Good afternoon. Thank you so much for being here. Congressman jordan and i just left a meeting with the vicepresident and he has assured us that as we look to make this better on behalf of the American People, that the bill that was introduced last night is still open for negotiation and certainly for modification and we took that as very encouraging news, not because of any particular position that we have but because its good news for the American People. I had the opportunity to campaign with President Trump all across north carolina, and one of the things that he talked about was repeal and replacement. Now, when we said that, it took on two different meanings. A repeal to many meant that we would repeal the entire obamacare plan, all the taxes, all the mandates, the Medicaid Expansion. When he talked about replacement, it took on another meaning to others which it meant that we needed to cover the preexisting conditions, making sure that people didnt get kicked off of their healthcare plan, making sure that there was an adequate safety net. I can tell you that those two things are still the focus of not only the House Freedom caucus but my good friends, senator lee, senator rand paul, and senator ted cruz, and as we look at this today were going to be talking about a number of scores in the upcoming days. Cbo scores and what score that this means and what does it mean for the American People. I can tell you that there is one score that the American People will Pay Attention to. And that is, does it really lower their healthcare costs and their premiums. Thats the only score that really matters. If this doesnt do it, then we need to make sure that we find something that does do it, and with that im going to turn it over to the gentleman from ohio who plans to introduce a piece of legislation that really repeals the Affordable Care act, the gentleman from ohio, jim jordan. Thank you, mark. Marks exactly right. Our goal is real simple. To bring down the cost of insurance for, wind working fam and middle class families across the country and we think you have to get rid of obamacare completely. So tomorrow i will introduce the bill that every single republican voted on just 15 months ago, the bill that actually repeals obamacare. Our plan has always been repeal in one piece of legislation and replace in the other. And that replacement we talked about a few weeks ago is the bill sponsored by dr. Paul in the senate and mark sanford in the house. Make no mistake. There are three plans out there. The casty collins plan which is basically if you like obamacare, you can keep obamacare. Theres the leadership plan that was brought forward which i believe when you look through it is obamacare in a different form. And then theres our plan, the one that i think is consistent with what we told the voters we were going to do. Repeal obamacare, replace it with a marketcentered, patientcentered, doctorcentered plan that actually brings down the cost of insurance, brings down the cost of healthcare and provides affordable insurance for all americans. Think about this, we put on president obama desk a bill that repealed obamacare, got rid of every single tax, got rid of the mandates, and now the first thing republicans are bringing forward is a piece of legislation that were going to put on a republican president s desk that says we repeal it but keeps Medicaid Expansion and actually expands it, that keeps some of the tax increases. Thats not what we promised the American People we were go to do. Our plan, repeal it, clean repeal like we all voted on before, separate legislation to replace what we currently have with a model that we think will bring down the cost of premiums for the hard working people of this country who sent us here to do just that. With that i want to turn it over to the sponsor of our replacement plan in the senate, dr. Rand paul. Today i will introduce a companion bill also to congressman jordans plan to have complete repeal, a clean repeal. Well be doing this in the senate today as well. Theres one thing that has united republicans. In 2010 when we won the house, in 2014 when we won the senate, and in 2016 when we won the white house. This doesnt divide republicans, this brings us together, and that is complete repeal, clean repeal. As congressman jordan said, we voted on this last year and every republican voted for it. Thats what we should do again. But we are divided. We have to admit we are divided on replacement. We are united on repeal but we are divided on replacement. Whats the best way to get past this impasse . Lets vote on what we voted on before, a clean repeal. Lets separate out the replacement plans. Conservatives have a replacement plan. House leadership has a replacement plan. Im sure democrats would like to go back and vote on the aca again. Vote on all the replacement plans and lets see what happens, all right . But lets vote on clean repeal, the only way i think this gets done is to separate the issues. Separate out clean repeal from replacement. Lets get it done. Repeal unites us and i think we can get that done. With that id like to introduce my colleague and friend, senator mike lee from utah. Whats been introduced in the house in the last 24 hours is not the obamacare replacement plan, not the Obamacare Repeal plan weve been hoping for. This is instead a step in the wrong direction. As much as anything, its a missed opportunity. Look, weve seen what happens when congress decides to put forward a plan negotiated behind closed doors where members are told youve got to pass this bill in order to find out whats in it. Its usually not a good product. On this topic im not speaking about anything thats necessarily inherently democratic or republican or liberal or conservative. This is just a common sense value. What we ought to have in congress is a process which we can start with basic grounding principles. The two parties are in widespread disagreement when it comes to obamacare itself. But there is one plan and only one plan that has so far passed a republican congress, and its this plan thats being introduced today. That plan passed with the support of every republican in the house of representatives and every republican in the senate, and it did so just in the last 14 months. I think we ought to put this forward. We ought to get it passed and then lets move the ball forward in an it ra tif process, a process in which people can propose different ideas that will benefit the American People. Thats what we want to do and thats what this process, this bill, the 2015 repeal bill, would do if we were to pass it right now. Its now my pleasure to introduce my friend and counterpart in the house, congressman mark sanford from south carolina. Thank you. About a halfanhour ago, maybe less than that, about a halfanhour ago, the white house wrapped up its Daily Press Briefing with the press and in it it was obstructive in that sean spicer said repeatedly the healthcare bill thats been introduced is a work in progress. Its interesting that senator excuse me, not senator, former colleague, congressman price and now secretary price said the same thing at the beginning of the press conference. Its a work in progress. So if we liken this sort of to Donald Trumps world of everything is a negotiation, what we have now is an opening bid and i think what conservatives are saying is, okay, thats the opening bid but based on some things that happened whether in 2015 or some principles that conservatives have long advanced, might not we constructively look for ways of refining whats been introduced. Thats what ultimately this press conference is all about. I think very respectfully, its about asking this simple question which is, do we need to lower the bar in what we believe as conservatives simply because a republican is now in the white house. So the bill that congressman jordan is going to introduce is all about simply not lowering that bar, of saying, wait a minute, to their point, 14 months ago it was something where there was unanimous accord with republicans on the house and senate side, lets stick with that plan. Its not just respectively but perspectively as well in looking forward, lets not lower what we believe or lower the bar on what we believe simply because the republicans in the white house on new ideas. You look at the idea of a cadillac bill, cadillac plan thats based in the current bill thats being talked about. I dont know, is that a lowering of the bar . You look at Something Like the refundable tax credit. Is that a lowering of the bar . I mean, it was Ronald Reagan that said the closest thing to eternal life is a government program. Guaranteed eternal life in government is entitlement. So for a whole variety of different reasons, this is simply about going back to things and principles that have long worked on the conservative side and things that republicans have espoused and grabbed hold of here within the last 14 months. Im louie gomert and i guess the newest member of the Freedom Caucus. Were told were known by our enemies and were known by our friends. Im glad to be known by this group of friends. All right, im glad we finally got a bill out. Its not 2500 pages. Its a starting point. Some people asked what i told President Trump when he came down the aisle for the state of the union and one of the things i said was, youre being told we cant do some of the things we did two years ago with obamacare, and it was true, its still true. So as long as were able to get amendments to the floor that will fix some huge problems with the bill thats now been filed, then well be okay. But that better not be a rule that prevents amendments that are badly needed to fix this bill. That would be a major problem. We dont need, as mark said, we dont need to start new entitlement programs and we certainly dont need to have the bottom line effect, what mark meadows was talking about, that prices of insurance dont go down. So there are things that have to be done, that have to be included, but we got a starting point and i think amidst the har harsh ex krament we can find a pony here. I think well have a race horse as long as we get a good amendment when were done. Thank you all. I think its helpful to reflect about 8 years back and how we started to do healthcare reform 8 years ago. I think you remember the heads of the Insurance Companies walking into the white house looking at their shoes and something was wrong there. And so 8 years later the head of aetna says were in a death spiral, so the healthcare system, they ranged 8 years ago obviously didnt work. Central government tapped down government control, especially at the federal level, does not work. Weve seen that. And so now interestingly, the press comes and says, hey, the cars in the ditch, how are you guys going to fix it in two weeks. The answer would always be, we should have done free Market Economics and free market healthcare in the meantime over the past 20, 30 years. So last time what did we focus on . We focused on 18 million coverage. We did not focus on prices or the cost of healthcare. So now you have healthcare costs going up at 25 . The Speaker Health insurance premiums going up 25 . The speaker has said the goal is to shift the cost curve down. So all of you in the press can hold us accountable to that. What that means is not a reduction in the rate of increase, not down to 15 growth in cost. A reduction and depending the cost curve down means costs go down by negative 1 and thats what the American People are dying to see. Its happened in every other market, cars, cd players start at 500 bucks and go down to 30. So if we would have had the lower costs, we have people sending us examples all the time. 150,000 heart procedure here costs 15,000 in india. Thats a radical difference in cost. You could pick up some of that on the preexisting conditions. It would make that piece of the puzzle much easier to solve if we would have addressed the price and the cost issue. Ill throw one more point. When we talk about creating a new entitlement program, just so we have the numbers there straight, we currently have a 100 trillion unfunded mandatory spending problem in this country. We promised 100 trillion to the next generation in programs. The federal government has created that problem. Medicare is insolvent, Social Security is insolvent and now were going to create another entitlement. I think in your reporting, that context is very important to lay out, that when we create another entitlement on the next generation. And so one of the goals we have or at least i have is i want to push as much of this down to the state level as we can. The federal government being in charge, we have a unique capacity to print money and put debt on the next generation and put it off onto other countries internationally. The states have to run a balanced budget. I trust them way more in the governance to be more fiscally responsible, so those are some of the major ideas. Theres a fundamental philosophical difference about what it means to do free markets and we want to put in the mechanisms to ensure that that becomes a reality. Thank you. Thank you. Tom garrett from fifth congressional district. I want to thank congressman jordan, senators lee and paul, my cohorts in the Freedom Caucus for having me here today. This is simply too important to rush through. The proposals that came out yesterday were shrouded in a cloak of secrecy that denied well over half of the house and well over half of the senate the ability to essentially participate in the process, and so the debate must be had to fit within the framework envisioned by our founders. We know that historically, freer markets and dont get me wrong. I understand that healthcare is not a commodity like sneakers. But freer markets lead to lower costs and we can do this without creating a new entitlement. A month and a half ago research came out that indicated that the 8 wealthiest individuals on the planet earth controlled as much wealth combined as the bottom 50th percentile. Thats 8 people plus 3. 6 billion people have as much wealth as 3. 6 billion people. To put the United States current debt, imagine if you will that we can extract every dime from the entire 50th percentile and down of wealth and the 8 wealthiest people in the planet and apply that to the United States current standing debt, not unfunded liability, current standing debt, what percentage of our debt do you think that would pay off, folks . It would pay off under 10 . We hear the use of the word unsustainable again and again and again in this town, and some things really are and new entitlement programs and spending on top of spending truly is, and we can curve the cost curve downward and do so without further encumbering future generations and its as simple as that. Ive heard people characterize this as a lot of people playing a lot of games of chicken. Were resolute and well stand here and well do whats right, not just for today but for posterity. Thank you very much. Well take some questions. John parkinson, abc. Go ahead. I heard you guys using the optimism that the president will negotiate with you but today he had a tweet that said, this is a wonderful bill. What parts of the bill do you think are wonderful . No. And there are some improvements in the legislation from the leaked draft, but there was a wonderful bill that every single republican voted on just a few months act. And tomorrow senator paul and myself will be introducing that same piece of legislation. And that is exactly, as i said earlier, consistent with what we told the American People we were going to do, repeal obamacare. How about using the bill we all supported, and then replace it with something that we actually believe is going to lower healthcare costs. Mr. Jordan, can you talk for a minute, mr. Jordan or mr. Meadows. You said, mr. Meadows, that you met with the vicepresident and he said hes open to negotiation. The vicepresident was in the senate and said this is the bill when i hear all of you talk, it sounds like you were trying to get somewhere where you can support a legislative product here at the end of the day, but as you just alluded to, mr. Jordan, you said and mr. Garrett said this, they wrote this in the dead of night, so why would you trust them . Of course were trying to get somewhere to repeal obamacare. We know what a disaster this has been for the American People. The American People spoke loudly and clearly on november 8th so of course were trying to get to that point. But i think mr. Garretts comments were right on target. Doing it right is important. Not just doing it but doing it right. Thats what today is about, thats why were going to introduced legislation tomorrow. Thats why we think the two pieces of legislation, that mode of getting it done, is the proper way to proceed and thats why were introducing the bill tomorrow and why we had our bill that we introduced three weeks before. Do you trust what the vicepresident said even though he said on the senate side earlier this is the bill . The vicepresident is an honorable man and we trust him. I think what theres some difference in the context of whats being said. I think the president and the vicepresident is saying that the foundation there is a good foundation. We might disagree on that. However, were committed to looking at that foundation and seeing how we can modify it, how we can make sure that we look at really repealing fully and replacing the Affordable Care act in a meaningful way that drives down premiums and so i dont know that those are mutually exclusive issues as we look at that. In terms of the current house bill, is that a significant enough improvement over the status quo and if it came down to picking between the two, which one would you choose . Look, did we promise the American People we were going to repeal obamacare but keep some of the becoobamacare taxes . Did we promise the American People we were going to repeal obamacare but keep and expand the Medicaid Expansion and start a new entitlement with the fancy name of refundable tax credits . I dont think we did. I dont think any republican ran on that platform. So to me this is pretty darn simple. Thats why our plan makes sense. Repeal it and replace it with something thats actually going to lower costs. But if your plan cant pass, would you rather support we just started the debate, you know. The vicepresident said lets negotiate. Lets debate, lets let it happen. Thats how the legislative process works. I think the American People might want to weigh in. They dont want to rush this thing. They just got to see it today as well. Lets let the debate unfold and well see what happens here in a few weeks. We know what passed two years ago. That should have been the starting point because were stronger with the president behind what were trying to do. So we shouldnt be going backwards from the bill that we passed two years ago. So yeah, were going to make this better. We ought to at least get to where we were two years ago. To be clear, all of the members present will vote against the brady walden bill as written, and the followup is the paul jordan bill, will it have provisions to prevent illegal aliens from participating . We havent made any formal positions on the House Freedom caucus. Were meeting tonight. That will be part of our discussion as we look at this new bill. Obviously we have some serious concerns. We havent been shy about the serious concerns as we look at that. And yet, with any negotiation, you look at the tradeoffs, what are the risks versus the rewards, and as we do that we intend to have a robust debate among 35 to 40 of us this evening. Congressman, it seems that you guys are proposing two different things. On the one hand, mr. Jordan says repeal obamacare and then well figure out sort of what to do next, but you seem to think that there are changes that could be made to this current piece of legislation. Well, i mean, i dont know that theyre mutually exclusive. What were here today dr. Rand paul came 8 weeks ago and said really what we need to look at is finish the debate on repeal. We need to go ahead and get that done. The same day he suggested that we have a vote on a replacement vote. Understanding the hurdles, the logistical hurdles that you might have. But weve got a number of vehicles. This is not just the first reconciliation bill we have. We actually have two more coming, and any phasedin period on a repeal. Weve got the one that comes right behind this, we have the one that well be voting on again next fall. So as you look at that, there are a number of vehicles, if were truly looking at reconciliation as the vehicle, there are a number of things to do that. But we need to have a sincere debate, go ahead and repeal it as dr. Rand paul said, vote the same day and at the same time not dismiss any merits of a bill thats been put out there. I applaud the leadership for putting out a bill. We now can discuss the merits. You said several weeks ago [ inaudible ] i would say theres a great deal of evidence that this is the beginning of the negotiation. What i would put forward as that evidence is half a dozen members from the Freedom Caucus, half a dozen conservative members of the senate have been contacted by the white house, been contacted by tom price, and are in discussions with the vicepresident. So this is the beginning of the process. The way the process moves forward is they will count heads. If they have 218 votes for what theyve put forward, that is what youll get. So the House Freedom caucus is power and the power of several conservatives in the senate is to withhold our support and make it better. If they have 218 votes, we wont get any change. That will be the bill. If they dont have 218 votes, there will be a negotiation and conservatives will have a seat at the table. The House Freedom caucus has enormous power if they stay together, so do the conservatives in the senate. Its aunknown what the product will be but everybody assumes theres going to be a negotiation or they wouldnt be making all these phone calls and ranging all these appointments with conservatives in the house and the senate. Thats the way it should be. Conservatives want a seat at the table and we want to repeal obamacare. Every one of us want to. I still think the most practical way is to separate them, but if they were to remove the objectionable items from their repeal and replace, it would essentially be repeal. So were really talking about the same thing. Last question over here. Go ahead. Youre talking about how you focused on repealing as much as you can. Werent you saying earlier in the year that republicans have to be very careful about doing repeal without a replacement in hand . Im still saying exactly the same thing. We should do repeal and replace at the same time, just not in the same legislative vehicle. And the reason is, i still would. If the replacement bill that we put forward that has no new government programs, if they would allow that to be part of the repeal effort, im for that. Im for bringing replacement into the repeal package if its good stuff. If its obamacare light, it makes it worse and that decides us. I think whats been put forward currently divides us, whereas i think there are some issues. Expanding Health Savings account, im guessing almost every republican in congress is for that. Put that in the replacement and repeal together and well vote for it, you know. Put healthcare associations. Get rid of some more of the regulatory part of obamacare. Were all for that. But if you have a new entitlement program, obamacare taxes, subsidies for Insurance Companies, it is going to divide us. Thats part of what were here today is to present that there is a way forward, but the current way forward i dont think is going to work. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Today is to present that there any member can put forth the motion. Certainly it would require when is a point that you guys are okay with getting [ inaudible ] the score, as i said earlier, the most important one for me is will it drive down Health Insurance premiums. According to the analysis that ive done is we see a very small reduction in insurance premiums in year one. After that it doesnt look like it affects insurance premiums in a positive way for the consumer after. I think you factor in the assumption that cbo makes with regards to people who are recover covered and not covered and factor that into the insurance premiums. [ reporting asking question ] you mean have i done a check of the house premiums caucus, the answer is yes. [ inaudible chattering ] the president has a very powerful bully pulpit and a very powerful tweet, so i would never want to take on the president in either of those realms. I certain [ inaudible talking ] [ inaudible chatter ] were hopeful that were start the negotiations. Its important to look at the g. O. P. Plan, the casty collins plan. [ inaudible ]