GOP Address: Senate Should Allow Vote on Health Care Individual Mandates - East Idaho News
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GOP Address: Senate Should Allow Vote on Health Care Individual Mandates

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071913 RepsTimGriffinToddYoung?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1374283928688US House of Representatives(WASHINGTON) — In this week’s Republican address, Reps. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., and Todd Young, R-Ind., are urging Democrats in the Senate to allow a vote on legislation that would protect all Americans from mandates in the president’s health care law.

Read the full text of the Republican Address, delivered by Reps. Todd Young and Tim Griffin:

REP. TODD YOUNG: Hello, I’m Congressman Todd Young, from Indiana’s Ninth District.

REP. TIM GRIFFIN: And I’m Congressman Tim Griffin, from Arkansas’s Second District.

Equal justice under the law is a basic, founding principle of our country.  As Americans, we want to see our children have the same opportunities we’ve had.  We want them to work hard and have a fair shot at achieving success.  So whenever Washington helps businesses and ignores families and workers, Americans have a duty to speak up.

REP. YOUNG: Recently, the Obama administration announced it was going to delay the employer mandate in the president’s health care law.   They took this action, they say, because businesses are having a hard time complying.

Well that’s great news for big businesses, but it’s left many hardworking taxpayers asking, ‘what about me? what about my family?’  After all, the law’s mandates are just as daunting for individuals.  And they don’t have an army of lawyers, lobbyists and accountants at their disposal to make sense of it all.  The government just put out an additional 145 pages of regulations on the individual mandate alone.  How are ordinary citizens supposed to keep up?

REP. GRIFFIN: Republicans understand Americans are worried about the impact of the President’s health care law, so we acted.  Because let’s be fair about this: if the president’s going to help out businesses by exempting them from the law, he ought to give the same relief to folks like you.

That’s why, this week, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill I introduced authorizing President Obama’s delay of the employer mandate.

REP. YOUNG: The House also approved my bill, the Fairness for American Families Act, which provides the same relief to the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, many Democrats voted to stand with big business and against fairness for individuals and families.  President Obama threatened to veto our proposals altogether.  We take that to mean he thinks it’s fair to let businesses off the hook while leaving middle-class families in harm’s way.

Well, it most certainly is not, and we urge him to reconsider his veto threat.  We also call on Democratic leaders in the Senate to give our proposals a vote immediately in the name of fairness.  

REP. GRIFFIN:
Republicans will continue to do everything we can to protect all Americans from the president’s top-down, one-size-fits-all, Washington-knows-best approach to health care that is driving up costs and hurting our economy.

The story I recently heard from a 21-year old Hispanic-American who runs a small business in my district is becoming all too familiar.

He currently employs 45 workers, and according to him, he’s ready to hire 10 or 20 more, but he can’t because ObamaCare makes him choose between new, higher insurance premiums or hefty fines.  He said “the government should be my partner, so I can help my employees prosper.  I can help them more than the government, but I’m literally not able to.”

The whole thing is a train wreck, plain and simple.

REP. YOUNG: Bottom line: the sooner we can delay, dismantle, and repeal the president’s health care law, the sooner we can get people back to work and focus on expanding opportunity for everyone.

For now, thank you for listening.

REP. GRIFFIN: And thank you for speaking out in support for fairness for all.  Have a great weekend everyone.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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