John Garamendi

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, they are coming back, and I just want to, maybe the three of us can simply recognize them for the service that they provided to this country. I suspect that, normally, I see a gentleman that's always escorting them here in the gallery. Normally, they come back with some wound or another, and that's difficult; but I want them to know, and I would ask you to join me in this conversation, to know that this House, Democrat and Republican alike, are determined to make sure that all of our men and women that are returning from the wars, and those that have served even though they were not on the field of battle, deserve both our respect and whatever services they need, veterans services, medical services, and a job. I thank them for coming here. Mr. Tonko.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, before we carry further with the American Jobs Act, I know that the two veterans who were here in the gallery were headed out the door when I recognized them, I saw them leave and I wanted to thank them for their service. I suspect that they were headed off to some other meeting, or wherever they were headed; and I don't want to keep them here, but rather just to thank them for their service and to know that 435 Members of this House care deeply about your situation, what you're dealing with, and all of the others that are in the field and have returned, in providing the extraordinary service to this Nation. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me just for a moment. I noticed in our gallery two gentlemen, soldiers, who are here, both of them wounded in the wars. This is part of a group that comes in here every day when we're in session to watch what we're doing. They just stepped out the door, and I wanted to catch them before they left to recognize them for the services that they provide. They may come back in, in which case I will interrupt you again.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we heard many, many things during that debate last week that are just, I think, incorrect and inaccurate. One of them was that the Medicare program was cut and benefits taken away from seniors. It didn't happen. What happened was that about $50 billion a year of expenditures going to the insurance industry unnecessarily, an unnecessary bonus was removed, that was about $160 billion, about $16 billion a year; and then there was the Medicare fraud. That is a big problem and other adjustments, but no reduction in benefits to seniors and, in fact, significant increases. Mr. Altmire talked about those with the drug benefit, as you did. There was also the prescription drug savings, which, Mr. Altmire, you raised. We also know that every senior now has a free annual health checkup, which is an exceedingly important way of keeping seniors, well, anybody, healthy. You get a checkup--we got blood pressure issues, diabetes issues, other kinds of medical issues--you get ahead of them, and then with the drugs you can keep ahead of them. There are many, many improvements in the Medicare program that are as a result of the bill. Mr. Altmire, I know that you have been spending a lot of time on these issues, and I thank you for your participation here tonight. If you would like to expand on maybe some experiences in your own district, go for it.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us, and thank you for bringing that perspective. Twice, now, our Republican colleagues have voted for a full repeal of the law, and you very correctly and, I think, almost totally pointed out the things that would disappear. The doughnut hole would open up again, the preexisting conditions, the patients' bill of rights would be gone, and the insurance companies can then re-engage in discrimination, as they have so often. All those things that are very positive would disappear. So we're fighting fiercely to keep them. As Mr. Tonko, our colleague from New York has said, We will work through the years ahead to improve and to deal with the unknown issues that are certain to arise. We've got work ahead of us, and we can do it.

Mr. GARAMENDI. These are all part of the puzzle of putting people back to work. As I started this discussion, talking about the laws of America, the policies that have been enacted by this Congress and by previous Congresses and the way in which they impact the middle class of America, that impact has been devastating on the middle class for the last 20 years. It is our determination as Democrats to change the policies so that the American middle class can once again thrive, so that a family can enjoy the fruits of their labor, and so that they can enjoy the potential that America brings to them. I notice that we've been joined by our colleague from Pennsylvania. Please, join us. Thank you for coming in this evening and sharing with us your thoughts.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me take that a little further. I wish I'd had this law when I was insurance commissioner because I used to see this all the time when I'd get complaints. We had a consumer hotline, and we would take several thousand calls a week. We'd always get these complaints about: They dropped my insurance. And we get from businesses, They dropped my insurance. Why did they drop the insurance? You said it right on target. Suddenly one of the members of the workforce of a small group of people had a significant illness. When it came time for the annual renewal--insurance is an annual thing that is renewed every year--they heard back, I'm sorry. We can't renew you this year because we're changing the market. All kinds of excuses. But the reality was there was one sick person in that group. This law will end that. There's also the opportunity for people that have become unemployed in this economy to get a job, particularly if that person happens to be 50 years or older. That person today has a preexisting condition called ``age.'' They're beginning to enter that part of life where you're going to have more medical issues, and employers go, Wait a minute. We don't have a position for you. We're not discriminating based on age, but your resume isn't exactly the way it ought to be. It's very difficult for a person 50 and older to get back into the workforce because of health insurance. With the exchange and the anti-discrimination policies in the Affordable Care Act, which we call the Patients' Bill of Rights, they will be able to get back into the workforce. We're talking about people going back to work with health insurance no longer being a barrier to employment.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Absolutely true. In addition to that, because of the exchange situation, individuals as well as businesses find themselves in a large pool. Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years in the nineties and then again in 2000 with an 8-year hiatus in between. I understand that, in insurance, for it to work, you need a very large, diverse population so that the risk is spread. In the individual market today, you can't get that; but in the exchange, the concept is to allow all of these individuals and these small businesses to be part of a very, very large pool so that they can take advantage of the spreading of the risk and, therefore, the lower cost and the subsidy on top of that. One more thing. I was at a bagel shop. It was in the early morning, and I needed a cup of coffee and a bagel, so I stopped at a bagel shop. There was the owner and one or two employees--I think there were actually three. One was in the back. I didn't see that employee. We were talking about health insurance, and there was an excitement by this employer because she could get insurance. So it's the employer as well as the two employees who were going to be able to get insurance. Previously, she couldn't. She was a single mother with a new shop, opening it up--pretty good bagels and the coffee was very good. Now she can get insurance through the exchange. It was a new shop, and income was going to be low, so she could also get the subsidy. For the first time in many, many years for this woman--a divorcee whose husband went one way and she went the other, who lost the insurance--she can get insurance. This is part of the Affordable Care Act, and it is specifically designed in a way to encourage businesses to provide insurance and, in that process, as you say, to find the good employees and keep them. It's very exciting.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Exactly.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, I am really pleased that you brought that up. You have reminded me of a rather lengthy article from The Sacramento Bee. I am from California. Sacramento has one of the hometown papers, and the Bee was writing a major article on the exchange. In the Affordable Care Act, there is an insurance exchange, and California was the first State in the Nation to follow up on the Affordable Care Act's exchange portion and to put in place a law to build an exchange. Now, at least our Republican friends think that's an awful situation. Governor Schwarzenegger, who was a Republican and is a Republican, signed that legislation before he left office almost 2 years ago now. So this article is very effusive and upbeat about the establishment of an exchange in that they expect to have it online. What they talked about, a lot of it, was of individuals who could get insurance in a large pool and have the same opportunities for reasonably priced policies as occurs in a big business. They also spent a lot of time talking about small businesses. How correct you are that the Affordable Care Act really offers small businesses an extremely important and heretofore unavailable opportunity to get insurance for the employer as well as for the employees, and a very big subsidy is available for those small companies that choose to buy insurance. Up to 50 percent of the cost of the insurance could be subsidized and costs reduced to the employer. Now, that's a lot of money. It's calculated at about $4,000 per employee if you're looking at an $8,000 or $9,000 policy. So it's really an important opportunity. Why is that good for business? Go ahead, Mr. Tonko.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, before we start on our dialogue--I expect to have my colleague from New York here in a few minutes--I want to thank my colleague from North Carolina, Walter Jones. Mr. Jones, every day and every week you speak on this floor about the Afghanistan war and previously about the Iraq war, and you carry a message that is extremely important, one that I agree with, and one that I would hope that our colleagues here in Congress would take up this issue in a very strong and determined way to bring this Afghanistan war to an end. I thank the President for bringing the Iraq war to an end. And now there's yet another task for all of us to do, and that is to end this continued use and abuse of the American soldiers. They endure much, and it's time for us to bring them home. We thank them for their service. We see them as they return. Some of my colleagues and I are working on a major effort to try to deal with more than 365,000 of those men and women that have returned that are suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome, dealing with everything from suicides to depression and other issues as they return home, and many of them still in the military dealing with those issues. We also have the traumatic brain issues, and so there's much to be done. And there will be much more to be done for those that are currently suffering. And the longer this war in Afghanistan continues, the more men and women will be suffering from all sorts of medical, physical, and mental issues. So, Walter, thank you so very much for what you're doing here on the floor day in and day out and reminding us that it's time for us to end this war. What I want to spend some time on today is really talking about America's middle class. The middle class in America has suffered. For the last 25 years, the American middle class's circumstances have stagnated, and in the last 5 years--actually, 6 years--have seriously declined. We've seen this in the statistics. We've seen them in the economic statistics. The only way the American middle class has been able to sustain its economic position has been for both husband and wife or children to join in providing the income for the family. It's no longer a single- person income sustaining the American middle class. It is about our policies here on the floor of Congress and the Senate that has led to the decline of the American middle class. Specific policies have been enacted over the last two decades that have hollowed out the opportunities that the American middle class has counted on, specifically, manufacturing in America. Once, 20 million Americans and their families were in the manufacturing sector. They enjoyed a good salary. A good hourly wage was available to them such that one individual in that family working in the manufacturing sector was able to support the family, own a home, take a vacation, buy a boat, provide for the college education. That is not the case today. Only 11 million and a few thousand beyond that are actually engaged in manufacturing in America today. So what happened to the 9 million? They lost their jobs. Those jobs disappeared, not from the Earth, but disappeared from America. They went overseas. They were outsourced. American jobs were outsourced. Why? Well, they'd like to say it's simply the nature of the free market system, and, indeed, that's part of it. But that's not all of it. A major part of it had to do with specific tax policies and other manufacturing industrial policies that were enacted by Congress and remained on the books for some 20 years or more. We need to address that issue because, if, in fact, it is the policies of this Congress and previous Congresses that have led to the great outsourcing and decline of the American manufacturing sector and, along with it, the American middle class, then there's something that we can do about it. We make laws. We establish policies. And if we find that there are policies that are contrary to the good ability of the American economy to prosper and the middle class to prosper along with it, then we ought to change those policies. That's what the Make It In America agenda is all about. The Make It In America agenda is specifically designed to rebuild the American manufacturing sector. This is an issue that's been taken up by the Democratic Caucus, led by our Minority Whip, Mr. Hoyer, and carried on by my colleagues and I. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. I notice that my colleague from New York (Mr. Tonko) has joined us. Mr. Tonko, we were going to start out on health care, but we kind of morphed into the issue of the American manufacturing industry and the role of the middle class. Now, the middle class, I went off on manufacturing and the need to rebuild that and the Make It In America agenda, but also, a key part of the inability of the American middle class to sustain itself is health care. And the Affordable Health Care Act, which the Supreme Court recently confirmed was constitutional, is constitutional, is a major effort on the part of the Democratic Congress and President Obama to provide not only health care, but to lift up the American middle class. So let's hold, for a moment, the issue of Make It In America. We'll come back to it in the latter half of this hour. But let's take up the health care agenda, which I know you wanted to speak to initially. While you're doing that, I'm going to run and get a couple of placards that show what it is we're talking about. Please, Mr. Tonko, from the great State of New York, part of the East-West team.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you, and I suspect we're going to hear once again this is a government takeover. That's not true. It's not true at all. This is built upon the private delivery system that we presently have. Talk about the government designing or taking over the policy is just not true. I know this. I was the insurance commissioner. I know that it is actually the insurance companies heretofore before this bill that actually did that. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for your leadership on this and your passion for it. We are out of time. This issue is not going to go away. This issue will be around. I would hope, as it is discussed in the months ahead, that we actually get down past the rhetoric and talk about the real facts of what is in the Affordable Health Care Act. It's an extraordinary improvement for America's health care. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.

Mr. GARAMENDI. You are absolutely correct. We really need to get to jobs. I notice some of our Republican colleagues are here. They'll be taking the next hour, and I suspect they are going to pick up something that was said over and over again over the last 2 days. I just want to put on the table some facts, some facts about what is really going on here. I heard speakers come to the floor, including the Speaker of the House, saying the Affordable Care Act was the largest middle class tax increase ever. Well, I'm sorry. The Washington Post Fact Checker said the health care law will provide more tax relief than tax burden for middle class families. A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that an estimated 4 million individuals will likely pay the penalty because they're not going to buy insurance. Okay? That's about 1.2 percent of the total population. They also estimated that 16 million Americans--that's four times more--will receive tax credits, or subsidies, to help them pay for insurance coverage through the new exchanges. Now, that's 5 percent of the population. The CBO estimates that the government will provide $630 billion in tax credits and subsidies for insurance over the next 11 years and only $54 billion in penalties--taxes or tax increases--on the middle class. So the fact of the matter is the middle class is going to get an enormous tax benefit as a result of this. Those who buy insurance are actually going to see their taxes reduced as they buy insurance. They'll have health care coverage at an affordable cost, their taxes will go down, they'll receive subsidies. The essential point here is that it is not a tax increase, the overwhelming, largest-ever on the middle class. In fact, it is a huge tax reduction. Secondarily, there is a decreased cost to every American who buys health insurance today because there will not be a shift of cost from the uninsured to the insured and to the taxpayer. That's precisely what happens when you have some 40 million Americans uninsured. They get sick. Fortunately, in this Nation, we have not yet come to the point when we do not provide health care to people who are sick and in need of care. They get it at the emergency room, and they get it at the community clinics. It becomes what is known as uncompensated care. In other words, it is not paid for directly by the individual, but indirectly by every single American that buys a health insurance policy and every company that buys a health insurance policy and the American taxpayers. The Affordable Health Care Act does not increase the cost of health care in America. In fact, it has the significant potential of decreasing the cost. In the last 2 years, we've seen the health care costs in America decline to the lowest inflation rate ever in the last 50 years except 1 year. Let's get the facts correct, my colleagues. If we're going to talk about tax increases, get the facts correct. Talk about the tax reductions at the same time. Talk about the fact that the Affordable Health Care Act, in effect, has actually been part of an overall reduction in the inflation rate of health care. And in the Affordable Health Care Act, there are very significant, long-lasting, and powerful reforms that will bend the cost curve of health care, such as electronic medical records. The repeal would wipe that out. It would be gone. Primary care clinics across this Nation are funded through the Affordable Health Care Act. Where do you think people get care today? In those clinics. If they don't get care there, they're going to the emergency room at 5 or 10 times the cost. There are vaccinations for our children, which, incidentally, in the appropriations bill, our Republican friends tried to eliminate many of these vaccinations. Fortunately, it didn't happen. There is preventive care for seniors so that their blood pressure and diabetes is controlled. Today, our Republican colleagues voted to wipe out preventive care not only for seniors, but beginning this August, a month from now, every woman in America will be able to get preventive screening. Mammograms, pap smears, blood pressure testing. That's what's being lost here, all in the name of some political opportunistic effort to try to run out once again what you thought was successful in the last election period. Well, the American public isn't going to be fooled twice. The American public will come to know that in the Affordable Health Care Act there is real benefit for Americans. Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us to this floor. Thank you for bringing us the opportunity to talk about what is real.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Our colleague, Marcy Kaptur, reminded me of a personal story, personal things. My sister-in-law was a juvenile diabetic, and I think of what would her circumstances be if she had had this law when she was alive. The last 20 years of her life were a struggle. The company she worked for folded, and her health insurance was lost. And she spent the last 20 years of her life struggling financially, medically, and really unable to get the kind of continuity of care necessary. She got a lot of help from her family; but even so, it was a struggle. Under the law today, she would have been able to get insurance. And in 2014, in California, or actually next year in California, there will be an exchange. So even though she spent those last 20 years as an independent contractor, selling various things over those years, she could enter into a large pool, that is the exchange, where she would have the same opportunity to buy a low-cost policy as though she were in Ford Motor Company with hundreds of thousands of employees. Our Republican colleagues would abolish the exchanges. And I just think about what could have been. There was no exchange, and she wasn't able to get that insurance; but had she lived, and had other men and women with diabetes or serious heart issues or other kinds of problems, medical problems, they could get insurance in the exchange and be part of a large pool. Simultaneously, if they didn't have the income, they would be able to get a subsidy. If their income was less than the poverty level, that insurance would be free through the Medicaid program. And if they were above the poverty level, it would be subsidized so that it would be affordable. I guess this is really about compassion. This is about our very moral sense of who we are as Americans, do we have compassion, and do we care for our fellow citizens. On today's floor I heard the most astounding arguments, arguments based upon falsehoods, just flat out falsehoods. I heard the Speaker here say that the Affordable Care Act cost employment. But since the Affordable Care Act has been in place for the last 2 years, private sector employment has grown every single month. Now, there may have been some company that decided not to employ somebody, or maybe they went out of business for any number of reasons. But private sector employment has grown every single month for the last 28 months. So, taken as a whole, the Affordable Health Care Act didn't retard employment. It didn't cause the number of private sector employees to decline. In fact, they've grown. And I also heard the very same person, with the very same argument, say that it's driven up health care costs. Well, excuse me, take a look at the statistics, the health care statistics. We've actually seen, in the last 2 years, since the Affordable Health Care Act went into effect, a significant decline in the rate of inflation for health care. In fact, the rate of inflation for health care in the last 2 years, 2010 and 2011, was the lowest rate of growth in every year except one in the last 50 years. It was 3.9 percent. Those are not my statistics. They're not pulled out of the air. Those are government statistics about health care inflation--3.9 percent, which was the lowest rate of inflation in general health care in the last 50 years, except only one other year. How about the cost of premiums? Before I get there, the average health care spending in 2000 to 2009 was 6.8 percent per year. That's the annual growth, 6.8 percent per year. In 2010 and 2011, as I just said, it was 3.9 percent, nearly 50 percent less. Let's get our facts right. Put aside the rhetoric and deal with the facts. If you're going to come down here, as Speaker or anybody else, use facts in your argument. Don't just throw out a number. Mr. Speaker, if you'd like to debate it on the floor with me, come on down. Seniors paying more? No, I don't believe so. No, they don't pay more. Medicare Advantage enrollees, the cost of premiums for Medicare Advantage was 16 percent less in 2012 than in 2010. The Affordable Health Care Act, was it responsible for that? Partly, yes, because the Affordable Health Care Act took $150 billion, $15 billion a year, away from the insurance companies and plowed it back into Medicare benefits. The drug benefit that you were talking about--free medical services, preventative services. The result was a 16 percent reduction--an overall average--across the United States for Medicare Advantage. Oh, by the way, these are statistics from Mercer, one of the health care consulting companies. I think I'll let it go at that. There are more statistics about that. Mr. Speaker and my colleagues on the Republican side, if you want to come down and debate the issue of health care inflation, then you'd better come down here with real facts. Don't come down here with a lot of just talk. Health care inflation has gone down since the Affordable Care Act has been put in place. Mr. Tonko, why don't you pick it up from here. Maybe I'll have a challenge on the floor from the Speaker. We'll see.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just take up the Patient's Bill of Rights very, very quickly. I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years. The insurance industry puts people behind profits. Profits before people. And they're concerned about making sure that they have a healthy group of customers. They don't want sick people. Sick people cost money. So over the years they have developed a whole set of discriminatory practices to exclude from coverage people they don't want to take care of because they might be expensive. So in the Affordable Care Act there is the Patient's Bill of Rights that forces the insurance companies to end insurance discrimination. And here's just some of them: Children with preexisting conditions. An example, my chief of staff, his son was covered by insurance the day he was born. The second day of his life they discovered that kid had very serious renal failure; kidney failure. Bam, the insurance was over. That family was off their insurance policy; gone, done. No longer. We're talking about I think 14 million American children that are going to get coverage regardless of what their health circumstances might be. Young adults. This one is close to home. I've got six children. Every one of them have passed through that age of 21 when they were no longer on our insurance policy. Most recently, my daughter. Twenty-one years of age, covered by an insurance company for 21 years and 9 months. The day of her 21st birthday, off the insurance policy. We're now talking about every young American 21 to 26 stays on their parents' health policy. She also happens to be a woman. Women are discriminated against in insurance because they have a preexisting condition: They could get pregnant. That's expensive. We don't want to cover them, say the insurance companies. No, no. Under the Patient's Bill of Rights, the discrimination against every woman in America on their insurance policy is over. Apparently, our Republican colleagues don't care about these very, very important efforts to end insurance discrimination. We can go on here. Seniors. Who among us doesn't have a preexisting condition? High blood pressure, juvenile diabetics, type II diabetes. Try to get insurance without the Affordable Care Act--you're out of luck. You won't get insurance. So the Patient's Bill of Rights, should today's action become law, is repealed, and along with it, the protections that 315 million Americans presently have--presently have. No more insurance discrimination. The ability to get insurance is guaranteed. No more discrimination. Yes, I'm a little passionate about this one because I've watched this. I've watched this as insurance commissioner. I fought the insurance companies day in and day out as they denied coverage, as they refused to provide the coverage, as they told people they couldn't get care. But the law is in place now. The law is in place, and it's going to stay in place despite the vote today. Mr. Tonko, thank you.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. And thank you for beginning this discussion by going back into the history of the United States back to the development of Social Security and the extraordinary benefit that that has brought to not only seniors but to their children, to families, knowing that when retirement age approached-- 65--there would be a foundation for whatever retirement program a person would have, and also for pointing out that for years now, and certainly in the recent decade, our Republican colleagues have called for the privatization of Social Security. Now if you trust Wall Street, then I guess it's a good idea. If we had any lesson, we should have had the lesson of 2008 and 2009, when Wall Street turned its back on the American public and simply ripped us off to a fare-thee-well and nearly collapsed the world economy. Were it not for the efforts of the Obama administration and, frankly, this Congress, it may very well have happened. And then you pointed out Medicare coming along in 1964, 1965 and the way in which that has protected seniors. I remember as a young child--I think I was probably 7 or 8--my dad took me down to the county hospital to visit one of our neighbor ranchers. I've got to tell you it was horrible. That was the only care available for a senior who had no money. And then Medicare came along, and 60 percent of America's seniors were in poverty prior to Medicare. Now, with Social Security and Medicare, it's somewhere around 10, 15 percent. An enormous boost. Yet twice this House has voted to terminate Medicare. Not the Democrats. Our Republican colleagues twice have voted to terminate Medicare so that every American less than 55 years of age would not receive Medicare. They would be given a voucher and told to go fight as best they could in the private insurance market. And then today, another major effort by the Democrats to provide health care for all Americans--a health insurance policy that you knew was there, that you could count on, that would be affordable. The 31st time, today, a full repeal or a partial repeal was taken up and passed by our Republican colleagues. So what's an American to do? What does it mean to Americans? Let's spend some time talking about what this means to Americans if you didn't have Medicare. If you don't have the Affordable Care Act, what would it mean? I'm going to start, if I might, or would you like to start?

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the Members of this House for what is an extraordinary debate--a debate of which there is a lot of false information. I was the insurance commissioner in California, and I can talk about these insurance issues forever. But what I would really like to focus on is the fact that the law that is in the land today really helps people. It would help people like my deceased sister-in-law, a juvenile diabetic. She spent the last 10 years of her life struggling to get insurance, which she couldn't get because she had a preexisting condition. That won't be the case in the future for those with juvenile diabetes. They'll be able to get insurance. They'll be able to get it through an exchange in their States--at least those States that have it--at an affordable cost. And if they don't have the income, they'll have a subsidy to buy the insurance. It will help people like the son of my chief of staff, who was born with kidney failure. He had insurance from conception until hours after he was born. But the insurance company dropped him. That won't happen any more because children throughout this Nation will be able to stay on their parents' policy because of this law. It will help people like my daughter, who turned 21 and the insurance company that had covered her for 21 years dumped her. Because of this law, she is now on my policy--and for 17 million other young adults who have insurance as a result of this law. I can talk forever about the way in which the insurance companies discriminate based upon age, sex, preexisting conditions, and across this Nation millions upon millions of Americans were denied coverage, but are no longer because of the Patients' Bill of Rights. This is insurance reform on steroids. And I wish I had this law available to me when I was insurance commissioner in California. This is a good law. This is a very, very good thing for Americans.

Mr. GARAMENDI

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I do. And like most of my Democratic colleagues, we just walked out of this Chamber and said this is not worthy of the dignity of the House of Representatives. And we weren't going to honor this process with our presence. Let's go back here. The Fast and Furious programs actually began in the George W. Bush administration, I think, around 2005, 2006. And there were two iterations of it, two different projects that were underway out of the Phoenix office of the ATF. And they were trying to find out who the gunrunners were. We've all watched the Western movies and the gunrunners. Well, there are American gunrunners that were running guns to the narco folks in Mexico. We wanted to find out what is going on here, where are these guns coming from. And that was, once again, during the George W. Bush administration and had gone on for 2, 3 years. The Obama administration comes in. Eric Holder is chosen as Attorney General. And the program continued. The tragedy occurred. An agent was killed. And from there, Fast and Furious--this is now what we call the walking of the guns--became known. Eric Holder shut it down. In that process, a letter was written to the Senate committee saying that it didn't exist. Clearly, an error, I am told. But this House doesn't know today. Never investigated by the committee. But I am told that there was information that the office in Phoenix, Arizona, misled the office in Washington, D.C., and a letter was sent forth that was incorrect. That should be the subject of the investigation: What happened here; what actually went on in Arizona. Not one witness from the actual operation was called to testify. Not one. So this is really a very strange and botched investigation. If you want to get to the bottom of it, you've got to talk to the people that actually did it. It didn't happen. The Democrats on the committee demanded several times: Bring forth the people who did the Fast and Furious from the Bush administration into the Obama administration. Bring them forward. Get their testimony. Find out what happened. Find out about the communications between the Phoenix office and the Washington, D.C., office. It didn't happen. So in terms of an investigation, you have a partial investigation focusing on the end of the story rather than on the full story. And today, the first time ever in the history of this Nation, this body voted to hold in contempt a Cabinet official on a half-baked, insufficient investigation that purposefully ignored calling witnesses that were actually engaged in the Fast and Furious operation and who were responsible in the Phoenix office for that operation. It was a farce. It was a political event, and we walked out. Not a good day. And as you said a moment ago, there are things we must do. Men and women and families across this country are hurting. They're unemployed. They want jobs. They want to go to work. Transportation, where's the transportation bill? We never did get one out of this House that was meaningful. We just passed a little thing so we can get to conference. It had nothing in it, but it allowed us to go to conference. Where's that bill? How about student interest rates, where's that bill? And what about the jobs program? What if the September 2011 proposal that President Obama put forward, the American Jobs Act, what if we had taken that up? Three million, 4 million Americans would be working today. What if we had done that? But it didn't happen. Our colleagues on the Republican side refused to bring it up in this House and refused to allow it to be brought up in the Senate. That's sad. That's a very sad thing for America. It is one of the great ``we should haves,'' but we were prevented from doing so.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's talk about that.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there are things we can talk about.

Mr. GARAMENDI. They don't have the mandate. Small businesses don't have the mandate. But what they do have is an opportunity. They have an opportunity to get health insurance at an affordable cost, which they've never had before. Small business, one-person, or husband and wife, perhaps, and two or three employees, it literally was impossible for them to get affordable health insurance for themselves and for their three employees. Under this bill, they can get it. It's subsidized, to be sure. But they can finally get insurance. And across the State of California and across this Nation we're finding thousands upon thousands of businesses for the first time going into the insurance market, able to buy insurance, getting coverage for themselves and their employees while providing what insurance must do, which is the knowledge and the stability that is necessary for the finances of that business to succeed. The other thing--and I'm just going to pick up one more that's very, very close to me--in California, the Affordable Care Act provided funding for 1,154 clinics. Way back in 1978, when I was in the California legislature, and in 1976 as a member of the Assembly, I authored legislation to establish the Rural Health Act. And that built clinics in the rural part of California. And today, as a result of that, there are clinics all across the State of California, and the Affordable Care Act keeps those clinics in business. This is where many Californians and across this Nation Americans access the health care system. It's there in their community. These are the community clinics that are so critically important in providing the health care that Americans need. The call for repeal kills these clinics. These clinics will die if this bill is repealed. So out across the State, even in the most conservative part of my new district, Colusa County, there are clinics that are dependent upon this legislation and will be able to continue as a result of the Affordable Care Act, found by the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, to be constitutional. This is constitutional. The legislature, Congress, and the Senate and the President have the power to solve one of the great America dilemmas: The health care system. Over time, we'll change this. We'll make modifications. Among those modifications ought to be an expansion of Medicare, which is efficient, effective, and universally available to every American over the age of 65. How good it is. How hard and how determined people are--if I can just live to 65, I'll have Medicare. It's a great program. We ought to expand it. We ought to make it universal. Mr. Ellison, I don't know how much time you have.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Mr. Ellison. And thank you for your leadership on this and so many other issues. I'm looking at that sign next to you: ``Republicans' No-Jobs Agenda.'' A repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act and the Patients' Bill of Rights is not going to create jobs. In fact, it is going to make it very, very difficult for small businesses because the Affordable Health Care Act actually helps small businesses.

Mr. GARAMENDI. And, of course, women--millions across this Nation-- will receive free coverage for comprehensive women's preventative health services: Pap smears, breast x rays and the like. In 2011, 32.5 million seniors received one or more preventative services. In 2012, 14 million seniors have already received these services. 105 million Americans will no longer have a lifetime limit on their coverage. Before this bill was in effect, if you go up to $100,000 or $200,000--if you had a serious illness, you could go through that, bam--that's it. You don't get any more coverage. No longer. No more limits. Lifetime limits are gone. Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage by insurance companies; 6.6 million young adults-- what you were just talking about--you are talking about my daughter. She graduated at the age of 21, 22; lost her insurance. The day after this bill passed, she said, Dad, can I get back on your policy? The answer was yes. Actually, it took 6 months, but it did happen. 5.3 million seniors in the doughnut hole--this is the drug coverage portion--have saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs already. Now, our good friends, the Republicans, want to repeal all of this. So you go through this list: 13 million Americans will not receive a rebate if the Republicans succeed in repealing the bill; 54 million Americans will not receive preventative services; 6.6 million young Americans will not be on their parents' coverage between the age of 21 and 26. There are a lot of takeaways from what the Republicans want to do with their repeal.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I, too, must go. But I thank you very much for allowing me to talk about three very important things. I appreciate that, Mr. Ellison.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just take up some of those numbers because they're very, very exciting. Thirteen million Americans will receive $1.1 billion in rebates because the insurance companies have overcharged them. That didn't happen before this bill. I didn't have that power, as insurance commissioner, to do that; 54 million Americans that are in private health insurance plans will receive free preventative services as a result of this legislation.