Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander M. Levin (D-MI) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D‐MT), along with Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (D-MI), Finance Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R‐IA), and Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) introduced legislation today to help speed Haiti’s economic recovery following the devastating January earthquake that shattered the… Read more

Co-chairmen Bowles and Simpson, fellow members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform… We’ve heard from a number of people this morning…the President, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Director Orszag, former CBO directors, other members of the commission…and I know we will hear from more in the weeks and months ahead. The problem is obvious: we simply… Read more

Today we return to the issue of disability backlogs, about which the Ways and Means Committee has held now seven hearings – in whole or in part – during the past three years. Compared with the level in 2008, the past two years have seen an added $3.5 billion spent on Social Security administrative costs.  That’s an increase of over 35 percent.  A significant share of that new… Read more

  Good afternoon.      Reducing disability claims backlogs is critically important and today’s hearing provides us with the opportunity to assess the progress Social Security is making, most especially after receiving an additional $500 million in stimulus funding to address the backlogs. While there can be no doubt that these are challenging times for our constituents… Read more

Not so long ago, President Obama proclaimed, “If any bill arrives from Congress that is not controlling costs, that’s not a bill I can support. It’s going to have to control costs.” Republicans concur with President Obama’s assessment that reducing health care costs should be the primary goal.  Unfortunately, just one month after Democrats enacted their $1 trillion overhaul of the… Read more

Washington, DC – Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI) and Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Wally Herger (R-CA) today released the following statements in reaction to the analysis of the Democrats’ health care law from the nonpartisan experts at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS): CAMP: “This report confirms Americans' worst fears about the health care… Read more

Last night, the nonpartisan, independent actuaries at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released an analysis of the newly enacted Democrat health care overhaul.  Among its many troubling findings, the report concludes that national health care costs will increase significantly over the next decade under the new law.  Below is a… Read more

Our Democrat colleagues began this Congress promising to spend $1 trillion and create 3.7 million jobs.  Vice President Biden said, without irony, “we gotta go spend money to keep from going bankrupt.”  Despite those assurances, we have lost 3 million jobs and amassed mountains of debt.  Just last week, to cover up the failure of their stimulus, the Administration released a report… Read more

Washington, DC – Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI) commented on today’s analysis released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimating that in 2016 more than half of the 3.9 million Americans who will be forced to pay the Democrats’ new tax for not having government-approved health insurance will have incomes that are low enough to qualify for premium… Read more

Today, the New York Times reports Democrats are scrambling to prevent the predicted health insurance premium increases that are coming for millions of families as a result of their big government health care overhaul.  Just one month after becoming law, Democrats, “fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years,” are attempting to “fix” the new law that they… Read more