Committee on Education and Workforce

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I remind my colleague that her vote for this bill could increase premiums for people with breast cancer in Tennessee by over $38,000. Mr. Speaker, let's begin with a few facts: Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, costs have gone up at the lowest rate in 50 years; Those with preexisting conditions get insurance at the standard rate; Instead of millions of people losing their insurance every year, 20 million more people have insurance; Personal bankruptcies are down 50 percent.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, under current law, if an employee wants to work overtime, put the money in the bank where it can earn interest, and use it to cover the cost of taking some time off later with the permission of the employer, he can do that today without this bill. But under H.R. 1180, instead of getting paid for overtime work in the next scheduled paycheck, the employee might not get paid until as much as a year later, when his employer decides to let him take that comp time. This legislation simply weakens the protections available in the Fair Labor Standards Act--the original family-friendly workplace law--at the very moment that we really ought to be strengthening the law.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1304, the Self-Insurance Protection Act, purports to protect stop-loss insurers from being regulated at the Federal level. It appears that we are considering a bill that is a solution in search of a problem. I am not opposed to stop-loss insurance or the purpose of stop-loss insurance. It can be helpful in shielding employers from unforeseen risks in many instances when they choose to self-insure and want to protect themselves from unexpected and unusually high expenses. Now, while many self-funded plans, in conjunction with the purchased stop-loss, look like a traditional fully insured plan, stop-loss coverage itself is not regulated at the Federal level. There is no indication or suggestion that the administration would seek to regulate stop-loss insurance, so the bill prohibits Federal regulation of stop-loss insurance.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, as we talk about the Affordable Care Act, I think it is important to remind ourselves of the situation before it passed: costs were going through the roof, those with preexisting conditions could not get insurance, women were paying more than men, and every year millions of people were losing their insurance. We passed the Affordable Care Act. Since then, the costs have continued to go up, but at the lowest rate in 50 years. Those with preexisting conditions can get insurance at the standard rate. Women are no longer paying more than men. Instead of millions of people losing their insurance every year, more than 20 million more people now have insurance. The full name of the Affordable Care Act is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, today we are considering a bill that purports to make it easier for small businesses to obtain coverage, and tomorrow we will vote on a bill that will take away health insurance coverage for 24 million Americans and force everyone else to pay more for less. So not only are we considering a bill today that will make things worse, we are considering it a day before we vote on ruining health security for working families in order to provide tax cuts for the wealthy. As we debate the possible replacement of the Affordable Care Act, I think it is instructive that we look back at what the situation was before the ACA passed. Listening to some, you would think that the costs weren't going up at all. In fact, costs were going through the roof before the ACA, and small businesses, particularly, were having spectacular cost increases--and that is until somebody got sick. At that point, you were unlikely to be able to afford any insurance at all.