[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 40 (Thursday, March 18, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1647-H1653]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2115
                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. We're going to continue during this hour to 
talk about health care, my colleagues in the previous hour: Mr. 
Speaker, Dr. John Fleming from Louisiana, a family practitioner of many 
years, with many years experience; Dr. Paul Broun, a family 
practitioner. A house-call doctor, one of the rare breeds of physicians 
in this country still willing to make those house calls; and indeed he 
continues to do it when he goes home to Athens and the 10th 
Congressional District, seeing patients out of the goodness of his 
heart, mostly.
  We talked about a lot of things. We want to continue this discussion 
because, Mr. Speaker, you just cannot say it all adequately, I don't 
think, in an hour. We have been blessed. The good Lord gave us this 
opportunity for another hour. We gratefully accept it. We'll continue 
to talk about it.
  The gentleman who was controlling the previous hour was talking about 
the magnitude, Mr. Speaker, of this bill. We're not talking about 
naming a post office or flags flying over the Capitol, for goodness 
sake. We are talking about one-sixth--one-sixth--$2.5 trillion of our 
overall economy in this country. One-sixth of it, the amount of money 
that's spent each year on health care. We're going to let the Federal 
Government take over that? I don't think so. My constituents say 
``no.'' In fact, they say, Heck no.
  This is, again, as Representative Fleming said, Mr. Speaker, this is 
not just a little old bill. Bills have varying degrees of significance 
and importance, but this one is life or death, Mr. Speaker. This is 
life or death. And we don't want, our patients don't want, our 
constituents don't want the government in control of that. They don't 
trust the government. I don't blame them, Mr. Speaker. Why should they 
when this government is $1.6 trillion worth of red ink in the last 
fiscal year and has already spent something like $650 billion of red 
ink in this fiscal year, and we're not even halfway through it. It is 
unbelievable.
  We're going to have a good time and try, Mr. Speaker, to enlighten 
our colleagues, to share our medical knowledge, maybe to show a poster 
or two. I think one of my colleagues has one up right now, so I'm going 
to quickly yield to the gentleman from Athens, Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I put up this slide 
here. People who have gone to school, as kids, in their basic civics 
class see the little cartoon with a bill. This is the bill. They have a 
little song that goes along with that cartoon that is kind of a catchy 
song. But under the Constitution, a bill to become law has to be voted 
upon. That's what article 1, section 7, paragraph 2 says. In fact, I 
think it's worth having a little civics lesson here.
  Article 1, section 7, which lays out all the parameters for Congress 
in the U.S. Constitution, article 1, section 7, the second paragraph, 
it says: Every bill--in fact, I encourage people to get the 
Constitution and read it. Because it wasn't written by lawyers. It's 
understandable. This contains the Constitution as well as the 
Declaration of Independence and every single amendment to the 
Constitution in this little booklet. It's not a thousand pages, it's 
not a hundred pages, it's not 2,700 pages that this abomination of 
ObamaCare is all about.
  Article 1, section 7, second paragraph: Every bill which shall have 
passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it 
becomes law, be presented to the President of the United States. If he 
approves it, he shall sign it. But if not, he shall return it with his 
objections to that House in which it shall have originated.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Would the gentleman yield for just a second?
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman 
yielding, because I'm following along with him and he's quoting the 
Constitution accurately. The gentleman, I think, said--of course he 
did--if he approve, he shall sign it. It's not: if he deem, he shall 
sign.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Not if he deems it.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I think it's important we point 
that out. Approve, not deem. I yield back.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Let's go further and see if the House can deem 
it. Deem and pass. Western movie. The only outlaws in this particular 
movie are those who want to take over the health care system in this 
country. They're going to ambush small business.
  But let's go on. Have a little civics lesson: He shall return it to 
the House where it originated, who shall enter the objections at large 
on their journal and proceed to reconsider it. This is how we overturn 
a veto: And if, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House 
agree to pass the bill, it should be sent, together with the 
objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be 
reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall 
become law. That's how a bill becomes law. That's how this guy becomes 
law. Both Houses pass the bill. Not deem it, but pass it.
  Let's go on. It says: But in all such cases--and this is extremely 
important that the American people understand this, Mr. Speaker--But in 
all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by the 
yeas and nays. Let me repeat that: The votes of both Houses shall be--
shall be--not may be,

[[Page H1648]]

not deemed--but shall be determined by the yeas and the nays. And the 
names of the persons--the names of the persons voting for and against 
the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If 
any bill shall not be returned by the President within 10 days--and it 
goes on talking about--well, let's finish that paragraph.
  If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 10 days, 
Sundays excepted, after it shall have been presented to him, the same 
shall be law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the 
Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it 
shall not become law. Period.

  That's the only way a bill can become law. That's the only way that 
the kids see that cartoon about: I am a bill, I am a bill. I'm not 
going to sing it. I wish I could sing it.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield back. Mr. 
Speaker, I'm going to ask the gentleman to yield his time back to me 
because the Lord knows we don't want to hear him sing. He's done a 
great job of reading the Constitution.
  We're pleased to be joined, Mr. Speaker, by another of our 
colleagues, the gentleman from Iowa. I'm of course speaking of my mom's 
favorite Member of the body. I hope Mom's watching, Mr. Speaker. Mom is 
92 years young, lives in Aiken, South, Carolina, in our good friend 
Gresham Barrett's district, or possibly Joe Wilson's, but my mom 
watches intently to what is going on up here, and she's a big fan of 
the gentleman from Iowa, Representative King. We're going to get to him 
in just a minute. Before I yield time to Representative King, I want to 
yield back to my friend from Louisiana.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my friend from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming, 
for being courageous in the first hour of speaking out against 
something that may purportedly--at least one of the Members of the 
other body who represents the State of Louisiana, who arranged for the 
Louisiana Purchase. Representative Fleming, Mr. Speaker, is mighty 
courageous to stand up here--he's from Louisiana as well--to say, 
That's not right. That's not right. That's not playing fair. That's 
giving one State an unfair advantage. It's not a level playing field.
  I yield back to my friend from Louisiana.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman, and once again the Chamber this 
evening is filled with gentlemen that I admire and I'm learning from 
here in my first term in Congress. I certainly thank each one of you 
for your leadership.
  I just want to hit one thing before we get back to the topic of the 
Constitution, which is so important, and the process. I listened some 
to the hour before last, the women. There was a women's leadership hour 
on the other side of the aisle. Attractive women, nice ladies. We see 
them every day. We work with them. We happen to have a different 
worldview. And much of what they talked about was the human element, 
how this affects human beings. How this affects folks. Individual 
situations where someone loses their insurance and they run into 
problems and so forth.
  And I want to get back to that just for a moment. And here's why. We, 
the three physicians that are here, and our friend, Mr. King, we've all 
seen situations--health care problems, situations where people develop 
cancer, heart disease, what have you. And we want the best. We want 
health care reform. In fact, I campaigned on health care reform, but of 
course I had no idea that health care reform could in any way be a 
takeover of the health care system, but simply using a scalpel to fix 
the problems.
  But let me talk about, again, the human issue, and that is, let me 
remind my friends that coverage does not mean access. Coverage does not 
mean access to care. And I'll give you an extreme example. Look at Cuba 
today. In Cuba, 100 percent coverage. Care is free. The problem is you 
can't get care. They have one colonoscope for the whole country. Yeah, 
antibiotics are free. If you get pneumonia, you're still not getting 
any antibiotics. The same is true in North Korea. The same is true with 
the Soviet Union. Socialized, centralized economies do not work. They 
create spot shortages and sometimes extreme shortages.
  So let's look at Western European countries and Canada. What do we 
see there? Again, government-run health care. We talked in the previous 
hour about the fact that there's two ways to control cost: either do it 
by investing the patient and the doctor into it or have the government 
sort of control it. But the only way the government can actually save 
money is to create long lines and rationing.
  So if you look at Canada, we had both doctors and patients come and 
testify before us several months ago. I think some of the Members here 
were there. And what we heard was really, I think, spine-tingling. We 
heard the situation of a young mother who developed a spinal condition 
which left her wearing adult diapers. And there was a permanent 
treatment for her problem, a surgical treatment. Unfortunately, she had 
to wait years to get it. When she asked them, Why can't I have this 
surgery? I'm a young mother, I have a husband, and yet I have to wear 
diapers because I'm fully incontinent. The answer to her by her doctor 
was, You haven't suffered enough. You haven't suffered enough.

                              {time}  2130

  Yes, health care is free in Canada, but you have to wait as much as 
2\1/2\ years to get an MRI scan, and then you have to wait in line to 
get whatever it is. And it's not unusual for doctors in Canada to say, 
Yes, you have cancer, Mrs. Smith. We'll watch it. You will not hear a 
doctor in the United States tell you, You have cancer, and we'll watch 
it. The doctor may say it's untreatable, but he's not going to watch it 
if he thinks that there's any chance at all that there's either a cure 
or at least palliative care.
  Then finally we look at--let's go up a couple thousand feet and look 
overall. Two of the most important cancers in this country--prostate 
cancer and breast cancer. One in six women get breast cancer, and 
something like 60 percent of men over age 90 get prostate cancer. And 
look at the death rates. They're not comparable. The survival rates in 
the United States of America are far above those in Canada and the U.K. 
for two reasons. Number one, in the case of breast cancer, the 
government says it cannot afford mammograms, which are saving lives in 
the United States, and they cannot afford the more expensive and 
innovative chemotherapeutic drugs which are saving lives.
  So I just wanted to bring this down to the human element because 
we're talking about process, as we should, and we're talking about the 
economics, as we should, and we know they don't work. But I hear what 
these ladies are saying, that there is suffering out there. But again, 
bankrupting our health care system is not going to save lives or to 
free people from pain.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Dr. Fleming, would you yield for just a 
moment? If the gentleman would yield back to me, and I will yield just 
for a moment to Dr. Broun, and then I will yield to Representative 
King.
  But I yield just a moment to the gentleman from Athens, Dr. Broun.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you.
  I just wanted to bring up, after Dr. Fleming was talking, I think it 
was one of the other physicians from Louisiana that we were talking to 
today. In fact, the three us were there when he was talking. He is a 
gastroenterologist from Baton Rouge. But anyway, Dr. Cassidy was 
talking about a patient being in Great Britain. Now, our President has 
held up Great Britain and their health care system as being where we 
need to go today. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong on this story.
  Dr. Cassidy spoke so quickly. I don't hear that quick, but he was 
saying that a lady that he was associated with went into the hospital 
in England and was having a bleed in her esophagus, right at the 
junction of the esophagus and stomach, and people can bleed to death 
very quickly with that kind of bleed. But the patient was told that the 
doctor was out at tea and she would have to wait until the tea was 
finished, because the doctors' union would not allow them to come and 
see this lady who's bleeding to death.
  Now, this may sound--we're giggling and laughing about it, but it's 
really serious business, because that's where we're headed as a Nation, 
and people won't get the care. And I just wanted to add that on to what 
Dr. Fleming was saying. What he was saying earlier

[[Page H1649]]

is that people, though they may have free government health insurance, 
they're not going to have access to care. People are going to be denied 
care, and we're going to have a government panel here in Washington, 
D.C., that's going to tell people whether they can go into the hospital 
or not.
  I already fight that for my patients. I have to talk to Medicare 
about my patients to see if they meet criteria. We all do. But it's 
going to get much, much worse, and people are going to be denied 
medicines, lifesaving medicines, lifesaving treatments, and it's going 
to be disastrous for the quality of care that we have in this Nation.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I wanted to just point out real quickly 
before yielding to my friend from Iowa, when I think about tea in this 
country, Mr. Speaker, I think about the Tea Party Patriots, God bless 
them.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to correct something that I said a few minutes 
ago because I misquoted Mom. I said that Mom said that Representative 
King was her favorite Member of Congress. That's not what Mom said. Mom 
told me that I was still her favorite Member of Congress. I think she 
even said that I was the best looking. But what she did say, Mr. 
Speaker, was that Representative King was the best speaker, and I was 
highly offended by that, but he is a pretty good speaker. And Mom, here 
he comes.
  I yield to the gentleman from Iowa, Representative Steve King, my 
classmate.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank my good friend from Georgia (Dr. Gingrey). 
I was prepared to correct that, because I was entirely convinced that 
you did misspeak and that Mrs. Gingrey's favorite Member of Congress 
has to be Congressman Dr. Phil Gingrey, as every mother's son should be 
their favorite if she only has one. If she has several, then it starts 
with first favorite, second favorite and on down the line.
  I'm pleased to be here with the Doctors Caucus and the friends that 
have done battle with me and others here in this Congress and across 
this country to kill this idea of taking over our health care and 
establishing socialized medicine. This is an American effort, an 
American endeavor to tell the liberals and the progressives in this 
Congress that we will not have them take away our liberty.
  And Dr. Gingrey mentioned the Tea Party Patriots. They have come to 
this city and packed this Capitol. There are a number of Tea Party 
groups that are out there. A lot of other Patriots out there in other 
ways. The 9/12 Project people that have started, and then we saw the 
Patriots show up on April 15 and then again and again throughout the 
town hall meetings, and last August, the end of September came to this 
city, and 10,000 to 50,000 people packed this city on November 5 to 
say, Take your hands off of my health care. Two days later, on November 
7, they filled us up again on the other side of the Capitol and said, 
Take your hands off our health care. Kill the bill.
  The message, Mr. Speaker, and consistently for almost a year has 
been, Kill the bill. Kill the bill. The American people want this bill 
killed. Seventy-five percent of the American people do not support the 
idea that the government ought to step in and cancel everybody's health 
insurance policy in America. Not the first day, but over the course of 
2 years, the Federal Government would cancel everybody's health 
insurance policy, and the policy you would get would be the policy then 
that the health choices administration commissioner decided was 
available to you or your employer or subsidized by some other taxpayer 
or fined if you don't buy it.
  The idea that the Federal Government would cancel every health 
insurance policy and the health choices administration commissioner, 
whom I call the commi-czar-issioner, would be the one that would write 
the rules for the 1,300 health insurance companies in America and the 
100,000 health insurance policies that exist as options among the 50 
States in America today, and watch that happen where the Federal 
Government would then decide, Well, you have a policy that is 
catastrophic with low premiums. We can't have that because it doesn't 
have all the bells and whistles that somebody else's supermandated 
policy has. So your health insurance policy for a 25-year-old man in 
New Jersey, a healthy young man, would cost him about $6,000 a year 
compared to the $1,000 a year for a similar but not identical policy 
for a healthy young man in Kentucky the same age.

  Why would this country not allow the young man from New Jersey to buy 
a health insurance policy in Kentucky? New Jersey has the mandates. 
Kentucky has significantly fewer mandates. I believe they have a higher 
percentage of the insured because when their premiums go up, if you 
raise premiums 600 percent, you aren't going to have as many people 
covered, unless you pay for that with the Federal Government.
  Here's one of the flaws, Mr. Speaker, that came out this way. Some 
people believe that the highest ideal was to ensure that people could 
buy insurance that had preexisting conditions. So if we pass a law like 
that and tell insurance companies that you cannot consider preexisting 
health conditions when you decide to issue a policy, the health 
insurance companies then wouldn't be able to look at medical records or 
make that decision. The buyers would know that, and so they wouldn't 
buy insurance until they got sick. Then on their way to the emergency 
room or maybe on the gurney, they'd fill out an application and buy 
that insurance policy--the very same equivalent to, if you didn't buy 
your property and car casualty insurance for your house and you waited 
until your house was on fire, and while the fire truck was pulling up, 
then you would fill out the insurance policy and buy the insurance. You 
could save a lot of premiums that way, get the same coverage, except 
somebody has to pay.
  And so the liberals--the progressives in this Congress, the people 
that are associating with the socialists, and some of them actually 
are--decided that you can't have a health insurance company that's 
denying people coverage because they have preexisting conditions. So 
they would impose that and say, No preexisting conditions can be 
considered, but the only way that you do that that way is you have to 
then--because people won't buy insurance until they get sick, then you 
have to mandate that everybody has to buy insurance. And when you 
mandate that you do that, you cross that constitutional line that was 
much objected to back in the nineties when Hillary Clinton was putting 
together HillaryCare.
  And then there was a ruling, if I have it here. I will have to ad lib 
it. But the ruling was such that it said back then that never before in 
the history of America--and it didn't happen with HillaryCare, so it 
was just poised to be so--had the Federal Government produced a product 
or approved a product and required the American people to buy that 
product, whether they chose to participate or not. That is some 
authority that does not exist in the Constitution of the United States, 
and we have to be able to say ``no.'' When we break these principles 
that drain away our personal liberty, they drain away the American 
vitality at the same time. They diminish all of us, Mr. Speaker, and 
that's the difference.
  This side of the aisle over here, the left, for more than 100 years 
in this country, have always driven to increase the dependency class in 
America. They looked around and took a little message off Otto von 
Bismarck's plan, who put together socialized medicine in Germany over 
100 years ago. Bismarck's approach was to create a dependency class 
that knew that they had to have him in office in order to get their 
benefits that would be coming, and he created the idea of a national 
health care act then.
  And the philosophy that's flowed from the non-English-speaking 
Europe, the post-Enlightenment, non-English-speaking Europe, has been a 
philosophy that has always created dependencies. And the expanding 
dependency class, the people who have had a nice safety net to be on 
for a long time now, now we've cranked that safety net up to being a 
hammock, and now this Congress wants to bring them the grapes and the 
drinks and the fan. So the safety net that's become a hammock 
diminishes our vitality. We don't get out of that hammock when it's 
comfortable. We need to have some reward for us working and taking care 
of our families.
  Our side of the aisle is about American vitality. Their side of the 
aisle is

[[Page H1650]]

about supporting the dependency class because the dependency class 
supports them politically and expands their power. That's the motive, 
and all the things we talk about about the nuances of this policy are 
about the political configuration.
  We watch people making decisions on whether or not they're going to 
vote for or against this bill. Today the people that are deliberating 
on whether or not to vote ``yes'' are deliberating on whether they can 
preserve their seat in this Congress, whether they're willing to 
essentially walk the plank that they are on, being nudged down that 
plank by the Speaker of the House to go off into Davy Jones' political 
locker if they vote ``yes'' on this bill, knowing the American people 
have completely rejected it and spit it out.
  And this is a toxic stew that has been cooked up. It starts back with 
HillaryCare. HillaryCare got matched up with ObamaCare during the 
primary campaign as Democrats were deciding which Presidential 
candidate would be their nominee. Hillary brought together her 1994 
HillaryCare bill and began to make that argument before the active 
Democrats, and then Barack Obama, Senator Obama, he had to catch up and 
play a health care challenge with HillaryCare. So he believed that he 
got a mandate on that from the American people because he was elected 
President. So in order to put this all together, they set this big pot 
out here on the political stove to make this stew, this socialized 
medicine stew. And they went back in the pantry of HillaryCare and got 
that old bone off of there with the meat stuck to it that was the meat 
of the HillaryCare and dropped that in the pot and turned the heat up. 
And there it sat, this toxic soup bone cooking, this HillaryCare 
socialized medicine.
  And people didn't want that. It was tainted. It had a smell to it. 
The American people had rejected it just 15 years earlier. So what do 
they do? Instead of realizing the American people don't want this toxic 
stew, they started to throw more bells and whistles into it, more 
vegetables and things that they could encourage people to maybe take a 
taste because it might look a little better now.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I just have to weigh in here just a minute 
because, Mr. Speaker, my favorite country singer, Merle Haggard, sung a 
song about that stew. I think he called it ``Rainbow Stew,'' if I'm 
correct.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I wish I knew the lyrics to ``Rainbow Stew.'' I 
looked those up here a couple of weeks ago when Phil Gingrey's mother's 
favorite son was talking here on the floor.

                              {time}  2145

  And I just kind of played off of that a little bit and decided to 
call this a toxic stew. But you keep throwing things into this stew to 
try to add up the flavor to it and make it more attractive so that 
people will taste it. And eventually, no matter what you put in that 
pot of that toxic stew, it still started with a tainted old soup bone. 
It's still tainted meat in that stew, and you can't change that, no 
matter how much you add to it.
  So we have this toxic stew, and the American people have decided that 
they reject it. They don't want a pot full of toxic stew or a bowlful 
or a ladleful or a spoonful. They want no measure of this toxic stew 
called Obamacare or Pelosicare or Troikacare, as I call it sometimes. 
The American people have spit it out. They have spit it out time after 
time after time, going clear back to last July and August. They let 
everybody know in this country. And then it had implications, the 
Governor's election in Virginia where President Obama went down to work 
for the Democrat candidate, and they were rejected down there. And 
Virginia elected a Republican governor.
  And then the race, of course, was in New Jersey at the same time. 
President Obama went to New Jersey and again, the Democrat was 
rejected. And the new, fresh air, fiscally responsible, don't tread on 
me, I want to deliver and protect my liberty Governor Chris Christie 
was elected in New Jersey.
  Now, we think about this, Mr. Speaker. President Obama twice went to 
Copenhagen, once for the Olympics, and once to be able to get his cap-
and-tax approved at the Copenhagen Conference. President Obama went 0 
for 2 in Copenhagen. He went to Virginia and went 0 for 1, he went to 
New Jersey and went 0 for 1. And on this great streak of lack of 
success, as the President's mojo was diminishing dramatically, he 
decided he was going to go all in in Massachusetts and go help Martha 
Coakley take Teddy Kennedy's vacant seat in Massachusetts for the 
United States Senate. And we all saw what happened. We saw the 
President go, well, let me say, well, what shall I call that? It's 
goose egg for one up in Massachusetts. He went zip, nada in 
Massachusetts. Scott Brown serves in the United States Senate today, 
and his voice and his vote put an end to, we believed, Obamacare. We 
thought somebody would hear in the echo chamber of the White House. So 
far they haven't heard. They are still pounding away on the same failed 
agenda.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield back to me, and 
I'm going to yield to my colleague in just a minute from Pennsylvania. 
But I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  And you know, while we're talking about songs, Madam Speaker, there 
was another one, one of my favorites by, I think it was Julie Andrews 
that sung this one. I don't know whether the movie was ``Mary 
Poppins,'' but I think it went by the title of ``Make the Medicine Go 
Down in the Most Delightful Way.'' You just add a little sugar. And 
maybe that's what my colleague is talking about, this stew, rainbow 
stew, toxic stew, whatever we call it. But add a little sugar, and it's 
going to go down a little easier in a most delightful way for 
Louisiana, for Florida, for Nebraska, for North Dakota, just add a 
little, little bit of sugar.
  And add a little bit of sugar to recalcitrant Democratic Members, 
Madam Speaker, who are struggling to decide whether they go against 
their constituents, and vote for this thing, this toxic stew that the 
gentleman was talking about, or they have the courage to vote not only 
their convictions but the convictions of their constituents who 
overwhelmingly are saying to them, vote ``no.'' Have the courage to 
vote ``no'' no matter how much sugar they offer you to sweeten that 
toxic stew.
  I'd like to yield to our good friend from Pennsylvania. Madam 
Speaker, in the previous hour, our hour was, of course, about health 
care, and it was led by a physician group. But the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Representative Thompson, has been a hospital 
administrator during his professional career before being elected to 
Congress. And I would like--I think our colleagues need to hear from 
him from that perspective of what the hospitals are dealing with in 
regard to this toxic stew. And with that I yield to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Well, I thank my good friend for 
yielding. I appreciate his references to songs. It's striking a tune 
with me tonight.
  You know, you named a lot of States who are getting a lot of 
sweeteners. A lot of States are being paid off, bought out, you know, 
buyouts, it really comes down to corruption, I think. If we see this 
type of deal-making out in the private sector, you know, most people 
would wind up subpoenaed and in jail for this type of deal making.
  There are three things that, you know, States like Pennsylvania--we 
don't have any of those sweeteners that I know of that have been, those 
deals have been made obviously. But I think there's a lot that we need 
to continue to look at in this bill and walk through it and find out, 
and not just this bill. I think part of what we have to look at--some 
time in months to come we're going to be dealing with an omnibus 
budget. And I have to say there's probably going to be some deals in 
there that folks who vote ``yes'' on this health care bill, we're going 
to be able to draw some lines and call--use the President's word from 
one of his joint sessions, and call folks out of deals that were made.
  You know, there are three reasons that America needs to be alarmed. 
There are many reasons actually. But tonight I'm going to hit my 
remarks, first remarks on just three reasons of why this is not good 
for America. That's based on my experience, not 15

[[Page H1651]]

months in Congress, but 28 years working in health care, serving people 
who are facing life-changing disease and disability.
  And frankly, my concerns tonight, I want to address just three basic 
areas: Cost, care, and corruption. And the cost? Well what's this going 
to cost us? Well, the President has said if you're in an individual 
plan, a nongroup plan, you can count on your premiums going up 10 to 13 
percent. Well, I thought one of the ideas behind health care reform was 
to bring down the cost of health care for all Americans. But we're 
guaranteeing, the President has put his word on the line, that if 
you're in an individual plan, you can count on 10 to 13 percent 
increase in your premiums. And I think that's just to start with. Where 
it goes from there I don't think we really know.
  We have costs in terms of cost to the States, the expanded roll is 
taking medical assistance to 133 percent of poverty. You know, States, 
there are States, many like Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was the last 
State to settle its State budget this past year. And there were a lot 
of potholes, a lot of gaps in that budget, things that needed to be 
funded that they couldn't find resources to do. And now, the Federal 
Government's going to spend, reach into the Federal taxpayers, all 
Americans' pockets, and pay for expanded medical assistance rolls to 
start with. But guess what? That goes away within short order. And 
where are the States going to fill that gap? Because you expand that 
entitlement, it's not coming back, and it's going to create all kinds 
of problems for our States.
  One of the costs I wanted to focus on because my good friend 
mentioned about my background as a manager within rural hospitals has 
to do with what does this do to rural hospitals? All hospitals. But I 
think the hospitals who will be hit first will be rural and urban 
underserved to begin. They'll feel the pain of this first. And one 
word, in short order, will be bankruptcy. Now let me explain why.

  Today Medicare pays 80 to 90 cents for every dollar of costs. Medical 
assistance pays 40 to 60 cents for every dollar of cost. You know, the 
primary reason--there's a lot of reasons, actually, commercial health 
insurance is so expensive, including a lack of tort reform across the 
Nation. But I think the most pressing reason why it's so expensive is 
the Federal Government, the fact that the government creates these 
entitlements that they can't sustain, and then they're systematically 
underfunded. And so what do we do if have we have expanded medical 
assistance roles, if we have these, I know they're not calling it a 
public option but, frankly, if they're going to find for-profit and 
not-for-profit insurance companies and do this Federal nationwide 
negotiation with them to have them really compete with other insurance 
companies, well, I don't know anyone that competes with the Federal 
Government and wins.
  And so the only way that they're really going to be able to provide 
premiums that will get the blessing of the health czar or whatever 
bureaucrat is now going to be overseeing our health insurance--today I 
found out somewhere that they're going to be hiring like 16,000 new IRS 
employees to determine whether our health insurance meets the criterion 
or not.
  You know, the only way that they're going to get blessed is if the 
premiums cost less. The only way to have premiums cost less is to pay 
less, is to pay comparable to probably somewhere between Medicare and 
medical assistance rates. What that will do to all hospitals, but 
starting with rural and urban underserved, it will bankrupt those 
facilities.
  You know, a hospital today, if it's healthy, if it's having a banner 
year, it's making a 1 to 3 percent margin. And out of that margin 
they're paying, hopefully they're giving some type of cost-of-living 
increase every year to keep the best and the brightest, because if 
somebody's going to use a scalpel on me, that's who I want, is the 
smartest person around. Or to invest in new lifesaving technology 
because we believe in innovation in this country. We are a country of 
innovators.
  Now, you start cutting, taking those--and not all hospitals are 
making 1 to 3 percent margins. There are many hospitals across this 
country that are in the red and are not surviving now and are on life 
support. So we implement this Obamacare plan, and we're allowing them 
to bleed to death financially.
  And if you want to impact access to quality care in a negative way, 
close rural hospitals. In my district, we have probably somewhere 
between 20 and 24 hospitals in my congressional district. You close any 
one of those and what you wind up with is a commute that makes a 
difference between life and death. And that's wrong. And that's just on 
the cost side.
  And so I appreciate this opportunity tonight. I think it's very 
important that the American people continue to weigh in on this. This 
is not a done deal. We have the opportunity to stop this, to do what 
the American people are asking for, and that is to start over. And the 
more that we inform people about the problems in terms of the costs, 
the care, and the corruption with this proposal that the Democrats 
have, I think the safer the country will be. And I yield back.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I think we're very, very 
fortunate to have heard from the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I think 
this is an aspect of this that we've not heard enough about and 
presented in the way that Representative Thompson just explained it. 
Even we physician Members can't do that. Maybe we can the next time. 
But I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I thank him for being here 
tonight and sharing that with us.
  I want to yield to my colleague from Georgia, Representative Paul 
Broun for his comments.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I was hopeful that Mrs. 
Gingrey had a second favorite congressman second to my good friend from 
Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If the gentleman will yield back, Madam 
Speaker, no pandering tonight, please. I will yield back to the 
gentleman if he promises not to pander.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I told Ms. Gingrey and all the people living 
over in South Carolina, I don't pay any attention to the rivers. The 
Savannah River divides where she lives from my district, and I'll be 
glad to represent her interests too.
  But Mr. Thompson just brought up the issue of cost. The thing is, the 
American people get it. They really get it. They know that this toxic 
stew that Mr. King was talking about is going to increase the cost of 
their insurance premiums. Experts have said that a family can expect a 
$2,100 increase cost to their health insurance.
  We hear from our colleagues on the Democratic side, they say it's 
going to lower the cost of premiums. They know better than that. To me, 
this is just showing their arrogance, showing their ignorance, and 
showing their incompetence. It's their arrogance because they seem to 
want to ignore the American people, and they show their arrogance 
because they know best what's best for Mrs. Gingrey or for all 
Americans, for the rural hospitals in Pennsylvania. And in my district 
in North Georgia, where just this week some of the board members from 
Habersham Hospital in Habersham County came to talk to me about the 
struggles. I talked to folks in Elberton, Georgia, about how the Elbert 
County hospital is fixing to close up if we don't do something. And 
Obamacare is going to close rural hospitals all over this country 
because they're going to be bled to death. They're bleeding to death 
today. We see hospitals closing up all over the country.
  So we mentioned in the previous hour where, even when people are 
given free health care, as they're promised by our Democratic 
colleagues, that that insurance card is not going to be accepted by 
doctors because the doctors just cannot afford to see patients because 
Medicare and Medicaid won't pay them enough to be able to see them, and 
for the doctors to be able to pay their own salaries for their own 
employees.

                              {time}  2200

  They won't be able to see those free government patients. If they're 
seen today and struggling--I've talked to many of my medical colleagues 
in Georgia, and they want to continue to see Medicaid patients. They 
want to continue to see Medicare patients. But if ObamaCare passes, 
that free insurance card that is in people's pockets is

[[Page H1652]]

going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between 
the States, the Great War of Yankee Aggression.
  So the availability of health care is going to go down. And we are 
told by our colleagues that it's going to be better availability. And 
they're showing their ignorance. In my opinion, they're showing their 
ignorance of how disastrous this bill is going to be. And they're 
showing their incompetence because they're going against what the 
Constitution of the United States says. They're going against the rules 
of this House to try to pass a bill without anybody ever voting on it.
  But the American people get it. They get it. They know that when 
Democrats vote for the rule, they're voting for the Senate bill that is 
going to be disastrous. They know that they are voting for a rule that 
is going to put in place, a reconciliation bill that we'll vote on 
secondarily, which is nothing but smoke and mirrors. And it's not going 
to fix all of these problems.
  American people get it. The American people, Madam Speaker, need to 
call their Congressmen, their Democratic Congressmen because every 
single Republican is going to vote against this because we get it, too. 
We're fighting for the American people. We understand. We have listened 
to it. But our Democratic colleagues hopefully will open their ears and 
will hear the cries of the American people to save our great health 
care system.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I concur with the gentleman. I think there is 
a certain amount of arrogance, a lot of arrogance, and maybe indeed a 
certain amount of ignorance. There's a certain amount of shrewdness, 
too.
  I want to yield back to the gentleman from Iowa because as he was 
talking about Otto Von Bismark and the creation of that hammock and 
that sense of dependency and that toxic stew that I referred to as 
rainbow stew, I want to yield back to the gentleman because I think he 
was making some excellent points, and I want to let him continue.
  I think we have maybe 15 more minutes or so, and I would like to 
yield back to the gentleman from Iowa
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Gingrey. 
And in the interim here I thought I would take a look at the lyrics of 
``Rainbow Stew,'' which I have here now. And parts of these lyrics echo 
to me pretty well. And it has--the message is that we will all be 
drinking free bubble-ubb and eating that rainbow stew. That is when we 
reach this utopia is the tone of Merle Haggard's country western song 
from years ago.
  I'll take us down to this part. The President has promised the 
American people a whole string of things. He's promised that he won't 
sign a bill that costs over $900 billion. He's promised that the 
negotiations--eight times on national television he said negotiations 
will take place on C-SPAN. There won't be backroom deals. This will be 
all out in the open, and it's going to lower the cost of the health 
care. We know it goes the opposite, the whole string of things, that 
there isn't even a pretense that he is going to keep his word on.
  And here's Merle Haggard's part of the song ``Rainbow Stew.'' It 
says: ``When a President goes through the White House door, an' does 
what he says he'll do, we'll all be drinkin' free bubble-ubb, eatin' 
that rainbow stew.'' They'd like us to eat the toxic stew, and the 
American people won't have any part of it.
  What's going on here in this Congress is a unique thing. What the 
gentlemen in the Doctors Caucus talked about in the previous hour was 
about the idea of the Slaughter House rule. The idea that a bill would 
come to the House--not the floor of the House. It would go up there in 
the hole in the wall in the third floor in the Rules Committee, that 
tiny little room that hardly ever has any press in it, and only one 
time in the history of this country that I know of has there even been 
a television camera in there. And they make their deal up above.
  It will be what the Speaker writes in her office by conferring with 
the people that she decides to confer with. She will give her directive 
to the Chair of the Rules Committee who will carry out that directive. 
And what they're threatening to do and what they will, I think, attempt 
to do is write a self-enacting rule that deems that the Senate bill has 
passed the House even though it would never be seen nor debated or 
voted on the floor of the House, just be the Rules Committee that will 
deem that. Send the rule down here and then Democrats can vote for the 
rule that doesn't necessarily mean they're for the Senate bill.
  Then, whatever they do with their reconciliation, write another bill, 
which is apparently put together and may be out, this reconciliation 
bill that is what they call the House fixes, that is all the deals that 
have to be made to satisfy the Democrats in the House to get enough of 
them necessary to get enough votes for passage. That is 216.
  So they'll write a bill, what they will call fixes, and they think 
they'll pass it off the House and pass it off to the Senate where the 
Senate probably will take it up. But it would be impossible for the 
Senate to put all of the fixes in that the House wants. And they can't 
do this unless the Senate bill has gone to the President's desk, 
received his signature, and it becomes law.
  So for the first time in American history--we will see if this 
happens, and I think they'll surely try it--we will see a bill that 
today cannot pass the Senate, that cannot be accepted by the United 
States Senate, one that can't be passed on the floor of the House, just 
deemed passed by a rule that would go to the President for the 
President's signature and become the law of the land.
  That is a breathtaking thing to think that this great deliberative 
body, this constitutional Republic that we are could be so reduced that 
we wouldn't even have enough will to put a bill on the floor to vote it 
up or down so there is a recorded vote and the constituents and the 
voters in America could hold the people accountable that decided to 
come in here and take away our liberty.
  If they're going to take our liberty, they ought to do it with the 
lights on, and they ought to do it with a recorded vote, not with a 
Slaughter House rule that deems that a bill passed--a bill that can't 
pass the floor of the House; a bill that would not be accepted by the 
United States Senate--could still become the law of the land under the 
Slaughter House rule.
  I'll yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I just have a question of the gentleman.
  If the Slaughter House rule is put in place, doesn't that mean that 
the President gets everything that he wants without the fixes because 
the Senate bill will be passed into law?
  And I yield to the gentleman to answer the question.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Well, depending on what the President wants. We 
can't hardly go by what he says. So I think he is closer to the Senate 
than he is to the House because he served in the Senate. But I think 
the answer is probably, yes, but we have to qualify it. Yes, depending.

  Here's what I think. I think the President will sign any bill that 
says National Health Care Act in it. I don't think the substance of it 
matters. I don't think if it costs more than $900 billion to them it 
matters. I don't think if he said that it's not going to fund 
abortion--and it does--he will sign it anyway. He says it doesn't fund 
illegals--and it does: 6.1 million according to the Congressional 
Budget Office. 6.1 million illegals would have access to American 
taxpayers' dollars' benefits under the Senate version of the bill, and 
the President says it doesn't have anything to benefit illegals.
  And the Speaker pointed her finger at our leader, John Boehner, on 
February 25 and said, This bill doesn't fund abortion, and we know it 
does.
  So if people can't be held accountable to their word, and if the 
language, the plain language in the bill says one thing and people's 
word says another thing, I don't know what their intentions are or 
where they'd say ``no.'' I think he's salivating to sign a bill.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Yes, I will.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I agree with you, but he has also said that he 
wants everybody in this country to be under one pool, a government 
total control of health care where the Federal Government is the 
insurance agent for everybody in this country, single-payer system 
where the government is the insurance system for every person in this 
country.

[[Page H1653]]

  And the point I was making is if the Senate bill is passed into law, 
won't he have accomplished that purpose? And my contention is 
absolutely he will have what he wants. They'll put in place the 
mechanism for the Federal Government to take over the health care 
system to socialize medicine in this country.
  The Socialist Party in the 1930s said the fastest way to take away 
our liberty and go from a free market economy to become a socialist 
nation for us to lose our freedom is for the government to take over 
the health care system.
  And so the President will have what he wants when that bill is deemed 
passed by the Slaughter rule or the Slaughter House rule.

                              {time}  2210

  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. We are getting very close, probably within 5 
or 6 minutes of the end of our time.
  I really appreciate, Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Iowa looking 
up some of the lyrics of ``Rainbow Stew,'' because, Madam Speaker, if 
this bill passes, this ``deem and scheme'' passage of this bill, if it 
passes, I'm sure the Democratic majority is going to think that they 
are drinking free bubble-ubb and eating that rainbow stew.
  Well, I guarantee you, Madam Speaker, we referred to my mother a 
little earlier in the hour, and my mom knows what kind of stew they are 
going to be eating. And I would also suggest, Madam Speaker, that 
they're not going to be drinking free bubble-ubb. They're going to be 
drinking Jim Jones Kool-Aid. This is a toxic stew and a bad drink not 
only for Members of Congress and members of the Democratic majority who 
vote ``yes'' on this abomination, but it is horrible for the American 
people.
  Madam Speaker, this is not a Slaughter House. No. This is the 
people's House, and that's what the gentleman from Iowa was talking 
about.
  I want to yield a little bit more time to the gentlemen from 
Pennsylvania, and we have just a few minutes left, and let the 
gentleman from Iowa conclude.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I just wanted to follow up with a 
little feedback that goes well beyond this Chamber.
  Certainly we know that if ObamaCare passes, we won't start to see the 
benefits in any way, and I happen to believe they're not benefits until 
2013, 2014. Outside feedback. What's happening out in the country 
beyond this Capitol Hill?
  There are three States that have already--Virginia, Idaho, and Utah 
have already passed laws to nullify ObamaCare's mandate that everyone 
purchase health insurance. Other States are following suit.
  Arizona has a referendum on the ballot for November saying ``no'' to 
a mandate that every American should have to be required to purchase 
health insurance; ``no'' to the fact that an IRS agent can come 
evaluate whether you have or have not purchased that and then fine you 
or tax you.
  Virginia's attorney general has already threatened legal action 
against the deeming process that is being used and touted and so 
discussed in this process.
  Washington has no idea now how to deal with Medicare, Medicaid, and 
Social Security, and now we are creating a new entitlement that will 
accelerate, frankly, our path to ruin.
  I want to share one quick feedback from a gentleman, a businessman. 
He and his dad have a business in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania. They 
make a product they are just so proud of. It helps with the car 
industry, and they do a great job, and they want to expand. They want 
to hire new individuals. They want to create prosperity. They want to 
grow. But, in fact, what has happened is that so much uncertainty has 
been created with this health care that they can't do that. They 
compete with China. They compete with South America. And now they can't 
compete because of this uncertainty.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is absolutely 
right. In fact, I think the State of Virginia, the legislature just 
voted to say, We are not going to require, under the penalty of law, 
our people to have health insurance. We want them to have health 
insurance.
  I thank the gentleman for pointing out the fact that this expansion 
of Medicaid is crippling States, not only the State of Pennsylvania, 
rural hospitals as he pointed out, inner city hospitals that are 
serving the most needy, but in my State of Georgia, our Governor is 
struggling, is struggling to find ways to pay for this expanded 
Medicaid and has just announced that it's possible that the 
reimbursement to the hospitals in Georgia, the rural hospitals, all the 
hospitals, indeed, and the providers in Georgia, will be cut 10 percent 
Medicaid reimbursement. The gentleman has already talked about the 
reimbursement is 60 cents on the dollar.
  I want to yield back, Madam Speaker, to the gentleman from Iowa to 
conclude, and I yield to him at this time.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman. I'll just try to close one 
point here in this narrow window that we have, and I know that it's 
narrow, and that is this: This bill does fund abortion. And ever since 
1973, the argument has been made by people on this side of the aisle, 
women and men both, consistently and relentlessly, that the Federal 
Government has no business telling a woman what she can or can't do 
with her body. But today, the same people are saying the Federal 
Government has every right to tell everybody in America what they can 
or can't do with their body, and they don't see the hypocrisy in it. 
They don't see the conflict or the lack of rationale. You can't be 
right both times. You can't say one thing for two generations and then 
just flip and decide that, well, it's convenient now to expand the 
dependency class, so now we're going to use the logic that the Federal 
Government has the right.
  The Federal Government does not have the right to take over our 
health care. There is no constitutional foundation. There is no 
constitutional authority. It's a violation of the equal protection 
clause. It's a violation of the commerce clause in the Constitution. 
There is no authority.
  The American people have rejected it. And now what we have is a 
situation where we have the arrogance of power of people that have not 
heard yet from the American people. We need this. The center of America 
has decided they want to protect their freedom, their liberty, and 
their own health insurance policies. We just need to have an election 
to reset the Congress so that Congress reflects the will of the 
American people. Until then, we're going to stand and do battle until 
we can have a Congress that reflects the will of the American people.
  And I point out again, this is a bill that takes away liberty, has no 
constitutional foundation. It funds abortion and it funds illegals to 
the tune of 6.1 million according to the Senate version of the bill and 
the Congressional Budget Office. And so I would just take it to this 
point. I know we are down very close to the wire, and I thank the 
gentlemen I have joined.

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