[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 126 (Thursday, July 25, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUPPORT FOR H.R. 748

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. JOE COURTNEY

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 25, 2019

  Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Neal for 
his leadership managing this bill on the floor. As Chair of the Ways 
and Means Committee, his advocacy is a powerful message to the House to 
pass the Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act. I also want to 
thank Ranking Member Brady and Rep. Mike Kelly for their bipartisan 
efforts in support of this bill, defying the polarized politics that 
far too often dominates the health care debate.
  Madam Speaker, this bill today comes with the support of a more than 
650 health care stakeholders who, over the last ten years, have joined 
together to repeal the 40 percent excise tax on higher premium health 
plans scheduled to go into effect in 2022.
  This tax was a late add on to the Affordable Care Act and has been 
rattling around in the federal tax code ever since, never having 
actually collected a penny of revenue, but nonetheless casting an 
statutory shadow over 180 million Americans' health plans--we know in 
real life from HR administrators and employee representatives it has 
added pressure to shift coverage into higher deductible health plans. 
As the Commonwealth Fund recently reported, the numbers of Americans 
who are underinsured as the result of high deductibles has grown by 
over 50 percent since 2005. Kaiser Family Foundation just reported that 
31 percent of employer health plans will get hit by the tax in 2022, 
and that number will grow sharply soon after. Passage of this bill will 
stop that trend from worsening, lift the shadow that overhangs 
employer-sponsored plans, and give millions of teachers, factory 
workers, small businesses, firefighters and the like, relief.
  As the bill's lead sponsor, I want to foot stomp the fact that repeal 
of the tax does not touch the architecture of the ACA's patient 
protections. Repeal is completely severable from the other 440 sections 
of the law and leaves intact essential health benefits, and the 
elimination of preexisting conditions exclusions and lifetime caps to 
name a few. Given that those patient protections have been in full 
operation for the last ten years, while this ``zombie tax'' has been in 
a coma during that time, it is abundantly clear that the tax is 
disconnected from the rest of the law. Lastly, I want to underscore the 
CBO determination that passage will not result in any increase in the 
number of uninsured.
  There is one other concern that observers have raised, namely the 
impact on the national debt. Again, JCT has given a mixed report. The 
good news is that repeal this year 2019 will result in no budget impact 
in 2020 and 2021. In the following two years they estimate a loss of 21 
billion in tax revenue. In the out years their projections grow 
exponentially, based on a theory of ``wage effect'' cause by the 
``thinning'' of health plans' value and a corresponding increase in 
wages. To say that the ``wage effect'' theory is debatable is an 
understatement, and employee groups such as Wage Works, the AFL-CIO, 
police and firefighter groups ferociously deny the validity of the 
``wage effect'' based on their real life experience at the collective 
bargaining table.
  The only remaining question a reasonable observer might ask is why 
has repeal taken so long? Given the initial 5-year delay in the tax's 
effective date in 2010, based on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition and 
the two subsequent delays until 2022, it is true that the warning flags 
were up on this tax early and Congress should have acted sooner. In the 
Congresses that followed 2010 ACA enactment, there was ample 
opportunity to get this done. In the 114th Congress an identical 
surgical repeal bill had 188 bipartisan cosponsors. In the 115th 
Congress a surgical bill had 304 bipartisan cosponsors. Despite that 
broad based support, neither Speaker John Boehner nor Paul Ryan ever 
called those bills up for a vote. I know because I was the lead 
Democratic sponsor on every one of those measures.
  Madam Speaker, with 370 House cosponsors, I am hopeful an 
overwhelming tally tonight will send a laser-like message to the Senate 
to adopt this bill as soon as possible, as is.

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