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Reps Stand Firm on Health Care as Shutdown Looms
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- As a shutdown of the federal government looms at midnightt, members of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Mahoning and Shenango valleys dug in on their positions on the Affordable Care Act, which House Republicans insist on delaying or defunding as a condition of approving funding to allow the government to operate.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-13 Ohio, acknowledged in remarks on the House floor that even those who voted for the Affordable Care Act realize there is “a long way to go” to make the law work. However, rather than offering a helping hand, opponents are working to destroy it, he said “even to the brink of trying to shut down the government or default on the credit, the full faith and credit, of the United States.”
“People forget millions of American prior to this health-care law, 1,700 families in my congressional district, went bankrupt because of health care,” Ryan said. “So we’re not even going to talk about that? We’re going to sweep that right under the rug, the kind of suffering that goes on in some of our communities?”
Two GOP congressmen who represent other parts of the region remain steadfast in their opposition to the health-care law in written statements issued over the weekend. Unlike Ryan, both U.S. Reps. Bill Johnson, R-6 Ohio, and Mike Kelly, R-3 Pa., voted in favor of House Joint Resolution 59, which would make continuing appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014 and delay implementation of the Patient protection and Affordable Care Act for one year.
Kelly issued a statement after the House of Representatives passed H.J. Res 59, a Resolution to Make Continuing Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014, along with two bipartisan amendments that would delay the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for one year and permanently repeal the law’s Medical Device Tax provision.
“Once again the ‘People’s House’ has answered the will of the American people by passing responsible, commonsense legislation to deliver Americans what they’ve persistently demanded from their representatives: a fully functioning government, and protection from the president’s job-killing health care law. Now the Senate and President Obama have a duty to put their pride aside and do what is right for the entire nation. Now is the time for the interests of millions of hardworking taxpayers and families to trump petty politics and stubborn priorities. There is simply no good reason for the president to let the government shut down just so that Obamacare -- a lawmost Americans reject -- can carry on as planned," Kelly said.
Johnson noted that President Obama already has allowed corporations a one-year delay in complying with Obamacare’s employer mandate, and the House measure would provide Americans “the same much-needed one-year reprieve from complying with Obamacare’s onerous mandates” as well as avert a government shutdown.
“The American people are becoming increasingly concerned about Obamacare as its implementation approaches,” Johnson said. “They’re concerned about their healthcare insurance premiums rising, their ability to keep insurance they like, their access to physicians they choose, and they are nervous about Washington bureaucrats interfering in decisions that have traditionally been made by patients and their doctors.”
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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