[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20220-20223]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 THE PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS ON HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, this is the Special Order hour of the 
Congressional Progressive Caucus. We come every week to talk with each 
other and to talk on the House floor about a progressive vision for 
America, a progressive vision that embraces everybody, where we all do 
better when we all do better, a progressive vision that says that the 
greatest moments of American history were when we passed the civil 
rights bill, when we invested in our infrastructure during the 
Roosevelt era. The greatest moments in American history were when we 
passed the 19th Amendment recognizing the right of women to vote. These 
are the great moments of American history. And this great tradition of 
a progressive vision for America is what we carry on week in and week 
out. I want to say that if you want to communicate with us, our Web 
site is here at the bottom of the page, cpc.grijalva.house.gov.
  What I would like to do, Mr. Speaker, is right away turn the 
microphone over and yield to our caucus cochair, one of the stalwart, 
big-time fighters who never backs down and always is for the people, 
who has lived it, who knows it, and who is now representing the people 
of California in a great struggle to promote a progressive vision, none 
other than Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey--who, by the way, has more 5 
minutes against the Iraq war than anybody else in history. I yield to 
the gentlelady from California.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much. And thank you so much, Congressman 
Ellison, for doing this every single week for the Progressive Caucus 
because we do have a progressive message, and by the end of the day, we 
sometimes think that we are too tired to come down here and talk about 
our message.
  We are in the middle of a health care debate right here in the House 
of Representatives. And as Congressman Rangel told us, two of the 
committees have marked up, written, and are ready to present their 
health care bills. One of the committees is Ways and Means, the other 
one is Education and Labor. The Energy and Commerce Committee is 
working on it right now. And we're going to leave before the end of the 
week, and we're going to go off while our leadership and the heads of 
those three committees put the bill together out of these three 
committees.
  One of the committees, what's happening in Energy and Commerce, the 
progressives disagree with very, very severely. So we have written a 
letter to our leadership, to the Speaker and the three chairmen of 
these committees who will be writing this, pulling these bills 
together, laying out what the progressives in this Congress stand for, 
once again, regarding health care.
  I'm going to read this letter because I think it's very important. We 
have 57 Members of the House of Representatives who have signed this 
letter just today.

                              {time}  2000

  I'm reading it to make sure it is in the Record.
  It says: ``Dear Madam Speaker, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Rangel, and 
Chairman Miller, we write to voice our opposition to the negotiated 
health care reform agreement under consideration in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee.
  ``We regard the agreement reached by Chairman Waxman with several 
Blue Dog members of the committee as fundamentally unacceptable. This 
agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill but a 
large step backwards.
  ``Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option 
with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates, not negotiated rates, 
is unacceptable. It would ensure higher costs for the public plan and 
would do nothing to achieve the goal of keeping insurance companies 
honest and their rates down.
  ``To offset the increased costs incurred by adopting the provisions 
advocated by the Blue Dog members of the committee, the agreement would 
reduce subsidies to low- and middle-income families, requiring them to 
pay a larger portion of their income for insurance premiums, and would 
impose an unfunded mandate on the States to pay for what were to have 
been Federal costs.
  ``In short, this agreement will result in the public, both as 
insurance purchasers and as taxpayers, paying even higher rates to 
insurance companies. We simply cannot vote for such a proposal.''
  Mr. ELLISON. So as the Chair of the Progressive Caucus, along with 
Congressman Grijalva, are the Progressives and others hanging tough and 
sticking up for a robust public option?
  Ms. WOOLSEY. That is what this letter is all about. We just want the 
Chairs of all three committees, when they moosh the three bills 
together, to know that the Ways and Means Committee and the Education 
and Labor Committee have bills that we can support. Do not weaken those 
bills with what is being proposed in the Energy and Commerce Committee 
this week. That is our goal. And it was not only Progressive Caucus 
members. It was also the TriCaucus that signed onto this, which is the 
Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the 
Asian American Caucus.
  So this is our letter. This is what we stand for, and this is what 
we're hoping we will have when we are voting for real health care 
reform later this fall.
  Mr. ELLISON. We thank the gentlewoman for reading that letter into 
the Record.
  I want to say that we are joined by Congresswoman Edwards of 
Maryland, who has been a courageous fighter for many issues but has not 
shrunk from the battle in this fight for real health care reform.
  Let me ask the gentlewoman, I think Congressman McDermott has a quick 
thing he wants to say. So, if the gentlewoman will allow me to yield to 
him first, then I will yield to her.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. I appreciate your giving me a chance to say something. 
I spoke a little earlier. But one thing I wanted to say. In Seattle 
they announced that on August 1 the premiums on insurance policies are 
going up 17 percent.
  Now, when people talk about fear and they have to fear the government 
and fear the government option, this is a real fear. This 17 percent 
increase in Seattle is going to hurt people badly. Some people are not 
going to be able to afford continuing their insurance, and that's why 
it's so important that the Progressive Caucus, led by you and by Ms. 
Woolsey, are out here making sure that people understand there is an 
option to these absolutely unacceptable increases in premiums.
  Nothing else has gone up 17 percent. Housing prices have dropped. 
Gasoline prices have dropped. But health insurance? Up 17 percent. The 
only way we are going to stop that is with a government option that 
makes competition.
  Thank you for the work that you are doing. And I again say thank you 
to the gentlewoman for letting me speak.
  Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Dr. McDermott, for your passionate advocacy.
  Now I yield to one of my favorite Members. I love to hear her talk 
about these issues because she is so articulate. I yield to 
Congresswoman Edwards.
  Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for 
yielding.
  We have been here talking about health care reform, and sometimes out 
in America when they watch Congress, they might think that this is 
about Blue Dogs and Progressives and liberals and conservatives and 
Republicans and Democrats, but health care reform is actually about 
people.
  It's about, for example, a young woman in my congressional district 
from Hyattsville, Maryland, Ariella, who writes to me that she was 13 
years old when her father developed cancer and they were struggling 
without insurance. And she said no one should be

[[Page 20221]]

13 years old and wondering if the insurance company would pay for her 
father's treatment so that he could see his daughter's next birthday. 
``Your support and determination to improve this system means the world 
to so many of us. On behalf of my family and the American Cancer 
Society, thank you.''
  It's about Ariella, and it's about the millions of people across the 
country who don't have health care. It's about millions more who are 
underinsured, and it's about millions who are insured and are paying 
skyrocketing costs just discussed by our colleague from Washington, 
skyrocketing costs of premiums and deductibles and copays that are 
rising three times the rate of wages.
  A good friend of mine from New Hampshire, one of our colleagues, put 
together this chart, and it shows what the alternatives are. And we can 
either really work for reform together or not.
  Some people know that if you don't have any money and you don't have 
any insurance, you get sick and it's a disaster. If you have a 
preexisting condition and you don't have health insurance, you get sick 
and it's a disaster. If you're laid off and you don't have insurance, 
you get sick and it's a disaster. If your employer drops your coverage, 
you don't have any insurance, you get sick, it's a disaster. And so, 
really, the Republican plan for health care reform is just don't get 
sick. Well, that's not an option for most Americans.
  I know that we have a process here, and I think Americans across the 
country, Mr. Speaker, are really trying to understand that process, but 
that's kind of internal. It's not about Ariella who doesn't have health 
insurance. I know that probably so many of our offices here in the 
Congress have received letters just as I have from people throughout my 
congressional district who are begging us to reform this health care 
system.
  They are begging us for their 77-year-old mother who has a gap in her 
health insurance. They're begging us for their cousin who has breast 
cancer, who's not getting paid to work, is too sick to go to work, but 
can't afford even to stay home and to get treatment. They're begging us 
for their children who have preexisting conditions and can't get 
insured at all. The American public is begging us to do something about 
health care reform. We can't just have a plan that says just please 
don't get sick.
  I tried that plan. This Member of Congress tried that plan. Seventeen 
years ago I didn't have health insurance, and I just crossed my fingers 
every night not to get sick. I ended up getting sick. I was sick in the 
produce section of the grocery store. I passed out. I was rushed to the 
hospital emergency room. And I ended up with thousands of dollars in 
health care costs. It took me years and years to pay it off. I almost 
lost my home as a result of that. No American should have to make that 
kind of decision. And you know what it would have been? It would have 
been a couple of hundred dollars to go visit the doctor and get some 
antibiotics, and instead it was thousands of dollars, a financial 
disaster, and almost losing my home in the process. That's what 
Americans are suffering from right now, and that's why we have to fix 
this system.
  Now, I know, Mr. Ellison and Mr. Speaker, we have a process, but that 
process has to involve, I believe, a public health insurance option 
that says no matter if you get sick, if you don't have insurance now, 
you're going to be covered, and we are going to bring down the cost for 
everyone. That's what Americans want. And it doesn't matter whether 
you're a middle-income family, a working family, a poor family. You 
shouldn't have to make a life decision about whether you and your 
children and your family get health care because you can't afford it.
  So I'm excited about the prospect for reform. But I know that there 
are some bad guys in this fight and the bad guys are out there. I want 
to share with you who some of those bad guys are because the challenge 
for us is helping the American people understand that in this country 
there are people who share interests who don't want to reform the 
system. The big winners in this broken health care system, let's look 
at who they are:
  The CEO of United Health Group, Stephen Hemsley, his annual financial 
report, United Health made $81.2 billion. Their net income, $2.9 
billion. His salary, $3.2 million.
  Mr. Speaker, this is what's at stake.
  The CEO of WellPoint, Angela Braly, $61.3 billion they made. Their 
income, $2.5 billion. I mean, Americans can't even count these zeros 
because we don't understand them. What was her salary? It was $9.8 
million.
  I mean, this is outrageous. This is the money that that's at stake.
  The CEO of CIGNA, Ed Hanway, the annual revenue, $19.1 billion, $292 
million in net income. His salary, $12.2 million.
  Let's call out these names because I think it's important for 
Americans to put the names on the faces of those who are reaping 
billions of dollars of profit, netting millions of dollars in salary, 
and then taking the American public to the bank without health care 
reform.
  The CEO, Ronald Williams, of Aetna, $30.9 billion in revenue for 
Aetna; $2.8 billion in net income; and his salary, $24.3 million.
  This is outrageous. There's a lot at stake. I understand why these 
folks are fighting health care reform. I understand, because they stand 
a lot to lose. And our job here in the United States Congress is to 
make sure that it's the American public that wins, that it's the 
taxpayer that wins, that it's the patient that wins, that it's the 
doctor who has a relationship with their patient, and not these 
insurance companies standing between you and your health care, between 
you and your doctor.
  Mr. ELLISON. I actually have a few questions, but I am going to yield 
to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Before I do that, I just want to say that if we just took some of 
these salaries that are out there and put them into providing care for 
people, maybe we wouldn't have nearly 50 million people without health 
care and another 25 million without adequate insurance. It's really 
outrageous. And they're spending about $1.4 million a day to lobby 
against health care, and that's nothing but pocket change for some of 
those folks, and I can see why they would do that.
  With that, I will yield to the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman 
Davis.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you very much, Representative Ellison.
  Let me, first of all, commend you for the leadership that you 
continue to display as the message leader for the Progressive Caucus. I 
see you here every week and oftentimes Representative Edwards is here 
with you. So I'm pleased to join you and her and Representative 
McDermott, with whom I serve on the Ways and Means Committee, and I 
know that Chairman Rangel was here a few minutes ago and others.

                              {time}  2015

  You know, as I listened to Representative Edwards and as she talked 
about the winners and the losers, it is amazing that individuals in the 
health care arena are earning these kind of salaries, and that people 
are able to somehow or another not want to pay, and people somehow or 
another don't want to add a few extra dollars.
  I come from a county with over 5 million people, and unfortunately, 
many of them are low income. They are poor. Many of them don't have any 
insurance at all. They don't have any way to access care, any way to be 
taken care of. Some of them go to emergency rooms of hospitals that are 
as many as 8 and 10 miles away in an urban area, and they can't get 
there.
  To think that we now have an opportunity to reform, in a real way, 
health care delivery and to create the kind of health care delivery 
system that says that all of our citizens have worth, I don't know how 
those who are opposing a public option, I don't even know how you could 
begin to talk seriously about reforming our health care delivery system 
without a public option.
  I have sat through the many hearings that we have had in Ways and 
Means. I

[[Page 20222]]

have sat through countless hours of discussions with staff and experts. 
No matter what we come up with, we know that we need a robust, not a 
minuscule, not a weak, not an anemic public option, but we need a real 
public option, one that can help build upon the network of community 
health centers that we have spread across the country, which have 
proven to be worth their weight in gold, which have proven that they 
can deliver first-rate health and medical care in a cost-efficient way 
with individuals who understand the language, the culture, and the 
lifestyles of the people who come.
  I agree with the Progressive Caucus members, as well as others, that 
there just ought not to be a plan without a serious public option.
  Again, I want to commend both of you for the tremendous leadership 
that you continue to display. I know with the kind of attention and 
care that you give to these issues, that our Congress and our people 
are going to be in good shape for many years to come.
  So, it has been a pleasure for me to stop by and to join with you and 
have a few words to say. Of course, you know, I remember a term we used 
to use a lot back in the sixties and seventies. We used to say ``a luta 
continua,'' meaning that the struggle must continue and we will 
conquer, without a doubt. If we dare to struggle, we dare to win.
  Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be here.
  Mr. ELLISON. Let me thank you again, Congressman Davis. You have been 
putting it out there for so long. There are 57 Members who insist upon 
a robust public option. It is wonderful to count you among one of 
those. I think the American people can rest assured there are people in 
this Congress who are sticking up for their interests and fighting for 
them, and your leadership in that regard is inspirational. Thank you, 
sir.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Thank you very much.
  Mr. ELLISON. Let me then yield back to the gentlelady from Maryland, 
Congresswoman Edwards. You have got some pretty good stuff over there. 
What else do you have?
  Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. I have thought about this a lot, as many of 
us have, and I know that our leadership, the Democratic leadership in 
this Congress, is moving toward reform at a pace and for a reason that 
we know is really important. We also know that our President wants real 
reform. So I think the importance of the discussion that we are having 
this evening is about how we define reform, particularly how we define 
a public option and why it is needed.
  I think Congressman Davis said it, that the system won't really work 
without a public option. We won't be able to bring down costs without a 
public option. We want people to have choice, the choice of their 
doctor, choice of their providers. We want people to have the choice to 
look at the various plans stacked up against each other and say, I want 
this one over that one. We can do that with a robust public option, one 
that is tied to the Medicare network.
  Today is the 44th anniversary of the enactment of Medicare, and it is 
instructive that we are here on this day, because there are those who 
like to say government can't do anything, government doesn't know how 
to do health care. Well, government sure knew how to do Medicare, and 
for 44 years people in this country have had the benefit of Medicare, 
have had the benefit of a Medicare provider network.
  That is the kind of network we want for a public option, one that has 
doctors. We need more doctors, and this legislation that we are looking 
at will provide more doctors and more nurses. It will ensure that 
people can get primary care and preventive care. It will ensure that 
people aren't excluded because of preexisting conditions, and we know 
that is a problem.
  So there are a lot of good things that we have to celebrate about 
where we are today. But we also have to be vigilant, as Congressman 
Davis said. We have to be vigilant to ensure that we have a robust 
public option tied to the Medicare provider network and that relies on 
a payment structure that is stable so that we can inject real 
competition into the system. Not competition upward for premiums and 
deductibles and copays, but competition downward, so that we can lower 
costs, provide quality care, and have a choice of doctors.
  I have been thinking, Congressman Ellison and Mr. Speaker, I have 
been thinking that there are a lot of enemies to reform and there is a 
lot at stake out there. There is money flowing all over the system. Not 
just the CEO salaries and the bonuses and the profits. That is bad 
enough. So the insurance companies have a lot to lose. And, do you know 
what? We found out that that is why they have decided that they are 
going to put skin in this game, and the skin that they put in the game 
to oppose reform is in the form of their money.
  All you have to do is follow the money to know why the enemies of 
reform are galvanizing. We have to be strong and courageous in our 
fight against them and for the American people for health care reform.
  If you follow the money, let's look at CEO compensation, $85.4 
million. Lobbying expenditures, what they have been spending to fight 
reform, $62.5 million. PhRMA alone in the pharmaceutical industry has 
spent $233.7 million. And look at their profits, $8.4 billion. This is 
a lot of money that is at stake.
  So if you follow that money and then follow it right to campaign 
contributions, they have been throwing campaign contributions all over 
the map; $28 million, or $220 million for the 10-year period from 1998 
to 2008. And do you know why? Because they don't want reform.
  That is why it is up to those of us in the Congress who are looking 
out for regular people, looking out for people throughout our 
congressional districts who really are struggling to pay their premiums 
and their deductibles and who are struggling to pay their copays that 
are going up.
  I look at my own district. We have a lot of people actually who have 
health insurance, and the reason is because they have it through their 
employers. But even their employers are really struggling now. It is 
getting in the way of our competitiveness. It is getting in the way, 
because people know that they can't afford, anymore, these premiums. 
The premiums are going up three times the rate of our wages.
  But do you know what? The wages of those CEOs have been going up. 
Some of their wages have gone up 26 percent in just this last year. But 
have any of us seen our wages go up like that? The American public 
hasn't, and it means that those deductibles and those premiums and 
those copays are no longer affordable.
  Mr. ELLISON. Reclaiming my time, the reform that we are talking about 
includes employer-based health care, where there couldn't be an 
exclusion for preexisting conditions. There are the existing government 
programs, Medicare, Medicaid. Part of the money, if we get the version 
we are looking for, would be to help States cover everybody for 
Medicaid.
  Then the third thing, this would be new and would include a robust 
public option. The public option would be a program run by an agency in 
the government that would be not looking to generate a profit. In that 
case, would the public option that we have been talking about, would 
they be reaping a portion of those, what is that, $84 billion in 
profit? Would that be a cost measure within the public option, if we 
were able to achieve that?
  Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland. Well, I think that what would happen is that 
the public option would be so competitive. Keep in mind that the CEO of 
the public option, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, doesn't 
make $9.8 million a year. It is a basic government salary, I don't 
know, about $175,000 or $185,000 a year to run all of Medicare. Our CEO 
is a government employee who doesn't make a ton of money, who is not 
reaping millions and millions of dollars in compensation.
  This is only compensation. Maybe next time I will bring the bonus 
chart. That would require a lot more zeros.
  But I think really there is so much overhead in the private 
insurance, and

[[Page 20223]]

it is really sending costs up. All we want is a public option, and what 
the American people want is a public option, because something like 70-
some percent of the American public actually support a public option, 
and what they want is something that competes with the private 
insurers.
  After all, Mr. Ellison, I am not really sure what the private 
insurers are afraid of, because if they believe in the free 
marketplace, put the public option in there, let it compete in the free 
marketplace, and I will tell you what, the competition will be on and 
costs will be down.
  Mr. ELLISON. That is right. And lobbying expenditures, CEO 
compensation and profits will not be there.
  We will have to yield back and be back the next time. This has been 
the Progressive Hour.

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