[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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