Michael Burgess

Mr BURGESS

Mr BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the recognition. I thank the chairman of the committee, the distinguished Texan, for yielding me the time. I certainly thank him for his confidence in me in allowing me to be on the Rules Committee this past year and a half. Mr. Speaker, it is now nearly 2 years, an administration that ran on the concept of transparency but now only functions in opacity. We heard from the administration on September 12 of 2012: We will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done. It seems strange now, almost 2 years later, to think on those words. That seemed like a sincere promise. The American people believed that promise that was made just days after the attack. If then we could have known that 19 months later the President's press secretary would stand before the White House press corps and laugh about the event and call it a conspiracy theory. I don't think we would have believed it if someone had told us what the future held, but sadly, that is the state of affairs today. Here we have a tragic event against our Ambassador, against American citizens, and the darned thing has nearly become a cold case because of the refusal of the White House to prioritize anything related to the investigation except for their own bizarre political spin about what happened. Mr. Speaker, we have been forced to look into the anguished faces of the victims' families and tell them that we have not been able to find answers for them about the attack, the attack that killed their sons. We have an entire Caucus that has threatened to boycott an investigation that they have simply dismissed as political excess. It is not political excess to those families, Mr. Speaker. In turn, we as a Congress must do everything in our power to do what the President said, what the President stated back in 2012: to ensure that justice is done for this terrible act. The only way to deliver that justice is to establish the select committee. This is another step in what has become a very long process. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and support the underlying bill.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the resolution.

Mr. BURGESS. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. BURGESS. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for the consideration of a critical bill to ensure Americans who are being hurt by the Affordable Care Act can have some relief. Americans and their families who live abroad for part of the year face losing this specialized health insurance coverage on which they have come to rely. In addition, the men and women who operate on these health care plans face having their jobs outsourced overseas in order for companies to comply with regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services. I certainly want to thank Mr. Nunes and Mr. Carney for their thoughtful legislation. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. As much as I would like to continue this lively back-and-forth, we both know each other's positions on this extremely well. No, I have no other speakers. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. This, this was brought to the House floor as a closed rule in March of 2010. This coercive, partisan piece of legislation which is going to affect health care in this country for every man, woman, and child for the next three generations, this was brought under a closed rule. We are trying to fix one very narrow problem contained within these pages. It seems to me that there has been ample discussion. A bill was debated under suspension. It did not receive the required two-thirds vote, so it is being brought back today under a rule, and the minority will have an opportunity to offer an amendment during the motion to recommit. This was a closed rule which was very damaging to the country. Today's closed rule is simply to fix one of the many problems contained herein. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. This bill was brought to the floor under suspension of the rules prior to the Easter recess. So it has been available for consideration, for staff work to occur, for some period of time. The fact of the matter is that it is an imminent problem facing people who are working outside of the country, and for that reason it was important to get it solved. If the gentleman feels that more work should have been done prior to that time, perhaps they should have worked with the majority prior to it being brought up under suspension. I don't know the answer to that. But I do know where we are today is that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, and the Republican majority is seeing to it that it is fixed, bringing it to the floor under a rule. The minority will have an opportunity to amend during a motion to recommit, and I certainly look forward to a lively discussion during that time. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 555 provides for the consideration to fix yet another flaw that has to be corrected in the Affordable Care Act due to the rushed process by which the bill was passed in March of 2010. As a direct result of the hasty legislation, experts have estimated that over 1,000 Americans will lose their jobs unless Congress takes immediate action to correct and clarify the Affordable Care Act's impact on expatriate health care plans. This bill before us today will do just that, putting Americans above partisan politics and helping yet another subset of people in our country who currently are being harmed by the President's takeover of our health care system. The rule before us today provides for one full hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member on the Committee on Ways and Means. Further, the rule provides for the adoption of an amendment by the bill's authors, Representatives Nunes from California and Carney from Delaware, which addresses a number of concerns the minority expressed during debate of this legislation several weeks ago. True to the Speaker's commitment of letting the House work its will, Republicans listened to those concerns and crafted a bipartisan amendment to improve the legislation. In addition, the rule provides the minority the standard motion to recommit. H.R. 4414, the Expatriate Health Coverage Clarification Act of 2014, addresses the problem caused by the Affordable Care Act, which could result in those Americans who live abroad for a substantial portion of the year, those individuals referred to as expatriates, that could cause them to lose their health care coverage because of the one-size- fits-all approach to our health care system, which was employed by the wizards who wrote the Affordable Care Act. Expatriate health care providers have traditionally offered tailored, specialized insurance plans to meet the needs of Americans who spend their time overseas. These citizens simply cannot rely on a local general practitioner or neighborhood clinic because, so often, they are far away from home. However, the Affordable Care Act does not provide an avenue by which these plans can continue to be offered. Instead, Senator Reid, Kathleen Sebelius, and Barack Obama decided it was up to them to decide how Americans' health insurance plans should be structured. The legislation before us today is a clear example of why a top-down Federal approach to health care does not work. Consumers should be in the driver's seat deciding what works best for them, what works best for themselves and their families, not someone sitting in Washington, D.C. Because of the regulations in the Affordable Care Act, insurers have announced that they will have to shift their expatriate operations overseas in order to be in compliance with the law, and with those operations will go those jobs. All Americans know that it was shown to be an empty promise when someone said, if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. Well, Mr. Speaker, it is a darn good thing the President never promised, if you like your job, you can keep it. Over a thousand jobs tied to expatriate health care operations will now be shipped overseas. Americans who rely on these health plans, which until now have worked well for them and their families, are going to have to scramble and scramble fast to find alternative coverage. Some examples of those Americans who will potentially lose their health care coverage due to the unyielding regulations of the Affordable Care Act include businessmen and businesswomen, pilots, foreign aid workers, ship operators, and tour guides. The President has already acknowledged that his law will hurt these Americans, announcing that the Department of Health and Human Services would, yet again, ignore the law and provide a temporary waiver from complying with the law's requirements; but this is not how you fix flawed legislation. You involve the legislative branch. You come to Congress, and you ask that you legislate and fix the problem in the law. Now, the White House, where there is a so-called constitutional scholar, the President seems to have only read article II of the Constitution, skipping entirely over the first and longest article, article I, where the Founders make the case that Congress is the body where laws are passed, the body where laws are written, the body where laws are amended. As a result of the President making this change unilaterally, the relief is only temporary. The bill before us today provides the long-term security, the security that is required to give these affected Americans and their families the certainty they need to make decisions for their futures. These expatriate plans are not barebone plans that some in this body have criticized. This is not lousy insurance. They typically are robust plans. They are comprehensive plans, which simply cater to the special needs of Americans who travel and are gone for a good portion of the year. The amendment by Representatives Nunes and Carney, which is adopted in the rule before us, takes a thoughtful piece of legislation and improves it even further. It clarifies that any future plans offered to expatriates must still comply with the actuarial requirements in the Affordable Care Act, as well as any pre-Affordable Care Act laws, including the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act, known as ERISA, and the Public Health Service Act. Moreover, it narrowly tailors this relief to those Americans who spend more than 180 days outside the country. These were concerns that Democrats expressed during the previous debate on this legislation, and they are fully addressed in the legislation before us today. This is a carefully crafted fix. It was necessary because the underlying law was so poorly crafted. It is needed to help Americans who are being directly harmed by the President's health care law. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 555 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, just late last week there was a news story that healthcare.gov was still not finished. The back-end portion, the part that deals with payments to doctors and hospitals, still has not been constructed. Now, that was odd because just the week before the President held a big press conference down at the White House and said, Mission accomplished; everything we wanted to do has been done. Well, how do you reconcile these discrepancies? What, in fact, is the timeline for this to be accomplished? Mission accomplished: the patients, the doctors, and the hospitals who are going to end up the ones on the hook for these payments that are not going to be received, I wonder if they feel the same way.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chair, yesterday, I missed the House's vote on Mr. Mulvaney's Substitute Amendment to H. Con. Res. 96. The Substitute Amendment that Mr. Mulvaney called for was the President's Budget for Fiscal Years 2015 through 2024. I was unfortunately not present while the voting occurred. However, I would like the Record to reflect that it was my intention to vote ``no'' on the President's Budget.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for the recognition, and I am pleased to come to the floor of the House tonight to offer my congratulations to a great Texan, chancellor of Texas Tech University and former Member of Congress and former State senator. I have had the good fortune to know Mr. Hance since I arrived here, and I know firsthand of his commitment to education. And the reason I know this is there is hardly a semester that goes by that I don't have at least one Tech intern working in my office. Mr. Hance understands the value of education for young people, and he also understands the value of placing them in situations where they may have an opportunity to do something that they would probably never have an opportunity to do again, working with a Member of Congress' office. Yes, sometimes it is unglamorous, sorting mail or helping organize letters for a reply, but sometimes going to a congressional hearing, sometimes going to a congressional hearing that is of significant importance. Certainly I want to thank Kent for always having the foresight to have your students in the offices here in the capital of the United States because I think it makes a big difference not just to us, not just to Texas Tech, but it makes a big difference to Texas and the Nation. On a personal note, I want to acknowledge that I was not someone who was in political life all my life. I ran a medical practice for a number of years, and then rather unexpectedly won a race for Congress. Shortly after winning the nomination prior to the fall election, Mr. Hance and I crossed paths, and he has provided me life counsel and guidance from time to time. Of that I am certainly appreciative. The one thing I will never forget--I don't even remember the trouble that was going on here in Washington, but it was something and it affected a lot of us and it affected a lot of us personally--I woke up one morning and there was a letter to the editor of The Dallas Morning News from Ken Hance thanking me for my service. It certainly got my attention that day and it certainly lifted by spirits. Whenever I get down with the things that are going on here in Washington, I think back to that day when Ken Hance reached out a hand and helped lift me up, and hope I have been able to return the favor to others along the way. Mr. Hance, you have certainly showed me the way, and I am grateful, again, for your wise counsel and leadership through the years.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Your colleague always has more speakers as long as he is seated in the House. But I see no one else waiting, so we can proceed.

Mr. BURGESS. I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, a very important point of what we are doing here today-- look, when the junior Senator from my State stands up back home and says that he wants to repeal every syllable of ObamaCare, I will stand on my chair and cheer because I think that is the right approach. But that is not what we are doing today. We are fixing a problem, as it exists in the body of the law, that is redefining full-time work as 30 hours per week. We are fundamentally reestablishing the relationship that occurs with America's working class. Now, I would submit that in Politico magazine, on March 26, 2014, there was an opinion piece written, ``How to Fix the Affordable Care Act.'' And who was this opinion piece written by? Well, it was written by Members of the other body, Democratic Senators who had voted in favor of the passage of the Affordable Care Act in the first place. But they have proposals that they put forward in an opinion piece on how to fix the Affordable Care Act. One of the things they say is, maybe we ought to allow selling across State lines. Maybe we ought to allow for a catastrophic policy to be sold again because that has, after all, been prohibited under the Affordable Care Act. They are valid suggestions. They are trying to fix the problems contained within the Affordable Care Act because they recognize it is unsustainable and unmanageable. Perhaps they are a little bit embarrassed because each one of them was the 60th vote that allowed the Affordable Care Act to come back over to the House and be passed. Now, today we are talking about a fix to a problem within the Affordable Care Act that allows full-time employment to be reestablished and redefined at 40 hours per week. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), the chairman of the Rules Committee.

Mr. BURGESS. I yield back the balance of my time and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, to the issue of jobs created in the last 5 years, let me point out that the State of Texas has been responsible for the creation of about one-third of those jobs. It is our robust oil and gas business and the manufacturing sector in the State of Texas that have been responsible for that job growth. So when the President comes in front of a joint session of Congress for the State of the Union address and wants to talk about the jobs created since he became President, my belief is, he should say in the next statement, May God bless Texas, because Texas is responsible for that job growth, and it had nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act. Let me talk briefly about why we are here today. Of course the gentlelady mentioned about the passage of the Affordable Care Act. She mentioned the detailed analysis that was done by Democrats, who were then in the majority, how they pored over every word in the legislation. Let me read you the paragraph that is under question today. I am reading from section 1513 of the consolidated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: ``The number of full-time employees for any month otherwise determined include for such month a number of employees determined by dividing the aggregate number of hours of service of employees who are not full-time employees for the month by 120.'' Period, end of sentence. What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? Well, fortunately, we don't have to wonder what it means because we have a rule that was promulgated by the Department of the Treasury which came out this past February. It is about a 55-page rule based upon what I just read to the House. It is a long recitation. It contains a lot of things, but here is the bottom line: For employees who average at least 30 hours of service per week during a measurement period, who thus must be treated as full-time employees during an associated 6-month stability period. That is the bottom line. I don't know how we went from 120 per month to 30 hours per week, but they figured it out at the Department of Treasury at some great expense, I rather suspect, because here is this rule that came to the American people in February of this year when the actual law was passed almost 4 years prior. Nevertheless, we have the rule, and people are welcome to read it in the Federal Register. It was published on Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 2 days before Valentine's Day. We love you, America. Mr. Speaker, the rule that governs the debate on this bill before us today keeps that fundamental contract with employers and their workers that full-time employment will be 40 weeks. If you accept the definition from the Department of Labor that it is now 30 weeks and an employer is trying to reduce the cost of providing employment, they may make the logical assumption that if someone only works 28 or 29 hours, then they are not full-time; therefore, they do not need to be providing health insurance. And what we have done is, we have shifted that entire equation and robbed people of 10 hours of employment every week. That is a significant change in their take-home pay. Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for consideration of a critical bill to ensure that Americans are not forced to work fewer hours than they otherwise would without these draconian labor laws included in the Affordable Care Act. I want to thank Mr. Young for his thoughtful legislation, working across the aisle to offer a bill that both Republicans and Democrats have accepted in the committee by passing it through the committee with no amendments. He has bipartisan cosponsors, and he has public support. I urge my colleagues to support both the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. General Leave

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 530 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds for a response. Of course, the President did come out for a big photo op and press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday and talked about a number of 7 million. Discounted in that is the 6 million people who lost their health insurance in October, November, and December of last year who have now, thankfully, reclaimed insurance. So, the actual numbers, we will see those posted later in the year; but isn't it interesting, the President can have a press conference, but they cannot provide our committee with the actual detail on those numbers, which we have been asking for for months. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins).

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 530 provides for consideration of a critical piece of legislation passed out of the Ways and Means Committee designed to address a critical flaw in the Affordable Care Act, which is causing workers to lose hours at their job and thus lose wages to help put food on their tables and feed their families and pay their utility bills to heat their homes in the winter and cool their homes in the summer. H.R. 2575, the bipartisan Save American Workers Act of 2014, fixes this flaw by changing the newly created labor rule in the Affordable Care Act, which defines full-time work at 30 hours per week and places that definition back where the American public has always believed it to be, at 40 hours per week. The rule before us today provides for 3 hours of debate. That is triple the standard hour of debate that most bills before this body receive. This is done in order to fully discuss this important labor issue affecting so many Americans. To maintain this targeted focus--the exact kind of fix that the President claims he is interested in discussing with Republicans in order to make his law more workable--no amendments were made in order. This allows the House to fully debate this crucial issue without the possibility of unrelated issues being brought into the debate. Indeed, this bill is so targeted, dealing with one single provision in the Affordable Care Act, that it does not repeal the Affordable Care Act--a charge I have no doubt we will hear several times over today-- but in fact simply changes a definition in the bill. Moreover, during the markup of this legislation in the Ways and Means Committee, no amendments were offered by either the majority or the minority. As always, the minority is afforded the customary motion to recommit on the bill. Mr. Speaker, as a result of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance coverage to those employees working 30 or more hours a week, employers across the Nation--from schools to universities to municipalities to restaurants--are being forced to cut workers' hours or face unsustainable employment costs to their businesses and organizations. As we are seeing--and indeed, as many on this side predicted prior to the controversial and contentious passage of the Affordable Care Act-- the bill fundamentally changed labor law in this country, creating a new standard called the 30-hour workweek, a standard 30-hour workweek, a shorter workweek than even imposed by the country of France. As a result, workers' hours are being cut and productivity in this country, a country that has always prided itself on the work ethic of its citizens, will decrease over time. This is what an onerous government regulation can and will do--suppress innovation and disadvantage our businesses. Many members of the Democratic Party have been outspoken in clamoring for an extension to long-term unemployment benefits, which would extend government assistance to unemployed Americans well beyond a year's worth of benefits; yet there is something that can be done today which will have the actual, practical effect of putting more money into people's pockets. We have heard story after story, from every State in the Union, that employers are dropping workers from even 39 hours per week to 29 or fewer hours, potentially 10 work hours a week that workers won't see in their paychecks, which could mean hundreds or more dollars that men and women won't have to feed their families or pay their bills. Increasing workers' hours increases the money that people have in their disposable income. The Affordable Care Act fundamentally changed labor law in this country, and the repercussions of this might not be felt for years to come. This is indeed the prototype of the dangerous, slippery slope. What other labor laws will be reinterpreted to define full-time employment at 30 hours per week? Do people intend to impose overtime rules on employers who employ people for over 30 hours per week? It is yet another regulation which would only result in businesses cutting more hours. What will the National Labor Relations Board reinterpret, knowing that the very fabric of labor law is based on a 30-hour workweek, instead of that previously established standard of 40 hours per week? Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, employers were already overwhelmingly providing health insurance to their employees working 40 hours a week. Making the change contained in Mr. Young's legislation will cause the least amount of disruption in the labor market, and I would submit, with the economy as it is today, making the least disruptive change in the labor market would be desirable. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the total number of hours worked by about 1.5 percent to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024. This is almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor. Because of this, the Congressional Budget Office projects a decline in the number of workers of about 2 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024, all as a net result of the Affordable Care Act. The latest Congressional Budget Office figures show that the Affordable Care Act will increase spending by almost $2 trillion-- double the estimate from 2010. The Joint Committee on Taxation states that taxpayers will be on the hook for another $1.1 trillion over the next decade. Americans earning as little as $25,000 a year will pay more because of the law, even after accounting for the $1 trillion in premium cost- sharing subsidies. Mr. Speaker, let's be clear about what is happening here today. This bill before us does not repeal the President's takeover of health care in this country. It does not undermine the Affordable Care Act. It does not take health insurance from a single person in the country. It is a fix to a fatal flaw contained within the law, similar to the seven fixes that have passed both Houses of Congress and were signed into law by the President. Does anyone miss the 1099 paperwork regulation, which was repealed early on after the passage of the Affordable Care Act? Does anyone legitimately miss the CLASS Act, which was repealed on the very last day of the last Congress? I think not. Had I not reminded you of those two parts of the bill, I doubt you would remember them. This is no different from those 37 unilateral fixes that the President and his Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Treasury have made on their own, with no input from either legislative body. It is a fix to stop legislation that will cause people to lose their work. If all sides cannot agree to fix a provision within the Affordable Care Act that is preventing people from working, then it is simply empty rhetoric to claim that the President or the other body or this body is interested in any fixes at all. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember Ray Hutchison, husband to our colleague, former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a great Texan and an even better friend. Through his work in developing nearly every public works project in our area in the past 50 years, Ray Hutchison is leaving a lasting mark on the north Texas community. He was a driving force in creating the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, one of the largest airports in the country today, as well as developing the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system. He also contributed to several professional sporting facilities in the area. We can thank Ray Hutchison for moving the Washington Senators to Arlington in the early 1970s, giving us our beloved team, the Texas Rangers. Ray's selflessness and abundant accomplishments are too great to list in just 1 minute, but I am proud to have known him. On behalf of the Texas delegation, I offer my sincerest condolences to former Senator Hutchison and to her children, Bailey and Houston.