Max Baucus: “reserving the right to object, I think it is pretty clear that this motion is inappropriate. This is not what we should…”

“reserving the right to object, I think it is pretty clear that this motion is inappropriate. This is not what we should be doing and how we should potentially change the act. Actually, the effect here is to disrupt implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act is a law. It has been in place for several years. The Supreme Court has upheld it. Attempts to repeal it failed. I think the House has voted up to 20 times to try to repeal the ACA. They have all failed. The act is here. So the goal here is to make it work, make the act work. Then later on we can ask questions about what happened, why it didn't work, why wasn't implementation of the exchanges as good as a lot of us would have liked it to have been. Then find out who is responsible, et cetera. Right now it works. The effect of this motion is severalfold. One, it will deny people having health insurance, people who otherwise would get health insurance. If you delay the individual responsibility requirement, it is going to cause a delay. People will not have insurance. Second, it is going to increase the cost of health insurance for a lot of people. Why? Because fewer people will be signed up. The individual responsibility requirement will not be followed as much as otherwise would be the case. The result is fewer people will be in the insurance pool, and therefore prices will be higher.…”