[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4458-4460]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   REPLACING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the

[[Page 4459]]

gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, yes, this is an important week. There are a 
lot of things we are bringing up, but nothing is more important than 
the bill that is supposed to address the Affordable Care Act, as it was 
called. But it is kind of tough to call it that since it has been 
completely unaffordable for so many. So many lost their health 
insurance and lost their doctor. Some lost medication that they were 
taking before. It is now no longer approved under their new policy. So 
it has been a very difficult period of time as ObamaCare has been 
foisted on the country. It came so close to not passing.

                              {time}  2100

  And every Republican that I am aware of has promised: You give us the 
majority in both Houses and the President and we will repeal it. I 
believe Majority Leader McConnell said we will repeal it and rip it out 
root and branch. Republican leaders, I believe, mentioned lock, stock, 
and barrel. And I have great respect for my friends who were just 
speaking here, but I have got a real problem with the bill.
  We are told there will be three phases, three buckets, three stages, 
whatever you want to call it. The first will be to pass this bill. It 
leaves in place the parts of ObamaCare that caused insurance to 
skyrocket. It is leaving in place the part of ObamaCare that caused 
deductibles to rise from very little to thousands and thousands of 
dollars, beyond so many Americans' ability to ever reach. So the 
insurance, they are paying them money every month, but they realize: I 
don't have $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 to pay the deductible; 
therefore, I am really paying for nothing. Especially young people have 
found this.
  We are told that it is because the Senate has what they refer to as 
the Byrd rule that would not allow us to take the part that is not 
currently in the bill regarding all of the regulations. We are told 
that the Byrd rule--and we have looked into it, apparently--if a bill 
is moving under reconciliation, as this is, then in the Senate, in 
essence, it must do more than affect the budget incidentally; it must 
materially affect the budget. And yet we know that if we repeal all of 
the part that is being put off for stage 2 or 3, but particularly stage 
2, the regulations that were put in place by the Obama administration, 
the regulatory authority that was given to them, by putting that off, 
it means the prices that dramatically skyrocketed, they are not going 
to skyrocket down.
  We are told, well, they may go up some, but we think there is a good 
chance they will come down 10 percent. But for my constituents, so many 
of whom either lost their insurance or are now paying for skyrocketing 
prices two, three, four times or more than what they used to pay, a 10 
percent drop will not be a help at all. Their deductibles will not be 
coming down anytime soon.
  We are told, though, with the regulatory reform that my good friend 
Secretary Tom Price will do, that will be the phase, the stage, the 
bucket, that will drop the prices. But when I read through--and I know 
some people said 2,700 pages, my two part. And I have gotten two 
copies, and they are both around 2,500 pages. So unless there are 200 
pages I never found, I did read the bill more than once. And someone 
said 1,400 times. I don't know. I know it is a lot. The Secretary of 
Health and Human Services is given wide discretion in putting in place 
rules and regulations to implement the act.
  We have heard that there will, no doubt, be, immediately, litigation 
filed, lawsuits filed, to try to overturn the regulations that are put 
in place by Secretary Price. Well, since I have had experience in 
litigation, including Federal litigation, Federal appeals, what would 
be the issue?
  Well, the issue would be whether or not the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services has authority to create regulations that will, in 
effect, completely destroy the bill so that eventually the prices will 
come back down, the deductibles eventually will come back down. That is 
what we are told. And I trust Secretary Price will do everything within 
his power to make this happen.
  So Secretary Price will come forward with regulations that will 
emasculate the bill, emasculate ObamaCare. Litigation is filed. 
Ultimately, at some point, it will come back to a judge, an appellate 
judge.
  As a State district judge, I handled cases and matters that I knew 
were going to be appealed. As a chief justice of an appellate court, I 
made those decisions and sat in on discussions with other justices, and 
so it seems I am in a good position to potentially analyze what would 
happen on appeal.
  We know the Secretary has wide discretion promulgating the 
regulations, the rules, to bring about the implementation and the 
intent of the ACA, ObamaCare. But the question will be, on appeal: Does 
the Secretary of Health and Human Services have the authority, under 
the bill, to render it meaningless?
  Now, I am not aware of justices at the appellate level who are a 
great deal more conservative than I was, but I believed in following 
the law even though I, at times, didn't like the law. I would not 
legislate from the bench. And in a case such as this, you would look, 
well, yes, the Secretary should have wide discretion to implement the 
intention of the bill and see that it is carried out.
  But it would certainly seem the more powerful argument--perhaps, most 
likely, the winning argument--will be, yes, but he doesn't have 
discretion to kill the bill. He has discretion, wide discretion, to 
implement the bill and carry out the intent of the bill.
  I just can't help but think, again, back to words from my late 
friend, Justice Scalia. We weren't talking about a specific case, 
because he never betrayed the trust that he had as Associate Justice of 
the U.S. Supreme Court. We were talking about things in general. He 
said at times it bothered him that Congress had the power to end some 
bill, to change some law, and yet we seem to put a rubber stamp and 
encourage people to go file a lawsuit to get the law struck down 
instead of just winning the vote in the House and Senate and repealing 
the law.
  The words that really come back are: If you guys in Congress don't 
have the guts to do what needs to be done, that you have the power to 
do and you are supposed to do, don't come running to us over at the 
Supreme Court expecting us to do your job for you.
  He was right. This body, along with the Senate, has the power to do 
exactly what we have promised for 7 years we would do if we got the 
House, the Senate, and the Presidency. We would repeal ObamaCare.
  Now, I don't know how many there are of us that cannot vote for a 
bill that will leave in place the regulations and the parts that made 
our insurance skyrocket, that caused me to lose my insurance. And I 
wouldn't take the subsidy for 3 years until we got insurance through 
other means. The law is very clear that, as Members of Congress, we 
weren't supposed to get that, so I went without insurance for a few 
years. But we promised our constituents we would repeal ObamaCare.
  So what about, we are told, this part that can't make it through the 
Byrd rule in the Senate? Well, for one thing, 51 votes could change the 
Byrd rule. For another, there is nothing that is going to more 
materially affect the budget, in this reconciliation or any other, than 
bringing the price of health insurance and health care down 
dramatically. That is more appropriate under the Byrd rule than the 
whole other part that we are told will make it through the Byrd rule in 
the Senate.
  The most important part is the part being left out. That will bring 
the prices down. That will give control back to the patients and the 
doctors. That will allow the States to come up with new ideas and new 
ways to provide health care and to get it to those who need it. But 
more important than anything, it restores freedom in America that has 
been lacking since that bill passed.
  When the government is in charge of every Americans' health care, the 
government has every right to tell people how to live. Those claims 
from years past--we don't want the government in

[[Page 4460]]

our bedroom--became rather hollow when ObamaCare passed and the 
government came into your bedroom, your dining room, everywhere in the 
house. It has got to be repealed. As Mitch McConnell has said 
previously, rip it out root and branch.
  Who is going to make the decision on what seems so clear should allow 
all of ObamaCare to be repealed? Who is going to make that decision in 
the Senate?
  Well, we know the Vice President can come right on down to the 
Capitol, come down Pennsylvania Avenue and come into the Senate 
Chamber. He is the President of the Senate, and I couldn't be more 
thrilled that he is.
  If he is unable to come, then the majority leader could sit in the 
chair, or he could appoint someone to sit in the chair pro tem. But it 
will be a Republican who decides whether or not all of ObamaCare can be 
repealed, but especially the part that is left out right now.
  Mr. Speaker, I know the President is coming, and I am so glad that we 
have this chance because he is President. But I believe that the 
President of the United States who has been sold this bill that won't 
bring down prices--maybe 10 percent, we are told, some day--he deserves 
better. He does not deserve to be slapped in the face with a midterm 
election when prices have not come down, as people pushing this bill 
know they won't--maybe 10 percent. That is not going to change votes of 
those who know we promised a full repeal. We have the power to do a 
full repeal, and we should do a full repeal.

                              {time}  2115

  Let's get freedom back to a doctor-patient relationship. And from 
what I am told--they certainly haven't called me--I am told that the 
health insurance lobbyists have been very active, and people in our 
leadership are listening. But if that is true, these are the same 
people with Big Pharma that signed off on ObamaCare. It meant they 
would make billions more than they ever had in the short term, but in 
the long term, they signed their own death warrant.
  We owe it to the American people to make sure that insurance is 
viable for the future, and the only way to do that is to repeal 
ObamaCare, rip it out, root and branch. I like Mitch McConnell's 
expression. That is what needs to happen. And for those of my 
colleagues who are getting nervous about having pressure from the White 
House, pressure from the House leaders, pressure from the Senate 
leaders, it is nothing like the pressure you will get from your 
constituents when they find out you didn't really do anything to make 
their lives better because the prices are not coming down; the 
regulations that require all of those parts and policies that people 
don't want that they should have the freedom to choose, they are still 
there; and in the meantime, the new regulations by the great Secretary 
of Health and Human Services, in whom I have great faith, they will be 
tied up in litigation. Maybe they get to the Supreme Court in 2 years. 
Maybe they don't. Maybe it is longer.
  And the American people continue to suffer because we didn't have the 
guts to do what we should do, what we promised we would do, and that 
is: Repeal ObamaCare.
  I would like to keep the Senate majority in 2018, and I am convinced 
that the only way we do that is if enough of us endure the name calling 
in the short term, and stand up and say no on this bill that doesn't 
keep our promises. It has got some good stuff in it, no question, but 
it doesn't keep our promises. And if enough of us will do that, then 
maybe we can get the Senate and the House leadership to agree to do 
what we promised.
  Then the President will be hailed in 2018, as prices of insurance 
actually come down, people are given their freedom back to choose their 
doctor, their health insurance, and the short stint of the name calling 
now ends up paying dividends in a glorious future.
  So, Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me. We will see how the 
week plays out.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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