[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 17 (Thursday, February 2, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H430-H436]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1910
REPEALING OBAMACARE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Benishek) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. BENISHEK. Tonight, my colleagues and I have come to the floor,
both as Members of Congress and physicians, to discuss the urgent need
to repeal and replace the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Like many of my fellow Members here this evening, I've spent the last
decades of my life as a physician, a surgeon. Unlike our President, I
was on the front lines of medicine. I went to medical school in
Detroit, Michigan. I did a family practice internship in Flint. I
returned to Detroit to do a surgical residency, and then moved to the
upper peninsula of Michigan, where for the last 28 years until I took
this job, I was taking care of patients in a rural general surgical
practice.
I know what it's like to be in a small town where people depend on
their local physician, and it's 2 hours in an ambulance to get to the
nearest hospital. And the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is
affecting rural hospitals to such a degree that many of these hospitals
are going to close. And I just want to bring to your attention, Mr.
Speaker, the seriousness of this problem.
It's been a pleasure being a surgeon. It's a pleasure being here in
Congress. As a matter of fact, sometimes patients of mine still call
the congressional office inquiring about scheduling a case. One of the
very reasons I ran for Congress was because I felt those with real
health care experience needed to contribute to the national discussion
on health care reform. Tonight, along with other members of the Doctors
Caucus, I'd like to dispel some of the myths associated with the
President's health care bill.
It's time to set the record straight. It isn't enough to just say
this bill must be repealed, we must tell you why it has to be repealed,
explain to you the really bad aspects of this bill. I'm proud to say
that one of my first votes as a Member of Congress was to repeal it.
Tonight, we're going to go through some of the provisions of the bill
which make it so onerous.
While I disagree with the President's health care bill for a number
of reasons, I'm particularly appalled at the recent regulation issued
by the United States Department of Health and Human Services as a
result of the bill, requiring all employers, even if they have a
religious or moral objection, to offer health insurance that includes
sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and contraception.
I offer for the Record an excerpt from a letter from Bishop Sample of
the Catholic Diocese of Marquette, one of my constituents. Here is a
quote from Bishop Sample's letter:
In so ruling, the Obama administration has cast aside the
First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental
freedom, that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless
the rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to
either violate our conscience or drop health care coverage
for our employees and suffer the penalties for doing so.
The Obama administration's sole concession was to give our
institutions 1 year to comply. We cannot, we will not comply
with this unjust law. People of faith cannot be made second-
class citizens.
Mr. Speaker, as a fellow Catholic and a physician, I agree with
Bishop Sample. It's my belief that the government has no right to
mandate that employers purchase health insurance for their employees in
the first place. But this law is made even worse by demanding that
those who support life, regardless of their particular religion,
provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs.
Mr. Speaker, Federal conscience laws have existed since 1973 and have
protected many health care providers from discrimination due to
religious and moral values. Unfortunately, President Obama's health
care bill contains no language protecting the conscience of health care
providers.
I recently cosponsored H.R. 1179, the Respect for Rights of
Conscience Act, which was introduced by my colleague, Mr. Fortenberry
of Nebraska. If signed into law, this bill would amend the Affordable
Care Act to permit a health plan to decline coverage of specific items
and services that are contrary to the religious beliefs of the sponsor
of the plan without suffering consequences. While I and other Members
of Congress continue our efforts to repeal the President's health care
plan in its entirety, bills such as H.R. 1179 are necessary while the
Affordable Care Act is still law to ensure that the Federal Government
does not mandate any American citizen to defy their own religious
principles.
I certainly have many other issues with the President's health care
bill, but I'd like to give some time to my other colleagues here
tonight a chance to speak as well.
Mr. HARRIS. Will the gentleman yield for just a question?
Mr. BENISHEK. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HARRIS. You know, the gentleman's been talking about the
President's health care bill. I assume you don't mean President
Reagan's health care bill, you don't mean President Bush's health care
bill. You're talking about--because a lot of people at home might be a
little confused, you're talking about ObamaCare, I take it?
Mr. BENISHEK. Right.
Mr. HARRIS. And when you talk about the conscience protection that
[[Page H431]]
has been infringed in the last week, is it correct that that is
directly a result of the ObamaCare legislation?
Mr. BENISHEK. That's correct.
Mr. HARRIS. And in fact, as you well know, you're a surgeon, I'm an
anesthesiologist, as physicians, when we were trained, the whole idea
behind that part of the law would treat pregnancy as a disease. Because
in my understanding, isn't that correct, that part of the law dealt
with preventing disease? And in some strange way, shape, or form, what
a lot of Americans think about as a thing of wonder, pregnancy--you
know, the ability to bring a new life into the world--for the first
time is treated as a disease to be prevented using taxpayer dollars to
the point where, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Secretary of Health--
because that's her title, the Secretary of Health and Human Services--
is treating pregnancy as a disease. And not only saying that, but that
it's so important to prevent this disease that every American employer
should be forced to pay every penny of the prevention. Is that what I
understand the Secretary's decision to mean?
Mr. BENISHEK. That's correct, as I understand it.
Mr. HARRIS. Well, Mr. Speaker, as the doctor has said, this is a very
strange path to go down, from a bill that was brought to the American
public as a bill that will help the uninsured get insurance has now
gone to the point of not dealing about whether someone has insurance,
but whether every employee should pay what we call first dollar
coverage--that is, no copay, no deductible--free treatment to treat
what the Secretary of Health now I guess considers a disease,
pregnancy. Now, if that's true, you know, I've got five children, I
guess my wife was struck with that disease five times.
But I will tell you, as a physician who's treated patients, Mr.
Speaker, as the other gentleman from Michigan has, with diseases, to
put pregnancy in the same category as breast cancer, as colon cancer,
as prostate cancer, as leukemia, as other diseases that have screens
that can be done, where, yes, maybe to prevent those life-threatening
diseases--because, doctor, if you can correct me, I don't think it says
that this is only for life-threatening pregnancies. I think this
dictate from the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United
States is to prevent and treat, in whatever fashion someone decides to
treat this disease--it doesn't have to be life-threatening; it's not a
cancer, it's a pregnancy.
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To place that in the same category and to use our precious health
care resources to treat disease and a pregnancy is a very different
objective than to pass a bill to provide basic important health
insurance. And I think the gentleman, as I say, you're being very
generous and perhaps confusing to the American public, because I think
they've come to understand this bill. It's ObamaCare.
I'll tell you what's interesting. Most of the time, when someone here
has a piece of legislation, signature legislation that passes, they're
thrilled if the legislation is referred to by their name, and there are
plenty of examples. But interestingly enough, as the doctor may know,
when we write a letter to our constituents and refer to the Affordable
Care Act, we've actually been told we can't use the name that all
Americans know this bill by. They call it ObamaCare. For some reason,
someone's sensitive. I guess the President's too sensitive. Why
wouldn't he want--if he is so proud of this bill, why, every time we
refer to it by the name all America knows it by and, I might add,
dislikes it by, is ObamaCare.
We know what the public polling says. A majority of Americans know it
was a mistake. Interestingly enough, a third of Americans don't realize
it's still the law of the land. But they did get a rude awakening last
week when, if you happened to be a member of a religion that doesn't
believe that pregnancy ought to be treated as a disease, that doesn't
believe that you ought to be forced to fund sterilizations with no
copay or deductible as part of your insurance policy you provide to
your employees, that that comes under the ObamaCare legislation that is
still in effect.
Mr. Speaker, you know that if you travel through your district and
you talk to the small business men and women in your district, you know
how afraid they are of this bill being fully implemented. They
understand that it will break the bank in their business, it'll break
the bank in their State, and it'll break our bank here in Washington.
We have a $15 trillion debt, and everyone knows, when you add 14
million new people to a government entitlement, as this bill did, all
that you're going to do is make that situation worse. And our small
business men and women realize this. They know that cost is going to be
born to them.
We know what the unemployment rate is. It's not under 8 percent like
the President had promised when that stimulus bill was passed in this
very Chamber 2 years ago, I will say, when the other side was in
charge. The unemployment rate's over 8 percent. The Congressional
Budget Office, just this week, projected it will be 9 percent by the
end of the year.
Times are tough. Gasoline is $3.60 a gallon. And what is the
President's administration doing? Going full steam ahead on
implementing a bill, ObamaCare, that Americans don't want and can't
afford.
So I'm going to thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding the
time to me and thank the gentleman for bringing this up to the American
people once again, to remind them ObamaCare is with us. It may not be
after the next election. We don't know. But we know that America
agrees, this was a bad idea at a bad time, and due to what happened
last week with the conscience protection that's always been present in
Federal law being abridged by our Secretary of Health.
Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Dr. Harris, for being here tonight. We
certainly appreciate your comments.
Let me add, at a town hall in New Hampshire in August of 2009,
President Obama stated: If you like your health care plan, you can keep
your health care plan. The President made this statement several times
as he attempted to gain support for his health care overhaul.
After the last Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, the Obama
administration began its job-killing regulatory spree. Instead of
allowing Americans to keep their health care plans if they're happy,
this new law could cause as many as 87 million Americans, nearly a
third of the population, to lose their coverage.
As a physician, I understand the importance of consumer choice when
it comes to health care. Personally, I don't think government should be
in the business of mandating the purchase of health care insurance at
all. Why in the world would you pass a bill that mandates the purchase
of health care insurance and then potentially kicks 28 percent of the
population off their plans?
I can tell you from experience, this has nothing do with affordable
care. Again, this is just not another reason to replace President
Obama's Affordable Care Act with real health care reform.
I look forward to replacing this plan with a bill that expands health
care choice, like H.R. 3000, a measure introduced by my colleague, Dr.
Price, that I cosponsored. This bill expands health care access and
availability, making provisions for selling insurance across State
lines and addressing medical liability reform. This is a real step
forward in health care reform, unlike the previous Congress's attempt.
With that, I'd like to introduce Dr. Gingrey of Georgia for his
comments.
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Michigan's First Congressional District for yielding the time, and I
thank him for putting together this Special Order hour. And, indeed, I
thank our leadership for making this the designated leadership hour for
the Republican Conference this evening and all of my colleagues that
are participating.
The gentleman spoke about some of the things in ObamaCare. As the
gentleman from the eastern shore said, the name of the bill that the
patients know it for--or dislike it for, I think is the way he put it.
And certainly 60 percent or more still, 2 years after its passage--I
guess when former Speaker Pelosi said they'll have to find out what's
in it and I think they'll like it, well, they found out what's in it
and they don't like it.
[[Page H432]]
And one thing that was in it, still in it, unfortunately, that nobody
really likes, yet our Democratic colleagues fought tooth and nail
yesterday on the House floor to keep the CLASS Act in this ObamaCare,
Affordable Care Act. We call it the ``unaffordable care act.'' And the
CLASS Act was a provision that was inserted, Mr. Speaker, on the Senate
side in the latter stages just before, in fact, they voted on the
Senate side to approve the bill.
In the CLASS Act is this so-called long-term care provision that
former Senator, God rest his soul, Senator Kennedy had worked on for
years, and this was something that his staff wanted to have in the bill
as a legacy to his memory. I understand that. But not only was it half-
baked, I think it was about quarter-baked, and it was a bill, a section
of the bill, 2,700 pages, so it was just one section, but one of the
most egregious provisions in regard to what it's going to cost our
poor, burdened American taxpayer, this CLASS Act, in regard to long-
term care provisions.
And thank goodness for our former Senator, Judd Gregg, who was
chairman of the Budget Committee on the Senate side, is now retired.
But he was on the Health Committee in the Senate and proffered an
amendment that said you couldn't go forward. The Secretary would not be
allowed to go forward with this CLASS Act provision on long-term care
unless she could certify that it was fiscally solvent in the out-years.
And another Member, the current--in fact, the current Budget
Committee chair on the Senate side, Democrat Kent Conrad, said in 2009
that it was a Ponzi scheme of the highest order. In fact, he even said
it would have made Bernie Madoff proud. I couldn't have said it any
better than that, because what it called for, or what it calls for is
something that absolutely is a Ponzi scheme. It requires people that
sign up for this CLASS Act, long-term care insurance, to pay premiums
for 6 years before they would be eligible to have a benefit if they
were disabled and they needed care with daily living activities in
their home.
{time} 1930
So it looked like this part of the bill was going to generate $80
billion in cost savings, and boy did they ever proffer that point.
Eighteen months later, the secretary of Health and Human Services
finally says we can't make this work, we have looked, turned it upside
down, inside out, backwards, eight ways to Sunday.
In fact, they had a flowchart that had an algorithm of how they could
possibly make this program work. It included things like saying that
people with preexisting conditions had to wait 15 years before they
were eligible for a benefit, that these preexisting exclusions would go
away. Then they said, no, maybe we ought to eliminate anybody. Our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle yesterday said you mean
you're going to deny coverage to people with Alzheimer's and with
metastatic cancer and with type 2 diabetes and renal failure, and all
this stuff? These are the things that the Secretary wanted to say, We
are going to have to not allow them to participate with these
preexisting conditions; not us, not our side of the aisle.
In fact, let me make this point before I yield back to Dr. Benishek
so he can yield to others that are here on the floor.
The only thing that they could come up with, Secretary Sebelius, that
would make this program work was the ninth thing, and that was to make
it mandatory, say everybody has to sign up for long-term care insurance
whether they want to or not.
I think they already know they have a little bit of a problem in
regard to mandating health care in regard to the case that is before
the Supreme Court now. They will have 5\1/2\ hours of testimony in
March and a decision probably in June. I don't think they wanted to go
down that road again, and so she threw up her hands and said, We are
not going forward with it.
We voted on the House floor yesterday to strike that bill from the
law, remove it from the books because, if we don't, here is the problem
with the CLASS Act still being kind of inactive, sitting there in the
statute, in law, even though the Democrats say you don't need to remove
it because the Secretary says she is not going to go forward.
But the law says very specifically that she will have a program for
people to participate in by October 1, 2012. That is less than 9 months
from now, if my math is correct. Someone could simply say, You didn't
provide this and the law requires it, and therefore I'm going to bring
suit against the Federal Government. This could go on and on and on.
Then the people who are trying to develop a long-term care insurance
policy so that folks could afford it and it would work, they are not
going to work on that until they know that the Federal Government is
not continuing to mess with the system and cause more and more delay. I
wanted to mention that because I thought it was very important.
The vote yesterday to repeal had 26 of our colleagues on the
Democratic side of the aisle. That is pretty darn good in this body in
regard to bipartisanship.
We hope and pray, as this bill goes over to the other body and gets
to the desk of the majority leader, Senator Reid, that it won't just
stack up like one more piece of cordwood as did the 30 bills that we've
passed in the first session of the 112th Congress. Hope springs
eternal. I think we did a good piece of work yesterday. I am proud to
be here with my colleagues.
Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you very much. I really appreciate my colleague
from Georgia's comments, Dr. Gingrey. Excellent.
The minority leader, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, once promised that
the President's Affordable Care Act would create as many as 4 million
jobs. Despite these promises, over 13 million Americans have been
unemployed for the last 31 months. Instead of creating jobs, the
President's health care plan is working against America's economic
heartbeat--small business. According to a study by the National
Federation of Independent Business, new taxes created by the employer
mandate provision in President Obama's health care bill may eliminate
as many as 1.6 million additional jobs by 2014.
During his State of the Union address last week, President Obama
stated:
Companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one
of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and
everybody knows it. So let's change it.
I couldn't agree more with the President on that statement.
One easy place to start would be the passage of H.R. 1370, a measure
introduced by my colleague, Dr. Boustany. This measure repeals the
annual fee, meaning a tax, that the President's health care plan places
on health care insurance providers. Instead of raising taxes by $500
billion on the American taxpayers to pay for the Affordable Care Act,
President Obama should follow his own advice and encourage the Senate
to repeal his health care plan.
With that, I would like to introduce my colleague from Louisiana, the
former Louisiana doctor of the year, Dr. Fleming.
Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman, Dr. Benishek. That was an
unexpected recognition there. I thank you, sir, for that.
I'm just going to give a brief top-level overview of where we started
with health care in this Nation and why we are here today.
I have to take you back to post-World War II, where we began to have
the indication of a crisis protection form of insurance; that is,
insurance that is there just to keep the family from going bankrupt
over medical bills. That seemed to be well received.
Over time, it became obvious that there were other people, the people
who were poor, people who were elderly, who could not get coverage in
the normal marketplace of insurance. As a result, Congress in the mid-
1960s, created Medicaid, health care coverage for the poor, and
Medicare, health care coverage for those who are 65 and over.
That was all well and good; however, this was the first real foray of
the government managing health care, that is, the financing of health
care. The promises were great to the doctors to get them to go along
with it. The promises were great to the patients. It has rocked along
for a while pretty well.
People who receive Medicare benefits enjoy them. The problem is that
we know in government that the cost has risen and risen and risen, and
now what
[[Page H433]]
we have is a situation where Americans who are on Medicare enjoy very
good health care benefits, but the explosion in cost and the pressure
it is putting on the rest of the health care system is becoming
unsustainable. In fact, if left alone, Medicare will totally displace
all discretionary spending in the government today; therefore,
something has to be done about it.
We got about halfway through government-run health care, and our
friends on the other side of the aisle have had this vision for many
years of having government totally control health care for everyone.
They attempted to do that with the passage of ObamaCare, which took us,
I would say, to about 95 percent complete government control of health
care.
What was the promise? The promise was that your insurance rates would
go down, your coverage would go up, that your choices would go up, and
things would be fine and dandy.
What have we found thus far? And it hasn't even been nearly fully
implemented. That is that the cost of insurance premiums have gone up.
We now have a board called IPAB, which is 15 bureaucrats who will be
appointed by the President, not necessarily health care workers.
Everything that may affect you in your life with regard to health care
may well rest in the hands of this 15, even usurping Congress itself
when it comes to decisions such as what doctors you can see, what it
will cost you, and certainly what the health care system itself will be
paid.
What I would submit to you tonight is that any time government runs a
system of economy--which certainly it has done in education, and we see
the failures in secondary and primary education there, and now in
health care--that costs skyrocket. They become very inefficient and
they become unsustainable.
Remember that when it comes to Medicare that, for every $1 that a
recipient puts into the system in the way of premiums, they get $3 in
benefits.
{time} 1940
That means that even the very wealthy--even the Warren Buffetts of
the world--actually get subsidized health care. We just simply can't
afford it. We'd love for our recipients--our voters--to get this, but
we can't afford it. So now what do we have? We have ObamaCare, which is
a fixed top of Medicare and Medicaid, and we have nearly a 100 percent
government-run system.
You just heard my colleague from Georgia talk about the fact that one
of the ways to fund it is by this CLASS Act, which is long-term health
care. It's unsustainable. It will collapse. Actuaries tell us it's not
going to work, so we're in the process of repealing it. We know that
there is an amazing number of taxes that go with this--a tax on the
sale of your home as an investment--and many other pieces. Another big
piece toward funding it is by taking out a half a trillion dollars from
Medicare, which only makes Medicare go out of business even faster.
Right now, we're looking at about 10 years for that to happen; and our
friends on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, have no solution
for that whatsoever.
So I would say, Mr. Speaker, that we have gone from the frying pan
into the fire when it comes to health care by way of government. There
are those who say, Well then, what is your solution? Mr. Speaker, our
solution is very simple. Our solution is: Let's re-invoke the
marketplace, the forces of the market--economic freedom and patient
choice--back into the system, and let's get government out.
Government has a role. Government's role is to protect its citizens
and to ensure there is an even playing field. Yet we know that no way
will costs go down in any open economy, in any free economy, unless
there is robust competition. But we do not have that today, not among
insurance companies, not among large, vertically integrated
governmental systems. It's not there--it never will be--and we will
continue to have waste. No matter what any politician says that he's
going to do to get rid of fraud, waste, and abuse in the system, he is
incapable of doing that. Only a free market can do that.
I will refer you back to Paul Ryan's budget, which actually gives
Medicare recipients a free market choice, which is the same kind of
choice that we in Congress have today. That is: We can go to a Web site
or we can go to a book, and we can choose from one of hundreds of
excellent health care systems out there by which we can be covered.
Why can't Medicare recipients and why can't Medicaid recipients have
exactly the same thing? Why can't we tear down the State walls that
exist that make, in most cases, one insurance company totally control
the market in an entire State? Why can't we do this?
The answer is: This body right here has not allowed that to happen.
Mr. Speaker, that is what I submit to you this evening: Should we
repeal ObamaCare?
I am convinced now that we will; that perhaps it will be H.R. 1 in
2013, the full repeal of ObamaCare; that we will quickly replace it
with piecemeal pieces of legislation that do many things, including
reforming liability insurance, re-invoking the free marketplace,
patient choice; and that we will get on with making this a much more
efficient system, one that is much more user friendly and one that we
can all be proud of.
I thank the gentleman, and I thank my fellow physicians in the GOP
Doctors Caucus. It is always an honor to serve with these ladies and
gentlemen. It's not only physicians, but nurses and other types of
health care workers. There are truly great things that are happening in
this body.
Mr. BENISHEK. I appreciate that, Dr. Fleming. Thank you for your
comments.
I just thought I'd make a few comments of my own about your
discussion of the IPAB board and make sure that the American people
know what this is. The Independent Payment Advisory Board is a board of
bureaucrats appointed by the President, without appeal, that will
determine whether or not procedures, if they are overpriced, will be
available to the American people.
I've talked to patients in many difficult situations, where I have
had a very sick patient and have taken care of the patient myself and
the patient's family, where difficult decisions are being made
affecting the life or death of the patient. These decisions are not
easy to make. You have to discuss the alternatives with the patient and
with the patient's family; and usually, through the coordination of
what the patient wants, with what the physician recommends and in
discussion with the family, we come to a decision.
The Independent Payment Advisory Board may decide completely
differently from what we decide. Certainly, some patients deserve
different types of care: palliative care rather than aggressive care,
comfort care measures versus complete major surgery. These are
decisions that have to be made personally--on an individual basis--
based on sound medicine, what the family needs, what the patient wants,
and not with an unappealable bureaucratic decision made in Washington
by someone who may or may not know the patient and who certainly may
not be educated in medicine or compassion. From my eyes, it's really a
scary thought for the American people, and I just wanted to put my
perspective on your comments there.
Now we have my colleague here with us this evening, the gentlewoman
from New York (Ms. Buerkle), as a member of the Doctors Caucus. Ms.
Buerkle is actually a nurse, yet we have health professionals of all
varieties here tonight, so I yield to the gentlewoman.
Ms. BUERKLE. I thank my colleague and friend from Michigan for
yielding to me, and thank you so much for having this evening's Special
Order regarding health care.
I think it is so important, Mr. Speaker, that the American people
hear from health care professionals. There is such distrust of
politicians in Washington, so for the American people to have the
opportunity to hear from those who have invested their lives in health
care and who really do care deeply about our health care system, I
think it's so very important that we have this hour and this time
together.
Mr. Speaker, I ran for Congress because I was so concerned with
regard to the health care law. I thought that it was substantively
flawed. I thought that it was procedurally flawed. It was passed in
secrecy at all hours of the
[[Page H434]]
night, and I thought that constitutionally it was flawed in that our
government doesn't have the right to mandate our buying anything, let
alone health care. So I ran on that. Now that time has unfolded--and
we've been here a year now--what has come to light is how very flawed
this health care law is. I speak to so many parts of it that are
flawed, but I just want to focus on a couple of specific areas.
I am the daughter of a 90-year-old woman. My mother is alive and well
and lives in a small town in Auburn. I know how much she cares about
her Medicare coverage, and I know how important that is to her and for
her. Then last April, when the Republicans put out a budget proposal,
Mr. Speaker, we were demagogued; we were demagogued that we wanted to
cut Medicare for seniors.
I am here tonight to reassure the American people, particularly our
seniors, that this group--all the members of our caucus--and our
conference understand and appreciate how important Medicare is to our
seniors. We understand that. This budget proposal that was proposed
last April and passed in the House is merely a proposal, a suggestion
as to how we're going to save Medicare for those who are 54 years and
younger. So I want to assure seniors that any changes we talk about
with regard to Medicare have to do with only those who are 54 and
younger. That's very important to emphasize.
What I do want to talk about briefly is that this health care law,
which is the law of the land and which will go into effect in 2014,
does cut Medicare. I've heard from many of the seniors in the country,
and I've heard from the hospitals in my district, and I've heard from
the physicians in my district. This health care law cuts Medicare by
$500 billion. Every senior is going to feel the impact of this health
care law.
So I want to be here tonight with my colleagues and with members of
the health care profession to assure our seniors that we are here to
protect you. We want to keep Medicare intact, and we want to alert you
that the law that was passed is flawed on so many levels. We voted to
repeal it, but it's flawed primarily.
One of the biggest reasons is that it cuts Medicare, which will
impact our seniors and the care they receive. We've heard about the
IPAB, and you've heard about the CLASS Act; but this cut to seniors is
something every senior should be concerned about, and they should be
clamoring for the repeal of the law of this land because it will affect
their care and their coverage.
I've heard from so many hospitals in my district, and I have a list
here. I have five hospitals in my district. All of the Members have
hospitals in their districts. There are cuts to our hospitals because
of this health care law. Hospitals receive what's called a
``disproportionate share'' for services they give to folks who don't
have insurance--who are uninsured--or who maybe get Medicare or
Medicaid. So hospitals get what's called a ``disproportionate share.''
{time} 1950
Mr. Speaker, the health care law eliminates the disproportionate
share. It's a problem for hospitals, and I've heard from my hospitals
and I've had the privilege of representing my hospital for 13 years as
a lawyer. I don't say that as much as I say that I'm a nurse.
The cuts to Medicare to our hospitals will really force them into a
very bad situation. And I want to talk just briefly, and then I want to
yield to my colleagues, how important our hospitals are to our
districts. In my district alone it employs 18,000 people. So when we've
enacted a law, this health care law in this country, it's going to
impact our hospitals and how viable they are.
You can see the payroll and purchases from the hospitals. Just in my
district, Mr. Speaker, over $2.5 billion; and State and local tax and
revenues, 105 million. So this health care law--and my hospitals have
said to me, it's going to hurt us. One has said it will put us into
bankruptcy because we can't afford to do business because of the health
care law.
So a bill that was supposed to--a law that was supposed to increase
access, decrease the cost of health care--as this bill and this law
unfolds, we're seeing more and more that it's bad. It's bad for
seniors, it's bad for hospitals, it's bad for our physicians. It's bad
because it's the government telling the American people what they have
to do.
I'm so proud to stand here with my colleagues who have voted to
repeal this health care law, and we want to make sure that the American
people understand. We do realize we need health care reform, but it
needs to be market based, as my colleague mentioned, and it needs to be
care that doesn't hurt our seniors, doesn't hurt our hospitals, doesn't
hurt our physicians and really does increase access to health care.
Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you very much. I appreciate the gentlewoman's
remarks, and thank you for taking the time to come up this evening.
We're nearing the end of our hour here, and I'd like to give the
other Members that are here an opportunity to speak.
I yield to my friend from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), who is a member of the
dental profession. I'm looking forward to your comments.
Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Dr. Benishek. Thank you for having this
opportunity through these Special Orders.
I've got a unique perspective of looking at health care through a
dentist's eyes, something that has stayed market based and stayed very
inflationary neutral.
But before I do that, what I wanted to do is touch on my colleague,
Ms. Buerkle, in regards to hospitals.
I come from rural Arizona and more important aspects of hospital care
is our rural hospitals and the solvency that we're seeing with them.
They've taken an undue burden because we destroyed the patient-doctor
relationship, the integral aspects of all the doctors with specialties
and with the hospital.
Many of the hospitals that I've been working with are finding that
it's going to be insolvent very, very quickly; and, therefore, our
safety net is going to be gone.
We need to look no further to see government-run health care,
particularly the longest-standing health care, and that's Native
American health care. We see how detrimental it actually is. We have
actually seen a group of people that are so despondent about the way
government has taken care of their health care that they've invoked a
clause called the self-determination act, in which they are taking back
their health care needs within their communities, patient based,
community based, preventive based.
These are some of the things that we as health care professionals
really support and really tried to build upon. We can look no further
than our Native American friends to see how we can actually start that
capacity of rebuilding.
Second of all, we've talked about it briefly, and that is the
modality of increased competition. This is a place that the Federal
Government can actually help us and intercede. We all, as
professionals, can work as collusive bodies, in unison, price fixing.
But insurance companies certainly do that, and this is where we can
actual level the playing field by our Federalist papers to allow open
competition and vertical competition against each other across State
lines.
This gives us the opportunity to have many more opportunities for the
marketplace. That gives us the opportunity, consumer based, so that my
needs may be different. For example, I'm allergic to wheat. I need to
take care of myself. I need to be able to have an opportunity if I want
wellness checks, if I want to see. I have different riders for
lymphomas, all those different things I need to have the opportunity
for. And that gives me the playing field on which I can play,
particularly when there's more options out there. We're competing
against each other and State lines.
Like my good friend from Louisiana talked about, State laws that
almost give a monopoly to certain insurers within a State. This is the
opportunity to open those doors and start to bypass the ERISA laws,
opening up the competition model so that we all have an opportunity.
You know, there was a conversation that was taking place, but we've
lost it. Instead of a single-payer, how about a single-pool?
Here's our opportunity to make sure that we've got great competition
within the marketplace. Dentist, no, because we compete that way. You
know,
[[Page H435]]
once upon a time insurance wanted to take over dentistry. There is an
insurer called Delta Dental, and it was dentistry that was actually
building insurers basically for the patients.
That's how we became the marketplace, opportunity. This gave us the
opportunity that everybody got to choose and pick, and those are the
things we have to look at.
Last but not least, all parts of this, this government-run health
care, we need to really point at a vibrant economy. No closer do we
have to look at this discussion than the withholding tax. Part of this
money goes into the Social Security fund but also into Medicare. When
we don't have a vibrant economy, we don't have the money going into our
health care portfolio.
This is why it's all integrated. This isn't one separate entity. It's
all integrated into a Nation that has a vibrant economy; and that's
where we have to poignantly look, establish a new playing field, open
up the rules, even get tort reform.
And we can learn from our States. This is one where one size doesn't
fit all, but we can work with a value: what happens in Texas, what
would happen in California. How about mediation that all medical
malpractice cases have to go to mediation before they can go to court.
Isn't that magical? That's exactly what happens in Oregon. These are
opportunities to take the brightest pieces across this country and
putting them together and working it on the basis for patient
preference, allowing them to pick. There's nothing more dear to
somebody than their health care.
I'd like to thank my good friend, Mr. Benishek, for putting this
together.
Mr. HARRIS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. BENISHEK. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HARRIS. Gentlemen, I appreciate the very passionate discussion
that you had about the way physicians interact with patients, and
patients kind of expect that their care is going to be a personal
decision between their health care provider and themselves and their
family.
My understanding, and the gentleman from Louisiana mentioned this,
Independent Payment Advisory Board, are 15 bureaucrats appointed by the
President. Do either of the gentlemen know, correct me if I'm wrong,
they are by law--cannot be a practicing physician.
You might want to check one of those 2,700 pages because I believe
that the act by law says they cannot be a practicing physician.
Now, the gentleman from Michigan pointed out something that every
senior in America ought to really care about, or those who take care of
seniors or whose parent or grandparents are seniors. When your loved
one is ill, do you really want the decision about whether they can
receive care being made in an office in Washington by somebody who's
got to find a way to pay for that ObamaCare bill?
Because, Mr. Speaker, that's the whole purpose of that Independent
Payment Advisory Board. They've got to find $500 billion to take out of
that Medicare program. Who among us doesn't believe that when that
bureaucrat sits down, they're not going to be thinking about what's
best for your loved one?
They're not going to be thinking about what that physician or that
health care provider's decision is about what the best care is. They're
going to be thinking how they're going to make that budget work.
To the gentleman from Michigan, I will tell you, I think that's the
way America thinks that decision is going to be made. They're going to
believe that when government runs health care, it's going to be run
just like government runs a whole lot of other things it runs.
Ask a senior in your district, doctor from Louisiana, the doctor from
Michigan, the doctor from Arizona, the doctor from Georgia, ask the
next Medicare patient you take care of how long they have to wait on
the phone when they call Medicare.
{time} 2000
To the gentlelady from New York, my mother is 88, God bless her. And
I have to tell you, she has made the mistake a couple of times of
calling Medicare on the phone. My poor 88-year-old mother spent 90
minutes one time on the phone to get an answer. That's the kind of care
we're going to get from the Affordable Care Act. It's not affordable
care. It's not accessible care. It's not good care.
I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding and giving
us the opportunity to remind the American public, we repealed ObamaCare
in this Chamber. That repeal bill is sitting over in the Senate.
Mr. BENISHEK. I thank my colleague from Maryland, and I appreciate
your bringing up those great points.
The President's health care act was to allow people to get more
access to medicine. And as we've seen from multiple discussions here
this evening, with the closure of many small hospitals throughout
America due to the decreased payments under the President's health care
bill, many small hospitals are facing closure.
I know, like the gentlelady from New York mentioned, I have many
small hospitals that are on the razor's edge of being in the black or
in the red. Recently, a small hospital in my district was just on the
verge of bankruptcy. How is closing five hospitals in the 200-mile area
increasing access to care? It isn't. It's making access to care more
difficult, more impersonal.
Physicians, like ourselves, we're concerned about what's going to
happen here because I'm concerned about my patients. And I'm concerned
about my colleagues who complain to me about their patients. I think
it's folly to be able to regulate health care from above.
Health care needs reform. We have the best health care in the world.
The problem is it costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of money because
there's not enough market forces, as my friend from Louisiana
mentioned. You know, once somebody pays their copay, they don't care
what anything costs. I paid my copay, I don't care what it costs. It's
all good. We need to have health insurance be more like car insurance.
You can buy car insurance from multiple different companies, thousands
of different companies. In Michigan, you can buy your car insurance
from a company in Florida or Tennessee because there's a lot of open
competition. And your car insurance doesn't pay for an oil change. It
doesn't pay for new tires. It doesn't pay for the routine expenses. If
your car insurance paid for your oil change and your new tires, it
would be really expensive, just like our health insurance is today.
We need to have people understand that health care isn't free once
they pay their deductible. I think the health savings account concept
where people have to save money tax free in their health savings
account, use that money for their routine medical care and have health
insurance be what it should be, not complete coverage of everything
medicine but insurance for catastrophic disease, for items that you
choose to insure for, not to insure for things that the government
makes you insure for, like, you know, abortions which you may not want,
or pregnancy, which you may not--you know, if you've had a
hysterectomy, why should you be paying insurance for a pregnancy? There
should be choice in health insurance, to allow people to have a
Cadillac plan if they want, if they can afford it, or a Chevrolet plan.
Or a young person may have simply a catastrophic plan if they feel they
will not have significant health issues.
That type of marketplace and that type of philosophy is what we need
in the health insurance business in my view.
I want to ask my colleague from Louisiana if that view of medicine, a
market-based insurance and then competition between physicians as well,
is your view?
Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman. I will just briefly respond to
that.
The point I would like to make on that very question is that coverage
is not the same thing as access. There are countries around the world
that have 100 percent coverage, yet they have no access to care. And
I'm not just talking about communist or socialist countries. Look at
Canada today. It takes a year to get a CT scan; but yet everybody's
covered. So that's the fine point that we need to understand and take
away.
I will also add in response to the gentleman just a moment ago
talking
[[Page H436]]
about the Independent Payment Advisory Board is that it will have more
power than Congress itself. It will take a two-thirds vote from both
bodies to overturn their decisions, and I don't think that Americans
are ready to put all of that power in the hands of 15 bureaucrats who
may or may not be physicians.
Mr. BENISHEK. Thank you. Let me ask my colleague from Georgia if he
has any other comments he'd like to make?
Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Well, I thank the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment before we close tonight. The
members of the House GOP Doctors Caucus, along with the health care
providers that caucus on the Senate side, in the other body, have just
recently sent a letter to the American Association of Retired Persons,
AARP, the executive director Mr. Barry Rand, asking them and the 35
million seniors that they represent in their advocacy, and of course
the definition of a senior for them is anybody who has reached the age
of 50, so certainly they can reach a whole lot more seniors, and I'm
sure membership is important to them, so we have sent a letter to them
reaching out to the organization and asking AARP to meet with the
Doctor's Caucuses in the respective bodies in a very bipartisan way to
try to save Medicare.
There are things that that organization, which I respect, indeed,
I've been a member of, that we agree with, and there are things that we
don't agree on. Now, AARP was opposed to what we had in the Republican
budget last year, the so-called Paul Ryan budget in regard to how to
strengthen, protect, preserve, the Medicare program, not just for our
current seniors and recipients of that program, but for our children
and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, indeed. So we want to ask
them to sit down with us and say what they do like. We know what they
don't like. I guess they didn't like the mandate of premium support in
our budget last year. But Chairman Ryan this year is working very
closely in a bipartisan way with Senator Wyden, the gentleman from
Oregon, in regard to this same idea of premium support. But instead of
mandating it--and of course it was only mandated for those younger than
age 55; everyone else was held harmless--now the idea is to say, Look,
let's let everyone choose and decide. It's their option. Do they want
to stay on Medicare as we know it, the legacy program, or would they
prefer to go to the doctor and the hospital of their choice with their
own premium support?
So I just wanted to mention that, and I'm looking forward to having a
dialogue with the AARP and the 35 million seniors that they represent.
Back in 2003, my colleagues weren't here then, but I was, and I had
an opportunity to vote in favor, as a physician Member, of the Medicare
part D, the Prescription Drug Act, and AARP supported that. And yet our
Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle, many of them
symbolically came to the well and tore up their membership card of the
AARP. So we're going to work with them. I think it's very important.
Mr. BENISHEK. I thank the gentleman from Georgia and the gentlemen
from Louisiana and Arizona, the gentlewoman from New York, and my
colleague from Maryland as well for appearing with me tonight. We've
been trying to explain to the Speaker and the American people some of
the issues that we have with the President's health care bill that do
not solve our problem with health care and why we want to repeal it.
{time} 2010
I encourage you all to look further into this issue and become
educated so that you can inform yourself and your friends how serious
this problem is.
With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
____________________