Instead of expanding coverage and lowering costs, the President's health care law has pushed greater costs onto the backs of consumers.

I strongly believe that these efforts to repeal not only employer mandate, but the whole bill are misguided.

Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff.

In today's sluggish economy, with depressed wages, and millions of Americans who simply cannot find work, the federal government should be encouraging businesses to grow and expand and hire more people.

I advocated and pushed forward the Affordable Care Act because I strongly believed that as health care costs were skyrocketing, American families and businesses simply couldn't continue to bear that weight.

I believe that the mandate helps put smaller businesses on a more competitive footing with large firms.

Today, Capitol Hill is hosting a great Chinese defender of human rights, blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng. A few moments ago, I had the honor of again meeting with Chen as he continues to advocate for the freedom of the Chinese people. His…

I have no other speakers, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I, too, urge all Members to support this critical legislation. It has strong bipartisan support. It is very important. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

We are now seeing the impact of provisions in the Affordable Care Act that help us move away from the traditional 'pay and chase' approach to a more proactive approach designed to prevent fraud before it occurs.

Medicare has been on the Government Accountability Office's high-risk list continuously since GAO began designating programs as high risk in 1990.

I look forward to hearing from our GAO witnesses what areas in the Medicare and Medicaid programs are most vulnerable to fraud and their recommendations to combat improper payments.