Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for FiscalYear 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chair, I thank the chairwoman for yielding the time.

It is a pleasure to continue our work together on this very important issue.

It has taken us 6 years to get to today, the first real step in repealing what is one of the most insidious laws that ever came out of these Chambers--insidious because it was built on lies. Remember ``You can keep your doctor if you want to,'' ``You can keep your plan if you want to''? Lies. Remember when premiums were to go down because this, of course, Mr. Chairman, was the Affordable Care Act? Lies.

The gentleman from Kentucky made some assertions just a while ago. I want to take a look at the State of Kentucky itself. Four plans left the ObamaCare exchange at the end of 2016 in the State of Kentucky. Of the remaining plans, each increased their premiums by double digits: 22.9 percent, 29.3 percent, and 33.7 percent, respectively, for 2017. And Kentucky's exchange enrollment decreased by 12 percent.

How, Mr. Chairman, is this helping people? Look, if we didn't care about people, we could stand by and watch this failed plan, this insidious law continue to implode,continue to hurt people. Instead, we stand here ready to erase the foundation that this law was based on and put forth a better one, one that doesn't leave anyone behind, one that is based on market-driven, consumer-driven, patient-driven needs and expectations and allows them to, for example, keep their job.

What do I mean by that, Mr. Chairman? Consider this. Not only do we have bad healthcare outcomes as a result of this insidious law, people are losing work. They are being robbed of their dignity to work. Since ObamaCare, 21 percent of businesses are reducing the number of employees, their wages and salaries and their benefits, including their retirement benefits.

So this insidious law is not only having detrimental implications on our health care and people's health, but it is taking away the very dignity that they have to work.

It is also spelling the death of health savings accounts, proven over the last several years to be part of the solution toconsumer-driven health care. The idea that you can save for your healthcare expenses, with or without the government's help, so that you can make value decisions as to your health care without government interference. It leads to better patient outcomes.It leads to freedom to make healthcare decisions absent the oversight of the government. ObamaCare all but outlawed health savings accounts. I think health savings accounts are probably in every one of those different plans the chairwoman pointed out.
So we are offering a replacement. We are offering solutions. We are offering a better way.

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