As the Navy potentially embarks on an increased shipbuilding initiative for combatants to support the new FSA, it is just as critical that our sealift requirements are not once again sidelined.

I am deeply concerned, however, that we have not paid enough attention as a nation to the health and viability of our pool of vessels or the mariner pipeline needed to crew them.

I know the Mashantucket's support this legislation, and I want to make that clear on the record.

I am an optimist in terms of the fact that reasonable people can come to an agreement, recognizing again sovereignty and sovereign control.

Sovereignty issues are in the fabric of our Nation's history, and we have to be really careful and mindful of it.

I am proud to represent Eastern Connecticut, which is home to two of the largest Native American casinos, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Casino.

we have a budget which we submitted today, the Skinny Budget, so called, for 2018, which proposes to just completely obliterate AmeriCorps.

I think you would have total, 1000 percent support on both sides of the aisle that we need to come up with, whether it is legislative initiatives or again, the oversight function as a way of trying to make sure that these dollars are spent…

I do believe that we should be a part of the UNCLOS Treaty.

In a few minutes, the American people will see clearly what each and every Member of this House is made of. Will we vote to willfully strip healthcare coverage for 24 million Americans, older Americans, working Americans, Americans with…

We should not be allowing health plans to decide we are not going to cover maternity or that they can pick and choose what essential benefits that, again, the rest of the universe of businesses have to provide now under the Affordable Care…

Again, as someone who was a small-business employer for 27 years and provided health benefits for my staff, I am acutely aware of the challenges in the small-business market which long predate passage of the Affordable Care Act and which…

The mental health bill, which we passed at the end of the last Congress and was signed into law by President Obama, one provision in it was to actually extend National Health Service Corps' loan forgiveness to pediatric and adolescent…

This tells me that there is a lack of information on the part of students and families on how financial aid works and the true cost of going to college.

The issue of college affordability was talked about up and down the State, particularly as we talk about strengthening our economy.

After 7 years of railing against the Affordable Care Act, a little less than 2 weeks ago we finally got an opportunity to see what the Republican repeal-and-replace plan actually looks like. President Trump described it on March 7, again…

If you drill down in some of the testimony, you can actually find a few areas of overlap that is unexpected and helpful, and obviously there are some issues that we really do have to make some decisions on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the witnesses.

It is a bilateral, verifiable agreement that gives us some degree of predictability on what our potential adversaries look like.

I think we have a great team on both sides of the aisle, and obviously this could be a real sort of historic year given the topic that we are going to discuss this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again congratulations on your selection as chairman of this committee, which again is a great committee.

7 years ago, in March of 2010, the Affordable Care Act was signed into law after a 2-year process of hundreds of committee meetings, exhaustive markups--which I personally participated in--floor debate that went on for days, and, again…

Again, I think there are a lot of people who are serious, people who actually do know the complexity of the health insurance market, that could address these problems.

Again, I ask that the 'AP Fact Check, ObamaCare is not in a Death Spiral' be entered into the record.

So, again, there are solutions here to deal with some of the instability that exists in the market, but, frankly, that is not what we are hearing from the Republican majority. It is too bad.