[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21119-21125]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized 
for half the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Madam Speaker, it is an honor to be before the 
House once again.
  As many Members of the House know, we've had an opportunity to go 
back not only to our districts, but to our States to deal with the 
issues in our districts and also talk to a number of our constituents. 
And I wanted to come before the House tonight with some of my 
colleagues to talk about one of the main issues that were discussed 
during the break. But as you know, when I come to the floor, I always 
like to bring to the attention of the House, so that we will never 
forget, that we do have men and women in harm's way. As of September 8, 
1:30 p.m. today, the total American military deaths in Iraq is 4,341, 
wounded in action returned back to duty is 17,623, and wounded in 
action and did not return to duty is 3,872. And I think it is very 
important to not only have that in the Congressional Record, but also 
for all of us here that are passing not only policy, but also 
appropriations, make sure that we remember the families and those 
individuals that continue to serve to allow us to salute under one 
flag. So as policymakers, we have to pay very close attention.
  Madam Speaker, I come to the floor tonight because I believe now more 
than ever, since I've been here for 7 years, that we need leadership 
not only in this House, but in the Congress in general, and that's 
including the Senate. And I think when we look at this issue of health 
care, there has been a lot said by many people, but there are only 535 
some odd people in this country, including the President of the United 
States and members of his Cabinet, that are going to have to implement 
and provide this leadership on behalf of a country that needs people to 
man up and woman up and leader up and stop just saying, well, we 
shouldn't do anything about health care because every man and woman for 
themselves. Well, you know, that's not the American spirit. And it 
pushes against logic because when you look at rising health care costs, 
when you're looking at small business men and women that are having 
issues of being able to provide health care for themselves, leave alone 
the employees that they have, at affordable rates, when their employees 
are able to have health care that they can afford for their families, 
it's one thing to have health care, it is another thing to be able to 
afford it. And I brought a couple of personal testimonies from my State 
that I think it's important for people to pay very close attention to.
  Now, tomorrow night we know that this Chamber will be filled with 
policymakers. We will have a number of the President's Cabinet here. 
And the President will walk down this center aisle just like other 
Presidents have done in the past. And Americans will definitely tune 
in, the world will tune in to see if we're willing to be able to do 
what we must do to be able to keep this country competitive. This is 
bigger than just ideology or a public plan, or no plan at all, or I'm 
going to score political points because it's an issue that is a 
landmark piece of legislation and only leaders can play in that room so 
I'm going to stand on our side and throw rocks at the building and 
break as much glass as I can and hopefully, hopefully I may confuse 
people enough to where when they're confused they will just say no, I 
don't necessarily think that we need to carry out this health care 
issue.
  I want to know who's hiding and who's running around here in the dark 
saying, oh, let's bring this thing up with health care. Hello. The 
whole 2008 election was based on health care. Some issues that some 
Members thought would come up--immigration reform, the war will play 
more of a substantial role, qualifications of how long you serve will 
play a major role--no, it was health care. And it was Democrats and 
Republicans and Independents and first-time voters that were voting for 
hope and just believing this time that something good will come out of 
their vote.
  Now I'm going to tell you something. I'm from Florida. I'm from one 
of those States that over 3,600 Floridians lose their health care every 
week, every week. And it's kind of good for me to be here in 
Washington, D.C., along with my colleagues, all of them. And we all 
have health care, so there is no urgency on our side. There are no 
letters that are written by Members of Congress saying, oh, woe is my 
copayment; oh my goodness, the premiums have gone up, I can't afford 
it, I've been denied as a Member of Congress of an operation that I 
desperately need or a family member. That doesn't happen in our world; 
it doesn't happen in the House, it doesn't happen in the Senate, but it 
definitely happens in America and it definitely happens to Floridians 
that show up at town hall meetings. And I had some constituents saying, 
Kendrick, I would love to come to your town hall meeting, but I'm not 
into the whole bodily harm thing if I come. And that's something else 
that we have to pay attention to. So I think it's very, very important.
  For those of us that came to Congress to make sure that our 
representation and our presence here is about representing people, 
people that are counting on us to do the right thing, people that are 
making sure that they don't find themselves in a situation to where 
that--well, I'm going to vote for my Member of Congress so he or she 
can have health care and I'll sit by and be a part of a debate over a 
public plan or a nonpublic plan. Hello. In the State of Florida you 
have 20 percent of the individuals that are under the age of 65 that 
are uninsured. Guess what, ladies and gentlemen. Eighty percent of us 
that have health care insurance are

[[Page 21120]]

paying more every year because of the 20 percent. People want to talk 
about, well, you know, somebody has to do this and this is not 
guaranteed. Well, you know something? When you show up and you make 
that phone call, when you find out your child is sick or you find out 
that your husband now has to get that operation that you weren't able 
to detect every time you all had breakfast, but finally this kind of 
ache in his side or what have you has now become a situation that now 
you have to deal with and now you're spending $3,000 of a copay that 
you don't have already, we can't prioritize it then and say, oh, I care 
about health care.
  So I wanted to come tonight with my colleagues--and I see that they 
have joined me--because I did talk with my neighboring colleague in 
Florida, Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz, about the fact that we have to 
come back to the floor even though we have families, we have leadership 
positions in the House, we have major pieces of legislation moving 
through our committees, to come back here in the middle of the night 
like we did when we beat back the forces who wanted to privatize Social 
Security.

                              {time}  2230

  Think about it. Just think about it, Madam Speaker, if we'd listened 
to those voices when they had wanted to privatize Social Security. 
Hello again. Not only would the people over the age of 65 have had a 
lot to worry about, but there would have been a lot of young people who 
would have taken their money and put it out in this unregulated Wall 
Street and would have lost even their Social Security benefits.
  So I'm here to tell you that I look forward to coming back to the 
floor with my colleagues to talk about this issue of health care. We 
know the President will come tomorrow and will, in his best effort, try 
to bring Republicans, Democrats and the two Independents, who serve in 
the Senate, together to bring about quality health care on behalf of 
all Americans.
  When we talk about health care, I am talking about every person who 
lives in the United States of America. This will affect you. If you are 
insured, this will affect you, and it will affect you, hopefully, in a 
positive way because, every time you pay a premium, it's higher. Every 
time you pay a copay, it's higher. Folks are talking about the public 
plan issue, and I'll just close with this and then will yield to my 
colleagues.
  I had a young lady call my office. I pick up the phone from time to 
time when it's ringing, and, you know, she was like, Well, Congressman, 
I just want to tell you that I'm against the public plan.
  Okay. Well, tell me: What are you against? I want to know. You know, 
tell me a little bit about it.
  I wasn't trying to be intimidating by, you know, going into sections 
and chapters.
  Tell me.
  Well, you know, I don't know if I want, you know, the government in 
the business of health care.
  Well, that sounds like something that might have been said on the 
radio and not necessarily something that I felt that I failed her on 
because I didn't do what I was supposed to do as a Member of Congress 
and as a member of the Ways and Means Committee in saying that, if 
there's another plan out there that will achieve bringing the private 
insurance companies' costs down, knowing that they're charging every 
last one of us with the monopoly that they have, then we will find 
ourselves in a better situation. But guess what? No one has a plan that 
will bring that cost down like a public plan will.
  As I close, the U.S. Postal Service is a public plan, the last I 
checked. If the U.S. Postal Service went out of business tomorrow, do 
you think folks would be complaining? If you think they're complaining 
about the price of a stamp now, wait until you allow just the private 
sector to run by itself something that has broad application and that 
so many people have to deal with. See where that cost goes.
  Medicare, the last time I checked, was a public plan for those over 
the age of 65. The public plan that we're talking about now is even far 
more conservative than that plan because, regardless of what your 
income may be or what it may not be, you're eligible for it. This 
public plan will be paid for with just premiums and not with taxpayer 
dollars.
  Now, you know, I'm not one of these Members who says, Oh, my 
goodness. Without a public plan, I don't know if I can vote for this. 
I'm saying, if there's nothing else there--and I do mean nothing else 
there--that will bring down the cost of health care for everyday 
Floridians and Americans, then the public plan is the option to be able 
to deal with those issues and to be able to make sure that we make 
health care affordable.
  Members of Congress, we don't have a problem. We have health care, 
and we will have health care, and we will not be denied an operation, 
and we will not wait in long lines. So I want to make sure that every 
American, regardless of your party affiliation and regardless of the 
fact if you've ever voted before in your life, pays attention to what 
I'm saying. It's not about those of us who are here. We're fine. It's 
about you and it's about your family.
  Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. Thank you so much to my good friend 
and colleague, Mr. Meek from Florida. It is great to be back here in 
the 30-Something Working Group.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. We're pushing the ``something'' far.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We're pushing that ``something'' far--
exactly--given that your birthday was the other day, mine is in 2 weeks 
and that we're a little bit past 30-something. I like to say that we're 
the ``something'' in ``30-something,'' so I'm hanging my hat on that.
  We have been reconvened by you, under your chairmanship of this 
working group, because yet again it is time to make sure that we can be 
clear and straight and direct with the American people. This is the 
season now of hard bargaining and of hard choices, and we have an 
opportunity for the first time in our lifetimes and in the lifetime of 
our generation to really, finally, achieve comprehensive health care 
reform.
  What does that mean?
  That is a term that has been thrown around for weeks and weeks now, 
and we've gotten to the point probably where most people's eyes glaze 
over or where they turn the channel or where they, you know, just begin 
to tune out, but it's to their peril if people tune out to this debate 
and to this discussion, because we have the best opportunity for reform 
that we've had in American history. We have brought health care reform 
the furthest that it has ever been brought.
  Five of six House and Senate committees have passed legislation 
reforming the health care system--to do what?--to ensure that never 
again will an insurance company be able to drop you or to deny you 
coverage based on a preexisting condition and to ensure that never 
again will your insurance and your health care be tied to your job 
instead of to you. We'll make that insurance coverage portable so that 
wherever you go and whatever decisions are made either to continue to 
employ you or if you move on to another job that health care will be 
attached to you.
  Never again will we have to deal with health care-related 
bankruptcies or deaths as a result of not having health insurance, both 
of which happen now because people are facing catastrophic illness and 
because they don't have health insurance coverage. They have to wait 
until they're so sick that they have to use the most expensive ways of 
getting their health care treatment, whether it's the emergency room or 
because they are so sick that they have much more significant costs to 
their health care, and as a result, are bankrupted directly as a result 
of their health care problems.
  There were 1,210 health care-related bankruptcies, Mr. Meek, in my 
congressional district last year. I know we have the numbers for every 
congressional district; 1,210 individuals went bankrupt because of 
their health care problems. Families USA talked about how we had six 
health care-related deaths in Florida directly attributable to the fact 
that people did not have health insurance. How did they come

[[Page 21121]]

to that conclusion? Because, if you don't have health insurance and if 
you have a basic health care problem, a simple health care problem, you 
can't afford to go to the doctor, so you get sicker and sicker until, 
one day, some folks just die because they become so sick that they 
can't get the problem taken care of, and then the problem overwhelms 
them even when they are able to access emergency care. So this directly 
attributes death to the lack of health care coverage. In 2009 in 
America, that is just unconscionable.
  Over the last few weeks, I have spent a lot of time in my district 
going around and speaking to small business owners and individuals who 
either have preexisting conditions or who face astronomically high 
health care insurance premiums. They're frustrated. They say it's long 
past time that we get a handle on these costs; but what is the response 
on the other side?
  You know, there are a lot of folks who are friends of ours on the 
other side of the aisle who are saying that they're for reform, that 
they support health care reform--and this is the nice version--but that 
they just don't like the direction that we're taking it. They don't 
want socialized medicine. They don't want the government takeover of 
health care or the government to get in between you and your doctor.
  Let me read you this passage, my colleagues, and just see what you 
think about this expression of sentiment. This is a voice on a record, 
urging listeners to write their Members of Congress and to ask them to 
oppose this legislation:
  ``And, if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days, 
you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and 
our children's children what it was once like in America when men were 
free.''
  Now, does that sound familiar? It does sound familiar because it 
sounds like what our friends on the other side of the aisle are doing 
to scare people, particularly senior citizens, into believing that 
somehow they're going to be giving up their freedom if we pass health 
care reform. Well, actually, that was Ronald Reagan back in 1961 when 
he was trying to scare seniors and scare doctors and scare Americans 
into believing that somehow Medicare was going to be the end of the 
health care system and of health care coverage as they knew it.

                              {time}  2240

  And now it would be to any of our peril if we went home and suggested 
that people be separated from their Medicare, because it's been one of 
the most successful health care programs in American history covering 
seniors who would have certainly died if not for having that health 
care coverage. And we have got to make sure that we have this 
discussion in this debate in a responsible manner.
  We are not going to get in between you and your doctor, Americans and 
their doctor. On the contrary, we want to make sure that the people who 
are between you and your doctor, which are the insurance company 
bureaucrats, who are looking more at the bottom line than they are at 
making sure you stay healthy, that they are moved aside and we can have 
health care reform and health care coverage that ensures that people 
stay healthy, that they can get the access to health care that they and 
their health care provider decide is appropriate, that we bring down 
the cost of that health care and that we make sure that we force, 
especially in some of the communities--not that you and I represent, 
because the three of us represent fairly urban areas, but in the places 
in this country where there is maybe one or two private plans and very 
little competition.
  So they can charge whatever they want. They can include whatever they 
want in those policies, that side by side, with the private plans, is a 
public option that keeps those private plans honest, that forces them 
to be more innovative, forces them, in order to hold on to those 
customers, to provide coverage that's more comprehensive and more 
affordable.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I thank the gentlewoman and I thank 
Representative Meek for convening here tonight.
  Here is how I look at the issue of the public option. First of all, I 
think it has gotten a lot more attention in the debate than it takes up 
in the bill. There are a lot of very important pieces to this health 
care reform bill, and public option is one of them; but I look at it 
this way: I have faith in my constituents. I think that if we give them 
choice, they are going to make the right choice for themselves and for 
their families.
  And just like in countries in Europe, where you may only have one 
choice, you have got to buy, take public insurance, in this country we 
also have only one choice as well: you have to take private insurance.
  And this notion that we shouldn't give our constituents the choice, 
up to them, as to whether they want to stay on their private plan or 
for a variety of reasons, they think it might be better to be on a 
publicly offered plan, I think that shows a lack of faith in the 
American people.
  And I think if it's good enough for every single Member of Congress, 
if it's good enough for every Federal employee and State employee in 
this country, if it's good enough for our veterans, if it's good enough 
for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, and if it's good enough 
for every single individual in this country over 65, well then maybe 
our constituents should have a choice of whether it's good enough for 
them or not.
  So to me it just comes down to choice, as was mentioned about the 
lack of choice that's out there right now. If you are working, odds are 
that you might have one choice, maybe two choices, maybe three choices. 
But you are lucky if you have that many.
  If you live in a State like Connecticut, we have one insurer that 
covers over 50 percent of the people in our State. That's 50 percent of 
the States in this Nation where one insurer has over half the market, 
70 percent of States in this country have two insurers that cover 70-75 
percent of the market. There is not enough choice out there as it 
stands right now.
  So I just have faith that my constituents are going to be able to 
make the right choice for themselves.
  And for all those people that say, you know, well, the government 
can't run anything, but the public option is going to run private 
insurers out of business, those arguments don't work together, right. 
Because if the government can't run anything, then they are not going 
to be able to run an insurance plan, nobody is going to join. But it 
should be up to people whether they do that. That's how you put 
competition back in a very, very broken marketplace.
  And so to me, to me the one unifying theme that when I was home this 
August, as it has been throughout the entire time that I have been 
doing this job for the last 2\1/2\ years, that has united the people 
who support this specific proposal and the people that are undecided 
and the people who don't like it is cost.
  I mean, everybody agrees that the system costs too much right now. I 
mean, over and over again, I hear the same story that you, Mr. Meek, 
Mr. Ryan heard, business owners talking about a 20 percent increase 
last year in their health insurance premiums, individuals looking down 
the barrel in Connecticut of a 30 percent increase in our major 
insurance plan. Employees having seen wage increases be put off year 
after year after year because their employers are taking all the extra 
money they are making and putting it to health insurance premium 
increases.
  And everybody understands that we need to tackle costs here. Well, 
guess what. The Congressional Budget Office, right, which Republicans 
and Democrats alike hate because they think it's too nonpartisan, that 
budget office, which we listened to, which guides our decisions here, 
says that the public option is going to save our health care system 
$100 billion, $100 billion because it's going to offer something 
cheaper to people and it's going to put pressure on the private 
insurers to bring their costs down.
  So if we really care about costs, and this has to be part of the 
discussion, there is a lot of other things we can do here. We will talk 
about the insurance

[[Page 21122]]

exchange which is going to force insurance companies to compete against 
each other, the tax credits we are going to give to businesses to try 
to have them offer insurance to their employees. But when all is said 
and done, we should be keeping every possible tool in the tool box that 
can bring the costs down. That's one of the things amongst many that 
can unite us in this building, in this Chamber and throughout this 
country.
  And I think if there is one thing that I found when I was home, it is 
that when you really got down beyond some of the shouting, beyond the 
rhetoric, beyond the talking points that both sides were handing out, 
that there was actually a lot more that united us here.
  And I think our job here, as we hit that witching hour on this bill, 
is to distill that down to something we can all be proud of when we go 
home.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate it. One of the things--we have got a 
little old school thing going here too that I ought to mention. But one 
of the things that I think is very important that everyone I talked to 
in August, Canfield Fair, St. Mathias, Slovak Festival, Irish plans, 
Italian-American Festival, every single time people were understanding 
the fact that they are paying for all of these uninsured people right 
now.
  They get it. They know this $1,800 a year increase they are going to 
get next year is because there are going to be another 50 million 
people going to the emergency rooms. Doesn't make any sense. But I 
think one of the things too that we need to remember when we were 
talking to seniors about Medicare is that we have this population, 
especially, I think, in the industrial Midwest where people are 55, 60 
years old, have lost their jobs, lost their insurance. Maybe they are 
still working, but the insurance company or their employer is not going 
to pay for their insurance anymore.
  We have a very unhealthy segment of our population going into the 
Medicare program. And so if you are living in northeast Ohio, and if 
you are 55 or 60 years old, you lose your health care, a lot of people 
are saying to themselves, I am going to wait until I get into Medicare 
to get my heart surgery. I am going to wait until I get into Medicare 
to get my hip surgery. Or I am going to wait until I get into Medicare 
for you name it.
  And so from 60 to Medicare age, a lot of things go wrong that you 
probably could have managed better. So we have this very unhealthy 
population going into the Medicare program.
  So what our seniors need to know because our friends on the other 
side who don't want any kind of health care reform at all are saying, 
well, they are going to cut Medicare. Well, it's nice to see a few 
Republicans stand up and actually have some concern about Medicare 
because Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist and these guys are talking 
about letting it wither on the vine and those kinds of things.
  But it's going to save Medicare money if we have this 50-, 55-, 60-
year-old population getting the kind of preventive, manageable care so 
that they don't all of a sudden say, I am going to wait until I get 
into Medicare. And then you go into Medicare and you need something 
that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars more. That's what is 
hurting our Medicare system more. So we need to bring some of those 
costs down.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Just to continue your point to its next 
logical step, shifting this health care system from a sick care system 
to what it is now, to a prevention and wellness-based system, ensuring 
that people can get their health care needs and their checkups taken 
care of before they get sick, is going to prevent those catastrophic, 
maybe not completely preventible catastrophic illness, but stave off 
chronic and catastrophic illness so that the actual health care that 
people go and get is less expensive health care, is preventive-based 
health care, and we will have a generally healthier population.

                              {time}  2250

  I will add to that the description that you provided of 60- to 65-
year-olds. There are many people in that category, and you can extend 
it actually down to about age 50, people who are sort of past their 
quality working years and should be retiring, maybe continuing to work 
and wearing themselves down. It is going to actually make them more 
sick, but because they have preexisting conditions and they are not yet 
Medicare-eligible and the only insurance many of them have is tied to 
their job, they are anchored to those jobs.
  My own mom is one of those individuals. She has a preexisting 
condition and she gets her insurance coverage through her work. She is 
63 years old and is not Medicare-eligible yet, so she has to continue 
to work full time in order to keep the coverage. There are countless 
stories like that in America. And she is the mother of a Member of 
Congress.
  Just to show you, people are bandying about how privileged we are and 
our families. We have good coverage, decent coverage, but basic 
coverage, and our family members are just like any other family members 
across America. We all can list out countless examples of people who 
would benefit from comprehensive health care coverage.
  Before I yield back to the gentleman, I want to go back to our 
friends on the other side of the aisle, because it has been frustrating 
to me as I have debated, and I am sure each of you has debated 
colleagues of ours on the other side of the aisle on this subject over 
the last few weeks, to hear them say that they are for reform, because, 
quite frankly, I just don't think that passes the smell test.
  They were in charge here for 12 years. The last eight, they were in 
charge of everything. They had the opportunity. The ball was in their 
court. They certainly could have taken the ball and run with it. But 
health care reform was not a priority for them. It never has been, and 
it isn't now.
  It is disingenuous for them to suggest that they are for reform, but 
not the reform that we are proposing. If they were for reform, they 
could have gotten it done. The reform that they offered the American 
people was some lame prescription drug part D program for Medicare that 
left a giant doughnut hole that thousands and thousands, tens of 
thousands of senior citizens are falling into that our health care 
reform proposal would fill and make sure that people wouldn't have to 
decide not to stop taking their medicine once they fall into it, and be 
able to again focus on getting people well and keeping them well 
instead of spiraling ever downward into a more sickly state.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Let me just add to that, that for all of 
the talk we have heard on this floor from our Republican friends about 
fiscal responsibility with respect to health care and respect to the 
overall budget, when that bill came up for debate, when they made their 
one foray into health care, a bill written for the drug industry and 
the insurance industry which have made record profits off of this 
program and many others, they didn't pay for a dime of it. They 
borrowed every cent in order to fund that Medicare prescription drug 
benefit.
  You want to talk about the things that added to the deficit that 
Barack Obama inherited? Right at the top of that list is the only major 
effort that the Republican House and the Republican Senate made to 
health care.
  So not only when they constructed the Medicare benefit did they get 
it wrong, but for all of their talk about making sure that this health 
care bill is deficit neutral, which is a commitment, a commitment from 
this President and from the House and from the Senate, when they had 
the opportunity to do it, they borrowed every single dime to do health 
care.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. It may sound good to say if we just fix this or fix 
that, fix this and fix that, we will be okay. The problem we have now 
is we have this patchwork system that we just have been constantly 
patching up, and it is not addressing one of the main problems, and 
that is we have got all of these uninsured people. Some people say it 
is 10 million, some people say 15 million, so it is probably somewhere 
in between.

[[Page 21123]]

  But the bottom line is, Mr. Meek, all these people are going to the 
emergency room. That makes no sense to anybody. So you go in with your 
insurance card, you are paying for the person who is walking in there. 
What we are asking people to do in this reform package is for people 
who are now using the emergency room as their primary care doctor, that 
they will have to pay something now. They will have skin in the game. 
They will have a copay, they will have a premium. You are going to get 
something out of them.
  That is how we are going to help build this new system, is by having 
people who are now getting something for nothing will have to pay and 
have skin in the game and take money out of their own pocket, Mr. Meek, 
and pay for their health care, and that will help everybody.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. You know, Mr. Ryan, it is just so good to see 
Mr. Murphy and you and Ms. Wasserman Schultz here back on the floor 
again, and the fact that some of the arguments that you hear, that I 
don't think we are here for some big, let's-build-the-government-even-
more, you know, that the reason why we are here is to make sure that 
the government gets bigger and more control, that that is what we ran 
for.
  No. We are here because we care about the people that sent us here. I 
said it earlier when I was here on the floor, just me at the top of 
this hour, when I said, you know something? No one came up to me and 
said, Congressman, I woke up at 7 a.m. in the morning voting for 
representation. I am so happy to send you, your wife and your two kids 
to Washington so you can have health care that I will never have. Okay?
  The bottom line is I am sitting here, I am going to put these 
testimonials on my web site that some people have e-mailed to me and 
some I got from my town hall meeting.
  I am looking at Robert here from Wellington, Florida. He says as a 
self-employed person, I am not eligible for any group coverage. 
Therefore, I must pay $4,000 a year for my family of four, and I have 
deductibles totaling up to $7,000 out-of-pocket before anything gets 
covered, in his plan that he has now.
  In this current economy, my income has been greatly reduced, but I 
cannot change for a less expensive plan until the open enrollment 
period comes around, and that is almost a year away. It is nuts.
  He says, in a nutshell, health care could well bankrupt me, even 
without a medical catastrophic event taking place, and I am trying to 
figure out what will the new Congress and the President do for me. That 
was his e-mail to me as a Congressman.
  Now, I am not his Congressman, but he is just reaching out to Members 
of Congress. And the bottom line is there are real people out there 
that are dealing with it.
  Mr. Ryan, you make so much sense when you say folks walk through--I 
know that is kind of hard for you to believe, me saying that--walk 
through the doors of an emergency room getting care, and you are 
watching these public hospitals going under. Think about it. They are 
reducing staff.
  I was in Daytona the other day at a Labor Day picnic. A lady came up 
to me and said, Congressman, this is my first time meeting you. I have 
a mother in a hospital, the public hospital there in Volusia County, 
and we have to take turns being in the room with her because of the 
staff cuts that are there.
  This is all coming from uncompensated health care that is driving up 
the costs, not only for public hospitals and private hospitals, but 
also driving up the costs for us who pay premiums and copays and all of 
those things.
  So I would say this also to my friends that live in rural 
communities. I heard you talk about Ohio, and, of course, we can all 
talk about our States. But I can tell you this: In rural communities 
right now in this bill we incentivize doctors to stay in those 
communities. They are communities that are in need and they don't have 
specialists there.
  We also look at addressing the disparities as they relate to rural 
America. Right now we have individuals that have to drive for miles and 
miles and miles. That is not okay, especially when you are in need of 
care.
  So when we look at this whole comprehensive piece, we are looking at 
something that is going to bring about better coverage for all 
Americans, make sure that those of us that have insurance, that we 
bring our costs down, making sure that people who have preexisting or 
family conditions, God forbid this gentleman from Bradenton, if 
something was to happen, one of his family members, he discovered his 
daughter had some sort of illness to where that she has to go operation 
to operation, and then that insurance that he has, which is not as good 
as mine, runs out, he is on his own, by himself. And folks can't say 
well, that is his personal problem. No, that is going to be my problem 
too and it is going to be the individual's problem who has health care, 
because he or she is going to pay for the fact that he can't get 
coverage and he works and provides, he is a business person and he just 
wants to insure his family.

                              {time}  2300

  Mr. Ryan, I'm going to say this, and then I'm not going to say 
anything else during this hour, but we'll yield back when that time 
comes, 10 minutes after the hour.
  I will tell you this: that those of us in this Chamber didn't know 
better, because all while I was listening to people throughout the 
State of Florida during the break, I couldn't help but--like a lady 
posed a question to me in a townhall meeting: Congressman, what are you 
going to do to bring about the kind of change we need in Washington, 
D.C.? Are you going to be on the fence? Are you going to say, Well, you 
know, I don't want to necessarily say anything, don't want to do 
anything? I'm going to run in the back of the Chamber, put my card in 
and run out the door. Or am I going to come here and fight for those 
individuals who sent me here to fight for them.
  And those are businesspeople, and those are individuals, and those 
are people who are listening to us right now that have a health care 
crisis or have an imminent health care crisis coming and wondering if 
they're going to have insurance. I would much rather go down fighting 
for them than sitting here trying to be safe and trying to score 
political points and win a couple more seats in Congress because it 
will help my political ideology. We're beyond that right now.
  We are dealing with the real deals that are crippling our 
multinational companies that are here, based here in the United States, 
to compete with other countries who have health care reform and have a 
policy to where that doesn't bankrupt big and small companies.
  So I'm just asking my colleagues, be they either Democrat or 
Republican, be a man, be a woman, be a leader, come here to Washington, 
D.C., and speak fact and not fiction and make sure that we fight, 
because we're as close as we have ever been to doing this right now, 
Debbie, and I think it's important that if we're going to go down, 
we're going to go down fighting. And I tell you if I have anything to 
do with it, we're not going down. That's one. Two, people are going to 
get health care. And in the final analysis, they're going to look at 
the leaders, either Democrat or Republican, and say, You know 
something? I'm glad they fought. They did not retreat.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You know, Mr. Meek, I can't help in listening 
to you but think of this debate through my eyes as a mom. There's 
nothing more important to moms than making sure that your children stay 
healthy, and there's nothing that tears out a mother's heart worse than 
looking at your child, knowing they're sick and knowing that you can't 
do anything to make them well, and you would do anything to make your 
child well if you could.
  Imagine layering on top of that angst for a mother the fact that she 
wasn't covered by health insurance nor were her children, and as a 
result, she couldn't even take her child to the doctor when they first 
got sick and she has to wait and wait and wait until her

[[Page 21124]]

child gets sicker and sicker and sicker until she has to use the 
emergency room as her primary access point for health care for her 
child.
  Now, for me, we are at the point in this country in our Nation's 
history where you should not be separated from our ability to provide 
for the health and well-being of your child due to the difference in 
your wealth.
  When a child turns 5 years old in this county, Mr. Meek, Mr. Ryan, 
Mr. Murphy, no parent has to worry about whether they're going to be 
able to pay for their children's education because we have education 
that's universal in America. It's a given. It was decided over 100 
years ago. Everyone gets equal access to education and the government 
pays for it.
  We're not even going that far here. What we're saying is health care 
should be a right and should not be a privilege.
  Mr. Ryan, one of the things that just galls me, which is why I keep 
going back to it, is how disingenuous our colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle have been.
  Let me quote one of our colleagues, and I won't name her. She said 
this last week to a conservative organization, and this was reported in 
the newspaper. A colleague of ours, in talking about their views on 
health care reform said, ``What we have to do today is make a covenant, 
to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not 
pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass.'' 
And then she continued, ``Right now, we are looking at reaching down 
the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom, and we may never be 
able to restore it if we don't man up and take this one on.''
  That is a direct quote from one of our colleagues who I won't name, 
but, Madam Speaker, I would like to enter this into the Record.

                        Talking Points Memo: 9/1

       Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) spoke yesterday to the right-
     wing Independence Institute, the Colorado Independent 
     reports, and she called on conservative to really come 
     together in the fight against President Obama on health care.
       ``What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our 
     wrists, be blood brothers on this thing,'' said Bachmann. 
     ``This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make 
     sure this doesn't pass.''
       The sanguinary rhetoric continued. ``Right now, we are 
     looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out 
     of freedom,'' she said. ``And we may never be able to restore 
     it if we don't man up and take this one on.''
       Bachmann also denounced a system under which some Americans 
     pay half their income in taxes: ``It's nothing more than 
     slavery.''

  We don't even have to deal with transparency because it's clear that 
the stakes are so high for them. If I hadn't read it myself, I wouldn't 
have believed it. The stakes are so high here. They know that if we're 
successful at finally reforming the health care system and covering 
everyone, that politically next year they won't be able to be too 
successful in the elections. And that's what it's about for them, it's 
about power.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I want to say two things and then I will be done 
for the night, too.
  There was this interesting article in Newsweek this week. It was 
about a book about William F. Buckley and about the battle between the 
extreme right wing of the Republican Party and the William F. Buckley 
National Review kind of wing, and there was this little battle post-New 
Deal.
  But it's interesting to note that right after Roosevelt got in, there 
was this extreme reaction, very similar to what we're seeing where 
every critique of what Roosevelt was doing was socialism, communism, 
and all of these fancy names. But there were also these vigilante 
minutemen who would show up at these events carrying their guns, and it 
was amazing, because that's exactly what we're dealing with here.
  There's no solution. There are just these critiques of how the train 
is moving down the track. The American people want to go in another 
direction.
  But I wanted to share this story because I think this is what we're 
all talking about.
  I ran into this woman at the Canfield Fair. I stood outside the 
Democratic Party tent. This is one of the biggest fairs in Ohio over 
Labor Day. I stood there for 4 hours, 4 hours, just south of 
Youngstown, Ohio. I had two people out of all the entire time come up 
to me and say, What are you doing with this socialist--and they're also 
against the energy bill, so it was totally the right wing talk radio 
crowd that was like inundating them with this stuff. Two people came up 
against this.
  But what this one woman said, she's 35 years old, married, kid. 
Husband just lost a job. They made about $58,000 a year when he worked. 
They now make $32,000 a year. She is working. He, after he lost his 
job, is going back to school. No income, trying to better their life. 
The daughter was in the stroller there.
  This woman is telling me this story. She has a condition. She's got 
to take medication. It's very expensive. She can't afford it. Now 
they're paying out of pocket. She makes $32,000 a year, down from 
$58,000 because the husband lost the job. And she said, Do you want me 
to go on welfare and go on Medicaid? Because that's what I'm forced to 
do.
  Now, if there's any value we respect here in America, it's somebody 
that wants to work. She wants to work. She wants to provide for her 
kids, her husband. She wants to have a nice family. She wants to have 
the dignity of work. And the system now is set up that that really may 
be the best decision for her and her family is to go on Medicaid and 
take welfare benefits. That's not what we want.
  And what we're saying is why should this woman who's working her rear 
end off, her husband is going back to school to get retrained, those 
are the people we want to help. That's what this whole thing, the whole 
thousand pages that everyone keeps talking about, that's what this 
whole thing is about. It's about helping that woman, her husband, and 
that kid.
  And that's why, Debbie, as you said, the stakes are high. Kendrick, 
the stakes are high, and we need to pass this thing.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. If our friends on the other side of the 
aisle want to have a debate about freedom, let's have a debate about 
freedom.
  Listen, we don't legislate on anecdote here. We legislate on data and 
statistics and evidence. But the anecdotes are powerful because they're 
representative of what the data tells us.
  And I think about the woman in my district who raised her hand at an 
event I had at Town Green last week, and she said, Listen. I work for 
an employer who's downsizing and looking to cut costs wherever they 
can, and I've got a child with a very serious illness. She's on this 
employer's health care plan, and I know that I am targeted. I know that 
if they can get rid of me and get rid of the expenses associated with 
my daughter, they've just saved a lot of money. And I know if I lose 
this job, I'm not going to be able to find another one because there's 
no way that somebody is going to pick me up if they have to cover the 
cost of my daughter who has an illness through no fault of her own, no 
fault of mine.
  What kind of freedom is that?
  I think about the guy who raised his hand and told me the story about 
the fact that he had been working for a new company that had just hired 
him in New Britain, Connecticut, a couple of years ago. He had had a 
good, steady income for 2 years, but he got diagnosed with gallbladder 
cancer and he couldn't show up for work any longer, and they fired him. 
They fired him and he lost his health insurance.

                              {time}  2310

  Now he spends every single dime that he makes off of his unemployment 
checks to pay for cancer treatment. What kind of freedom is that? When 
we want to talk about freedom, health care reform, giving freedom to 
people who have insurance and want to keep it, giving freedom to people 
who lose it and need to get medical care, let's have a debate about 
freedom, because the proponents of reform are going to win that debate, 
Mr. Meek.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. We have 30 seconds left.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. I just appreciate being together again and 
knowing that on a regular basis over

[[Page 21125]]

the next several weeks and months we will be getting together to press 
for health care reform for everyone.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Absolutely. Madam Speaker, with that, from these 
Members that came before the House tonight, we want to definitely let 
other Members know that we will be coming to the floor. We will be 
sharing accurate information as we have done over the years, and we 
will continue to do it good or bad. We look forward to the President 
coming and addressing us tomorrow in a joint session.
  With that, we yield back the balance of our time. Thank you.

                          ____________________