We begin i like remind my colleagues once again that this is a tax markup. Weve had quite a bit of discussion about the individual mandate and what that might mean for the impact of the mark, but even so the individual mandate is part of the tax code. It is by indivisible account well within the intended scope of the markup. I intend to rule in the amendments that go beyond changes to the Internal Revenue code, not germane. Similarly, i will rule nine germane in an image that would put the modified mark out of compliance with the committees reconciliations instruction. With that we will proceed to the consideration of amendments. Where going to begin by debating to amendments proposed by senator wyden for 20 minutes. After which we will vote on both amendments. Once we voted on those amendments we will call on to more amendments proposed by the Ranking Member for 20 minutes and vote on those as well. We will go to that point and then we will see where we are. Okay, senator wyden. Okay. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The two amendments that i have, 145 and 146, our transparency amendments. And what we have here are essentially some of the materials that lay out the record that was compiled during the bipartisan 1986 tax reform bill. There were 27 hearings. They are actually numbered like they are super bowl. May have been in order starting with james baker, the treasury secretary, and contrast that with this, from the Trump Administration, a little bit longer than your typical drugstore receipt, but not much more. So the two amendments that im offering, my son says they are about as radical as senator mccaskill asking for a summary of what was actually in this legislation. First would require a a hearin. The second would require as score from the Congressional Budget Office and joint committee on taxation on the impact of the individual mandate, repeal the number of those who would be uninsured, the premiums are outofpocket costs, for 72 hours before the Committee Votes and should anyone be curious about the origins of this, this is in effect a copy of what the late senator bunning, republican ad a member of our committee, offered with respect to the Affordable Care act when this committee was considering it. Now, colleagues, the point of this is, before we report the bill we ought to have all of the essential information, be able to hear from the public, to be able to make informed choices. We learned last night, for example, that now we arent even talking about real tax reform anymore. We are talking about going back to yesteryear, to the crazy quilt world of tax extenders with different provisions expiring at different times, all kinds of potential interaction. I believe the American People have a right to know where does this leave middleclass taxpayers. In your five, in year ten . What does all this mean . They sure knew in 1986. We also have brandnew proposals released on thursday that go into the staggeringly complicated subject of the treatment of socalled pass through entities and multinational corporations. My view is senator mccaskill raised some extremely important questions yesterday about the passthrough provisions, and how there is a distinction without to be much of a difference with respect to a people are treated. Yesterday and today senator brown has been raising questions about whether the International Tax provisions will not improve our international competitiveness. But instead and ironically lead to even more outsourcing, collects. Senator cardin asked about the impact of this bill on charitable giving. We know its going to result in less giving. But i think he American People would like to know how much. Over what time. Anybody got any ideas on how to correct this result . We certainly need to know the real impact of this policy on individual taxpayers. We have not gotten a distribution will table on the modified mark, and i can just look down the deus and i see a number dais number of colleagues on my set of the iowa asked for that kind of information. The fact is weve got a lot more questions right now than answers. As i told the chairman, the questions we were asking worried about filibusters were not about filibusters. Once he impact on the historic tax credit . What happens to low income folks all over the country . We have real crunch in terms of affordable housing. Senator cantwell worked on a bipartisan way. We dont know what this means for low Income Housing and impact on affordable housing. A lot of universities are coming through the it what you know what this means for them. We have not had a single hearing, not one on these proposals. This is legislative malpractice, contrasted to 1986. 27 hearings starting with the treasury secretary. On top of all that weve got now a proposal to repeal a central provision of the Affordable Care act. Committee has not held a single hearing in congress on the ac are on the broad question for Health Coverage for all americans. Think about that. We went to the repeal and replace bill and grahamcassidy, and now the new midnight repeal provision, we havent had a single hearing on any of this legislation will affect middle income americans and their ability to get Health Coverage. How will the latenight Affordable Care act provision affect the Overall Health care system . Have we heard from people knowledgeable in the field . Those advocate for the patients and doctors, hospitals, Insurance Companies . The answer is no, sip, we havent heard from them. The chair will even allow us to hear from our nonpartisan expert at the Congressional Budget Office. And as good as tom bartholdi is, and he is a real pro, he acknowledged the Congressional Budget Office has expertise that the good people at the joint tax office dont have that you has repeatedly said we have at seven hearings on the provisions in the bill. With respect, and i stated my admiration and affection for him, so many times as as a loso figure stipulate. Weve had a lot of hearings on taxes. We always do but few have been related to anything resembling the specifics of the deal. One example, Health Insurance provision, colleagues, no hearings, none, zilch. Another example. The bill repeals the deduction for state and local taxes. It was the first deduction included in the tax code in 1916. Not a loophole but a reflection of the appropriate relationship between the federal government and the state and local government. Repeating this deduction increases taxes by 1 trillion and it will have a profound effect on the fiscal wellbeing of state and local governments, the one to build the roads, but provide please, educate kids, meet the daytoday needs of americans across the land. It may be the biggest change in the fiscal relationship between the federal and state governments in more than a century. Mr. Chairman, i have more to add by want to yield to my friend, senator carper, who i dont think takes a backseat to anybody in terms of being a transparency and Good Government guy. I very much appreciate his interest and they yield to him. I we happy to recognize senator carper under the circumstances. Thanks. My thanks to both. I ask if its appropriate the chair does recognize him. Thank you, sir. If its appropriate like to ask, i was a cosponsor of the original amendment. When asked to make sure im a cosponsor of this amendment, mr. Chairman. Without objection. I want to just say during the short recess we took a few months ago i i went back to my office to meet with a couple of Business Leaders in my office and they had been watching the proceedings of this hearing on television within our office. And doing what was being discussed one person, one gentleman in the group said to me, weve been watching this and it seems like the roles are being reversed. I see what you mean . He said i heard you talking about modifying can reducing somewhat the tax break that would go to high income individuals and using that strata for deficit reduction and you said thats not the kind of argument we normally expect to hear from a democrat picky said the terms conservative and liberal ive been flipped. He said would just be conservative is now not, and what is liberal or progressive is changed. He said i dont know whats going on. Well, i dont know if the republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, to say before we take up something, legislation that affects our whole economy, that we never had a hearing on it. Its one thing to have hearings over the course of the year by to say heres the bill, heres our legislation, these all the main parts. Cbo at the table answer questions, joint tax at the table answer questions with the final product. And to give us a a reasonable amount of time to discuss it. And to kick the tires. Were not talking weeks or months to do that but literally a couple of days. Colleagues, this is common sense. My dad was a big believer in common sense to you to say to my sister and me a lot of things but one of thinks he would say, just use some common sense. My dad was a republican but if you are today he would say to us, just use some common sense. Common sense stuck with me and i would hope whether your republican, democrat or whatever Party Preferences or will you are in the political spectrum to say at least put yourself in a position to make informed decisions. Thats why having the right folks at the table and have a couple day for us and then to look to fullblown legislation to i dont think thats asking for too much. I think thats using some common sense. Which i think our constituents across the country would want us to do and i applaud the senator from oregon, Ranking Member for offering this amendment and pleased to be a cosponsor of it here thank you. Thank you, senator. Senator grassley is going to these are ten minutes equally divided. They are trying to make a case that everything is new. There might be some things new, but let me tell you. Since 2011 the finance committee has had about 70 tax hearings, also which included very indepth discussions on ways to simplify the tax code and to reform the tax code and particularly supplication. In 2013 the committee produced ten separate bipartisan option papers discussing concrete policies to fixing our tax code as part of a blank slate approach that the committee used. At the end of 2014 the committee released an extensive report, more than 300 pages long. Discussing ideas and principles to be considered during the tax reform debate, and we did that in considerable detail. In 2015 we had a bipartisan working group, all of which produced reports outline the various needs and opportunities for tax reform. The groundwork for this legislation has been very sufficiently laid, and we ought to be doing today what we doing today. This effort has been underway and in the works for years. The democrats have all played a part in this effort. So which hardly imagine what they expect to learn an additional hearings that hasnt already been covered in the committees extensive work on tax reform. I think that were seeing a lot of debate, delay and not much else. They are trying to create the impression that the committee is doing Something Holding do with this bill. That is not the case. With regard to tax legislation the committee has relied on the expertise, the analysis and the scoring of the joint committee on taxation. That information is being provided for this markup. So theres no reason that this bill we need to depart from the committee norm thats been the tradition of this committee. We have followed all the necessary rules and procedures this bill, this markup while longer than most, has followed the traditional order of proceedings. We dont need to reinvent the Committee Process just to let the minority delay the reporting of the bill. I yield. Thank you, senator do. I understand senator stabenow would like a few minutes. We will allow five minutes. Thank you to i just want indicate that as my friend said we did a bipartisan working groups last year. I was pleased to chair one of those with senator enzi. We thought we were working toward a bipartisan effort to provide a tax reform bill, and then starting in january that all stop. We just completely stopped. The working groups stopped. The efforts put together a bipartisan bill stopped. Instead we have a purely partisan effort that is now moving with no hearings, no complete analysis of what we do voting on, and, in fact, we dont know how the impact will Impact Charitable organizations or housing crisis or children and families, farmers, manufacturers, local governments, Insurance Coverage and so mr. Chairman, i believe senator widens to amendments are incredibly reasonable and if the roles were reversed, you would be asking as well and rightly so for that. We are asking that a complete analysis of joint committee on taxation, impact of this bill on the economy, the whole economy. Health care is onesixth of the economy. The tax provisions affect everything, that it be on the finance Committee Website for at least 72 hours. Not just for us but for the people who represent every american ought to have the right to have a look at this and get some input before we move forward. And then as well to make sure that were Holding Hearings and getting input. So mr. Chairman, a strong support this. I think this is the least that we should be doing in terms of transparency and openness for the public and the public has a right to deserve no less. Mr. Durbin . I could just wrap up on this, and theres nobody like senator grassley on transparency. And i really call him mr. Transparency. He and i are the cochairs of the whistleblowers caucus and honored to be his junior partner. I would only say with respect to my friend, a key distinction here is yes, there have been 70 general hearings, but there havent been hearings on actual legislative text. So the Senate Finance committee doesnt have books like this, like they had in 1986 when james baker came in and let off the hearing. There were 27 hearings on actual legislative text. So its hard to disagree with mr. Transparency, but i think that distinction is really critical and why we feel so strongly about both the hearings and getting the score mr. Chairman . If you could recognize them and then we will wrap up and go to a vote. Lets let senator grassley take a crack at his first. Well, from the standpoint of what you said, you know the tradition of this committee, you use the term legislative text. We dont operate in this committee only offer all of our content. The legislative text is written afterwards. I would only say that these hearings were on the administrations detailed proposals. So not only do we not have a detailed proposal, we had this paper which is not much longer than a drugstore receipt, we dont have anything to if i compare this, colleagues. Heres President Trump and here is president reagan. I think that says it all, and the question is whether you really get to engage on specifics as they did in 1986 or do you stay on generalities, and that is the difference here between our view and that of the majority. Okay, well have a vote and then. The clerk will mr. Chairman . To call it. I dont think senator grassley was here, you know, in the last hour or so when i brought up the question about changes that were made overnight to the virgin islands. And thats a key example of Something Else just changed last night. I asked the staff. Nobody could give me an answer on how it got in there, what was about, what what was the effect. So we know that you think this has been a timely process, but it keeps changing the details keep changing and have to answer to my constituents about what is in this bill and why it was there. I can even get as at a staff i think its time to have a hearing understand the impact of this bill. I think the chairman. Can i ask for one minute . Thank you, mr. Chairman. What senator cantwell and what senator wyden is thing is i keep in my time i question the joint access to the impact it has on children were getting come the impact it has on housing values, the impact it has on local finance. We really do need to understand what these changes will mean for state and local government. I search searched when used ine state legislature. We have an obligation to know how these changes are going to affect state and local finance and theres no question that it will. What impact does it have on Health Coverage beyond just the number of uninsured and the 10 increase in premiums . What effect does it have on housing values and prices . We know it will have some effect when the deductibility of property taxes and interest what impact it has on children. These are just basic questions that we should take the time to have a hearing and understand what we are doing when you are affecting so much of our to my colleague from washington state, what she brought up was already an amendment that was out there, anything youve got remember over a long, long period of time its always been cherry mens modification of a mark chairman. The clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the clerk will report. Holdup, mr. Chairman. Mr. Brown backs. The final tally is 12 ayes, 14 natos. Next amendment. Mr. Chairman . This amendment would require a certification by the nonpartisan scorekeepers as the joint committee on taxation and the Congressional Budget Office, they are the people that are doing independent work, calling balls and strikes, and that no proposal in this legislation would kick americans off their health care have increased their Health Insurance premiums and hike taxes on middleclass americans. And after several days of discussion now its become clear that some members in this room want to deny the consequences of this bill that is focused overwhelmingly on tax breaks for multinational corporations. Theres been an awful lot of rhetorical gymnastics, but the bottom line is, a tax hike on 14 million middleclass americans, i guess come as a tax cut on average across a variety of income levels. Some out a proposal that kicks 13 million americans off their health care clobbers tens of millions of others with premium hikes a year after nothing, a year has nothing to do with health care. Its just another tax cut. I even heard some of my colleagues denied his consequent is outright as if there will be a magical fairy that defies every Economic Forecast and health care miracle that prevents anybodys premiums from going up and keeps just about everybody in america from even getting sick. So thats what this amendment tackles. Who members who dont believe the consequences of this bill are real, this amendment puts all this to the test. Lets put down protections that this reckless, hasty process isnt going to hurt tens of millions of americans, particularly those who cant afford it. The amendment the required certification by the joint committee on taxation and the Congressional Budget Office that no proposal in this legislation does three things. Kate people offer health care, increase their Health Insurance premiums, hike taxes on middleclass americans. If the analysis is that the bill hurt americans based on those three fundamental guardrails, this proposal that we are making doesnt go into effect. Colleagues, the committee has not had enough time to consider whats on offer a special in health care. Hasnt been hearing to walk the committee to the legislation. Went straight to markup, repealing the individual mandate, the coverage requirement certainly was never the subject of a tax reform hearing in this committee. Let me repeat that. Repealing the individual mandate certainly was never the subject of a tax reform hearing in the committee. So what parachuted in the other day very late and turn the tax bill into a health care bill, and meant that we were going to see billions cut in health care in order to have tax breaks for Healthy National corporations multinational corporations. Never discussed in this committee. So this this is a do no harm proposal. We often hear from people who are knowledgeable like the Budget Office and joint committee on taxation if the bill is going to actually hit middleclass families hard in their pocketbooks. If its going to make their health care worse, then this amendment says hit the brakes, come together, we suggested on a bipartisan basis, and do the job right. Mr. Chairman . Yeah. Senator cornyn. Mr. Chairman, i cant sit here and listen to our friend misrepresent what the repeal of the tax on low income americans, he says that kicks in offer health care. Thats not to. Thats absolutely wrong. What it does is it reveals a a regressive tax against low income americans who cant afford to purchase Health Insurance the government mandates. And what we are attempting to do is provide a a 43 billion over ten years tax cut of this most regressive tax against low income americans for failing to purchase government mandated Health Coverage. As far as the premiums are concerned, i think our colleagues, senator alexander and senator murray have a pretty good idea of how to stabilize the individual Health Insurance market that makes a whole lot more sense than holding a gun to the head of low income americans and force them to buy something they dont want it when theyre unable to buy it then taxing them for it. So i think we will know what the individual mandate does and does not do, and it certainly doesnt do what the Ranking Member said, tick people off their health well, tragic if i could generally respond senator murray has pointed out that her bill, and we supported it, get six the consequences that you have if you repeal the coverage requirement. But they do, its something called costsharing, does help insurers pick up some copayments and deductibles for folks of modest means. But senator murray has pointed out, she joins us vociferously in opposing the effort to repeal the coverage requirement in the Affordable Care act that what shes talking about cant fix this. The majority keeps wanting to quarrel with the facts. The facts weve gone is 13 Million People are not going to have coverage and diets in a year pick then we will have millions more face substantially higher risk, higher premiums, because what we have done is we have seen fewer Healthy People go into the risk pool. Deny all the facts you want, but the facts are still the facts. Pat moynihan, whatever great predecessors, said everybody is entitled to an opinion. But you are not entitled to your own set of the facts. The facts are as i laid them out. And we still have about two and a half minutes to go. Does anybody care to talk . Mr. Chairman . Senator enzi. Mr. Chairman, there have already been 7 Million People as of 2015 kick off their Health Insurance. They could not afford the insurance that they were required to have, so stiff enough to have insurance they had to pay a tax penalty. A tax penalty at the Supreme Court said was a tax. So we are eliminating a tax on the low income groups, and ought to be a reason for doing the bill, not for undoing the bill. Now, the speculation about whats going to happen in the future, i think this could be be a lot more people laid off if we keep that provision in there. There will be more people losing their insurance, having to pay this fine because they cant buy insurance that their required to buy. So we are hitting them twice. They are not getting insurance and they are paying a penalty to the federal government because they are required to buy more than they can afford. We need to settle that part of the law separately. I appreciate the short term thing that senator alexander and senator murray have done, that needs to be done that prevents an immediate chaos because of what has already happened. But there need to be some longerterm things, too, and there are things we could do together to make sure that people dont lose their insurance. And we talked about that we havent had outset of this effort which opens just beginning of effort between alexander emery, we havent seen anything yet. But there are people that will have to pay a penalty that they shouldnt have to pay because they cant afford the insurance they are being required to record it doesnt take much of an analysis to come up with that. If i could respond. Senator collins and then senator wyden. First of all, my colleague from wyoming has ignored the fact that people are now signing up in record numbers. Thats what were hitting on the basis of the last few days. Thats number one. 20 million have already signed up, and then as far as Going Forward, and we would like to work with standard incident on a comp this committee hasnt had one hearing on one of the biggest issues Going Forward, which is how are we going to hold down right away pharmaceutical prices . So we would love to be able to talk about Going Forward rather than fighting a rearguard action to stop taking away coverage from 13 million additional americans and raising the premiums 10 for millions more. I think were prepared to vote. There are two votes. We will vote on first and then senator wyden number 18. The clerk will call the roll on number two. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the clerk will report. Mr. Chairman, a the final ty is 12 ayes, 14 nay said. The amendment is defeated. We will vote on senator wyden, number 18. The clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] the amendment is defeated. All right, we will now recognize senator bennet for his number six and limit. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im very grateful for you recognizing me. Happy to do it. Thank you. Major tax cuts claiming they would pay for themselves and by the end of his term our National Debt had risen 62 . In the 1990s, president clinton raised taxes and cut spending to balance the budget as the chairman said today with a republican congress. Of the economy boomed and by 1999 the us the senate actually held hearings about what to do with the 5. 6 trillion projected surplus. Then george w. Bush was elected and passed into tax cuts, prosecuted to wars without paying for them date 400 billiondollar Prescription Drug benefit without paying for it. When president obama assumed office the day he was warning he inherited a 1. 2 trillion annual dollar deficit and economy was in freefall. During the worst downturn since the Great DepressionRepublican Leaders remembered their fiscal conservativism and theyll after inheriting a booming stock market at 4 unemployment the majority wants to borrow another 1. 5 trillion from our children to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in america. The majority claims it will pay for itself despite her if you have seen and if they are so confident they should support my amendment. Its a higher revenue you are promising and if it is not materialize for three straight years by amendment to says we cannot cut Social Security, medicare and medicaid. We have to fill the whole some other way, not by slashing the program millions of americans rely on. Yesterday cbo came out with a report that said it would require what you are doing would require a 25 billiondollar cut to medicare in its unclear from comments earlier how you are thinking about take zero. My amendment would say if you fulfill the promise you make to the American People than you can peek keep your tax cuts and if you dont you cant touch these vital programs. Went to say this amendment is not written out of a partisan perspective. Might johanna colleague or past colleague circulated a letter in 2011 during the depths of the recession and when we were all deeply concerned about where we were the letter was signed by 64 members of the senate and the said to barack obama and said that meaningfully addressing our deficit could not be done without pass reform, without entitlement reform and without dealing with our domestic military spending. Is impossible for us to solve this in a partisan way. It is not possible for us to put this back on a path of fiscal responsibility and a fiscally responsible trajectory with one Product Party doing it a load, so vote for this amendment and i yield back. We cant touch Social Security in this markup, but the clerk will call the role. Can you say that again . Under the budget act of 1974 any revision in reconciliation bill that deals with Social Security is going to be out of order in the u. S. Senate. We are not going to put anything in this bill about Social Security. Senator grassley, thank you i dont think we are saying you will cut Social Security tonight , but we said what was said earlier and granted comments to speak or write and chairman and her own respected dignified chairman hatch said maybe that didnt say we wouldnt cut Social Security and our contention and if we do these tax cuts we are certain you will come back a year or two or three or four and asked to pay for them with a terrible budget deficit and go after Social Security. That is our fear, not process did tonight, but you set it up tonight and what happens a year from now. Dot as long as trump is president and he said and i think wrongly so we shouldnt do anything with entitlement so as long as hes in office he will veto any bill dealing with he also said he wanted to go after Prescription Drugs. We are going to vote on this although i dont think we should have about. Verse about the speaker of the house and tax reform is the next thing is entitlements, but i think this is relevant because we have seen this movement before with the bush tax cut, trickledown economics and president bush came back immediately and tried to privatize Social Security and is said we hate to do this, but we have a big debts and is so that effort was tried away far back. It was not successful, but this amendment is it within the realm of what weve seen before and the budget resolution that was passed allowing 1. 5 trillion debt to be created by this tax bill and then to the finance committee to do almost 15 trillion in cuts in medicare and medicaid, so this is not made up, mr. Chairman. Its in the budget resolution. Its been done before another times and i would hope we would join together voting for this amendment to make sure this doesnt happen. You can make fun of trickledown economics, but we had a trickle up economics under the previous eight years with increase in taxes and one in 4 growth and you will never solve the Social Security problem. To my dear friend i want to say order. Look, im getting tired of this business of not paying attention to the chairman. Im going to turn to the senator who had his hand up and then we will vote on this even though i dont think we should vote on it thank you, mr. Chairman. The comment was me back up couple colleagues that we have seen this movie before and i wont disagree with that pick the movie we have seen his tax reform done right resulting in significant Economic Growth and we say time and time again, the first time in 31 years that we have had a chance to make reforms to our tax code. Everyone around this dais agrees the tax code is broken if they dont, they have not been paying attention and our constituents feel that way, but importantly American Workers are losing out every single day. We have a totally uncompetitive antiquated tax code consigning our workers that we represent to a noncompetitive addition where they compete with one hand tied behind their back and every economist that looks at this that says it if we do this to make order workers competitive it will help. They disagree on how much, but the Economic Growth in this thing is very much like a movie we have seen before which is the 1986 reform that ended up with Economic Growth and 80s and 90s that everyone was to take credit for. This is an opportunity to Work Together to stimulate this economy get it moving. Congressional Budget Office tells us the growth over the next 10 years will be 1. 9 . Mr. Chairman, may i respond. I would like to touch i think i have the time. Mr. Chairman, what is this . Every time i talk i get interrupted. Thats right. Im not interrupting you guys senator portman. Congressional Budget Office is 1. 9 growth. I dont know if any copies around the table think that its a something thats a satisfactory. 1. 9 growth, are you kidding . We can do better than that. If we grope. 4 more, 2. 3 Economic Growth it will not only be something that does it affect a deficit, it starts directly pay the deficit down. I think we will see that kind of growth if we do the right thing. Not every tax cut pays for itself. Thats true, but the right tax relief does and i believe we designed this thing by the way theres been a bipartisan consensus on the past and i have mentioned before the working group with chuck schumer, this is what we came up with having a provision and thats what we have here. This will create Economic Growth and we may have a difference, but our concern is not this tax reform proposal will cause holes in the deficit is that we are going to pass it so we begin to give our workers the ability to compete and get the economy moving. We just had 3 growth last quarter with 3. 1 the quarter before and over the last 25 years averages 2. 5 . Is 2. 4 to my status for . I dont think so. The clerk will call the role. Mr. Chairman we have several colleagues that would like to talk. We are not going to have extended debate on every amendment. Mr. Chairman, regular order. The clerk will call the role. Mr. Grassley. [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] 12 aye, 14 nay. Senator casey, youre next, believes. Thank you. This amendment relates to individuals with disabilities across our country i know that in our work on both sides of the we hear from people with disabilities on a regular basis and in a state like pennsylvania we have by one estimate nine and a half percent of people under the age of 65 with a disability. Base upon that number its well over a Million People in our state, even under the age of 65 that have a disability. Of this amendment is a designed to ensure we supports and make it possible for those with disabilities to have access to Health Care Coverage and reasonably priced health care premiums. According to the cbo repeal of a key provision of the ac eight, in this case that shared responsibility section would cause 13 million americans to lose their Health Insurance coverage over the decade, 4 million of those in the first year meaning 2019 and premiums to go up by some 10 per year over the decade. This provision if it were to go into effect would rip coverage away from Many American families including individuals with disabilities because in addition to the coverage provided by medicaid for people with disabilities many of those with disabilities use the aca marketplaces for their Health Coverage. They are selfemployed or working at relatively low paying job and use the marketplace because they have too much in income to qualify for medicaid, but not a job to provide healthcare marriage. Of these are important members of our countrys workforce. People with disabilities and that workforce. Of they offer Service Providers and service workers. And they are working to be economically selfsufficient. Right now marketplace coverage insures that the same americans with disabilities can buy comprehensive and affordable healthcare and have equal access to much it needed health, therapy, Mental Health the services and affordable medications here the amendment is two parts. Number one, the joint committee on taxation on taxation and the Congressional Budget Office will certify that the bill will number one not to reduce the number of americans with disabilities covered by Health Insurance or number two, increase premiums for Health Insurance for americans with disabilities. When i think of this issue and i think of the individuals, im reminded of a lot of families. One of those families wrote to me at the beginning of the year. The mom writing to me about her son. She was worried what would happen in the healthcare debate and she talked about all of the ways his life was better because of medicaid. How his life has changed because of the coverage of medicaid. Well, that could be said of someone whos receiving their Health Insurance, not through medicaid through a disability, but through the exchanges. Nothing in this bill and we ought to be able to guarantee an certify that if you are an american with a disability and you have coverage, Health Insurance coverage through the insurance marketplace, nothing in this tax bill will do anything to rip back coverage away from you. This should be a simple yes a bow by everyone. Making sure individuals with disabilities will have insurance today, will have it tomorrow and have a next month and next year or as long as they needed is a mission worthy of a great country. We call ourselves a great country. We can guarantee that or we should try like hell to guarantee. I would hope you have an affirmative yes vote on this amendment. Mr. Grassley. [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] the italians 12 aye, 14 nay. The tally. Given the confidence that my republican colleagues have that people wont lose their insurance or see their premiums out of pocket costs go up i would hope we could tack of my amendment by a unanimous vote. It is simply says the provision of the chairmans mark as modified would take effect unless the joint committee on taxation and the Congressional Budget Office certify the bill will not reduce the number of middleclass americans with Health Insurance coverage or increase Health Insurance premiums were out of pocket costs. We are hearing a lot of discussion about whether or not this impacts real people and we know what the Congressional Budget Office has said, but again if colleges are confident its not the case then we should be willing to support this. We know in the last number of months since the beginning of this year most of the time we have said in the senate is feeding back efforts to roll back our Healthcare System in and talking about lowincome americans the majority are on medicare to healthcare. Thats how they get their health care and over and over again that have been attacked and even in this budget resolution 8 trillion is proposed to come out of medicaid. I also think that its very important to indicate that while people are looking for insurance if they are on the individual market we have seen nothing but the Trump Administration trying to sabotage costs and. We are seen them cut the signup time in half. People are not signing up on healthcare. Gov and yet the times have been cut from three months to six weeks and we are told on the sundays the computers will be down and thats the most likely time people are home and not working and having an opportunity to spend time looking out possible health care for themselves. We have seen the president say he will not do the keep the commandments around costsharing the cost for low income people and a couple of years ago the full effort on reinsurance was completely pulled out which is started the increases in premiums, so its difficult to feel confident that somehow after all the sabotage of the administration, undermining the administration and the fight thats gone on all year and the budget resolution which state takes a trillion dollars out of medicaid and almost 500 billion on a medicare that somehow this piece would be assumed not to hurt people, take away Health Insurance and rate costs, but if in fact that his case then everyone should be willing to come together and agree on this amendment, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Grassley. Obamacare increased taxes 21 different times. We want to repeal one of those tax increases and all of a sudden it becomes a healthcare debate. In my state of iowa, 52000 islands will benefit from this because they are paying that tax on the obamacare tax. 85 of those people are under 50000 a year income. It ought to be quite obvious that we are reducing taxes to help lead the people at the lowest end of the income scale and we should not to be detracted from it by someone making a healthcare debate out of a tax bill. Mr. Chairman. I want to make sure, the reason this is relevant, this discussion about health care is because the reason you all are doing this is so you can grab the 320 billion your leader said it out loud yesterday to the ceo group so you could make the Corporate Tax cut permanent. You needed the money and a so lets just look at the documents of where the money comes from because if all youre doing is getting rid of a tax, this would not get you any money. A get rid of a tax cost you money so if we were just getting rid of the tax you guys would be 43 billion and the whole. Thats how much this it generates, 43 billion, so rather 43 billion in the whole your 320 billion to spend. Where does that come from . 185 billion in reduced to subsidies to aca. The only people entitled to that subsidy is people that make less than 50 grand a year and 179 billion in reduced the medicaid subsidies. Thats three 364 billion. 364 billion coming directly out of subsidies and medicaid. Thats where you are getting your 320 billion. Thats why this debate is relevant. Those numbers are cbo numbers and thats why its important we have this debate because whats can happen is those people are still going to get sick. They will show up in the hospitals and our constituents will pay the bills. Mr. Chairman . I want to say we are trying to get this government under control and its not under control and no reason its not is because of spending. Mr. Chairman the operative part of this amendment asks for the joint committee on taxation and the Congressional Budget Office to certify the bill will not reduce the number of middleclass americans with Health Insurance coverage. As mr. Bartol testified earlier today there is absolutely not a word in this bill that causes anyone to lose their coverage. We dont change any rules about medicare, medicaid, nothing of the sort. What we are doing is repealing a tax on people who cannot afford obamacare policy policies and that in my state 83 of the people who pay that tax earn less than 50000, but thats not the only way we say that people. Workingclass, middleincome americans will save significantly and the fact that they save significant other tax bill will make Health Insurance more affordable for them, so i urge my colleagues to vote no on the amendment. Mr. Chairman, if i might just close. You will close and then we vote. First of all, the folks who can answer the questions on coverage were not allowed to be here and that is the Congressional Budget Office and the other ones indicated we are trying to about 13 people losing their Health Insurance. Theres a whole range of groups that know a little bit about healthcare from the American Academy of family physicians, aarp, American Academy of pediatrics, American College of physicians, osteopathic association, psychiatric association, march of dimes, sis six fibrosis, american cancer society, multiple sclerosis a society. It goes on and on and on. Who oppose this, who opposes. Why . Because theyd was going to affect people losing Health Insurance and other people seeing rate increases and we have heard this. At least 10 here. The bottom line with the this is that people still get sick whether the Health Insurance or not. Walking to the emergency room. We have connect the number walking in that cannot pay, which is a stabilized at the Small Group Market in my state, Small Business association has stabilized last five years and we have seen things stabilize or bow down in the larger markets because theyre not paying for folks that are walking in without insurance and cannot pay this reverses that and i would have to say in michigan right now 97 of our children, moms and dads can take their kids into the doctor and thats a good thing and we are seeing a 50 reduction in people walking to the emergency room that cannot pay, which is also a good thing, so if my colleagues believe what you are saying that this has no impact in this amendment should not matter to you, but we would feel better if we knew there was a guarantee that people would not lose insurance and that their premiums and copays werent going to go up as we saw with this. Gct has identified how this bill is a benefit for low and middle income and for Small Business as well. So, at this point clerk will call the role. [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] [roll call vote] the clerk will report the result. 12 aye, 14 nay. The amendment is a defeated and we are quite to take a 10 minute break and come back. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] lets keep going. Next amendment. Coming from your site, i believe you are up. Chairman. Im a pleased t