Bill Pascrell: “I know the great intentions of the sponsor of this legislation. That is not in question. What is in question is that we…”

“I know the great intentions of the sponsor of this legislation. That is not in question. What is in question is that we have very, very short memories when it comes to healthcare. We made a commitment when we put the Affordable Care Act together. We knew it wasn't perfect, and obviously since then we have tried to make some changes, but we haven't had much cooperation from the other side. It wasn't mindless. In fact, the medical device industry agreed to the conclusion. In sitting down in negotiations we started out with one thought in mind, regardless of what we were talking about: we shall pay for what we vote on, unlike some other legislation that will go nameless right now. We devised the Affordable Care Act so that it could be paid for and we would not have to add to the deficit. In fact, one of these taxes, in order to pay for the Affordable Care Act, we are discussing right now, the medical device tax. It started out at 5 percent. In working with the industry, we came to a conclusion of 2.3 percent. So we went from $40 billion raised for the Affordable Care Act to $20 billion, see, because we knew we had to pay for this. That is what healthcare is all about, and that is why you guys on the other side-- you people have not come up with an alternative, because you don't know how to pay for anything. So we paid for this. The Protect Medical Innovation Act.…”