Sander Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I've been listening to this debate; and you know, the Republicans' claim that they're saving Medicare is political mythology. Essentially, what they're doing is shifting coverage to the private sector. They have a cap more stringent than that in the Affordable Care Act. So over time, more and more there is the erosion and the end of Medicare. I want to say just a few words about the tax provisions in the Republican budget. On Sunday, this is what was said: I don't know. That's what the Republican budget chairman said on Sunday when asked whether the middle class would suffer under his tax proposal. It's important for the American public to know the facts. The Republican budget would cut taxes for the very wealthy. The top tax rate would be reduced by such a significant extent that, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the average millionaire would receive $265,000 in tax cuts. To pay for this tax cut, the Republicans would have to put on the chopping block provisions in the Tax Code relating to health, education, the home mortgage interest deduction, and pensions. Mr. Ryan, you call these loopholes. No, these are policies. For example, four-fifths of the benefit of the health care exclusion goes to households earning less than $200,000. Half goes to those earning less than $100,000. Then 70 percent of the benefit provided through the home mortgage interest deduction goes to families who earn less than $200,000.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I hope everybody's been listening to this. What has become clear is this: the Republicans have a 3-act play. First, repeal IPAB; next, repeal the rest of health care reform; and, finally, repeal Medicare. It is so hypocritical to come forth and say that the efforts of Republicans is to protect Medicare when the purpose of it is to destroy it. That's what would happen if they had prevailed before. That's what would happen if they prevail today with their voucher plan. So the third act really came forth before the first act. They rolled out, yesterday, their budget plan that essentially would repeal Medicare, would destroy it. There would be a voucher and, over time, the end of Medicare. It's an essential commitment to the seniors of this country, and we Democrats are determined to thwart every effort to destroy it. Now, as to the first act, repeal IPAB. You know, it's interesting that Medicare is a major instrumentality for ensuring that over time the costs of Medicare are brought under control, protecting the health care opportunities of seniors. Indeed, there have been efforts already under the Affordable Care Act to bring under control the costs of Medicare, to make sure it survives. So being an essential part of controlling health care costs over the long term, the Republican proposal, essentially, would go in the opposite direction. And that's why the CBO, last year projected--and I want everybody to listen to this--that health care costs would jump by 39 percent under the Republican plan to end the Medicare guarantee. That's why 300 economists have said that health reform puts into place, essentially, every cost-containment provision policy that analysts have considered. It's because of those policies that CBO has given this estimate that IPAB isn't going to be triggered until some time after 2022. So what happens is, the Republicans come forth with the repeal of IPAB as a first step towards repealing Medicare when they have never presented an alternative in terms of the Affordable Care Act. So, today, we hear all the scare tactics about a board whose operation effectively won't be triggered for a decade. That's a scare tactic that is not worthy of this floor, so I urge very much that we oppose. It's interesting that the Republican budget has a cap that is more severe, if you want to put it that way, more strenuous than the provision that relates to IPAB. And so they come forth, and they say that IPAB, which won't be triggered until 2022, is something that they should oppose, while they want to put in place a budget this year that would have a more severe cap than is in IPAB. Let me also say the notion that there is some agency here that could act without any role for Congress is simply untrue. It's not true. You shouldn't say it. We have an opportunity, once IPAB goes into operation, to review any recommendation that comes forth, and to replace it, as long as the various targets are met. So I urge very much that we reject this proposal in part because the repeal, in and of itself, I think, is a mistake but mainly because of what the aim is here, and that has been so clear from the debate, because people who come here on the Republican side, some of them talk about IPAB; some don't even discuss IPAB. They talk about the Affordable Care Act. The polling data we have is essentially relating to the Affordable Care Act as well as to IPAB. I think the more people understand what has been going on, the more they see the benefits of health care reform, the more they will be supportive of it. We're going to take that case to the American people. Let me just give you a few numbers that everyone should know about ACA. It's been only 2 years since it was signed into law, but Americans are already receiving the benefits of lower costs and better coverage. Let me give you a few facts: 86 million Americans have received one or more free preventative services such as checkups and cancer screenings; 105 million Americans no longer have a lifetime limit on their coverage; Up to 17 million children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage by insurers. Up to 17 million kids. You repeal this Act, you put them into total jeopardy; 2\1/2\ million additional young adults up to 26 now have health insurance through their parents' plan. If you had succeeded in past efforts of repealing health care reform, those 2\1/2\ million people would have been out in the cold; Also, 5.1 million seniors in the doughnut hole have saved $3.2 billion on their prescription drugs, an average of $635 per senior. If you had succeeded with repeal, over 5 million seniors would have been essentially with increased costs; Over 2 million seniors have had a free annual wellness visit under Medicare; Already under the small business health care tax credit, over 350,000 small employers have used it to help provide health insurance for 2 million workers. Republicans come here using scare tactics about IPAB, 10 years away from being triggered according to CBO. You essentially say repeal health care reform though you've never had a comprehensive plan to replace it. That's been the bankruptcy of your position. I finish, reminding everybody that we're the only industrial nation on the globe which has tens of millions of people who go to bed every day without a stitch of health insurance coverage. The administration's brief before the Supreme Court has illustrated what the result is in terms of the added costs of the uninsured who go to emergency rooms. Billions and billions of dollars that are essentially shifted to people who have insurance and shifted to taxpayers who have to cover the costs of emergency coverage. So we come here with a passion. We worked hard to support and to pass this act. We worked hard to put it together. A major piece of legislation like that always needs continued work, but not its repeal. That would be a grave, grave, grave mistake. So I think it's time to pull down the curtain on this three-act play of the House Republicans trying first to repeal IPAB, then to repeal the rest of health care reform, and then to repeal Medicare. Fortunately, if we're mistaken and the majority passes it here, it will deserve a death in the Senate of the United States. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 3 minutes to the distinguished member of our committee, Mr. Blumenauer, from the proud State of Oregon.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield the gentleman an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 4 minutes to a member of our Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield to the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a member of our committee, Mr. Doggett.

Mr. LEVIN. It's curious. You're talking about, according to CBO, a board whose operation would be triggered in 2022. You come here and scare people. It doesn't work. You talk about rationing. You're talking about an operation 10 years from now. Right now, health care is being rationed. You have 50-plus million people who have no insurance, 50-plus million people who have no insurance at all, and you haven't come up with a bill that would address that. I am proud to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), who has been so key in the health care debates. (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. Let me just say it is strange to say you save something by destroying it. That is 1984 in 2012. I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey. (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LEVIN. It is now my privilege to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay).

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself such time as I may consume. We're talking about a board whose operations trigger, according to CBO, 10 years from now. I just want to say to those who say it's unaccountable: Every one of their recommendations will come before the Congress of the United States, every single one. What's unaccountable are the statements that are made on this floor that are not true. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself 1 minute. The present system doesn't have enough primary care. I know from my own experience that there's a lack of family physicians and primary care physicians. The Affordable Care Act strengthens that program, will strengthen the relationship between the physician and the patient. And for anybody to come here and scare patients and seniors into thinking that there is some kind of a wall that will be replaced is really not true.

Mr. LEVIN. No. What the Republicans would do would be to send the decisions already there in large measure to insurance companies. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. LEVIN. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself an additional 1 minute. Look, I respect that. But the primary fact, the basic fact is that the Affordable Care Act addresses this issue more effectively than has been addressed before. There is more money for primary care physicians, for family physicians. That's what we need. That's what we need. And to come here and raise the specter that this bill is going to diminish it, when its major purpose, among others, is to increase the availability, to have a linkage between the patient and the specialty care--

Mr. LEVIN. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds. Look, we need to address it, but destroying Medicare is not the way to address it. That's what you do. You destroy it. You destroy it when you say you're saving it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself the balance of my time. Look, the Supreme Court will be hearing the case about the individual mandate next week, and I don't think we want to argue this now. We don't have any judges here. But let me say, on the individual mandate, it really is ironical that the more conservative, apparently, you are, the more you dislike the individual mandate, when the individual mandate was the central point within the health care reform proposal of conservatives in this country several decades ago. It was their central point in the eighties and in the nineties. And now they've reversed course and claim, I guess, what they proposed in the seventies and eighties was constitutional then is unconstitutional today. Talk about a flip-flop. That is, I think, maybe an unconstitutional flip-flop, but the Court will decide that. Let me just say a word about cost containment and the importance of our addressing that and the importance of our reforming the present system, how we reimburse the fee-for-service system. I don't think it's been noticed that, in addition to IPAB, ACA has a number of provisions that will go into effect long before IPAB could become operational. Those systems are beginning to work. For conservatives who talk about the importance of cost containment, they want to repeal an act that has within it not only the seeds of cost containment, but the instrumentalities of it. In fact, they're beginning to work well enough. That's why CBO says that it's going to be 10 years before IPAB is triggered. So, those who come here who claim to be concerned about cost containment essentially are undermining their own position. Well, this is act one of the Republican three-act play. The second is to eliminate health care reform altogether, and the third is to take away Medicare. I want to close reporting the views of AARP in terms of the Ryan budget proposal. It says: It lacks balance, jeopardizes the health and economic security of older Americans. A number of proposals in this budget put at risk millions of individuals by prioritizing budget caps and cuts over the impact on people. Those who talk about the cap that would essentially be within the structure of IPAB's operation, that proposed cut is less than in the Ryan budget, which would be more severe, and essentially the implementation would be by insurance companies who are nameless, who are unaccountable. So let me continue with another quote from the AARP: By creating the premium support system for Medicare beneficiaries, the proposal is likely to simply increase costs for beneficiaries while removing Medicare's promise of secure health coverage--a guarantee the future seniors have contributed to through a lifetime of hard work. The premium support method described in the proposal, unlike private plan options that currently exist in Medicare, would likely `price out' traditional Medicare as a viable option, thus rendering the choice of traditional Medicare as a false promise. So this is what I think we should do in terms of this three-act play of the House Republicans. That is to start by rejecting act one, this repeal of IPAB. This may be a vote, but it's not going to be an act. I finish with this. In a sense, you are acting because this isn't going to become law. You have not come up in all of these months with a comprehensive alternative to the Affordable Care Act. There's not been a comprehensive bill put forth. We haven't voted on a comprehensive bill in these days on the Ways and Means Committee. Instead, there has a piece-by-piece effort to dismantle what was health care reform to address a serious situation, including over 50 million people who go to sleep every night without health care coverage in the United States of America. We should be ashamed of that. We should be ashamed. A couple years ago, we acted to lift that shame off of the shoulders of all of us in the United States of America. I urge we vote ``no'' on this bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).

Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This bill will send a clear signal, especially with an overwhelming vote, that there are clear consequences when a nation violates the rules. China is, indeed, tilting the field of competition by not playing by the rules. This bill restores a key instrument for our Nation to hold China and other nations accountable. The failure to pass it would be an enormous step backwards at a time when, indeed, we need to fast-forward our efforts to rein in China's abusive trade practices that, in part, have led to our record $295 billion trade deficit with China. This legislation ensures that tools remain available under U.S. trade law so that manufacturers can fight back against China's unfair trade subsidies. Countervailing duties have been a part of U.S. trade law for nearly 120 years, and today, almost one-half--23 of 50--of all countervailing duty orders in place involve China. This is not surprising. A central element of Chinese industrial policy has been to provide massive subsidies to its producers to help them knock out competitors and to dominate the market. These include loans at below-market interest rates, cheap or sometimes free land, extensive tax breaks, and other subsidies designed to advantage domestic industry. To date, countervailing duties have been the singular form of relief available to American workers and companies devastated by these mercantilist policies. Over the last 6 years, Commerce has put in place 23 countervailing duty orders against China--23--and five other investigations are currently underway. More than $4 billion in subsidized imports have been covered by these measures, shielding an estimated 80,000 American jobs from unfair competition. Yet, in December, based on a deeply flawed assessment of congressional intent, the court of appeals for the Federal circuit ruled that Commerce, which administers our countervailing duty laws, does not have the authority to apply those laws to nonmarket economy countries like China. That decision threatens to eviscerate the U.S. right to apply countervailing duties to China, a right protected under WTO rules; and it threatens to cripple Commerce in its efforts to combat Chinese subsidies that harm our industries. With this bill, we are making clear that the Federal circuit's decision was wrong and that it cannot stand. Commerce has always had the authority to apply countervailing duties to nonmarket economies such as China, and now it shall continue to have and exercise this vitally important authority in the future. Because of this bill--and I urge the strongest possible support--tens of thousands of American workers and scores of American companies in 38 States across this country that have shown that they are entitled to relief from unfair subsidization by nonmarket economies will continue to get that relief. This bill ensures all of the existing orders and investigations remain in place. For these reasons, I support the passage of H.R. 4105, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEVIN. I yield 2 minutes to another distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to Mr. Pascrell from the great State of New Jersey, another very active member of our committee.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud) who is very active in trade matters.