[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13942-13943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              OBAMACARE FAILS TO LIVE UP TO ITS GUARANTEES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, when President Obama sold his health care 
law to the American people, he made many promises. He promised--he 
guaranteed--that if you like your doctor or your health care plan, you 
could keep it. He promised that his law would not raise your health 
insurance costs.
  My constituents will tell you that the health care law has broken 
these promises, that these guarantees are no good. Nearly every day I 
hear from folks, moms and dads, teachers, bus drivers, small business 
owners, health care providers, who are being hurt by the health care 
law.
  A woman I met recently, who had just started a new job, making $8.50, 
learned that her hours would be cut from 35 to 29. If you do the math, 
that's about $50 a week, $200 a month, $2,500 a year. That may not 
sound like a lot of money to the elites here in Washington, D.C., but 
for a working person in western Pennsylvania, that can make a big 
difference with gas, groceries, or helping to pay the rent.
  A chemistry teacher recently called my office in Beaver County to 
share her story about the health care law hurting her coworkers. The 
special needs teachers' aides in her school recently had their hours 
cut from 37\1/2\ hours to 28. That's a loss of $180 per paycheck. Many 
of these aides depend on this job to provide health insurance

[[Page 13943]]

for their families. Thanks to the health care law, these teachers' 
aides and their families will lose their health care coverage.
  A mom from the North Hills of Pittsburgh recently got in touch with 
me to tell me about the impact of the health care law on her family's 
small business. Kathy and her husband recently learned that their 
health care plan will be discontinued December 31. Kathy told me that 
since ObamaCare was voted into law, we have watched our deductible 
soar, our premiums soar, and our blood pressures soar. Enough already.
  Kathy's sentiment is shared by many of the western Pennsylvanians who 
called the office and whom I've talked to at small business and 
constituent gatherings around the district. In the real world, when you 
buy a product that comes with a guarantee, if the guarantee is not met, 
you get your money back and you look for a new product.
  With only 13 days until the law begins to take full effect, more and 
more flaws are increasingly evident, and the President continues to 
delay, arbitrarily, major provisions of his health care law. We need to 
delay and dismantle the entire law so that a process of bipartisan 
health care reform can finally begin.
  It's time for a new beginning. It's time for a government that looks 
to the American people and our doctors and health care providers, not 
as subjects to be managed, but as partners who can help solve problems.
  It's time for a new beginning that brings Republicans and Democrats 
in support of bipartisan solutions together. As President Kennedy once 
said, let us not seek the Republican answer, let us not seek the 
Democratic answer, but the right answer.

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