[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14956]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      A REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Pittenger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PITTENGER. We were elected to be Representatives--to represent 
our districts, to represent our constituents, to listen, and to 
respond.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been listening. I have been listening to phone 
calls. I have been reading emails. I have been hearing what my 
constituents have to say, and I can tell you that they are deeply 
concerned. They are concerned with the direction of our country. Yes, 
they are concerned with a body that can't seem to come together, that 
can't seem to listen to each other. One of them wrote me just today.
  He said:

       I have watched with great interest the ongoing debate 
     between the House and the Senate regarding the new Federal 
     health care law. Quite frankly, I was of the opinion that an 
     absolute stand by House Republicans to defund ObamaCare was 
     an inappropriate step as compared to less drastic measures . 
     . . However, in the mail today, we received a 92 percent 
     proposed increase from Blue Cross-Blue Shield for our current 
     plan in 2014. The explanation of the increase all boiled down 
     to the changes in the insurance market required as a result 
     of the full implementation of ObamaCare. You can easily 
     understand why we are astounded that this is the best health 
     care direction that our country can embark upon.
       I encourage you to take whatever opportunities come your 
     way to stop this disaster that is looming. The financial 
     impact on people who are not a drain on the government will 
     be immense.

  Here is another one, Mr. Speaker:

       I just received a letter from Blue Cross informing me that 
     my current coverage has been outlawed by ObamaCare and that 
     the premium for my family will increase by 400 percent if I 
     switch to a legal coverage option. This increase is over 
     $9,000 a year . . . I don't care if you have to risk shutting 
     down the government or defaulting on the debt. It is just 
     postponing the inevitable default if ObamaCare is allowed to 
     exist.

  Mr. Speaker, we are not here because we want to shut down the 
government. We have made every effort possible. We have gone to great 
lengths--the extra mile--to the other side to present to them 
alternatives, to present to them ways that we could come together and 
agree. We had three proposals there on the table. Now we have offered 
to go and sit down and talk. That's what our body does. When we have 
disagreements between the House and the Senate, our formal agreement is 
to meet and we confer. We bring in negotiators. We talk, and we try to 
reason this out. We do this in our families, don't we? That's what is 
done in this body in the normal course of business.
  However, in our efforts of trying to bring resolution and sound 
reasoning to this process, we can't get a response. They say, No, we 
don't want to talk to you. We don't want to reason with you. We don't 
want to hear what your constituents are saying. We don't want to hear 
the problems. We just want to ram this through.
  Where is that in a representative government? Where is that in being 
responsive to the American people?
  Mr. Speaker, if we really want good policy--and I have to believe 
that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle truly want good 
policy--then we need to take politics out of this. We need to take 
self-service out of this. We need to come together like adults and sit 
down and talk this through and come up with a reasonable solution that 
would bring the best outcome for the American people. That's what our 
hope is.
  We invite, still today, the leadership of the Senate to come and sit 
down and to conference with us--to negotiate with us, to lay out their 
concerns and their thoughts. Let's be adults. Let's do the right thing 
for the American people.

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