[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 15, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H797-H800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is such an honor to serve with such an 
honorable man as Colonel Allen West. I've known him for a few years, 
going back to his previous efforts at election to the House of 
Representatives. I'm just delighted that he is here. I'm delighted to 
call him a friend. He has been a fantastic addition here to the House 
of Representatives.
  I would like to address something a Democratic colleague had 
referenced, and that was with regard to Medicare. My friend was taking 
issue with what my Republican doctors were addressing here on the floor 
with regard to Medicare. And it was interesting to hear a Democrat say 
that actually ObamaCare strengthened Medicare. It's interesting. I 
guess the definition of ``is'' means something to some folks. In this 
case, I guess the definition of ``strengthen'' would have to be what 
was at issue here.
  The Democrats strengthened Medicare, cut $500 billion--with a B--out 
of Medicare, and are proud to report to the American people that they 
strengthened Medicare. Well, in a bill I didn't agree with, the debt 
ceiling bill, it's cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from our 
national security, for our national defense. I guess the same reasoning 
would say we're cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from our 
national defense. And under the Democratic strategy and definition, I 
guess, of ``strengthen,'' could say, under that

[[Page H798]]

logic and that thinking, will strengthen our military and our national 
defense.
  I don't happen to agree with that definition. I don't believe that's 
what it does; $500 billion in cuts to Medicare that ObamaCare rammed 
down America's throat, to my way of thinking, does not strengthen 
Medicare. It guts it.
  Now, an explanation has been that the hundreds of billions of dollars 
that the Democrats in the House and Senate, when they were in the 
majority, took from Medicare, we're told, well, that wasn't cuts to the 
American people. That was only cuts to the health care providers. Well, 
lest I become too sarcastic, let me just say, when you cut the payments 
by $500 billion to those who are going to provide seniors with health 
care, you didn't cut the money going to seniors, you cut it to the 
people that the seniors need to provide them care.
  If people haven't gotten out from around this town and gone out and 
talked to doctors across the country, including doctors in what some 
would deem ``flyover country,'' you find out the doctors say, if and 
when those cuts occur, we cannot stay in business; we'll have to close 
our doors.
  I've had a number of doctors tell me, Once ObamaCare is fully law, I 
can't live on that. There's so many pieces of equipment that cost so 
much. There's so much medication that costs more and more. The 
government would require me to provide services and not reimburse me 
enough to pay the people I have to hire, to pay for the equipment I 
have to purchase and lease, and the medications I have to have in our 
facilities. Can't stay in business. I've had doctors tell me 
repeatedly, I had hoped to have more in savings before I retired, but 
I'm just going to have to do with what I've got there because I can't 
stay in the practice of medicine once those $500 billion in cuts are 
made.

                              {time}  2030

  So I guess someone can make the argument that the $500 billion in 
cuts to health care providers somehow strengthens Medicare for seniors 
since it only guts the payments to the health care providers, the 
doctors, the hospitals.
  But I don't think it takes a whole lot of reasoning to understand 
seniors will find themselves in the position that the lady at the White 
House did during the President's town hall, when she pointed out, My 
mother was 95. Her personal doctor said she needs a pacemaker. The 
cardiologist said, she's too old, but he had never met her. Once he met 
her, he realized this is a woman that's going to live a lot longer. She 
does need a pacemaker. So he installed it, and 8 to 10 years later 
she's still going strong.
  And the woman's question to the President was, in deciding who gets 
treatment and who doesn't, who gets surgery and who doesn't, will the 
people making the decisions under your bill consider the quality of a 
person's life in deciding whether they'll get the surgery, whether 
they'll get the health care they need, whether my mother would get the 
pacemaker she needed?
  The President, after beating around the bush--it can be found online, 
both the video and transcript--the President ultimately said, you know, 
we have to come to the conclusion that maybe we're better off telling 
your mother she should just take a pain pill. In other words, the 
woman's mother would be dead, but she would have gotten a pain pill 
under the President's idea of good health care, under his ObamaCare 
program.
  So that's what happens when you cut $500 billion to Medicare, as the 
Democrats did, in ObamaCare. And I know my colleague across the aisle 
pointed out that the AMA, the AHA, and others, I would add, many 
leaders of the Catholic Church, encouraged the passage of ObamaCare. 
And now, so many are finding egg on their faces.
  Heck, the big pharmaceutical groups, they supported it. Every one of 
those groups that signed on was bought off. That's just the way it is. 
They thought that they were signing on to something that would help 
them out because they were given some little bit that they wanted in 
the bill.
  Some from those groups told me, gee, we wanted to have a seat at the 
table. I tried to warn them, you don't want a seat at the table when 
you're on the menu. When they signed on to agree to ObamaCare, they 
signed their own group's death warrants because $500 billion in cuts to 
health care providers, when you don't even eliminate the fraud and 
waste and abuse, is going to gut the very people financially that are 
supposed to provide the care.
  So who suffers? Well, the doctors, the health care providers, they 
retire. They go on and do something else. Who suffers? The seniors do. 
That's what the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare under ObamaCare do for 
Americans.
  I had a health care bill. In the CBO's effort to help the President 
get ObamaCare passed, of course they had scored it originally as being 
over $1 trillion; but since the President promised it would cost much 
less than that, there was a meeting with the Director of CBO at the 
White House. We don't know what was said, but we understood the 
President was saying before and after the meeting that it had to be 
scored to where it was under $1 trillion. And lo and behold, CBO went 
back and scored it at $800 billion, approximately.
  ObamaCare passes, and then after it becomes law, CBO re-scores. And 
guess what? It's over $1 trillion. So we now know that anything we get 
from CBO in the way of a scoring has to be considered plus or minus 25 
percent accurate. I think we ought to change legislation, get rid of 
CBO, and find entities competitively who are most accurate at scoring 
bills who can come closer than a plus or minus 25 percent accuracy.
  But my bill would give seniors a choice and say, if you like your 
Medicare, and especially now, with all the cuts that are coming to 
health care, if you like it, great, keep it. But if you would like the 
best health insurance that money can buy, with a high deductible, 
$3,000, $4,000, $5,000, whatever we found to be most accommodating, 
then we would buy that for the seniors, their choice, Medicare or the 
best private insurance with a high deductible.
  Say, for example, if we made it, in my bill it was 3,500, say, 4,000, 
5,000 now. That deductible amount would then be provided to the 
senior's household in a health savings account that they would control 
with their own debit card so that, for the first time since Medicare 
came into existence, seniors would get to control their own health 
care. They wouldn't have to go begging to an insurance company, because 
insurance companies, health insurance companies have gotten out of the 
business of health insurance. They're in health management. I don't 
want them in health management. I want them in health insurance.
  Insurance is when you pay a small premium to insure against an 
insurable event down the road. You don't know what's coming; but in 
case there's a catastrophic accident or disease, then you're covered.
  In the meantime, each year we'd provide that cash in the health 
savings account that can only be used for health matters. Now, that 
would put patients back in control because the most effective 
government, we have found--and yet we have to keep relearning this 
lesson--comes not when government is the referee and the coach, and a 
player. It doesn't work well. We have to keep learning that lesson.
  People in this body say, oh, well, it'll work out better if 
government competes with the private sector. No, it doesn't. It works 
better if we're a referee.
  So whether it's the stock market, there are referees. There are 
officials that watch out for people like Madoff. Instead of being so 
engaged in details of day-to-day transactions, they're engaged in 
health insurance as a referee to make sure people are playing fairly 
with their consumers, with their patients, so that they're not getting 
jerked around, so that the government can go after those who are 
defrauding or being unfair in their treatment. That's the government's 
role. Be a referee.
  But when the government becomes a player and a coach and the referee, 
then everybody suffers. There is no reason we should have to keep 
relearning that lesson.
  Now, I wouldn't mind so much guest-worker permits. We hear from some 
of the farmers in California and what-not that, gee, we have to have 
guest workers come in and harvest our crops. But we shouldn't have to 
have the rest of

[[Page H799]]

the country pay for their health care because they don't have it.
  So we ought to have a new requirement for visas. Yeah, we'll give you 
a visa to come into the country, but you have to show that you're going 
to have health insurance the entire time you're here.
  You want to bring guest workers in to harvest your crops, well, then 
provide an umbrella health insurance policy for them so that the rest 
of America doesn't pay for that farmer's, that rancher's employees' 
health care.
  Those are just little things. But one other thing that we need to do 
to really get health care on track is get competition back in health 
care.

                              {time}  2040

  When a hospital, when a doctor, when a clinic cannot tell you exactly 
what the cost is unless they know which insurance company you have or 
if it's Medicare or if it's Medicaid or what, whether it's cash--
because if it's cash, the way the system is now, you're going to pay 
more than the insurance companies pay--well, that's no way to have a 
competitive system.
  When I grew up in my hometown, Mount Pleasant, Texas, my parents 
sometimes switched doctors. If one doctor went up, well, we knew there 
were a number of good doctors in town. We went to one that was cheaper 
because we knew they were good, too.
  We don't do that anymore because nobody knows what things cost. Well, 
that ought to be posted. You ought to be able to find it, published, 
post it, so people know this one is cheaper. If you have your own debit 
card with money in that account or a health savings account, then you 
would be concerned about that. But the government gets so involved that 
it becomes the problem.


                                 Visas

  I want to address one other area in which the government ought to be 
the referee, but it's so busy trying to be the coach and the player 
that the job is not getting done. That is in the area of visas.
  Apparently, we have this EB 5 program that, in essence, says if 
you're a non-American, but if you want to come into the United States 
and you have a million dollars and you're willing to invest it in the 
U.S., hey, we'll give you a visa, one of these EB 5 visas. Then you can 
come into this country, and you can be a legal resident. So you buy 
your way in.
  Well, everybody acknowledges times are tough. Things have not gotten 
any better than they were when President Obama took office. We're worse 
off than we were when he took office, debt through the roof. But I can 
understand. It makes sense. Let's encourage outside investment in 
America.
  Well, it just so happens that the month of February has been quite 
revealing in this program in that in my hometown of Tyler, Texas, we 
had a very weary local law enforcement. I know from my days as a 
district judge handling felonies, we have some very capable, competent 
local law enforcement. We have extremely capable State law enforcement 
in Texas.
  A car was pulled over. It had no front license plates. That's 
required in Texas. Then the officer found that there were some 
questionable things going on and asked him for permission to search. 
Permission was granted. $67,000 in cash was in the car; children in the 
car; two individuals in the car with another adult driver; shotgun in 
the car. Strange situation. When they were taken in for their 
violations, the name was run, the shotgun was run, lo and behold, they 
hear from the Federal Government. ICE says, We're in charge. These 
folks are ours. So they take them from Tyler, Texas, detention to 
Dallas to the detention there.
  We just happen to have the mug shots of these folks. These 
individuals were Hector Hernandez Javier Villarreal. He's the former 
secretary executive of Tax Administration Service of Coahuila, Mexico, 
along with his wife, Marie Teresita Botello. Then they also had a 
driver with them, Oswaldo Coronado. These were their mug shots.
  Well, ICE takes over. They take these folks to detention in Dallas. 
Homeland Security gets alerted. We don't know whether it was the 
shotgun being run or the people's names being run, but they get 
involved reporting to the Smith County Sheriff's Office wanting to 
interrogate these individuals. They were told, well, you'll have to get 
in line behind ICE. They've just taken them to Dallas about 100 miles 
up the interstate.
  Well, once they were in Dallas, and there was computer material, 
different things that were obtained after they were arrested in Tyler, 
obtained by warrant, and they begin to find out a little bit more about 
them.
  This is in the Tyler Morning Telegraph, my hometown paper. They do a 
good job of reporting local news. So they report, as did FOX and the 
San Antonio Express-News:

       Villarreal and at least six other men face charges linked 
     to more than $3 billion in debt racked up by the Coahuila 
     government during the administration by the former governor, 
     Humberto Moreira.
       Villarreal is accused of falsifying documents involving 
     $325 million in bank loans to the state shortly before 
     Moreira resigned to become national president of the 
     opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
       State police arrested Villarreal and another former 
     Coahuila official October 28 charging them in connection with 
     suspicious loans. Villarreal was released on bail within 
     hours after being detained.

  I was told that bond was around $1 million. The article continues 
with a quote from our sheriff there, J.B. Smith:

       ``All we did was make a traffic stop. We did not realize we 
     had stopped a major person of interest for Mexico and the 
     United States.''
       Villarreal was charged with money laundering and turned 
     over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was released 
     on February 6 on $20,000 bail, according to jail records. 
     Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman in Dallas, would not comment on 
     the situation.
       Three days later, Federal investigators in Mexico issued a 
     warrant for Villarreal's arrest. Members of Mexico's ruling 
     National Action Party, or PAN, are asking the same questions: 
     Why was Villarreal able to enter the U.S. and why was he 
     released?

  We're giving visas to people because they promised to come in here 
and invest $500,000 or $1 million in the U.S. What, do we need to 
change the inscription on the Statute of Liberty? Give us your tired, 
your fugitives, your embezzlers? Give us your criminals longing to stay 
free?
  Some of us have been pretty critical of the Mexican Government not 
being tougher on corruption. Here we have a case where it appears the 
Mexican Government is trying to crack down on corruption.
  I know from my days as a judge, when somebody is released on bond, 
they're not allowed to leave the country. Why wouldn't our government--
because I was assured today in a hearing of the Immigration Committee 
by the Customs and Immigration Service Director that, gee, they do a 
very thorough background study on people before they will give them 
this EB 5 visa. They're very thorough, I was told. I'm looking forward 
to the report from the Director that he promised me today in the 
hearing as to exactly what happened here, why they didn't pick up that 
these people were being charged in Mexico with embezzlement of hundreds 
of millions, maybe even billions of dollars.
  I mean, is the economy so in need of help that we welcome people 
charged with criminal activity to come in as long as they'll invest 
their dirty money in our country? We need to have better standards than 
that. We need to be the country that was, as it once was, a rule-of-law 
Nation, where the law mattered.
  But once they were in Dallas, the State Department, I was told by the 
law enforcement officials I'd talked to, they were told--Homeland 
Security, ICE--you've got to let these folks go. We gave them a valid 
visa. They told the local officials that, now, we did revoke that visa, 
but since they came into the U.S. before we revoked the visa, we have 
to let them stay, so you've got to let them go. They were ordered to 
let these three individuals go.

                              {time}  2050

  Now, I was told that upon pulling these folks out of detention and 
being told that the State Department had ordered their release and that 
they were free to go wherever they wanted in the United States that 
Villarreal's wife said, But you told us we were going to be deported 
back to Mexico, where the charges were waiting for them.
  He said, No, we're told we have to release you here in this country.
  When she started to say that didn't make sense, Mr. Villarreal 
responded very assertively in Spanish, and she didn't say anything 
after that. It's not hard to figure out what he must have said:

[[Page H800]]

  Look, if these people are so stupid they're going to let us go when 
we're wanted in Mexico, when we're wanted here and they're going to let 
us go, just shut up, and let these stupid people let us go.
  So they were let go.
  It was only a day or two later that the State Department said, You 
know what? These people are wanted fugitives, and we need to hang onto 
them.
  They're gone and they haven't been found, and they told local law 
enforcement that they had access to private jets so they could come in 
and out of the United States when they were ready to.
  Well, I hope they find them. As a former prosecutor, as a former 
judge and chief justice, the law needs to be addressed.
  In the meantime, here in Congress, we did have a hearing today with 
immigration officials, including the inspector general of the 
immigration service, CIS. I was told during the hearing that if the 
chairman of our immigration committee will request an investigation, 
the IG will do that investigation, and I'm hopeful that will be 
forthcoming.
  We've got to clean up this administration's mess. It's bad enough the 
damage that's being done to Medicare and our seniors. It's bad enough 
that a payroll tax rate of insurance is being reduced so that there is 
not enough money to pay Social Security from the Social Security tax 
coming in again this year and that it may go from an approximately 5 
percent shortfall last year to a maybe 14 percent or so shortfall this 
year. It's bad enough we're doing that to the seniors. It's bad enough 
what ObamaCare will be doing to the seniors in making it difficult for 
them to find the care they need in the years to come unless we repeal 
ObamaCare--but now we have to deal with fugitives coming in from Mexico 
because they were willing to invest money that the Mexican authorities 
allege was stolen, embezzled money.
  At some point, it is time to stop hurting American citizens who have 
contributed and who have been law-abiding for their lives. It's time 
the government became a proper referee and quit trying to divide 
America, quit trying to be the player, the coach and the referee and 
got back into the business of making sure Americans are treated fairly, 
that Americans are protected from outside evil forces--those who want 
to harm us and destroy our way of life. It's time to get the United 
States Government back into the business of providing for the common 
defense, of making sure there is a level playing field, of encouraging 
competition, not rewarding cronies who have some wild-eyed scheme of 
something that they call ``green energy'' while the rest of America 
can't even fill up their gas tanks.
  It is time to do the job that is given to Congress, that is given to 
the President in the Constitution; and once we get back to that and 
concentrate on doing that well, America could make another 200 years.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________