John Yarmuth

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that the gentleman's vote for this bill will result in 50,100 people from his congressional district in Louisiana losing health coverage and care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Jayapal), who is the distinguished vice ranking member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 38,200 people from his congressional district in California losing health coverage and care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal), who is a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I mention to my colleague that his vote against this bill will result in 56,600 people from his congressional district in South Carolina losing health coverage and care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 65,800 people from his congressional district in New York losing health coverage and care. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. DelBene), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 56,000 people from his congressional district in Florida losing health coverage and care. I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 40,500 people from his congressional district in Ohio losing health coverage and care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 60,400 people from his congressional district in Texas losing health coverage and care. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 50,200 people from his congressional district in Minnesota losing health coverage and care. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my friend from Indiana that his vote for this bill will result in 37,900 people from his congressional district losing health coverage and care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle), who is a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, after 7 years of campaigning against the Affordable Care Act, congressional Republicans have finally produced what they cynically describe as a replacement plan. Sadly, however, this bill will unravel all of the progress we made under the ACA, including expanding access to health insurance to 22 million Americans and improving the quality of coverage and care for tens of millions more. It nearly doubles the amount of uninsured people in this country, guts Medicaid by almost $900 billion, and weakens the Medicare trust fund. That was bad enough. But the last-minute changes to this bill are astonishing and appalling. This legislation now allows insurers to end coverage for prescription drugs, mental health, maternity and newborn care, preventive care, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, outpatient care, rehab visits, lab services, and pediatric care. That is not progress. That is not a fix. That is a potential health crisis for every American. My Republican colleagues are well aware of this. Why else would they have drafted this bill and these last-minute changes in secret? Why else would complicated legislation affecting the lives of millions be sent to the floor just 2 weeks after it was introduced with no congressional hearings, not a single one, on a bill that impacts the health care of nearly every American family? Why else would they rush the bill to the floor without an updated Congressional Budget Office estimate of how much coverage and care will be lost by their backroom deal that ends consumer protections? I get it. I wouldn't want to, nor would I know how to justify giving nearly $1 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy paid for by threatening the health and well-being of millions of American families. Who is getting these huge windfalls? Companies like Amgen, with annual profits of more than $3 million; Medtronic, with annual profits of more than $6 billion; and Gilead Sciences, with $13 billion in profits in 2016 alone. When the CBO released its report last week showing that 24 million hardworking Americans will be left without healthcare coverage by 2026 if we pass this bill, that premiums will rise 15 to 20 percent next year, that people will pay thousands of dollars more in deductibles and out-of-pocket costs, and that older Americans will be priced out of the market by an age tax, I thought for sure it was dead on arrival, that there was no way my Republican colleagues would walk this plank. But here they are, and they are trying to take millions of American families with them. Fourteen million Americans will lose health coverage next year if this bill is approved. Twenty-one million Americans will lose coverage in the next 3 years alone, wiping out all of the coverage gains from the ACA in just 3 years. For pretty much everyone else in the individual market, deductibles and other costs will be higher. And for lower-income individuals, out-of-pocket costs will be much higher. Insurance companies will again be able to sell plans that offer much less financial protection, and we will return to the days when millions of people in this country will live in fear that they are always one serious illness or accident away from bankruptcy. This bill will result in the largest transfer of wealth from struggling families to the well-off in our Nation's history, giving $1 trillion in tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and corporations. It is Robin Hood in reverse, but this is far worse because access to lifesaving care is being stolen. I don't say that casually. I have met people, constituents of mine, whose lives have been saved because of the Affordable Care Act. This is from one of my constituents: ``My name is Kevin Schweitzer. I am 62 years old and I'm a lifelong resident of Louisville, Kentucky. ``I worked hard, took risks and built a successful small business that I sold at age 59. My wife and I were excited about our prospects as we headed into early retirement. As a retiree too young for Medicare, I purchased health insurance on the open market. Less than a year later, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. I have undergone multiple scans and 2 cycles of chemo. I am winning the battle so far, but since this disease is in my blood I will be fighting it for the rest of my life. ``A cancer diagnosis is a life-changing event that not only attacks the body, but the mental stress is just as tough to deal with. Thanks to ObamaCare, I've been able to rest easier knowing that my illness wouldn't bankrupt my family and that I'll be able to provide for my wife even after I'm gone.'' I also heard from a young woman named Sarah Adkins. She suffers from chronic kidney disease. Sarah was able to get health insurance because of the ACA. On January 9, 2011, it saved her life. One of her kidneys shut down and almost went septic. If she didn't have coverage, she would have waited or not gone to the hospital at all. The doctor told her that if she had arrived at the ER an hour later, she would have died. Mr. Speaker, the health of my constituents Kevin Schweitzer and Sarah Adkins is at stake in this debate. They, and the hundreds of other constituents I have heard from who have serious and chronic health conditions, will need high-quality, affordable health coverage for the rest of their lives. Under this bill, they will get less coverage, it will cost more, and eventually they will be priced out of the market, leaving them nowhere to turn for the care they need. And that is not all. Because of the last-minute changes to this bill, insurers will be able to sell stripped-down coverage to weed out people with preexisting conditions. They will be able to refuse, for example, to offer coverage for chemotherapy drugs and cancer treatments, insulin pumps, hospital stays, and prescription drugs that treat chronic conditions across the board. Basically, if you have a serious health problem, the care you need may not be available to you at all. When the American people were promised by President Trump and Republican congressional leadership that their existing coverage would be preserved and that everybody would have insurance and it would be less expensive and much better, they, understandably, believed they would be treated much better than this. None of those promises are in this bill. In fact, the opposite of every one of those promises is what is in this bill. Those were promises made to every family in our congressional districts, and this bill fails them at every turn. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleague that his vote for this bill will result in 38,200 people from his congressional district in California losing health care and coverage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding. The one question I think many Americans who follow this debate would be asking now is: What is the rush? What is the rush? For 7 years now, our Republican colleagues have consistently said we are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. More than 60 votes have been taken in this body to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We kept asking: If you are going to repeal it, what are you going to replace it with? You can't just say, do away with it, and leave millions and millions of Americans in the lurch. So finally, 2 weeks ago yesterday, we have gotten their answer. TrumpCare, RyanCare, the American Health Care Act, call it what you will, we finally got an answer. What has happened since those 2 weeks? We had no hearings on this bill. We had quick markups. They lasted a long time, but we had--the bill was introduced Monday night--markups in the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday. And this was on just a steamroller to try to get this accomplished before anybody knew what was in it. Now, the CBO report from last week came out indicating things that I think most Americans would be frightened by. 24 million Americans lose their coverage over 10 years; but, more significantly than that, 21 million lose their coverage within 3 years; 14 million next year. Consider that. All of the gains in coverage made under the Affordable Care Act done away with in 3 years. Premiums going up for Americans. I can't believe Speaker Ryan tried to put lipstick on a pig. He said he thought the CBO report was really encouraging because, 10 years from now, premiums would be 10 percent lower. The only way they are 10 percent lower is because, under the TrumpCare, older Americans, 50 and older, in the individual market get priced out of the market with huge premium increases. So they are gone. Only younger and healthier people are in there. Yes, premiums would be lower for them. Other people are out of business. So that report comes out, causing a great deal of consternation on the part of the sponsors and supporters. They bring it, schedule it to come to the floor on Thursday, March 23, because they think that is cute because that is the seventh anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But, again, no hearings, no real analysis; and what is more important, no CBO revised report on the changes that were introduced late last night. This is outrageous. And I love to hear my Republican colleagues try to portray the process under which the Affordable Care Act was drafted and considered with some kind of nighttime secretive deal. They weren't here, most of them. I was. I was on the Ways and Means Committee, one of the drafting committees. Fourteen months we worked on that legislation--14 months. Seventy-nine hearings in the Congress on that legislation. Hours and hours and hours of markups on that legislation. Cost estimates throughout the process. I can't imagine a more exhaustive and public process than we went through for the Affordable Care Act. And here, 2 weeks from introduction to proposed passage, we have no real public discussion of a piece of legislation that directly affects the lives and probably, unfortunately, the deaths of many, many Americans. So, Mr. Speaker, we don't need to rush to judgment. I don't think the American people are waiting around saying: I don't need to know any more; ObamaCare is so bad, and my life is so bad that I can't wait another 2 weeks to find out what this really would do to me and my family. No, we need to give more time.

Mr. YARMUTH. We don't need to do this this Thursday without a full rendering of the cost of the new manager's amendment to TrumpCare. We suspect, although we don't know, that it is going to look even bleaker; that more people will lose their coverage; that costs and rates will be higher. But shouldn't we understand exactly what those statistics are, what those projections are before we vote on something that is so significant for tens of millions of Americans? So, Mr. Speaker, I think it is entirely appropriate that we require that a new CBO report be done on the manager's amendment before we vote on something that, again, means life and death to American families.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this dangerous effort to block the stream protection rule, a commonsense proposal that has the potential to save lives and will improve the health, outcomes, and well-being of families over time throughout coal country. This bottle of--I guess you could call it a liquid--wasn't taken from an industrial waste site or from the runoff of a landfill. This came from the drinking well of the Urias family's home in Pike County, Kentucky. Despite what it looks like, there is water in there along with chemicals, toxic minerals, and known carcinogens, all present in this family's drinking water because of mountaintop removal. The mountaintop removal process begins with beautiful mountains that look just like this. These are Appalachian Mountains near the West Virginia-Kentucky border. First, they raze an entire side of the mountain, tearing trees from the ground and burning down any plant growth. From there, they use explosives to blast the tops off the mountains and push rock and dirt out, ultimately filling the surrounding streams and waterways with debris, blast materials, and other dangerous elements and minerals that end up in the drinking water of the Urias family and countless others throughout coal country. This is what is left. As we have noted during our fight for funding to help the families of Flint, Michigan, dealing with water contamination, this should not happen here in America in the 21st century; yet families in coal country have been dealing with this for 40 years. So you can imagine how many people's health has been jeopardized by this practice. The stream protection rule that the House is about to block would serve as one of the only safety measures that would protect these families from poisonous drinking water, higher rates of cancer, lung disease, respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, birth defects, and the countless negative health effects that plague this region. If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to block the safeguards of the stream protection rule, they should at least consider supporting my legislation, the Appalachian Communities Health Emergency Act, or ACHE Act. I introduced this bill earlier today with Representative Slaughter to suspend new mountaintop removal permits until the Department of Health and Human Services can conduct a comprehensive Federal study of the health effects of this reckless mining method used in my State of Kentucky and throughout coal country. I believe mountaintop removal should be banned, but at a minimum, we should halt all new permits until the safety of the residents in the surrounding communities is assured. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to oppose today's effort to block this potentially lifesaving rule and support the ACHE Act. We have failed to protect the families in these communities, and passage of this bill will inflict another blow to their health and well-being. They deserve far better. I will make a final offer to my colleagues on the other side. If anybody wants to come and take a drink out of this, I will withdraw the ACHE Act and vote for their legislation.

Mr. YARMUTH

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I will remind the gentleman that his vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act will result in 581,000 people from his State of Georgia losing their healthcare coverage, 71,000 workers losing their jobs, and an economic loss of $39.4 billion in gross State product, over 5 years, for the State of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I will remind the gentlewoman that her vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act will result in 552,000 people from her State of North Carolina losing their healthcare coverage, 76,000 workers losing their jobs, and an economic loss of $39.4 billion in gross State product, over 5 years, for North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici), a distinguished member of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I will remind my colleague that his vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act will result 234,000 people from his State of Arkansas losing their healthcare coverage, 28,000 workers losing their jobs, and an economic loss of $15.8 billion in gross State product over 5 years for the State of Arkansas. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I will remind my colleague that his vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act will result 479,000 people from his State of Pennsylvania losing their healthcare coverage, 173,000 workers losing their jobs, and an economic loss of $76.5 billion over 5 years in gross State product for the State of Pennsylvania. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I will remind my colleague that his vote today to repeal the Affordable Care Act will result in 1.8 million people from his State of Texas losing their healthcare coverage, 175,000 workers losing their jobs, and an economic loss of $107 billion in gross State product over 5 years for the State of Texas. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen), a distinguished member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brendan F. Boyle), a new member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. YARMUTH. I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, everybody in this room wants the same thing. We want the best quality of care available to the most people at the lowest price. That is what every American wants. That is what Republicans and Democrats alike want. We have put our plan to do that on the table. We recognize that there are ways it could be improved. But the idea that there is a plan competing on the other side is just hilarious. Last night, I testified at the Rules Committee before Chairman Sessions. Chairman Sessions introduced a bill last year. He had one cosponsor. That gentleman is no longer in the House, so he has no cosponsors as of now. His plan is called the World's Greatest Healthcare Act. I like the name, but I don't know how that relates to any of those other plans. I know that probably some of the elements are similar. This is the problem with the exercise we are going through. We are heading down a road with no final determination or destination. We are going to repeal the Affordable Care Act, eliminating all the protections that we have provided for 300 million Americans--expanded coverage, expanded guarantees, benefits, and quality--and we don't know what the alternative is. Waiving around a bunch of papers does not mean there is a plan. It does not mean that the Republicans can say to the American public: ``Here is what your health care is going to look like when we get finished with our repeal and replace.'' They just can't do that. That is why only 18 percent of the American people, according to a Kaiser survey, want this course of action, want a repeal without a replacement. All I have to say is, if we go down this path, we won't have repeal and replace. What we will have is repeal and repent because we are going to owe a huge apology to the American people for the damage that we have caused. I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment in the nature of a substitute.