[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21320-21326]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to 
spend the next hour as the designee of the minority leader on the 
Republican side to talk about what we heard here in this Chamber last 
night beginning about 8:15 in prime time from the President of the 
United States regarding health care reform.
  I am pleased to be joined by at least one of my colleagues, and there 
may be others that come during the hour. Congressman John Fleming from 
the great State of Louisiana will be joining me and we will be talking 
about what went on last night. We may even want to address some of the 
comments that our Democratic colleagues have just made on this House 
floor during the previous hour in regard to their enthusiasm for a 
public plan, indeed their enthusiasm for a single-payer system, 
national health insurance, if you will.
  So this gives us a great opportunity. That is what makes this body so 
great, that we can agree to disagree in a respectful way. The three 
members of the Democratic majority that were just speaking to our 
colleagues are good friends that I have great respect for, the 
gentlewoman from California, the gentleman from Minnesota, the 
distinguished gentleman from Michigan. We just happen to totally 
disagree on this issue. That is why we are here.
  That is what this is all about, is to take an opportunity to point 
and counterpoint, folks remember that, Crossfire and things we see on 
television. You are from the right, you are from the left; you are 
Republican, you are Democrat; you are conservative, you are liberal. 
Your viewpoints on what is best for the country are going to vary. 
Sometimes they are going to be 180 degrees apart, and, surprisingly 
enough, there are occasions on which we agree on issues almost 100 
percent. But on this issue, there is serious disagreement.

[[Page 21321]]

  I want to just talk a little bit about how the President started his 
address to this joint session of Congress, and, of course, in prime 
time to the Nation, on H.R. 3200, the bill that has passed the 
committees in the House, not passed the whole House, but also the bill 
that passed the Senate Health Committee. The President talked about 
that last night.
  Typically when the President comes before a joint session of 
Congress, it is going to be in this Chamber, because this is the bigger 
Chamber, as our colleagues know. The Cabinet members come in, and there 
are additional chairs put out here down front for them, for members of 
the Supreme Court, for any retired Members of Congress who may want to 
come. Of course, the galleries were completely full last night. Madam 
First Lady was sitting over here on this side, and it was quite a 
setting.
  I don't think any of us really knew, except maybe the Democratic 
leadership and some of the Democratic majority party, knew ahead of 
time what the President was going to say. Sometimes we get a draft of 
the speech, and on this particular occasion we didn't.
  When we sat down in our seats and the magic hour was approaching, at 
just after 8 p.m. last night these cards, these laminated cards, were 
passed out by the clerks of the House. I want my colleagues to notice, 
and, of course, you did see it last night, but there is some script on 
the front, but there is nothing on the back. So it is not really a two-
pager. It is a one-sider, if you will. The bottom line, it is just a 
thumbnail sketch of what the President was going to say to us.
  We typically have, when we sit down, a copy of the speech, and not 
just a draft, the very speech that the President is going to make right 
here standing behind that podium as he reads that off of his 
teleprompters so we can follow word by word, and, indeed, if he is 
speaking slower by necessity, so we can read ahead and in a typical 
situation know what he is going to say maybe a page ahead or a page and 
a half ahead.
  Not last night. You absolutely did not know what to expect. I know 
what I hoped to hear him say, and many people asked me about that, both 
before and after the speech.
  But what did you expect, Congressman Gingrey? You are a doctor. You 
practiced OB/GYN medicine for 26 years in your district in northwest 
Georgia, Cobb County and Marietta. You delivered 5,200 babies. You have 
been in the practice of medicine for 31 years. You have been up here 
now seven. You sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee where this 
bill, this H.R. 3200, my colleagues, I just happen to have it, a fresh 
copy of it, I think 1,100 pages, pretty thick, kind of hard for me even 
to hold. You know, what do you think about the bill?
  After the August recess, when everybody went home, this bill passed 
the Energy and Commerce Committee. It passed the Ways and Means 
Committee, and it passed the Education and Labor Committee, very 
narrowly, strictly upon party lines, and we went home for the August 
recess. That is when things really got exciting.
  Typically, during the month of August, Members are in their district. 
They are seeing constituents, maybe one on one, more typically in a 
townhall meeting setting. On a busy, day you might see 50 people or 75, 
and rarely 100 if the weather is perfect.
  Well, during this August recess, which lasted about 5\1/2\ weeks, all 
across the country congressional Members, Senators, Members of the 
House, Republicans, Democrats, Independents that held these townhall 
meetings were seeing 10 times the attendance that they would normally 
see. So instead of 50, I was seeing 500. Instead of 100, I was seeing 
1,000. And this was true, I think, in every district.
  My colleagues, you know that your constituents were either going to 
those townhall meetings, trying to talk to their Members, or they were 
watching on C-SPAN or they were watching on CNN or Fox News and they 
were seeing what was going on. And it was clear, it was clear that most 
of the people at those townhall meetings were our senior citizens. The 
ones I held, six or eight or nine, there were a few scatterings of 
young people, but maybe they were off working or at ball games or it 
wasn't on their mind like it was senior citizens.
  But those senior citizens were there because they were very concerned 
about how this new bill, this big one, H.R. 3200, it is called the 
America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, what it was going to 
do to their health care coverage.

                              {time}  1430

  And in particular, their concern was a provision in that bill, a 
provision in that bill that calls for the creation of an exchange, 
where people who do not have health insurance, maybe they have lost 
their job and in so doing, have lost the health insurance, or possibly 
they work for a company. The bottom line is that those seniors that 
were showing up are very concerned about how you pay for this bill and 
why the need for the Federal Government to sell health insurance and 
compete with the private marketplace for the business of these people 
that don't have insurance.
  The bill calls for setting up these exchanges where people can go in 
their State, online typically, and shop for a health insurance policy, 
and several companies you can think of, my colleagues think of Blue 
Cross/Blue Shield, or Wellpoint or Cigna or Aetna or any of the 
insurance companies that have health insurance as part of that product 
line, and look and see what they offer, what your needs are in regard 
to your health, what medications you need to be on, and what the 
coverage is, and who the doctors are, in fact, that accept that 
particular policy.
  You know in a community who you want to go to, who you want your wife 
to go to for obstetrical care, who you want your children to go to for 
pediatric care, and so you pick and choose. And also you look at the 
doctors. Do you know them or do they have a good reputation? What they 
charge for standard obstetrical care or for the removal of an appendix, 
or for the repair of a fracture. Are they competitive? And that system, 
ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues in the Chamber, would work very 
well.
  And it has worked very well in regard to the prescription drug plan 
that our Medicare beneficiaries receive now under the prescription drug 
plan that we passed back in December of 2003, without government 
interference, without government setting the price control, because if 
you let the government participate as a competitor on the field--and 
yet at the same time, they are the referee, they set all the standards 
in regard to what has to be covered, not just by them, but every 
insurance offering that's competing in that exchange and what they can 
charge.
  So the Federal Government gets a tremendous unfair advantage and 
eventually what will happen is what the President has promised us 
repeatedly would not happen. What the President has promised is that if 
you like the insurance that you have, if you like the health insurance 
that you have, you can keep it and nobody can take it away from you. 
Now, that's a pretty bold promise that the President has made. But the 
fact is in this exchange, where you have a government plan competing, 
and then you have an administrator of all this called the Health 
Choices Administrator, not unlike the Social Security Administrator, a 
very, very powerful new bureaucrat comes along and says to Corporate 
America, what you are offering in the way of health insurance to your 
employees, even though they're very happy with it, is not adequate 
because we have made a decision that it needs to cover X and it needs 
to cover Y, and it needs to cover Z, and you don't cover one of those 
three, or you don't cover two of those three.
  Or this Health Choices Administrator could also say, we have decided 
that nobody in any one year is going to pay more than a certain amount 
of deductible or copay, or in the aggregate, out-of-pocket expenses. 
And we notice, Mr. Employer, that even though the people that work for 
you are very happy with what they have, many of them have signed up for 
a very low monthly premium with a fairly high deductible,

[[Page 21322]]

maybe $4,500, maybe $5,000 a year, but they have this catastrophic 
coverage so that if they get run over by a truck, or get hurt on their 
motorcycle, then this catastrophic picks up and they do not end up in 
bankruptcy.
  A lot of young people, my colleagues, a lot of young Americans who 
are healthy; who may be working in their very first job; who are trying 
to pay for a car; who are paying off a student loan that could be as 
much as $125,000; who are trying to rent an apartment; who, indeed, may 
be just trying to pay down on an engagement ring for their fiance, and 
they are healthy, they take care of themselves, they don't smoke, they 
don't drink, they exercise, they run marathons, their parents are in 
great health, no family history of cancer, no family history of 
diabetes, heart disease, both sets of grandparents are now well into 
their 90s, they have the Methuselah gene, and we're going to say to 
them, the Federal Government is going to say to them, this plan that 
you have that works so well for you is not adequate according to what 
we have determined.
  We, Uncle Sugar, we've made a determination that your plan is not 
adequate, Mr. Employer, and you're just going to have to either put in 
a whole new policy for these workers or you're going to have to pay a 
fine of 8 percent of their salary into this exchange.
  So what happens then eventually all of these people, the Lewin Group 
estimates that as many as 110 million could lose their coverage even 
though they like it, and they can end up in this exchange; and pretty 
soon the government, which is competing in that exchange, will force 
all of the other competitors out, and you will have that many more 
people in a government-run Medicare/Medicaid-like program.
  Now, if that's getting to keep what you like, then maybe you can sell 
me some oceanfront property in Arizona. My colleagues, it clearly is 
not what the American people want. And that's what they told us so 
clearly during these townhall meetings. I mean, I don't know what the 
President, my colleagues, I don't know what the President was doing 
during the August break. Maybe he and his family took a little 
vacation. I hope they did. But I expect that he was watching a little 
television, but maybe not. Maybe he was himself giving speeches and 
listening to his own speeches, but not watching these other townhall 
meetings and seeing these ladies and gentlemen with a little gray 
around their temple saying what are you about to do to our Medicaid 
program? What's this business we hear about you cutting Medicaid $500 
billion? Mr. President, last year we spent 480 billion on Medicaid. If 
you're going to cut it 500 billion over the next 10 years, isn't that 
more than 10 percent a year cut?
  And under Medicare right now, we know it's a good program, but it 
doesn't cover catastrophic care; it doesn't give us coverage as far as 
annual physicals. We have to be sick to go in and get our claim honored 
under Medicare, unless of course we signed up for Medicare Advantage, 
which 20 percent of us did. And, oh, by the way, what is this $170 
billion cut to Medicare Advantage, a 17 percent per year cut in a very 
popular program to pay for this idea of insuring everybody when those 
who are chronically uninsured only amount, my colleagues, to about 5 
percent of our total population? Even the President is beginning to 
admit that.
  And it would be like saying, you know, I've just found out that the 
ice maker in my refrigerator has gone on the blink. And I got a little 
estimate and I went by Sears or Home Depot, and I found out that it's 
going to cost me about $350 to replace that ice maker. So you know what 
I think I'll do? I think I'll spend tens of thousands of dollars 
remodeling my kitchen. I mean, that makes a lot of sense doesn't it? 
It's kind of like the old adage of throwing the baby out with the bath 
water.
  The bottom line is there are so many things that we can do to reform 
our health care system without going to this single-payer national 
health insurance program. The President, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, 
last night, in the very first few minutes of his speech, he lamented 
the fact that since the days of Theodore Roosevelt, the early 1900s, 
that we have not passed meaningful health care reform. And then he 
referenced who? He referenced two distinguished Members of this body, 
former Member John Dingell, Sr. from Michigan, current Member John 
Dingell, who has served in this body for over 50 years, a great Member, 
former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, now emeritus 
chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. And he said, you know, 
these two gentlemen, father and son, in every Congress for the last 45 
years, I think he said, have introduced this bill to reform our health 
care system. Well, my colleagues, the President was expressing his 
great regret that that bill had not passed, and that bill was a single-
payer national health insurance program just like Canada, just like the 
UK. Uncle Sam government bureaucrats running everything.
  And that's what the President was disappointed in, the fact that we 
had not passed that. I say thank God we have not passed it, even though 
we have great respect for these Members. Congressman John Conyers, 
long-serving Member from Michigan was just on the floor a few minutes 
ago talking about a very similar bill that he introduces in every 
Congress. So that's what we're talking about. These are the things that 
I wanted to discuss with my colleagues this evening. I want to take a 
little time now to pass the gavel, the mike, if you will, to my friend 
from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming, and we're going to continue over this hour 
to discuss this hugely, hugely important issue to the American people. 
And I yield to Dr. Fleming.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank my friend from Georgia, Dr. Congressman Gingrey 
for having this debate this afternoon. I think this is an appropriate 
time, after, I guess, the climax of all speeches by our President on 
this topic, health care. I believe last night's speech was his 28th 
major speech with health care reform as its topic. Before we get into 
the meat of this, which will deal with some of the statements that were 
made last night, I want to comment on the speech that our President 
made, things that struck me during the speech and then afterwards.
  And first of all, let me say that, as a physician practicing for over 
30 years, business owner, still owning businesses and employing 
hundreds of people in my businesses, providing health care insurance 
for them, I came to Congress hoping to work in a reform environment. I 
want health care reform. Wanted it before I was elected, but seeking to 
achieve that through private means, through capitalism, through the 
things that have made America great, not through socialistic government 
take-over means. So I came to this discussion last night, sat very 
close to where I am at this moment, hoping that the President would, 
after a very difficult August recess for many of our friends on the 
other side of the aisle, running into disgruntled Americans who are 
unhappy with the idea of government take over of health care, would 
come in a nonpartisan way, wanting finally to reach across the aisle to 
share some of our ideas, to allow us to participate in the debate as 
well.
  But I noticed four things that I want to point out real quickly. 
Number one was his partisan tone. I really felt that his tone was 
hyperpartisan, was really unexpected to me. Again, he's my President. 
He's President of everyone in this Chamber today. And I think it's his 
responsibility to rise above partisanship. And I had expected that, to 
be honest, but I was disappointed.

                              {time}  1445

  I noticed a condescending tone, his lecturing us on how to achieve 
capitalistic ideals, free-market ideals using socialistic principles. 
Again, I've been a physician for many years in private practice. I've 
owned businesses for a number of years, and know of no economic model 
in which creating socialistic or governmental entities will make 
capitalism or the free market better.
  Thirdly, an accusatory tone, suggesting and, in fact, coming outright

[[Page 21323]]

and saying, in effect, we Republicans are lying about many parts of 
H.R. 3200, the Democratic bill. I really take personal umbrage over 
that because everything that I've spoken about and everything I hear 
from my colleagues is backed up through facts, and while we may 
disagree at times even over those facts, I don't think that it's 
appropriate for us to accuse each other of lying.
  Then, finally, the unsupported claims themselves, which we're going 
to get into in a moment, making statements that cannot be in any way 
supported.
  So, on the one hand, every statement that I know of that I and my 
colleagues have made can be supported very clearly, not necessarily 
with what's directly in the bill but with facts that surround the bill. 
Then there is our President coming to us, making statement after 
statement and repeating them, which can't be supported in any way, 
shape or form either in the bill or outside of the bill.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If my colleague will yield just for a 
minute----
  Mr. FLEMING. Yes, please.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia.--you mentioned a fact check, Dr. Fleming, and 
I have a number of those facts here on the poster board, on the easel. 
I think what I'll do is uncover the first one, and I'll let you comment 
in regard to the first fact that he mentioned last night.
  My colleagues, you may not be able to see that well nor may Dr. 
Fleming, but here is what it says. This is a quote from our President.
  ``I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits--either 
now or in the future.''
  Congressman, can you see the true fact on that?
  Mr. FLEMING. Yes.
  Yes, I remember him saying this and shaking his finger while he was 
doing it, and we have been totally unable to find anyone who can agree 
with this statement.
  The cost of the bill will be anywhere from $1.6 trillion to over $2 
trillion. The President says that the savings will either come from--
well, really from a combination of raising taxes and then savings. If I 
could digress for a moment, he is talking about savings. You alluded to 
this a little bit, Congressman Gingrey, about his gutting Medicare and 
Medicaid $500 billion--$190 billion by killing off Medicare Advantage--
and then the rest would come out directly.
  You know, I was born at night, but I wasn't born last night, and I 
happen to know that I and many of my physician colleagues, who have 
been dealing with Medicare reimbursement for many years, all know that 
we are currently being reimbursed under Medicaid and Medicare well 
below our costs. We make it up on the private insurance, which is what 
is driving the private insurance cost up. It is the existing 
government-run programs that are running those costs up. To say that 
you can take $500 billion out and it's not going to affect services 
just is not true. It is plainly false to say that. Even with the best 
estimates, we come out with at least, as you say on your poster, $239 
billion of deficit over 10 years. So there is nothing at all that 
supports that statement, sir.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, I certainly agree with 
you.
  The President talked about not spending one penny to add to the 
deficit, and this $239 billion shortfall in the pay-for is after 
cutting Medicare by $500 billion, as you have heard from me and from 
Dr. Fleming, and after taxing the rich, whoever they are. I think, 
unfortunately, the rich are a lot of small business men and women who 
create most of the jobs in this country. They're taxing them anywhere 
from 1 to 5 percent, and are trying to raise an additional $800 
billion.
  So, even with the $800 billion worth of new taxes and the $500 
billion cut to the Medicare program, especially to Medicare Advantage--
and Dr. Fleming would, I'm sure, verify this--fully 20 percent of 
Medicare recipients today, my colleagues, choose the Medicare Advantage 
program as the delivery system because they get more care. Dental care 
is covered. Hearing aids are covered. Annual physicals are covered. 
There is a catastrophic cap. None of that is true under traditional 
fee-for-service Medicare unless, maybe, if you have an expensive 
supplemental policy.
  So that was the first fact. Congressman, if you will let me unveil, 
if you will, fact number two.
  My colleagues, this fact-check is this--and again, we're quoting from 
the President's speech last night, not 12 hours ago: Nothing in this 
plan will require you to change the coverage or the doctor that you 
have.
  Now let me repeat that because this is an important fact check: 
Nothing in this plan will require you to change the coverage or the 
doctor that you have.
  Congressman.
  Mr. FLEMING. Yes, sir.
  Well, you know, if you look in the four corners of the bill, itself, 
there is no statement that says that it will change the coverage or the 
doctor you have. However, remember that it's the impact of the law that 
really dictates the outcome.
  First of all, you just mentioned that 25 percent of Medicare 
recipients are on Medicare Advantage, which is the privatization part 
of Medicare in general where they're able to get more services through 
private insurance than they can on regular Medicare. Well, the 
financing for that program will be killed off, so that's 25 percent of 
Medicare recipients. We'll lose Medicare Advantage, so whatever doctors 
and whatever services they're getting will definitely be changed.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, even if they wanted to 
keep it, it would no longer be there for them because if you cut it to 
the bone--and this cut in Medicare Advantage is like 17 percent a 
year--the insurance companies that offer that product will just simply 
say, I'm sorry. We're shutting our doors, and you're going to have to 
go find yourself a doctor who will accept you under Medicare fee for 
service.
  Mr. FLEMING. Absolutely.
  Secondly, as I described before, Medicare and Medicaid, the current 
government-run programs, only survive today because of the tremendous 
subsidy that's going on from private insurance, and even that will run 
out of money in 8 years, so we haven't even solved that problem. But if 
you look at the fact that the current government-run programs are, 
themselves, being subsidized by private insurance, once you create this 
government option, which will cost employers 8 percent of their 
payroll, it will begin to pull people out of private insurance and onto 
the rolls of the single-payer, government-run system.
  Little by little--well, in fact, quite rapidly--the cost of insurance 
premiums of private insurance will begin to dramatically rise. The 
disparity of the differential between the 8 percent of payroll that 
they will be required under the government option and the 15 or 20 
percent of whatever it is going to end up being with private insurance 
will be so large that employers will have to be put in a position--will 
be forced--to dump their employees into the government option, the 
government-run system. As you point out there, the Lewin study shows 
that as many as 114 million Americans will be the ones dumped into the 
system.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Well, again, reclaiming my time, this is a 
point that I made earlier, Mr. Speaker. Again, I want to repeat it to 
our colleagues, this business about, if you like what you have, that 
you can keep it--you may want to keep it. As an example, we'll use 
Medicare Advantage. But you may be prohibited from keeping it because 
it's not offered anymore.
  It's the same thing with regard to, if you work for an employer, Mr. 
Speaker, and if that employer says, Look, you know, we've got a menu. 
That's the way it works. That's the way it works for the Federal 
Employee Benefit Plan.
  For those of us who work for the Federal Government, you have choices 
of five or six things that you might want--a high option, a low option, 
a standard option. You might want dental coverage. You might not. You 
might want eye coverage. You might not. You might, indeed, want a low 
premium, a very low monthly premium

[[Page 21324]]

with a high deductible combined with a Health Savings Account. A lot of 
Federal employees choose that. A lot of employees for these large 
companies choose that, whether we're talking about Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, 
Lockheed, whatever. They have those as their choices.
  But the Federal Government is under this massive new bureaucracy 
with, I think, 53 different agencies making decisions under the 
Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Speaker, the ones with the 
strongest voices would be these health choices administrators who could 
say--now, there will be a grace period up till--what?--about 2013, I 
think, Dr. Fleming.
  Mr. FLEMING. Yes.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. But at that point, they could say to a 
company, Gosh, I notice that you've got a lot of your employees who 
have picked the high deductible-low premium plan, these young workers 
who are just out of college or just out of high school. Well, you know 
what, Mr. Employer? We're not going to approve that because we have 
decided that nobody can spend that much money out-of-pocket in any one 
year. That's one of our requirements. So you're going to have to come 
up with something entirely different and, yes, more expensive.
  That's what Representative Fleming was saying, Mr. Speaker, that the 
employer is going to say, You know what? It's not worth it to me. Heck, 
I'll just pay the 8 percent fine for each of these employees, and I'll 
let them go into this government plan.
  So you're talking about, if you like what you've got, you can keep 
it. You can keep it until you can't keep it, and that's going to be in 
2013.
  Mr. FLEMING. Will the gentleman yield just for a moment?
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Of course I'll yield.
  Mr. FLEMING. According to our President and to our colleagues on the 
Democratic side, they suggest this government option will be sort of an 
anecdote to the problem we have in insurance today, which is that 
there's not enough competition. Again, I don't know of any economic 
textbook or of any economic model that suggests that the way to create 
more competition in the workplace or in the business world is to create 
artificial pricing, which is what this does.
  So what artificial pricing does, particularly when it's backed up 
with taxpayer dollars, is it, in effect, creates a situation where 
insurance companies will be put out of business, and that will, of 
course, cave the entire insurance industry.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thought we could go to the next fact then. 
Again, I'm quoting from our President last night.
  ``Not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for 
this plan.''
  I think he spoke the truth there because I don't think there's any 
money left in the Medicare trust fund. I think past Congresses for many 
years have spent that money like crazy. As we all agree, I think, every 
Member, every constituent, certainly every Medicare recipient would say 
that that trust fund ought to be lockboxed and that it should not be 
touched for any Federal expenditure except for the solvency of the 
Medicare plan.
  So, yes, I agree with him, that not a dollar of the Medicare trust 
fund will be used to pay for this plan.
  The fact, of course, is not just the trust fund. He's taking money 
right out of the hide of the Medicare program, not the fat but the 
muscle and the sinew and the cartilage and the bone; $500 billion out 
of Medicare.
  Then he went on to say that he promised that, if his bill does not 
save money, more cuts will come. Hear me, Members, who might happen to 
be on Medicare--and your constituents surely are--more cuts will come.
  Now, the next fact: The President earlier in the speech said this--
and I wondered if he was listening. I don't know what he was listening 
to during the month of August, but this is his quote from his speech 
last night to this joint session and to the television audience--to all 
of the Americans.
  ``A strong majority of Americans still favor a public insurance 
option.''

                              {time}  1500

  What's the fact, Dr. Fleming?
  Mr. FLEMING. Well, that's a bait and switch.
  What the polls actually show is a majority of Americans favor health 
insurance reform. However, when you ask them specifically about the 
public option, as you point out in your poster, only 42 percent of 
Americans approve and 52 percent disapprove.
  So we have a 10 percent gap. Most Americans do not approve of a 
public insurance option or what we call government takeover. And you 
really see this in the town halls. I don't know about you, Congressman 
Gingrey, but in my town halls, I did a number of town halls in my 
district during August. And overwhelmingly, I would say by a factor of 
about 95 to 98 percent, were against any sort of government-run 
insurance and only a handful suggested they were for it in any way. 
And, really, other polling that we have done suggest similar 
statistics.
  And the other thing that you don't see here is intensity. The 
intensity level against government-run health care is far stronger than 
those who are in favor of it.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Well, and, again, in regard to the facts, 
when we went home for the August recess, President Obama, his overall 
approval rating--and, let's face it, politicians pay attention to 
polls, and, certainly, our Commander in Chief and the highest 
politician in the country is the President of the United States, and he 
pays attention to his approval rating, and it dropped over 10 percent 
in a 5-week period of time and 57 percent of the people in the country 
when we left here the first of August were in favor of this health 
reform plan, but now it's down to 42 percent. So, again, that fact 
check, I think, is very important.
  My colleagues, the point we are getting to is this, based on the 
speech that the President gave last night, it's pretty clear to me, 
it's pretty clear to this Member, to this physician Member, that the 
President has not listened. He may be listening to Ms. Pelosi, the 
Speaker of the House, he may be listening to Mr. Reid, the majority 
leader of the Senate; he may be listening to Charlie Rangel, who chairs 
the Ways and Means Committee. Possibly he is listening to Henry Waxman, 
the chairman of the committee that I serve on, Energy and Commerce; or 
maybe his friend from California, George Miller, who chairs the 
Education and Labor Committee in the House; and maybe he is listening 
to Chris Dodd, the Senator from Connecticut, who chairs the Health, 
Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee, the health committee in the 
United States Senate.
  But he is not listening to the American people. We have come to not 
expect, my colleagues, him to listen to the loyal minority and to give 
the minority truly an opportunity to participate on the front end of 
having input in these very important bills. We are talking about 17 
percent of our economy is health care.
  And John Fleming and Phil Gingrey, together, probably have 70 years 
of clinical experience, Mr. Speaker, in the practice of medicine. And I 
am talking about where you see patients. I am not talking about writing 
papers or teaching at some ivory tower medical facility, I am talking 
about in urban and rural America, seeing patients across all aspects, 
financial, socioeconomic, ethnicity, with all kinds of problems.
  And our specialties are different. And yet we have got these 70 years 
of clinical experience that we should have, could have, would have 
brought to the table. And not once were we invited. So the President is 
listening to somebody, but he is not listening to some experts that 
could help him, and he is sure not listening to the American people.
  The American people said very clearly, and, again, when I wasn't 
holding town hall meetings, I was watching them. I was a C-SPAN junkie. 
You know, I was an insomniac. I'm a senior citizen, so I don't sleep a 
lot.
  And the people were saying, Mr. President, no government-run health 
care, don't cut senior care to pay for this health reform. We don't 
need to remodel the kitchen. We just need to fix the ice maker.

[[Page 21325]]

  Don't raise the deficit. We just heard that your guy, Mr. Orszag, the 
director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, 
your man, you put him there, he is a brilliant economist, and he just 
said that over the next 10 years your deficit spending, your red ink is 
going to total $9 trillion. Now, ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues, 
we are currently $11 trillion in debt in this country, 11 plus 9 is 20. 
That's about $45,000 worth of debt for every man, woman and child.
  And we are going to do this massive health reform change and spend 
another $1.5 trillion when, yes, 14,000 people every day are losing 
their jobs and something like 5 million have lost their jobs since 
February when we passed the economic spendulus and Recovery Act that 
was going to stop unemployment at 8.5 percent and start growing jobs. 
Unemployment now is 10 percent, and we haven't grown a job yet.
  The American people said don't raise the deficit. The American people 
said health care choices, not government dictates. The American people 
said bipartisan compromise. Mr. President, you are not listening.
  Well, just a few additional points to be made, Mr. Speaker, and my 
colleagues. The truth behind the Democrats' health care proposal, 5.5 
million more jobs will be destroyed just by the business tax proposals 
in this plan.
  As I pointed out, 114 million Americans could lose their current 
health insurance, so much for if you like what you have you can keep 
it; $500 billion in Medicare cuts, 20 percent increase in seniors' 
Medicare prescription drug premiums, $800 billion in new tax hikes, and 
that's just the beginning.
  Now, my colleagues, many times on the majority side of the aisle, you 
have said, the Republicans are the Party of No. Well, at first I took 
umbrage to that. It's almost like a member of our side of the aisle in 
a moment of passion made a statement last night that he regretted and 
apologized to the President, when this issue of whether or not this new 
health care benefit and these subsidies would be going to illegal 
immigrants. That invokes a lot of passion in a lot of people in this 
country, including Members of this body.
  And when I hear the Democrat majority say we are the Party of No, I 
get upset about that, or at least I used to. And now I realize that 
maybe we are the Party of No, Mr. Speaker, but it's spelled k-n-o-w. 
And we do know. We do have a plan. We do have a second opinion, if you 
want to put it in medical parlance. We have a second opinion on 
everything that comes through this Congress. We had a second opinion on 
energy reform, Mr. Speaker.
  We reject the cap-and-tax, cap-and-trade scheme that would cost every 
family at least $2,500 a year more in electricity costs when China and 
India with their 2.5 billion people get off scot free because they are 
a so-called developing nation. They are developing all right, they are 
eating our lunch, that's what they are doing. And they are taking away 
all of our manufacturing jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, we have an idea, we have a second opinion on energy, we 
have a second opinion on how to reform health care. No, it's not 1,100 
pages, it's 260 pages. It's called the Empowering Patients First Act. 
It's not H.R. 3200. It's H.R. 3400. And this is just one of four, or 
maybe five Republican bills that are alternatives, second opinions, 
that can solve this problem in a bipartisan way without breaking the 
bank.
  But do you think we get an opportunity to have a hearing on these 
bills? Do you think we have an opportunity to have our amendments 
vetted? Do you think when whatever comes before this floor so that all 
the Members can vote on it, that any Republican will have an 
opportunity to either offer a bill or even an amendment?
  I have as part of this bill an amendment on liability reform that 
every year that we Republicans controlled the House, it would pass. And 
it probably would save the cost of health care $150 billion a year, 
because doctors wouldn't be doing all these unnecessary, defensive 
tests, which can be downright dangerous to patients.
  So, yes, this is a second opinion. And yet you won't hear much about 
it, except from us, an opportunity like this, my colleagues, and we 
take this opportunity.
  Maybe when some of our Members have already, you know, headed for the 
airport and can't wait to get home to their families and their children 
and grandchildren, I certainly can't blame them for that. But this is 
our only opportunity, Mr. Speaker.
  That's why Dr. Fleming and I are here to make sure that you 
understand that we are not the Party of No. We are the Party of K-n-o-
w.
  I would like at this point to hear from my friend from Louisiana.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman. To follow up on H.R. 3400, which 
I am also an original cosponsor of, you know, the President last night 
talked about a lot of laudable goals such as doing away with the whole 
idea of preexisting illness that would deny care, denying care to 
someone who developed a disease while on insurance. The ability, if you 
lose your job, to keep your insurance.
  Well, you know what, this bill provides for all of that. These are 
all structural problems that are easily fixable. Our insurance system 
that we have today for health care was developed in the 1940s when 
insurance was only a catastrophic umbrella coverage. It is not what it 
is today.
  And, so, really, through some very simple things, tearing down the 
walls between States, so that any American can buy any insurance policy 
within the borders of the United States, that would create the kind of 
healthy, robust competition we need to lift service and to reduce cost, 
to simply pass a law, a very simple law that says you can't deny 
coverage as a result. You can't even ask what preexisting illnesses you 
have had in the past.
  It's like a friend of mine who had a routine colonoscopy as a 
preventive tool, and he was found to have a couple of benign polyps. I 
can tell you, Dr. Gingrey, that man may die in bed at 100, he may get 
run over by a bus, but he will never die of cancer of the colon. 
However, that's the reason why he lost his insurance, because polyps 
were found on an examination that he well should have had.
  These atrocities should not occur, and H.R. 3400 will resolve those 
issues. And it also has tort reform, which you talked about, which H.R. 
3200, the Democrat bill does not have.
  So, really, all of the problems we have, virtually all of them, all 
of the solutions are found within H.R. 3400. And yet and still, you 
mention about participating in the process, the President said last 
night, and I will quote him, ``I will continue to seek common ground in 
the weeks ahead. If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I 
will be there to listen. My door is always open.'' Well, on May 13 the 
House Republicans wrote him a letter asking for that. We are yet to 
hear a response.

                              {time}  1515

  He's never commented. As far as I know, he's never read H.R. 3400. 
So, again, I think it's disingenuous.
  I think we have something better to offer and certainly something 
that could offer tremendous amendments to the bill already before us.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank you for those comments, and I 
certainly agree with you. The President did say that. He said if you've 
got a good idea, bring it to me. And I would say this to the President 
because we do, as John Fleming said, we do have some good ideas, not 
just the two of us but Members on both sides of the aisle. The more 
conservative Members on the Democratic side, the Blue Dog Coalition of 
52 members, they need to be heard, and I think thus far they've been 
heard, but they've been ignored at the same time.
  And what I would say to the President as we wrap up this hour, Mr. 
Speaker, this is what I would suggest to the President. We've all heard 
the expression around here--in fact, I think the late Senator Kennedy 
was famous for this; maybe he coined the phrase--``Don't let the 
perfect be the enemy of the good.''
  Now, if President Obama thinks that H.R. 3200, the big bill with the 
public plan in it, is perfect but the American people, in a very 
resounding way, have

[[Page 21326]]

said, ``Mr. President, we don't want the public plan because we fear 
that that's just a Trojan horse and it's two steps towards a single-
payer national health insurance where you have rationing such as they 
do in Canada and the UK,'' then the President could--and I wish he had 
last night said to us--``Well, we can't pass what I think is the 
perfect, because American people are afraid of it. I feel that they're 
wrong. I fear that they've been scared. I fear that they've gotten 
misinformation. But nevertheless, they've spoken pretty clearly, and 
the Members on both sides of the aisle have heard because they came 
back to Washington and they told me, and I'm just going to have to pull 
that public plan option out and let's get together with the Republicans 
in the Senate and in the House and let's draw up a new bill and let's 
do the `not perfect but the good.' ''
  And Dr. Fleming, Representative Fleming mentioned a couple of things. 
Equalize the tax treatment so that everybody gets discounted health 
care. Absolutely put in the subsidy for people who are not poor enough 
to qualify for our safety net programs like Medicaid but they don't 
have enough income to purchase health insurance for them and for their 
children. They get government subsidies based on a sliding scale.
  Make the insurance companies accept people with preexisting 
conditions. Don't let them put caps on how much coverage you get in any 
one year. If you get real sick in any one year, whatever the bill is, 
the insurance company should pay it after you paid your copay and your 
deductible. Maybe the next 5 years they won't have to pay anything and 
you won't have any claims.
  And let's create these high-risk pools across each and every State 
where people with multiple illnesses can get coverage at a reasonable 
rate and, yes indeed, help those who need help with subsidies both from 
the State and from the Federal Government.
  Just a few--let people purchase health insurance across State lines 
where maybe they're cheaper. If you live in--as I did for a long time--
in Augusta, Georgia, it was just a half a mile across the river to 
North Augusta, South Carolina. Why can't people go across State lines 
and purchase health insurance? They can do it to buy a gun or a 
television set.
  So again, all of these provisions are in the bill H.R. 3200, which I 
showed you just a second ago. Here it is.
  So, Mr. President, in your opinion--not in ours--but in your opinion, 
this may not be the perfect, but I tell you what, it's darn good. And 
if we can get together in a bipartisan way for the American people and 
let's get this done and then let November 2, 2010, take care of itself. 
And as far as your political future, Mr. President, let's let 2012 take 
care of itself. Let the American people be the judge. But let's get 
this done in a bipartisan way and let's, for once, listen to the 
American people.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I will yield back.

                          ____________________