[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4551]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1700
                           REPEAL OF THE ACA

  (Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, exactly 7 years after the Affordable Care 
Act became law, we now anticipate a vote this week on a Republican plan 
to gut it.
  Mr. Speaker, the ACA expanded health coverage to 20 million people 
and expanded Medicaid to help our most vulnerable populations, changes 
that resulted in coverage for more than 100,000 Rhode Islanders.
  Last week, I joined Democratic colleagues at a hearing to discuss the 
Republican plan, a hearing Republicans should have organized to assess 
the impact of their bill, which CBO estimates will result in 14 million 
additional uninsured by 2018 and 24 million people losing their health 
insurance by 2026.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican plan is not the solution to strengthen 
our health system. It ignores the sick, the poor, the disabled, and the 
elderly. Mr. Speaker, Americans cannot benefit from the systemic 
changes in care delivery, the breakthrough treatments of tomorrow, or 
improved access to today's therapies if the Republican plan is passed.
  Mr. Speaker, we should be working in a bipartisan way to improve the 
Affordable Care Act, not gutting it.

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