[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1163]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  BENEFITS OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Alabama (Ms. Sewell) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on the Affordable 
Care Act and the Trump administration's efforts to repeal the health 
care of millions of Americans.
  Every person in this body has constituents who have health insurance 
because of the Affordable Care Act. Whether you represent the rural 
community in Kentucky where the uninsured rate declined 60 percent 
under the ACA or you represent the most liberal district in the 
country, you should be committed to working across the aisle to fix 
what is wrong with the ACA and build upon what is working.
  While the law and President Obama may not be popular in many 
districts, political expediency has no place in this hallowed body, 
especially when the economy and American lives are at stake. It is not 
just Democratic districts that benefit from the ACA. Everyone--
everyone--has Americans in their districts that benefit from the ACA.
  While I am the only Democrat in Alabama, my district has only the 
fifth highest population of enrollees in Alabama, behind four 
Republican districts. Alabama's First Congressional District has over 
29,000 enrollees, and the Fifth District has over 25,000 enrollees. The 
Sixth and Fourth Districts of Alabama both have over 23,000 enrollees. 
My district has 22,000 people who are enrolled in the ACA.
  In total, there are 165,000 Alabamians who have coverage through the 
healthcare marketplace, and over 20 million nationwide. There are many 
who benefit in Alabama and across this Nation from the ACA. And while 
we all benefit from not having to have preexisting conditions be a 
deterrent to getting health care, all of us will not benefit from the 
repeal. In fact, it should not surprise many of us that the repeal of 
the ACA will benefit the wealthiest Americans.
  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ACA repeal 
will lavish Medicare tax cuts on our Nation's 400 highest income 
households, while 7 million low- and moderate-income households will 
lose premium tax credits. The average annual income of those top 400 
families is $300 million apiece, and they will benefit from an average 
annual tax cut of approximately $7 million apiece. What my Republican 
colleagues do not want Americans to know is that the repeal of the ACA 
will not benefit the majority of Americans but, rather, only the rich.
  An average income of $300 million is more than 6,000 times the 
average household income in Alabama and nearly 9,000 times the average 
household in my district. Mr. Speaker, 99.9 percent of my constituents 
make incomes below $200,000. I know that they will never see the tax 
breaks that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act will give to the 
wealthy.
  While healthcare costs have been growing nationwide at the slowest 
rate in over 50 years under the ACA, we cannot ignore the hardworking 
Americans who are facing outrageous premium hikes in States that have 
not expanded Medicaid like Alabama. On average, States that have been 
hostile to the law are facing the largest premium increases for 2017. 
One study showed that States that fully embraced the ACA will see 
increases of 18.2 percent, as opposed to States that have fully 
resisted the law--like Alabama--which saw increases of 29.8 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, it is unacceptable to Americans that we have this rise 
in premiums at any level, but my point is simply this: We should not be 
looking to repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacing it with 
something; because the fact of the matter is, in this great country 
that we live in, no one--no one--should not have access to affordable, 
quality health care.
  Alabamians enrolled in employer-based healthcare insurance are paying 
more in their employee contributions than those in California, even 
though Californians have a significantly higher cost of living. This is 
one of the reasons why I have worked across the aisle to try to make 
meaningful changes to the ACA that don't compromise the law's benefit.
  The American people deserve Representatives that will work together 
to fix what is wrong with the ACA and build upon what is working. We 
need to work together to increase access, market stabilization, and 
minimize premium cost rises. We need to work with States that haven't 
expanded Medicaid to bring down premium costs for the self-insured.
  I stand ready to work with my colleagues to achieve these goals and 
protect the millions of Americans and thousands of Alabamians who are 
more financially secure today because of the protections of the ACA.

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