you are fined by the IRS. You are paying taxes right 
then.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I am not blaming these systemic problems on 
President Obama. I am not blaming these systemic problems on the 
Affordable Care Act. What I am doing is pointing out that we passed the 
Affordable Care Act with $1 trillion in new tax increases and with a 
re-regulation of all of the insurance plans that people liked before in 
the name of solving these problems, which we did not solve.
  I will take you to my home State of Georgia, Mr. Speaker. On average, 
32 percent is the increase that we are seeing in premiums on our 
exchange--32 percent this year alone. Of the folks

[[Page H1294]]

who are participating in the exchange, Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of them 
receive a government subsidy.
  Let me say that again: Of the folks who participate in the $1 
trillion Affordable Care Act exchange program in the State of Georgia, 
80 percent of them do so because the government is paying for their 
health care. That is a pretty good incentive to get in the system. If 
you're going to get a subsidy payment, folks are in the system. Eighty 
percent require that subsidy in order to be enticed into the system.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, more people rejected going into the system 
opting instead for no health care than went into the system with the 
Affordable Care Act.
  The average wage earner in Georgia, Mr. Speaker, gets no subsidy from 
the government. Four hundred percent of the poverty line, as you know, 
is where that subsidy kicks in. That is about $48,000 a year in the 
State of Georgia. I am telling you, if you earn $48,000 a year, you 
have bills, obligations, and responsibilities, and you find yourself in 
one of these $2,000-a-month premium situations that this retired couple 
in Georgia did, you cannot afford health insurance--or at least you 
cannot afford the health insurance that the government today is 
requiring that you have.
  Let's think about those requirements, Mr. Speaker. The government, in 
its wisdom, decided it was going to force folks into plans that it 
deemed appropriate. Many of those came in the form of healthcare CO-
OPs. It was certainly a reasonable idea: let's allow folks in States 
back home to join together and provide health insurance.
  We sucked folks into those CO-OPs, Mr. Speaker. Again, an 
unsustainable system, this death spiral of ObamaCare. One million folks 
were sucked into CO-OPs that went belly up, Mr. Speaker. They lost 
their insurance once when ObamaCare came into business, and they lost 
their insurance again when these CO-OPs failed.
  As you can see on this map, the orange CO-OPs have failed. Only a few 
remain in business today. It remains to be seen if they will make it 
through the year.
  When we talk about choice, Mr. Speaker, five States have only one 
insurer in the exchange. That was the whole point of the exchange. That 
is why we spent literally billions upon billions to set up these 
exchanges so that consumers could compare and choose.
  Now, two things went wrong. Number one, we set up this list of 
mandates that every insurance plan had to comply with, which 
disincentivized folks to join those plans to begin with. Then, number 
two, by setting up what you had to have in a plan, you, by definition, 
restricted the choice of individuals to choose what they want. So you 
end up with five States with only one insurer under ObamaCare.
  Now, that is before the announcement this week from Humana that it is 
withdrawing from all of the ObamaCare plans at the end of 2017. That 
was before the announcement this week from the Aetna CEO that he sees 
the death spiral that ObamaCare is involved in--his words--and it 
remains to be seen whether they will participate next year or not.
  I don't need to find consensus among 218 Members or even 435 Members 
about whether or not ObamaCare is succeeding or failing.

                              {time}  1745

  What I need is for folks to look at the 19 million uninsured 
Americans who had an opportunity to go into this trillion-dollar 
system; an opportunity to reach for the golden ring, as it was 
described by its authors and its proponents, and they said: No. They 
said: It doesn't work for me. They said: It is not the right thing for 
me. They said: It doesn't fit into my families' needs and desires and 
expectations.
  Of these 19 million, Mr. Speaker, 6.5 million paid a tax penalty. 
That is 6.5 million Americans failed by their government in a trillion-
dollar healthcare regulation, failed by their government in an 
expansion through ObamaCare and Medicaid, and failed by their 
government yet again when they received a bill because the trillion-
dollar program we put together didn't work for them and their families.
  Can't we agree that if our goal was to solve the problem of the 
uninsured American, having 19 million Americans who would rather stay 
uninsured than participate in the Affordable Care Act is the definition 
of failure?
  We can do better. There is a better way, Mr. Speaker, let there be no 
mistake about that.
  I know there is a lot of anxiety out there. I don't want to minimize 
that. Fear is a corrosive emotion to have. I want to do my very best to 
allay the fear of anyone in America, Mr. Speaker, who is benefiting 
from the Affordable Care Act. As these numbers have demonstrated, there 
are not many. But if you spend a trillion dollars and re-regulate an 
entire industry, I certainly hope there is at least one family out 
there who got something out of it. I know that there are.
  I quote Greg Walden, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee, Mr. Speaker, who, as you know, has wide jurisdiction for re-
regulating health care. He says this in January of this year: ``We want 
to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions continue to get 
covered.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is a myth that Congress didn't care about preexisting 
conditions. It was Republicans in Congress, led by Republican Newt 
Gingrich of the great State of Georgia, who abolished preexisting 
conditions in every federally regulated plan back in 1996. He did that 
in partnership with Bill Clinton.
  What you have heard from our chairman of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee is that we are committed to dealing with preexisting 
conditions. Take that anxiety off your list.
  From Tom Price, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services: 
``Nobody is interested in pulling the rug out from anybody.''
  We believe that it is absolutely imperative that individuals who have 
health care be able to keep health coverage and move, hopefully, to 
greater choices and opportunity for them to gain the kind of coverage 
that they want for themselves and their families.
  There has been a lot of talk about individuals losing health care. 
That is not our goal, nor is it our desire, nor is it our plan. The new 
Secretary of Health and Human Services said that this year.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't want to overpromise and underdeliver. 
ObamaCare is failing. The exchanges are failing. Insurance companies 
are leaving. Plans are being canceled.
  I am not saying that if you like your plan, you can keep it. Your 
plan may be one of the overly regulated, overly priced plans that is 
collapsing across this country. What I am saying to you is, our 
commitment is to help and not hurt in that area.
  I cannot prevent ObamaCare from failing. I cannot prevent your plan 
from going away, but I can provide an off ramp for you and your family 
so that you can find, as Secretary Price says, better choices and 
better opportunities.
  From the United States Senate, Mr. Speaker, Majority Leader Mitch 
McConnell: ``There will be a stable transition period, and once repeal 
is passed we will turn to replacement policies that cost less and work 
better than what we have now.''
  Some contend that, by fulfilling our promise to the American people, 
we are somehow going to go back to the way things were before 
ObamaCare, which we all know is untrue.
  If your family grappled with preexisting conditions because your 
State didn't address it the same way the Federal Government did back in 
1996--folks are committed, if you are playing by the rules, to stick 
with you and your family through this transition.
  If your family benefits from the raising of the lifetime caps that 
was a part of the Affordable Care Act, you have won that debate. You 
needn't worry as we go through this transition.
  If you like the fact that your kids are unemployed and staying on 
your policy until they are 26 years old, I think you have won that 
debate. I think that is absolutely going to be a part of that 
conversation in this transition.
  If you have a fear, if you have a worry, if you have a concern, I 
don't want to minimize it. I want to allay it. But come and share it 
with your Member of Congress, share it with your United States Senator. 
We have a group of leaders committed to addressing those concerns.
  Finally, Paul Ryan, our Speaker of the House: ``We can and should 
have a

[[Page H1295]]

system in this country where everybody can have access to affordable 
health care, including people with pre-existing conditions.''
  There are things that unite us in this body, and one of those things 
is caring for people, caring about people, wanting folks to get a fair 
shake. If you have played by the rules, you deserve a fair shake. That 
brings us all together in this institution.
  I don't want any family to find themselves in fear that they are 
being forgotten in this transition, but there is a very real fear that, 
if you are in an Affordable Care Act plan today, that plan will fail.
  Mr. Speaker, there are two things we can do. We can pretend that 
failure is not imminent. You can look at all the insurers withdrawing 
from ObamaCare, you can look at all of the rate increases going up in 
double digits, you can look at all of the folks who are opting out 
because it has gotten too expensive and doesn't serve their families' 
needs.

  You can see the failure of ObamaCare. But the number of options that 
we have, the number of plans under discussion to replace it is 
numerous, Mr. Speaker. We have got the Better Way healthcare plan, we 
have got the American Health Care Reform Act, we have got the 
Empowering Patients First, we have got our Rules Committee chairman's 
The World's Great Healthcare Plan Act, the Patient Freedom Act, the 
ObamaCare Replacement Act.
  Mr. Speaker, we have options. To begin to get to those options, we 
need to be honest with ourselves, whether we opposed ObamaCare from the 
beginning or whether we hoped it was going to be the best thing since 
sliced bread, that ObamaCare has failed.
  With that recognition, we can repeal those costly mandates, we can 
repeal those constrictive agreements, we can repeal those things that 
have isolated us from choice, that have separated us from our doctors, 
and we can begin to restore a patient-centered, family first system.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no doubt that you are a smart man. I have no 
doubt that you work hard from dawn to dusk every day. But no matter how 
hard you work, I promise you that you will not know better than the 
families in my district which healthcare plan is best for them, and I 
appreciate you not trying to second guess them.
  I cannot make everybody in America happy, Mr. Speaker, but I can give 
everybody in America the choice to make themselves happy. I can't 
empower families in America to make their own choices, their own 
decisions about what works best for them.
  Put your mind at ease. For folks who have concerns, we hear you. For 
folks who have been hurt, we are coming for you. And for folks who know 
there is a better way, we stand with you.
  It is going to be a long spring and summer, Mr. Speaker, because this 
is only heavy lifting, but it is the right thing to do, and we have got 
the right group of men and women here to do it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________