Joe Pitts

It is the patient protections that need to be in place

The Affordable Care Act also created state-based health insurance exchanges which would allow other insurance carriers to come into states, thereby increasing competition and lowering premiums

The protections that would be repealed include, among others, prohibiting gender rating, prohibiting the denial of people and children with preexisting conditions insurance

As Speaker Hastert used to say, We shouldn't be forcing people to buy a Cadillac when all they need is a Chevy.

This is about empowering people to make decisions for themselves, not assuming they need the government to protect them for themselves.

This should be about consumer choice, not a one-size-fits-all state mandate package that may or may not address a particular individual's needs.

For the information of the Members, the Hyde amendment only applies to the Labor-H bill. It is offered every year as a rider. Similar language is offered to Indian Health, Federal Employee Health Benefits Act. We have done these…

I earnestly hope we can work together on a bipartisan basis to solve this issue this year.

I hope that this hearing will not focus narrowly on options that would shift our problems paying for the SGR onto beneficiaries.

This staggering price tag is just one side of the physician payment reform problem.

According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office estimate if nothing is done physicians will see reimbursement for services provided to Medicare patients cut by 29.4 percent on January 1, 2012.

The system that is currently used to pay physicians for providing services to beneficiaries in the Medicare System is broken and has been for some time.

I strongly disagree with this direction.

It would be unacceptable to have anything less than the highest standards for our nuclear power plants.

You expect us as Members of Congress to basically listen to one side or the other's experts.

Once again the gentlewoman made my point. She has no guarantee that in the year 2015 the Secretary will fund programs like cessation of smoking or obesity. She has not a clue. What if the Secretary decided to use the whole $2 billion for…

The simple fact is everything the gentlelady just mentioned she doesn't know will be funded. There is no guarantee to fund any of those things. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR…

At this point I rise in opposition to the amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5 minutes.

I have the copy of the law the gentlelady referred to. She says the trust fund refers to spending for fresh food and vegetables and other things. There's none of that in the language. I would welcome her to point it out. I reserve the…

The gentlelady kept saying it will, it will, it will. The simple fact is we don't know where the money is going to go. I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), who is a member of the subcommittee.

At this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), who is on the Health Subcommittee.

These are not people who are bringing devices to the market that want to harm someone.

We have to work together to find a way to stop this top-heavy, top-down, centralized punitive activity that is going on at the Food and Drug Administration.

There is an enormous amount of human suffering and the potential for curing disease that is essentially being left on the shelf in the pipeline going to other countries.

I find that offensive to the Constitution of the United States.