[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14618-14619]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 AFFORDABLE AND ACCESSIBLE HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Tipton) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TIPTON. Mr. Speaker, let's begin with where we can all agree as 
Americans: at the very beginning of the debate when it came to health 
care in 2008, it was about affordability and accessibility when it 
comes to health care. We can't disagree about that. As Americans and 
small businessmen, we felt the pain of seeing ever-increasing premiums, 
but we also wanted to make sure that we had access to real doctors.
  What are the results that are now coming out of the Affordable Care 
Act? Let me give you an example that was just emailed to me last night 
out of a small community church in my district in Durango, Colorado. 
They were just able to extend their plan before the Affordable Care Act 
takes effect. For six employees working at the church, their premiums 
are now going to be $50,665 for the collective group this year. When 
the Affordable Care Act impacts them in the next cycle, those rates 
will rise for those same six employees to $72,069, a 48.7 percent 
increase.
  So the question we have to ask is: Has the Affordable Care Act 
achieved the goal that, as Americans, we can all agree that we desire 
to be able to have--affordability?
  Let's talk to those six people working in that small church in 
Durango, Colorado, who are relying on charitable contributions to be 
able to have their jobs, to have affordable health care. The answer is 
no.
  Let's talk to senior citizens that I visited with throughout the 
Third Congressional District of Colorado, many of whom just became 
senior citizens and are now required to sign up for Medicare under the 
law. Just because of a birthday over the last year or two, they are now 
finding that they cannot even find a doctor who will accept Medicare.
  I just held a meeting with better than 20 physicians in Grand 
Junction, Colorado, several of whom expressed that by the year 2014 
they're closing their practices. So have we addressed accessibility in 
America? We have not.
  What the administration fails to understand is there's a quantitative 
difference between affordability and accessibility and just having an 
insurance card. We can insure every American, but does that mean you 
have access to quality health care at an affordable price?
  The Republican Party is putting forward real solutions to be able to 
address this challenge. Let's let the free markets actually work. Let's 
have real competition. Let's allow businesses to be able to come 
together to be able to form real groups and to be able to negotiate 
lower rates. Let's incentivize rather than disincentivize, as the 
President's law does, those private medical health care savings 
accounts if we really care about health care. Let's, indeed, make sure 
that people with preexisting conditions have access and affordable 
health care as well.
  These are the plans that we are putting forward; but it's going to 
require that we work together. What is not helpful is when we hear an 
administration say it is nonnegotiable while at the same time saying we 
have to work together. We can't work together if we cannot have a 
dialogue. That is what this House of Representatives is putting 
forward--real solutions to be able to address the real problems to help 
real Americans that are struggling right now.
  And the bottom line is, if we want health care, we also need jobs. If 
you talk to the people in my district, small businesses, they aren't 
able to hire right now simply because of the cost of the Affordable 
Care Act and the impacts that they're feeling. These are affecting real 
Americans, real people, and real lives. The solution cannot and should 
not be just bigger government, just a legacy piece of legislation.
  I believe that the American people deserve a policy that will 
actually work for them. That can only be achieved if we work together. 
We are putting those ideas forward today. We are not about shutting 
down this government. We want to keep it open. That's the policy of our 
conference. But we also need to have a policy that's making sure that 
government laws are not hurting the American people. The Affordable 
Care Act is hurting the American people, will hurt the economy, will 
hurt jobs.

[[Page 14619]]

  This is something that we can achieve a positive solution on if the 
administration will open that door to dialogue rather than distrust. 
Let's work for the American people rather than for bigger government.

                          ____________________