[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21525-21526]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               CAREFULLY CRAFTING HEALTH CARE LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, as we're having a debate on the issue of 
health care and a lot of different ideas and different things are being 
passed around, I think it's really important that we look at the real 
reason why we need to make reforms to our health care system in 
America.
  Clearly there are problems with health care, but there are very 
narrow problems with people who don't have the ability and the access 
to get health care at an affordable price. What we need to do is focus 
on fixing the problems in the system that don't work, but at the same 
time, we need to be very careful not to destroy the things that make 
medical care in the United States the best medical care in the world.
  I think what concerns many of us is this proposal of a government 
takeover of our health care system where the government would come in 
all under the guise of competing against private companies. Of course 
anybody that understands what competition really means and who looks at 
the concept of the Federal Government, with taxpayer backing, coming in 
as your competitor when they write the rules that both of you have to 
play by--they've got this health care czar that they're creating in 
their bill, which, by the way, I think the count is up to over 30 czars 
now created in this administration.
  We need to sunset these czars. We need to get rid of these czars. We 
shouldn't have people with these unbridled powers that have absolutely 
no accountability to the public, did not go through the scrutiny of the 
normal process that a cabinet secretary or high-ranking official would 
have to go through with Senate confirmation, testifying before 
committees and being answerable to the American people. Yet you've got 
these czars with these powers, and now they're trying to create a 
health care czar that would literally have the ability to make major 
decisions over individual families' health care.

                              {time}  2000

  I think it's very important to go through and talk about some of 
these claims that are being made because they are claims that are being 
made that completely are contradicted by the bills that we have before 
us in the Congress that are brought by and supported by this President 
and this administration.
  One of the first claims that's been made a whole lot is if you like 
the health care you have, you can keep it. Now, personally I think 
that's a very important claim. I think that's one of the sacred parts 
of health care that we should maintain. If people like the health care 
they have, they should keep it. The problem is in the bill that 
President Obama supports in the

[[Page 21526]]

House, the only bill this administration, Speaker Pelosi, and others 
are promoting, is H.R. 3200. In that bill, in fact, on page 15 of that 
bill, they give the power to the health care czar, again an unappointed 
bureaucrat, a person who did not go through any confirmation process, 
who was just appointed by the President, who is wholly unaccountable to 
Congress, this health care czar would have the power to decertify 
private plans.
  That's right. That means if you have a health care policy you like, 
the health care czar, in their bill, has the power to take away your 
health care plan even if you do like it. It's in their bill. We 
actually tried to take that out in committee.
  Another claim that's been made a whole lot that was made here on this 
House floor deals with the issue of illegal immigration and do illegal 
aliens have access to health care. Now, many have claimed that illegal 
aliens wouldn't be able to get health care in their bill. The problem 
is, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the President's bill 
allows 8 million illegal aliens to have access to his government-run 
health care plan. That testimony was given by the Congressional Budget 
Office. That's not a Republican or a Democrat who said that. That's the 
bipartisan group that we actually have to follow who scores these 
bills, who makes a determination whether or not these statements are 
accurate. The Congressional Budget Office has said 8 million illegal 
aliens would have access to this government plan that the President is 
supporting, H.R. 3200.
  And there are a lot of other claims that are similar to those that 
are just not accurate. One of the ones that's thrown around a lot by 
the President and others is this straw man that we've got to fix health 
care and if we don't pass his bill, then everybody else is for the 
status quo if they're not for his bill, if they don't want the 
government to take it over.
  That's not true. If you look at the bills that are out there, there 
are many bills that I and others support that are very different 
approaches than the bill that the President and Speaker Pelosi support. 
One good one is H.R. 3400. H.R. 3400 has nearly 40 Members of Congress 
that are cosponsors, including four medical doctors, people that really 
understand the problems in health care. In our bill we actually address 
the problems that exist. We address the problems with preexisting 
conditions. I don't think it's fair or right that somebody can be 
denied health care coverage because they're battling maybe a disease 
like cancer or some other tragic disease that in the current system 
they are currently discriminated against. We fix that problem in our 
bill. We invoke real competition, but it's not by bringing in the 
government; it's by allowing people to buy across State lines and have 
competition.
  So we need to address these problems in a real, honest way.

                          ____________________