On friday, the house will meet at 9 00 a. M. For legislative business. Last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 00 p. M. Mr. Speaker, the house will consider a number of suspensions next week, a complete list of which will be announced by close of business today. In addition, the house will consider several important bills from the Veterans Affairs committee. First, h. R. 1181 is, the veterans Second Amendment protection act sponsored by chairman phil roe, which ensures that the Second Amendment rights of v. A. Beneficiaries are not restricted without due process. Next, h. R. 1259, the v. A. Accountability first act, also sponsored by chairman roe, which grants the v. A. Secretary increased discretion to remove our suspend v. A. Employees due to poor performance. Finally, h. R. 1367, sponsored by representative brad wenstrup, which enhances the v. A. s ability to recruit and retain highly qualified employees. The failures at the v. A. Are well documented and completely unacceptable. These bills are a step in the right direction towards creating greater accountability at the v. A. And keeping our promise to americas veterans who have sacrificed so much for us. I thank the gentleman. Yielding i yield to back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for that information. And i would now like to ask him we passed the dodd d. O. D. Appropriation bill and sent that to the senate, mr. Leader. E already done the milcon bill. Im wondering, there are 10 remaining bills, whether the majority leader could give us some idea in white of the fact that the c. R. , which goes to april 28, that we will either have to do those bills individually or in some sort of an omnibus, whether the gentleman has any idea as to how soon we might be considering the balance of the years appropriation to september 30. I yield. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. I am pleased that we were able to pass the f. Y. 2017 defense operation bill on a bipartisan basis this week. It is my hope that we can continue to pass the appropriation bills on a bipartisan basis as well. As for future legislation, i would refer my friend to the Appropriation Committee and as always i will keep members posted of any scheduling updates. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for that insightful comment. Let me say this, mr. Leader, if, as we did in the defense bill, appropriation bill, if we follow the template where we will reach bipartisan agreement on those bills, in committee, i think that without any poison bills language in them, which you did on the appropriation bill, as you saw, we appreciated that and we were overwhelmingly supportive of that effort. I would hope that, mr. Leader, you would urge, and i think very frankly im a big fan of mr. Frelinghuysen, who is the chairman of the committee, i think hes a member that i have worked well with over the years, and i think hes somebody who is going to do the committee proud as its chairman, but im hopeful that we can do, as we did with the appropriation bill for the defense department, a similar procedure. So i think that the majority leader will be pleased with our support if, in fact, that could happen. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. I have great trust in chairman frelinghuysen and showing his ability to manage just the in the short time he is chairman i think youll continue to see that behavior. I thank the gentleman. Yield back. Mr. Hoyer thank you, mr. Leader. On a less happy collegial note, it comes as no surprise to the majority leader at the height of our displeasure and disappointment as it relates to the what is going on with respect to the consideration of the reconciliation process for the repeal or modification of the Affordable Care act with the American Health care act. The bill was posted this monday , this past monday night. It was marked up on wednesday. There were no hearings. There were no opportunities for witnesses to come forward. And as the gentleman knows, he is absolutely correct, i like these quotes, but i like these quotes because they point out theoretically what i would have great agreement with in terms of process. Particularly i call your attention to a quote of speaker paul ryan, quote, congress is moving fast. To rush through a health care overhall that lacks overhaul that lack as key ingredient. The full participation of you, the American People. That quote was july 19, 2009. That quote was referring to the process involved in the adoption of the Affordable Care act. As the gentleman knows, the Affordable Care act had 79 hearings. As the gentleman knows, there were 181 witnesses who testified about the Affordable Care act. As the gentleman knows, that process took approximately a year and a half. Eight months of which was waiting to see whether senator grassley would participate in a bipartisan way in forging Health Care Reform in this country. The gentleman is well aware not only have we had literally hundreds of thousands of people around the country come to town meetings, many that his members have held, and exmolested their expressed their deep concern with loss of Health Care Security if the Affordable Care act is repealed. So there is no doubt that the American Publicdirnl not saying its 100 , but a large number of the American Public, are very concerned. The gentleman further knows, im sure, because im sure hes seen the letters, the american medical association, the American Hospital association, the American Nurses association, even the Consumer Union and hundreds of other groups representing providers, patients, even insurance companies, have expressed deep, deep concern about the adverse consequences of the passage of the American Health care act that was marked up in the dead of night. We were criticized the gentleman can apparently doesnt agree with that, but the facts are the facts. They are not alternative facts. You started marking them up on wednesday morning. There was some delay during the day as you know because we were very concerned about how fast you were moving that. Less than 48 hours after it was introduced. It was marked up. No hearings. No witnesses. No ability to read the bill. S a matter of fact, shockingly mr. Brady voted against an amendment which said, read the bill. What was shocking about that is that that was mr. Bradys amendment that he offered back in 2010. He voted against the amendment that said read the bill. I dont think anybody really had much opportunity to read the bill before it was marked up. Greg walden, chairman of the energy and Commerce Committee said back also in july of 2009, on a bill of that significance you would think we would at least allow people to come in who are affected by the extraordinary changes in this bill. And have a chance to let us know how it affects them. That was greg walden, now the chairman of the energy and Commerce Committee, july 9. He is now in charge of that committee. Not a single witness testified on the bill that was marked up in his committee and it was marked up through the dead of the night if we want to paragraphs our words pars our words because it started in the morning of wednesday but didnt end until the morning, 26 hours later, of thursday. Which meant that mr. Walden kept his members in their seats marking up a bill except when they were voting, coming over here, for 26 hours straight. On one of the most consequential bills this house will consider. And the senate will consider. Affecting, as i said, millions and millions of and millions of people. I understand the Budget Committee is scheduled to mark that bill up on wednesday. Just a week later. Again, i dont know whether there are going to be hearings, and if those hearings will be open to the witnesses that should be called to testify on a bill of such impact. So i would ask let me do one additional quote because the chairman of the ways and Means Committee had an interesting quote as well. He said the Democratic Congress and the white house simply arent listening. Democrats are ramming it through over the publics objections. That was on march 17, 2010. Some year after the bill had been introduced. Thousands of meetings had been held by republicans and democrats around the country on the bill. And as i said, 79 hearings, 181 witnesses later. Thats what chairman brady said. Of course, chairman brady, in less than 48 hours, had a markup. Now he did not have quite as long a markup. It ended at 4 30 a. M. In the morning. So that was the dead of night. Or if you want to pars words, perhaps the dead of the early morning. But nevertheless, most of my public wasnt up watching. I presume even at 4 30, which would have been 1 30 for your public, they werent up so watching. So this was done out of the sight of the public and is inconsistent, i suggest to my friend, mr. Speaker, the majority leader, inconsistent, with the pledge of transparency , openness, and those three quotes that i just read you that said the American People should have the opportunity to express their opinion on legislation generally but certainly on legislation of this consequence. I yield to my friend. Mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding. I always look forward to these discussions because i know they are about the schedule. I always look forward to what quotes are you going to bring up next. Let me see if i can answer all those questions you raised out. First, my friend did inform me last week and again today that the democrats have held 79 hearings over two years on obamacare. We have spent the last six years. So i went back and i promised you that i would see how many hearings we had. When i went back and checked, the republicans have held 113 hearings on the ways to repeal and replace obamacare. We had expert witnesses on both sides of the aisle on everything from the individual mandate and medicaid sustainability to the medical device tax and obamacares failing owe ops. We have been committed to this ng and replacing law for many years and im sure youll find lots of quotes from everybody on this side of the aisle. We have believe now its time to act. You did bring up about the committees. You brought up about reading he bill. So what we put forth is we put a website together for the patient centered health care bill. Its available online, read the bill dotgop. This is only 123 pages. Thats a difference from your bill of 2700 pages for obamacare. Now, we remember what the democrats said when they were passing the obamacare, that you had to pass the bill to see whats in it. So i went back and checked, how many people were able to visit the website even. We had over 350,000 visitors to visit our website in just 36 hours. And 100,000 downloaded the legislative text. Now, when you talk about dead of night, i was on this floor, you were on this floor and i know people on both sides of the aisle that used it before, but the dilatory activity on the other side of the aisle to slow this process down put us into nighttime, and then lets think about how this process went. It was an open process. Why did it go so long . We debated hours of democrats amendments because we werent going to shut it down. We never called the question. We kept as long as people wanted to go. And we spent hours on one amendment that just wanted to change it to a of a different name hash tag of a different name that was a different amendment to change the bill. We didnt stop with that. We let everybody talk. And we let everybody have their voice because we believe in regular order. We spent 27 hours on because we werent going to deny. So 113 hearings, i congratulate you on your 79. 123 pages compared to 2,700. I believe this is a great first step. For too long, this health care of obamacare has failed. Hat 2,700 pages created 23 coops. This short amount of time, 18 have coled. They have the quote if you like your health care, you can keep it, but millions of americans found out that wasnt true. Your premiums will go down. Thats not true either. Onethird of the entire country only has one provider. And the very sad part of this, just within the last month, mmana is going to pull out and that is 16 counties in tennessee with no provider at all. We can do so much better. Thats why we spent the years, the hearings, we have had the witnesses, and i know its your right to come and ask to adjourn so somehow we couldnt get to the bill. Its your right to continue to ask to adjourn some members cant offer amendments. But you know what . If we had to spend through the dead of night and stay up to make sure even if its on the other side of the aisle that a democrat to offer an amendment, thats your right. And we spent hours at it. If you ask me personally, i dont think that amendment changed anybodys health care in america. You have a right to do it and we made sure we kept that. And that was regular order. And i thank the gentleman for his quotes. And i yield back. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman for his comment. Mr. Speaker, we have had literally tens of thousands of hearings that have dealt with almost every issue that this house considers. And i suppose i should take from the majority leaders discussion that if we have had those congresses,previous in the last congress, the congress before that, the congress before that. And we have a substantial number of new members in this house. And we have millions and millions of voters, well just tell them read the transcript of 2013. R of 2009 or thats not regular order, mr. Speaker. Regular order is you introduce a bill. Its referred to a committee. Which in turn refers it to a ubcommittee or keeps it in the bosom of the full committee and has a hearing, it posts the bill and tells citizens throughout this country, if you have an interest, come in and tell us what your interest, perspective, what the ramifications of this bill is. The subcommittee marks it up, if it was referred to a subcommittee, then the full committee marks it up. And then it is referred to the floor. Thats regular order, mr. Speaker. And to rationalize a procedure which has a bill introduced today night and is subjected 26 hours straight of markup on the following wednesday, less than 48 hours later, no matter how you dress it up, that is not, mr. Speaker, regular order. What it is is trying to jam through a bill before the American Public has an opportunity to tell us what they think about the bill. What it is is jamming through a bill and not allowing the providers, the doctors, the patients, the insurance companies, all of the stakeholders to have an opportunity to read that bill introduced about 72 hours ago now, little more than that, maybe close to 96. That, mr. Speaker, is not regular order. And i will tell my friend for whom i have a great deal of respect, i think he puts the best face on it, but nobody believed the republicans had a bill, mr. Speaker, until monday night. Well, actually, i believe they had a bill the last colloquy and i looked all over this capitol and i couldnt find it. It wasnt posted. The Ranking Member on the committee didnt have it. No Committee Democrat had the bill. They couldnt read it. So to pretend, mr. Speaker, that hearings on some other bill at some other time in some other congress suffices for regular order is something, mr. Speaker, i cannot agree with. And if the situations were reversed, as i have experienced over the last 36 years, that side of the aisle would have torn this place apart. Why do i think that . Because ive seen it. Yes, we had some delaying of four motions to adjourn so that we had some time to figure out what this bill was about. And sometime to hear from the American People. It wasnt enough time. We are going to be hearing more from the American People, i think, mr. Speaker. And i appreciate the gentleman trying to say that well, we only had 48 hours. Sometimes, mr. Speaker, we do that in a hurry. And the reason is because we are about to go on a break. We are about to go on an august break or recess or something of that nature. Thats not the case. These committees didnt have to meet through the night. They could have met thursday, today, they could meet next week. But this bill is being rushed through. Too fast with too much adverse consequence to the American People. I would hope the majority leader would slow this bill down. I hope the rules committee has full hearings on this bill. And that it does not have just aten you ated hearings with few witnesses because a lot of people want to tell us, their representatives, what their view is of this bill. I know the speaker has said there are going to be three phases of this bill and the majority leader said so as well and there will be additional legislation. I hope that legislation, mr. Speaker and my friend, the majority leader, hope will urge the committees not to consider additional legislation either in the middle of the night or with no notice and no opportunity for witnesses and no hearings. Previous hearings will not suffice, mr. Speaker. Other congresses had hearings. This congress has a responsibility to hear from the American People. Thats what speaker ryan said. Thats what mr. Brady said. Thats what mr. Walden said. They said at a time when they were in the minority, but it ought to apply when theyre in the majority. And if we are in the majority, it ought to apply to us as well. I hope that happens, mr. Speaker. For the countrys sake, for our peoples sake. I will yield to the majority leader if he wants to mr. Mccarthy i thank the gentleman for yielding and i appreciate the gentlemans comment. I do want to remind people we use reconciliation, what is the process . Well, the process states you have the authorizing committee post and mark up. We did that. Budget committee marks up, theyll do that next week. Rules committee will meet and it comes to the house floor. I will never apologize for having 113 hearings of repealing and replacing obamacare. I will never apologize for having all the witnesses in. And i love you bring a lot of quotes of people inside who are elected. I will be very frank, the quotes i love, the ones i care about come from my constituents. This is a complex issue, you had hearings before and going to forget. Why do we have committees . Why do you keep members on your own side of the aisle on the same committee, to have expertise and solve big problems. They dont forget what they learn in those hearings. But let me read you a quote from a few constituents. Dear kevin, thank you for your diligence in this disruptive times. Obamacare blew us out of the water. I retired early as an r. N. Due to Health Problems so i have to pay for my entire Health Insurance. Im not complaining about that, but im tired of having premiums go through the roof. I lost my doctor and my plan. In 2017, there were few options without a 5,000 deductible. If i have to pay thatch first, then why pay for insurance. Our income is not huge. We cannot afford this. Or from another constituent, dear kevin, i just wanted to convey that i feel legislative action is needed to fix the a. C. A. My family deductible has increased over 3,000 a year and i practically only have Health Insurance in case of a catastrophic accident were to occur. Also my sisterinlaw cannot work more than 29 hours a week since her employer doesnt want to provide insurance. That is ridiculous. Or, dear kevin, just got my 2017 Health Insurance renewal notice, 650 per month, up 20 . Im 60 years old and worked and savend all my life so i dont qualify for subsidies. I cannot go without insurance, but i cant pay for it either. Something needs to be done. Im so upset that im crying right now. But my friend, mr. Speaker, on the other side of the aisle say forget about these people and forget about the 130 hearings. Or 123 pages is too much instead of 2,700. I will never apologize for having the wisdom to listen and have the courage to lead. But i will promise you this, mr. Speaker, and my friend on the other side of the aisle, i have never come to this floor, to offer to adjourn just to disrupt the process. And yeah, i had members on my side of the aisle that would get frustrated that democrats offered an amendment that just dealt with a hashtag. No, lets let them have their say. If they feel thats important, then lets spend hours on it, we believe in the process and defend your right to have that process nor will it help one constituent of minor yours. But you want to spend time doing that, well do that. And we did do that. But we will not give up on the American People. Thats why we are doing what we are doing. And i thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Hoyer mr. Speaker, i appreciate the remarks of the majority leader. I presume that he has heard from, but i dont have the quotes in front of me, but maybe ill bring them next week of the thousands of people who said their lives have been saved by the Affordable Care act. Of thousandses of parents who have a child with a preexisting condition that if the republicans had succeeded in their 65 votes to repeal it, would not have been protected. Of the millions of seniors who are paying less for their Prescription Drugs because of the Affordable Care act. I can read all those letters. Why do i read the letters of mr. Walden and mr. Brady and speaker ryan . Because they are in charge. All our constituents on either side had no opportunity to testify on this bill. But mr. Ryan, the speaker, and mr. Walden and mr. Brady, could have given them that opportunity and chose not to. And they rationalize it apatiently because, we had hearings in the past. But this bill was offered on the does it have the subject matter of the a. C. A. . It does. But this bill was offered just some, as i said, 90 or so hours ago. The leader says, well, thats ok. Its all based on all those hearings we had. But the fact is, this bill has not been brought forward for the last seven years. While there was repeal for a. C. A. Why . We all know why. Mr. Speaker, because the majority could not come to an agreement and theyre not in agreement now. And perhaps if this bill stands out there a little bit, it is so flawed they wont be able to get the votes on their side of the floor. I was here, im not sure, i dont think the majority leader was here when we adopted the part d Prescription Drug program. It was called up by the majority, the republican party, voted evening hour and we from 3 00 a. M. Until 6 00 a. M. When i say we voted, that vote was kept open for three hours while while they importuned their members, youve got to vote for this, president bush wants it, youve got to vote for this. We voted against it. The vote was held open three hours. That was not regular hour. Our side has held the vote open from time to time, never for three hours, but from time to time. Thats why its being rushed. Not because they had a lot of hearings before. Not because witnesses had testified that they didnt like the Affordable Care act. We understand that. The issue is not whether people like or dislike the Affordable Care act, its how are we going to provide what the president has promised . Access for everyone to health re at a lower cost and a better price. I told the majority leader last week and i repeat my comments, mr. Speaker, to the majority lead they are week. If they bring such a bill to the floor i will support it. His bill does not do that. So what President Trump promised during the election and what he promised from that podium just a few days ago is not what this bill represents. Its not what they promised to the American People. When i asked the what i asked the majority leader was, theyre apparently going to have additional bills, whether or not they will also be rushed through without hearings on the premise that there were hearings in the past. And i repeat, there are a lot of new members of this body that didnt have the opportunity to have those hearings. Werent in this body. I dont know how many because i dont know how many congresses were talking about it, we adopted this bill seven years ago. There were hearings subsequent so i dont know where were going, mr. Speaker. But i think the American People expect an opportunity to be heard. And yes, im i may quote some next week. But the people who were elected by the American People to do their job and who have the power to open up the doors and open up the windows and put back the curtains so that the American People can come in and testify, all those witnesses that testified in the last congress, the congress before that, im talking about the people who testified during a congress in hich we considered the bill. We havent had an open rule this year, mr. Speaker. Weve had structured rules, we had no open rule. So in terms of the minority leader telling me, mr. Speaker, that we want everybody to have their opportunity and care kaczurs one amendment that was, i think i would agree with him, more to show that not a single republican would vote and mr. Brady, as i pointed out, didnt vote for his own amendment that he offered when the Affordable Care act was marked up to say read the bill. Time was not given to read the bill. Mr. Speaker, were not going to come to any conclusion, i understand, today. But i am hopeful that the process that was perpetrated on not only the minority but also the majority this week will not be repeated. And that the representations that have been made by the speaker, by the young guns, and by so many others would be a process that is in fact open, thoughtful, and democratic. Unless the majority leader wan