[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3371]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         RATE SHOCK AND THE PRESIDENT'S TAKEOVER OF HEALTH CARE

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, well, here we are. The Affordable Care Act 
is going to be 3 years old in just a few days, and we're continuing to 
uncover things within the law that nobody knew about. Remember all the 
stuff that was sold to the public because it was going to be ``free''? 
But we all know nothing is free, so how do you pay for it?
  Well, it turns out there's going to be tax on insurance companies and 
taxes on employers which, guess what? That's going to be passed on to 
the employees and the beneficiaries. The deadline is quickly 
approaching and plans are submitting their bids, but they're faced with 
no choice but to raise costs.
  In response to the rate increases, the Federal Government is 
attempting to limit higher premiums by something they call rate review. 
But anytime you treat only the symptom of a disease and not the 
underlying cause, you're going to end up with something you didn't 
expect.
  Continued regulatory pressure--continued pressure on employers and 
continued pressure on insurance plans--is going to result in actually 
further increasing rates. The government is attempting to control the 
market. But we all know this market is one the government cannot 
control, and the end result is that we'll all suffer.
  Let's face it. Instead of ``if you like what you have, you can keep 
it,'' what they really meant to say was ``you're going to pay a lot 
more to get a lot less.''

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