Michael Burgess

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to remind Members of the House of Representatives about the President's press conference yesterday. I would like to read from the transcript of his remarks. The President yesterday, he first talked about the problems with the healthcare.gov Web site, ``big problems, and maybe we can talk about those a little bit,'' but then he went on to say: The other problem that has received a lot of attention concerns Americans who've received letters from their insurers that they may be losing the plans they bought in the old individual market, often because they no longer meet the law's requirements. It seems pretty straightforward to me what the President was saying yesterday. He goes on to say: Now, as I indicated earlier, I completely get how upsetting this can be for a lot of Americans, particularly after assurances they heard from me that, if they had a plan that they liked, they could keep it. And to those Americans, I hear you loud and clear. I said that I would do everything we can to fix this problem, and today I am offering an idea that will help do it. Already people who have plans that predate the Affordable Care Act can keep those plans if they haven't changed. That was already in the law. That's what's called a grandfather that was included in the law. Today, we're going to extend that principle both to the people whose plans have changed since the law took effect and to people who bought plans since the law took effect. You know, it is interesting, the 10th Amendment to the Constitution should actually protect the States to issue their own directives through their State insurance commissioners. They didn't need the President of the United States to do that. That is a power that has been enshrined to them in the Constitution. The problem is that power was taken away under the Affordable Care Act. Now they have attempted to bring it back. But the fact of the matter is, in many States, patients and constituents won't have that protection, but the Upton bill today will actually provide that protection. Make no mistake, the Upton bill is not a fix-it bill to the Affordable Care Act; it is a lifeline that we are extending to our constituents who have lost the coverage that they were told that they could keep. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), the vice chair of the full committee.

Mr. BURGESS. Well, I am always here, so I remain as a speaker.

Mr. BURGESS. Absolutely.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. First off, I do need to point out that yesterday, the President of the United States thought that this situation represented an emergency that required his immediate attention, and he rushed a press conference at high noon yesterday to announce his resolution for the problem. As far as the issue of hearings, I will submit a list of eight hearings that were held in the Energy and Commerce Committee over calendar year 2013 on the issue of grandfathering health care plans. But the most important thing I wish to point out, for those of you who were here in 2009, we will remember, H.R. 3200 was the Democratic health care reform bill. That bill is now lost forever in the vapor, in the ether. No one knows what became of it. H.R. 3590 passed the House of Representatives in July of 2009. It passed as a housing bill. It went over to the Senate to await further action. The further action was an amendment by Harry Reid late in December of 2009 ``to strike all after the enacting clause and insert.'' All the housing language was taken out, all of the health care language was inserted.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this bill before us tonight is a commonsense policy that will remove some barriers in the law and ensure that patients who are suffering from life-threatening illnesses can access vital treatments. We have heard the numbers discussed tonight--over 100,000 patients currently awaiting life-saving organs. That number grows by thousands every year, coupled with the fact that our current organ donation policies are outdated and do not reflect the most current research in clinical developments. The bill before us tonight corrects this, allowing organs from HIV- positive donors to be transplanted into HIV-positive recipients. This has the potential to save over 1,000 HIV-infected patients every year with liver and kidney failure. Allowing these HIV positive donations increases the organs available to HIV-positive recipients. More importantly, it actually grows the overall pool of organs that will be available. Furthermore, transplant surgeons already have experience with the transplantation of infected organs. Today, surgeons perform organ transplants on patients who are infected with hepatitis C, a disease with similar transmission methods as HIV. I would reassure my colleagues, I have taken the time to speak with transplant surgeons for the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, and I have spoken with doctors at the National Institutes of Health. This does not pose an increased health risk for the already HIV- infected patient from an organ donated by an HIV-positive donor, but it will provide the potential for increasing the number of organs available for transplant. Anybody who works in transplant surgery knows this is the number one issue that they face on a day-to-day basis. This legislation is sound, science-based policy. It is also good fiscal policy. It increases the options for safe transplantation, eliminating the need for patients to receive costly recurring treatments, and instead allows patients to receive viable organs to live fuller, more productive lives. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this life-saving bill.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker: Consumers will be able to go online. They will be able to get a determination of what tax subsidies they are eligible for; they will be able to see premium net of subsidy; and they will be able to sign up. Those were the words spoken by the head of the Office of Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight 3 weeks ago at a committee hearing of Energy and Commerce. I had asked for a yes or no answer to the question: Will the exchanges be ready on October 1? You heard his answer. In The New York Times this weekend, a very insightful article: ``From the Start, Signs of Trouble at the Health Portal.'' The exchanges have been called excruciatingly embarrassing by no less than the President's press secretary for his first term. He went on to say: I hope some people are fired, those people who were supposed to be able to make this work. The blame-shifting between contractors and agency officials is just beginning. Further quoting from the article in The New York Times this weekend: ``These are not glitches,'' said an insurance executive who has participated in many conference calls on the Federal exchange. The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our calls, people say, ``It is awful, just awful.'' But here is the deal: everyone is required to sign up for this enormously embarrassing glitch that has been foisted upon us by the executive branch. It is time for us to stand down on the individual mandate.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the administration finally began to acknowledge what many have been saying for some time: healthcare.gov is having major problems. The administration spent most of last week boasting about the high number of visitors to the Federal site, but it conveniently left out a very important statistic: how many people actually were able to purchase insurance. Unlike the initial claims that the sites were crashing because demand was so high, it is clear now that the exchanges were failing because they appear to have major structural flaws. According to technicians and people at The Wall Street Journal, the site appears to be built on a ``sloppy software foundation.'' To make matters worse, even the information the Web site collected may be useless thanks to a security problem that corrupted a lot of the data. According to one estimate, 99 percent of the applications submitted may be facing data problems that will stop these applications. Members of the administration need to come to the Energy and Commerce Committee and start telling us the truth about this information architecture. Taxpayers have spent money, a lot of money, to build these sites. If they have been sold a pig in a poke, they need to know.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 150 years of fellowship and service Pilot Point's County Line First Baptist Church has provided to its members and community. Originally founded in 1863, the County Line Baptist Church, then named Colored Missionary Baptist Church, quickly became the center of the African American community. Early members met under a brush arbor before building a chapel near the Cooke and Denton county line in 1874. In 1882, the church moved to Pilot Point. It was there the church served as the first school in the area for African Americans, working to educate people of all ages to strengthen the community as a whole. County Line Baptist Church has become an iconic and central part of the African American community in northeast Denton County. The congregation has been active in the community and state. Through a variety of programs, including the establishment of adult literacy classes and serving as the host for associational conventions. Today, County Line remains a place of solace, worship, study, social events, weddings and funerals where both members and non-members are always welcome. It is my honor to recognize the County Line Baptist Church and their continued dedication to their community, and to represent Denton County and the City of Pilot Point in the House of Representatives.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the Food and Drug Administration historically has been one of the bipartisan efforts that this House has enjoyed. In fact, a little over a year ago, the Food and Drug User Fee Reauthorization Act passed both the House and the Senate, went to a conference committee, was signed by the President of the United States on July 9, 2012, in the middle of an election year when partisanship was at its fever pitch, and yet this House came together and passed that reauthorization bill. You've heard the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee say that he hoped this bill would pass today to allow the Food and Drug Administration to utilize those user fees that have been remitted by the companies that are actually looking to have their products approved by the FDA. I support him in that, and I hope he's correct. One of the most important missions of the government, one of the premier agencies of the Federal Government is the Food and Drug Administration. Its job is to ensure that medical drugs and medical devices are safe and effective. The FDA is also a gateway for patients who are suffering disease and disability with the hope of one day getting past that disease and disability. The FDA is the gateway for those patients. We've taken legislative steps to fix some of the issues with the FDA. They aren't always functioning in a perfect manner, but I know one thing for sure: keeping FDA employees away from their jobs is not the way to accomplish those goals. This is a good bill today, the Food and Drug Safety Act. I hope the Senate will take this up. The House is going to pass it in a bipartisan manner in just a very short period of time. We will send it over to the Senate, as we have many other bills last week, and we'll continue to send bills. This is the way the process should work. Appropriations shouldn't be done in one large lump. They should be done in the individual departments. I support this bill today. I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank Mr. Barton for bringing this hour to the floor of the House. Mr. Speaker, it is significant that this is the Texas hour. People look to Texas for leadership. Certainly, from an economic standpoint, Texas enjoys a AAA rating. The United States, unfortunately, does not. If you look at Texas between the years 2009 and 2011, it gained nearly a million new residents. Other times when there have been vast expansions of populations in a State, the rate of uninsurance has also increased, except in Texas. During that time period from 2009 to 2011, the rate of uninsurance went down. Why is that? It's because people were moving to Texas because they could find a job, and accompanying that job typically was employer-sponsored insurance. The reason for that is, of course, that Texas has a long history of utilizing the energy resources inherent in that State. In fact, it's Texas that has gone a long way towards redefining our national energy policy and making us an exporter of energy rather than an importer. But our purpose today, here, is to talk about the Affordable Care Act. It has already been referenced that the other body passed this late on a Christmas Eve in order to get out of town right before a snowstorm. Now, the chairman of the Finance Committee in the other body when talking to the Secretary of Health and Human Services earlier this year said, Madam Secretary, I am worried that we are seeing a train wreck. I wanted to provide for Members of the House of Representatives what a train wreck looks like right before it happens. Ladies and gentlemen, the House and my colleagues, this is where we were last Monday night--the two locomotives bearing down on each other with smoke trailing out of each of their smokestacks. This is a train wreck right before it happens, and that's where we were on Monday night. A train wreck was fixing to happen, and we were trying to do everything possible to prevent it. We had passed four bills and had sent them over to the Senate to allow funding for the government. Each one had been rejected. In fact, with the last one, in the spirit of compromise, we said let's just sit down and talk; and the Senate rejected that as well. When you stop and think about the history of this thing, you say, Why has it been so hard to implement this? The reason it has been hard to implement this is that this was never intended to become law. The House of Representatives never had a single hearing on what at the time was known as H.R. 3590. It was passed in the Senate without a single Republican vote at the midnight hour on Christmas Eve, and every Senator thought, We'll get a chance to go to conference and fix it. We know there are problems, but we'll get a chance to fix this. They didn't because they lost their 60th vote in Massachusetts, and the Senate majority leader told the Speaker of the House at the time, There is nothing else I can do. I've put everything into it. I can't pass this again in the Senate. It's because he lacked one vote. I will just ask people in this body on both sides of the aisle to think back. Lyndon Johnson was a Member of this body. Lyndon Johnson was the majority leader of the Senate. Lyndon Johnson was President. Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson not passing the Civil Rights Act because he lacked one vote? Can you imagine Lyndon Johnson not passing Medicare because he lacked one vote? No. He would have exercised Senate leadership or Presidential leadership, and he would have gotten that vote, and he would have made it happen. Both of those, by the way, passed with bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Senate. So don't fault the House of Representatives because of how bad this thing is. Don't fault the Representatives because the people of the United States do not like this thing. Don't fault the United States House of Representatives because they couldn't even get their informatics piece correct with 3\1/2\ years and billions and billions of dollars. Why did the site crash in the first couple of days? They knew it was coming. They knew there would be great interest in this. Amazon is able to do that. Amazon handles how many millions of hits a day? Facebook-- certainly a nonessential site on the Internet--how many transactions does it handle a day? How could they not be ready? This is, after all, the President's signature piece of legislation. I get criticized because they say Republicans haven't tried to fix it. Republicans have tried to fix it. We have passed seven pieces of legislation that have modified the Affordable Care Act, and the President has signed them. The President himself has laid portions of this law down not to be enforced for whatever period of time he says. Certainly, people can't sign up for preexisting condition coverage now. They have to wait until the first of the year. That window has been closed since February 1 of this year. The employer mandate went away right before the Fourth of July weekend. Reporting requirements were also suspended right after the Fourth of July weekend. The President has put more pieces of this law on hold than any Member of this House could ever do. I appreciate so much the gentleman from Texas holding this hour. I'm privileged to have been a part of it. I did want to remind people what a train wreck looks like right before it happens.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, what is going on in the House of Representatives right now actually is about the debt. You can look back 17 years when Speaker Gingrich was Speaker of this House. What was gained by the Republican majority during that time? If you just look at it from a purely political lens, actually, the Republican majority was reelected for the first time in 68 years after that last government slowdown, the last time being 1928. This House passed welfare reform and passed welfare reform and passed welfare reform until President Clinton signed the bill. The largest capital gains tax reduction in the history of this country was passed after the last government slowdown, and the first overall reduction in taxes in 17 years occurred after the last government slowdown. Four consecutive balanced budgets came out of that activity. Probably the only balanced budgets in my lifetime occurred after Speaker Gingrich had the courage to do what he did 17 years ago. Mr. Speaker, perhaps most telling, in the State of the Union Address that followed the government slowdown the last time, President Clinton stood in this House and announced that the era of Big Government is over. Those are words we can aspire to.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and celebrate the long-awaited groundbreaking for the expansion of Interstate 35-East through Denton County. The initiation of this 28 mile project corridor of 1-35, built a half century ago, occurs on a segment of a highway critical to the economic well-being of Denton County, the State of Texas and our nation. The I-35E project, initiated with $1.4 billion in funding, is the result of years of concerted effort by officials at the State, regional and local levels. Representing the largest single source of funding, Denton County Judge Mary Horn and the Denton County Commissioner's Court rightfully recognized the importance of the project by providing over half of the initial source funds. Their commitment of Denton County's Regional Toll Revenue funds and proceeds from two bond elections was used to initiate early acquisition for Right of Way, frontage roads and engineering. Based on the strong financial commitment by Denton County, support of cooperating agencies and partners such as Dallas County was secured, positioning the Regional Transportation Council, RTC, to prioritize and approve the additional state and federal funds necessary to make today's groundbreaking a reality. Working cooperatively, state officials including Senators Chris Harris, Jane Nelson and Craig Estes, Representatives Myra Crownover, Tan Parker and Burt Solomons and Texas Department of Transportation Commissioner Bill Meadows supported my engagement at the federal level to remove obstacles and build the support for financial and other commitments necessary within the state. They also worked closely with the staff from the Texas Department of Transportation and the North Central Texas Council of Governments to engage Denton County and the cities of Lewisville, Highland Village, Hickory Creek, Lake Dallas, Corinth and Denton--the local Denton County communities through which this critical component of our nation's transportation infrastructure passes. The I-35E project will not only serve to provide much-needed mobility improvements critical to our nation's economic welfare, it will also provide for other mobility enhancements. The project will impact factors critical to air quality, safety and other quality-of-life issues for both local residents and those who move to the rapidly growing Denton County communities on a daily basis. As this project gets underway, I'm proud to honor the significant accomplishments that warrant this day of celebration for Denton County. I look forward to the improvements promised and am honored to represent the communities and constituents who comprise Denton County in the House of Representatives.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, you have to ask yourself--most Americans do understand the concept of fairness--when did fairness become a partisan issue? Certainly tonight it seems that is the case. Now, look, no secret I have opposed the Affordable Care Act ever since I heard the first stirrings, the first musings about it in our Energy and Commerce Committee. I opposed it in committee, opposed it here on the floor of the House, opposed the Senate bill that came over to the House. I have opposed it at every opportunity. Yes, there have been multiple attempts to repeal it since the Republicans took majority in January of 2011. Seven of those times actually got passed by the Senate, went to the President, and he signed them into law. So there have been some restrictions on the Affordable Care Act over the past 3 years. But honestly, the changes that have occurred to the Affordable Care Act that have been the most dramatic and the most profound are those changes that are brought about by the President himself, by the administration itself. They are sort of like the delayer in chief for parts of the Affordable Care Act. I've had constituents email me, text me, and say: What blog post do I need to follow if I'm going to keep up with the changes in the Affordable Care Act? I had an HR director say: What Twitter feed should I keep up with? I have had other constituents ask me: Is there an Instagram place I should look at to keep up with the changes that are occurring with the Affordable Care Act? We are all familiar with them. We have discussed them the past several days. The fact that the preexisting condition program--the Federal preexisting condition program--that the President and Speaker Pelosi talked about with such high regard, the sign-up window has been closed since February 1. No one can sign up for the Federal preexisting program. There was supposed to be caps on out-of-pocket expenses starting in 2014. Well, guess what? Those got delayed by a whim. We are all familiar with July 2, when on a blog post the employer mandate was just suddenly set aside, and then 3 days later, all of the reporting requirements were sort of laid aside. So people are concerned that parts of this law seem expendable, but they just don't know which parts are. The most egregious one was what happened in the early part of August, right before this body went back to their district work period, where the fundamental fairness, where a different set of rules were going to apply to Members of Congress. Constituents do not understand that. So this week we have had an opportunity to repair that damage, repair that credibility with our constituents. That went over to the Senate tonight and, unfortunately, it failed. I wish that it hadn't. Perhaps we could be talking now about the funding of the government to December 15 and things could continue on as planned, but it didn't work out that way. But this issue of fundamental fairness is not going to go away; it's going to be a recurrent theme. People are going to be asking us questions: Why couldn't we settle on the issue of fundamental fairness and do what's right for the American people and, in the process, keep the government open?

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for the recognition. Mr. Speaker, I felt obligated to come to the floor tonight to try to set a few things straight. All the words that have been spoken about the amendment from the Senator from Iowa that was in the original Affordable Care Act that was signed by the President in March of 2010, but like so many things that were in the bill that was signed by the President, there were errors. It really wasn't ready for prime time. It was hastily pushed through the Senate, never went through any sort of process in the House after that point, and then got signed into law. As a consequence--and Senator Grassley has been concerned about this, and he spoke just last week--he said that the original amendment required lawmakers and staffers to enter the ObamaCare exchanges, but he didn't intend for them to lose the employer subsidy. And he said it's frustrating. It's frustrating because if they had let those of us who knew anything about health care draft this amendment, we wouldn't have the controversy. The Senator said that the Democratic majority leader did not properly draft the statutory language for his amendment, omitting language that would have allowed the staff to keep their employer contributions while in the exchanges. He said repeatedly that the Office of Personnel Management rule was in line with the original intent of the amendment, despite the amendment not being his. And then Senator Grassley went on to say: You understand that when we adopt an amendment in the Senate Finance Committee, unlike other committees, it's not in legal language. We describe it, but then it went to the majority leader's office, and when they put the statutory language in, they screwed it up. He said: If you want to know the truth, they had people who didn't know what they were doing. I don't know what their intent was, the Senator continued. My goal, regardless of how the amendment was worded, was that we in Congress need to go into the exchange so we'd have to go through the same red tape as every other citizen. And that's really what we're doing here tonight, saying that that concept, that Members of Congress go through that same red tape as every other citizen in this country is required to do. Now, we can talk about things that have been delayed in this bill. Maybe we should spend a few minutes talking about that. Republicans have tried to short-circuit parts of the Affordable Care Act, but it's actually been the President himself who's been the delayer in chief. Many people forget that there was a Federal preexisting program set up under the Affordable Care Act, but that preexisting program closed its doors to new applicants the 1st of February of this year. That means for 11 months people are frozen out of the Federal preexisting program. The press has never held the President to account for that. We heard comments as this debate started off about the caps on out- of-pocket expenses. But, Mr. Speaker, did you realize that those caps on out-of-pocket expenses were in fact suspended by the administration earlier this year? There was very little press about that. So all of the heralding of good things in the Affordable Care Act, you don't know what it's going to contain when it finally kicks in because the President may stop any part of it, at his discretion.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor and as a negotiator of the House legislation, I rise in the strongest support of the track-and- trace provisions which would protect the public and give confidence to doctors in practice that the drugs they are dispensing, in fact, came from the manufacturer. In regard to the language over compounding, there is, in fact, much to like. There was additional work that could have been done; but, unfortunately, due to the intransigent insistence of the Senate, we are considering these two issues together. Sixty American lives were lost a year ago. Excellent investigative work was done by our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. And it is disturbing to me personally that not one person at the Food and Drug Administration has been held accountable for their failure to use existing authority or informing the State of what they knew. My test for consideration of new categories of regulation is that it must not impact the traditional practice of medicine, pharmacy, or compounding. Mr. Speaker, no bill is perfect. There's always the risk of unintended consequences. I sincerely hope that this language will pass this test; but if it does not, I hope that our committee and this body will stand ready to do the necessary oversight and correct any unintended consequences.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding to me. I just heard a term used here, ``legislative malpractice.'' It's an interesting term because I believe it applies so succinctly to the process that gave us the Affordable Care Act. Many people now don't even remember December 21, 2009. It is but a distant and dim memory; but on that very night, on the longest and the darkest evening of the year, the Senate held a cloture vote to allow the Affordable Care Act to proceed to a vote in the full Senate. It passed the 60-vote margin. On Christmas Eve, the Affordable Care Act passed by that same 60-vote margin, right ahead of a big snowstorm because all of the Senators wanted to get out of town. Let's think about this for a minute. Were there hearings on H.R. 3590 in the House of Representatives? No, there were not. There were health care hearings, to be sure. Those led to a big, explosive growth in attendance at our town halls in the summer of 2009, but there was never a hearing on H.R. 3590, save the hearing in the Rules Committee the night before it came to the floor of the House in March of 2010. The hearings on H.R. 3200 were vastly different from the law as written in H.R. 3590. And here's the real crux, Mr. Speaker. Here's what's really wrong and why Washington is in such a lather right now: The Affordable Care Act was never intended to become law. It was a vehicle to get the Senators home on Christmas Eve before the snowstorm. It was never intended to be law. The law that was passed by the Senate was a rough draft. It's equivalent to saying the dog ate my homework so I turned in the rough draft; and, unfortunately, the rough draft got signed into law the following March, and that's why there's so much difficulty with this. You know, HR directors across this country, labor lawyers across this country are just literally pulling their hair out trying to make heads or tails of what they are required to do under the law. They get conflicting information from people at the Federal agencies. Goodness knows, in our committee hearings on Energy and Commerce, we have yet to have an administration person come in and really be prepared to answer our questions. What they are prepared to do is to try to mislead us and try to fill the time and try to filibuster and live through the hearing of the day and then get on to whatever it is they do. I asked the Director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight just last week: Will you be ready on October 1? A yes or no question; I asked for a simple yes or no answer. He gave me a long, convoluted answer about people going online and this, that, and the other. I said: You can't answer the question ``yes'' or ``no?'' He repeated his long discourse. But then what happened, while the President himself was out giving a speech on the greatness of the Affordable Care Act, oh, yeah, the Department of Health and Human Services put out a little memo that, in fact, people won't be able to go online. They might have to fax their information in on October 1. And here's the real point. Sure, you can criticize Republicans for having 42 votes to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act. Guess what? Seven times we've been successful. It passed the Senate and went on to the President and he signed it. Gone are the 1099s; gone are the CLASS Act. There are some things that, in fact, have happened to actually make the Affordable Care Act a little bit better. But who has been the delayer in chief on the Affordable Care Act? It has been the White House. It has been the President himself. Why do I say that? They extol the benefits of coverage for preexisting conditions, but no one can go to the Department of Health and Human Services and sign up for that Federal preexisting program. They closed the window on February 1 and said, Good luck. We'll see you next January 1 when you can sign up for ObamaCare. That's no answer to the problem. And look at what happened on July 2, right before everybody was to leave for the July Fourth holiday: 6 o'clock in the evening, on a blog post, they delayed the employer mandate. Now look, HR directors across the country are calling my office and asking: What Twitter feed do we need to follow to find out what's happening to this law? Do I need to go on Instagram to keep up with what's happening in this law? What's going to be delayed next? The President of the United States has been the delayer in chief. The caps on out-of-pocket maximums, delayed for another year. Small business health exchanges, gone for another year. The story repeats itself over and over again. I dare say, we will see a compression of morbidities next week and the week after, after this thing is supposed to go live. Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, had we had hearings, we might have actually come to an answer that would be more logical. Why didn't we ask any Governor what they thought of what the Congress was doing with health care in 2009? Where was Governor Mitch Daniels, who had managed to hold down cost in his State employees' health care by 11 percent over 2 years with his Healthy Indiana Plan? Why didn't we have him into committee to find out how he had managed to do that? Why didn't we have the Governor of Utah, who was attempting to set up exchanges in his State?

Mr. BURGESS. The Governor of Utah had been trying to set up exchanges in his own State for some time. He came to our committee and testified after the fact, after this thing had passed, after the Republicans were back in the majority and we invited him in. He said: I don't know what to do. I'm on shifting sands. Nothing seems stable right now. Where were the Governors when this law was written? Where were the Governors in our hearing? Mr. Speaker, we are at a crucial time in our country. The House is going to put forward legislation today that will keep our government open and funded. I pray--I pray--that Harry Reid and the President of the United States will not shut the government down.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, while the President was again defending his health care law, the Department of Health and Human Services announced even more delays. This train wreck of a health care law is quickly derailing, but the President continues to provide delays and exemptions for everyone except ordinary Americans. After the President and the administration promised time and time again that the exchanges would be ready and online October 1, several States have said consumers are actually just going to have to wait. Maybe you can send in a paper application if you're anxious. Last week, on September 19, I asked the director of the agency charged with implementing the exchanges: Will the enrollment process be ready October 1 of this year? I actually posed that as a yes or no question. His answer: Consumers will be able to go online, they will be able to get a determination of what tax subsidies they are eligible for, they will be able to look at the plans that are available where they live, they will be able to see the premium net of subsidy that they would have to pay, and they will be able to choose a plan and get enrolled. Hardly a yes or no answer to a yes or no question. But nevertheless, yesterday's actions by HHS bespeak what really is the case. His answer should have been: No, they will not be ready.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, once again, the President is trying to mislead and hide the truth from the Congress and the American people. The Department of Health and Human Services released a report yesterday on the pricing of health plans on the Federal exchanges--a perfect example of bureaucratic doublespeak. The report was quick to say that rates were 16 percent under their projections. Well, that sounds great, but what were their projections? Does that mean the rates will increase or decrease? They went to a lot of trouble to avoid answering that question. Some digging by Forbes Magazine, however, uncovered the truth. For 40-year-olds, rates will increase by an average of 99 percent for men, and 62 percent for women. It seems that the truth is a lot different. The biggest problem, however, isn't the rate increase. With only 5 days left until implementation, the administration is unwilling or incapable of answering even basic questions. The data they released was only partial data samples. It's time for the Department of Health and Human Services to stop playing games and hiding the truth, and time to give the American people the full truth about what the President's takeover of health care really means.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize 25 years of service by the Community Enrichment Center (CEC). Located in North Richland Hills, Texas, the CEC serves over 7,000 unduplicated individuals in Tarrant County with food, housing, education classes, free tax preparation, job services and seniors working to stay out of isolation. Formed in 1998 as a food pantry by the Richland Hills Church of Christ, the CEC has expanded dramatically over the years as they identified the needs of individuals and families in crisis that extended beyond the basic need for food. In their efforts the CEC has partnered with homeless agencies, local municipalities, churches, community organizations, businesses, schools, local and state homeless coalitions. Toward accomplishing this mission, in 1993 the CEC received the first non-profit U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homeless grant offered in the 5 state region served by the Region 6 office of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Initially extended as a demonstration project and known now as the Continuum of Care grant, the CEC matches federal funding with private resources at approximately 400 percent. CEC was also recognized by HUD Best Practice Award in 1998 for their Adopt-A-Family homeless program. In their effort to meet broader needs, the CEC absorbed Open Arms Home, Inc. to reduce administrative expenses and allow more funds to be committed to meeting the housing needs of those fleeing from domestic violence. CEC's mission has also led them to provide testing and coaching to the underemployed to identify needs and guide them through education and training resources toward financial independence. Nutritional cooking classes were also added, along with a greater selection of fresh produce and frozen meat to better serve the health needs of those using their food pantry. I am grateful for the commitment of the CEC staff and volunteers for the 25 years of dedicated service to the underserved of Northern Tarrant County. I join them in celebration of all they have accomplished in meeting the challenges of their mission. It is my privilege to represent the organization and many of their volunteers in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, of course we are here today to discuss the rule that will allow the continuing resolution to come to the floor; and coupled with the continuing resolution is language that will forever affect the funding for what is known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Let us pause for a moment to remember how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was visited upon the United States of America. This was not something that was a product of any House hearing. This was not something that was a product of the House in any way. This was a product of the Senate Finance Committee; developed between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2009; put on the floor of the Senate on what I like to describe as the ``darkest evening of the year'' in a cloture vote, December 21, 2009; followed by a vote by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Many of you will remember that day. There was a snowstorm descending upon Washington, D.C. The Senators wanted to get home, they wanted to get out of town, so they simply voted one after the other until they got the 60 votes for the Affordable Care Act and then left town under the cover of darkness. They never thought that what they were voting on on Christmas Eve 2009 would ever become law. But a funny thing happened. A dog ate my homework, and I turned in the rough draft and it accidentally got signed by the President 3 months later. That's where we are today. That's why this law has been so difficult to implement. That's why the American people have never embraced this. And now more recent polling in the past several days shows that the American people actually reject what is being visited upon them. A headline in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Walgreens has told their employees, well, guess what, we're not going to pay for coverage any longer; we will give you money. Good luck in the exchanges, and we'll see you on the other side. UPS dropping family coverage. The unions wrote the minority leader in the House of Representatives and the majority leader in the Senate and said: please help us. Please help us. We've helped you. We've manned your phone banks; we walked neighborhoods for you; we got you elected. The administration is not listening to us. You have broken the contract with the middle class by voiding the 40-hour work week. By redefining full-time employment as 30 hours, you have essentially broken the back of the middle class. The American people, regardless of political persuasion, are crying out for our help. Fortunately, today and tomorrow, we are going to be able to provide them that help. We are frequently hearing about 40 or 41 votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I'll tell you what, as many as it takes. But seven of those efforts to restrict and repeal portions of the Affordable Care Act, seven of those have been passed by the Senate and signed by the President. So it's not entirely a fruitless effort. But probably more telling is the President himself, who has, whenever it suited him, simply jettisoned a portion of the law--a law that he signed in March of 2010 that we all remember. Those of us who were in the House at that time, those of us who watched news shows during the summer of 2009 and on into 2010, the cry that went up: we've got to do something about people with preexisting conditions. There are just far too many people in the country who are frozen out of the insurance market because of an unfortunate medical diagnosis. But the reality is the large group plans in this country have open enrollment periods. So the preexisting condition conundrum generally is a problem for people in the individual and small group market. How do I know this? How do I know that this number is much more manageable than the 8 to 12 million people that then-Speaker Pelosi and the President of the United States talked about? Because on the eve of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, when I thought it was going to be important for this House to respond to those people who had the Federal preexisting program taken away from them by a Supreme Court action, I did an investigation: how many people had been signed up in the so-called ``Federal PCIP program.'' The number at that time was 65,000; by the end of the year, it was nearly 100,000. Then, Mr. Speaker, something really strange happened. On February 1 of this year, less than 2 years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, people showing up at the teller's window over at the Department of Health and Human Services saying I would like to buy my insurance in the Federal preexisting pool were told, sorry, that window is closed. We will only take care of the people who are already enrolled. If you're coming in today wanting that kind of help, so sorry, program terminated. There were no headlines in that regard. There were no cries of anguish that the President had stopped providing coverage for people with preexisting conditions. You had people who were waiting the 6-month waiting period--they were required by law to wait and not have insurance--show up for this Federal preexisting pool. But what did they hear when they got to the window? Sorry, sister, window is closed. Go somewhere else. Eleven months from now you will have the full Elysian Fields of ObamaCare. And maybe if you can make it until then, you'll be fine. Well, what else went by the wayside? Remember the discussion about: we're going to put a cap on out-of-pocket expenses so no longer will people have to pay excessive copays and deductibles. Oh, by the way, they postponed that for a year. That was supposed to start January 1, 2014. Now it's been put off until January 1, 2015. The Small Business Health Exchange, supposed to open--we are going to get the power of competition in the small group market--was supposed to open January 1, 2014; delayed for a year, January 1, 2015. Who can forget the Tuesday evening before the 4th of July holiday this year when on a blog post Valerie Jarrett put out that the employer mandate was in fact suspended for a year. Three days later they had to say that, oh, yeah, by the way, all of those reporting requirements that we were requiring under the employer mandate, well, we're not going to require those either. We're just going to trust people to tell us the truth when they come in to sign up for benefits, not that any Federal program administered by the Department of Health and Human Services has ever had a problem with fraud or misrepresentation. Probably one of the most telling things is the lack of anyone within the agency to be able to answer a simple yes or no question about: Will the exchanges be open for enrollment on October 1? The head of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight was in our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations just this morning. I asked that question; a simple yes or no, sir, is all that I require. I got a long answer that, yes, there will be Web sites; yes, you will be able to access Web sites. Yes or no, will people be able to go to register for insurance on October 1? They could not give me a yes or no answer. Second question: What about will people be able to sign up for the insurance on January 1 as advertised, yes or no? Again, unable to give a yes or no answer to that question. Will people be able to buy insurance cheaper as the President suggested when he was running for office? Unable to answer with a yes or no. These are the problems we have, Mr. Speaker. We cannot get people from the agencies to come and give us a simple answer, a simple direct answer to a simple direct question. No wonder the American people are full of questions about this. No wonder they are full of fear about what is just around the corner. This rule vote will allow the House to vote on a bill that keeps the government funded and open until December 15 of this year. But that vote, very importantly, allows people's voices to be heard that they do not trust what has been quoted in the Affordable Care Act. They feel that the investment has been a bad investment so far, and they are telling us: don't sink one more dime into this.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, today is the 226th anniversary of the signing of one of the most important documents in world history. A lot of us talk about the Constitution, and talk about it often; but sometimes we forget the ground-breaking influence of that document and the fact that that very document was written by the States to create the Federal Government and not the other way around. It has provided the basis for our representative Republic; it has provided the foundation for our government; and it has had a lasting influence across the world. In various corners of the globe, our Constitution has served as a model for other countries as they strove to build their governments and to make liberty and freedom for their citizens one of their first priorities. Today's anniversary marks the spot where history diverged from the history of colonial rule and forged a path based on the rule of law and the rights of individuals. I hope that everyone takes a moment to reflect on the enormous insights of our Founders in creating this document.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The Senate-passed bill, in my understanding from recent discussion with the House Parliamentarian, has not arrived in the House. The reason it has not arrived in the House is because it has an origination problem. The Senate, in its haste to rush a bill through, didn't get it right. As a consequence, that bill cannot come in the House. We're here today to debate the rule for H.R. 2775. One of the things that I do feel obligated to point out--whether it's comprehensive immigration reform, whether it's any of the other things that people talk about--if you have an executive branch that only selectively enforces parts of laws that it wants to, why wouldn't the American people fear what might come out of the selective enforcement of a comprehensive immigration law? Let me quote to you from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Obama on March 21, 2010. This is section 1513, section (d). This is a section that deals with the employer mandate. Section (d): Effective date--The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013. That doesn't sound ambiguous. That doesn't sound difficult to comprehend, yet we are told that selectively the President has decided he doesn't want to enforce this, that it is inconvenient for him to enforce this, it runs counter to what some of his friends in some of the largest corporations in this country are telling him that they want--not what the American people want, but what they want--and the President simply suspends this part of the law in a blog post on July 2 of this year. This is a fear that people have in my district: How do we trust that this President is going to enforce the laws that, under the Constitution, he is told that he must enforce? How do we trust the Attorney General, who has sort of selectively decided what laws suit his purpose and what laws don't and selectively enforces those laws? Why we are here today is because of the administration's selective enforcement of their law. I wasn't in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. I voted against it. I voted against it in committee. I voted against it in the House version. I voted against it after it came back from the Senate. I'll vote against it every chance I get. The fact of the matter is the President signed it into law and then decided it's inconvenient. So when the effective date reads, ``The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013,'' the President decides that's inconvenient and he doesn't want to do that anymore. He just suspends it, even though the law is the law. We never took a vote on that. We never said, Mr. President, we're with you or against you on this. He simply decided. That's not the way this country is to run. That's not our constitutional Republic that our Founders envisioned for us. This is unilateral government by a ruler, which, by definition, is not allowed under our Constitution. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the rule, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the underlying bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.