Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 413 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 413 provides for consideration of H.R. 3350, the Keep Your Plan Act of 2013. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate controlled by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, equally divided between the majority and the minority. Because the bill addresses a targeted emergency situation caused by the lack of foresight in the Affordable Care Act, namely, the cancellation of millions of existing health insurance plans despite repeated promises to the contrary, because of that, the rule makes no amendments in order. However, the minority is afforded the customary opportunity to offer one motion to recommit, should they so choose.

This is a fair rule to allow us to give some relief to Americans who actually want to keep their health insurance plan but are being told that because of the Affordable Care Act, they may not.

We are now 6 weeks into the disastrous launch of the President's signature health care law, and more and more problems are uncovered with each succeeding day. It seems that the President has quickly forgotten all of the promises made over the past 4 years to the American people about this law.

In 2009, in a speech before the American Medical Association, President Obama stated:

We will keep this promise to the American people: if you

like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor,

period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to

keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away,

no matter what.

At the end of September, the President said:

The first thing you need to know is this: if you already

have health care, you don't have to do anything.

Americans from across the country, from across the ideological spectrum agree that President Obama has broken his fundamental promise. And now his attempts to reconcile this broken promise only serve to bring further confusion and chaos.

Today, H.R. 3350 offers a real solution. The bill would allow plans available on the individual market today to be offered in calendar year 2014. It would provide millions of Americans the opportunity to keep their health care plan in 2014. The bill would also ensure that Americans keeping their plans would not face a penalty under ObamaCare's individual mandate.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from constituents about the problems that they have faced because of the President's law. A Texan from Flower Mound, Texas, recently wrote me about how her insurance has doubled in recent years because of the Affordable Care Act. In short, she wrote me that ``I miss 2009 when our family health care was affordable.'' Millions of Americans, just like this Texan, are losing their health care coverage. They are facing massive increases in their premiums and losing access to their doctor under the Affordable Care Act.

The Associated Press has reported that over 3.5 million people on the individual insurance market have had their insurance canceled. Let me restate that: the Associated Press has reported that over 3.5 million people on the individual insurance market have had their health care plans canceled. We learned just this week the number of people who successfully signed up on the President's Web site for the Affordable Care Act, under 27,000--3.5 million lose their insurance; 27,000 sign up. It doesn't sound like a fair trade-off.

This is not the first time that the President has realized that his signature law is significantly flawed. Since the law was passed, the President has signed seven bills into law that have repealed portions of the Affordable Care Act. Those were laws passed by the House, passed by the Senate, and sent down to the White House for signature, the way it is supposed to happen in a constitutional Republic.

But in addition to these statutory changes that were passed by the Congress and sent down to the President

for his signature, the President has taken it upon himself to issue a multitude of administrative fixes to the law. And now this same President wants to, once again, fix his own law? Can we really trust the administration that wrote this disastrous missive in the first place and so mishandled the implementation? Do we trust them to now fix it? Do we trust them not to change their minds in 2 or 3 weeks' time when perhaps winds are blowing from a different direction?

The White House is saying that it will use its administrative authority to allow health plans that it deemed illegal to now still be able to be sold, but this bill that the House is considering today provides a fix that is both constitutional and follows the legal process.

H.R. 3350 offers a legislative solution to help Americans get a lifeboat, a life raft up from under the crushing weight of this law. The bill would grandfather in all existing health care plans so that no American will lose their coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

President Obama is shifting the blame. He is saying it is up to States and the State insurance commissioners to fix the massive problem that his signature law has created for millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance.

His attempt at another ``fix'' is quickly coming to a halt. Just hours after the President's announcement, the Washington State insurance commissioner announced that he will not allow insurance companies to continue offering the canceled plans:

We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their

policies. I believe this is in the best interest of the

health insurance market in Washington.

It is clear that H.R. 3350 offers the only feasible lifeline to millions of Americans who are crying out for our help. They want to keep their health care plan. It is our job, it is the job of the Congress, to protect the American people from the excesses of this administration. And I urge my colleagues to pass this rule so Americans will have the opportunity to keep their health care plan.

Let's be very clear here: this bill today cannot fix the Affordable Care Act. What has been visited upon the American people in the Affordable Care Act will not be resolved by this action today. It is merely to stop the bleeding. It is an effort to triage, to stabilize the patient. Maybe then we can get the same patient to the operating room to actually fix the problem that bedevils it.

The bill we are voting on today serves to stop that hemorrhaging, and the hemorrhaging that is occurring is a consequence of the ill- conceived government takeover of the American health care industry. Any good triage doctor knows before they can fully treat or cure the patient they have to deal with the immediate problems. In this case, they have to stop the hemorrhage of people losing their private health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. That is what the House of Representatives will do today. That is what House Republicans will be voting in favor of. I hope that our colleagues across the aisle will see the wisdom in this and join us.

I encourage everyone in this House to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill. Let's stand with millions of Americans who are visited daily by cancelation notices in their mailboxes. Despite the promises made to them, they are losing their insurance because of this disastrous law.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

First off, I do need to point out that yesterday, the President of the United States thought that this situation represented an emergency that required his immediate attention, and he rushed a press conference at high noon yesterday to announce his resolution for the problem.

As far as the issue of hearings, I will submit a list of eight hearings that were held in the Energy and Commerce Committee over calendar year 2013 on the issue of grandfathering health care plans.

But the most important thing I wish to point out, for those of you who were here in 2009, we will remember, H.R. 3200 was the Democratic health care reform bill. That bill is now lost forever in the vapor, in the ether. No one knows what became of it. H.R. 3590 passed the House of Representatives in July of 2009. It passed as a housing bill. It went over to the Senate to await further action. The further action was an amendment by Harry Reid late in December of 2009 ``to strike all after the enacting clause and insert.'' All the housing language was taken out, all of the health care language was inserted.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

As a consequence, this bill came over to the House and we just simply had to pass it. We had to pass it before we found out what was in it. We didn't have a hearing on H.R. 3590. We didn't have a markup in any committee that I sat on in 2010 on H.R. 3590. This was a bill that was visited upon the American people without the due caution and exercise of the United States House of Representatives.

CBO Analysis: CBO analysis is not currently available.

Committee Action: The Energy and Commerce Committee has

held the following ACA-related hearings:

Full Committee:

August 1, 2013: PPACA Pulse Check

October 24, 2013: PPACA Implementation Failures: Didn't

Know or Didn't Disclose?

October 30, 2013: PPACA Implementation Failures: Answers

from HHS

Subcommittee on Health:

February 14, 2013: SGR: Data, Measures and Models; Building

a Future Medicare Physician Payment System

February 27, 2013: Fostering Innovation to Fight Waste,

Fraud and Abuse in Health Care

March 13, 2013: Obamacare's Impact on Jobs

March 15, 2013: Unaffordable: Impact of Obamacare on

Americans' Health Insurance Premiums

March 18, 2013: Saving Seniors and Our Most Vulnerable

Citizens from an Entitlement Crisis

March 20, 2013: Health Information Technologies: How

Innovation Benefits Patients

April 3, 2013: Protecting America's Sick and Chronically

Ill

April 18, 2013: A Financial Review of the Department of

Health and Human Services and Its FY 2014 Budget

September 10, 2013: PPACA Pulse Check: Part 2

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations:

March 21, 2013: Health Information Technologies:

Administration Perspectives on Innovation and Regulation

April 24, 2013: The Center for Consumer Information and

Insurance Oversight and the Implementation of the Patient

Protection and Affordable Care Act

July 18, 2013: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

Implementation in the Wake of Administrative Delay

September 19, 2013: Two Weeks Until Enrollment: Questions

for CCIIO

Subcommittee on Communications and Technology:

March 19, 2013: Health Information Technologies: Harnessing

Wireless Innovation

Administration Position: A Statement of Administration

Policy is currently not available.

Rule Request: Chairman Upton (R-MI) sent a letter to

Chairman Sessions requesting ``that the Committee on Rules

hold a hearing and grant a closed rule to govern

consideration of H.R. 3350 by the House.''

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, that evening in March of 2010 when the Senate bill was finally going to be considered by the House, there was a meeting of the Rules Committee that night. Democrats were in charge. I presented myself to that meeting with 18 amendments to H.R. 3590 that had been passed by the Senate. Every one of those was summarily rejected.

The problem the Democrats had that day was, should we change a single word in H.R. 3590 as passed by the Senate, the bill would have to go back to the Senate and concur with the House amendment to H.R. 3590. The Majority Leader in the Senate, having lost his 60th vote in a special election in Massachusetts that year, felt that he could not pass anything. He could not achieve cloture with only 59 Democrats to vote in favor of that motion for cloture. That is the reason why not one word was changed between Christmas Eve of 2009 and the time this bill was actually passed.

But after H.R. 3590 came back from the Senate, came to the Rules Committee, did it come to the House under an open rule? No, it did not. It was a closed rule. We were kept out of the process.

I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.

It is hard to feel too sad for the gentleman from Massachusetts when a bill of this magnitude came with so little debate, so little input from the minority. We have got a 1-page bill before the House today. This was a 2,700-page bill that affected every man, woman, and child in this country, not just today, not just tomorrow, but for the next three decades they will be living under this. And it came under a closed rule.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

We have talked about the votes in this House to delay or to modify portions of the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, the House has passed seven of those, and they have been signed by the President.

What really doesn't ever get much attention are the multiple times that the administration--the President, himself--has changed parts of the Affordable Care Act. If you want to talk about something that was done without any hearings, if you want to talk about something that was done in a non-transparent fashion, if you want to talk about something that was done without the ability to amend or debate on the floor of the House, then let's go through a few of these.

Number one: A congressional opt-out. The administration gave Members of Congress and their staffs the option of exempting themselves from the ObamaCare exchanges that were created by the Affordable Care Act, which is contrary to the language of the law.

Exchange enrollment: The administration extended by 6 weeks--from February 14 to March 31, 2014--the period in which people can enroll for coverage in order to avoid the individual mandate tax penalty.

The employer delay: By an administrative action, which is also contrary to statutory language in the Affordable Care Act, the reporting requirements for employers were delayed by 1 year.

Self-attestation: Because of the difficulty of verifying income after the employer reporting requirement was delayed, the administration decided it would allow the self-attestation of income by applicants for health insurance exchanges.

Small businesses on hold: The administration said that the Federal exchanges for small businesses would not be ready by the 2014 statutory deadline. Instead, officials delayed until 2015 the implementation of the Federal shop exchanges.

Closing the high-risk pools: This one was, I thought, particularly egregious. Mr. Speaker, I, frankly, do not understand why this was not covered by the Nation's press. The administration decided to halt the enrollment in Federal high-risk pools, blocking coverage for an estimated 40,000 new applicants, and it decided, rather than using the money from a fund under Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius' control to extend coverage for Americans with preexisting conditions, that it would, instead, use this money to pay for advertising for the Affordable Care Act.

Remember, the Affordable Care Act was sold to the American people because--remember the quotes?--there were 8 to 12 million people with preexisting conditions. Yet the President's own preexisting pool, which was started in this law when it was signed in March of 2010, was closed on February 1 of 2013, barely 2\1/2\ years into its lifespan. Why have we not heard more about that? This was an administrative action to restrict people from access to the risk pools that they were told they were going to get as a consequence of

the President's health care law. Many of these people probably voted for the President in November of 2012 because, after all, he was going to provide them their risk pool insurance for another year--until it didn't happen.

Is it any wonder why there is no faith in what the administration says it will do by administrative edict? Why there is no faith in what has come out of the White House? Why congressional action is not just constitutionally required but is required for the people of this country to continue to have faith in their government?

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute for the purposes of response.

Talk about changing the rules in the middle of the game. What in the world was that Presidential press conference 24 hours ago all about? It was about changing the rules by executive fiat. Again, I just went through a list of many of the 27 times that the President has changed the rules in the middle of the game.

What about the times the administration has been engaged in ``hide the ball'' from the American people, from the Nation's Governors, from the Nation's insured? What about the fact that the rule for the essential health benefit was held up until 2 days after Election Day last year? Then the Governors had to make a decision as to whether or not to participate in the exchanges in their States a week later. Is it any wonder they could not make a decision of that amount of import in a week's time? Sure, they were given another month's extension, but eventually, 26 Governors said, I can't do it based on the information provided. Another six Governors said, Okay, but the Federal Government is going to have to set up the exchanges. That is why you have 32 States for which the Federal Government is having to set up the Federal fallback exchange.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes for purposes of a response.

The rate shock issue is one about which every Member of this House should be concerned.

Let me read to you from a letter I received from a constituent who lives in The Colony, Texas, a city within my congressional district. They are complaining about the cost and lack of transparency on the healthcare.gov Web site:

The prices the ObamaCare Web site say we can expect based

on our ages are $372 to $600. But when I go to actually

purchase, those prices automatically become $870. We don't

qualify for subsidies so that was not part of any of the

calculations.

The constituent goes on to say:

It is bad enough the President has lied to us on multiple

points--$2,500 a year savings, keep your plan, keep your

doctor--but also the Web site is designed to mislead us about

the price as well. What is the reason that the ObamaCare site

and health carrier sites don't agree? I just saw a North

Carolina couple on the news who had the same experience and

the insurance carrier told them that the prices on the

carrier sites are correct and those prices on healthcare.gov

are incorrect.

There is rate shock going on in the country right now. That is what part of this debate is about today. But let me just caution my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that the true rate shock experience is likely to hit in September of 2014, about 6 weeks before election day on November 14. What is the reason for that rate shock? Well, we all know that the healthcare.gov Web site was, so far, the abysmal failure.

The administration is counting on a certain demographic to flood that Web site and sign up for their wonderful new Elysian Fields of ObamaCare. It is hard, so they are not going to do it.

But people who are older, perhaps have multiple chronic conditions, who are actually fearful about losing their health care coverage, they are going to keep at it. Bless their hearts. They will keep going. They will keep coming back day after day after day until they can finally get through and sign up for the insurance policy. Yeah, it is more expensive than I want, it doesn't cover as much as I want, but, by golly, I will have something at the start of the year. The problem is the demographic that the administration counted on to sign up is not going to sign up.

Beginning about April of next year, the insurance companies are going to begin to price risk. That is what they do. That is what they do well. So they are going to post risk and they will post their prices somewhere along the lines of July 1 to September 30. Those prices for the renewal of health insurance are going to be staggeringly high; they will be astonishingly high.

The rate shock that is fixing to happen, you ain't seen nothing yet. It is coming in the fall, and it will be unbelievable compared to anything you have seen to date.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind Members of the House of Representatives about the President's press conference yesterday. I would like to read from the transcript of his remarks. The President yesterday, he first talked about the problems with the healthcare.gov Web site, ``big problems, and maybe we can talk about those a little bit,'' but then he went on to say:

The other problem that has received a lot of attention

concerns Americans who've received letters from their

insurers that they may be losing the plans they bought in the

old individual market, often because they no longer meet the

law's requirements.

It seems pretty straightforward to me what the President was saying yesterday.

He goes on to say:

Now, as I indicated earlier, I completely get how upsetting

this can be for a lot of Americans, particularly after

assurances they heard from me that, if they had a plan that

they liked, they could keep it. And to those Americans, I

hear you loud and clear. I said that I would do everything we

can to fix this problem, and today I am offering an idea that

will help do it.

Already people who have plans that predate the Affordable

Care Act can keep those plans if they haven't changed. That

was already in the law. That's what's called a grandfather

that was included in the law. Today, we're going to extend

that principle both to the people whose plans have changed

since the law took effect and to people who bought plans

since the law took effect.

You know, it is interesting, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution should actually protect the States to issue their own directives through their State insurance commissioners. They didn't need the President of the United States to do that. That is a power that has been enshrined to them in the Constitution. The problem is that power was taken away under the Affordable Care Act. Now they have attempted to bring it back. But the fact of the matter is, in many States, patients and constituents won't have that protection, but the Upton bill today will actually provide that protection.

Make no mistake, the Upton bill is not a fix-it bill to the Affordable Care Act; it is a lifeline that we are extending to our constituents who have lost the coverage that they were told that they could keep.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the vice chair of the full committee.

Well, I am always here, so I remain as a speaker.

Absolutely.

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

I can't help but think back to that September evening in 2009 when the President stood before a joint session of Congress after the August recess and made a statement to the Nation that, yes, he was trying to change health care but not to worry, that no one who was in the country without the benefit of a Social Security number would be included in that cost because many people are concerned that the cost for the Affordable Care Act, already high, would expand unreasonably if that were to change; and the President made a promise to the American people that night.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of stuff today. I really wish there had been that much interest in improving the Affordable Care Act before it passed the first time. We all know the reasons why those improvements were not offered and why we just simply had to have a take it or leave it proposition that was ultimately signed into law.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of a critical bill to protect the millions of Americans who are facing the loss of health insurance that they were promised that they could keep.

I certainly thank my friend from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, for producing this thoughtful piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for its approval by the body.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the distinguished gentleman.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to save lives and to ensure that the Affordable Care Act does what it was intended to do and what it is already doing: lifting the lifetime caps, providing preventative care, taking away the discrimination against women and other ethnic minorities by eliminating health disparities.

This is a bill that has seen eons of hearings not only in the underlying committee, but also in the Judiciary Committee and other committees and ad hoc hearings and briefings over and over again. I remember sitting and hearing the painful stories of families whose children had died because they could not get access to health care. But the Upton bill comes today disguised as a sheep in wolf's clothing. It discriminates against people with preexisting conditions; it restores annual caps on the amount of care you can receive; and it forces women to pay more than men for the same coverage.

This bill is not a fix. It is a dissolver of a good bill.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, let me inform my colleagues that there was nothing in the Affordable Care Act that dictated to insurance companies that they had to send cancelation letters. Why don't we hold a hearing and call the CEOs of the insurance companies and ask them why they didn't send the normal letter indicating that you have the opportunity to have a modified policy that will comply with the Affordable Care Act and that your policies are not canceled because those individuals did not pay their premium? Ask that question.

I will tell you that there are health professionals and organizations that believe this particular bill will not work, such as the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Society.

I agree with my colleague that there should have been an open rule. And the reason that there should have been an open rule is because I had an amendment that indicated that the conditions specified in the subsection for health insurance insurer, they must notify enrollees eligible for such continued coverage. I am glad that the President yesterday put that language in and also said that you can opt in to your old policy.

We have answered the call and concern of the American people, but we have not taken away from them the right to have consumer protections and insurance coverage that will make their lives better.

I would also suggest that my amendment indicated health insurance companies are making decisions based on their bottom line, their self- interests, and have decided to terminate insurance plans that are not profitable in the new, highly competitive marketplace for health insurance or want to end insurance for those who are ill and thereby increase their profit margin by keeping only the healthy and marginally healthy while discarding the ill, and the amendment should have been included, because we need to speak to our friends in the health insurance industry that we are here working together and that those letters were not necessary.

Mr. Speaker, I want to save lives. I want consumer protections. I want women not to be discriminated against. Tomorrow, in Houston, we are opening the doors for enrollment in a health fair that we hope thousands will come to.

My friends, the Upton bill does not answer the question. Let us save lives today.

I thank the gentleman for his courtesy.

This is what we lived in preceding the Affordable Care Act:

18 percent of the underinsured postponed getting care or treatment, and some of those people died;

15 percent of the uninsured had problems paying their medical bills, hounded, hounded, hounded because they didn't have the resources and even went bankrupt;

10 percent of the uninsured needed prescription drugs but they could not afford them;

8 percent were hounded by collection agencies because they had to pay for their mortgage or their food;

6 percent did not seek treatment at all.

Do you know what that equals to? One hundred percent of those individuals suffering bad health care.

Let us vote down the Upton bill, vote against the underlying rule, and let's promote the Affordable Care Act and fix it like the President has done.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the underlying bill, H.R. 3350, the so-called ``Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013.'' I oppose the rule and the underlying bill for two reasons.

First, the bill will not save lives. Second, the legislation is unnecessary in light of the action taken yesterday by President Obama, which should satisfy the proponents of this legislation while at the same time minimizing the risk to the health and safety of underinsured Americans, who are persons who have insurance but spend more than 10% of their income on out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Were it to become law, H.R. 3350 would jeopardize the life and health of those underinsured who purchase these plans it protects, even though health insurance plans are available that would in nearly every case provide more health coverage for less.

Mr. Speaker, researchers have found the following disturbing facts regarding the underinsured:

Eighteen percent of the underinsured postpone getting care or treatment;

Fifteen percent of the underinsured had problems paying medical bills;

Ten percent of the underinsured needed prescription drugs but could not afford them;

Eight percent were hounded by collection agencies for nonpayment of medical bills; and

Six percent did not seek treatment even though they needed it.

Mr. Speaker, this is the cost of underinsurance in America--and this is what we can expect more of should H.R. 3350 become law. The express purpose of this bill is to allow underinsured persons to retain an inadequate ``health insurance'' plan on the ground that supposedly it is the plan the person ``wants to keep.''

Unfortunately, there is nothing in this bill that would provide consumer education on the inadequacies of the plan and that something much better is available. For example, there is no requirement in this bill for the insurer to notify the insured that health insurance provided through the exchange that provides more and better coverage for less money.

This means that under H.R. 3350 people will still have problems paying their medical bills, they will have high bills, and they will not be able to afford prescription medication or be hounded by medical bill collectors.

The second reason for opposing this rule and bill is that it is unnecessary in view of the actions taken yesterday by President Obama. As the President announced, insurers will be

permitted to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans in 2014, without change, allowing them to keep their plans. This should satisfy the proponents of the bill.

But the President went further than that because he recognizes that inadequate insurance is really no insurance at all. That is why the President conditioned the ability of insurers to offer plan renewals upon the following:

1. That insurers notify enrollees that they can purchase coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace where they can potentially qualify for premium tax credits; and

2. Those insurers must inform consumers of the protections they are giving up to keep the plan they have.

Taken together, President Obama's actions are a tempered and measured response to the alleged problem that this bill seeks to remedy.

I fully applaud what the President has done and I offered an amendment that would achieve precisely the same results but the Rules Committee did not make my amendment in order. The text of Jackson Lee Amendment #1 provides:

(C) Conditions for Continued Offering of Coverage.--The conditions specified in this subsection for a health insurance issuer offering continued coverage under subsection (a) are as follows:

(1) The issuer must notify enrollees eligible for such continued coverage that they can purchase health insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace where they can potentially qualify for premium tax credits.

(2) The issuer must tell consumers what protections they are giving up to accept the continued coverage they have.

(3) The issuer must provide notice by mail of the offering of such continued coverage to each affected enrollee; and post these notices on the issuer's website.

The Jackson Lee Amendment, like the action announced by the President, is practical, efficient, and addresses the concerns of those who received cancellation letters from their insurance companies.

It should be noted again that Jackson Lee Amendment #1, and the President's actions, are each superior to H.R. 3350, which contains no provision or requirement that consumers who received these notices be advised by their insurers that they may receive lower insurance rates with better coverage by shopping online or calling the toll free number.

Now there may be some who think the availability of the types of health care insurance that H.R. 3350 would protect is sufficient for Americans. I do not. Neither does President Obama. The majority of the American people do not. We believe, and the Affordable Care Act ensures, that healthcare should be available, accessible and adequate.

Mr. Speaker, adequate health plans have in common the inclusion of certain minimal benefits and services. The second amendment I offered to the legislation before us documented the differences between adequate and inadequate health insurance plans. Unfortunately, the Rules Committee elected not to make my amendment in order. The text of Jackson Lee Amendment #2 is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3350, the ``Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013.'' I oppose the bill for two reasons.

First, the Affordable Care Act health insurance plans offered by private insurance companies have 10 basic options that saves lives. Second, the legislation is unnecessary in light of the action taken yesterday by President Obama, which should satisfy the proponents of this legislation while at the same time minimizing the risk to the health and safety of

underinsured Americans, who are persons who have insurance but spend more than 10 percent of their income on out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Were it to become law, H.R. 3350 would jeopardize the life and health of those underinsured who purchase these plans this bill protects, even though health insurance plans are available that would in nearly every case provide more health coverage for less.

Mr. Speaker, the Affordable Care Act that the Republicans have tried for 46 times to end, delay or impede is working my constituents of the 18th Congressional District and the people of Texas.

Flora Alexandra Brewer of Fort Worth a real estate development business owner who works from home kept trying to sign into the website. She was determined to participate in the exchange. She said that her family had pre-existing conditions. Flora said that, ``There's nothing more expensive out there on any of the websites that I have looked at than what I am currently paying for COBRA.

For the past 10 months, Flora has been paying nearly $1,900 a month for health insurance for her, her husband and one of her sons. She knows that she will most likely not qualify for any subsidies, but she believes she will save around $500 a month under the program commonly known as Obamacare.

Those potential savings motivate Brewer not to give up on the exchange.

On Wednesday, she called the toll free number listed on healthcare.gov. She spoke to a representative and enrolled in 15 minutes. She will soon receive an email and a packet in the mail detailing the polices and rates she and her family are eligible for.''

Mark Sullivan, an Entrepreneur from Austin, enrolled in a Plan that reduces his monthly premiums by half, expands his coverage, and gave him the financial security to focus on his small business. ``Mark now feels confident focusing on the success of his new consulting business, saying health insurance is 'one less thing I have to think about' as he pours his time and talent into this next major career move.

Mark also thinks the marketplace will make it possible for more people to start new businesses and wants to share his success with the larger entrepreneurial community in Austin. After comparing plans, Mark settled on a bronze option and added dental insurance. He will receive an $82 per month subsidy, which will halve the monthly premium he will pay down to $78.''

Lucy after choosing from over 30 plans is saving $2,300 a year on her premium and $4,000 on her deductible, said that ``I signed up at Healthcare.gov and I'm going to save $2,300 a year on my premium alone--and more, because my deductible will drop from $7,500 a year to $3,000 a year. It's still Blue Cross insurance, and I don't have to change doctors, either. I had a choice of over 30 plans and several different companies.''

Mr. Speaker, according to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured 47 million persons under the age of retirement were uninsured in 2012. Most of the uninsured are self-employed or employed by small businesses. Another 28 million people were enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP programs to gain access to health insurance.

The overwhelming majority (59 percent) of the insured receive their insurance through employer health plans. However, one in six of the uninsured have at least one working person in their household.

Mr. Speaker, this is the cost of underinsurance in America--and this is what we can expect more of should H.R. 3350 become law. The express purpose of this bill is to allow underinsured persons to retain an inadequate ``health insurance'' plan on the ground that supposedly it is the plan the person ``wants to keep.''

Unfortunately, there is nothing in this bill that would provide consumer education on the inadequacies of the plan and that something much better is available. For example, there is no requirement in this bill for the insurer to notify the insured that health insurance provided through the exchange that provides more and better coverage for less money.

This means that under H.R. 3350 people will still have problems paying their medical bills, they will have high bills, and they will not be able to afford prescription medication or be hounded by medical bill collectors. Further, this bill would allow these health insurance plans to be sold to new customers who may not know about the potentially better options available on the health insurance exchanges.

The second reason for opposing this rule and bill is that it is unnecessary in view the actions taken yesterday by President Obama. As the President announced, insurers will be permitted to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans in 2014, without change, allowing them to keep their plans. This should satisfy the proponents of the bill.

But the President went further than that because he recognizes that inadequate insurance is really no insurance at all. That is why the President conditioned the ability of insurers to offer plan renewals upon the following:

1. That insurers notify enrollees that they can purchase coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace where they can potentially qualify for premium tax credits; and

2. Those insurers must inform consumers of the protections they are giving up to keep the plan they have.

Taken together, President Obama's actions are a tempered and measured response to the alleged problem that this bill seeks to remedy.

I fully applaud what the President has done.

There may be some who think the availability of the types of health care insurance that H.R. 3350 would protect is sufficient for Americans. I do not. Neither does President Obama. The majority of the American people do not. We believe, and the Affordable Care Act ensures, that healthcare should be available, accessible and adequate.

Mr. Speaker, adequate health plans have in common the inclusion of certain minimal benefits and services.

Mr. Speaker, my constituents in the 18th Congressional District of Texas favor the Affordable Care Act because they understand the insecurity and feeling of helplessness of being uninsured or underinsured. My home state of Texas has the highest percentage of uninsured (27.6 percent) in the nation, 4 percent more than Louisiana the next state on the list.

The state of Massachusetts, in contrast, boasts the lowest uninsured rate in the country (4 percent). This is because Massachusetts several years ago adopted the health insurance system upon which the Affordable Health Care Act is based.

Mr. Speaker, health care coverage must be not only available and affordable but also adequate in order for consumers to have the health security and financial protection they need and deserve. The Affordable Care Act satisfies these criteria; the bill before us does not. That is why we should reject this rule and the underlying bill.

H.R. 3350 is nothing more than the House Republicans' newest variation on their very old theme, which is to repeal, impede or undermine the Affordable Care Act. This bill is the 46th attempt by the Republicans to deprive the American people of the security and peace of mind that comes with health care that is affordable, accessible and adequate.

Of course we should not be surprised. After all, it was the House Republicans who shut down the Federal Government for 16 days and cost the economy $24 billion while refusing to consider any legislation that would create jobs or address the real needs of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before is strongly opposed by a coalition of some of the nation's leading health and consumer organizations, including the following:

Paralyzed Veterans of America.

American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

American Diabetes Association.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

American Music Therapy Association.

The Arc of the United States.

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

Community Catalyst.

Families USA.

Health and Wholeness Ministries, Disciples Center for Public Witness.

Health Care for America Now.

National Alliance on Mental Illness.

National Association of County Behavioral Health & Developmental Disability Directors.

National Council of Jewish Women.

National Partnership for Women & Families.

These groups oppose the bill for substantially the same reasons I have discussed. While sympathizing with consumers who are receiving notices from their insurance companies that their policies are not being renewed for next year because they do not comply with the ACA's consumer protections, the Coalition rightly observes that:

[T]he solution is not to allow for the continued sale of

inadequate policies[.] Rather, we must educate consumers

about their new health insurance options and ensure that

notices being sent by insurers clearly inform them of the

shortfalls with their current coverage and explain all of

their options for finding better coverage.

I agree. Therefore, I urge all Members to join me in voting against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for yielding me the time; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong, strong opposition to this closed rule and to the underlying bill. This is effort number 46, by my count, to gut the Affordable Care Act.

Before I discuss the problems with the underlying bill, let me address, just so the record is clear, the latest example of lousy process foisted upon this House by the Republican leadership.

The bill before us today would make sweeping and significant changes to the Affordable Care Act and, thus, to the Nation's health care system. It would profoundly affect the lives of millions of Americans, upend the individual market, and add confusion and uncertainty into an already complicated situation.

So how many hearings did the Republicans hold on this bill? Zero. Let me repeat that: zero. How many expert witnesses did they call? Zip. How many markups did they have in the committees of jurisdiction? Nada. Yet again, Republican promises of regular order and a thoughtful legislative process have been thrown out the window.

And with all due respect to my friend from Texas, to stand here and say with a straight face that this is some kind of an emergency, we can't have any amendments made in order, we just don't have the time, defies comprehension.

We have a rule that is closed that allows for 1 hour of debate--not even split amongst the committees of jurisdiction. This bill, by right, is not only an Energy and Commerce bill, it is a Ways and Means bill, but the Ways and Means Committee doesn't get any time to debate this bill.

Mr. Speaker, 1 hour. You mean we couldn't have 2 hours of debate and a few amendments? Or 3 hours of debate and a few more amendments? Or 5 hours of debate or a whole day of debate, given the fact that you didn't hold any hearings on this bill? Give me a break. This is not the way to run the House of Representatives. This is not the way you promised you would run the House of Representatives. And, by contrast, on the Affordable Care Act, we had hundreds of hours of debate and markups in which Republican amendments were actually accepted. Now you may not like the Affordable Care Act, but it went through a process. This went through no process. This was just brought up to the Rules Committee, and we are told to bring it right to the floor.

This is not a serious attempt to fix the Affordable Care Act. This is a political statement, and I understand the temptation behind it. Believe me, no one is more frustrated by the problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act than those of us who voted for it, believe in it, and want it to work. But instead of working with us to try to actually fix the problems and make the law work, the Republicans have brought forth this Upton bill.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear about this bill. It is an attempt to drag us back to the bad old days of the American health care system. It would allow insurance companies to go back to offering cut- rate, shoddy policies that lack the consumer protections required by the Affordable Care Act.

So if you want to go back to a system where insurance companies could turn people away because they are sick, by all means vote for this bill. If you want to go back to a time when women were charged higher rates than men because being a female counted as a preexisting condition, then vote for the Upton bill. If you believe that insurers should be allowed to eliminate somebody's coverage if they get sick or are older or if they have a child or for no good reason whatsoever, then the Upton bill is for you. In short, a vote for the Upton bill is a vote in favor of everything the American people say that they hate about the health care system in this country.

Yesterday, in the Rules Committee, my friend, Dr. Burgess, made it very clear that the Upton bill is not an attempt to fix the Affordable Care Act. They are only interested in full repeal. They are perfectly satisfied with 40 million Americans having no health insurance at all. Speaker Boehner made a similar statement yesterday.

As I said, the rollout of the health care plan has not been perfect, and I know that my own home State of Massachusetts, the rollout of our State health care law was not perfect either. But Democrats in Massachusetts did not go out of their way over and over and over again to sabotage it just because a Republican Governor named Mitt Romney signed it into law. We worked to make it better. And by 2009, I am proud to say, my congressional district had the highest rate of insurance coverage in the entire country. That is a good thing.

If my Republican friends think that we are going to go back to a system where we in Massachusetts did the right thing but ended up paying for the

uncompensated care of people in Texas, North Carolina, Utah, or anywhere else, they are wrong.

At some point, we have to get serious about the goal of providing good quality, affordable health insurance to every American. The Upton bill gets us no closer to that goal. It is yet another political waste of time.

Mr. Speaker, let me just close by making this observation. What this debate is about--and it has turned into an ideological debate--is whether or not you believe that every single American in this country is entitled to good quality health insurance or not.

My friends on the other side of the aisle obviously believe that it is okay that 40 million Americans don't have health insurance, because for the last few years they haven't offered anything other than repeal--repeal, repeal, repeal--and offering nothing as a substitute. They think it is okay to let the insurance companies decide whether you get health care or not based on a preexisting condition or whether you are a female or whether or not you are too old or too sick or whatever. They have been perfectly satisfied with the broken system that was in place.

So that is the choice here. And I would urge my colleagues to understand that there is something wrong with the fact that, in the greatest country in the world and the richest country in the history of the world, so many of our fellow citizens don't have health care, don't have access to health insurance.

And we can fix that. By fixing that, we not only improve the quality of life for our neighbors, our friends, and our fellow citizens, but we also help control health care costs. Because one of the biggest drivers of increased health care costs is the uncompensated care pool.

So let's get serious. Let's stop this political posturing. I know you don't like the President. You have gone out of your way to say some things that are so outrageous, it is hard for me to believe that Members of Congress would say such things. But get over it and do what is right for the American people. Vote ``no'' on this closed rule. Vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me again remind my colleagues that not a single hearing was held on this bill. Not a single markup was held on this bill, nothing, and it is coming to the floor under a closed rule.

My Republican friends believe that nobody in this House, Democrats or

Republicans, have any right to offer an opinion or an alternative. We are given 1 hour of debate on this. It is not evenly split among the committees of jurisdiction. One committee of jurisdiction.

This is a joke. This is not what you promised. This is not the open process. This is not the transparent process on major pieces of legislation that we were promised. This is a joke.

I will insert into the Record a Statement of Administration Policy that says that the President, if presented with H.R. 3350, would veto it.

This is a colossal waste of time.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 3350--Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013

(Rep. Upton, R-MI, and 161 cosponsors, Nov. 14, 2013)

The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R.

3350 because it threatens the health care security of hard

working, middle class families. The Nation is experiencing

the slowest growth in health spending in the last 50 years.

Since 2008, growth in private health insurance spending

stayed between three and four percent--significantly lower

than earlier this decade when growth reached almost 12

percent. With health care costs rising at such low rates,

this bill would be a major step back.

H.R. 3350 rolls back the progress made by allowing insurers

to continue to sell new plans that deploy practices such as

not offering coverage for people with pre-existing

conditions, charging women more than men, and continuing

yearly caps on the amount of care that enrollees receive. The

Administration supports policies that allow people to keep

the health plans that they have. But, policies that reverse

the progress made to extend quality, affordable coverage to

millions of uninsured, hardworking, middle class families are

not the solution. Rather than refighting old political

battles to sabotage the health care law, the Congress should

work with the Administration to improve the law and move

forward.

If the President were presented with H.R. 3350, he would

veto it.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

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

What the gentleman conveniently leaves out are the hundreds of hours of hearings and markups that occurred in the committees of jurisdiction on the Affordable Care Act. The committees of jurisdiction were just cut out of this.

It is becoming a pattern in this House. This is not the only bill where the committees of jurisdiction have been cut out of the process, where Members' voices have been silenced, where they are enforcing rules with an iron fist in this Chamber. So this, unfortunately, is not unique. It is a pattern.

But to suggest that we don't have the time to offer amendments is just ridiculous. We have plenty of time. We could debate this all day if we wanted to, and Members could have an opportunity, both Democrats and Republicans, to amend this, given the fact that they were denied that right in the committees of jurisdiction.

Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record an article that appeared in the National Review Online, entitled, ``Boehner: Upton Bill a Step on Path to ObamaCare Repeal,'' because what is going on here is very simple.

If you believe that 40 million Americans should be without health insurance, then vote for this bill. That is what they want to do. They want to repeal the Affordable Care Act to go back to a point at which it was perfectly acceptable and okay to have 40 million Americans without health insurance. Now, many of us found that statistic unconscionable in this country, the richest country in the history of the world, and we thought it was bad policy to allow for so many uninsured Americans because that also resulted in higher health care costs, but that is what the goal here is.

The goal here is to undo all of the protections that allow you to keep

your kids on your insurance policies until they are 26, that prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against women because they define being a female as a preexisting condition, and all of these artificial rules and regulations that insurance companies threw upon people, these insurance policies that people bought thinking they had insurance only to find out when they got sick they had nothing.

If you want to go back to that, then side with my Republican friends; but what we want to do here is work as we did in Massachusetts, by the way, with Governor Romney, in order to make this work. I will tell you, for the life of me, I don't understand why this is such a radical idea to guarantee everybody in this country good, quality health insurance.

[From the National Review, Nov. 13, 2013]

Boehner: Upton Bill a Step on Path to Obamacare Repeal

(By Jonathan Strong)

Before the government shutdown in July, as the defund push

from Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee was just starting to gain

steam, Speaker John Boehner laid-out his preferred Obamacare

strategy to House Republicans in a closed-door conference

meeting, telling them the GOP could repeal the law with

``targeted strikes that will ultimately dissolve the

Obamacare coalition.''

This morning, in another conference meeting, Boehner

reminded his colleagues about that strategy and explained how

bringing the ``keep your plan'' bill introduced by

Representative Fred Upton to the House floor Friday fits into

it.

``Remember the strategy for stopping Obamacare we laid out

to you back in July. It had two components: Aggressive,

coordinated oversight, and targeted legislative strikes aimed

at shattering the legislative coalition the president has

used to force his law on the nation,'' Boehner said,

according to a person in the room.

``That plan is being executed as we speak. But none of it

will be effective if we aren't communicating. If we aren't

telling the stories our constituents are sharing, then we're

letting them down. It means we aren't doing our best to stop

this law,'' he added.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who suffered a long and arduous Rules Committee last night.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about faith. I think the American people have lost faith in the Republican leadership of this House. My friends are so obsessed with this health care bill that they actually shut the government down. Ted Cruz was the Speaker of the House here for a month. I mean, they shut the government down because they do not believe that 40 million uninsured Americans ought to have health insurance.

Ezra Klein, in his Washington Post piece on November 14, writes about the Upton bill.

He says:

It doesn't solve the cancelations problem, but it does

manage to put Republicans on the side of insurers, who want

to continue discriminating against preexisting conditions.

That is what this is all about: giving the insurance companies more of what they want. If you want to know why, follow the money. It is no secret where the insurance companies' allegiances are. Quite frankly, my friends have had 3 years in control to give us their alternative. They have said ``no'' to everything. No, no, no. They try to undercut and repeal everything. What have they offered in 3 years? What is their prescription for the uninsured in America? Take two tax breaks and call me in the morning. That is the best they could come up with.

This is a good bill, and we need to work to implement it so that we can make sure that every single American has access to good, quality health insurance.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Mr. Speaker, at this point, it is my privilege to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

I yield an additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the time.

In March of 2010, the President signed the Affordable Care Act. In that law, there was a revision that said on January 1 of 2014 if insurance plans did not have important consumer protections, like getting rid of lifetime policy limits and annual limits, that they couldn't be sold anymore.

For over 3\1/2\ years, the insurance industry had noticed that the day was coming when they could not sell these plans anymore. They chose to wait until the last couple of weeks to send out notices to millions of Americans saying they couldn't renew their plans next year. This is unfair to those Americans, and it is a problem that ought to be fixed.

The President has stepped forward with a plan to address this to help those Americans. I support what he is doing. The House Democrats will have an opportunity to put on the floor some votes that will further improve that situation as this debate goes on.

This problem of people having their policies canceled is unwarranted and unwelcome, and we should work together to fix it. The underlying bill here does not fix the problem; it creates a problem.

It is very important to understand what the underlying bill does. It says that insurance plans that discriminate against you because you are a woman or because you had skin cancer, or insurance plans that say that in the middle of your chemotherapy you can run out of coverage, or insurance plans that say that after you paid your premiums for months or even years the insurance company can cancel you because you got sick, those plans can continue to be sold to everyone--to everyone.

The problem that we are trying to address is people that have such plans and want to keep them be given the opportunity to keep them. That is what

the President's decision does, which is why we support it.

The underlying bill says that these plans can be opened up to anybody who wants to buy this. That sounds kind of fair at first glance. If someone wants to buy that kind of plan, shouldn't they be able to?

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the House, here is the question: If someone buys a plan that pulls the plug on their chemotherapy in the middle and they keep getting care, who pays for it? The taxpayers do and the other premium payers do. That is who pays for it.

This plan that is before the House today, this Republican bill, is a guarantee of rate shock for the American people because here is what will happen.

If anyone who wants to can buy one of these cars without an airbag or cars without seatbelts--and that is what these plans are--then you will find that the new marketplaces don't have enough people in them. When they don't have enough people in them, the rates will rise. When the rates spike for people in the marketplaces, they will spike for people who get employer-sponsored health care because the possibility of the marketplaces is already reducing the premium increases that employers are seeing.

I thank the gentleman.

So the employer rates, which have risen at the slowest rates in the last 5 or 6 years, would once again be subject to the kind of spikes that happen here.

Look, I think there is bipartisan agreement in this Chamber this morning that if someone has gotten a cancelation notice, we want to help that person keep their plan if they choose to keep it. We agree with that, the President agrees with that. That is what he set out to do.

What we do not want, and what this bill does, is to guarantee rate shock, guarantee a premium spike for Americans, whether they are in these plans that we are talking about today, whether they are in the new marketplaces, or whether they receive insurance through their employer. We need additional protections where insurance commissioners around this country can step forward and investigate arbitrary and unfair practices, where they can protect consumers, and House Democrats are going to put forward such an opportunity to vote on that at the conclusion of this debate.

Let's not in the guise of solving one problem magnify another one. We should oppose this rule and oppose the underlying bill.

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

I am opposed to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues, we have listened to the many stories told by people this morning with great empathy about people

who got a cancelation notice and want to keep the policy that they have.

The issue before the House is whether we want to solve the problem or create another problem. That is the issue. If we want to work together, as we should, to solve the problem of Americans receiving cancelation notices and not being able to keep policies that they have, it requires us to do three things.

First, we have to legally authorize insurance companies to offer these policies on into the future. The Democratic plan which I have proposed does that and, frankly, so does Mr. Upton's bill.

The second thing that we have to do, though, is make sure that the insurance companies offer the plans for sale. It really does you no good at all if you have the right to buy a plan that the insurance company refuses to sell.

Mr. Upton's bill is mute on that point. It might be called the ``Insurance Companies Bill of Rights'' because they have the right to do or not do anything they choose, but the people that we all say that we want to protect really have no rights at all. This is an important distinguishing point in the plan that I am offering now, and I would urge everyone to support.

We have drawn from language offered by my friend from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) which requires State insurance commissioners around this country to be vigilant protectors of consumers, rather than corporate apologists for insurance companies.

Our plan says that if someone's cancelation was arbitrary and thoughtless and unfair, the insurance commissioner must act and protect the people that we heard read in those letters today.

Our plan says that if rate increases are discriminatory, if you got a rate increase because you are a woman who is pregnant, or you got a rate increase because you had skin cancer, or breast cancer, or diabetes, that the insurance commissioner must act and protect the consumer against that indignity.

It does you no good that this bill is called the ``Keep Your Insurance If You Want To Bill.'' It should be called the ``Keep Your Insurance If You Want To And The Insurance Company Allows You To Bill.'' We are correcting that wrong and remedying that wrong with our plan.

Thirdly, it doesn't do any good to give people the chance to renew their plans if that renewal results in a huge premium increase for everyone else in the country. That is what the underlying bill does.

The underlying bill says that these plans, which I would really equate to selling an automobile with no airbags and no seatbelts--now, our plan says, look, if you want to keep driving a car with no airbags and no seatbelts, you can keep driving, but people can't sell a car with no airbags and no seatbelts to a new consumer, which is what the underlying bill permits.

Now, when that happens, here is what is going to happen. People in the new State marketplaces are going to see a huge increase in their premiums. People who get covered at work are going to see a huge increase in their premiums. It is going to spill over to Medigap policies for seniors and people on Medicare.

The bill really should be called the ``Guaranteed Premium Increase Act of 2013'' because that is what it is.

Our bill corrects that by saying, let's help the people we say we want to try to help, people who like their plan and want to keep it, not everyone that the insurance company could dupe or lure into buying a car with no airbag and no seatbelts.

Finally, working together means not forgetting about some other people who write letters we haven't heard much about today, the family that Mr. Doyle talked about, whose daughter has cancer, who has an insurance policy, but has to have a beef and beer or a golf tournament to raise money to pay their bills. I want to help that person and not repeal the Affordable Care Act.

How about the woman who had breast cancer 10 years ago and can now be told, we are sorry, you can't buy an insurance policy. You have got to pay more if you do. I want to help her by banning discrimination based on preexisting conditions.

If we really want to work together, let's adopt this plan. Let's really help the people we say we are trying to help, and not the insurance industry of the United States of America.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

I do, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is my friend, the chairman's objection is based on the principle of germaneness. The underlying bill, by its very title, purports to protect Americans who have received a cancelation notice for a policy that they want to keep.

Now, there is a disagreement here over how to protect those Americans. The underlying bill does not have requirements that State insurance commissioners act to protect those individuals. Our plan does. Our plan does.

This is a disagreement over the means to protect American consumers. The underlying bill says we will trust the insurance industry. Our bill says, no, we will enforce the insurance laws.

I would respectfully submit this does not rise to a difference in germaneness. This is a difference of opinion. The bill on the floor purports to protect the Americans that I talked about. We think it doesn't. Our plan does protect those Americans in a different way.

The underlying subject matter of this bill is how do you protect Americans who wish to keep the insurance plan that they have. We believe we have a more effective way of doing that. The majority disagrees. The House deserves a vote on that. No technicality, no procedural nicety should deny us the chance to take a vote on whose plan is right. We should proceed with this vote.

Mr. Speaker, I respectfully appeal the ruling of the Chair.

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

We come here as stewards of a very sacred trust--to look after the people that are the backbone of this country. We are having this debate this afternoon because we have all heard from men and women across this country who are very upset that an insurance policy that they want to keep has been canceled.

These constituents are very upset and very troubled, and we are brought here to work together to figure out a solution to that problem.

What is the solution?

First of all, they ought to have the ability to have their insurance companies offer them the policies for sale. Frankly, the underlying bill does that, and so does the plan that I am presenting.

Secondly, there ought to be some way that the insurance companies are given some incentive at the very at least, direction, to sell the policy. It doesn't do you a whole lot of good to have the right to buy a policy that the insurance company is not selling, and this plan has some measures which make it more likely that insurance companies would do that.

Thirdly, to solve that person's problem, we have to make sure that in solving his problem we are not creating another one; that by permitting these policies to be sold for another year, which this does, that we are not spiking the premiums of people in the exchange marketplaces or of people who get their insurance through work.

I have heard a number of Members say that they want a chance for us to work together to solve this problem. Here is that chance because this plan does the three things that I just talked about, but this plan, I think, is different than the underlying bill because this is not a step to unravel the Affordable Care Act; it is a step to improve it--which is the fundamental question, and there are some other people whose stories ought to be told here this afternoon, too.

There is a family this weekend that is having a social to raise money to pay the medical bills for their son or daughter who has cancer, because the insurance policy they thought they had stopped paying their son's or daughter's bills. Their voice should be heard. If you repeal the Affordable Care Act, their voice is silenced.

There are women in this country who go to try to start a business. They try to buy an insurance policy, and they are told, We won't sell you one because you had children or you are a female or you had breast cancer 10 years ago. If you repeal the Affordable Care Act, her voice is silenced.

Mr. Speaker, there are sons and daughters of Americans who are 22, 23 years old who didn't have health insurance before because they couldn't get that first full-time job who now have health insurance because they are on their moms' or dads' policies. If you repeal the Affordable Care Act, their voices will be silenced.

There are senior citizens who used to run out of drug coverage, prescription coverage, around Labor Day because the Medicare doughnut hole popped up. Because of the Affordable Care Act, they are now able to buy their prescriptions at an affordable price and are now able to pay their prescription bills until the end of the year. If you repeal the Affordable Care Act, their voices are silenced.

We come here this afternoon to solve the problem of Americans who want to keep their coverage but who have had it canceled. We want to work together to solve that problem. That is what this plan does.

When we look at women being turned away because of preexisting conditions, we will not be silenced. When we look at 22-year-olds who will lose their coverage if you repeal the Affordable Care Act, we will not be silenced. When you look at seniors who will lose the ability to pay their prescription drugs if you repeal the ACA, we will not be silenced.

We are here to solve problems, not to create them. If you want to work together in a way that improves this law, we are your able and willing partner, but if the intention is to unravel this protection for the American people, we will stand, we will speak, we will fight, and we will oppose every such effort.

Vote ``yes'' for this motion and ``no'' on the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership and that of the full Rules Committee on having to field some really strange notions masquerading as proposals to improve the lives of the American people. We see a lot of that these days.

This one on the floor today really takes the cake because it is essentially to pull the plug on the Affordable Care Act. While it says that they want to delay the cancelations that the insurance companies have written to policyholders, the bill does not mandate.

This is a conversation that is not an action, but it does violence to the bill in other ways. The idea that it was helping consumers was sort of the Trojan horse whose underbelly is poisonous in terms of the health and well-being of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to speak on the rule because I think it is really important for Members to vote against the rule as a point of fairness. If we reject this rule and allow the Rules Committee to come back to the floor with an opportunity for there to be a Democratic alternative, that would be fair. What we would do in the vote on the previous question, which I urge people to vote ``no'' on, would be able to vote ``yes,'' or consider voting ``yes,'' on a bill that does exactly what consumers need in terms of this cancelation area.

First of all, it would say that there would be a real delay--a real delay--for 1 year for the implementation in terms of the individual policyholders. That is just this piece of the bill that is the question--individual policyholders.

Ninety-five percent of the American people, as has been said, who have policies that they like can keep them. It is this 5 percent--and that is a lot of people, I don't want to minimize that--but, nonetheless, it is a discrete market.

Let's address that discrete market and in our previous question we bring up a bill that addresses that discrete market not only by enabling them to hold their policies for a year, but by requiring that the insurance companies must tell people not that you are canceled and we want to sign you up again at a higher cost; instead, insurance companies would be obliged to tell people what their options are, what their options are under the Affordable Care Act in terms of having no lifetime limits on their policies, no annual limits

on their policies, no preexisting condition, increasing the cost of their policy, or preventing them from holding their policy should they become sick, A;

B, it would also make sure that the insurance companies tell people what their options are in the exchanges, that they may qualify for a subsidy. In that marketplace the insurance companies are competing-- this is a free market, this exchange--they are competing for their policy; and, therefore, that has already lowered cost to consumers.

So they may have a better policy with better benefits at a lower cost and, if they qualify, get a subsidy to do it.

In addition to that, it is really important in every respect in everything we do, not only just for this individual marketplace, for people to understand the benefits of the Affordable Care Act that are available to them. I mentioned no preexisting condition, no annual limits, no lifetime limits, but also that already for over the past year young people can be on their parents' insurance. Over 3 million people have benefited in that regard. Tens of millions of seniors have benefited from the free prevention check-up--mammograms, whatever kinds of things--prevention and wellness exams free, no co-pay, no deductible.

Already seniors are experiencing lower costs for their prescription drugs because of the Affordable Care Act. Already small children cannot be discriminated against, nor their families, in seeking insurance because they have a preexisting condition.

Imagine a child born with a defect for life. They have a preexisting condition which will cost them dearly in terms of premiums, if they can even get insurance, and then it would be with limits. Not so. That has all changed.

That is why on this Upton bill which, as I said, not only does bad things to the Affordable Care Act in terms of disrupting the risk pools, it tries to masquerade as something that does something positive, which it does not. That is why the Upton bill is opposed by a broad coalition of groups: the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, the American Cancer Society Action Network, National Partnership for Women and Families, Paralyzed Veterans of America. Anyone with a preexisting medical condition--100 million people, families with people with preexisting medical conditions, all of them benefit. The stories are so glorious and so beautiful about what a difference the Affordable Care Act has made to families, especially those with small children or those with preexisting conditions, and to seniors. And, again, being a woman is no longer a preexisting medical condition.

So this is politics; it is not about policy. It isn't any attempt to improve the Affordable Care Act. One way to improve it, though, is what we have in our previous question: give the State insurance commissioners the authority, all of them--some of them have it--but ensure that all of them have the authority to investigate and act upon rate increases, as well as the nature of these letters that were sent out without the integrity that they should have had.

Again, we require that also in these letters the insurance companies make sure that people know what their opportunities are.

So what we are proposing today really does make a difference. In fact, we wanted to get this requirement of the insurance commissioners in the underlying bill, and then we said, okay, we will do that as an improvement. Today is the day that we can do that by voting ``no'' on the rule, enabling us to bring a bill to the floor that would do that.

I urge our colleagues to support the Affordable Care Act, support what it does for American families, stand with those who fought for Social Security, for Medicare, and affordable care for all Americans because these are three pillars of equal weight in terms of the economic and health security of the American people. They honor the vows of our Founders for life, a healthier life; liberty, the liberty to pursue your happiness so that you are not job locked, constrained by a policy, but free to follow your passion to be self-employed, to start a business, to change jobs, to be entrepreneurial--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Vote ``no'' on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I commend him for his great leadership in helping to pass the Affordable Care Act, honoring the vows of our Founders for liberty, the freedom to pursue their happiness. It is life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. A healthier life and freedom to pursue that happiness.

It is a funny thing when people talk about Washington, D.C., and how people don't get along well, we disagree. We have major disagreements on policy, and one of them is whether health care is a right for all in our country or a privilege for the few, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we are people and we serve in this institution, and we have some areas of agreement one day and the kaleidoscope changes the next day to the point where people are always surprised when I say to them, ``I pray for the Congress every day, and on Sunday especially. I pray for our Republican colleagues, as well as our Democratic colleagues, as well as the President of the United States, Barack Obama or George W. Bush, or whoever he may be, because the success of the President and the success of all of us is a success for the American people, if we can work together to find common ground for the public good.''

When I pray for all of us, I have wishes for us. I wish that my Republican colleagues could see how successful the Affordable Care Act is in California. I wish you could hear the stories of family after family after family being liberated, freed from the constraint of being job-locked because the family has a preexisting condition so that now they can follow their passion and not be chained by a policy, follow their passion to be self-employed, to start a business, or to change jobs.

I wish you could hear all of these stories. I wish you would not close your mind to them because this initiative has been transformative. I would have hoped that whatever had been proposed would be to strengthen or improve it, and we all have the humility to know that any bill, whatever our pride of involvement in it is, can be improved.

That is why it is particularly disappointing to come to the floor today to see a bill that says to the Affordable Care Act and all of these people with all of their stories, we are going to unravel this, we are going to unravel all of the good things, whether it is preexisting conditions, ending that discrimination, whether it is lifetime limits, whether it is annual limits, whether it is being a women no longer being a preexisting condition, whether it is for seniors or for kids 18-26 years old or for little children, even now, before the bill is fully enacted. So I hope and I pray, and I wish that our colleagues

could see the evidence and that the decisions would be evidence-based rather than politically motivated.

I think it is really important what this Congress does today. Each Member has to make his or her own decisions, but the fact is that in this body, our words weigh a ton and our votes are even weightier than that. I hope the message that comes out of this Congress is that there is a discussion going on, but there is a values decision that has been made in favor of the American people. If we have to thread a needle to get a result, let's do that, but let's not unravel the whole sweater because that would not be a comfort to the American people.

Let's act to strengthen, not weaken. Let's vote ``no'' on the Upton bill.