OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

State Health Care Premium Reduction Act

Floor Speech

Date: June 29, 2020
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Health Insurance Health and Health Care

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Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1425.

I stand here somewhat surprised that there is celebration of the successes of the so-called Affordable Care Act. Many of my constituents are offended by the mere name of the bill, the Affordable Care Act, because they don't find it affordable. They found it quite unaffordable.

I would argue that is why we are here today, with a fairly clever scheme of taking money from here and putting it there, which likely will still drive up the cost of healthcare. It is just a few different people paying for it.

Madam Speaker, if we want true healthcare reform, we should do that, but we haven't done that. Let's look for the bipartisan opportunities on drug costs, as mentioned earlier. Those had been advancing, but those were all pushed aside for H.R. 3.

H.R. 3 passed the House knowing that it wasn't going to go anywhere. I would argue that some people probably even voted ``yes'' on H.R. 3 because they knew the Senate would not take it up and because they also know that it has major problems.

But here we are today, again, with this scheme that I think will fail the American people, just like so much of the so-called Affordable Care Act has failed the American people in its mere cost, not to mention other things.

Yes, I remember those comments of, ``If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.'' We know that didn't happen. So many other promises were made that were not kept.

And the American people want us to work together, especially now. Probably more than in the history of our country, the people want us to work together on bipartisan solutions.

Madam Speaker, we need to do that. We can do that. There is even evidence that there is productive work already done in a bipartisan fashion.

So let's not do this bill, H.R. 1425, today. Let's go about it in a bipartisan way where we know the American people will benefit more and our system can support that.

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