Repeal of Obamacare Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the Members of this House for what is an extraordinary debate--a debate of which there is a lot of false information.

I was the insurance commissioner in California, and I can talk about these insurance issues forever. But what I would really like to focus on is the fact that the law that is in the land today really helps people. It would help people like my deceased sister-in-law, a juvenile diabetic. She spent the last 10 years of her life struggling to get insurance, which she couldn't get because she had a preexisting condition. That won't be the case in the future for those with juvenile diabetes. They'll be able to get insurance. They'll be able to get it through an exchange in their States--at least those States that have it--at an affordable cost. And if they don't have the income, they'll have a subsidy to buy the insurance.

It will help people like the son of my chief of staff, who was born with kidney failure. He had insurance from conception until hours after he was born. But the insurance company dropped him. That won't happen any more because children throughout this Nation will be able to stay on their parents' policy because of this law.

It will help people like my daughter, who turned 21 and the insurance company that had covered her for 21 years dumped her. Because of this law, she is now on my policy--and for 17 million other young adults who have insurance as a result of this law.

I can talk forever about the way in which the insurance companies discriminate based upon age, sex, preexisting conditions, and across this Nation millions upon millions of Americans were denied coverage, but are no longer because of the Patients' Bill of Rights.

This is insurance reform on steroids. And I wish I had this law available to me when I was insurance commissioner in California. This is a good law. This is a very, very good thing for Americans.

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