Hoyer Discusses Democrats' Make It In America Plan, Republican Attempts to Take Away Health Care Benefits

Statement

House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) discussed House Democrats' Make It In America jobs plan and the Republican vote to take away health care protections for millions of Americans on CNN, MSNBC and FOX.

On CNN's "The Starting Point"

"We're continuing to focus on what we call Make It In America. That is to say that we're going to make it in America - have success, get jobs, grow the economy, have a more successful economy - if we make more things in America. The President has set forth an agenda to double exports. The way you double exports is to make more things in America. So what we want to do is adopt policies that will focus on expanding our manufacturing sector of our economy. We also want to make it easier to keep jobs in America by giving tax credits, and make it less beneficial to ship jobs overseas. We want to make sure there's a level playing field, that our trading partners are trading fair, and not providing barriers to our exports that make their products cheaper in America and more expensive for us to excel there. So we are continuing to focus on growing jobs in America."

On MSNBC's "The Ed Show"

"This is the 31st or 32nd or 33rd time that they put a repeal bill on the floor. Everybody knows it`s not going to pass. They're wasting time. They're not addressing jobs. … [Republicans] want to take away, as you said, health care affordability and accountability and reliability.… They want to take it from millions and millions of Americans. From seniors, from young people, from kids with pre-existing conditions. They want to jerk that away from them and they have absolutely nothing on the table to replace it. They say repeal and replace, but they haven`t had any replacement."

"[The Affordable Care Act] was a good bill. It means very positive things for all Americans in my view, those that don't have insurance, but those who have insurance as well.… [The Congressional Budget Office] says we're going to save a trillion dollars in the second ten years of the bill's operation. We're going to have 30 million people who have availability of health care. We're going to have kids who won't have to worry about pre-existing conditions or people who transfer from one job to another. We're going to have seniors who will have that doughnut hole eliminated for them. We're going to have people have preventive care [and] they won't have to worry about cost."

"We're spending time on something that has no chance of passage, no chance of enactment, and will take things away from the American people, and ignoring the principle problem that is confronting the American people - job creation, a jobs bill."

On FOX News' "On The Record with Greta Van Susteren"

"This bill is going to prove to be of great benefit to millions and millions of Americans who have insurance and will have the assurance of access to quality health care. The fact that their children or themselves can't be precluded by pre-existing conditions, fixing the donut hole, making sure that their kids, if they can't get a job, can stay on their policy until they're 26 -- [Americans] like all these aspects. … This is the 31st vote we've had on repealing health care with absolutely not one alternative offered by the Republicans. The American people are going to see that for what it is. They don't have an alternative."

"We have a deficit and debt problem, and everybody understands that and it's a very serious issue for our country. And people understand that. And we're going to have to bring that deficit down."

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