On the recordNovember 15, 2013
I appreciate the chairman yielding. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to begin the long process of amending--hopefully improving, and if that is not possible, at some point in time, repealing--the Affordable Care Act. The President, as everybody knows by now, repeatedly said that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. Well, it has been proven that even when he said it, that was not true. Yesterday, the President admitted as much when he said for the next year he would try to honor that promise, if only in the breach. The Upton bill actually correctly honors that promise in the correct way by legislatively saying that insurance can continue to provide these private policies--and I would assume some employer-sponsored policies--regardless of whether they meet the new minimum standards under the Affordable Care Act. The bill does not require insurance companies to do so, but it does allow them to do so. As sponsors of the bill, it is our hope that many companies will do so. It is a reasonable expectation that millions of Americans, given that choice, will actually keep the plans that they have and that they like. At some point in time, though, Mr. Speaker--this bill is not the end of the process; it is the beginning--we need to come back and fix the rest of the law or perhaps even change it or repeal it. I have a bill that I hope will be brought to the floor at some point in the near future that will make ObamaCare voluntary.…
