Hoyer Remarks at Hearing on Ways to Improve the Affordable Care Act Hosted by the Steering & Policy Committee

WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined the House Democratic Steering & Policy Committee for a hearing on ways to improve the Affordable Care Act.  Below is a transcript of his remarks: 

“There is a lot going on today, but I don’t think there is anything going on today that is more important than your testimony. Other than the vote that’s now going on in the United States Senate, hopefully we will prevail there. Look, Mitch McConnell said if they fail we’re going to work in a bipartisan way to fix the Affordable Care Act.

“I asserted pretty strongly this morning on TV, it’s working and we’ll not destroy it. It's what you were saying, and Doug [Elmendorf], I want to thank you for your testimony at our previous hearing some months ago. Thank you very much for being here and Madam [Teresa Miller] Commissioner, thank you for your work.

“You know Leader Pelosi, yesterday, in our leadership meeting, pointed out that in the McConnell bill, one of the two alternatives, they set forth how to stabilize the market for the next two years -- a kind of phasing out and all of the things you mentioned, they know full well what they’re doing and they know full well how to stabilize the market. 

"And the ACA is working. It’s not working in some places Gary [Cohen], you just pointed out, it wasn’t working before the ACA, and we now know how to fix that, and it will be costly. Because the market, one of the problems is that we pretend like the health care market is a free market, like buying something at Walmart that is a cheaper price than something else. But we don’t buy our health care that way, its just not rational to think that human people think that way. But these four items that they list, clearly, if we, in fact, did them it would give the insurance companies a better ability to price its product and more confidence and it would give the marketplace some stability.

"So, I thank you for your testimony here today, I was very late, I apologize for that, but I really do appreciate your being here, you spending your time here. Doug [Elmendorf], thank you very much for the service you gave to the CBO. Hopefully it will exist next year. If it doesn’t, the country is going to suffer. But it is such a wonderful group of people who give such honest advice and, as you know, as I talk to every CBO director since the time I’ve been here, here is the honest answer. We may not like it, it may not be in our political interest but it is an honest answer and the American people would be advantaged. You always did that and, frankly, almost all of your predecessors, I don’t have an exception in mind, all of your predecessors did that as well. Your successors have done that, and God bless them.”