Health Care And Education Reconciliation Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, the American people are asking: Where are the jobs? But as we see today, the issue of government-run health care will continue to be the focus of this body. It will remain the focus of this body because of the unilateral, secretive, rushed process that's been used to force this bill on the American people.

Today we're passing legislation to correct major errors in the massive bill that was signed less than 72 hours ago. It removes some, just some of the special interest deals that were loaded into that bill as it moved through Congress.

And to meet the majority's targets for deficit reduction, it adds more tax hikes on the American people and cuts more money from Medicare to pay for a new entitlement program. We could have given the American people a more commonsense bill that lowers the cost of health insurance in America without all of this mess.

If you had wanted to pass reforms to ensure coverage for Americans with preexisting conditions and ensure that parents can keep their children on their health plans through age 25, you could have done so in a bipartisan fashion. Instead, you decided to jam through more than the system could handle, leaving us a sloppy mess that the majority of the American people believe should be repealed and replaced.

And mark my word, we will be back to this bill over and over again in the next 6 months. You all know what's going to happen. We'll be back here to correct the mistakes that we didn't do right the first time because of the rush that we were in to approve this massive spending bill that was hidden from the original bill.

And I'll guarantee you, you all know we'll be back here to do a ``doc fix'' that will cost $250 to $300 billion. And the question is: Will we find the money to pay for it?

We'll be back here to appropriate money for a new IRS group of individuals that we're going to need to hire to enforce this law on the American people.

We'll be back to borrow money to lend to the States to pay for increased costs as their Medicaid rolls begin to swell.

And then we're going to find the empty promises that were made to the American people, because most doctors don't take Medicaid patients. And so we're going to put all these new people on Medicaid, yet, how are they ever going to find a doctor?

We'll be back to fix the protections for TRICARE

benefits for active duty and retired servicemembers, veterans and their families that somehow got left on the cutting floor.

And we'll be back to deal with the unintended, but certainly anticipated, consequences of people losing their health care because this bill makes it too expensive for employers to keep employees on their health plan.

Several weeks ago, more than 130 economists signed a letter to President Obama warning that the health care bill that was being pushed through Congress would cost Americans jobs, and sadly, we're already seeing evidence that those economists were right.

In just the last 3 days, we've seen the stories. Major employers like Caterpillar and John Deere talking about increases of $250 million in their health care costs. Medical device companies in Massachusetts talking about thousands of jobs being wiped out. The tourism industry in New Hampshire facing millions of dollars of fines because it hires seasonal workers.

We're going to have to come back and fix this bill time and time again in the coming weeks and months to correct all the flaws and all of the mistakes.

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What we should be doing is working together to create a better environment for America's small businesses to invest, to save, and to rehire American workers. But, no, instead we're going to keep coming back here fixing the flaws in this very flawed bill.

Mr. Speaker, when are we going to address the number one issue on the minds of our fellow citizens, and that is the question of where are the jobs? When are we going to focus on the economy and getting people back to work instead of all of the job-killing policies that we're seeing move through this Congress? When are we going to begin to listen, once again, to the American people who sent us here to do their work?

Because the American people are asking the question: Where are the jobs?

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