[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13378]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               OBAMACARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the recent decision in Halbig v. Burwell held 
that ObamaCare ``makes tax credits available . . . to individuals who 
purchase health insurance through . . . exchanges . . . established by 
the State.''
  Supporters of the law predictably decried judicial partisanship. They 
claimed the reasoning of the Court was spurious because it led to an 
absurd result which was not in line with the intended policy of the 
law.
  Also recently, video surfaced of MIT health economist Jonathan 
Gruber, a prominent architect of and supporter of ObamaCare, clearly 
stating that States have an incentive to set up exchanges so that their 
citizens will have access to Federal subsidies. So much for the charge 
that the Court's reasoning led to an absurd result.
  Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious that someone at some point in the 
legislative drafting of ObamaCare thought using Federal subsidies as an 
incentive to get States to set up insurance exchanges was a good idea, 
and that was the view that was codified as law. But at a fundamental 
level, the issue here isn't the way the statute was written; it is the 
way the statute was passed. The extremely partisan nature of 
ObamaCare's passage has made the administration unwilling or unable to 
seek fixes via the normal legislative process because doing so would 
necessitate working across the aisle and compromising.
  We all remember that ObamaCare was hastily passed after an election 
which cost the Democrats their supermajority in the Senate. They 
couldn't edit this law because the people of Massachusetts denied them 
that privilege. But that didn't stop Democrats from ramming this poorly 
drafted law through using some very questionable legislative tactics. 
Now they are asking the courts to let them make edits to the plain 
language of law without consulting Congress.
  As this case moves forward on appeal, judges should ask themselves 
this question: Is it my role to shield the Democratic Party from the 
consequences of a republic form of government? I don't recall ever 
reading that particular clause in my copy of the Constitution.

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