“Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the bill before the House today is simply an effort by Republicans to continue to impede the efforts of implementing the Affordable Care Act by instilling misinformation and fear in the American public”, said Rep. Pallone.
On January 10, 2014 Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey asked for and was granted time to address the “Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act of 2014” – also known as H.R. 3811.
“Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the bill before the House today is simply an effort by Republicans to continue to impede the efforts of implementing the Affordable Care Act by instilling misinformation and fear in the American public. It is an egregious bill that would, in my opinion–let me point this out, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday, I was in the Rules Committee, and I pointed out that, to some extent, I was pleased, I guess, that I don’t see the Republicans actually coming to the floor today to act on another repeal or outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I mean, we are not seeing that. We didn’t see it in Rules. And hopefully, I will say to my colleague, the chairman of the Health Subcommittee, that we don’t see it again, either in the committee, in Rules, or on the floor.”
“So maybe there is some progress here, and at least the Republicans are not out there trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act anymore–at least I hope so. But they are now moving to these other methods of trying to put fear in the public so that they don’t sign up or they don’t go on the Web site. And the fact of the matter is that these security measures that they are talking about are addressing a reality that is not there”, he said.
“Do I think that security measures are critical for the Web site? Yes, absolutely. But let’s recap the last few years since the ACA passed. Republicans claim the ACA kills jobs; but since the law has passed, we have added nearly 8 million jobs. Republicans claim that the ACA causes health costs to increase, but the last 4 years we have seen the slowest health care cost growth in 50 years. Republicans claim we need to address the deficit; yet they repeal the law at every turn, which increases the deficit by over $1.5 trillion”, he continued.
“Well, now they say that healthcare.gov is going to result in widespread breaches of people’s personal information, and that is simply not true. There have been no successful security attacks on healthcare.gov, and no one has maliciously accessed personal information”, said Rep. Pallone (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov).
Pallone is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Pallone deals with many issues of great importance to the people of New Jersey, including health care, energy, the environment and fisheries.
For more information on H.R. 3811 see: http://www.gop.gov/bill/113/2/hr3811
See also lobbyist organization: AMAC supports H.R. 3811 http://amac.us/amac-supports-health-exchange-security-transparency-act-2014-h-r-3811