Suspending the Individual Mandate Penalty Law Equals Fairness Act

Floor Speech

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlelady and congratulate her on her leadership for this bill and making sure that we reinsert a notion of fairness back into the law for the people of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the SIMPLE Fairness Act.

For the past few months, the President's health care law has been wreaking havoc on the American people. After the administration's disastrous launch of the exchanges, ObamaCare has been anything but what the President had promised it would be. It has become very clear that this law is doing more harm than good.

We now know that ObamaCare has pushed up to 5 million people off the health care plan they liked, and many are now being denied the care they had. To make matters worse, many of these new plans will force Americans to pay higher premiums and higher deductibles. This leaves them with a limited number of options for health care coverage.

Many folks are also finding out that they cannot keep the doctor or the pediatrician that they want to go to and trusted. To put it simply, this is not how America should work. The American people deserve better.

Yet, time and again, the Obama administration has shown its true colors by putting politics first and unilaterally delaying parts of the law to avoid political repercussions. This has become most evident by the administration's delay in the employee mandate for big businesses and its refusal to delay the individual mandate for working Americans.

Just yesterday, it was reported the administration will announce another major unilateral delay on their minimum coverage requirements to--and I quote the publication The Hill--``ease election pressure on Democrats.''

Doesn't it say something that the authors of this legislation are worried that it is being implemented before they face voters again?

And I ask: Will future Presidents, perhaps of our party, be able to simply delay or cancel all or part of ObamaCare? Will my colleagues on the other side of the aisle withhold complaint then?

There is no greater indictment of this law or proof of its failure than the fear that full implementation invokes in its authors.

It is not fair to pick and choose which parts of an unpopular law should be enforced at the expense of working individuals for political expediency, and it is just not fair that businesses and insurance companies get delays and exemptions and not hardworking Americans. It is not fair.

Millions of Americans all over the country are already living paycheck to paycheck. The last thing they need is another brazen attack on their pocketbooks from a health care law they don't want, they didn't ask for, and that doesn't work for them.

Through this administration's ad hoc implementation of ObamaCare, some people won't have to pay the penalty, but others will. Here is who I am concerned about and who the bill before us today protects, the single mom, who for whatever reason ended up without insurance for several months.

She doesn't need a new tax bill from Uncle Sam for hundreds of dollars because she can't access the coverage that Washington says she must. She could use that money to pay the heating bill or to buy groceries for her children.

All Americans--not just some--but all Americans deserve a delay from the punishing financial penalties of the President's health care law. This is our chance to make it happen. With the legislation before us today, no one in this country would be forced to pay the individual mandate tax in 2014.

This is an opportunity to stop the political games and put working Americans first. Let's stand together and support the SIMPLE Fairness Act in bipartisan fashion and give our constituents some relief from the financial burdens of ObamaCare.

I would like to thank Chairman Dave Camp and Representative Lynn Jenkins for their hard work on this issue and on behalf of working Americans.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Source