Today the Committee is holding a hearing entitled, “The Status of the Affordable Care Act’s Implementation," under the pretense that House Republicans are interested in the implementation of the landmark law.
The truth is just the opposite, as evidenced by what House Republicans plan to do in just 24 hours, when they will push a bill through the House that would prohibit any funding for the IRS to implement the Affordable Care Act.
House Republicans have made plain over the last three years that their sole interest is to disrupt the law’s implementation.
Tomorrow’s vote will be their last action before adjourning for a five-week recess - a fitting sign off for a Conference whose singular obsession with the health law’s repeal over the last three years has come at the expense of so many other issues that are critically important to American families and the overall economy. By the time they leave here Friday for summer recess, Republicans will have voted no fewer than 40 times to repeal Obamacare.
The Republican mission is clear: Don’t implement, destroy.
How else can Republicans explain why they have occupied so much time and wasted countless taxpayer dollars on 40 repeal votes that stand no chance of being enacted while refusing to go to conference to enact a budget into law?
How else can they explain why they have leaned on outside organizations, including the National Football League, to discourage them from helping to educate Americans about current law health insurance opportunities and assistance that will be available through the marketplaces?
And how else can they explain why they have worked so hard to discourage states from expanding their Medicaid programs - even when fully federally funded - which will prevent millions of the most vulnerable Americans from gaining access to health coverage?
At every turn, Republicans have chosen the path of disruption. And as is so vividly on display this week, at every turn, Republicans have sought to deny the Obama administration funding needed to implement the Affordable Care Act.
If Republicans were really interested in the implementation of Obamacare, they might know that in the 13 states that have already published preliminary premiums for marketplace coverage, Americans will be able to purchase insurance at a price that is on average 20 percent below what the Congressional Budget Office estimated. In New York, insurance rates in the marketplace are set to be half the price of what is currently available. And that is without taking the tax credits into account, which will further lower the effective premium for many families.
If Republicans were truly interested in the Affordable Care Act’s implementation, they would inform their constituents that a simple three-page application awaits single Americans purchasing insurance on the exchange. And that neither the Internal Revenue Service nor the Department of Health and Human Services will have access to medical records or other personal health history. Instead, we see scare tactics and other misguided efforts to convince constituents that applying for health coverage will be time-consuming and cumbersome.
But we have long known that Republicans have no interest in ensuring that Americans understand what even Speaker Boehner himself has acknowledged is “The law of the land." Their only interest is to misinform, misconstrue and mislead the American public about the Affordable Care Act.
Even conservative Republican Senator Ted Cruz chastised the Republican effort in the House this week. He said: “There are a lot of politicians in Washington who love empty symbolic votes. The House has voted what 39, 40, 41 times I can’t keep track to repeal ObamaCare. Those votes were by and large empty symbolic votes that had zero chance of passing."
Thank you for joining us today Mr. Werfel and Mr. Cohen. I want to thank you for the hard work your organizations are doing to offer consumers a rational and easy enrollment process beginning Oct. 1.
I ask unanimous consent that the following article from the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein be inserted in the Record.
