[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23024]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE BETTER THAN A HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL 
              DRAFTED IN SECRECY, AND THEY WILL DEMAND IT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DEAL of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I have a message from the 
citizens of Georgia: don't dare bring a bill before this House that 
spends one dime of taxpayer money to provide health care for illegal 
aliens.
  During the month of August, the citizens of my State and the country 
spoke out on health care reform. Their outcry was unlike anything we 
have seen in recent years. Town hall meetings, TEA parties, freedom 
rallies, they all became the forum in which the public protest was 
intended to send a message to this House.
  But here we are 2 months later, and none of the concerns of August 
have been addressed. In particular, no version of the health care 
reform that is before the House includes the language that I offered 
that would require proof of citizenship before receiving taxpayer-
funded health care. Now it appears that the House is in a holding 
pattern. Media reports indicate that Speaker Pelosi is drafting her own 
version of health care reform. Other reports suggest that President 
Obama and the White House are drafting another bill.
  What appears very clear is that these bills are being drafted in 
secret and behind closed doors and that there is no intention to submit 
them to the House committees for hearings or for markups.
  I call on the Speaker and the President to open up the process, allow 
Republicans such as me, the ranking member of the Health Care 
Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, to participate in 
the drafting of this bill. It's time for the law to clearly state that 
those who want taxpayer-funded health care must prove and must verify 
that they are citizens. I have language that will make that happen. But 
thus far it has been rejected along a party-line vote. Today the other 
body rejected a similar proposal along a party-line vote.
  If health care is to be written in secret, if the normal committee 
processes are bypassed, if illegal aliens are allowed to receive 
taxpayer-funded health care, if a bill is rushed through this House 
with no opportunity to read it, if any of these things happen, I 
predict that the historic outcry of the American people during August 
will pale in comparison to the voices of concern that they will raise 
as a result of that abuse.
  Madam Speaker, this issue is too big, it is too important to our 
people, it is too destructive of our free market enterprise system to 
be cloaked in secrecy and rushed through this body in a partisan 
wheelbarrow. If that happens, the Members of this House should be 
outraged. But, more importantly, the American people will be outraged.
  Tyranny by whatever name it bears and whatever iron fist it raises is 
still tyranny. The American people deserve better and they will demand 
it.

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