Gerlach Calls for Common Sense Health-Care Reforms
U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (PA-6th District) delivered the following remarks on the House floor Wednesday in support of legislation (H.R. 2) that would repeal the $2.4 trillion health care law enacted last year and allow lawmakers to begin working on common sense reforms:
"It has been almost one year since many of us here in the House offered a sobering prognosis about the devastating side effects the massive $2.4 trillion health care plan would have on our small businesses, our seniors and our families.
Last year, many warned that concocting a scheme centered on expensive government mandates, $500 billion in new taxes and bigger bureaucracy would weaken our economy and is simply the wrong prescription for bringing about meaningful changes to a health-care system that truly needs a strong dose of reform.
Well, that prognosis has turned out to be painfully accurate.
Small business owners are furious about ever-increasing insurance premiums that continue to this day, and the 1099 mandate, which requires them to send a slip of paper to the IRS for every business transaction of $600 or more.
A new 2.3 percent tax on the innovators and entrepreneurs in our thriving medical device industry is also choking off investment and hurting job growth and that is jeopardizing approximately 20,000 jobs in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania alone.
And all of the enactment's tax hikes and mandates could put an estimated 700,000 Americans out of work at a time when unemployment hovers at 10 percent.
Let there be no mistake -- reform is needed -- but not big government, high-tax solutions.
No, we need common sense ideas - ideas that would lower costs by creating more competition among insurance companies, allowing greater freedom of choice for consumers to buy insurance across state lines and eliminating lawsuit abuses that drive up costs by as much as $150 billion per year.
We have an opportunity, starting with today's vote, to begin working on true reforms that will lower costs and increase the affordability and accessibility of health insurance.
So let's start the process of the right reforms today, together."
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