Authority for Mandate Delay Act

Floor Speech

Mr. PETERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to recognize that this is the first time Republicans have embraced that the Affordable Health Care Act is law and supported its implementation starting in 2014. By offering and supporting H.R. 2667, House Republicans are finally voting for the health care law mandates to be implemented a year from now.

For too long, Congress has been brought to a level of inaction that is unprecedented. The gridlock has frustrated me as well as the hard working men, women, small business owners and middle class families in my district in Michigan.

Instead of working toward solutions and fixing a broken health care system, House Republicans wasted time and resources voting 37 votes to repeal The Affordable Care Act wholesale. Without the health care law, families would continue to fear illness because getting sick could mean bankruptcy. Michigan's middle class can't afford to continue without changes to our health care system, and the Affordable Care Act goes a long way to solve these problems.

Today, every Republican who casts a vote to delay the employer and individual mandates is voting to get the implementation of the Affordable Care Act right and implement the law in full starting in December 2014.

The President has already granted businesses one more year to implement the health care law. Without offering Michigan families the same temporary, one-year extension without penalty, businesses lose the incentive to offer coverage one year from now because their employees have already purchased insurance in the interim. These mandates work best in tandem as they will in the coming years.

I look forward to working with Democrats and Republicans to improve the transition to more affordable health care coverage for Michigan families and businesses when the law is fully implemented.

The Affordable Care Act will help lower health care costs for women, ensure coverage for children with pre-existing conditions, and curb the overall cost of health care.

That is why I voted for the Affordable Care Act, and that's why I am voting today to get this law implemented fairly and in a way that supports businesses and middle class families.

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