Mr. Chairman, we're meeting here today to discuss the shared responsibility requirements of the Affordable Care Act. These two provisions of the law mandate that large businesses and individuals all do their part to improve the health security of the American people.
If this hearing were an honest discussion, my Republican colleagues would tell you how the individual mandate has balanced risk pools and reduced adverse selection in the health insurance market.
Or they would tell you how the employer mandate has forced big corporations to pull their weight and cover every employee who puts in a full work week.
Or they might mention how both requirements have taken this country closer than ever to universal coverage.
But my Republican colleagues aren't going to talk about these things today. And there's a reason for that -- because this hearing isn’t about the individual mandate or the employer mandate.
What this hearing is really about is scoring political points at the expense of the Affordable Care Act. It’s about continuing a tired, baseless line of attack that will generate no ideas about how to make the law better.
We've been through this before. The House has staged 56 votes to repeal or undermine the law. The Ways and Means Committee has held no less than a dozen hearings to attack the shared responsibility requirements.
In fact, in January of 2011, the Subcommittee on Health held a similar hearing -- and my Republican colleagues invited the exact same two witnesses. Welcome back, Mr. Holtz-Eakin and Mr. Womack.
Unfortunately, not one of these hearings has generated a productive discussion of what could be done to improve the law. Not one has led to a meaningful proposal that would ensure greater health security for the American people. And not one has resulted in an alternative plan if my Republican colleagues succeeded in dismantling the law.
Years of attacks through hearings, lawsuits, press conferences, television ads, op-eds, speeches, and repeal votes -- but still no plan to replace the law.
While my Republican colleagues have focused on destroying health reform, we have focused on making it work. And over the past five years, the law has been an indisputable success.
Middle class families now enjoy greater health security than ever before. More than 16 million Americans have gained coverage thanks to the law. The uninsured rate is at its lowest level in history. And 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions can no longer be discriminated against by insurance companies.
The economy is looking better and better. Since the law was enacted, over 12 million jobs have been added to the economy. Health care spending has grown at the lowest rate in five decades -- shrinking as a share of GDP for the first time since the 1990s.
But we all know there is more work to be done. No legislation is perfect when it is first passed, and it is the duty of the Congress to refine and improve the law as it’s implemented.
Our success in finding a permanent solution to the SGR should be a reminder that it is possible to solve problems and to pass legislation through regular order.
I encourage my Republican colleagues to move beyond cynical attacks and to join me in working to make the law better. That’s what the American people expect and deserve from their Congress.
