says, for example, the a.c.a. could also alter labor productivity, the amount of output generated per hour, which would influence employment and then it says, you know, that their report isn't taking into account factors like that because they're hardered to quantify and be sure about -- harder to quantify and be sure about. it's not the same as saying it doesn't matter. >> do you refute any of the data that the report is using? >> i -- c.b.o. does excellent work. we cite c.b.o. all the time. i wouldn't say anything other than that about them. i would say no matter how excellent any organization's work is, number one, it's subject to the misinterpreted and a lot of what i've been talking about here is the way that this has been interpreted. but number two, analysis can only take into account so many things. this analysis by design looks at a set of labor market effects, it didn't look at another set of labor market effects and i talked about what those three effects were. i think in particular that slowdown in heal

says, for example, the a.c.a. could also alter labor productivity, the amount of output generated per hour, which would influence employment and then it says, you know, that their report isn't taking into account factors like that because they're harder to quantify and be sure about. it's not the same as saying it doesn't matter. >> do you refute any of the data that the report is using? >> i -- c.b.o. does excellent work. we cite c.b.o. all the time.

and that is that people are learning the positives of a.c.a. the web site is being improved, more people are signing up, my state of new york alone, more than 200,005,00050,000 people. that was the first months through november 20136789 the benefits are all over the place. one other thing i'd saivment that's not our subject of the week. but i think we'd have to keep mentioning it. we are reduce ug the budget deficit through the a.c. avment i know our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are very, very careful about budget deficits. good. they should be. well, health care costs are declining and declining significantly. some of that is due to the recession, but almost every expert says much of that is due to the a.c.a. national health care expenditures, for instance, in 2012 grew by 3.7%, meaning that the growth from 2009 to 2012 was the slowest since government collected information. and that was in the 1960's. the percentage of health care spending for the first time -- the percentage of g.d.p. -- actually shrunk from 17.3% to 17 230eu%. a

by broadinning access to health insurance, the a.c.a. has increased personal freedom and market choice. now, americans can choose jobs based on what they want to be doing instead of staying where they're unhappy just to keep their health insurance. the expansion of medicaid eligibility and the subsidies available in the exchanges will give americans the flexibility they need to raise their families, not encourage workers to seek less employment, which was one of the most misleading claims made after the report was released. the idea that hardworking americans would modify their employment just to be eligible for social safety net programs is both ludicrous and offensive. nobody wants to live in a situation that makes you eligible for medicaid or other social safety net programs. . all in all a family of four must exist on less than $32,500 a year to qualify for these programs. in the chicago area the cost of living is high, and families struggle to make ends meet. measures like medicaid and snap are meant to help people lift them selves a

the a.c.a. is contributing to slower health cost growth. i think that's the number one thing i would look at in the affordable care act to ask about the overall economic impact. because if it is slowing the growth of health costs, then it gives you a set of better options than you had before all around. the federal government can save money, employers can save money, workers can save money, there can be more incentive to work, sort of net-net good. so in think being is the affordable care act helping the economy, i think that's the important question and in that regard, you know, i would answer the question yes. >> for those of who you are new to that in option trading, what the heck do you mean? >> i'm saying there's a lot of provisions in the affordable care act. a lot of them will create different incentives here and there. i'm not saying that no one anywhere will have any -- no employer will have any new incentives to do anything. there will be some that will have incentives to increase something here, to decrease something there, to rai

she said once the a.c.a. was passed, she said, "i saw the writing on the wall and so do the companies i work for." isn't it interesting, mr. president, that tracy in rock springs, wyoming, could see the writing on the wall, the companies she works for could see the writing on the wall. and yet the democrats in this body who voted for this law couldn't see the writing on the wall. she said she had health insurance and that these companies wouldn't have had to provide her with anything because she had insurance. wouldn't have had to provide her with anything. but they didn't know who might and might not have insurance, and they weren't taking the chance that they would have to offer health care to a large number of people. so what these companies basically did, she said, was hire a specific number of individuals full-time, and thus, those of us who remained part-time employees have been cut way back. well, this is obviously impacting her wages, her take-home pay, the things that matter to her. and it seems that

he writes, "with the changes in health care insurance due to the implementation of a.c.a. for the next year, we shopped the exchange for 2014 plans. what we found was shocking." they found that for the same level of coverage they would now have to pay a premium more than double what they paid in 2013. on top of the higher premium, they would be faced with double the deductible and nearly double the out-of-pocket maximum. phillip in his letter says "frankly, we anticipate a decline in income for the next two years, but still we don't qualify for subsidies. this simply makes the affordable health care unaffordable to us." he continues, "the icing on the cake, my wife's employer told her that they expect to drop their health care coverage for their employees altogether in 2015 because of the added expenses of the a.c..: -- a.c.a. i don't know what we'll do. we have not been able to fund our retirement plans for a couple years now. we do not plan to retire soon and a.c.a. will take everything we can afford to save. we hope congress can come up with a logical solution to the a.c

thanks to the a.c.a., she can get coverage. in this chamber there are brilliant men and women with great respect for my colleagues, i insist the most important respect, senators are just ordinary people. big, not so big; tall, short, men and women; we're just people. it is only through the extraordinary institution of the senate that ordinary people have the power to make life better for all americans. we belong to something bigger than ours. when i first came to the united states senate, senators from opposing parties had lunch together in the private senate dining room. it was called the inner sanctum. in those daily rituals we learned about each others' families, home states and developed real friendships. senators dined together. no staff, no spouses. just senators, both sides of the aisle. compared notes, talked about our kids, talked about family, talked about legislation. get to know each other. it was wonderful. build trust, confidence and understanding. it was the backbone of respect we relied on. those friendships pro

s judgment, ness no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of the a.c.a. they say that the effect of the affordable care act will increase demand and induce some employers to hire more workers or to increase their employees' hours during that period. that's what the c.b.o. report says. but, madam president, the news is even better, because we are also getting definitive results on the amount of money that we are spending as taxpayers when it comes to our health care budget. but hears here' here's a simplet shows what you the current law w projection was. this builds out the trend line to 2025. it is not necessary to predict what they'll be in 25. pretty quickly, the actual average annual growth rate of mechanic is going to come in at way lower than what the current law projection is. in fact, it is going to come in at such a lower rate because of the passage of the affordable care act that we are going to be saving, on average, $250 billion a year. let me say that again. not wholly because of the health care law but in large part because of the implementa

but by intertwining medicare into the financing the a.c.a. they have paralyzed medicare reform at the same time. i'm much more pessimistic about the spending projections that come out of the a.c.a. than a lot of people. my bigger concern is it also hits the denominator. there is nothing pro-growth about the affordable care act. if you asked a group, what do you want for a spluss bill? would you pick a trillion and a half in new entitlement spending? a variety of very expensive regulations that touch every aspect of the economy? i don't think so. part s has been, i think, of the growth problem is a fail yaur to recognize that -- failure to recognize what's ostensibly a health care discussion, social policy objective, has gross consequences. we are hurting the spending numerator, growth denominator, and i'm not a big fan. >> i'm much more positive than that. but the reason for enacting the affordable care act was not fiscal, it was here we have a big country, big rich country that had millions of people with no health insurance and no access to

they further stated that the rollout problems with the affordable care act, known as the a.c.a., last year will mean only, some constituented, six million people will sign up through the state-based exchanges rather than the seven million that the c.b.o. had originally said would sign up. what this means is that the laws were passed as a result of president obama, nancy pelosi being speaker of the house and harry reid as being the senate majority leader, they passed laws which are substantially reducing the number of people who actually work in america. there were a net some 230,000 people that lost their job this last month. the affordable care act continues to be the number one reason why american businesses and small business employers do not hire more workers in this country. the gentleman is correct that democrat leadership as well as ranking members from the ways and means committee and the budget committee have approached the rules committee nd asked for us to extend by 1.3 million people the number of people who would be extended long-term benefits. i had a discussion with bot

you got the a.c.a. at you're issues on, you've got with conferences and spending money, less than 1%, i'll do the ish on generally what that of your budget. you've got bonuses that are in the news, you've got 501(c)(4)'s then you've got taxpayer assistance which you've devoted a lot of time to. one priority for regulatory reform, out of those, 501(c)(4)? priority because it's been -- >> is it the number one priority or not out of those five things? >> i'm sorry, you were asking about regulatory reform. reforming archc.a., we're just implementing it. regulations set of that -- >> i understand. >> you're talking about my that ifes, i would say we can solve the final 501(c)(4) us,lem and put it behind that clearly is one of the five or six priorities that i have. question, where it's less than 1% and you're talking to this committee about our concerns about taxpayer service, our concerns about getting this filing season right, the a.c.a. which happens project that's floating around and you've got some inter

says exchange subsidies under the a.c.a. will reduce incentives to work. let me go over that again. president obama told the country his bill would cost less than $1 trillion. now c.b.o. says it will be $2 trillion. we're expected to lose 2.5 million full-time jobs over the next ten years. and finally, c.b.o. says exchange subsidies under the a.c.a. will reduce incentives to work. if this is working, what is broken -- what does "broken" mean to this president? as i am reading the report and accompanying reaction, the most recent updates sound hauntingly familiar. in fact, i believe this is something i and my colleagues spoke about every day during the debate on health care reform. we questioned at that time whether the c.b.o. estimates accurately reflected the impact of obamacare on the american people which leads to why i am here on the floor as of this evening. this is about accountability, folks. during the debate we questioned whether the scoring done by the c.b.o. was fraught with gimmicks or an unrealistic belief that medicare would achieve significan

. >> josh, we're over a month out from the a.c.a. ime of deadline and beginning to sound like you're not going to reach that $7 million goal. the vice president said $5 million or $6 million and the c.b.o. said $6 million. what's the number, if you know it, and if you don't get to $5 million, is the a.c.a. in trouble? >> well, you mentioned some of the bad news, joe and i recognize it's part of your job. there's also some good news yesterday if you look at the state of california, they announced yesterday they already exceeded the projections they had made for the number of signups they were hoping for this year, despite the fact there is another six weeks left in the signup period. there's some states that are ahead of the curve when it comes to signing people up and exceeding their projections. that indicates a couple of things. one, it indicates that the health care website that was the subject of so much consternation and frustration both in this administration but also from people across the country were trying to use it, that a

they did not repeat the a.c.a. themselves in the shutdown and the larger military piece is they got some automatic budget cuts through the 2011 deficit-driven tea party threat to default on the debt. and now chuck hagel is carrying those out and folks like senator rubio and other colleagues are saying we don't like the thing we made you do under the threat of default. >> there is no democrat that causes them more trouble than what 2ed cruz causes them. they don't have a majority in the senate, the republicans don't, because of ted cruz and his ilk who have been pushing these candidates who can't possibly win when they get the nomination. the democrats have to secretly be watching this and whatever, you know, personal dislike they have for cruz, they have to sit there in the senate and go we are so lucky that ted cruz is just ruining life for republicans in the senate. >> oh, yeah. democrats absolutely feel he's been a huge thorn in the side. he's a messaging nightmare. and when it comes to senate parliamentary proce

. >> ifill: there's also a debate about whether the a.c.a. is more expensive than originally anticipated. do we know the answer to that? >> one thing thatty t head of the c.b.o. said is that there is no evidence that -- when they first estimated how much the bill would cost they said that it would reduce deficits because the things that are in the law that raise money are greater than the things that are in the law that spend money, that everything that they have reestimated, nothing has changed that. so this law is still anticipated to reduce the federal deficit over these ten years and i guess the years that follow that. it's not yet spending more than it takes in. >> ifill: now, every week or so the department of health and human services, someone comes out and says this is the number of people who have registered with the affordable care act. because of the botched rollout, is that number less than what was expected? >> well, right now they're at about -- the last time they told us it was about three million and they had been aiming for se

you got the a.c.a. that you're working on. you've got issues with conferences and spending money. less than 1% -- i'll do the math on generally what that is of your budget. you've got bonuses that are in the news. you have 501-c-4's and then you have taxpayer assistance which you devoted a lot of time to. number one priority for regulatory reform, out of those is 501-c-4? >> it's a priority because it's been the issue -- >> is it the number one priority reform or not out of those five things? >> i'm sorry. regulatory reform, we're not reforming a.c.a. we're implementing a.c.a. on fatca. as a set of regulations that -- >> i understand. >> you're talking about my priorities, i would say that if we can solve the 501-c-4 problem, put it behind us, that clearly is one of the six priorities i have. >> well, i guess you see my question where it's less than 1% and you're talking about this committee about our concerns about taxpayer service, our concerns about getting this filing season right, which is great. the a.c.a. is a small project that's froting around. and you have some internal m

mary anne continues to say the a.c.a. has been a disaster for me and my family. shame on us for letting this happen. i want my old insurance coverage back. i don't appreciate being mandated at the last minute to buy something that has inferior health coverage. it's administratively inept and costs more. please resolve this disaster before it gets worse. myron in hannibal, missouri, "my company told me in last november to go to my wife's group health insurance plan because they didn't know how the government plan was going to work out. on advice of my insurance broker, my company got me off their group policy. as a result, my health insurance premium went from $198 a month to $549 a month." national tally -- natalie from meadeville says my health insurance doubled and my benefits decreased. my deductible has gone from $3,500 to $10,000. i raised my deductible to try to lower my insurance premiums. at the end of 2014 when we are forced to sign up, we'll probably cancel our insurance if we think it is just cheaper to pay the penalty. how many letters we have that say

third, there are really fundamental problems in the basic love on the a.c.a. that need to be cleaned you. and if we don't clean them up in the next year or so they're going to be ramifications to that. they relate to eligibility, implementation of the law, and they tie everybody's hands because we can't get an agreement moving forward. it's essential. we need to get over there and move forward and fix the things that need to be fixed. the problems scared a lot of early doctors especially in the business community. >> wow. the federal government has done a great job recovering and forward very well. but there was some damage done by the marketing and the outreach. and we have to redouble efforts in that area. customer service is essential. and it is real private sector kind of customer service that we need to provide because we're providing services to a range of people. you've got the medicaid, you've got middle income or upper income getting tax credit or buying as 100% of the cost and then you have small businesses. essentially that we look at those pieces li

i make too much money to qualify for any help from the a.c.a. but i don't make enough to afford paying double what my premium is now. to get a a plan that is comparable to what i have now, i will have to pay about $12,000 a year in premiums alone. and you hear stories like the one rebecca stewart recently shared with president obama himself. she told the president that she had to change health insurance plans even though she liked her old plan and that she was having a panic experience trying to get consistent answers about whether or not her 10-year-old son would continue being able to see his specialist under obamacare. this just isn't right. i know the president can't be unmoved by these stories, so i'm calling on president obama to move to the center. i'm saying it's time to start over on health care. to replace obamacare with real bipartisan reforms that can actually help the people who really need it, because a plan like obamacare that costs this much, that hurts this many americans and that still fail to achieve its principal goal at the

and doing, trying to repeal the a.c.a. and all of this. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. mr. mcdermott: why don't you make it a suspension bill? it would pass in a minute. the speaker pro tempore: the time of the gentleman has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from utah seek recognition in mr. bishop: i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman is recognized for one minute. mr. bishop: mr. speaker, today i want to recognize the 100th anniversary of the logan regional hospital which serves the citizens of cash valley northern utah. 1914, a hospital with 60 beds bolstered hed that patients like an x-ray mb. in 1975, the intermountain health care, not for profit community service, was organized which became a model for health care excellence. 1980, the hospital expanded and moved to its present location thanks to the help of $2 million from private donors. today, the hospital has 148 beds and offers a full range of hospital serv

and the let me say, in my state of new york, the initial rollout of a.c.a. has been a big success. we didn't have the problems of a web site because we did our own, and because we have a lot of competition, as was intended on the exchanges, people are getting very, very good offers, and a large, large number of people are getting their costs reduced. reduced. a large number of people are getting their cost reduced. i would like to tell one story. a friend of mine goes to a hairdresser in a conservative member of new york. the person who owns the beauty shop was very conservative. she was really upset. she said, look, i looked at that website and it is going to cost -- i am a nice person. i pay for health care. it costs me hundreds of dollars more per employee. i don't know if i can afford it. the same business. well, that person talked to all for friends. she talked all about it. i spoke to my friends a few weeks ago. guess what. this very same person actually got health care on that new york website that reduced the cost of health care for employees by 100 couple of dollars each. s

the human resources department at a bank. she feels that healthy groups will be paying more for insurance because of a.c.a. and because of the expanded coverage. her department's received many questions, she says, about health care coverage that feels limited in how much they can really tell anybody because they don't know how the new law is going to apply. the law of unintended consequences continues to be the law that applies here. missourians and people all over the country are contacting us and asking how much damage we're willing to do to the health care system that was working to get more people included in that system. there were ways to do this that every one of which i believe was legislatively proposed in 2009. small changes that would have made a big difference in a health care system that was working for people who were in that system. we need to figure out the few ways to get more people in that system. instead, we have had dramatic impact on the best health care system in the world, and people are beginning to figure that out. madam president, i note the absence of a quorum as i yield the floo

the g.o.p. leadership refuses to act. all they seem to want to do is talk about a.c.a. and the rest of that. what they want to do by repealing is this say to women, no longer -- the bill says to women norks longer being a woman is a pre-existing condition. medical condition. no longer will you be discriminated on the basis of your policy and race because are you a woman. no longer can children, young people, stay on their parents' policies until they are 26 years old. no longer will we have -- they want to replace the caps, annual and lifetime on what policies can cover for people. no longer having a pre-existing medical condition in our bill. no longer having -- is an obstacle to having insurance with no limits and the rest. but under -- they want to reverse that pre-existing condition a. child born with a condition -- condition, a child born with a condition, a person, a woman who survives breast cancer, you name it, whatever it is you know the list very well from your own families. so many people come up to me quietly and say i have a pre-existing condition, thank you. i don't want the wo