[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20237-20243]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2230
                 CULTIVATING AMERICAN ENERGY RESOURCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Minnick). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the time.
  As frustrating as these times are, and as difficult as these times 
are for America, it never ceases to be an honor

[[Page 20238]]

to serve in this body and to be serving, in my case, the constituents 
of east Texas. It does mean so much, and the more that you know about 
history and where we've come from----
  Ms. FOXX. Would my colleague from Texas yield for a moment?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Yes, I will yield.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman will state her parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Ms. FOXX. One of the gentlemen just speaking in the Special Order 
said, ``Republicans keep lying about it.'' I thought there might be 
some concern about the use of that phrase, and I would like to ask the 
Speaker if that is an acceptable phrase to be used on the floor when 
speaking about other Members.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded not to engage in 
personalities.
  Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, the folks who said 
it are not here to hear you say that. But thank you very much.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
pointing that out. I was in the back, jotting down a few notes. But I 
have had some concerns about some of the things that I had heard. For 
example, it is inappropriate under the House rules for someone in this 
body to call another person in this body a liar. That violates the 
House rules clearly. It's inappropriate to call names in here and 
engage in personality destruction. That's not appropriate. I've had 
constituents wonder why those of us on the floor don't call each other 
names, like Gordon Brown was called in Parliament in England. I have 
explained to them, Well, we have rules in the House. We don't do that 
kind of thing here. It's entirely inappropriate, and you can be called 
down. You can be censured for inappropriate conduct here on the floor 
and name calling, engaging, as the Speaker said, in attacks on 
personality.
  But there was a comment I did hear in the discussion amongst my 
colleagues across the aisle about energy; and what I noted when I wrote 
down the comment was, ``If we do nothing like those on the other side 
say,'' and I attribute no ill motive or intent to that comment. But the 
trouble is, that is not accurate; and obviously, it indicates just an 
ignorance with regard to what has been proposed on this side.
  For example, in the area of energy, we have proposed bill after bill 
that would provide this country more energy. For example, 80 percent or 
so of our coast is off-limits to drilling off that coast. You can drill 
off the coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi. There are some areas 
where drilling is going on. But we have found in Texas that despite all 
the naysayers who have said it would kill off fishing, when I was 
growing up in Texas, they allowed platforms off the coast. We ended up 
having platforms off the coast of Texas, drilling for oil and gas. Lo 
and behold, guess what happened--fish proliferated out there. They used 
the platforms as an artificial reef. So if you go out fishing in the 
Gulf with a guide, they're likely to take you to an oil and gas 
platform because the fishing abounds around there. Lo and behold, man 
and environment can work together for the good of both. Not only would 
we produce great amounts of energy and avoid this country going back to 
$4 a gallon gasoline, which we are going to go to because of the 
policies of the current administration and the current Speaker who want 
to put more and more--not just want to--they are constantly putting 
more and more of our natural energy resources off-limits, just 
constantly.
  Some of us have had bills, supported bills that have used the 
information available to say, If we allow drilling off the Outer 
Continental Shelf, it will do a number of things. For one thing, it 
will provide tremendous amounts of money for the Federal Treasury 
because of the royalties coming from that. Not only that, there are 
estimates that if we allow Outer Continental Shelf drilling, that it 
would produce at least 1.1 to 1.3 million jobs. Well, the President 
originally promised that he would create 3 million jobs, and he backed 
off of that and said, well, he may save that many, or 4 million, may 
save them. And obviously you can never document that you saved a job, 
only if you created them or didn't. So that's why it was important to 
inject the word ``save'' in there.
  But with regard to drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, there 
would actually be real jobs created, not just on the platforms--there, 
of course--but it would create jobs in every single State. Then also if 
we allowed drilling up in ANWR--and it's not this beautiful 
mountainesque area up there. It's not. You go up there, and there's 
nothing there. Nothing lives there. The caribou may go through once a 
year, but they can't live there. There's nothing to live on. Birds may 
fly through every now and then, but there's nothing there for them to 
live on. That's the area that Jimmy Carter designated for drilling 
because it was an ideal place, and there was plenty of oil there. But 
if we allowed the oil to be pursued there, it would create a tiny 
footprint; and compared to the massive size--and it gets smaller 
constantly with technology--there would be another 1 million jobs 
created around the country, the United States, more Federal money, more 
jobs, which actually would create more Federal money. Then also there 
are some slopes in Alaska where drilling for natural gas has not been 
allowed, and that's estimated to create another 1.1 to 1.3 million 
jobs. We could have between 3 million and 4 million jobs without taxing 
an extra quarter of a penny. It would cost nothing extra if we just 
used the resources we've got.
  Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Yes. I yield to my friend from North Carolina.
  Ms. FOXX. I appreciate your helping to correct some of the things 
that they said. But I was very concerned with the fact that they said, 
We, on this side, want to do nothing. You know, I can challenge the 
veracity of their comments, particularly on that one. The gentleman, I 
know, is aware of the fact that Republicans have been trying for 2\1/2\ 
years to do something about the situation with energy. I know that you 
shared with 130 of us, I think, who came down last summer and spoke all 
during the month of August. But just for my sake and for anybody who's 
watching tonight, would you please verify that Republicans have offered 
several bills to do the very kinds of things that these gentlemen were 
talking about tonight? The unfortunate thing is that we're in the 
minority. They're in the majority. So they can talk a lot about it, and 
they could do something about it when we could not at the time, except 
bring it to the attention of the American people. But please make a 
comment about the American Energy Act.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, sure. We had the American Energy Act. There are so 
many Republican bills that have been filed, and they encompass 
virtually everything. We want more solar. We want more wind. All these 
different sources. Nuclear power. I never thought I would end up 
indicating we ought to emulate France about anything, but they've done 
a terrific job in producing nuclear energy.

                              {time}  2240

  And so that is another area that we can utilize.
  Natural gas from the horizontal drilling, the hydraulic fracking, 
when it's properly done, it has produced now, in recent years we find 
out, much more natural gas than we thought. And we have plans that 
encompass all of these things, every single source of energy.
  What also our friends across the aisle have not realized, they made a 
comment about how their energy, their ``crap and trade'' bill would 
actually create jobs. And that does indicate to me that they didn't 
read their own bill. And that's rather unfortunate because there are 
things that contradict what they said.
  But we've had many bills, and we call them ``all of the above.'' And 
as my friend, Dr. Foxx, recalls, we were pushing an all of the above. 
We want to utilize all of the gifts with which this country has been 
blessed. We have

[[Page 20239]]

more coal--now, coal burned improperly pollutes the atmosphere. We can 
demand better; coal-to-liquid that doesn't produce all the pollution 
that just burning coal does. We can require scrubbers, as we have over 
the years, to help clean up the environment.
  We have more coal than any nation in the world. We have vast supplies 
of natural gas, now over 100 years worth. We've got vast amounts of 
oil. We had estimates in our Natural Resources Committee--and we've 
talked about so many of these issues there--in a 500-square-mile area 
that includes Utah, Wyoming, and part of Colorado, there is a very 
thick shale there that we would like to see oil produced. And some 
estimates are 1 trillion to 3 trillion barrels of oil could be 
produced. Well, we were told that there's only about 1 trillion barrels 
of oil left in the entire Middle East, and we may have one to three 
times that much in one 500-square-mile area if we allow the people to 
go after it. And our plans all include those things.
  But one other thing about pursuing that energy ourselves would be, we 
have a plan. We have bills that would actually take the money from the 
Outer Continental Shelf revenue, it would take money from ANWR 
production, it would take money from the gas production in Alaska and 
would actually use that to do research and find these other sources of 
energy.
  I have a bill myself that they won't let come to the floor, and it's 
far-reaching. And some might say, well, it's kind of like the Star Wars 
idea that Reagan pushed--which ended up bringing down the Soviet Union 
and providing cover for so much of the world these days. But I really 
believe that someday solar energy will be our best source of energy and 
we'll be able to utilize it more so than ever. But we don't have a good 
way to store electricity. We can store energy. Energy can be stored, as 
it is in a place or two around the country, where during low-usage 
times they will maximize production of electricity to use it to pump 
water up into high reservoirs so that in peak times the water can flow 
down, turn turbines, and produce additional amounts of electricity. 
Now, that's storing energy, but it's not storing electricity.
  So I had a bill that would say, for anyone who comes up with a way to 
store electricity in megawatt amounts for 30 days without losing more 
than 10 percent of the power, you get a $300 million cash prize. Now, 
obviously if somebody comes up with a way to do that, they're going to 
make a lot of money off the process. Some say there is no way that 
could ever happen. Some scientists I've talked to said, Man, if we 
could do that, find a way to hold that electricity, we would never need 
any other source again. It would revolutionize everything. We might 
even be able to harness electricity. I mean, the lightning from 
electricity that would come down, we could just store that.
  And so those things, I think they are out there. I don't know of a 
Democrat bill that addresses that; that's a Republican bill, that's my 
bill. That's far-reaching; it's not going to happen in the next 2 
years. But we believe if you use the energy resources we've got, the 
carbon-based resources we've got, demand clean air, clean water, and be 
good stewards of the environment, but then use the proceeds to develop 
the next generation of energy, then we don't have to have people lose 
jobs.
  Now, our friends across the aisle were talking about they were 
concerned about jobs going to China and places like that. The fact is, 
that crap-and-trade bill is going to run jobs to China, India, Brazil. 
And I don't see how anybody can say they're going to help the 
environment by closing down manufacturers in this country and driving 
them to countries who produce four to 10 times more pollution to do the 
same job that goes into the same atmosphere. That is ridiculous. That 
doesn't preserve our environment; it makes it worse.
  And another thing, too, it's historical fact that when a country's 
economy is struggling, the country quits worrying about the 
environment. They quit being good stewards of the environment. We don't 
have to do that. We can be good stewards, but you've got to have a 
vibrant economy to do that.
  So why in the world would you want to put extra requirements on your 
industry in order to drive them to countries that would pollute 4 to 10 
times as much? It makes no sense at all.
  I yield to my friend, Dr. Foxx.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I think that this is a great segue to talk about the 
other subject that we wanted to talk about tonight, which is health 
care, and what is happening with the health care debate.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Let me reclaim my time just briefly because that's where 
we want to get, but I do want to point out one other thing.
  When I hear the talk about what this body is doing to create jobs, 
let me mention this. They didn't read the crap-and-trade bill because 
it says--and I pulled it out here on the floor, but I didn't have the 
full bill because there was only one bill in which both the 300-page 
amendment filed at 3:09 a.m. was being interfaced with the other bill, 
and that was right up there on the second level. And I finally got up 
there and found out where the one--and the Speaker ruled, consulting 
with the Parliamentarian, that even though there was no final bill that 
was put together with the amendments in the final bill, that that two 
stacks of documents that was not collated, didn't have all the lines 
deleted that it was supposed to, that that bill constituted the 
official copy that was supposed to be here on the floor.
  But in that bill there was a climate--I believe it was called a 
Climate Adjustment Fund, something like that, and it created a fund. 
And in the face of people saying across the aisle that nobody's going 
to lose their jobs, we're going to create jobs--and I heard it again 
tonight--if you just read the bill--obviously these weren't the people 
that wrote it, but whichever staffers wrote it, they knew that somebody 
was going to lose their job. Maybe Members didn't know because they 
hadn't read it, but the staffers that put that bill together knew 
people were going to lose their jobs because the fund said it was to 
compensate people who lost their jobs because of the crap-and-trade 
bill.
  And not only that, it created money in there to help people with 
relocation. But the problem is, it wasn't going to help them relocate 
to China, India, Brazil and these different places where those jobs 
were going to actually go. That was in the bill. So the people, 
whatever staffers drafted that bill, they knew people would lose their 
jobs, but unfortunately the Members that didn't read the bill didn't 
know that that was in there.
  And not only that, as my friend, Dr. Foxx, knows, in the last month, 
what have we been doing? According to my friends, some of them across 
the aisle, Oh, we've been concentrating on jobs, jobs, jobs. Last week, 
we passed a bill for $770 million for wild horses and burros. I love 
horses, I grew up riding them, I love them. But the problem created 
after our friends across the aisle took the majority, they outlawed 
controlling the herds of these wild horses--even though they have an 
area bigger than New York State to run wild in.
  Well, they have proliferated like crazy. And now, since we couldn't 
do anything for herd control, now they want to spend $770 million, a 
big hunk of that, to buy a place bigger than West Virginia for the 
horses to continue to run around in. There was some money in there that 
I'm sure would have created a few jobs, that was going to help the wild 
stallions with their birth control, their contraception. So that was 
going to be interesting to see somebody apply for that job and do 
whatever was required to help the stallion with his contraception 
needs. But anyway, that was $770 million.
  Not only that, my friend knows that we just passed--and I know 
neither one of us voted for it--we passed a bill for $25 million to 
help the otters. And as I pointed out here, when we passed the bill for 
$25 million for the cranes--not the whooping cranes, but cranes, most 
of which are in other countries--and $25 million for rare dogs and 
cats--none of which are in this country.
  I was pointing out to my friends across the aisle, you know, you talk

[[Page 20240]]

about wanting to save jobs and helping; we've got Americans with 
habitat problems right here. And you're sending money to China that we 
have to borrow from China in order to buy land to let these rare dogs 
and cats live on so somebody can move into that area that's starving 
and kill those rare dogs and cats. I mean, that's insane when we have 
Americans having habitat problems.

                              {time}  2250

  So when I hear people saying oh, no, we're all about jobs, jobs, 
jobs, I am very concerned. But I was able to point out to some of my 
friends that supported the crap-and-trade bill that actually there is 
good news in there for the people that supported that, like our friends 
across the aisle that did, that actually when the voters find out what 
all is in that bill that they didn't read, there's good news for them 
because they may be eligible for both relocation and that allowance 
because they'll lose their job as a result of that bill. So they may be 
able to get proceeds under the fund when they lose their jobs because 
they voted for that bill. I did want to point those things out.
  The sea turtles, don't forget we sent sums because it may be 
necessary to protect sea turtles, and 80 percent of that is required to 
go to foreign countries and not stay here. I mean, people here have 
habitat problems, and we're spending money like it's just growing on 
trees up here, and we are going to be in trouble.
  Now I would like to get into the health care issue because there is 
money being spent, again, like it's growing on trees. The estimate of 
the President's plan, $1 trillion to $2 trillion. We had just gotten 
the data back, I think, in May for 2007 that showed all the spending 
for Medicare and Medicaid. It didn't even include SCHIP. Medicare and 
Medicaid. And we want to help people. We are a caring Nation, and 
that's what a caring Nation does. But you've got to spend your money 
wisely.
  So we got the data, and you divide the number of households in 
America into the amount of money spent by the government on Medicare 
and Medicaid, and it's $9,200 per household, for every household in 
America. The average is every household in America had to come up with 
$9,200 in order to fund much less than one-third of the population on 
Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. Well, that's insane. We can do better 
than that.
  That's why I started putting together my own bill that basically 
would save tremendous amounts of money. And for the first time ever, 
senior citizens would have complete coverage. They wouldn't have to buy 
wraparound, supplemental coverage, anything like that. They would have 
complete coverage with a high deductible insurance, which is normally 
so much cheaper because you have the high deductible.
  Then to cover that deductible, for any household where people were on 
Medicare, Medicaid, or SCHIP or any combination, we would give them 
cash money, $3,500, in a health savings account that they access with a 
debit card, and it is theirs to access for health care. And for anybody 
that might try to spend it on anything else, it wouldn't work because 
the bill requires it to be coded in such a way that only health care 
items, whether it's prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, 
treatment at the doctor's office, all those kinds of things would be 
covered. And when you ran up $3,500, if you did, then the insurance 
that we would purchase for you every year would kick in and you'd be 
covered.
  And to provide $3,500 in a household account of everyone on Medicare, 
Medicaid, and SCHIP, give them that cash money in the health savings 
account they completely control with that debit card, no gatekeeper 
insurance company or government telling them they can't if it's truly 
for real health care needs, and then above that the private insurance 
we would purchase with Federal money would cover them so well, they 
wouldn't need any kind of other supplemental.
  Now, that is showing care for senior citizens, for those who are in 
poverty. For all of those who are in poverty, senior citizens, disabled 
that needed Medicare, Medicaid, or SCHIP, that is the kind of caring 
that I know Republicans care about; that you can do it better without 
some government bureaucrat jumping in between people and their doctor.
  Now, I have a health savings account right now and insurance 
coverage. Some people say Congress has got these gold-plated policies. 
I've got a $3,000 deductible. I had better insurance when I was in 
private business. I had better insurance when I was a judge and chief 
justice than I do right now. I did. But I've a $3,000 deductible 
policy, and I try to accumulate enough money each month into my health 
savings account, but it's going away at the end of the year.
  Well, in the bill that I'm going to file, and I have about got it 
finished, it actually lets your health savings account amount roll over 
if you have excess in there each month. But for our seniors, all those 
on Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP, they would get a new $3,500 in their 
health savings account every year. They would have new insurance 
purchased every year. And they couldn't be dropped because of a 
preexisting condition or anything like that. They'd just be covered and 
we'd take care of them. That's the kind of thing that shows when you 
really care about people.
  I yield to my friend Dr. Foxx.
  Ms. FOXX. I appreciate my friend leading the Special Order here 
tonight on health care.
  I always like to start with setting the stage and getting the facts. 
I come from a background in education and in business, and I like to 
put the facts out so that people can see what they are and then make 
judgments themselves instead of just saying, like some of our 
colleagues do, what is happening. So I would like to show a chart that 
I have and I'd like to really talk about what is being talked about and 
what has driven this emphasis on doing something about health care.
  Now, we hear that it's being called ``health care reform,'' although 
I think some of our colleagues and the President have stopped using 
that term ``health care reform.'' But I think it's really important 
that we put into perspective what it is we are talking about.
  We hear all the time that there are 47 million Americans who do not 
have health care. That is not accurate. I have the numbers. I have the 
sources for them. If anybody wants to get these from me, they're from 
the Census Bureau. They are from the Congressional Research Service, 
the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute for Health 
Care Management, and the National Survey of American Families. So these 
are not numbers that I have made up or Republicans have made up; these 
are numbers that come from government sources.
  So first of all, we don't have 47 million Americans who do not have 
health care. I've said it before. I have been criticized for saying it. 
But it is the truth. All Americans have health care. All they have to 
do is go to a doctor or go to a hospital. They will get health care. We 
do not turn people away from health care providers in this country. So 
they have health care.
  But what these people really should be saying is they want to talk 
about the number of people who do not have insurance. There is a big 
difference between saying a person doesn't have health care and doesn't 
have insurance. And even that number needs to be clarified. So the 
folks who are making a big issue out of 47 million Americans, which is 
an inaccurate figure, really should be saying there are 45.7 million 
people in this country who are uninsured. Now, let me break that down.
  Of those, 9.5 million are not citizens. So when you hear it's 
Americans who do not have health insurance, that's not accurate either 
when you're using the 45.7 million because 9.5 million of them are 
noncitizens. Many of them are here illegally.
  Then we have people who are eligible for public programs: Medicare, 
Medicaid, SCHIP. That's 12 million people. They have chosen not to 
participate in those programs.
  You know, this is the freest, greatest country in the world. We are 
allowed in

[[Page 20241]]

this country to make decisions, lots and lots of decisions. And I find 
it really interesting that our friends on the other side want to push 
choice that destroys unborn babies but when it comes to choice for 
school, when it comes to choice not to participate in a government 
program, they are not so keen on that. But we do have 12 million people 
who have chosen not to go into Medicare, not to go into Medicaid or 
SCHIP.

                              {time}  2300

  That's their choice. Then we have 9.1 million who are only 
temporarily uninsured. That means for maybe a month out of a year, in 
between jobs, or for other reasons, they might be uninsured. But they 
are not uninsured all the time. That is just for a brief period of 
time. So that's another 9.1 million. Then there are 7.3 million who 
make over $84,000 a year. They are perfectly capable of purchasing 
health insurance. But most of them are young people who don't feel the 
need to do it.
  I talked to a lady on the phone tonight who used to own a small 
business, and she said that it was all men, and they were between the 
ages of 20 and 35. And she said, we had the lowest rates for insurance 
of anybody because those people don't get sick very often and don't 
need a lot of insurance, and insurance obviously is calibrated on facts 
related to the age and the usage. And so she said it was very low rates 
at that time.
  So a lot of people who are in that age range don't see the need to 
get insurance. So there's 7.3 million. That brings us down to 7.8 
million who have lower income and long-term uninsured. These are people 
who probably would like to have insurance, but they feel they can't 
afford it. That's the number of people that we need to be serving in 
this country.
  We do not need to turn our culture completely upside down, which is 
what the proposal from the Democrats is, in terms of health care, give 
government control of our lives, to take care of 7.8 million people. 
That would be a relatively inexpensive thing to do when you're talking 
about trillions of dollars.
  Now, I believe, as my colleague has mentioned, that we need to reform 
Medicare and Medicaid. I believe in that. I think we should be doing 
better in those areas. We could make those programs better. We could 
have a higher quality of care, I believe, and again, more choices for 
our seniors and for those who need those programs. But we simply do not 
need to redo the entire health care system in this country to take care 
of 7.8 million people.
  We know that American people are hurting. Republicans know that we 
need reform. And I want to go back to what our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle keep saying. But saying it isn't going to make it 
true. They keep saying, Republicans don't want to do anything. They 
talk about our being the do-nothing group. That is simply not true. It 
was Republicans who instituted health savings accounts. And it's one of 
the things that the Democrats most hate because, again, it gives people 
choices. It allows people to build wealth. If they put that money into 
health savings accounts and they don't use it, they keep it. If you put 
money into insurance and you don't use it, it's gone.
  We believe in building wealth and allowing individuals to do that. We 
believe in continuing the good habits that this country has fostered 
over the years, again, keeping the government out of our lives, keeping 
the government from running our lives from cradle to grave, and letting 
people make their own decisions and continuing to make this country the 
great country that it is, the only country I know of where people are 
struggling to get into. And I'd like to yield back to my colleague from 
Texas, because I know he has some great stories to tell about issues 
related to health care and some experiences, more experiences to talk 
about. And so I'd like to yield back.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back. But I thank 
her even more for her insightful comments and explanations about those 
who are without insurance and what the real number is that we're 
talking about, and the real number that we really need to do something 
to assist. That is so immensely helpful.
  But I was struck last week too that, during debate over the health 
care issue, and some on this side of the aisle were giving story after 
story, true stories, of just terrible things that had happened, and 
people died, suffered immensely under health care in England or Canada 
because of the long waiting list that people get put on to get, either 
diagnostics to find out if there's a problem, or what the problem is, 
and then whatever the therapeutic need is, whether it's surgery, 
radiation, whatever, how long they waited, and some died while waiting 
for that.
  And we had a friend across the aisle get up and say that, You know, 
gee, folks here are talking about Canada and England and their health 
care. No, no, we're not going to be like them. We're America. We always 
do things better.
  And I was so struck by that comment because, for a couple of decades, 
we've been hearing people on the other side of the aisle talk about we 
need health care like England. We need health care like Canada. And 
that's been going on for a number of years, pointing to Canada. Look, 
we need to be like Canada. We heard that over and over. And then when 
we start getting into the nitty-gritty and just exactly how people are 
getting treated in Canada and England, the great examples we've heard 
for so many years, and we start pointing out these are not good systems 
that you've been telling us we need to imitate and emulate, then we get 
the response, Well, we're America. We'll certainly do it better than 
they did.
  Well, the trouble is it doesn't matter what your country is. When you 
pursue socialism, and the United States government or any other 
government is trying to take over health care, and run health care, 
you're headed for trouble. It's socialized medicine. I was an exchange 
student in the Soviet Union back in 1973 for a summer. We went to 
hospitals, to medical schools. There were 8 of us allowed in on that 
program in the Soviet Union that year. And anyway, I don't want 
socialized medicine. I've seen it.
  And now we have friends across the aisle who have admitted this week 
that, really, you know, the public option they've been pushing for, 
it's just a way to finally get to the single-payer health care where 
the government runs everything. And my friends, Mr. Speaker, should 
know that once the government pays for everybody's health care, then 
they will have every right to tell you how to live, tell you what you 
can eat, tell you where you can go, if it's too dangerous. Once they 
pay the health care, then freedom and liberty that has been known in 
this country will be so dramatically impeded.
  We don't have to go there. And when you use common sense, which I'm 
told in Washington is not so common, you use common sense, you see that 
we're already, probably by now, spending $10,000 from every household 
in America, on average, to just give 90 million people health care. And 
you realize, good grief, we could do better than that. If we just 
bought them the best sterling silver, golden health care in the world, 
gave them that kind of coverage, and there are some things that need to 
be done so the insurance company doesn't create problems and impede 
your freedom there, too. And you give them money for their own health 
savings account that they completely control, and it ends up being 
cheaper--that's a real solution.

                              {time}  2310

  You give senior citizens complete control for the first time since 
Medicare came into existence, and then you give them complete coverage 
like they've never had, like they've never had. So that's a rather 
significant development.
  There are a few other things I'd like to point out which are proposed 
in my bill, because I am sick of people across the aisle saying that we 
don't want to do anything about health care and that we like the status 
quo. Folks, we cannot stand to do the status quo. We have got to make 
some changes or it is going to bankrupt this country. We can do better, 
and this is one proposal that will.

[[Page 20242]]

  One of the things we've got to have is complete transparency in 
health care costs because we sure don't have it now. We're not even 
close. You know, I've asked myself before: What is this going to cost? 
Well, it all depends; and it does. Which insurance have you got? If you 
don't have insurance, then that's another cost; but they may give you a 
little discount. Even if they give you a little discount, it's not 
going to be as cheap as you could get if you were an insurance company 
like Blue Cross.
  Well, under my proposal, under this plan, you would have complete 
transparency because every health care provider would have to disclose 
to you exactly what the cost is. If they're proposing a cost that's 
different to you than what they've charged to some insurance company, 
then they have to tell you that, and they have to tell you how much 
they charge to these other entities. That's part of the bill. We've got 
to get away from this insane billing system where a hospital may bill 
$1,000 to $1,500 for a room for a night, hoping they'll get back $100 
to $150.
  I was involved in a situation. It wasn't my personal situation, but I 
was very familiar with it. There was a car wreck. A man ran a stop 
sign. The hospitalization was 2 days, the testing, all the doctors, the 
ambulance--everything--came to around $10,000. That was the total of 
all the bills. As an attorney, you gather together all of those bills, 
and you provide them to the auto insurance company of whoever is at 
fault, and often they'll work out a settlement with you.
  In that case, a settlement was reached. Money was put in escrow as 
required under State law, and then State law requires, before any of 
the proceeds of the settlement can be disbursed, that it has to first 
refund any money that any health care provider or insurance company has 
provided on behalf of the injured party. So, in accumulating the 
documentation, again, it was around $10,000 total.
  The documentation came back from all of the providers that everyone 
had been paid in full by the health insurance company of the injured 
driver. Everybody has been paid in full under their agreement with the 
health insurance company, so then you have to get documentation from 
the health insurance company.
  Okay. Show us how much you paid to all of these different health care 
providers--hospital, ambulance, tests, doctors, all that stuff. Show us 
how much you paid to satisfy the $10,000 in health care costs, and 
you'll be cut a check for that amount, and we'll send it right on out 
to you. The documentation came as to how much the insurance company 
paid in full satisfaction of $10,000 in health care costs, and it was 
right at $800 to satisfy $10,000 in medical claims.
  So, if you're the party and if you get these claims, you go, Oh, my 
word. This is $10,000 of health care costs? Thank goodness I have 
insurance. I sure couldn't afford $10,000. If you knew the real truth, 
that it was being paid in full with $800, you might realize, gee, you 
don't need as much insurance as you thought you did. You could buy 
cheaper insurance; you could have a deductible, and your insurance 
would be cheaper.
  With the proposal for everybody, it would cover everybody on 
Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP or any combination. We give them cash in 
their accounts that they control, and then buy insurance on top of 
that. It will save this government money, the State's money, and it 
will give dignity back to seniors who've had to beg the government, 
who've had to beg their supplemental carriers and who've had to get 
into arguments. That would have to cease. That would cease and it 
should. As the Federal Government, we should see to that and not create 
greater slaves to the Federal Government.
  Another thing that this bill would do--and again, it's a Republican 
bill. There are numerous, wonderful plans that are being proposed on 
the Republican side of the aisle, but we're not in the majority. The 
majority can control and can keep every one of these great ideas from 
coming to the floor. In my proposal, it also addresses and provides 
great incentives for employers to pay money into individuals' health 
savings accounts, and that would be money that you, the individual, 
would have, would control, which would be yours. Again, it's a debit 
card--it's in the bill--that's coded to cover things that are health 
care related. Then you would have a high deductible insurance to cover 
things above the health savings account amount.
  Yet since young people hardly cost anything, young people in their 
20s and 30s, they would be accumulating vast amounts of money in their 
health savings accounts so that, by the time they would get to be 
seniors, the government wouldn't need to pay anything because they 
would already have so much in their health savings accounts that they 
could buy their own great insurance. They could pay for whatever they'd 
need, and they'd have a high deductible insurance.
  There have been some statistics that have been put together that have 
shown that young people could pay for the best assisted living that 
they could ever need. Special needs would be addressed. That would be 
the way to get off this road to the $22 trillion that has been 
estimated we're headed toward with the Medicare system we're on right 
now.
  There are those who have been desensitized by President Bush's 
requesting $700 billion last fall, by President Obama's asking for $700 
billion this year and by the $400 billion land omnibus bill's actually 
getting, apparently, over $400 billion of the original bailout money 
for Secretary Geithner to throw around at his friends as he sees fit. 
So people have kind of been desensitized as to how much $1 trillion is.
  So that it can be put in perspective, the total amount estimated to 
have been received by the U.S. Treasury for tax year 2008 is apparently 
going to be around $2.5 trillion.
  We have Medicare that is running through the roof, which will break 
this country. At the same time, seniors, relatives of mine whom I love 
and care about, are having to buy supplemental insurance because it 
really doesn't take care of what they need. They're fussing with their 
insurance companies; they're fussing with Medicare. That is ridiculous. 
You get toward your last days on Earth, and you've got to fuss over 
that kind of stuff? That's absurd. We don't have to do that.
  Another issue, though, with regard to health care is not only the 
transparency of costs, but it is an issue with regard to migrants, both 
illegal and legal, getting free health care. We've seen very clearly 
health care costs will bankrupt this country if we don't do something 
to save this Nation, and we can. It's doable, but we have got to get 
back to reality.
  It's estimated that there are over 1.5 billion people in the world 
who would like to immigrate, who would like to come into the United 
States. Legally or illegally, they would like to come into this 
country. Well, we've got over 300 million Americans right now. If 1.5 
billion people came into this country, it would overwhelm everything, 
and we would be bankrupt overnight because we would not be able to 
absorb that kind of thing.
  So, at some point, we have got to go back, as our forefathers did, 
and say: You know what? The rule of law means something. That's why we 
have such a top economy in the world, and that's why our friends to the 
south, Mexico, don't. They've got great workers, hardworking people. 
They've got incredible national resources, but they're not one of the 
top 10 economies because they've not been a nation of laws where the 
rule of law has mattered. They've been a country where graft and 
corruption all too often have been the rule of the day, not the rule of 
law. You can bribe your way out of things, and that is why they have 
not advanced.
  Well, we don't need to forsake the rule of law. I am all for having 
all of the visas we need to supply the workers we need. Right now, we 
don't need a lot of workers, because there are a lot of out-of-work 
Americans.
  So, as to all this talk about jobs Americans won't do, well, we had a 
hearing in the crime subcommittee in the last couple of weeks, and we 
found out that, out of just over 200,000 people incarcerated in Federal 
prison, 53,000 of them are migrants, immigrants in the

[[Page 20243]]

country. We were told that most of them were illegal immigrants. We 
didn't get the exact number out of the 53,000.

                              {time}  2320

  But over 25 percent of the people in Federal prison are not American 
citizens and most of those 53,000 are illegally here. Well, people who 
are illegally here and are not paying for health care will bankrupt 
this country if we allow this to go unabated. And some of us care 
enough about our contribution as the greatest philanthropic country in 
the world's history and if we'd like to continue to do that, that we 
need this economy going and going forward in good measure.
  And so part of this proposal and part of this bill is that if you are 
seeking a visa to come into this country, you will have to show proof 
that you have a health savings account, health insurance to cover your 
health needs while you're here. There's a provision where employers can 
set up migrant worker health care costs, or to cover health care costs 
while they're here and that will satisfy the requirement. You can show 
proof that the household you're going to be living in will allow you to 
be part of their household insurance and health savings account. But 
you're going to have to provide that or you don't get a visa or you 
don't get one renewed.
  Not only that, the Supreme Court in this caring nation says if you 
present yourself while you're illegally in this country to a hospital, 
we'll provide your health care needs. That's the law. The Supreme Court 
says it is; we'll follow the law. But once we've got you well enough to 
travel, you will be deported and because a bankrupt nation is a matter 
of national security to avoid, then if you come back after you've been 
illegally here and required free treatment, free to you but at a huge 
cost to the American taxpayer, then that will be a crime, that you came 
in illegally, got free health care and then after deported you came 
back again, that will be a crime and you would have to be incarcerated. 
We have got to stop that, so that we continue to be the kind of nation 
that 1.5 billion people would like to come to and that people around 
the world can receive the great charity of this nation. Otherwise, a 
bankrupt nation can't help anybody around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire, how many minutes do I have 
left?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 6 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I would also like to point out that under this health care plan, 
insurance whether purchased by the employer, purchased by the Federal 
Government, purchased by the individual, it will be totally owned by 
the individuals that have the insurance which means it's fully 
portable. There will be provisions that you can't be dropped because of 
preexisting conditions, things like that, because we have got to get 
things back on keel and that would be very helpful to do that.
  I would just like to encourage, Mr. Speaker, those who are beginning 
to think, and I was on a telephone town hall conference tonight before 
I came over. We had thousands of people on that call. We asked the 
question, how many would like for the government to run health care? 
And we had right at 98 percent say they absolutely did not want the 
government running health care. They know too much about it themselves. 
We asked how many people were satisfied with their own health insurance 
or their health care situation and the vast majority were. We don't 
have to redo the entire system. We don't. But we can do better than we 
are, and my Republican friends I've talked to, especially the last 
couple of weeks, like this idea. We'll be getting that filed and we'll 
get it scored. There's an opportunity to show the caring heart of 
Americans. And in a different way from what my colleague across the 
aisle was intimating when he said, We're Americans, we can do--what he 
was talking about--socialized medicine better here than they've done 
it. Not if it's socialized medicine, but I would submit to you as 
Americans, we can do better.
  I never seek to impose my religious beliefs on anyone else but I 
think it's important to know history and where we are and I'd just like 
to conclude, because it may be a word of encouragement to people, that 
when the Washington Monument was dedicated, there's a four-sided 
pyramid capstone that was put on there, there's writing on all four 
sides but on the side facing the Capitol, up here this way, are the 
Latin words, laus Deo, praise be to God. That's on the top of the 
Washington Monument. That is the tallest point in Washington, D.C. 
Those people back then put laus Deo, praise be to God, on the side 
facing the Capitol for this reason: This is east of the Washington 
Monument. This is the side from which the sun comes up. They wanted to 
make sure that when God's first rays of sun hit anything in this 
Nation's Capitol, it was the words--boom--praise be to God, and that is 
what I hope Americans will be able to say with our Founders for many 
centuries to come.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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