On the recordMarch 21, 2017
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.…





