Greg Walden

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in tribute to and memory of Hunter Hoeptner of Jackson County, Oregon, who passed away on May 9, 2017. A resident of Eagle Point, Oregon, Hunter was a proud graduate of Eagle Point High School. Throughout school he displayed his tremendous leadership skills and commitment to serving others, even as a young man. Hunter served as class president at Eagle Point High and logged more than 100 hours of community service. He also led on the wrestling mat, where he won the Class 5A 160-pound State Championship for the Eagles in 2014. Long after graduation, he continued volunteering with the local youth wrestling program, inspiring others with his passion for the sport he loved. That same tenacity and commitment to serving others motivated Hunter to serve his country in the Oregon Army National Guard. He was assigned to Second Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Battalion-- 186th Infantry Regiment, where he rose to the rank of Specialist and was preparing to attend Army Helicopter School. Hunter's character left an impact on his fellow soldiers, and the local community. Over 100 military personnel attended Hunter's memorial service, which was complete with a military flyover. Hunter's family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers touched by his story packed the stands of Eagle Point High School's football stadium to celebrate Hunter's life. At just 21 years old, this young man's life exemplified that of a community leader, star athlete, and American soldier devoted to serving others. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the United States Congress, I offer my heartfelt condolences to Hunter's mother Lorelei and his father Kurt for the loss of their son.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Mr. Robert ``Bob'' Maxwell of Bend, Oregon for his outstanding military and civilian service to Oregon and our nation. Mr. Maxwell is well known in veterans circles mostly as a WWII Medal of Honor recipient. He served with the famed 3rd Infantry Division in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. During the invasion of Anzio, Italy, he was wounded and acted bravely to earn his first Silver Star and Purple Heart. Shortly after being released from the Army hospital in Naples, he participated in ``Operation Dragoon''--the invasion of Southern France during late August, 1944. While protecting his Battalion Headquarters with 3 other soldiers in Besancon, France on September 7, 1944, a German Infantry unit outnumbering his unit 10 to 1 attacked the outpost. Mr. Maxwell hurled his unprotected body on a German hand grenade thrown into their midst. The grenade exploded under Mr. Maxwell, saving the lives of 3 comrades and severely wounding Mr. Maxwell. For his unhesitating valor above and beyond the call of duty, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, a second Silver Star, a second Purple Heart, a Bronze Star and French Croix de Guerre. Mr. Maxwell was discharged from the U.S. Army and used the ``GI Bill'' to earn his credentials in Automotive Technology. He worked in that profession for 32 years, teaching at Bend High School, Central Oregon College and Lane Community College. In 1970, he was named one of 5,000 outstanding educators in our nation. Since his retirement from teaching, ``Bob'' has served as a Director of the Bend Heroes Foundation, and has co-chaired several veterans projects including the Bend Parade of Flags, Bend Heroes Memorial, the first-of-its-kind WWII Veterans Historic Highway, and the Oregon Medal of Honor Exhibit. Mr. Maxwell is a passionate promoter of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation's ``Character Development Program'' now being adopted in Central Oregon schools. As devoted Christians and proponents of higher education, Mr. Maxwell and his late wife Bea initiated the Bob and Bea Maxwell Medal of Honor Scholarship program at Boise Bible College many years ago. Mr. Maxwell celebrated his 96th birthday on October 26, 2016. He is the oldest surviving recipient of the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest military award. It has been my privilege and honor to know and have worked with Bob Maxwell for many years. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of a grateful state and country, I wish to honor Mr. Robert D. ``Bob'' Maxwell for his grand accomplishments over many years.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. I thank the gentleman from Florida for not only raising this issue, but being a real partner in this legislation. I met with your Governor as well, who has been very helpful in the discussions. We believe that accounting for aging demographics of the Medicaid program and broader population is an important factor we must consider to ensure that any Medicaid reform is successfully implemented. I am committed to working with the gentleman from Florida, our colleagues in the Senate, and the Trump administration to ensure Florida's unique challenges related to an aging Medicaid demographic are recognized and accounted for appropriately. Mr. Speaker, in the remaining part of my time, I would just like to thank my colleagues for their work on this measure. Making sure that people have access to affordable health care is essential. It is something I would say that we all care about. We all care about family members who have suffered from cancer or other debilitating diseases or afflictions. We are trying to find a place here that works for all Americans, where we have insurance markets that are actually available where you can get an insurance product that works for you that is affordable for you. We know that today, in America, the insurance market and the individual market--that is a very small segment, 7 percent of insurance in America; that is what we are talking about here today--that that market is collapsing before our eyes. In fact, in Iowa, I think they just announced 94 in 99 counties, people there won't even have an insurance product they can try to purchase on the exchange. We have met with Governors and we have met with insurers. We have said: What do we need to do to intercede to get this market back to where it works? The proposals contained in our legislation are designed to do exactly that: to get back to where consumers have choices when they are required to buy insurance to take care of their families. Those choices need to be affordable. They are not now, today. In my own State of Oregon, premiums have gone up 50 percent in the last 2 years. Meanwhile, the number of options that you have to choose from has gone down--and continues to go down. Now, we haven't gone as far as some States where you have either no option in most areas of the State or just one, but how far off is it when insurers are failing, people losing their opportunity to get affordable health insurance? We take care of the disabled. We take care of the elderly. In fact, we plus-up to medical CPI plus 1 to make sure that we take care of the elderly and the disabled in our Medicaid program. By the way, that is probably more than most States are spending today. So we have thought this through carefully. We care about people and their medical condition and their families because we are all in this together as Americans. I think the bill we have before us today works. It works to take care of those most in need. It works to make sure that the people can get access to insurance. I will tell you what. It is a first step in a many-step process to also look at families who are dealing with opioid addition and what we can do there. There are efforts at NIH, which we just supported yesterday, to fund medical research so that we can get cures for those who have diseases and other afflictions. We are fully committed to improving health care not only for Americans, but around the globe, through innovation and scientific discovery.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Webster), my colleague, for the purpose of a colloquy.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the information that we are being told, even The New York Times has characterized some of it as being misleading, and it is. When you say Oregonians are going to suddenly be thrown out, that is not true on preexisting conditions because there is no waiver request. You are just making that stuff up. I dispute it. It is misleading. It is wrong. It is fear-mongering, and I am sorry it is happening on this floor.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleagues who have worked so hard on this legislation to try and rescue these failing insurance markets. We learned yesterday, I think most of Iowa now will not have a single insurer left on the exchanges. If you are one of the people out there in the one-out-of-three counties where people only have one option for insurance, what we are trying to do here is fix this market so you actually have insurance to cover you. We believe that in going forward with this piece of legislation not only do we give more flexibility to States to innovate, they care about the people in their States. I know my home State of Oregon does. Yet they are facing a shortfall right now that this legislation would provide over $320 million to help fill. One of their proposals is to kick 350,000 people off of Medicaid. This would help fill the gap: $320 million in the next 2 years to fill an $882 million shortfall they have. But this is a problem across the country. What we are trying to do here is reform ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, in a way that will work going into the future. Otherwise, people are going to be left with not only enormous rate increases in the premiums, but also you have seen an explosion in the cost of what they have to pay out of pocket. I have had people in my district say: Look, I am outside of that area where I get a subsidy, and I am paying full price. Our premiums have gone up 50 percent in the last 2 years. My options have gone down from four or five to maybe one or two, maybe three, and it is getting worse. They are threatening to pull out. My out-of-pocket costs are now so high, I am paying for something I can't even afford to use. We are trying to fix and rescue this market and bring people in. You hear all these numbers State by State. I am not buying into that at all. They don't understand what our bill does. We are giving States authority, we are giving protections for people, and we are going to get this straightened out once and for all so that we have an insurance market that works, but, more importantly, that we have a healthcare system that people can afford and that we can get quality health care when they see a doctor, between them and their doctor, without a bureaucrat in between.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Andrew Malcolm, a long-time, talented member of my staff who transitions this week from my office after more than seven years of dedicated service to Oregon's Second Congressional District. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Andrew earned a degree in politics from Princeton, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2009. Throughout school he had a keen eye on politics. He served as a congressional page during high school and in college he interned in the George W. Bush White House. It was also at Princeton that he met his wonderful wife Liz and I was glad to be present for their wedding nearly two years ago in her home state of Illinois. Despite his East Coast upbringing, Andrew dove right into being an adopted Oregonian, answering those that asked, ``I am not from Oregon, but I've spent a lot of time there.'' This started early on when Andrew jumped at a short notice opportunity to spend a couple days in Central Oregon and get some in-district experience. Now the Congressional schedule is a bit fluid at times and those couple days morphed into a couple weeks, while Liz was probably wondering if he'd gotten lost in the wilderness. It might have been the beautiful landscapes, or maybe the Oregon pinots, craft beer and Pendleton whiskey, but no matter the reason Andrew fell in love with all that Oregon has to offer and adopted it as his second home state. As an East Coaster learning the ways of the Pacific Northwest, it wasn't all smooth sailing. In fact, much like the east coast ships crossing the Columbia bar for the first time, his initial experience in Oregon's fashion waters was a bit rough. Arriving to his interview in boat shoes, he quickly learned they were well out of the norm for Oregonians, and probably shouldn't be seen in them around the district. Moving deftly past that faux pas, Andrew rose swiftly through the ranks in my office, from Legislative Correspondent and Legislative Assistant, to Press Secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff. Along the way he's helped contribute to some historic moments for Oregon and our nation. When Andrew's first tour of duty out in Oregon came to an end, we'd taken back the majority in the House. Andrew found himself in the middle of the action helping staff the transition effort for House Republicans heading into the 112th Congress. Andrew also played an instrumental role last fall as we worked all the angles and were successful in achieving the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee--a first in Oregon history. Perhaps the toughest work, however, was done daily. Dealing with the press on Capitol Hill is a challenging enough job, but there may be no more challenging job than being press secretary to a Member of Congress who was a press secretary to a Member of Congress. Andrew took this in stride, and tackled it with dedicated skill. Weighing in at over 70,000 square miles, Oregon's Second District is vast and diverse. There are five distinct television markets covered by nearly a dozen stations and numerous radio stations and newspapers. Reporters kept Andrew on his toes with questions on a wide range of policy issues. Whether we were working to put people back to work in the woods, or fighting for veterans' access to the care they deserve, Andrew easily distilled complex policy down for the public, sometimes in as little as 140 characters. While Andrew is departing as a formal member of my staff, he will always be a valued member of Team Walden. We will miss his quick wit and dedicated intellect, but know they will continue to be an asset to him into the future. As Andrew moves on to the next stage of his professional career, I am reminded of a piece of advice from President Theodore Roosevelt. ``Life is a great adventure . . . accept it in such a spirit.'' Throughout his time in my office, Andrew has done just that. Jumping at opportunities and taking on new responsibilities with tenacity and a high degree of respect and appreciation for the work we do here in Congress, and the people we serve. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in thanking Andrew for his dedication and service to the great state of Oregon and our nation, and wish him and Liz the very best of luck for the next chapter of their lives.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their good work on this legislation. As we increasingly rely on technology in nearly every area of our lives, one of Congress' most important responsibilities is to strike the right balance between protecting consumers' privacy while also allowing for private sector innovation and the new jobs and economic growth that accompany it. The resolution before us today reverses overreaching, shortsighted, and misguided rules adopted by unelected bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission. These rules do little to enhance privacy, but clearly add a new layer of Federal red tape on innovators and job creators. This is exactly the type of government overreach that the Congressional Review Act was meant to stop. The Federal Communications Commission, frankly, overstepped its bounds on many issues during the Obama administration, including privacy regulations. After stripping the Federal Trade Commission of its authority over the privacy practices of internet service providers, ISPs, the FCC adopted shortsighted rules that only apply to one part of the internet. Despite the FTC's proven case-by-case approach to privacy enforcement that, frankly, has protected consumers, while simultaneously allowing ISPs to innovate, the FCC opted to abandon this model in favor of an approach that assumes the Federal Government knows best what consumers want. Simply put, the rules that the FCC applied to ISPs are illogical. The regulations would require companies to apply the same privacy protections to consumer data, regardless of its importance or sensitivity. It hardly makes sense to treat a local weather update and personal financial information the same way. In addition, the FCC's approach only protects consumer data as far as the internet service provider is involved. An entirely separate set of rules applies to providers of edge services. That means the giant search corporations, one of which controls up to 65 percent of your searches on the internet, don't live by the same set of privacy rules as your small town ISP. What America needs is one standard, across-the-internet ecosystem, and the Federal Trade Commission is the best place for that standard. The impact of these rigid regulations has the potential to stifle one of the most innovative sectors of our Nation's economy, and it is consumers who will suffer. These rules, which Congress will repeal, only lead to higher costs, less competition, and fewer service offerings. This approach is particularly burdensome for small businesses, which do not have hallways full of lawyers to navigate these tedious and unnecessary rules. The benefits of the FCC's privacy regulations are questionable, but the harms are certain, which is why I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. And once these rules are reversed, the FCC can turn back to working together with the FTC to ensure that our privacy framework allows the internet to flourish while truly protecting consumers.

Mr. WALDEN

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg).

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, if I could get an indication in terms of the amount we are down on each side here? I think we were allocated a half an hour.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Bucshon).

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. After 7 years, we have heard the stories of our constituents, patients, friends, and family who have suffered under ObamaCare. We have heard from those who have benefited in some respects. I think of the struggles of constituents like Indra from Bend, Oregon. She lost her private insurance and her preferred doctor. When she went to look for a new plan under ObamaCare, she found the plans were too expensive, and she went without insurance for almost 2 years. See, her story should not be lost in this debate either. Then there is April. Last fall, she found out her insurer would not be offering her plan this year. The most comparable plan available would raise her monthly premium by $564 per month, bringing her total monthly premium to $1,503. You see, there is a whole other group of Americans out there who are suffering these effects of ObamaCare. The American Health Care Act represents a better way for patients like Indra and April all across our country. Our plan will rescue and revitalize the market and lower costs and increase flexibility for patients to choose. They will have more choices for health care and keep a health insurance plan that works for them and for their family. This legislation creates the Patient and State Stability Fund. Now, this is an innovative approach to give States the financing and flexibility to repair the damage done to the insurance markets by ObamaCare and meet the unique needs of their citizens. More importantly, we provide an additional $15 billion, Mr. Speaker, to States devoted for maternity coverage. We heard from people who said we need to do more in this area: newborn care, mental health, and substance disorders. We are also taking action to strengthen Medicaid. We want to put Medicaid on a sustainable path so it can better care for those it was intended to serve, a path through this per capita program for States that, frankly, was at one time embraced by Democrats, including President Clinton. The most vulnerable in our communities need this help. It represents the most substantive reform to the Medicaid program since its creation and will restore power to our States and local communities and governments where they can make better decisions than a one-size-fits- all here in Washington. We want to give our States more control in how they manage these people that they are closest to. In closing, I want to thank our colleagues and the President of the United States and the Vice President and Secretary Price. They have worked day in and day out, tirelessly, without hesitation, to help get to the best policy possible here and to work and listen to our colleagues, as we have all done, to craft the best bill we can, given the constraints under which we must operate. The end result highlights the diverse ideas of our Conference that come from the American people and the determination that we share to save this market and make it work again. Remember, we are talking about a narrow slice of the insurance market, that driven by ObamaCare, that, last year, there were 225 counties in America where, if you were looking for insurance on that exchange, you had one option. This year, it is 1,022 counties. That is one out of every three in America. And that was before Humana pulled out and other companies said this market is about gone. We need to fix this market. That is what this legislation seeks to do. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our terrific staff that has worked day and night to get us to this point. We know there is a lot more work to do. This should not be taken in isolation as the only healthcare reform on our list. We are going to go after the cost drivers. We are going to go after prescription costs. We are going to go after hospital costs. Wherever it is in the health system, if you have nothing to hide, you won't have to fear our investigations. But we are going to get costs down. We are going to get costs down. The American Health Care Act is just the first step in our mission to rescue the American people from the failures of the underlying law. We know they are there. We are going to fix this. We are committed to it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds. The irony of that argument is it was just a year or so ago that every Member of this House who was here at the time and the Senate, by a unanimous vote, agreed to waive the essential benefits he just listed off for the employment market between 51 and 100--and, by the way, those essential benefits don't apply to the large group market--so this has already been done. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the vice chairman of the full committee.

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds before I yield to the gentleman from Michigan. I would just suggest that the American people are very smart. Unfortunately, under ObamaCare, 19.2 million Americans said: I am not going to buy ObamaCare. I am going to pay a penalty to the IRS instead. You see, we are trying to fix it so they will want to buy it. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Actually, we did reach out to Democrats. We have always reached out to Democrats. The vice chair of the Committee held lunches with Democrats to say: How can we work together on this? And we were told: No, we can't work with you on this particular measure. I hope we can. I agree, there is a lot we need to do together. It is what the American people expect. We have had these individual conversations out of the bright lights of the cameras. Let's get together. Let's get this done. A lot hangs in the balance. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, here is what I would say: What you have heard from the other side is everything is working perfectly; leave it alone. Democrats created ObamaCare. Democrats created the exchange. They said: We are going to tell you the kind of insurance you have to buy; we are going to force you to buy it, or you will answer to the IRS and pay a penalty. They mandated that. Then they came back and said: Well, that didn't work so well, so we had better get rid of the essential benefits for the workers and employers, 51-100 employees in a company; we are going to take that off because that will drive up premiums. And they voted unanimously to do that. Today, they come back and say: Oh, that would be horrible. But they did it before, so they were for it before they were against it. But let me talk about what really matters here. First of all, there is lot of scare tactics out there by a lot of high-paid organizations. The first is, we preserve your right as a citizen to acquire health insurance regardless of your health condition. So here is the deal: preexisting conditions, we protect that; lifetime caps, we protect that so that insurance companies can't go over the top of you; keep your kids on until they are 26, we protect that. Those were good things. We agree in a bipartisan way those should be protected. We do that. But we also recognize that 19.2 million Americans looked at the Democrats' healthcare exchanges and plans, went the other direction, and said no. They have walked with their wallets and their feet and said: I don't like what you are selling and I can't afford what you are selling. I will even pay the IRS $600 or $700 not to take ObamaCare. Meanwhile, Mr. Speaker, the insurers have said that the way the Democrats created the insurance markets all over the country, we can stay in them. We are losing too much money, and we are out. That is why in one out of three counties today in America you only have one choice, and that is called a monopoly. We are trying to fix this market so people will have choices that are affordable. We are trying to make sure people have access to coverage they want and can afford. This is the first step, not the last step, toward fixing this market. I look at it like we have poured the foundation. Construction projects are a little messy when you are just pouring the foundation. Now we are going to put up the walls, we are going to put the roof on, and we are going to build this out in multiple steps throughout this year and next. Meanwhile, we provide complete coverage. We do all the protections ObamaCare continues in its support for people while we fix the market and allow it to come back. We have timed this out. I know there are some on my side of the aisle who wanted to get rid of those protections, and we brought them around or they are going to vote ``no.'' But we said: No; we have to have those protections in place-- existing conditions, no more lifetime caps, keeping your kids on until they are 26. We have a product here that needs to go to the next step. We will all work on it and continue to make it better as we go forward. But if we do nothing and let it fail today, these markets are going to get worse and worse under the Democrats' ObamaCare plans, and people won't have a choice in States and counties all over America. I wish we could join together today and put forward a bipartisan vote to save these markets and help our constituents going forward. Mr. Speaker, we owe it to them. They have asked for it for 7 years. Let's get it done. Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I don't believe I have any other speakers, so I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. One of the great tragedies of this debate is some of the scare tactics we have heard. And to listen to the gentleman from California talk about how removing essential benefits from the Federal mandate from the law is going to cause all that to happen is tragic because he, on March 25 of 2015, cosponsored legislation that did precisely that, removed the same Federal mandates for workers in the 51-100 pool of employees for employers. He said it was too much of a mandate then on those businesses, when they provide insurance. So every Member of the House who was here then, and every Senator, including the Democrat leader of the Senate at the time, voted for that, passed unanimously. By the way, the Congressional Budget Office said that those regulations that we are pulling back here would have made nongroup premiums 27 percent to 30 percent higher in 2016, than they otherwise would have been. So we are basically taking what CBO said is a good policy and implementing it here once again. Last time, in 2015, that was bipartisan. It was a voice vote. Today, you would think the world was falling around us, the sky was falling. Yet, everybody who was here in 2015 said, that is okay, it is the right thing to do because it will lower premiums, like CBO said, by 27 to 30 percent. So we thought what was good for those in the work world, for everybody who is insured through a large group plan, which is about 155 million Americans--they don't live under this mandate, yet they have all those services and benefits--that that would make sense to lower premiums for individuals on the ObamaCare exchange, because what I hear is, premiums are too high, deductibles go up. Nobody sees this thing coming down. We are making changes here because those exchanges are collapsing. We want to bring the premiums down. We want to make the changes that will bring them down. CBO says doing this on essential benefits would have resulted in nongroup premiums 27 to 30 percent lower than they would have otherwise been. They basically say they would be higher in 2016 than they would have otherwise been. So we are taking that, using that and saying: let's drive them down; let's get premiums down. It is unfortunate that you were willing to do that 2 years ago. It was bipartisan. Today, it is some extraordinary thing we are doing that is bad. It is not. We want to get lower premiums. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. WALDEN. Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to work with the gentlewoman from North Carolina. Health care sharing ministries are a vital part of our healthcare system. They are a shining example of how communities can come together without government mandates or dictates to provide innovative healthcare solutions. I look forward to working with Chairwoman Foxx on these concerns that have been raised and will work with the Senate to get repeal and replacement of ObamaCare to the President's desk.

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