Louise Slaughter: “Mr. Speaker, priorities, what are our priorities? H.R. 1528 is a popular, noncontroversial measure that would likely…”

“Mr. Speaker, priorities, what are our priorities? H.R. 1528 is a popular, noncontroversial measure that would likely pass under suspension of the rules. So why have we made such a bill more problematic and more difficult to pass? A controversial provision unrelated to restraints on the IRS or protections for American taxpayers was grafted onto this consensus legislation for the second time. If our priority is to enact additional protections for the Federal taxpayer, why was a provision waiving consumer protections for the health insurance tax credit, for workers who have been displaced by trade, implanted into this unrelated bill? The problem that we now face as we consider H. Res. 282 is that the taxpayer protection bill eliminates the federally mandated requirements of affordability and nondiscrimination for state-based insurance policies for the American workers whose jobs were moved overseas. This controversial and problematic add-on allows the insurers to pick and choose the displaced workers that they wish to cover, insuring the young and healthy and refusing to cover the older workers and those with preexisting conditions. Such a provision would undo the promises Congress last year made to the displaced workers and to their families. Is our priority the health of working families, or is it increasing the bottom line for certain health plans?”