Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the train wreck of the President's health care plan continues. The President promised that ``if you like your plan, you can keep it,'' period. But millions of Americans are getting cancelation letters this month.

Mia from Taneytown in Carroll County wrote my office saying:

I recently became aware that my insurance will terminate

the plan I currently participate in. I was told to find

another insurance plan that fits my budget and needs. The

problem is none of the insurance carriers can compare to the

quality and cost of my current insurance. However, I am being

told that I am being forced by law to pick a new plan, or

else I will be penalized by the U.S. Government. I have never

been more disgusted with my government than I am now. My

husband and I work very hard for the money we have. We have a

daughter who is 8 months old, but my premium costs to cover

myself and her will almost triple. How is this affordable? It

is hard enough to pay a mortgage, gas, and day-to-day living.

Mr. Speaker, the President misled the American people. Mia lost her plan, and her insurance costs tripled. Americans deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, another day goes by, and the ObamaCare train wreck continues.

In 2009, President Obama promised, If you like your health care plan, you can keep it. It still promises that on the White House Web site and on the healthcare.gov Web site if and when you can get on that Web site.

Mr. Speaker, when are these false promises going to end? What do I say

to Gail in Maryland who wrote me this?

I have been informed by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of

Maryland that I cannot keep my current coverage and will have

to choose a new policy. . . . I have to change my coverage

and pay 53 percent more in premiums for coverage that is not

as good. My husband and I . . . will now have to pay at least

$330 more per month for less coverage.

Gail and her family will lose the plan they like and will have to pay almost $4,000 more per year for a plan that delivers less.

Mr. Speaker, American families deserve better than false promises.

Mr. Speaker, the White House Web site claims:

If you like your plan, you can keep it, and you don't have

to change a thing due to the health care law.

Well, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Maryland said that 76,000 customers in Maryland will lose their current plans because of ObamaCare; in New Jersey, 800,000; in Florida, 300,000; and in California, at least 119,000 will see their policies terminated. It is happening everywhere.

Dana from Denton called my office to tell me she will not be able to keep her Blue Cross & Blue Shield plan because of ObamaCare. The new plan she is required to get will increase her premiums by $350 a month.

Alex from Manchester told me his letter from Blue Cross & Blue Shield said:

The ACA requires you to pick a new plan to maintain

coverage because your current plan will cease to exist at the

time of your renewal.

Alex's family will have to pay $300 more per month for the new plan.

Mr. Speaker, the President made a promise to the American people that they would be able to keep their plans. We now know that this is just not true.

Mr. Speaker, the train wreck of ObamaCare continues.

In 2007, before he was elected President, the President said that family policy prices would go down $2,500 per family. That was the promise. In 2009, the President promised that, if you liked your policy, you would get to keep it.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know what the President is going to say to Charles from northern Baltimore Country, who wrote me yesterday and said:

I just received my cancellation letter from Blue Cross

regarding my family's insurance policy. My $697-a-month

Health Savings Account qualifiable policy is no longer

compliant. To have a similar product in an ObamaCare-

compliant plan, my premium will increase nearly 40 percent

and will have a $7,000 deductible. Yikes. So much for, ``if

you like your policy, you will get to keep it.''

Charles and his family are not getting a $2,500 cut in their premium. They are getting a $3,300 increase in their premium. Their deductible is going up to $7,000 a year. Mr. Speaker, they like their plan, but they don't get to keep it.

The train wreck continues.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to be removed as a cosponsor of H.J. Res. 62.

Mr. Speaker, the President's health care plan is broken. Let me read from some of the letters and communications my office is getting from around my district.

Mike and Pat in Queen Anne's County write:

Mr. Harris, my daughter's health care premium just rose

$648 a year thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Don't you or

other Republicans give up the fight.

Cindy from Talbot County writes:

I have just discovered that I can't keep the medical

insurance I have had for many years as it no longer exists

thanks to ObamaCare. Even though I am 58 years old, I must

pay for maternity benefits and pediatric dentistry when I

have no child under 19. I get an increased deductible and a

premium increase of $143 a month. What a mess that needs to

be fixed and in a hurry.

Finally, Lorraine from Queen Anne's County writes that, in tears, she called our office. She was told by her insurer that her premium was just increased $256 a month. Her total payment that she and her husband now are going to pay is $956 a month, and her insurer told her that it went up because of ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, the President's health care plan is broken.

Mr. Speaker, America simply has a spending problem. That much is clear. Our national debt stands at nearly $17 trillion; $17 trillion. Let that number sink in for a moment.

Is it that kind of legacy that we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren?

This year alone our national deficit is projected to be around $700 billion, and that is despite the President's $600 billion tax increase this year. In fact, the government is going to collect more revenue this year than it has ever taken in before. How much sense does that make?

What is being done to address the real driver of our debt--runaway Washington spending? House Republicans want commonsense spending cuts and reforms. We want everyone treated fairly under ObamaCare, no special treatment, especially for big corporations or for Members of Congress. We want a secure economic future for all Americans. It is time to act. It is time for real solutions.

Mr. Speaker, I've been wondering exactly why on Tuesday morning the Senate and the President let the government shut down, started barricading monuments from our World War II veterans, and stopped the treatment of children of cancer at the NIH, all because they rejected our offer to fund the government and end the special congressional exemption under ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, late yesterday afternoon, I got the answer. We all got an email about the President's decision on how this exemption is going to work.

Mr. Speaker, we all have to go and get the gold policy. Yes, Mr. Speaker. Not the bronze, not the silver, but the gold policy from the exchange. That's the only one we can get. You see, bronze and silver is only good enough for everyone else in the country. For Members of Congress and Members of the Senate and their staff, it's gold or nothing. That's why this fight has been for a clean CR. No one wants to remove that exemption.

Mr. Speaker, remove the exemption for Congress and their staff.

Mr. Speaker, when the President and Senate shut down the government yesterday, I don't think they realized what was going to happen at the NIH with pediatric cancer patients.

I want to thank the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee for bringing it to the attention of the House yesterday in her comments, because we get to solve the problem today.

You see, Mr. Speaker, during a temporary lapse in funding, the Department of Justice guidance for continuing government operations includes activities that protect ``the safety of human lives.'' So although over 40 percent of the Office of the Secretary were exempt in this furlough, strangely enough, some lawyer in the executive branch decided that pediatric cancer patients seeking to enroll in research at NIH don't merit those services necessary to protect ``the safety of human life.''

Now, look, I hope everybody here disagrees with that interpretation. Having taken care of many pediatric cancer patients in my medical career and being a parent, I know that pediatric cancer deals with the safety of human life.

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, to their credit, the Indian Health Service stayed opened. So if you have a common cold, you get treated, but if you have pediatric cancer, you don't. The lab animals at NIH are being taken care of, but if you have pediatric cancer, you aren't. I would hope we could agree that they should be. This bill solves the problem. This bill protects children seeking to enroll in cancer programs at the NIH.

The President and the Senate have already accepted a step-by-step approach when they accepted legislation over the weekend to fund our men and women in uniform during this lapse in funding. That bill was signed into law with bipartisan support. And this bill should be signed into law with bipartisan support so that we can help those cancer patients, especially those 30 children or so a week.

Now, look, I admit because of what the Senate majority leader said today that we may have a tough hill to climb with this bill in the Senate, but the House has to do what is right, even if for only one child with cancer whose life rests with the NIH.

Mr. Speaker, tonight, all we did is we asked the Senate to negotiate with the House.

Mr. Speaker, interestingly enough, the Majority Leader in the Senate

doesn't even want to talk to the House about as fundamental an issue as funding the government starting an hour and 20 minutes ago, and whether or not there should be no special treatment for anyone under the Affordable Care Act--no special treatment for big corporations at the expense of the average American, and no special treatment for Members of Congress and their staff and the President and the Cabinet and their staff.

Mr. Speaker, the Majority Leader should negotiate on those, and I hope he changes his mind tomorrow morning.

Mr. Speaker, the food stamp bill today is a chance to reform the food stamp program, to decrease the waste, fraud, and abuse, and make sure people who need help get it.

This week, 10 Baltimore businesses were indicted for stealing $7 million in food stamps. That's a travesty. One store, like the one pictured right here, defrauded the American taxpayer for $2 million. In fact, the Department of Agriculture found that over 10 percent of stores participating in the program are committing food stamp fraud.

This bill reforms food stamps by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse by just 5 percent, cutting back on fraud like the ``Second Obama Express'' store, and by making sure able-bodied adults are working, seeking work, or getting job training.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans aren't trying to take food out of babies' mouths or make our seniors go hungry. Don't believe the scare tactics from my colleagues who oppose the bill. This is a commonsense reform that cuts waste, fraud, and abuse, leaving more money for the Americans who truly need help in time of need.

Mr. Speaker, the bad news on ObamaCare just keeps rolling in. As if it's not bad enough that the IRS will be helping run ObamaCare, Maryland announced last Friday that health insurance premiums will go up 25 percent next year under ObamaCare.

Whatever happened to the President's promise that premiums would go down, not up? Just another empty promise?

Maryland's middle class families, already struggling to pay their health insurance premiums, will see their policies cost over $1,000 more next year under ObamaCare. Many will just drop their insurance, and that will just increase the long lines we already see in our crowded emergency rooms.

Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare is a disaster. We should repeal it before it does more damage to our hardworking middle class taxpayers and before it destroys even more jobs.

Madam Speaker, the President said today that it is time for the House to lay out our ideas to give the middle class a better shot. He said it is time to move past stale debates.

Madam Speaker, the only reason these debates are stale is because the House bills that have been passed to create jobs in America are stalled in the Senate and by the President.

This isn't difficult. We need to cut burdensome regulations that stop job creation. The President needs to agree to build the Keystone pipeline. The President needs to agree to explore for American energy to lower the price of gas and diesel. The President needs to agree to permanently delay all of ObamaCare. America deserves an economic recovery.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the doctor is absolutely right. That employer mandate will increase the costs for employers, which means we're going to get less job creation and less job growth in an economy that can't do with any less job creation. In fact, as the doctor probably knows, since January, virtually all of the jobs created in this country because of this mandate have been part-time jobs. We are rapidly converting to a part-time economy. That's not what Americans expect--that's not what Americans deserve--and that problem won't be solved until that mandate goes away, not just delayed but goes away.

The doctor talked about the costs per employee when the employee pays. What the doctor hadn't mentioned is the cost if you go on the individual market, because that's the other market created under the President's Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. You've also heard much in the past week because the President has gone around, pointing to New York and saying, Do you see, premiums are going to go down 50 percent-- the wonders of ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, the truth is that the President can only talk about New York because, in virtually every other State, there will be huge increases. So we have to examine why the decrease in New York is 50 percent. It's because they start with such a high premium that, even at half the cost, they're still multiples of the premiums of those in the other States.

For instance, let's take a look at what the average premium in New York right now is for a healthy 30-year-old nonsmoker who is buying a policy, because the President and the Secretary of HHS and everyone who has screened this plan has said, unless you get healthy young people to buy insurance, the whole plan falls apart. So let's look at what it will cost for that 30-year-old nonsmoking male--the people who are among the highest of the uninsured, the highest in number. This is the average plan. The median-priced plan in New York is $5,750 a year, or about $500 a month right now.

Now, that median-priced plan in the President's home State of Illinois is $1,450, or about $1,300 a month--about one-fourth the price of the New York policies, because New York has ObamaCare-type regulations in place. That's why their costs are so high right now. In fact, ObamaCare is not quite as regulated as is the New York market, so the prices can come down a little bit, but do you know, if it comes down from $500 to $250, it's still twice the cost of that policy in Illinois right now.

Maybe we should look at the Vice President's State of Delaware where the average 30-year-old male's policy price is about $1,380, or let's round to $1,200 a month. That's about one-fourth the price of the current policy in New York, and even with those tremendous ObamaCare savings, it will be half the price of the policy in New York, the ObamaCare policy.

Let's look at what has happened in some other States other than New York. I'll talk about my home State of Maryland, which is the largest nonprofit insurer. Yes, Mr. Speaker. I said the ``nonprofit'' insurer, because you can't blame profit as the reason for a high cost. The largest nonprofit insurer said that the average price increase is 25 percent; and for a young healthy person, exactly the ones who have to be signed up for the ObamaCare scheme to work, it's as high as a 150 percent increase.

Mr. Speaker, if we can't get healthy young people to buy insurance now, how in the world are we going to convince them to buy insurance in Maryland when it costs almost twice as much?

We can run all the taxpayer-financed ads, because that's what it's going to be. All of the people watching who have televisions will see what happens this fall as we spend millions and millions of taxpayer dollars to try to convince healthy young people to buy a plan that's way too overpriced.

Let's look at California. Maybe the big States are different. New York is expensive. Maybe California is different. In California, the average cost of that plan for a healthy young person is $2,200, or about $200 a month. Why, it's less than half of the cost in New York. Sure enough, in figures released last month in California, the costs of the ObamaCare individual plan will increase by 64 to 146 percent. So that $200-a-month premium is now going to be $400 a month.

Mr. Speaker, young people who are entering the job market are entering at relatively low levels of pay. Where in the world are they going to find $400 to pay for an overpriced plan that they've seen advertised on their local NBA game--and, of course, with the ads paid for with taxpayer dollars?

This is why this house of cards will collapse. We are in for a rough time this fall. People in America who depend on their health care insurance are in for a really rough time. The costs are going to go up, and the confusion will be immense. Mr. Speaker, Americans deserve better, so that's why we have called on the President. Forget the 1- year delay of the mandate on employers only. We need a permanent delay on the entire plan, and the time for it is now. The President today made a big deal on his pivot to jobs.

Mr. President, I would suggest stopping the $100 million trips to Africa and go talk to some of our small business employers and ask them what are their concerns. How will they create jobs? This is what they would tell the President, Mr. Speaker. They would tell the President to get rid of that ObamaCare. That's a weight hanging over my business's head that I can't afford, that I can't predict, and that is stopping me from hiring people; and for the people I have now, it's making me shift them to part-time jobs.

So we've come full circle, Mr. Speaker. If what we want is a part- time economy, let's barrel ahead with ObamaCare. America deserves much better than part-time jobs. We deserve to create full-time, good paying jobs by the small businesses and large businesses in this country that are just waiting to show economic growth. We

have got to remove this lead weight from around their neck.

I thank the doctor from Georgia for yielding the time.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this because we come to Washington to make tough decisions. That's what the country expects of us.

Mr. Speaker, I will offer the fact that one of the most difficult decisions we have to come to grips with is when do we begin to protect human life. The gentleman from Arizona was absolutely right. We have to answer the question: Does abortion take the life of a human child? If we all agree that it does, then we have to ask ourselves and come to an agreement on at what point do we begin to protect that life; at what point are we as a Nation going to say that human life is worthy of protection.

Now, as a physician, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you I am always puzzled by the question because, scientifically, everyone who has taken a genetics course knows that, from the moment of conception, it is a unique human life. The one-cell embryo is a unique human life, different from every other one in the world--ever. Every cell in each and every one of our bodies has the exact DNA that we had when we were one cell big. The only difference is the number of cells we had. One would argue, certainly, as the illustration here shows, that this is not a one-celled fetus, or baby--it's a human being that given time will grow, that will grow to be your size or my size. I'm 6-foot-4. I'm a little bigger than normal. Some people are shorter than average, but we're all human beings, so size doesn't make the difference.

Again, from a scientific point of view, to me, it's clear: it is a human life from conception and should be protected. Yet, Mr. Speaker, I understand the country doesn't agree. Some people don't agree it should be protected. So the question is: At what point do you protect it?

A lot of people would say at this point it probably is worth protecting that human life. Certainly, the jury in Pennsylvania said that you couldn't kill that baby right after it was born. Strangely enough, Federal law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, says that it can be legal to kill that child 5 minutes before that birth. I think most Americans find that repulsive--that with a baby at almost 9- months' gestation, in many States, it is legal to kill that child 5 minutes before birth, but in Pennsylvania it resulted in three murder sentences because it was 5 minutes after birth.

So what this bill says is let's come together, and let's agree on a time when human life is going to be protected. It's not going to be a perfect agreement. It's going to be arbitrary because, again, that human life started when it was one cell large. At conception, that human life started. We all agree that, Mr. Speaker, you and I are human life and worthy of protection, so the only question is: Where do we draw the line?

Again, the gentleman from Arizona suggested correctly that we need to draw that line. This bill attempts to draw the line. The Supreme Court attempted to draw a very clumsy drawing of the line in the Roe v. Wade decision because it said it is viability, but the problem is that viability, over the 30-plus years I've practiced medicine, has changed. It's a moving target.

Viability then was 25 weeks. Now it's 23\1/4\. It's a moving line. And what does viability mean? Viability means it can survive without the support of that mother.

That's a little arbitrary, Mr. Speaker. If that mother had an elderly mother or grandmother at home, perhaps disabled with Alzheimer's disease, totally dependent on that mother--now, it's not their mother, but it's the mother of a child, a fetus. That grownup could be totally dependent on that

other human being, that other human adult; and yet that human adult doesn't have the option of saying, Well, since that individual is dependent upon me, I can make a life-and-death decision for that individual. No, that would be wrong. We'd all say that's wrong. So we're going to have to draw the line somewhere.

This bill says, Let's do it when we believe that baby begins to feel pain, that, in fact, a D&E procedure will be exceedingly painful. Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what happens in a D&E procedure. The fetus, the baby is literally torn apart. Literally. This is what happens with it.

So we're all going to have to agree that, first of all, this is certainly not pleasant to look at. The medical illustrations when I was studying, of course, which was around the time of Roe v. Wade, didn't have this kind of illustration; but abortion policy in this country in the past 30 years forces us to actually illustrate what it looks like. This is it.

So this bill says--again, in the context of the Gosnell trial showing all America that--and I think almost all America agrees that what happened in Pennsylvania, knowingly killing by snipping the spinal cord of an alive, awake baby right after an abortion procedure that resulted in a live birth is, in fact, murder. It's the taking of a human life subject to punishment.

But most people would say, How are we going to protect this child? I offer that this is a compromise that maybe we all can work around and say that if that child during that procedure feels pain, then it probably should be protected under our law.

The question again is not clear cut. There will be some disagreement among people when that pain can be felt. There's a lot of indication scientifically and chemically and with neurodevelopment that that child feels pain at 20 weeks. It's certainly a little more subject to discussion whether it's earlier.

I will tell you later shouldn't be subject to discussion because, Mr. Speaker, you know that if you do a procedure on a premature infant born and brought to the neonatal intensive care unit, you actually administer pain relievers when you do the procedure. So the medical community has already decided that by 23 weeks it already feels pain; and believe me, Mr. Speaker, it didn't magically occur with birth, the ability to feel pain.

Again, we can know by the development of the nervous system, by things we can see and measure. We believe that at 20 weeks that fetus, that baby, can feel pain and therefore deserves protection.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that's a compromise we all ought to be able to work with. Again, it is a compromise because, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that human life does begin at conception. The discussion here is not going to be when human life begins. It's when should this body, this Congress, this government protect the most innocent of human life.

I'm going to agree that I think it's very reasonable to say when this fetus, this baby, can feel the pain of that procedure, it ought to be protected in some ways. Is it the perfect way? Maybe not. But we ought to begin that discussion because right now, Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law allows a State to allow an abortion that kills a baby right up to the moment of birth, and that's just not right. We need to set some line in law.

Again, I'll agree with the gentleman from Arizona that it may not be a perfect line, but we all have to agree we need to draw it to begin thinking about it; and I would suggest this is a reasonable one. When are we no longer going to subject that baby to the pain of a procedure and begin to protect that baby's life?

I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey again. He's brought the issue before this body. If we believe that this is just some abstract thought about when we protect human life, as I've spoken about on the floor and the gentleman from New Jersey has--Mr. Speaker, I suggest if you want some very interesting reading tonight, go home and Google the Journal of Medical Ethics and look for the article published last November where academics from Australia and Italy wrote an article suggesting that it should be all right to kill a human baby up to some certain amount of time after birth if that human baby is inconvenient to the mother and the family to which it belongs.

I would offer, Mr. Speaker, I hope that never happens in this country, that that suggestion never takes root here. I think we would find that horrendous. But it does bring up the question that if we find it so horrendous 1 minute after birth, shouldn't it be horrendous 1 minute before birth? And if it's 1 minute before birth, how about 1 week? How about 1 month? How about 2 months? We can go all the way back. Should it be when the heartbeat appears at 7 weeks? At 7 weeks' gestation, the heartbeat appears. Even earlier. Should it be when the baby moves, when quickening is felt? That's the medical term: quickening.

This bill sets a reasonable point of discussion. Let's do it when we think a baby would feel the pain of that abortion.

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