Frank Pallone: “Thank you, Mr. Waxman. The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) had said before that essentially the Republicans…”

“Thank you, Mr. Waxman. The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) had said before that essentially the Republicans putting up this bill are not serious. They know that this bill is not going to pass the Senate. They know that the President won't sign it. And when I heard my colleagues on the other side talk about how, well, we have a deadline of December 31 and basically said, Take it or leave it, well, they're not serious. That's not the way this House and this Congress works. If you want to get something done by this December 31 deadline, you need to work with the Democrats, work with the Senate, and come up with something. And I know that's not what's happening here today. I mean, this idea that basically you say we're going to give you extended unemployment benefits but we're going to cut back on the number of weeks or that we're going to extend the payroll tax and we're going to come up with a doc fix, but we're going to pay for it dismantling the Affordable Care Act. First, the Republicans cut the tax credits to help make insurance affordable, resulting in 170,000 additional people becoming uninsured; then they slash the public health and prevention fund, damaging efforts to realign the Nation's approach to health care; then they cut hospitals, affecting services that seniors depend on; and, finally, they increase the premiums under Medicare, resulting in millions of middle class seniors having to pay more for health care.…”