[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 14765]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Deutch) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DEUTCH. Madam Speaker, the Affordable Care Act is working in 
Florida for a very simple reason: no one wants to be uninsured. People 
want affordable health insurance.
  Florida enrolled more people in health insurance coverage than any 
other State using healthcare.gov. This only illustrates just how high a 
demand there is for affordable coverage in our State.
  During the first open enrollment period, some 983,000 Floridians 
signed up. More than 90 percent were eligible for some type of 
financial assistance under the law, which drove premiums down to an 
average of $79 a month in Florida.
  In the span of a few months, our State's uninsured rate dropped from 
25 percent to under 20 percent. I am confident that when open 
enrollment begins this fall, even more Floridians will take advantage 
of the opportunity to get covered.
  Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, there are 1.06 million Floridians who 
won't have that opportunity. They don't make enough money to qualify 
for help buying private insurance in the marketplace, and they have 
been denied the Medicaid coverage that they are eligible for by 
Governor Rick Scott and by our GOP State legislature.
  Health care reform was designed to help more Americans afford private 
health insurance and provide basic coverage for low-income people 
through Medicaid. To do so, the law extended eligibility for Medicaid 
to people earning up to 138 percent of the Federal poverty level.
  Talking in terms of the Federal poverty level seems abstract, but for 
the millions of Americans working hard for such little income the 
hardships that they face are very real. Earning 138 percent of the 
poverty level means barely making ends meet. For a full-time minimum 
wage worker it means scraping by on less than $16,000 a year; for a 
family of four it means bringing in less than $32,000 a year, 
struggling to afford food and other basic necessities. Unfortunately, 
in Florida, it also means going uninsured. That is unacceptable in 2014 
when there is a Federal law on the books that says that they don't have 
to be.
  As a member of the House Medicaid Expansion Caucus here in Congress, 
unfortunately, I find myself in a position where I have to ask Governor 
Scott and my former colleagues on the floor of the legislature just a 
few questions: Are two young parents working fast-food jobs in Miami 
less deserving of primary care visits than a couple working at the same 
burger chain in Colorado? Are the chronic headaches of a home cleaner 
in West Palm Beach somehow less serious than those doing the same work 
in West Virginia? Is a loved one struggling with substance abuse in 
Orlando any less worthy of treatment than someone in New York or in 
Maine? Are these 1,060,000 Floridians somehow undeserving of the 
coverage our Federal health care law has made them eligible for?
  These are some of the most hardworking people in our State. They are 
proud moms and dads. They are cashiers and housekeepers, security 
guards and fast-food workers, office clerks, and landscapers. They are 
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are adults who have gone back to 
college to further their careers.
  Our desire to give Florida families the same shot at leading healthy, 
productive lives as Americans in any other State should be enough to 
convince Governor Rick Scott to call the legislature back into session 
tomorrow to get it done.
  But just in case our responsibility to protect families and promote 
public health isn't enough, economists have also found that no other 
State has more to lose by rejecting Medicaid expansion--by rejecting 
Medicaid expansion--than Florida.
  Just this month, a McClatchy analysis of The Urban Institute data 
concluded that Florida's decision to deny Medicaid to 1,060,000 people 
will cost our State an astronomical $66.1 billion by 2022. Florida's 
hospitals are expected to lose $22.6 billion over that same period and 
will continue to bear the burden of providing expensive emergency room 
care to uninsured patients for nothing in return.
  The billions and billions of dollars at stake for Florida through 
Medicaid expansion would do far more than expand basic coverage to 1.06 
million low-income people. These dollars would also generate new growth 
and opportunity throughout Florida's economy.
  That is because when hospitals are actually paid for their services 
their balance sheets improve, they have more room to invest and to 
expand. When they build a new surgery wing, they put to work more 
engineers and construction contractors and they hire new staff and they 
create good, well-paying jobs in our State.
  According to the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, the 
economic growth injected into Florida's economy would deliver about 
63,000 new jobs between now and 2017. Missing out on that kind of 
opportunity will be devastating for our State. Failing to cover those 
1,060,000 Floridians would not deliver real savings to taxpayers in the 
long run.
  It is time for Governor Scott and the Florida legislature to focus 
less on politics and more on helping Floridians, parents, students, 
veterans, and workers get the coverage they desire and that they are 
entitled to.

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