Ranking Members Waxman and DeGette Statement on Republican Investigation of Organizations Advocating for the Affordable Care Act
Today Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette released a memo regarding information received from organizations that advocated for the passage of health care reform. The Ranking Members also released the following statement commenting on the Republican investigation of the landmark Affordable Care Act, which ends the worst abuses of the insurance industry, strengthens Medicare, and provides coverage for over 30 million Americans that would otherwise be uninsured:
“There is nothing new here. The Republicans spent over a year on this investigation, received and reviewed countless documents from a dozen different organizations, and conducted multiple interviews – only to learn what was publicly reported years ago. The advertising by Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care was reported in detail in almost real time in 2009 and 2010, as was the information about the group’s members and its formation.
“President Obama showed great leadership in marshalling groups in support of the landmark health reform law. What President Obama did is no different than what Presidents from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush have done to pass their key legislative initiatives.
“Nobody should be surprised that supporters of the health care reform law advertised in support of its passage. Opponents of health care reform spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and other efforts to kill the law. But the Committee refused our requests to look into these anti-health reform expenditures. The Committee investigation is one-sided and biased.”
The Democratic memo is available online here.
Memorandum from Rep. Henry Waxman, Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care (June 8, 2012).