[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 369]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  HEALTH CARE LAW NOT A ``JOB KILLER''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gardner). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my Republican 
colleagues to start having an honest debate about the health care law 
which they call a ``job-killing'' law because it polls well, but not 
because it's true. It seems pretty clear, especially from listening to 
the Republican attack ads during the last campaign, that the Republican 
pollsters have found the key to winning this debate and others is by 
saying ``job-killing'' as often as possible. If a Democrat said the sun 
rises in the east, the Republicans would say it's a job-killing 
sunrise.
  Republicans entitled the current bill we are debating the ``Repealing 
the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.'' The basis for their ``job-
killing'' rhetoric is a report that they released recently entitled 
``ObamaCare: A Budget-Busting, Job-Killing Health Care Law.'' I have a 
copy of it here if anybody wants to get it. All you have to do is 
contact the Republicans.
  Mr. Speaker, in the last Congress, we took up the challenge of 
reforming health care in this country because the system was broken and 
creating tremendous damage to the American economy. The fact is the 
health care law will help the economy. It will result in more 
efficiency, more stability of care, healthier Americans, and at fairer 
costs. That's what the law will do.
  Republicans have repeatedly misused statistics from the CBO to 
support their argument that the law is primarily a ``jobs killer.'' We 
are truly in a situation of Republican conclusions desperately in 
search of honest facts.
  Let's look at the typical example--the Republicans' twisting of the 
views of experts to support their view. On the very first page of the 
report House Republicans released on January 6 entitled ``ObamaCare,'' 
Republicans state that according to a nonpartisan CBO report from 
August 2010, the law will result in a loss of 650,000 jobs. Now you can 
get that from the CBO. It's available for people to read. But if you 
actually go to what they cite from the CBO report--it's on page 48--the 
report really says that the economy will use less labor because many 
people will choose to work less, or retire early, as a result of the 
benefits of the new law.
  Let me read the exact quote from the Republican report. It says, 
``the nonpartisan CBO has determined that the law will reduce the 
amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent,'' an 
estimate that adds up to roughly 650,000 jobs. The Republican report, 
however, deliberately chops off the last part of the CBO sentence to 
substantiate their claim. Here is the entire sentence: ``The 
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the legislation, on net, 
will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount--
roughly half a percent--primarily by reducing the amount of labor that 
workers choose to supply.'' CBO explicitly makes clear that jobs will 
not be lost but instead that people will choose to work less in order 
to have a decent life. With the new health care law, the American 
people won't be drowning in health care costs and risks to their 
coverage.
  Some evening, on Friday, fly home to Seattle with me and meet the 
flight attendants from United Airlines. We have the oldest base in the 
country. Most of those women are working so that they can have health 
care benefits for their family because their husband has a job and no 
health care benefits. They're not flying for the pension. They're not 
flying for the salary. They're flying to keep their health care 
benefits until they can get to Medicare.
  The Republicans want to focus on their message--no matter what the 
facts are. Republicans say that health care reform is bad for American 
business. The National Business Group on Health, a collection of nearly 
300 large employers including Wal-Mart, Lockheed Martin and others, 
disagrees and says repeal will be bad, bad for businesses.
  I will close by quoting, in a somber splash of honesty, the economics 
editor of the Wall Street Journal. On January 6, just 2 weeks ago, he 
wrote:
  Talking about repeal of the health care law--remember, this is the 
Wall Street Journal--talking about repeal of the health care law may be 
a winning political strategy for Republicans, a rare way to please both 
workers and business executives, and here is what they finally end 
with--as long as they don't actually succeed in doing it.
  The health care law isn't a job killing bill. It's good for business, 
it's good for American taxpayers, it's good for consumers, it's good 
for everybody in the society, and I urge my colleagues to recognize 
that words really do matter and they should stop mischaracterizing the 
health care law and confusing the American people.

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