[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this bill must be repealed, we must tell you why it has to be repealed, 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.

                              {time}  1920

  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.

                          ____________________