[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1641-H1647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2015
HEALTH CARE REFORM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Fleming) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, I am going to be starting this hour on
behalf of my colleagues from the GOP Doctors Caucus. Congressmen and
Drs. Murphy and Gingrey are our two cochairmen. We make up a group of
10 M.D.s and 4 other professional health care workers, including a
dentist, a psychologist, an optometrist. We have been meeting on a very
regular basis throughout this debate. Perhaps this weekend we will have
a culmination of quite a debate. And what a debate it has been all
year.
As I tell folks often, I ran in my election in 2008, my first
election, on health care reform. I am a physician, a family physician
of 30 years. I have enjoyed the practice of medicine. I still practice
medicine when I go back to my district. And for this 30-year period I
have learned a lot about the economics of health care, things that are
so important. I have been through all phases. In the early days of
Medicare, when we didn't have a lot of the restrictions and restraints
that we have today; during the HMO days, where we had capitated care
and the so-called gatekeeper; during the days when the CLIA laws came
out that more or less outlawed laboratories for doctors' offices; of
course the SGR days, sustained growth rate that we have been dealing
with for the last 10 years. I have seen it all, and so have my
colleagues. In fact, among us we have over 400 years of clinical
experience. I would include our two physicians from the Senate in that
group.
What I want to talk about this evening is a little bit of background,
and also we will kind of get into where we are with the latest
situation. One of the observations that I made early in my practice was
that oftentimes economics actually controlled the decision-making more
than the actual health care itself.
I will give you a good example. I had a patient who required monthly
blood tests to check his clotting factor because he was on anticlotting
drugs because of chronic deep venous thrombosis. And I could not for
the life of me get him to get those blood tests on a regular basis, not
because he was afraid of needles, but simply he didn't want to pay the
price. However, once we were brought under an HMO, health maintenance
organization, and all of a sudden he didn't have nearly the out-of-
pocket expenses that he would have had, not only did he want to have
the blood tests, but he wanted to have many other tests as well, things
far beyond anything that I could conceive would be a benefit to him. So
for him it was a value issue. Since he wasn't paying and somebody else
was paying, well, let's utilize as much as we can so I get my money's
worth for what I am getting.
One of the things I like to tell people when I speak to groups is
think of health care consumption like a credit card. If I were to give
you a credit card that has a limit of $10,000 on it and I said to you,
buy whatever you need, but nothing that you just want. I often ask the
crowd, ``What would you buy?'' And of course people come back with,
well, I would buy probably a new shotgun to go hunting, or camo, or
perhaps some physical fitness equipment, or a treadmill, something of
that nature. Things that maybe I am not willing to pay out of pocket
for, but if it's your money, then I'm willing to pay it.
This, Mr. Speaker, is really the core of the problem when it comes to
cost. There are two areas of our economy in which cost has gone up more
rapidly than inflation. One is education and the other is health care.
And it just happens that those are the two areas in which a third
party, in the case of education it is the government who pays for that,
and in the case of health care it is both government and private
insurance that pays the main balance of the bills.
So from that I have observed that if ever we are going to deal with
increasing coverage, which is really what this is all about, how do we
increase coverage, in order to do that we are going to have to find a
way to lower the cost. I have agreement among all of my colleagues on
the Republican side to just that. In order to have more coverage, we
have got to lower the cost. And we have to do it fundamentally.
This bill that is before us that we may vote on within the next 3
days, it has a lot of things in it. It has 3,000 pages, it has over a
hundred mandates and boards. It has three specific boards of unelected
bureaucrats who make decisions about what doctors are going to be paid,
what is going to be in your insurance policy, many things about your
life that you would otherwise have control of. But the one thing it
does not do, Mr. Speaker, is it does not address cost.
And so I can say to you that fundamentally if we are going to at some
point in time address cost in health care, there is one of two ways:
either we look at it on the doctor-patient level, where the doctor and
the patient, who make the majority of decisions that impact cost, we
either give them incentives and we also give them some responsibility,
some accountability for cost, in which case if that cost is lowered as
a result of accountability for them, then it lowers it for the entire
system. That has been proven to work time after time.
For instance, as soon as health care insurance began to cover more
and more out-of-pocket expenses, we began to see over the years the
cost of insurance going up far faster than the inflation rate. In
recent years, we have come up with a tool to counteract that,
[[Page H1642]]
and that is health savings accounts. I instituted that with my small
businesses, which are apart from my medical practice, approximately 6
years ago. And it was considered to be sort of revolutionary. And there
was a little angst among employees, what is this going to be like?
Because our deductible is going to go up. But I committed to them that
the incremental increase in what the policy costs would be, I am going
to put it in their tax-free account which they can use for any health
care purchase they like.
Despite their reticence at first, they quickly came on because what
they found is that now instead of being free utilizers of health care
and running costs up because it's a use-it-or-lose-it proposition, now
they have money in the bank; and if they make good, wise, savvy
consumer decisions, they can choose generic drugs instead of brand name
and save hundreds of dollars. They can shop around costs for certain
procedures, certain doctors. It works very effectively. In fact, I
would love to see that in health care reform at some point. It is not
contained in this bill.
We could even do that for Medicare and for Medicaid, put money in the
bank on their behalf. Not out of pocket, mind you, but it is the
insurance money or the Medicare money that goes in there to be spent on
their behalf. Because if they are saving money for themselves, they are
saving it for the system at large.
What we are going to see here with this bill if it comes to law is
just the opposite. Nothing to commit the doctor and the patient into
controlling cost. In fact, in many ways it lowers the out-of-pocket
expenses to a point where the patient behavior, the consumer behavior
is unaffected by cost. And yet the consumer and the doctor are making
those choices.
Now, there will be, of course, layers and layers and layers of
bureaucrats who will be controlling from Washington how things are
paid. No question about it. And they will be attempting to control
people's lives, what they eat, how they eat, what they weigh, whether
they smoke or whatever. But unfortunately, there is no way that
Washington, D.C. can micromanage human behavior. Attempts will be made
with this bill, there is no question about it, but it will not work.
So then there will have to be plan B. How will we save money? And
what we found in every case, whether it is Tennessee, which attempted
this some years ago, Massachusetts, which has attempted this much more
recently, Canada, the United Kingdom, most Western European countries,
Australia, every one of them, this is what has happened. The plan works
nicely at first. People get less out-of-pocket cost. They can go to the
doctor they want. Everything works beautifully. But then all of a
sudden the costs begin to explode and they go far beyond anything that
has been predicted or budgeted.
And then what happens? Somewhere costs have to be controlled. And how
do they do that? They do that through rationing and long lines. Every
single case. Just the other day TennCare cut its Medicaid visits from
unlimited down to eight visits a year. That is exactly the way it
happens every time. Massachusetts, they are way over what their budget
is. And as a result of that, they have come to a point now where they
are actually reaching out to the Federal Government to control that.
So just to kind of conclude this discussion about cost itself, either
you start with lowering costs by using commonsense methodologies of the
free market, with transparency and with turning the patient into a
savvy consumer who has all the choices before him or her and can make
the best choices for quality and for cost, therefore improving the
quality and lowering the cost, or you can go to a top-down, government-
run, government takeover system in which a Federal bureaucrat will be
walking with you every step of the way.
I have been joined here tonight by one of my colleagues, again as I
alluded to a little earlier, Congressman Dr. Phil Gingrey from Georgia,
a cochair of the GOP Doctors Caucus. In fact, it was his leadership
that led us here tonight for one of many doctor caucus discussions and
debates. He ran a little bit late because he had a tele-town hall back
to his district. But he has now joined us.
So I am going to yield to the gentleman, the obstetrician of many
years from Georgia.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my
colleague from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming, for not only yielding a little
time to me but also for being here on the floor to control the time.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, each side of the aisle gets a leadership
hour, and it seems that maybe our Democratic friends who had the
previous hour and only took 35 minutes came to the conclusion that the
less said the better about this health care bill. That seems to be the
way things have been going, Mr. Speaker, in regard to how much we know
about what is in the bill. We will be talking about that a good little
bit tonight. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, on our side of the aisle,
we've got a lot to say. I think the more said the better.
The American people need to know. They need to be informed. Indeed
they know already a lot, know enough to say, as 70 percent of them do,
that they don't want this bill. Not this bill. As Dr. Fleming said, Mr.
Speaker, I was doing a tele-town hall meeting to my constituents in the
11th of Georgia, northwest Georgia, the nine counties that I represent,
the 700,000 people, salt-of-the-earth folks, just as Dr. Fleming
represents the same kind of folks in Louisiana. Suffering folks,
unemployed folks, struggling folks.
I did a poll question on this tele-town hall call that probably went
out maybe to 25,000 households. And a lot of them were on the line and
listening and asking questions and staying in the queue for the whole
hour and 30 minutes, I think we went.
Mr. Speaker, the poll question was, if your greatest concern about
this bill, the so-called Patient Protection and Health Accountability
Act or whatever it is called, H.R. 3590, the Senate bill that is going
to be deemed passed if the Democratic majority has their way, what's
your greatest concern? If it's the economy, the effect that this bill
will have on the economy, push ``1'' on your keypad. If your greatest
concern is the effect it will have on your health or the health of your
immediate family, press ``2.'' If your number one concern about this
bill is the devastating effect that it will have on the Medicare
program and our senior citizens, you, your parents, your grandparents,
press ``3'' on the keypad. If your concern is all of the above, press
``4.''
Well, I am going to tell you, 65 percent of them, Representative
Fleming, 65 percent of them, Mr. Speaker, pressed ``4.'' That is what I
would have pressed, too. It was equal, 10, 12 percent equally divided
among the other three.
People are outraged, Mr. Speaker. It is just unbelievable to me.
Let's refer to the first slide, this poster that I have got to my
right, your left. What Americans Want. I wasn't surprised at all by the
poll that I took tonight because the American people have been saying
this for months and months. The first bullet point on the slide, 73
percent of Americans want Congress to start over on health care reform,
or if they are unwilling to do that, this is a situation where it's
better to do nothing. They don't believe we should do something even if
it's wrong. No, if it's wrong, do nothing. Second bullet point, 56
percent of people want the Congress to tackle health care reform on a
step-by-step basis, not a wholesale government takeover.
{time} 2030
Mr. Speaker, when Senator Lamar Alexander a couple weeks ago at the
Blair House went to the health care summit, when he could finally get a
word in edgewise after our President finished filibustering, said the
same thing. Said, Look, we can solve the problem. We can actually lower
the cost of health insurance and, indeed, the cost of health care if we
do it in an incremental, commonsense way.
And then when Coburn got to speak, Senator Coburn, Mr. Speaker, he
said, Mr. President, let me just make it brief here. I know you're not
going to give me a lot of time, and you're controlling the clock and
who gets to speak. And you took already twice the time that we did in
your opening statement. But that is okay. You're the President. But
give me a couple of minutes. I will make two points. One, let's
eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. And Dr. Coburn had some great
suggestions about that.
[[Page H1643]]
And then he went on to say--and, Mr. Speaker, this is almost
unbelievable to us, to the physicians that serve in this House of
Representatives, to the members of the GOP Doctor Caucus in the House
and to our physician friends, Dr. Coburn and Dr. Barrasso in the
Senate--the President said to the American Medical Society last summer,
at the annual meeting--they invited him to be the keynote speaker--and
when they asked, Mr. President, you want us to endorse, and the AMA
went on and did endorse based on the President's promise that there
would be reform of medical liability, so-called tort reform, ending
frivolous lawsuits and ending the necessity for doctors to protect
themselves and their practices by ordering all of these tons of tests,
expensive tests, sometimes even, Mr. Speaker, dangerous tests, just to
cover their back so that some slick expert witness in a court of law
wouldn't say that, oh, you know, you didn't order a fizzle phosphate
level on this patient? That's below the standard of care in Louisiana
or in Georgia, in Marietta or Athens. That is the kind of thing we're
dealing with.
And to just complete the slide, Mr. Speaker, I refer back to this
first poster, the last bullet point. Sixty percent of Americans think
the Slaughter solution is unfair. I'm going to let my colleagues, if
they want to--or maybe when they come back to me I will talk about
that--but there are other Members, other physician members, Mr.
Speaker, that are here; and I want to yield time to them.
The gentleman from Louisiana was so kind to control the time in my
absence. I yield back to him so that he can yield back to other
Members. And I yield back to my good friend, Dr. Fleming.
Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman. Great comments.
And my experience, Dr. Gingrey, is the same as yours. The teletown
halls that I have done on this subject in the last 6 months started out
that 85 percent of my constituents were against this. Now it's up to 92
percent. Unbelievable.
Let me just touch again on economics, and then I'm going to pitch
this back. We have been joined by Congressman Broun also from Georgia.
But first let me mention, let us talk about Medicare just for a
moment.
We hear the other side of the aisle continuing to complain that
you're seeing this catastrophic increase in insurance rates, private
insurance, and it has been going on for years. And, yes, it has been.
It has been faster than inflation. No question about it. But if you
look within that, what you find is that because Medicare pays well
below break-even for a physician or a hospital and Medicaid pays even
half of that, that you have tremendous cost shifting. So you have to
raise something; something is going to have to go up to offset the
costs that are not being paid.
So, Mr. Speaker, in light of all of that, what we have in this bill
is we're going to have a dramatic increase in Medicare and especially
in Medicaid which is going to make those rates go up, that is, private
insurance, even faster.
But let's look for a moment at what are the economics of Medicare in
this bill.
This bill, at least the version we think we are talking about this
evening, because we have not even seen the final draft of it and yet we
are soon to vote on it, where does it raise revenue? It raises revenue
first by taking a half trillion dollars out of Medicare. Speaker Pelosi
today said--the way she was asked, How do you do that? And her answer
was very simple: You get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse. We've had this
program for 40 years and nobody has been able to figure out how to get
any dollars out of fraud, waste, and abuse, much less a half a trillion
dollars. So I don't believe that is going to happen.
Number two, the $500 billion that we're talking about is earmarked to
extend the life of Medicare which is going to run out of money in 2017.
That is really 7 years from now. But it's also going to be used to help
subsidize private insurance.
The CBO wrote a letter last week saying, You're counting the same
half trillion dollars twice, and to get it, you've got to take it out
of something you can't take it out of. So really we're tripling down on
the same money, which gives us an error of $1 trillion.
So the economics, Mr. Speaker, of this are crazy. They're smoke and
mirrors. They don't add up, and there are many other parts of this that
we can get into as we go forward. But that is the fundamental problem,
as I talked before. Utilization is going to skyrocket, which is not
even measured for by the CBO. And then you've got the same dollars
counted not once, not twice, but three times.
So with that, I would like to welcome Dr. Broun, also a physician, a
fellow family physician from the great State of Georgia, and I yield to
the gentleman
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I've listened to you
talk about this economic game that they're playing. I call that zombie
economics because you have to be a dead man walking around with no soul
to believe the economic parameters and the games that the Democrats
have played with CBO.
And people need to understand that when CBO, Congressional Budget
Office, scores a bill, they can only score the bill according to the
parameters that whoever writes that bill give them to score it on.
So all of these things where you're having double counting of money,
it's just a good example of that zombie economics that the Democrats
utilize and force CBO to use in scoring the bill so it doesn't look as
bad as it really is going to be. And there is nothing about the marked
cuts in doctors' reimbursement, how much the government under Medicaid,
as well as Medicare, is going to be reimbursing the doctors.
And what's going to happen--and I think the American people need to
understand this very firmly--they may give a government insurance
policy card to people that they can stick in their pockets, but they're
not going to be able to find a doctor that will accept that card and
accept that insurance. So the American people need to understand that
the access to a doctor is actually going to go down, in my opinion. And
in fact, that card for many, many Americans is going to be as worthless
as a Confederate dollar was after the War Between the States. It's
going to be useless. We're going to have more people who have less
access to doctors, less access to care, if ObamaCare is passed.
Another thing that policy after policy has shown is that the American
people continue to overwhelmingly reject this government takeover of
health care. Yet Speaker Pelosi has declared that a government takeover
of health care should become the law of this land without even taking a
vote on the bill. Well, that is unconstitutional.
I, as well as, I know, Dr. Gingrey, as I know Dr. Fleming, carry a
copy of the Constitution. I believe in this document as it was intended
by our Founding Fathers. We have absolutely no constitutional authority
for the Federal Government to take over health care. None. We have no
constitutional authority to even do this deem and pass Slaughter rule.
Deem and pass. That sounds like an old western movie. Deem and pass.
The only people who are going to be ambushed are the American taxpayers
and small businesses in this country. That is exactly what's going to
happen. Deem and pass is being set up by our Democratic colleagues who
want to raid small business's coffers and people's coffers.
In fact, we've got a lot of taxes on small business. A lot of taxes
on individuals. The Ways and Means Committee just today has put out a
report on this bill. We hear from the President if you make $250,000
and above, you have to pay extra taxes for the bill. And anybody making
less than $250,000 will not be taxed. But the Ways and Means Committee
just today set out the parameters on the taxes. Half of the new
individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than
$66,150 for a family of four. Let me say that again: half of the
individual mandate taxes are going to fall on the shoulders--not of the
rich people; I don't think a family of four making $66,000 a year is
rich--but half of those individual mandate taxes are going to fall on
the shoulders of families making $66,000 a year or less.
And also the IRS is going to be markedly expanded. And, in fact, it's
going to be up to the IRS to get all of these new taxes.
[[Page H1644]]
And I have got a little slide here. Because the IRS is going to be
running ObamaCare. The IRS agents in this country are going to verify
whether you have acceptable health care coverage. Now, who determines
what's acceptable health care coverage? Well, it's a panel here in
Washington, D.C., that is going to mandate every single insurance
policy in this country.
So if you have health insurance today and you like it? Forget it.
Forget it. That is another distortion, something that is not true
that's been touted by our Democratic colleagues.
And the IRS agents in this country are going to be prying into your
health care insurance, into your life, to see if you have acceptable
coverage.
Also, the IRS is going to have to hire new agents to do all of this
new work that they're being given by ObamaCare: 16,500 new IRS agents.
There are going to be more audits of people's income taxes because the
IRS is going to be in charge of making sure that individuals have this
acceptable health care coverage that is mandated by the Federal
Government.
The IRS can even confiscate your tax refund. And the IRS can fine you
up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income, whichever is greater, if you
don't have the minimal, essential coverage. Again, the Federal
Government is going to determine what that minimal coverage is. So
forget your current insurance policy. The Federal Government is going
to mandate it.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield for a minute?
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Absolutely.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I appreciate my colleague for yielding
because the gentleman points out an accurate statement in regard to the
expansion of the IRS because there absolutely would be those that would
be going through with a fine-tooth comb every tax return. And we're not
too far from that date where people, if they don't put down and verify
that they have that health insurance policy--and the gentleman was
probably going to say this, but I will go ahead and say this--not just
that they have a health insurance policy, but the type of policy.
{time} 2045
In other words, a young person, a young, healthy person who exercises
and takes care of himself, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, runs
marathons, and so he wants a health insurance policy that he can
afford. He is just out of high school or just out of college. He is
paying back student loans, trying to buy a car, trying to save up to
get an engagement ring for his fiancee, whatever, paying for an
apartment, yet he wants to have coverage. He wants to have catastrophic
coverage, but he can't afford first dollar coverage, so he buys these
high deductible but very low monthly premium--probably one-fourth of
what the IRS and this bill is going to demand that they have. If he
doesn't have it, he is going to jail.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That's right.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. It's just unbelievable. And very quickly,
before yielding back to my colleague, I want to say this.
If we were in charge, Mr. Speaker, I think the three of us on the
floor right now, we would eliminate the IRS. We wouldn't add to them
and add to that bureaucracy. We would get rid of the IRS and the
Federal income tax, and we would replace that with a flat tax or a fair
tax, a national retail sales tax that our colleague from Georgia, John
Linder, has been such a strong proponent of.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank you for yielding back.
In fact, I want to point out something else that is going to happen
with this bill the way it's set up. The tax-writing committee, the Ways
and Means Committee, tells us an additional $10 billion is going to be
needed to pay for this marked expansion of the Internal Revenue
Service. And, Dr. Gingrey, I'm like you. I would like to totally get
rid of the Internal Revenue Service. You and many people know I have
been a very ardent supporter of the fair tax.
But it doesn't matter--well, it does matter how they get our taxes.
The bottom line is that we have just got to stop this outrageous
spending here in Washington, and we are going to increase spending of
the Internal Revenue Service by $10 billion.
But something else the American people need to know is: Guess who has
been left out? Guess who is not going to have all these mandates?
Illegal aliens. That's what our Democratic colleagues have put in
place. The illegal aliens in this country are going to get free
taxpayer-funded health insurance, and they are not going to get all
these fines. They are not going to be bothered by the Internal Revenue
Service. It's just the American citizens and legal residents in this
country that are going to be bothered by these folks.
Now, they are going to say, and I've heard them say over and over
again, illegal aliens can't get free government health insurance, but
Dr. Gingrey was in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Over and over
again, Dr. Gingrey and many others fought to make sure that illegal
aliens would not get free government health insurance by making the
Federal Government verify the citizenship and the legal presence of
these people here.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman would yield just for a
second, he may want to yield back to Dr. Fleming who is controlling the
time. It is our colleague from our great State of Georgia, Congressman
Nathan Deal, the ranking member on the Health Subcommittee of Energy
and Commerce where this bill, by the way, originated as H.R. 3200, Mr.
Speaker. We all remember that. But it was Congressman Deal, Nathan
Deal, 17 years, this is his 18th year, in fact, in this body, had the
amendment to stop that, to make sure that people had to give adequate
verification, just like they do for the Medicaid program in our States
and the SCHIP program. It's called PeachCare in Georgia. It was
Congressman Nathan Deal--who, by the way, I think is going to be the
next Governor of Georgia--who very strongly advocated for that. But
unfortunately, as all Republican amendments, if they get heard at all,
they get voted down on straight party lines, good commonsense
amendments.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I want to go to Congressman Deal, too. He has
been fighting for a long time to stop this birthright citizenship here
in this Nation, which is actually a ruling by the Federal court system.
It is an improper ruling on the 14th Amendment. It's an
unconstitutional, actually, ruling on the 14th Amendment that we're
giving birthright citizenship to these children who are born to illegal
aliens in this country, and they are going to go on the Medicaid
system. And we're going to have a magnet, a magnet to draw more of
those illegal aliens in this country because they are going to get free
government health care because of this ObamaCare bill that we're going
to be voting on just in the next day or two.
I just want to say before I yield back, Congressman Nathan Deal, I
hope he is our next Governor, and he has been right on the front line
fighting this illegal alien problem that we have in this country. He
lives in Gainesville, Georgia, and he has seen them there in Hall
County, Georgia, how it's been a tremendous drain on the local economy
and the local government for goods and services and things. And so he
has been an ardent, ardent fighter to try to make these illegal aliens,
who are criminals, to go home. Now we are going to give them free
health care.
And the American people need to just say ``no'' to our Democratic
colleagues, because it's just going to be disastrous. We are going to
have an influx of illegal aliens just to come and have those anchor
babies to get on Medicaid. We've already seen that happening, and that
is one reason Nathan Deal has been doing it.
I yield back to Dr. Fleming.
Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman. I thank both gentlemen from
Georgia for your comments and, again, your many years of experience as
physicians.
I would like to change the topic slightly, and that is to talk about
process for a moment. Now, what I would really describe, this situation
is one in which, as this debate continued, Mr. Speaker, as this debate
continued through the year, it began to lose momentum almost
immediately. We began to see the polls. At first, it was 50/50. Half
America wanted this health care reform but didn't know much about it,
the other half really didn't want it.
As this debate has gone on and on and on and the news gets out, the
acceptance of this has dropped. In fact,
[[Page H1645]]
today it is at its lowest point that it's been. I think we are up to
now 55 percent of Americans are against it and down in the 30s are
actually for it. In fact, a CNN poll--and I'm sure that CNN wouldn't be
considered as an extreme right-wing media outlet--shows that--they
asked a question a little different way. What should we do with this
bill? Seventy-five percent of Americans said either scrap it altogether
and forget about it or start over again. And that's exactly where we
are. We would like to start over again and pass commonsense reforms
without the government takeover of health care.
Well, anyway, as this thing has been losing steam, it has caused more
and more difficulty for the other side of the aisle to get things
passed, vote after vote. And we saw that there was such a reaction
across the country that our good friend, Scott Brown, was elected to,
believe it or not, Senator Kennedy's seat, something that no one could
have imagined this time a year ago. And while he is an excellent
candidate, something else had to be in play there, and we know what it
is, and that is health care. Also, through the process to get it
through the Senate, even with the 60 votes that already were there, it
took special deals. I will just name them real quickly.
The Louisiana purchase; $300 million to go to my State of Louisiana,
which would seem ostensibly to be a good thing, but by signing this
bill, the President would actually cause costs that would be far
greater than the $300 million that we would receive. So the net result
is money lost, not money gained.
The Nebraska kickback, which everyone has hated. And, in fact, what
it is going to do is probably it will pass in this reconciliation, if
it is passed, will actually extend the same benefit to all States which
is going to drive up taxes and cost.
A $10 million earmark for a Connecticut hospital for Chris Dodd, our
Senator, and certainly Gator aid, where every State will lose its
Medicare Advantage except for the State of Florida.
But if that wasn't enough, Mr. Speaker, now that we're in the House,
we've got another situation. We're talking about reconciliation; that
is, instead of sending it to the Senate in the final form and have it
passed and get past the cloture rules over there, they want to slide it
in under reconciliation, a mere 51 votes. But all of that being as bad
as it is, now we're talking about the Slaughter solution.
And I will pitch back to my friend, Dr. Broun, for his comments.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I appreciate your
yielding.
In fact, I've wondered, and I'm sure the American people are
wondering, why is it that Democrats don't want to have a vote on a
bill? Well, you're just telling them right now today in this Special
Order why the Democrats don't want to have a vote on the bill--because
they don't want to face the fact. They don't want to face the voters
that they are doing all these special deals, sweetheart deals.
You didn't mention the ones in there for the unions on their Cadillac
plans. The unions have just cut a special deal, too, with the
administration, with the leadership here in Washington. But why
wouldn't they want an up-or-down vote? We've heard the President say
over and over again this should have an up-or-down vote.
Well, just today, just today, as my colleagues know, the Democrats
voted down, through a procedural method, voted down--what we are trying
to do is to have an up-or-down vote on the bill, but they don't want
their yeas and nays to be recorded as is required by the Constitution
of the United States. Article 1, section 7, the second paragraph says
that for a bill to be passed into law, it has to be voted on by both
Houses. It has to be the very same bill, and then it has to be signed
by the President or a veto has to be overridden, and the yeas and nays
must be recorded. So it is totally unconstitutional what the leadership
is doing.
And I have one question for the Speaker. If Democrats are confident
that the American people want this new multitrillion dollar program,
why are they avoiding a simple up-or-down vote? Well, the simple truth
is that the House Democrats just don't want that because they don't
want to face the voters. They don't want to face their constituents
about these special deals. They don't want to face the zombi economics
that they're using. But the jig is up for the Democrats trying to pull
the wool over the eyes of Americans, because Americans get it. They
understand that this is going to be disastrous.
As I mentioned before, we are going to have costs go out of the roof
for everybody. And, in fact, experts tell us that people who have
private insurance, private insurance today for a family, their
insurance premiums are going to go up $2,100 a year because of
ObamaCare if this is passed into law.
Mr. FLEMING. Those are all great. I appreciate your adding some of
the things I left out. This list is getting so long of all the special
deals. And the way that the Democrats are attempting to bypass the
Constitution is just really unbelievable, and it's making Americans
awfully mad. The emails I'm getting are really showing me either people
are extremely mad or extremely terrified.
Now I would like to turn to the other gentleman from Georgia, Dr.
Gingrey, and see, do you have other comments about the process?
And by the way, I must say that the President, Nancy Pelosi, and even
Harry Reid say the process doesn't count, that the American people
don't care about the process, only the finished product. Well, that
tells me that the ends justify the means, and I just don't agree with
that.
What say you, sir?
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding to me.
I agree with my colleagues that process does matter. We, physician
Members in particular, are concerned mostly about the policy, and we
are emphasizing policy tonight, and we will continue to do that. But
the American people definitely care about process.
I want to go back, Mr. Speaker, to what my colleague from Georgia was
just saying in regard to the insurance premiums are going to go up for
those in the private market. There is no question about that. The CBO
has said as much. And, Mr. Speaker, you wonder, maybe the American
people wonder, if that's true, if the whole purpose of this reform plan
was to lower the cost of insurance so more of the uninsured would have
insurance, those that are not eligible for Medicaid and just don't
realize it, that we have to lower the cost or they can't, we've wasted
our time. We've spent $1 trillion and we have accomplished nothing.
But, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that this may be intentional. This
may, indeed, be intentional. If what you want, Mr. Speaker, ultimately
is a socialized national health insurance system like other countries
have, where rationing is commonplace and denial is commonplace and old
people get thrown under the bus, if that is ultimately what you want,
you want the Federal Government, and your mindset, your mentality is
more government is better government, more control is better because
the people are too dumb to run their own lives so we want to take over,
we want to take over one-sixth of the economy, so you drive up the cost
of health insurance in the 40 percent of the market that's private,
eventually there is no private market. And everybody morphs into these
public plans. That's why the Democratic majority insisted on a public
option. They didn't get it, but that's coming next. That's coming next.
And I will yield back to the gentleman controlling the time to yield
to Dr. Broun.
{time} 2100
Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. Let me add a couple points and then I will
yield to the other gentleman.
You know, we have got two bills right now. We have the Senate bill
which has all of these ugly, sleazy deals in them that even the Members
on the other side don't want their fingerprints on, and that is why we
are going through this deemed process, because they want to pass it
without voting for it. Crazy.
Anyway, the reconciliation part, the so-called correcting bill that
they are wanting to vote on is going to do this: It is going to
increase taxes by $155.8 billion on top of the Senate bill. So it is
increasing taxes. It also takes over the student loan program. So what?
[[Page H1646]]
Well, this is the so-what. It is a job killer. It is going to take all
the profits from the private industries that have been loaning this
money, it is going to unemploy 35,000 Americans, and it is going to
skim that profit to dump into this to go down the sinkhole.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. On this point about the job killer, this
student loan--Federal Government, once again, the Federal Government
taking over the student loan program. Well, I don't know. Ten, 15 years
ago they took over half of it, and that wasn't enough. Although that
killed about 50,000 jobs, I say to my colleague from Louisiana, Dr.
Fleming. And now, as he points out, now they want it all, and that is
going to kill another 30,000.
So, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about 80,000 jobs in the private
market so that the Federal Government can have a 4-percent spread,
borrowing money at 2.5 percent, lending it out to the students at 6.5
percent, 7 percent, and taking in $60 billion so this majority party
can spend it on more social welfare programs. That is what we are
talking about. And I yield back to my colleague.
Mr. FLEMING. Reclaiming my time. And then one other deal that just
slipped in on the House side is the North Dakota deal. There are carve-
outs there.
So the sweet deals have not stopped even though the Senate bill is
complete. I understand that there have been in fact ambassadorships,
like an ambassadorship to NATO has been offered for a ``yes'' vote. We
have Members of Congress being carted around in Air Force One and
certainly asked out to dinner and all sorts of things like that.
Look, this is one-sixth of the economy. This is the future of our
Nation for a century. Are we so lack of character that we are willing
to sell our souls for just about nothing? I yield to the gentleman from
Georgia.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank you, Dr. Fleming, for yielding. We are
here talking tonight amongst ourselves during this Special Order period
that Dr. Fleming is controlling--very well, thank you--and I am just
honored to joining him and Dr. Gingrey here.
But the American people are asking, what can they do? They are
asking, is this a done deal? In fact, I have talked to a lot of people
not only in my district but around the State of Georgia and even some
from other States, and the American people are saying, ``What can we
do? Is this a done deal? Is this going to pass?''
I don't think it is a done deal. And it is up to the American people
whether it passes or not, because the Democrats don't want their
fingerprints on the Senate bill, they don't want their fingerprints on
all the increase in the Internal Revenue Service and the increased
taxes, the health care insurance police that is going to be put in
place. They don't want their fingerprints on the increased costs; in
fact, they are even denying the increased costs. Why? Because the
Democrats know this is a bum deal. They know that.
In fact, I have talked to just in the last 2 or 3 days several
Democrats, and I have been told by the Democrats that every one of them
know it is going to raise premiums. Every one of them know that it is
going to increase the cost of health care above doing nothing. Every
one of them know that this is a government takeover of the health care
system. And what do they do? They come down here and say we are in
favor of the big insurance companies.
I don't like the big insurance companies. As a medical doctor, I have
been fighting them through almost four decades of practicing medicine.
I been fighting them for my patients. But they know that.
And we hear the President say, well, if the American people
understood his plan, they would accept it and embrace it. Hogwash. The
American people do understand his plan, and they reject it
overwhelmingly. And I would yield back.
Mr. FLEMING. Reclaiming my time. I am sure that my other colleague
from Georgia has a few choice comments as well.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding, because I just happen to have a slide. I think my colleague
from Louisiana noticed that slide. Maybe my good friend from Athens
can't see it, but this is ``Notable Quotable.''
Look, Mr. Speaker, I respect the Speaker of the House of
Representatives. We all do, of course. And anybody can misspeak and
make a bad quote. But, gee, whiz, for the Speaker of the House to say--
here is the quote: ``We have to pass the bill so that you can find out
what is in it.'' I have got to repeat that for you, Mr. Speaker, in
case you didn't hear and my colleagues, both sides of the aisle. The
Speaker of the House just a couple, a few days ago. Here is the quote:
``We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.''
Now, that is why the American people are outraged. They know that.
2,700 pages, and then they come here with this reconciliation package.
And, oh, they are going to give us 72 hours to study it. And then, as
my friend from Georgia was talking about, the Scheme and Deem or the
Slaughter solution.
Mr. Speaker, I am telling you, the majority party, if they do that,
if they pass this bill, this Senate bill without really voting on it to
trick the American people so they don't have to go home and face the
irate voters, they are going to get slaughtered in November.
I yield back to the gentleman controlling the time.
Mr. FLEMING. Reclaiming my time. In the last few moments that we have
in our discussion, which I think has been a great discussion, and once
again I thank the gentlemen for joining me this evening.
You know, we are in the final hours of this, it would appear. And we
don't know if it is going to pass or not. I suspect that if the votes
were there, we would be voting on it today. So I do think that the
American people still have an opportunity to reach out to those who
have not committed, and even those who have.
You know, we don't have even one single Republican that has voted for
any of this except for one, and even he is not going to vote for it
this time.
So this is not a bipartisan bill except to the extent of its
opposition. We have the Republicans, we have a good group of Democrats,
and also particularly pro-life Democrats, and the American people. But,
unfortunately, we have a big enough group, a large enough group, if you
will, of Democrats who feel through their arrogance they can still
trump the American people and those others.
And, you know, when you are talking about monumental legislation, Mr.
Speaker, we are not talking about a small little bill that maybe it is
a financial bill and maybe there are some little deals that have to be
made in the back so that we can pull a couple more votes. We
are talking about a fundamental bill, perhaps the most important that
has been voted on in more than 40 years that affects every American in
the most intimate way. Yet we are in the situation with this where we
are still up to sleazy deals. Anyway we can get it done, even if you
hate the bill, get it done. We can fix it later. That is the craziest
thing I have ever heard of.
And I would be happy to yield to the gentleman, Dr. Broun.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, it is the craziest thing because they are
not going to fix taxpayer-funded abortions in reconciliation. We have
got, I think it is, 41 Democrats that claim to be pro-life. They have
whittled it down to 12. Those other 29 so-called pro-life Democrats
cannot ever, ever again claim to be pro-life, because if they vote for
this bill, they are going to be voting for taxpayers to fund killing
unborn children.
Mr. FLEMING. And if you would yield back for one moment. This will be
the biggest increase in abortions since Roe v. Wade. And I yield back.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. And it is going to be a big boom for Planned
Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in this country and
in the world. So those 29 pro-life Democrats can never, ever claim to
be pro-life again if they vote for the rule. If they vote for the rule,
they can never, ever claim to be pro-life again because they are voting
for abortion.
Also, the American people are smarter than what our Democratic
colleagues evidently give them credit for, because the American people
will know when we vote on the rule, which is what I think we are going
to see on Sunday, a vote on the rule, whenever it is. When we vote on
that rule, they are
[[Page H1647]]
going to be voting for the Senate bill with all the special deals, with
abortion funded by taxpayer dollars, for cutouts so the illegal aliens
won't be fined and taxed like American citizens will be, so that all of
the bad things that are in the Senate bill that the American public
overwhelmingly have rejected--when they vote for that rule, the
American people need to take note, because they are going to be voting
for the greatest government takeover of our economy ever in the history
of this Nation because they have put in place a mechanism to socialize
the health care system.
In the 1930s, the Socialist party of the United States said the
fastest way to destroy freedom in America, the fastest way to change
America from being a free Nation with free people into a Socialist
Nation with government control, central control from Washington, D.C.,
is a government takeover of the American health care system.
The American people need to contact their Democratic members and say:
``No. Or, we are going to say `no' to you.''
Mr. FLEMING. We have got only 1 or 2 minutes remaining, and I am
going to turn the remainder of this over to Dr. Gingrey.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. As we
conclude, I have got one last slide I want to share with my colleagues.
The title of it, the Slaughter solution. My colleagues have already
mentioned it. But it would indeed let Speaker Pelosi send the Senate
bill to President Obama without an up-or-down vote. It would just be
deemed passage when they vote for the rule.
Americans deserve an up-or-down vote. And listen to these quotes as
we conclude our hour.
President Obama: ``I believe Congress owes the American people a
final up-or-down vote.''
The Democratic National Committee chairman, his quote: ``There is
going to be a vote, and it's going to be an up-or-down vote. Everybody
is going to be up or down on the record and be accountable either for a
`yes' vote or a `no' vote.''
Have the intestinal fortitude, Mr. Speaker, to stand up and be
counted. Stand up and be counted. That is all we are asking. And I
yield back to the gentleman from Louisiana.
Mr. FLEMING. I thank you gentlemen for joining me this evening. I
thank our audience. This has been again another productive discussion
about health care. I ask that everyone going forward in the next 3 days
pray for us. And I yield to the gentleman.
Mr. BROUN of Georgia. One final word.
The American people can kill this bill by contacting their Democratic
Congressmen and saying ``no'' to this government takeover of health
care system that is going to ruin our economy.
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