[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 41 (Thursday, March 9, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2011-H2016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to spend time 
here with my colleagues. We just heard a diatribe from our colleagues. 
It is interesting to me to note how they say the American people don't 
want us to change this, but I have to remind my colleagues that I think 
the American people spoke very loudly on November 8. We have run 
multiple times to repeal this bill. I heard one of my other colleagues 
say that we voted over 60 times, and we are going to vote one more time 
to get rid of the Affordable Care Act because the American people have 
delivered that message to us, and we have a President that says that we 
will do this.
  I think, as we go through this, we are going to have some interesting 
conversations. Considering all the bickering and posturing you see in 
the media by partisans on the left and the right, it is time for 
Members of this body to step back for a moment and take stock of where 
we are in the healthcare debate.
  I was not a Member of Congress when the Affordable Care Act was 
passed. I was a practicing large animal veterinarian in private 
practice plying my trade and not a political animal, if you will. 
However, I was concerned to see the way the law was passed. My 
colleagues on the other side were talking about how this was rammed 
through Congress and how it was passed in the shadows--or how we are 
doing that now. But I have to remind them that in 2009 it was passed in 
the dark of night--no Republican input, no debate, and no discussion. 
It was just passed and rammed down the American people's throat.
  I want to go on here, and I want to yield to a couple of my 
colleagues before I do.

[[Page H2012]]

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa) 
because he has to go tend to some other business. I would like to have 
his input on this. Doug LaMalfa is my good friend and a great leader up 
here.
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California (Mr. 
Yoho), a good friend here, and my other colleagues here, to allow me 
the moment to speak.
  Mr. Speaker, I am really excited about the opportunity with this new 
administration for relief for regular Americans from the Affordable 
Care Act. I think the intentions may have been good when it was passed, 
but we see the devastating effects from the many emails, letters, 
calls, and the communications my office received from middle-income 
families. They are the ones that are the most negatively affected by 
this act. We have seen their premiums and their deductibles go out of 
sight. They may not even need to have the insurance anymore because the 
deductibles are so out of reach for them on cost, so insurance means 
nothing to them.
  Indeed, with most Americans having health insurance before the ACA 
that they were at least reasonably happy with, they have had that 
choice taken away from them. They have had choices taken away. My wife 
and I were sitting there in December 2013, being forced, just like 
everybody else, to enroll in a plan with a broken website trying to get 
it to go through. We knew at the time we were going to have big 
problems with that.
  We even agreed with the Republican conference when we were on the eve 
of this taking effect. The President decided that maybe we need to have 
a 1-year pause for this for employers of 100 people or more. We agreed 
with that. We offered legislation because you are not supposed to just 
do that with the stroke of a pen. Indeed, it was duly passed 
legislation with all Democrat votes, no Republican votes, just a few 
short years before. We agreed, let's lay this for a year, if nothing 
else, for those larger employers.
  But we also said: Mr. President, we should also delay it for 
everybody else because we know it isn't going to work. We know this is 
going to do nothing to curb costs. That really is the bottom line. It 
is the middle-income families that I am really worried about in this 
thing because, again, we received so many communications from them 
saying: Please help us. We can't afford it. We are putting off being 
able to buy a home because we are seeing these costs go up. We are 
putting off college savings for our kids because our costs are 
spiraling out of control.
  So if we do nothing else in the process, again, are we going to come 
up with the perfect bill?
  There is no perfect bill when you have this many years of the type of 
government takeover of health care that we have seen here. But we are 
going to do the best we can because it is those folks out there--
middle-income Americans--that we are trying to help to bring relief 
from the ACA so they can go back to doing the priorities they see: 
having affordable insurance, doctors they can choose, a plan they can 
choose, and being able to go off and do the things like saving for 
their kids' college and maybe buying that home that is part of the 
American Dream instead of the American nightmare they see it has been.
  So I appreciate my colleague, again, having this time this night and 
for allowing me to speak for a few minutes.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California.
  Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I was concerned to see the way the law 
was passed. It was passed in the middle of the night. I thought it was 
passed through hastily and without transparency. I did not think that 
boded well for the law's success. Unfortunately, I was proven right.
  If you remember the words of the then-Speaker of the House, it was 
passed without reading it, and the words were: We have to pass it to 
see what is in it. We have to pass it to see how it is going to work.
  Talk about legislative malpractice that was poured on to the American 
people to get a bill they didn't want, that nobody read. Yet my 
colleagues on the other side are talking about how we are running this 
through without anybody's input. It has had 6 years of input, it 
is coming together now, and our goal is to fix health care for the 
American people.

  As someone who has practiced medicine, I believe that, despite all 
the good intentions behind the Affordable Care Act, it was doomed to 
fail, as most Big Government programs are. In fact, one of the main 
reasons I ran was on behalf of patient-centered, free-market oriented 
health care. I supported and still support healthcare reform that 
allows us in Congress to keep our promises when we talk about what we 
want to achieve.
  I was one of the Members that came up here who lost my health care 
because of the Affordable Care Act. My premiums have gone up over 
$11,000 since I have been here. My deductibles have gone up and my 
coverage has gone down. It is a disaster. I have to remind my colleague 
from Minnesota who was talking about how bad the Republican bill is 
that his own Governor from the State of Minnesota said that this bill 
is a disaster, the Affordable Care Act in its present form, and his 
premiums have gone up 45 percent in his own State.
  I want to remind this body that many people lost health care they had 
before ObamaCare was passed with the promise that if you like your 
plan, you can keep it. It was broken by our own President of the United 
States. If you like your plan, if you like your doctor, and if you like 
your insurance company, your premiums will go down $2,500 on an 
average. Lie after lie after lie. The American people answered that by 
electing a majority in Congress to the Republican Party to fix that, 
and that is what we aim to do.
  Supporters of the ACA also told us that the premiums wouldn't 
increase. It turned out that was false. Premiums in the individual 
markets have increased partly because ObamaCare has forced insurers to 
leave the exchange. For example, benchmark silver-level plan premiums 
have increased by an average of 25 percent from 2016 to 2017, according 
to the Department of Health. If you like the State of Arizona, the 
premium this year is going up an astounding 116 percent. They worry 
about us, and then they blame us for raising the cost of health care. 
Sophistry, pure sophistry.
  Many families have been forced to pay drastically higher out-of-
pocket costs, which hits their pocketbooks hard even though they are 
not wealthy people by any stretch of the imagination. As my friend, Mr. 
LaMalfa, was talking about the cost, at the end of the month people are 
finding out they are running out of money before they run out of the 
month.
  I am reminded of one family in my district whom I met with personally 
many times over my tenure in Congress. They had to deal with the 
intense treatments and frequent hospitalizations for an illness that 
has hit two generations of their family very hard. They had coverage 
through an employer that they started out with, and it was a $350-a-
month premium right before the ACA passed in 2010. However, around the 
time the ACA mandates kicked in, their plan went up over $100 a month. 
Today their premium is a staggering $680 a month. That is over $8,000 a 
year in premiums, nearly double what they were paying before the ACA. 
These are the people that sent us up here to fix health care. Unless 
you are making six figures a year, this is an absolutely painful sum.
  Mr. Speaker, I may not generally be a supporter of government 
benefits, but I do believe very strongly that our government should 
make every effort in protecting our Nation's vulnerable population, 
especially the chronically ill. My concern is the ACA has resulted in 
those groups being harmed more than anybody else. Particularly for 
those who had employer-provided insurance prior to the ACA, the law's 
effect has been hurtful, especially if their coverage was for families 
afflicted by long-term illness. Simply put, no healthcare law should 
ever make things worse for people who were responsible and had health 
care to treat a medical condition. If anything, that is the opposite of 
health care.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), who is 
a good friend of mine. Dr. Babin has practiced dentistry in our 
military and in the private sector. Right after graduating dental 
school, he was commissioned in the Air Force as an officer and was 
stationed overseas. I thank the gentleman

[[Page H2013]]

for his service. He later returned to his native east Texas to open his 
own dental practice, which he operated for over three decades. He has 
served on the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners and as a member of 
the American Dental Association.
  Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for holding a Special 
Order on a topic that could not be more relevant than at this very 
time: the failures of ObamaCare.
  As a healthcare professional myself, the elected representative of 
over 700,000 constituents, and the grandfather of 13, I have a duty to 
see that access to medical care is more affordable for the welfare of 
my patients, for my constituents, and for the livelihood of my children 
and my grandchildren.
  ObamaCare moved us away from the patient-centered affordable medical 
care--the traditional doctor-patient relationship--that we have enjoyed 
for well over a century. ObamaCare was designed by Washington 
bureaucrats who, unlike other Americans, are exempt from ObamaCare. In 
the last 24 hours, I have heard from nearly 1,000 of my constituents 
who are overwhelmingly begging me to repeal ObamaCare and replace it 
with a bill that restores their healthcare freedom.
  That is no surprise to me. I have heard from thousands of my 
constituents, including my own patients and my own family members, 
about how their premiums have skyrocketed and their deductibles have 
skyrocketed. They have health insurance, but they can't afford to 
access medical care because their deductibles are too high and their 
longtime family doctors are no longer accepted as providers in their 
new health insurance. They have to drive long distances to get to a new 
and different doctor in their medical plan. They have had medical care 
interrupted. Simply put, they want this ObamaCare nightmare to end.
  A truck driver from Hardin County told me how she was forced to 
switch plans last year from the PPO that she wanted to keep to an HMO 
that she did not want. This has made it significantly more difficult 
for her to find a doctor to accept her insurance when she gets sick out 
on the road even though she pays much higher in premiums than she did 
last year for her PPO.
  Melissa, who lives in Harris County, has the same story. Last January 
she had to switch her family to an HMO plan because of ObamaCare's 
limited choices in her community. This forced her family to leave their 
doctor of 20 years and their local pharmacy.
  Melissa said: I have always been a very responsible American citizen, 
yet ObamaCare told me what kind of plan that I had to buy.

                              {time}  2045

  This is what ObamaCare does. It makes decisions for patients instead 
of the other way around. Brute Federal force.
  The message is clear: ObamaCare's top down, Big Government approach 
is leading to higher premiums, less choice, and insufficient access for 
people in my district and all across this great land of ours. These 
higher out-of-pocket costs and premiums have priced too many Americans 
out of the insurance market altogether.
  Melinda, who lives in the county next to me, had an ObamaCare plan 
last year and paid nearly $600 a month. She also had a $3,000 
deductible. She had to spend over $10,000 before her health insurance 
plan paid for anything. Even with these high premiums, her insurance 
plan would not cover many of her asthma medicines or the cataract 
surgery that she desperately needs.
  This year, when her premiums went up another $100, she dropped 
coverage altogether. Under ObamaCare, now she has lost affordable 
coverage, and she must pay a penalty, a tax.
  Angela, from Harris County, actually decided to sign up for an 
ObamaCare plan after going uninsured for some time. Unfortunately, she 
soon realized that the cost vastly outweighed the benefits. So this 
year, she chose again to go without insurance. Now she pays the 
ObamaCare tax.
  Others in my district don't want insurance coverage or only want 
catastrophic coverage. Yet, they are forced to pay expensive fines. 
Their freedom of choice is grossly limited.
  Gina, a hardworking single mother and businessowner told me that she 
is now forced to use the little bit of money that she gets from her tax 
refund to pay the ObamaCare tax.
  Charlie from Harris County says that he wants me to vote to repeal 
the individual mandate, stating that ObamaCare has forced him to buy a 
product that he doesn't want.
  ObamaCare relies on force and coercion, but this is not the American 
way. If ObamaCare is so good, why did a larger percentage of Americans 
elect to pay the penalty than to take the subsidy for their coverage 
last year? The American people deserve much better.
  I have got hundreds of similar stories, including those from a 
college student who couldn't work more than 27 hours a week over her 
Christmas break to earn money for school because the ObamaCare law 
imposed costly mandates for her employer if she does.
  ObamaCare is in a death spiral and is imposing too much pain and 
suffering on the American people. Premiums have gone up, on average, by 
25 percent across the country for enrollees this year alone. Some 
States, like Arizona, had a 116 percent increase in premiums.
  Twenty-five percent of Americans have only one health insurer to 
choose from, and 50 percent of Americans live in areas with only two 
insurance providers. Folks, that is not a choice.
  The complaints I am hearing now are at a fever pitch, and the 
American people are demanding a change now. We need a patient-centered 
healthcare system driven not by mandates and coercion, but by freedom 
and choice for my patients, for my constituents, for my family, and for 
all Americans.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Dr. Babin's comments. He is very 
astute. He has been around health care. You know how this thing is not 
working and the strain it has put on people in your district, as it has 
in mine, and people around the country.
  I am relieved that Congress is moving forward on legislation to right 
these wrongs. It feels so good to be a Member of Congress today to live 
up to a campaign promise that everyone in the majority in the House, 
Senate, and executive branch says: We are going to fix this; trust us. 
I have the complete confidence in that. I look forward to engaging with 
my colleagues.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse). 
He is a farmer, small-business man, and good conservative who 
understands the importance of keeping government out of our healthcare 
system.
  Our country's farmers have been hit hard, just as much as others, by 
ObamaCare. Congressman Newhouse is, no doubt, well aware of these 
issues.
  Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his leadership on 
this issue this evening and throughout this year. I also want to thank 
him for the opportunity to address the House of Representatives on this 
very important issue that we are dealing with right now.
  Mr. Speaker, throughout my time representing the good people of 
central Washington State in the U.S. Congress, constituents from across 
my district, the Fourth District, have shared with me their deeply 
personal stories. These are personal stories about the struggles and 
the hardships that they have experienced and that they have faced since 
the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
  So let me just relate to you a couple of those because I think they 
are very important and help illustrate exactly what it is that we are 
trying to correct.
  In late 2016, a gentleman from the city of Yakima wrote to me in 
distress, as his insurance provider was pulling out of Yakima County.
  He told me: My wife and I are losing our healthcare coverage. Our 
financial lives are about to be radically changed and a literal risk to 
our health is upon us. The challenge to find affordable, acceptable 
healthcare insurance will be immense.
  That is not unlike another story that I heard in early 2015. A young 
woman from Grandview wrote to describe her dire situation being forced 
on to the Affordable Care Act exchange.
  She told me: I was paying $231 a month for a policy that had a $500 
deductible with a $10 copay.
  However, under the ACA, she said her healthcare costs have 
skyrocketed.
  She continues: I now pay $475 a month for a policy that has a $5,500 
deductible. This is not affordable health care.
  It is the middle class American who has worked hard to have a good 
retirement who is being hit hard by this.

[[Page H2014]]

  Another gentleman from West Richland recently pleaded that the many 
middle class workers like him must not be forgotten as we repeal and 
replace this broken law.
  He says: Do not forget us when fixing. We liked our plan, and we lost 
it.
  Just last week, a farmer from Moses Lake called my office and said 
that, before the ACA, he was paying less than $200 a month for a 
catastrophic plan that provided coverage for his family. Now he is 
forced to pay $1,000 a month with high deductibles that discourage his 
family from even being able to use and access the healthcare insurance 
that they are paying for.
  These are just some of the many stories of the dozens, the hundreds 
that I have been hearing from over the last couple of years since I 
started representing the good people of central Washington.
  Like I said, these are true stories, personal stories of the 
struggles that people are facing on a daily basis and have pleaded with 
us to take strong action to deliver them from this situation that they 
find themselves in. I think it is similar across the country. As you 
hear tonight from other Members speaking about their districts, you are 
hearing similar stories.
  So that is something that, I think, as we debate the best way to 
repeal and to replace the Affordable Care Act, I am committed to 
ensuring that we protect the most vulnerable.
  I am also committed to providing relief for the majority of everyday, 
middle class Americans who have been devastated by this misguided and 
broken law.
  Let me just say: I hear you, I will not forget about you, and I will 
keep your stories at the forefront of my mind as we work to fix this 
failed system.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Washington 
State. I appreciate his words, his thoughtfulness, and the stories. You 
learn more from a story than you do facts and figures.
  I want to go over a couple of things here. As we have heard, the 
average increase of health plans in the United States rose by over 35 
percent. I already talked about Arizona: 116 percent this year alone.
  The insurance exchanges that were set up--the 26 in the beginning--
are down to 5, with some counties not even having exchanges to purchase 
insurance.
  I think for the people that are watching this at home, whether they 
are Members of Congress, the American citizens, I want you to listen to 
this, and I want to take you back to the information that came out when 
the Speaker of the House then talked about, we have to pass it to see 
what is in it, how it is going to work. Then I want you to picture the 
words of the architect of this bill, Jonathan Gruber: The lack of 
transparency and the stupidity of the American voter helped ObamaCare 
pass.
  The Democrats want to blame this body, the Republicans, for wrecking 
health care. This is what they passed on us and the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter), who 
is the only pharmacist serving in Congress. As a healthcare 
professional, he knows these issues very well.
  He is the co-chair of the Community Pharmacy Caucus and sits on one 
of the main healthcare committees in Congress, the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce. He ran his own business, like me, and witnessed firsthand 
the problems that government regulations and red tape cause on job 
creators, large and small.
  I want to remind folks, too, that there were over 22,000 pages of 
rules and regulations that came out of the Affordable Care Act.
  Mr. CARTER of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, 
the gentleman from Florida, Representative Yoho, for this opportunity 
and for hosting this tonight to discuss how ObamaCare is affecting 
folks at home.
  Consider the case of Bob Joiner, an independent adviser in south 
Georgia. His wife, Kim, is an audiologist who works in a small practice 
that does not provide healthcare benefits.
  Bob and Kim exercise regularly, they watch their nutrition, and they 
are fortunate to not have any health problems. They also have a 28-
year-old son named Wesley.
  In 2016, Bob's monthly healthcare premium increased 134 percent, and 
his son's climbed to an astonishing 190 percent. In total, their 2016 
annual premiums were $4,285.56 for their son Wesley and $19,026.12 for 
Bob and Kim.
  The Joiners should have been hopeful that, in 2017, they could change 
their plan for something more affordable. But thanks to the Affordable 
Care Act, that wasn't the case. This year, only one Affordable Care 
Act-compliant plan was accessible to them on the healthcare.gov 
website. An additional policy featuring a higher deduction with lower 
premiums was available. However, the plan was not ObamaCare-compliant, 
leaving the Joiners subjected to the Affordable Care Act penalty.
  Before ObamaCare, the Joiner family's annual premium for the whole 
family--the entire family--was $7,428. At the time, they had access to 
multiple providers and dozens of plan designs. Unfortunately, ObamaCare 
has brought chaos into the healthcare system.
  I want to repeat that again. Before ObamaCare, the family's annual 
premium for the whole family--for Bob, Kim, and their son Wesley--was 
$7,428. Last year, just for Wesley, it was $4,285. For Bob and Kim, it 
was $19,026. Folks, that is just astonishing. That is not right.
  The Joiners are not alone when they explained that they are unable to 
save for retirement or pay down their mortgage because of progressive 
increases in healthcare costs. Patients across the country now face 
this grim reality because ObamaCare has failed.
  Just as the Joiners saw patient costs are skyrocketing, last year the 
Obama administration even admitted that premium hikes were coming for 
this year's healthcare plans.
  It turns out the national average premium increase is an astonishing 
25 percent. That is the average. In seven States, it is more than 50 
percent. Unbelievable.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, today is a new day. This afternoon, the Energy and 
Commerce Committee completed a marathon markup of its portion of what 
was ultimately to be the ObamaCare reconciliation bill.

                              {time}  2100

  It was an honor to be a part of that. Twenty-seven hours and 27 
minutes we met, and we finally got it out of committee. Now it goes to 
the Committee on the Budget, along with the bill that the Committee on 
Ways and Means has sent. So those two bills will be put together and 
they will go to reconciliation.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have been a part of this historic 
opportunity, taking the first meaningful steps toward entitlement 
reform and replacing ObamaCare. I thank all of my colleagues who are 
here this evening taking part in this Special Order as well as thank 
each Member of Congress who has and continues to take a stand against 
the idea of a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach to health care.
  Our plan presents a better way. The American Health Care Plan will 
give us access and affordability. It will give us patient-centered 
health care. Enough of this top-down, cookie-cutter approach that we 
have had, thinking that everything from Washington, D.C., is better, 
thinking that we know what the States need. That is not right. What we 
need is to empower patients. What we need is to have patients in 
control of their healthcare system, and this is what the American 
Health Care plan does. It empowers patients through health savings 
accounts, through tax credits, reforming Medicaid. The American Health 
Care Plan is on its way. I am excited. I am excited for America.
  I, again, thank Representative Yoho for hosting this Special Order. 
We appreciate your work. I thank all Members of Congress who have had a 
part of this on both sides of the aisle. I thank everyone. Help is on 
the way: better health care, market-based health care, where 
competition and choices will be the case, where insurance companies 
will be fighting for your business, where you will have choices, where 
you will have competition in the market. That is what we need. That is 
what is going to bring healthcare costs down.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Dr. Carter. I appreciate his being 
here. The effort he has put in, working diligently to help us right 
this wrong that

[[Page H2015]]

has been instilled upon the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney 
Davis), a great colleague of mine who is the chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture, and Research of the 
Committee on Agriculture; a member of the Committee on Transportation 
and Infrastructure; and the Committee on House Administration.
  Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Yoho for 
leading this Special Order tonight to talk about this issue. It is an 
issue important to the entire country and all hardworking taxpayers of 
America.
  1.4 million people were kicked off their plans and forced to purchase 
different insurance plans. We saw 45 to 55 percent premium increases in 
my home State of Illinois in 2017. Deductibles have increased 64 
percent nationwide. 31 million people can't afford to use the insurance 
they have because their deductibles are so unaffordable and high.
  One-third of the Nation only has the option of one insurance provider 
on the $2 billion websites that we know as the ObamaCare exchanges, a 
monopoly that drives up costs, and 75 percent of people in my home 
State of Illinois have one or, at most, two providers.
  One in four people in Illinois are on Medicaid. That is unsustainable 
for a State with an $8 billion budget deficit.
  These statistics tell us ObamaCare is collapsing, and if we do 
nothing, we will be leaving millions of Americans without any option 
for healthcare coverage. But we are not offering this alternative 
because of statistics. We are doing it for Rich and Sandy in Pana, 
Illinois, whose deductibles went from $300 to $2,000 per person for 
less coverage. We are doing it for Janet from Edwardsville, whose 
family plan was considered a Cadillac plan and was replaced with a plan 
that had a $6,000 deductible. We are doing it for Lynne, a farmer in 
Springfield, Illinois, who provides insurance for her barn manager, but 
the best she could find after ObamaCare was one with a premium that 
increased by more than $100 and increased her out-of-pocket expenses by 
another $1,000.
  This is our one shot to fix our failing healthcare system for the 
constituents I just mentioned and the millions more across the U.S. who 
have had the same thing happen to them. This is a pretty good bill to 
start with. After 4 years of watching premiums more than double, 
deductibles skyrocket, and choices dwindle for my constituents under 
ObamaCare, I am proud to be part of a responsible healthcare solution 
to lower costs and increase options for individuals and families.
  The American Health Care Act may not be the exact bill we would have 
written to reform our healthcare delivery system prior to ObamaCare, 
but we can't go back in time. We have to face reality, and the reality 
is we have States like Illinois who chose to expand Medicaid, and we 
can't abruptly rip coverage away from them like ObamaCare did for 1.4 
million Americans.
  In addition to protecting people with preexisting conditions and 
allowing young adults under the age of 26 to remain on their parents' 
insurance, those who currently qualify for Medicaid will remain covered 
until their economic situation improves.
  Our goal should be to ensure that every single person who wants a 
career, a good-paying job, and wants to get off of Medicaid should be 
our priority. But when their situation does improve, which is, again, 
what all of us should hope for, then we help them with monthly, 
portable, age- and income-based tax credits that will go directly 
toward paying their health insurance. These also help those who were 
left behind by ObamaCare, middle class Americans who were forced to buy 
insurance with costly premiums and deductibles but did not qualify for 
subsidies.
  This is just the first part of our plan, which can be done through 
the budget reconciliation process. Next is making changes to lower the 
overall cost of health care so these tax credits go further for every 
American. We have one chance to fix this for the American 
people because ObamaCare is collapsing, and I urge all of my colleagues 
to support this plan.

  I thank again my colleague, Mr. Yoho, for leading this effort 
tonight.
  Mr. YOHO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Rodney Davis). He brought up a very astute point. This is collapsing on 
itself. If we were to do nothing, this would collapse, and the American 
people would be left without any coverage. We have heard other people 
on the other side say: Leave it alone.
  That is irresponsible, and we will not do that. We will repeal and 
replace the Affordable Care Act, and we remove it from Washington 
bureaucrats and government mandates. If government can tell you what 
kind of insurance to buy, you have to buy it, and if you don't, they 
penalize you, what else can they force you to do?
  Our Constitution is not a function of the government. Government is a 
function of the Constitution. Yet when government steps beyond the 
boundaries of the Constitution, it is up to us, we, the people--and we 
are the representatives of we, the people--to change how government 
works. That is what we are doing with the repeal and the replacement of 
the Affordable Care Act. We have heard about the nightmare this has 
caused to the American people, to our economy, the loss of jobs, the 
depression of job growth, wage growth. We can go on and on for hours, 
but it is not going to fix this problem.
  What I want to focus on for the next few minutes is what the 
replacement does do. We have heard about the mandates that are going 
away, the taxes that are going away, the expansion of Medicaid. The 
reality in America, our country is in financial dire straits. It is 
unsustainable. It would be imprudent for us to sit by and do nothing 
while the country goes into default.
  So with the direction we are going, this will bend the cost curve to 
Medicaid to make it solvent for a longer period of time. This will 
empower the individual to have health care and make those decisions 
between the doctor and the patient, the way it should be, instead of a 
government-controlled mandate.
  This empowers individuals to be more responsible for themselves, to 
incentivize them to go out and buy health care by the use of health 
savings accounts, where they can buy over-the-counter medications to 
share with family members the benefit of the health savings account.
  Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all want preexisting 
conditions covered, so that is something we all are in agreement with. 
There is the argument about should children be able to stay on their 
parents' policies until the age of 26. Personally, I don't think they 
should have to--I think they should be out on their own, but I have 
heard from enough people in my district that I am willing to compromise 
and go along with that. Truth be known, children could already stay on 
their parents' health plan until the age of 26 if they were actively 
enrolled in college or disabled. So we are compromising.
  This will make health care better. It puts health care into the hands 
of the American people and their doctors and drives government out of 
it. Let them oversee the process.
  We have heard over and over again that we need to open up the market 
across State lines. There is legislation coming out that will free up 
the insurance companies. We are introducing legislation to hold 
harmless insurance companies now, before we get through with this 
process, so that insurance companies are not held to the standards of 
the Affordable Care Act, so that they can start writing policies today 
when this legislation passes, so they can write their policies and 
start marketing now so that the American people will have time to 
research these products.
  There will be a transition period. I can't guarantee it is going to 
be smooth. I can guarantee you it will be smoother than the last one.
  I think the last thing I want to leave the American people with is we 
don't want to pull the rug out from anybody. We will do everything 
possible, and I know on both sides of this. I would think the 
Democrats, with the debacle that they created, the legislative 
malpractice that they passed in the dark hours of the night in December 
of 2009 or 2010, that they would want to come to the aid to fix health 
care for the American people instead of chastising us and telling us 
how bad and how wrong we are to interfere.

[[Page H2016]]

  This plan is going to collapse on its own. We invite them to come to 
the table to help us fix this because this is for all Americans, not 
just Republicans. It is for all Americans--Republicans, Democrats, 
Independents, everybody. I would hope they would come and help us do 
this.
  I think the last thing, Mr. Speaker, is this is a historic 
opportunity. The Wall Street Journal said never before has there been a 
chance to change a program as significant as what we are getting ready 
to do. We are the ones who are going to lead this effort to bring 
healthcare stability to the American people.
  I look forward to the discussions in the future. I ask the American 
people to believe in the people you sent up here to fix this. We are 
going to get it right.
  One last thing. I will guarantee you that this bill will be read 
before it is passed, and we will know how it is going to work.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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