[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14616-14617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                52 PERCENT OF AMERICANS OPPOSE OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the President, in his 
remarks to the country yesterday, demonstrated a willingness for 
diplomacy and negotiations. Sadly, any leadership he reflected in his 
remarks was a willingness to communicate and negotiate with the terror-
states of Iran and Syria and not the United States House of 
Representatives. What the President also made clear was his 
unwillingness to serve the will and the concerns of a majority of 
American citizens, families, and businesses when it comes to their 
health care.
  Health care is one of the more intimate issues in America. There 
should be no surprise of the emotional reaction and rejection by the 
majority of the country when this legislation is

[[Page 14617]]

passed unilaterally by one party without adequate debate or vetting and 
is mandated on 311 Americans.
  The September 4 to 23 Real Clear Politics compilation of seven major 
national polls show that an average of 52 percent of Americans are 
opposed or against the Affordable Care Act, while only 38.7 percent are 
for or in favor of this law.
  Mr. Speaker, I understand the political divide that unfortunately 
exists in Washington, but what I do not get is how the President 
ignores the will of the majority of the American people. We expect 
leadership from the President, but there is no leadership when the 
direction you want to take the country is rejected as the wrong 
direction for the majority of American citizens.
  Now, some have said that the Affordable Care Act is the law, so just 
implement it. Well, that makes a dangerous assumption that Congress 
never gets it wrong. History has certainly shown precedence that 
Congress can and has corrected the mistakes that it has made. The 
Prohibition, which was repealed in 1933, had been fairly unpopular--
probably more disliked than even ObamaCare. More recently, the Medicare 
Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, a bipartisan bill, was intended to 
provide supplemental health care insurance for the elderly. But it also 
included a surtax on middle- and upper-income seniors which was quickly 
repealed when the will of a majority of Americans was taken into 
consideration.
  Now, what is more dangerous than a government that may err on 
occasion or supposed leaders that are incapable of recognizing an error 
and taking a course of correction?

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. Speaker, the Senate Democrats yesterday recklessly voted to 
disregard the will of the American majority and essentially endorse a 
government shutdown rather than take any course of correction on what 
is a fundamentally flawed law that is raising premiums and already 
limiting access.
  In my home State of Pennsylvania, countless children in disadvantaged 
homes are covered under the Children's Health Insurance Program, or 
CHIP. The CHIP program originated in Pennsylvania and provides support 
to parents of these children to allow them to buy health insurance for 
their children from the commercial insurance market. The CHIP program 
provides access to quality health care, not with government-run 
programs, but through a partnership with the private sector. Under 
ObamaCare, these children are being ripped out of CHIP and placed in 
medical assistance where the parents will be hard-pressed to find a 
pediatrician even willing to see, let alone treat, their child.
  Mr. Speaker, the unwillingness to admit the errors of ObamaCare and 
take corrective action is even throwing America's most vulnerable 
children, who are growing up in poverty circumstances, under the bus. 
They deserve better.

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