[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 30 (Thursday, March 4, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1153-H1154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE SUMMIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H1154]]

  Mr. McCOTTER. We are now a week removed from the President's 
celebrated health care summit, and we're a day removed from the 
President's press conference regarding moving ahead on the health care 
bill despite the wishes of the American people. Prior to the summit, 
which I referred to as the Shamwow Summit, I was one of the voices 
urging the Republicans not attend unless the President decided to start 
from scratch and find a principled basis for compromise amongst both 
sides. That principled basis was not found, and the principled divide 
remains.
  The House and Senate Republicans went into the summit and they 
engaged admirably and honestly in the cause of putting forward 
Republican solutions to health care. Yet, what we found was that 
afterwards the President has decided to arbitrarily negotiate with 
himself what he purports to be a bipartisan compromise bill, one which 
magically has been obtained without the consent of the minority party.
  As succinctly summarized by Mr. Charles Krauthammer yesterday, the 
summit was a Shamwow Summit, and the good faith of those Republicans in 
the room is now currently being used in a political charade upon the 
people to prepare them for the proposition that a bipartisan health 
care bill is before them. I quote Mr. Krauthammer: ``But they,'' the 
administration, ``wanted to present it to the American citizenry as 
having tried to reach out. That's why you had the charade of the summit 
last week, 7 hours of discussion, when it was already pre-cooked that 
that wouldn't change anything. But that's part of the deal. He,'' the 
President, ``wants to appear to be offering to incorporate Republican 
proposals. And now the pivot, which we had today.''
  It is important as the health care debate continues that we not lose 
sight of the principled divide between the two sides. On the one hand, 
the Democratic majority wants to have government-run, bureaucrat-
dictated health care. On the other, the Republican Party wants to have 
free-market, patient-centered wellness. No amount of taking Republican 
proposals and sprinkling them onto the faulty premise of a government-
run bill will make it bipartisan or will make the Republican proposals 
effectual, as, contrarily, we will be taking the Democrat proposals and 
putting them on to a free-market, patient-centered wellness bill. It is 
a principled divide, one which Abraham Lincoln reminds us: important 
principles must remain flexible. In this instance, the bridge between 
the two parties has not been established and the divide remains.
  Also within this debate I think it is important to point out a second 
important aspect. This is not merely about the money. It is about the 
liberty. We can all talk about costs. We can all talk about coverage. 
In my view, the current health bill would have a catastrophic impact 
upon the fiscal condition of the United States, which is already 
tenuous at best. It is about the American people wanting to make sure 
they retain these decisions in their hands and that the forces that we 
see around us throughout the communication and innovation revolutions 
that empower them to make their own decisions every day at a greater 
extent than at any time in human history remain in their own hands 
rather than those of a government bureaucrat.
  This is not mere supposition on my part. I cite two recent poll 
numbers. Referring to the Rasmussen report, only 21 percent of United 
States citizens believe that this government has their consent. I cite 
a second sobering statistic: according to CNN, 56 percent of Americans 
believe the Federal Government is a threat to the freedom of ordinary 
citizens.
  As this health care debate proceeds forward despite the wishes of the 
American people, we are not only endangering their health care, we are 
endangering and jeopardizing their faith in their representative 
institutions, in their belief that this is a government of the 
sovereign people.
  So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I again point out that there is a 
principled divide between the two parties: one wants government-run, 
bureaucrat-dictated health care; one wants free-market, patient-
centered wellness. As we move toward the former, the American people's 
faith in their representative institutions will be continually eroded 
as they watch in obstinate insistence by this majority and by this 
administration to pass a health care bill that the American people have 
said they do not want.

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