Even only a few days into each January, most of us know the difference between realistic New Years' resolutions and those that will be quickly ignored. For example, I expect I will be able to bring my lunch into the office more often this year, but I won't hold my breath about turning that great idea for a book into a written draft anytime soon. For all our best hopes, some improvements are simply unattainable without much bigger changes.
Frustratingly, the analogy holds for Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican leadership in the House. Instead of bringing Members of Congress from both parties and all parts of the country together to get America's business done, Speaker Ryan has chosen to begin 2016 with yet another attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Worse, he has chosen to add another attack against Planned Parenthood and the funding they receive to serve economically vulnerable women.
Last year saw some important breakthroughs towards returning Congress to what it ought to be: Democrats and Republicans worked together on several pieces of legislation that ultimately became law. Without abandoning their principles or beliefs, both sides worked to find common ground and get the country's business done. Just last month, Speaker Ryan ended 2015 by closing a deal on funding government agencies through the rest of the fiscal year. That deal earned broad, bipartisan support -- including from me -- for good reason, and I wish we were building on this promising record of success.
Instead, House Republican leaders are returning to the same exasperating political attacks that have defined Congress for the last several years. These efforts to undermine health care reform and attack women's right to access reproductive health care services are fundamentally wrong and prevent Congress from working on the priorities that Americans actually want their leaders to work on.
Despite endless political attacks and some start-up challenges, the Affordable Care Act continues to deliver health coverage for millions of Americans who lacked it before. Young people can stay on their parents' health insurance plans through age 26, people who don't receive insurance through their jobs now have multiple plan options and can earn tax credits depending on their income, and seniors are no longer on the hook for the costs of the prescription drug "donut hole" thanks to the progress the Affordable Care Act has made.
Planned Parenthood's work is similarly compelling. More than three million patients each year get access to cancer screenings, well-woman doctor visits, and a complete set of reproductive health care services. Planned Parenthood is unique in its ability to serve so many women from all walks of life across the country. Their medical professionals and volunteers offer these services despite constant threats and repeated violent attacks, including the recent shooting at a clinic in Colorado Springs, CO.
Undoing health care reform and defunding Planned Parenthood are both bad policy choices that the American people do not support and President Obama will never allow. But this hasn't stopped Speaker Ryan and House Republicans from making this their first work of 2016. It is a sad step in the wrong direction to begin the New Year.
Like a resolution that has little hope of being achieved, these political gambits will look wrong for the country and foolish in hindsight. I only hope my colleagues choose to spend the rest of 2016 more productively. The American people need their business done, and a year would be a terrible thing to waste.