In This Week's Edition of E-News…

House Repeals Provisions of 2010 Healthcare Law

Murphy's Telephone Town Hall Draws over 10,000 Participants

Murphy Leads Floor Debate on Energy/Infrastructure Plan

House Repeals Provisions of 2010 Healthcare Law

This week Congress took two more steps to undo costly provisions in the 2010 healthcare law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

On Wednesday, Murphy participated in an Energy and Commerce Committee investigatory hearing entitled “CLASS Cancelled: An Unsustainable Program and Its Consequences for the Nation's Deficit." The Committee took a deeper look at the Obama Administration’s decision to cancel the CLASS Act, a new long-term insurance program included in the 2010 healthcare law.

The CLASS Act was originally conceived as a stand-alone proposal to create a government run insurance program to cover home healthcare options for disabled adults. It was included in the healthcare bill as a financing tool by bringing in premium revenues to pay for the rest of the healthcare law. The Administration considered many options to make the program sustainable, including automatically enrolling all working Americans in the program unless they chose to opt-out, before deciding they did not have the legal authority to make the changes necessary. After determining that the CLASS program would never meet the law’s 75-year solvency requirement, HHS decided not to implement this provision of the law.

Murphy expressed surprise that the Administration, despite knowing as early as March 2009 of major financial problems with the CLASS proposal, took so long to come to this conclusion. In February, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finally admitted it was “totally unsustainable.”  

Enrollees in CLASS would have paid premiums for at least five years before being eligible for the benefit, but because no benefits would have been paid out in the first five years of the program, the healthcare law used the premiums from those five years to cover other costs in the law.  

During a hearing back in March, Murphy stated: “If any insurance company began collecting premiums and then tried to spend $86 billion before paying out a single penny in benefits, it would be rightly prosecuted. Last time I checked, such Ponzi schemes are illegal in this country.” Early this year, Murphy signed on as co-sponsor of the Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act of 2011 (H.R. 1173), which would fully repeal the CLASS Act and prevent the Administration from reviving this unsustainable program in the future.

Among the numerous concerns about PPACA that have been discovered since enactment in 2010, another one tackled this week in Congress is the definition of “modified adjusted gross income” used to determine eligibility for government subsidies.

On Thursday, Congress passed on a bipartisan vote of 262-157, H.R. 2576 to repeal a provision in the recently enacted healthcare law that would have expanded Medicaid rolls by up to three million.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act defined income, for the purposes of calculating benefits for government healthcare programs, in a way that did not include Social Security. This made couples age 62-65 earning as much as $64,000 per year eligible to receive Medicaid benefits.

Congressman Murphy supported repeal noting that, “As originally conceived in the healthcare bill, it potentially would have extended government benefits to millions of couples living well above the poverty level.”  Medicaid, a state-federal program designed to help the very poor and indigent, would “be virtually unsustainable if expanded to millions in middle income brackets,” continued Murphy.  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office calculated the repeal would save taxpayers up to $13 billion. The legislation awaits further action in the Senate.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy on healthcare, please click here.

Murphy's Telephone Town Hall Draws over 10,000 Participants

On Wednesday, residents of the 18th congressional district joined in a live telephone town hall discussion with Congressman Tim Murphy to talk about latest developments in Congress. Over 10,000 constituents connected live on the call to discuss issues ranging from job creation to healthcare reform to government spending.

A main topic centered on the economy and its effects on working families in Southwestern Pennsylvanians. With 26 million Americans out of work or looking for more work, several callers were particularly interested to hear how Congressman Murphy was working to resolve gridlock in Washington and spur private sector economic growth. He began the conversation by updating the listeners on the status of his Infrastructure Jobs and Energy Independence Act (HR 1861), which was the subject of special debate on the House floor this week. Murphy led members of the bipartisan Energy Working Group in discussion on his legislation, which would invest new revenues from environmentally safe offshore exploration into infrastructure repair projects and an energy independence plan (see accompanying story).

Other callers were eager to discuss efforts to protect scarce taxpayer dollars in an era of rising red ink. Rep. Murphy said he was focused on recovering the taxpayer dollars that went to bankrupt Solyndra solar company and Fisker Automotive, a company that $529 million from the Department of Energy (DOE) to build luxury automobiles in Finland. While appearing on Fox Business News Nightly Scoreboard Wednesday, Rep. Murphy called for an expanded investigation of the DOE program because of evidence that the White House earmarked taxpayer dollars to risky ventures headed up by politically connected investors.

“Once the Energy Department knew that Fisker would use this money to build cars in Finland, they should have stopped right there and said, ‘we’re not doing this.’”

Murphy fields questions during telephone town hall

The examples of Fisker, and SunPower, which is using $1.2 billion in American taxpayer money to make solar panels in Mexico, also illustrates the need to adopt “Buy American” provisions in federal spending bills to prevent American taxpayers from going to create overseas jobs or buy foreign products. Last Congress, Rep. Murphy authored key ‘Buy American’ provisions in the Economic Stimulus bill. His amendments, with the exception of the one related to using American steel in construction projects funded with stimulus dollars, were stripped out of the final legislation.

“Without my ‘Buy American’ amendments in the Economic Stimulus bill putting strict criteria to ensure our money stayed in the US, I knew American tax dollars would go to buy foreign products and that our stimulus dollars would be spent to create foreign jobs. Turns out, while others were using phony ‘protectionism’ arguments, I was right. And I stand by my position that protection of US tax dollars is NOT a bad policy. Never should taxpayers foot the bill so private investors can make a buck in foreign lands.”

Rep. Murphy was also asked about the nation’s healthcare system, which one caller described as “broken.”

“I agree,” replied Mr. Murphy. “Right now our healthcare system is overrun with barriers, burdens, and bureaucracy that drive up costs without making anyone healthier. I will continue to work on advancing policies that improve the doctor-patient relationship, increase access to quality care, and drive down healthcare costs for consumers.”

One caller expressed concern over the Texas law that allows for illegal immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition at state universities and asked the Congressman to weigh-in.

Murphy noted that any incentives or benefits offered to anyone living illegally in this country is more than simply a financial matter for taxpayers footing the bill. It undermines a core principle of our nation: the rule of law. Murphy further stated he opposed any form of amnesty, particularly like the DREAM Act, which rewards those who violate our nation’s laws and makes it harder for working families to compete with illegal immigrants over the finite amount of student aid.

He reminded callers that back in December of 2010, the outgoing House Leadership took up and passed the DREAM Act, which contained a similar provision as found in the Texas law. Murphy voted against the DREAM Act, which ultimately was not taken up in the Senate and never signed into law. The bill authorized the Secretary of Homeland Security to cancel the deportation of, and give immediate legal status to, illegal aliens who meet certain low-threshold criteria such as having entered the United States before a 16th birthday, having been admitted to an institution of higher education, or having earned a high school or equivalent diploma. It also would have given illegal immigrants access to higher education assistance programs including subsidized and unsubsidized federal Stafford student loans; Perkins loans, work study and other college assistance programs — all of which are funded at least in part by the U.S. taxpayer. In addition, both Stafford and Perkins loans are eligible for loan forgiveness after certain requirements are met.

The issue of student loans was on the minds of several participants who asked Mr. Murphy for his reaction to the President’s decision this week to relax repayment terms for federal student loans and home mortgages without Congressional approval. Rep. Murphy said that Congress had rejected similar efforts to put taxpayers on the hook for Americans who bought homes they could not afford. In a touch-tone poll conducted during the tele-town hall, over 70% of listeners expressed opposition to the President’s decision to have the taxpayers write off bad student loan debt and home mortgages.

“With the national debt now standing at almost $15 trillion, the President should be looking for ways to cut government spending rather than making the taxpayer pick up the tab for even more debt. I won't support any policies that force you to pay off your neighbor's mortgage or student loan. It's simply a matter of fairness for responsible taxpayers who have paid off their own debt.”

Next week, Congressman Murphy will be asking you to weigh in on the President’s decision to have the taxpayers’ pick up a greater share of bad student debt and home mortgages. Keep an eye out for an detailed email survey from Rep. Murphy and cast your vote in support of, or against, these proposals.

To share your thoughts with Congressman Murphy, please click here.

Murphy Leads Floor Debate on Energy/Infrastructure Plan

With Americans sending more than one billion dollars to foreign nations every day for oil, Rep. Murphy and the House Bipartisan Energy Working Group have been advancing a plan to move the country towards energy independence and leverage America’s energy resources to put the country back to work.

Energy = Jobs; topic of floor debate

On Tuesday, their plan took center stage on the floor of the House of Representatives when Rep. Murphy led a collegial and bipartisan debate on H.R. 1861, The Infrastructure Jobs and Energy Independence Act (click here to watch the floor debate). Legislators from California, Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia came to the discussion in praise of HR 1861.

Rep Murphy, in comments echoed by his colleagues, noted that the group had found common ground on a policy that creates jobs in America and meets the nation’s growing energy needs. With worldwide energy demand expected to grow over 50% by 2035, the United States will continue to need fossil fuels. It would be better for the economy, said Rep. Murphy, to use America’s resources rather than import energy from overseas. Those opposed to developing a national energy strategy, said several participants, were in essence endorsing the status quo where Americans pay more than $3.50 a gallon for oil from places like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and OPEC.

OPEC member nations like Iran then use American oil money to finance the construction of nuclear weapons and improvised explosive devices used against American soldiers. Murphy, who serves as a Lt. Commander in the US Navy Reserves on the TBI/PTSD unit at Bethesda, has repeatedly said that this fact alone should be motivation enough to wean our country off foreign oil. But, said Murphy, those who want to block the use of our own oil reserves are unrealistic and unnecessary. Fossil and bio fuel consumption will rise from 18.8 million to 30 million barrels per day by 2035, according to the Energy Information Administration. Oil will be needed for transportation, manufacturing, plastics, and chemical development and is not inherently environmentally "unfriendly" when recovered using modern methods.

Another benefit of HR 1861 is that it would launch a building boom in the United States by opening the door to the safe, responsible expansion of energy production off our coasts, which are estimated to contain more than 115 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The legislation would generate 1.2 million new jobs annually and $8 trillion in economic activity.

“It is not something we can turn our back one. It’s something we need to recognize as a treasure out there that we can use not only to stop sending our money overseas, but also to develop American jobs,” said Rep. Murphy.

A key component to the Murphy bill is its massive investments to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Twenty percent of the new oil royalty and leasing revenue would be invested in fixing our roads, highways, bridges, and locks/dams along the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers, which are responsible for shipping coal and steel made in the region across the country.

These revenues for infrastructure repair are needed more than ever as groups like the American Society of Civil Engineers report more than $2 trillion is needed in the next five years to bring the nation’s infrastructure to a state of good repair. HR 1861 is especially timely as Congress works on a long-term transportation bill. Declining revenues from the 18.4 cents per gallon gasoline tax have left an $8 billion annual hole in the Highway Trust Fund, which is a federal account financing public works projects. As policymakers seek ways to pay for infrastructure repair without higher taxes, HR 1861 presents a novel solution.

In a September speech before the Economic Club of Washington, DC, Speaker Boehner said energy and transportation were naturally linked: “As we develop new sources of American energy, we’re going to need modern infrastructure to bring that energy to the market, ” said the Speaker.

But first, according to Boehner, Congress and the Administration must remove the government barriers hindering energy development. Over 97% of 1.76 billion acres of federal land offshore are not leased. And in three years time, the federal government has gone from collecting $10 billion in offshore lease sales to zero dollars this year.

Rep. Murphy also noted the enormous possibilities of expanded energy production coupled with safe development of the Marcellus Shale.

The gas from the Marcellus “is a tiny, tiny fraction of what we're talking about in the coastal areas that we will drill in a responsible way and use to create American jobs. With the many millions of Americans out of work who want to work and who want good-paying jobs, we know one of the greatest threats to our country right now is poverty. The government can't provide all of those. We can let the private sector grow, and we can let these jobs come through, so we begin to work on these many areas of rebuilding America.”

As the legislators concluded the session, Murphy said he hoped there would be greater coverage by the mainstream press of a policy supported by legislators on both sides of the aisle.

Here are “members actually coming together with a common plan and a common goal to say we recognize we need jobs, we need to clean up our environment, we need to have an energy source, we need to do this without debt.”

To share your thoughts on energy independence with Congressman Murphy, please click here.