Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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I thank my friend for yielding me this time, and I express great affection and respect for my dear friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), who serves the House and his constituents well.

However, Mr. Speaker, this is a regrettable piece of legislation. It is nothing more or less than the kind of insurance policies, which are being authorized by it, that were sold by snake oil salesmen around this country, policies which gave no relief, no help, and no benefit to the American people.

The sad situation is that this not only allows some people to keep their policies, but it allows a lot of snake oil salesmen to run around the country, selling bad policies which undo almost all of the protections which we have put into the Affordable Care Act, things like protections against preexisting conditions or the fact that a woman who might be buying a policy can be charged more under this legislation on a new policy issued by some sneaky insurance company.

The harsh fact of the matter is that this is not a help to citizens. The President said yesterday that he was going to take steps to correct the problems. If we really want to have this done properly, then that is the way to do it. Let us work together to have these matters corrected properly. Let us see to it that the American people get the protections they need against abusive practices and not that we return to them.

H.R. 3350 allows the new sales of bad policies--which contain programs and practices that are barred by ACA--to new and gullible purchasers, the ones whom we say we seek to protect. As I observed yesterday, the insurance companies feel that this is going to cause huge confusion in the market, and they do not seek this legislation. The average citizen has been sold a bill of lading which is just plainly false. He is not going to be benefited by H.R. 3350. He is simply going to be afforded the opportunity to buy bad policies, whereas what we want to do is see to it that if he has his policy he can keep it. The hard fact of the matter is that he can keep it, and he doesn't need the legislation before us.

The legislation before us simply assures that folks can run around selling bad policies under fictional and false misrepresentations to do hurt to the American people, who, frankly, need protection against the abuses that the Affordable Care Act would put in place.

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