[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 79 (Monday, May 8, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E616-E617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         PROVIDING RELIEF FROM THE FAILED OBAMACARE EXPERIMENT

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                            HON. BRIAN BABIN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 8, 2017

  Mr. BABIN. Mr. Speaker, I promised the people of the Thirty-Sixth 
District of Texas that I would repeal Obamacare and replace it with 
conservative solutions. President Donald J. Trump was elected on this 
same platform.
  Last week we came together to fulfill that promise.
  After years of speeches, debates, elections and ``show votes'' that 
we knew would be vetoed or go nowhere in the Senate, last week's vote 
was the real deal.
  This was perhaps the most important and consequential domestic policy 
legislation any of us will ever see.
  To begin with, it serves as the largest entitlement reform of the 
Medicaid program in the program's history and eliminates the individual 
and employer mandate penalties. It also stops mandatory spending on 
large abortion businesses, such as Planned Parenthood, for one year.
  It isn't the exact bill I would have written, but I am proud to say 
that I voted YES on the AHCA. While Republicans alone provided the 
votes to pass this bill, it was still the product of finding common 
ground to provide the American people with relief from Obamacare.
  Members of our conference from every ideological stripe and every 
type of district came together to improve the bill and to secure its 
passage.
  While we could certainly write a better one that allows for insurance 
sales across state lines, gives consumers better choices about the 
plans and benefits they want, and tears down the anti-trust exemption 
for insurers--the absurd tightrope we must walk to comply with the 
Senate's reconciliation rules has forced us to write this bill with one 
hand tied behind our back.
  Like their colleagues here, Senate Democrats have made clear that 
preserving the failed experiment of Obamacare matters more than 
anything else, and that they would launch a fake, phony Filibuster if 
anything came to the Senate that did not comply with the Senate 
procedure known as the ``Byrd Rule.''
  I was extremely pleased to be part of House passage of AHCA last week 
and now look to the Senate to move the road blocks that continue to 
threaten our conservative agenda.

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