[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17333-17339]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2250
                          SOCIALIZED MEDICINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
half of the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker I appreciate the honor and privilege of 
addressing you here on the floor of the House of Representatives. As I 
gather here in my preparation for this discussion, I understood the 
remarks made by the gentleman from Minnesota that he would be glad if I 
would, perhaps, address the health insurance and the health care issue 
here in the country, and I would be glad to do that. And I believe also 
my friend from Texas would be glad to do that.
  What stands out in my mind is this: That the President of the United 
States campaigned on a promise that he wanted to deliver. It looks to 
me like a national health care act. It's what I would call socialized 
medicine. That's what we called it when it was Hillary Care, and I 
think that's what we will call it if it becomes Obama Care.
  But the American people are for the most part very satisfied with 
their health insurance program, and they are almost completely 
satisfied with the health care that they get when they do, when they do 
require that kind of care. The kind of care they get in clinics, the 
kind of care they get in hospitals, the kind of care that's provided by 
our doctors and our nurses and our various practitioners is number one 
in the world.
  And, for example, the Canadian people that have an Obama Care plan 
come to the United States when they really need medical care. And I 
happen to notice that the people that have a socialized medicine 
program in the European Union, where sometimes their queue is longer in 
France than it is in Italy, longer in Germany than it is in Spain. And 
people that need care might have to move all around the European Union 
and get in the shorter queue to try to get in to get their hip 
replacement or their surgery or whatever it might be.
  It's not the kind of care that I want to see in the United States of 
America. We don't have people waiting in line. We don't have people 
sitting outside the emergency room in a long queue, and we don't have 
people that are coming to the emergency room for care because it's more 
convenient to them--unless, of course, somebody else is paying the 
bill.
  Because we have at least the incentive and a component of the free 
market system. Even though the Federal Government pays for a large 
share of health care, the reason our health care system in the United 
States is so good, and the biggest reason that our pharmaceuticals have 
raced so far ahead in their research and development of the rest of the 
world, and the reason that we have so much technology, and such high-
quality health care, one of those reasons is because of the altruism of 
the practitioners that are there, they are in the business for the 
right reason. They want to help people. They want to provide good 
health care services.
  But on top of that, there is at least an incentive for profit. And if 
you dial that out, if you take it away, it discourages people from 
going off to med school and discourages them from developing their 
skills and education, and it discourages the entrepreneurs and the 
innovators from producing more and more innovation when it comes to 
health care.
  And so the rest of the world's opportunity to benefit from the 
innovativeness of the United States would be diminished if we adopted 
socialized medicine here in the United States.
  And what are we trying to go fix. I would suggest this: The argument 
is that there are 44 to 47 million people in America that don't have 
health insurance. Now, no one should be very alarmed at that when they 
understand that everyone in America has access to health care. And, 
yes, it might be in the emergency room and it might not, and it's more 
often than not covered by somebody else's contribution, or there would 
be, through their workplace sometimes, or through some kind of 
government program or Medicare or Medicaid. But they all have access to 
health care. And a large percentage of us have health insurance.
  And the number of 44 to 47 million that are uninsured, according to 
those who, on this side of the aisle who never come down here to ask me 
to yield and rebut my arguments, they just simply, apparently, are 
bewildered by the truth--so I would be happy to yield if any of you 
have an argument that you would like to make that would add some 
substance to this argument, but you don't--44 to 47 million uninsured 
by your numbers. But when you start carving out of that those who are 
illegally in the United States, if ICE, the Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, were to deliver a voucher that were to provide for about 
half of these uninsured, pay for their insurance premium, they will be 
compelled by law to deport them rather than hand them the voucher 
check.
  So you can cut that number down substantially, you know that to be 
true. Then if you take out of these 44 million, the numbers of people 
who are in transition from one health insurance policy to another, and 
if you take out of that also the young people that just haven't gotten 
into a program yet because partly because they don't want to pay the 
premiums for people who have higher health care costs, that 20-to-30, 
early 30s area, you are down to this number. They are chronically 
uninsured; according to a recent study, totals about 4 percent of the 
population.
  Now, if we establish socialized medicine, we are going to maybe get 
covered 99 percent of the population, and we are at this point now 
where the chronically uninsured are only 4 percent of the population. 
So why would we upset and completely transform the best health care 
system in the world to try to narrow down the 4 percent chronically 
uninsured and maybe, if they would just sign up or participate, we 
could get them down to 1 percent.
  For that 3 percent, we would upset the entire system. It does not 
make sense to me, and you cannot, you cannot save money in this health 
care program by turning it all into government unless you ration.
  And what's happening now is Medicare is driving down the costs and 
pushing the costs over on the private carriers. That's the real 
circumstance.
  And I want to also say, Mr. Speaker, to you, I want to make sure the 
American people hear this.
  When President Obama says, don't worry if you like your health 
insurance program that you have, you get to keep it, he is only the 
President of the United States. He doesn't get to promise Americans 
they get to keep their policy. He is setting up and wants to set up a 
national health care act, a socialized medicine program, an insurance 
program that competes directly with the private sector.
  And when you use taxpayer dollars to subsidize funding directly 
against the private sector, you necessarily will shrink and outcompete 
the private sector because it's going to be subsidized from--without 
the public--the government insurance program, will be subsidized by 
taxpayers.
  And if it is, it can outcompete that of the private sector. It's just 
a matter of the formula.
  And so if you are an insurance company that has to have your costs 
all added in, your administrative costs added, a margin for the profit, 
always competing for the best kind of bargain that is out there, which 
adds to the efficiencies, I will add. And the government comes in, and 
they say we are going to take you head to head, but we are going to 
pump in 25 percent of our costs out of the taxpayers here to funnel 
this in. That means they will be able to lower the premiums down and 
take these private health insurers out.
  I can tell you what happened in Germany. Otto von Bismarck 
established a national health care plan there more than 100 years ago, 
sometime in the late 1800s. And today 90 percent of Germans are covered 
by the public plan,

[[Page 17334]]

the government plan, the taxpayer subsidized plan. Everybody is 
required to have a plan, about 99 percent do have a plan. But about 10 
percent of them are covered by private insurance. That's all that's 
left.
  They pushed out all of the private carriers except for about 10 
percent. That 10 percent are for people who are self-employed who can 
opt into that, who want a little bit better health care program. That's 
what's kept that little 10 percent margin there. I don't think 10 
percent is a legitimate competition.
  And when the government owns and runs everything in the United 
States, what do you think happens to your prices and your efficiencies 
and your service? Price goes up, service goes down. Health care gets 
rationed. President Obama cannot promise the American people that you 
get to keep your health insurance plan because they are going to drive 
the health insurance companies out of business.
  And even if they don't, the employers who control those policies and 
the employee providers of health insurance will be making that decision 
on whether they want to opt into the government plan or whether they 
want to maintain the same or a different private plan for their 
employees. Yes, you can weigh in with your employer, you can make a 
request with your employer, but your employer will have to make a 
decision on the bottom line. The bottom line will be, is it cheaper to 
use taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for the employees, or cheaper 
to provide for the unsubsidized health insurance premiums from the 
private insurance companies?
  That decision will be made on a dollar-per-dollar basis in what looks 
like it's the best thing for the mid term, short term and long term. 
And it won't be a decision made by President Obama; it will be a 
decision made by the employer.
  So if the government offers a government plan, and the government 
plan saves the employer money, and you are an employee that is covered 
by your employer-provided plan, you can kiss it goodbye. It will be a 
government plan. It will be a national health care plan. It will be 
socialized medicine, and you will have one-size-fits-all medicine in 
the United States of America eventually under President Obama's 
proposal.
  That's a fact. It really is logically irrefutable. No matter how many 
times they repeat the same mantra over and over again, it comes back to 
the same conclusion, which is: The American people won't get to decide 
that they keep their own plan. Employers, if they provide that 
insurance, will decide. And the government will subsidize the 
competition to the point where it drives out the private sector 
providers, and then it's all one-size-fits-all, all one government 
plan, all socialized medicine, all Canadian model, all United Kingdom 
model, all European Union model.
  And what a cruel thing to do to the Canadians, Mr. Speaker, what a 
cruel thing.

                              {time}  2300

  A good Canadian company today will hire people and promise them this: 
you have to accept the Canadian one-size-fits-all plan with its 
rationing and its long lines and its inefficiencies and people waiting 
in line, dying in line. You have to accept that because it is against 
the law in Canada to treat somebody without an order of processing. You 
have to get in the queue. They enforce it differently province to 
province, but the law exists.
  So let's say you need a hip replacement. You get in line with the 
people who need hip replacements and there is written criteria on what 
the priorities are. So you are standing in line. No matter how badly 
you need the hip replacement, you can't cut in front of the line; you 
are just stuck in that line. So employers, they want to offer a good 
package to their employees, will package up with this a health 
insurance plan that flies them out of Canada into the United States so 
they can get American health care. Now that is a nice plum. Let's say 
you have two people of such tremendous skill that you want to hire them 
because that is what it takes to keep your company. That is what the 
President thought about Tim Geithner, by the way, who will be before 
our committee tomorrow, that he was such a valuable person, the fact 
that he had not paid his taxes was not a large enough factor to weigh 
against him. If you have those kind of people that you can hire in 
Canada, you offer them this nice package, which when it is convenient 
for you, use the Canadian plan. But when you need the health care, we 
will fly you to Houston and give you heart surgery. Your heart gives 
you trouble today, we will operate on you tomorrow. Maybe even today if 
it is early enough in the morning.
  That is what happens in Canada: people are flown to the United States 
of America for their health care because it is rationed in Canada.
  Now that is not enough, Mr. Speaker. Would anybody go out and go 
through the Web sites and the Yellow Pages in Canada and look at the 
travel companies that package up health care trips to the United 
States?
  Hip replacement is easy to figure out. Let's say you live in British 
Columbia. No, how about Calgary in Alberta. You have a bad hip, and you 
finally get into the government doctor and he looks at you and says 
your socket is burned out, you have to have a hip replacement.
  Yes, I stood in hours or days to have you tell me that. I want it 
fixed.
  Well, we have a line over here. Let's say it is 400 long; we do a 
couple a week. So 52 weeks in a year, about 4 years or so. And I don't 
know that these are real numbers or hypothetical. But you understand 
you are in a long queue in Canada. So you understand you can go on the 
Internet, do a little search and come up with a nice little travel 
health care company, and there are a number of them in Canada who are 
in the business of packaging up the health care services.
  They will say, you don't want to drive because we will do this 
surgery in Seattle. We will set this up. We will set up your 
transportation, fly you down to Seattle, and then here is your 
transportation.
  You can get to the airport?
  Yes, I will drive my car.
  Park your car here; get on this plane. We will fly you from Calgary 
down to Seattle, and you can pick up the shuttle to the hotel, the 
hotel is next to the hospital, check into the hotel, go over to the 
clinic, the doctor will look you over and schedule you for surgery, 
which will be the following morning at 8 a.m. You go under the knife. 
You get your new hip socket. They give you a day and a half of therapy. 
We will bring you back to the hotel, and from the hotel they will 
shuttle you back to the airport and you can fly back to Calgary and you 
can go back home.
  All of that for what, turn key. They will cut you a deal turn key so 
you know what it will cost you to pack it all up from transportation, 
hotel room, doctors' visits, surgery costs, all of things that you get, 
including the therapy, the physical therapy on the tail end, and get 
you back home again, write one check or put it on your credit card. 
There is a company for you. They are the entrepreneurs that have 
survived in Canada in the face of socialized medicine because it 
created a demand for people to come to the United States.
  Do we shut that all off? Would we destroy the opportunities for the 
entrepreneurs in Canada that have so adeptly found and met a market 
demand? I say, no, we should not do that in this Congress. And I don't 
know if there is anybody in this Congress who knows that better than 
Judge, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert). I would be very happy to 
yield to my friend from Texas.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Iowa, and I appreciate the chance 
to participate here.
  The prior Republican hour, we discussed health care and this 
socialized medicine that is coming and supposedly is going to be jammed 
down America's throat next week, at least as far as the House is 
concerned.
  And then I got back to my office and listened to my friend from 
across the aisle talk about his socialized--well, he called it 
progressive, but you look at the history of the progressive movement. 
It is a nationalization of things;

[[Page 17335]]

it is a socialization of things. That is where it is all headed.
  I was intrigued as I listened to my friend from Iowa talk about these 
horror stories from Canada and we keep hearing horror stories from 
England and other places that have socialized medicine, and I was 
struck by our friend on the other side of the aisle saying this isn't 
Canada, this isn't England, this is America, we are going to do it 
right. We are going to do it better.
  I was struck, and if it weren't so tragic and if it didn't mean that 
going to socialized medicine as they want, we are going to have people 
I love dying unnecessarily, it would be a joke. But it is no joke; it 
is tragic. Because for years, for years we have listened to people say 
we need to have nationalized health care like Canada. We need to have 
nationalized health care like England where everybody has all the care 
they need. That's what we have heard for years.
  So some of us, like my friend from Iowa, have gone to the trouble to 
find out more about this socialized medicine, this nationalized care, 
this public care in Canada, in England, in Europe and in other places.
  What we find is this isn't something we want. So now we are no longer 
hearing we need to be like Canada and England and just have public 
health care, whatever the term is they want to use that particular day, 
because now we know more of the truth.
  I talked to a man from Canada last week who was visiting with me. He 
was telling me about his father who died a year or so ago from a heart 
attack. And his father knew he needed a bypass surgery and he had to go 
on the list to get a doctor's appointment. When he finally got the 
appointment and finally got the diagnostic care, he found out he needed 
a bypass. So then he went on the list to get bypass surgery. And he was 
on it for nearly 2 years.
  I said I knew the lines were long, and my friend from Iowa pointed 
out there are people in Canada that will just fly you down to Houston 
if you are with a company that makes enough money that they can do 
that, but rank-and-file Canadians can't do that. Rank-and-file 
Americans have no place to go. They can't do that. They would stay in 
the line and they would die, like his father did.
  I asked, How was it he stayed in the line so long?
  Well, he said, bureaucrats moved people in front of him. For over a 
year, they kept moving people.
  I said, Wait a minute, I know enough about Canadian care, and I know 
this bureaucratic, socialized piece of crap they have up there, it 
gives them a generalized standard of care. And I know they are very 
caring doctors. In fact, back 30-some years ago, my mother after a 
brain tumor was found had checked with one who was revolutionizing some 
areas of brain surgery. Not any more. You come here for that.
  But anyway, my mother got the best care that medicine could provide 
because there are very caring doctors in this country and because there 
were no lines.
  But with his father, I said as I understand, anywhere you have 
socialized medicine, you have to have people waiting in line because if 
you don't, the system goes broke.

                              {time}  2310

  You can't give people all the care they need when they need it or you 
go broke because the government can't collect enough tax to pay 
everything like that. The government can't do that because the 
government has no money of its own, it has to rely on taxes until it 
goes socialist completely--as the Soviet Union did, and then they were 
able to last 70 years because they would kill people and put them in 
prison if they didn't do exactly what they said. So they set a record, 
70 years of socialism. We won't last that long once we get there, if we 
don't get it turned around.
  But anyway, you have to put people in line, let them die waiting for 
treatment and care. But I also know you have to make it a crime for 
people to move themselves up the list or pay somebody to move them up 
the list. And so how was it that people kept moving in front of your 
father, they kept bumping him down the list to get the bypass? And he 
said, Well, you're right, it is a crime to do something to get yourself 
moved up. But bureaucrats are allowed to sit in their little cubicle or 
office somewhere and at their whim decide whoever they may guess ought 
to be moved up; this guy may need bypass surgery worse than he does, 
and they kept moving people in front of him. Well, the bureaucrat 
guessed wrong. The man that needed the bypass surgery the worst died 
because some bureaucrat wouldn't let him move up the list in a timely 
manner. That stuff is coming to America.
  And so when we were promised about this great, nationalized or 
public--you know, people have figured out socialized care is not 
something they want, and so now we're hearing it's public, it's a 
public care thing. Well, I heard my friend across the aisle say, well, 
an hour before me they talked about a bureaucrat being between you and 
your doctor. And he said what they talked about an hour ago was 
fantasy. Well, if we go to the program they're proposing, it may end up 
seeming like it's fantasy, but it will be a nightmare, and there will 
be no waking up and walking away from it. You get stuck in that system 
until it breaks your country because none that I know of have ever been 
able to successfully come out of it.
  I was an exchange student to the Soviet Union back in 1973. I visited 
their medical schools. I visited with doctors. I met with doctors. I 
met families of doctors. People were embarrassed to tell me one of 
their parents was a doctor because they didn't pay them much. Now, if 
you were an assistant to the factory manager, you got a couple of weeks 
on the Niobrara River and you got some benefits, and that was a good 
thing, but people were embarrassed because doctors didn't get paid 
much. Folks, that's where this goes.
  And I know we've even got some doctors that have said we ought to go 
to this thing--you know, insurance companies, we hate them, they delay 
payments, and things need to be done; maybe we need a public health 
care insurance. The problem is, they may reimburse for a little bit, 
but eventually you'll get to the salary, eventually the salary does not 
cover the education it takes to have the level of care we get now and 
so you have to dumb down the education. Your best and brightest don't 
apply. I like the top people in my class being the ones that go to 
medical school. I was encouraged to do that. I had one doctor saying, 
Lou, you would be such a good doctor, please don't throw your life away 
and go to law school, but I did.
  But nonetheless, we're talking about a nightmare for the American 
people. And when I hear the sob stories about, you know, if we just had 
public health care, if we had socialized medicine, then these people 
would be able to get the mammograms, and they would get the care and 
they would find out about their breast cancer, and they would get 
treatment. Well, I've got some hard news for you. The fact is that in 
this country, for localized tumors we have a 98 percent survival rate 
at 5 years. That is incredible the progress that's been made. Things 
like the Komen efforts for the cure, I mean, just done great work.
  Ninety-eight percent survival at 5 years for a localized tumor. Well, 
if you go to the socialized medicine countries, you find about 20 
percent worse results. You get it? One in five people have to die 
because they went to socialized medicine. Now, I've got three daughters 
and a wife, I would hate to think that among five women, one of them is 
going to die because we go to socialized care and we have to have these 
long lists to get a mammogram, once you find it, to get treatment. It 
is insane.
  Now, I agree with my friends, we need change. And I have been to the 
emergency room, and I've been with my kids, and I've been with my in- 
laws, and it is not a fun place to be sitting there in long lines. But 
what you realize is the lines are long because we are having to provide 
free health care to people that don't pay. And many are undocumented, 
illegal aliens--whatever you want to call it, and that's why

[[Page 17336]]

the plan that I proposed is one in which you have to deal with that 
because that is causing unnecessary pain and suffering in the health 
care being provided to people that need it, who pay their way, who have 
health insurance, who have Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP, they 
shouldn't have to wait and pay for people who are here to get free 
care.
  Now, the plan I have starts with the fact that if, because we know 
that we are moving to, as one of my friends, Jim Frogue, just pointed 
out in some research he has done, we're moving toward a $22 trillion a 
year Medicare/Medicaid system, $22 trillion--we got about $2.5 trillion 
in income tax last year, you cannot sustain a Nation at a $22 trillion 
socialized medicine or Medicare/Medicaid system. We have got to do 
something. We can make it better and cheaper, but we can't have the 
government bureaucracy handling it.
  So the proposal says, first of all, this is a matter of national 
security. Our health care is a matter of national security. We saw what 
happened in the Soviet Union; when you can't pay your bills, you go 
broke and you cease to exist.
  So if we're going to continue to attract people from around the 
world, then we need to have a country that is not going broke. So under 
my proposed plan that we're trying to get into a bill--there have been 
other more pressing things, you know; we had to get a resolution for 
Michael Jackson, other more pressing things--but under this plan it 
makes clear that we have to deal with this issue.
  So if you're going to ask for a visa into our country so that we will 
continue to have a country that you will want to come to, then you have 
to show proof that you will have a health savings account which you 
will be part of when you get here, and you will have catastrophic 
coverage to cover everything over that. And if you don't have proof of 
that, then you don't get a visa and get to come into this country.
  Now, we've been told by the Supreme Court that the law of the land is 
that if you're here in this country, even if you're here illegally, 
then we have to provide you health care. So that is what we'll do, 
we'll follow the law. If you're here illegally, you have no health 
savings account, you have no insurance, then, yes, we will treat you, 
we will get you well enough to transport, and then you will be 
deported. And then because this is a matter of national security and 
our country is entirely at risk here of going broke and ceasing to 
exist, if you come back into the country after we've given you free 
health care and you present for further health care or you're caught 
here, then you're a risk to our national security to break the country 
and you will be put in jail. It will be a felony offense if you have 
taken free health care, been deported, and come back. It's too serious 
not to make it a Federal felony.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentleman briefly yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, I will certainly yield.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Texas. And I would point 
out that, yes, Federal law is that a health care provider can't deny 
health care to illegals in their locale, and because of that there are 
no trauma centers in southern Arizona south of Tucson. They have all 
gone broke providing free health care for illegals that are flowing 
across our border. But it goes beyond that. We are even providing free 
health care for people who get injured in Mexico and are brought into 
the United States for free health care services.
  And I point this out, it's not something that you see in any of the 
data that we have here in Congress, you find these things out by doing 
things like dropping in on a surprise visit down at Sasabe, Arizona, at 
the point of entry where I stopped a couple of years ago. I went in and 
I thought I would introduce myself, it was a surprise visit, but I 
said, I'm Congressman Steve King from Iowa. And the first officer said, 
I can't talk to you. So I went to the next officer and said, I'm 
Congressman Steve King from Iowa, just dropped in to see how things are 
going. Can't talk to you. Talk to Mike over there; he's the shift 
supervisor, and he's ready to retire and he has terminal cancer. He'll 
talk to you.

                              {time}  2320

  Okay. That much fear in place about simply divulging what's going on.
  So I was standing there talking to Mike, whom I pray is still alive 
and doing well, but I'm not very confident that he is, and as he began 
to tell me what was going on at Sasabe at the port of entry, some of 
that discussion about how many illegal ports there are east and west of 
their crossing the border, he got a phone call and he said, Excuse me a 
moment. He went away for a minute or so and he came back and he said, 
Well, I got a call. There's been an emergency that has been created on 
the Mexican side of the border in this town where they stage illegals, 
and it looks like there was a fight there. He didn't know if it was a 
drug fight or a booze fight or both, but there was an individual that 
was knifed. So he said they'd be bringing him across the border pretty 
soon in a Mexican ambulance, and I have called the helicopter to come 
down from Tucson and U.S. ambulances to come in with oxygen because we 
can't really stabilize the patient with what's on a Mexican ambulance.
  I happened to have a paramedic with me, so I asked him, Mike, will 
you take a look at this man when he comes? I want you to get in there 
and help save his life if you can, and I also want to know what's going 
on.
  He went in and went to work. And actually the Mexican ambulance came 
over the border, and the paramedic with me jumped right to work to try 
to save the fellow who had been stabbed right underneath the ribcage, 
into his liver it turned out. There was no oxygen. There was nothing in 
the Mexican ambulance except a little bit of gauze and some surgical 
gloves. That was it. Nothing else. No other medical supplies. So it was 
an ambulance that looked like an ambulance, but on the inside it was 
just simply an empty chamber.
  So he did what he could to stabilize him until the two U.S. 
ambulances showed up. Then they put him on oxygen. Then they stabilized 
him. Then we loaded him into the helicopter, and he flew off to Tucson 
University Hospital. Stabbed in the liver in Mexico, brought into 
Mexico in a Mexican ambulance, transferred out of that onto the care of 
two U.S. ambulances, and then put on a Life Flight to go up to Tucson 
where the next morning I stopped to visit to see how our guy was doing. 
And, by the way, he was covered with tattoos and all kinds of signs of 
being a bad hombre, and he'd been in a nasty fight and stabbed with 
something that looked like it was a knife about 3\1/2\ inches wide, 
apparently, was the blade and deep enough to go into his liver.
  I went to the hospital and asked to visit him. And as I went up 
there, I found out, and here's a short version of it, the net cost to 
the American taxpayers was $30,000, roughly, for the helicopter, for 
the medical care that he got. He was on parole into the United States 
to get health care, and he would be escorted back to the border when he 
was stabilized. All of that paid for by American people, American 
taxpayers, or American health care, health insurance premium payers, 
out of those pockets.
  So I sat down while I was there with the chief financial officer of 
Tucson University Hospital. And there they rolled out some numbers 
where their annual cost was, and this is my recollection, around $14.5 
million of health care that they provided to illegals. They told of a 
circumstance where there had been a bus full of illegals that had been 
in a wreck and about 25 in there that were injured, and 15 of them were 
so badly injured that they were brought into the intensive care unit. 
ICU was packed full of 15 illegals. No room for any people in Tucson 
who had been paying their health insurance premium to provide for that 
kind of emergency care. So they were Life Flighting the residents of 
Tucson up to Phoenix to go into the ICU in Phoenix, and then their 
families had to drive there to visit because the ICU in Tucson was 
full. And that is the only and

[[Page 17337]]

the most southerly trauma center in Arizona.
  Another situation where there was a mother that was pregnant with 
multiple babies, five of them. So in order to avoid the high cost of 
multiple births in Tucson, and she was from Mexico, lived in Mexico, 
but they found out about this. They had been sending people down there 
to train the health care providers in Mexico. They trained them on how 
to deal with a multiple birth, set it all up so they didn't have this 
high cost of these anchor babies coming into the United States. Five 
new American citizens created to go on the rolls of the burden to the 
taxpayers.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Himes). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to extend the 
time for the duration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is recognized for an 
additional 25 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, the multiple births that were to take 
place in the home country of Mexico where they had sent American health 
care workers down to train Mexican health care workers, in spite of all 
of that investment to prevent the extra costs and five new anchor 
babies, as soon as she got ready to go into labor, she sneaked into the 
United States and they had her there anyway. That was $125,000 for that 
little turn.
  This is a thing that's going on because of this law, and I wanted to 
inject that in. We aren't just providing health care for everybody in 
the United States, legal or illegal. We are also providing it 
occasionally for people who are injured in other countries and brought 
into the United States because we have such a good health care system 
here. And our taxpayers pay for it, our rate payers pay for it, and the 
people in the communities pay for it.
  I yield back to the gentleman from Texas and ask him to carry on with 
the thought process that I interrupted.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate so much my friend from Iowa and those 
wonderful illustrations of exactly what we are talking about.
  I know that there are some people in America have concern and I have 
heard people say, well, I'm afraid, you know, there are so many 
immigrants coming in, especially from south of the border, that we are 
going to lose our American culture. And my own personal feeling is that 
really I think America was blessed with three really central things. 
One is a faith in God throughout our history, another was a love and 
devotion to family, and the other was a very good, hard work ethic. So 
when I see most of the people I know that have come from south of the 
border up here that have faith in God, that have got a love and 
devotion to family, and they've got a strong work ethic, I'm actually 
hopeful that that will strengthen our American social scene here where 
people have lost faith in God, where they have lost devotion to family, 
where they don't want to work.
  But the problem is we have to be unified. Out of many, one means we 
speak one language. And that means you don't teach kids in some foreign 
language. You teach them in a language so they have got a chance to be 
president of a company, not the manual laborer for the company. So I'm 
still hopeful that when people come legally and assimilate, it is going 
to make this country stronger and better. But it has to be legal. We 
cannot ignore the rule of law. That is what has allowed us to be maybe 
the greatest economy in the world or maybe in history.
  And the country just south of us should be one of the top 10 
economies in the world, but it's not because they pay no mind at all to 
the rule of law. There is graft and corruption. I appreciate the 
efforts of the President across the border trying to clean things up, 
and I hope and pray he has some success.
  But I wanted to also respond to my friend from across the aisle who 
said it's time for change now. It seems like I heard a Presidential 
candidate saying that last fall. And then what we have gotten is about 
10 to 20 times more deficit spending than we had when he took office 
and is about to break the country. So I agree it's time for a change, 
and let's quit having so much deficit spending. I agree it's time for a 
change in health care. We cannot allow our government, our country to 
be brought down because of runaway health care costs. And there's a way 
to fix this, and it's an American system.
  I mean, for somebody to come in here and say before God and America 
and everybody, we are not talking Canada or England here. We are 
talking about a uniquely American, basically, socialism.
  My friend from Iowa knows I was a history major. I'm a student of 
history. And sometimes I am just amazed by the thinking in this body 
that somehow we are so smart and so much better than all of those who 
have gone on before us that we can do the same thing that's been done 
throughout history and get a different result. But if you're smart 
enough to learn from history, you know, and everybody in this body is 
smart enough to learn from history, if they just will. And you learn 
that if you do the same things that historically over and over and over 
have been tried and gotten the same result, you're going to get the 
same result too, and you should try something different.

                              {time}  2330

  So that's why we've got to fix Medicare, we've got to fix Medicaid, 
and we can't keep on this course of SCHIP getting bigger and bigger and 
bigger. So what I came up with, after consulting with experts in all 
these different areas, is, you know what, for 2007 the latest numbers 
we've got--we've spent $9,215, with the best Census Bureau estimate of 
how many households are in America--$9,200 roughly for every one of the 
112 million households in America between Medicare and Medicaid. So you 
look at it, and you put your pencil to it, and you realize that, at 
most, there were 93 million Americans who either got Medicare, Medicaid 
or some form of SCHIP or some form of combination. We're better off 
saying, Folks, we want you to have the best care possible. I want my 
mother-in-law, who's still grieving over the loss of her husband last 
August, I want her to have the best care. If you're in America and you 
are an American legally here, then we want you to have $3,500 in your 
health savings account that you will control with a debit card, and 
we'll put that $3,500 cash from the government in your health savings 
account. You control it with your own debit card, and then we'll pay 
for catastrophic insurance to cover everything above that. Now that's 
health care that people can believe in and deserve and look at the 
cost. Less than a third of Americans would need that or be entitled to 
that. Those who are on Medicare, Medicaid, that are below the poverty 
level that we really need to help because they can't help themselves, 
we're better off doing that. Then not only will it cost less than 
$9,200, as it is now, but you're doing it for less than a third of the 
American people. So we should be able to save hundreds of billions of 
dollars, not this $100 million like the President. We will eventually 
get to that. Man, we're saving hundreds of billions of dollars. We'll 
get the country on track. We'll get people the health care they 
deserve. But of course one of the problems is, you can't keep allowing 
people to immigrate into this country legally or illegally and give 
free health care because it's not free. It costs everybody.
  So that's something I came up with. Hopefully there are not too many 
other resolutions being drafted by Leg Counsel so that they can get 
around to putting ours in the form of a bill, where we can get a CBO 
score on it because you can't get a CBO score unless you have it done 
by Leg Counsel and get a real bill. So we're trying to get that done, 
and I hope we can get that done.
  Then one other thing, if I might. You've got to have complete 
transparency on health care costs because we don't have them now. You 
get a notice from the hospital, the doctor, you know, $10,000, $20,000, 
whatever the cost was. ``Wow, thank goodness I had insurance or 
Medicare. I would have been bankrupt.'' That's not what it costs. It 
costs a fraction of that. So under this

[[Page 17338]]

proposal, every health care provider will have to give the exact cost 
that they charge different entities. They don't have to give the names 
but the descriptions and how much they charge so that you know what 
it's going to cost you when you go up there before you give them your 
debit card to swipe. The card would be coded for health care only. If 
you try to pay something that's not health care, it wouldn't accept it, 
and people will get back to controlling their futures. We'll save this 
runaway health care cost, as it is, and I think save the country as a 
result.
  My friend from Iowa has been so very patient and lenient, but this is 
something that is so passionate to me. I've known too many people who 
need good health care, and I am sick of insurance companies or 
government being between me and my doctor. I want patients to be able 
to get with their doctor, and I don't want socialized medicine. I've 
seen that. I've seen the results. You can look at the numbers. My 
friend from Iowa has all these wonderful examples that just break your 
heart. I don't want my American friends and our kids and their kids to 
suffer on our watch in this body because we didn't have the nerve to 
stand up and call it like it was. So I appreciate my friend for 
yielding, and I yield back to him.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and looking at the list of 
housekeeping that I have to do, I'd like to conclude this discussion on 
health care. I would just point out that Judge Gohmert from Texas 
anticipated the item that was on my mind and flowed into the 
transparency of the costs of health care. As far as I know, we're the 
only two people in this Congress that are talking about transparency on 
health care costs. How this works is this: If Medicare doesn't pay the 
costs of providing the services, if other providers don't pay or if 
other insurance companies, like the largest ones, they will drive that 
down, they'll track Medicare reimbursement rates down. That means that 
somebody else has to pay the difference. It's like pushing on a balloon 
one way or the other, and that's the transparency that's necessary.
  I keep going back to the hip replacement because that's a simple one 
to understand. If a hip replacement costs somebody on Medicare--let's 
put a number on it just to pull it out of the air. Let's say it costs 
somebody on Medicare $7,500, and it costs somebody that's going to 
write a check out of their billfold $10,000, and somebody who is 
covered by a good private health insurance company maybe is going to 
cost them $9,000. Why is that? It's because the government has pushed 
down the reimbursement rates under Medicare; and because of that, the 
losses have to be made up somewhere else.
  I will go another step beyond the complete transparency that Mr. 
Gohmert calls for, and I will say this: If Bill Gates pulls into a gas 
station and the sign says $2.49 a gallon, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett 
and the other rich people in the world buy their gas at $2.49 a gallon. 
The poorest person in the world has a rattle-trap old car, and they 
went out and scraped together enough money to go buy 10 gallons of gas 
to put in their rattle-trap car. They are going to pay $2.49 a gallon, 
sitting at the pump right there with Bill Gates in his Lexus or 
Mercedes or whatever it might be and Warren Buffett, who probably 
doesn't drive that nice of a car, actually. Well, why would a gallon of 
gas be the same price for the poor and the rich but have a hip 
replacement be different prices for people, depending on whether it's 
paid for by the taxpayers under Medicare or a private payer who is, 
let's say, self-insured who has a nice big checkbook and decides not to 
pay that premium or somebody who has a private health insurance 
premium? Why three or more different prices? The reason is because the 
government has pushed down those costs, and they get averaged out 
through balanced billing and cost shifting from the health care 
providers. That is one of the root causes of the problems we have with 
our health providers today. It's kind of like the elephant in the room. 
Nobody wants to talk about it because it's too hard to fix.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate that. And just on a follow-up on what he's 
pointing out about transparency, a personal situation, a person I 
know--I had permission to know about--got hit by another driver. It was 
totally the other driver's fault. She had 2 days of hospitalization, 
had all the diagnostic tests, the ambulance, the doctors that she saw. 
And when all the bills were gathered from all those sources to deal 
with the car insurance company, it was right about $10,000 in health 
care. You say, Well, that's kind of consistent with the kind of bills 
I've seen, people that have been in a hospital 2 days, all the tests 
and doctors they see. That's about normal. Yet when it came down to the 
conclusion and the determination had to be made as to how much was 
actually paid and by whom, all of those health care provider bills that 
added up to $10,000 said they had been paid in full, consistent with 
their contract with the health insurance company. So then in checking 
with the health insurance company as to how much they were actually out 
of pocket in paying those $10,000 in claims in full, it was $800. Now, 
if we get to the transparency that my friend from Iowa is talking 
about, then everybody in America gets the same deal that health 
insurance company did at $800. So you could have 2 days of 
hospitalization, and it doesn't even take but a fraction of your health 
savings account up.
  The other thing I wanted to point out that kind of segues into a 
topic that I think my friend wanted to get into before he concluded, 
that is this business of the same costs. And what we saw in the last 2 
weeks over the crap-and-trade bill that got shoved down America's 
throat through the House, at least--and I am hoping and praying that it 
won't get through the Senate--we're talking about skyrocketing electric 
bills, as the President promised a year ago back when he was a Senator 
running for President.

                              {time}  2340

  We are talking about skyrocketing gasoline prices. What is so very 
tragic about what my friend from Iowa pointed out is that with 
gasoline, it is the same price whether you're rich or poor. Those high 
electric rates, those high gasoline rates and the high propane rates 
are going to be inconvenient for Bill Gates. But they are going to 
devastate the people I know in east Texas and the people I have met in 
Iowa. They are going to devastate rank-and-file Americans.
  We really need America to respond and say we can't handle that. 
Inconvenience for the rich is one thing, but devastation to rank-and-
file Americans is something we should not have Congress do.
  I yield back to my friend.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, and I thank the gentleman from 
Texas. I say, but, Mr. Speaker, we have a stimulus plan. We have a $787 
billion stimulus plan that is going to jump-start this economy and get 
us out of the doldrums and solve this problem with unemployment and put 
Americans back to work and get the Dow Jones back up above 8,200 or 
somewhere and make America feel good again and give confidence in the 
venture capitalists that are out there and in the markets and in the 
Dow and in the entrepreneurs.
  Well, all of that was part of a stimulus plan. I came down on this 
floor while that was being debated, and I put up a poster that looks a 
lot like this. Only it didn't have $16.1 million on it. It had $32 
million on it. And it had the quote from President Obama here rather 
than the quote from Speaker Pelosi. And the quote from President Obama 
was: ``We are not going to do earmarks. We are not going to do Member-
sponsored initiatives. And I'm not going to sign any bill that has 
earmarks in it.'' Well, it depended on how you counted it. It seems to 
me that the number of earmarks in that bill came to around 9,000, maybe 
a little less, 8,500, depending on how you defined the earmarks.
  This is a picture of this cute little guy. I don't know if it is a 
girl or a guy. Do you see how cute he is? He is a pet project. This is 
Speaker Pelosi's pet project, her pet mouse project. This is the not 
quite yet infamous--and here

[[Page 17339]]

is what he is. He is the salt water marsh harvest mouse. Now that is 
SWMHM for short. This little mouse lives out there in the marsh near 
San Francisco. And he has been a special project of the Speaker. For 
years, she has tried to get earmarks for this mouse.
  Now, take a close look there. You don't see it, but there is an 
earmark there. Even though I said that this stimulus plan had an 
earmark in it for the salt water marsh harvest mouse, everybody that 
spoke for the Speaker and the people on this side of the aisle said, 
oh, no, that is radical reactionism. There aren't any earmarks in this 
bill. And, furthermore, the salt water marsh harvest mouse is not going 
to be one of those earmarks, because that would be a pet project--a pet 
project--for the Speaker, and that would be inappropriate given that 
the President has ordered that there will not be pet projects.
  Well, this is what the Speaker said on January 25, 2009. After the 
beginning of this 111th Congress, she said, I don't want to have 
legislation that is used as an engine for people to put on things that 
are not going to do what we are setting out to do, which is to turn 
this economy around. I have the most to prove with this package. The 
most to prove. The choices we are making are those that will work, that 
must work. Our economy requires it. America's families need it. This is 
urgent.
  Well, the mouse family may need it. Maybe it is a good thing, $16.1 
million for this little old mouse that couldn't quite rise high enough 
in the priority scale in any previous process of the United States 
Congress. But here in the desperate straits of 14\1/2\ million 
unemployed and another 5.8 or 9 million looking for a job, 20 million 
people out there who would like to have an opportunity to fend for 
themselves, we are going to drop not $32 million any longer, it has 
been carved down, we are going to put $16.1 million into the salt water 
marsh harvest mouse earmarked in this little pet project. This little 
pet project is earmarked now for $16.1 million.
  All the people over there that said, oh, Steve King is a reactionary 
and a radical. He is making up things that aren't in the bill. It isn't 
going to happen. We wouldn't do a thing like that, including the 
Speaker who has defined that she won't do a thing like that now has 
$16.1 million going into the marsh for the salt water marsh harvest 
mouse. His viability--I presume he is doing okay without this earmark. 
If we need jobs and an economy that works, we don't need to be dumping 
money into the salt water marsh harvest mouse.
  By the way, that is an earmark. It is a pet project. His ears are 
notched. That is what we do. And that is where the name came from.
  I wanted to point that out, Mr. Speaker, while this microphone is 
still alive here on this day, that this is the day that there was 
confirmation that the people who pointed this out back then in about 
this period in time in January or early February were right, and those 
who defended the Speaker and said it will never happen were wrong; 
$16.1 million was dropped in to the salt water marsh harvest mouse.
  And that should give a person a little bit of pause.
  Now I want to put something else into the Record here this evening, 
and that is you have had a couple of votes this week, one today and one 
the night before last, that I think are important. On the night before 
last, we had a vote on a resolution that would place a stone in the 
Capitol Visitor Center that honors the slaves that contributed to the 
construction of this Capitol Building. They did do that. They 
contributed to the construction. We ought to acknowledge that. But, you 
know, we had the huge room over in the Capitol Visitor Center that was 
designated as the Great Hall. Now the Great Hall brings to mind the 
Great Hall in Ellis Island. It would honor all of the immigrants that 
came to America, those that came voluntarily and those that came 
involuntarily. And it is an image that is very, very moving when you 
walk through the Great Hall in Ellis Island. I was very happy to name 
the room over in the visitor center the Great Hall.
  But it had to be changed because of the objections of the 
Congressional Black Caucus that wanted a higher acknowledgment for 
slavery in this country. So the Great Hall's name was changed to 
Emancipation Hall.
  Okay. No objection here. Emancipation was a big thing for the world 
when we put an end to slavery here in the United States. At great cost, 
however. A resolution to do so was traded off in a quid pro quo, and 
for those people who didn't go to law school like myself, I have to 
tell you, there was a deal made. The deal that was made was this: the 
Architect of the Capitol who has been trying to scrub every reference 
to faith from anything that's developed from this point forward around 
this Capitol complex and even refusing to allow when a flag is flown 
over this Capitol, the certificate that certifies that it was flown, if 
you want to say, July 10 in the year of our Lord, 2009, he wants to 
scrub ``the year of our Lord'' out of there because that's a reference 
to religion. Never mind above the Speaker's seat: it says, In God We 
Trust. It's been there for a long time, that is our national motto, and 
the Architect of the Capitol sought to block our national motto from 
being displayed in the Congressional Visitor Center along with the 
Pledge of Allegiance.
  So in order to require the Architect to recognize our national motto 
In God We Trust and ``one nation under God'' in our Pledge of 
Allegiance, there had to be a quid pro quo, a deal made, that in 
addition to Emancipation Hall, there would be an extra monument put up 
to recognize slavery.
  All right. I'm fine with recognizing slavery. I would have been an 
abolitionist if I had been born back in those years prior to the Civil 
War. It's an article of faith, it's an article of Christian 
fundamentalism that slavery is a sin against God. And a good thing that 
happened when this country put an end to it, at great cost in blood. 
But if it's going to be the kind of devil's bargain that if you're 
going to have a reference to God in the Congressional Visitor Center 
you first have to pass another way to recognize slavery, in order to 
pacify the Congressional Black Caucus, a separatist organization in 
this Congress, in order to get a reference to God, the quid pro quo 
was, pass this resolution first and then we'll bring up the resolution 
that lets you vote on whether there's going to be In God We Trust in 
our visitor center. That took place today. The vote 2 days ago was 399-
1. I voted ``no'' on the slavery marker because it was making a deal 
with requiring that to pass before the word God could go up in the 
Congressional Visitor Center, even though it's a direct replica of 
what's right behind me above the Speaker's chair right now. That 
resolution passed tonight with eight Members of Congress voting against 
putting our national motto up in the visitor center and against putting 
up the Pledge of Allegiance in the visitor center because there's a 
reference to God in each one. Eight voted no. Two voted present. Ten 
couldn't bring themselves to acknowledge that God's a great big part of 
what formed this country and those words will stand no matter who 
stands against it.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank you for being recognized, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.

                          ____________________