Halt Tax Increases on the Middle Class and Seniors Act

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for the customary 30 minutes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I rise in very strong opposition to this closed rule and to the underlying bill. Let me just say to my colleagues, to make it crystal clear, that this is an absolutely closed rule.

This bill had no hearings in any of the committees of jurisdiction; it was not reported out by any of the committees of jurisdiction; and the Committee on Rules decided last night that no Member, no Republican or Democrat, has the right to offer any amendments. This is a closed process.

Whatever happened to regular order?

So, Mr. Speaker, here we are again, back on the House floor with yet another pointless attempt by the Republican majority to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Today's exercise in time-wasting gamesmanship marks the 56th time that we have been down this well-traveled road.

Fifty-six. Let's see. That is two score and 16. It is 4\1/2\ dozen. But no matter how you add it up, it has to be some sort of world record in political futility.

So it is tempting to say that nothing has changed, but that is not exactly true because, in fact, a great deal has changed since my Republican colleagues first tried to repeal the ACA. Here are some of the things that changed:

The number of uninsured Americans has dropped by 10 million people; 3 million young adults have been able to gain coverage through a parent's plan; insurance companies can no longer discriminate on the basis of a so-called preexisting condition, like, say, being a woman; lifetime limits and caps on coverage have been eliminated; seniors have saved more than $11 billion in prescription drugs, an average of $1400 per Medicare beneficiary; copays and deductibles for preventive services for Medicare patients have been eliminated, and the solvency of the Medicare trust fund has been extended by 13 years; and the growth in health care spending in this country is the slowest on record, while health care price inflation is at its lowest rate in 50 years.

All that has happened thanks to the Affordable Care Act. If the Republicans get their way, much of it will disappear in an instant. If Republicans get their way, millions of Americans would lose their health care coverage, millions more would lose the subsidies they receive to purchase plans, millions of children would lose CHIP coverage, millions of seniors would lose benefits, and the deficit would increase.

So let's be crystal clear, Mr. Speaker: this is no longer a theoretical political exercise; this is very, very, very real. If this Republican bill were ever to become law, then real people would see real benefits taken away. That is why President Obama has said very plainly that he would veto this bill if it ever reached his desk.

There is something else new about this 56th version of Republicans banging their heads against a brick wall. For the first time, according to Politico:

House Republicans want to postpone the full repeal of

ObamaCare for 6 months to allow time to come up with a

replacement plan.

I have to say, Mr. Speaker, when I read that, I actually laughed out loud. The health care crisis in this country has been happening for years and years--decades. How many studies have been done? How many reports issued? How many hearings and debates and news stories? But after all of that, my Republican friends still need another 6 months to come up with a replacement plan.

Here is an idea. Let's vote down this rule with the understanding that in 6 months--actually, I will give you 7, until after Labor Day-- that in 7 months you will be back here with your magic replacement plan, which I assume will be flown in on a unicorn sliding down a rainbow.

I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. Because Republicans have absolutely no intention of actually doing the hard work of health care reform. This is just a gimmick. It is a chance for their new freshmen to cast their symbolic vote against ObamaCare so they can put out a press release and act like they have accomplished something.

As the Washington Examiner reported:

Republicans know that the repeal legislation isn't ever

going to become law. ``We are just getting it out of the

way,'' one GOP aide told the Examiner when asked about the

repeal vote.

Just getting it out of the way, Mr. Speaker? What a cynical abuse of this House. It is a sham. It is a waste of everyone's time. It deserves to be defeated in this House, and if it ever makes it out of the Senate, it deserves the quickest veto President Obama can muster.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

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

I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for the wonderful commercial for Texas. We all should visit Texas.

He said something that I thought was particularly interesting. He said: We're bringing this bill to the floor because every freshman deserves a vote on the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

I guess I would ask the chairman: Does he believe that every freshman also deserves a vote on increasing the minimum wage or on comprehensive immigration reform or on adequate child care for our children in this country or on a whole number of other issues which we have routinely been denied the right to even have a vote on these issues on the House floor, which is supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in the world?

What he neglects to tell everybody, including these freshmen--some of whom are Republicans--is that under this rule, you can't amend anything. You have been totally locked out.

The committees of jurisdiction didn't hold a hearing. The committees of jurisdiction didn't hold a markup. Nothing was reported out of any of these committees, notwithstanding the fact that they have been constituted and organized--nothing.

It just shows up in the Rules Committee, and they bring it to the floor under a completely closed process. This is a lousy way to run a Congress.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. There is no replacement here. All the Republicans want to do is repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away all these important benefits that people have received as a result of it.

At this point, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, can I inquire of the gentleman from Texas if he has any more speakers?

I was just curious because it seems like there is no enthusiasm on your side for debating this for the 56th time.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule for consideration of legislation that would encourage schools to provide career education about local manufacturing jobs.

To discuss our proposal, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled by what I just heard from the gentleman about all these alternatives to fix and improve our health care system.

Four years ago, the Republicans passed an identical bill like the one we are considering today in which they said they ordered their committees to report out alternative replacement language or their vision of what a health care reform should be. That was 4 years ago.

They have done nothing but demagogue this issue for 4 years, and here we are again today, playing political gamesmanship with a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and take away health insurance for millions of Americans, increase prescription drug prices for our senior citizens, raise taxes on middle class families, and they have nothing to replace it with. This is a waste of our time. This is an insult to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader.

Mr. Speaker, if only we were debating another subsidy for Big Oil or another tax break for some special corporate interest, my colleagues would be down here with great joy advocating for it.

But when it comes to a bill to ensure that millions and millions of our citizens get health insurance, they want to repeal it. When it comes to protecting our senior citizens who are seeing their prescription drugs being lowered because of this bill, they want to repeal it. When it comes to eliminating preexisting conditions, they want to repeal it. I mean, that tells you all you need to know about where their priorities are.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Boyle).

Mr. Speaker, I just would remind the gentleman from Iowa that there was a Republican Presidential candidate named Mitt Romney who ran on the platform of total repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and he lost. And, by the way, Obama won Iowa by 51-46.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment that I intend to offer in the Record along with extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question. This would be the amendment that Ms. Brownley of California talked about, providing manufacturing training for our high school students.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let me begin by talking about the process. Let me say two words about this process: it stinks.

We have a bill before us today on the House floor that bypassed all of the committees of jurisdiction. And I say to my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, if you are on the Energy and Commerce Committee, on the Education and the Workforce Committee, or on the Ways and Means Committee, you should be outraged that legislation that is under your jurisdiction never went to your committees. It just showed up in the Rules Committee last night. And on top of all of that, no amendments are allowed; nobody can offer any ideas.

I have heard some of my Republican colleagues talk about they have ideas for making the Affordable Care Act better or for replacing it. They don't have the opportunity even to bring those ideas to this House floor.

Four years ago, we voted on a similar measure which said that the Republicans would have the committees of jurisdiction report out alternatives. It is 4 years later, and we are doing the same thing over and over and over again. It is a waste of taxpayer time. It is an insult to the American people.

And as far as the substance of what my Republican friends are trying to do, I just wonder if any of my friends on the other side of the aisle would have the courage to say to people face to face, ``I am going to take your health care away,'' because that is what this

bill would do. That is what this bill would do, and it is shameful.

When I first ran for office, I said to my constituents that one of the things I was committed to was to making sure that everybody in this country had health insurance. Health care ought to be a right. Nobody should have to worry whether or not they can afford to get the health care that, quite frankly, every American is entitled to and deserves. We have made a great stride forward with the Affordable Care Act.

Is it perfect? No.

Could it be better? Yes.

But to come up with bill after bill after bill, 56 times of repeal, repeal, it is getting old. It is getting boring. People are sick of this.

Let me just remind my colleagues about what this bill has accomplished, just because this is no longer a theoretical, abstract debate. These are some real things that have changed.

The number of insured Americans has dropped by about 10 million people. I mean, that is a good thing. I am sorry my colleagues have a problem with that. But I think most Americans, Democrats and Republicans, think that is a good thing.

Three million young adults have been able to gain coverage through a parent's plan. I think that is good.

Insurance companies can no longer discriminate on the basis of a so- called preexisting condition, like, say, being a woman. I think that is a great thing. I am sorry my colleagues have a problem with that.

Lifetime limits and caps on coverage have been eliminated. That is wonderful.

Seniors have saved more than $11 billion in prescription drugs, an average of $1,400 per Medicare beneficiary. That is positive. We knew that there was a flaw, the doughnut hole, in the Medicare prescription drug bill. This fixed it.

Copays and deductibles for preventive services for Medicare patients have been eliminated, and the solvency of the Medicare trust fund has been extended by 13 years. That is a good thing. Now, I know my friends on the other side of the aisle want to privatize Medicare or have no use for Medicare, but for those of us who want to see this program move well into the next century in complete solvency, this is a good thing.

The growth in health care spending in this country is the slowest on record while health care price inflation is at its lowest rate in 50 years. This didn't happen by accident. This happened because we passed the Affordable Care Act, and if Republicans get their way, all of these things will disappear.

This is a debate, I think, about values more than anything else. This is about whether or not we believe that everybody in this country ought to have health insurance, whether or not we ought to make the reforms that I have just mentioned part of the permanent culture of this country.

I think this is good. I voted for the Affordable Care Act. I am proud I voted for the Affordable Care Act. My friends, this issue about health care and access to health care has been around for decades and decades and decades, and my friends have done nothing.

Their prescription for health care reform has been: take two tax breaks, and call me in the morning. That is the total reform that they have advocated in the time I have been here and in the time I have been paying attention to what has been going on in this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to appreciate that this Congress did something positive in passing the Affordable Care Act, and we ought not to let extremists on the other side take the protections away from the American people.

We are going to fight you every step of the way because we believe that people in this country are entitled to health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule, and 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.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 70 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 70 provides for a rule to consider the full repeal of the flawed and ill-conceived Affordable Care Act.

The rule provides for 90 minutes of debate, divided and controlled by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee on Ways and Means, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Further, the rule self-executes the Byrne amendment, which provides for a clean repeal of the entire Affordable Care Act. The rule further provides the minority with one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

This approach--a full repeal--will give the House, particularly freshmen from both parties, an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on the Affordable Care Act.

More than just a full repeal, the legislation before us provides for a process whereby the committees of jurisdiction are tasked with coming up with a replacement for the flawed law now being implemented. We know what ideas don't work. Those are the ideas enshrined into law in the Affordable Care Act. Now let's look toward ideas that will work.

I do look forward to working with the Energy and Commerce Committee's chairman, Fred Upton, to craft meaningful legislation that will actually help the American people instead of strangle them with more government regulation, which is what the Affordable Care Act actually does.

Americans should have the freedom to make their own health care decisions. In March of 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law. It was drafted quickly and behind closed doors. It included secret deals, loopholes, drafting errors, and funding cliffs that allowed Federal agencies to be created without congressional knowledge or oversight.

More and more of the Affordable Care Act's supporters are having to admit to

the American people that, in their rush to pass a bill, the same people who put their voting cards in the slot and helped the ACA become law didn't actually know what was in the bill.

Now people are finding out what is in the bill, and they are upset. So upset are the American people that in every election for the House and Senate since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, more and more Republicans were chosen to replace supporters of the flawed law.

Indeed, this past fall, President Obama, in no uncertain terms, declared:

Make no mistake, my policies are on the ballot.

It is actually one of the few times I have ever agreed with this President. His policies were on the ballot, and the American people soundly rejected them, placing a historic majority of Republicans in the House and taking control of the Senate out of the hands of Harry Reid.

The bottom line: the drafting and passage of the Affordable Care Act was not the way to achieve meaningful reform. Many errors occurred through the language. This is why the Supreme Court this spring will be hearing a case that could upend the Affordable Care Act's subsidy structure. This case is entirely the fault of people who drafted and implemented the bill so poorly.

With the Supreme Court case looming, this body--this body--must be prepared to work for the American people and stave off the possible chaos which could ensue. The health care system in America needs reform and improvement, but the law that was passed will cost the American taxpayer millions of dollars, will not improve care, nor will it make it more affordable.

The bill that this House will vote on puts in place a procedure that will begin the process of crafting a replacement that could truly bring affordable access to health care to all Americans. The so-called Affordable Care Act does not accomplish that goal.

We need to start, and start fresh, and we need to address the issues with commonsense improvements that focus on the real issues at hand: creating a health care system that is focused on patients instead of payment, quality instead of quantity, affordability instead of cheapness, and innovation instead of stagnation. The first step is eliminating this bad legislation that simply does not work. That is why, today, I strongly support the repeal of the President's health care law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the chairman of the Committee on Rules.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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

Yes.

I generally reserve my enthusiasm for closing.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Dr. Dan Benishek.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes for the purpose of response.

First off, I don't know. Maybe people weren't paying attention, but the House has passed a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. It awaits action over in the Senate. So if the minority leader is concerned, perhaps she can talk to people in the other

body about whether or not it might be a good idea for them to take some action, and that would be the correct way to proceed. The House acts; the Senate acts. I refer people who are unclear on that concept to ``Schoolhouse Rock,'' and it will tell you how a bill becomes law.

People talk about the 56th time we have had something on the floor. Obviously, I don't know that I can attest to the accuracy of that count, but what I can attest to the accuracy of is that 11 times the President of the United States has signed into law some action passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and then subsequently signed by the President--11 times--modifying or changing his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act. Probably what is more telling is the 28 times--28 times--that the President has simply set aside part of his law because it wasn't convenient.

If the other side wants, I can go through and delineate these one by one. I have, actually, a document prepared by the Galen Institute, and I would refer people to them if they would like to look at this.

But really, some of the things that the President himself has set aside--I mean, who can forget, in a blog post, the administration setting aside the employer mandate, the entire employer mandate. Not surprising, because when the President was a candidate and he came down to Texas and debated Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2008, he was against the mandate, and then he was for it. So then he set it aside right before the Fourth of July in 2013. And for people who aren't paying attention, guess what? It actually started January 1 of this year.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes for the purpose of a response.

First off, when Medicare passed, it was passed with a bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and that is a matter of historic record. In fact, that is one of the weaknesses of the President's takeover of health care in this country is that it passed only with Democratic votes in both the House and the Senate on final passage.

Mr. Speaker, I also went through the number of times that the President has unilaterally delayed, deferred, or simply dismissed parts of his own law. One of, perhaps, the most troublesome, one of the most curious, is when the President set aside entry into his own preexisting pool in January of 2013, they did that because they were worried that they were going to run out of money in the preexisting fund. But the reality was that for anyone who was hoping to get coverage under the preexisting pool beginning in January-February of 2013, they were told: Sorry. Window closed. Go somewhere else.

Then to add further insult to injury, when they couldn't get the Web site up and working at the end of 2013, they actually had to extend coverage in the Federal preexisting pool until March of 2014 so those patients would not be left out in the cold.

So the President has been deeply involved in delaying parts and deferring parts and repealing parts of his very own law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me first address the question of process because the Affordable Care Act did pass in the 111th Congress. The Affordable Care Act, as it came to the 111th Congress under then-Speaker Pelosi, was not a bill that had been considered in any of the committees of jurisdiction. H.R. 3590 came to us from the Senate of the United States.

Now, in fairness, H.R. 3590 had passed the floor of the House, I believe it was July of 2009; but H.R. 3590, when it passed the floor of the House, was a bill dealing with veterans housing.

So it goes over to the Senate to await further work, and to be sure, in the meantime, H.R. 3200 and then a couple of follow-on bills were marked up in committees, and then the Speaker condensed things and introduced her own bill.

We heard it on the floor of the House; and, indeed, it passed in November of 2009. Mr. Speaker, that was the end of the line for that bill. No one has seen or heard from it again.

My friends on the other side may remember some parts of that bill. What about the Independent Payment Advisory Board? Was that included in the House-passed bill? No, it was not.

Well, there was a public option because the Democrats felt very strongly about having a public option. Really, they wanted a single- payer system, so a way to move to a single-payer system was to include the public option, but the public option wasn't in H.R. 3590.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3590, a House-passed bill dealing with veterans housing, went over to the Senate where, sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was pulled out of Harry Reid's desk and amended.

The amendment read ``strike all after the enacting clause and insert.'' All of the housing language was removed, and all of the health care language was inserted. This travesty was passed on Christmas Eve in 2009.

A big snowstorm was bearing down on Washington, D.C., Senators wanted to get home to be with their families before the airport closed, and so it was passed in the early hours of Christmas Eve in 2009.

Now, shortly after that, Massachusetts had a special election to fill the vacancy that occurred after the unfortunate death of Senator Kennedy. That vacancy was filled for the first time by a Republican from Massachusetts.

I think that was really the first time since the Earth cooled, the first time that a Republican had been elected from Massachusetts. The critical point on that was that Harry Reid no longer had 60 votes over in the Senate.

Prior to that, he had been pretty much impervious: I have got 60 votes. I am going to do what I want. Democrats can bust a filibuster on anything because they have got 60 votes.

After the loss of that 60th vote, H.R. 3590 could not be changed--or at least Harry Reid's assertion was that it could not be changed, and Speaker Pelosi would simply have to pass what he gave her.

Now, there was a lot of resistance here on the House to passing--even on the Democratic side--there was a lot of resistance to passing that bill that came over from the Senate because it was not a House product.

It had the Independent Payment Advisory Board in it. It didn't have a public option in it. Many of the Democratic Members were reluctant to engage on this. In fact, I think the quote from Speaker Pelosi that day was: I don't have 100 votes for this thing over on the House side.

Over the ensuing 3 months, they did convince and cajole enough of their Members to pass this by the slimmest of majorities in the early part of March of 2010, and that leads us to where we are today.

Mr. Speaker, it was the 111th Congress that passed this thing. I had 18 amendments to the Affordable Care Act that I dutifully took up to the Rules Committee when we were in the minority and said: Look, I don't like what you are doing, but let's at least keep it from being quite the problem that it is going to be.

Every one of those was rejected. I lost on a 9-4 vote. No surprise-- it is the Speaker's committee, she held the votes on the committee, but don't tell me that this was a process of anything other than what was a very flawed and partisan process.

Now, several people today have referenced the Founders and the Declaration of Independence. The reality is,

Mr. Speaker, we are a country that was founded on the principle of government with the consent of the governed.

No one was asking for this thing. No one wanted this thing. Sure, 14 percent of people in this country have been helped, so they like it. Seventeen percent have been hurt, such as myself. I lost my health savings account under the Affordable Care Act. Seventeen percent of the country doesn't like it.

Most everyone else feels as if, ``I am basically unaffected, I may have a problem ideologically either pro or con, but I have not been affected.''

Mr. Speaker, I do recommend that people pay attention. The employer mandate actually became effective January 1 of this year. It won't really affect people until next year when medium-sized businesses begin to file their taxes and find that if they have not kept up with all of the laborious reporting requirements and paperwork requirements under the employer mandate, they are going to be in a world of hurt when they file their taxes for calendar year 2015.

Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a piece of legislation that the American people have time and again said they do not want.

I thank Mr. Byrne for his legislation and for working on this matter. I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on this important issue, as important as the health of the American people.

I salute Congresswoman Brownley for her alternative bill that we should be voting on, if we can defeat this rule, that helps students get manufacturing jobs, just what we have been asking for, a collaboration between business and education where kids are trained for good-paying jobs as they leave school.

Instead, the Republicans are putting forth this rule that would, once again, for the 56th time, repeal the Affordable Care Act.

We come together on the floor of the House right now, when we need to pass a homeland security bill to protect the American people. The Speaker said in December, when we didn't pass the appropriation bill for the year, we will do it after the first of the year.

In January, the world was alarmed by what they saw in Paris. The whole world was galvanized around the issue of fighting terrorism and protecting homeland security, except in this hermetically sealed House Chamber.

We still haven't done what we take an oath to do: support and protect the American people when we take an oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Instead, we have the Republicans continuing to bay at the Moon. They are baying at the Moon, something that is not going to work; and instead of proposing any, which we would be welcome to hear, good suggestions they may have to approve the Affordable Care Act, they are baying at the Moon--56 times.

We have important work to do for the American people. They want us here to create jobs. They want us here to protect them. We need to pass that homeland security bill. Instead, in our hermetically sealed world, oblivious to what is going on outside, we are taking this up.

They want to strip health security from America's families. They are willing to threaten what that means to our economy, willing to jeopardize the need for us to lower costs for businesses is what this bill does.

I have said over and over again, even if everyone loves his or her health insurance or his or her health care, even if that were the case in our country, we would still have had to pass the Affordable Care Act because the cost to individuals, to families, to businesses large and small, to governments--local, State, and national--the cost was unsustainable. That was one of the things the Affordable Care Act set out to do, and I am so pleased to show that the statistics show that the rate of growth of health costs is going at a lower rate than ever in our history--very important.

The CBO projected that this bill would save--what?--hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe up to $1 trillion over its projected life, the life that we have to account for when we put it before us.

So this is about the health of our people. It is about the health of our economy. It is about lowering costs.

It is important to know what is at stake, because families are seeing the full promise of the Affordable Care Act emerge, to make health care a right for all, not a privilege for the few:

8.2 million seniors have saved more than $11.5 billion on their prescription drugs since this bill passed, an average of $1,407 per senior;

105 million Americans no longer have a lifetime limit or an annual limit on their coverage. This is what you want to repeal today;

129 million Americans with preexisting conditions no longer have to worry about being denied coverage because of their health status. That is what you want to repeal today.

It is also important to note that, with the success of the Affordable Care Act and the 9.5 million people who are signed up in marketplaces, including Medicaid expansion, 19 million uninsured Americans will be covered in 2015.

In addition to that, the Affordable Care Act has pushed forth the solvency of Medicare for 13 years longer. That is what you want to repeal today.

Our Founders, how beautiful they were in all that they did and wrote and their courage and their optimism for the future. They wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence. In that Declaration of Independence, that is the independence we want to give people: for a healthier life, the liberty to pursue their happiness without being job-locked because of a health care policy, free to be self-employed, to start a business, to change jobs, to pursue their happiness.

So this is about, again, the health of our country, not just the health care of our country. On our path forward today, and in the future, the Affordable Care Act will continue to rank up there with Social Security, with Medicare, a third pillar of economic and health security for the American people.

So I urge our colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule. Enable Congresswoman Brownley's education proposal to match kids up with skills and jobs, something that this country needs to move on to legislation to create good-paying jobs, to add bigger paychecks for America's working families, to stop the stagnation of wages, and to do so in a way that understands how important health care is to reducing the deficit in addition to improving the health of our country.

Again, by the way, the clock is ticking on the bill for homeland security. That is our responsibility: to support and protect. Let's get about the business that we take an oath to do instead of, for the 56th time, bay at the Moon. It is hard to understand why we would waste the time of this Chamber and the American people on this frivolous resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise on the floor today really for two reasons, perhaps three. First of all, to support and defend the Committee on Rules last night where we overwhelmingly are in favor of making sure that every Member of this body has an opportunity to vote up or down on this terrible piece of legislation that is the law that is known as the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare.

This last election the people of this country openly asked the question in many districts across this country: Are you for or against this terrible law that was put through this Congress without one Republican vote? So it is only obvious that every single new Member of this body would want to have an opportunity to vote up or down.

Secondly, I want to defend the gentleman, Dr. Burgess, a member of our committee, who was attacked last night. I unfortunately had taken 2 or 3 minutes away from the chair to attend to some other matters of the committee and was not available to be in the chair.

Thirdly, I want to stand up for my State of Texas. In defense of the State of Texas, there has been a lot of talk about Texas lately, not just last night, but lately. So I want to make sure that people have a better understanding to know why Texans are being attacked, and that is because we reject big, liberal government that is embodied in the laws that are known as ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act.

In defense of our great State of Texas, we represent people of the State of Texas, and I strongly stand with my fellow Texan and fellow committee member, the gentleman from Lewisville, Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess. Dr. Burgess is not just a proud member of our delegation and a proud Member who represents Texas, just as I do, born in Waco, Texas, but I stand today for why Texas is a great State.

Evidently we have got to defend our honor. It was done last night in the Committee on Rules; it is being done today on the floor of the House of Representatives. I stand in defense of Texas; although Texas I don't think really needs much defense.

Texans are proud people, and we have been a proud people since the days of the Alamo and San Jacinto. That is when we used to be our own nation. Texans are fiercely independent, and we, I think, lead to the very best not only for ourselves, but we are trying to do that also for America.

Texas is thriving, and the reason why we are thriving is because of economic growth, robust job creation, and overall quality of life. American families and businesses all across this country, I think, look to Texas as the leader in freedom and economic opportunity. That is what the Lone Star State is.

In our system of federalism, people can also vote with their feet. In the last 5 years, the Texas population grew by 1.8 million people. People from all over the United States, all 50 States, found a brighter future for themselves in Texas.

Over 1.6 million veterans call Texas home. These are men and women who fought for the freedoms that we enjoy and have today. Because of our communities, they support our veterans, and people know when they look to Texas, those people in Texas care about veterans and protecting our country.

Our churches, our schools, our hospitals, and our charities all lead the way in providing our citizens with things so that the government does not have to.

Yesterday, in the Rules Committee, Dr. Burgess was merely reflecting the views of our home State and the people who live there. Our Nation does better when we allow individuals to succeed, rather than look to government. We need to have a limited government, and people will then have more freedom.

While some people may think that limited government and empowering families is ``crazy,'' I disagree. I think the numbers prove it. Texas has been called the great American job machine because we are the State that leads the Nation and the world. In fact, if Texas were its own country, it would have the 13th highest GDP in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding and for leading around this Nation on this issue. So far away from Texas as even Iowa, the gentleman from Texas has fought for the full 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare and laid out, I think, a good strategy for the future health care circumstances in America.

First, Mr. Speaker, I would say that, when this passed, many of us went through a long battle here on the floor of the House of Representatives and outside among the masses of people that came here and surrounded the United States Capitol to plead: Do not take our liberty. Let us manage our own health and our own health care, and let us purchase a health insurance policy that is right for us, not one that the government thinks is right for us, and let's do something that is constitutional.

Well, we watched as that drama unfolded and engaged in that drama. I have a number of scars left over from that. In the end, ObamaCare passed by hook, by crook, and by legislative shenanigan. History shows that. The litigation that has emerged and the litigation yet to emerge will shape this to some degree, but this Congress needs to resolve this.

What had happened was, in the election in 2010, 87 freshmen Republicans were elected into office here to come, and every single one of them ran on the full 100 percent repeal of ObamaCare. That was a transformative election. It shifted the majority from the Democrats to the Republicans, Mr. Speaker, a mandate to repeal ObamaCare. We acted on that mandate.

In fact, the morning after ObamaCare was passed, I was at the door-- my staff was actually at the door. I had written a bill in the middle of the night to repeal ObamaCare. I had the first draft to repeal ObamaCare, a component of 40 words, and it applies to two sections of the bill. That bill was drafted March 24, 2010. It was filed March 25, 2010. I filed a discharge petition down here on the floor on the 16th of June 2010--it received 173 signatures--with Republicans in the minority, Mr. Speaker. It has been a long effort.

We voted on the full repeal of ObamaCare, H.R. 2 by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), on the 19th of January 2011; another repeal by Mr. Cantor on the 9th of July 2012, always with the 40-word King language in it; and again on the 16th of May 2013, H.R. 45.

We have been bringing the full repeal of ObamaCare here to the floor over and over again to give everybody an opportunity--even those who didn't have an opportunity to get involved in this debate--to go on record and tell us where you want to see the future of the health care circumstances here in the United States. Every Republican up to this point has voted to repeal ObamaCare.

Every Member of the House, with the exception of those that were sworn in for the first time this Congress, has had that chance. Now we give everyone that chance, and we will send a full repeal over to the Senate so the nine freshmen Republicans over there can clearly also go on record.

I thank the gentleman from Texas.

Because we want to elect a President who will take the oath on January 20, 2017, to sign the repeal of ObamaCare at the podium on the west portico of the Capitol as the very first act of the next President of the United States.

So I thank the leadership for incorporating my language into this bill. I thank those all across this country who have stepped up to defend our constitutional liberties, our personal liberties. When this is done, we will get to work on putting together a good health insurance and health care delivery system in America in spite of all of the

time that we have lost fighting over this unconstitutional mess called ObamaCare.