The problem that we keep facing is rapidly rising health care costs. It's not just for Medicare; it's for private insurance. It's for anybody who has health coverage that costs of health care are going up rapidly. The approach of Medicare…

I'd like to yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman and ask him to yield to me.

I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, if you listen to the comments that were just made on the House floor, it would be better to leave over 30 million people without health insurance because they want to see doctors…

I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, our idea for Medicare for the future is to make it better, not to eliminate it. In the Affordable Care Act, we provide help for seniors to pay for their prescription drugs…

We want to hold down the costs in health care for Medicare, itself. The cost of health care is going up for all health care coverage; but Medicare, if it goes up too much, it's a real problem. So in the Affordable Care Act, we try to put…

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield to the gentleman from California. {time} 1630

The Affordable Care Act is giving vital benefits for millions of Americans.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, over 100 million Americans no longer have to worry about their coverage being revoked.

The Republican budget would repeal the important Affordable Care Act provisions that expand health care coverage and prevent the worst abuses performed by the insurance industry.

Thirty million Americans would be covered under the Affordable Care Act who are not now covered, and I assume that they will go without coverage if the act is repealed?

There is no Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act benefits. They offer only repeal.

We are living up to the promises of this law.

The environmental harms from tar sands production have been minimized and will be solved by technology. In reality, the tar sands operations have vast and devastating effects on the land, water, air, and ecosystem.

More drilling, building a new tar sands pipeline or developing oil shale has not reduced gasoline prices in Canada and it won't in the United States either.

The Republicans and the oil industry will use this opportunity to call for building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The industry and Alberta government talk a good game but this is a classic example of greenwashing.

The reality is that the carbon pollution from tar sands is growing very rapidly and the Alberta government is not willing to put the policies in place that would be necessary to change that.

Since last May, this committee has held four hearings on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and passed two separate bills to mandate approval of that pipeline, and yet the majority has never bothered to examine the impacts of tar sands…

With oil at such a high price, do we need to be giving out $4 billion in tax breaks for oil companies each year?

If we produced more oil and OPEC decides to produce less, that won't help us; that will hurt us.

Yet rather than confront this challenge, the Republicans deny the science and they vote to block all action on climate change.

This is going to be expensive, and I suppose that the technology advances quickly and gets cheaper over time.

Well, the Republicans have said over and over again we just need more oil. If we had more oil, we wouldn't have this problem.

Energy economists tell us the Republican plan is not even 'remotely possible' to reduce the price of gasoline.

So when we hear Republicans saying, 'Produce more oil,' they are doing what the oil companies want, but it is not going to reduce the price of gasoline.