Henry Waxman: “Today employees who have insurance coverage where they work fear that if they lose their job or change jobs they will…”

“Today employees who have insurance coverage where they work fear that if they lose their job or change jobs they will not be able to get insurance. If they have a medical problem, they worry they will be excluded from coverage permanently or that they will have a long waiting period before they can be covered. They face the so-called 'job lock' where they cannot move on to other or better jobs because they cannot risk the loss of their health insurance coverage, and if they lose their job, their situation is made worse by facing the loss of that insurance. The substitute before us would change that. It would guarantee them access to health insurance coverage. It would assure them that an existing health problem would not be a reason to exclude them from coverage. Now this base bill that we are seeking to amend has provisions that are similar to Kennedy-Kassebaum, the Dingell bill, the Roukema bill. There really is not a lot of difference between all these provisions. There are some differences, but they are minor, and they are differences that can be worked out if people sat down and talked them through. In fact, I voted for the Kennedy-Kassebaum-Roukema version of this legislation when it was in the Committee on Commerce. Everybody did. It was a unanimous vote. But the Republican proposal before us adds some things that I think will make this legislation fail ultimately to become law.”