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[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E987]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUPPORT FOR H.R. 748
______
HON. JOE COURTNEY
of connecticut
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Chairman Neal for
his leadership managing this bill on the floor. As Chair of the Ways
and Means Committee, his advocacy is a powerful message to the House to
pass the Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act. I also want to
thank Ranking Member Brady and Rep. Mike Kelly for their bipartisan
efforts in support of this bill, defying the polarized politics that
far too often dominates the health care debate.
Madam Speaker, this bill today comes with the support of a more than
650 health care stakeholders who, over the last ten years, have joined
together to repeal the 40 percent excise tax on higher premium health
plans scheduled to go into effect in 2022.
This tax was a late add on to the Affordable Care Act and has been
rattling around in the federal tax code ever since, never having
actually collected a penny of revenue, but nonetheless casting an
statutory shadow over 180 million Americans' health plans--we know in
real life from HR administrators and employee representatives it has
added pressure to shift coverage into higher deductible health plans.
As the Commonwealth Fund recently reported, the numbers of Americans
who are underinsured as the result of high deductibles has grown by
over 50 percent since 2005. Kaiser Family Foundation just reported that
31 percent of employer health plans will get hit by the tax in 2022,
and that number will grow sharply soon after. Passage of this bill will
stop that trend from worsening, lift the shadow that overhangs
employer-sponsored plans, and give millions of teachers, factory
workers, small businesses, firefighters and the like, relief.
As the bill's lead sponsor, I want to foot stomp the fact that repeal
of the tax does not touch the architecture of the ACA's patient
protections. Repeal is completely severable from the other 440 sections
of the law and leaves intact essential health benefits, and the
elimination of preexisting conditions exclusions and lifetime caps to
name a few. Given that those patient protections have been in full
operation for the last ten years, while this ``zombie tax'' has been in
a coma during that time, it is abundantly clear that the tax is
disconnected from the rest of the law. Lastly, I want to underscore the
CBO determination that passage will not result in any increase in the
number of uninsured.
There is one other concern that observers have raised, namely the
impact on the national debt. Again, JCT has given a mixed report. The
good news is that repeal this year 2019 will result in no budget impact
in 2020 and 2021. In the following two years they estimate a loss of 21
billion in tax revenue. In the out years their projections grow
exponentially, based on a theory of ``wage effect'' cause by the
``thinning'' of health plans' value and a corresponding increase in
wages. To say that the ``wage effect'' theory is debatable is an
understatement, and employee groups such as Wage Works, the AFL-CIO,
police and firefighter groups ferociously deny the validity of the
``wage effect'' based on their real life experience at the collective
bargaining table.
The only remaining question a reasonable observer might ask is why
has repeal taken so long? Given the initial 5-year delay in the tax's
effective date in 2010, based on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition and
the two subsequent delays until 2022, it is true that the warning flags
were up on this tax early and Congress should have acted sooner. In the
Congresses that followed 2010 ACA enactment, there was ample
opportunity to get this done. In the 114th Congress an identical
surgical repeal bill had 188 bipartisan cosponsors. In the 115th
Congress a surgical bill had 304 bipartisan cosponsors. Despite that
broad based support, neither Speaker John Boehner nor Paul Ryan ever
called those bills up for a vote. I know because I was the lead
Democratic sponsor on every one of those measures.
Madam Speaker, with 370 House cosponsors, I am hopeful an
overwhelming tally tonight will send a laser-like message to the Senate
to adopt this bill as soon as possible, as is.
____________________
