Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEVIN. Well, here they go again. But this time, it is the 50th time that House Republicans have brought up legislation to repeal or to undermine the Affordable Care Act. But this 50th time is no golden anniversary. It is a House Republican goose egg for millions of Americans. Just look at this--fifty votes, but zero votes to raise the minimum wage, zero votes to renew unemployment insurance, zero votes to guarantee paycheck fairness, and zero votes to pass immigration reform.

So let's spend a minute looking exactly at what would be the impact of this if it became law. In 2014, we would see an additional 1 million uninsured--1 million. In 2015, 2 million more people would be uninsured than if the individual mandate stayed in effect, and in 2016, another million people.

The irony of this, and I think my colleagues on the Democratic side will speak to this, the irony is the individual mandate was a Republican idea. It was born out of the conservative Heritage Foundation in the eighties. And throughout the nineties, Republicans argued its merits. It was one of the foundations of the Massachusetts law. Its parent, at least in good measure, was Governor Mitt Romney.

I met an hour or so ago with representatives of a major insurance carrier in Massachusetts, and one explained how it is working--97, 98 percent of the people are covered. That law has sparked an improvement in the delivery of health care and in the restructuring of health care delivery systems. So here we are, instead of constructive action, essentially, we have a Republican demolition squad.

Can any law be made perfect? Yes, including this. But that isn't what the Republicans are after today. They have never come up with their own plan. Indeed, they are a wrecking crew. America deserves much better.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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