Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I rise to oppose the amendment. My State is named in the amendment.

Look, everyone supports compassionate, effective medical care for patients with cancer, epilepsy, chronic pain. You will probably hear anecdotal reports, maybe even during the testimony this evening, about how medical marijuana can solve some of these problems.

There are two problems with medical marijuana. First, it is the camel's nose under the tent; and second, the amendment as written would tie the DEA's hands beyond medical marijuana.

With regard to the camel's nose under the tent, let me just quote from the DEA report just published this month: Organizers behind the medical marijuana movement did not really concern themselves with marijuana as a medicine. They just saw it as a means to an end, which is the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes. They did not deal with ensuring that the product meets the standards of modern medicine: quality, safety, and efficacy.

Because, Mr. Chairman, the term ``medical marijuana'' is generally used to refer--and this is from the NIH. We respect the NIH. This is the National Institute on Drug Abuse: The term ``medical marijuana'' is generally used to refer to the whole, unprocessed marijuana plant or its crude extracts.

Mr. Chairman, that is not what medicine is about. Medicine is about refining the components THC and CBD, actually making sure they are efficacious, giving the exact dose, not two joints a day, not a brownie here, a biscuit there. That is not modern medicine. In fact, the DEA supports those studies, looking at the safety and efficacy and dosing regimens for these, THC, CBD. They have licensed some of the drugs.

Mr. Chairman, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, medical and street marijuana are not different. Most marijuana sold in dispensaries as medicine, again reading from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is the same quality and carries the same health risks as marijuana sold on the street.

Mr. Chairman, we know there are health problems. The problem is that the way the amendment is drafted, in a State like Maryland which has medical marijuana, if we ever legalized it, the amendment would stop the DEA from going after more than medical marijuana.

Mr. Chair, marijuana is neither safe nor legal. Let's get it straight. The Controlled Substances Act makes marijuana in the United States illegal because it is not safe.

Mr. Chairman, there is more and more evidence every day that it is not safe. The effect on the brains, developing brains of teenagers and young adults, is becoming more and more clear, as the doctor from Louisiana has talked about, the effect on affect, the effect on mood; it is not safe.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a medicine. This would be like me as a physician saying: You know, I think you need penicillin, go chew on some mold. Of course I wouldn't do that. I write: for 250 milligrams of penicillin q.6 hours times 10 days. I don't write: chew on a mold a couple of times a day.

Mr. Chairman, why don't we have therapeutic tobacco? Nicotine, one of the substances in tobacco, purified is actually useful as a drug to treat autosomal dominant nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy. Nobody writes a prescription: smoke a couple of cigarettes and cure your epilepsy. But that is what we are being asked to do.

Mr. Chairman, worse than that, this blurs the line in those States that have gone beyond medical marijuana. For instance, in Colorado, under Amendment 64, a person can grow six plants under the new law for general use, but if it is medical marijuana you can grow as many plants as you want as long you can prove you have a medicinal use.

So how is the DEA going to enforce anything when, under this amendment, they are prohibited from going into that person's house growing as many plants as they want, because that is legal under the medical marijuana part of the law, not under the new law?

Mr. Chairman, this is not the right place for this. The Ogden memorandum from this administration clearly states that the Department of Justice does not prioritize prosecution for medical marijuana-- clearly states it. They don't do it. This is a solution in search of a problem that opens many other doors to the dangers of marijuana.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill because we need to provide a permanent solution rather than just a band-aid approach to maintaining seniors' access to quality health care.

Mr. Speaker, our economy continues to struggle, and that means hardworking Americans are struggling. Far too many Americans are having trouble making ends meet, and government overreach is only making things worse. The worst example of this overreach is the President's deeply flawed health care law.

We just had ObamaCare's fourth anniversary this past weekend, and what do we have to show for it?

Americans can't keep their plans even if they like them. Families are being forced to pay more for their health care insurance. Women are unable to stay with their doctors despite the President's promise. Seniors are facing cuts to their hard-earned Medicare benefits. Businesses are afraid to hire more workers.

House Republicans have a plan to get Washington out of the way--to create an America that works--and addressing these problems is a great place to start.

Mr. Speaker, did you know that, today, each American farmer feeds more than 144 people? In 1960, that same farmer fed only 25 people. Clearly, American agriculture is doing more and doing it better. As the world population continues to grow, there will be an even greater demand for food produced in the United States.

Tomorrow, March 25, marks the 41st anniversary of National Agriculture Day, sponsored by the Agriculture Council of America. The day represents a nationwide effort to educate Americans in classrooms and communities across the country on the importance of our family farmers, their contribution to our Nation's agriculture heritage and legacy, and how the industry impacts each and every one of us for the better.

Farming and agriculture are a crucial part of our economy, especially in Maryland, in the 1st Congressional District. It is the number one economic industry in our State, totaling $2.3 billion in gross sales. Not surprisingly, poultry makes up the largest component in Maryland, supporting 24,000 jobs.

So as we recognize the efforts of these hardworking American families tomorrow, please be sure to take the time on National Agriculture Day to thank a farmer.

I want to thank the gentlelady from Missouri for hosting this Special Order hour this evening.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois talked about people who come to this country in fleeing religious persecution. As the gentlelady may be aware, my mother emigrated from Ukraine. She was, in fact, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic. As the gentlelady probably knows of the history, when the Soviet Union took over Ukraine, they persecuted the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, burning them to the ground. It is ironic that we are discussing this here--and that the Supreme Court will be taking up this issue--as we are seeing what is going on with religious persecution in Ukraine this week and last week, where the church in Dora, for instance--the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church-- burned to the ground because, you see, the Russian Government didn't agree with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church's beliefs.

So what do they do? They burn churches to the ground.

It is interesting. We have to learn the lesson, though, because they tried that. After World War II, the Soviet Union tried to destroy churches that way, but they learned the lesson that the church is not the building. The church is the group of believers who share common, deeply held religious beliefs. That is why when the Soviet Union fell, the churches that they thought they had burned to the ground rose up.

I would suggest that what is going on in Oklahoma City with Hobby Lobby and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with Conestoga Wood Products is a church burning without a match. In fact, it is even more insidious because you can't see something. You can't see the ashes. But in fact, if the government has its way with these two employers, they will attempt to persecute them for their religious beliefs and attempt to destroy them. That is not the way it is in America.

As the gentleman from Illinois said, there are plenty of places in the world where that may be true, but we do have a First Amendment. We have a First Amendment that doesn't protect church buildings, it protects religious believers in whatever walk of life they are in, whatever they are doing, from the government imposing their belief system, whether it is the case of a belief of a religious body or a belief that you shouldn't provide life-destroying drugs. Because that is what is at issue in these cases.

And I would hope that the Supreme Court realizes that this country does have a First Amendment and that its job, its duty, our duty is to protect the religious beliefs of every individual, including those owners of Conestoga Wood Products and Hobby Lobby, who deserve the right and freedom in America to believe their religious beliefs and not have the government impose theirs.

So I thank the gentlelady from Missouri.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for yielding me time to speak on this bill before us.

Mr. Speaker, the situation in Ukraine is important to all of us, but for me it has a personal aspect. My mother, now 90 years old, escaped from Ukraine and the Communists after World War II. She understood firsthand how Joseph Stalin suppressed freedoms and liberties in Ukraine--much as Mr. Putin desires to do likewise now.

We are faced with a situation in which a new Government of Ukraine is being threatened with Russian expansion into its sovereign territories. It is as if the Budapest agreement of 1994, which involved both Russia and the United States, had not guaranteed Ukraine safe borders from invasion. It is as if the Cold War never ended. Perhaps to Mr. Putin and other Russian nationalists it never has.

Ukraine, situated between Russia and the rest of Europe, is of obvious strategic and economic importance, not only to Russia but to the United States and Western Europe.

That is why this bill is so important. It allows Ukraine to be allowed access to ESF funding. The ESF was established to, ``provide assistance to allies and countries in the transition to democracy.''

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly the situation in which Ukraine finds itself today--in need of our help to advance democracy and resist the invasion, economically and physically, from Russia, attempting to relitigate the Cold War. We can't let that happen. They desperately need these loan guarantees. For the sake of freedom, democracy, and international justice, I urge passage of this bipartisan effort to help our friends in Ukraine.

Mr. Speaker, the train wreck of the President's health care plan continues. Last Friday afternoon, curious timing, the Centers for Medicare Services released a report.

Mr. Speaker, the CMS is working with the IRS to implement ObamaCare, and the report said it looked at the effect on small businesses of ObamaCare and the effect on the premiums that were going to be paid by men and women who work in those small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, their report, from the President's own administration, said that 11 million workers will pay a higher health care premium under the Affordable Care Act. That is more than 5 million women who are going to pay a higher health care premium, when the promise the President made was that every family would save $2,500 per year.

Mr. Speaker, they are not only not going to save $2,500, those 11 million Americans are going to pay more for their health care next year, hardworking middle class Americans who can't afford it.

America deserves better.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the Memorial Day for the Victims of Communism in Hungary. On this day in 1947 the Soviet authorities occupying Hungary illegally arrested Bela Kovacs, the general secretary of the Independent Smallholders' Party, who, after being deported to the USSR and spending almost a decade in prison and labor camps died at the early age of 51. The arrest of this fellow Hungarian politician marked a new era in Hungary where the elimination of political opponents soon led to one-party dictatorship, and his fate symbolizes the tragic destiny of hundreds of thousands in Hungary whose rights were denied and whose lives were crushed by the evils of Communism.

As a son of an immigrant from Hungary who fled the same brutal regime that eliminated Bela Kovacs, I know there are few among us who can give a firsthand account of the horrors of the soul-crushing Communist system. It is therefore all the more important that we officially remember the immeasurable damage caused by totalitarian regimes worldwide, and recognize that too many people of influence still subscribe to these same deadly ideas. Nostalgia toward Communism and the whitewashing of history is deplorable, and crimes committed during those times should never fade from our memory.

No leader in Europe today is a more outspoken advocate of remembering the crimes of the Communist system than Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who himself was instrumental in the underground movement that helped bring down Communism in Hungary. Hungary's leadership in facing and condemning its Communist past is exemplary. Hungary was first among the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to institute a memorial day for the Victims of Communism, and soon many nations followed.

The Hungarian Parliament has set out to remove the last vestiges of communism and open a bold new chapter defined by its own history and its own national sovereignty--which was dictated by outsiders for far too long.

Hungary's new Constitution declared that the crimes committed against the Hungarian nation under communist dictatorship has no statute of limitations, and it rejects the authority of the country's communist constitution of 1949--which made a mockery of the rights and freedoms it claimed to enumerate for its people.

Since last December, former victims of the state-party intelligence service now have the right to go public with the names of their surveillance agents and search the formerly closed archives. In a society plagued by the secrets of the Communists' crimes, truth is the only antiseptic, and it is the only source of reconciliation.

Inaugurated by the Orban government more than decade ago, the House of Terror in Budapest, the former headquarters of the Communist State Police and a place synonymous with the brutalities of the dictatorship, today is one of the most visited museums in the world showcasing the everyday horrors of a dictatorial regime.

Overcoming the damages caused by 45 years of totalitarian Communism is not easy, but Hungarians are on the right path. In an era of political correctness which too often refuses to shame the shameful and to elevate selfless heroes, Hungary's leadership should be applauded.

Madam Speaker, the train wreck of the President's health care reform just continues.

This week, there have been two developments: the first one, the CBO announcing their study that shows that 2\1/2\ million full-time equivalents--that is, jobs--will be eliminated from the economy by ObamaCare; and yesterday, the President finally recognized that ObamaCare, in fact, destroys jobs and will delay the bill's mandate to buy insurance, but only for corporations, not for hardworking American families.

Madam Speaker, you don't get to keep your policy. You don't get to keep your doctor. Now you don't get to keep your job. America deserves better.

Mr. Speaker, we are here tonight on the 41st anniversary of ROE v. WADE. And put simply, my colleague from Tennessee said, the science is just wrong. ROE v. WADE, the decision, they just got it wrong.

I entered premedical study in 1973, the year that ROE v. WADE was issued by the Court. I remember taking genetics courses as a premed. I remember learning about genetics, learning about human genetics.

Then in 1975, when I went to medical school, I actually did a research project with one of the scientists who was mapping the human genome. I always remember one of the things we did which was kind of neat is we actually took one of our cells and stained the DNA. I still have the picture at home of my DNA.

I remember the scientist telling me, you know, you look at that DNA and that is human DNA. It is not any other DNA. It cannot be mistaken for any other DNA. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as you know, we can now map a person's entire DNA. Any scientist looking at that map of any human being's DNA will tell you that is a human being. It is not a cat. It is not a dog. It is not a monkey. It is not another primate. It is a human being. It is the only thing that that DNA could belong to.

Well, that is very interesting, because of course if you go back to the ROE v. WADE case and you read about Norma McCorvey, who was Jane Roe--of course, that was a pseudonym. Her name was Norma McCorvey. She was pregnant at the time with her third child. Two of them had been adopted previously. It was a difficult pregnancy as any. It was a problem pregnancy. It was an unplanned pregnancy.

Well, Norma ran into two lawyers who wanted to overturn it, two ambitious lawyers who, later, she would go on to say she was ``the pawn'' of two young and ambitious lawyers who just wanted to test the case, the Texas law. They wanted to bring it to the Supreme Court. They told her that her fetus was just ``a blob of tissue.''

Mr. Speaker, we know much better than that. Science knows much better than that. It was not a blob of tissue. It was a human being. It had the same chromosomes, the same DNA, the same genetics as you and I. Any scientist in the world could tell that that was a human being. In fact, from the moment of inception, the scientific truth is we are dealing with human beings, in the case of ROE v. WADE, 56 million human beings whose lives were ended as a result of that decision.

Now, we are going to celebrate, and I mean celebrate, with a pro-life rally next week. And in the end, we are going to win this struggle, because in the end, what the Justices determined were legal beings are going to be really determined to be human beings worthy of protection.

I will tell you why there are going to be so many of the Nation's youth at that rally. Because our Nation's youth grew up knowing that ROE v. WADE is in fact the law of the land, and in fact the law says legally their existence may have been threatened.

Mr. Speaker, I have told this story before. If anybody doesn't believe it, I want them to meet Jennifer. My wife volunteers at a pregnancy center. One of those places where women with troubles, troubled pregnancies, they are in a bad situation. They know that in this country it is legal to have an abortion, but what they really want is help. And my wife is fluent in Spanish. She was raised in Puerto Rico. She is the only person at that pregnancy center in

Maryland who speaks Spanish. She wasn't supposed to be there that day when Maria, on political asylum from Guatemala, called.

It was Maria's third baby, just like Norma McCorvey's third baby. She was having a hard time because her husband had left her. It was going to be a hard time to raise that child. She called the clinic, because honestly she was looking for an abortion referral. And Maria doesn't speak English. She speaks a few words, not fluently enough to be understood. It just happened my wife was there. My wife talks to her and she helps her, and the pregnancy center helps her. Maria, who really didn't want an abortion but knew it was legal and an option, gave birth to Jennifer. Jennifer is now in middle school. She is a great kid. I would challenge anyone to look into Jennifer's eyes and say that ROE v. WADE got it right.

Mr. Speaker, next week thousands, tens of thousands of young people are going to be on The Mall to join with us to say, simply put, ROE v. WADE got it wrong.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia was absolutely right; the train wreck of ObamaCare continues.

This week, we have three pieces of news. First of all, people going to the exchanges that were told they qualify for Medicaid really aren't. In fact, they won't find out until months past January 1 that they won't have insurance.

In the State of Maryland, 25,000 people got cancelation notices and 3,700 have signed up so far on the ObamaCare exchange, leaving tens of thousands of Marylanders without insurance on January 1.

As the gentleman from Pennsylvania just mentioned, volunteer firefighters are now given a mandate that their volunteer fire companies have to buy insurance for them because now, under strange definitions, they are considered employed. Mr. Speaker, my volunteer firefighters aren't employees. We are going to drive volunteer fire companies out of business.

This train wreck continues.

Mr. Speaker, Americans deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, American families are watching the train wreck of the President's health care reform law coming down the track at them each and every day.

Promises were made by the President and by supporters of the law that if you like your plan, you can keep it. Promises were made that family plans would cost $2,500 a year less under ObamaCare. Those promises just weren't true.

David in Carroll County wrote me just this morning to let me know what his family is going through with their health insurance. David is self-employed and is married with three children. He likes his family plan. He doesn't think it is substandard in any way, but his family just got a cancelation notice.

Mr. Speaker, they won't get to keep the plan they like. His new plan, which the Federal Government says that they have to buy, will cost $400 more per month, an increase of almost $5,000 more per year, not a decrease as the President promised.

David's family is just a hardworking, middle class family trying to make ends meet. Mr. Speaker, David and his family deserve better than broken promises.

Mr. Speaker, the train wreck and broken promises of the President's health care reform act continue.

The gentleman from Connecticut earlier said that we were hysterical. Mr. Speaker, my constituents are hysterical about these broken promises.

Allen from Harford County writes about his 31-year-old son. His 31- year-old son can't get a full-time job because employers won't hire people full-time because of the Affordable Care Act. He writes:

I'm writing today to voice my concern as a parent and to

report that my healthy 31-year-old son's health insurance

premium will be tripling. Currently, he has his own CareFirst

BlueCross plan and was recently notified that it was going to

be canceled, and his premium will go up from $200 a month to

$600 a month.

Mr. Speaker, this is a train wreck. Parents and families are hysterical. They can't afford a $600 premium for a single person working a part-time job. Canceled policies and skyrocketing premium costs are two broken promises. America deserves better.

I want to thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, the HOPE Act is exactly the kind of bipartisan legislation that will improve lives and have a positive impact on our health care system.

As a physician for nearly 30 years who has participated in and conducted medical research, I know firsthand how medical innovation often outpaces government laws and regulations. This is one such example:

As an anesthesiologist, I have had the privilege of taking care of many patients for transplant surgery, and I have seen numerous times the lifesaving joy that an organ transplant brings to patients and their families.

The HOPE Act changes an outdated law by making government work in a more efficient and effective manner for all patients needing transplants, both those with HIV and those without, which is exactly what the American people expect from us here in Washington and from their elected officials.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to move the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, S. 330. I want to commend the gentlelady from California for working with me to get this bill through. People are waiting for these organs.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on S. 330 later tonight.

I want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding.

The gentleman from Tennessee is absolutely right. In fact, in Maryland, in a front-page article 2 weeks ago, in our leading newspaper on the front page above the fold, there was a story about how Maryland's community colleges are cutting back their adjunct faculty to make sure none of them teach more than 30 hours a week. And it is just like the doctor from Tennessee says--some of these faculty are important. You have got to have them to fill in niches in your curriculum, and now they are constrained by a 30-hour-a-week definition of full-time work.

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that, remember, it is not just that when you hit 30 hours you have to offer insurance. You have to offer the insurance the government says you have to offer.

As I am going to mention, from literally dozens of communications I get now on a weekly basis from people in my district, the insurance under the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable.

William in Cecil County writes to me--and I am going to read these verbatim:

My wife and me are currently insured with the Maryland

Health Insurance Plan.

Mr. Speaker, the Maryland Health Insurance Plan was our version of covering everyone with a preexisting condition in Maryland. So, Mr. Speaker, in Maryland, every citizen had coverage, whether they had a preexisting condition or not, because they could get it through the Maryland Health Insurance Plan. And, in fact, William writes that he and his wife were currently insured with the Maryland Health Insurance Plan.

We just received a letter stating we can keep our

insurance; however, when I questioned them for how long, they

said, Until the end of your current policy. So June 30, 2014,

we'll be sent to ObamaCare. My wife has multiple serious

health issues that our current insurance has kept her alive

and able to function pretty normally.

Now, Mr. Speaker, William is worried, and he is justifiably worried because every day we pick up the newspaper and we read about another State where you can't get to your doctor. Your doctor is not going to be on that insurance plan because the only way they can make those premiums less expensive than they already are is to limit who you can go and see when you are sick. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the government telling you who you can go and see when you are sick. And that is what William and his wife were worried about in Cecil County.

But Carl in Queen Anne's County writes to me:

I have to put in my two cents. When ObamaCare first started

a couple of years back, my health care started to go up. When

we called Blue Cross, they told us, You can thank Mr. Obama.

It went up to $1,600 per month. Now my wife does have stage

IV cancer. I am a truck driver. I have to pay for our health

care. So much for the care cost dropping.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you remember, but our President said 19 times that the price of a policy for a family was going to go down $2,500 a year. Mr. Speaker, Carl is going to pay $1,600 a month now. It didn't go down $2,500. It went up thousands of dollars a year.

Tim from Queen Anne's, I guess, writing in tongue-in-cheek:

Thanking you for the new health cares rules that have

resulted in our family losing coverage from Giant Food. I'm a

general contractor. After 22 years of coverage with my wife,

and now faced with a $1,000 a month bill to cover my family.

That is $1,000 a month. Not $2,500 less, like was promised us 19 times, period.

He goes on to say:

I bet you still have your insurance.

Well, Tim, we not only have our insurance, but the President gave Congress, actually, a special deal that you don't get; because you see, Tim, if you got the same deal, your employer could be able to subsidize you on an exchange. That is the deal the President gave Members of Congress and their staff. Sorry, Tim, you didn't get that.

Fran from Worcester County writes:

My CareFirst BlueCross policy has been canceled. I chose my

policy. My policy was great. President Obama promised more

than two dozen times that, If you like your health care plan,

you can keep your health care plan.

Now this is Fran's opinion and not necessarily mine.

I believe that he knowingly lied. What are you going to do

about this?

Fran, I have got to tell you, I think it might be too late to do anything about it. This horse has left the barn. Millions of Americans have gotten their cancelation notices. Millions of more Americans have gone on the exchanges to find out that their plan is not going down $2,500 a year. It is going up an average of, Mr. Speaker, $5,000 a year for the average family--a 41 percent increase on an average premium this year of $12,000.

Andrea from Harford County writes:

I just thought you might like to add my family to the

statistics of the government's intervention in my perfectly

fine 20-year-old CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield insurance

plan. I'm self-insured and, hence, the first to be----

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say the word here because of decorum on the House floor.

When I am forced to accept the new, not-as-good, higher

deductible, limited doctor choices, I will be paying an

increase of 197.5 percent.

This is what Andrea writes me.

Mr. Speaker, Andrea is not getting a $2,500 a year cut in her family insurance plan. She is getting a 197.5 percent increase.

Yes, I will.

Thank you very much. Reclaiming the time, I will tell you about more.

I am more than happy to share these with the President. If he wants to call up Andrea and explain how a 197.5 percent increase fulfills his promise, more than happy to have him do it.

Andrea goes on to say:

I'm not feeling the love. I believe the Congress and the

President should have to live under the same laws, rules, and

regulations that they insist I do.

Andrea, I couldn't agree more. I don't know why the President carved out a special exception for Members of Congress and their staff that they actually can get their employer to subsidize their plan on the exchange when no other employer in the United States that employs 15,000 people--because, Mr. Speaker, that is what the Congress employs--get that kind of deal.

Andrea, you are absolutely right. I think they should live under the same rules.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, on September 29 we sent a bill over to the Senate that said no special deals for Congress. The Senate rejected it. The President said he would veto the bill. He wants to keep that special deal--not for Andrea, but for Members of Congress and their staff. He wants to keep that special deal.

Matthew in Queen Anne's County, tongue-in-cheek, writes:

I would appreciate if you could pass on my appreciation to

the President for the ObamaCare legislation. Thanks to the

new law, my employee-sponsored health plan has increased my

premiums by 100 percent for my family plan. So much for

looking out for the middle class.

Mr. Speaker, Matthew hit the nail on the head. The President promised if you like your plan, you can keep it, period. You can keep your doctor if you like him, and your family's plan is going to be $2,500 a year less.

Mr. Speaker, Matthew's plan is going up 100 percent. How in the world can someone in the middle class afford that? How in the world can we ask our hardworking middle class men and women, with families, to pay 100 percent more for their health care? We can't. We shouldn't.

It gets worse.

Linda from Cecil County writes:

I have a genetic disorder called Lynch syndrome that

predisposes me to a number of cancers.

Yes, Linda was born with a syndrome so that she is actually susceptible to getting cancers:

I have had cancer twice in the past 7 years, and was

fortunate enough to be covered by MHIF.

Remember, Mr. Speaker, that that is the plan we already had in Maryland, like over 30 other States, which covered their people who had preexisting conditions. She was fortunate enough to have been covered since she was first diagnosed:

This program was truly a godsend, and I can tell you how

grateful I was for it as I did not then, nor do I now, have

employer coverage. I was not eligible for Medicaid at the

time because my unemployment benefits disqualified me.

She received the cancelation of her policy effective December 31, and was advised that she should purchase insurance through the new exchange, but, Mr. Speaker, she says:

I began trying to obtain insurance as soon as the exchange

opened. Although I was able to establish an account and an

application, I was informed that I am not eligible for a tax

subsidy because I am eligible for Medicaid. While many people

might be happy to receive free Medicaid, it creates a

nightmare for me.

That is what Linda in Cecil County writes. The President's Affordable Care Act is creating a nightmare for her.

She goes on to say:

There are very few specialists in Cecil County--by the way,

that is a rural county in Maryland--so nearly all of my

doctors are in Delaware. Since they don't take Maryland

Medicaid, I can no longer receive treatment from them.

That is a real benefit that Linda got:

I will have to travel twice the distance to obtain all new

doctors if I am forced on to Medicaid.

Mr. Speaker, that is what the Affordable Care Act is doing to Linda. Thank God that there, but for the grace of God, go I that I don't have Lynch syndrome. She does. She worries every day about going to a doctor and being told she has cancer. What the President's Affordable Care Act told her is: You can't go to the doctors you are used to going to who have guided you through those cancers and who have saved your life. We are going to throw you into a whole new plan--Medicaid--and, oh, by the way, you can't go see your doctors anymore.

Mr. Speaker, that is heartless. That is just heartless.

She goes on to say:

MHIF saved my life, and I have had excellent coverage and

care for 7 years.

Mr. Speaker, Linda liked her plan, and she doesn't get to keep it. She doesn't get to keep her doctors. She gets to wake up every morning now, worrying about her cancer and whether she is going to find a doctor who can take care of her. She had those doctors. She doesn't have them now. She had doctors close by. Yes, she had to cross State lines, but her health insurance covered it. Her new health insurance doesn't cover it.

That is what this plan is doing. This plan affects each and every American in ways we are only beginning to understand.

As was famously said, you have got to pass this bill before you know what is in it. Mr. Speaker, we are finding out what is in it. America is finding out what is in it. Five million people found out this month what was in it. It is a cancelation notice for the plans they liked. These people had plans they liked. They weren't throw-away plans. They saved Linda from cancer twice. Every single American is going to be affected by this in ways we are just discovering, and America doesn't like it.

Mr. Speaker, very simply, America deserves better.