Ranking Member Waxman's Floor Statement on H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act

The full text of his remarks is below and also available online here.

This bill, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, will take away health security and cause over 30 million people to lose health coverage over the next decade.  That’s more people than the entire populations of New York and Ohio.

Yet here we are again, wasting time that should be spent on improving the economy and putting people to work.  Instead, we’re rehashing the same old arguments.

Americans deserve health security.  Here is what’s in the bill:

• The law that the Republicans would seek to take off the books prevents people with preexisting conditions, like pregnant women, from being denied insurance or charged so much that they can't get coverage. 

• The law says women should not pay higher premiums just because they are women.   

• People should have an easy transparent marketplace to shop for quality insurance and the hard working middle class should receive subsidies to help them afford it.  People should not be worried about losing health coverage if they lose their jobs.

• People should be encouraged to get preventive health services and not be charged for it.

• Small businesses should be helped if they want to offer health insurance.

America should no longer be a country with millions of people uninsured and unable to get health insurance.

That’s what the Republicans want us to go back to.  They argue that they want to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Well, what’s their replacement?  Romneycare?  They have no replacement.  They offer nothing, nothing to the American people. 
There is no proposal on about how they would keep these 30 million people insured and end insurance company abuses like pre-existing condition discrimination.

Let's move beyond this vote and show the American people this institution is about more than politics – it's about doing what is right for American families.  Let's affirm our commitment to bring health security to all Americans.

Let us reject this Republican bill that would again have the House go on record repealing the law, which has not yet been fully put into place.
 

Related Documents: 

Floor Statement of Rep. Henry Waxman on H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act (July 10, 2012).