Open enrollment ends in less than four weeks from today for people who need their coverage to continue in January, like cancer patients or those with expensive prescription drug costs.
Step two is to address why Americans are in this predicament in the first place.
That means reining in insurance company abuses across the health care system, not just for people who buy health insurance on their own.
It means cracking down on middlemen who are skimming off the top of every single health expense.
And it means taking on real fraudsters like unscrupulous brokers or sophisticated corporate scammers who built Medicare for billions each year.
My own view, and I've looked at it especially in the last few weeks, is there is no way for Congress to put together a proposal in the next couple of weeks that's going to help people in January.
Just can't be done.
A clean extension this year is the bare minimum of what's necessary.
If Republicans are ready to have the debate about what comes next, Democrats will say, we have been waiting for it.
We're ready to go.
In the last several weeks, Republicans expressed a sudden willingness to take on big insurance.
Now, I've been working on these issues for quite some time, and I don't see any evidence of past history of Republicans taking on the big insurance companies.
So as we start this discussion, put me down as a bit skeptical.
Now, if they are serious, serious about taking on the crooks that dominate big insurance, like United Healthcare, I'm all in.
In my view, that starts with a laser focus on lower costs for consumers, going after fraud where it truly exists, and cracking down on middlemen.
The fact is, as we begin this debate, there is only one tough law on the books that really plays hardball with the insurance companies.
And I'm proud to be able to say this morning I'm the author of it.
It was a bill that dealt with the gaps in Medicare called Medigap.
And when we started, seniors were getting ripped off every which way.
They'd have fast-talking salespeople come to their house and often sell them eight, ten, twelve policies that weren't worth the paper they were written on.
Weren't worth the paper they were written on.
So I had seen this when I was director of the Great Panthers, but when I came to the Congress, I said, let's do something about it.
And we played hardball with the insurance companies, and now there's something that protects consumers and it protects the industry.
So if you're serious about taking on big insurance companies, we'll have plenty to talk about.
But I will tell you, I think that law is a logical foundation for addressing the health care challenges of our time.
A couple other quick points.
First, Republicans say the Affordable Care Act is all about fraud.
The facts don't show that, but my view on that has always been any fraud is too much fraud.
So in this Congress, I introduced a bill to rein in abusive practices by insurance brokers, like switching patients' plans without their permission.
I thought we were going to get a bunch of Republicans.
A lot of talk about fraud.
The bill today is in the hopper.
No Republicans want to fight fraud with us.
If Republicans are serious about helping patients get affordable health care, let's get serious about those kinds of frauds.
Let me wrap up with a couple of points with respect to the Republican ideas I've seen floated in the paper, particularly ideas related to tax-preferred savings accounts.
There is no question that these bills can be a useful tool for very wealthy people.
There's no doubt about it.
But I don't see it as a comprehensive health insurance opportunity for someone like my friend Mr. Armitage.
Republicans make the claim that their ideas are going to deliver less money to insurance companies and more money to consumers.
So our investigators spent the weekend looking under the hood.
And what we found is the number one administrator of these accounts is United Health Group and their subsidiary, Optum.
Yet again, the big insurance companies have found a new way to profit off the system while lurking in the shadows.
So these proposals right now have an awful lot of Trojan horse in them for big insurance.
And they don't look to me like they're going to help Bartley and Carla.
And my own sense is let's be on the lookout for somebody who wants to send a few thousand dollars to Americans and say that's going to take care of your health care and you can have that rather than something that's going to help you pay for serious illnesses like cancer.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter a minority report on these tax schemes into the record.
Finally, there are a couple of other things we have to watch for.
The very vulnerable people need a small dollar premium.
Republicans have not been supportive of that.
And finally, Republicans continue to raise additional anti-abortion restrictions that will pave the way for a de facto national abortion ban by inserting hide language into the tax code of America for the first time.
And I want to make the point now very clearly that on our watch, on this side of the dais, that's not going to happen.
So there's a lot to do, but it's urgent business to pass a straight extension now so that Mr. Armitage and people like him can get some help.
After that's done, I will be first in line to talk about bipartisan efforts to improve Americans' health care at a lower cost, take on middlemen, rein in abuses of insurance companies.
And I close, Mr. Chairman, as you and I have talked about and I've been interested in following up.
I disagree completely, almost completely, with your characterization of the differences between us, but we will get into those and I hope we get to constructive engagement on these issues.