The People's Night: Obamacare
Floor Speech
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I thank Chairman Walker for organizing the time tonight, and I congratulate the gentleman on leading this organization. I look forward to working with him.
Mr. Speaker, we could all stand up here and take the barbs that have been leveled by some as to how we don't care about people or how we are this or that or how we are just focused on the numbers. Nothing could be further from the truth. We could sit idly by and watch this terrible, insidious law continue to implode, to continue to hurt more and more Americans--insidious because it is built on lies, like you can keep your doctor if you want to, like you can keep your health plan if you want to--not true in any case. Instead, we are here tonight, talking with the American people about ``what could be'' when we first get rid of this terrible law--something that many of us have voted on 60 times or more to do. We now have a real opportunity with not only a Republican House, but a Republican Senate, and with a President who is willing to work with us.
The verdict is in. In Indiana alone and in my district, I have met person after person who has horror stories about the failure of ObamaCare.
I spoke with Anna, whose husband, Jack, survived stage IV cancer.
With Jack's cancer only having a 30 percent survival rate,it is crucial that he has effective doctors who know how to treat and how to work the problem. Instead, Anna's doctor quit practicing medicine--well before his planned retirement age--due to the burdensome costs of ObamaCare, which is something that the gentleman from Georgia also mentioned.
It is not just doctors who are unable to perform their duties--their profession--under this insidious law, but also insurance companies that are withdrawing from the market as we speak. Last year alone, we saw Indiana's exchange lose 50 percent of its health insurance carriers due to regulations of ObamaCare. This included IU Health, which covered almost 30,000 Hoosiers. This lack of options means that healthy Hoosiers are being forced to pay for coverage that they don't want, that they don't need, and that, in fact, may do more harm than good.
I spoke with Mark from Tippecanoe County, in my district, who talked about the harmful impact of ObamaCare. He stated thathe was forced to buy insurance with only four doctors listed as providers for the entire county. What good does this insurancedo Mark or the rest of us if he can't even use it and schedule an appointment?
I am very proud to have worked on this Republican Study Committee with the Health Care Task Force, led by my good friend,Dr. Phil Roe of Tennessee. Over a period of a year or so, we have put together a plan that is a very real, patient-centered, consumer- focused, free market-driven replacement for ObamaCare, but with one big difference--our plan would work because it harnesses the value that we all have innately as Americans and, really, as humans, which is the ability to value price once we have the information.
If I left this Chamber and, God forbid, I broke my leg on my way down the steps, I wouldn't worry too much about where I was going--just to the nearest emergency room. But that is not most of our healthcare transactions; that is not most of our healthcare decisions. Most of our healthcare decisions can be made by attaching value to the services and products that we want.We do it in every other part of our consumer- driven life. Why can't we finally do it with health care? That is what people like Dr. Phil Roe have practiced in medicine their entire lives.
That is what he has taught me. That is what we know as American consumers. Why can't we be trusted to do that with our health care?
Whether the intent is malicious, whether the intent is malign, the intent of the people who support ObamaCare--that insidious law--is wrong. It says: just give your life over to these few people, and let them run it for a while, and everything will be fine. Unfortunately, throughout not only American history, every time it has been tried here and every time it has been tried in world history, it has failed.
Control over the individual has failed, and it will do the same, as we are seeing every day now,with regard to our health care.
Let's repeal this insidious law, and let's get back on the track of replacing it with something that we all can trust,beginning with ourselves.
I thank the chairman for his leadership.
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