[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4081-4082]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      TWO YEARS LATER, HEALTH CARE LAW'S BROKEN PROMISES CONTINUE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, today the Supreme Court 
will begin hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of the 
President's health care overhaul, the so-called Affordable Care Act of 
2010.

[[Page 4082]]

  While the Court is still months away from this decision, in many ways 
the verdict has already been cast by countless American families and 
small businesses negatively impacted by the law.
  In 2007, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested: ``We have to pass the 
bill so you can find out what's in it.''
  Two years since passage, American families have found out the hard 
way with increased taxes, looming regulations, and a slew of broken 
promises from fictitious cost controls to limitations on consumer 
choice.
  Most recently, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office served a 
devastating blow to President Obama's most frequently used tagline: 
``If you like your present coverage, you can keep it.''
  The CBO report suggested there will be a net loss of employer-based 
insurance coverage between 3 and 5 million people per year from 2019 to 
2022. This has the potential for 20 million Americans to lose their 
insurance coverage over just a 4-year span.
  On the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, I joined the 
U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee for a congressional field 
hearing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in order to review the law's 
impact throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During the hearing, 
Pennsylvania's acting insurance commissioner, Michael Consedine, 
testified that new mandates on insurance coverage had resulted in 
premium increases of up to 9 percent.
  These figures mirror the national trend as outlined in a recent study 
by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Kaiser report shows that the 
average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached 
$15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year. This 
is a far cry from Barack Obama's 2008 proposition that his law would 
cut family premiums by $2,500 before the conclusion of his first term 
in office.
  President Obama had also promised that he will not sign a health care 
plan that adds one dime toward deficits either now or in the future. 
However, an honest accounting of the health care law finds that it will 
increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the first 10 
years alone.
  Former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin has 
testified the law will increase the deficit by at least $500 billion in 
its first 10 years and more than $1.5 trillion over the decade 
thereafter.
  At a time of severe budgetary constraints, there's only one place to 
turn in order to keep up with this spending: the wallets of Americans, 
in the form of tax increases.
  Having spent almost 30 years in the nonprofit health care field, I am 
acutely aware of the challenges many face when it comes to obtaining 
reasonably priced health care.
  While many of us agree there are portions of the law that are 
beneficial, such as the ability of adult dependent children up to age 
26 to stay on their parents' insurance, the elimination of excluding 
those with preexisting conditions from the plan and the expansion of 
low-cost clinics into underserved areas, the approach of the Affordable 
Care Act is fundamentally flawed. The law places Uncle Sam between 
doctors and patients when it should be the American people, not 
Washington bureaucrats, determining the kind of health care coverage 
that best suits their needs.
  Over the past 2 years, as the regulations have rolled out and the 
American people continue to learn what really is in the law, the broken 
promises have continued to pile up, weighing on the backs of small 
businesses and families. That's why we must repeal the law and toss out 
the negatives; move forward with reforms that actually lower costs 
without sacrificing quality and liberty.
  This week, just blocks away from this Chamber, the Supreme Court will 
hear arguments on the constitutionality of this law. While the Court's 
decision is months away, the verdict has already been cast by the 
countless American families and small businesses in congressional 
districts across this great country that simply cannot afford the so-
called Affordable Care Act.

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