[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 39 (Tuesday, March 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H1581-H1587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TOPICS OF THE DAY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the privilege to address
you here on the floor of the House of Representatives, and I have a
number of topics I would like to bring up this evening.
First, I would comment that I heard the words ``Affordable Care Act''
multiple times in the previous hour, and it just caught me each time I
heard that. Abraham Lincoln would have had a difficult time saying such
a thing being Honest Abe, and George Washington probably couldn't have
said it at all.
As we know this, it is not affordable care and that is the reason
that we have to address it. We knew this was going to happen. Of all
the horrible stories we have heard about ObamaCare--this thing they
call the Affordable Care Act--many of them were predicted here on the
floor of the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker. I predicted quite a
lot of them myself, as did many of the Members who fought against that
piece of legislation that was jammed down on us by hook, by crook, by
legislative shenanigans.
We could see what was going to happen with this. It was slammed
together by trying to circumvent the majorities, by pushing some things
through on reconciliation. And we ended up with a piece of legislation
that was the biggest bite they could get to create socialized medicine.
The worst part of ObamaCare, Mr. Speaker, was this: That it is an
unconstitutional taking of God-given, American liberty. We are--and at
least used to be and believe we are to be again--the freest people on
the planet; and that our rights come from God; and that government
can't take them away.
Many times here on the floor, I have said, Mr. Speaker, that the
Federal Government hasn't figured out how to nationalize or take over
our soul. That is our business, and we manage that. Our souls are the
most sovereign thing that we have and are.
The second most sovereign thing we have and are is our skin and
everything inside it. It is our health. It is the management of our
health. And if Americans are not capable of managing their own health
and making their own health decisions and pressing the marketplace to
produce the health insurance policies that they desire, if Americans
can't make those decisions, then it would just stand to reason, if that
is true--and that is what Democrats seem to think--then there aren't
any people on the planet who can manage their own health.
What I am pretty sure of is that if we don't think that regular, red-
blooded Americans--especially those who are out there punching the time
clock, running their business, starting a business, or working on
commission, whatever they might be doing, the salt-of-the-Earth
Americans--if they can't manage it, I am really sure that a bunch of
leftists who are elected to office out of the inner cities of America
aren't going to be able to do it.
{time} 2030
And we have seen the success of that, the leftist agenda of
ObamaCare, imposed upon America, commanding that we buy policies that
are approved by the Federal Government. They would have liked to have
established the Federal Government as being the single-payer plan and
abolished all insurance whatsoever and simply taken care of everybody's
healthcare needs so that one size fits all, and we could drift down
into the mediocrity that most the rest of the world has exhibited for a
long time.
This all started back in Germany in the latter part of the 19th
century, when Otto von Bismarck decided that if he was going to get
reelected, he had to make the Germans dependent upon him. And so he
devised this plan called socialized medicine and he, more or less,
trained the Germans to expect the federal government to make those
decisions for them, pick up the costs for them; and, in doing so, that
sense of dependency got Bismarck reelected in Germany.
Well, it is not that old a country in Germany, but this idea of
Marxism comes right out of there. By the way, there is a bench in
Berlin that honors Karl Marx, and a number of other statutes and
monuments as well. That is where this came from, and we watched as
other countries adopted it.
I once picked up--Mr. Speaker, I had a World War II veteran who came
over to an event that I was doing in Hospers, Iowa, and he had gone up
to his attic and he brought down these Collier's magazines. They were
original Collier's magazines that started right at the end of the
Second World War and went on through those years, for 2 or 3 or 4
years, and they were yellow and, of course, they were dated, and he
presented them all to me.
He said: I want you to have these. I want you to read down through
these
[[Page H1582]]
magazines and see what it was like in those days shortly at the end of
World War II and in the Reconstruction era afterwards.
So I actually accepted all of those magazines, copied them, and gave
him back the originals. I didn't feel right having them in my
possession. But I read through them; and there were pictures there of
doctors and nurses and healthcare providers in Great Britain that were
haggard and tired and worn, and stories about how, because of the
socialized medicine they passed in the United Kingdom, they had to see
so many patients a day in order to make a living, and they couldn't pay
attention to the patients so much as they had to pay attention to their
schedule and turn them through quickly through the turnstiles in the
healthcare system in Great Britain because health care was rationed in
that way.
I have a friend who is a radio talk show host--and, actually, it is
WHO Radio, one of Ronald Reagan's original radio programs where Ronald
Reagan got his start--who comes originally from Great Britain; proud
American. But both of his parents are gone, and both of his parents
deaths can be attributed to the failed national healthcare system,
socialized medicine that the United Kingdom has. He had told me several
years ago: Once socialized medicine is established, you will not be
able to undo it.
So, Mr. Speaker, I bring this up this way because this is our last
best chance to turn this country in the right direction. It is our last
best chance to throw off this mandate of socialized medicine that was
established by hook, crook, and legislative shenanigan by the
Democrats, and passed through in the final component in this Congress
March 23, 2010. That event that took place, as I recall, I believe it
was dated March 23, but it actually rolled over past midnight, but the
Record showed March 23.
I went home that night worn out from days of fighting ObamaCare and
doing all that I could do to put an end to it, to kill it off before it
did what it has already done to the American people. And I laid down,
thinking I would sleep the sleep of the dead, but I woke up in about an
hour and a half and I got up and I wrote the repeal of ObamaCare, and
it turned out to be the first repeal draft that emerged after ObamaCare
had passed.
I certainly wrote it well before Barack Obama had signed the bill,
although they hustled it out to him, I think, the next day, and that is
when he signed it.
The repeal bill that I have introduced here--and it has passed the
floor of this House a number of times; I have lost track of how many
times, Mr. Speaker--it is only 40 words. And the last words in that
bill are: ``As if such act had never been enacted.''
That is, Mr. Speaker, what we need to do. We need to send the full,
100 percent, rip-it-out-by-the-roots-as-if-it-had-never-been-enacted
repeal out of the House and over to the Senate and set it on Mitch
McConnell's desk and let Mitch McConnell figure out--Majority Leader
McConnell, Senator McConnell figure out then how to get the votes put
together in the United States Senate for a full, 100 percent repeal of
ObamaCare.
The House will pass such a bill. It won't be hard to put those votes
together. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Democrat or two that
was worried about their seat that would join us in such an endeavor.
Then, once that bill is over through the Rotunda and over on the desk
of Senator McConnell, then we should start down through with the
individual repairs to the healthcare system that we need to do, that we
all know we need to do and that we have talked about for a long time.
Some of these have been out here debated for 10 years in this
Congress, Mr. Speaker, and, instead, we have got a different
configuration that has been served up to us. But I submit that it is
not too late to do it right. Send the full repeal over. That repeal can
have an enactment clause of, say, a year from now. That is enough time
for people to make their adjustments for their own health insurance and
get it taken care of, especially under the provisions that I propose.
I would point out that my ObamaCare--and, yes, we Members of Congress
are obligated to own our own ObamaCare policies and pay a substantial
portion of the premium. By the way, mine went up when ObamaCare was
imposed upon me by not quite $4,300 a year additional. That was my
privilege to own an ObamaCare policy, but we are compelled to own that
policy.
For me, I got the letter, dated last September 28, that said, as of
December 31, at midnight, my ObamaCare policy was canceled. And it
turned out that I would have been without insurance from New Years,
from the stroke of midnight, auld lang syne, until whatever time it
would take me to get that put together. So we went to work, and there
was only one policy that actually qualified under ObamaCare, only one.
Of all the counties in America, roughly a third of the counties there
is only one choice available to the American people; compelled by law
to buy a policy or be penalized by the Federal Government. And your
options are not that you get to keep the policy that you like or that
you get to keep the doctor that you like. You don't even get to choose
from a menu of what kind of health insurance policy you want.
Instead, for a third of the counties in America, you only have one
choice, and that is buy the policy that is the only option that is
available to you. So there is no shopping for prices. There is no
looking at the kind of options you might want covered by your health
insurance policy.
There is no freedom to go out there in the marketplace, and there is
no marketplace that actually exists because the consumers are not
making the demands for the kind of policies that they would like.
Instead, it is the Federal Government dictating by mandate what the
policy shall cover. And when that happens, the premiums go up--which
anybody could figure out--and the coverage goes down.
Now we have people that--I would just look back to shortly before the
election. The Thursday before the election we had an event south of Des
Moines on a farm, and there, soon-to-be Vice President-elect Mike Pence
arrived, as did Senator Ted Cruz, back to Iowa. I'm grateful to both of
those gentlemen and friends.
As I gave my speech, I pointed out that I have seen people's health
insurance premiums go from $8,000 a year to $10,000 a year. And then as
I saw people in the crowd started waving their arm, and I say $12,000 a
year, $14,000 a year, we had an auction going on, Mr. Speaker, and it
came up to $20,000 a year. Looked to me like these were ``Ma and Pa''
family farm operations that were facing $20,000 in health insurance
premiums, where not that long ago they would have been looking at 6 or
7 or $8,000 in health insurance premiums.
That has swept across this countryside. I talked to a gentleman here
on the floor tonight whose health insurance premiums were $24,000. That
is just not sustainable. You have to finally decide: I am going to take
a risk and go without health insurance with those kind of costs.
That is driven by ObamaCare. It is driven by the mandates in
ObamaCare. It is driven by the guaranteed issue, no consideration for
preexisting conditions, and it is driven by a mandate such as you stay
on your parents' health insurance until you are 26.
It goes on and on and on. OB care, maternity coverage, contraceptive
coverage, you can name it, and also, no additional cost for your
medical checkups. All of these things cost money, and they are built
into the premium, and every time you add another bell or whistle or
accessory to your health insurance policy, the premium goes up and up
and up.
When the insurers find out that they are losing money, they start to
drop out of the marketplace. They drop out of the marketplace, and when
they do, there is less competition.
When there is less competition, prices go up, Mr. Speaker. This is
what we have seen happen over the years since the implementation of
ObamaCare. It is a calamity. It will sink ObamaCare. If we don't touch
it, it will sink and it will be gone. It will implode upon itself. It
cannot be sustained. We know that on this side of the aisle from about
here on over. They know it intuitively over on this side of the aisle
from about there on over. But
[[Page H1583]]
the difficulty is that politically they have embraced ObamaCare and
they have decided they are going to hold onto it and protect it.
Why?
I think part of it is they want to hold on and protect the legacy of
President Obama, who, if all had gone well, would have ridden off into
the sunset. He doesn't seem to be doing that, Mr. Speaker.
But now we are at this place where we have the votes in the House to
do a full, 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare, and that is what we should
do.
Tomorrow, I understand that the gentleman from Ohio, and perhaps
others, will introduce legislation that will be described as a full
repeal of ObamaCare. I wish it were so, but it is designed to fit
within the reconciliation standards. It is a legislation that once made
it to President Obama's desk and received a veto. This time,
presumably, it could go to President Trump's desk and receive a
signature. That is good. I favor that as an improvement in the right
direction. But the full right thing we need to do is the 100 percent
repeal.
We shouldn't be sustaining any kind of mandate whatsoever. Let the
States determine what the mandates might be, but don't let them lock
people into their States and refuse to let them buy health insurance
from outside of those State lines. And it looks to me that the bill, as
introduced by leadership, doesn't really allow for the facilitation of
buying insurance across State lanes.
So here is what I suggest we do, Mr. Speaker. Send the full, 100
percent repeal over to the Senate. Pick up the bill that was a repeal
just about a year ago, send it over to the Senate, too. Then, what we
have is Mitch McConnell can choose from the menu on what he can get
done, but the pressure for the full repeal will build if the House
sends it to the Senate, and the odds of the full repeal get greater and
greater.
Then the House, doing its job--and we are not obligated to negotiate
a deal out of the House and the Senate and the White House. It is the
judgment of the House that needs to be reflected here in this Chamber.
This most deliberative body that we have, the voice for the American
people, we should never be trapped into thinking that we can't pass
anything out of the House if we don't first have a handshake with the
President and the majority in the Senate. That has handcuffed us for
the last 8 or more years.
The strategic thinking has been that we don't even try to move
anything out of the House unless we know they can take it up in the
Senate and unless we know that we can get a signature from the
President, because anything else is a waste of time.
Well, it is not necessarily a waste of time, Mr. Speaker, not
necessary at all. In fact, we need to send out of here our highest
aspirations. So I say this: send the full repeal over to the Senate,
and then pick up the repairs, the replacements, and the reform, those
things that we know we need to do, and they can stand alone with or
without the full repeal of ObamaCare.
For example, we need to send Paul Gosar's bill that repeals
components of the McCarran-Ferguson Act that allows for insurance to be
bought and sold across State lines. Paul Gosar has done a lot of work
on that bill, and his predecessor out of Arizona, John Shadegg, pushed
that bill for about 16 years here in the House of Representatives. In
his last week or so here in the House, he said: I have one regret, and
that regret is I should have pushed harder for the repeal of McCarran-
Ferguson so that we could be selling and buying insurance across State
lines.
{time} 2045
He should have pushed harder. I recall John Shadegg pushing very hard
on that, and he just couldn't get it there. We all couldn't get it
there. Now Paul Gosar has that bill out of the Judiciary Committee. We
passed it out a week and a half ago, and it is hanging on the calendar
now, and it should come to this floor. The votes would be here to pass
Paul Gosar's repeal of McCarran-Ferguson, and we should send that over
to the Senate. Passing that piece of legislation would enable insurance
to be sold across State lines, and that would set the competition up
between the 50 States.
I recall the debate here on the floor of the House in 2009 and 2010
when the data came out that a typical young man in New Jersey at the
time, a healthy 23-year-old, would pay an average of about $6,000 for
his health insurance premium for the year--$500 a month, $6,000. A
similarly situated healthy young man in Kentucky would be paying $1,000
a year.
Now, what is the difference between those two States?
The cost of providing that care and the far fewer mandates in the
State of Kentucky and a lot of mandates in the State of New Jersey.
So why wouldn't we let a young man in New Jersey buy a health
insurance policy in Kentucky? What are the odds that he is going to be
insured if he can get a policy for $1,000 as opposed to $6,000?
We know that far more Americans would be insured if they had the
options and didn't have to buy all the bells and whistles. He probably
doesn't need maternity. He probably doesn't need contraceptive. Maybe
he is not too concerned about the preexisting condition component of
this. If he is 23 years old and on his own, he is not worried about a
26-year slacker mandate. So that is the comparison of what could happen
if we passed Gosar's bill and repealed McCarran-Ferguson and allowed
people to purchase insurance across State lines. That should be number
one.
Number two would be full deductibility of everyone's health insurance
premiums. Today there is something like 160 million Americans that get
their health insurance from their employer. When the employer sets up a
group plan as a rule and they negotiate those premiums, whatever that
premium might be, let's just say it is $10,000 a year per employee,
they lay that $10,000 on the barrel head, pay that insurance premium,
and that goes into the books as a business expense, and it shows up on
the schedule C as a health insurance premium.
But if you are a sole proprietor, if you are a partnership, if you
are a ma-and-pa operation and you have one part-time employee, that
makes you an employer. If you are an employer, you can deduct the
premiums to your employees, but you can't deduct your own premium.
There are 20.9 million Americans similarly situated in that scenario,
Mr. Speaker, where that 20.9 million Americans are compelled under
ObamaCare to pay for health insurance premiums and meeting those
standards, and maybe they have only got one choice like one-third of
America's counties; maybe they only have two choices like another third
of America's counties; or maybe they have more than two choices like
the other third. But at least 1,022 counties in America have only
choice: buy the insurance policy--that is your only choice--or be in
violation of the law and be fined and be punished, but do it with
after-tax dollars instead of before-tax dollars. That is the burden
that they are carrying right now.
Mr. Speaker, 20.9 million Americans are disenfranchised in that way.
Yet they would be employers and they would be in the effort of trying
to provide health insurance for themselves, trying to start up a
business perhaps with maybe one part-time employee, with now this big
disadvantage that they don't get to deduct their health insurance
premiums.
Maybe they are that couple that is $20,000 or even $24,000 for a
premium after-tax dollars, and by the time the Federal Government steps
in and taxes the first, say, 36 percent, and the State steps in and
taxes another 9 percent, now we are at 45. You can add a few more
various and sundry taxes in there, but a round number is half. So your
$20,000 premium takes $40,000 of earnings in order to break even with
that premium. But the employer gets to write off the $20,000 as a
business expense, so they have that advantage, and you are seeking to
compete with an established larger employer. This is wrong. So the
second bill we should pass out of this House is the full deductibility
of everybody's health insurance premiums.
The McCarran-Ferguson repeal under Paul Gosar, then the full
deductibility of everybody's health insurance premiums--oh, that is the
King bill, by the way, Mr. Speaker, and I am hopeful that that can be
passed through and become law. It is a superior approach to providing
refundable tax credits.
[[Page H1584]]
We need to learn some things. For example, when we hear tax credits,
it really means in this discussion refundable tax credits.
What is a refundable tax credit?
That is when the Federal Government sends you money whether you have
a tax liability or not. So that would be that if--and the range in this
proposal that emerged yesterday is between $2,000, $4,000, up to
$14,000 in refundable tax credits to help people pay for their
insurance premiums.
Well, that makes me feel good, the idea of trying to help people that
can't afford it, but in the process of doing that, we are also helping
a lot of people that can afford it. Nonetheless, when you are paying
people's health insurance premium, that becomes an entitlement. If
everybody is entitled to having a health insurance policy, and if you
don't have the money to do so--and I think they use the standard of
$75,000 or less--then the Federal Government will subsidize your policy
and conceivably buy your policy. Now we have another new entitlement
that grows the Federal Government, raises taxes, and spends hundreds of
billions of dollars because we don't want to say no to people. They had
a policy handed to them by ObamaCare, which the taxpayers cannot
afford.
We have $20 trillion in national debt right now, Mr. Speaker, and we
have a debt ceiling crisis coming at us within just a matter of days
or, at a maximum, weeks. This Federal Government needs to get a handle
on its spending and it needs to get back to balance. We will never get
there if we keep growing entitlements here on the floor of the House of
Representatives.
So that is two items that need to be brought through. The first is
the full repeal. Item number one, the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson
Act, sell insurance across State lines. Item number two, pass the King
bill for full deductibility of everybody's health insurance premiums so
that everybody paying for health insurance is on the same standard as
employers are.
Then the third thing is the medical malpractice reform, and that is
the tort reform legislation that passed out of the Judiciary Committee
on the same day with Paul Gosar's bill, Mr. Speaker. That legislation
puts a cap on medical malpractice settlements of $250,000 in
noneconomic damages--a lot of us would call that pain and suffering--
and pay for pain and suffering. That is a component of it, but it is
not the whole picture. So we adopt language that is actually borrowed
from California which passed this medical malpractice reform 40 years
ago and capped it at $250,000.
By the way, that is still the law in California today. The individual
that signed it into law, his name is--at that time he was the Governor
of California, Mr. Speaker. Maybe people don't remember who the
Governor of California was 40 years ago: Jerry Brown. The Governor of
California today: Jerry Brown.
Is there an effort to repeal the tort reform legislation that has
been part of California's law for 40 years? No.
In fact, Texas has borrowed from those ideas and implemented that
into law, and they are finding that they have got doctors and medical
practitioners moving to Texas now because they are not subjected to the
outrageous medical malpractice claims that they have been in multiple
States across the country.
So this tort reform legislation that just passed out of the Judiciary
Committee a week and a half or so ago is another prime piece of
legislation that should come to the floor for debate and vote, and I am
confident it would pass the House and send it over to the Senate, and
then give Mitch McConnell some tools to work with.
That is not the end of it, Mr. Speaker. I know that under the
legislation that has been proposed by leadership and just rolled out
yesterday, they expand health savings accounts. I think they nearly
doubled them, as I understand, $6,000-some for an individual, maybe
$12,000-some for a couple. That is close, but I know that it is not
precise, Mr. Speaker.
I agree that we need to expand health savings accounts. I think we
need to expand them more. My legislation expands them to $10,000 for
the individual; $20,000 for the couple. But health savings accounts
need to be expanded, and they need to be expanded so that people can
use them and manage them. They can put money in tax free, take money
out to pay their premiums, take money out to pay their healthcare
costs, and grow the health savings account so that when it grows to a
point where it becomes $50,000, $100,000, $400,000, $500,000, double
that by the time of retirement or more. With that kind of money sitting
in a health savings account, then there will be people that will
negotiate a health insurance policy, but as a catastrophic policy. They
will conclude that they want a policy that has got a high deductible, a
fairly high copayment, and that they will take care of their own
incidental healthcare costs out of pocket and try to grow their health
savings account.
In the process of doing that, if you have got the capital in your
HSA, then you can negotiate the premium or your monthly health
insurance premium down by negotiating for a catastrophic plan, taking
care of the incidental costs yourself out of your health savings
account. To some degree, you become your own insured for the lower
dollar items while you still have catastrophic insurance for the big
things.
We have done the numbers on this. Even when it was down to the cap in
2003 that rolled out of here that was capped, the HSAs were capped at
$5,150 for a couple. We did the math on that. If a couple started out
at, say, age 20, worked for 45 years, round numbers, worked out to be
age 65, Medicare eligibility, then they would conceivably be sitting
there with $950,000 in their health savings account. I have well over
doubled this. In fact, take it up to $10,000, $20,000 for a couple
where 5,150 was the opening bid in 2003. So we are not quite four times
that amount, yet healthcare costs have gone up. So I am not proposing
that we end up with $4 million in the account, but maybe some number
that is 2.5 or so million.
Arriving at Medicare eligibility with six--well, seven figures times
some number in their health savings account leaves these couples in a
position where they could go out on the open market and purchase a
paid-up Medicare replacement policy for life, pay for that up front,
and then the Federal Government wants to tax anything that comes out of
the health savings account as ordinary income. But my answer to that is
no, don't do that. If they will take themselves off the entitlement
roll by buying a Medicare replacement policy, then let them keep the
change tax-free.
Now this becomes a life management account. Not only is it a health
savings account, it is a pension plan, and it is incentive to manage
your health insurance premiums and your healthcare costs to get your
checkups, to get your tests, to watch your weight, get your exercise,
and manage your life because you are going to have a nest egg at the
end of your working life that you want to be able to spend doing
enjoyable things. If your health is a bad experience, then you have got
the money there to cover it to make sure that you are taken care of.
This is where we need to get people in this country. We are just
awfully short of people willing to think outside the box and to think
about what we should do here in America. We are not just some regular,
ordinary, humdrum, run-of-the-mill country, Mr. Speaker. We are the
United States of America. We are the unchallenged greatest nation in
the world. We didn't become this way because we are dependent upon
government. We became this way because we have a robust appetite for
freedom. People have gone out and blazed their own trails. In a lot of
cases, settling this country, they literally did that, blazed a trail
through the timber and went out and settled the West.
When our original Founding Fathers arrived here on our shores, they
arrived in a land that had, as far as they knew, unlimited natural
resources. They had unlimited freedom because they were a long ways
away from King George. They came for their religious freedom as well.
They were farmers, they were shopkeepers, they were individual
entrepreneurs with a dream, and they forged the American Dream. They
did it on religious faith, on free enterprise capitalism, and on God-
given liberty. That created this robust country in this giant petri
dish that was the only huge experiment that the world has ever seen: a
nation that is formed on ideas and ideals.
[[Page H1585]]
Here we are, the descendants, the recipients, the beneficiaries of
their risk and of their dream, beneficiaries of their ideals. All we
have to do is preserve them. Our Founding Fathers had to hammer them
out.
{time} 2100
They had to conceive of these ideas about God-given rights, and then
they had to articulate it. They had to write these ideas over and over
again in many different configurations so that the populace began to
understand what it really meant when you have rights that come from
God. Then they had to sell this to the colonists. And then they had to
defy King George and fight for that freedom.
All of that took place with the desks that were there and those who
gave their lives for our freedom and our liberty. And what is our job,
Mr. Speaker? Hang on to it, maintain it. Now, in this case, with
ObamaCare, we have got to restore it. That is what we are faced with.
In my view, it is not that hard, if we just come together here and do
that which we know is right, send the full repeal of ObamaCare across
the rotunda to the Senate, pass Paul Gosar's bill selling insurance
across State lines, the repeal of McCarran-Ferguson, make our health
insurance premiums fully deductible, and expand our health savings
accounts. Do those things and pass the tort reform legislation which
will diminish the malpractice premiums that our doctors and
practitioners are paying. If we do that much and eliminate the mandates
that tie us down in such a way that we don't have the latitude to work
any longer, we don't need a mandate that requires every insurance
policy to keep your kids on until age 26. There are a lot of other ways
to manage that. If you as a family want to buy such a policy, the
insurance companies will provide it. You don't need to have the law.
The preexisting condition component of this, yes, we have compassion
for people who are uninsurable. In fact, 37 of the States, by my
recollection, had policies before ObamaCare, Iowa included--and I
helped manage that as former chairman of the Iowa Senate State
Government Committee--37 States, by my recollection, had established
high-risk pools.
These high-risk pools used tax dollars to buy the premium down so
that those who had preexisting conditions and could not be insured
could have their health insurance premiums subsidized by the taxpayers.
Now, some States are more generous than others. That is how it will
be. But it is a far better solution than the Federal Government being
involved in preexisting conditions just because they think that is the
right political answer, Mr. Speaker.
We will see how this unfolds as the days and few short weeks come
forward here. I am hopeful that we will be able to get together in
conference and the Republicans can hammer out a solution that can be
signed off on by, hopefully, all of us.
I am hopeful there will be some Democrats that understand you don't
want to go back home again and tell your constituents that you fought
to defend ObamaCare, this thing that my colleagues, scores of times--in
fact, thousands of times here on the floor--called the Affordable Care
Act. We know, Mr. Speaker, it is not affordable and that the premiums
are way out of sight; the coverage can't be used, in many cases,
because the deductibles are too high for most people; and that the
insurance companies are bailing out one after another. And perhaps a
year from now, if we don't do something, there will be great chunks of
the American people who will have no options whatsoever.
So I suggest we do this the prudent way: do the full repeal and send
single components of the reform rifle shot out of the House over to the
Senate. Let the Senate take them up. Or, if they think it is prudent,
package them up and send them back to us as a package. If the House has
once passed it, and it comes back to us in a package, I think we will
pass it again, Mr. Speaker.
So these are intense times, and America's destiny is being
determined. It is being determined because we have elected Donald Trump
as President of the United States.
I think about what it would have been like if I had woken up on the
morning of November 9 and we had someone other than Donald Trump
elected to be President, and how the optimism that just poured forth
since that day has been terrific.
You can recognize, right after the election, that people had a spring
in their step, and they are more optimistic and more outgoing. If you
would walk into the grocery store, people would come over and start a
conversation. If you walked into a restaurant, they would do the same
thing.
They were just more outgoing and more friendly and they wanted to
engage with each other. They still want to engage with each other. The
stock market has soared up over 21,000, and there has been over $3
trillion in wealth created just in the stock market alone, Mr. Speaker.
So this high level of optimism that we have brings with it a high
level of responsibility. It is not only to the ObamaCare change, but
the pledge that was made by Donald Trump many times throughout the
campaign was a full, 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare. I always say 100
percent repeal will rip it out by the roots as if it had never been
enacted. The language is a little different, but the meaning is
identical. The meaning is identical, Mr. Speaker: a full repeal of
ObamaCare.
President Trump has said many times we need to be able to sell and
buy insurance across State lines. That is another Trump promise. Of
course, he has got people he is working with. Tom Price is head of HHS.
He is a good man whom I first met here on the floor of the House of
Representatives when he came in as a freshman a number of years ago. I
watched as he paid attention to the healthcare issues then. And the
constitutional issues, I might add. My first encounter with Tom Price
was on constitutional issues, and it was a positive one.
So we are at this place with a new President that has, halfway into
his first 100 days, a number of campaign promises that he has yet to
live up to, but a great many that he has lived up to. It looks to me
like Donald Trump has at least somebody in an office somewhere in the
White House that has a list of all the campaign promises, and they are
checking those off one by one as he accomplishes the promises that he
has made as a candidate.
That is a laudable thing, Mr. Speaker. Yet, he is being bogged down
by a series of stories that have, to some degree--I don't want to quite
say handcuffed his administration--but it has made it difficult to
operate in a flexible and a fluid way.
This has to do with, I think, it is leakers within; people who should
be loyal to the United States and, hopefully, loyal to the President of
the United States, who have been leaking information out.
When The New York Times is publishing that they have got inside
information that has been leaked to them from the intelligence
community, nobody seems to be troubled that The New York Times is going
to people in the intelligence community or receiving messages from them
and taking information that is about classified activities of our
Federal Government and printing the stories about that classified
information in their paper.
It is not only The New York Times. I see Heat Street here, The
Guardian, The Washington Post. That all comes to mind. McClatchy.
Here is a series of things that have taken place that bring into
question the integrity of some people that work within government and
some of them that work within our intelligence community. Here are just
a string of events, Mr. Speaker, that bring us to a conclusion about
what is going on in our Federal Government.
It was in the summer that Heat Street reported that the FBI applied--
in June it is reported--applied for a FISA warrant wiretap to survey
people in the Trump campaign who had ties to Russia. Roughly late June,
this report came out. FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act. Special warrants have to be achieved in a FISA court. These
warrant requests are classified. The activity around them are
classified. So, if it is classified, how is it that Heat Street
reported that the FBI applied for FISA warrants to wiretap people in
the Trump campaign last June?
Well, that is because classified leakage went into the ears of the
Heat
[[Page H1586]]
Street reporters, or I suppose we could say they made it up. And if it
were the only story out there, that might be the most likely, but we
have a number of other stories.
The Guardian reported that a FISA warrant request was made to monitor
four Trump campaign staffers for conflicts or for communications with
Russia and Russians. That story in The Guardian matches up with the
story in Heat Street roughly last June that there was a FISA warrant
request to monitor four of Trump's campaign staffers for their
communications with Russia.
So there is story number one and two. Heat Street writes one; The
Guardian writes another. Both of them are writing about what, if we had
the real information in front of us, would be classified: the
application for FISA and the results of that.
The report comes back and says those applications were denied. They
were not based upon a reasonable suspicion that there was, I will say,
collusion with Russians.
So here is item number three. McClatchy reported that the FBI and
five other agencies were investigating Russian influence on the U.S.
Presidential election. So we have two stories--one from Heat Street,
one from The Guardian--that says that there was an application for a
FISA warrant. That FISA warrant was presumably turned down, by reports,
but then there is a report that there is the FBI and five other
agencies that are investigating the Russian influence on the U.S.
Presidential election. That is a McClatchy report.
Now, this is starting to add up. I am starting to see here is a sign
there is something going on and there is a leakage of classified
information--a sign something is going on and leakage of classified
information. Then, the report of the investigation of the FBI and five
other agencies.
Now, here is the next story. The New York Times reports that the FBI
is investigating Russian Government communications with Trump campaign,
but there is no evidence of those communications resulting in any kind
of collusion, at least. That is a New York Times report.
So these stories have been dropped in: Heat Street, McClatchy, The
New York Times.
Here is another New York Times report. The Obama administration
allowed the NSA to share globally intercepted personal communications
with 16 other Federal agencies without a warrant. That, I believe,
refers to a January directive that came from Barack Obama that opened
up the ability to communicate between the intelligence agencies so that
they could share classified information among them, rather than
compartmentalize and share that information on a need-to-know basis.
That is item number five.
Item number six, the Obama administration officials tried to spread
information to media showing Russian involvement to help Trump and his
election. That is a story that was pushed out and perpetuated. It was
pushed out by, of course, the Hillary campaign and others.
So the weight of this cumulative effect of these stories is adding
up.
I would add, also, that on October 31 of last year, just a little
over a week before the election, Hillary Clinton sent out a tweet that
said--I am trying to remember the words that she used--it was
communication specialists or intelligence officials. It was a reference
to experts in communications and computers and that they had identified
that there were investigations going on and there were communications
between the Russians and the Trump campaign.
It looked to me like that was an effort on the part of the Clinton
campaign to spread these rumors that had been planted all the way along
throughout the summer by Heat Street's report that there was a FISA
wiretap warrant that was turned down, and by The Guardian's report of
presumably the same event of a FISA warrant turned down because they
didn't show that there was any activity there that was worthy of a
warrant; the McClatchy report that said the FBI and other agencies are
investigating Russian influence. Then you have got the two Times'
reports.
Here is the third New York Times report. They reported that General
Flynn talked to Russian officials about how Trump would handle Russian
sanctions. This is presumably from a wiretap of the Russian Ambassador
to the United States, Mr. Speaker.
Now, if that surveillance is taking place of a Russian official, a
Russian Ambassador in the United States, if those activities are
typical surveillance activities that would go on in most any country
that had the capability, then that information is still classified. And
if the conversation took place between General Flynn and the Russian
Ambassador--and we all, I think, believe that it did--that conversation
and the contents of it would be classified.
So how did this leakage come out to The New York Times about the
phone call or calls that General Flynn may have had with the Russian
Ambassador?
{time} 2115
The leakage of that information would be a Federal felony because it
is classified information, facing 10 years in a Federal penitentiary as
a penalty. Yet America is hyperventilating about a tweet that Donald
Trump sent out that said that Trump and Trump Tower had been hacked or
wiretapped by the Obama administration. I know he said President Obama.
He put the responsibility on President Obama. It is pretty easy to
conclude he may have also just meant the Obama administration.
Do we think that this wiretapping is taking place?
I think so. I think the evidence, at least, of the telephone
conversation between General Flynn and the Russian Ambassador is pretty
strong. Since it has not been denied by General Flynn or by Vice
President Pence, I am going to assert here in this Congressional Record
that that took place, that it was surveilled, and that the information
in the exchange, which they claim there is a transcript of the
conversation, was leaked out to the press. The press didn't release the
specific language that had been used but wrote the general narrative
about it in much the same way that a Member of Congress might if they
walked into a classified briefing, listen to the briefing, and come
back and talk about their general understanding of what they saw in
there rather than the specific language that was used and uttered.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that we have at least one Federal felony that
has taken place, that it likely is because of leak or leaks that came
from the intelligence community. It is pretty clear that President
Obama granted the authority--I don't know if I can quite say ordered--
granted the authority that all of our intelligence community, all 17 of
them, could exchange classified information freely, and that vastly
multiplied the number of people who had access to this information and
dramatically increased the odds that there would be leakage about these
communications that appear to be surveillance of--perhaps it looks like
the Trump team, at least people who were on the Trump team, the Trump
campaign perhaps, and that there was an effort that goes back as far as
last June.
This team of the FBI and the five other intelligence organizations,
agencies that are there, did they form that team in June?
It looks likely.
Did they get any real information due to lack of a FISA warrant from
that point on?
We don't know, but we have got a pretty good idea that there was a
FISA warrant that was approved in October and that information came out
of that and maybe other sources that was leaked for the purpose of
hurting this Presidency and hurting the effectiveness of then-
President-elect Trump and now President Trump.
I submit that President Trump should purge from the executive branch
all of the political appointees for whom there is any question about
their loyalty. Any of those whose loyalty is beholden to Barack Obama,
any of those who can't embrace a conservative government that is
bringing us back to constitutional principles, they should all be gone.
And those civil servants whose jobs are protected, there have been a
good number of Obama people who have burrowed themselves into civil
service jobs in order to handcuff President Trump. I say for them, when
you can identify them, get a room somewhere, put them in it, pay them
[[Page H1587]]
their wages. They will get tired of their job over time, but the damage
they will do if you let them have a desk will be far greater than what
we get out of them for the paycheck we are giving them. I say purge as
many as possible, Mr. President. Put those people in place who are
loyal to you, who want to carry out your agenda.
Here is another news report. The Washington Post reports that U.S.
investigators examined Jeff Sessions' contacts with Russian officials
while he was a campaign adviser to Trump. This report from The
Washington Post says that U.S. investigators examined Jeff Sessions'
contacts with Russia. So he was under surveillance. He was at least
under investigation, it sounds like, if this story is right. Here we
have a seated United States Senator, a stellar individual.
If I were going to try to compare the character that I know Jeff
Sessions is, and I look around this town, I ask: Who matches the
character of Jeff Sessions?
Not many. I would say Vice President Pence, and then the list gets
pretty short after that. Jeff Sessions has a very high degree of
character, and he is imminently a constitutionalist, an adherent to the
rule of law, a dedicated patriot, and one who makes his decisions
within the bounds of the Constitution, of the law, of the rules that
exist. He is a great respecter of the order of a civilized society and
a terrific Attorney General.
There was no better choice that could have been reached by Donald
Trump than Jeff Sessions. But here he is, subject to this kind of--at
least a report that there is an investigation, Mr. Speaker. I think if
I wanted to know about Jeff Sessions' activities, if I thought that it
was my business, I would just ask him. When he answered the question
from Senator Franken, the question was in the context of did you have
any discussions with Russians with regard to any campaign activities
that you might have cooperated or colluded with?
If Al Franken had asked that question precisely, then the answer
would have been precise as well.
I can understand why Jeff Sessions' answer came back no, that he
hadn't dealt with the Russians. I do a lot of meetings, and if I am
asked a question about the context of a subject matter, I will answer
within the context of that subject matter. I think that is what Jeff
Sessions did. Most of the Senators--I will say all of the Senators
sitting there on that committee who heard those questions asked and saw
the answers of Jeff Sessions, and then they and their staff and the
public, weeks went by, not a peep about anybody being concerned about
the answer that Jeff Sessions gave.
Why?
Because all of those Senators sitting on that committee listening to
his testimony and the other Senators who were watching that testimony
either from in the room or around the Hill on C-SPAN, and their staff
who were monitoring those hearings all understood that you have people
from multiple countries come into your office on an irregular basis,
and in a matter of months one might meet with the Greeks, the Russians,
the French, the Germans, pick your country in South America or Asia.
There is a constant flow of people coming through my office, and I know
there is a constant flow of people from other countries coming through
the offices of probably every United States Senator.
So when Jeff Sessions said that he hadn't met with the Russians
within the context of discussing the campaign, which was the heart of
the question asked by Senator Franken, no Senator was concerned about
his answer that he hadn't met with the Russians because they understood
the context within which he was answering that question. Had that not
been the case, some Senator, like Chuck Schumer, would have woken up
the first day instead of after they were able to gin it up and turn it
into a media story, Mr. Speaker.
We have a country to save. We have an ObamaCare to repeal. We have a
healthcare policy in this country that needs to be rebuilt logically by
preserving our doctor-patient relationship, encouraging competition
between insurance companies, letting people be in charge of the policy
they want to buy, providing full deductibility, fixing the lawsuit
abuse, being able to sell insurance across State lines and expand
health savings accounts. All that needs to happen. I am hopeful that it
can happen within the next couple of months, Mr. Speaker.
While that is going on, we need to look over at the White House and
encourage this President: Purge those people from your midst who owe
their loyalty to Barack Obama. They are undermining your Presidency.
You have to fight the moles from within, the media from without, the
George Soros-organized protesters who are on the streets of America
every weekend with a different cause. They will continue this until the
public gets tired of it.
Mr. Speaker, the President needs to understand that he has a lot of
enemies in this country and a great big job. His ability to take on the
mainstream media has been demonstrated. Now it is a little bigger
hurdle that needs to happen, too. The intelligence community from
within, there are a lot of good, dedicated patriots there. They need to
purge those people from their midst as well who are not loyal to the
United States of America and those who are working against the foreign
policy agenda of this President.
We need to rebuild America. We need to make America great again. We
need to restore our economy. We need to get our tax cuts done. We need
to get some more regulatory reform. Let's have this robust, growing
economy kicked off and see that 3, 3\1/2\, 4 percent growth that this
country can do with the freedom that has been delivered to it, much of
it by the pen of our new President, Donald Trump.
I am optimistic about our future, although we have our challenges in
front of us, Mr. Speaker, and I urge that my colleagues step up to this
task, keep it constitutional, keep it free market. Remember the
individual freedom, the God-given liberty, and the legacy that we are
leaving for succeeding generations. Let's get this job done and make
America great again.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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