With recovery as a goal, the House is making progress to offer short-term help to jumpstart an economic recovery, and to those hit hardest by the recession -- and long-term solutions to build a new economic foundation for years to come.
Health Insurance Reform – The growing cost of health care is one of the biggest drags on our economy. The House is developing a solution to offer the choice of affordable quality health care to all Americans. This involves building on what works and fixing what’s broken, putting patients, not profits, first, while reducing the burden of ballooning health care costs on families, businesses and the nation's fiscal future.
Clean Energy Jobs – The House has passed a clean energy jobs plan that will unleash private sector investment in new technologies to create jobs and boost the economy, move the nation toward energy independence, and reduce the pollution that is causing climate change. As long as we are exporting our dollars in exchange for oil, our economy and our national security are at the mercy of other countries.
Appropriations – The House is enacting key pieces of President Obama’s long term economic plan with fiscally responsible appropriations legislation that invests in key priorities to grow the economy while cutting and eliminating programs that aren’t working.
STATUTORY PAYGO
This week, the House will take up statutory “pay-as-you-go” legislation, which will restore the policy that led from deficits to surpluses under the Clinton Administration.
Statutory PAYGO is a necessary step to restore fiscal discipline and begin bringing down the deep deficits that face the nation. Without reducing the deficit, we won’t be able to invest in vital priorities, including health care, education, and clean energy.
The bill on the floor this week requires all new policies that either reduce revenues or expand entitlement spending be offset over five and ten years; discretionary spending is not subject to PAYGO, and exceptions can be made for emergencies.
HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM
Not in six decades has American health insurance reform gotten this far--now through 3 out of 5 House and Senate committees --and moving forward.
The House has held 79 Congressional hearings on health insurance reform in just over two years. Members of Congress have held more than 550 health care town halls and public events all across the country. America has debated how to fix what’s broken in our system for more than six decades.
This week, three separate House committees have already had more than 45 hours of debate and amendments on reform legislation. In this bill, we have 215 pages of reforms that simply make your existing health insurance coverage more fair to you—with the security that you can no longer lose coverage or be denied care for a pre-existing condition,or be pushed deeply into debt because of a high deductible, a lifetime expense limit, or a premium increase based on your health, age, or occupation.
