H.Res. 524

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

Millions of Americans are finding the security and the peace of mind that comes from having access to a family physician through the Affordable Care Act. If the gentleman has been listening to the American people, he has turned a tin ear to the 16 million Americans that have now enrolled in the marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans, unwilling to accept the success of what they demeaned as ObamaCare, Republicans who failed more than 60 times in this House to repeal ObamaCare, who failed three times in the Supreme Court to undermine ObamaCare, have now embarked on a new strategy, which is to circumvent and undermine the invaluable protections of the Affordable Care Act.

With this bill, Republicans are demanding that every individual who gets stuck in one of these newfangled plans that they have is denied protection from having their insurer exclude preexisting conditions, no assurance of coverage for essential medical care, and no assurance of affordability.

I offered an amendment to correct one part of this defective bill to give Americans statutory protection, so they are not back in the old pre-Affordable Care Act period of losing coverage when they needed it most because they had something the insurance company defined as a preexisting condition, but that was rejected.

At the time, they claimed that was their intent, but when you look at the specific statutory language, there is no doubt that the protection for preexisting conditions and essential conditions is excluded from their legislation.

These so-called Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements, ICHRAs, are about as convoluted as the name suggests. They are as my grandson, Canyon, would say, they are icky.

Handing people a voucher and telling them to go shop for coverage follows the same ill-conceived Republican approach to sabotage Medicare, which they continue to promote in their latest budget. Instead of giving Medicare beneficiaries guaranteed coverage, they would give seniors a voucher with declining value and tell them to go find coverage.

Instead of the guaranteed, comprehensive coverage workers now receive, this bill would force so many people to find healthcare in a sea of junk, exposing them to misleading marketing and aggressive brokers. An estimated 2 million workers would be immediately impacted by this sorry bill, and with another provision that is in the bill that directs the Treasury Department to go out and promote access to junk plans, we could expect these numbers of impacted workers to increase.

Inevitably, the result is bare-bones, junk insurance that misleads on coverage, has high out-of-pocket costs, and abandons those with preexisting conditions. The policy's fine print takes away all the bold promises of the marketing. Those who need coverage the most will be unable to afford it or receive minimal junk coverage.

In a Nation that is as rich as America, going broke shouldn't be a side effect of trying to get healthcare, but exposing more people to financial ruin is exactly what this kind of legislative approach will achieve.

This misguided scheme suffers, I think, from a form of preexisting condition itself. It is called amnesia, because they forget the conditions that

existed for so many Americans in this country before the Affordable Care Act became law. Situations like those who contacted me from Texas: Someone who had been a victim of domestic violence declared to have a preexisting condition; an infant born with some preexisting condition denied the coverage that they need; any number of excuses when coverage was needed the most because of preexisting conditions.

That is why I thought it was so important to amend this legislation, and the refusal of my Republican colleagues to clarify that now sends forward loud and clear that that is their objective.

There is even more ick to the ICHRA bill that is being introduced, and that is the opportunity that is created for class discrimination. This bill legalizes that discrimination. My amendment would have prevented that also.

Employees that are out there on the assembly line; those who are in the chicken processing plant, or the meat-packer, or out in the cornfields; they are in the dirtiest, most difficult, and usually the lowest-paid jobs. They can be treated one way under this bill, while the executives sitting off in the office tower are treated another and getting an entirely different kind of coverage because of the way they have written their bill.

Lower-wage workers who would be eligible, in fact, for a better policy under the Affordable Care Act with a no-premium or low-premium policy, would instead be required to search for a policy with more holes than safety net.

Finally, we discover something on which Republicans are pro-choice. I didn't think they were pro-choice on anything, but the genuine choice they provide is to the employer, not to the employee, a choice to divide employees into the haves and the have-nots; providing employer coverage to some and leaving others to fend for themselves.

Predictably, that burden will fall on the low-wage workers and the sick employees that employers don't want to cover. One survey already of employers found that 60 percent of large firms intended to offer ICHRA to only low-wage workers. That is icky.

To prohibit discrimination by employers and junk plans alike, the amendment I offered would have offered protection. This bill, as it stands, does not. It should be rejected.

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

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

The gentleman has repeated his stated intent to provide the protection that his bill denies, and I would refer him, again, to page 3, line 2 of this bill as it was presented in committee, and the failure to refer to section 2791(b)(5) of the Public Health Service Act means that that protection will not be there. It could easily have been added if that were the true intent. It is omitted.

Same page, line 12, the failure to include guarantees against nondiscrimination is not there.

He is concerned about federalizing healthcare. Well, all that I want to do is set a minimum Federal standard that no person in this country will be denied because of a preexisting condition the healthcare that they deserve. That is what the Affordable Care Act was designed to achieve, not only for those in the marketplace, but beyond.

Secondly, I want to ensure that different classes of employees are not treated differently. Let me just describe a little more of what is involved there.

Just as they would allow insurers to discriminate against a newborn with a

heart murmur and call that a preexisting condition, their bill would permit an employer to discriminate against their own employees.

Just to give you a practical example. We have a lot of chicken processing plants down in northeast Texas. If there is a facility out there where the chicken pluckers are chasing the chickens, removing the feathers that are flying, those tough, dirty, hot jobs processing them may be managed by a group in some high-rise in Dallas or Tyler.

Well, this bill, as it is written, will allow those executives to get their group health insurance policy with all the protections against preexisting conditions and being able to see, perhaps, a concierge service for their healthcare. But the folks that are down there chasing the chickens and plucking the chickens, they get an ICHRA. All they get is ick. That is wrong.

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

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

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

Let me respond to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He says there is nothing in this bill about preexisting conditions and discrimination, and he is absolutely right. That is the whole failing of this bill. It does not include the protections that are necessary to ensure that no American is discriminated against on the basis of preexisting conditions and that no employer can discriminate among groups of its employees.

He also says this is going to open more opportunities for more people to get health coverage. I would point out that studies have shown that 95 percent of the people who are in these icky plans now once had good group health coverage. My concern is that we will see even more people lose their good group health coverage and be put into an icky plan.

As for the Small Business Flexibility Act, I am for the Treasury and others educating all employers and employees about their rights and opportunities, but I think this part of the overall package is very slanted. Treasury needs to be out there educating employers, some of whom may not know themselves the limitations that these junk plans have and how much they will disserve their employees. We need education of employees on how to understand whether their employer's offer of coverage meets the minimum standard and is truly affordable for the

purposes of being able to otherwise enroll in subsidized marketplace coverage. I think there are limitations on that portion of the bill as well and that it, therefore, should be rejected.

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

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

The chairman of our committee says that there were great gifts to insurance companies. What the Build Back Better bill did was to give individuals additional tax credits. Some Republicans call those tax cuts, but they were credits given to people to be able to afford insurance. As a result of that improvement, many more Americans got the insurance that they need.

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

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

I say to the chairman, he is absolutely correct. I referred to the Build Back Better instead of the American Rescue Plan. It is easy to get confused about them. The American Rescue Plan was, of course, signed into law and has helped so many Americans. However, we always know that whatever the name, Republicans are against all of them, as they were, and voted unanimously against all of the opportunity that they created for millions more Americans to get and keep health insurance and provide themselves security.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

I focused on one part of this entire package of bills, but together it is truly a thinly veiled attempt to circumvent the Affordable Care Act. Being unable to repeal it, having nothing but nothing care to replace it with is really kind of a death by a thousand cuts, making healthcare less accessible and affordable for so many at-risk workers.

The bills in this package include a codification of the Trump-era rule that allows employers to offer these ICHRA plans to their employees instead of employer-sponsored health plans.

Under this plan, employers may offer a voucher and force their employee to shop for their own coverage.

Under this bill, employers are permitted to pick and choose among their employees and discriminate against some with their vouchers.

This bill also includes an expansion of the association health plans, which my colleague from Virginia will discuss at greater length. That has been a standard tenet of Republicans' assault on the Affordable Care Act. It is a provision that would allow self-employed individuals and small businesses to circumvent the guarantees of the Affordable Care Act and steer consumers into shoddy coverage that does not cover the healthcare they most need when they need it, the essential health benefits.

It also does not offer them protection against preexisting conditions or age or the fact that before the Affordable Care Act was adopted, women were discriminated against at a great rate and often denied the coverage that they needed or it was priced so high they could not afford it.

The bill would also preempt State regulation of association health plans and disrupt risk pools as these plans do not have to follow standard premium-setting rules and risk adjustment. This bill is similar to the Trump administration rule that was struck down in 2019.

If you are beginning to recognize a pattern here, this is all Trump, Trump, Trump because he is still the Pied Piper for the Republican Conference, as we just saw in this disgraceful presentation about our honorable colleague Adam Schiff.

This package also contains a provision to encourage employers to offer self-funded plans, which are not required to comply with ACA protections, again, on preexisting conditions, on essential health benefits, and more. Most employers do not want to take on the risk of offering a self-funded plan. However, by expanding stop-loss coverage, which sets a catastrophic amount the employer will be responsible for, and then covers any other costs that may come up from covering their employees, self-funded plans will be more attractive.

This legislation prevents Federal and State governments from regulating stop-loss coverage and risks more employers opting for self- funded plans that do not protect healthcare consumers.

Finally, without providing any additional resources, this legislative package tells the Treasury Department to educate employers about how great these new icky plans are and their health reimbursement accounts, which would bar workers from more affordable coverage under the marketplace already available.

At the heart of this effort is just the perpetual push by House Republicans to weaken the protections of the Affordable Care Act, which have prevented financial ruin for so many people and assured access to healthcare for so many people.

Under the provisions of this bill, employers can form association health plans to skirt some of the requirements of the ACA like the essential health benefits. State and Federal regulators will be hamstrung in their ability to protect small businesses and workers in self-funded plans.

Utilizing these icky ICHRA plans, employers can also push those with preexisting conditions, women, and older workers into the individual market with vouchers while keeping their younger and healthier employees on employee-sponsored insurance. Therefore, the sick get treated differently.

Those who have disabilities, who have had long-term chronic conditions, could be treated very differently and put at great risk.

I think for all these reasons that this legislation should be soundly rejected. This is an opportunity to defend all that the Affordable Care Act has meant to Americans and offer that opportunity to more people rather than deception that is the hallmark of this bill and following the Trump approach that junk insurance is what would be most available to Americans.

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

Madam Chair, I would say to the gentleman from Michigan, I am sure there are many Republicans who want to assure good healthcare to all people. The problem is with this specific bill.

The one-page amendment that I offered could have guaranteed these ICHRA employees that they would face no discrimination among classes of employees and no barrier of preexisting conditions.

That clarification would have solved this problem, and their failure repeatedly to accept that one-page amendment, with no explanation other than that they wanted to do the same thing, or that it was duplicative, betrays the promise of this bill and suggests that discrimination and denial of coverage based on preexisting conditions is what Americans in these plans will face.

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, our colleague from Missouri (Mr. Smith) closed by saying that his goal is to cut red tape. Well, that is a goal that I think all of us can share, but I am afraid that this bill, as written, will only throw more Americans into the red and into medical debt, which is already high despite the protections that we have provided to date.

There are so many families overwhelmed by medical debt, and some who will be denied the opportunity to get the protection they need from their healthcare providers because they simply cannot afford it.

Madam Chair, I would say at the appropriate time I will offer a motion to recommit to this bill and send it back to committee. If the House rules permit it, I would have offered this motion with an appropriate amendment to the bill.

My amendment would ensure that this bill does not take effect unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services certifies that this bill will not result in anyone losing access to coverage of essential health benefits or see their healthcare costs rise, the very objective that the gentleman from Virginia has been discussing.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record the text of this amendment.

Mr. Doggett moves to recommit the bill H.R. 3799 to the Committee on Ways and Means with instructions to report the same back to the House forthwith, with the following amendment:

Add at the end the following new title:

Madam Chair, I hope my colleagues will join us in supporting it, recommitting this, pursuing the objective of better healthcare for all, and protecting all Americans from preexisting condition barriers, and ensuring they are not the subject of discrimination.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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

This amendment has a rather nominal effect in not improving what is a very bad and deceptive bill.

It is appealing to talk about rural areas. I am concerned about those rural areas, about the chicken pluckers, about the meatpackers, about the field workers, and the way they will be discriminated against under this bill.

I will elaborate on that. While this is mainly a Republican caucus that follows the seditious pied piper who was our President, in this case, even under the Trump administration, when they considered this kind of proposal, the Treasury Department, the Labor Department, and the Health and Human Services Department came together and recognized the danger of discriminating against different classes of employees.

Ultimately, unfortunately, the Trump administration did not provide the protection against discrimination, so that people who are working in rural areas under this bill may be discriminated against by their employer as a result of this legislation.

It is the failure to have clear language in this bill to prevent such discrimination against rural workers, in favor of those who are in the office towers managing everything, that is at the heart of our opposition, as well as the refusal to provide protection and guarantees against people being denied as a result of their preexisting conditions.

Rural Americans are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, stroke, unintentional injury, and respiratory disease. Yet, we would take our sickest workers, our most vulnerable low-income workers, and deny them a comprehensive employer plan with many protections and allow them to be the subject of discrimination.

There has already been too much discrimination against rural areas and rural workers. We ought to prevent it, not make it worse.

There are no guarantees that these people can find any coverage with their ICHRA plan, let alone affordable and quality coverage.

I think rural Americans deserve far better than this amendment to try to put a patch on a very sorry bill that undermines the protections of the Affordable Care Act that has offered great benefit to so many Americans, and I urge everyone to vote ``no.''

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I would say that the only education that would be really helpful on this bill would be to educate both employers and employees about all the shortcomings of this bill.

Educating employers that they ought not to be discriminating against classes of workers and treating the rural, hardworking employees there at lower wages differently where they get an ICHRA policy that denies them preexisting conditions, that denies them the essential benefits under the Affordable Care Act, while the folks in the city in management get treated differently--they get a concierge kind of treatment that is not available to the rural workers. Just educating about this bill, which allows that discrimination, would not accomplish much of anything.

I think what we are going to see with this kind of legislation is more and more workers in rural areas, as well as urban areas, who face discrimination and who face great medical debt because these plans are so weak. They are junk insurance that will deny the benefits that most people need.

Educating about them, if truthful education, if not the kind of deception that is buried in this bill, educating about them will only tell people the limitations and the shortcomings. Otherwise, it will be a kind of education that covers up, as this bill does, the great harm that is being done in denying folks access to a family physician with the protection that is there.

Remember that in moving to these ICHRA plans, we already know that 95 percent of those that are in ICHRA plans today, that have this icky kind of coverage, are people who once had good group health insurance that I would like to see available to more Americans.

Again, I urge my colleagues to definitely vote ``no'' on this amendment and vote ``no'' on this sorry bill and support our motion to recommit.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

The ACTING Chair. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.

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

Madam Chair, I don't believe that we have noted yet in the course of this debate the great irony, the fact that this is called the CHOICE Arrangement Act, that we have some pro-choice Republicans here who want to give employers the choice and allow them to discriminate against different classes of their own employees. All of this is happening the same horrible anniversary week of the Supreme Court's wrongful decision to overturn decades of reliance upon Roe v. Wade and to eliminate the right to an abortion with an effect on women's healthcare that is so far-reaching that it is affecting our colleges of medicine across the country and delivery of healthcare to women who may never have been involved in the slightest way with an abortion.

They called this healthcare freedom today. I call it the repression and the interference with the basic healthcare rights of women.

By the terms of their own amendment, patients and doctors should make healthcare decisions, not government bureaucrats or insurance companies. The CHOICE Arrangement Act comes at the same time that they interfere with what happens in our bedrooms and our doctors' offices and, most recently, even in our kitchens.

They would sentence patients under this basic legislation with preexisting conditions to a future of very few choices and no freedom. With no choices for adequate and affordable healthcare, this legislation guarantees one kind of prescription and one kind of prescription only, and that is a prescription for personal bankruptcy and unlimited medical debt from policies that do not provide essential healthcare benefits.

It is really a shame that, in a country as wealthy as ours, we still have millions of citizens who go without health coverage. Over 30 million Americans, in fact, lack coverage, and many in our home State of Texas lack coverage because of the fact that our State legislature and Governor were never willing to provide the guarantee we anticipated with the Affordable Care Act of Medicaid expansion as most States have done.

Patients do not have a choice, do not have freedom when they suffer a heart attack or are diagnosed with a dreaded disease or a broken arm, and they lack insurance coverage that provides them the benefits that they need.

Under this amendment, which is a sense of Congress resolution that really doesn't accomplish much of anything, this bill is not improved. Americans would have so much skin in the game they would get burned just as the Republican dirty fossil fuel plan would burn up our planet.

It is not just the Affordable Care Act that is being targeted today. There is reference to socialized medicine of the kind that Newt Gingrich once attacked in this body when he suggested Medicare should ``wither on the vine.''

Contrary to Republican attacks, we have heard about public insurance programs. Seniors on Medicare value their Medicare as do the 16 million people who signed up for the Affordable Care Act this year.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, this is the freedom resolution on the week that we have the anniversary of the anti-choice Dobbs decision as part of the CHOICE Arrangement Act.

Well, I am reminded of the lyrics of a famous Janis Joplin song: ``Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.'' No choice is left. No freedom is left. This is our future under Republican plans--so much to lose, nothing left tomorrow.

We need to protect more Americans from the dangers of health debt and bankruptcy. We need to ensure broader coverage. There is a huge coverage gap that is leaving perhaps as many as 2 million Texans without coverage because of the failures and ideological objections of our State Republican government.

Those Americans deserve the same protection that 16 million Americans got when they signed up for the Affordable Care Act this year. They have access to a family physician that is so very important. They have access to the essential benefits of the Affordable Care Act, getting access to the kind of care that they need to ensure their family is secure.

I believe that there are many improvements that are necessary in the Affordable Care Act. We were limited in being able to make those improvements when all we had for more than a decade were 60-plus Republican attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Let us reject this bill and this amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are in charge of the House of Representatives. They control the schedule here. They control when bills get brought up for debate. They make the Calendar. We could be debating a bipartisan bill that actually helps get more people on to healthcare or lowers prescription drug costs and makes coverage more affordable, but instead Republicans are bringing to the floor a bill to chip away at the Affordable Care Act. They are siding with billionaire corporations and insurance companies and actually spending money to kick people off of healthcare.

We could be debating bipartisan legislation that makes it easier for regular middle-class Americans to buy a home, but instead, Republicans are bringing to the floor a bill that literally increases mortgage fees charged to middle-income borrowers.

Time and time again, this majority brings to the floor bills that benefit billionaire corporations, insurance companies, the rich and powerful, Big Oil, Big Pharma, all at the expense of everyday people back home who send us here to fight for them.

We could be debating bipartisan legislation that actually addresses our broken immigration system. Instead, Republicans are bringing to the floor a nonbinding resolution that condemns a nonexistent problem so they can go after immigrants once again.

We had a Member in the Rules Committee last night yelling and screaming and ranting and raving about all he thinks is wrong with our immigration system and the border. It was actually kind of scary.

Listen, I get being passionate about this problem. I am not here to argue that our immigration system doesn't need to be fixed. We all know that it could use a comprehensive overhaul, but we don't need to be screaming at each other about this nonbinding press release of a bill that does literally nothing to help deal with our border. My God.

Republicans want to talk about immigration, so let's talk about immigration.

Let's talk about how the Republican solution to the border is building a stupid wall that even they know won't work.

Let's talk about fentanyl. Let's talk about how most of it is trafficked through legal ports of entry in the United States by U.S. citizens, by the way, and let's talk about how President Joe Biden seizes more fentanyl at the border than Donald Trump did. That is just a fact.

Yet, we had a Member last night have a complete meltdown over this issue. Would Republicans rather the Biden administration not seize fentanyl? I don't get it. Make it make sense.

Let's talk about how, since the end of title 42 on May 11, unlawful entries along the southern border have plummeted. As of June 6, Customs and Border Protection had an average of 3,700

encounters between points of entry or unscheduled encounters per day, a decrease of over 70 percent.

Republicans don't want to talk about any of that. Instead, they are going to try to get people all worked up by scapegoating vulnerable migrants who are fleeing awful circumstances in search of safety.

I can't believe I have to say this, but migrants are not political pawns. They come to our country seeking a better life, often fleeing violence and oppression. They are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Yet, Republican Governors have treated migrants like they are garbage, busing them across the country like luggage, with no advance notice or coordination, dumping them outside after they call the press to show up and make a scene. I find it disgusting. I find it racist. I find it disrespectful to all that this country stands for.

This nonbinding press release that they are bringing to the floor isn't a serious attempt to solve a problem. They are dropping migrants off in New York City and then attacking New York City for trying to come up with solutions to the problem. This is absurd.

Then, Republicans claim gyms can't be used to house migrants because they want to ``protect students.'' Give me a break. Migrants have never been housed in a facility with kids. That is just a fact. In the Rules Committee last night, we asked the person who was bringing the bill before the committee to give us examples. She couldn't.

If we want to talk about protecting students, let us talk about protecting students. A thousand kids have died from gun violence this year. Where will the next school shooting be? Parents are terrified their kid will be next. Teachers are terrified that their class will be next. Students are terrified they will be next. Republicans are here regulating gyms instead of guns. What the hell is wrong with these people?

This majority is obsessed with demonizing, demeaning, and targeting people who are coming to the United States in desperate search of a better life. Stop appealing to the worst instincts in people. Stop peddling hate. Stop fueling racism.

Here is a contrast I want people to know about. President Biden and the Democrats are working to expand the middle class, to build a strong economy from the bottom up and the middle out. Democrats are lowering costs for working families, helping cut inflation by more than half since last summer.

Democrats have taken on Big Pharma to reduce prescription drug costs, and Democrats continue to fight special interests to lower healthcare costs while making childcare and housing more affordable for working families.

Democrats are investing in America and have created more than 13 million jobs since President Biden took office. Democrats are bringing supply chains back home, fixing our roads and bridges, and delivering clean water and high-speed internet to more communities.

Democrats are making our communities safer. We are committed to building on the gun safety legislation we passed last year by strengthening background checks and keeping dangerous weapons of war off our streets to protect America's kids.

Democrats know that we don't have to choose between an immigration system that reflects our interests and our values, and we don't demonize and attack people who want to come to this country in search of a better life.

You are seeing on the floor today exactly what Republicans have to offer: nothing, not a thing, no plans, no ideas. They are just interested in helping the rich and powerful and using immigrants as political pawns to drive a wedge between people. It is a rotten, shameful thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and the underlying bill, and I urge my colleagues on the Republican side to get serious about bringing legislation to the floor that will actually make a difference, that will actually help fix some of the challenges that we face in this country. This is a joke.

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

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

I appreciate the gentleman's tirade just now, but the bottom line is that nothing in this bill that his party is championing as somehow this important piece of legislation does anything to provide any assistance to any of these communities. Not one penny goes to offset any of the costs that might be incurred--nothing, not a thing.

I just don't get it. People come onto this floor and speak in sound bites and do press releases and then bring legislation to the floor that is nonbinding, that means nothing, that does nothing. This is ridiculous.

We need to fix our immigration system. We tried to do that when we were in charge. We had challenges in the Senate trying to overcome the filibuster, but we were trying to fix the system. That is a contrast to what we are doing here now, which is a nonbinding resolution.

By the way, a nonbinding resolution, to anybody who is watching, means it is just somebody's opinion. It doesn't do anything--no money, no assistance, no help to anybody. It is just like: ``I want to tell you what my opinion is.'' Big deal.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which states that it is the House's duty to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare for future generations and reject any cuts to these essential programs.

We know, because we have heard from my friends, that they have their eyes on these programs. We need to get people on record to make sure that they will not vote for any cuts.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Sorensen) to discuss that proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a Washington Post article titled: ``House GOP eyes Social Security, Medicare amid spending battle.''

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

Mr. Speaker, it is simple. To lower the national deficit, House Republicans plan to try to cut Social Security and Medicare. This includes potentially ``raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, targeting younger Americans who have yet to obtain Federal benefits.''

We have a number of Members on the Republican side who talk about privatization all the time. That is their favorite word when it comes to Social Security and Medicare. We want to make sure the American people understand who is on their side and who is trying to undercut things that are very meaningful to them.

Mr. Speaker, I also point out that my Republican colleagues have been in disarray since they took the majority, and they have failed to pass meaningful legislation into law on behalf of the American people. As I said, they control this Chamber, the schedule, the committees, and what they bring to the floor.

At this point in the 117th Congress, that is the previous Congress, Democrats had passed 17 bills into law. At this point in the 116th Congress, under divided government, we passed 21 bills into law.

You want to know how much this majority has passed into law?

Six.

They are failing the American people. They are incapable of bringing legislation to the floor that can garner bipartisan support that has any chance in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a comparison of the number of bills passed into law by May 31, which demonstrates how utterly unproductive this Congress has been.

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

Mr. Speaker, I spoke about the unproductiveness of my Republican friends and how they are squandering all opportunities to help the American people since they have been in control but let me just talk to you about some of the stuff that we did when we were in charge of this place.

Let me remind people that because of the Affordable Care Act, which I think almost everybody over there voted ``no'' on, 40 million Americans have health coverage under the ACA. Women have access to preventive health services like breast and cervical cancer screening at no cost to them. Prescription drugs are more affordable for older adults.

Americans with disabilities are protected from discrimination on the basis of medical history or preexisting conditions. Lifetime caps on essential health benefits are gone. They are gone.

Since 2010 when the bill became law, Republicans have been obsessed with tearing it apart. Under Republican majorities, we have voted nearly 70 times to repeal and undermine the law. Nearly 70 times Republicans have tried to dismantle a law that provides healthcare coverage to 20 million people and covers preventive health services.

Today, Republicans are continuing this effort to undermine the ACA. It is maddening where their priorities are. It is maddening. Here is the deal. They know that they can't just repeal it outright because everybody doesn't want them to do that. What they are doing is they are going after it bit by bit by bit, trying to chip away at the edges and trying to kill it through a thousand cuts so that maybe people won't notice, that people won't notice when essential benefits are no longer guaranteed.

Healthcare ought to be a right in this country, and we ought to be building on the ACA, not tearing it apart, not tearing it down, not trying to make it more difficult for people to get the essential services they need, not to try to give people plans that don't provide the coverage for whatever may occur to them and their families.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to understand--again, the good news here is that all the bills they are bringing to the floor today have no chance in hell of going anywhere in the Senate because they are just over the top and extreme.

Make no mistake about what is happening here. They have a target on healthcare. They have a target on Social Security. They have a target on Medicare. Rather than trying to fix our immigration laws, what are they doing?

They are trying to tear this country apart. They are trying to demonize immigrants. They have no solutions, just a nonbinding resolution that does nothing. It basically addresses a fake problem that was totally ginned up by FOX News. That is where their priorities are. Certainly, we can spend our time doing more productive things.

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

Mr. Speaker, I remind the gentleman that fentanyl is coming across the southern border because U.S. citizens are bringing it

across through ports of entry. Don't trust me on this. You can look to the conservative think tank CATO that will reinforce what I just said.

By the way, this bill that you are bringing here does nothing to solve the problem. It is a waste of time. There are no more resources; nothing to combat it. It is just a press release. What a joke that we are here debating something like this when we could be debating something that might make a real difference.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have to say, what I am a little surprised about today is that nobody has raised the deficit or the debt because the Republicans were obsessed with that when they basically threatened to ruin this economy by not allowing us to move forward to increase the debt ceiling.

We had to have all these cuts from programs that help poor people. Throwing people off of programs like SNAP, the food benefit, that is what they did. I now understand why we are not talking about the deficit or debt today because of the bills that they are bringing to the floor.

One of the bills that we are talking about right now, the CHOICE Arrangement Act, cuts more than $348 million. That is what the CBO says.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record the CBO score.

Mr. Speaker, that is just the beginning. House Republicans spent half a billion dollars on their H.R. 1 bill that would gut environmental protections and take tax credits away from people who want to upgrade their homes. Half a billion dollars was added to the deficit.

Mr. Speaker, $6 billion was added to the deficit on their deeply flawed H.R. 2, a bill attacking immigrants and essentially ending asylum as we know it.

Get this, $114 billion--billion with a b--was added through their H.R. 23 to protect the wealthy from paying their fair share of taxes. That was their very first bill on the House floor in this Congress, their top priority adding $114 billion to the deficit.

Over $505 million was added through the Republicans' bill last week to enhance access to firearm stabilizing braces.

Republicans are on a spending spree, all on the backs of real people--not the rich, not billionaire corporations, not by reallocating funding from the bloated Pentagon budget. Maybe some of you saw the ``60 Minutes'' piece a few weeks ago about the cost overruns, where former Pentagon officials said that they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a switch that costs a couple hundred dollars.

We can't find a penny, yet they want to increase the Pentagon budget with no questions asked.

They can't touch any of the tax cuts for any of the billionaires or multimillionaires of big corporations. We can't do that, and we all know why. Google where they all spend their money on political campaigns. However, they spend all this money, and they want to balance the budget on the backs of regular, everyday people, and, in particular, the most vulnerable in our country.

Last night everybody was complaining about the CBO score--the CBO score. I guess I understand why my colleagues across the aisle would not want to support the hardworking, nonpartisan people at CBO. Maybe it is because they keep giving them bad news. Maybe it is because they keep saying to my friends that they are spending and spending and spending and it is adding enormously to our deficit and our debt.

Mr. Speaker, I raise this issue because my Republican friends like to come to the floor and talk about the deficit. Today they are not. I think it is because we had this conversation in the Rules Committee last night. I want people to know that they are driving up the deficit and the debt, and then when they want to talk about fiscal responsibility, where do they go?

They go to the middle class, and they go to the people who are poor. That is where their priorities are. So there is a big difference here.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman has no other speakers, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised my friend has no further speakers. I thought because these bills were so important and unbelievably essential that there would be lots of speakers on the other side.

Mr. Speaker, we all know how valuable our time is here. We only have 13 scheduled legislative weeks until the end of the year--13 weeks that could be used to improve the lives of everyday Americans.

So how have Republicans in the House decided to use this week?

Are we working to make our communities safer or our educational system better?

No. We are not. Republicans would rather demonize immigrants and peddle hate than regulate guns or invest in schools.

They are in control. They can bring what they want to the floor. Don't take my word for it, Mr. Speaker. Look at what they are bringing to the floor.

Are we here to help regular Americans purchase their first home?

No. We are voting on a bill today that will make it easier for those well-off to get even further ahead while making it more difficult on middle-class home buyers.

Mr. Speaker, you can't make this stuff up, but that is what this bill does.

Are we passing legislation that will continue to expand people's access to affordable healthcare?

No. Republicans want to chip away at popular policy that provides quality coverage to millions.

There are very real issues that regular people in this country face every day, and I wish House Republicans could wise up and address them.

This is such a colossal waste of time. One of the bills is nonbinding, but the other bills aren't going anywhere. This is a waste of time. Rather than working across the aisle trying to find common ground, they continue to bring these messaging bills. These are bills that demonize immigrants and that continue to chip away at the Affordable Care Act. These are bills that continue to screw people in the middle class, and they continue to bring these bills to the floor.

I don't know who their base is, but apparently it is popular amongst their base.

This is not about legislating. It is not about making law, and it is not about improving the lives of anybody in this country.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge a strong ``no'' vote on the underlying legislation and a ``no'' vote on this rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3564, the MAGA housing scam act, which follows the blueprint of the GOP tax scam by helping the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.

Homeownership is a quintessential part of the American Dream, and it is the single most important way that households today can build wealth. That is why expanding access to homeownership is one of the best ways that we can grow the middle class.

Unfortunately, the dream of homeownership is becoming further out of reach for a growing number of households due to a worsening storm of rising interest rates and home prices, fueled by an undersupply of new housing.

In fact, house prices have skyrocketed by 40 percent since 2020, and first-time homeownership rates have plummeted to an all-time low.

Moreover, housing costs are a primary driver of inflation, which is hurting every household in America. It is against this backdrop that Republicans are actually working to make homeownership more expensive for everyone, especially the middle class.

The MAGA housing scam act would affect two different types of fees that apply to mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which make up the vast majority of mortgages today.

First, this bill would extend a guarantee fee of 10 basis points for another year, costing all future home buyers an additional $5 billion.

Second, this bill would reverse recent changes to loan level price adjustments, better known as LLPAs, which are another type of fee on mortgages backed by Fannie and Freddie. The amount of this fee is risk- based, meaning that it varies depending on characteristics of the borrower and loan, such as income and downpayment; whether the loan has a fixed or a variable rate of interest; and whether the loan is a cash- out refinance.

FHFA, which is the agency that regulates Fannie and Freddie, is responsible for determining the amount of the LLPAs and recently made changes to this fee to help middle-class borrowers.

To illustrate, a middle-class borrower, say, with excellent credit, who makes maybe a 5 percent downpayment on a median-priced home would have their LLPA reduced by nearly half under FHFA's changes.

This bill would reverse the recent changes made by FHFA, resulting in higher fees for middle-class borrowers. Again, the LLPAs, are only one of two fees affected by this bill. Altogether, this bill would hit middle-class borrowers with a double whammy of both an extension of a 10-basis point guarantee fee, and an increase in the LLPAs.

During the debate in the Rules Committee on this bill, I pointed out how this bill hurts middle-class borrowers who have worked hard to build excellent credit but can't afford a 20 percent downpayment.

Republicans doubled down, insisting that those with lower downpayments are riskier borrowers and deserve to pay more. What they failed to understand is that middle-class borrowers who can't afford a 20 percent downpayment are already required to purchase private mortgage insurance, which can add hundreds of dollars to a borrower's monthly mortgage cost. Private mortgage insurance protects Fannie and Freddie from the risks associated with the lower downpayment.

Charging a higher LLPA for risks that are already covered by an insurance policy is simply unfair.

During the Rules Committee debate, Republicans called FHFA's changes redistributive. Let's be clear: FHFA made changes to ensure that middle-class home buyers are not unfairly charged more for risks that are already covered by private mortgage insurance.

This is hardly redistribution. It is ensuring that middle-class borrowers have a fair shot at homeownership. Mr. Davidson's bill, on the other hand, would absolutely redistribute costs from the middle class to the wealthy.

Let me break this down for the Record.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office determined that this bill would cost $1.8 billion before the addition of the manager's amendment. That represents $1.8 billion in fees that otherwise would have primarily affected the wealthiest home buyers who could barely notice such a nominal fee increase.

In order to pay for this cost, Republicans added a 10-basis point guarantee fee that would increase costs for all home buyers to the tune of $5 billion.

Mr. Chairman, for all these reasons and more, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 3564, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

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

Mr. Chairman, before I delve into additional remarks, the Congressional Budget Office deemed this bill to cost $1.8 billion. Why then would Mr. Davidson, with his amendments, create more money than even the Congressional Budget Office said his bill would cost?

He has raised it $5 billion more. Who pays for that? I don't care how you put it. Whether it is paid for tomorrow, next month, next year, 10 years from now, who pays for that? The home buyers pay for that and that must be noted.

The bill is increased by $5 billion by Mr. Davidson, even more than the Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cost at $1.8 billion. Why would he do that? Why would he charge home buyers more money than even the Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cost?

Accordingly, I will explain further. Currently, middle-class borrowers who cannot make a 20 percent downpayment are charged higher LLPAs and must purchase private mortgage insurance.

I am going to say it again. If you are paying less than 20 percent, you have to get private mortgage insurance to

cover the risks that may be posed to the enterprises.

This is an unfair double charge on middle-class borrowers for the same risks. Don't forget, they have paid their g-fees. Everybody has to pay the g-fees to help write the undercosts of the operation of FHFA. They pay those, and it is determined on each individual loan. It depends on the characteristics of that loan.

You build in the question of risk in those fees and then you pay private mortgage insurance, which means the middle-class borrowers are paying more than the wealthy borrowers.

In fact, borrowers with PMI also have excellent credit, with median FICO scores of 754 as of December 2020, and are more likely to be first-time home buyers. They also pose less loss severity to the enterprises than borrowers who have the means to make a downpayment of 20 percent or more.

FHFA's mortgage pricing changes that reduce this unfair double charge on borrowers with PMI is a critical step to making the dream of homeownership attainable for the middle class in America.

I oppose this bill, and I oppose my Republican colleague, who is part of the message going out from FOX News.

I oppose this bill because, first of all, the $5 billion is an increase. The Republicans are forever saying that they are trying to cut budgets. They don't want to increase the amount of taxes. Yet, here he is increasing the amount that he claims he is charging homeowners, when even the Congressional Budget Office says it costs $1.8 billion, and now, he is asking for $5 billion. Well, I don't quite understand that, and nobody else should understand that. It is not needed.

Again, they keep talking about credit scores. These middle-class homeowners, who could not afford to pay maybe 20 percent down, have good credit scores, equal credit scores to the wealthy home buyers. I don't get why he keeps talking about these credit scores.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I will take a minute to say that the representation that middle-class home buyers who may not have 20 percent down also have bad credit is not true. The record should reflect that that is not true. That is made up by someone who would like to throw credit scores into this argument and argue that these middle-class buyers, who can't pay 20 percent down, all have bad credit. They do not. They have good credit, and they are eligible for a loan. The only thing they don't have is 20 percent down, and they get mortgage insurance in order to cover that.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver).

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

Mr. Chair, the MAGA housing scam act would reverse critical cost savings for middle-class borrowers as provided by FHFA.

Before FHFA's May 1 changes, a middle-class borrower with a high credit score and a 5 percent downpayment on a medium-priced home would have paid an LLPA fee of $81 in addition to private mortgage insurance. Today, this borrower would pay half of that fee, allowing them to access affordable homeownership.

Similarly, a borrower with the same credit score and a 40 percent downpayment on the same priced home would have paid only $27 before May 1 and today pays just $20. These are cost savings that Republicans not only want to eliminate but now they want to add an additional $5 billion in fees for everyone.

This is a scam, not a protection for the middle class. This is messaging by FOX News.

What is that $5 billion for? Why is it that Mr. Davidson is wanting to raise more money than even the Congressional Budget Office says the bill costs? This is not to be understood.

I know that there is an attempt to try to make the argument that somebody wealthier is paying for those who have less income, less money, less resources. It is not true.

Don't eliminate private mortgage insurance. If you pay less than 20 percent, you pay for private mortgage insurance in addition to the GSE fees. Middle-class borrowers were paying more than even the wealthier borrowers, so it had nothing to do with the credit score because the credit score of that home buyer who only paid less than 20 percent is as good as the credit score of the wealthier buyer. It had nothing to do with that at all.

Again, I don't know why this argument is being made by the other side. It is an attempt, I think, to message in a way that goes directly to constituents who they make angrier because their government is making them do something they should not be making them do.

Don't politicize this. This is about homeownership. This is about the American Dream. This is about making sure that those people who can afford to buy a home are able to do so.

The idea that anybody would say that, if you can't make a 20 percent downpayment but can pay for private mortgage insurance, you must not have good credit scores, that is an absolute untruth. As a matter of fact, you would not be able to get that loan if you had bad credit scores.

I wish the opposition would stop making that argument because it does not fly. That person who is paying, again, private mortgage insurance also has a good credit score. They didn't have the 20 percent down, but they are paying for it with their private mortgage insurance.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose H.R. 3564, which harms middle-class home buyers and their ability to access homeownership on fair and affordable terms.

This bill responds to a misinformation campaign, again initiated by a friend of the Republicans, FOX News, and propagated by extreme MAGA Republicans. It protects wealthy home buyers and imposes billions in new fees on all home buyers.

Mr. Chair, I also oppose this bill because it completely ignores our Nation's worsening housing crisis, which is locking millions out of the dream of homeownership. MAGA Republicans are instead focused on a minuscule fee in the home-buying process that does nothing to address our Nation's housing shortage and rising housing costs that are driving inflation.

We have a shortage of 14 million homes nationwide and more than 582,500 people experiencing homelessness on any given night, with homelessness rising faster in rural communities than anywhere else in the country. Meanwhile, U.S. renters are paying more of their income on rent today than ever before. These are the real problems that Republicans should be working to solve, not increasing fees by billions of dollars according to the CBO.

In fact, this bill is opposed by Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Responsible Lending, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Housing Law Project, and the National Housing Resource Center. Industry groups such as the Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Association of Realtors are also very concerned about this.

Republicans are forever worried about the fact that we are not making enough cuts. Yet, in the negotiations that just occurred on raising the debt limit, they wanted to cut, cut, cut, cut. They are not only jeopardizing middle-class homeowners, but they are increasing the amount of money--more than even needed--than the Congressional Budget Office has said the bill would cost.

Why $5 billion? I don't get it. I don't understand, but I am through with it.

Mr. Chair, I simply ask for a ``no'' vote on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

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

Well, actually, I don't even want to waste another minute on this pointless and redundant amendment.

Anyone who pays attention to government oversight knows that the GAO already makes all of its reports resulting from legislative mandates publicly available on the GAO's website as soon as they are issued to Congress.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record two letters: one from Americans for Financial Reform and one from Public Citizen.

Americans for Financial Reform,

May 23, 2023.

Hon. Patrick McHenry,

Chairman, House Committee on Financial Service, Washington,

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record letters of opposition to H.R. 3564 from the Center for Responsible Lending, the National Housing Resource Center, the National Housing Law Project, and the National Fair Housing Alliance.

[From the Center for Responsible Lending, Sept. 2020]

More Harm and No Good--So-Called ``Middle Class Borrower Protection Act

of 2023'' Leaves Borrowers and Taxpayers Less Financially Secure

The Center for Responsible Lending OPPOSES H.R. 3654, the

so-called ``Middle Class Borrower Protection Act of 2023,''

and urges Members of Congress to do the same. As written, the

bill would: (1) undo the Federal Housing Finance Agency's

recent cost changes for mortgages under the loan-level-

pricing-adjustment framework used by Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac and (2) subject any future framework changes to the

Administrative Procedure Act. Yet. rather than protecting

America's middle class, these proposals would make it more

expensive for middle-class consumers to become homeowners

using conventional mortgage loans and more difficult for many

consumers to enter America's middle class by obtaining

affordable, conventional mortgage credit. Here is what

policymakers, advocates, and consumers need to know:

(1) H.R. 3654 Undermines Middle Class Borrowers By Undoing

The Pricing Reductions That Were Recently Made For Them. This

bill would eliminate the reductions in loan-level-pricing

adjustments (LLPAs) that the Federal Housing Finance Agency

(FHFA) recently established. Those reductions were targeted

to the lower wealth, credit-worthy borrowers who

disproportionately make up or seek to enter America's middle

class.

(2) H.R. 3654 Makes it Harder for More Americans to Enter

the Middle Class by Raising the Cost of a Conventional Home

Loan for First-Time And Working-Class Borrowers.

Homeownership continues to be the single most important

factor in determining the ability of an American household to

build wealth and enter or maintain middle-class status. Yet,

by eliminating the pricing reductions FHFA recently

implemented for lower-wealth and first-time homebuyers, the

proposed bill reinforces a two-tier housing finance system

where the conventional mortgage market continues to

prioritize wealthier borrowers while first-time, underserved

or rural borrowers with less wealth are dependent upon

government-backed loans from federal agencies. That result is

inconsistent with the statutory purpose and mandate of Fannie

Mae and Freddie Mac. As the FHFA has noted, ``[a]chieving a

liquid, resilient housing finance market throughout the

country requires improved access to responsible mortgage

credit across different market segments of creditworthy

borrowers.

(3) H.R. 3654 Makes All Taxpayers More Vulnerable by

Disrupting Safety And Soundness Regulation of for Fannie Mae

and Freddie Mac. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission stated unequivocally that

the primary cause of the crisis was a failure on the part of

the government to regulate the financial industry,

particularly in the secondary mortgage market. Based on its

own experience in that regard, Congress created an

independent FHFA, empowered it to assume conservator

responsibilities for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and ensured

that it would have the ability to act swiftly and

independently from the political process to manage each

government-sponsored enterprise's safety and soundness

considerations. Under H.R. 3654, FHFA would Jose the ability

to act swiftly on pricing considerations tied to safety and

soundness by being subjected to the Administrative Procedure

Act. That result would require the Agency to delay

implementation of pricing changes for an extended period that

often does not match changing dynamics in the financial

markets. As a result, taxpayers would be a greater risk for,

once again, having to bail out the enterprises.

@ Making homeownership more expensive for moderate income

borrowers and less accessible for first-time, workingclass,

rural and other underserved borrowers is not protecting

America's middle class. Likewise, depriving the enterprises'

conservator of the tools needed to swiftly respond to safety

and soundness considerations raised by pricing and, in the

process, increasing the likelihood of another taxpayer funded

bail out is not protecting American taxpayers. For each of

these reasons, H.R. 3654, the ``Middle Class Borrower

Protection Act of 2023,'' is bad public policy and should not

be enacted. CRL urges Members of Congress to vote against the

measure.

Mr. Chair, these organizations all fight hard for homeownership, especially for middle-class Americans. They are absolutely opposed to this bill.

Again, I don't understand why we are spending time on this amendment. It does not accomplish anything at all. It would require GAO to do something it already does.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of Ms. Pettersen's amendment which is simply holding Republicans accountable for their claims about the impacts of the bill.

They claim that this bill will help middle-class home buyers, so I don't see why there should be any objection to this amendment which would make the implementation of the bill contingent on the truth of its claims.

Republicans held hearings on this topic where their own witnesses repeatedly debunked MAGA Republicans' claims that these changes would result in higher credit score borrowers paying higher mortgage fees than lower credit borrowers.

If we agree that the goal of this bill is to help middle-class borrowers, then I think we should be able to agree on this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I urge Members to support this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 3564.

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

H.R. 3564, the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, will undo a bad policy implemented at the worst time. Americans are struggling to afford housing. I am talking about the loan level price adjustments that the Federal Housing Finance Agency, FHFA, put into effect on May 1 of this year. This policy essentially implemented a cross-subsidy to individuals with lower down payments and lower credit scores.

Loan level pricing adjustments are up-front fees which adjust the final interest rate charged on mortgage loans based on different risk characteristics associated with individual loans. The most notable characteristics would be the mortgage's underlying loan-to-value ratio and the buyer's credit score.

While such fees may be necessary for Fannie and Freddie Mac, collectively known as the GSEs, to raise capital and adequately hedge against credit risk, the adjustments announced by FHFA would disproportionately hurt individuals with credit scores of 680 or greater.

To put that into perspective, the average credit score is around 710, and nearly 19 out of 20 Americans have credit scores above 680. The other thing is credit scores alone aren't a proxy for wealth or income. Therefore, most Americans would likely be hurt by these fees.

However, those with a credit score below 680 will benefit from lower rates than the prior LLPA assessments. This fee change violates the fundamental principle of risk-based pricing: Lower-risk borrowers should pay lower prices than higher-risk borrowers for access to the same credit.

Despite the FHFA's opaque approach to assessing LLPAs, the result of their new policies speak for themselves. The Middle Class Borrower Protection Act would reinstate the old LLPA prices that were in effect prior to May 1, while also directing the Government Accounting Office to complete an independent study of the processes and data used by FHFA to change the prices, including the impact of those changes on the safety and soundness of the GSEs, which, I will add, have been in conservatorship under the Federal Government for 15 years. Then GAO would report to Congress within 1 year of the study.

FHFA would be prohibited from changing the LLPAs until 90 days after the report, after which it would be required to: one, follow the basic agency notice-and-comment procedure for making any new changes to the LLPA fee; and two, ensure that future fee adjustments be made based on the actual risk posed by the mortgage.

FHFA would also be prohibited from imposing any new fee on borrowers based on their debt-to-income ratio, which was an idea they considered implementing effective August 1.

Finally, I will acknowledge that over the past weekend, the Congressional Budget Office scored this bill, and they assessed a cost of $1.8 billion for implementing this bill. I believe the fact that CBO says this bill costs a single penny is absurd and exposes a glaring flaw within our legislative process.

Perhaps CBO has a rebuttal, but that would require them to show their work, which they have not. This is why I have long advocated for another bill of mine, the CBO Show Your Work Act.

This past week exemplified just why we need transparent processes when legislating. The reality is these fees aren't even going directly to the Treasury. While the GSEs are in conservatorship, the money is supposed to go to the balance sheet of Freddie and Fannie so that they can accumulate capital.

As this rule is announced, the explicit purpose was to grow capital on the balance sheets of Fannie and Freddie. These were taken over by the Federal Government in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. They have remained in the conservatorship of the Federal Government. The revenue isn't coming in directly to the Treasury, it is meant to actually free the GSEs from control of the Federal Government.

These revenues were not imposed by Congress, so there really isn't a need

for us to replace the revenue that the administration imposed with a really misguided rule. There was no revenue coming in on April 30. On May 1, they implement this policy change, and somehow, we are supposed to come up with the revenue to offset it.

Now, I argued against doing that. I asked the Rules Committee to ignore the misguided advice of the Congressional Budget Office and to not implement a pay-for because it is not our--we didn't cause this expense to occur. Frankly, it is not even a real expense. It is essentially a tax imposed by the administration.

Because of the rules, we offered a manager's amendment which was ultimately incorporated into this bill. We add 1 year to a 10-basis point fee that is assessed on every Fannie and Freddie loan, regardless of your credit, just as a cover. That rule has been in place since the bill passed in 1992. It was set to expire in 2032. Now it will expire in 2033.

I hope between now and then we can change that, and we can also liberate Fannie and Freddie from their ongoing conservatorship which, I will note, has lasted longer than Britney Spears' conservatorship. The only way that it would cost the Federal Government money is if the conservator is actually raking money out of it and funding their own operation, which is not what is supposed to happen. It is supposed to stay with Fannie and Freddie, so it shouldn't be costing the Federal Government a dime to implement the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act.

Nevertheless, Fannie and Freddie will benefit from one extra year of money being collected under this manager's amendment that was adopted and incorporated in the bill.

Let me return and focus on the bill at hand, the Middle Class Borrowers Protection Act. Let's think about this: A Federal agency acting under its own purview and not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act implemented a politically motivated cross-subsidy through a clear money grab on unsuspecting credit-worthy borrowers. This wasn't a decision by Congress. This was simply the FHFA using its position as conservator of the GSEs to increase the government's baseline.

Now Congress is trying to undo the changes and re-implement a policy that was in place just 8 weeks ago.

However, Congress, as I said, had to pay for this fake shortfall. Like we see time and again, only in Washington, D.C., would math like this make sense.

It is imperative for this body to protect the cornerstone of the American Dream by promoting housing affordability, and H.R. 3564 does just that.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman points out things that just aren't so. The idea that a loan that has less equity in it isn't riskier than a loan with more equity in it is completely false.

Every business school in the country will teach it, but most people don't need to go to business school to understand that a loan with a lot of equity in it is at much less risk of default. It is rational to price risk, and that is what the market should be doing. Plus, people who have low income and have high credit scores are punished by this foolish policy. This simply will undo it.

The last thing I will say is, right now, there is money that is being taken away from consumers in the marketplace--$1.8 billion over the next 2 years. Once this bill passes, that stops getting taken away. The 10-basis point pay-for that is in this bill is still in effect right now.

In fact, it is scheduled to go out in 2032. In the near term, nothing changes in this bill. It is in 2033 that the pay-for comes in, again, only with the false accounting at the Congressional Budget Office would that even be necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. McHenry), the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Missouri is accurate. This does cost money. It costs the 19 out of 20 Americans with 680 credit scores or better who choose to get a Fannie or Freddie mortgage, it costs them money. It takes it out of their hard-earned dollars and transfers it to the GSEs.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice).

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for recognizing that low-income people do have high credit scores. That is why it is unjust to implement this rule and charge them a higher fee than maybe wealthy people who have low credit scores.

This is an interesting observation. The ranking member on the Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, Mr. Cleaver, just pointed out that it would be dangerous to require the FHFA to use the Administrative Procedure Act, i.e., to give notice and get comment, before they implement policies that impose costs on the American public. In July 2020, Ms. Waters and the majority at the time sent a letter to Director Calabria--at the time the Director of FHFA--saying: ``Moreover, we urge you to use your powers under title 5 U.S.C. 551- 559, the Administrative Procedure Act, to engage meaningfully with all stakeholders.''

It seems they are not opposed to FHFA using the Administrative Procedure Act. In fact, they asked them to do it, so I wonder why it is selectively.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Mr. Chair, I have no additional speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, the American people should be angry. They should be upset because the Biden administration did impose a socialist redistribution scheme. The most egregious and obvious part is that they withdrew as we uncovered this and exposed what they were trying to do.

On August 1, their plan was to say that if you have a lot of income and very little debt, then you should pay more, even more than this scheme that took effect on May 1, and you should subsidize the people that have little income and more debt. Now, to be sure, they still would qualify for a mortgage, or they wouldn't get the loan, but that is patently obvious redistribution of wealth.

The component that took effect on May 1 isn't really a redistribution of wealth per se, but it does hit the average credit score of 710. Everyone with a credit score of 680 or above, 19 out of 20 Americans is being hit by a higher fee since May 1 for their mortgages.

It is a redistribution of credit scores, and that is even worse than an idea of redistribution of wealth, in a sense. Because you have responsible people who live within their means, might live just a little bit above paycheck to paycheck, save, scrape together, build up a downpayment, have a mortgage in place, and they are going to pay more now since May 1.

We have to fix this injustice. That is what this bill does. It is time to just move forward in a commonsense way.

First, you study the problem before you implement it. This bill requires the GAO to complete the study, and then it requires FHFA to look at the study, to take 90 days of notice before they implement something else. The part that it bans after the study is over is the real redistribution of wealth, the debt-to-income scheme.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, though I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, while there has been broad discussion about the fundamental unfairness associated with the Biden administration's new tax on creditworthy borrowers, Congress' oversight role also extends to the process and impact these changes will have on home buyers and the housing market.

Members on both sides share policy concerns regarding this new tax, and it is equally imperative that we promote transparency to the American people on this flawed effort.

The GAO study does just that as the amendment Mrs. Boebert proposed would simply make the GAO study public. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and in no area is this more relevant than the opaque process with which the FHFA has enacted these and other changes.

This amendment would add to the GAO study included in H.R. 3564 which will play a critical factor toward furthering both Congress' and the public's understanding of this issue that impacts millions of home buyers.

Americans deserve a thorough accounting of the process and deserve to know the significant impact of FHFA'S actions. An agency that virtually controls U.S. housing markets should not operate without appropriate congressional oversight.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to restore fairness, transparency, and accountability to this process and policy that impacts millions of Americans. Amidst economic uncertainty and a housing affordability crisis, the American people deserve nothing less.

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

Mr. Chair, I urge all of our colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed to it.

Mr. Chair, this is a commonsense amendment to the GAO study, and I applaud the gentlewoman from Nevada for including this comprehensive view on the impact of housing affordability.

It furthers the work of the Housing and Insurance Subcommittee, and I think it is an important addition.

Mr. Chair, I encourage all of our colleagues to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I urge all of our colleagues to support the amendment. I support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, and I am opposed to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment introduced by Ms. Pettersen which would make it impossible to repeal the Federal Housing Finance Agency's damaging price increases on creditworthy home buyers. In fact, it will undo the entire point of the bill.

The legislation before us, the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act, would repeal these increases and would require the Government Accountability Office to assess the FHFA's fee structure. That is the point of the GAO's study.

It would also require that any future loan-level fees implemented by the agency adopt a risk-based price framework.

Ms. Pettersen's amendment would set up a sham test so that FHFA would have to keep those unfair fees in place even at the expense of the majority of middle-class borrowers.

So while the gentlewoman's amendment is designed to sound fair, the reality is that it would actually have the opposite effect of what it advertises. Instead of lowering fees for middle-income families, it would doom many of them to higher fees. In other words, a vote for Ms. Pettersen's amendment is a vote against the Middle Class Borrower Protection Act.

I also find it interesting that our friends on the other side of the aisle would support an amendment that essentially says: Don't do this if it makes fees go up, which is exactly what our bill does. It stops the fees from going up or staying up, as the case is on part of the plan that they implemented.

We should be united in saying that deliberately making mortgages more expensive for creditworthy borrowers is a foolish policy. The sting of inflation and higher interest rates are already hurting middle-income families, and this adjustment by FHFA is not fair.

While I cannot support this amendment, I am glad to see the recognition that we need to protect middle-income families looking to purchase a home from unfair pricing. It makes it harder for some borrowers to afford because they pay more just because they have high credit scores.

Ms. Pettersen's amendment would, unfortunately, lock in that unfair system.

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

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. I urge all of our colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Chair, the proposals in H.R. 3799 are yet another recycled, futile attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and actually make it harder for workers and families to find affordable, high-quality health insurance.

This legislative package includes two bills that were marked up by the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The first is the Association Health Plans Act. This act undermines a core promise of the ACA, access to affordable healthcare for all. This faulty legislation may provide lower costs for some enrollees, but it would do so by skimping on benefits and increasing costs for everybody else.

Specifically, the bill would allow association health plans to cherry-pick low-risk, young individuals for a pool separate from the ACA marketplace. You may hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle tout the bill's nominal protections against discrimination based on preexisting conditions, but they omit the details regarding the other large loopholes that leave consumers vulnerable in this bill, such as charging higher risk groups more so that the plan will not be attractive to them and charging low-risk groups less so that they will be the ones that come in.

In fact, this legislation explicitly authorizes AHPs to set premiums based on the ``specific risk profile'' of employer members, enabling them to charge higher premiums to groups based on their age, gender, and other factors. AHPs could also exclude certain categories of coverage, such as maternity care, mental health, or substance abuse disorder, to dissuade certain groups or individuals from enrolling. Under the bill, association health plans could also evade essential health benefits and other consumer protections under State and Federal law.

It is a bad idea because of simple arithmetic. If healthy, low-risk individuals can leave the Affordable Care Act marketplace risk pool and join a separate association and pay lower rates on average, those that did not get into these plans will, on average, pay higher premiums.

Let's be clear. Only low-cost groups will be in these plans because if you are a high-risk group, the cost will be too much and will not be attractive. If they are high-risk groups with preexisting conditions, older groups, and whatnot, they will not be able to form groups that charge less than the ACA marketplace, and nobody will want to join.

Under the ACA, everybody pays an average. If you have a preexisting condition or do not have a preexisting condition, everybody pays the same, and everybody gets insurance at an affordable cost.

Everybody enjoys all the essential benefits under the ACA. Association plans, for example, do not have to provide coverage for essential benefits like maternity benefits. All the costs of maternity care will be borne by fewer and fewer people.

The average cost of insurance for those not in the plans will slowly grow as the number of association plans grows.

Various versions of this legislation have been pushed by Republicans for decades, but all iterations suffer from the same fundamental flaw, they shift costs to the most vulnerable. That is why more than 30 leading consumer and patient groups have expressed serious concerns with this harmful legislation.

The other bill marked up in the Education and the Workforce Committee was the Self-Insurance Protection Act, legislation that further erodes the ACA by exempting stop-loss insurance from key consumer protections.

The bill would prevent the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury from regulating stop-loss insurance coverage. Even more troubling, the bill makes it virtually impossible for States to protect consumers from abusive practices by invalidating State laws that regulate stop-loss.

Stop-loss insurance usually covers costs above a catastrophic level, over a million dollars or something like that. They can be written to cover everything over a thousand dollars when they become essentially regular insurance except that they are not regulated. There are no solvency regulations, no benefit regulations, no nothing.

We can all agree that small businesses and self-insured people deserve access to affordable healthcare, and that is what you get under the Affordable Care Act. We should also agree that people deserve basic consumer protections to ensure that they have insurance with quality, solvency, an agency to call if something goes wrong, and coverage for essential benefits. That is why we passed the Affordable Care Act in the first place. It is also why, when Democrats were in charge in the last Congress, we passed the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act to make coverage even more affordable.

The question before us is: Do we want to make sure that every individual can continue to find affordable and quality healthcare coverage, or do we want to pass H.R. 3799 and create roadblocks for Americans seeking care?

Madam Chair, I would hope that we would oppose this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.

Madam Chair, I would inquire as to how much time is remaining.

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

Madam Chair, the gentleman from Michigan talked about the motive of employers. I think the employers want to give good coverage. The problem with this bill is it enables one company to find loopholes to get a good deal for that company even if it results in higher costs for everybody else. That is the problem with this legislation.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record a letter of opposition written by the AFL-CIO.

Among other things, the letter states that this bill undermines comprehensive coverage and subjects workers to financial risk.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record a broad post written by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Among other things, the post states that the bill will undermine consumer protections, segment insurance markets, and impose new burdens on individuals to navigate an already complex system.

[From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 20, 2023]

Health Bills Headed for a Vote in the House Undermine Consumer

Protections and Market Rules

(By Sarah Lueck)

The House is moving toward a vote on legislation that would

weaken Affordable Care Act (ACA) consumer protections and

private market rules. Proponents of these changes claim they

will increase choices and reduce red tape for employers, but

a closer look shows the problems they would create. The

legislation would:

Expand association health plans (AHPs). The legislation

would allow AHPs, a type of health plan that trade

associations, professional groups, and other organizations

may offer their members, to cover self-employed individuals

and small businesses as if they were large employers. This

would exempt them from ACA standards that otherwise apply to

health plans in the individual and small group markets.

Similar to a Trump-era rule a court struck down in 2019, the

bill would segment insurance risk pools: some individuals who

are younger and healthier, or small businesses whose

employees have that profile, could get plans with lower

premiums because they would be priced separately from ACA-

compliant coverage and would not have to meet ACA standards,

such as a requirement to cover a set of essential health

benefits. As a result, other individuals and small businesses

remaining in ACA-regulated markets would see higher premiums.

Expand Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement

Arrangements (ICHRAs). The legislation would codify

provisions similar to a Trump-era rule currently in place

that allows employers to forgo offering a regular group

health insurance plan and instead offer an HRA (a tax-

favored, employer-funded account) that workers could use to

buy their own individual insurance coverage. Increasing such

arrangements could raise ACA marketplace premiums; they are

likely to attract sicker-than-average firms that can spend

less to fund an ICHRA than they must pay for a group health

plan. And firms may find strategies to shift sicker workers

to HRAs, even with guardrails in the legislation meant to

prevent this.

Plus, these arrangements require employees to do

considerable work compared with signing up for an employer

plan--they must apply for and select a plan, set up premium

payments, and understand what expenses the ICHRA covers.

Also, workers offered an ICHRA could be confused about

whether the offer renders them ineligible for a marketplace

premium tax credit--that is, whether it constitutes an

``affordable'' employer offer that precludes credit

eligibility. And while employers must give workers a notice

of HRA rules, they needn't personalize them to tell

individual workers whether their plan is affordable. These

complications for employees could drive down coverage.

Increase self-insured employer plans. Another provision

would encourage more small employers with healthier workers

to self-insure (meaning that the employer bears the financial

risk), rather than offering a fully insured health plan (for

which an insurer bears the risk). Specifically, the bill

would protect a complex self-insurance arrangement known as

level funding from tighter regulation. Similar to AHPs, this

scheme allows small firms with healthier workers to provide

plans that avoid ACA small-group market premium and benefit

standards without being a large employer or taking on the

risk of self-insurance. This provision would make level

funding an even more common way for smaller firms to avoid

having to offer plans that meet ACA market rules--this would

raise premiums for small businesses that remain in the fully

insured, small-group market if small firms with younger and

healthier workers move to self-insure.

House committees recently approved other health bills that

raise concerns. The Ways and Means Committee moved to expand

health savings accounts (HSAs), which overwhelmingly benefit

high income people and exacerbate racial and ethnic

inequities in coverage access and wealth accumulation. HSA

tax benefits currently are only available when someone has a

high-deductible health plan that meets certain federal rules.

But the committee approved a bill that would allow high-

deductible plans to cover telehealth services pre-deductible,

while still qualifying for HSA tax benefits. It is estimated

to cost $5 billion from 2025 through 2033.

Another bill, approved by the House Education and Workforce

Committee, would let employers offer workers stand-alone

telehealth-only plans and exempt the plans from providing ACA

consumer protections or meeting other federal laws that

otherwise apply to employer coverage. The bill would exempt

telehealth plans from, for example, covering mental health

care at parity with other care and providing preventive

services at no cost to enrollees. The plans could also impose

annual and lifetime limits on coverage and sharply limit the

types of conditions they would address.

Additional policy changes are needed to make health

coverage and care more affordable for many people, despite

the ACA's significant benefits for individuals and small

businesses. But the legislation heading to the House floor is

misguided. It would undermine consumer protections, segment

insurance markets, and impose new burdens on individuals to

navigate an already complex system.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I regret that my Republican colleagues continue to relitigate the Affordable Care Act. However, what we have seen is not new. It is what we have seen time and time again over the last 13 years. They continue using every tool they can to undermine the ACA and limit access to quality healthcare, weaken consumer protections, and increase average costs.

The provisions of this package do nothing to lower overall healthcare costs for workers and their families. In fact, for most consumers, the result of this legislation is that while some may save a little bit, most consumers will end up paying more.

Madam Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. Association health plans have a long, well-documented history of cutting costs for themselves by cherry-picking the cheapest people to cover and leaving the more expensive behind. This raises costs for everybody else and causes premiums to go up in the rest of the market. Republicans have been pushing this idea for decades, and experts have consistently found it to be harmful.

The Affordable Care Act made a number of reforms to commercial insurance markets, including a requirement that plans in the individual and small group markets cover essential health benefits such as maternity care and prescription drugs. The ACA also prevented these plans from charging higher rates based on health status and limited the premium amount that older people could be charged compared to younger people. This was a vital protection that ensured that an age tax would not make coverage unaffordable for older individuals.

This legislation has no protection without this amendment. The bill is entirely silent on discriminatory pricing against older people. In fact, by explicitly allowing associations to base premiums on risk factors of each employer within the group, it actually invites them to charge older Americans much more.

This amendment would ensure that older workers are protected by providing in this bill that it would not take effect until the Secretary of Labor certifies that it would not have the impact of raising premiums for older workers.

I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her leadership on the Education and the Workforce Committee.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.