On the recordJune 7, 2012
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I'd like to do is just reflect for a minute on some of the promises around President Obama's health care law. You remember he said during the course of the debate about the health care law, Mr. Speaker, that if you like what you have, you can keep it. But what we've found is that some estimates say that up to 30 percent of employers will actually drop their health care coverage. So those folks that have that coverage, they don't get to keep that coverage, Mr. Speaker. There was also a promise that the law would actually lower premiums, and yet family premiums are already increasing by as much as $1,600 per year. But there was one promise that was made that was actually kept, and it was a promise, Mr. Speaker, from the gentlelady from California, who, as Speaker of the House, said, in a nutshell, We've got to pass the bill so that you can know what's in it. Well, she did, and we do. What's in it was a cascading group of mistakes. One was the 1099 bill--big mistake. It wasn't found the first time around, but we were able to fix that. The second was the CLASS Act, a recognition that it was a failure and inoperable. It hasn't been dealt with by the administration, but at least they put the white flag up and said it's ridiculous. Two other things now have come to our attention. The first is well discussed. That is the medical device tax.…
