Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, let me first acknowledge the work that has been done by so many of our colleagues here bipartisanly, the gentleman from Delaware, the gentleman from California, the committees of jurisdiction, and leadership, I suspect, on both sides of the aisle. I, too, have been involved in trying to deal with this.

If you take a look at the title of the bill, it tells you what they are trying to do. The bill is called the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act, so the bill tells us that it is to deal with the issue of expatriates.

Well, who are expatriates, and how are they impacted by the Affordable Care Act?

An expatriate, I think most of us would acknowledge, is an American who is told by his or her employer, we need to send you abroad to go work--whatever the task is--but I need you to go; so that expatriate, now living abroad, will be told that he or she must have an insurance policy that abides by the Affordable Care Act's protections for Americans who get health care here.

The insurers will say: well, we may have to deal with different standards in that other country, so give us some flexibility.

That is very fair. We should make sure that any company that has to send a worker abroad has the flexibility to make sure that they are providing good coverage, but that they are not strapped by the regulations that apply to coverage here in the U.S. Everyone agrees with that.

Here is the problem: this bill doesn't do that. It doesn't do that, and I say that with all due respect to my colleague from Delaware. It doesn't do that.

Let me ask you this: Is someone who works in this country 365 days of the year someone who we would consider an expatriate? Is an American who spends most of his time--three-quarters of his time working in the U.S. an expatriate?

Should the family of that American who goes abroad, but the family never leaves the U.S., be denied the protections of the Affordable Care Act, so that a preexisting condition can now be used to discriminate against the child of that American worker?

That is the difficulty with this bill. This bill talks about expatriates, but the reality is a lot of Americans who never leave this country and a lot of foreign workers, including green card holders who are on their way to becoming citizens, who have every lawful right to be here because they have gone about it the right way, they are just waiting their time so they can qualify to become U.S. citizens--many of them could be denied the protections that we all now have.

We cannot be discriminated against based on a preexisting condition. We must be provided minimal protections. We have a right, now, to make sure that an insurance company doesn't use what we are paying in premiums to put in the pockets of executives and big salaries. That money has to now be spent, by law, on health care coverage.

This bill would say no, those who are expatriates would qualify for different plans that don't have to meet those Affordable Care standards.

Why should more than 13 million people who are in this country legally and are on their way to becoming U.S. citizens--who today have the same protections you and I have to not be discriminated against for preexisting conditions--because this bill that is supposed to be for expatriates, now be told no, you might be offered a policy that doesn't have to meet the Affordable Care standards?

Why should an American family that sees one of its breadwinners, father or mother, be sent abroad to work for 90 days be told no, we no longer have to offer you an Affordable Care health care policy that prevents discrimination against your child because he or she has asthma?

If this were a bill to focus on the issue of expatriates who go work abroad, where I think it is a legitimate concern of the insurance company to not impose upon the insurance company costs that are beyond what are paid here, I would agree that this goes well beyond that, and I would urge my colleagues to think twice before voting for this bill this way.

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