To revise the boundaries of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include the Gettysburg Train Station and certain land along Plum Run in Cumberland Township, to limit the means by which property within such revised boundaries may be acquired, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support passage of H.R. 1513, a bill to revise the boundaries of the Gettysburg National Military Park to include the Lincoln Train Station which is an important part of our Nation's history.

President Abraham Lincoln arrived at the Lincoln Train Station the day before delivering his historic Gettysburg Address. The station also served as a hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg and transported wounded soldiers after the battle. The Lincoln Train Station currently is operated by the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau and is owned by the Borough of Gettysburg.

The Gettysburg Foundation and nonprofit partner of the park secured the necessary private funds to purchase the train station from the Borough of Gettysburg. The foundation will donate the train station to Gettysburg National Military Park, where it will be used as a downtown visitors center and meeting place.

H.R. 1513 also allows the boundaries of Gettysburg National Military Park to include 45 acres of land along Plum Run in Cumberland Township. This property currently abuts land already owned by the National Park Service and will be donated by the Gettysburg Foundation to the National Park Service.

The Gettysburg Foundation and Gettysburg National Military Park recently commemorated the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg and the dedication of the Soldiers National Cemetery. In addition to preserving our heritage, such historic preservation and tourism efforts remain a critical part of the regional economy. More than 235,000 visitors took part in the 10 days of the 150th anniversary events and contributed about $100 million to the local economy.

Once the Battle of Gettysburg ended, both Union and Confederate armies moved on, leaving this small rural town to deal with the bloody and chaotic aftermath. Citizens were forced to care for the wounded, bury fallen soldiers and animals, rebuild their town, and begin the process of preserving this hallowed ground.

Like the residents of Gettysburg 150 years ago, a group of dedicated individuals, 18,000 to 20,000 from across the country and across the world, have come together to preserve this battlefield and increase public understanding of the causes and consequences of the Battle of Gettysburg and its place within the context of American history.

At a time when Federal and State budgets are tight, the great partnership between the Gettysburg Foundation, Main Street Gettysburg and the Borough of Gettysburg, and the National Park Service has led to the construction of a new visitors center, the preservation of the Cyclorama painting, the restoration of the battlefield to its 1863 appearance, and now the preservation of the historic Lincoln Train Station.

This legislation simply is the latest significant piece of that puzzle. All interested parties are fully supportive of the boundary revision, and because the land is already owned by the Gettysburg Foundation and to be donated to the National Park Service no--I repeat, no--Federal funds will be used to purchase these properties.

This legislation is good for Gettysburg, the National Park Service, and the American taxpayers. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 1513, the Gettysburg Battlefield bill. I would also like to thank Doc Hastings, the ranking member, and the committee for the unanimous support.

Mr. Speaker, to clarify one thing, we did have a legislative hearing on this bill with robust debate on it in that committee hearing. Evidently, you didn't get the notice of that hearing.

No, I only have 3 minutes. If I have extra time, I will.

Today we are taking what should be an easy vote and, frankly, a bipartisan vote.

My legislation, the Exchange Information Disclosure Act, does nothing more than ask the administration to provide Congress, Governors, State insurance commissioners, and the American people with information.

By the way, the information that is outlined in this bill to be provided or accessible on a weekly basis is simply what most States already require to be done by health insurance companies within their States. This is a request by State insurance commissioners, especially ours from Nebraska that are very frustrated with the lack of information that they are receiving about who is signing up for what plans in the State of Nebraska.

This should be easy. What we are talking about here today is basic transparency so we all have the data to assess what is working and what is not. This bill is a mechanism for accountability so we can get the answers that both Democrats and Republicans and State insurance commissioners and Governors need to know in order to understand what is working and what is not.

We are asking for information that an entity overseeing a health insurance operation should have at the tip of their fingers at all times.

Our metrics are not complex. We are simply asking for: How many people have enrolled? How many of these people have paid their first month's premiums, which means they are actually insured, that they have been effectuated? What plans did they pick? What ZIP Codes are they from so we know if people from Nebraska or Iowa or Kansas have signed up? Were they already eligible for Medicare or are these new enrollees from the expansion? These are critical issues in determining the safety and soundness of the policies being issued, and is, again, information that State insurance commissioners usually receive.

This administration and some on the other side say that this information that we are requesting is extraneous and costly and burdensome, but yet this data is already being obtained; it is already on a realtime basis being calculated. It is just the issue of when and in what form this is released to the public. As to cost, here is the CBO score--zero--not the millions that we are being told by our friends on the other side of the aisle and the White House. This is necessary, usual course of business data.

We do add another part in here and another frustration from our State insurance commissioners, which is that they don't know who is selling the insurance. They would like to have the names of the people who are the navigators out there. Grants go to organizations, but we don't know who is actually sitting down and selling policies or helping them through the exchange. That is, again, basic information that is the normal course of business in the insurance world. We are just asking that they provide the same information that the State law would require of an insurance company that has had a salesman who is out signing people up.

So that is the totality of this bill, and you have to ask the question: If they are fighting so hard, what are they trying to hide?

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I am.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is the final amendment to the bill. This amendment will not kill the bill; and should it pass, the House will immediately take up the bill, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, having just been sworn in a month ago, may I first say, it is an honor to serve the Fifth District of Massachusetts. My district is looking to us to focus on jobs, rebuild the economy, and extend unemployment benefits. Instead, Republicans have scheduled the 48th vote to undermine the Affordable Care Act.

We have a job to do. We have to ensure that the hardworking families we serve are able to navigate the health care law and are able to make informed decisions about their health care coverage. Our job is to ensure that should problems arise, we are able to direct resources toward a timely fix.

Some of my colleagues believe that an increase in transparency will help us achieve those goals. So why not do that? Why not let Americans know exactly what has been going on since this law has been implemented? Why not let people understand all facets of this law? I support transparency and making the law the best it can be for millions of families and children who will benefit from it.

I know firsthand how good this reform will be for the American people because I watched it happen in my own State. In 2006, Massachusetts implemented health care reform which today is benefiting hundreds of thousands of families. It took hard work, and it meant lawmakers who didn't always agree on everything had to work together to do right by those they served. Today, 98 percent of the people in Massachusetts are benefiting from some form of health care coverage.

Because I was not yet elected last fall, like millions of Americans, I watched from home as the destructive and irresponsible fight against the ACA shut our government down. It is time to stop the obstruction over this issue and get back to work for the American people.

If our goal is truly transparency--not just harassment to make sure the law never works--why not give the full picture? Let's give families and businesses all of the information they need regarding what is available to them, as well as what we are going to do to make the law work better.

My motion to recommit will better inform those we serve with facts about the benefits which millions of American families are seeking. My amendment will provide the full picture, not just data handpicked to support a partisan argument.

This includes information regarding how many families and individuals have received tax credits. It will include disclosures on the number of Americans who are no longer subject to discrimination based on preexisting conditions. Families at home will know how many people are no longer subject to annual and lifetime limits on coverage. They will know how many people who were previously uninsured are now able to access health care and plan for the future.

If we are to do right by those we serve--do what we were elected to do, which is to make health care reform work for the American people-- then we should spare the partisan agendas and pass this commonsense amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the great work that he has done on this bill.

What is so interesting and one of the reasons we find it necessary to come and address these issues is Secretary Sebelius told us in December that 5,000 people a day were getting access to health care that they had not had before.

The other side of that story, which was not told, is 74,000 American families a day were getting cancelation notices. They were looking at one another across the dinner table and saying, Guess what, our insurance has been canceled.

It has had a devastating effect. And as we try to do oversight and due diligence and continue to push for that oversight and due diligence and carry it out, even this morning at the Energy and Commerce Committee, where we had Mr. Cohen, what we have found is it is very difficult to get information, even when we are sometimes hearing from employees admitting what they told us was wrong; but then we do not get the straight story.

So it is very appropriate that we require HHS to release weekly detailed reports about the exchanges, including their enrollment, their functionality, and efforts to address the technical issues at healthcare.gov.

It is absolutely appropriate because this is all being done with the taxpayers' money. The American taxpayers have paid for every bit of this. It is not the Federal Government's money. It is not President Obama's money. It is not Congress' money. It is the taxpayers' money. This is a failed rollout and a failed program.

This administration was supposed to be the most transparent administration in history. It has not been that. It is well documented that it hasn't been. Indeed, the rollout and the implementation of this law have been even less transparent. The reason, I think, is because there have been so many problems, such as millions of Americans losing access to their health insurance.

None of the information being shared by the administration regarding enrollment means much of anything. We talk about people that enrolled, but we don't know how many people have paid and how many people have completed that process. What are the demographics of the individuals that are enrolling?

All of this is information that the individual that is paying for this--the American taxpayer--deserves to know.

Who has paid for this insurance? The White House has backed away from using any measure of enrollment as a means to determine success.

As recently as September, Secretary Sebelius herself said that 7 million enrolled by the end of March would define success of the law. Well, is that 7 million that go to the Web site, put an insurance product in their cart, and then go think about it?

Mr. Speaker, when I was growing up, I spent a lot of time working in the retail industry selling clothes in a little dress shop. Every once in a while we would have somebody that would come in and put something on hold. They would say, I'm going to be back.

Well, we called them the ``be-backs'' because, guess what, more often than not, they did not come back and complete that purchase. Yes, they put it on hold. Yes, they put it in an online shopping cart. But then they move away from it because this program is broken, it is too expensive to afford, and the American people do not want it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 3362, the Exchange Information Disclosure Act.

This bill would require that HHS provide weekly progress reports regarding the President's health care law and attempt to ensure greater transparency from an administration that has done everything that it can so far to bury the facts when it comes to its signature health care law. Remember, this is the administration that knew millions of Americans would receive cancelation notices, but they only acted to allow people to keep their health care plans that they had and liked after we forced their hand back a few months ago. Perhaps by acting today we can again force them to do the right thing and share basic information with policymakers and the public about how the law is working or not.

In building healthcare.gov for the October 1 start of open enrollment, the administration chose not to allow Americans to window- shop and find accurate and reliable prices of health care plans in the exchange.

Over the last 17 weeks since the law was launched, this administration has released enrollment figures on just a handful of occasions. We are still left asking the most important question: ``Who's paid?''

Instead, the administration has gone to great lengths to redefine enrollment as the number of folks who have selected a plan through the exchanges. These numbers simply don't tell us the true status of the law, however. More than 3 months after the start of open enrollment, we still don't know how many Americans have actually enrolled in health plans by paying their first month's premium.

Just 1 day before the start of open enrollment, Secretary Sebelius defined success as enrolling 7 million Americans by the end of March of 2014. The administration has since distanced itself from enrollment being a measure of success at all. If enrolling individuals in health plans is not the goal, what is?

Preventing access to reliable data about the exchanges is not exactly what you would expect from the self-proclaimed ``most transparent administration in history.'' It should not take a vote in Congress to get basic information from the administration, but without voluntary transparency, we don't have any other choice.

The bill before us would require HHS to provide accurate, useful figures about enrollment and the operation of the exchanges on a weekly basis. It also is going to require HHS to report to the American people other key metrics, including demographics of enrollees, Medicaid enrollment, regular reporting on ongoing problems with healthcare.gov, and HHS' efforts to address those issues.

The President's health care law will cost the taxpayers an estimated $2 trillion over the next decade. At the very least, the administration should provide the American people regular and ongoing information about its implementation. There is no reason for the administration to keep the public and the Congress in the dark. Whether the news is good or bad, it is time for full disclosure.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill, and I applaud Mr. Terry for his leadership.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think informed people are asking why are we taking up this bill this morning. I guess one reason is the Republicans will do anything they can to undermine ACA. Indeed, the more it is successful, the more desperate they become.

The administration says it quite clearly:

To implement this new reporting system, contracts may need

to be modified and new staff would need to be hired on an

expedited basis, adding millions of dollars in costs to

States and the Federal Government, without additional funding

from the Congress, for information that is already largely

being provided on a monthly basis, consistent with other

publicly funded health care programs.

Maybe a second reason we are taking up this bill is because the Republicans in this House think there is nothing else to do. This bill is going nowhere in the Senate, and you know that. You know that. But there is something else that we should be doing.

We are leaving here for 11 days. The House Republicans have said we are not going to be in session next week. 1.5 million Americans have lost their unemployment insurance because of inaction from this House of Representatives. Next week, 72,000 more will be added to the 1.5 million people, 50,000 in the State from which Mr. Camp and I come, 50,000 left out in the cold--left out in the cold--left, really, to their own devices, without a single bit of assistance that they really worked for. These are people out of work through no fault of their own, looking for work, and essentially they get, from this institution, action this morning on a bill going nowhere when there is somewhere we should be going.

I think this morning represents maybe more vividly than in recent times a reprehensible distortion of priorities of the majority in this House. There are 50,000 people in Michigan looking for work at a time when there remains a historically high percentage of the unemployed who are long-term unemployed. There are three people looking for work for every job that is available. And we come forth here with a bill that is going nowhere? Reprehensible. Inexcusable. You can go home.

I suggest you go home and talk--I guess you haven't done this yet--to the long-term unemployed. Every single person who votes for this bill should go home and talk to those out of work and out of luck, because the majority in this institution, in this House, are simply out of synch with the needs of the American people.

We shouldn't vote ``no'' on this bill, because we need the opportunity to vote ``yes'' on what really matters.

I reserve the balance of my time.

The SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE. Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair and not to others in the second person.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, how much time is left on either side?

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I thank the chairman of the Health Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 3362, which, I think, is really just designed to harass the Department of Health and Human Services as it is trying to do its job in bringing affordable health care to people all across this country.

If you look at the metrics that are already being assembled by the agency on a monthly basis, they really present a very clear picture of whether there is progress being made or not being made with respect to the Web site and signing people up for affordable health care, and of course, we know that there is a lot of progress being made. That monthly report includes the total enrollments nationally and by State so that we can get a clear picture of what that trend is, and that is a positive trend. It includes a gender breakdown of those who have signed up for the plans, an age breakdown, the financial assistance, and what kinds of plans people are choosing. That is all good, useful information. Frankly, it is the kind of information that it makes sense to collect on a monthly basis, not on a weekly basis. I mean, these numbers sort of naturally evolve month to month. That is the picture, the photograph, you want to take--month to month. Week to week doesn't really get you any added insight into what is happening with the Web site or with the signups.

Then look at some of the information that they would require on a weekly basis, and you have got to ask yourself: What purpose would it serve, a State-by-State breakdown--I am reading from the bill now--of the number of Web chat logins? What are we going to do with that information? That is not useful. That does not add anything to the clear picture that can emerge on a monthly basis of how we are doing with the Web site.

Finally, I have to observe, as Ranking Member Waxman just did a moment ago, that we hear all the time from our friends on the other side about the importance of government efficiency and about working well and streamlining. We hear them talk about that both with respect to government and, obviously, in terms of what they want to do for private sector businesses out there. These kinds of requirements don't help with that. They are not going to make the agency function more smoothly and more efficiently and get the information out in a sensible way to the American people.

This is really just designed to kind of harass the agency, to make them run around in small circles, gathering information and providing stuff that doesn't give us any added perspective or insight into the progress that really is now being made. We can get that picture on a monthly basis. The information that HHS is providing to us and to the public--to the American people--I think, is very valuable on that monthly basis, and that is the way we ought to continue to have it presented to us and presented to the American people.

So I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 3362. Let's let the agency do its job and do it well.

Mr. Speaker, I kind of keep asking myself why we would not want to provide transparency.

If the Federal Government is going to impose a massive bureaucratic regime involving the American people, why should we not at least require them to be accountable for the success or failure of that regime?

The Exchange Information Disclosure Act requires accountability and transparency, which has been, frankly, elusive from the administration on these issues. And, indeed, before committees and before Americans there has been a tendency to give information which is misleading.

For example, enrollment numbers are calculated by the numbers who sign up for coverage, not those who actually pay for their first month's premium. In reality, unless you pay for that first month's premium, you are not enrolled. Coverage does not become effective until these are paid; and history shows many will sign up who will never actually enroll.

The American people are affected by this. They are paying for it. We are their employees, so to speak. They pay our salary. They have a right to know, and the only way to know is to see the results.

I keep on smiling in kind of an angry sort of way when I think about those folks who came to testify about the Web site.

Two weeks before it was to open, we were told that it was ready and that there were no problems. I specifically asked if the Spanish- language Web site was ready. Oh, yes, there's no problem. We can just stand it up.

In truth, none of that was true. The only way we learned it was not true was when the numbers came out, it was clear that folks were not enrolling. So everything we had been told was exposed as a lie, and yet we would not have known had we not seen those enrollment figures.

Compliance should not be difficult. Insurance companies know on a daily basis how many people have clicked on, how many people have signed up, how many checks they receive. Insurance companies know this on a daily basis. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government can tell the American people these results on a weekly basis.

The Exchange Information Disclosure Act is a commonsense piece of legislation that all my colleagues who champion transparency and accountability should support. All it does is ensure full disclosure of the most important data points needed to determine what is really going on with the President's health care law's implementation.

It is vitally important for the public, and it is vitally important for us as we attempt to do the American people's will in our oversight of the program.