GOP Doctors Caucus
Floor Speech
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Mr. HARRIS. 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.
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