[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10981-11024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        REPEAL OF OBAMACARE ACT

  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 724, I call up 
the bill (H.R. 6079) to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and 
Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 724, the bill 
is considered read.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 6079

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Repeal of Obamacare Act''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following with respect to the impact of 
     Public Law 111-148 and related provisions of Public Law 111-
     152 (collectively referred to in this section as ``the 
     law''):
       (1) President Obama promised the American people that if 
     they liked their current health coverage, they could keep it. 
     But even the Obama Administration admits that tens of 
     millions of Americans are at risk of losing their health care 
     coverage, including as many as 8 in 10 plans offered by small 
     businesses.
       (2) Despite projected spending of more than two trillion 
     dollars over the next 10 years, cutting Medicare by more than 
     one-half trillion dollars over that period, and increasing 
     taxes by over $800 billion dollars over that period, the law 
     does not lower health care costs. In fact, the law actually 
     makes coverage more expensive for millions of Americans. The 
     average American family already paid a premium increase of 
     approximately $1,200 in the year following passage of the 
     law. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that 
     health insurance premiums for individuals buying private 
     health coverage on their own will increase by $2,100 in 2016 
     compared to what the premiums would have been in 2016 if the 
     law had not passed.
       (3) The law cuts more than one-half trillion dollars in 
     Medicare and uses the funds to create a new entitlement 
     program rather than to protect and strengthen the Medicare 
     program. Actuaries at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid 
     Services (CMS) warn that the Medicare cuts contained in the 
     law are so drastic that ``providers might end their 
     participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to 
     care for beneficiaries)''. CBO cautioned that the Medicare 
     cuts ``might be difficult to sustain over a long period of 
     time''. According to the CMS actuaries, 7.4 million Medicare 
     beneficiaries who would have been enrolled in a Medicare 
     Advantage plan in 2017 will lose access to their plan because 
     the law cuts $206 billion in payments to Medicare Advantage 
     plans. The Trustees of the Medicare Trust Funds predict that 
     the law will result in a substantial decline in employer-
     sponsored retiree drug coverage, and 90 percent of seniors 
     will no longer have access to retiree drug coverage by 2016 
     as a result of the law.
       (4) The law creates a 15-member, unelected Independent 
     Payment Advisory Board that is empowered to make binding 
     decisions regarding what treatments Medicare will cover and 
     how much Medicare will pay for treatments solely to cut 
     spending, restricting access to health care for seniors.
       (5) The law and the more than 13,000 pages of related 
     regulations issued before July 11, 2012, are causing great 
     uncertainty, slowing economic growth, and limiting hiring 
     opportunities for the approximately 13 million Americans 
     searching for work. Imposing higher costs on businesses will 
     lead to lower wages, fewer workers, or both.
       (6) The law imposes 21 new or higher taxes on American 
     families and businesses, including 12 taxes on families 
     making less than $250,000 a year.
       (7) While President Obama promised that nothing in the law 
     would fund elective abortion, the law expands the role of the 
     Federal Government in funding and facilitating abortion and 
     plans that cover abortion. The law appropriates billions of 
     dollars in new funding without explicitly prohibiting the use 
     of these funds for abortion, and it provides Federal 
     subsidies for health plans covering elective abortions. 
     Moreover, the law effectively forces millions of individuals 
     to personally pay a separate abortion premium in violation of 
     their sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral beliefs.
       (8) Until enactment of the law, the Federal Government has 
     not sought to impose specific coverage or care requirements 
     that infringe on the rights of conscience of insurers,

[[Page 10982]]

     purchasers of insurance, plan sponsors, beneficiaries, and 
     other stakeholders, such as individual or institutional 
     health care providers. The law creates a new nationwide 
     requirement for health plans to cover ``essential health 
     benefits'' and ``preventive services'', but does not allow 
     stakeholders to opt out of covering items or services to 
     which they have a religious or moral objection, in violation 
     of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Public Law 103-
     141). By creating new barriers to health insurance and 
     causing the loss of existing insurance arrangements, these 
     inflexible mandates jeopardize the ability of institutions 
     and individuals to exercise their rights of conscience and 
     their ability to freely participate in the health insurance 
     and health care marketplace.
       (9) The law expands Government control over health care, 
     adds trillions of dollars to existing liabilities, drives 
     costs up even further, and too often puts Federal 
     bureaucrats, instead of doctors and patients, in charge of 
     health care decisionmaking.
       (10) The path to patient-centered care and lower costs for 
     all Americans must begin with a full repeal of the law.

     SEC. 3. REPEAL OF OBAMACARE.

       (a) PPACA.--Effective as of the enactment of Public Law 
     111-148, such Act (other than subsection (d) of section 1899A 
     of the Social Security Act, as added and amended by sections 
     3403 and 10320 of such Public Law) is repealed, and the 
     provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act (other than 
     such subsection (d)) are restored or revived as if such Act 
     had not been enacted.
       (b) Health Care-Related Provisions in the Health Care and 
     Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.--Effective as of the 
     enactment of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act 
     of 2010 (Public Law 111-152), title I and subtitle B of title 
     II of such Act are repealed, and the provisions of law 
     amended or repealed by such title or subtitle, respectively, 
     are restored or revived as if such title and subtitle had not 
     been enacted.

     SEC. 4. BUDGETARY EFFECTS OF THIS ACT.

       The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of 
     complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall 
     be determined by reference to the latest statement titled 
     ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, 
     submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the 
     Chairman of the Committee on the Budget of the House of 
     Representatives, as long as such statement has been submitted 
     prior to the vote on passage of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill shall be debatable for 5 hours, 
with 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the majority leader 
and minority leader or their designees, 60 minutes equally divided and 
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
Education and the Workforce, 60 minutes equally divided and controlled 
by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, 60 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means, 30 minutes 
equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member 
of the Committee on the Budget, 30 minutes equally divided and 
controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
the Judiciary, and 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by the 
chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Small Business.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).


                             General Leave

  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to 
include extraneous material on H.R. 6079.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Michigan?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  House Republicans promised the American people that, if granted the 
majority, we would vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. Let's face it. ObamaCare is 
nothing like what was promised. Former Speaker Pelosi said we would 
have to pass the bill to find out what was in it. Rest assured, we 
found out.
  Rather than reform health care, this law epitomizes Washington at its 
very worst--intrusive mandates, higher costs, red tape, unaffordable 
spending, taxes on employers and families, and the control of personal 
health care decisions by boards, bureaus, and agencies in Washington. 
Let's just consider the many broken promises.
  President Obama promised that his reforms would lower family premiums 
by $2,500 by the end of his first term, yet the cost of an employee-
sponsored family plan increased to $15,000 in 2011. The CBO projects, 
if we allow the rest of ObamaCare's mandates to kick in, premiums will 
rise further.
  The President told us over and over that if you liked your health 
care plan you could keep it, yet the law pushes employers to drop 
coverage. The CBO estimates that up to 20 million American workers will 
lose their plans under ObamaCare.
  The President said his law would cost a mere $900 billion as if 
spending nearly $1 trillion on a new program were thrifty.

                              {time}  1500

  Yet, when it is fully implemented, ObamaCare is estimated to cost 
taxpayers $2.6 trillion over a decade. The President promised to make 
Medicare stronger. Instead, ObamaCare raided $575 billion from Medicare 
to pay for new programs and entitlement expansions.
  The President pledged that he would not raise taxes for households 
with incomes under $250,000. Yet ObamaCare includes 21 new tax 
increases that will cost taxpayers roughly $800 billion over the next 
decade. The IRS will impose new taxes on medical devices, prescription 
drugs, health coverage, high-premium health plans. The agency will 
place new restrictions on health saving accounts and flexible spending 
accounts. Employers will face a tax for failing to provide health plans 
approved by HHS and a new surtax on investment.
  The President promised American taxpayers that they would not been 
forced to fund abortions and our conscience rights would be protected. 
Yet HHS is moving forward with a mandate that requires religious 
institutions to violate their principles or pay a steep fine. Or is the 
fine on faith going to be considered a tax as well, just like the 
individual mandate? The Supreme Court made clear that the mandate is a 
massive new tax, one that will primarily be levied on middle class 
households.
  Repeal is also the only way to honor and restore the promises the 
President wisely made but foolishly broke. The Supreme Court rendered 
its diagnosis, but the American people will be offering a second 
opinion. We promised the American people that we would work to repeal 
this terrible law, and that is a promise we are keeping.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  This bill, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, would take away health 
security and cause over 30 million people to lose health coverage over 
the next decade. That's more people than the entire population of New 
York and Ohio. Yet here we go again, wasting time that should be spent 
on improving the economy and putting people to work. Instead, we're 
rehashing the same old arguments. Americans deserve health security.
  What's in the bill? The law that the Republicans would seek to take 
off the books prevents people with preexisting conditions, like 
pregnant women, from being denied insurance or charged so much that 
they can't get coverage. The law says women should not pay higher 
premiums just because they are women.
  People should have an easy, transparent marketplace to shop for 
quality insurance, and the hardworking middle class should receive 
subsidies to help them afford it. People should not be worried about 
losing health coverage if they lose their job. People should be 
encouraged to get preventive health services and not be charged for it. 
Small businesses should be helped if they want to offer health 
insurance.
  America should no longer be a country with millions of people 
uninsured and unable to get health insurance. That's what the 
Republicans want us to go back to. They argue that they want to repeal 
and replace ObamaCare. What's their replacement, RomneyCare? They have 
no replacement. They offer nothing to the American people. There is no 
proposal on how they would keep these 30 million

[[Page 10983]]

people insured and end insurance company abuses like preexisting 
condition discrimination.
  Let's move beyond this vote and show the American people this 
institution is about more than just politics. It's about doing what's 
right for American families. Let's affirm our commitment to bring 
health security to all Americans. Let us reject this Republican bill 
that would again have the House go on record repealing the law, which 
has not yet been fully put into place.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, before I reserve whatever time 
I have, to empower our Health Subcommittee ranking member, Mr. Frank 
Pallone from the State of New Jersey, to be able to control the rest of 
the time for the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman will 
control the remainder of the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of our time.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), the chair of the Health Subcommittee.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, in March, to mark the 2-year anniversary of 
the signing of ObamaCare, I invited local doctors, business owners, and 
elected officials to talk about how the law will change the practice of 
health care on every level.
  We heard from Dr. Gerald Rothacker about the law's failure to reform 
medical liability and how young doctors don't even realize they're 
practicing defensive medicine, ordering unnecessary tests, and driving 
up costs. We heard from Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania's secretary for 
the Department of Public Welfare, about how the law will cause State 
spending to explode in the coming years.
  While Medicaid consumes 30 percent of the State budget now, if the 
law is fully implemented, it will consume over 60 percent. Pennsylvania 
won't be a State government. It will be a health plan that paves roads 
and funds schools on the side.
  We also heard from Kirby Sensenig, the owner of a local roofing 
company. He spoke about the difficult choice he will have to make in 
coming years about whether to keep providing insurance for his workers, 
or to pay the penalty and cast them into the health care exchanges.
  We all know how much health care reform was needed. We've all heard 
the stories about individuals denied care that they desperately needed. 
We've heard about the families who struggled to pay the bills when a 
child got sick. We all know someone who went without insurance because 
of the high cost of premiums. But this law did not fix what was broken. 
It didn't deliver the reform the American people really wanted.
  The savings, both for the government and for families, are an 
illusion. Don't pat yourselves on the back for gaming the CBO. There 
won't be a single dime saved by the law. Indeed, government spending 
will explode because of the law. ObamaCare's new entitlement program 
and massive Medicaid expansion is estimated to cost taxpayers $1.8 
trillion over the next decade.
  Things aren't much better for families under ObamaCare. In 2011 
alone, the annual premium for an employer-sponsored family plan soared 
past $15,000. That's a sharp 9 percent increase from 2010. Twenty new 
taxes impose additional costs on everything from flexible spending 
accounts to pacemakers. That's 20 new taxes in ObamaCare not yet 
implemented. It will be taxing medical devices, drug manufacturers, and 
insurers. It drives up the cost of care. It is a farce to think that 
government subsidies will balance out the increased costs imposed by 
all the new taxes and regulations.
  Finally, the reach of the Federal Government has extended even to the 
conscience of religious charities and educational institutions. When 
the government takes over health care, it takes over basic decisions of 
morality that should be left up to individuals. It's far past time we 
ended the destruction of our health care system by a poorly designed 
and administered law. Full repeal is the only way to get to real 
reform. I urge support for the bill.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  Today reminds me of the movie ``Groundhog Day.'' For those of you who 
aren't familiar with the movie, it's about a TV weatherman who finds 
himself repeating the same day over and over again. No matter what he 
does, he's stuck on the same day. Does that sound familiar? I think it 
does.
  Today, we will take yet another show vote on repealing the Affordable 
Care Act which will never become law. In fact, we're wasting 2 days 
debating its repeal when Congress should be focusing on jobs and 
reducing the deficit. This exercise in futility does nothing but 
attempt to turn the clock back on all the many benefits already in 
place for Americans across this country. Meanwhile, it increases the 
deficit, puts insurance companies back in charge of America's health 
care, increases costs, cuts benefits for Medicare seniors, and 
eliminates $40 billion in tax credits to help make insurance more 
affordable for small businesses.
  Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act ensures that hardworking middle 
class families will get the security they deserve and protects every 
American from the worst insurance company abuses. The law includes 
numerous provisions to keep health care costs low, promote prevention, 
and hold insurance companies accountable.
  For those Americans who already have health care, whether through 
private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act is 
already making your coverage more secure. For example, insurance 
companies no longer have unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny 
your child coverage due to a preexisting condition, or charge women 
more than men.

                              {time}  1510

  Over 80 million Americans have gained coverage of preventive care 
free of charge, like mammograms for women and wellness visits for 
seniors. Nearly 13 million Americans will receive a rebate this summer 
because their insurance company spent too much of their premium dollars 
on administrative costs or CEO bonuses, and 5.3 million seniors and 
people with disabilities have saved an average of over $600 on 
prescription drugs and the doughnut hole in Medicaid coverage, Medicare 
coverage. Also, 6.6 million young adults have been able to stay on 
their parents' plans until the age of 26, including 3.1 million young 
people who were newly insured--and I hear about this all the time when 
I am home in my district.
  For those Americans who yet don't have health insurance, help is 
really on the way. Starting in 2014, the Affordable Care Act will offer 
an array of quality, affordable, private health insurance plans to 
choose from. If someone can't afford insurance, or for a small business 
that wants to provide affordable insurance to their employees, tax 
credits are available that make coverage affordable.
  The result of this repeal, which the Republicans are putting forth 
today, is to basically say that millions of middle class Americans will 
lose out on new health freedoms and new health coverage that make a 
positive difference in their lives. Rather than refight these old 
partisan battles by starting over on health care and repealing basic 
protections that provide security for the middle class, Congress needs 
to work together to focus on the economy and create jobs.
  The House Republican leadership would do well to seek bipartisan 
solutions to jobs and the economy instead of seeking this repeal.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the chairman emeritus of 
the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Barton).
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the distinguished chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bill before us this 
afternoon and in opposition to what is colloquially called ObamaCare.
  All of the comments of the proponents of the bill that have been made

[[Page 10984]]

in the past in support have generally turned out to either not be true 
at all or to be only partially true. They said that they were having 
the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court 
said that's unconstitutional, you couldn't do it. So even though you 
said that's what you were doing, you're really not.
  The proponents said the penalties in the bill were not taxes. Well, 
the Supreme Court in a 5-4 majority several weeks ago said, well, 
really, you're not regulating the mandate and the penalties under the 
Commerce Clause because that would be unconstitutional. You're actually 
doing it under the taxation clause.
  We're kind of in an Alice in Wonderland situation here. What is true 
is that if this law is enforced, millions of Americans are going to pay 
much more for health care, and we're not going to get better quality 
care. People like myself oppose the bill, not because we don't want 
every American to have health care, but because we want Americans to 
have choices and to make individual choices about their health care.
  This law, if enforced, mandates things. It mandates the coverage. It 
mandates what you have to have. It mandates what can be paid for it. 
This Independent Payment Advisory Board over time will probably mandate 
how doctors practice medicine.
  I personally think that's wrong. That's why I believe, since the 
Supreme Court has ruled 5-4, that we ought to have another repeal vote, 
even though admittedly we had one over a year ago. We should repeal it, 
we should put everybody on record right now where they stand, send the 
bill to the other body and see if we can't get the majority leader over 
there to also have a vote. Then as people go into the election, we know 
where the Congress stands on this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Eshoo).
  Ms. ESHOO. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, I think that today is really a sad day. 
It's a sad day for the House, and I can't help but think of 
Shakespeare: Thou doth protest too much. Now, it is very clear that my 
Republican friends have been opposed to any kind of national health 
care for as long as I can remember.
  But today is really quite extraordinary because the Congress not only 
voted, shaped on, voted on, passed, the President signed into law, it 
was challenged, it went to the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice and 
four other Justices of the Supreme Court of our land have upheld the 
law for health care accessibility for every single American, all God's 
children. And what do the Republicans do but come to repeal.
  My question is, What are you for? Where's your plan? I have been in 
the minority party. You've had time. This is the Energy and Commerce 
Committee.
  Where is your plan? You talk about markets, you talk about costs, you 
talk about whatever; but you have no plan for the American people.
  Now you've placed yourself in a position of a takeaway, and I think 
that's what is sad. It's sad for the American people, but it's not 
going to happen because the Supreme Court upheld the law.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Florida, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Stearns.
  Mr. STEARNS. The gentlelady from California knows full well--she 
serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee--all during the markup of 
ObamaCare we had an alternative health plan.
  I'm proud to cosponsor this bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 
ObamaCare, because the act is not affordable.
  Cutting half a trillion dollars from Medicare to pay for new spending 
is wrong. Savings in Medicare should stay in Medicare. How severe are 
these cuts to Medicare? The Chief Actuary for CMS reports that 15 
percent of hospitals will be unprofitable within 10 years. These cuts 
can endanger the viability of the hospital system and jeopardize the 
health care available for seniors.
  Now, we have a whole alphabet soup of new agencies that are created 
by this monstrosity of a law. Let me tell you, the IPAD, the 
Independent Payment Advisory Board, we all know what that's going to 
do; PCORI, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institutes; CCIIO is the 
Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, they set up 
all the exchanges; the PCIP, which is the Pre-Existing Condition 
Insurance Plan. I mean, these are all new government agencies.
  We need to repeal this law and start anew with commonsense solutions 
that encourage innovation without punishing businesses, seniors, or 
individuals.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from New York (Mr. Engel).
  Mr. ENGEL. I thank my friend for yielding to me.
  I rise in strong opposition to the legislation before us to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act.
  I won't support legislation which would allow health insurance 
companies to deny children access to care, which would cause Americans 
to lose their health care insurance, which would reopen the dreaded 
Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole, and throw young adults off 
their parents' insurance policies.
  Republicans have proudly stated that this is the 31st repeal vote the 
House has taken. While the economy struggles to recover, it pains me 
that we have wasted so much time on these symbolic and political votes 
that are going nowhere.
  The Republicans wanted the Supreme Court to decide on health care, 
and now our Supreme Court has spoken and they are still fighting it. 
It's time that everyone accepts the result of the Supreme Court.
  This has been a long fight, and now it's over. If there are changes 
that need to be made to the Affordable Care Act, we should work 
together to make them; but partisan efforts to repeal the entirety of 
the law isn't what we should be doing.
  I don't want insurance companies getting between patients and their 
doctors. I don't like the current system where the insurance companies 
deny you coverage or say you have a pre-existing condition or say you 
have a cap and they won't pay any more. This bill attempts to get 
health insurance companies, health insurance, away from the insurance 
companies who try to control everything and back into the hands of the 
consumers.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill, and I implore the 
Republican leadership to turn their focus instead on the economy and on 
jobs.
  This health care bill, there have been so many lies spread about it, 
that it's unbelievable. The fact of the matter is, it's a good bill. It 
will take the 50 million Americans that don't have health care and 
reduce it to nothing. It's a good bill for the American people.
  We shouldn't be wasting our time.

                              {time}  1520

  Mr. UPTON. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky, (Mr. 
Whitfield), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. I might add that health insurance companies and 
pharmaceutical companies helped write the President's health care bill. 
And 2 years ago, when the discussion was on the floor about this bill, 
our friends on the other side of the aisle never talked about tax 
increases in the bill. I assume they didn't talk about it because they 
didn't know about it because the Speaker at that time said we'll find 
out what's in the bill after we pass the bill.
  Well, when the Supreme Court upheld this law, they did so because of 
the taxing power of the Congress, and they said certain things were 
taxes. That brought up the issue of taxes. So when we went through this 
bill, we found 21 new taxes on the American people that will amount to 
about $800 billion over 10 years. Taxes on high-cost health plans, 
taxes on health insurance providers, taxes on brand-name drugs, taxes 
on medical devices, taxes on flexible spending accounts, and others. I 
could go on and on and on.
  I would urge the repeal of this legislation.

[[Page 10985]]


  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I rise in strong opposition to the repeal of 
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. This Congress has spent 
most of our time voting on messaging bills and very little time 
actually legislating. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle and 
I agree on many issues. We even agree on some of the shortcomings in 
the Affordable Care Act. No bill is perfect, and we should be spending 
our time improving it, not abolishing it.
  Repealing this bill is a vote to drop college students from their 
parents' health plan. It's a vote to allow insurance companies to 
discriminate against women and withhold lifesaving procedures because 
of preexisting conditions. It would stop 13 million Americans from 
receiving rebates on their health care premiums. A repeal would mean 
children, families, and working Americans are denied health insurance. 
In our district in Houston, Harris County, Texas, we have one of the 
highest uninsured rates in the country. The bill today denies my 
hardworking constituents the chance to qualify and purchase health 
insurance.
  There's no question that repeal is a bad policy. This is all 
politics. Mr. Speaker, I ask the majority to put partisanship aside and 
reach across the aisle to improve this law and not resort to partisan 
gimmickry that exposes our Nation's most vulnerable to even more pain 
and suffering.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon 
(Mr. Walden), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
  Let's face it, the law that's on the books takes $500 billion out of 
Medicare and spends it on a new entitlement program. I don't think 
taking money away from seniors' health care to create a new government-
run program is right--and neither do the American people.
  I was a small business owner since 1986. We provided health insurance 
for the people who worked for us. As a small business owner, what I 
wanted was the ability to group up and have more effect in negotiating 
lower insurance rates for the people that we covered. This law doesn't 
really help in any regard with that. In fact, this is a jobs vote we're 
having today, because if you're a small business and you're at 49 
employees, if you go to 51, then all of a sudden the government comes 
in on top of you with all kinds of potential penalties and fees.
  And so a lot of small business owners in my district are saying: Why 
would I grow my business? Why would I take on this new risk? I think 
this stymies job growth.
  I can tell you that out at Eastern Oregon University I met with the 
university president. They used to have a student health plan that cost 
$66 a term. Because of this law and its implication, that plan went up 
to $2,000 a year. They've had to walk away from it.
  This law is hurting people today. It needs to be repealed and 
replaced.
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado 
(Ms. DeGette).
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, we get the message: the Republican majority 
wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We got that message the last 
30 times they tried to repeal it. And after this week, the 30 million 
Americans who have lived in fear of bankruptcy because they didn't have 
health insurance before the Affordable Care Act are left to ask the 
same question that I've been asking for the last 30 votes: What would 
you replace it with?
  What would the Republicans tell the millions of Americans with kids 
with preexisting conditions like asthma and diabetes who would lose 
their insurance after this vote? What would they tell the millions of 
seniors who have lower prescription drug prices and prevention care, 
which would evaporate if this bill passed? What would they tell women 
who, under the Affordable Care Act, won't have to pay higher insurance 
rates simply because they're women? What would they tell the millions 
of young adults who are able to stay on their parents' insurance plans 
who would be thrown off if this bill passed?
  All of those benefits and more would evaporate with this vote. And 
the Republican majority has nothing to say.
  I have an idea. Let's put this silliness aside. While these benefits 
continue to roll out, let's stop the political grandstanding and 
instead come together to make sure the law is implemented in the best 
possible way. That's governing. And that's what the American public 
sent us here to do.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Terry), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act is just the 
opposite--unaffordable. It's chock-full of new taxes, increased 
government spending, and provisions that are going to make health care 
more expensive. CBO found that this new law's insurance mandates will 
raise premiums on the individual market by an additional $2,100 per 
person. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that individual premiums 
have already, because of this, gone up 8 percent for families and 9 
percent for individuals. And this law isn't even fully implemented yet.
  To add insult to injury, there's 159 new boards, offices, and 
panels--like IPAB--that give unelected bureaucrats the authority to 
ration health care. It raises taxes by $670 billion on middle class 
families and employers. At a time when we have Federal deficits and 
prolonged unemployment, it increases total Federal Government health 
spending by about $478 billion from 2014 to 2021.
  I have voted to repeal this 30 times, and I will keep doing it until 
we get it right.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from California (Mrs. Capps).
  Mrs. CAPPS. I thank my colleague.
  I rise today in strong opposition to this bill that would take away 
insurance protections and new access to health care from tens of 
thousands on the central coast of California. Thanks to this law, 
families are telling me they no longer need to worry that their 
children will be denied insurance due to a preexisting health 
condition. In my district alone, 9,500 students--young adults--now have 
health insurance through their parents' plan. A young college graduate 
recently came up to me at the grocery store thanking me for the peace 
of mind as he's looking for a job.
  In my community, 59,000 seniors now receive free preventive care and 
thousands of seniors in the dreaded doughnut hole have received 
discounts for prescription drugs, saving an average of $610. Now some 
folks around here may not think that much of a savings of $600. But for 
so many, this makes a world of difference. Indeed, one of my 
constituents, Ella May from Nipomo, wrote this to me, saying that 
thanks to this law, ``I won't be impoverished again by the cost of my 
medicines.''
  But this House majority has set up yet another vote to take away 
these benefits from Ella May, from my community, and from the Nation. 
Mr. Speaker, we should be working to stimulate growth in our economy 
and spur job creation, not voting for a 31st time on repealing this 
law.
  I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.
  Mr. UPTON. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a 
member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Murphy.
  Mr. MURPHY of Pennsylvania. I have never doubted my friends on the 
other side of the aisle's compassion or sincerity, but have always 
believed there was a better way of handling these health care costs to 
make sure that we all get the health care we need and the doctor we 
choose at a price we can afford.
  Here are some ways we need to do this:
  Allow people to buy across State lines. A University of Minnesota 
study said it would drop the uninsured by 12 million;
  The ability to join groups, because the purchasing power of groups is 
what is making Medicare part D come in at 40 percent under budget;

[[Page 10986]]



                              {time}  1530

  Put an emphasis on coordinated care, which decreases hospitalizations 
and avoidable readmissions and complications, sometimes by 20 to 40 
percent;
  By making sure health care plans are personal, affordable and 
permanent, you can take the plan you need across jobs and you can't be 
cut for being sick;
  To make sure there are tax deductions for buying insurance just like 
employers have, to allow the chronically ill to be part of high-risk 
pools;
  To encourage people to take steps in their own life to maintain their 
own health, and;
  To have better use of prescription drugs, generic and nongeneric, 
which also saves a massive amount of money because some $250 billion a 
year is wasted in drug problems.
  We need this instead of $570 billion in new taxes in a $1.76 trillion 
bill.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire about how much time remains 
on both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Jersey has 16\3/4\ 
minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan has 17 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I know that many Americans have heard over and over 
again that ObamaCare is a bad thing. But now that the Supreme Court has 
declared it the law of the land, I hope that everyone will take another 
look and see what's actually in the law and how it can help you.
  Right now, because of ObamaCare, if you're a woman, you have free 
preventive services like mammograms. I hope you'll take advantage of 
that. And no longer will being a woman be a preexisting condition 
because insurance companies charge women up to 48 percent more for 
their health insurance. And because of ObamaCare, right now, if you're 
a parent and you have a sick child, a child with a disability, that 
child may not be denied health coverage. No one has to worry about 
lifetime caps anymore because of ObamaCare.
  My son, a small businessman, said, Thanks, Mom, because of ObamaCare, 
35 percent of the cost of coverage for my employees is paid for. And 
when fully implemented, no one will have to worry about having a 
preexisting condition. No one will be excluded. If you're an unemployed 
person and you lost your job and your health care, ObamaCare will make 
sure that you can get coverage.
  For the first time in the United States of America, we say that 
health care is a right and not just a privilege for those people to can 
afford it.
  Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, at this point I would yield 2 minutes to the 
vice chair of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Dr. 
Burgess, and when he concludes speaking, I ask unanimous consent that 
the rest of my time be controlled by the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Pitts), the chair of the Health Subcommittee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania will control the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, from its very inception, this law was bad 
and remains bad for America. It was written in secret down at the White 
House. Now our committee has exposed all the secret deals that went on 
literally 3 years ago this month that led to the formation and the 
writing of the legislation behind closed doors--the very doors that the 
President, when he was running for office, said would always remain 
open. He said this would be an open and transparent process. But when 
it came time to actually write the law, they invited the lobbyists in, 
they closed the doors, and they wrote the law.
  We all remember the travesty of December 2009 when the Senate passed 
a bill out the day before Christmas, right before a snowstorm, and this 
bill that was hastily drafted, full of errors, full of problems, was 
passed out of the Senate, and that's what was signed into law. It 
wasn't even a good rough draft. It never came back to the House, and it 
never came to a conference committee. The dog ate our homework on the 
way to the President's office, and we just passed the rough draft and 
sent it on to the American people, and, by golly, they'll just have to 
live with it.
  Look, there were some promises made by the President 4 years ago. One 
of those promises was, if you liked what you had you could keep it. It 
turns out what he should have been saying was, do you know what? It's 
going to cost you a lot more to get a lot less. There were promises 
made to seniors that their care would not be harmed with the passage of 
this law, but we all know now that that's anything but true. What about 
our provider communities? They were promised relief from the 
sustainable growth rate formula. They were promised some medical 
liability reform. They were promised that if we expect doctors to hold 
down costs, we're going to at least let them get together and talk 
about price. But none of these things came into being, and instead, 
what did we get? A bill that contains 23 new taxes, albeit one has been 
repealed and one has been postponed under the CLASS Act, but, still, 21 
taxes that remain out there for the American people.
  It was not necessary for it to be like this. There were Republican 
ideas that were stymied at the committee level, and then, of course, 
ultimately every House idea was stymied because the House simply took 
up and passed a very bad Senate bill. Kids on until 26, this was part 
of the Republican plan from 3 years ago. It could have been part of a 
bipartisan plan had the Democrats chosen to do so. They rejected that 
notion.
  I urge you to repeal this law. Let's get back to work and do it right 
for the American people.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to heed the gavel.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez).
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, today, the Republican majority is actually 
telling the American people that they're better off--better off--not 
getting rebates from insurance companies for covering their health care 
expenses; better off not getting preventive services under Medicare; 
that the American people getting coverage from comprehensive women's 
prevention services that they never had before, you're going to be 
better off not getting them.
  This is what people have today in America because of the Affordable 
Care Act. The majority is telling the American people they're better 
off not getting protection from getting cut off when certain medical 
costs are incurred. They're telling the American people you're better 
off by not getting restrictions removed so that children get coverage 
despite a preexisting condition; that you're better off not getting 
health coverage for children up to age 26 on a parent's health 
insurance policy; and that you're better off for not getting health 
help for Medicare recipients that fall into the doughnut hole.
  The truth is they had over 10 years to come up with an idea, with a 
proposal, and nothing was ever done to help the American people gain 
access to affordable quality health care through the private market, 
because this is what this bill is all about--11 years, actually. And 
you keep saying that you have an alternative. You're going to repeal 
and replace, but you haven't come up with one proposal. You only know 
how to oppose and not propose.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another member of the 
Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn).
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  I stand here today to support the repeal of ObamaCare. Some of you 
are asking, how many times are we going to do this? We're going to keep 
at it until we get this legislation off the books. It was a bad bill, 
it has become a bad law.
  Quite frankly, if you are satisfied with a tax-based, government-
controlled, limited-access and bureaucrat-centric health care program, 
then this is for you. That is what ObamaCare is. That is not what the 
American people

[[Page 10987]]

want. And repeatedly, they have said to us, look, Congress should admit 
ObamaCare was a bad idea. Let's start fresh with a clean slate. Let's 
focus on increasing choice and options, decreasing cost and mandates, 
simplifying the system for both patients and providers, and making 
certain that we restore the $500 billion of cuts that were made to 
Medicare and make health care tax free.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).
  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. If you don't succeed, try and try again. Republicans 
are taking this phrase to a whole new level. House Republicans will 
vote for the second time to overturn essential provisions in the 
Affordable Care Act, and, yes, for the 32nd time, to dismantle it 
altogether.
  This repeal vote is a waste of time and tax dollars.

                              {time}  1540

  We all know that this bill will never pass the Senate, and the 
President would assuredly veto it. This is purely an act of political 
posturing, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle should stop 
their obstruction.
  Mr. Speaker, if the Republican majority was just as concerned with 
introducing a comprehensive jobs package as they've been with repealing 
this constitutional law that was, yes, upheld by the U.S. Supreme 
Court, Americans and our economy would be in a much better condition.
  Stop wasting our time with political theater and try passing some 
beneficial, landmark bills of your own. My friends on the other side, 
you have a wrecking ball. Where is your plan?
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, today I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to another 
distinguished member of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from 
Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for 
yielding.
  I would like to introduce you to Sole Commissioner Boss Hog from 
Hazzard County, Georgia. Boss Hog used his position of authority to 
terrorize the citizens of his community with the help of henchmen like 
Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane in the 1970s television show ``The Dukes of 
Hazzard.''
  Mr. Speaker, today, life imitates art. We now have another boss in 
our midst--I call this boss ObamaCare. The only health care that 
citizens of this country can access are those approved by the boss.
  If you like what you currently have, you can't keep it. Let me 
repeat, if you like what you currently have, you can't keep it, 
according to the boss, the boss and his henchmen who help fund this 
tyranny. They include the biggest permanent tax increase on Americans, 
borne in large part by middle class families and the employers who give 
them jobs.
  It enacts a $500-plus billion cut to the Medicare program, all while 
the program is going bankrupt. And finally, new rules that allow the 
boss to dictate how doctors actually practice medicine. No longer will 
my colleagues in the medical profession be able to put the needs of 
their patients first.
  Mr. Speaker, our Forefathers rejected tyranny, and so should we. 
Support H.R. 6079, a bill that would repeal ObamaCare. Let's get rid of 
the boss once and for all.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Ms. Castor).
  Ms. CASTOR of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank Chairman 
Pallone for yielding the time.
  He started off the debate by saying this debate reminds him of the 
movie ``Groundhog Day.'' I think he's right. It reminds me of a summer 
rerun. Republicans are forcing another political debate on the 
Affordable Care Act--a tired rerun--when the Republicans should be 
joining us in focusing on creating jobs and boosting the economy. That 
is our number one priority this summer.
  It's a real shame. In fact, it's disheartening to hear my Republican 
colleagues urge repeal of vital consumer protections for American 
families. My Republican colleagues are undermining the economic 
security of middle class families in doing so. They are urging the 
elimination of important improvements to Medicare, like closing the 
doughnut hole, putting cash back into the pockets of seniors who need 
it at this time. And what they're saying is that it's okay that people 
don't take personal responsibility for their health and their health 
care, and I think that's wrong. It is not fair that if you pay those 
health insurance premiums time after time and those copays, that you 
end up picking up the tab for those who do not. That's not fair. The 
Affordable Care Act targets that for replacement and encourages 
personal responsibility.
  I urge my Republican colleagues not to waste our time here, but let's 
come together. Let's work and focus on improving the economy and 
creating jobs. That really is our number one priority.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I'm happy to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Harper).
  Mr. HARPER. Mr. Speaker, the policies and regulations resulting from 
the President's health care law are among the most overreaching added 
to the U.S. Code in modern history. Further, the President himself has 
said that his law's individual mandate is not a tax; yet he is now 
rallying behind the Supreme Court ruling that defined this requirement 
as just that, a tax.
  Look, I have little confidence that this far-reaching law would have 
ever advanced had the White House and congressional Democrats united 
behind a tax mandate on every single American citizen.
  Let's be clear: the Supreme Court ruled that this law is allowable, 
not that it's good policy, nor that it will improve the delivery of 
care. This law is bad for patients and providers, it's bad for 
individuals and employers, and it's bad for States and jobs. This 
repeal will allow Americans to receive the care they need from the 
doctors they choose at a cost they can afford. It's that simple.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan).
  Mr. LUJAN. Mr. Speaker, this Republican majority's effort to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act is bad legislation that would undermine 
significant advancements of the delivery of health care services to all 
Americans. But let me be clear: this bill would repeal the single-most 
important Federal law that governs the delivery of health care to our 
first Americans, Native Americans. It's an assault on our Federal 
responsibility to tribal communities who, without the Indian health 
care system, would not have meaningful access to health care services. 
Our Republican majority swept the rug out from Native American women 
and took them out of the act to protect them from domestic violence. 
This act that Republicans have put before us would hurt people in a 
very serious way.
  The act makes possible long-awaited improvements to the Indian health 
care delivery system by providing authority to provide cancer 
screenings, dialysis, as well as all hospice and elder care, recruit 
more qualified health professionals, modernize dated health facilities, 
and establish comprehensive behavioral health initiatives.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to reject this health plan, and we need to 
reject this effort by Republicans which is causing harm to Native 
Americans across America.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1 minute 
to another valued member of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from 
Louisiana, Dr. Cassidy.
  Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Speaker, as a practicing physician still seeing 
patients in a safety net hospital, I support repealing ObamaCare.
  Let's look at Medicaid, a broken program bankrupting States and 
driving Federal indebtedness and, most importantly, under which 
patients do poorly.
  Under ObamaCare, Medicaid is greatly expanded, spending increases 
$100 billion, straining State and Federal budgets. We need an 
alternative to ObamaCare's Medicaid bankrupting governments and 
Medicaid's poor patient outcomes.
  One reform I propose is the Medicaid Accountability and Care Act, or 
the MAC Act. The MAC Act controls spending, incentivizes quality care, 
helps

[[Page 10988]]

Federal funding to follow the patient. There are other needed reforms.
  Chief Justice Roberts' opinion said that it is not the duty of the 
Supreme Court to rescue the American people from bad public policy; 
that is up to elected officials. Republicans seek to rescue Americans 
from bad policy. We offer positive policy for States, taxpayers and, 
most importantly, patients.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy).
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, have you ever seen the movie 
``Fatal Attraction''? It's a great film. The Glenn Close character is 
so obsessed with Michael Douglas that she does everything within her 
power to try to win him over, flipping out at the end of the movie by 
going and boiling the Douglas family bunny. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would 
submit that, having now had 30 different debates on this floor over 
repeal of the health care bill, the House Republicans have finally hit 
their boil-the-bunny moment.
  Enough is enough. The American people want us to move on. And what 
they would suggest is, instead of listening to their inner Glenn Close, 
that maybe House Republicans should start listening to people like 
Colleen, a 61-year-old retired teacher from Danbury. She's got 
diabetes; she's got sleep apnea. What she wants is not more politics on 
the floor of the House of Representatives; she wants relief. She 
doesn't want another 5-hour debate on top of the other 29. She wants 
this bill implemented.

                              {time}  1550

  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson).
  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6079, a bill 
to fully repeal ObamaCare.
  The Supreme Court rightly declared the individual mandate 
unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause but, unfortunately, allowed 
it to continue as a tax--a tax. But the Supreme Court does not have the 
final say. The American people do at the ballot box in November. And 
the House has our say today.
  Taxpayers face tight budgets and a weak economy. With the largest tax 
increase in American history happening on January 1 of next year, while 
the President plays political games, the last thing our taxpayers need 
is another tax, especially one that inserts the Federal Government 
between patients and their doctors.
  We must repeal this intrusive law and replace it with thoughtful 
legislation that protects all Americans' access to quality care from 
the doctor they choose at a price they can afford.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues today to join me in taking the next 
step to repeal ObamaCare.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, let me, first of all, 
respond to what my previous speaker on the other side has said because 
it's very important that we straighten the Record out.
  This is not a tax for people to get health care insurance. What this 
is, the Supreme Court ruled, and again, chaired by a Republican 
chairman, Chief Supreme Court Justice, and he said that in order for 
the mandate to stand, Congress could only do it through their taxing 
authority. And that was to take care of the penalty.
  This is not a tax for individuals to get their health insurance. CBO 
says it will only affect 1 percent of the American people, and that is 
a choice that they will make. It's not a tax penalty for you to get 
insurance. It's a penalty for those who can afford the insurance who 
choose not to buy the insurance.
  Now, let me also make another point that is very clear. In addition 
to this being a program in which the vast majority of the American 
people approve, they do not want you to repeal their opportunity to 
have individuals, in these tough economic times, their children be able 
to stay on their insurance till 26. They want that there. They do not 
want you to repeal them having to be denied insurance because of a 
preexisting condition. And our hospitals need this very much in order 
to have the Medicaid expansion.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger), another member of the Energy 
and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Supreme Court 
made one thing very clear, or the other day they made one thing very 
clear: the individual mandate is nothing more than a tax.
  The overall tax burden that this puts on our economy is staggering. 
The overall tax burden this puts on the middle class is staggering. And 
along with those unprecedented personal taxes that this implements, let 
me point out two other major ones:
  A $20 billion device tax. Okay. You can pay for that, according to 
this bill;
  A $102 billion small business health insurance tax.
  This bill clearly places a huge tax burden on the American people, as 
said by the Supreme Court.
  And by the way, yesterday, the administration asked for a tax 
increase on the majority of small businesses. But don't worry, because 
that's only for a year, because in a year taxes will increase on all 
levels of income if the tax cuts are allowed to expire.
  In 2010, the American people sent a message to Washington when they 
sent one of the largest, boldest freshman classes that they have ever 
sent to Washington, D.C. We were here with a mandate: Stop the tax 
hike; repeal this health care law. And we'll do that.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire again about the time on both 
sides that remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New Jersey has 6\3/4\ 
minutes. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, 
but also for your unwavering and relentless leadership on so many 
important issues.
  I rise in strong opposition to the GOP Patients' Rights Repeal Act. 
Here we go again, Mr. Speaker, wasting the American people's time on 
voting on this bill. I think it's for about the 31st time.
  This Tea Party majority is so disconnected from reality that this 
House takes vote after meaningless vote on bills that have no chance of 
ever becoming law. One of the most conservative Courts in a generation 
has found the provisions of the health care law constitutional, and Tea 
Party representatives immediately took to the steps of the Supreme 
Court to blast the Court as activist and promised a full repeal.
  Let's call this what it is, Mr. Speaker. It's a politically motivated 
waste of time because Republicans have no serious jobs plan. I will 
say, though, that the only silver lining in this incredibly sad process 
is that the Tea Party has finally named a bill honestly, Patients' 
Rights Repeal Act, because this bill does exactly that, repeals the 
rights of millions of patients to access to health care.
  Children now have a right to stay on their parents' policy until they 
are 26. Republicans want to repeal this right.
  Patients have a right to not have lifetime caps on their policies nor 
have preexisting conditions prevent them from getting health care 
insurance. Republicans want to now repeal this right.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. LEE of California. And let me just say, people will not have, 
under this bill, a right and responsibility to see a primary care 
doctor rather than have taxpayers pay for their primary care in 
emergency rooms if this Patients' Bill of Rights--or Patients' Rights 
Repeal Act were passed.
  I tell you, our seniors, now they have a right to have a reduction in 
their prescription drugs. This right would be repealed under this GOP 
Patient's Rights bill. This is downright outrageous.
  Health care finally is becoming a right. People in our country 
deserve

[[Page 10989]]

health care. They deserve to have the benefits that our society has 
provided for so many years and helping achieve the American Dream.
  Finally, they will not have to go bankrupt due to high health care 
costs. Finally, yes, they will have a right to health care, which of 
course now the Tea Party is calling for the repeal, as it is called, 
the GOP Patients' Rights Repeal Act.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1 minute 
to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rehberg).
  Mr. REHBERG. Yesterday, President Obama promised to increase taxes on 
our small businesses. At a time when we need to support job creation, 
raising taxes is the last thing we need to be doing. It makes the 
problem worse.
  A couple of weeks ago, the Supreme Court confirmed that the 
President's health care law imposes the single largest permanent tax 
increase in history. Worse, nearly half of this regressive tax will hit 
the struggling middle class.
  Add more than 13,000 pages of new health care regulations, so far, 
and it's easy to see why President Obama's economy doesn't creates 
jobs. It's too busy creating government.
  We need a new direction, but at every step the Senate stands in the 
way. The solution? Repeal this harmful law so we can get to work 
putting America back to work.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers at this time, 
so I'll reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1 minute 
to the distinguished Member from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. We've heard a lot about taxes and the Supreme 
Court decision. I would like to talk about a tax that was labeled a 
``tax'' in the Affordable Care Act when it was passed in 2010.
  The act amended Internal Revenue Code section 4980(d), and it imposed 
a tax of $100 per employee per day on any employer who did not follow 
any mandate of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There was no 
conscience exemption, and there was no religious employer exemption; 
$100 per employee per day is $36,500 per year. That means that a 
parochial school with 50 employees has to pay a tax of $1,825,000 each 
year.
  The only way to repeal this tax today is to pass this bill. If this 
bill is defeated and does not become law, we have put all religious 
employers out of business.
  Mr. PALLONE. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
distinguished Member from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).
  Mr. FORTENBERRY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. Speaker, this weekend back home in Lincoln, Nebraska, at a small 
business, a shop owner named Mary and another woman were engaged in 
conversation.
  She looked up when they were done and saw me, and she said, Oh, I can 
ask you this question, Who is going to pay for this health care bill? I 
basically responded, Yes, that's the right question.
  Right now, we are seeing some benefits from some reasonable reforms, 
such as being able to keep children on the health care policies of 
their parents until they're 26, such as allowing people who have 
significant pre-existing conditions some hope for affordable insurance. 
But there are other hard realities that must be faced here. This bill 
shifts costs to more unsustainable government spending. It cuts 
Medicare, and it erodes health care liberties. The total cost is now 
projected to be $1.7 trillion, and it has 21 new taxes in it. Many 
small businesses are going to actually drop coverage or cut jobs as 
this moves forward.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a better way to move forward. We need the right 
type of reform that will actually improve outcomes while reducing costs 
and protecting vulnerable persons.
  Mr. PALLONE. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm).
  Mr. GRIMM. Mr. Speaker, when I was elected to Congress, I made a 
promise to the people of Staten Island and to Brooklyn to repeal 
ObamaCare. Tomorrow, I will vote again to uphold that promise.
  We must repeal this overwhelmingly burdensome and costly law, which 
is hurting our economy and impeding job growth for small businesses. It 
will reduce the American workforce by as much as 800,000 and impose 
$813 billion in 21 new taxes. Twelve of those taxes impact families 
making less than $250,000 a year.
  One of the most devastating provisions in ObamaCare cuts over a half 
a trillion dollars from Medicare, primarily from Medicare Advantage. I 
have 107,000 seniors in my district, 38,000 of whom are enrolled in 
Medicare Advantage. This is simply reprehensible, and we must repeal 
this law to protect our seniors and our economy.
  Mr. PALLONE. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from New 
York (Ms. Buerkle).
  Ms. BUERKLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon as a nurse and as 
someone who has spent her professional career in health care. I ran for 
Congress because I was opposed to the Affordable Care Act, and I stand 
here today after 18 months of listening to the people in my district, 
because this law is the wrong law for health care reform in the United 
States of America.
  When I hear from my hospitals, my skilled nursing facilities, my 
physicians, when I hear from small businesses, and when I hear from my 
seniors, they're all in fear of what this health care law is going to 
do to them. So I think it is incumbent upon this body, as we have a 
responsibility to the people who live in the United States of America, 
to provide them with true health care reform, reform that truly reduces 
the cost of health care and improves access to care. This Affordable 
Care Act that was just declared constitutional by the Supreme Court is 
not--is not--the way to do that.
  Mr. PALLONE. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).
  Mr. MULVANEY. I've heard a lot of good reasons today to pass this 
bill and to repeal the law. What I haven't heard is a discussion about 
why we should pass it in order to help the President. We have an 
opportunity here to do something wonderful. We have the opportunity 
here to help the President keep one of his campaign promises. It's here 
in bright white letters on a wonderful orange background:
  I can make a firm pledge under my plan that no family making less 
than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase--not your income 
tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of 
your taxes.
  By the way, politicians usually speak in language that allows us some 
wiggle room. There is no wiggle room in that particular promise. There 
is a list here of all the times that that promise has already been 
broken. We got the last one--the most recent addition to that list--
last week with the Supreme Court decision that told us what we've been 
saying from the very beginning, which is that this is yet another tax 
on families that make less than $250,000.
  What a great opportunity we have--all of us, both sides of the aisle. 
We have the opportunity to keep a politician to his promise, and we can 
do exactly that by passing this bill and repealing this law.
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield myself 1 minute, Mr. Speaker.
  I am amazed by the comments that the previous speaker made on the 
Republican side. The fact of the matter is that the Affordable Care Act 
amounts to a tax cut.
  Right now, in the State of New Jersey, for people who are paying for 
their health insurance, we estimate that about $1,000 or $1,500 
annually from their premiums is actually going to pay for those who are 
uninsured, for people who don't have insurance and have to go to the 
emergency rooms and then don't pay their bills.

[[Page 10990]]

  Once the Affordable Care Act fully kicks in, because of the fact that 
everyone will be insured and all those people who now go to the 
emergency rooms and have no insurance will, in fact, have coverage, for 
the people who are paying their premiums right now, they're actually 
going to be paying less--it will be a tax cut--because they won't be 
paying for those people who now are uninsured.
  I think it's really incredible because, if you think about it, the 
Republicans always talk about personal responsibility. How is it fair 
that people don't have themselves covered? How is it that they don't 
carry health insurance and then make other people pay for it?
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentlelady from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins).
  Ms. JENKINS. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, our current health care insurance system is badly 
broken, but the President's Affordable Care Act will only make it 
worse. It will lead to fewer jobs, more debt, and reduced access to 
quality care. Most importantly, it doesn't even deal with our primary 
problem--affordability.
  How can a more affordable solution result in an $800 billion tax 
hike? Of the 21 new tax provisions in this law, 12 will target the 
middle class.
  Instead of supporting the largest set of tax law changes in more than 
20 years under the guise of health reform, we must repeal the law and 
take the time necessary to replace it with more patient-focused 
solutions. Pursuing consumer-driven reforms will allow Americans the 
flexibility to take ownership of their health care costs and will allow 
them the freedom to choose what plans work best for them and their 
families.
  Mr. PALLONE. I will ask if the gentleman has any additional speakers.
  Mr. PITTS. No. We are prepared to close.
  Mr. PALLONE. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Womack). The gentleman from New Jersey 
has 3\1/4\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. PALLONE. I will close at this time, and yield myself the balance 
of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say over again--and I know we've had this debate 
so many times that it really sounds like we just keep repeating the 
same thing--that this is a very important day at some level because the 
fact of the matter is the Republicans continue with this effort to try 
to repeal what is probably one of the most important pieces of 
legislation that has ever passed in the last few years in the Congress 
and has been signed by the President.
  The reason is that, for the first time, when the Affordable Care Act 
fully kicks in, most Americans--probably 98.99 percent of Americans--
will have health insurance. We estimate maybe 30, 40--perhaps more--
million Americans right now do not have health insurance.

                              {time}  1610

  There are probably as many who are what we call ``underinsured.'' In 
other words, they can't really buy a good benefit package.
  The fact of the matter is, by 2014, when the Affordable Care Act 
fully kicks in, you'll be able to go on an exchange either in your 
State or anywhere in the country and find a good benefit package, one 
that's as good probably as what you would get now under Blue Cross or 
Blue Shield, good benefits at a good price. That is an amazing thing. 
We've been here for 200 years in this country and were never able to 
say that that would actually happen.
  I heard my colleagues on the Republican side in the Rules Committee 
say last night, We'll just repeal this and we'll come up with a better 
plan.
  But they haven't come up with a better plan. They talk about health 
savings accounts and malpractice and all these different things that 
are basically around the edges. They would pretty much not guarantee 
most Americans, as they do under the Affordable Care Act, that they 
would be able to access health insurance, the peace of mind that goes 
with that and all the benefits that have already kicked in that would 
be repealed under this bill:
  The fact that seniors eventually won't have to worry about the 
doughnut hole and will have their prescription drug coverage no matter 
how much they actually spend, that they'll only have to pay a co-pay; 
the fact that so many seniors now have preventive care; the fact that 
kids up to 26 years old can go on their parents' health insurance 
policy. So many people talk to me about that.
  There's also the fact that preexisting conditions for women and 
others is no longer a factor in terms of your ability to buy health 
insurance; the fact that there are no more lifetime caps, recisions, 
all these discriminatory practices that we've had in the past when you 
are trying to buy health insurance.
  The fact of the matter is that already, over the last few years, most 
of these discriminatory practices have been eliminated. Many people may 
not even realize it's a result of the Affordable Care Act, but the fact 
is that it is. That's why these discriminatory practices are going 
away.
  Last night, the chairman of the Rules Committee said, We'll repeal 
this and we will do something and be different, and the insurance 
companies will continue not to have these discriminatory practices. 
That's simply not true. The insurance companies will go back to the 
discriminatory practices if you repeal this bill. They'll almost be 
forced to. Because of the way this is set up, when everybody has health 
insurance, then the insurance companies can make enough money, if you 
will, so they don't have to discriminate. But they'll go back to it if 
this is repealed.
  I ask my colleagues to stop bringing this up. This is a bad bill. 
Let's defeat it now, and let's continue the way we should with the 
Affordable Care Act in light of the Supreme Court's decision.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PITTS. If this new law is so outstanding, I wonder why the 
administration has granted over 1,000 waivers to their friends so they 
don't have to meet the requirements of the law.
  The President promised not to raise taxes on anyone making less than 
$250,000. He has broken that pledge 20 times with this new law. Many of 
them are impacting the middle class that he promised not to raise taxes 
on. That's $800 billion in new taxes.
  My friends, the American people have a clear choice: Keep this law 
and pay the new taxes or take the law off the books and let's start 
over again with some real free-market reforms.
  I urge support for the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  We're here today to repeal a law that is both fundamentally flawed 
and overwhelmingly unpopular. The problem with this law, among its many 
faults, is it puts government at the center of health care decisions, 
not doctors and patients.
  Instead of families and employers deciding what coverage is best for 
them, the Secretary of Health and Human Services makes that choice.
  Instead of families and employers deciding what they can afford to 
spend on insurance, the IRS makes that decision.
  Instead of families and employers deciding if they even need or want 
health insurance in the first place, the government mandates they 
purchase it.
  This is all about the government. It is Washington knows best, and 
it's wrong.
  By virtually every measure, this law is a failure. The price tag of 
the law has already doubled, health care premiums are going up, 
Americans are losing the insurance they have and like, taxes are being 
raised by over $1.5 trillion, and 12 of the 21 new taxes in the law 
will hit the middle class. It increases costs for 9 out of 10 seniors. 
It's paid for with budget gimmicks that even the government's own 
actuaries admit are not workable.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, the law hinders job 
creation, which is something we can hardly afford after 41 consecutive 
months of the

[[Page 10991]]

unemployment rate being above 8 percent.
  To put it bluntly, this law is bad for workers, seniors, families, 
patients, doctors, and employers. As the Supreme Court ruled, the 
cornerstone of the Democrats' health care law, the individual mandate, 
is a massive tax. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 
approximately 20 million Americans will either pay the tax or be forced 
to buy insurance they otherwise wouldn't have purchased. That's 20 
million people. Only two States in the U.S. have more than 20 million 
people: California and Texas. Clearly, this is a major tax with major 
implications.
  Democrats have argued that the individual mandate was necessary to 
improve the Nation's health. What's next? Will they require you to 
purchase low-fat or low-salt foods, or will you have to pay a tax 
because they think it's good for you?
  House Republicans have heard the American people loud and clear, and 
we will not let government--let alone the IRS--dictate your health 
care. We will repeal this law so you're again free to choose your 
health insurance plan, to choose your doctor, and to choose the medical 
treatment that best meets your needs. Most important of all, we will 
ensure you have the freedom to choose what's best for you and your 
family.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  After seven decades of frustrated efforts, the Congress and the 
President acted on health reform. It was seven decades that this 
institution wrestled with health reform. Finally, it happened.
  The Republican answer: Repeal. First, it was repeal Social Security, 
then repeal Medicare, then repeal Medicaid by block-granting it to the 
States. Now it's the same old song: Repeal health care reform.
  This Republican Party, the party of repeal, captured by the radical 
right, would now put insurance companies back in charge of health care 
and repeal coverage for 17 million children with preexisting 
conditions, repeal coverage for 6.6 million adults now covered under 
their parents' insurance plan, repeal tax credits for 360,000 small 
employers covering 2 million workers, repeal ending lifetime caps on 
insurance for 105 million, and repeal closing of the burdensome 
doughnut hole for seniors' prescription medicines.
  The Republican Party of Repeal says: Repeal and replace. Yet there 
has not been a single comprehensive bill proposed by the Republicans at 
any point in this session or before. Indeed, the only comprehensive 
health plan presented by the Republicans was put forward by Mitt Romney 
when he was Governor of Massachusetts. This is how he described his 
plan as recently as 2010:

       Right now, in lots of parts of the country, if individuals 
     do not have insurance, they can arrive at the hospital and be 
     given free care paid for by government. Our current system is 
     a Big Government system. A conservative approach is one that 
     relies on individual responsibility. But in my view, and 
     others are free to disagree, expecting people who can afford 
     to buy insurance to do so is consistent with personal 
     responsibility, and that's a cornerstone of conservatism.

                              {time}  1620

  Well, the ones who are free to disagree are his fellow Republicans. 
The Massachusetts plan, with an individual mandate, reflected an 
original conservative Heritage Foundation proposal. Indeed, bills with 
an individual responsibility provision have been cosponsored by 
Republicans for two decades.
  Now, however, Republicans have been captured by the radical right and 
taken a 180-degree turn. This repeal bill only deepens and widens the 
gulf handcuffing this Congress. You know, it's as if we live in two 
different universes. Let me tell you about the universe that is lived 
in by people who have sent letters to me.
  I quote one, for example, from Warren:

       I am 41 years old, and I was diagnosed with a form of 
     arthritis about 3 years ago. Because the Supreme Court upheld 
     ObamaCare, I don't have to worry anymore. I know that I can't 
     be dropped from my insurance carrier.

  A letter from Pamela of Madison Heights, talking about the premiums 
that she has seen. She is a nurse. She has seen how many people have 
been hurt by these costly premiums. She says:

       I have watched those who have to undergo painful 
     procedures, or those who have been given a poor prognosis, 
     because they have not had access to preventive or even 
     standard medical treatment due to the cost. She says the 
     Affordable Care Act is right and just.

  From David in Saint Clair Shores who says:

       Honestly, I am a Republican, but I don't believe the health 
     insurance bill should be repealed. I would like to see 
     compromise towards improving the legislation, rather than 
     destroying it entirely.

  From Nancy of Clinton Township, who writes this:

       The part of the CARE Act that is most important to my 
     family, even my Republican husband, is the provision for our 
     college-age daughter. Our insurance dropped her at the age of 
     19, and we had to buy a separate policy that was very 
     expensive and had poor coverage. Now we can save several 
     thousands of dollars a year, which helps with her education. 
     And it makes me sad that more people don't understand how 
     wonderful this is. I would like the message to get out to 
     more people.

  It makes me sad, she says, that more people don't understand how 
wonderful this is.
  You know, middle class families have had lots to worry about since 
trying to recover from the worst recession in decades. So instead of 
making it harder for them, putting insurance companies back in the 
driver's seat, we should let reform proceed.
  I'm the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee. The chairman 
is here, too. We've had jobs bills thrown into the hopper that never 
come forth. Today we're going through the motions of repealing health 
reform for the 31st time this Congress.
  What we need instead is to get the bills that are lodged in Ways and 
Means on jobs out on the floor and work together, instead of against 
each other and against the interests of the American people.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. I would just note that our health care bill was the only 
bill scored by the Congressional Budget Office that actually reduced 
the premiums.
  I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished chairman of the Health 
Subcommittee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, we have heard many perspectives on what the 
Supreme Court did in its health care ruling.
  I want to focus on what the Court's decision did not change. The 
Supreme Court's ruling did not change the fact that the Democrat health 
law makes it more expensive for employers to hire workers. Businesses 
in my district have put their expansion plans on hold because they are 
worried about higher costs. This law was bad for jobs when it was 
passed, and it's still bad for jobs now.
  The Court's ruling did not change the perverse incentives in the 
President's law that will encourage some employers to drop their health 
benefits. Millions of Americans will lose the coverage they have and 
like. That was true when this law was passed, and it's still true now.
  The Court's ruling did not change the failure of the President's law 
to reduce health care costs. The administration's own Medicare 
actuaries concluded that this law will actually increase the overall 
cost of health care and CBO found it will raise health care insurance 
premiums as well. This was a serious failure when the law was passed, 
and it's still a serious failure today.
  The Court's ruling did not change the 21 new taxes in the Democrat 
health care law. In fact, the ruling highlights how the President's law 
raises Americans' taxes to pay for an unsustainable new program at a 
time when unemployment remains far too high. These tax hikes hurt our 
economy when they were passed, and they're are still hurting our 
economy today.
  That's why I began advocating for repeal of this bad law as soon as 
it was passed, and why I still support repeal today.
  Vote ``yes'' for repeal.

[[Page 10992]]


  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 15 seconds.
  If repeal occurred in California, it would mean the loss of coverage 
for 435,000 young adults. It also would mean over 12 million 
Californians would lose the ability to be sure that their lifetime 
limits would not kick in.
  I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York, a very 
distinguished member of our committee, Mr. Rangel.
  Mr. RANGEL. My colleagues, I know that history would reflect that 
this Presidential election started much earlier than most of them do. 
As a matter of fact, it started the very day that President Obama was 
sworn in. The honesty of this Republican Party was for them to say that 
the strategy for getting back the White House was to make certain that 
their primary job was to get rid of Obama. The destruction of the 
President of the United States and everything he stood for, every piece 
of legislation, every idea had to be destroyed as their strategy, not 
for America, but for their party.
  Well, I assumed that this was just political rhetoric. I didn't put 
too much importance to it. But when the debt ceiling came, I felt it 
was just a little Republican ploy of playing chicken to see how much 
they could get.
  But when I saw they were prepared to allow the fiscal integrity of 
the United States of America, and what it represented, to go down the 
drain just to embarrass the President, then I was nudged to take 
another look to see just how far would they go.
  Then comes recently the Attorney General, where we just didn't seem 
to care what kind of bad history we were making for this great 
Republic. We were going to, the first time in history, hold him in 
contempt and turn it over to the Justice Department to see what they 
could do to the President.
  Then, of course, comes the tax cut for 98 percent of the American 
people. I never heard in political science 101 how you tell 98 percent 
of the American people that they are going to be held hostage for a tax 
cut or a continuation of the tax cut that they had.
  But I think, when it gets to health care, you don't have to be 
religious to understand that you are talking about a right to live, a 
life to improve the quality of your life, a life to give children, not 
necessarily your children, but any child, a better way of life, and the 
ability to be able to say that even if you had a precondition, you are 
entitled to health care.
  And when someone comes up with this grand idea, the whole thing that 
it is the person who thought about it that decides whether you are 
going to either support it, repair it, make it better, perfect it, but 
to repeal it, and to leave nothing out there except that, trust us, 
we're going to replace it, it is so unfair to the American people, who 
could only dream that one day health care would be something that as an 
American, and as a human being, they would be entitled to.

                              {time}  1630

  The things that are happening now by the majority party in this House 
are very contagious because a lot of young Democrats think this is the 
way to govern. A lot of Democrats are coming here thinking that the 
more mean you get, the more successful. It's bad for this Congress and 
it's bad for our great country.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the 
Select Revenue Subcommittee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Tiberi).
  Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  The President said throughout the debate of health care and since, if 
you like what you have, you can keep it. Employers have told us that's 
simply not true. The President said, throughout the debate and since on 
the health care bill, the mandate is not a tax. A couple of weeks ago, 
the Supreme Court disagreed and said the mandate was a tax.
  Today, in this Capitol, there was an executive with White Castle, a 
company headquartered in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, a family-owned, 
family-run business with almost 10,000 employees, which has been 
providing health insurance to their full-time employees since 1924. And 
he testified today that the bill is a tax and that it will impact their 
ability to provide health care to their employees. Their health care 
may be too generous, and they'll be taxed. Their health care may not be 
generous enough, and they will be taxed. Furthermore, he testified that 
White Castle will not expand. They've put on hold expansion of 400 to 
500 jobs that would be created with their expansion beyond the 12 
States they're in.
  One day I got a call from another employer, in my district, with 48 
individuals. He had just come from his tax preparer, who told him not 
to expand his business--not to expand his business. He provides health 
care to his employees. But he was told not to go over 50 because he'd 
have to comply with the Federal Government and the Federal bureaucracy, 
new rules, new taxes, and new regulations. ``And we're supposed to grow 
our economy,'' he said to me, ``Pat. We're supposed to grow our 
economy, the private sector?''
  Ladies and gentleman, CBO estimated that this bill will cost 800,000 
jobs by 2021. This is not a commonsense bill that became law. Let's 
repeal the bill and replace it with provisions that will expand access 
and affordability.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished member from 
Washington, a member of our committee, Mr. McDermott.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I love this cartoon. According to the 
Republicans, we're out here raising the biggest tax on people ever. 
Now, in this cartoon, you'll see the woman got into her car. She didn't 
put her seatbelt on. It was a choice, right? She's now being fined. But 
she says, ``No, it's the biggest tax increase in history.''
  That's what's going on here today. It is a joke. With the individual 
mandate, everybody gets a choice whether you're going to put your 
health care safety belt on or not, the principle of personal 
responsibility: If you can buy health insurance and can afford it, you 
have to buy it or pay a penalty; now, otherwise, you're passing the 
cost on to us. You're a freeloader. The Republicans are glorifying 
freeloaders, people who say they don't want to pay if they can.
  Now, the Speaker said, Don't spike the football if we win in the 
Supreme Court. What you should have said was, Don't kick the 
watercooler. What's going on on the floor today is another pointless, 
time-wasting exercise. It's the 31st time the Republicans have tried to 
repeal the bill. Now, as a psychiatrist, I'm qualified to say this: One 
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and 
expecting a different result.
  The game is over. The referee, John Roberts, blew the whistle. It's 
over, guys. Why don't we have the Speaker call us when we're ready to 
get down here and talk about real things like jobs and the economy and 
stop giving people the idea that they're going to be scared to death. 
Less than 1 percent of Americans will choose to be irresponsible and 
not buy health insurance if they can.
  Vote ``no'' on this bill.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of the Ways and 
Means Committee, the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Boustany.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. As a physician with over 30 years clinical experience 
taking care of patients as a cardiac surgeon, I'm certainly familiar 
with the problems in our health care system, and there's no denying we 
need to do substantive reforms. But, Mr. Speaker, this law has not 
created the kind of reforms that are needed for our health care system.
  Let's talk about seniors for a moment. This law cuts over $500 
billion out of the Medicare program. It's going to hurt seniors. I know 
this from my own personal experience having dealt with seniors and 
seniors' health care. We have not fixed the mismatch between cost and 
reimbursement. This is leading to accelerating access problems for 
seniors and others to good, high-quality health care and a good doctor-
patient relationship. It's going to force seniors to travel further, to 
wait longer, depriving them of regular access to a physician that they 
know and trust.
  We haven't solved the problem of portability. Portability is 
something

[[Page 10993]]

Americans cared about--owning your own health insurance and carrying it 
wherever you go. We have ways of dealing with that. That has not been 
solved with this law.
  Taxes, nearly $800 billion now in new taxes, and the total keeps 
growing. Twenty-one new taxes on every aspect of the American economy. 
It's no wonder this economy is in the doldrums. It's no wonder we have 
41 quarters of unemployment exceeding 8 percent. This is unacceptable. 
Another 800,000 jobs at risk, as my colleagues mentioned earlier. Plus, 
CBO reports that the health insurance tax, something that hasn't been 
talked about much on small businesses, will be passed through to 
consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage.
  Experts also warn that the law will cause massive disruptions in how 
medicine is practiced. It will accelerate the demise of the independent 
practice of medicine, which is a threat to the doctor-patient 
relationship, creating all kinds of conflicts of interest, from a 
bureaucratic board telling physicians what to do to all these other 
bureaucratic entities between the doctor and patient.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. This one-size-fits-all approach is a disaster. That's 
why we must repeal this bill in the name of quality, in the name of 
cost, and in name of getting this economy back on track.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 10 seconds.
  The gentleman from Louisiana voted for the $500 billion in Medicare 
savings twice. You come here and criticize, I guess, yourself.
  I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia, a distinguished 
member of our committee, Mr. Lewis.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we've been down this road before. 
We've been here 31 times before voting to repeal the Affordable Care 
Act. We're wasting time. The American people are suffering. They have 
lost their jobs, their homes, and more than 50 million uninsured are 
worried about whether they're one illness away from disaster.
  The Affordable Care Act was a historic and necessary step to cover 
all Americans, and all the Republicans can say is, Repeal. These are 
the same forces that fought against Medicare and Social Security.
  People get it. If it were not for Medicare, where would our seniors 
be? Where would they turn?

                              {time}  1640

  Health care is a right, and it is not a privilege; not just for some 
people, but for all people. We cannot and we will not go back.
  Do you want to go back? Do you want people to be afraid to have a 
checkup? Do you want the only doctors people see to be in an emergency 
room?
  The Affordable Care Act is moving us away from this tragedy and 
toward insurance coverage for all Americans. We have come too far and 
suffered too long to go back. Too much progress has been made with the 
Affordable Care Act to go back. The American people will not be fooled 
this time.
  Vote ``no'' on repeal, and get to work putting the American people 
back to work.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of 
the Ways and Means Committee, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Black).
  Mrs. BLACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm incredibly disappointed by the Supreme Court's 
ruling to uphold the President's health care law, but one thing the 
Supreme Court's decision does not change is the need for ObamaCare to 
be repealed immediately. The fact is that President Obama's signature 
legislative achievement, ObamaCare, is a tax hike on the middle-income 
class.
  Since I took office in 2010, I've been fighting every day to repeal 
ObamaCare, and I will not rest until this goal is achieved. As a small 
businesswoman and a nurse for over 40 years, I know that ObamaCare is 
not only the wrong medicine for our health care system, it's also a 
disaster for our economy.
  ObamaCare's new regulations, taxes, and mandates are crushing our 
already weak economy. Now three-quarters of small businesses say that 
the law is preventing them from hiring people, and that has left 
millions of middle class Americans jobless and without a way to provide 
for their family.
  I look forward to voting tomorrow, once again, to fully repeal 
ObamaCare, and I hope this time that the Senate gets the message loud 
and clear. It's long past time for the Senate to follow the House's 
lead and strike down this disastrous law.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  In Tennessee, as of December 2011, 59,000 young adults in Tennessee 
gained insurance coverage because of ACA, and almost 800,000 with 
Medicare received free preventive services--almost 800,000.
  I now yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished colleague of mine 
from Massachusetts, a member of our committee, Mr. Neal.
  Mr. NEAL. Thank you, Mr. Levin.
  I hope as this debate ensues what we can perhaps call this for the 
next hour, instead of ObamaCare, why don't we call it RomneyCare? This 
is based upon the Massachusetts model that Governor Romney signed with 
Ted Kennedy standing next to him. Anybody who knows anything about 
insurance markets, you know the following: you can't say, as our 
Republican friends are saying, by the way, in print and in televised 
appearances, they're all saying: Oh, I like the idea of ending 
preexisting condition; oh, I like the idea of keeping 26-year-olds on 
their parents' health insurance; oh, I very much like the idea of 
ending lifetime caps; oh, I very much like the idea of preventive 
service mammography screening and osteoporosis for women.
  Well, that's what's in the legislation that we passed. Those numbers 
poll very well with the American people. And, by the way, the trend 
line continues in this direction. But if you know something about 
automobile insurance, it's not just on Friday night you're driving 
along knowing you have insurance that you need to be concerned about. 
It's the man or woman driving the other way toward you that you hope 
has automobile insurance as well.
  The Massachusetts plan polls very well. Not everybody in 
Massachusetts, contrary to what some might think, is a Democrat. Almost 
64 percent of the people in Massachusetts are Republicans and 
Independents. Seventy percent north approve of the health care plan 
that was duly negotiated with hospitals, the business community, 
organized labor. Everybody had a seat at the table.
  Remember this as we proceed to this vote tomorrow: This is the 
offering that Bob Dole suggested to Bill Clinton. This is the offering 
that Senator Chafee from Rhode Island offered to Bill Clinton. The 
mandate was a Republican proposal that came from the Heritage 
Foundation, and it's the only bone of contention in this legislation.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished chairman of the 
Human Resources Subcommittee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6079, the Repeal of 
Obamacare Act.
  Though the Supreme Court's decision is disappointing, it does not 
change the underlying truths of the President's health care law. The 
law has neither reduced costs nor improved choices available to 
Americans. It outsources Medicare decisions to an unelected rationing 
board, interferes with the doctor-patient relationship, and threatens 
consumers with fewer options and higher premiums.
  The health care law is paid for with more than $800 billion in new 
taxes and another $500 billion or more in Medicare cuts. All told, we 
are left with 21 tax increases, including the individual mandate, 
which, for the first time in our country, imposes a Federal tax for 
inaction.
  Imagine what a future Congress could tax you on for not doing: not 
eating fruits and vegetables, not buying

[[Page 10994]]

an electric car, not exercising daily to their standards--just to name 
a few. The possibilities of Congress' taxing power are now seemingly 
endless and frightening.
  On top of that, the Internal Revenue Service is now the official 
enforcement cop for the health care law, a powerful role requiring the 
hiring of thousands of new IRS employees at an expense of hundreds of 
millions of dollars.
  The takeaway? Young or old, the health care law does little to ensure 
affordable coverage for all Americans. We will not feel the full brunt 
of its impact until 2014, but the law has already proven to be a 
nightmare.
  We can't mistake the Supreme Court's ruling for an evaluation of good 
policy. At the end of Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion is 
an important message. He writes:

       The Court does not express any opinion on the wisdom of the 
     Affordable Care Act. Under the Constitution, the judgment is 
     reserved to the people.

  And judged they have. This law is a disaster for patients, small 
businesses, and future generations of Americans. We must repeal it and 
redouble our efforts to start anew on real process reforms that will 
increase patient access and quality of care while reducing costs.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 20 seconds.
  While there is a reference to disaster in Kentucky, here are the 
facts:
  48,000 young adults in Kentucky gained insurance coverage;
  Since ACA was enacted, Kentucky residents with Medicare have saved a 
total of $68 million;
  538,000 people with Medicare in Kentucky received free preventative 
services.
  That isn't a disaster; that's progress.
  I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California, our 
distinguished colleague on the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Thompson.
  Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this legislation that represents 
the 31st time that we have voted or will vote to repeal parts or all of 
the Affordable Care Act. Instead of staging these political games, we 
should be spending our time strengthening the reforms that were made in 
the Affordable Care Act and working together to put people back to 
work.
  The Affordable Care Act was passed in response to a national crisis: 
businesses and individuals could not afford to buy health insurance. 
Hospitals, doctors, and clinics provided more than $100 billion a year 
in uncompensated care--$50 million in my district alone.
  Now, the good fairy doesn't come and reimburse them for this care. 
These costs are passed on to all of us who have health insurance in 
higher taxes and higher premiums, to the tune of $1,000 a year in 
higher health insurance premiums.
  People with preexisting conditions could not get coverage. People in 
my district were hitting their lifetime caps or even annual caps and 
being dropped by their insurance company.

                              {time}  1650

  Others were self-employed and simply couldn't afford to buy private 
insurance on the open market. This was the national crisis that we 
worked to try and fix, and this is the national crisis that the 
majority party would like to go back to. It's not right. It's not good 
for America, and it's not good for Americans.
  So on behalf of the millions of Americans who are already benefiting 
from the Affordable Care Act, I urge a ``no'' vote on this legislation.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of 
the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schock).
  Mr. SCHOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish to rise and offer a few facts. You know, there's 
been a lot of opinion going around here today, and we're all entitled 
to our own opinion, but we're not entitled to our own facts.
  President Obama famously said: ``If you like your health care plan, 
you will be able to keep your health care plan, period.'' The 
Congressional Budget Office released the fact that 20 million people 
are expected to lose their health insurance coverage if this law 
stands--20 million Americans who currently have health insurance will 
lose it under this plan: Fact. Why? Because of bad provisions in the 
bill.
  Seventy-one out of the Fortune 100 companies will save $422 billion 
by eliminating their employer-provided coverage and opt instead to pay 
the $2,000 per-employee penalty instead. It incentivizes bad behavior, 
precisely the opposite of the stated goal.
  Another claim the President repeated was: ``Under my plan, no family 
making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of any tax 
increase.'' Yet the only reason ObamaCare was found constitutional, the 
primary reason that Chief Justice Roberts--joining with Stephen Breyer, 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, along with Sonia Sotomayor--upheld 
the individual mandate is under Congress' taxing authority. The truth 
is 76 percent of those paying this new individual mandate tax in 2016 
will in fact be individuals who make only $59,000, or a family of four 
who makes $120,000--far below the threshold, the promise, and the 
guarantee of President Obama's $250,000.
  Finally, my friends on the other side of the aisle claimed health 
care spending would rise by a mere bargain of only $938 billion--there 
was much to-do, I remember, about then Speaker announcing it was below 
$1 trillion--yet the Congressional Budget Office has updated their 
number to cost $1.8 trillion just this next decade. For those reasons 
and more, we need to repeal this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  There was a reference by the gentleman from Illinois about facts. Let 
me mention the facts.
  As of December 2011, 125,000 young adults in Illinois gained 
insurance coverage. Since it was enacted, ACA, Illinois residents with 
Medicare have saved a total of $155 million on their prescription drugs 
and 1,350,000 people with Medicare in Illinois have received free 
preventive services. Those are the facts about health care reform.
  I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), 
another very distinguished member of our committee.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting 
me to speak on this bill, and I appreciate him framing the difference 
that the legislation makes.
  That's why, in a sense, I welcome the 31st running of this soap opera 
here on the floor of the House, where our Republican colleagues have 
attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. It would have a little 
more credibility if they actually had a meaningful alternative that 
would take the place, that would do the things that this legislation is 
in the process of doing.
  Bear in mind that this legislation, over the course of the next 20 
years, is going to reduce overall government spending by over $1 
trillion. It reforms Medicare, not by slashing benefits to senior 
citizens, but by changing the priorities and the overpayment for 
Medicare Advantage, which does shift, as my colleagues say, a half-
trillion dollars, but it uses it to reform Medicare and pay for medical 
benefits for the American public.
  What my friends on the other side of the aisle don't say is that they 
take the half trillion dollars, but they don't invest it in 
strengthening Medicare, they use it in their budget--the same $500 
billion--to finance tax cuts for Americans who need them the least. The 
wealthiest, most well off Americans use this $500 billion for 
additional tax cuts.
  What we have done is to move forward, and it has nothing to do with 
broccoli, because if you don't happen to like broccoli, you don't have 
to eat it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. What's different is that, under this system, no one 
can force the rest of us to buy their broccoli.
  Unfortunately, the American health care system now is forcing many of 
us to pay for the uninsured--60 percent of whom go to an emergency room 
or a

[[Page 10995]]

doctor's office every year. That's why Governor Romney had a mandate, 
or a tax--or whatever you call it--to be able to move this forward. 
That's what the legislation is modeled on. It's making a difference 
already for Americans in terms of young people on their parents' 
coverage, small businesses, more than one-third of a million who have 
been able to have tax credits to extend health care, and there's more 
along the way.
  The more we debate this, the more the American public understands the 
benefits of the legislation, and the more the support grows.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of 
the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed).
  Mr. REED. I thank the chairman for yielding 2 minutes to me to 
address this important topic.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to stand strong for repeal of ObamaCare. I 
think at this point in time it is only right and just that we be open 
and honest with the hardworking taxpayers of America. That is why it is 
important that we have this vote on the floor tomorrow so that the 
American people, with the backdrop of the United States Supreme Court 
decision clearly articulating what ObamaCare is--it is clear, it is a 
government expansion of 130-plus agencies. It's a significant tax 
increase, with 20-plus tax increases that are now clearly delineated 
and described by the Supreme Court as such.
  So when we vote tomorrow, we vote on a clear record. And I gladly 
came here to Washington, D.C., to stand up to downsize the Federal 
Government, to cut taxes, not increase them.
  Also, as we stand in regards to this repeal, we must be cognizant of 
the fact that, under ObamaCare, Medicare is cut $500 billion. There can 
be no mistake about it. Let us be clear with the American people, as we 
go through this upcoming debate that will be ultimately decided in 
November, that we need to protect Medicare, preserve it, reform it, not 
cut it like this bill does.
  So when the votes are cast tomorrow, I think ultimately the record 
will be clear where each and every one of us stands. I stand--and I 
hope all my colleagues stand with me--to repeal this legislation, which 
increases taxes, expands government, threatens the job creators of 
today and tomorrow with a burden that scares them from making the 
hiring decisions that are going to put people back to work today, which 
is the number one issue that we face in America and that we are here in 
Washington standing firm to stand for.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The gentleman from New York voted on the $500 billion Medicare 
provision twice, voted for it.
  As of 2011, 160,000 young adults in New York gained insurance 
coverage because of health care reform. Since it was enacted, New 
Yorkers with Medicare have saved a total of $270 million on their 
prescription drugs. In 2011, 2 million people with Medicare in New York 
received free preventive services. Since 2010, over 3 million New 
Yorkers with private health insurance gained preventive insurance.
  Mr. Speaker, how much time is there remaining on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 
7\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has 
13\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. CAMP. At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Brady), the distinguished chairman of the Trade Subcommittee.
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Texas is a big State. We have a lot 
of poor families. And as a border State, we have a lot of people here 
who are not legal. As a result, we struggle to provide health care 
across our State. ObamaCare will make it worse, will make it harder to 
help families.
  This chart lays out the new health care law that affects every one of 
you in America. This is the result of that 2,801-page bill and the 
Supreme Court ruling. What that Supreme Court left in place was 159 new 
Federal agencies and bureaucracies in between you and your doctor. What 
they left in place was 21 new tax increases, a dozen of which hit 
middle class families like yourself right in the pocketbook.
  What it left in place is half a trillion dollars of cuts to our local 
hospitals, our home health care agencies, our nursing homes, even 
hospice care when people are dying. They left in place those cuts.
  And today you'll hear, when I finish, the ranking member will tell 
you all this sugar and spice about ObamaCare in Texas. What he won't 
tell you is how many seniors will be forced off Medicare Advantage, 
their plan, because of ObamaCare. They won't tell you how few doctors 
will even see our seniors anymore in Texas.
  What he won't tell you is how many small businesses and medium-sized 
businesses are going to drop their health care plans and move their 
workers into the subsidized exchanges because of ObamaCare. You won't 
hear that when I finish talking.
  The truth of the matter is if ObamaCare is so great for families, why 
are your health care costs still going up?
  If it is so great for small businesses, why did they sue to stop it?
  And if it is so great for seniors, how come they can't find doctors 
to see them anymore?
  Health care is too important to get wrong, and ObamaCare got it 
wrong. It's time to repeal it, start with a fresh slate, and help the 
families who need it most.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Twenty-five percent of the people of Texas go to sleep every night 
without insurance--25 percent. And people come here defending the 
status quo?
  As of December 2011, 357,000 young adults in Texas gained insurance 
coverage. Since it was enacted, Texans with Medicare have saved a total 
of over $220 million on prescription drugs, and over 2 million people 
with Medicare in Texas have received free preventive services. That's 
progress, in contrast to the status quo, 25 percent uninsured.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Smith), a distinguished member of the Ways and Means 
Committee.
  Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the 
bill today to repeal the health care law.
  In speaking with employers in the Third District of Nebraska, it's 
been very interesting to hear their perspective, certainly, when they 
tell me that they are holding off on hiring because they simply do not 
know how much a new employee will cost due to these government 
mandates. In fact, they're paying overtime to very willing employees 
because the employees currently are so concerned about the economy 
they're certainly eager to work that overtime so they can achieve some 
financial security. And so we've got an imbalance here in the 
employment sector, and we need to fix that.
  I'm also concerned that the very bureaucratic approach, for example, 
with the small business tax credit, when I hear from an accountant who 
tells me it takes longer to calculate the tax credit than it does for 
the remainder of the small business's tax return.
  We can do better. We owe the American people better and certainly we 
need to repeal this bill.
  Mr. LEVIN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming).
  Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, by any reasonable measure, America has the 
best health care system in the world. Certainly the many world leaders 
who come here for treatment are a testament to that very fact.
  However, over recent decades, a slow but steady government takeover 
of health care by growing entitlements has crowded out the private 
marketplace, creating an inefficient system whose costs are now 
completely out of control.
  As a family physician who was elected to Congress in 2008, I came 
here to bring consumer choices, transparency, and efficiency back into 
our health

[[Page 10996]]

care system, putting health care decisions back into the exam room 
where they belong.
  Instead, Democrats passed ObamaCare without even one Republican vote. 
It essentially doubles down on the cost, inefficiencies, and lack of 
accessibility to good health care that already existed, and puts 
Washington fully in control of your health care decisions that will 
ultimately lead to yet another large, unaffordable entitlement system.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, if you would tell the two of us from Michigan 
how much time there is on each side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 
7 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has 9\1/2\ 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. LEVIN. So why don't I reserve one more time, and then I'll go 
forward.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the 
distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga).
  Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. I appreciate my fellow friend from Michigan 
yielding this time.
  I'm a freshman. This is my first term in session here in Congress. 
And I wasn't here for the passage of this bill. But I can tell you, I 
am here because the American people wanted changed. They did not and 
will not accept what was passed by this previous Congress.
  You're going to hear a lot today about how it has helped people. We 
cannot go back to the status quo. But this is not the solution. This is 
not the way. And that's why I rise today in strong support of the 
repeal of the ObamaCare Act, H.R. 6079.
  The fact is, the recent Chamber of Commerce survey indicated that a 
whopping 74 percent of small businesses say that the law makes it more 
difficult for them to hire new employees. I'm one of those small 
business owners who's been paralyzed trying to figure out what my 
insurance costs are going to be for my employees.
  In addition, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts 
ObamaCare will reduce the Nation's labor supply by 800,000 people, not 
something that we need right now.
  This law is full of compliance uncertainties and disincentives for 
growth.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. CAMP. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.
  Mr. HUIZENGA of Michigan. The Supreme Court recently made it clear 
that the individual mandate is, despite what the President and my 
colleagues in this body are trying to say, it is a colossal tax 
increase on the middle class.
  While I'm disappointed in the decision, we know that the American 
people want us to come back in and change this law because it will not 
help them in the long run.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great 
State of Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), another distinguished member of our 
committee.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Michigan for 
yielding me this time and for his leadership on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, just to address the previous speaker's comments, if 
you're a small business in America with 50 or fewer employees, you 
don't have to do a god-dang thing under the Affordable Care Act other 
than receive tax credits for offering health care coverage to your 
employees. So let's stop this nonsense of trying to scare small 
businesses throughout America.
  It's been pointed out on the floor by numerous colleagues that this 
is the 31st attempt in this session of Congress to repeal all or part 
of the Affordable Care Act. Even The Washington Post pointed out 
earlier this week that Baskin Robbins only offers 30 flavors of ice 
cream. Enough is enough.
  And when I first heard that the United States Supreme Court upheld 
the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, my first feelings 
were relief and happiness, not for me or anyone else who was involved 
in advancing the cause of health care reform, which was desperately 
needed--it is a system that has failed too many Americans for too 
long--but it was happiness for a 1-year-old little boy who I had a 
chance of meeting back home in western Wisconsin by the name of Henry.
  See, Henry's mother informed me that before he was even born he 
suffered a seizure in her womb and, therefore, the very first breath he 
took in his life, they were informed that he was uninsurable because he 
had a pre-existing condition. And that family was depleting their 
entire life savings making sure that Henry was getting the health care 
treatment that he needed to survive in his life.
  We're better than that as a Nation, folks. The Affordable Care Act, 
as this family pointed out, changed that immediately for Henry and that 
family, and for 39,000 other children throughout western Wisconsin who 
have a pre-existing condition.

                              {time}  1710

  Forty-five thousand young adults in Wisconsin now can stay on their 
parents' plans because of this act. Seniors on Medicare get a 50 
percent price discount for the prescription drugs they need in their 
lives.
  Do you want to talk about a big tax increase?
  Take away the 35 percent in tax credits that small businesses are 
getting today for providing health care coverage, which goes up to 50 
percent in 2014, or the $800 billion in tax credits that individuals 
and families will receive under the exchange so they can afford health 
care coverage. Let's talk a little bit about that tax increase that 
people are going to be facing if they are successful in repealing this 
legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. KIND. What we need is more cooperation and more effort in 
reforming a health care system that is complicated, that is too 
expensive. We have tools in place now in this legislation that will not 
only enable reforming the way health care is delivered, which is more 
integrated, coordinated and patient-centered, but in how we pay for it 
so that it is based on the value, or the quality of care that is given, 
and no longer on the volume of services that is rendered, oftentimes 
with poor results.
  I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this. Let's work together 
to improve a health care system that is in desperate need of 
improvement.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Quayle).
  Mr. QUAYLE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago, the Supreme Court voted to uphold 
ObamaCare. This decision confirms that the repeal of ObamaCare must 
take place in the very body in which it began. This decision reminds us 
that there is no greater calling, no higher honor than the defense of 
our constituents from the tyranny of government overreach.
  We have seen what socialized medicine and endless entitlements have 
done to Europe. Well, let me be very clear: ObamaCare is no more than a 
Trojan horse inserted in the global epicenter of freedom. It is bad for 
our doctors. It is bad for our patients. It is bad for our economy. It 
is toxic to our middle class. From its insidious taxes to its 
strangling regulation to the oppressive mandate that lies at its core, 
ObamaCare is bad for America.
  This bill gives us all a chance to vote to defend the values upon 
which our great Nation was founded. I urge my colleagues to support 
this bill and to repeal ObamaCare.
  Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Nunnelee).
  Mr. NUNNELEE. I want to thank the chairman for yielding.
  Everything they told us when they passed this law has turned out not 
to be true: if you like your own health plan, you can keep it. This 
isn't a tax hike. Prices will go down $2,500 a year. It won't affect 
religious freedom. The list goes on.
  I was disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling, but I did note that 
the Supreme Court said it was not its job

[[Page 10997]]

to say whether this is a good or a bad law. Well, the American people 
can answer that question.
  ObamaCare is bad for health care. ObamaCare is bad for seniors. 
ObamaCare is bad for hardworking Americans. ObamaCare is bad for job 
creators. ObamaCare is bad for freedom. That's why it must be repealed.
  Mr. LEVIN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).
  Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support freedom and 
prosperity.
  ObamaCare--call it a tax or a mandate--is a threat to personal 
liberty. My constituents in Colorado want to work directly with their 
doctors with regard to their health care without going through a 
Federal bureaucrat.
  ObamaCare burdens small businesses and families by imposing more than 
$800 billion in new taxes that will make it impossible for them to grow 
and thrive. The independent Congressional Budget Office estimates that 
employers will create 800,000 fewer jobs by 2021 as a result of 
ObamaCare. In fact, we are already seeing how this is hurting jobs 
today. The National Retail Federation found that 48 percent of 
businessowners cite the potential cost of health care as a reason they 
are not hiring additional workers.
  We can fix what is wrong with health care through patient-centered 
reforms that are targeted and affordable, but first we must protect our 
freedoms and the economy by repealing ObamaCare.
  Mr. LEVIN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).
  Mr. PENCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I rise today in strong support of the Repeal of ObamaCare Act, which 
will fully and immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  ObamaCare is not merely a government takeover of health care; but as 
many of us insisted during debates on this floor 2 years ago, ObamaCare 
is a massive tax increase on everyday Americans and small business 
owners, and it must be repealed. Every day in Indiana, I hear people 
tell me that ObamaCare is stifling our recovery. If it's not repealed 
in full, Hoosiers will face higher health care costs and increased 
taxes. The medical device tax alone can cost Indiana more than 2,000 
jobs.
  Yet the issue before us today is not just about economic growth; it's 
about freedom. ObamaCare erodes the freedom of every American, opening 
the door for the Federal Government to legislate, regulate, and mandate 
nearly every aspect of our daily lives under the guise of its taxing 
power. Left unchanged, ObamaCare will change this country forever.
  I truly believe in my heart this law will not stand, for in the end, 
the fate of our freedoms rests not in the hands of a President, a 
Congress or a court, for we are and have always been and shall ever 
remain a government of the people and by the people and for the people. 
While this Congress this week will vote to repeal this bill, I believe 
the American people will have their say on a day this fall and that 
some Congress someday will repeal this legislation and build us a 
health care system that will focus on lowering the costs of health 
insurance without growing the size of government.
  Mr. LEVIN. I ask my colleague, how many speakers do you have left?
  Mr. CAMP. I believe three or four.
  Mr. LEVIN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. How much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) has 
3\3/4\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin) has 
4\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Southerland).
  Mr. SOUTHERLAND. I would like to thank the gentleman from Michigan 
for yielding the time.
  Today, I rise in support of H.R. 6079, to repeal the President's 
health care law.
  H.R. 6079 will end the individual mandate, the tax hikes on the small 
businesses--of which my family has been proud owners for many, many 
generations--the devastating cuts to Medicare, and the government 
intrusion into Americans' private health care decisions.
  While I am disappointed with the Supreme Court and with the decision 
that it made by not striking down the President's health care bill, I 
remain committed to its full repeal. Under the health care law, over 1 
million Americans will be at risk of losing their own current health 
care plans. The average American family will see a $1,200 increase in 
its health care premiums. Many of those families I know in our family 
community are going to be devastatingly impacted.
  As I have said time and time again, bad procedure leads to bad 
policy, and 2 years ago--my goodness--on full display, we saw bad 
procedure. That's why I stand here ready to cast my 10th vote in favor 
of repealing the President's health care law.
  Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished member of 
our committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).
  Mr. CROWLEY. I thank my friend from Michigan for yielding this time.
  I listened to my friend from Indiana a moment ago quote President 
Lincoln. I would like to think that if President Lincoln were President 
today he would have supported this legislation, the Affordable Care 
Act, and that maybe we would call this LincolnCare today. I would say 
myself that I would call it President LincolnCare as I call it today 
President ObamaCare.

                              {time}  1720

  I notice my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are very much 
on target in terms of their talking points today. Each and every one 
has repeatedly called it ObamaCare, a pejorative, bringing down not 
only the legislation we're talking about, but diminishing the office of 
the President of the United States. I remind them that we have many 
people listening to the debate today, including young people. We should 
be beholden to the office of the presidency. That's why I call it 
President ObamaCare.
  But this morning, the Speaker of the House, when asked why we're 
wasting time and energy on another repeal vote said: ``We are resolved 
to get rid of a law that will ruin the best health care delivery system 
the world has ever seen.''
  Resolved to get rid of the best health care system the world has ever 
seen? That is what we had before the Affordable Care Act? I think my 
constituents--and I would daresay some of my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle--would disagree with that.
  Do you want to go back to a time when insurance companies could deny 
coverage for arbitrary reasons that put bottom lines ahead of patients' 
needs, back to a time when families worried about how they were going 
to afford coverage and lived with the fear that a single medical 
emergency could send them into bankruptcy, back to a time when seniors 
were overwhelmed by prescription drug costs with no relief in sight? 
No. Americans don't want to go back to that time. In fact, when we 
passed the Affordable Care Act, President Obama and Democrats in 
Congress were resolved. We were resolved to actually improve our health 
care system.
  We knew that the status quo was not working for far too many 
Americans. We were resolved to ensure that everyone had access to 
affordable health care coverage. We were resolved to guarantee that 
that coverage would work better for patients and for families.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. CROWLEY. I'm not sure why my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle don't share our resolve to make life for our constituents better 
today than it was prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. I 
don't understand the resolve to preserve what was an inadequate status 
quo by voting tomorrow to take a giant step backwards.

[[Page 10998]]

  My colleagues, our friends on the other side, have no vision. That's 
why we're here today talking about going back to the future.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished 
Member from Colorado (Mr. Tipton).
  Mr. TIPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, the common ground that we have is seeking affordability 
and accessibility. ObamaCare fails on both counts.
  We've heard comments from our colleagues saying more is yet to come. 
That's exactly what the American people--workers, senior citizens, 
American families--are worried about: more to come.
  We cannot find doctors. We're seeing our costs increase. We hear the 
comments that are coming. It is the Affordable Care Act. The problem 
is, there's nothing affordable about it. It is a $2 trillion tax 
increase on the backs of struggling Americans. If we're going to stand 
up for true health care, we need to make sure that we repeal this bill, 
repeal it now, and replace it with common sense.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. At this time, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).
  Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6079.
  The court said Congress can impose new taxes, and the individual 
mandate is constitutional as a tax. As Dr. Seuss would rhyme: If it 
walks like a tax, talks like a tax, and quacks like a tax, the Supreme 
Court will tell us surely it is a tax. And so it did.
  Maybe we can serve it with green eggs and ham.
  Uncle Sam, I still don't think Americans will like this ObamaCare 
sham.
  Uncle Sam, loyal to patient-centered choice I am.
  As the ledgers on exploding costs are already showing us and the 
courts declared that day, a tax burden is what ObamaCare is, and 
Americans remain dismayed.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  As I stand here, I want to remember others from the State of Michigan 
who years and years ago argued this issue. I think I'll go back to John 
Dingell's father, who was from Michigan, a Member of this distinguished 
body, and who started this effort with others to bring health insurance 
to every person in this country.
  After seven decades of failure, we succeeded. Yet the Republicans 
want to repeal it without offering anything to replace it. So I'll 
quote again Governor Mitt Romney. He said:

       A conservative approach is one that relies on individual 
     responsibility. But in my view, and others are free to 
     disagree, expecting people who can afford to buy insurance to 
     do so is consistent with personal responsibility, and that's 
     a cornerstone of conservatism.

  It's really a cornerstone also of America as a community. To repeal 
this is to undermine the sense and reality of community in the United 
States of America. Remembering the past and looking to the future, we 
must vote ``no'' on repeal.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CAMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, this law is overwhelmingly unpopular, and the reason it 
is is because it is fundamentally flawed. The flaw is that government 
is being placed at the center of health care decisions that should be 
made by doctors and families together, not by the government.
  Look at the other measures that we can use to examine this law. The 
pricetag of the law has already doubled. It's over $1.8 trillion now. 
Health care premiums are going up. They're not going down as result of 
this law. They're going in the other direction. And Americans are 
losing the insurance they have. And there is a perverse incentive in 
this bill for employers to drop coverage because it's cheaper for them 
to pay the tax in the bill.
  Also, taxes are being raised in general over a half a trillion 
dollars in this legislation, and 12 of the 21 new taxes in this law hit 
the middle class. It will make costs expensive for more than 90 percent 
of the seniors, and it's paid for with budget gimmicks that even the 
government actuaries say aren't going to work.
  The Congressional Budget Office has said this law makes job creation 
harder. What we really need is to have a stronger economy that will 
help create jobs, but this law makes it harder, according to the CBO. 
We can't afford that after 41 months of unemployment above 8 percent. 
This law is bad for workers, bad for families, bad for patients, 
doctors, and employers.
  I urge that we repeal this law, and I yield back the balance of my 
time.

                              {time}  1730

  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6079, 
the Repeal of Obamacare Act, and yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a devastating 
blow to the American people. In a sharply divided opinion, the Court 
upheld the President's decision to tax individuals who don't purchase 
government-approved health insurance. If Washington can dictate that 
private citizens must buy health insurance and impose higher taxes when 
they fail to do so, it is difficult to conceive of any limit on Federal 
power.
  While I disagree with the Court's ruling, that is not the focus of 
our debate today. We are here instead to overturn a flawed and failed 
law. The government takeover of health care is destroying jobs. It is 
raising health care costs. It is the wrong prescription for an ailing 
economy. It must be repealed. We promised the American people no less, 
and we owe it to them to keep our promise.
  The need for repeal has grown more urgent in light of Friday's 
disappointing jobs report, which marked the 41st consecutive month of 
unemployment greater than 8 percent. A close examination of the health 
care law explains how it's contributing to the jobs crisis facing this 
Nation. Hundreds of additional boards and bureaucracies, thousands of 
pages of complex regulations, billions of dollars in tax hikes, and 
trillions of dollars in new government spending, these are the burdens 
the health care law has piled on the backs of working families and job 
creators.
  For more than 2 years, the law has crippled our economy and 
undermined employers' ability to grow their businesses and hire new 
workers. This is not just my opinion. We see evidence from job creators 
across the country.
  Gail Johnson, an employer from Virginia, said the law will 
``ultimately slow or stall the growth of small and midsized businesses 
as we struggle with the costly new requirements.''
  Speaking of the law's draconian tax on medical devices, Denis 
Johnson, vice president of a medical device manufacturing facility in 
Indiana, said it will ``undoubtedly force us to cut critical R&D 
funding and inhibit job creation and retention.''
  And Will Knetch, president of a family-owned manufacturing company in 
Pennsylvania, testified that ``the sheer monstrous size of the law 
intimidates most Americans and provides so many unknowns for the 
business community, it is scary.''
  Without any doubt, Mr. Speaker, Americans are concerned about getting 
this economy moving and putting people back to work. As these and other 
employers have accurately described, one of the greatest obstacles 
standing in the way of economic growth and prosperity is the 
President's health care law.
  Through his government takeover of health care, the President has 
created a destructive roadblock to lowering health care costs and 
private sector job creation, and he has disrupted the careful balance 
of power between the people and their government.
  Whether at congressional hearings, in public forums, or at the ballot 
box, the American people have spoken. They want their elected leaders 
to repeal ObamaCare so we can pave the way to private sector job growth 
and lower health care costs.
  I urge my colleagues to stop defending a broken law and start 
standing by

[[Page 10999]]

the American people. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 6079, 
and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Our side is going to try to bring some facts to the debate. My friend 
from Minnesota, the chairman of the committee, said this is a job-
destroying health care bill. Since the day the President signed the 
bill, American companies have created 4.3 million private sector jobs.
  At this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas, who clearly understands the need for high-quality health care 
for all people in our country, Mr. Hinojosa.
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this 
legislation that would take away health insurance for over 30 million 
Americans, force seniors to pay more for their prescription drugs, and 
add billions to our deficit.
  In my great State of Texas, we have the highest uninsured rate in the 
country, a disgraceful 25 percent. One of those uninsured was a little 
boy named Houston Tracy from Crowley, Texas. Houston was born with a 
heart defect just days before the passage of the Affordable Care Act 
and was deemed uninsurable from birth for a preexisting condition. His 
case drew national attention, and eventually his private insurance 
company backed down under pressure. Today, under the Affordable Care 
Act, no child will suffer the indignity baby Houston met. Insurers 
can't deny children the coverage over a medical need. These are the 
protections that Republicans want to take away from us today.
  Just yesterday, a Republican Member of Congress said that if she had 
her way, she would rather spend every day voting to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act. So rather than working to pass legislation to put 
Americans back to work or stop the outsourcing and offshoring of 
American jobs, Republicans would rather spend every day doing nothing 
but scoring political points by voting to take away health insurance 
for the millions of Americans while offering no solution for people 
like little Houston Tracy and the thousands of other children like him 
who would be left at the mercy of the insurance companies.
  This is a cruel bill. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the 
Republican bill.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
chairman of the Workforce Protection Subcommittee, the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Walberg).
  Mr. WALBERG. I thank the chairman.
  Mr. Speaker, my friends across the aisle decry the fact that we have 
now voted over 30 times to defund, dismantle, and repeal the law. But, 
Mr. Speaker, isn't it right to challenge a tool of destruction of the 
American health care system, the economy, and personal freedom of 
choice?
  In Michigan the law has stifled economic growth and hiring and raised 
health care costs for everyone.
  It would impose 21 new or higher taxes, 12 of which directly affect 
the middle class, workers and families. It would lead to a gross tax 
increase of almost $570 billion over 10 years. It will cost $1.8 
trillion over the next 10 years, nearly double the original estimate.
  Meanwhile, the Obama administration has failed to decide what 
government-approved health insurance will look like, leaving employers 
uncertain about the future expenses and taxes they will face. White 
Castle, in a hearing just prior to this, has indicated they have held 
back on creating 400-plus new jobs because of this uncertainty.
  As if the cost of jobs and the economy wasn't enough of a negative, 
ObamaCare also cuts $500 billion from Medicare to finance new 
entitlement programs. It reduces Medicare care itself. According to the 
American Medical Association, one in three primary care doctors already 
limit the number of new Medicare patients they take due to the cost. 
Once the law is fully enacted, CMS estimates that about 15 percent of 
Medicare part A providers will become unprofitable and drop out 
entirely, leaving seniors with fewer options.
  Additionally, the President's handpicked 15-member Independent 
Payment Advisory Board is even more troubling. Its purpose is to 
control future Medicare spending so that if Medicare grows beyond what 
is sustainable, the Board has the power to recommend cuts and ration 
care.
  Rights of conscience violations are mandated in this bill. This must 
stop.
  I recommend all my colleagues support the repeal of this bill in 
going back to a patient-centered approach that offers this health care 
system sustainability and care for our citizens.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  I would ask my friend from Michigan if he could just stay for a 
question.
  My friend from Michigan just said that there is an estimate that the 
bill has doubled in cost, and I have read all the CBO analyses of this 
bill. I wonder if the gentleman could tell me the source of his 
statement from the Congressional Budget Office that the bill has 
doubled in cost from the original estimate.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. WALBERG. I appreciate you yielding.
  It is the CBO. Go to the Congressional Budget Office. They have 
directly stated that it would double.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Reclaiming my time, if the gentleman could supplement 
the record with the date and the document that says that, I would 
appreciate it.
  At this time I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who has 
become an expert on the budget, who understands that this repeal bill 
increases the national deficit and debt, the gentleman from Virginia 
(Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago we passed ObamaCare, 
and now the Supreme Court has ruled that it is, in fact, 
constitutional.
  Even after this ruling, some are ignoring the fact that these reforms 
are working. We know that there are children with preexisting 
conditions who now have insurance. We know that there are young adults 
who have had car accidents and their families did not have to go 
bankrupt for health care costs because they were able to stay on their 
parents' policies.

                              {time}  1740

  We know that there are seniors who are receiving assistance when they 
fall in the doughnut hole. We know many people have discovered curable 
diseases when those diseases were in fact curable because they didn't 
have to save up for copays and deductibles for their annual checkup. We 
know that there are people with serious illnesses who no longer fear 
being kicked off their insurance plans in the middle of treatment when 
they need the coverage the most. And in 18 months, all Americans will 
be able to afford a comprehensive health care policy. All of this was 
done in a fiscally responsible way. And why would anyone want to take 
away these protections and leave people without health security?
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this 31st attempt to turn 
the clock back on the advancements made under the Affordable Care Act.
  Mr. KLINE. I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, the distinguished gentleman 
from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote for repeal of the 
Affordable Care Act. As a physician, I've taken care of families for 
more than 30 years. During my time on the front lines, I watched our 
health care costs skyrocket and our health care freedom erode. I 
observed three major problems with the health care system. One, it 
costs too much. It's unaffordable for too many people. Two, there were 
people who didn't have access to care. And three, there's a liability 
crisis in this country.
  The problem is too much government, so more government is not the 
solution. Unfortunately, the President and his party did not learn the 
lessons of Tennessee. In Tennessee, it began with universal coverage in 
the nineties called TennCare. And in 10 short budget years, Mr. 
Speaker, I saw our costs

[[Page 11000]]

triple from $2.5 billion a year to $8.5 billion a year. I saw access 
for patients go down and the quality of their care go down.
  The Affordable Care Act applies this same failed idea to the whole 
country through a 2,700-page bill and more than 13,000 pages of rules--
and still writing. The Affordable Care Act doesn't address the major 
problem, which is cost. And it's also going to cost jobs.
  I spoke to a business owner in Tennessee just this afternoon who has 
800 employees. He said his H.R. people looked at this plan. He's going 
to have to lay off 50 people, put 150 people on part-time work, and 
possibly close some of his stores.
  We need to create an economic environment that creates jobs. The last 
Congress passed legislation that would destroy jobs. And make no 
mistake, our health care system was fundamentally flawed before the 
Affordable Care Act was signed into law. But the Affordable Care Act 
made a bad situation, I believe, worse. The fact is we don't have free-
market medical care today. About half of all the health care bills are 
paid by government.
  But that aside, with all the court cases, the policy proposals, the 
statistics, it's still important to remember that health care is about 
human beings. It's about people. There are no Republican or Democrat 
heart attacks. I've never seen one. I've never operated on a Republican 
or Democratic cancer in my life. So we need to talk about solutions in 
a bipartisan way for everyone. Health care is too important to be left 
to insurance bean counters and to Washington bureaucrats. Government 
always makes things more expensive and eventually leads to shortages, 
to long waits, and to rationing.
  Let's just talk about a few ideas of what we should do next. Let's 
start by just leveling the playing field and give all individuals the 
same tax break that businesses get right now. Just treat an individual 
like a business. Let's start by empowering our seniors and saving 
Medicare by giving them choice. Let's allow small businesses to join 
together to compete for more affordable insurance just like big 
corporations do.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. KLINE. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. And let's lower prescription costs by allowing 
folks to buy medicines anywhere in the world that's safe. Let's reform 
medical malpractice. Finally, let's force insurance companies to 
compete for your business across State lines.
  Health care freedom is about the right incentives and personal 
empowerment, not government mandates and regulation. I strongly 
encourage a ``yes'' vote for this bill.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, we know what our Republican friends mean when they say 
give seniors more choice under Medicare. They mean let them choose 
which private insurance company should run Medicare instead of regular 
Medicare. American seniors know you can count on the Medicare guarantee 
no matter what the circumstances are, whether you're profitable to take 
care of or not. That's why they support Medicare. That's why we support 
Medicare, even though the majority has voted on several occasions to 
terminate the Medicare guarantee.
  At this time, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a 
gentleman who understands that preexisting conditions should be made 
illegal and insurance companies should not be able to pursue them, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).
  Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman.
  It was interesting, we just had a hearing in one of the committees 
here in Congress, and we had four witnesses who were speculating about 
the fear and the myths and all the things that they hypothesize could 
be terrible if the Affordable Care Act were to go into effect. And then 
we had one witness who was the worst nightmare for those people, who 
was a Massachusetts businessperson with a thousand employees, president 
of the largest Chamber of Commerce in the country, was a member of the 
board of directors of one of the larger banks, and was in fact the 
regional consultant to the Fed in that area, who said that since 
Massachusetts accepted the equivalent of the Affordable Care Act, not 
only his business has done better and his employers have done better 
and his profits have gone up, but in Massachusetts the economy has done 
better, more people have been working, less people have been using the 
emergency room, and more employers are covering their employees. And in 
fact, that's what it is. The facts certainly outweigh all the 
speculation and the myth and the fearmongering that we see going on.
  There are millions of people who are already taking advantage of the 
Affordable Care Act. One of those in my district is Terry Palary, whose 
son is a firefighter who's working towards his paramedic certificate 
and who has to spend hundreds of hours in an internship that's not paid 
for. He's 23 years old. He wouldn't have health insurance under his 
father's plan if this bill the Republicans propose were to go through. 
And some 3 million other young Americans wouldn't be covered on health 
insurance plans as well. This is misguided legislation that would end 
that kind of a benefit.
  It would also mean the end of a meaningful consumer protection like 
the 80/20 provision, where we force insurance companies to actually do 
something they hadn't been doing: covering health care. Providing 
health care services instead of paying bonuses. Executive salaries that 
are through the roof. And advertising and other costs--anything but 
health care on that. It's estimated that some 12.8 million Americans 
are going to receive more than $1.1 billion in rebates because of that 
provision alone.
  It would also see, if this bill to repeal passed, 360,000 small 
businesses would no longer get the business tax credits. They would no 
longer be able to cover some 2 million employees.
  This list goes on and on. We can show you example after example of 
people who have fallen through the doughnut hole--those seniors--for 
coverage that are now being protected by the Affordable Care Act. Let's 
find out what we can do about jobs. Let's stop this 31st attempt to 
repeal an act that that's not going to be repealed and get the American 
people back to work.
  Mr. KLINE. I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a distinguished member 
of the committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri).
  Mr. PETRI. Today, I rise to support the repeal of President Obama's 
health care law. I support health care reform that ensures that all 
Americans have access to affordable health care. However, I believe the 
health care law is fundamentally flawed in its approach and will only 
make worse our skyrocketing high health care costs and Federal deficit. 
A study last month found the cost of health care services is expected 
to rise 7.5 percent in 2013.
  I'm also very concerned about the law's negative effects on job 
creation. I have met with hundreds of employers in my district and hear 
constantly how the mandates and uncertainties created by the law are 
discouraging hiring. The report issued by the investment research firm 
UBS last September said that the health care law was ``arguably the 
biggest impediment to hiring.''
  We need the right reforms to eliminate waste throughout the system 
and reward high quality, low-cost care. We should be choosing 
approaches which give consumers incentives to use their health care 
dollars wisely. Instead, we're going in the opposite direction by 
turning decisions over to the government.
  I support this bill and would urge all my colleagues to work together 
to implement real reform to ensure every American has access to 
affordable health care.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.
  We share the gentleman from Wisconsin's concern about squeezing down 
health care costs. The record shows that since the Affordable Care Act 
was enacted, growth in Medicare costs, which had been 8 percent 
annually, has fallen to 6 percent annually by stopping giveaway 
corporate welfare profits

[[Page 11001]]

to insurance companies and other waste while increasing Medicare 
benefits.
  I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to a Member who understands that 
being a woman should never mean paying higher premiums or being a 
preexisting condition, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Woolsey).

                              {time}  1750

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Our ranking member today has proven something that's 
very clear to me: this is baloney. The arguments are baloney. So 
baloney, baloney, baloney. We're here, Mr. Speaker, standing on the 
House floor for the 31st time with the majority serving more baloney 
regarding the Affordable Care Act.
  They haven't brought a single jobs bill to the floor; but for the 
31st time in the last year and a half, they are voting to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act.
  This is just another political show, act XXXI in the Republican 
theater of the absurd. In a moment when what we need is real leadership 
to tackle serious challenges, I'm still waiting for the majority's 
constructive ideas on health care. But all I hear are crickets. This 
leaves me to conclude that they truly prefer a health care system in 
crisis--millions uninsured and out-of-control costs crushing families 
and small businesses. They must believe that it's okay for insurance 
companies to deny you coverage because of a preexisting condition and 
particularly to charge you more if you are a woman. They are obviously 
against seniors saving on prescription drug costs, and they are against 
increased access to preventive care.
  We need to strengthen these reforms instead of dismantling them. The 
Affordable Care Act is the beginning, not the end. Actually, for nearly 
a half century, Medicare has provided coverage to seniors and those 
with disabilities in a fair, cost-efficient way. So maybe, just maybe, 
it's time to give every American those same benefits. We could do that 
by passing Medicare ``E,'' ``Medicare for Everyone.''
  Enough baloney, because it's time for the wealthiest Nation in the 
world to provide health care for all.
  Mr. KLINE. I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to a very 
distinguished member of the committee, the gentlelady from Illinois 
(Mrs. Biggert).
  Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my strong support for H.R. 6079, 
to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Whether it's 
dropped coverage, higher costs or lost jobs, the unintended 
consequences of this legislation continue to add up. And now that the 
Supreme Court has declared the individual mandate to be a tax, we know 
that this law contains over 20 distinct tax increases.
  We cannot continue to ignore the impact of this law on jobs while 
millions of Americans remain out of work. Nor should we cut $500 
billion from Medicare or leave in place new rules that the CBO 
estimates will eliminate employer-sponsored insurance for millions of 
Americans.
  Instead of tinkering with broken pieces, we should take the cleaner 
route, repeal the law, and end policies that are raising costs. In 
their place, we can enact consensus-driven, bipartisan solutions that 
Democrat leaders have ignored in the past. At the same time, there's no 
reason we can't maintain coverage for preexisting conditions and young 
adults.
  Let's give the Americans what they want: lower costs, access to 
quality care, and more choice. We can do that through the association 
health plans for small businesses, by allowing consumers to buy 
insurance across State lines, and by extending health savings accounts. 
And we must move forward on commonsense legislation to curb junk 
lawsuits that drive up costs and force doctors to practice expensive 
defensive medicine.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in repealing this 
regrettable law. Then we can put our focus back on effective reforms 
that will deliver lower costs without putting the government between 
patients and their doctors.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, we continue to hear this charge that there's $500 
billion in Medicare cuts in the health care bill. Here are the facts: 
the new law eliminates a corporate welfare subsidy for certain health 
insurance companies and goes after some wasteful Medicare practices. 
All the Republican speakers who have spoken today must agree with those 
cuts because every single one of them has voted for every single one of 
those cuts in the last two Ryan Republican budgets. Every dollar of 
Medicare savings in the Health Savings Act is in the last two 
Republican budgets.
  I am pleased at this time to yield 2 minutes to someone who 
understands the benefit of families' being able to keep their sons and 
daughters on health insurance policies until they're 26, my friend and 
colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey who is 
so expert in these matters.
  Matt from West Windsor wrote me:

       I graduated from college this past May and am currently 
     working at a job with new health insurance. I have a 
     preexisting condition, and, shockingly, I truly would be 
     without insurance and in big trouble if this legislation is 
     reversed.

  Carolyn from East Brunswick contacted me to say she had been laid off 
and her COBRA benefits were about to expire. At age 25 and because of 
the Affordable Care Act, she can enroll as a dependent on her father's 
Federal employee benefits plan.
  Mary from Princeton wrote:

       Our son has cystic fibrosis and he would be subject to both 
     the lifetime cap on benefits and the denial because of 
     preexisting conditions were it not for the provisions of the 
     health reform.

  Many people in New Jersey tell me they need those things that the 
health reform law does for them, including protections against premium 
increases, as well as many others, like coverage for young adults, 
ensuring that people with preexisting conditions have access to health 
insurance and the elimination of lifetime limits.
  Now, the majority here who are trying to repeal this law say they 
want to keep those provisions. I say get real. You cannot repeal the 
law and still have the provisions of the law in effect.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the 
committee, the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Wilson).
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. I would like to thank Chairman Kline 
for yielding.
  I am thankful for his leadership on this very important issue 
promoting limited government and expanding freedom.
  Due to the passage of ObamaCare, America is set to experience the 
largest tax increase in our Nation's history which destroys jobs. Over 
the past year and a half, House Republicans have voted over 30 times to 
repeal, defund, or dismantle the President's job-destroying health care 
takeover. If this law remains on the books, 21 new or increased taxes 
will be imposed on the American people and small businessowners. 
Already, the 2,700-page bill has generated over 13,000 pages of mind-
boggling regulations destroying jobs.
  Over the Fourth of July recess, I visited Columbus, Ohio, and read a 
very thoughtful editorial in The Columbus Dispatch entitled 
``Placebo.'' The article states:

       The law creates headaches for businesses of all sizes that 
     are likely to create a continuing drag on the economy and job 
     creation. Small businesses employing close to 50 people will 
     resist adding more workers since 50 is the threshold at which 
     the law requires them to provide health care or pay a penalty 
     or tax.

  Throughout the past 3 years, the President and the liberal controlled 
Senate have pushed government red tape stalling economic growth, just 
like the policies of ObamaCare. Our unemployment rate has remained at 
over 8 percent for 41 months. It is clear the President's liberal 
policies are destroying jobs.
  In order to put Americans back to work, we must start by repealing 
this overreaching bill and then vote for the

[[Page 11002]]

process of replacement by market reforms as developed by Chairman Tom 
Price of the Policy Committee.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 25 seconds.
  The gentleman just said this is the largest tax increase in American 
history. Here is the record: there are two kinds of people who will pay 
higher taxes under this law. Ninety-seven percent of American families 
won't pay one dime of tax increases under this law. The first family 
that pays a tax increase is a family with a gross income in excess of 
about $300,000 a year. It's about 1 percent, maybe 2 percent, of the 
U.S. households. The second is a person who can afford health 
insurance, who elects not to buy it, who uses the emergency room and 
expects his or her neighbors to pay their bill. That's not the largest 
tax increase in American history.
  At this time, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a gentlelady who 
understands who gets hurt if this law gets repealed, the gentlelady 
from San Diego, Mrs. Davis.

                              {time}  1800

  Mrs. DAVIS of California. Mr. Speaker, here we are debating for the 
31st time to repeal health care reform. But again, repeal would be a 
tragedy for America.
  Repeal would mean that children with preexisting conditions would 
lose their health care coverage.
  Repeal would mean that 86 million Americans will no longer have 
access to free preventative care services.
  Repeal would mean seniors would no longer save money on their 
prescription drugs.
  Repeal would mean that 16 million middle class Americans would not 
get tax credits to pay for their health care.
  Repeal would mean that my constituent's sister who had breast cancer 
would still lose her house due to excessive medical bills because she 
could not afford health insurance.
  Repeal would mean that my constituent who had successful ovarian 
cancer treatment years ago would still not be able to purchase health 
insurance because of her preexisting condition.
  There are millions of Americans who are fortunate enough to have 
health insurance they actually like, and they ask me why they should 
support reform. Well, first, this economic downturn should have taught 
us all that we are just one pink slip away from losing our health 
insurance. By allowing the unemployed to purchase affordable insurance, 
health care reform changes that.
  Second, the uninsured, who have no other choice but to use the 
emergency room as a primary care office, drastically raise hospital 
rates for the rest of Americans who do have insurance. As a result, the 
insured are paying substantially higher premiums, and a mere trip to 
the hospital to rule out an appendicitis costs $5,000. By requiring 
that everyone who can afford it have health insurance, health care 
reform changes that.
  Small business owners in my district concerned about the new mandates 
in health care reform ask me why they should support it. These small 
business owners have always wanted to offer their employees health 
coverage, but they haven't been able to do so because the cost has been 
high and unpredictable. Health care reform changes that. Now small 
businesses have a risk pool for more stable and affordable premiums.
  What repeal really means, Mr. Speaker, is that affordable health 
care, now within reach for so many Americans, would become a distant 
dream.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, can I inquire as to the time remaining on 
each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Renacci). The gentleman from Minnesota 
has 17 minutes. The gentleman from New Jersey has 16\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota, the chairman of 
the Education and Workforce Committee, for yielding me this time and 
for his leadership in combatting this terrible bill in the aftermath of 
a very disappointing Supreme Court decision, ruling that sometimes what 
we all thought and were told was a penalty is now a tax, but sometimes 
it's not a tax, it's a penalty. First time in the history of the United 
States Supreme Court, in over 200 years of decisions, that a device has 
been called both a penalty and a tax at the same time. Very 
disappointing, and here's what it leaves American citizens with. This 
is your new health care system: more than 150 new government agencies 
and programs.
  I was called by PolitiFact a couple of months ago, and they said, 
Where do you get that 150 new government agencies and programs? We sent 
them a list of 158 new government agencies and programs with the page 
number of the bill and the section number of the statute, and we've 
never heard back from PolitiFact. I'm disappointed. I thought we were 
going to see one of those arrows pointing all the way over to the far 
right saying, ``True.''
  And it is true. Not only do we get 150 new agencies and programs, we 
get 400 new authorities for the Secretary of Health and Human Services 
and other bureaucrats here in Washington to dictate to families and 
businesses, large and small, to local governments and State 
governments, to insurance companies, to health care providers what your 
insurance policy is going to look like, which means you won't be able 
to keep the insurance that you like now and that you were promised you 
could keep by the President once upon a time. No, no, siree.
  We already have 12,000 pages of new regulations that have been 
written, and they haven't even covered about half of those 400 new 
mandates, new regulatory authorities that they can write regulations 
on.
  It's going to cost $2 trillion over 10 years, a half a trillion 
dollars in cuts to Medicare, over $800 billion in new taxes, including 
a quarter of a trillion dollars in taxes on middle-income Americans.
  The fact of the matter is this monstrosity needs to be repealed. Vote 
for this legislation and repeal it today.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Two points with respect to my friend from Virginia's comments:
  This tax, once again, 97 percent of American families don't pay a 
dime more in taxes here. It's families with a gross income in excess of 
about $300,000 a year and people who can afford health insurance, opt 
not to buy it, and send their neighbors the bills.
  These regulations my friend talks about, here's what one of the 
regulations says:
  If your health insurance company--which doesn't really have to 
compete for your business because they have a monopoly or oligopoly--
doesn't spend money on your premiums, at least 80 or 85 percent, they 
have to give you the money back as a rebate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. ANDREWS. I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.
  This summer, millions of American families will be getting rebates 
from their health insurance companies because they haven't spent their 
money on care; they spent it on profit and overhead. We don't think 
that's such a bad regulation.
  Mr. Speaker, in the interest of time, I think my friend, the 
chairman, has more speakers than we do, so we're going to have them go 
two for our one to kind of keep it even, if that's okay with my friend, 
the chairman.
  Mr. KLINE. I appreciate my friend having me do that, and we're glad 
to comply, Mr. Speaker. So at this time, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute 
to another member of the committee, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Thompson).
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, prior to Congress, I spent 
nearly three decades as a professional in a nonprofit health care 
setting, and in health care there's a saying: Do no harm. 
Unfortunately, ObamaCare violates this principle.
  The President promised that his plan would decrease annual premium 
rates for the average family; they've actually increased.

[[Page 11003]]

  The law creates an employer mandate that provides a perverse 
incentive for companies to drop their employees from health plans.
  The law wastes money on so-called ``demonstration'' programs in order 
to conceal the law's scheduled cuts to Medicare Advantage, a blatant 
attempt to isolate the President from the political fallout from our 
Nation's seniors in November.
  The administration insisted that failure to comply with the 
individual mandate would not result in a tax. Well, it's official. It's 
a tax.
  The American people are fed up. Why? Another check was written that 
cannot be cashed, more promises were made that cannot be kept.
  Mr. Speaker, we must protect the American taxpayer. We must prevent 
this policy from doing more harm. We must repeal this law.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.
  My friend from Pennsylvania just made reference to the employer 
mandate. It's very important that the public know and the Members know 
that if a business has 50 or fewer full-time employees, what they have 
to do under the Affordable Care Act is nothing. There is no mandate of 
any kind for a business with fewer than 50 full-time employees.
  I'm pleased at this point to yield 2 minutes to a gentlelady who 
fought hard for senior citizen rebates and prescription drugs, the 
gentlelady from Cleveland, Ohio (Ms. Fudge).
  Ms. FUDGE. Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose H.R. 6079.
  Republicans in Congress need to stop the political grandstanding, 
stop wasting this House's time and the taxpayers' money, and start 
doing the work we were elected to do. There are critical issues facing 
the American people that desperately need our attention.
  The middle class is asking Republicans: Where are the jobs? And what 
is their plan to stop outsourcing American jobs?
  We should and we must focus on legislation in this House that will 
strengthen our economy. Yet it seems like Groundhog Day, the same thing 
over and over and over again.
  The American people should know what it's going to mean to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act. Let me tell you what it means.
  It means that the Republicans support legislation that will make 
insurance company CEOs and executives richer.
  It means that Republicans support legislation that will deny the 
right of young adults to remain on their parents' insurance until age 
26.
  What it means is that the Republicans support legislation that will 
deny individuals with preexisting conditions the right to affordable 
health care.
  It means that Republicans support legislation that will raise 
prescription drug costs for our seniors and eliminate provisions that 
hold insurance companies accountable for double-digit premium 
increases.

                              {time}  1810

  It means that Republicans support legislation that will raise the 
taxes of hundreds of thousands of small businesses by eliminating the 
small business health care tax credit, which helped them afford health 
insurance for more than 2 million workers.
  And just for the record, The Washington Post Fact Checker has also 
concluded, and I quote, ``The health law will provide more tax relief 
than tax burden for middle class families.''
  Again, it says, ``The health law will provide more tax relief than 
tax burden for middle class families.''
  This repeal would mean that Republicans support legislation that will 
prevent eligible constituents from receiving the same health care 
coverage as Members of Congress. And I'm not sure why Republicans feel 
their constituents do not deserve the same access that they enjoy 
themselves. But by voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, that is 
exactly the message being sent to the people we represent.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the 
committee, the very distinguished gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. 
DesJarlais.
  Mr. DesJARLAIS. Mr. Speaker, I come to the House Floor today to call 
attention to yet another problem in this poorly drafted, 2,700-page 
job-killing bill.
  We all remember former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi's famous 
statement that they needed to pass the bill so we could find out what 
was in it. Today I stand here perplexed by not only what is in the bill 
but also what is not in the bill.
  When drafting ObamaCare, Democrats only gave authority for the IRS to 
offer premium tax credits to State exchanges. Well, many States are 
refusing to set up these exchanges, making it necessary for the Federal 
Government to create them. That is permissible within the law.
  Here is what is not: nowhere in the law does it give permission for 
those credits to be offered in federally-run exchanges. Mr. Obama, 
having recognized this grave mistake, has circumvented Congress by 
having the IRS unilaterally change his bill to fix this error.
  Last time I checked, it was Congress that made laws, not the 
executive branch. The legislative process should still have meaning in 
this country, which is why my colleague and fellow Tennessee physician 
Dr. Phil Roe and I recently introduced legislation which prevents the 
administration from rewriting the law. Even my colleagues who support 
the President's law will surely agree that his administration's actions 
lead us down a dangerous constitutional path.
  My opposition to ObamaCare is clear. That aside, having a President 
act without Congress to change law sets a dangerous precedent, one that 
violates the principles of our Constitution and the separation of 
power, principles that are the pillars of our democracy.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  My friend's comments echo ones we've heard for the last 2 years about 
the unconstitutionality of the law. The Supreme Court spoke with great 
authority to that question. People may agree or disagree with the 
policy, but this law is clearly constitutional and valid.
  I am pleased at this time to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), the author, the originator of the 
discrimination provisions against preexisting conditions, the gentleman 
that really initiated that.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Andrews, for your leadership in this 
debate here this evening.
  We've heard a lot of misleading comments about the so-called damage 
that has been done to U.S. employers as a result of the Affordable Care 
Act. Well, the people who make those statements forgot to ask the 5,200 
American employers who stampeded into the Affordable Care Act's early 
retiree reinsurance program, over half of the Fortune 500 companies in 
this country included in that group, some of whose corporate logos are 
on the chart here.
  And rather than causing problems with new employment, again, just 
looking at Ford Motor Company, they've added 7,000 workers this year to 
the ranks of their assembly plants, obviously using the benefit of the 
early retiree program, which acts as a Federal backstop for high 
insurance claims, a principle and a pattern that we have used for flood 
insurance, that we've used for nuclear power plant insurance, again, 
using the Federal Government as a backstop for high cost claims. And 
again, companies like Comcast, who are hiring in my district, have all 
taken advantage of this program.
  Individuals who make these claims have also forgotten to ask the 
360,000 small businesses that last year took advantage of the small 
business tax credit, a 35 percent tax credit on health insurance 
premiums. That number is going to go up to 50 percent starting in 2014.
  And as Mr. Andrews has repeatedly pointed out here tonight, there is 
no mandate on businesses or firms 50 or less. That's 96 percent of 
small businesses in America. But there will be a tax credit to help 
those firms actually

[[Page 11004]]

defray the cost because, as a former small employer myself, small 
employers want to provide benefits. The problem is that they have 
trouble affording it, and the tax credit set up in the Affordable Care 
Act will help those small businesses defray the costs and entice and 
enroll new employees in their businesses who are looking for those 
types of the benefits.
  So the fact of the matter is that with the job growth that we have 
seen, again, we need more. But with the job growth over the last year 
and a half since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, we have 
helped businesses, 5,200 employers who are using the early retiree 
insurance programs, including nonprofits, religious institutions, and 
public sector employers across the country, and 360,000 small 
businesses who've taken advantage of that tax credit.
  We need to build on that success and grow this economy. Let's skip 
this debate and move on to real jobs legislation.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  We've heard a couple of times today from my distinguished friend and 
colleague from New Jersey and again from the well about how small 
employers aren't affected by this. If you have 50 or fewer employees, 
you have to do absolutely nothing. But of course if you have 51, if you 
hire just one more employee, you have to pay $42,000 in penalties, I 
mean taxes, or whatever that is after the Supreme Court ruling.
  It's having an impact on our employers. There's a reason why they're 
not hiring. There's a reason why they're scared, and there's a reason, 
frankly, why they want us to repeal this awful piece of law.
  I am now pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, a 
physician, the distinguished gentleman from Indiana, Dr. Bucshon.
  Mr. BUCSHON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to 
support repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It's ironic that this 
legislation is called ``affordable,'' because in my home State of 
Indiana it will be anything but affordable.
  What's in it?
  How about 21 new taxes, most of which hit the middle class. The law 
has generated and will continue to generate thousands of pages of 
regulation to comply with, and establishes taxpayer-subsidized 
exchanges that are predicted to be overwhelmed when employers start 
dropping their private policies for their employees. Paying the penalty 
will just be more cost-effective for these employers.
  In Indiana, there will be approximately 500,000 additional Medicaid 
enrollees in 2014, and by 2024 there will be approximately 700,000 
additional enrollees compared to today.
  Medicaid is already a broken, financially-strapped program that does 
not provide good insurance coverage for its beneficiaries. Why would we 
use Medicaid as the vehicle to provide coverage?
  Access to physicians will continue to be a significant challenge, as 
fewer and fewer physicians take Medicaid. The additional cost will be 
2.5 to $3.1 billion to Indiana's Medicaid expenditures. Once the 
Federal subsidies end, State taxes will have to be increased 
dramatically or, more likely, reimbursement to providers, hospitals, 
and physicians will need to be cut. This will result in further access 
issues for beneficiaries, as even more doctors drop out of the program.
  As the number of Indiana residents depending on the exchanges for 
their insurance grows, the cost to the Federal taxpayer will grow 
rapidly. Either taxes will have to be increased or again, more 
probably, reimbursement to providers will be cut.
  We now have a new group of citizens, many of whom previously had 
private health coverage, that are dependent on a government program 
that is financially strapped. Access to providers will begin to become 
an issue.
  The ACA is a financial snowball rolling down the hill. We must repeal 
it before it's too late. We need step-by-step, patient-centered health 
care reform that decreases the cost while maintaining the access to and 
quality of medical care in this country.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The gentleman from Indiana just said that this would be where taxes 
would hit the middle class. I wish that were true in some ways because 
the people this hits are people with a household income of over 
$300,000 a year. I wish more people in the middle class made more than 
$300,000 a year, but they do not.
  And then secondly, with respect to Medicaid enrollees, for the first 
3 years the Federal Treasury picks up 100 percent of that cost. And 
thereafter, the average is about 95 percent of the cost of the new 
enrollees. This is a benefit to State governments, and I predict that 
virtually all of them will opt to join in.

                              {time}  1820

  At this time, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a gentleman who 
understands the impact on hardworking families being able to get 
affordable health care in this country, the gentleman from Missouri 
(Mr. Carnahan).
  Mr. CARNAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I oppose the Republicans' attempt to 
repeal the new health care law.
  When people in St. Louis go to work, they want fair pay for a day's 
work. When they buy dinner on the way home, they expect to pay a fair 
price. They don't expect to get gouged because the chef needs a new set 
of golf clubs. Yet those are examples of what has happened in the 
health care industry. Private health insurance premiums are rising 
faster than Medicare costs in order to provide the same services. 
Bonuses, advertising, overhead have crowded out dollars for actual 
health care.
  The Affordable Care Act, or the ACA, changes that.
  Now, by law, 80 percent of private insurance premiums must be spent 
on paying for health care. Some companies cannot or will not lower 
overhead and profits to 20 percent. So this year they will be forced to 
pay refunds of more than $170, on average, to more than 580,000 
residents in my State of Missouri.
  So, Mr. Speaker, for those who have stood up for health care today, I 
stand with them. The Republican idea is to go backward to the broken 
system of the past. They are trying to end insurance for kids with 
preexisting conditions; to end the protection from prescription drug 
costs; to end free mammograms; to end the affordability tax credits for 
small businesses; to end refunds from insurance companies that don't 
spend enough on health care.
  Let's call this Republican repeal bill what it is. This is a 
distraction from addressing the jobs agenda of this country. Let's get 
past this Republican stunt. Let's get back to work on things we can do 
together to continue to grow this economy.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I inquire again as to the time remaining on 
both sides.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Minnesota has 10 minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from New Jersey has 9\1/4\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield 1 minute to a 
member of the committee, the distinguished gentlelady from South Dakota 
(Mrs. Noem).
  Mrs. NOEM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support this bill, which would repeal 
the President's health care law.
  We've known all along that this bill will cut a half a trillion 
dollars out of Medicare. We've known all along that up to 20 million 
Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health care coverage. 
We've known all along that this health care law has only made costs go 
up rather than go down or decrease since its passage. However, we now 
know that buried within the 2,700 pages of this bill is yet another tax 
that is going to hit and fall on the middle class. This is in addition 
to the nearly two dozen tax increases already in the law on everything 
from over-the-counter prescription medication to pacemakers.
  The American people were given a laundry list of promises, but very 
little of what was promised has turned out to be true. We owe it to 
every taxpayer,

[[Page 11005]]

to every senior--to every American--to repeal this law and to pass real 
solutions that don't put Washington in charge of our health care.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds.
  The gentlelady just talked about cutting a half a trillion dollars 
from Medicare. The fact is that the Affordable Care Act extends the 
life of Medicare for 8 years. It adds benefits for seniors and, more 
interestingly, the cuts that were made which take corporate welfare 
money away from insurance companies and avoid waste were voted on in 
favor by every Republican who has spoken today because every dollar of 
those cuts was used in the last two Republican budgets.
  At this time, I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a gentleman who 
has been a leader in health care for a long time and who understands 
just how much his district has benefited from affordable health 
insurance, my good friend from California (Mr. Farr).
  Mr. FARR. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I've been listening to this debate, not just at this moment but 
throughout the whole health care debate. It just kind of shocked me. 
Why are the Republicans so angry with a bill that, essentially, they 
wrote?
  It was the Republicans who wanted to mandate that every person in the 
United States carry private health care insurance. The bill does that. 
It was the Republicans who wanted to make sure that people who were 
cheating on Medicare got busted--no free ride. The bill does that. It 
was the Republicans who said people ought to help themselves by being 
healthier--eating better, taking care of their health, and exercising 
more. The bill encourages that.
  So why are you so angry about a bill that has so much Republican 
writing in it?
  And it struck me: Do you remember at the beginning of this year they 
said, We want to defeat the President--no matter what--even if he signs 
into law our ideas. That's it. He signed into law an awful lot of 
Republican ideas, and they can't stand it.
  What I want to tell you is don't listen to the rhetoric down here. Go 
check for yourself. You can go to www.healthcare.gov. Go to your State. 
Go to your county. Put in some information about yourself. Find out for 
yourself. Check the facts. It's there. It will tell you what you get 
and what you don't get.
  Look, there are so many good things that this bad repeal is trying to 
do that it's going to take away affordability, that it's going to take 
away access, that it's going to take away what Americans have been 
asking for for over 100 years. Let's keep it. Let's make it work.
  Mr. KLINE. I would now like to yield 2 minutes to another member of 
the committee, the gentlelady from Alabama (Mrs. Roby).
  Mrs. ROBY. I thank the chairman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6079, the Repeal of 
Obamacare Act, of which I am a proud cosponsor. Of course, on March 23, 
2010, President Obama signed into law the largest health care overhaul 
in the history of the United States. Sadly, it is less about providing 
quality health care for all citizens and more about expanding the scope 
of Federal Government.
  The law failed to address the number one health care concern that 
families and employers have, and that's cost. As I've been sitting here 
and have listened to the debate, under the individual mandate, each 
individual absolutely will be penalized or taxed--we'll call it a tax 
because the Supreme Court did--if in America--this free country--that 
person chooses to remain uninsured or to purchase health care that is 
not government-approved, and this is regardless of one's income.
  Despite the Supreme Courts's ruling, a significant number of 
Americans continue to oppose ObamaCare, and they are encouraging 
Congress to take immediate action. Americans and their doctors, not 
Federal bureaucrats and politicians, are in the best position to 
determine which health care options best meet their individual needs. 
Regardless of the Court's decision, many problems within the law remain 
present, many of which have a significant impact on small businesses. 
The American people do not want a one-size-fits-all health care system 
that imposes numerous mandates, regulations, and tax hikes on employers 
and employees. This will be devastating not just to my home State of 
Alabama but also to the Nation.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to improve our health care system by implementing market-based 
reforms that actually lower costs, increase access, and maintain a high 
quality of care for all Americans. I urge my colleagues to listen to 
the voices of the American people and to support H.R. 6079.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  My friend from Alabama, in describing the individual mandate which 
Republicans have supported for years, said that it's imposed 
irrespective of income. That's not accurate. If you're on Medicaid, the 
mandate, of course, is covered by Medicaid. There is also a hardship 
exemption for someone who can demonstrate that he can't afford it, and 
he is given a subsidy. There is also a religious conscience exemption.
  At this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who 
worked very hard to make sure that small businesses and entrepreneurs 
were aided by this bill and not hurt by it, the gentleman from Colorado 
(Mr. Polis).
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, in this bill before us today, there are 
several provisions about which I think the American people would be 
very angry, and they will be very angry when they find out what this 
body is up to.
  In this bill before us today, Members of Congress would be able to 
maintain their government-subsidized health care after they retire 
instead of getting insurance, like everybody else, from a plan created 
under the Affordable Care Act.

                              {time}  1830

  Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, Members of Congress were 
eligible to continue to receive government subsidized health insurance 
under the Federal employees health benefits program, even after they 
retired. This bill before us today would return that benefit and would 
give government subsidized health insurance to Members of Congress, 
even as it took it away from millions of other Americans. Members of 
Congress should not have access to special health insurance plans paid 
for by American taxpayers, as Republicans would have us do under this 
bill.
  In addition, this bill would increase the deficit. We don't know by 
how much. It could be $143 billion or it could be $230 billion. The 
issue is we won't even have that estimate until July 23. Once we have 
that estimate, it should be important for the Republicans, if they 
intend to modify this bill, to say how they're paying for it and be 
honest with the American people. Are the Republicans in favor of 
increasing the deficit by $150 billion and at the same time giving 
lifetime retiree health care benefits to Members of Congress, or do the 
Republicans intend to pay for this repeal by increasing taxes on the 
American middle class?
  I urge a ``no'' vote on this Republican bill to give benefits to 
Members of Congress and to raise taxes on the middle class.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to another member of the 
committee, an emergency room physician, the very distinguished 
gentleman from Nevada, Dr. Heck.
  Mr. HECK. I thank the chair.
  Mr. Speaker, just because a law is constitutional, it doesn't mean 
it's a good law. Just because a law is well intentioned, it doesn't 
mean that it fulfills its promises.
  As a physician, I've heard firsthand from patients who have serious 
concerns about the so-called Affordable Care Act, that it would 
actually reduce access to affordable high quality health care by 
enacting substantial new taxes, creating thousands of pages of new 
regulations, and most alarmingly, putting unelected, unaccountable 
government bureaucrats in between patients and their doctors.

[[Page 11006]]

  Millions of Americans were assured that if they liked their health 
plan, they could keep it. Yet, our committee has heard testimony from 
businesses large and small that the increased costs of providing health 
coverage for employees is simply unsustainable. I've talked with 
business owners in my own district that want to continue to provide 
coverage for their employees, but the health care law is making that 
harder. These so-called ``small business tax credits'' phase out so 
quickly after you get above 10 employees or you start to increase wages 
that it's a disincentive to grow a business.
  Further, the Supreme Court's ruling highlights an uncomfortable truth 
for the law's supporters. This law stands only because the individual 
mandate is considered a tax, even though proponents repeatedly insisted 
it was not.
  Mr. Speaker, we were told Congress had to pass the bill to find out 
what was in it. What we found was a bait and switch of unprecedented 
proportions. I strongly believe that we should ensure that patients 
with preexisting conditions have affordable insurance options, that 
annual or lifetime limits don't prevent Americans from receiving the 
care and treatment they need, and that young adults have access to 
insurance, especially in difficult economic times. That's why I've 
introduced replacement legislation to do exactly that, without a 
government takeover of the system.
  We need to repeal this law and move forward with reasonable, 
bipartisan, patient-centered reforms that restore the government to its 
proper role in our health care system and ensure that our patients, 
their families, and their doctors have the ability to decide what care 
is most appropriate. It's for those reasons that I strongly urge 
support of H.R. 6079.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 40 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, we've done some research, and have been unable to find 
any occasion in the recent history of the House where a major piece of 
legislation has been brought to the floor where the Congressional 
Budget Office has not yet scored what it's going to cost. I think it's 
very important that Members understand this. No one can tell the 
Members of the House how much this repeal will add to the deficit. No 
one. When the first repeal came up in January of 2011, the 
Congressional Budget Office said it would add about $220 billion plus 
to the deficit to repeal the law. No one can tell us this afternoon how 
much this will add to the deficit.
  The Congressional Budget Office has said by about July 23 they will 
be able to answer that question, but we're in a huge hurry tonight. We 
have to pass this law this week because Mr. Cantor said the day of the 
Supreme Court decision that we're going to show how bold and decisive 
we were.
  Why should Congress vote on a bill when absolutely no one knows how 
much it's going to cost? I have not heard that answer from the majority 
side.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher).
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I rise in support of repeal.
  Mr. Speaker, when Republicans had control of Congress and the White 
House during the previous decade, we failed to address America's major 
health care problems, which were rising costs and a lack of access to 
health care for millions of hardworking Americans. So we Republicans 
didn't do the job.
  Never passing up a chance to expand the size and power of government 
over our lives, the Democrats have seized upon this opportunity to 
change the fundamental nature of health care in America. Instead of 
fixing the problem, they chose to change the system. It is significant 
to remember that even though there were serious issues that needed 
attention, most Americans at that time were satisfied with their health 
care coverage.
  Nevertheless, ObamaCare passed this House by seven votes and the 
Senate with no votes to spare. And nobody had read the whole bill. What 
disturbs me the most is the largest percentage of Americans who were 
satisfied already with their health care are going to find out to their 
dismay that the quality of their health care under ObamaCare will go 
down and the costs will go up.
  President Obama has promised those who are content with their current 
coverage that they could keep it. We now know that is not true.
  Mr. Speaker, when Republicans had control of Congress and the White 
House during the previous decade, we failed to address America's major 
healthcare problems, which were rising costs and a lack of access to 
insurance for millions of hardworking Americans. So, we Republicans 
didn't do the job. Never passing up a chance to expand the size and 
power of government over our lives, the Democrats have seized upon this 
opportunity to change the fundamental nature of healthcare in America. 
Instead of fixing the problem, they chose to change the system. It is 
significant to remember that, even though there were serious issues 
that needed attention, most Americans at the time were satisfied with 
their health coverage. Nevertheless, Obamacare was passed in this House 
by 7 votes, and passed by the Senate with no votes to spare. What 
disturbs me most: a large percentage of Americans, especially the ones 
already satisfied, are going to find out, to their dismay, that the 
quality of their healthcare under Obamacare will go down and the cost 
will go up.
  President Obama promised that those who are content with their 
current healthcare coverage could keep their insurance under Obamacare. 
It is now clear that's not true. Obamacare includes a provision 
imposing a tax on employers who cancel current coverage and dump 
employees into a government system. That tax is cheaper to the business 
than providing health insurance. So a large percentage of the American 
people will end up in the government system. This, then, takes the bulk 
of America out of a private system that has incentives built-in to 
bring down costs and improve quality and puts us into a government 
system, where inefficiency and bureaucracy are rampant.
  Obamacare is not just a step in the wrong direction. It is a race in 
the wrong direction. The government, pursuant to Obamacare's dictates, 
has already hired 16,000 new IRS agents to intimidate small business. 
Is that a good use of healthcare dollars?
  Let's commit ourselves to fixing the problems that confront us, by 
first undoing this behemoth bureaucratic nightmare that has been 
foisted upon us as a supposed solution.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, if I may engage the chairman. We have only 
one speaker left on our side. I assume he has the right to close. If it 
would be amenable to him, we're going to let him finish the rest of his 
speakers, and then I will close for our side.
  Mr. KLINE. Do I understand that the gentleman from New Jersey is the 
last and only speaker remaining?
  Mr. ANDREWS. The last and only.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I have two more speakers and myself.
  May I inquire as to the time remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Minnesota has 4 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from New Jersey has 5 minutes remaining.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy).
  Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons why we should 
all vote to repeal ObamaCare: the tax increases on middle class 
Americans and the debt that is going to be piled onto the next 
generation of Americans.
  But I want to talk about the impact of this legislation on our senior 
citizens, the impact this legislation is going to have on Medicare, and 
the fact that this bill takes $500 billion out of Medicare and uses 
that money for ObamaCare.
  The trustees at Medicare have indicated that Medicare will go 
bankrupt in 12 years. The CBO says it will go bankrupt in 8 years. Why 
we would take a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare for ObamaCare 
doesn't make sense.
  One of my biggest concerns is the Independent Payment Advisory Board, 
a board that is going to systematically look at where it can reduce 
reimbursements to doctors, hospitals, and clinics for Medicare 
reimbursements. If you reduce payments to doctors, hospitals, and 
clinics for seniors, you're going to impact the quality and access of 
care for our current seniors. Not a future generation, but our current 
seniors. I think that's wrong. I think both parties should come 
together and find a bipartisan bill that will work for all Americans.

[[Page 11007]]


  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  The changes in Medicare that the gentleman from Wisconsin just spoke 
about added 8 years to the life of Medicare, added benefits to 
Medicare. They were so bad that he voted for them twice. Every dollar 
of those Medicare savings were in the last two Republican budgets for 
which he voted.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Farenthold).
  Mr. FARENTHOLD. Mr. Speaker, our job as Representatives is twofold: 
we lead and we listen.
  If we think back to the last election that swept a Republican 
majority into the House, a lot of the surveys say that was a result of 
the public's dissatisfaction with this law. We voted to repeal all or 
parts of it multiple times and will continue to do so.
  We just conducted an online poll, a mail survey. Although not 
scientific, it still showed over 97 percent of the folks back in south 
Texas were opposed to this law. So I'm looking forward to voting to 
repeal it again, as I'm sure many of my colleagues are.
  I do want to take a second to address something that the gentleman on 
the other side of the aisle mentioned. We don't have a CBO score for 
this. I would imagine the cost to the Federal Government, a good chunk 
of it, is foregone revenue in the taxes that this bill imposes.

                              {time}  1840

  It makes no sense that undoing something actually costs the 
government money in the way of spending; it only costs the government 
in the way of foregone revenue, just like this bill has cost this 
economy in foregone jobs.
  We have numbers showing that there are thousands of jobs that could 
be lost as a result of this, and we have small businesses that are 
telling us they're not growing, they're not expanding because of the 
uncertainty associated with this law and the costs associated with 
complying with it.
  Mr. ANDREWS. I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the first time, apparently, in the modern 
history of the Congress where we voted on a major piece of legislation 
and not a soul knows how much it's going to cost the Federal treasury. 
I think that's an irregular and irresponsible procedure. I think on 
that basis alone people should vote against this bill.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Royce).
  Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I join with those that are concerned. I urge my colleagues to repeal 
this health care law so that we can replace it with a plan that is 
fiscally responsible, that gives Americans the freedom to make health 
care choices for their family, that contains reforms that actually 
reduce costs and actually expands coverage.
  My concerns here are with this 150 new government agencies that we're 
going to see, with what I believe will eventually lead to a government 
takeover of health care with the creation of a new, massive entitlement 
program with a cost of $1.76 trillion over the next decade. I know the 
argument is made, well, we're going to pay for this by cutting Medicare 
by over half a trillion dollars. How could that possibly be done, given 
the Office of the Actuary telling us that that's not possible. That is 
not possible.
  All of the taxes in this bill, how that will hurt business, I can 
tell you right now. Businesses are facing an enormous amount of 
uncertainty, largely because of our massive debt burden, and here we 
have compounded that problem with 20 taxes on businesses and 
individuals in this law.
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  The $1.7 trillion cost the gentleman just mentioned is a gross cost. 
The last time the CBO looked at this, which was in 2011, the first of 
31 attempts at repeal, they said that the net savings to the deficit 
would be over $200 billion. Repealing the health care bill costs the 
Federal treasury money and adds to the deficit.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KLINE. Is the gentleman ready to close?
  Mr. ANDREWS. Yes, we are. We have no further speakers.
  I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleagues on both sides for 
the civil and constructive tone of this debate. It's been an honor to 
be a part of it.
  I also want to note that the leader of our committee, Congressman 
Miller of California, is regrettably not with us because of the death 
of his mother. We extend our condolences to his family and certainly to 
our beloved colleague, George Miller.
  I want to speak for just a few minutes about some people who have 
been left out of this debate tonight. Most importantly, the people who 
have been left out of this debate are the people looking for a job in 
this country, are looking to grow business in this country, because 
that's what we should be working on here together tonight. We should be 
working on legislation that puts the American people back to work and 
creates an environment where America's entrepreneurs can grow and 
thrive and succeed.
  Instead of doing that, instead of asking Speaker Boehner's infamous 
question, ``Where are the jobs?'' we're asking, ``Where is the 31st 
vote on the repeal of the health care bill?'' By doing so, we're 
forgetting about some other people whose voices will not be heard in 
this Hall tonight but who need to be heard throughout this country.
  The person who had a malignancy in her breast when she was in her 
twenties and now, when she goes to start a company and get insurance in 
her thirties, is told, We won't sell you an insurance policy because 
you had breast cancer, or, We'll charge you three times what we charge 
someone else. That should be illegal. Under the law that the majority 
is going to repeal today, it is.
  We ought to be hearing from the family whose son or daughter 
graduated from college and is still working as a substitute teacher or 
still going to grad school part-time, who has health insurance today 
because the law says they can stay on their mother's or father's 
policy. That should be the law; and under the law the majority wants to 
repeal today, those families would lose that benefit.
  We ought to be hearing from the senior citizen who has to choose 
between paying their prescription drug bill or their utility bill at a 
time of a heat wave or a cold snap. They ought to be in a situation 
where the Medicare program helps to make those prescription drugs 
affordable; and under this law that the majority wants to repeal today, 
that senior is getting between $600 and $800 a year of a rebate.
  We ought to be thinking about the family who has suffered the tragedy 
of a malignancy for a child in their family, and the child hits their 
millionth dollar of chemotherapy and the insurance company says, We're 
sorry; we're not insuring you anymore; we're not paying the bill 
anymore. That ought to be illegal, and it is illegal under the 
Affordable Care Act. But if the majority succeeds in its repeal, that 
will no longer be the case.
  You have heard a lot of things today about what this bill isn't. It 
isn't a $500 million cut in Medicare. It expands Medicare benefits. It 
lengthens the Medicare trust. It does so by cutting out corporate 
welfare for health insurance companies. And every single Republican 
speaker here today voted for every one of those cuts in the last two 
Republican budgets.
  It's not the largest tax increase in American history. Ninety-seven 
percent of American families don't pay a dollar more in taxes under 
this bill. If your family has a gross income above about $300,000, yes, 
you do. But for the other 97 percent of American families, that's not 
the case.
  We've heard this is a government takeover of health care. This is a 
consumer takeover of health care.
  It's a law that says when your insurance company says to you, 
``Sorry, but you have had breast cancer. We won't insure you,'' you 
don't have to take that anymore.

[[Page 11008]]

  When your insurance company says, ``We're sorry your daughter has 
leukemia, but we're not paying her bills anymore,'' even though you 
paid your premiums for 20 years, you don't have to take that anymore.
  When the insurance company says, ``Here's a bill that's 40 percent 
higher because you're a woman,'' you don't have to take that anymore.
  This is not about defending a statute; it's about defending the 
rights of middle-class Americans who deserve better than this repeal.
  We should defeat this repeal and come right back to work tomorrow on 
a bill that will stop outsourcing and support insourcing of American 
jobs. It's time to get back to work putting America back to work and 
end the 31st travesty of trying to repeal this bill.
  Vote ``no.''
  Mr. KLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of the same debate, the same 
rhetoric we have heard before this bill was turned into law, passed on 
Christmas Eve, jammed through Congress. Now we have had a chance to 
look at the results of that law. The reality includes higher health 
care costs, fewer jobs, and even more government meddling in health 
care decisions of private citizens.
  We have now had over 12,000 pages of regulations and it is still 
writing. It's no wonder that America, American employers, American 
employees, American families are afraid of what's next.
  We have heard on this floor today a suggestion that everybody should 
be in Medicare. No wonder they are afraid. We have heard about millions 
of new jobs added, and yet we're in the most anemic recovery since 
World War II.
  We need jobs. We need to get Americans back to work. And we believe 
that the first important step to helping those employers put Americans 
back to work is to repeal this awful law.
  I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on repeal of ObamaCare so we 
can stop debating a failed law and start advancing real commonsense 
health care reforms.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1850

  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  Let me say it this way, Mr. Speaker. This bill barely passed into 
law. It was the biggest social legislation to pass into law in over 40 
years. Seven votes in the House, no votes to spare in the Senate, 
Christmas Eve, backroom deal, and it was based on three promises by the 
President of the United States. One, if you like the health insurance 
you have, you can keep it. That's a broken promise. Two, this will 
bring down our health care premiums. That's a broken promise. Three, 
there's no tax on people making less than $200,000 in this bill. That's 
a broken promise. Well, the President said, to get it passed, there was 
no tax. Then, he sent his lawyer to the Supreme Court to argue that it 
was a tax so he can keep it on the books.
  If any of these three broken promises were known to the public and to 
Congress at the time they were passing this law, the law would have 
never passed in the first place. We now have this information. Let's 
revisit this.
  With that, I look forward to a hardy debate with my good friend from 
Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
  What we're engaged in here in the House of Representatives right now 
is a total waste of taxpayer money. It's no wonder the American people 
think so little of this institution. We are now on our 31st effort in 
this House to repeal all or part of ObamaCare. We have not yet voted 
once on the President's jobs bill, which he presented last September.
  Two numbers. Thirty-one; that's the number of times this House will 
now have voted to repeal ObamaCare. Zero; that's the number of times 
that we voted on the President's jobs bill.
  I've been listening to this debate this afternoon and we've heard the 
same old, tired misrepresentations and distortions that we heard the 
first time around: Government takeover of health care. In the year 
2010, PolitiFact rated that the Lie of the Year. And it just goes on 
and on and on like whack-a-mole.
  The American people do not want to relitigate this issue. What the 
American people want us to do is focus on jobs and the economy. Let's 
get on with that business.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Texas, a member of the Budget Committee, 
Mr. Flores.
  Mr. FLORES. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the repeal of the 
ObamaCare Act. The original ObamaCare Act, which was passed in the 
middle of the night by the last Congress, without being read, has 
numerous fatal flaws.
  One, the worst of these is that it is a violation of our 
constitutional liberties.
  Two, it fails upon its primary goals of controlling costs and 
allowing Americans to keep their current health insurance coverage.
  Three, it hurts our hardworking taxpayers by adding over 20 new taxes 
costing over $800 billion.
  Four, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the 
CBO, it will cost our Nation's workers over 800,000 jobs.
  Five, in addition, now that the State Medicaid mandate has been ruled 
unconstitutional, those costs will increase by several hundred billion 
dollars over its already massive cost.
  Six, ObamaCare puts 15 unelected, unaccountable Federal bureaucrats 
between Americans and their health care providers.
  Seven, even though just partially implemented, it has caused health 
care insurance premiums across the country to increase dramatically.
  Eight, last but not least, ObamaCare is causing massive uncertainty 
for American business, hurting American job growth and our economy and 
the American middle class, adding pain to an already troubled Obama 
economy.
  Mr. Speaker, in light of these many flaws, it is time for Congress to 
do the right thing and to repeal this fatally flawed legislation. That 
is what H.R. 6079 does, simply put, and I urge my colleagues to support 
it.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, it's quite a scene to see so many of our colleagues rush 
to the floor of this House to call upon this Congress to deny the 
American people health care protections, patient protections, that 
every Member of this Congress has. If the child of a Member of this 
Congress has preexisting conditions, whether it's diabetes, whether 
it's asthma, their child gets covered. If their child is 25 years old 
and didn't happen to have health insurance, they can be covered on the 
health insurance plan. And yet this bill to repeal ObamaCare would deny 
to the American people the same kind of patient protections that every 
Member of this Congress enjoys.
  It's a sad day.
  With that, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania 
(Ms. Schwartz).
  Ms. SCHWARTZ. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this 
legislation.
  As so many of us know, 2 weeks ago, the Supreme Court upheld the 
Affordable Care Act, affirming the path forward to those consumer 
protections and to increase access to affordable health insurance 
coverage; for seniors to afford lifesaving medications; for the 17 
million American children who have preexisting conditions to receive 
coverage for the care that they need; the 30 million uninsured 
Americans to be able to afford coverage.
  Because of the Affordable Care Act, families will not go broke 
because of an illness, small businesses can afford coverage for their 
employees, and young adults, 6.6 million of them, can remain on their 
parents' insurance. Yet Republicans are continuing their politically 
motivated attempts to repeal health care reform instead of working to 
grow our economy and strengthen the financial security of America's 
middle class.
  Today is the 31st time Republicans have called for a vote to deny 
Americans access to affordable, quality

[[Page 11009]]

health coverage. This legislation reflects a clear decision by 
Republicans to put partisanship ahead of the pressing needs of our 
constituents and our country. Their actions are taking time and 
attention away from the work we should be doing. It's wasteful and it's 
misguided. Their actions are creating uncertainty and hurting our 
economic recovery and the security of middle class Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation and get to work on 
jobs and economic growth for our families, for businesses, and for our 
Nation, and stop this wasteful, unnecessary action.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Oklahoma, a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, Mr. 
Cole.
  Mr. COLE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare is unpopular, unworkable, and unaffordable. 
It's unpopular because it limits individual freedom and personal 
choice. It's unworkable because it relies on thousands of regulations, 
dozens of boards and commissions, and an unelected group of bureaucrats 
to distribute and ration care. We have the opportunity today to end a 
bill that's also unaffordable. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of 
taxes, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of raids on the Medicare 
fund.
  We can only take the first step here today. But in November, the 
American people can take the next step by electing a President and a 
Senate that will work with this House instead of against them to repeal 
what is a legislative monstrosity that should have never passed in the 
first place.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who just spoke, the 
gentleman from Oklahoma, called this bill unaffordable. We heard the 
debate a little bit earlier about what the nonpartisan Congressional 
Budget Office has said about this bill, the Affordable Care Act.

                              {time}  1900

  They say if you repeal the Affordable Care Act, it will increase the 
deficit over the next 10 years, and it will increase it by over $1 
trillion in the second 10 years. Yet, we have this bill on the floor 
today without even a fresh Congressional Budget Office estimate. So 
nobody knows how those numbers may or may not change.
  What we do know is that the last assessment that they give us is that 
the action that our Republican colleagues are proposing today would 
increase--increase--our national deficit. That is not fiscal 
responsibility.
  With that, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Minnesota 
(Ms. McCollum), a member of the Budget Committee.
  Ms. McCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen.
  This Republican Tea Party Congress is wasting America's time 
promoting the only issue they care about--their reelection. Today's 
vote is not about health care. It's a gimmick that panders to the Tea 
Party. This bill shows the Republican vision for health care is deny 
coverage, deny care, and deny the law of the land. If you have a child 
with a preexisting condition, possibly a life-threatening illness, this 
Republican plan means your child's health care insurance can be 
terminated. If you're a senior on Medicare, this Republican plan throws 
you back into the doughnut hole. The Republican plan repeals the Indian 
Health Care Improvement Act, harming Native children, families, and 
seniors all across Indian country.
  The Affordable Care Act is the constitutional law of the land, and it 
is a good law because Obama does care. President Obama and Democrats 
must continue to work to implement the law and extend quality, 
affordable health care to millions of Americans. And this Congress must 
get back to work putting America back to work.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself 30 seconds to 
simply comment.
  We know the CBO is going to give us a score perhaps in a couple of 
weeks, and it's going to be more expensive. That much we know. We know 
States will probably put more people on ObamaCare instead of Medicaid, 
which will cost more dollars. The only reason this bill ``on paper'' 
saves money is because they told CBO to score 10 years of tax increases 
of Medicare savings to pay for 6 years of spending.
  You can contort, distort, and torture statistics long enough, and 
eventually they will confess. That's what happened here. In reality, I 
have no doubt that this will be a budget buster.
  With that, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished member 
of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
McClintock).
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Chairman Ryan noted the false claims upon which ObamaCare was sold to 
the Congress, and I think they bear elaboration now that we know what 
is actually in it. It didn't bend the cost curve down. The Medicare 
actuary admitted to the House Budget Committee last year that it will 
add at least $300 billion more to our health care costs. It hasn't been 
good for the economy.
  The gentleman from Maryland asks for the Congressional Budget 
Office's opinion. They admitted to the House Budget Committee last year 
that, in fact, ObamaCare would cost our economy a net loss of 800,000 
jobs. They also told us if you like your plan, you can keep it. Well, 
the McKinsey's survey of employers reports that nearly one-third expect 
to drop their employees' health plans as a result of this law, like 
them or not.
  It seems to me three strikes and you're out. We need a system that 
puts patients back in charge, that provides tax reforms to put health 
care back within the reach of every American family and restores to 
them the freedom to make their own health care decisions without the 
interference of government bureaucrats.
  This bill is a necessary first step to get us there.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, just to respond to my friend, the 
chairman of the Budget Committee, with respect to the CBO estimate, if 
it was true that over the 10-year period you had tax revenue loaded in 
the way that would sort of so-called deceive the impact of the deficit, 
it would stand to reason it would get worse over the second 10 years. 
In fact, the deficit savings, in other words, the reductions to the 
deficit, is greater over the second 10 years, according to the 
Congressional Budget Office, than the deficit reduction over the first 
10 years. And if you repeal the bill, as the Republicans are proposing 
to do today, you will not only add to the deficit in the first 10 
years, but you'll add even more to the deficit over the 20-year period.
  I now yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlelady from Florida, a member 
of the Budget Committee, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because it's time to 
put an end to the pointless, partisan games. The Affordable Care Act 
has now been passed by a duly elected Congress, signed by the President 
and upheld as constitutional--despite the chagrin of our colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle and their best efforts--upheld as 
constitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
  More importantly, Americans, and particularly south Floridians, are 
already benefiting from this law. Thanks to the closing of the coverage 
gap, the doughnut hole, seniors in my district can now afford their 
prescription drugs instead of having to choose which ones they have to 
leave behind at the pharmacy because they can't afford to take them all 
home when they fall in the doughnut hole. And young adults have the 
security of staying on their parents' plan until the age of 26.
  As a cancer survivor and a mother, this law is important to me 
because through it, the nearly 4 million Floridians who don't currently 
have health insurance will be able to get the coverage that they need.
  Mr. Speaker, this is our 31st vote to repeal all or part of the 
Affordable Care Act. It is time to stop the tantrums, grow up and work 
together on Americans' number one priority--creating jobs and getting 
this economy turned around. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues and any colleague on either side of the aisle to focus on 
job creation, getting this economy turned

[[Page 11010]]

around, and focusing on Americans' number one priority, which certainly 
is not fruitlessly engaging in partisan bickering.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Oklahoma, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. 
Lankford.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. Speaker, Americans know more about this law now. 
Now that it's been sitting around for 2 years, we've had more time to 
be able to process it. Two years ago, the cost was estimated by CBO at 
$800 billion. Now it's estimated at $1.8 trillion. Americans were told 
that if you like your insurance, you can keep it. But now the 
administration estimates that up to 80 percent of the small employer 
plans will lose their grandfathered status and up to 64 percent of 
large employer plans will lose their grandfathered status and will have 
to be changed--of course at the end of 2013, after the election. They 
were told you can keep your doctor, but now we know that physician-
owned hospitals, their practice days are numbered since physician-owned 
hospitals are punished to protect the bigger hospital companies.
  We were told there are no new taxes on it, that this wasn't a tax 
bill. Now we know there are 20-plus different taxes on it. The supposed 
deficit reduction goes down in the days to come because there are so 
many new taxes that are built into it. Let me give you a couple of my 
favorites that are built into this: removing the deduction for people 
with high medical bills. Yes, there's a deduction if you have high 
medical bills. They move that cap up. So if you have high medical 
bills, you will pay more in taxes under this. How about the flexible 
spending account cap change? So if you have a special needs child that 
currently has special needs and you have that, your taxes will go up.
  Next year, the Independent Payment and Advisory Board will be 
introduced. Their sole function is to deny payment for certain 
procedures, determine which treatments are too expensive.
  Are there problems in health care delivery, yes--my family has 
multiple testimonies of that fact.
  It is not believable to say health care will be so much better, more 
efficient, more effective, if only we gave control to the Federal 
government.
  Let's repeal this bad law and get busy writing healthcare reform that 
actually focuses on the patient, not the bureaucracy.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 1 minute to the gentlelady 
from Alabama (Ms. Sewell).
  Ms. SEWELL. Mr. Speaker, with only 14 legislative days left before 
Congress lets out for the summer recess, I want to register my 
disappointment that my Republican colleagues are now willing to spend 
yet another hour--5 hours--for the 31st time in trying to repeal the 
Affordable Care Act. Instead of using this valuable time to put our 
country back on track by investing in job creation and stimulating 
economic growth, House Republicans have opted for divisive politics and 
partisan politics.
  I believe enough is enough. The American people deserve better, and 
frankly, my constituents expect better. Not only has the Affordable 
Care Act been passed in both Houses of Congress and signed by the 
President, it was upheld by the highest court in the land nearly 2 
weeks ago. By now, we should be moving forward and acknowledging the 
benefits of the Affordable Care Act, which the House Republican 
leadership cannot seem to grasp.
  In my district alone, the reality is that 77,000 seniors receive 
affordable prescription drugs now. The reality is that 36,000 children 
in my district can no longer be denied coverage for preexisting 
conditions.
  We must get back to the work of the people. I am reminded, once 
again, that we have 14 days left until recess. Please let's get back to 
the business of the House, which is getting people back to work.

                              {time}  1910

  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the vice 
chair of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Garrett).
  Mr. GARRETT. If one accepts all the contortions and flimsy reasoning 
of the Justice Roberts' opinion on the constitutionality of this law, 
it brings to light one important consequence: the President of the 
United States has not been straight with the American public.
  See, the Court justified the individual mandate by calling it a tax. 
Now, I side with the dissent in this, but the Supreme Court has spoken, 
and the Supreme Court has now put the President in a tight spot. See, 
the President of the United States has said repeatedly that no family 
making less than $250,000 will see any tax increase--not your payroll 
tax, not your income tax, not capital gains, not any tax. Even the OMB 
Director from this administration came to us and said there are no tax 
increases in this. Again and again the President has said this to us. 
But Justice Roberts said, yes, it is, it's a tax.
  Look, Mr. President, it's time that you be straight with the American 
public. We must repeal ObamaCare. It is a broken promise this country 
can't afford. If we don't, it will be the final nail in the coffin of a 
dynamic free enterprise system. And as Speaker Boehner once said, we 
must pull it out by its roots. And if we do, then we can plant the seed 
of real health reform in this country.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I think this whole conversation about 
tax or a penalty has gotten us a little bit into the silly season. If 
you go to the State of Massachusetts Web site and you look at the 
RomneyCare plan, what they say is that if you're able to afford 
insurance but decide not to get it, you will pay a penalty collected 
through the tax system--a penalty collected through the tax system.
  ObamaCare is modeled on RomneyCare. And as Governor Romney understood 
at one time, if you say to people who can afford health insurance, it's 
okay that you don't get it; just show up at the hospital and everybody 
else will pay your bill through their higher premiums or taxpayers who 
have to pay uncompensated care to hospitals, that's free-riding on the 
system. That's freeloading on the system. That's saying to every other 
person, every other taxpayer that other people should be responsible 
for paying for the health care bill of the person who chooses not to 
get health care coverage.
  Yes, if you can afford health care coverage but you decide to free-
ride on other people, then there's a little penalty under this bill 
just as there is under Governor Romney's proposal--a proposal, by the 
way, that was once widely supported by our Republican colleagues when 
they talked about the importance of personal responsibility and the 
importance of making sure that people who are going to use the health 
care system took some responsibility for paying for their health care 
system.
  I now yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
  Ms. KAPTUR. I'd like to thank Ranking Member Van Hollen.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise again to oppose the Republicans' destructive 
attempts to repeal the health care reform law, the 31st such attempt in 
this Congress.
  In Ohio already, the law has been making a difference for hundreds of 
thousands of people--middle class families--for over 2 years. Nearly 
100,000 young adults in Ohio have been able to remain on their parents' 
health insurance plan. In the first 5 months of this year, over 700 
seniors just in my home town of Toledo, Ohio, have collectively saved 
over a half a million dollars on prescription drug costs. Last year, 
1.2 million Medicare beneficiaries in Ohio received free preventive 
care from their doctor, like mammograms and colonoscopies.
  Insurance companies are now paying out over $11 million in rebates to 
Ohio families because the insurance companies did not spend enough on 
paying for health care. And over 4 million Ohioans, including 1.5 
million women and 1.1 million children, have seen their insurance 
companies drop the lifetime and annual limits on care they had 
previously imposed.
  The Republicans here in the House of Representatives are voting to 
take away all these benefits, and what is the

[[Page 11011]]

Republican plan to replace it? Nothing. The Republican plan to replace 
it is nothing.
  Mr. Ranking Member, I thank you so much for yielding me time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Rokita), a member of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. ROKITA. I thank the chairman.
  In my 18 months here, one thing has been clear and, that is, just 
like so many bills, this bill isn't just about the underlying subject.
  What this bill is about is controlling the individual. What this bill 
is about is government oversight, government control, government 
decision-making by bureaucrats hundreds of miles away from us over 
something that should be between us and our doctor.
  I do agree with the gentlewoman from Ohio, this bill, this law has 
already made a difference. The facts are clear. ObamaCare will add 
trillions of dollars in new taxes, increase our $16 trillion national 
debt by hundreds of billions of dollars, cause millions of Americans to 
lose their health insurance, destroy jobs, increase health premiums, 
impose new costs on States, and penalize American innovation. It's 
making a difference.
  In Indiana--I also agree with the gentlewoman from Ohio--in Indiana, 
it shows just how harmful this law will be to the Hoosiers I represent. 
For people purchasing insurance in Indiana's individual market, 
premiums are expected to increase 75 to 95 percent from 2014 to 2020. 
Since passage of ObamaCare, my State has seen five insurance carriers 
withdraw from the individual market, resulting in less choice and less 
competition for Indiana consumers.
  Indiana estimates that implementing and operating a federally 
mandated exchange would cost between $10.4 million and $18.3 million 
annually. Yes, Mr. Speaker, this law is making a difference--a bad 
difference.
  As the House votes again to repeal President Obama's unpopular health 
care law, the American people must continue to make their voices heard. 
End of story.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 
seconds.
  Mr. ROKITA. Personal health care decisions should be made between 
individuals and their doctors.
  ObamaCare passed more than 2 years ago. In the infamous words of the 
House leadership on the other side of the aisle at that time, we have 
now had a chance to see what's in it, and the fact remains: we do not 
like it.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield at this time 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Young), a member of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of 
the aisle keep saying we should focus on jobs. So let's look at how 
ObamaCare has impacted jobs and the economy.
  A few numbers: 48 percent of business owners say the potential cost 
of health care coverage under ObamaCare is the reason why they're not 
hiring additional workers; 74 percent of small businesses said the law 
will make it harder to hire new employees.
  States like my home State of Indiana would be hit particularly hard. 
Among the 21 new taxes found in ObamaCare, there is a 2.3 percent 
excise tax on the profits from medical device companies. Now, Indiana--
and southern Indiana in particular--is home to dozens of these 
businesses. It employs over 20,000 Hoosier jobs in its medical device 
sector.
  Now, because of the negative effect on our economy, we must start 
over and get health care reform done the right way--in the light of 
day, with bipartisan support, and with due deliberation. I hope we can 
do that. That's why I'm proud to cosponsor this first step, the Repeal 
Obamacare Act. I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle 
to support it too.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
distinguished lady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis).
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, let's review the top 10 reasons why 
ObamaCare is wrong for women:
  Higher insurance costs--that's already happening; 20 new taxes--
that's coming; the likely loss of your current insurance--we know 
that's coming; losing dependent coverage--that's already happening; 
employers losing rights of conscience over morally offensive 
procedures--already in litigation; the overwhelming of the Medicaid 
programs that are in States that participate in the extension; loss of 
control over family health care decisions; doctor shortages--a real 
concern in my State of Wyoming; employers cutting back work hours for 
their employees to 25 hours a week to avoid the costly mandate; loss of 
child-only health insurance policies; and, now, $210 billion added to 
the deficit over 10 years.

                              {time}  1920

  Mr. Speaker, Congress passed a bad law. The President signed a bad 
law. The Supreme Court upheld a bad law. Let's repeal it.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield myself the balance of the time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized 
for 3\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, during the debate over passage of the 
health care bill, ObamaCare, we heard a campaign of massive 
distortions. We heard it was going to create death panels--not true. We 
heard it was going to be a government takeover of health care. The 
independent PolitiFact called that the 2010 lie of the year. Now we 
hear it's going to wreak havoc on the economy, when the head of the 
Congressional Budget Office, our nonpartisan referee, just said 2 weeks 
ago that they don't think this bill's having any significant impact on 
the economy. And on and on and on.
  We heard from our Republican colleagues they were going to repeal and 
replace. We've now repealed this 31 times in the House--no replacement.
  And what does that mean? That's the status quo. Our colleagues make 
it sound like the status quo is just great in the health care system 
when the insurance companies got to run the show, when they got to deny 
kids coverage even if they had asthma or diabetes and preexisting 
conditions, when they got to say you're not covered if you're 22 years 
old, you can't stay on your parents' health care bill, when premiums 
doubled between 2000 and 2006 while insurance company profits 
quadrupled. That's what the Republicans are proposing to go back to.
  We continue to hear this distortion about Medicare. The reality is 
that we reduce some of the big taxpayer subsidies to the private 
Medicare plan. Some of them were being subsidized 140 percent of fee-
for-service; average subsidy, 114 percent. We used some of those 
savings to eliminate the prescription drug doughnut hole that seniors 
fell into, to eliminate many of the copays for preventive care 
services.
  Now, the Republican budget that every Republican in this House has 
voted for, that Mitt Romney has endorsed, they took all that $500 
billion in savings, every penny. But you know what? They didn't plow 
one penny back into strengthening Medicare benefits. They would reopen 
the prescription drug doughnut hole.
  So that's what this debate is all about, trying to make sure that we 
provide the best health care we can at the best price. And to witness 
this effort to deny patients across this country the same kind of 
patient protections that Members of this Congress have, I think, is 
something that the American people, when they focus on this, as they 
clearly are, will clearly reject.
  What we should be doing, instead of taking away from millions of 
Americans the kind of patient protections that Members of Congress 
have, what we should be doing is focusing on jobs and the economy. And 
it is a shame that, as we're going to vote tomorrow for the 31st time 
to repeal ObamaCare, we haven't had a single vote on the President's 
jobs initiative, an initiative that he brought before this body last 
September. He was at the podium where the presiding officer stands now. 
He asked Congress to pass his jobs initiative. Not a single vote on 
that, and

[[Page 11012]]

yet here we are, our 31st vote to repeal the kind of patient 
protections that Members of Congress enjoy, repeal them for the 
American people.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I hope that our colleagues will reject this effort. 
I know the American people have already made it clear through their 
voices and their response to surveys that they want to move on. They 
want to move on. They want to deal with jobs, and they want to deal 
with the economy, and they want to end the political charades.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield myself the balance of the time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized 
for 4 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, here's why we're doing this. If 
the facts that we now know today about this law were available when 
this law was being debated, there's no way this would have become law. 
This is effectively a government takeover of 17 percent of our economy, 
the health care sector. It was sold on a number of promises by the 
President that are now broken promises.
  Taxes? There are 21 tax increases in this law, 12 of which hit people 
who are low- and middle-income earners.
  Do you remember the line: If you like the health care plan you have, 
you can keep it? Completely not true.
  What about the idea that this is going to lower health care premiums? 
They've been going up ever since the law passed. They're going up next 
year. They're going up even more.
  Here's the fear. What we worry is going to happen, what is happening, 
is you're going to have what we call BUCAA, about five health insurers 
left: Blue Cross, United, Cigna, Aetna, and Anthem. That's the big joke 
in Washington. You'll have about five big, massive health insurers who 
are de facto public providing government extension companies like your 
utility company, except they're going to be controlling your health 
care.
  People say we should focus on jobs instead of this bill. This is 
about jobs. The CBO is telling us it could cost us 800,000 jobs.
  I remember talking to an employer in southern Wisconsin not too long 
ago, family business, a big family business, a private business. The 
woman who runs this business, whose grandfather founded it, had tears 
coming down her face because she provides health insurance for her 
employees at about $17,000 per year for a family plan. She's proud to 
do it.
  Her competitors notified her at one of her trade association 
meetings--they're publicly traded--that they're going to have to dump 
everybody in ObamaCare and just pay the $2,000 per person fine; $15,000 
difference, per person, between herself and her competitors.
  She was telling me that she felt she had no choice but, when the time 
came, to dump her people into ObamaCare.
  That's what's going to happen in this country: People will get dumped 
into ObamaCare; ObamaCare will underpay providers; providers will go 
out of business; they'll overcharge the private sector; and we'll get a 
vicious cycle.
  Here is the awful irony about this. We can have affordable access to 
health insurance for everybody in America, including people with 
preexisting conditions, without this government takeover. That's why we 
do believe in replace. That's why we advocated then, and we continue to 
advocate today, for patient-centered health care reforms.
  Deal with the discriminatory tax treatment on health care. Get 
transparency in price, quality, and outcome so people can really shop. 
Have pooling mechanisms so people can bulk buy health insurance.
  Help those with preexisting conditions. Save Medicare and Medicaid by 
harnessing the power of choice and competition. Have the providers 
compete against each other for our business as patients, instead of 
hoping that the whims of some government bureaucrat will favor us when 
they make their next price controlling and rationing decision.
  We can do better than this.
  Here's ultimately why we're doing this, Mr. Speaker. A few weeks ago 
we had two chances to repeal and, therefore, replace this law. Now we 
have one. The Supreme Court upheld this law. That doesn't make it good 
policy.
  The one chance left--and yes, this is the 31st time. And I fear we're 
going to have to do it the 32nd time, because the one chance left is 
that the American people, through their elected representatives, 
through the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President, 
has one more chance before this law is actually implemented in 2014 to 
repeal this law and replace it with true patient-centered health care 
reform, and that is why we're doing this today.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. With regard to the remarks of a previous 
speaker in the debate, the Chair would remind Members that it is not in 
order to suggest dishonesty on the part of the President, such as 
stating that he was not being ``straight with us.''

                              {time}  1930

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I support this legislation to repeal the new health care law, which 
will shrink jobs, increase taxes and limit Americans' freedoms.
  Although the Supreme Court has delivered its decision on ObamaCare, 
it is the people whose verdict counts the most, and the American people 
have consistently rejected this costly and ineffective government 
takeover of the health care sector. They realize that the law fails our 
families, drives up the cost of health care, undermines the doctor-
patient relationship, tramples on the religious liberties of millions 
of Americans, and vastly expands the role of the Federal Government. 
After the Supreme Court decision, we now know that ObamaCare is a 
massive tax hike on the middle class.
  While the Supreme Court may have declared the law constitutional, 
that does not mean it is good policy for the American people. ObamaCare 
forces millions of Americans to abandon their current health care plans 
and to give up the physicians of their choice. A recent Reuters poll 
found that 56 percent of respondents oppose ObamaCare and that 61 
percent oppose the individual mandate. With the costs and massive 
middle class tax increase this law imposes, these polls, frankly, are 
not a surprise. This massive tax hike on the middle class must be 
repealed. Only when ObamaCare is fully repealed can we enact real 
reforms that reduce health care costs without restricting the rights of 
Americans.
  One reform Congress should consider to lower costs is medical 
liability reform. Medical liability reform will reduce the cost of 
health care by decreasing the waste in our system caused by defensive 
medicine. This practice occurs when doctors are forced by the threat of 
lawsuits to conduct tests and prescribe drugs that are not medically 
required. According to a Harvard University study, 40 percent of the 
medical malpractice lawsuits filed in the United States lack evidence 
of medical error or of any actual patient injury. Many of these suits 
amount to the legalized extortion of doctors and hospitals. The 
Congressional Budget Office estimates that lawsuit abuse reform would 
save taxpayers $48 billion over the next 10 years.
  The American people do not want ObamaCare. As their Representatives, 
we must repeal ObamaCare and enact real health care reforms that lower 
costs, increase access to health care, and preserve the fundamental 
freedoms of all Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This has been an unusual debate in Congress over an extremely 
important matter. What we have witnessed and listened to today for the 
31st time is something that I would like to spare our conservative 
friends the heavy responsibility of trying to go back to their 
districts to explain.
  I would like them to not have to explain why they voted to allow 
insurance companies to deny coverage for 17

[[Page 11013]]

million children with preexisting conditions. I would like them not to 
have to explain why they voted to kick over 6.5 million youngsters up 
to age 26 off their families' insurance policies.
  I do not want my dear friends on the other side of the aisle to have 
to explain why their community hospitals will again have to provide 
free care to people without insurance and to pay for the medical costs 
of the uninsured. Medical providers, of course, pass these costs on to 
private insurers, which pass them on to families, increasing the 
premiums, on average, of about $1,000. You can tell families paying 
this hidden tax why they want to impose it. I don't want them to have 
to try to explain that.
  I don't want my conservative friends in this body to explain to the 
13 million Americans that they won't receive $1.1 billion in rebates 
this summer from health insurance companies that have overcharged them.
  It goes on and on.
  We don't want anyone here to have to explain to the 105 million 
Americans who will have to face a lifetime limit on their coverage why 
they would want to allow insurance companies to deny them coverage once 
they get sick.
  Then, of course, there are the preexisting conditions that are an 
excuse to, first of all, not insure for health insurance and, in 
addition, to deny insurance once they have it if they feel that it is a 
long-term illness.
  We don't want any of our conservative friends to leave the House and 
to have to go home to explain to the 360,000 small business employers 
who use small business health care tax credits in order to help them 
afford health insurance for 2 million workers that they will not get it 
any longer.
  Finally, we don't want our conservative friends to have to explain 
why this bill promotes the fiction that repealing the Affordable Care 
Act won't increase the deficit.
  We can't keep doing this. I hope nobody is thinking about 32 or 33 
times. There has been no comparable debate over a major piece of 
legislation that has been through this kind of tortured process in 
recent memory.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Lungren), who is a distinguished and senior member 
of the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the chairman for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, has 
outlined in much detail how the current law--some call it ObamaCare, 
and some call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 
2010--does not do what it claims to. In fact, it does not protect the 
patient, and it does not provide affordable care.
  He also pointed out that, when this bill was argued on this floor and 
in the other body, it was denied time and time again that it was a tax. 
We recall the President of the United States on several public 
occasions denied it was a tax. Yet he had his administration argue 
before the U.S. Supreme Court on the question of constitutionality that 
it was a tax.

                              {time}  1940

  The American people view the Federal Government as an entity. What 
have they seen with respect to this as it went from the executive 
branch to the legislative branch to the judiciary branch? They find 
that they were played. They find that what they were told at one point 
was not that which it was at the other point.
  If you look at the Supreme Court's decision, they had to first 
consider whether this was a tax under what's known as the Anti-
Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act essentially says you can't 
contest a tax until it has been visited upon you. The question was, 
since the individual mandate, conceived as a tax, doesn't come into 
effect for some time, how could it be before the Court? The Court said, 
for purposes of standing, it is not a tax. Then they went and analyzed 
the individual mandate and said, Is it constitutional under the 
Commerce Clause? No. Is it constitutional under the necessary and 
proper clause, or the Spending Clause? No. But then they said, We will 
interpret this mandate, this penalty, as a tax for purposes of 
constitutionality as argued by the administration, which had denied it 
when it was arguing that case here in the House of Representatives and 
the United States Senate.
  Is it any wonder people are cynical about this? Is it any wonder that 
people begin to lose their confidence in a government that will not 
present facts consistently to them? I will not say there were any 
intentional lies made, but I will say that the American people have to 
question if they have confidence in their government when they say one 
thing at one time and say another thing at another. In fact, now by 
virtue of the Supreme Court decision, this is the largest single tax on 
the middle class of America in history. That's what we're talking 
about.
  Can we do better? We believe we can. We believe that you can provide 
affordable health care for the American people without the largest 
single middle class tax in the history of the Nation, which puts the 
Federal Government in the position of being between the patient and the 
doctor. It is the antithesis of patient-centered health care.
  That's why we're here. We're not here because we believe the present 
system is perfect. We think it is broken. The status quo is not 
acceptable. But we believe that this bill, ObamaCare, that is before 
this Congress right now is unacceptable to the American people because 
it exacerbates the problems that we find in our health care delivery 
system. That's why we're here.
  The fact of the matter that we've voted several times to repeal it 
and have yet to be successful is no reason for us to give up. We are 
standing here for the American people against the largest middle class 
tax increase in the history of the United States, and we will not stop 
until we are ultimately successful.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to assure my dear 
friend from California, a former attorney general of his State, that 
the Supreme Court has made more decisions that I don't like than he 
doesn't like, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, rather than 
get into the Commerce Clause, ruled it a tax. I'm sorry he did that. I 
wish he had done it my way. You don't like the way that he did it.
  With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Nadler), the former chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the 
House Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Republicans' 31st 
attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  Mr. Speaker, you don't have to be a policy wonk to know that the U.S. 
economy is still struggling to rebound. Millions of Americans are still 
unemployed or underemployed. That this Congress has not spent every 
single day of the last year and a half fighting to put people back to 
work is unconscionable. And now, instead of fighting for good-paying 
American jobs, Republicans are launching their 31st attempt to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act.
  First, the Republicans said the law was unconstitutional. The Supreme 
Court said they were wrong. Next, Republicans said the law was too 
expensive. The Congressional Budget Office said they were wrong. Now 
Republicans say the law will raise taxes on millions of middle class 
families. The Urban Institute says they are wrong, estimating that a 
mere 3 percent of Americans under 65 will face the choice between 
purchasing insurance and paying a penalty.
  Mr. Speaker, let's review what the Affordable Care Act actually does.
  We know it extends health insurance to 32 million uninsured 
Americans, which will prevent the unnecessary deaths of 45,000 people 
who die each year because they lack health insurance.
  We know it will enable millions of Americans with preexisting medical 
conditions to get insurance. This has gotten publicity.
  Also, every middle class family today is one cancer diagnosis away 
from bankruptcy. Fifty-five percent of all

[[Page 11014]]

personal bankruptcies are caused by health care emergencies; and 75 
percent of these bankruptcies are of people who had health insurance, 
but health insurance that proved inadequate to cover an expensive 
disease like cancer.
  By preventing insurance companies from denying coverage for 
preexisting conditions and by eliminating the annual and lifetime caps 
on coverage found in most current policies, the Affordable Care Act 
will guarantee that middle class families will no longer have to fear 
going broke because of an expensive illness.
  Despite all of the benefits of this law, Republicans have decided the 
whole law must go. Fine, they want to repeal and replace. Replace it 
with what?
  What is the Republican plan to stem the ever-rising cost of health 
care in this country and to reduce out-of-pocket health costs? What is 
the Republican plan to help millions more Americans gain access to 
health insurance? What is the Republican plan to end discrimination in 
the insurance market for women, for those with preexisting conditions, 
for those who are sick and going broke with medical bills and those who 
die because of lack of care? There is none. The simple truth is that 
the Republicans have no plan.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my Republican colleagues to do something new, to 
try something novel. Instead of going to their familiar well of 
election-year politics and a steady stream of ``no,'' let's try to work 
together. Let's not turn a blind eye on the problem and hope it goes 
away. Let's not be indifferent to 45,000 unnecessary deaths of 
Americans every single year.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this repeal bill so that we 
can move on to fighting for American jobs, and we can move on to 
assuring the middle class that they won't go broke because of an 
expensive illness and to assuring 30 million Americans that they can 
get health insurance when they need it.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Iowa (Mr. King), a respected member of the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the esteemed chair of the 
Judiciary Committee for yielding time to me, and I appreciate this 
issue being brought to the floor.
  I would announce, Mr. Speaker, that this is a subject matter, the 
full 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare, that I have worked on now for 
over 2 years on the repeal. When we saw this pass, it passed the House 
for the first time on November 7, 2009. That was a long and difficult 
day here in this House of Representatives. It came back through for a 
final passage by legislative shenanigans, by packaging up the 
reconciliation along with an earlier piece that went through by 
requiring a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority that took place for a 
time in the Senate and came to this House under unprecedented terms, 
Mr. Speaker.
  We saw the American people rise up. They didn't just jam this 
Capitol. It wasn't just 10,000 plus or tens of thousands of people that 
came here to say, Keep your hands off of our individual American 
freedom and liberty and health care. It was tens of thousands of people 
that came here that said, Let's respect the Constitution; let's respect 
fiscal responsibility; let's respect individual rights; and let's 
respect the American people.
  Through that period of time, over this last 2-plus years, and a night 
I couldn't sleep after this finally passed on about March 21 or so, I 
got up and wrote a repeal. The language for that is in this bill, most 
of it intact.
  I'm glad we're at this point, Mr. Speaker, because it says that this 
House of Representatives has reflected the will of the American people. 
It reflected the will of the American people in the elections a year 
ago last November when we saw 87 new freshman Republicans come here to 
this House of Representatives, and every single one of them ran on the 
full 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare. Every single one of them voted 
for the full 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare, and every single 
Republican Senator, 47 of them, voted for the full 100 percent repeal 
of ObamaCare.
  Mr. Speaker, the next step is this next November when I believe there 
will be a change-out in the United States Senate that reflects what 
happened here in the House so that the full will of the American people 
can be worked in this body that is to be responsive to the American 
people.

                              {time}  1950

  While that's going on, this terminology that began the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act, always understood to be ObamaCare, 
referred to himself as ObamaCare by President Obama on February 25 in 
the Blair House in the health care discussion that took place when the 
President interrupted Republicans 72 times--not that that's an issue, 
Mr. Speaker, but just for the record, he referred to it as ObamaCare.
  Many of the Democrats have believed that it's pejorative, so they 
changed the name of it because nobody knew what the Patient Protection 
and Affordable Care Act was. They changed it to the Affordable Care 
Act.
  Well, we know it is the Unaffordable Care Act. It's a couple of 
trillion dollars stacked on this heavy burden the American taxpayers 
have today of nearly $16 trillion all together. It's the Unaffordable 
Care Act and, in fact, what it does is it reduces care and it reduces 
American freedom and liberty. When you think about the American people, 
how distinct and unique it is to be an American, what makes us 
different? We come from a lot of places on the planet. We have the 
vigor of the American people here, and it's totally unsuitable to be 
saddled by this unconstitutional takings of American liberty.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a senior member of the 
Judiciary Committee, the gentlewoman from Texas, the Honorable Sheila 
Jackson Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the gentleman from Michigan, and I 
thank this House.
  I am reminded of the Declaration of Independence that calls upon this 
great Nation to pursue life and liberty with certain inalienable 
rights, as I paraphrase it. I don't know what the answer is to my 
friends on the other side.
  I don't know what the answer is to those who are languishing in the 
State of Texas when we have our Governor rejecting Medicaid and 
politicizing it by, in fact--in the ObamaCare plan the Federal 
Government sought to force the States to expand Medicaid. He says, in 
repeating, that the gun to our heads has been removed--certainly, a 
personal statement by this Governor.
  I asked him whether or not he has asked 357,000 young people in the 
State of Texas, who actually are on insurance plans because of this 
bill. I wonder, has he asked the 3 million children that have benefited 
in the State of Texas since 2010, boys and girls like these little ones 
who are seeing doctors now for the first time.
  What next, is the question. Maybe this little one, who needs to have 
doctors' appointments.
  I would like to know, has he responded to the fact that our plan, the 
Affordable Care Act, reduces the deficit by $143 billion. Has he 
responded to the fact that 5.3 million seniors have saved $3.7 billion 
in part D, or does he realize that health care costs have been halved 
to 3.9 percent now after this legislation was passed, the Affordable 
Care Act, because before it was 6 percent and over. I call ObamaCare 
LeRoy care, Maria care, senior citizens' sick care, nursing home care. 
That's what it is.
  Does he realize that the American Cancer Society said this 
organization was looking at the ruling on Medicaid and is concerned 
that the decision may limit the expansion of quality coverage to some 
of our Nation's most vulnerable citizens. That is what the Governor of 
the State of Texas has done and many others.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Finally, Mr. Speaker, these soldiers who 
are coming home, who lose TRICARE, are the very people in the State of 
Texas whom we want to salute and honor. They will come home. Their 
families will need the Affordable Care Act.

[[Page 11015]]

Thirty percent in the 18th Congressional District in Houston, we will 
lose this; $1.74 trillion in costs in health disparities, health 
disparities, death, and disease because we are losing the Affordable 
Care Act.
  What is next? What is your answer?
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in vehement opposition to H.R. 6079, the 
``Repeal Obamacare Act of 2012.''
  This is a colossal waste of time and resources--this body should be 
focused on fostering an economic climate that promotes job creation--
not settling old grudges.
  The health care overhaul signed into law in March 2010 through two 
separate acts--the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PL 111-
148) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (PL 111-
152)--remains the signature legislative achievement of the Obama 
administration. Otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or 
``Obamacare'' by its detractors, the laws have been the main target of 
Republicans since taking control of the House in 2011.
  But on June 28, 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 
constitutionality of the health care law, essentially by affirming the 
government's power to require that Americans have health insurance or 
pay a financial penalty. In a 5 to 4 decision, the Court ruled that the 
law's ``individual mandate'' requirement that individuals maintain 
health coverage or pay a penalty falls within Congress' power to tax. 
The justices also ruled, however, that states may opt out of the law's 
expansion of the Medicaid health care program without losing all of 
their federal Medicaid funds.
  This bill repeals the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PL 111-148, PL 
111-152). The measure also contains a number of ``findings'' detailing 
the rationale for repealing the law, including the argument that the 
overhaul fails to lower health care costs and instead raises the cost 
of coverage for millions, jeopardizes many Americans' ability to keep 
their current health care coverage, and ``imposes 21 new or higher 
taxes'' on individuals and businesses.
  The findings also claim that the board created by the law to make 
cost-cutting recommendations if Medicare spending exceeds target growth 
rates would limit seniors' access to care, and that the law ``expands 
the role of the federal government in funding and facilitating abortion 
and plans that cover abortion.''
  Texas is one of those states that has vehemently vowed to opt-out of 
the law expansion. This is a devastating decision for the 6.2 million 
people, including 1.2 million children, who lack health insurance. 
Texas has the largest percentage of people without health care than any 
other state. In my congressional district in Houston, 30 percent of the 
population is uninsured. It is my goal to continue to push Texas 
government to help ensure affordable and decent healthcare for those 
that so desperately need it.
  The major provisions of the law will take effect within the next two 
to seven years (2014-2019). States will only spend roughly 5 percent 
for new Medicaid funding. This is especially true for states, like 
Texas, with low Medicaid coverage. This is because a large share of new 
enrollees will be financed by federal spending. The State of Texas may 
see a reduction of about 1.4 million uninsured individuals compared to 
the national baseline. To say the least, the state of Texas is one 
state that will greatly benefit more from reform than most other 
states.
  The repeal of the ACA will eliminate patient protection provisions, 
which this one provides equitable and fair services to businesses and 
consumers.
  Estimates by the Kaiser Family Foundation determined roughly $1.3 
billion in rebates to consumers and businesses by this year in August. 
This is one of many definable benefits within the ACA. The State of 
Texas will receive roughly $127 million in total rebates in the 
individual market plans, $28 million in small group market plans, and 
$30 million in large group marker plans.
  As part of the patient protection provisions drawn out within the 
ACA, insurance companies are required to issue a rebate if they did not 
comply with the Medical Loss Ratio provision within the ACA. The 
Medical Loss Ratio is calculated by dividing health care claims and 
quality improvement expenses by the insurers' premium income minus 
taxes and regulatory fees. Insurers for individual and small group 
markets must spend at least 80 percent of their premium income on 
health claims and improvement activities.
  Insurers for large group markets must spend at least 85 percent of 
their premium income on health claims and improvement activities. This 
basically entails that if an insurance company pays $70 for every 
insurance claim and quality improvement activity but collects $100 in 
monthly premiums, they have a MLR of 70 percent.
  This means that the company has 30 percent left over to spend on 
administrative costs, marketing, and other functional actives. As a 
result of the ACA, insurance companies can only spend 20 percent on 
such marketing and administrative activities. Therefore, the company 
has to issue a 10 percent rebate to consumers and small businesses in 
individual or small group market plans in the example above, or a 15 
percent rebate back to the consumer or businesses in large group market 
plans.
  It is yet to be determined if these rebates will either be refunded 
as a decrease in premium amount or issued directly back to the 
employer. Additionally, it is not an estimate of based on the 
experience of an individual enrollee or group. Instead, MLR rebates are 
based on an insurers' overall compliance with applicable MLR standards 
in each state it operates.
  The most vulnerable (or use low-income adults) citizens are now able 
to access affordable health insurance. Eliminating a more organized and 
competitive market for individuals to buy health insurance. Reduce 
health disparities between different socioeconomic and cultural 
communities can change to communities of color.
  The United States spends more on healthcare costs than any other 
developed country. The ACA helps many small businesses be more 
competitive by reducing the cost burdens through tax subsidies. The 
last sentence here is already identified in the key points. But the 
first sentence may help emphasize why it should not be repealed.
  It is time for Republicans to get to work on jobs and to end 
outsourcing instead of voting for the 31st time to take patient 
protections away from Americans.
  The GOP will vote to take away patient protections for Americans that 
they already enjoy as Members of Congress--in order to protect their 
friends in the insurance industry:
  Up to 17 million children can no longer be denied coverage because of 
a pre-existing condition, 6.6 million young people have obtained 
insurance through their parents' plans, 5.3 million seniors have 
already saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs, 105 million Americans 
no longer face lifetime limits on their insurance coverage.
  President Obama has promised to veto the Republican bill to repeal 
patients' rights:
  ``The last thing the Congress should do is refight old political 
battles and take a massive step backward by repealing basic protections 
that provide security for the middle class. Right now, the Congress 
needs to work together to focus on the economy and creating jobs.''
  The President is right. Enough is enough. It is time to act to put 
people to work and strengthen the middle class.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minute to the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Adams), a distinguished member of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Mrs. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6079, Repeal 
of Obamacare Act.
  Along with many Americans, I was disappointed that the Supreme Court 
did not strike down the law, but the Court did rule that ObamaCare is a 
tax, a tax on all hardworking taxpayers, including middle-income 
taxpayers.
  Let's go back for a moment to when this bill was passed. In 2010 
President Obama said if you like what you have, you can keep it. We now 
know that isn't true. He also said health care costs would go down, and 
again not true because health care costs are rising. They have gone up.
  He also said on numerous occasions that this is not a tax. It's a 
penalty. Well, the Supreme Court has spoken, and there is no denying 
now that it is a tax on all hard-working taxpayers.
  We all remember former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi famously 
saying, we have to pass a bill so that you can find out what is in it. 
The 111th Congress passed a bill ignoring the will of the American 
people. After the bill was signed into law, Americans across this great 
Nation did find out what was in the bill and, guess what, they didn't 
like it.
  Across the country, Americans showed their displeasure with Congress 
at the ballot box. With their votes, they demanded Congress listen to 
them and repeal ObamaCare. Even today ObamaCare is less popular than it 
was the day my Democrat colleagues passed it. It's not hard to figure 
out

[[Page 11016]]

why the American people don't like ObamaCare.
  This is a law that takes $500 billion from Medicare, a law that will 
lead to the rationing of care for our seniors, and a law that adds job-
killing taxes on individuals and small business when our economy is 
hurting.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Florida 
an additional 15 seconds.
  Mrs. ADAMS. Furthermore, the individual mandate is the largest tax 
increase on Americans in American history, the largest tax increase. It 
is time my colleagues on the other side of the aisle join us in 
repealing ObamaCare and its taxes.
  I may not have been here when Congress passed ObamaCare, but I was 
sent by my constituents to Washington to repeal it.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  I would remind my distinguished friend from Florida on the Judiciary 
Committee that ObamaCare extends Medicaid and does not cause anybody to 
lose any insurance if they already have it.
  I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlelady from Los Angeles, 
California, Maxine Waters, who has worked with us on so many 
progressive causes.
  Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentleman from Michigan for the time.
  I rise to oppose H.R. 6079, the Republicans 31st attempt to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act.
  This bill is ridiculous. It is as ridiculous as the previous 30 votes 
to repeal health care reform. It is ridiculous because this bill is 
going nowhere. It will not be taken up by the Senate, and even if it 
were to pass the Senate, the President would veto it.
  Every day people die from preventable and treatable diseases. Every 
day almost 50 people die of HIV/AIDS, more than 1,600 people die of 
heart disease and more than 5,000 people are newly diagnosed with 
diabetes. Yet the Republicans are trying for the 31st time to deny 
Americans access to preventable health services and treatment for these 
conditions.
  Because of the Affordable Care Act, more than 6 million young adults 
under the age of 26 now have health insurance through their parents' 
plan. Many of these young people just graduated from college. They are 
worried about finding jobs and paying off their student loans. Yet the 
Republicans are trying for the 31st time to take away their right to 
insurance coverage.
  Because of the Affordable Care Act, up to 17 million children with 
preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage by their 
insurers. Yet Republicans are trying for the 31st time to return to the 
days when these children could not get health insurance.
  The bill on the floor today is a political charade. It is not going 
anywhere, and it is wasting our time when we should be focusing on jobs 
and our economy.
  I urge the Republicans to stop this charade, withdraw this bill, and 
move on to the pressing issues facing this country. As a matter of 
fact, Republicans are forever talking about saving the taxpayers' 
money.
  You are wasting the taxpayers' money. Look at the energy costs, look 
at all the man-hours and the personnel time that's being spent on this 
floor. Look at all these young people who should be home with their 
families. Look at the costs that you are incurring with this charade.
  Stop it. It is ridiculous. It is not going anywhere. Mr. Lungren said 
you had made a few attempts. No, let me remind you again: 31 attempts.
  It is ridiculous, it is outrageous, it's a charade and you should 
stop it.

                              {time}  2000

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who was a distinguished jurist before he 
became a Member of Congress, and then a distinguished member of the 
Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I can verify that there are people who have already lost 
their insurance because of ObamaCare. It has happened. It was not and 
is not true that if you like your insurance, you can keep it. People 
have already lost doctors who were assured if you like your doctor, you 
can keep him. That was simply not true.
  We were told there would be no tax. And we know from the Supreme 
Court that's not true. And in fact, in the bill itself one of the most 
devastating things coming from people who say they want to help the 
working poor, if you're a single individual and you're making 133 
percent of the poverty level, if you're making $14,000 and you can't 
afford a $12,000 health insurance policy, you're going to be fined 2.5 
percent over the next 3 years. It will build to 2.5 percent. It is a 
tax. It will devastate. If you make $40,000, a family of four, five or 
six, $1,000 fine because you can't afford a $12,000 policy. That, on 
top of the government running everything in this $2,500 bill. That's 
why we've got to repeal it--for the good of the people.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to tell Judge 
Gohmert that there isn't one American in this country that has lost 
their insurance because of ObamaCare. Not one.
  I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, a distinguished 
member of the Judiciary Committee (Mr. Cohen).
  Mr. COHEN. I appreciate the time.
  I was a history major in college, and oftentimes I'm in this Hall and 
I think about the history. We've been in this Hall for nearly 150 
years. And I think back. When there was an attempt to pass Social 
Security, the Republicans were against it; and they're still against 
it. They want to give it to Wall Street and let it be invested. And 
then the great next major historical social advance in our country's 
history was Medicare. And the Republicans were against it. And now 
they're against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
  It seems what's happened is every Republican voted against it. Every 
Republican lines up, saying ObamaCare, and talking about Speaker 
Pelosi. They're lined up pretty well like ducks at the Peabody Hotel 
going in a line to the fountain. And Democrats, on the other hand, are 
concerned about children and women and life and the deficit in the 
long-run because of health care. And it seems like there's a continual 
battle in this House between people who look out for the haves and the 
other group that looks out for the haves who have conscience or vision 
and the have-nots. And I was taught well by my parents, I believe, and 
it was to always look out for people who needed something and you could 
help.
  Daniel Webster's words are inscribed in this Capitol, right in this 
Hall, about doing something worthy to be remembered. That's what we're 
here for. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is something 
worthy to be remembered: to care for and help people survive. Next 
month, it's going to provide $1.1 billion for over 12 million people 
who have been overcharged by their insurance companies.
  President Obama said this was insurance reform on steroids. It is. 
You want the insurance companies to run your life? Well, for you 12.5 
million people that are going to get $1.1 billion back, this is just 
the beginning of something great when you have some controls over the 
insurance company.
  I'm appreciative of doing something worthy to be remembered.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we're prepared to close on this 
side, so I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield the balance of my 
time to John Garamendi of California.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 2 minutes.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the Members of this House for what is an 
extraordinary debate--a debate of which there is a lot of false 
information.
  I was the insurance commissioner in California, and I can talk about 
these insurance issues forever. But what I would really like to focus 
on is the fact that the law that is in the land today really helps 
people. It would help people like my deceased sister-in-law, a juvenile 
diabetic. She spent the last 10

[[Page 11017]]

years of her life struggling to get insurance, which she couldn't get 
because she had a preexisting condition. That won't be the case in the 
future for those with juvenile diabetes. They'll be able to get 
insurance. They'll be able to get it through an exchange in their 
States--at least those States that have it--at an affordable cost. And 
if they don't have the income, they'll have a subsidy to buy the 
insurance.
  It will help people like the son of my chief of staff, who was born 
with kidney failure. He had insurance from conception until hours after 
he was born. But the insurance company dropped him. That won't happen 
any more because children throughout this Nation will be able to stay 
on their parents' policy because of this law.
  It will help people like my daughter, who turned 21 and the insurance 
company that had covered her for 21 years dumped her. Because of this 
law, she is now on my policy--and for 17 million other young adults who 
have insurance as a result of this law.
  I can talk forever about the way in which the insurance companies 
discriminate based upon age, sex, preexisting conditions, and across 
this Nation millions upon millions of Americans were denied coverage, 
but are no longer because of the Patients' Bill of Rights.
  This is insurance reform on steroids. And I wish I had this law 
available to me when I was insurance commissioner in California. This 
is a good law. This is a very, very good thing for Americans.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to 
the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann), who is a member of the 
Financial Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Minnesota is recognized 
for 2\1/2\ minutes.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.
  If there's anything that we have learned, Mr. Speaker, over the last 
several years as we've debated the President's health care plan, it is 
that it's been a mirage, and it has been built on a series of one 
broken promise after another.
  The President told us that we would be saving $2,500 a year per 
household if we passed his health care bill. But the sad reality is 
that Americans' health insurance premiums have increased by almost that 
amount, which means the President was off by a stunning $5,000 per 
household. And Americans are pulling their pockets inside out saying, 
Mr. President, I don't have the money to pay $5,000 more per year on my 
health insurance policy. Of course they don't. Because this has proved 
to be the crown jewel of socialism. That's what government health care 
is.
  Senior citizens realized early on they had the most to lose by the 
President's health insurance policy because what they found from this 
bill, which has been commonly called ObamaCare, is that $575 billion 
will be stolen away from them out of Medicare. And not only will they 
have $575 billion less in Medicare; they're also looking at having to 
spend--senior citizens--out of their pocket $200 billion more in 
increased taxes for Medicare. That's a big loss for America's senior 
citizens.
  But it doesn't stop there, Mr. Speaker. Millions of Americans across 
the United States are now going to find out that the promise the 
President made that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it, 
that's a sham, too. Not only will you not keep it; millions of 
Americans are looking at being thrown off their current health care 
policy that they have from their employer.

                              {time}  2010

  Millions--millions--of Americans will no longer even have the option 
of their employer's health insurance plan. How do I know that? I talked 
to a job provider today, 400 employees. He told me he can no longer 
afford to provide health insurance because of all the new increased 
costs. He isn't the only one.
  I talked to another employer today, Mr. Speaker, a woman. She had 250 
employees. Now she's down to 90. She told me, if we can't repeal this 
bill, she'll have to actually let them go and they'll be down to 50. We 
have to repeal this bill.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I 
may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, small businesses create 7 out of every 10 new jobs, and 
they are the driving force behind this great Nation's economy, and we 
need these jobs as we attempt to rebound from a stubborn recession.
  As chairman of the Small Businesses Committee, I constantly hear from 
small business owners that the burden of government regulations and 
taxes is too high. The health care law is perhaps the worst offender. 
The last thing the Federal Government should do is discourage job 
creation. Yet this massive health care law, with all its costs, 
mandates, regulations, and paperwork, does exactly that. Facing the 
expense and confusion this law creates, it's natural that small 
businesses decide to wait and see instead of invest and grow. The worst 
impacts of this law are yet to come.
  We should be freeing up our small businesses to plan, grow, and hire. 
Heavy-handed government causes bold entrepreneurs to become cautious. 
Businesses are reduced from thinking about growth to thinking about 
survival.
  Brian Vaughn, a small business man in Douglas, Georgia, planned to 
open a new store and reinvest profits. Testifying to our committee, he 
said:

       I fear that neither of these dreams nor my plans to achieve 
     them will be possible. In fact, my worry is that everything I 
     have worked for will be for naught and may be wiped out by 
     this new health care law.

  Fortunately, we have a solution: Repeal this burdensome law. Stop it 
in its tracks before small businesses like Brian's are permanently 
harmed. Then pass commonsense solutions. We want real reforms that put 
patients in charge of their health and bring down costs.
  This law is historic, but for all the wrong reasons. It reaches too 
far into the personal decisions of Americans, and it puts a heavy 
burden on our economy and small businesses. It's an example of Big 
Government at its absolute worst.
  We have a responsibility to repeal and replace this intrusive law 
before any more damage is done. So let's vote this Big Government 
intrusion out and give small businesses a real chance to do what they 
do best, and that is create jobs.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I rise in strong opposition to the bill before us today.
  The Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding the health care bill was 
a historic win for this Nation's small businesses and their employees. 
Repealing the Affordable Care Act will be an enormous step backwards 
for 26 million small firms who not only want relief from high health 
care costs, but for Congress to focus on job creation.
  This bill will not help a single small business secure a loan, break 
into new public markets, or invest in its operations. The other side 
acknowledges this legislation is going nowhere, just like the previous 
vote we took at the beginning of this Congress.
  Not only is the health care bill good law, it is good policy and has 
already led to major achievements for small companies since its 
enactment. The tax credits from the health care bill have saved over 
300,000 small firms an average of $1,400 on their insurance costs. The 
qualifying therapeutic discovery project program has invested $1 
billion in over 4,600 small innovative firms that are developing 
groundbreaking therapies and creating jobs. Small firms are receiving 
more value for their premium dollars because the 80/20 rule is now in 
effect. Because of this, not only is the small group market receiving 
$321 million in rebates this summer, they are benefiting from lower 
premiums.
  The future of health reform will bring expanded coverage for 
preventive services and new State health exchanges in 2014, allowing 
more employers to purchase affordable insurance. Soon, prior medical 
conditions will not bar anyone from obtaining coverage. As the 
implementation of health care

[[Page 11018]]

reform continues, improving the health of the Nation's citizens will 
remain a priority for Congress going forward.
  At a time when economic growth is critical, we should be focusing on 
how to help small businesses raise capital and create jobs. Today's 
bill does none of this. Instead, it threatens our Nation's job 
creators. It imposes a tax increase by eliminating critical small 
business tax credits, which have generated $485 million worth of 
savings. By doing away with reforms that establish new health insurance 
markets, it would limit small businesses' ability to secure coverage 
and eliminate choices for entrepreneurs.
  Small businesses already pay 18 percent more for coverage than their 
corporate counterparts. The loss of new safeguards would compound this 
problem. Because of health reform, insurers are no longer able to raise 
rates arbitrarily. Passage of this bill will strip new protections that 
provide bargaining power to small companies. Rather than making 
improvements to the law, the Republicans want to eliminate it without 
offering any alternatives.
  While I agree that more can be done to make healthy living more 
attainable for Americans, voting for today's bill will not do that. One 
of the first votes I took this Congress was against Republican efforts 
to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I will continue opposing any efforts 
repealing a law that is beneficial to millions of small firms.
  I urge Members to oppose the bill, and I urge the leadership to focus 
on meaningful ways to address this Nation's economic challenges.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend, 
the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. 
Mica of Florida.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I had not been privy to the prior debates of 
our discussion of the subject and the repeal legislation at hand. Is it 
appropriate and within the decorum of the House to refer to the 
legislation that is being considered repealed as repealing 
``ObamaCare''?
  I don't want to inflict any disrespect on the office of the 
President. In order to keep in the decorum and respect for the office, 
may we refer to the President's plan for health care government 
takeover as ``ObamaCare'' or in another term?

                              {time}  2020

  What would be appropriate under the rule?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will not render an advisory 
opinion.
  Mr. MICA. But if I do refer to it as ObamaCare, I'm not out of order?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will not render an advisory 
opinion.
  Mr. MICA. Thank you. And I have been instructed by the staff that the 
proper term--or the title of the bill, I guess, Mr. Speaker, is Repeal 
of Obamacare, but I wanted to clarify that before I began.
  As the Supreme Court rendered its decision, I had the opportunity to 
stand with some of my colleagues on the steps of the Court just across 
from the Capitol. I stood on the steps and spoke to the crowd gathered 
with other Members of Congress, and I said the decision by the Court 
to, again, uphold the law that we seek to repeal, the decision was 
basically the decision to tax the people. And the power to tax, it's 
been said, is the power to destroy.
  I come before the House tonight and I'll state the same concerns I 
expressed on the steps of the Supreme Court. First, the power to 
destroy.
  It's appropriate tonight that the Small Business Committee is here, 
chaired by the distinguished gentleman from Missouri. American small 
business has been stuck in neutral. The decision by the Court in 
upholding this law is taking small business, which is stuck in neutral, 
and actually putting it in reverse. It's putting it in reverse because 
it is one of the largest tax impositions--call it a mandate, call it a 
penalty--that you could impose on small business, which is the primary 
economic generator in the United States.
  As a former businessman, I know the difficulty in trying to keep the 
door open, the lights on, the bills paid. This is probably creating the 
greatest uncertainty and the greatest depression in the creation of 
jobs since expansion of small business in the United States. So, 
indeed, the power to tax is the power to destroy.
  Secondly, I stand in support of the measure to repeal ObamaCare, or 
the President's plan for health care, because of the impact on our 
senior citizens. The power to destroy something they sought as seniors 
and a promise from our government, Medicare, to cut half a trillion 
dollars from Medicare is not the way to go. That's why I oppose the 
President's plan and ask for its repeal.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, since I have two speakers on this side, I 
will continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West).
  Mr. WEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey showed that 74 percent of small 
businesses contend that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act 
will make job creation at their companies even more difficult.
  A recent report by Bloomberg News noted that the President's health 
care law will impose an estimated $813 billion in new taxes on job 
creators and middle class families, based on data from the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office. Additionally, the law and the more than 
13,000 pages of related regulations issued before July 11, 2012, are 
causing greater uncertainty, slowing economic growth, and limiting 
hiring opportunities for the approximately 13 million Americans 
searching for work. Imposing higher costs on businesses will lead to 
lower wages, fewer workers, or both.
  Half of all small business income would face higher taxes. According 
to Bloomberg News, analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation also 
shows President Obama's plan for massive tax hikes ``would mean higher 
taxes on 53 percent of business income reported on individual 
returns.''
  The ObamaCare tax is already holding back job growth in medical 
innovation, with venture capital investment and medical device firms 
down over 50 percent in 2011 compared to any previous 5 years.
  Mr. Speaker, today I had 17 members of the South Florida Chapter of 
the Association of Builders and Contractors saying that this law is 
going to adversely affect their businesses. Roger Dunshee, of Twin Vee 
Catamarans in Fort Pierce, Florida, is considering who he will have to 
leave off of his insurance coverage or who he will have to completely 
get rid of from his business. David Carbone, president and CEO of St. 
Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, is concerned about how he will be 
able to run the hospital and also the type of care he will be able to 
provide. Dr. Mark Powers of Orthopedic Specialists in Port St. Lucie, 
Florida, is concerned about what he will be able to provide as a small 
business owner.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 
seconds.
  Mr. WEST. Mr. Speaker, this is not about taking anything away from 
the American people. We can keep what is good. But this is bad policy 
that had to be passed in order for us to find out what was in those 
2,700 pages.
  Let us do what is right for the American people. Repeal this onerous 
monstrosity that is nothing more than a tax law and develop a health 
care solution for which the American people can be proud.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Peters).
  Mr. PETERS. Mr. Speaker, I stand in opposition to the Republican 
Affordable Care Repeal Act because it is an

[[Page 11019]]

irresponsible approach that does nothing to address the rising cost of 
health care that our families and our businesses are facing today.
  It is a fact that the fastest-rising cost for most U.S. companies is 
health care. Without the Affordable Care Act, overall health care costs 
will continue to rise even faster, costs that will be borne by both the 
public and private sector.
  It is important to note that voting for this repeal bill will 
eliminate the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit. This tax credit 
currently allows small businesses to offset up to 35 percent of their 
health care insurance cost. Starting in 2014, the credit will increase 
to 50 percent of premium cost.
  Small businesses have faced outrageous increases in their health care 
costs over the past decade. The Affordable Care Act helps reduce that 
burden and is already making a real difference in people's lives.
  Nearly 2 million employees at 309,000 small businesses have taken 
advantage of the tax credit, receiving an average credit of $1,400. 
This repeal bill will put a stop to this important small business tax 
credit. I want to make sure that we all understand that the repeal of 
the Affordable Care Act will result in a tax increase on small 
businesses, businesses which create almost two-thirds of all new jobs 
in this country.
  Let's be clear what the Affordable Care Act does for people and for 
small businesses.
  The Affordable Care Act prohibits health plans from imposing caps on 
lifetime and annual coverage; it bars cancellation of insurance 
policies; it guarantees free preventative care that lowers the cost of 
health care; it eliminates denial of coverage for preexisting 
conditions. And by eliminating this unfair practice, health care reform 
helps nearly one-third of uninsured, self-employed entrepreneurs.
  But critics of the Affordable Care Act claim that they want to go 
back to the old system, a system where small businesses pay more on 
average for health insurance than large companies, yet receive fewer 
benefits; a system that had small business premiums rising 113 percent 
over the past decade; a system where our country continues to lag 
behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care; 
and a system where Americans spend twice as much as other nations on 
Earth but have worse health outcomes.
  The Affordable Care Act protects the Nation's 26 million small 
businesses from unfair premium hikes and ensures that they have 
predictable and stable cost. Without the Affordable Care Act, out-of-
control costs will only get worse, rising to $4.4 trillion by 2018.

                              {time}  2030

  We cannot go back to business as usual. The Supreme Court has settled 
the issue of the law's constitutionality, and Congress should stop 
these election-year stunts.
  This bill has no chance of being signed into law. We need to stop 
playing political games and focus on putting Americans back to work.
  Instead of just saying no, Republicans need to work with Democrats to 
improve and implement a law that ensures health care is affordable and 
accessible to all Americans.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Walsh), the chairman of the Small Business 
Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access.
  Mr. WALSH of Illinois. I thank the chairman.
  And to my colleague on the other side, the Small Business Health Care 
Tax Credit has proven incredibly ineffective. The GAO itself has said 
that it is much too complex; and like everything Washington does, its 
temporary nature has really done nothing to reduce the cost of health 
care for small business.
  Mr. Speaker, my State of Illinois is hurting. Real unemployment has 
been above 11 percent for the past 3 years.
  I've heard from employers throughout my district that they do not 
support the President's health care law. They do not support the more 
than 13,000 pages of new regulations. They're already buried under 
regulations. They don't support the 21 new taxes. They're already 
overtaxed. And they definitely do not support the increased health care 
costs. They've seen their health care costs rise at an unsustainable 
rate.
  Mr. Speaker, the numbers speak for themselves: 74 percent of small 
businesses say the law makes it more difficult to hire additional 
employees.
  Why don't my colleagues on the other side listen to the people who 
create jobs in this country?
  Why do my colleagues on the other side always think they have all the 
answers?
  It's time we listened. It's time we repealed ObamaCare.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, could I ask how much time we 
have left.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Missouri has 7\3/4\ 
minutes. The gentlewoman from New York has 8 minutes.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, on average, small businesses pay more for health 
insurance than large firms for comparable policies, but receive fewer 
benefits. Prior to enactment of the ACA, 20 percent of consumers were 
in plans that spent more than 30 cents of every premium dollar on 
administrative costs, and an additional 25 percent were in plans that 
spent between 25 and 30 percent of every premium dollar on 
administrative costs.
  The ACA included the medical loss ratio that requires the insurance 
company to spend at least 80 percent of small employer premium dollars 
on medical costs instead of administrative expenses. Is that bad for 
small businesses?
  When Republicans were in control of both Chambers and held the Oval 
Office, they talked about this solution for nearly a decade, and yet 
nothing happened. In that time, small businesses saw their employees' 
premiums rise by an average of $700 every single year.
  Why should small businesses believe they can deliver on a promise 
this time?
  So, finally, the law needs to be implemented. The most beneficial 
provision to small employers doesn't go into effect until 2014. The 
availability of State exchanges in 2014 could spur more small business 
owners to provide health benefits to employees.
  For example, in California, just 32 percent of small businesses 
currently offer health insurance to their employees, but the number of 
those likely to offer insurance through exchanges jumped to 44 percent.
  So don't repeal this legislation just for the sake of energizing the 
Republican base. You know that by enacting today and taking this vote 
this is going nowhere.
  What we should be doing--and someone on the other side said that we 
should be listening to small businesses--yes, we are listening to small 
businesses, and what I hear from small businesses is that they are 
having trouble getting consumers through their doors, that they are 
having trouble selling their products, that they're having trouble 
accessing capital. Those are the obstacles that they are facing today, 
and that will prevent small businesses from creating jobs, and that is 
what this economy needs in order to get the economy growing again.
  So repealing this today is not going to create one single job.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes 
to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schilling).
  Mr. SCHILLING. Mr. Speaker, like many in Illinois' 17th District, I'm 
disappointed that the Supreme Court decided to uphold the President's 
health care reform law. The Court ruled what we all knew from the 
beginning, but the President wouldn't acknowledge, the law's individual 
mandate is really a tax on the American people and businesses that 
create jobs.
  Under this law, the health care costs remain too high. Government 
bureaucrats remain between patients and their doctors. Too many 
Americans remain unemployed, with national unemployment hovering above 
8 percent for the last 41 straight months.

[[Page 11020]]

  The law's medical device tax will continue to raise health care costs 
and limit the ability of facilities, like Cook Medical in Canton, 
Illinois, to expand and grow jobs. And the law's employer mandate will 
continue to force employers to choose between paying a penalty, 
increasing the number of employees eligible for health care coverage, 
replacing full-time staff with part-time employees, or laying folks 
off.
  Mr. Speaker, now is not the time to raise taxes on working-class 
families or employers. We need to repeal this law and get to work on 
bipartisan health care reform that lowers costs and makes health care 
more convenient and more affordable.
  I'm new to Congress, but I have a plan to address rising health care 
costs while ensuring those who need it have access to coverage. I urge 
men and women from across America to visit schilling.house.gov to take 
a look.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), the Small Business 
Subcommittee chairman on Agriculture, Energy and Trade.
  Mr. TIPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The ranking member just listed off many of the challenges the 
businesses face, and we agree. But let me add one more. A company in 
Pueblo, Colorado, PDI, employing better than 200 handicapped 
individuals, that company is threatening to be able to see their 
business shut down because of ObamaCare. They simply cannot afford it.
  That is the challenge that small businesses across this Nation are 
truly facing, a $2 trillion tax, a $2 trillion tax when we need to be 
investing in things like competition. Let's create those opportunities, 
positive opportunities, through health care, allowing the marketplaces 
to work, ensuring that people have those opportunities to have 
preexisting conditions covered.
  Let's let our children who are 26 years old stay on those policies, 
but let's bring competition to the market and have things like tort 
reform as well.
  PDI and those handicapped individuals in Pueblo, Colorado, are 
counting on common sense, not politics as usual out of Washington, 
D.C., where one-size-fits-all, and Washington has all the answers. 
Let's not get between that patient/doctor relationship. The people are 
counting on positive action.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman), chairman of the Small 
Business Subcommittee on Investigations, Oversight and Regulations.
  Mr. COFFMAN of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's decision to 
uphold President Obama's health care reform law has reinforced the need 
for Congress to repeal and to replace this law. No doubt, health care 
reform is important. Today, health insurance is far too expensive, and 
health care reform should lower costs and broaden access without 
compromising the quality of care.
  I support tax incentives to help individuals buy health insurance, 
high-risk insurance pools for those affected with preexisting 
conditions, allowing small businesses to band together for the purchase 
of health insurance so that they can get the same discounts that large 
corporations receive, and medical malpractice reform to help bring 
health care costs under control by curbing the unnecessary and costly 
practice of defensive medicine.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act, to show the American 
people that we can accomplish meaningful health care reform without 
crippling the economy and bankrupting our Nation.

                              {time}  2040

  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the Chair how 
much time both sides have left.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from New York has 5 minutes 
remaining. The gentleman from Missouri has 4\1/4\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Tonko).
  Mr. TONKO. Thank you to my fellow New Yorker.
  I rise today opposed to the 31st edition of this legislation and urge 
my colleagues to vote against it.
  Just what are we doing here today on the floor of this House? Are we 
passing jobs bills that will help the middle class? No. Are we working 
together to help America recover from the recession? No. Are we passing 
a bill that has any chance of being signed into law? No. So what 
exactly are we doing?
  Are we politically posturing during an election year? Yes. Are we 
voting to repeal a law that more Americans support than oppose without 
any hint of a plan for replacement? Yes. Are we voting to deny 6.6 
million young adults health benefits under their parents' insurance? 
Yes. Are we voting to raise costs for some 5.3 million seniors who pay 
for their prescription drugs? Yes. Are we voting to deny 17 million 
children with preexisting health conditions the opportunity for 
coverage? Yes. Are we voting to take away free screening and 
preventative checkups? Yes.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we can do better than this. Mr. Speaker, we must do 
better than this.
  The Supreme Court--the highest court in the land, a conservative-
leaning court--has ruled, and the debate has ended over the 
constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Instead of repealing the 
health care bill for the 31st time in 19 straight months in a Congress 
that has done absolutely nothing to create jobs, isn't it time to move 
on to something--anything--that will help our struggling middle class?
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are sick and tired of the games 
played on this floor. Let's end this debate and get back to work--work 
that will find us passing bills, that will help grow jobs, work that 
will find us working together to inspire a thriving middle class.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).
  Mr. CHABOT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's unfortunate decision to uphold 
ObamaCare doesn't mean it's the right thing for this country. It's not. 
It was bad public policy when it was forced upon the American people 2 
years ago, and it's bad public policy today.
  Last Friday, the Department of Labor announced that millions are 
still out of work across this country and that businesses are still 
struggling to keep their doors open. It is unfortunate that this 
President doesn't seem to recognize that this law is hurting American 
workers and those looking for work. Businesses will be hit with more 
than $500 billion in new taxes--and the Supreme Court has said what it 
is, a tax--a maze of burdensome red tape, and mandates that could cause 
the loss of 1.6 million additional jobs. We can't afford that.
  And for what?--a law that puts government ahead of people, a law that 
consolidates power into the hands of a group of 15 unelected 
bureaucrats, a law that has already increased health care costs and 
will limit Americans' access to quality, affordable health care.
  There is a better way forward.
  This misguided law must be replaced with patient-centered reforms 
that allow families to make their own health care choices and to visit 
the doctors they want to visit. Health care decisions should be made at 
home, around kitchen tables all across the country, not in the back 
rooms on Capitol Hill.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not need health care reform like this, but we do 
need health care reform. This law is not the answer. It's a Big 
Government power grab. That's what it really is. What history has shown 
time and again is that Big Government makes things more expensive, more 
bureaucratic, and less effective. It is time to repeal this law and to 
get our economy moving again and to get Americans back to work.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

[[Page 11021]]


  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the 
chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee on Healthcare and 
Technology, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Ellmers).
  Mrs. ELLMERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Once again, I rise today to speak out against ObamaCare and why we 
must repeal it.
  The Supreme Court's decision last month has verified that ObamaCare 
is one of the biggest tax increases in modern history. Furthermore, a 
board of 15 unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats will now remain in 
place to determine the health care for millions of Americans while 
cutting $500 billion out of Medicare for our seniors.
  The American people now have a clear choice.
  We in Congress can either support historic tax and spending 
increases, fiscal uncertainty, and unprecedented government overreach; 
or we can join together to fight to repeal this ObamaCare tax and work 
for real solutions while taking health care decisions out of the hands 
of government bureaucrats and putting them back into the control of 
doctors, patients, and their families.
  By repealing ObamaCare, we will restore the doctor-patient 
relationship and protect our seniors from ceding this relationship to a 
board of unelected bureaucrats. Our system must not dictate to doctors 
how to provide care, force them to provide medications regardless of 
known complications and then make them liable with no limits or 
protections.
  Reforming the health care system and ensuring patient-centered access 
to care is not a Republican idea or a Democrat idea. Rather, it is the 
obligation of all of us to the American people.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire of the Chair how 
much time is left on both sides.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fleming). The gentlewoman from New York 
has 3 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Missouri has 30 seconds 
remaining.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from 
Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the gentlelady from New York for 
her distinguished commitment and service to small businesses across 
America.
  Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, a colleague rose to the floor 
and called this ``socialism.'' It is not. Many have risen to the floor 
to talk about how this will impact negatively on small business. It 
will not.
  I rise enthusiastically to oppose what is a political legislative 
act--the repeal of ObamaCare. It is really the Affordable Care Act by 
the statement of the United States Supreme Court. The statement of 
Justice Roberts, of which I read, indicates that, beginning in 2014, 
those who do not comply with the mandate must make a shared 
responsibility payment to the Federal Government.
  That is what this is about--sharing and bringing about health care 
costs that will go down, not up.
  To my small businesses, let me say how much we care for you. I have 
supported small businesses throughout my public life and before, and I 
would argue vigorously that this helps to ensure that you can keep 
employees and add employees.
  In fact, between 2010 and 2011, health care costs dropped to 3.9 
percent when it was above 6 percent--almost one half less than before 
the Affordable Care Act was passed. This, frankly, exempts all 
businesses fewer than 50 employees. That means some 96 percent of 
American small businesses will not even be impacted. For those that 
are, this legislation will provide $40 billion in tax credits for small 
businesses to offer health care.
  Now, in 2011, 360,000 small businesses have benefited from the health 
care tax credit--2 million workers. As well, you will be able to ensure 
with your health insurance that 85 percent of your premiums will go 
toward health claims and improvement activities, not to advertisement.

                              {time}  2050

  It entails that if an insurance company pays $70 for every insurance 
claim and quality-improvement activity, you will get rebates, $127 
million in total rebates in the individual market, and $1.3 billion, 
Mr. Speaker, to consumers and businesses.
  The fact is this is the right thing to do. Support ObamaCare. Oppose 
the repeal. This is good for business.

                                     House of Representatives,

                                     Washington, DC, July 3, 2012.
     Hon. Rick Perry,
     Governor, State of Texas,
     Austin, Texas.
       Dear Governor Perry: As you may know, the United States 
     Supreme Court has upheld major provisions of the Patient 
     Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) last week. Residents 
     in the state of Texas will greatly benefit from its 
     implementation, of which two provisions will directly impact 
     Texans. This includes the Medicaid Expansion and the 
     implementation of health insurance exchanges. I respectfully 
     request that you charge, the Texas State Legislature and the 
     Texas public health departments to begin implementation of 
     the entire law.
       Now that the decision has been made by the United States 
     Supreme Court, it is now time to move past the partisanship 
     and begin delivering affordable care to millions of 
     Americans. Many provisions in the ACA will benefit all of 
     Americans; however, these two specific provisions will 
     greatly benefit our state. For instance, the Medicaid 
     expansion will expand coverage to Americans who are below 133 
     percent of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL). Roughly 25 percent 
     of Texans are below 100 percent of the FPL, which is higher 
     than the national average. Those who are low income have less 
     access to care, have poorer health outcomes and are at a 
     higher risk of premature death. Our State has an obligation 
     to ensure those who are most vulnerable do not prematurely 
     die because they lacked coverage, especially after the United 
     States Supreme Court has ruled the law constitutional. 
     Furthermore, a number of states have already expanded their 
     Medicaid program, and I encourage you to move forward on 
     expanding our program as well. Although the Supreme Court 
     decision apparently permits a state to opt out, I am 
     requesting that you choose not to, and take care of Texans in 
     need.
       The ACA also requires states to have their state-based 
     health insurance exchanges running by 2014 and provide a 
     progress report by 2013. Currently, our State of Texas has 
     done nothing in exploring options. I encourage you to begin 
     setting up our exchange for a number of reasons.
       For one, many Americans and businesses find navigating 
     private health care insurance plans complicated and 
     confusing. Establishing our State-based health insurance 
     exchange will provide a clear mechanism for many Texans and 
     small businesses purchase affordable health insurance plans. 
     This will greatly benefit those who are below 400 percent of 
     the FPL.
       As a Member of Congress, representing our great State, I 
     have an obligation to do all that is possible to ensure that 
     the laws are followed when enacted. Our Supreme Court has 
     decided on the ACA and now it is time to move forward and 
     begin with implementation. Our State has so much to benefit 
     from implementing the law, and I know Texans will greatly 
     appreciate your dedication to adhere to the law.
           Very Truly Yours,
                                               Sheila Jackson Lee,
                                               Member of Congress.

  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I'm prepared to close.
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, with that, I am prepared to close.
  What will small businesses lose if health care reform is repealed? 
Small business tax credits that save employers $435 million in 2011 
will be abolished. Insurers will be able to continue price-gouging 
their customers and denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Repeal 
will mean millions of families and employers will no longer receive the 
benefits of lower premiums on insurance company rebates worth over $300 
million this year alone.
  I urge a ``no'' vote because the ACA was a step in the right 
direction. Without it, the self-employed and small business employees 
will continue to be uninsured at high rates with no hope of Republican 
action to fix the broken health care system.
  Mr. Speaker, instead of holding this vote, we should be spending our 
time on targeted measures to help our Nation's small businesses grow 
and create jobs. Maybe what we should be doing today is debating the 
jobs bill that the President presented to us in the House of 
Representatives.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time, and I urge a ``no'' 
vote.
  Mr. GRAVES of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the 
comments made by the gentlelady from

[[Page 11022]]

Texas who claimed that 4 million small businesses are going to be able 
to take advantage of this tax credit and how much it was going to help.
  We requested a GAO study and found that only 170 small businesses 
have even taken partial advantage of this credit. This bill is grossly 
ineffective, it does not work, and it hurts small businesses.
  I would urge my colleagues to vote to repeal this piece of 
legislation and help get this economy finally rolling so we can pass 
some real reforms when it comes to health care.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I don't think I look much like Bill Murray, 
or have his wit, but I sure feel like him in his role in ``Groundhog 
Day.''
  There are pressing issues facing our country--mainly the need to get 
our economy back on track and start creating jobs. But, my Republican 
colleagues refuse to allow us to focus on that vital priority.
  Instead, we are here for the 31st time in this Congress to consider 
repeal of the health reform law.
  Nevermind that the House already passed repeal of the health care law 
early in 2011 and that bill is still sitting in the Senate awaiting 
their consideration.
  Nevermind that 29 other bills have repealed particular provisions of 
the law.
  No, we are going to once again take the time of this Congress to pass 
a bill that doesn't need to be passed because my Republican colleagues 
are mad at the Supreme Court for upholding the law.
  We know that House Republicans don't intend for the Senate to take 
this bill seriously because they are rushing this bill to the floor 
today before the Congressional Budget Office has even had the 
opportunity to provide a score for health reform repeal. With that 
analysis, we would know the cost or savings associated with health 
reform repeal. But, Republicans don't feel any need for being informed 
before they vote because they know they hate health reform and they'll 
vote to repeal it no matter what.
  Well, with a Congress that behaves like this, none of us should 
wonder why our approval ratings are at 12%.
  What my Republican colleagues steadfastly refuse to acknowledge is 
that health reform is already helping people and repealing it will have 
serious negative consequences for millions of Americans.
  Should Republicans succeed in their blind drive to repeal health 
reform:
  6.6 million young adults would lose the guarantee of being allowed to 
obtain insurance coverage on their parents' health insurance plans.
  17 million children with pre-existing conditions could again be 
denied health insurance coverage.
  105 million Americans would again be subject to lifetime limits on 
health insurance--which could stop coverage when they need it most.
  12.8 million Americans who are due over $1 billion in rebates from 
the health insurance industry this year would never see that financial 
relief.
  The more than 5.3 million Medicare beneficiaries who have been helped 
with high drug costs would see that assistance disappear.
  The 86 million people who have already received life-saving 
preventive benefits free-of-charge would lose access to that vital 
benefit.
  The list goes on and on.
  Repeal of ObamaCare is not what the American people want. When I go 
home, parents thank me for health reform because their children who are 
recent college graduates have health insurance, their parents on 
Medicare saved money on their prescription drugs, and they know they 
will soon not be locked-in to their current job for fear of losing 
health coverage. When they talk to me about what Congress should be 
doing, they emphasize, jobs, jobs, jobs.
  I agree with my constituents. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on 
this senseless political stunt of a bill and I implore my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle to get on with the business that American's 
care about--jobs.
  Mr. TURNER of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the flawed Obamacare law adversely 
affects American families, small businesses and millions of seniors. 
Even before the law is fully implemented, Obamacare already increases 
costs on hard-working American families and businesses. For example, 
healthcare premiums have already increased by $1,200 for the average 
American family.
  Two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the individual 
mandate of the President's healthcare law is a tax. This tax will have 
tremendous consequences on individuals, working families, businesses, 
and local governments. In fact, the most recent Congressional Budget 
Office estimate indicates that the individual mandate will impose $54 
billion in new taxes on Americans over 10 years.
  We have heard from many businesses across the country that the 
employer mandate will be devastating for them and their employees. For 
example, the employer mandate to provide healthcare coverage will 
penalize American firms by $113 billion over 10 years and could 
eliminate 1.6 million jobs. At a time when the economy is still 
struggling to recover, we should be focused on reducing taxes on 
hardworking Americans and providing incentives for businesses to grow 
and create jobs.
  That is why last week I authored H.R. 6048, the Healthcare Tax Relief 
and Mandate Repeal Act, with 125 of my colleagues, to repeal the 
Obamacare individual and employer mandates, providing relief for 
American families and businesses.
  Mr. Speaker, I am also troubled by the Obamacare 2.3 percent tax on 
medical devices. Mound Laser and Photonics Center, headquartered in 
Miamisburg, Ohio in my district, specializes in laser-based micro and 
nano-fabrication. The majority of its workers have backgrounds in 
science and engineering, critical fields our country needs to compete 
in the global economy. Unfortunately, the company reported it was 
forced to lay off 10 employees due to the loss of business from one of 
its medical device clients.
  Another company in my community, Ferno-Washington Inc., a global 
leader in manufacturing and distribution of professional emergency and 
healthcare products based in Wilmington, Ohio, says the tax increase 
will cause the company to scale back research, development, and 
production of new products, hampering the company's ability to compete. 
The executives at Ferno estimate the cost of the tax is equivalent to 
23 jobs.
  This Congress, I authored H.R. 1310, a bill to repeal this tax for 
first responder medical devices and co-sponsored a bill to eliminate 
this unfair tax altogether.
  Mr. Speaker, now is not the time to impose extra burdens on American 
families and businesses when our economy is struggling to get back on 
track. I strongly support repeal of Obamacare and am committed to 
working with my colleagues to carefully and thoughtfully implement real 
healthcare reform.
  Mr. MARCHANT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act.
  Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that, for the 
41st straight month, we had an unemployment rate of above 8%. As a 
small businessman, this comes as no surprise to me. The President has 
done little to inspire confidence in job creators. From new, burdensome 
regulations and stifling tax hikes, the legislative agenda of this 
Administration's first two years is still wreaking havoc on the 
economy.
  I say this just a day after the President reiterated his commitment 
to the notion that we ought to increase taxes to feed more big 
government, the same big government that has let our deficits spiral 
out of control and our credit rating downgraded.
  We have much work to do to rein in government. Repealing this 
monument to bloated bureaucracy is but the first step we must take to 
signal to the private sector that success will not be punished.
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the 31st attempt 
to roll back health care coverage for American families.
  Before the bill was passed, the House and Senate debated it for well 
over a year. It was debated on the House and Senate floor, in several 
committees, in the media, in town halls, on the World Wide Web, in 
living rooms; indeed, it was hard to escape the debate during that 
time. The bills received dozens of votes, including committee votes. It 
passed the House and Senate. It was signed into law. Since then, it has 
continued to be debated; the House alone has devoted 43 hours of scarce 
floor time to it. Now, it is being implemented and American families 
are already benefitting from the law. It has been through the courts--
all the way to the highest court--and it has been found to be 
constitutional. It has been upheld.
  Instead of trying to accelerate our economic recovery, the primary 
concern of American families and businesses, we are spending hours of 
valuable time on the House floor debating yet again whether to repeal 
the Affordable Care Act. I would be enthusiastically supportive of a 
debate about whether to continue forward progress by moving toward a 
single payer system which would provide higher quality health care for 
everyone in the U.S. without paying a dime more than we are currently 
paying. That is a debate worth having.

[[Page 11023]]

But today's debate is not about moving forward; it is about moving 
backward. We can't move forward with our eyes glued to the rear view 
mirror. This is not governance.
  Mrs. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, three branches of the federal government 
now agree: the Affordable Care Act is a tax, and it falls to Congress 
to repeal this tax.
  American families, employers, patients and providers have known this 
all along. CBO says the health care law will cost 800,000 American 
jobs. Taxpayers are footing more than a trillion dollar bill for the 
privilege of putting more Americans out of work. It is a tax on top of 
a tax.
  How much more damage can this Administration inflict on the American 
economy? How much more uncertainty can our small businesses bear? What 
American senior citizen feels comfortable with handing over their 
health care decisions to an unelected board deep in a federal office or 
inflicting a $500 billion cut to Medicare?
  This law represents the most chilling powers of government: to tax as 
a form of interference with our freedoms, to get between Americans and 
their earnings at the same time it gets between Americans and their 
liberties. The taxes included in the ACA punish Americans for not doing 
something the government has decided to require.
  We are here today to start a long, important conversation in Congress 
and in the nation about ridding ourselves of this law's dire 
consequences, intended and unintended. We will not settle the matter 
today, but it is vital that the people know we are working to strike 
down a tax we do not want, cannot afford and will not pay as a price 
for our freedom.
  Ms. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 6079, 
the latest Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and 
block meaningful reform. I stand with the young people who can now find 
coverage under their parents' health insurance plans, Americans with 
pre-existing conditions who had been denied access to care, and senior 
citizens who cannot afford the sky-rocketing costs of medical 
treatments. Mr. Speaker, I stand with all Americans who will now begin 
to see the overall cost of health insurance go down.
  The Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the United States Supreme 
Court as a constitutional law. I now rise to praise it as a wise and 
moral one, as well.
  Access to quality, affordable healthcare is a basic right and is 
critical to the wellbeing of America, both today and in the future. 
This legislation addresses the needs of the millions of uninsured 
Americans, strengthens the Medicare system, and relieves all Americans 
of the growing financial burden of medical costs and insurance. Those 
who are attempting to obstruct healthcare reform are in effect 
sabotaging the health and financial security of my constituents and 
fellow Americans, and I cannot allow this repeal to pass.
  In the 37th Congressional District of California, the benefits of the 
Affordable Care Act are undisputable. 23,000 children and 90,000 adults 
now have health insurance that covers preventative services with no co-
pays, coinsurance, or deductibles. 510 small businesses have received 
tax credits to help maintain or expand healthcare coverage for their 
employees. Healthcare providers in the district have also received $3.4 
million in Affordable Care Act grants since 2010 to support community 
health centers; to develop innovative, cost-saving healthcare delivery 
systems; and to train health professionals.
  These statistics are not unique to my district, and similar success 
stories are emerging in all corners of the country.
  Look, for instance, at how the healthcare law is benefiting young 
adults and children. Under this reform, young adults may stay on their 
parents' health insurance until their 26th birthday, which is 
especially critical when recent graduates and young adults are seeking 
employment. Young adults are the most uninsured group among all 
Americans, and without this provision, 3.1 million young adults would 
be uncovered.
  Before the Affordable Care Act passed, health insurance companies 
could also deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, 
including common conditions like asthma. Healthcare reform corrected 
this unconscionable abuse, and its repeal would be a direct attack on 
the 17 million children who will now be protected from discrimination.
  The concept of pre-existing conditions was also used to justify 
discriminatory policies that targeted women. Many women have been 
denied coverage or are charged at higher rates for conditions that 
include breast or cervical cancer, pregnancy, a history of a C-section, 
or having been a victim of domestic violence. I have a long history of 
supporting women's access to reproductive healthcare as well as a 
strong record fighting domestic violence. I am proud to support the 
Affordable Care Act, which gives women many of the rights and 
protections that I have fought for.
  I would also like to take a moment to highlight how the Affordable 
Care Act helps American seniors by strengthening Medicare. 5.3 million 
seniors who used to fall into the ``donut hole'' Medicare coverage gap 
have already saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs because of 
healthcare reform, averaging $600 per senior. The healthcare law will 
also completely close the ``donut hole'' by 2020. In addition, Medicare 
recipients are receiving a free annual wellness visit and coverage of 
key preventive services, meaning that seniors can access care before 
any problems escalate into costly and chronic conditions down the road. 
These services are possible because the Affordable Care Act has sparked 
a record-breaking crackdown on Medicare fraud, recovering more than 
$4.1 billion in fiscal year 2011 alone.
  Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act addresses serious problems that 
have been plaguing children, women, and seniors. Its reforms will even 
the playing field for anyone who wants quality health insurance and 
will help our country more closely resemble the principles on which it 
was founded.
  Despite the unfounded claims that this bill will raise taxes for 
everyday Americans, the Affordable Care Act will bring significant and 
immediate savings to the middle class at a time when they need it most. 
The healthcare law will provide a tax cut that averages around $4,000 
for 18 million middle class people, and 12.8 million Americans will 
receive $1.1 billion back in rebates by August. When insurance 
companies overspend on administrative costs and CEO bonuses, it is the 
middle class who pays.
  Until now, everyday citizens have also had to subsidize the medical 
costs for a small number of people who can afford healthcare but choose 
to remain without coverage. These individuals force American families 
to pay an additional $1,017 each year to compensate. The Affordable 
Care Act would impose a modest penalty, ensuring that those who do not 
purchase their own coverage do not cause spikes in the cost of others' 
insurance. Although opponents of the Affordable Care Act attack this 
``free-rider'' penalty as an unfair tax, the truth is that the majority 
of Americans will never have to pay it and rather stand to benefit from 
lower insurance rates.
  Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act was a long overdue bill that 
corrects deep injustices in access to healthcare. Should the act be 
repealed, there is no planned reform to take its place. We would simply 
return to the same broken healthcare system and the same failed 
policies.
  Many Americans view Congress as a system that is equally broken. They 
see that their leaders have an unprecedented opportunity for creating 
real and lasting change, and instead that chance is being squandered 
for short-sighted political gain. The GOP-controlled House is 
unleashing this attack without offering any new solutions. The 
Republican dismantling of the healthcare bill would be an act of 
betrayal to the American people who deserve basic health insurance, not 
election-year politics.
  We have just celebrated the Fourth of July and marked the 236th 
anniversary of American independence. Looking back on our nation's 
history, there are certain moments that exemplify our evolution toward 
true democracy. Those are moments of action, not simply a rhetorical 
commitment to equality. We freed the slaves, extended voting rights to 
women, passed the Civil Rights Act and the G.I. bill, gave the right to 
vote to 18-year-olds, created social security and Medicare, and most 
recently repealed the discriminatory ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' policy. 
Each of these battles faced fierce opposition, but, now that they have 
been won, they are remembered as a triumph of core American values. 
Many look back and believe that America's best days are behind us, but 
I look ahead and see the Affordable Care Act as yet another brick in 
the wall of American greatness.
  Mr. Speaker, all Americans--young, old, rich, and poor--have an 
unalienable right to healthcare. I ask my colleagues to join me in my 
pledge to support the Affordable Care Act and to continue efforts to 
strengthen our healthcare system in years to come.
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to strongly support the 
passage of H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act.
  A little over two years ago, as our Democratic colleagues were 
jamming this bill through Congress, their leadership thought they could 
appease some of the public's outrage by uttering that now famous phrase 
``we have to pass the bill to know what's in it.''
  Unfortunately for them, two years have passed and we now have seen 
what is in the

[[Page 11024]]

bill--a top down, Washington-centric plan for the future of American's 
health services. Obamacare expanded and entrenched the worst parts of 
the American health system: it drives up premiums, reduces competition 
among insurers, restricts patient choice, further undermines the 
solvency of Medicare and Medicaid, and raises hundreds of billions of 
dollars in new taxes.
  The law creates over a hundred and fifty new boards and offices, each 
with the authority to manage a piece of American's health care. The 
bill also gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services 1,700 new or 
enlarged powers to control American's access to and interaction with 
their health services. It even mandates that religious institutions 
violate the basic tenants of their faith by providing coverage for 
drugs and procedures that they find morally objectionable.
  What's more, the law taxes insurers, device manufacturers, and drug 
manufacturers, driving up the cost of these products. And then, in 
perhaps the greatest insult, Obamacare taxes employers for not 
providing insurance, it taxes people for not having insurance, and then 
it taxes people for having insurance that is too good.
  Mr. Speaker, from its inception, this law has been a failure because 
it is premised on the misguided idea that a small group of individuals 
can plan out orderly lives for the rest of us. There is not one person 
working at the Department of Health and Human Services who knows what 
it is like to be a family in Bronte, practice medicine in Brownwood, or 
run a hospital in Andrews. Yet, Obamacare hands the fate of the 
families, doctors, and hospitals across my district over to the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services and her staff.
  The ACA sets the ideas of this small cadre of Washington insiders 
ahead of the concerns of my constituents and their caregivers. It was 
crafted in secret and passed in the dead of night, and its most 
important details were left up to regulators who are unaccountable to 
voters. What was a 2,700 hundred page bill has spawned over 12,000 
pages of regulations and more are being published every day.
  American's deserve a health care system that is designed with them at 
the heart of it. House Republicans are committed to enacting sensible 
reforms that build up the free-market. Solutions like buying insurance 
across state lines, allowing association health plans, and reforming 
our out of control tout system are common sense changes that will 
expand risk pools, lower premiums, and make insurance more affordable 
for millions of Americans. Our ideas can do this without the thousands 
of pages of rules and regulations, the hundreds of billions of dollars 
in taxes, and the mandates imposed by Obamacare.
  I urge my colleagues join me in passing H.R. 6079 to repeal this 
divisive, intrusive, and loathsome healthcare law.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 1(c) of rule XIX, further 
consideration of H.R. 6079 is postponed.

                          ____________________