Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you being down with me here tonight. It took me awhile to get my materials over here because the topic I have tonight is the topic of what this House has been doing to make a difference in the life of families across this country. That is the good news. I have to confess, I am here with good news/bad news tonight.

This is the stack of bills that this House has passed, again, to make a difference in the lives of families, to makes a difference in small businesses, to grow the economy, to create jobs, the bills this House has passed collaboratively that sit collecting dust in the United States Senate. That is the bad news part of tonight.

It is fair enough if folks think this process is broken. It is fair enough if folks think there is too much partisanship in Washington, but what we have here are the successes. What we have here are not the hypothetical ``if only'' bills. What we have here are the bills that have actually left this House and sit in the United States Senate. It is 356 bills, Mr. Speaker, 356 bills that have left this House that sit collecting dust in the Senate. We did a hashtag, Mr. Speaker: #StuckInTheSenate. We all remember, ``I am just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill,'' that Saturday morning cartoon. This is not a dictatorship. We had that conversation a little bit earlier this afternoon. It is not a dictatorship. It is a collaborative effort, and the House has collaborated to pass over 356 bills that have gone to the Senate to do nothing.

Now, again, it is good news/bad news day. Let me start with something that is good news, because if folks don't believe there is opportunity for success, I could imagine how folks would give up, not just folks here in this Chamber, but folks across the country, families across the country.

This, Mr. Speaker, you may remember it, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation and Opportunity Act. This passed the House. It passed the Senate. It was signed by the President. This has become law. This was a bill to consolidate a variety of workplace training programs. We talk so much about a trained workforce, how it is we get Americans who may be transitioning in their life, are transitioning home from Iraq or Afghanistan, transitioning from an industry that is in decline to an industry that is growing, how do we get those folks trained.

I credit Dr. Virginia Foxx with this. She is one of my colleagues here in the House. I serve with her on the Rules Committee, but she also serves on the Education and the Workforce Committee. She has been working to try to consolidate programs, take money from programs that were not effective and move the money to programs that were effective. Imagine that. Imagine that. Here she is, a conservative Republican, and what she was trying to do was take money from places that weren't working and put it into places where it would make a difference for moms and dads and kids. And she did it. She did it.

Now, what we passed out of the House was strong, Mr. Speaker. We went out and we found every single program that was failing in America and we brought them together and put them into a single pot and sent it over to the Senate. The Senate said: No, we don't think all of those programs are failing. We don't want to move that big of a package. We want to do something smaller. They ended up consolidating about half of what we consolidated in the House.

But guess what. When you elect Rob Woodall dictator, then I get to have it my way every day. Until then, this is a collaborative effort here: the House, the Senate, and the President.

So we worked with the Senate, and we worked out our differences. We found that package of consolidation that we could all live with, and we sent it to the President and we got a signature. That is what the American people expect. That is what my constituents expect. They expect us to work together to get things done, not sacrificing principle, not compromising on values, but finding consensus because we all agree that American workers need help. We all agree that moms and dads in transition need to find a better way to feed their families.

We can spend tax dollars better. We found a way to do that here. I call it common sense, Mr. Speaker. It is not supposed to take a rocket scientist to sort some of these issues out. It is supposed to be common sense.

Did I mention #StuckInTheSenate, Mr. Speaker? If I didn't, I want to mention it right now because here is one that really gets me.

We were just talking about hiring more moms and dads. It is called the Hire More Heroes Act. Do you remember it, Mr. Speaker? We passed it out of this House with over 400 votes. Now, young high school students, middle school students, they might not know how many Members there are in the House. There are 435 Members in this House, and more than 400 of them said we should pass the Hire More Heroes bill, but it is stuck in the Senate. Over 400 folks voted ``yes,'' only one voted ``no,'' so I don't want to hear about bipartisanship in the House. I don't want to hear about Republican this and Democratic that.

Mr. Speaker, 400-plus folks said let's pass this bill. I will tell you what it does. The Hire More Heroes Act says one of the highest rates of unemployment we have in this country are men and women in uniform coming home from overseas. It says that we have small employers in this country, and as you know, Mr. Speaker, most of the employment in this country is not driven by the big guys. It is driven by small employers. We heard from small employers in this country who said: I want to hire those veterans, but I am worried about that 50-employee threshold that throws me into this brand-new round of ObamaCare regulations.

Guess what this House did, Mr. Speaker. More than 400 out of 435 got together and they said, if you are a small business owner in America and you want to put unemployed veterans to work but you don't because you are worried about some Federal Government regulation dealing with ObamaCare, we will waive that regulation for you. Hire all of the veterans you want to, and be not afraid of Federal Government regulation.

Think about that. Think about that. It is what I think about. It is why I ran

for Congress. It is why my friends on the other side of the aisle ran for Congress. We came to make a difference--to make a difference. Who among us doesn't want to see unemployed veterans get a job? Who among us doesn't want to see small businesses succeed? We came together, more than 400 of us, to pass the Hire More Heroes Act, but it is stuck in the Senate.

Why? Why? Over 400 of us, almost every Democrat--we lost one--but every Republican, almost every one of us voted ``yes'' to make a difference for small businesses, get them the labor that they need and make a difference for veterans looking for a job.

That was a good bill, Mr. Speaker, and still is, and it is stuck in the Senate. It is not stuck because we can't come to agreement on it, Mr. Speaker. It is not stuck because Republicans are intransigent. It is stuck because the Senate can't get these bills moving.

Mr. Speaker, I am not asking folks to just come together and do what I want them to do. What I am talking about are things that we are celebrating in this institution. I am not talking about things that squeaked through by the skin of their teeth. I am not talking about Republican proposals that we jammed through with the might of the majority. I am talking about commonsense proposals that make a difference in people's lives.

I will give you another one. How about H.R. 4414, Mr. Speaker? It is the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014. That doesn't sound very exciting, does it? And you know what, it is not very exciting for about 99 percent of Americans. But for Americans who have to work overseas and who have seen their health insurance policies canceled, quadrupled in price, folks who have struggled to find coverage, what this says is, if you don't live in America but you are working for an American company, really, you can sort out your insurance needs on your own over there. If you don't live in America, you don't have to comply with all these needs because--guess what--if you are doing business in London, the health care system is different in England.

If you are doing business in Paris, the health care system is different in France. If you are doing business in Moscow, the health care system is different in Russia. The rules we passed here won't work in those places. It is commonsense.

Had we not jammed that bill through Congress, that Affordable Care Act, maybe we would have gotten to that, but I don't know. It is a small group of people.

We passed a solution--let's look--269-150. I dare say those folks who voted ``no'' wouldn't say they opposed the policy, they would say they just thought it was a symbol of undermining ObamaCare in some way, they didn't want to undermine the President. I say nonsense about undermining the President. I want to make a difference in the lives of families.

Ninety-two days, Mr. Speaker, 92 days this bill has been sitting in the Senate.

Now, that is a minor piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, that could make a big impact, but for a small number of people. What about things that make a big impact for a large number of people? What about those things?

The REINS Act, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 367, the REINS Act says--and it is a crazy bill, I will confess--it says before you pass a regulation, you need to consider the economic impact of that regulation. Now, while that is commonsense back home in Atlanta, it may seem crazy here in Washington, D.C.

Before you pass a regulation, weigh the pros and the cons to see if it is a good idea or not, weigh those pros and the cons. It is a REINS Act because we are just out of control here with regulation and we need to have a thoughtful conversation about it.

H.R. 1105, the Small Business Capital Access and Job Preservation Act. Trying to find ways for our small businesses to get access to the capital they need in what have been incredibly tight credit markets.

H.R. 2374, the Retail Investor Protection Act.

Time and time again, Mr. Speaker, we are passing bills--they are all here, they are all sitting on Harry Reid's desk over in the Senate-- passing bills in an effort to make a difference in people's lives. If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be interested in doing it. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about making a political statement. I don't have a bill in this stack that is about trying to be one up on the other guy, trying to embarrass somebody, trying to call somebody out. What I have in this stack--did I mention there are 356 bills in this stack?--what I have in this stack are bills that could make a difference to a struggling economy today--today. I say today. These bills passed a week ago, a month ago, a year ago or more. They could make a difference. They are #StuckInTheSenate--356 bills.

I have got the great honor tonight, Mr. Speaker--I am not alone in this endeavor, haven't been alone in passing 356 bills. It has been a team sport from day one, team sport from day one--Republicans, Democrats, folks from the North, folks from the South, folks representing families from across the country.

Tonight, I have got Mr. Rothfus here, an 18-month Member of this institution, who came, I wager, not to make a point, but to make a difference, and has been doing that every day he has been in this Chamber.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Will the gentleman yield?

I may have misunderstood what you said, because what my constituents believe is that it is partisanship that has shut this down. That it is Republicans fighting with Democrats and Democrats fighting with Republicans.

We are talking about over 350 bills that are sitting in the Senate that have passed this House, that we have come together on this House, you are saying 60 of those were introduced by Democrats?

I thank the gentleman.

I would like to ask the gentleman if he would stay just 1 more minute. I see you are down here with three lovely young women from the next generation of Americans. When they grow up, they are going to be the leaders of this country.

You mentioned energy in your presentation. I have got to be honest with you, I didn't come to deal with those big issues that are sometimes amorphous. I came to deal with the issues that make a difference in families' lives today, tomorrow, and in the next generation.

We talk about energy, we talk about streamlining production, we talk about the Keystone pipeline, but I live in Georgia. We are not drilling any wells in Georgia. I can't tell much of a difference at the price of the pump. I don't have that many families who say: This is going to make a difference in my pocketbook, this is going to make a difference for a job right here in Atlanta, Georgia. But you come from a different part of the country.

Can you see the difference that these bills make, not from a Republican/Democrat partisan perspective, but from a real world difference, real dollars in families' pockets back home?

I am looking at the Northern Route Approval Act poster you have got behind you, and I am

looking at the ``days in the Senate'' column. It says it has been 434 days that that bill has been in the Senate.

You are a new Member in this body. I have only had a voting card for 3 years. I know it is a collaborative process, but as I look at that 434 days in the Senate, does it mean that we have sent over a proposal to expand energy production to make those family-providing jobs that you mention and the Senate didn't like our idea, and so they sent us back a different proposal, and we have dropped the ball? Is that a possibility?

The gentleman said it so well. This isn't about one person. This isn't about one Chamber. This isn't about one part of the government. We are all in this together. Families in western Pennsylvania and families in north Georgia are in this together. We will rise or fall as a Nation together.

I go back to what you said when you first took the well. There are so many awful stories about Washington, D.C., and the way that we work together. Some of them are true, and many of them are just lore, but I believe you said--and my staff handed it to me after you said it--that about 254 of the 356 bills that are stuck in the Senate passed this House either unanimously or with more than two-thirds of the Members voting in favor of them.

I don't know everything about western Pennsylvania, but I know you don't get elected to Congress there because you are interested in propounding wild views that make no difference to people. You get elected there because you care about people and you want to do the things that matter. You know who the boss is, and it is those folks back home.

When I think that about this stack of bills, it would be so easy for people to dismiss it as: well, those are those crazy Republican ideas, and this is just some sort of political stunt.

How many times have we heard that it is a political stunt? Why are those guys talking about those bills? It is because of what you said. Sixty of these bills introduced by Democrats passed this Chamber, and 254 of these bills stuck in the Senate passed with two-thirds of us coming together--or more--to send them over to the Senate.

We have an obligation to work together. The answer to the question is that, after 434 days, the Senate hasn't said no. The Senate hasn't said: we have a better idea, so we will send this back to you. The Senate didn't say: you are focused on the wrong pathway; let's look at a different route approval.

The Senate did nothing.

I think about those seven appropriations bills you talked about. I want to remember the numbers. We have gotten 12 out of committee. We passed seven on the floor of the House. We have sent those over to the Senate.

Again, I don't know if the Senate is going to take our ideas or reject our

ideas or come up with their own ideas, but they have done none of those things. They haven't taken our ideas, they haven't rejected our ideas, and they promulgated absolutely no ideas of their own.

I don't enjoy being down here. This is not #kickthesenate. This is #StuckInTheSenate. It is not that there is not a way forward. You have described the way forward. It is not all my way. It is not all your way. It is not all anyone's way. It is a negotiated pathway forward.

When I ran for Congress, that is what I expected. When my constituents sent me here, that is what they expected.

I thank my friend for focusing on those commonsense points.

Again, when I open up the newspaper, what I hear is it is about partisan nonsense and it is about election-year politics. When we are talking about over 350 bills and we are talking about 60 of those bills being introduced by Democrats, but passed with Democrat and Republican support here in the House, when we are talking about 250 of those bills being passed with more than a two-thirds vote--many of those unanimously--what it tells me is we are not in the business of trying to make a point.

We are in the business of trying to make a difference, and if we had a willing partner in the Senate, we could absolutely make that difference.

I yield to my friend from Indiana, a former secretary of State, which has you in the executive side of things. You actually had to be responsible for getting things done. I guess that is my frustration with the Senate.

I just need somebody to stand up and be a partner and take responsibility for moving a few of these things forward, trying to make a difference in people's lives.

I would just like to ask my friend because, in serving on the committee, you have an insight that most of us don't have.

I am looking at those numbers, at 360 Members of this House voting ``yes.''

That is more than you need to pass a constitutional amendment, for Pete's sakes.

That is about as close to unanimous as we generally get. I am looking, and it hasn't been at the Senate for 1 week or 2 weeks. It has been there for almost 3 months so far.

What have they said? Have they said, We have got a better idea, and they have sent back an alternative to the committee? What have you heard?

These are not partisan issues. Education is not a partisan issue. Children are not partisan issues. We have votes with 360 Members of this body. Again, this is the hyperpartisan House--so the news tells me--and two bills right there in front of you are making a difference in people's lives. They could make that difference today, and yet the Senate does nothing.

I have been preaching the ``Stuck in the Senate'' hashtag message, I will say to my friend, because I still believe. I told folks when we started this hour tonight that this is a good news/bad news hour. The good news is I am sitting on top of a stack of 356 bills that this House has passed in a bipartisan way, and the bad news is that they are stuck in the Senate.

I believe that perhaps you and I, as young Congressmen, can't move the Senate, but I believe the American people still can move the Senate.

It is a ``we'' question. I thank my friend. There are folks who get wrapped up in the partisan issues of the day, and there are those folks who have committed themselves to finding willing partners wherever those partners may be.

What I have seen of you in our 3 years of working together is that you came here to do things that mattered, and whoever you have to partner with and however late you have to work and however early you have to get up--whatever you have to do--if this job is worth doing, it is because it is making a difference in people's lives, and I am grateful to you for that.

It may be a Midwestern values night. I have got the gentleman from Indiana, and I have been joined by a gentleman from Illinois, who has also been a true champion, Mr. Speaker. You didn't have the great pleasure of coming in with this big freshman class of 2010, but what was so neat about it to me was that, in showing up to freshman orientation, I met these two guys for the very first time, and I met my new Democratic colleagues for the very first time.

Truthfully, when we talked about why we came here, I couldn't tell the difference between the two because the American people sent a crowd of folks here to do the things that mattered, and we have partnered to do those.

The gentleman from Illinois is one of those great partners, and I would be happy to yield.

I thank my friend. It is exactly that commitment to working together to make a difference that I think folks long for in this place. And it is exactly what you have there, H.R. 803, the Workplace Innovation Act. It is true. That is one of our success stories.

But you first came to the floor to support that in March of 2013. The reason we are able to call this a success is because the Senate finally got around to dealing with it in June of 2014--over a year. It could have been making a difference in people's lives.

I am thrilled that now we are making that difference, but we wasted a year. And the family that you talked about, a family struggling to try to decide what tomorrow is going to look like, doesn't have a year to wait.

The Internet Tax Freedom bill you discussed just came out of this body this summer. That is something the Senate could take up immediately. As you said, it came out of here with wild bipartisan support. It could begin to make a difference tomorrow--tomorrow.

I am happy to yield to my friend.

I thank my friend. He is such a great leader. Bringing voices together is that skill set that sometimes this institution lacks, and he has it in spades.

As I close tonight, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make it clear, this isn't a partisan stunt. This isn't Republican machinations. 356 bills sit in the Senate right now that, if the Senate moved them, could begin to make a difference in the lives of American families.

I want to tell you about those bills: 98 percent of them passed with a bipartisan vote. 98 percent of these bills passed with a bipartisan vote. 254 of these bills passed with either no opposition or two-thirds support. Almost 200, no opposition at all; 60 introduced by my Democratic colleagues.

Making a difference for America is not a partisan exercise, Mr. Speaker, but it is a sacred trust. I am so proud of this House for moving forward on these bills to make a difference. I know that we can work together to encourage Harry Reid to do the same. I know our friends across the country, the bosses of the United States Senate, can encourage the Senate to do the same.

This country is thirsty for leadership. I am proud of my colleagues on both sides of the House for providing it. I look forward to partnering with the Senate and the President to move these bills into that difference-making position for those families across this country.

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

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for organizing this very informative Special Order tonight.

You are right: I came here to make a difference. I came here to be part of a team that wants to relight America, relight the job market, relight opportunity, relight the American Dream, because people are hungry for it. They see this town that is out of control, they look at this town, and if they visit this town, they marvel at the growth that is happening in Washington, D.C.

I challenge everybody who visits Washington to count the construction cranes they see and the explosive growth and the high-end shops that open here and the concentration of wealth and power in this town. It is a scandal to the rest of the country. I see these construction cranes here on Pennsylvania Avenue. I would like to see those construction cranes back in Pennsylvania, Mr. Speaker.

But this is a very important discussion we are having about the actions that this House is taking to relight the American economy and how it gets snuffed out in the Senate.

As we have reviewed this evening, Mr. Speaker, the House has continued to pass legislation that would move our country ahead, grow our economy, add more jobs, and increase wages and prosperity. Then there is the brick wall across the other side of the Capitol.

Nowhere is the Senate's inaction more evident than in the budgeting and appropriations process we have here in Washington, D.C. The Senate and House have together managed to pass all 12 appropriations bills and complete the appropriations process on time by September 30 only four times since 1977. It is shocking.

This House, Mr. Speaker, has been working to correct this problem. I want to recognize the hard work of the House Appropriations Committee and my colleagues from both sides of the aisle.

This year, the Appropriations Committee has already passed 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills out of committee. Seven of those bills have already passed the House here, most of them with strong bipartisan majorities.

How many bills, how many appropriations bills has the Senate passed? Zero. They have yet to pass a single one.

The Senate's failure to do its work is disappointing, but it is not surprising. That is why I introduced the Congressional Pay for Performance Act earlier this year.

The bill is simple. The House and Senate must each pass a budget and all annual appropriations bills by August 1 or have their pay withheld until the job is done. It applies that fundamental lesson that we learn in our first job: if you don't do your work, you don't get paid until you do. That is the lesson that millions of young Americans learned working their first job this summer. It is the lesson I learned on my first paper route. I didn't get paid if I didn't deliver the newspaper. It is past time for Members of Congress to live by that lesson.

Beyond the Senate's failure to execute their constitutionally prescribed job of appropriations, the House has passed, as you noted, more than 350 bills, including many jobs bills, that Senator Reid allows to collect dust in the Senate. Over 98 percent of these bills have passed with bipartisan support, both Republicans and Democrats.

As of this morning, Mr. Speaker, 195 of these bills passed without opposition. House Democrats introduced 60 of these bills that now gather dust in the Senate. Again and again, the Senate refuses to act.

I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Sixty of those bills, Mr. Speaker--you look at the stack of paper that the gentleman from Georgia has with him here today--Mr. Speaker, 60 of those bills were introduced by Democrats, and yet they gather dust in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Mr. Speaker, we passed dozens of energy-related bills designed to increase production, reduce prices, add family sustaining jobs, and promote American energy independence. Bills like the Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act, the Energy Consumers Relief Act, the Northern Route Approval Act, which is going to get the Keystone XL pipeline going, passed in May of 2013, 241-175. It has been sitting over in the Senate for 434 days.

We have passed dozens of regulatory reform bills to promote job growth and keep an out-of-touch and out-of-control Washington, D.C., bureaucracy in check. Those like the REINS Act that the gentleman from Florida mentioned. A very simple bill. If a regulatory agency puts out a regulation on the economy that is going to cost more than $50 million to implement, suppressing job growth, bring it back here for an up-or- down vote. Let's restore the constitutional responsibility for both the Senate and the House, who have that responsibility for making the law. Let us take accountability for that. If there is a regulation that merits approval, we are going to vote for it. It is called being accountable. But you can't fire these bureaucrats who come up with these regulations that have a negative impact on our economy.

We have also passed the Achieving Less Excess in Regulation and Requiring Transparency Act, known as the ALERRT Act. It is an effort to improve thoughtful consideration of the consequences of regulation.

I offered an amendment to the ALERRT Act. The amendment requires the capital bureaucrats to acknowledge whether their regulations will have a negative impact on jobs or wages in a particular industry.

Any such regulation will be subject to additional review to ensure that the benefits justify the costs to families and communities. The principle is simple: if Washington bureaucrats are going to implement rules that take wages or jobs away from hardworking Americans, they should take responsibility for and justify their decisions. It is important that regulators think through the impacts, costs, and burdens that red tape imposes on families and communities, and it is time for the Senate to come to the support of those individuals and those communities and take up the ALERRT Act.

We have passed several tax-related bills to help individuals keep more of their hard-earned money and to help small businesses add jobs and increase wages, like the Child Tax Credit Improvement Act and the Student and Family Tax Simplification Act.

We have also heard stories of people whose hours have been cut because of the 30-hour work week in the President's health care law. But the House has acted. That is why we passed the Save American Workers Act to restore the traditional 40-hour work week and help those who want the opportunity to work more hours and see their wages go up.

The Senate has to act. Time and again, Mr. Speaker, the House has acted but the Senate has not.

I really thank the gentleman from Georgia for shining a light on what is going on at this Capitol, the production that is coming out of this side of the Capitol and then hits the wall on the other side. It is time for the Senate to act, Mr. Speaker.

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. The gentleman from Georgia notes that western Pennsylvania has a growing energy industry. We are seeing a tremendous number of jobs coming in, family sustaining jobs.

Bear in mind, Mr. Speaker, when somebody gets a job in that field and they start to get that paycheck--and every American who gets a paycheck sees this--there is some stuff that is taken out. There is a FICA charge, a Medicare tax charge, and Federal taxes.

Mr. Speaker, that is how we are paying for Social Security, that is how we are paying for Medicare. When people pay their income taxes, it is how we pay for the defense of our country. This is a dangerous world, Mr. Speaker.

We need to have an economy that is generating the kind of jobs where people can get back to work and get those salaries and wages so that when they pay taxes, they are paying for Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits. We have got a boom like you have never seen before, Mr. Speaker.

The gentleman from Georgia has all these bills there that show the work that this House is doing, all to help this economy get growing again.

If you want to be paying for Social Security, if you want to be paying for Medicare, if you want to be paying for veterans benefits, we have got to grow this economy at 4 percent, at 5 percent, yes, at 6 percent. So many people, Mr. Speaker, have said, that is not going to happen, we can't get there. It happened. It happened in the 1980s, it happened in the 1990s. We can do this. We are a blessed land, Mr. Speaker, and in western Pennsylvania we see that.

We are having a big debate right now with respect to the President's greenhouse gas emissions, and there is testimony being taken across the country, including in Pittsburgh. We have to use our resources.

Under his plan, in 2008, when the President was running for his seat, he promises, ``Electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.''

No single person should have the authority to impose a policy on a country that would cause electricity rates to necessarily skyrocket. That is why the REINS Act is so important. That is why Senator Reid has to move the REINS Act to the floor of the Senate, to have this Congress have a voice. Our Constitution has an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. The legislative branch is where those policy decisions should be made.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia is asking questions about what is happening on the Senate side. They are simply not acting.

It was 241-175. I think the last time I counted, there are some 234 Republicans in this House. It was 241, so there are Democrats voting for this bill.

There is almost universal support for Keystone XL. The President could allow it to go forward. Thousands of jobs are in the waiting-- thousands of jobs where people would be paying Social Security tax and Medicare tax and increasing the supply of North American energy being able to be refined in this country, which means American jobs refining that.

So what is happening over there in the Senate? It is not coming up. We get phone calls all the time from our constituents, and it is important that constituents call their Members of Congress, who are their employees. We are the employees of the American people. The Senators are the employees of the American people because they pay our paychecks.

Their hard-earned tax dollars are what fund the paychecks for Senators and the paychecks for the Members of this House. We are the employees of the American people.

So we welcome phone calls from our bosses, our employers out there. They need to be calling their employees in the Senate and saying: Why aren't you approving the Keystone XL pipeline? We need those jobs. Why aren't you approving the REINS Act?

We don't think one person should make the decision that would turn off the lights in this country, turn off the lights at power plants, turn off the lights in coal mines, turn off the lights in factories because the prices are going too high.

When the President said that electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket, if you are opening up a plant and you are looking at that, that is a cost. If the income doesn't exceed the cost, that factory isn't going to get built.

So there are folks across the country--entrepreneurs--who want to get things going. They want to hire people, but then they look at the cost, and they say: no, we are going to put our money elsewhere.

We need people investing in this country because that is what is going to cause this country to boom again, and look at some of the tax bills we passed out of this House, which wait in the Senate--where is the Keystone XL pipeline? Where is the Northern Route Approval Act right now?

I can't answer the question that the gentleman from Georgia asks, but I think maybe the Senators could answer that question if their bosses-- the people who pay their salaries--would call them.

You raise a good point because the way the process is supposed to work, one side of our Capitol--the House--will pass the bill or maybe the Senate will pass a bill, and then there might be a slightly different bill passed out of the other Chamber, and then the two sides would come together in a conference, and there would be some negotiating. There is some compromise going on.

Prior to coming to Congress, I had a job of negotiating contracts. Your client would tell you when you go into that negotiating room: whatever you do, make sure you get A and B into that contract.

So you know what your marching orders are, but you understand the other side has come in, and they have been told by their client: make sure you get C and D in that contract, whatever you do.

The art is that the two of you get together and you negotiate. You go back and forth. Are you going to get 100 percent? You never do. That is negotiating. That is life, but here, we passed these bills. We are waiting to negotiate. They are not even acting.

I go back to the appropriations process, which is fundamentally broken. Since 1977, you have only four times that the House and the Senate got this job done by September 30. That is a scandal.

Everybody in this country knows that April 15 is an important date. You have got to pay your taxes that day. You can't call the IRS and say: Hey, can I get a continuing resolution on that? Can I have 3 weeks?

The gentleman from Georgia pointed out that I have two of my young children with me. We know that the Tuesday before Labor Day, school starts. Am I supposed to able to call the principal and say: hey, we're not ready? Can I have a continuing resolution on that summer, so we can have 3 more weeks to get ready?

It shouldn't happen. The spending bills will be passed, whether it is through a continuing resolution that will extend it until December or January or February or March. Why can't it get done by September 30? It is an act of the will.

If the other side of the Congress--the Senate--hasn't passed any, where can you even begin to have that negotiation between the two different ideas and what is in those bills? We would love to negotiate with Senator Reid.

We would love to negotiate. In fact, it has worked. I think you pointed out the SKILLS Act which, again, the House passed some 16 months ago. It took a while for the Senate to get going. It finally did. We passed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act last summer. We finally got it to the Senate and got together. It got done.

We passed a temporary patch for the highway trust fund that we sent over to the Senate. The Senate had some other ideas, so they are making some changes, but this is the process that is supposed to work. One House moves; the other House moves. They are not even moving, Mr. Speaker.

It isn't my way or the highway, but if you have one part of this Congress--the Senate--not even acting, what is the communication there? It is no way.

We invite the Senate to act. We invite the Senate to come and start to talk about the Keystone XL pipeline and the thousands of jobs that are waiting, talk about the REINS Act, talk about the ALERRT Act to require the bureaucrats in this wealthy and powerful Capitol to take a look at the regulations that they are putting out and making an assessment whether those regulations are going to hurt wages or jobs.

I talk to people who are capped at 29\1/2\ hours. They can't get above 30 hours, Mr. Speaker, so we passed legislation that, again, sits in the Senate. We need to boom this economy again. That is how you pay for the critical programs that we have.

We have to use the God-given resources we have in this country--yes, prudently, smartly, and in a responsible way. There are ways to do that.

We have made tremendous progress in this country over the last 50 years. I am from Pittsburgh, and they talk about, back in the day, that you had to bring two shirts to work because, by noon, your shirt would be dirty.

We are making tremendous progress with the environment. I have another bill that I am trying to get this House to move, so we can send it over to the Senate to help that progress continue, called the SENSE Act, H.R. 3138. Again, I hope to get this House to move it, but we have to get the Senate to act.

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

There is no doubt about where Democrats stand. We have taken the lead to make sure there is no offshoring, and there has been a good faith effort here, up to a point. Surely, that has been true of Mr. Carney in all of his efforts, working with Mr. Nunes.

But the problem is that there remain some serious shortcomings in this bill, and unfortunately, we cannot try to remedy it through an amendment, so the notion there is an open process here isn't correct.

The definition of expatriate has been tightened. I think there remain some issues, at least one regarding it; but the major problem relates to the language and how it would impact, potentially, health insurance for an estimated 13 million legal permanent residents and others who are lawfully present foreign workers in the U.S.

Let me just give you examples of where the standards remain weak. For example, under this legislation, expat plans would have dispensation to be weaker than other employer plans in this country.

They could, for example, impose cost sharing on preventive benefits. They could impose annual and lifetime limits on coverage. They could impose unduly long waiting periods.

Indeed, the only ACA provision that would clearly remain in effect would be that they would have to offer coverage to young adults under 26.

So the bottom line is, unfortunately, that the legislation, in its present form, could substantially undermine health security for foreign workers, as well as American dependents who remain in this country.

Also, what it does is provide unprecedented special treatment for these plans in terms of exempting them from financing mechanisms.

Let me say further, as we found out from the Joint Tax Committee and CBO, they confirm this bill would cause some employers who would offer ACA-compliant plans under present law to offer less generous expatriate plans that are no longer subject to the ACA. This is the reason the administration issued, I think just today, a Statement of Administration Policy, and they say they do not support H.R. 4414.

The ACA gives people, it continues, greater control over their health care; and what they say is that this is not true sufficiently in this case.

It says, because of the ACA, Americans who have previously been denied coverage due to a preexisting medical condition now have access to coverage, and that may well not continue.

So the administration concludes it remains willing to work with Congress to improve H.R. 4414 to address those issues and to maintain basic consumer protections for all workers. There are straightforward changes to the legislation, which we have shared with the Congress, that would satisfy these goals, and the Congress should pursue a solution.

Unfortunately, because of this rule, we cannot propose an amendment which would essentially implement these proposals from the administration that they have shared with the Congress. That is why I, unfortunately, have no choice but to suggest a ``no'' vote on the floor of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney), a colleague and friend who is a sponsor of this legislation.

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

It is now my pleasure to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the ranking member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), a member of our committee and also the chair of our Caucus.

I yield the gentleman from California an additional 1 minute.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), another member of our committee.

Can I ask my colleague, are you ready to close?

So I will do the same.

I would like to place in the Record a letter of opposition to this bill as presently formulated from the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, Farmworker Justice, the UAW, the National Council of La Raza, the National Education Association, the National Immigration Law Center, the Service Employees International Union, the UNITE HERE, the United Farm Workers, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

April 28, 2014.

Dear Representative: We write today regarding the

Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act (H.R. 4414),

scheduled for floor debate on Tuesday. Although negotiations

are apparently occurring behind closed doors on a final

version of the bill, it is our understanding that these

discussions are unlikely to address major shortcomings of the

bill. Barring substantial revisions to the bill, we urge you

to oppose it.

As you know, the bill is intended to accommodate health

plans providing coverage for workers that work in multiple

countries, and it is reasonable to grant these plans some

flexibility to pursue this role. We understand that these

``expatriate'' health care plans currently cover fewer than

300,000 workers. However, the current draft of the bill could

impact a much wider population, resulting in a lower standard

of health care coverage for 13 million lawful permanent

residents (LPRs or green card holders), as well as

individuals with visas for more highly skilled work and

people in dozens of other nonimmigrant categories.

It is important that these workers, who live and work

beside other U.S. workers, enjoy the same coverage

protections provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It

would simply be unfair to provide them a lower level of

protection, and it would exert downward pressure on the

benefits offered to all other workers.

We do believe it is possible to accommodate the needs of

expatriate health plans while avoiding this impact on

millions of workers. First, the Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) can continue its work developing

regulatory approaches to easing the administrative burdens

faced by these plans. Second, more work can be done on a

legislative approach that appropriately reduces the burden

faced by legitimate expatriate health plans, without creating

a loophole that could be exploited by plans seeking to skirt

the coverage standards of the ACA.

The bill has been improved in some ways since it was first

considered on the House floor. U.S. citizens may only be

included in the plans if they travel out of the country for

more than 180 days a year, and a benchmark has been added to

encourage employers to offer coverage with an actuarial value

of 60 percent or higher.

It remains imperative, however, to ensure that LPRs and

individuals in nonimmigrant visa categories are not exposed

to a gap in ACA coverage protections. More must be done to

exclude these groups from the populations covered by this

bill. Additional employer reporting and enforcement

provisions would help ensure that employers would not stretch

the definition of expatriate employees to offer substandard

coverage to workers.

We welcome the opportunity to help improve this legislation

to address the concerns of the expatriate health plans

without having a negative impact on workers who live and work

in the U.S. It is unlikely that H.R. 4414 will be amended to

meet these goals before the scheduled floor vote, however,

and we urge you to vote against the bill.

Sincerely,

Also, I submit for the Record a letter in opposition to this bill as presently formed from the National Immigration Law Center.

National Immigration Law Center,

Los Angeles, CA, April 30, 2014.

Dear Speaker Boehner and Democratic Leader Pelosi: As the

House of Representatives considers the Expatriate Health

Coverage Clarification Act (H.R. 4414) again today, we urge

you to oppose it. Already defeated in the House on April 9,

2014, this bill, absent key changes, will lead to an erosion

of Affordable Care Act (ACA) standards and lower quality

health coverage for immigrants who are unreasonably and

mistakenly classified as expatriates under the legislation.

Supporters of the bill claim that the problems contained in

the original bill have been adequately addressed. This is

simply not true. While some positive changes have been made,

the most egregious provisions remain firmly in place,

including those with broad implications for low-income

immigrants living and working in the U.S. These remaining

problems leave the bill vulnerable to legal challenges.

H.R. 4414 would eliminate the ACA's group plan consumer

protections for ``expatriate health insurance plans,''

including for U.S.-regulated issuers, provided to individuals

who travel ``abroad.'' This blanket exemption alone should be

cause for concern. However, what is far more troubling is

that the bill uses a broad definition for ``expatriate'' that

includes many immigrants who live in the U.S. permanently and

do not travel abroad for work. This definition extends far

beyond the purported objectives of the legislation and must

be fixed.

Specifically, the definition of ``expatriate'' in H.R. 4414

includes lawful permanent residents (LPRs or green card

holders), most of whom spend the vast majority of their time

in the United States. These individuals reside in the U.S.,

are on a path to citizenship, and have built their lives in

the U.S. Simply put, they should not be defined as

``expatriates'' if they do not travel outside of the United

States for work for extended periods. Instead, their health

insurance plans should have the same consumer protections

codified by the ACA as others who live and work in the U.S.

This bill would create a loophole that could lead to inferior

coverage for these individuals.

H.R. 4414 would have an unintentional, disastrous impact on

LPRs and other low-wage immigrant workers. We urge you to

oppose the bill, and we look forward to working with members

of Congress to close its loopholes and find workable

solutions.

Sincerely,

Marielena Hincapiee,

Executive Director.

Finally, I submit into the Record the Statement of Administration Policy from the Obama administration.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 4414--Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act

(Rep. Carney, D-Delaware, and 24 cosponsors)

The Administration does not support House passage of H.R.

4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act, in

its current form, because it would reduce consumer

protections and create even more loopholes in the tax code.

The Affordable Care Act gives people greater control over

their own health care. Since October 1, eight million have

signed up for private insurance and millions more have been

enrolled in Medicaid. Because of the Affordable Care Act,

Americans who have previously been denied coverage due to a

pre-existing medical condition now have access to coverage.

Additionally, the law helps millions of Americans stay on

their parents' plans until age 26, and helps provide access

to free preventive care like cancer screenings that catch

illness early on.

The Administration remains willing to work with the

Congress to improve H.R. 4144 to address these issues and to

maintain basic consumer protections for all workers. There

are straightforward changes to the legislation, which we have

shared with the Congress, that would satisfy these goals, and

the Congress should pursue a solution.

So let me close, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think it is regrettable that we are here in this predicament when we don't need to be. I think we do need to fix the expat issue, but not by unfixing health care reform for millions of people. This is more than about 300,000 people. We are talking about the health care protections and provisions applicable to 13 million people in this country who are here legally.

It has been said, and I very much respect this, it has taken 3 years to try to fix this problem, and Mr. Carney and others have truly been working, and Mr. Nunes, and there have been bipartisan discussions.

But here is the problem: If we are really going to continue effectively to work together when there is an outstanding issue, when there has been this aura of good faith, the majority should have let the minority place on the floor an amendment to the bill and let us debate it.

In fact, it only works against bipartisanship in this kind of circumstance to say it is essentially a closed rule. What is there to fear? The only thing to fear is that we would have discussion that

might make this a still more bipartisan bill. So instead of getting a likely minority of members on the Democratic side, we would have, I think, an overwhelming majority on both sides determined to keep jobs here, but not at a price of undoing necessary protections in terms of the health of millions and millions of Americans.

So that is where we are here and essentially so for so many of us placed in a situation where we say we must do better, we shouldn't simply leave it to the other body, we have the abilities within this House with true bipartisanship to continue working, and after 3 years, it might take another week or 2, that would be worth it in terms of trying to restore the reality of bipartisanship that really works.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

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

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

I voted for the Affordable Care Act, I support the Affordable Care Act, and I believe in the Affordable Care Act. I believe every person in this country ought to have health care. I don't think that is a radical idea, but my friends on the other side of the aisle apparently do. I think everybody in this country is entitled to good, quality health insurance. I think when they get sick they ought to know they will be taken care of and not have to worry about whether they are going to get covered or not because of preexisting conditions or whether they are going to meet some sort of lifetime cap and be excluded from coverage.

That is what the Affordable Care Act is all about. That is what this big controversy that my friends on the other side of the aisle have decided to make on this issue is all about. So I am making sure that everybody in this country has health care. Boy, what a radical idea, what a radical idea.

I will also say that having supported the Affordable Care Act, it is not a perfect piece of legislation. I have never seen a perfect piece of legislation ever come out of Congress. Legislation, especially legislation that covers a subject as wide as this, at times will be tweaked. There will be unintended consequences that we will come and we will try to fix. That is what legislation is supposed to do: to try to fix the problems.

Democrats have said that from the beginning, that we want to make this bill work, work as well as it possibly can. We said we would be willing to work with Republicans and the administration to address the problems that have come about as a result of the implementation of this law. By no means does that mean that we should repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is something my Republican friends are obsessed with. To the contrary, we need to do everything we can to fix any challenges that this law may have to make sure that every American gets the benefit of the Affordable Care Act.

H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act, is trying to fix one problem with the law. My friend from Delaware (Mr. Carney) and others are attempting to try to fix a provision in the law that causes some problems with the ways that expatriates are treated under the ACA.

This is one example of how we--Democrats and Republicans--should be able to work together. This is one example of how we--supporters and opponents of the ACA--should be able to lay those differences aside as we try to find solutions and move our country forward.

It is my understanding, Mr. Speaker, that House and Senate Democrats and Republicans have been working with the White House to come up with a solution that can pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by the President. It is also my understanding that discussions were ongoing as late as yesterday afternoon when the House majority decided to go with the version before us today instead of waiting to continue negotiations in a bipartisan, bicameral way so that we can get a bill moved expeditiously through both Houses and signed into law by the President of the United States.

I am more than a little disappointed, Mr. Speaker, because I want to work with the majority to fix this problem. I am concerned that this bill, the bill before us that we are talking about right now, creates other problems, namely excluding green card holders and nonimmigrant workers from most of the coverage protections provided by the ACA. I am disappointed that this process was closed down even though negotiations were still ongoing.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas literally took my breath away when he talked about that this represents the Speaker's pledge to let the House work its will. This issue first came up under a suspension, which was totally closed, and it is coming to the floor today under a closed rule. Those of us who have some ideas on how we might be able to make this more palatable to address some of the concerns that we have will not have that opportunity. They have closed the process down. I hardly think that that can be described as an open process or as a transparent process. This is yet another closed rule, another closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, this process was flawed and this process could have been better. There are many of us on my side of the aisle who believe that we need to fix this flaw that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney) has brought to our attention, but we need to do it in the right way, and this is not the right way to do it.

I think what is going to happen here is--my friends on the other side of the aisle control most of the votes here so they will probably pass this bill--but what will happen then is that the Senate will then have negotiations with the White House and try to figure out how to fix this problem. They will pass it, then it will have to come back to the House again, and then we will have to deal with it separately.

I regret very much that my friends have decided to go this way. If they had waited a few more days we probably could have gotten a solution to this that could have received unanimous support. Instead, we are back at the same old-same old, where it is attack the ACA, attack the ACA, and pretend to try to fix it by addressing a legitimate concern, but adding to that a whole bunch of extraneous stuff that creates other problems.

I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and to vote ``no'' on the bill. Let's wait until the Senate gets it right with the White House and we can revisit this issue.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

What we are considering right now before the full House is very clear.

One, a closed rule. What a closed rule means is that you can't offer any amendments. So some of the concerns that have been raised about the underlying bill we can't fix. For the life of me, I don't understand why, if the gentleman claims that the Republican majority is committed to an open, transparent process where the House can work its will, I don't understand why you would approve a closed rule on this.

Let's be honest about this. It is not like my friends on the other side of the aisle are doing anything else. We have had multiple repeals of the Affordable Care Act before us. We have had lots of message issues that their pollsters say poll well, but the Republican majority hasn't really done very much to help the American people in any way, shape, or form. So it is not like the time doesn't exist to maybe have a little bit more debate on an issue like this and be able to perfect this bill. This is a closed rule. This is a closed rule, this is a closed process, and this has become a closed House.

Again, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed rule, reject this closed process, reject the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I remind the gentleman that the Speaker of the House said when the Republicans won the majority that they were going to conduct proceedings here in the most open way possible--this will be the most open and transparent House ever. And it has become the most closed House ever.

Because the gentleman brought up the Affordable Care Act, I want to make sure he understands the facts. While the bill we are talking about right now received 20 minutes of debate under suspension, let me read you the facts about the Affordable Care Act, in case my friend forgot.

The House held nearly 100 hours of hearings and 83 hours of committee markups. The House heard from 181 witnesses, both Democrats and Republicans. 239 amendments were considered in the three committees of jurisdiction, 121 of which were adopted. The bill was available for 72 hours before Members were asked to vote on it on the floor.

The process was just as open in the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee held more than 53 hearings. The Finance Committee also spent 8 days marking up the legislation, the longest markup in 22 years for the committee. The Senate Health Committee held 47 bipartisan hearings, roundtables, and walk-throughs on health care reform. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may have started out with a different bill number, but the fact remains hundreds of hours of hearings on the Affordable Care Act, hundreds of witnesses, hundreds of amendments considered in the committee, and countless hours of townhall meetings.

My friend on the other side of the aisle likes to say, well, there was a different bill number when we voted here on the floor, but as he knows, the process of using a different bill number is very common around here. In fact, the Republican majority has done it several times in the past 3 years. But regardless of the bill number, the work that went into forming this legislation was one of the most open processes in the history of Congress.

That is the facts on that.

But let me also make one other point. The problem my friends on the other side of the aisle have with the Affordable Care Act is not with the process. It is just they don't believe that people ought to have affordable health care in this country. They have spent countless hours on this floor trying to repeal a bill that eliminates preexisting conditions as a way to deny people insurance.

They have been fighting against a bill that helps senior citizens get free preventive care coverage, that helps close that doughnut hole in the Medicare prescription drug bill. They are fighting against a bill that has brought millions and millions and millions of more people into a process where they can afford health care. So they have been against this from the very beginning.

I think the American people have a very different view. Their view is that they want this bill to work. My friends on the other side of the aisle have just spent countless hours, countless days, countless weeks, countless months just trying to repeal it. It is just Johnny One Note: repeal, repeal, repeal.

This idea that everybody should have affordable health care is such a controversy in the Republican Congress, I can't quite understand why. Why is it such a bad idea that everybody in this Congress has access to good quality health care? Why is that an idea that causes such resentment on the other side of the aisle? I don't get it.

We ought to make sure that this law gets implemented properly, and we ought to do this the right way. My friends don't want to do it the right way, so we are going to have to wait for the Senate to work it out with the administration and then send it back to us. There really should be a better way to do this.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Does the gentleman have any other speakers?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that would allow the House to consider the Fair Minimum Wage Act. This week, the Senate will vote to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. Now is the time for the House to act and to honor our commitment to the middle class by giving hard-working Americans fair pay.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Again, I would urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who like to talk about how the Republican majority is committed to allowing the House to work its will and is committed to an open and transparent process, to vote with us on this.

We have been trying to get the minimum wage bill to the floor forever, and we can't even get it up for a vote so that every Member has an opportunity to vote up or down. This is that opportunity so that we can have that vote, a vote to help lift people out of poverty and to help give people an opportunity to live better lives.

There are millions of workers in this country who are working full time--who are working hard at minimum wage jobs--and they are still stuck in poverty. There are millions and millions of people in this country who work hard full time at minimum wage jobs, but who earn so little that they still qualify for SNAP, and they rely on that program to put food on their tables because their paychecks don't provide enough.

This is an important issue, and I hope that my colleagues will support me on this. I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4414) to clarify the treatment under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of health plans in which expatriates are the primary enrollees, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of the bill under consideration.

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

Before I yield to my good friend, who helped coauthor this bill with me, I just have a brief statement.

The Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act is a result of close bipartisan collaboration and extensive discussions with the Obama administration.

I would like to thank Mr. Carney for his work on this important bill, along with our numerous bipartisan cosponsors, our original cosponsors.

The bottom line is that this is a jobs bill, one that has been carefully drafted to address the unique problems related to expat health insurance.

Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Carney).

Madam Speaker, just to clarify the Record here, this has been worked on in a bipartisan way, including the two Senators from Delaware and a Senator from New Jersey, who happen to be Democrats.

A lot of the language that was in here was worked out so that, in fact, this could not only gather bipartisan support in the House, but also quickly pass in the Senate because, as my colleague from Delaware pointed out, if this doesn't pass and doesn't pass quickly, these jobs are going to leave overseas. That is why this is just a clarification.

At this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch), my good friend and former Dairy Caucus cochair.

I yield to the gentleman from Vermont an additional 1 minute.

I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes in this body and with the Senate we can sit down for the common good of the American people. Sometimes we can sit down with Democrats and Republicans working together not only in the House but also in the Senate. And also, sometimes, Mr. Speaker, the arguments that are made on the floor are so ridiculous that they don't deserve a response.

I am going to submit for the Record a letter from American Benefits Council.

American Benefits Council,

Washington, DC, April 8, 2014.

Re Support for H.R. 4414--Expatriate Health Coverage

Clarification Act

Hon. John Boehner,

The Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Minority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Boehner and Leader Pelosi: I write on behalf

of the American Benefits Council (``Council'') to express

support for H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage

Clarification Act of 2014 (``Act''). The Act provides

important clarification regarding application of the

Affordable Care Act (ACA) to health coverage that is provided

to globally mobile employees. These are issues of significant

concern to multinational employers, their employees and

families.

The Council is a public policy organization representing

principally Fortune 500 companies and other organizations

that assist employers of all sizes in providing employee

benefits. Collectively, our members either sponsor directly

or provide services to health and retirement plans that cover

more than 100 million Americans both within the United States

and abroad.

Most of our member companies sponsor health coverage for a

workforce that includes globally mobile employees. Council

members rely on expatriate health plans to provide benefits

that meet the unique needs

of this employee population and their families. Multinational

employers value expatriate health plans for many reasons,

including the role they play in recruiting and retaining a

productive globally mobile workforce by ensuring coverage of

their employees' and families' health care needs while

abroad.

The ACA was intended to reform the U.S. health care system.

Its application to expatriate health plans and to the

employer sponsors and people covered by such plans, has

created compliance uncertainty with respect to the law's

individual and employer mandates and certain other health

plan requirements. Although some of these matters have been

addressed in transition guidance issued by the agencies, the

guidance is temporary and does not fully address the

outstanding concerns.

H.R. 4414 provides needed statutory clarification with

respect to the application of the ACA to expatriate health

plans and the employers, employees and family members that

rely on such plans to meet the health benefits needs of a

globally mobile workforce.

We appreciate your consideration of these important issues.

Sincerely,

James A. Klein,

President.

I will also submit a letter from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, also in support of this clarification.

Chamber of Commerce,

United States of America,

Washington, DC, April 9, 2014.

To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business

federation representing the interests of more than three

million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as

well as state and local chambers and industry associations,

and dedicated to promoting, protecting, and defending

America's free enterprise system, strongly supports H.R.

4414, ``The Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of

2014,'' to preserve the ability of our country's businesses

to provide, and our citizens to obtain appropriate health

care coverage as they conduct business and live overseas.

This important bill protects the ability of American

companies to provide and workers to obtain coverage abroad

that have historically been offered and valued.

The PPACA was designed to improve access to coverage and

health care services for people in the United States and to

strengthen this nation's health care system. Whether it will

accomplish these goals remains to be seen. However, it was

certainly not intended and must not be misconstrued to

disadvantage American companies either operating or employing

individuals in other countries or selling products abroad. It

is important to ensure that this unintended consequence does

not occur. This bill would protect the coverage and

opportunities of American workers, American employers, and

American products abroad. Congress must pass this bill to

explicitly exempt expatriate plans from the myriad of PPACA

requirements.

Applying these new mandates to international plans would

not only be extremely difficult and complex from an

operations standpoint due to the global nature of this type

of coverage but would also be bad policy. They would place

American businesses and expatriate American employees at a

disadvantage in the global marketplace. Requiring American

companies that operate around the globe and their foreign-

based employees to buy more costly coverage would unfairly

benefit foreign competitors and foreign employees. Such

PPACA-compliant expatriate plans are not likely to be cost-

competitive. In many instances, they may not provide global

coverage and would in fact not comply with applicable local

laws. Because of conflicting requirements between these new

mandates and the laws of other countries, an employer may

also have to purchase multiple policies with overlapping

coverage or risk noncompliance with one or more nations'

laws. Congress must protect the ability of American companies

and their expatriates to purchase and offer appropriate and

valued plans that have long been part of how our country

operates in the global marketplace.

U.S. jobs are at stake. If this legislation does not get

enacted, American jobs associated with writing, servicing and

administering these plans will be shipped overseas.

The Chamber continues to champion health care reform that

builds on and reinforces the employer-sponsored system while

improving access to affordable, quality coverage. The Chamber

urges you and your colleagues to support H.R. 2575, and may

consider including votes on, or in relation to, this bill in

our annual How They Voted scorecard.

Sincerely,

R. Bruce Josten.

I will also submit a rebuttal argument for the Record so that people can really get to the bottom of this legislation.

I want to address some of the misperceptions and concerns that have been raised about this bill.

First, this bill has nothing to do with what type of plan insurers can write and sell to expatriates. The question is where they are going to write these same plans. Here in the United States, or overseas. The same companies are going to purchase the same plans regardless of whether this bill passes. The only question is whether or not the U.S. jobs associated with these plans will be saved.

Next, the bill does not allow U.S. employers to escape the ACA and offer substandard plans. These plans are incredibly generous by their very nature. They offer coverage in multiple countries and administration of plans that include multiple currencies, languages, and coverage mandates.

But let me quote from the legislation itself. Page 6, lines 1-6, ``the plan sponsor [must] reasonably believe that the benefits provided by the expatriate health plan are actuarially similar to, or better than, the benefits provided under a domestic group health plan offered by that plan sponsor.''

Mr. Speaker, the legislation requires that the expatriate health plan be as good as the domestic health plan that is covered by the ACA. Any suggestion otherwise does not reflect what the legislation clearly states.

There is an employer mandate in the ACA. Employers are required to offer a domestic plan. If they don't, they are fined $2,000 per employee. Employers aren't going to drop their current plan for their U.S. employees, pay the $2,000 penalty for every employee on their payroll, just so they can offer their subset of green card employees a substandard plan. That is a completely unrealistic scenario.

This bill does not allow, as has been suggested, nonimmigrant farm workers to be offered substandard plans. Under the scenario envisioned by opponents of this bill, a farmer would have to drop his or her own plan and that of its U.S. workers to be allowed to offer an expat plan that somehow is less than the ACA standard. Who is going to do that? That's cutting off your nose to spite your face. But even if they were crazy enough to do that--the expat plan would still have to provide coverage in countries outside of the United States--they couldn't save money by doing this--it would likely cost the farmer more money to provide this type of plan.

Mr. Speaker, the ACA is a complicated piece of legislation, but this bill is not. This bill will allow the jobs to stay in the United States--and nothing else. This bill does not legally or practically make changes beyond this narrow scope which is why there is such strong bipartisan support.

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