On the recordJanuary 8, 2014
I thank the gentleman. I would like to yield to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley). Mr. McKINLEY. Thank you, Congressman, for your leadership on this matter. According to Tom Miller, the West Virginia representative to the National Volunteer Fire Council, 95 percent of all fire departments in West Virginia are staffed by volunteers. To pay for their training, equipment, and operating costs, these men and women are forced to raise money through bake sales, pancake breakfasts, steak dinners, and standing in the streets, humbly, at the stoplights, holding their boots out and asking people to put money into those boots. And now these financially strapped fire departments have been told that they may have to pay health care costs. Mr. Miller has projected that the added cost of paying for this health care for these volunteers will force some departments to close their doors, putting families and businesses at risk. Mr. Speaker, cutting emergency services upon which rural America depends is clearly an unintended consequence of ObamaCare. Therefore, we must exempt our volunteer emergency responders from this additional cost by bringing this bill to the floor as soon as possible.
