[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11655-11656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 WE CAN PIVOT TOWARDS BIPARTISAN ACTION CONSISTENT WITH THE AFFORDABLE 
                                CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.

[[Page 11656]]


  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this is really an amazing time on 
Capitol Hill. The Republican internal battles and inability to deliver 
a coherent, effective alternative to fulfill all their contradictory 
campaign promises on healthcare has done more than just expose their 
political and policy dysfunction. They are obviously flirting with a 
serious political backlash.
  They have managed to make the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, with 
all of its shortcomings, popular with the majority of the American 
public for the first time ever, including so many small business 
people.
  They made the public more aware and concerned about Medicaid, that 
has expanded and made such a difference in Kentucky, in Oregon, in 
States all across the country, providing care for people otherwise who 
had not had it.
  They have managed to accelerate the move towards single payer by more 
than a decade: Medicare for all, Medicaid for more. I don't know the 
exact form, but we are going to be moving in that direction, and the 
Republicans have helped raise the awareness and accelerate that 
progress, but I hope that we are going to be able to take steps to make 
progress sooner.
  In the meantime, I suspect that the Affordable Care Act, the core 
reforms and structure, are going to, in fact, stay in place. This is 
because there aren't the votes in the Senate to do anything more; and 
frankly, it doesn't look like there are votes to do much in the House, 
the so-called skinny bill notwithstanding.
  But I hope that we can pivot towards modest, bipartisan actions that 
are consistent with the Affordable Care Act, but don't depend on it. We 
have a number of bipartisan initiatives that are teed up and ready to 
go.
  I have worked for years with Congresswoman Diane Black from 
Tennessee, on value-based insurance design. This bipartisan legislation 
would reward value over volume and make insurance much more effective 
in paying for what we need.
  I have an initiative with Congressman Jason Smith and with Senator 
Todd Young dealing with kidney health. This would enable providers to 
leverage those weekly sessions for dialysis for some of our most 
vulnerable Americans in terms of their health. Dialysis costs 1 percent 
of the entire Federal budget. We should be able to use that time and 
attention to deliver wraparound services, more care and less strain on 
people with multiple health needs.
  We ought to be able to act on empowering our citizens and their 
families to know what they are facing at end of life. I have bipartisan 
legislation with my friend and colleague, Congressman Roe from 
Tennessee, along those lines.
  Congress ought to accept the challenge from President Trump to deal 
meaningfully with prescription drug costs. There is support on both 
sides of the aisle. We can save billions of dollars for Americans and 
the taxpayers, and we can provide better care.
  There are mental health initiatives with our friend Tim Murphy. 
Bipartisan progress was made in the last Congress, but there is much 
more that needs to be done.
  In fact, we can work together to overcome the opposition of Chairman 
Sessions and the Rules Committee denying the House the right to vote on 
extending our veterans access bill to allow consultation about medical 
marijuana. No one can listen to the heartbreaking stories of veterans 
and their families about what medical marijuana has done to sufferers 
of PTSD, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury. It is legal in 29 
states, but the Rules Committee denied the right of the House to vote 
on extending that service to our veterans and their doctors, despite 
the horrible record that the VA has in preventing veteran suicide, and 
where the opioid addiction rate for the VA is twice the general 
population.
  These are things we can do tomorrow, not dealing with denying 
millions of people care through the Affordable Care Act and the various 
permutations that are spinning around now.
  Do our job, work together, follow regular order, deal with bipartisan 
initiatives that will benefit the American people, save the taxpayer 
money, and improve the health of all Americans.

                          ____________________