Committee met for a second day to examine and consider amendments to the bill. The committee will come to order. The purpose of this afternoon session is to discuss the details of the chairmans mark. We are not here to speculate about items that may or may not end up in the house will. We are not here to debate items that are not currently part of the chairmans mark. As of now there is no official or final version of the modification. So i made clear this morning we are still working to finalize the details of the modification. When that work is done, the details will be provided to the committee with ample time to go through them and after that, most likely tomorrow morning we will have another walkthrough that gives members an opportunity to discuss and ask questions about the modification. Long story short, no one needs to be talking about the individual mandate at this point. It is not part of the mark. Arguments, questions or statements about the individual mandate or a distraction from the meeting where having now and frankly a waste of this committees time. Members have told me that they have additional questions to ask about the mark and i went to be reasonable, accommodating, so ill ask him into any members have any questions or comments about anything other than obamacare were the individual mandate . I do. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First, and the press is reporting that what will be offered tomorrow will contain the repeal of the individual mandate under the Affordable Care act. Those press reports correct . My understanding that changes every day, mr. Chairman. My understanding is that of modification mr. Chairman, i want everybody to understand because senate speak is a little hard to follow. Whats now been confirmed at some point fairly soon, Senate Republicans are going to propose a repeal of the individual mandate under the Affordable Care act. That means a tax bill is going to hit the American People without health care double whammy. First, the Congressional Budget Office that its republican tax bill passes, it would trigger that would result in 25 billion in cuts to medicare. Now on top of that blow, the vulnerable Senior Citizens party to the Congressional Budget Office, your change that will be getting later today will cause millions to lose their health care and millions more in to pay higher premiums, all to pay for yet more tax breaks for multinationals. Now in addition to the serious harm to seniors and the middle class, our view is that this is a violation of committee does. There is no amendment filed that in any way address the individual mandate for the Affordable Care act at all. So now weve got a provision sliding into the modified mark there wasnt filed as an amendment and certainly goes against the wellestablished finance committee president. This is yet another example, when more about how the processing is for the tax bill is not regular order. My request, mr. Chairman is this. If the modified mark opens up the Health Care Debate by including a major change to the Affordable Care act, it is only fair be allowed to offer to amendments other health care issues. Because theres no notice that Health Issues would be addressed , they ought to be allowed to file additional amendments addressing Health Issues. I ask unanimous consent that members have until 5 00 p. M. Tomorrow, wednesday, November November 15th to submit additional amendments and that any amendment related to health care within the jurisdiction of the finance committee be considered germane. The amendment Time Authority passed regularly have your amendment to modify the existing amendment. Mr. Chairman, and again, because we were never told that health care was going to be part of a ms just blew him literally out of nowhere in the last 20 minutes. I think a basic fairness, basic fairness would mean numbers would have additional time. 5 00 p. M. Tomorrows reasonable. We are going to stay in and say its germane to the work of the finance committee on taxes that ought to be any amendment related to health care within the jurisdiction of the committee be considered germane. Eveready ruled, so lets move on to the walkthrough. You can modify your amendment that you have on board here. Mr. Chairman, our staffs will have to do the work in the hours between when we wrap up this afternoon to ensure basic fairness because to me, to be all too absent in that puts at risk and it will raise premiums and the reason is because it is not as many Healthy People and the risk hole. Theres nothing brandnew here. Us appeal the ruling of the chair on this. Senator mccaskill. Im not sure what the majority was afraid of. Im not sure what the majority is afraid of. I am waiting on my little device here that senator to me just told the reporter we are all reading that the individual mandate is going to be in the mark. We had no idea health care and all the torturous debate around the Affordable Care act in all the debate we had a train to dismantle it that have occurred, the idea that we wouldnt be allowed 24 hours to offer amendments on a subject matter is so incredibly important, what would be the harm in allowing it to offer amendments on that subject matter . I need to understand what is that we are afraid of . Mr. Chairman. Okay. Mr. Chairman. I would just respond, it is my understanding that existing amendments can be completely modified. My democratic colleagues have submitted i dont know how many amendments. Is it in the hundreds . Its a large number. A lot of the modified to deal with this issue. If thats what members want to do theyll be free to do it. I dont understand the argument that its not possible on health care issues. There is going to be a lot of them and theyve got the vehicle with do it. Im no committee member. I can take an amendment that ive offered on a passthrough guardrail and i can say by the way i want to include something on the Affordable Care act. I can rewrite to an addendum that Joseph Health care . Certainly modified. We are talking about a whole new subject. A subject as ive indicated can raise Health Insurance premiums on millions of people and i think this is a modest request that has done this for an opportunity for members to vote on whether or not we have to have until 5 00 p. M. Tomorrow at to submit additional amendment and obviously mr. Bartel if we are going to be interested in your additional analysis to be updated to include the individual mandate or is there a host of questions which is the point senator mccaskill has mentioned and mr. Chairman, and i know you want to move on, some colleagues can vote on the motion. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I support the Ranking Members motion and they just want to indicate this is a very unfortunate turn instead of what is going to be in this tax bill that will actually raise premiums, health care premiums, what we should be doing this focus on a bipartisan effort that senator alexander and senator murray have put together to stabilize the markets that would actually begin to lower premiums. This is a very unfortunate turn of events and also makes the various optical about what is coming next with 125 trillion debt increase in this bill and the next thing we see is a budget resolution with 1. 5 trillion in cuts to medicaid and medicare. So if we are going down this road, you know, theres a whole lot of concerns people in michigan will have about their health care. Parliamentary inquiry, mr. Chairman before we vote. They might go ahead. Thank you. Senator to me has said everything is hunkydory here, that we are going to be able to talk about our concerns with this amendment. I would like to have clarified by the majority in the amendments would not be rolled as nongermane, that all the amendments within the jurisdiction be considered germane. I think that is a minimum commitment given the importance of this very important issue that blew in through the door the last couple of hours. Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that the individual mandate is that tax collected by the irs as an individual mandate from the Supreme Court wrote in his attacks. It seems to me is perfectly within the jurisdiction of this committee to move forward and address something that is imposing a mandatory tax on millions of americans who are simply choosing not to buy Health Insurance. That is what we are talking about here. This is a tax that punishes people for doing something they would want to do. It seems to me perfectly within his committees jurisdiction to address this in the form of the amendment so i dont know what the outrageous about this not being germane or pertinent to the subject before us. Mr. Chairman, before i yield to my colleague, lets understand, and this redefines the scope of this markup. We dont know anything about this and that is why it is so important that we get the time to address it because they sent all the particulars predefined scope in this markup. Mr. Chairman irs. Internal revenue code. I dont know how its outside the scope. Let me just make this comment. The democrats have offered to run 600 no, 16 amendments with no text at all. It seems to me they are awfully easy to modify. There is nothing strange about this at all. I dont get the question still is germane and that is what is most relevant to the question senator mccaskill asked. Make sure she is actually going to be able to offer amendments within our jurisdiction. I still havent heard an answer. Josh, what do you clear this up for us . What is doable . During the aca, members were completely able to modify their amendments anyway possible. Based upon that precedent, there is no way members could easily offer in change amendment as they wish. I want to hear the words Health Care Amendments are germane. That is what is out tomorrow in my view unless we clarified. I cant speak to that. That is up to the chairman. Mr. Chairman. Lets understand they have to be related. To the Internal Revenue code. In the individual mandate is the Internal Revenue code. That is my understanding. Mr. Chairman, we have redefined the scope of the bill. We were not talking about health care in the Senate Finance committee until about an hour ago. I think it is only fair to allow the members to submit additional amendments related to health care in the jurisdiction of the committee. This is now the basis of the amount announcement that is made in the major help care bill. Mr. Chairman . Mr. Chairman. Senator cassidy. I have a question for the Ranking Member. This is for senator wyden or maybe senator can mccaskill. Senator thune points out it is a tax. Im getting from you you want to open up health care. On a brighter medicaid, Medicare Part d. I mean, that is the jurisdiction of this committee has over health care. Are we really say because we were discussing some day which has been declared a tax, that we are now going to go and bring in medicaid in 340 b. . That just seems like a stretch. I got to admit this is a tax and is not medicaid. I dont quite get the connection between the whole scope of health care this committee has been that which is specifically if i can respond to my colleague, this is related to a host of other health care issues. This is partial repeal of the Affordable Care act and that is why the Congressional Budget Office scored with such ominous consequences. People losing coverage, millions of people having their premiums go up. My college has been involved in health care. Far fewer Healthy People go into the risk full, which means that premiums are going to go up in this country. This is turning a tax bill into a Health Care Bill with colleagues getting an hours worth. That does not address my question. If you wish to address the consequences of the individual mandate repeal, that is one thing. But if you want to bring in everything the committee has to do with health care, that is lets asked for recognition. From here on income im tired of this jumping in and yelling and screaming. I dont want any more yelling and screaming. Lets talk by gentlemen here in women. Women and ladies and treat each other with respect. I made my ruling. The Internal Revenue code related to amendments would be an go. Bush just move on. Senator wyden. Such was to run an effective means to be run. To respond to my colleague from louisiana. We are interested in making sure that it is germane to offer amendments related to the Affordable Care act. Thats at the individual mandate is all about. I dont think we have blocked this issue down and mr. Chairman, unless my colleagues want to keep speaking, for those who has asked unanimous consent members have until 5 00 tomorrow for additional amendments related to this number of health care in the Affordable Care act. We have fed turned down against us. What is pending is an appeal of the ruling of the chair. Senator from pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, concerned, everything in the tax code relates to something. We have provisions in tax reform bills that affect the Financial Services industry. Affects trade, will affect every industry and the economy because every industry pays taxes. That doesnt mean the entire universe is open for amendment and germane. What is germane if anything that directly affects the Internal Revenue code because the issue is a tax. I dont understand the concern. Democratic colleagues can modify the amendments. They submitted 60 blank amendments and to the extent they are related to the code, presumably ruled germane, but i just dont see the issue here, mr. Chairman. I have Something Else to say. Senator mccaskill is wanting to speak at one other point, mr. Chairman. You can use them. No one stopping you from doing that. Senator mccaskill, turn to you now. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I assume all the cadillac tax and medical device tags will be considered germane. Anything having to do with the Affordable Care act has to do with taxes is germane in the play we would like is when you start dismantling piece by piece, it has an indirect effect on the entire operation of the aca. Its going to raise premiums. In fact, what i would ask, will we have a distribution analysis, a new one that will show the impact of this . The people this is going ahead are the people that dont get insurance at work. The Small Business people out there buying on the exchanges that make a little too much money to qualify for subsidies. Thats who this is going ahead. As you all know. The middleclass people this bill is supposed to be about helping. The way i get it as we are going to make their insurance more expensive, create 13 million uninsured people all to make sure such the pastor is getting five or 6 cut in taxes unless of course you are a small pastor and happened to be doing certain kinds of work. I wont get into the complexities, but golf course owners to real estate developers, massage parlor owners will get a break, but on the other hand will charge more for insurance. Will we have a distribution table . The next senator mccaskill, i dont have an amendment to examine our order burqas who would estimate the revenue consequences of any modification and we tried to produce distribution table. The distribution table would be available at the time as soon as we complete the work of the revenue table that would work towards providing a distributional analysis. Will recognize senator scott. Distributional analysis. Senator toomey has reinforced it without a tax. So the question is, who is paying that tax . The reality is a very simple answer, very simple answer. How under 25,000 of household income, one third are paying that tax. But the entire folks pay the tax cut 80 of the folks paying the tax today live in a household under 50,000. If we are seriously concerned about hardworking americans look no further than the individual mandate and its impact on lowincome americans. 25,000 household is less than half of the average income in south carolina. In yet a third of the folks paying the penalty they live in households under 25,000. 50,000 threshold, 80 of folks slightly less than the average income in south carolina. 80 of the folks who are paying this tax are folks who live in a household under 50,000. If we are talking about doing the right thing for the middleclass, we are doing the right thing for hardworking americans. Heres a good place to start cutting their taxes. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman i yield my time that. Make that point better than i could. Mr. Chairman. Ready to go . I would like to make a quick closure. Senator brown. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I will be brief. I listen to all of this and i dont think my colleagues are thinking much about individual people about how this is going to affect their lives. I am puzzled by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle just cant help themselves. This is at least the fourth time. This is a bunch of people sitting around a table at all of us have government Health Insurance paid for by taxpayers and it seems my colleagues are just sitting around his unrelenting effort to find ways to take Health Insurance and in my state, 200,000 people are getting so putrid that right now because they have insurance under the Affordable Care act. We sit around here is privileged members of the senate with great titles and good pay and insurance paid for by taxpayers. This comes out of a republican lunch today when the