[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 49 (Tuesday, March 21, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2246-H2247]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           REPEAL AND REPLACE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, any discussion of the American Health 
Care Act needs first to consider where we would be without it.
  ObamaCare is collapsing. More people are paying the State tax penalty 
or claiming hardship exemptions than are choosing to buy ObamaCare 
policies. In a third of the counties across America, there is only one 
provider to choose, and we are now seeing counties where there are no 
providers at all.
  ObamaCare premiums soared an average of 25 percent last year, and we 
are warned that this year will be worse. I have strongly advocated that 
the House address this crisis in a single, comprehensive bill that 
fully repeals ObamaCare and replaces it with a healthy, competitive 
market.

[[Page H2247]]

  Instead, we have to rely on the reconciliation process in order to 
bypass Democratic obstructionism in the Senate, and this only allows us 
to repeal parts of ObamaCare and enact only parts of a replacement. 
Finishing the job will require administrative actions and followup 
legislation in the Senate, both somewhat speculative enterprises. So we 
need to ask if this bill alone is enough to produce a better healthcare 
system for the vast majority of people.
  Its biggest defects are its failure to restore to consumers the 
failure to shop across State lines and to fully free consumers from 
having to purchase coverage they don't need and don't want. I am afraid 
in States that have insurance commissioners who refuse to approve 
innovative replacement plans, consumers will be stuck in a market still 
governed by ObamaCare mandates. This will require followup measures.
  Critics cite the Congressional Budget Office estimate that 24 million 
Americans will lose their coverage, but this conclusion is largely 
based on the premise that unless people are forced to buy health 
insurance they won't. In fact, people won't buy health insurance that 
is not a good value for them; and, clearly, they believe ObamaCare 
isn't.
  We envision a vigorous buyer's market where plans across the country 
compete to offer consumers better services at lower costs, tailored to 
their own needs and wants. This is the AHCA's biggest achievement: 
replacing coercion with choice for every American.
  It ends the individual mandate that forces Americans to buy products 
they don't want. It ends the employer mandate that has trapped many 
low-income workers in part-time jobs.
  It begins to restore consumers' freedom of choice, the best guarantee 
of quality and value in any market.
  It allows Americans to meet more of their healthcare needs with 
pretax dollars.
  It relieves the premium base of the enormous cost of preexisting 
conditions by moving them to a block-granted, assigned risk pool.
  In making this transition, though, it is important to leave no one in 
the lurch, and that is where we need to heed the CBO's warning. The 
fact that many low-income families could no longer afford basic health 
care is what produced ObamaCare in the first place.
  Now, when fully implemented, our reforms will correct the government 
mandates that trapped people in restricted markets that forced health 
care out of reach. But until then, the CBO warns that a 64-year-old, 
for example, earning $26,500 will see her out-of-pocket health costs 
balloon from $1,700 to $14,600 per year. This is neither morally 
defensible nor politically sustainable.
  The Budget Committee adopted my motion, on a bipartisan vote, to ask 
the House to correct this inequity by adjusting the tax credits to 
assure that health plans are within the financial reach of every 
family. I want to thank the leadership for responding to this motion by 
creating architecture in the bill to shift an additional $75 billion 
for this purpose.
  As our pro-growth economic reforms cause incomes to rise and our 
healthcare reforms bring healthcare costs down, families will be 
earning more and will be paying less of what they earn for their health 
care, and reliance on these tax credits will recede.
  But we need a bridge from the present to the future, and we simply 
can't get there without addressing the bill's initial impact on older, 
low-income Americans.
  It is also important that we assure stability in the Medicaid system 
as we transition to flexible, State-run programs that correct the 
inequities of ObamaCare that have pushed the elderly, blind, and 
disabled to the back of the Medicaid line. This bill does so.
  I wish it did everything necessary to restore an optimal health 
insurance market, but it moves us toward that goal. And even as a 
stand-alone measure, I am confident that it will ultimately create a 
market in most States that will produce better services, greater 
choices, and lower costs for the vast majority of Americans.

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