Republican Freshman Class on the Need to Repeal Obamacare

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BARR. Well, I want to thank the gentleman, my friend from Indiana, for his courtesy and for his leadership on this very important issue. I join my colleague in supporting H.R. 45, the full repeal of ObamaCare.

Mr. Speaker, it is true, you've heard from the other Members here this evening, you've heard about the importance of repealing ObamaCare because it is legislation that is full of broken promises. We know that the signature promise of this legislation was that if you like your current health insurance, you can keep it. We know now that 7 million people will lose their employer-sponsored health insurance at least, which is nearly double the previous estimate of 4 million.

We heard about savings. Remember, this was titled the ``Affordable Care Act,'' but in 2013, the Congressional Budget Office projection tags the total cost at $1.88 trillion. Premiums--premiums are not decreasing; premiums are going up. The average family premium has grown over $3,000 since the passage of ObamaCare. Individuals earning as little as $25,000 will pay more for insurance because of ObamaCare. And 1.1 trillion in new taxes and jobs. This legislation was supposed to create 400,000 jobs immediately. Speaker Pelosi promised that ObamaCare would create 4 million jobs. Well, Mr. Speaker, small employers in Kentucky and central Kentucky tell me that ObamaCare is the principal reason that they're not hiring.

According to a study by the National Federation of Independent Business, the employer mandate like the one included in ObamaCare could eliminate an additional 1.6 million jobs by 2014. ObamaCare is creating an environment in which employers are incentivized to reduce hours for their employees to go to part-time work. The supporters of ObamaCare are supporting a part-time work economy. We need a full-time work economy, and that's why we need to repeal ObamaCare.

It increases the Federal deficit. According to a January GAO report, ObamaCare will add 6.2 trillion to the deficit over the next 75 years. But, Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude with the story that illustrates why this really matters.

There's a lot of statistics about jobs and the economy and increased premiums and costs, but the real signature failure of this legislation is that it hurts patients, that it deprives the American people of the benefits of medical innovation. A hospital administrator told me in central Kentucky that we used to take care of patients, but we now take care of paper. Medical innovation is central to America's future economic growth and to delivering new lifesaving medical devices to patients. But the new medical device tax included in ObamaCare, which imposes a 2.3 percent tax on medical device manufacturers, punishes medical innovation and prevents quality health care.

Families around the country know this all too well. In my own family, we saw this up close. Christmas Day 2012 could have been one of the worst days of our lives. Fortunately, it was the best day of our lives.

It happened when my mother called me that morning on Christmas morning and said, Andy, your father has had a fainting spell. I said, can I talk to him? So she got him on the phone. I said, Dad, how are you doing? He said, I need to drink a glass of water. I said, Well, stop drinking any more coffee. Calm down and give me a call if anything happens.

I got another call an hour later. This time, it was from my mother again. She said they were in the emergency room. My father had passed out a second time. So I rushed to the emergency room. I was greeted by the ER doctor. I said, What's going on, Doctor? He said, Well, we did an EKG, and here are the results. He showed me a flat line. He said, your father's heart is slowing down. I said, Doctor, what are we going to do about that? He said, Well, fortunately, we can put a pacemaker in your father.

An electrophysiologist came down to the ER, and he reassured us. He said, We can put a pacemaker in your father, and we can make him better. So he went in to get that pacemaker surgery. When he came out, he was recovering, and his life was saved because of that pacemaker technology.

Mr. Speaker, the American people, American families depend on the innovative, unbelievable technology that American entrepreneurship has created. But ObamaCare punishes that. And if it wasn't for that kind of medical innovation and technology, my father wouldn't be here today.

So I stand opposed to ObamaCare for all the reasons we've talked about here tonight, but, most importantly, because I credit the American free enterprise system for saving lives, and ObamaCare rolls that back. I certainly appreciate the leadership of the gentleman from Indiana for discussing the importance of this issue and the future of high-quality, innovative health care in America in the future.

Source