[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25705-25711]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TALKING ABOUT TRUTH, HONESTY, AND INTEGRITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do appreciate this time, and 
I do appreciate the comments from my friend Mr. King from Iowa, and I 
do want to follow up on that subject, a little different approach from 
a little different angle, because I think it is important that we talk 
about truth, honesty, and integrity.
  It is inappropriate on the House floor to accuse anybody else of 
lying who is a Member of Congress or the President. We are not going to 
do that tonight. But we are going to talk about what the truth really 
is, and people can compare the truth to things that have been said both 
here in the House and around this country by our leaders and let them 
figure out for themselves what is truth.
  In fairness to the President, we heard him say repeatedly, ``You have 
heard their lies. Where is their solution? Well, they don't have one.''
  Well, actually we have many, and we tried to get his attention. I 
know he said if we have proposals, if we have solutions, there is 
always an open door, and I have no doubt that he is correct

[[Page 25706]]

about that. I just have not been able to get past all those massive 
gates and armed guards in order to talk to the President about that. I 
am sure the door is open, just like he said. It is just I haven't been 
able to get there. One of my friends from Georgia has indicated he 
called for weeks and weeks to see if he could get an appointment and 
had been unable to.
  So this is our opportunity to come to the floor and actually speak 
without all of the craziness and the hoopla and the political 
bantering.
  I did notice last week on the floor right over there at that podium 
with an easel behind some friends across the aisle, Democrat after 
Democrat got up, and they had a poster and they kept pointing out and 
finishing their comments by saying, it has been so many days, where is 
their solution?
  I would like to point my Democratic friends to the fact that if they 
are looking for the Republican solutions, we have many of them. We have 
tried to give them to them. We have tried to get them to the floor. We 
have tried to get them to be brought up in committees, because there 
are really some excellent solutions to health care reform, some great 
bills that actually do reform, instead of this stuff that is being 
attempted now.
  Anyway, I want my friends across the aisle to know that if you are 
coming to the floor of the House of Representatives and asking where is 
the Republican solution, well, even though there are dozens and dozens 
of excellent proposals, solutions in bills, and I have one myself, they 
will not find those here on the floor of the House, because they 
control the House.
  The Speaker controls the House. The Speaker has unbelievable power to 
influence the Rules Committee in what she believes. No matter who is 
Speaker, that Speaker has fantastic power to influence the Rules 
Committee. Then the Rules Committee has absolute power, despite what 
the Speaker says, to do what they wish.
  Unfortunately, the Democratic friends can come to the floor of the 
House all they want to and say where is the Republican plan, where is 
their solution, and there won't be one here, because they have been 
effective in preventing us from bringing our solutions to the floor.
  So I hope that that spirit of political bantering that they 
continually brought here, speaker after speaker, where is the 
Republican solution, they still don't have one, when are you going to 
bring one; it won't be found on the floor while they are in the 
majority. If they would like to give the majority back, like they are 
apparently working on, we will be glad to take that and immediately 
bring so many of the wonderful solutions that have been proposed.
  I heard a wonderful comment recently. Someone said the Democratic 
leadership say they want to reform health care. What they are trying to 
do is deform it. I would have to agree.
  I note, also, that so much of the Democratic bills are proposing to 
have payment coming for those bills from cuts in Medicare that they say 
will be found in waste, fraud, and abuse.

                              {time}  2200

  Well, if they know there is that much in waste, fraud, and abuse in 
the health care system, then aren't the Congress, the House and the 
Senate, and the President being accessories if we don't bring that 
fraud to the attention of the other lawmakers so that we can 
immediately do something about it? Why would anybody want to allow 
fraud to continue unabated, costing taxpayers billions and billions 
and, they say, hundreds of billions of dollars, and they are not going 
to do anything about it unless we first give them this health care 
deform, or reform, as you may wish?
  Now, for so long the only bill we had was H.R. 3200. This is half of 
it. The other half is in the other notebook I have here. And I divided 
it up so it was easier to carry. I was afraid that the way things have 
played out in the past with the crap-and-trade bill and also the 
stimulus bill and land omnibus that so much would be brought to the 
floor without the opportunity to properly review those things. And, of 
course, as we know in the crap-and-trade bill, it came to the floor the 
morning that 300 pages of amendments were filed around 3:08, 3:09 a.m. 
And right here from this podium, I had made a parliamentary inquiry, 
which we are allowed to do when there's a legitimate parliamentary 
question, I wanted to know where can I find a copy of the 300 pages of 
amendments.
  Because, after all, normally right outside here in the Speaker's 
lobby, there are tables out there and they have copies of whatever we 
are taking up that day. There were no copies of the amendments out 
there. So I came on the floor, looked around at the Democratic whip 
table, the Republican whip table. There was no copy to be found 
anywhere. So I made a parliamentary inquiry as to whether or not we 
were supposed to have a copy of the amendments since we were actually 
voting on them right then. And I was told initially by the Speaker, 
well, there is a copy at the desk. And one of my Democratic friends 
came up and set four copies of something on the bottom level of the 
Clerk's table and then pointed to those. So I thought, well, I guess 
those are copies that they just brought in. So I went there, checked. 
They were not copies of the amendments. It was the minority report, two 
copies of that, and two copies of the thousand-plus-page bill, but none 
of the amendments.
  So I came back, made another parliamentary inquiry, and was told that 
there was one copy of the amendments at the desk. I made further 
inquiry because I'd been to the desk and couldn't find them, and I was 
pointed to the chair of the individual who actually had the copy, and 
she was dutifully going through the original copy of the bill and had 
the only copy anywhere about these parts of the amendments. And where 
the amendment would say at page such and such, delete line so and so, 
insert line so and so, and it would have injected language, she was 
inserting the language, lining out those.
  So we know that kind of stuff goes on, that we vote on things that 
nobody could read together in one bill because there wasn't even an 
official copy of the entire bill here.
  I made a further parliamentary inquiry since there was not an 
assimilated copy of the whole because, as you go through these bills 
and they're constantly referring to other sections, unless you have the 
correct language of the other sections, you can't really effectively 
read the bill.
  So, anyway, we got this bill, H.R. 3200. There's no telling how many 
hundreds or thousands of hours that have been spent by individuals 
across this country reviewing it. I think many more outside Congress 
have reviewed it than inside. And I didn't the first week or so start 
going through and reading the bill because I was afraid there would be 
another 3:08 amendment that would massively change the thing. But then 
I figured this would give us an indication of where things were trying 
to be taken. And we heard repeatedly from the President, from leaders 
here, that if you like your health insurance policy, you're not going 
to lose it.
  Well, page 16 of H.R. 3200 deals with that issue. And so that I am 
not accused of playing politics, I will just read this section. It's 
the ``Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Insurance.'' That's section 
102 of page 16 of H.R. 3200. Subsection (a), ``Grandfathered Health 
Insurance Coverage Defined: Subject to the succeeding provisions of 
this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under 
this division, the term `grandfathered health insurance coverage' means 
individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and 
effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are 
met,'' Y1 being the year that this health care plan kicks in. 
Subdivision (1), ``Limitation on New Enrollment. A, In general, except 
as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer 
offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage 
if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of 
Y1.''
  That means, of course, if an insurance policy adds an additional 
insured, someone else comes to work for the company who has bought this 
insurance and is added to the policy, the

[[Page 25707]]

policy is gone. It's not grandfathered. It doesn't meet the exception 
here. And it does have B, Dependent Coverage, you can add a dependent 
if it's a dependent of someone already on the policy.
  Then subsection (2) of A, ``Limitation on Changes in Terms or 
Conditions.'' This is a good one. ``Subject to paragraph (3) and except 
as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or 
conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect 
as of the day before the first day of Y1.''
  ``Restrictions on Premium Increases,'' that's subparagraph (3). ``The 
issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk 
group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage 
without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group 
at the same time as specified by the Commissioner.'' That's about more 
Federal control for sure.
  Anyway, look at number 1 and number 2. And I was talking to some 
constituents. One was quite proud of his retirement policy from a large 
company that's been very successful here in the United States, and he 
says, Our union was very effective in getting us a very good policy. 
They've been very reasonable; so our company is very profitable, doing 
very well, and we have got great health insurance as retirees, and it 
looks great for the future, so I'm not really worried about having 
health care coverage. It doesn't affect me what you guys do. I've still 
got good coverage.
  Wrong. He had not read page 16 regarding the grandfathered health 
insurance that he would be allowed to keep.
  So I asked him, Will there be any additional people retiring that 
will be added to your policy?
  He said, Well, of course. They retire all time.
  There goes your policy. Because on page 16 it says you can't add 
another individual. You can't enroll another individual. So if you have 
more people retire from your wonderful company, then they're added to 
policy, your policy is gone, and you're kicked over under the Federal 
plan. So that brings us to here. I thought people ought to know that.
  And I have heard some friends, wonderful Senators down the hall who 
had the best of intentions who said, well, you know, if we take out the 
public option, I think we could get this agreed to. I have heard some 
other Republicans indicate similar things.

                              {time}  2210

  The problem is they must not have read the Baucus bill or the House 
bill because this bill is not about health insurance coverage, it is 
about a government takeover, whether there is a public option in it or 
not.
  How about page 21 of H.R. 3200. This is section 113, B, Study and 
Reports, one study, commissioner in coordination with the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Labor shall conduct, 
that is shall, meaning they have to, conduct a study of the large group 
insured and self-insured employer health care markets. Such studies 
shall examine the following: the types of employers by key 
characteristics, include size that purchased insured products versus 
those that self-insure.
  Key characteristics are not defined. The government will decide what 
is a key characteristic of the individual's particular business. Maybe 
they need to know how much you keep in inventory in your business; how 
much you are paying your best employees in your little mom and pop 
business, we are going to study those under this. It is going to be 
required. Shall study.
  It will compare the similarities and differences between typical 
insured and self-insured health plans. It will study, under C, the 
financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self-
insure by employer size. So we are not just going to look at the big 
ones, we will look at them by virtue of size. We will look at their 
financial solvency; how are they doing.
  And since the Federal Government has never balanced any business 
activity that it has undertaken, this is going to be a real stretch as 
we send Federal agents into businesses around the country to help them 
figure out if they are making good decisions that are going to help 
them stay solvent so they can be sure to provide for their employers.
  How about D, the risk of self-insured employers being able to pay 
obligations or otherwise becoming financially insolvent. How do you 
like that? The government is going to send in somebody to analyze your 
business for you to help you figure out if you are at risk.
  Ms. FOXX. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to my friend from North Carolina.
  Ms. FOXX. I find it interesting that the government is going to do 
that to businesses that are being highly successful all across the 
country, and yet we find ourselves right now in a situation where we 
have the largest deficit ever in the history of this country, a debt so 
large it is almost incomprehensible, and yet our Federal Government is 
going to go out and analyze successful businesses to decide whether 
they are solvent. I find that--I can't even say the height of 
hypocrisy, it is beyond hypocrisy.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If I can follow up on that point, the gentlelady raises 
a wonderful point. Here we are in the government. We are going to send 
out people to help examine businesses to see if they are making good 
decisions, and yet the biggest spender, the biggest risk to the entire 
country is the Federal Reserve. We can't even get a look at what they 
are spending, but they are going to come in. I mean, this is the kind 
of stuff that revolutions are started over. The government will not let 
anybody know what they are doing. The Federal Reserve is scared to 
death that this Congress and the people in America will find out what 
businesses, what banks, what guarantees they have made, what money they 
have spent.
  There has to be some pretty scary stuff for them to fight so hard to 
not open up their books so we can see what the Federal Reserve is 
doing, and yet at the same time we want to help people examine their 
businesses. And it brings again the wonderful example of flood 
insurance to the fore. That is there were numerous private insurance 
companies who were selling flood insurance. If this sounds familiar, it 
should.
  The Federal Government said we are going to add a Federal option 
because we are not sure that the private insurance companies are being 
fair enough in what they are charging for flood insurance. So the 
Federal Government provided a Federal option. Well, the Federal 
Government began immediately running into the red because it was 
willing to take very little to insure people whose homes were 
constantly blown away by hurricanes and floods. Yes, build back, we 
will pay again next year.
  So what has happened, they drove the private insurance companies out 
of business because they cannot continue to operate in the red like the 
Federal Government does. And continues to do, but there will be a day 
of reckoning. Instead, it drove the private companies out. It didn't 
provide an option. What it provided was ultimately there was no option. 
There is where we are today. There is the Federal Government's flood 
insurance, and the others got out of the business. That is where we see 
this headed.
  That is why when we hear about a public option, a federally funded 
co-op, and even if they say we can work a compromise, we will put a 
trigger in. We will put it back here, we're sure it won't happen, but 
just in case there will be a trigger and it will kick in. Give me a 
break. Those triggers always happen, and the Federal Government takes 
over that whole issue.
  People need to know the kind of stuff that is in here.
  One other unbelievable thing, and I say ``unbelievable'' because we 
can't say anybody is lying, I guess, but we are told that this Federal 
plan is about providing people more options. Well, go to page 84 of 
H.R. 3200. You want to find out about more options, page 84, this says 
the commissioner shall specify the benefits to be made available under 
exchange participating health

[[Page 25708]]

benefit plans during each plan year consistent with subtitle C of title 
I of this section. It sets out what plans the commissioner will set up 
the conditions for, the terms of, and there will be one basic plan. The 
entity offers only one basic plan for such service area. So many areas 
in the country may have one policy offered. One policy. Now initially 
there will be insurance companies that want to try to participate who 
can offer that one policy, but there will be no flexibility. There is 
one policy and that's what they have to offer or they can't offer any 
insurance.
  So instead of having the big, thick booklet like all Federal 
employees, including Members of Congress, have, they give us these 
great choices. Many insurance companies, many different types of 
policies. Now what you will have is a little bitty pamphlet that says 
here is the basic plan, and here are the companies that offer it. Now 
if you offer one basic plan and you want to go further, you can offer 
one enhanced plan, but you have to make that comply. They will all be 
the same, meeting the conditions that the commissioner sets out. And if 
you offer a basic and an enhanced plan, then you can offer a premium 
plan for that particular area.
  So there is an optional offering for premium plus plans if you offer 
those three. You could have some areas where they have four or five 
policies. That is possible. They will be the same policies. Now there 
are over a thousand policies. Then we will have--probably most areas 
will have two or three at the most. Some will have one policy with 
different people offering it.
  But there are provisions in here, there is some good language for an 
ACORN-type group or ACORN because this requires the commissioner shall, 
on page 99 and page 100, assist exchange eligible individuals in 
selecting exchange participating health benefit plans and obtaining 
benefits through such plans.

                              {time}  2220

  And then it says, The commissioner may work with other appropriate 
entities to facilitate the dissemination of information in this 
subsection, provide assistance described in paragraph two.
  So they can hire ACORN folks to go out and give people the 
information they want them to have--hopefully not telling them how to 
set up prostitution rings, but probably try to confine themselves just 
to the health care. But ACORN is paid to do so many different things, 
it's reasonable to figure that they may give advice on several things 
at the same time, perhaps would tell you how to avoid tax problems for 
your prostitution ring, and then we'll tell you about how to sign up 
for the Federal plan as well. But anyway, that's all in there.
  This is not about choices, though. This is going to eliminate choices 
like have never been eliminated in our country's history.
  Ms. FOXX. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOHMERT. I will yield to my friend.
  Ms. FOXX. I appreciate your being able to quote chapter and verse in 
the bill. When I have spoken to groups and have told them particularly 
about the part you were reading earlier, that once there is any change 
in any health care plan that plan goes away, I remember when I read 
that--you know, this is very boring reading. We all know it's very 
boring reading, but when I read that, I went, Whoa, what is this? Every 
plan will go away if one little change occurs? And, you know, when I've 
talked to people about that and told them it was in there, I think a 
lot of people didn't believe me. I think they just thought that 
couldn't possibly be the case.
  Did you get that kind of reaction from people when you explained that 
to folks?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Reclaiming my time, I absolutely got that reaction from 
people. They didn't believe it. And that's why I would carry my copy of 
the bill and say, Here, you read it. You figure it out, because these 
are smart people and they would figure it out.
  But let me tell you, most people wouldn't even get this far. But if 
you could get clear over to page 828 of the bill, this does not impose 
a tax. I want to be clear about that. The President is right, there is 
no new tax here. This is called a fee. It's a fee, not a tax, according 
to the proponents of this bill.
  Anyway, section 4375, There is hereby imposed on each specified 
health insurance policy for each policy year a fee--not a tax, a fee--
equal to the fair share per capita amount determined under section 
9511(c)(1) multiplied by the average number of lives covered under the 
policy. The fee imposed by subsection A to be paid by the issuer.
  That means there will be a fee, or, the truth is, many of us do call 
fees taxes. Some like to call them contributions. And I think that's 
very noble that we have people out there that make contributions on 
April 15 of each year to whatever whims happen to come before the 
Congress. But anyway, that is there. There are fees. There are lots of 
other fees mentioned.
  But I'll tell you one of the most astounding things that I heard. It 
came a few weeks ago, is we know that the President, in his speech in 
this room, right there at that second level--at the second level, not 
the top, because we all know in here, this is the people's House, the 
Senate joins us, the President is not allowed to come in here without 
an invitation. And so we extended a unanimous invitation from the 
House, a unanimous invitation from the Senate. I thought about 
objecting if he was just going to come berate us, but as a Christian, I 
got to thinking, you know, what if he's coming to extend an olive 
branch and since the first time since March allow a Republican to have 
some input into this bill--even though we've been shut out for so long. 
What if he's coming in and saying, You know what, I heard the American 
people during August. I saw them rise up. I saw how upset they were, 
and I heard them, as I said I would over and over and over and over 
when I was running, and you know what? I want to work with you. I'm 
going to reopen the White House, and we'll start tonight as soon as 
this is over. We can just have an informal sit-down downstairs over in 
the New Visitor Center somewhere. Let's talk about this, you know, 
something to indicate that we were really going to work together. But 
instead, the President came in--and these are all words that he used in 
his speech. He said that those of us who are critical of the Democrat 
proposal are not engaged in honest debate. He said we were using scare 
tactics. He said we were making bogus claims. He said we were making 
wild claims.
  The President said we were engaged in demagoguery, distortion, 
acrimony. Those are all words he used and leveled at us. He said we 
were cynical and irresponsible, that facts and reason are thrown 
overboard, that we were robbing the country of this opportunity, that 
we were killing--he used that word, ``killing''--his good bill. And 
then two sentences before Joe Wilson used the ``L'' word, the President 
used the ``L'' word first when he said, That's a lie, plain and simple.
  It's unfortunate that the President would come in throwing words 
around like that. We have rules against that kind of thing. The 
President doesn't have to play by the rules, as we saw by the Auto Task 
Force, doesn't have to play by the laws. You can always get the 
Congress to look the other way. You can always get judiciary to look 
the other way, find a lazy bankruptcy judge to sign stuff so he doesn't 
have to have all the hearings. And then one of the Supreme Court 
judges, bless her heart, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, put a freeze on for 24 
hours. That was lifted off. All of the checks and balances the Founders 
put in place were completely emasculated, abrogated. There were no 
checks and balances. So the President's Auto Task Force was free to 
violate the law in so many ways, and did.
  And here we're coming at it again, same kind of deal. But the 
unbelievable quote that I heard a few weeks ago, having been told by 
the President if we misrepresent his bill, he's going to call us out? I 
mean, those are fighting words. He's going to call us out? I'm not even 
sure I know what that means. In the old West, that meant you're going 
to have a duel. I guess that's

[[Page 25709]]

what Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr did. And that was over the issue 
of candor and honesty and comments that had been made.
  So I felt like I was being demonized by the President because I've 
been reading from H.R. 3200, and at the time we had no other Democratic 
bill. So in a meeting with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, 
Secretary Sebelius, very gracious person, I had the opportunity to ask 
her in front of a number of other Members, since the President has 
constantly referred to this bill, my bill, this plan, my plan, used 
those words many, many times, said we would be called out if we 
misrepresented it, I said, Where can I get a copy of the President's 
bill so I can be sure not to misrepresent it? Her exact words were, I 
think he is talking about a set of principles. There is no bill. The 
President has no bill.
  Now, they're working feverishly, apparently, behind closed doors. 
That does violate his promise that it would all be open, be covered on 
C-SPAN, all this stuff, that everybody would get to see the discussion 
so they could feel comfortable about the health care bill coming. None 
of that has happened. None of that has happened.
  And so we come back to this point--that I know the gentlelady from 
North Carolina has looked into as well--about how many people don't 
have insurance, and we're told, at most, 15 percent. You're going to 
destroy health care as we know it, the best health care ever created in 
any country in the history of the world, because 15 percent of the 
population needs some assistance?

                              {time}  2230

  Are you going to change everything else?
  Then we get down to brass tacks, and it turns out actually, if you 
take out illegal aliens and people who could afford the health 
insurance but who are young and who don't think they'll be sick so they 
don't buy it, then it may be as few as 3 to 5 percent that we're 
talking about. Dramatic drops. I mean it could be that 3 to 5 percent 
for which you're going to throw out the whole health care system the 
way we've come to know it when it just needs some serious things fixed. 
Throw out the whole thing?
  I grew up in East Texas. I've lived in East Texas all my life, except 
for the 4 years when I was in the Army, because I love East Texas 
wisdom.
  I had a guy in East Texas tell me--he said, You know, you're going to 
throw out the whole health care system because a small percentage of 
people don't have health insurance? He said, When my ice maker broke, I 
didn't remodel the kitchen. I fixed the ice maker.
  That's pretty logical. Why don't we concentrate on those who need 
some help and concentrate on what needs fixing? Instead, the 
information that we've been able to get indicates we're still going to 
have a vast number of people who will not have insurance once this bill 
is passed.
  Oh, there's one other thing I wanted to mention. I see the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina has some wonderful posters.
  I've heard friends from across the aisle repeatedly come to the floor 
and talk about all of the money that lobbyists are spending on health 
care lobbying and that they're just all over Washington. Well, it's 
interesting because they don't call me or my Republican friends. In 
fact, I had heard that some of them--and it has been reported in the 
news--that they've been told, if you talk to a Republican, don't expect 
to talk to me, and we're the ones who are making the decisions.
  So, when they talk about all of the lobbyists' efforts in Washington, 
they're not directed towards Republicans, because they know we've got 
some great bills and that we've got some things that will fix the 
problems instead of create more problems. They're not coming to us. 
They're going to the Democrats. That's who they're going to, and that's 
the way the Democrats want it. Don't go to Republicans, say some of 
them. Just make sure you come to us.
  So, anyway, I want to yield to my friend from North Carolina.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank the gentleman from Texas for taking on this 
Special Order tonight and for laying things out so well from H.R. 3200, 
which, as you've said, is the only bill on our side of the Congress 
that is out there. As you said again so eloquently, what the Senate has 
been working on has been behind closed doors.
  I was really busy today. I heard there might be a bill released 
today, but I don't think it has been. I do want to talk about what you 
were saying about the fact that we are about to turn our whole economy 
upside down to take care of a small number of people who are lacking 
health insurance and who can't afford it.
  As we know, at the beginning, our colleagues across the aisle and the 
President were saying there are 45 or 47 million people in this country 
who don't have health care. When they were challenged on that, they 
said, Okay, there are 45 to 47 million who don't have health insurance. 
Even the President, on the night he spoke to us in the joint session, 
took that number from 47 million down to 30 million because we had kept 
talking about illegal aliens who were here in the country and who were 
counted in that number. So he got it down to 30 million, but the number 
is really much, much smaller than that.
  The ironic thing is that, in all of the legislation we've been 
hearing about, it looks as though 28 million people are still not going 
to be covered by health insurance even if H.R. 3200 is passed or even 
if the bill out of the Senate is passed. So we're talking about, again, 
taking over the whole economy, putting us tremendously more in debt, 
spending $1 trillion to serve approximately 1 million people if the 
numbers they have been using are accurate. Of course, we know that, 
most of the time, they're not accurate, but they're using the numbers.
  Let's talk a little bit about who these people are. We have a few 
variations of the exact numbers that people are using. For example, in 
noncitizens, I think this says that there are 10 million. A chart that 
I had said 9.5 million, but if you're talking about starting out with 
30 million, then what we're talking about again is of the 10 million 
who are not citizens and then of the approximately 9 million people who 
earn more than $75,000 a year. I had the figure of 7.3 at $84,000, but 
again, different people use different numbers. These people can afford 
health insurance if they want it, but they choose not to purchase it.
  There are 10 million people who are eligible for government programs 
but who told people when they were questioned that they didn't have any 
insurance but that they were on either Medicaid or Medicare. They don't 
understand that Medicaid and Medicare are health insurance programs. So 
we've got 10 million there who are eligible for employer-sponsored 
insurance but who are not enrolled. Six million of these are people who 
just don't want to pay for health insurance and who are not going to 
pay for it if we have a plan that says you've got to be on it or pay a 
penalty.
  So, on the chart that the gentleman from Iowa, Steve King, has been 
using, he has got 12 to 15 million Americans who don't have affordable 
insurance options. The number I had been using showed about 8 million 
people.
  So we've got a really small number of people. We could take care of 
those people easily with a subsidy to help them get affordable 
insurance. We want to help working people, the working poor. That's who 
most of these people are. They work, but they can't afford insurance.
  Republicans have a plan. As you pointed out earlier, we have several 
plans, and our plans deal with the things that folks most want. They 
want portability. People want to be able to take their health plans 
with them if they lose their jobs. Well, the way to do that is to give 
individuals the opportunities to take a tax deduction or a tax credit 
and buy their own health insurance. We have a system now where we give 
that preference to companies, but we don't give it to individuals.
  So a simple thing to do would be to simply say you, as an individual, 
can

[[Page 25710]]

buy your health insurance, and you can take the same deduction that 
your employer has been taking all of these years. That won't cost the 
Federal Government a dime. We can also allow people to buy insurance 
across State lines. That can be done. It won't cost the Federal 
Government a dime. We can have across-the-board medical malpractice 
reform, and we can get rid of frivolous lawsuits. Texas, I know, has 
done that. California has done it. My own State of North Carolina has 
tried on several occasions to do it, but the Democrat-controlled 
legislature won't allow it to be done because they basically are 
beholden to trial lawyers.
  So those are the three most important things that people want. They 
want accessibility and affordability. We can take care of those without 
spending any money whatsoever, but the Democrats seem intent on 
spending money.
  This is really not about health care. I think we all know it. I think 
the examples my colleague from Texas was using from H.R. 3200 are very 
clear. This is about government control of our lives. This year in the 
House, we have already passed a bill that allows the government to take 
over all loan programs for students who are going to college. That's 
another takeover of our lives. The government has already taken over 
car companies, the car production companies. It's going to be having 
the government run every aspect of our lives.
  I want to point out that part of the problem, again, is that we have 
a real difference in philosophy here in the United States. We have a 
difference of philosophy here in the House.
  Republicans think that it's best for individuals to take care of 
themselves and to keep as much of their money as they possibly can.

                              {time}  2240

  Democrats want to take as much money from citizens as they can and 
let the government run their lives.
  I just want to give a couple of examples of what's happened since the 
Democrats have taken control of the Congress. The spending has 
increased in 2009 alone, the stimulus funding and the budgets, we have 
looked at that and we have found that all Federal agencies will, on 
average, receive a 50 percent increase in appropriated funds from 2008 
to 2010. At the same time, real family incomes fell by 3.6 percent last 
year.
  The people in Washington in control of the purse don't act like 
there's any recession. They just keep spending, spending, spending. 
Another thing that's a real problem with this health plan that's being 
proposed here is that it's going to cause the loss of another 5\1/2\ 
million jobs.
  Now I know many people who watch us, even when we read from sections 
of the bills, think this just isn't possible. How could you have people 
in charge of this Congress who are so anti-capitalism, who are so anti 
all of the values that have made this country a great country? I know 
it's hard to believe, but it happens every day, and it continues to 
happen.
  We have, again, a deficit right now, for last year, $1.4 trillion. 
Yet since the year began, we are on target to have an increase of that 
next year of 12 percent. An article in today's Wall Street Journal 
points that out, and the increases are in what is called discretionary 
spending. I want to point out, in the mandatory spending programs, 
that's Medicare and Medicaid--and my colleagues know I hate those words 
mandatory spending, because there is no such thing. We simply allow 
things to go on automatic pilot, and they increase in spending every 
year because we've written it into the law. But we can change that. 
There is nothing mandatory about it. We allow it to be that way.
  Medicare, this year, went up 9.8 percent, spending for Medicare, and 
spending on Medicaid went up 24.7 percent in the fiscal year that just 
ended October 1. We are to believe that by putting in a brand new 
health care program that purports to cover every citizen in the 
country, that we are going to reduce spending? Well, I have got some 
swampland in New Mexico I will sell you if you believe that story. It 
cannot happen. We cannot add people to the Medicare rolls and still 
spend less money. It just isn't going to happen.
  I think it's incumbent on us here in the Congress, who understand the 
truth, who have read H.R. 3200, to come out here every night, every 
day, and explain to the American people we are not selling you a bill 
of goods, they are selling you a bill of goods, because all you have to 
do is read the bill, and you will see it and match up the numbers with 
what's been happening.
  This is not rocket science, it's happening, and the American people 
are the poorer for it.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from North Carolina for some wonderful 
insights. It does get very frustrating being a Member of the House of 
Representatives, because, I know, so much history, it never ceases to 
be an honor to get to serve here where so many wonderful, caring, 
selfless people have.
  But at times you just wonder, do the American people not realize the 
power that they have to change what goes on in this body? The old adage 
is true: democracy ensures people are governed no better than they 
deserve. What breaks my heart is that the American people for too long 
have deserved a very poor government, apparently, because they have not 
gotten a very good government.
  When my friend from North Carolina brings up the automatic increases 
in spending every year, that is an issue that crosses party lines. Of 
course, when the Republicans took Congress, the majority, in 1994, then 
they worked very hard and they pushed the President, President Clinton. 
There was a lot of friction between the Congress and the President, but 
the Congress prevailed. We got a balanced budget and the President 
ultimately signed on. We got some accountability.
  Then the Republicans got the White House in 2000 and began to have 
both the House, Senate and the White House. Spending got a little bit 
giddy. It was unfortunate. I know in 2006, while Republicans were still 
in the majority, that I was pushing for a zero baseline budget. What 
that means is we eliminate the automatic increases in every department 
in the Federal Government, and you start with zero increase. Because 
the game that's played in this town is you increase automatically every 
year. If you decrease a little bit from the automatic increase, than 
you are considered mean-spirited, that you are hurting people by making 
these draconian cuts when actually it's a decrease to the increase but 
not a decrease overall.
  In 2006, when I pushed my zero baseline budget bill, my Republican 
leadership friends did not allow that bill to come to the floor. It 
didn't get voted on. It didn't get fixed. That certainly was not 
allowed when I re-filed it in the last Congress, and it doesn't look 
like this Democratic leadership this time will allow it either. But 
that's the kind of thing we are talking about.
  The games that are played around here, this is in page 149 of H.R. 
3200, section 313 is entitled in bold letters, all capital letters, 
``Employer Contributions in Lieu of Coverage.'' Most thinking people 
would call those tax, but this says it's an 8 percent tax, or it says 
it's an 8 percent contribution to the Federal Government.
  In any event, we need transparency. The government, it seems these 
days, is rarely right. But the health insurance companies have not been 
right. As I explained to some folks in the health insurance business, 
they say they're in the health insurance business, but what we have in 
this country is not really health insurance; it's health management.
  Insurance is what very few people had. When I was growing up in a 
small east Texas town, Mount Pleasant, very few people had health 
insurance. But some people did, and they would pay a little bitty 
premium, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly. That little bitty tiny 
health insurance premium would ensure against some unforeseeable event 
in the future, a catastrophic accident or illness that you just 
couldn't foresee, so you paid a premium just in case that ever came. 
That's called insurance.
  When you buy car insurance, you are ensuring against an unforeseeable

[[Page 25711]]

event, an accident that you might have someday, or somebody hit you and 
they're not covered with the insurance. Something you can't foresee, 
you pay a premium in order to have that.
  But with health insurance over the years, that got adjusted. It 
became not health insurance, but it became health management, so that 
big health insurance companies began to manage health care. They would 
cut deals with doctors. And I know Blue Cross has just forced them down 
to where some of them are getting hurt, but they continue the threat 
of, Well, we'll include these other doctors over here if you don't sign 
on, and then you'll be out of the loop, and we're the biggest health 
insurance folks on the block, so you'll be out of our loop; and they 
are able to talk them down.
  Well, it's good to talk people down in price if it's the fair thing 
to do. But normally all of that has to be transparent and above board 
to be effective and to work. We don't have transparency in the health 
care business these days.

                              {time}  2250

  You can't just ask a hospital chief executive officer, as I have, how 
much a hospital room costs and get an answer, because they either don't 
know or it depends on whether it is the insurance company, the Federal 
Government, somebody paying cash, all these kinds of things. But I know 
from one personal relative, the bills they had for 2 days of hospital 
care was around $10,000, and the health insurance company satisfied 
every one of them, paid in full all $10,000 in costs, with $800 from 
the insurance company. That is the kind of transparency we need. But 
that kind of transparency right now is protected by contracts, and the 
State and Federal law have continued to allow that kind of thing to go 
on. We need transparency.
  For those that wondered, I have mentioned a solution. The bill I 
filed, H.R. 3478, deals with these issues. First of all, when you heard 
the President talk about his health care plan, the Democrats down the 
hall have talked about their plan, and at first they were so excited 
because it was going to come to just under $900 billion. Then we find 
out we made a mistake; it is going to be over $1 trillion. Whether it 
is the President's plan, over $1 trillion, or the Baucus bill, over $1 
trillion, whatever it is, even around $1 trillion, the last numbers we 
got from the census indicated there were about 119 million households 
in America.
  If you divide 119 million households into $1.19 trillion in the 
Democratic health care bill, the cost, because it is going to be around 
there--some have said it might be closer to $2 trillion. They are 
probably right, but we don't know, they don't know, we don't know. But 
if you divide that by the number of households in America, then it is 
an extra $10,000 average per household for the Democrat new bill. And 
that doesn't even cover all the people they are saying need to be 
covered. It still leaves a gap, people uncovered.
  So we need to get back to health insurance that people can afford 
that will get the health insurance companies back into the health 
insurance business. Of course, many of them came rushing to the White 
House and said they needed a seat at the table. I tried to explain, 
whether it is the AMA, the American Hospital Association, or individual 
health insurance companies, that you don't need a seat at the table 
when you are on the menu and your profession will be devoured. You may 
be able to negotiate it to be the third or fourth course, but are still 
going to be devoured. You don't want a seat at that table.
  Anyway, my bill, when I saw that Medicare itself was apparently 
costing around $10,000 average for every household in America to pay 
for a very small percentage of our population who needed health 
insurance, our seniors, for Medicare and Medicaid, over $10,000 now 
apparently being paid per household average for that small part to have 
health care through Medicare and Medicaid, when I saw that, I thought, 
my goodness, this is outrageous.
  I know my mother and other people pay all this extra money for 
supplemental coverage, wraparound coverage of Medicare. For what we are 
paying for Medicare and Medicaid, we would be better off to give them 
cash money, say, $3,500 for a household with more than one person in it 
getting Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP, just give them $3,500 cash in 
a health savings account they control with a debit card that can only 
be used for health care, and then buy them health insurance that covers 
anything that is not elective. We can't be paying for people if they 
want liposuction, things like that. But if it is necessary health care, 
then provide insurance to cover everything beyond the $3,500, and buy 
them that insurance.
  Now, I have a bill we have been trying to get scored since August 
19th. We have been trying. We have had all of the Republican prominent 
people involved in the committees--the Joint Tax Committee and the 
Energy and Commerce Committee. They have all been begging CBO to give a 
value to my plan. It also deals with illegal aliens and with people 
coming in who want visas. They would have to have health insurance. It 
gives transparency. It is a great bill.

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