mr. van hollen: five or six. mr. an hollen: it's quite a scene to see so many of our colleagues rush to the floor of this house to call upon this congress to deny the american people health care protections, patient protections that every member of this congress has. if a child of a member of this congress has a pre-existing conditions, whether it is diabetes or asthma, their child gets covered. if their child is 25 years old and didn't happen to have health insurance, they can be covered on the health insurance plan. and yet this bill to repeal obamacare would deny to the american people the same kind of patient protections that every member of this congress enjoys. it's a sad day. with that, i yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from pennsylvania, ms. schwartz. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. schwartz: i appreciate the opportunity to speak on this legislation. as so many of us know, two weeks ago the supreme court uphell the affordable care act and increasing access to health insurance c

mr. van hollen: five or six. mr. van hollen: it's quite a scene to see so many of our colleagues rush to the floor of this house to call upon this congress to deny the american people health care protections, patient protections that every member of this congress has. if a child of a member of this congress has a pre-existing conditions, whether it is diabetes or asthma, their child gets covered. if their child is 25 years old and didn't happen to have health insurance, they can be covered on the health insurance plan. and yet this bill to repeal obamacare would deny to the american people the same kind of patient protections that every member of this congress enjoys. it's a sad day. with that, i yield 1 1/2 minutes to the gentlelady from pennsylvania, ms. schwartz. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized. ms. schwartz: i appreciate the opportunity to speak on this legislation. as so many of us know, two weeks ago the supreme court uphell the affordable care act and increasing access to health insurance

mr. van hollen: may i inquire how much time is remaining? the speaker pro tempore: 3 1/2 minutes. mr. van hollen: i yield myself the balance of the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. mr. van hollen: mr. speaker, during the debate over passage of the health care bill, obamacare, we heard a campaign of massive distortions. we heard it was going to create death panels. not true. we heard it was going to be a government takeover of health care. the independent plit fact called that the 2010 lie of the year. now we hear it's going to wreak havoc on the economy when the head of the congressional budget office, our nonpartisan referee, just said two weeks ago that they don't think this bill's having any significant impact on the economy. and on and on -- and on. we heard from our republican colleagues they were going to repeal and replace. we've now repealed this 31 times in the house. no replacement. and what does that mean? that's the status quo. our colleagues make it sound like the status quo is just great. in the health care system. when the insurance companies got to r

mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. may i inquire how much time we have left? the speaker pro tempore: eight minutes. mr. van hollen: thank you, mr. speaker. let me start on the points of agreement. we agree with the piece of legislation as we have said it passed the budget committee unanimously. what it does is ask for some more detailed information on the impact of the across-the-board sequester scheduled to take place in january. the senate also agrees with that. let's make no mistake. there was an amendment on the senate side, bipartisan amendment, washington state senator mccain, bipartisan amendment asking for additional information. there is also agreement that we don't need more information to understand that the across-the-board sequester cuts would have a very negative impact on the economy and on defense and on important nondefense investments that are important to the american people. so the issue really is, what are we going to do about it? . we have proposed an alternative in this house. we proposed an alternative in the budget committee, it didn't

mr. van hollen: thank you, madam speaker. i yield myself three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized for three minutes. mr. van hollen: thank you, madam speaker. i support this legislation as the chairman of the budget committee said, it passed unanimously out of the budget committee. i believe that more information is better than less. i also believe from the comments i have heard from colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we also agree that we have enough information to know right now today that a across-the-board meat ax approach to reducing the deficit, the sequester, is a reckless way to deal with our budget. we have heard a lot about the impact of the cuts on defense. secretary panetta's talked about those. we have heard a lot less about the impact of the cuts on other important investments, such as those in biomedical research, and a coalition recently reported that the cuts to the national institutes of health alone would reduce -- cut 33,000 jobs, that means fewer people investigating cures on treatments to d

mr. van hollen has as its possibilities. if you have any questions about this legislation that is fundamental to our democracy and the vitality of the middle- class. >> what effort did you make to get republicans to work with you on disclosure? you quoted senator mcconnell. did you make overtures to get their cooperation >> the short answer is yes. we tried to get republicans onboard. number of republicans have indicated they are in favor of the disclose bill, but the republican leadership has been very clear on this, that they do not want to allow any kind of transparency and any kind of disclosure. we have seen a total flip-flop from senator mcconnell on this issue. interestingly, while this is a united decision creating big problems, there was one issue on which eight of the nine justices agreed, and that was the disclosure is not only constitutional, but for the help attractants -- democracy. the only dissenter was justice thomas. we hope on a bipartisan basis we can take this up. there has been a disturbing trend among

mr. van hollen: i would just refer my colleagues to the budget control act and refer them to section -- the section 302, enforcement of budget goals, it's right there in plain english what the 050 number will be, the defense appropriation number will be. that was the budget control act that was supported and voted on by the chairman of the budget committee, by the chairman of the armed variouses committee, and by the chairman of the appropriations committee and by the chairman and ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee. in fact, the chairman of the appropriations committee, mr. rogers, said last year when we passed it, and i quote, tough choices will have to be made, particularly when it comes to defense and national security priorities, but shared sacrifice will bring sheared results. he went on to say, the appropriations committee has already started making tough decisions on spending and will continue under the spending limits and guidelines provided in this bill, unquote, meaning the budget control act. that was august 1 of last year. the chairman of the full committe

. >> chris van hollen, a democrat from maryland, thanks for being with us. >> over the course of this morning, i expect mrdanny glover and i might have disagreements. we started with an agreement, is this health care bill sets the stage for something more. he said it's not going anywhere. i would beg to differ with that. with six states opting out of the medicare provision and the fact that the penalty tax, penalty, tax, is so paultre xpared to the cost of insurance, you'll see numerous, thousands of people opting to pay the penalty. it can't exist the way it's written. it won't work. one of two things would happen. repeal or a massive evolution of the law as we know it now. >> the penalty rachets up over time. >> 2% of your income. if i make $100,000 a year, that's $2,000 a year. i have a family of four, i pay $15,000 in new york for insurance. i'll pay the penalty and jump in when i get sick. >> you're not going to buy insurance? >> the chief justice supreme court said that is a valid economic choice for me to make. >> they can rachet it up to whatever they want -- >> i think you just illustrated my poi