[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 176 (Thursday, November 17, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7817-H7819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             HEALTH CARE AND THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hultgren). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  One thing we've got plenty of around here is paper, unfortunately. 
We've got bills, we've got laws that we should have taken up that we 
haven't.
  And when we talk about the health care bill, people know we talk 
about ObamaCare, whatever the formal name is. Cutting $500 billion out 
of Medicare already. That's a done deal. That was rammed through by the 
majority when Speaker Pelosi was in charge at the behest of our 
President Obama--$500 billion in cuts. Our seniors deserve better than 
that kind of treatment.
  Republicans, I don't think we had any Republicans vote for that. But 
it was driven through against the will of the American people, and 
against the will of the Republicans. But Democrats had the votes, so 
they did it--$500 billion in cuts to Medicare.
  So when AARP has all these seniors send in petitions saying, I'm a 
member of AARP, don't you dare cut anything from Medicare, we try to 
make sure our seniors know that it was AARP that stood by the President 
as he cut $500 billion, and we're glad that they're finally waking up 
to just what the President and AARP, with AARP's assistance, what they 
did to seniors.
  But if you look at how much money we are spending on Medicare, not to 
even mention right now Medicaid, just look at how much we're spending 
on Medicare, and you look at the number of households we have, around 
17.5 million Medicare households--this was from 2009. You divide that 
into the amount of money that we're spending, the Federal Government's 
spending on Medicare--not even Medicaid, just Medicare: We're spending 
right at $30,000 for every household with somebody on Medicare. 
$30,000?
  Now, for someone who's got bad heart problems or some kind of chronic 
disease, well, that's not so bad when you consider what all kinds of 
treatments and medicines they're getting. That's if you look at the 
bills that are sent out.
  If you look at the amount of actual money that are paid for those 
procedures, or actually paid or reimbursed by insurance companies or 
the government for that money, it's not near that much for most 
households, even most households on Medicare.
  That's why I was shocked in the not too distant past to find out that 
in one situation that I'm aware of personally, when there were $10,000 
in bills between the hospital, the physicians, the ambulance, the 
testing, the people reading the tests, and all that stuff, 2 days of 
hospitalization, $10,000. It turns out that the insurance company, the 
health insurance company resolved all $10,000 in bills for about $800.
  Well, if we knew exactly how much was being paid to pay for those 
exorbitant health care bills, we could then finally reintroduce 
something known as free market principles.
  Now, the doctors I talk to, the health care providers I talk to, they 
wouldn't mind that. Their hands get tired. There are some insurance 
policies or contracts that health care providers have with some of the 
health insurance companies that said they cannot charge--that's what 
I'm told--they can't charge somebody paying cash as little as a health 
insurance company providing the contract gets out by paying.
  You can't have competition in health care until people know how much 
they're paying for their medicine, for their hospital stay. You've got 
to know what they're paying.
  It was a great thing growing up in a small town in East Texas. I 
loved the town, Mount Pleasant, Texas.

                              {time}  2120

  After I finished 4 years out of the Army from a scholarship at Texas 
A&M, my wife and I settled in Tyler. We've loved it. It's the only home 
my kids knew growing up. Been so good to me. But my wife and family, 
we've all been blessed there.
  But in the smaller town I grew up in, everybody knew the doctors. And 
from time to time we would go to a different doctor. And a lot of the 
times it was because we found out one upped their price so we would go 
to another doctor who didn't charge quite as much because they were 
good. That's called free market competition. We don't have that any 
more in health care. We've got to get back to it. If we're going to 
bring the costs down, we've got to get back to it.
  People have to know what it costs to go to the doctor. People need to 
know that their medicine that they see a cost of $900, that the 
insurance companies, when they reimburse for that $900 prescription, 
don't pay but a fraction of that. So if somebody can't afford 
insurance, why should they have to pay $900 for a prescription drug 
that a health insurance company wouldn't pay a fraction of that much? 
We have to get back to having some competition in the cost of things.
  So there's one way, really the only way I see we get off this track 
to total socialized health care that ObamaCare puts us well on down the 
road toward arriving on, and that would be through greater use of 
health savings accounts. We're told by some actuarials that if kids in 
their twenties and thirties start putting money in a health savings 
account and it grows and it grows because they don't use much at that 
young age, by the time they're eligible for Medicare, not only would 
they not want to use Medicare, they wouldn't need it. They'd have so 
much money built up in their health savings accounts that they didn't 
get through every year.
  I agree with some of the people that I've consulted over the last 4 
years on what would be a better plan that if you could have people 
putting money every month in a health savings account, building that 
account, then not allow it to be drawn out for something like buying a 
boat or anything like that, but it has to be for health care, can't be 
for anything else. Once its dedicated in a health savings account, and 
it should be allowed to be put in there pre-tax, then it has to be for 
health care.
  Oh, sure, we ought to be able to allow people to donate that to some 
charity that keeps health savings accounts for the less fortunate, 
ought to be allowed to gift it or bequeath it to children, to family 
and help them grow that big nest egg of a health savings account, and 
then you have a debit card coded to cover nothing but health care 
costs. And you use that health savings account until you reach the 
amount of the high deductible that the health insurance policy has, and 
then the health insurance kicks in. That would help make health 
insurance so much cheaper for most folks. That's what a lot of us have 
gone to, and I have myself. It is a lot better deal. It is a lot 
cheaper.
  But to think about, as these numbers indicate from 2009, that every 
household with someone on Medicare is costing nearly $30,000, it is 
just staggering. And that's why instead of continuing to move toward 
rationed care putting our seniors on lists where they can't get treated 
very quickly, they have to wait, because let's face it, the way of 
socialized medicine is rationed care.
  And President Obama not only must have known that that was the truth, 
but he put a man in the position to oversee ObamaCare who had made 
clear in prior statements that it's not a matter of if we go to 
rationed care, it is a matter of when. And then he's the guy that ends 
up in charge of ObamaCare because obviously this President and the 
Democratic majority in the last Congress intended--expected--that 
seniors would be getting rationed care.
  How much better to say, you know what seniors, you've got a choice. 
How about that? We've had so many people on the Democratic side of the 
aisle talk about it should be people's right to choose. They should 
have choice. How about in health care? How about giving seniors a 
chance to choose? You want Medicare? You want to be denied some 
medicines? You want to have to keep buying that supplemental coverage 
from AARP? Your choice.
  On the other hand, if you want to do something different, we'll put--
and I'm flexible on the amount, but it appeared $3,500 was a good, 
effective amount for achieving that kind of high deductible and lower 
cost for the insurance policy. Then we, the Federal Government, will

[[Page H7818]]

buy you a private health insurance policy that covers everything over 
$3,500, and then we will give you cash money in a health savings 
account, the debit card to go with it that you hold, you use as you see 
fit, you choose what medicine, you choose what doctor. And if you 
exhaust the $3,500, then the insurance kicks in and you've got that 
coverage.
  You don't have to buy supplemental coverage, and I know that would 
cost AARP hundreds of millions. I get that. And I know they care deeply 
about retired folks. I get that. But, boy, if retired folks wouldn't 
have to pay anything for supplemental insurance, seems like that would 
be a good thing.
  We would give them the choice. Let seniors choose what you want. You 
want control of your own health care and the money to pay the 
deductible if you get that high and an insurance policy to cover 
everything beyond that if you go beyond that? You control things? Or do 
you want to let the government keep telling you what you can and can't 
get in the way of treatment?
  The country is better off when the Federal Government is the referee, 
not the player, because government's always going to be the referee; 
but when it's the player and the referee, that's when it's so grossly 
unfair. Anybody should be able to figure that. That would be so much 
better for seniors. Give them the choice.
  But you know what? This President, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid, they 
felt like they knew better for seniors. They felt like it would be 
better if they did not allow seniors to have a choice. Too bad, 
seniors. We're going to cut $500 billion from the amount of money that 
we're spending on Medicare, and you're about to find out what real 
rationed care is about once ObamaCare kicks in to the full.
  Why not give them a choice? Why not force doctors and health care 
providers for the first time in decades to start posting what the cost 
of health care is? How much at your hospital is a hospital bed in a 
single room or in a double room with two patients in there? How about 
showing people that, letting them decide which is cheaper? Because as 
long as an insurance company or the government is paying all of those 
costs, people really don't care. That's the way of the world.
  That's why in the Soviet Union in 1973 when I asked some farmers in 
the middle of the morning who were sitting in the shade visiting 
instead of being out in the field working, and I tried to do it as 
nicely as possible, spoke a little Russian back then, When is it you 
work out in the field?

                              {time}  2130

  The loudest one said, I make the same number of rubles when I'm in 
the shade here or if I'm out there, so I'm here.
  That's socialism.
  When the Federal Government socializes medicine, as ObamaCare is 
driving us toward--it's just one giant step; we're virtually there--
well, then, it changes everything.
  People don't really care how much things cost because they're not 
paying for them. People don't try to go to a less expensive doctor or 
hospital because they don't care. Somebody else is paying it. Then when 
they see the bill that says this stay cost $10,000, they say, Well, 
gee, I'm glad I'm not paying that. They don't care because they're not 
paying it. They don't know that there may have been $200 paid for that 
hospital bed rather than $10,000.
  People deserve to know what health care costs. As I say, the health 
care providers--the doctors I talk to--wouldn't mind being able to do 
that. They would love it if patients could come in and give them a 
health savings account debit card. Then they don't have to have extra 
people who are chasing down the new codes and all this information 
about what the government pays and what the insurance company will or 
won't pay. We'd get back to a doctor-patient relationship. Wouldn't 
that be wonderful?
  As I've told health insurance companies before at a convention here 
in Washington, D.C., we need to get the health insurance companies back 
in the health insurance business and out of the health management 
business, because if health insurance companies are determined to stay 
in the health management business where they manage our health care, 
they're eventually going to have everybody mad at them, and they're 
going to be run out of business, and there won't be any health 
insurance companies anymore.
  Other than the socialist Federal Government of the United States. I 
don't want to get there.
  We're almost there with ObamaCare.
  That's why this body, with the majority of Republicans having taken 
over this year, voted to repeal ObamaCare.
  When it's real health insurance, people pay a small monthly, 
quarterly, semiannual, annual fee in order to insure against some 
unforeseen disease or accident down the road--unforeseen because, if 
they could foresee it, they'd know how much they'd need to save in 
order to take care of that event that's coming or the disease. You pay 
an insurance company for something you don't know might happen--maybe 
it will, maybe it won't.
  The thing is, if we went to the place where we allowed those on 
Medicare to choose--to stay with Medicare if that's what you want, and 
keep buying that supplemental insurance--or we'll give you the cash in 
a health savings account and a debit card, then we'll buy the insurance 
to cover everything over the cash we put in your account for the year, 
and we'll do that every year.
  When I was drafting the bill in the prior Congress, Newt Gingrich was 
very helpful. He sent a couple of experts to come visit about ideas.
  They said, You know, we ought to have an incentive in the bill so 
that seniors would have an incentive not to spend all the money, all 
the $3,500 that's put in their HSAs every year.
  So we put in a provision that if someone on Medicare didn't use up 
all of the $3,500 in their health savings account, then they got a 
percentage of that cash money that they could take. No income tax would 
have to be paid on it. It was just cash money in their pocket at the 
end of the year in order to encourage them not to waste money from the 
health savings account by buying stuff they didn't need, because they 
were going to get a percentage of that if they didn't spend it within 
the year. Give them incentives. That's what market forces are about: 
incentives.
  Now, if we were to do something like that, then certainly there will 
be people who are chronically ill. We will always have people who are 
chronically ill, and those are the people we should help. They can't 
help themselves. That's what a caring society does.
  But when there are people who are able to help themselves, then those 
are the folks who ought to be able to grow a health savings account 
over the years so that they don't need any government help by the time 
they get to the point where they're eligible for Medicare. If they need 
it, they'll get it. That would finally get us on track to get out of 
this massive amount of debt that we're in. That's the way to go.
  In the meantime, not only is that not something that's occurring, but 
we're not able to innovate new things that will become law. We're 
innovating new things, like the alternative to Medicare--the choice we 
could give seniors--but we know, as the President has called us--and it 
really only applies to the other end of the Hall--we've got a do-
nothing Senate. It's not the Republicans. They keep clamoring--trying 
to push, trying to get the Democratic leadership in the Senate to do 
something to help the economy, to truly do something to help health 
care, but they're not interested in doing that.
  We've got a supercommittee, as it has been dubbed, that we really 
shouldn't have set up. I have nothing but sympathy for my Republican 
friends who have been put on that committee because they were put into 
a position where, unbeknownst to our Republican leadership that 
negotiated the deal that brought this committee about, the Democrats 
really don't have anything to push them to reach an agreement.
  That appears to be why the Democrats seem to be interested in what 
Pat Toomey had floated out as a framework with the support of his 
colleagues. They seemed to be interested in it; but, apparently, after 
consulting with Democratic leadership, they realized, uh-oh, we're told 
not to work a deal because if we don't work a deal, there will be 
draconian cuts to our national security, which we don't mind--we've 
been wanting to do that for years--and then the other cuts will be to 
Medicare.

[[Page H7819]]

  Apparently, because of the lack of interest by the Democrats in 
seeing that there is a deal done, it would appear they don't mind 
having the cuts to Medicare.
  And that's what was puzzling me last week.
  After they hear how far backwards Republicans are willing to go on 
the supercommittee, how is it that the Democrats end up walking away, 
basically, from what they wanted? So I struggled to try to figure out 
what it was that would keep them from being desperate to cut a deal 
with the Republicans because surely they don't want those cuts to 
Medicare.
  Then I realized, well, Democrats are 100 percent totally responsible 
for the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare that are contained within 
ObamaCare. They also know that millions of dollars of Republican 
campaign money will be spent next year in probably talking about the 
$500 billion in cuts that the Democrats solely, on their own, pushed 
through in ObamaCare and that unless there is at least a couple hundred 
billion in cuts to Medicare, then at least that amount would result 
from a failure to pass some kind of bill from the supercommittee.
  Unless there's something like that, the $500 billion that the 
Democrats cut from Medicare last year is all anybody is going to 
basically be talking about in the next election.
  But if the supercommittee fails and if the House and Senate don't 
pass what they've sent, then we've already seen the rhetoric begin: 
Republicans, they say, are wanting to cut health care; they're wanting 
to cut Medicare.
  So now we see how it's playing out.

                              {time}  2140

  Some, apparently, on the Democratic side--not all, but some, 
apparently the leadership of the Democratic Party--apparently the 
President--want to see a failure so they can campaign against 
Republicans saying, No, they didn't want agreement anyway; and look at 
the cuts to Medicare that they've forced. I don't see any other 
explanation for the cavalier attitude of the Democratic leadership and 
not pushing so hard to get an agreement to avoid the massive cuts to 
Medicare. Even with the massive cuts, it won't be as big a cut as 
ObamaCare was to Medicare; but it will be enough, apparently, for them 
to campaign and try to demonize the Republicans.
  Apparently tomorrow we're going to vote on a balanced budget 
amendment. It will either be House Joint Resolution 1 or House Joint 
Resolution 2. House Joint Resolution 1 has a cap on spending that we 
can't go above, a percentage of gross domestic product. It requires a 
supermajority in order to raise taxes. That's House Joint Resolution 1. 
That's what passed out of committee after a long and exhausting day of 
debate and amendments.
  But we're bringing to the floor joint House Resolution 2. It just 
says, You've got to balance the budget. I know there are those who say, 
Well, that would mean that our decisions start being made by the 
courts. Well, 49 out of 50 States, as I understand it, have a balanced 
budget requirement in their constitutions. Their courts don't make 
those decisions. I don't see why it would be otherwise if it was. Under 
the Constitution, we've got the power to restrict jurisdiction for 
everybody but the Supreme Court. We could do that if that's what we 
chose to do.
  We're in a mess, because we're not doing the things we promised we 
would when we ran and got elected to the majority, the very things the 
Democrats lost the majority in this House because they didn't fulfill. 
It's time to get serious about our promises.
  Everybody is aware of Francis Scott Key who wrote our wonderful 
National Anthem. As my time runs out, I want to finish tonight with 
something else that Francis Scott Key said. On February 22, 1812, he 
said this:

       The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who 
     acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty 
     direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, 
     ``a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.'' He will, 
     therefore, seek to establish for his country, in the eyes of 
     the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of 
     the name of a Christian nation.

  We've got a lot to do if we're going to live up to our commitments, 
our oaths. A balanced budget amendment with a spending cap is what we 
need to do. That's what we passed out of committee in regular order. 
That's what I would vote for tomorrow. Since that's not coming, then I 
don't want to push through a balanced budget amendment that requires 
ever-upward spiraling taxation because, as we've shown this year, 
without a balanced budget amendment, Congress doesn't have the will to 
cut spending, not a majority of the House and Senate both.
  It's time to live up to the commitments we've made and what we owe 
our creator, our maker. If we'll do that, we can have another 200 years 
of greatness as a Nation. If we don't, as Abraham Lincoln said, This 
Nation will die by suicide. I want it to live and flourish. I want us 
to keep our commitments.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________