[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 99 (Thursday, June 28, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H4422-H4426]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, my name is Keith Ellison, and I claim this
Special Order time on behalf of the Progressive Caucus. I am very
pleased to be joined by my dear friend from the great State of Ohio,
Mr. Dennis Kucinich.
The Progressive Caucus has a Web site we refer people to, which is
cpc.grijalva.house.gov. I urge everybody to check it out because it has
a lot of excellent information.
This we call The Progressive Message. Today, we are going to focus on
three topics, Mr. Speaker. They will be in the areas of: (1) historic
health care; (2) the travesty of justice perpetuated on Eric Holder;
(3) the voter ID issue that is proliferating across the country, that
of trying to restrict and suppress the votes of Americans. So that's
our Progressive Message for today.
I want to introduce the first subject by saying that today was a
historic day. The historic health care bill was passed many, many
months ago; but until the Supreme Court of the United States said that
this bill was constitutional, that this act was constitutional, it was
always in jeopardy of being overturned. In the Progressive Caucus, many
of us were signatories and cosponsors of H.R. 676, which is the single-
payer bill--or health care for all and Medicare for all.
Personally, I think today is a dramatic step forward in the quest to
make sure that all Americans are covered and can go to a doctor. This
is a very important step--it's an advance--so I'm happy to see it.
With that, I would like to just turn some time over to the gentleman
from Ohio for any comments he may care to make about the health care
bill or about the Supreme Court decision.
I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota,
Congressman Ellison, for his leadership in the Progressive Caucus and
to thank him for yielding me some time to talk about this momentous
decision by the Supreme Court. First of all, a little bit of context.
I represent Cleveland, Ohio. There are many people in Cleveland who
are uninsured. There are many people in Cleveland who could not afford
health care. There are many people who are working who can't get their
families covered.
This issue of health care reform is one of the defining issues in our
country, and it's one that we finally grappled with in 2010 to come up
with a bill that not everyone agreed with. As a matter of fact, as Mr.
Ellison will remember, I didn't agree with this. I was not satisfied
with health care reform within the context of a for-profit system
because I wanted a not-for-profit system. Yet, while we had a for-
profit system, one of the things we needed to do was to make sure
children with preexisting conditions would be covered; to make sure all
of these lifetime caps on the amount of money that people could claim
for expenses were removed; and to make sure that people were given a
fighting chance with the insurance companies.
{time} 1750
What's happened is the Affordable Care Act finally took a step in the
direction of reform. It's an important step, and the Supreme Court has
said you can do that under Congress' taxing authority, but it's just a
step.
All of us understand that there are still millions of Americans who
are finding health care out of reach, even with the help that the
Affordable Care Act offers. That's why at the State level there are
still States, such as Vermont, that are looking at how they can go
forward with a single-payer plan within their State.
Mr. ELLISON. Let me just ask the gentleman a question.
You had an amendment that we were trying to move onto the Affordable
Care Act which would allow States, if they chose to, to pursue
alternatives like a single-payer system.
Do you recall your amendment?
Mr. KUCINICH. Keep in mind that the Employee Retirement Income
Security Act essentially would stop States from going forward, so we
asked basically for a waiver of that. The amendment would have provided
for a waiver so States would have no legal bar to pursue a single-payer
system. That was essentially passed in committee and then stripped out.
The point is we can enable it. Congress can facilitate that. The
passage of affordable care, plus the Supreme Court saying Congress can
move on health care, Congress can take a step, finally puts us in a
position where we can elevate health care to the highest level of
public concern.
Every American who is out there tonight who's worried about whether
they would be able to get access to affordable health care suddenly
realizes that it is possible. For those poor people across America who
are wondering whether they are going to be shut out by one aspect of
the Supreme Court decision, now it's up to the States to reaffirm the
position of the State in the life of their citizens by saying, if
you're a poor person, we're not going to use the Supreme Court decision
to block you from having access to the resources of the government with
respect to health care.
[[Page H4423]]
I think that we need to recognize that we've taken a big step here.
As someone who wasn't sure at first, as someone who, in a sense,
reluctantly voted for the Affordable Care Act on the hope that by
proving we could have reform within the context of a for-profit system,
that it would open the door for further reforms, I'd say this is a
great day. It shows that it's possible to reform that for-profit
system.
I'm hopeful, as we're celebrating today, that we look down the road
to what we're going to do in the future, which is to restart our
efforts here, restart the effort for a single-payer system, knowing at
least that we have the assurance that more people are covered, that you
don't have to worry about your child 26 and under, whether they are
going to be covered under the policy, that you don't have to worry
about a child with a preexisting condition, that you don't have to
worry about long-term caps, that you don't have to worry about if
you're a senior where that doughnut hole is going to cause your budget
to get crushed. What you have now is the government finally taking the
side of the people and putting us in a position where we now are able,
with integrity and with drive, to move towards the future where someday
we're going to keep working for that single-payer system.
Mr. ELLISON. I don't know if this happened to you today, but it did
happen to me. I started thinking about all the door knocking that I did
and thinking about the health care horror stories that I heard.
I just want to ask you today, when you reflect on 57 percent of the
people filing for bankruptcy being motivated by medical debt, when you
hear about people getting a lifetime cap and not being able to get any
additional health care, even when they've got cancer or if they've got
cancer, then they get dropped.
Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman is right. The gentleman is correct. When
you think of how many people--most bankruptcies, they're connected to
people not being able to pay hospital bills. Any single family has
known the dread of having one individual get ill in the family, and
everything people worked a lifetime for, they lose.
Mr. ELLISON. The gentleman might reflect on the fact that many of
these people you're referring to have insurance, and I yield to the
gentleman.
Mr. KUCINICH. Oh, that's right.
Think about this now. You can have insurance, and if you run up
against lifetime caps on coverage, you're out of luck. So many
Americans have gotten in trouble financially because, even though they
have insurance, they can't pay the bills. The bills have sent Americans
into poverty.
We need to realize that we've taken a step in the direction of a
substantial support for the American people and their health care with
the Affordable Care Act, but it's not the final step.
Again, I am here to share with you, Mr. Speaker, my willingness to
continue the effort towards a universal single-payer, not-for-profit
health care.
You know what? Now that we've proven that reform of health care is
possible, now that we have proven that health care is no longer the
third rail of American politics, now that we have proven that the Court
will uphold an effort by the Congress to move towards health care
reform, well, now that we've proven that, we can say it is possible to
go to a place where we can have health care for all under a not-for-
profit system.
I thank the gentleman for his leadership, and I look forward to
working with you as we chart a new course in America for health care
for all. Thank you.
Mr. ELLISON. Thank you.
And to the gentleman from Ohio, who I know has some things to do, I
just want to say that when the final chapter is written on the
improvement and the advance in health care in America, there will
certainly be chapters on how Dennis Kucinich, through your leadership
as a Member of the House of Representatives bill that you introduced
through your Presidential run, where you really made health care a
front-burner issue, you will have a chapter that will designate your
great contributions to the American people to get quality, affordable,
universal health care.
So I do thank you today, sir, because I can tell you that today is
somewhat of a reflection. You should think about how your campaign for
President and other work you have done really did move the ball down
the track. So I thank you, and I honor you for it.
Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. Thank you very much.
Mr. ELLISON. We're joined by my good friend, John Garamendi from
California.
Congressman Garamendi, on a day like this, you must be full of
thoughts about health care reform, the big lift, and all of the things
that occurred.
What are some of the thoughts that occur to you today, Congressman?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Thank you so very much for
your consistent and strong voice on what we really need to do here in
America to take care of people.
At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, our task is to
fulfill that message of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
This day really, in many ways, fulfills that.
Think about it. Can you have life without health care? Well, probably
not for very long. Most everybody I know has had a sickness at one
point or another. If you don't get health care, you may very well lose
your life.
Happiness? We know that most of the bankruptcies--this is before the
great crash--are a direct result of health care and not having
sufficient insurance or not having insurance. With regard to happiness,
wow.
Of course, liberty. You just think about the number of Americans that
are literally chained or tied to their job because they have health
care there. If they want to leave, if they want to pursue a different
course, they want to improve, they can't, because they are tied to
their job because of health care. They can't get it.
Today, the Supreme Court said that what this House did with the
Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional. It is constitutional. It
is possible for us. As we just heard from Mr. Kucinich, it is possible
for us to reform the health care system.
My thoughts are so happy for America, so happy for that man that I
saw 5 years ago that was on his deathbed, and he said, If I can just
live another 5 months, I'll be on Medicare and I can get the treatments
that I need without bankrupting my family. Today he probably will be
able to get that. It's a good day.
{time} 1800
I was the insurance commissioner for 8 years in California. And if
only I had this law, if only this law were in place, I could have
hammered those insurance companies that were discriminating against
people who had preexisting conditions. But I didn't have this law. So
they were able to get away with discriminating against women because
they are women. Because they are of child-bearing age, they may have a
child; and it might cost the insurance companies money.
My chief of staff had a child who was born with an ailment. That kid,
from the day of conception to the day after he was born, had insurance.
As soon as the insurance company found out that that child had a
serious problem, they stopped the insurance. The family almost went
into bankruptcy; but for the friends and support around them, they
would have done so. That is over.
Every child born in America will continue to have health care
coverage, whether they are healthy or not. It's a good day. It's a good
day for the children. It's a good day for the people of America.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, Congressman, I share your joy today. And I want to
let you know that the fact is that there are a lot of really important
parts of this bill, and not enough Americans understand what's in the
bill.
I can remember back a couple of years ago when I was trying to have
community forums in my district, and people who didn't understand the
need for health care reform would get loud and boisterous in these
meetings. And I would let them talk. I wouldn't let them disrupt the
meeting, but I would let them talk. And some of them expressed
themselves in very passionate ways.
One of the things they said to me was, Did you read the bill? And
they wouldn't ask the question. They would basically make an accusation
that I didn't read the bill. Of course I had read the bill.
And I think it's now a good idea to really help people understand
what
[[Page H4424]]
good things are in this bill. For example, I think it's important for
people to understand that already in the bill, if you have a child
under the age of 26, that child can be on your health care insurance.
No more worries that your college graduate kid, who has not yet got
that job, is just out there with no insurance. If you are a woman, they
can't discriminate against you anymore. If you have a preexisting
condition and you are a child, even at this moment, they can't
discriminate against you. And when the bill is fully in effect, they
won't be able to discriminate against anyone.
If you are a senior, we're helping to make the cost of prescription
drugs more affordable by filling the doughnut hole. Also, for Medicare,
we have a provision in there that's helping to make sure that
preventative screenings are free in order to have healthy, strong
seniors to prevent them from getting sick. There's a medical loss ratio
which says that the insurance company has to devote 85 percent of their
receipts into health care, not all this other administrative stuff,
including exorbitant pay.
So as we sit back and reflect on what is actually in there, I think
it's important to make those points.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me just take up some of those numbers because
they're very, very exciting.
Thirteen million Americans will receive $1.1 billion in rebates
because the insurance companies have overcharged them. That didn't
happen before this bill. I didn't have that power, as insurance
commissioner, to do that; 54 million Americans that are in private
health insurance plans will receive free preventative services as a
result of this legislation.
Mr. ELLISON. Fifty-four million--wow.
Mr. GARAMENDI. And, of course, women--millions across this Nation--
will receive free coverage for comprehensive women's preventative
health services: Pap smears, breast x rays and the like. In 2011, 32.5
million seniors received one or more preventative services. In 2012, 14
million seniors have already received these services.
105 million Americans will no longer have a lifetime limit on their
coverage. Before this bill was in effect, if you go up to $100,000 or
$200,000--if you had a serious illness, you could go through that,
bam--that's it. You don't get any more coverage. No longer. No more
limits. Lifetime limits are gone.
Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer
be denied coverage by insurance companies; 6.6 million young adults--
what you were just talking about--you are talking about my daughter.
She graduated at the age of 21, 22; lost her insurance. The day after
this bill passed, she said, Dad, can I get back on your policy? The
answer was yes. Actually, it took 6 months, but it did happen. 5.3
million seniors in the doughnut hole--this is the drug coverage
portion--have saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs already.
Now, our good friends, the Republicans, want to repeal all of this.
So you go through this list: 13 million Americans will not receive a
rebate if the Republicans succeed in repealing the bill; 54 million
Americans will not receive preventative services; 6.6 million young
Americans will not be on their parents' coverage between the age of 21
and 26. There are a lot of takeaways from what the Republicans want to
do with their repeal.
Mr. ELLISON. If the gentleman would yield, I think that is a very
important point to make. Sadly, as soon as the Affordable Care Act was
upheld, our friends in the Republican Caucus immediately said, Well,
we're going to have a repeal vote. Well, they've already had a repeal
vote. What are we doing this over and over and over again for? Well,
we're doing it for a very important reason: to make a political point.
As they were announcing another repeal vote--another repeal vote--we
haven't done anything about student loans this week, which are
expiring. We haven't done anything about jobs. And we haven't done
anything about the transit bill, which is due to expire. I mean, it's
just really amazing how much time we have for stuff that doesn't
matter, just political gamesmanship.
But, you know, I must share this with you, Congressman. I'm saddened
by the fact that our Republican friends won't join with us in this
awesome good thing that happened to the American people today. I wish
they would finally come around. It's like, look, you know, you fought
the health care--
Well, first of all, between 2000 and 2006, you had the White House,
the Senate, and the House of Representatives. You didn't do anything
except give a bunch of money to Big Pharma. And we're trying to fix
that right now.
But all this stuff they talk about. Oh, we want to sell insurance
across State lines. We want to do tort reform. They could have done all
of that. They didn't do it because they didn't want to do it. Now they
say that's what they would have done, but that's not what they did do
when they could have done it. So there you go with that.
So now we, the Democrats, went and took up health care. After many,
many years of trying, we get it through. They fight it tooth and nail.
To their credit, none of them supported the final vote on the
Affordable Care Act. They were solid and unanimously against conferring
the benefits that are contained in the Affordable Care Act.
Well, now they got around to saying the bill was unconstitutional.
It's unconstitutional. And you heard this hue and cry day and night.
And they even called themselves ``constitutional conservatives.''
Well, the constitutional Court has said, This bill is constitutional.
So you would think they would say, Okay, okay. We just wanted to make
sure it's constitutional. Now we're ready to join hands with you and
celebrate this great thing to make sure all Americans can go to the
doctor. But what do they do? They schedule a repeal vote.
Here's what I want people to know, Congressman: according to the
Congressional Budget Office--which is a nonpartisan entity--if they
repeal this bill, it will add to the deficit $230 billion. These are my
friends who never tire of saying, Oh, we're conferring debt on our
children and grandchildren. They always say that. I'm sure it's been
tested by, you know, some high-paid individual who does that kind of
stuff. They never tire of saying, Our children and grandchildren, we
are piling debt on our children and grandchildren.
But if they strip the Affordable Care Act, as they plan on doing on
July 11, they would drop a big debt and add to the deficit.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much, Mr. Ellison. And thank you for
your leadership on this and so many other issues.
I'm looking at that sign next to you: ``Republicans' No-Jobs
Agenda.'' A repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act and the Patients'
Bill of Rights is not going to create jobs. In fact, it is going to
make it very, very difficult for small businesses because the
Affordable Health Care Act actually helps small businesses.
Mr. ELLISON. Right.
{time} 1810
Mr. GARAMENDI. They don't have the mandate. Small businesses don't
have the mandate. But what they do have is an opportunity. They have an
opportunity to get health insurance at an affordable cost, which
they've never had before. Small business, one-person, or husband and
wife, perhaps, and two or three employees, it literally was impossible
for them to get affordable health insurance for themselves and for
their three employees.
Under this bill, they can get it. It's subsidized, to be sure. But
they can finally get insurance. And across the State of California and
across this Nation we're finding thousands upon thousands of businesses
for the first time going into the insurance market, able to buy
insurance, getting coverage for themselves and their employees while
providing what insurance must do, which is the knowledge and the
stability that is necessary for the finances of that business to
succeed.
The other thing--and I'm just going to pick up one more that's very,
very close to me--in California, the Affordable Care Act provided
funding for 1,154 clinics. Way back in 1978, when I was in the
California legislature, and in 1976 as a member of the Assembly, I
authored legislation to establish the Rural Health Act. And that built
clinics in the rural part of California. And today, as a result of
that, there are
[[Page H4425]]
clinics all across the State of California, and the Affordable Care Act
keeps those clinics in business.
This is where many Californians and across this Nation Americans
access the health care system. It's there in their community. These are
the community clinics that are so critically important in providing the
health care that Americans need. The call for repeal kills these
clinics. These clinics will die if this bill is repealed.
So out across the State, even in the most conservative part of my new
district, Colusa County, there are clinics that are dependent upon this
legislation and will be able to continue as a result of the Affordable
Care Act, found by the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts,
to be constitutional. This is constitutional. The legislature,
Congress, and the Senate and the President have the power to solve one
of the great America dilemmas: The health care system.
Over time, we'll change this. We'll make modifications. Among those
modifications ought to be an expansion of Medicare, which is efficient,
effective, and universally available to every American over the age of
65. How good it is. How hard and how determined people are--if I can
just live to 65, I'll have Medicare. It's a great program. We ought to
expand it. We ought to make it universal.
Mr. Ellison, I don't know how much time you have.
Mr. ELLISON. We've got about 30 minutes or so.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, there are things we can talk about.
Mr. ELLISON. I would actually like to take up what happened with Eric
Holder today.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Let's talk about that.
Mr. ELLISON. The Holder case, Eric Holder, when he came in office,
this program, the Fast and Furious, was ongoing. It was a gunwalking
program. The original theory was that if you put some guns into the
stream of commerce, then you can find out who's buying them, who's
selling them, and try to get to the bottom of some of these cartels
that trade in illegal guns, straw purchasers and so forth. Well, it was
a poorly conceived plan, and tragedy occurred. A border enforcement
officer, Officer Terry, was killed as a result with one of these guns.
We all pause in his honor and offer our sincere condolences to his
family.
When Attorney General Holder found out about this program, he shut
the program down. But then, of course, as facts came to light, it is a
legitimate source of investigation. And he submitted to nine hearings,
8,000 pages of documentation. But when it finally got down to it, when
there was information that was of a deliberative nature--not on the
facts of what happened to Officer Terry, but just exchange of
information--and pending criminal information, which everyone in this
room should know is not for public consumption, when that information
was sought, the administration, the White House said, No, we're going
to exercise executive privilege. Obviously, if the President exercises
executive privilege, the Attorney General has to abide by that
decision.
And despite all those facts, today on the House floor the Republican
majority, instead of dealing with jobs, instead of dealing with health
care, instead of dealing with renewing the student loan interest rates,
which are about to double; instead of dealing with the transportation
bill, which is about to expire, we go do a witch hunt on Eric Holder.
It's really too bad.
Any thoughts on this issue you care to share?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I do. And like most of my Democratic colleagues,
we just walked out of this Chamber and said this is not worthy of the
dignity of the House of Representatives. And we weren't going to honor
this process with our presence.
Let's go back here. The Fast and Furious programs actually began in
the George W. Bush administration, I think, around 2005, 2006. And
there were two iterations of it, two different projects that were
underway out of the Phoenix office of the ATF. And they were trying to
find out who the gunrunners were. We've all watched the Western movies
and the gunrunners. Well, there are American gunrunners that were
running guns to the narco folks in Mexico. We wanted to find out what
is going on here, where are these guns coming from. And that was, once
again, during the George W. Bush administration and had gone on for 2,
3 years.
The Obama administration comes in. Eric Holder is chosen as Attorney
General. And the program continued. The tragedy occurred. An agent was
killed. And from there, Fast and Furious--this is now what we call the
walking of the guns--became known. Eric Holder shut it down. In that
process, a letter was written to the Senate committee saying that it
didn't exist. Clearly, an error, I am told. But this House doesn't know
today. Never investigated by the committee. But I am told that there
was information that the office in Phoenix, Arizona, misled the office
in Washington, D.C., and a letter was sent forth that was incorrect.
That should be the subject of the investigation: What happened here;
what actually went on in Arizona.
Not one witness from the actual operation was called to testify. Not
one. So this is really a very strange and botched investigation. If you
want to get to the bottom of it, you've got to talk to the people that
actually did it. It didn't happen. The Democrats on the committee
demanded several times: Bring forth the people who did the Fast and
Furious from the Bush administration into the Obama administration.
Bring them forward. Get their testimony. Find out what happened. Find
out about the communications between the Phoenix office and the
Washington, D.C., office. It didn't happen.
So in terms of an investigation, you have a partial investigation
focusing on the end of the story rather than on the full story. And
today, the first time ever in the history of this Nation, this body
voted to hold in contempt a Cabinet official on a half-baked,
insufficient investigation that purposefully ignored calling witnesses
that were actually engaged in the Fast and Furious operation and who
were responsible in the Phoenix office for that operation.
{time} 1820
It was a farce. It was a political event, and we walked out. Not a
good day.
And as you said a moment ago, there are things we must do. Men and
women and families across this country are hurting. They're unemployed.
They want jobs. They want to go to work. Transportation, where's the
transportation bill? We never did get one out of this House that was
meaningful. We just passed a little thing so we can get to conference.
It had nothing in it, but it allowed us to go to conference. Where's
that bill? How about student interest rates, where's that bill? And
what about the jobs program?
What if the September 2011 proposal that President Obama put forward,
the American Jobs Act, what if we had taken that up? Three million, 4
million Americans would be working today. What if we had done that? But
it didn't happen. Our colleagues on the Republican side refused to
bring it up in this House and refused to allow it to be brought up in
the Senate. That's sad. That's a very sad thing for America. It is one
of the great ``we should haves,'' but we were prevented from doing so.
Mr. ELLISON. Well, Congressman, I have some obligations that require
me to curtail our hour a little early. You can carry on if you like.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I, too, must go. But I thank you very much for
allowing me to talk about three very important things. I appreciate
that, Mr. Ellison.
Mr. ELLISON. You are famous for nailing the need for a greater
investment in manufacturing and supporting American jobs, and I thank
you for all of the great work you're doing.
Mr. GARAMENDI. You must mean Make It in America. Spend our tax money
on American-made equipment and jobs, not on Chinese or Japanese or
anybody else, but on American jobs. We can do that.
Mr. ELLISON. We can do it.
Let me wrap up by saying it has been a great evening, a great day for
the American people. The Affordable Care Act has been vindicated in the
Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the day is somewhat marred by the
unfortunate behavior of the majority in trying to go after Eric Holder.
Nonetheless, it's another day in Washington.
The Progressive Caucus will be back next week. Thank you very much.
[[Page H4426]]
I yield back the balance of my time.
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