[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4074-4075]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HEALTH CARE UNCERTAINTY IN NEW JERSEY

  (Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that the 
Republicans' attack on the poor and vulnerable through this disastrous 
healthcare bill is a surprise. But, unfortunately, in my home State, 
Republican leadership has laid out the framework for their very own 
attack.
  Last week, Governor Chris Christie dealt another blow to the welfare 
of New Jerseyans by seeking to fund his State budget by siphoning money 
from

[[Page 4075]]

Horizon, the State's largest healthcare insurer, serving over 900,000 
Medicaid members in New Jersey. Horizon's reserve fund exists to 
protect healthcare consumers in the face of uncertainty. But, Mr. 
Speaker, New Jerseyans are currently facing tremendous uncertainty due 
to proposals by Republicans in Congress to roll back Medicaid.
  Mr. Speaker, the threats are clear. Governor Christie's proposal 
would destabilize Horizon and raise consumer premiums just when 
hundreds of thousands of New Jerseyans may lose Medicaid coverage or 
have premium subsidies withdrawn at the hands of reckless Federal 
lawmakers.
  In my district alone, 40,600 New Jerseyans currently covered by the 
ACA's Medicaid expansion now stand to lose their coverage if 
eliminated. Both Governor Christie's budget raid and the Republican 
healthcare proposal are prescriptions for disaster. These plans are not 
only lazy and careless, but are also unworkable strategies that will 
only result in chaos across the healthcare industry of New Jersey and 
this country.

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