[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14390]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I have stepped away from a Ways and 
Means Subcommittee on Health to come to the floor. The purpose of that 
hearing is once again to attack the Affordable Care Act, criticisms of 
CMS, and to lay the foundation for the Republican goal of repealing the 
Act entirely.
  I have frankly lost track of the number of attempts to repeal the 
bill. Fifty? Sixty? You know, it really doesn't matter. The Affordable 
Care Act is here to stay and will be throughout the tenure of President 
Obama.
  Despite some difficulties in its implementation, the President is 
justly proud of the health care reform as a signal accomplishment of 
his administration. Many of the problems that we are facing in the 
implementation of the act have been as a result of Republican 
intransigence.
  Remember, despite the fact that the legislation embodies most of what 
had been bipartisan principles--indeed, those strongly advocated by 
Republicans over the last 20 years or more--there was unrelenting 
opposition.
  Republicans in the Senate refused to cooperate and refused to 
legislate, denying the 60-vote threshold necessary to move the bill 
forward. As a result, the bill was adopted through a process called 
reconciliation, where you just melded the two bills together.
  The result was not a bill that anybody would have designed, but it 
easily could have been made better, should our Republican friends have 
chosen. Instead, they have continued this unyielding assault.
  Even without their assistance, the results are pretty remarkable. We 
have the lowest rate of medical inflation in years. The Congressional 
Budget Office has consistently now been lowering the long-term cost 
estimates for Medicare.
  This is probably the most powerful evidence yet that we are getting 
runaway health care costs under control, which was and remains the 
greatest single threat to the fiscal stability of our country.
  We have been doing much more than merely controlling costs. There are 
more than 8 million people with marketplace insurance, and about three-
quarters of them receive tax credits to help reduce the cost. Six 
million low-income people have been enrolled in Medicaid. Another 6 
million children have been able to stay on their parents' health plans.
  129 million Americans--I daresay that includes most of us in 
Congress--can no longer be denied care because of preexisting medical 
conditions.
  As I said, there is lots that can be done to improve the system. 
Today, I had a chance to address the Case Management Society of America 
about one of them. Congressman Petri of Wisconsin and I have introduced 
a transitional care benefit that would greatly reduce the chance of 
hospital readmissions that are not just costly, but they represent a 
failure to deliver health care to our citizens and reduce the stress 
and strain on families with loved ones who have left the hospital. This 
could save billions of dollars and frankly doesn't remotely depend on 
whether or not you support ObamaCare.
  Another great example is legislation that Dr. Phil Roe of Tennessee 
and I have introduced, dealing with the Federal Government finally 
placing a value on the conversation with patients and their families 
for conditions surrounding the end of life.
  There is value-based insurance, which I am cosponsoring with 
Representative Black of Tennessee. Representative Roskam of Illinois 
has the PRIME Act to deal with Medicare fraud. Representative Gerlach 
of Pennsylvania for several years has had legislation for a secure 
access card.
  The list of opportunities is long and represents an extraordinary 
chance to build on reform, not just a futile effort at undermining it.
  Someday, the American public is going to insist that we grow up and 
do our jobs, and there would be no better place to start than in 
building on the promise of health care reform not just to save money, 
but to improve the lives of Americans of all ages.
  The hypocrisy here is breathtaking: refuse to legislate and then 
attack it for its faults; starve the IRS and CMS of resources to 
properly administer the law and then complain that the IRS and CMS are 
not properly administering it.
  The American public has a right to expect better from the people's 
House. Someday, they will get it.

                          ____________________