Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. CANTOR. I thank the chairman, the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Keep Your Health Plan Act.

Many Americans today are worried. They are worried about their jobs, worried about saving for their children's college educations or worried about saving for their retirements, and now, Mr. Speaker, millions of Americans are worried about coming home and opening their mailboxes to find out that their health care coverage has been taken from them because of the President's health care law.

The President repeatedly said that if you liked your health care plan, you could keep it. We knew this was a promise he could not keep, and now it is a promise he has broken. As a result, millions of Americans across the country are receiving cancelation letters just like this one.

Mr. Speaker, this letter was sent to me by a constituent of mine. His name is Bruno Gora. He is from Richmond, Virginia. Bruno is self-employed, and he purchases his health care plan through Anthem BlueCross/Blue Shield. A few weeks ago, he was shocked to receive this letter because this letter clearly reads: ``To meet the requirements of the new law, your current plan can no longer be offered.'' Purchasing a new plan could potentially cost Mr. Gora thousands of dollars.

Why should he or anyone else be forced off their plan if they want to keep it?

Working families across America were counting on the President to keep his promise. Now they are counting on us to ease some of the pain that his health care law has brought on them.

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he was going to be making some unilateral changes, but the changes he proposed and the ones we are proposing in the House have some very clear differences.

The President's plan restricts coverage previously available to only those who already had it while forcing others to purchase a plan from healthcare.gov or to buy more expensive coverage that may not fit their needs. The White House doesn't even know how they are going to implement the plan they announced yesterday.

This proposal that we are talking about here, Chairman Upton's plan, aims to help Americans keep their health insurance and give their neighbors a chance to buy the same plans rather than forcing them onto a faulty Web site to buy new coverage they may not like or cannot afford. Under this legislation, there is no confusion. The Keep Your Health Plan Act removes the impediment in the law that restricts insurance plans from being offered.

The only way to completely stop any more cancelation letters like the one Mr. Gora received is through a full repeal of ObamaCare. Today, however, we have an opportunity to stand united and pass a bipartisan measure that aims to slow the growing number of Americans harmed by this law.

I would like to thank Chairman Upton for his hard work and dedication to the issue, and I urge all of my colleagues in the House to support this bill.

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