[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26217-26223]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  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. Mr. Speaker, today Speaker Pelosi, with a lot of fanfare 
and locked doors, invitation only, which didn't include any 
Republicans, just as the input in this bill included no Republicans, 
this is the bill, 1,990 pages. I haven't had a chance to read it. They 
just got it out today. I have been trying to get through it.
  One of the frustrating things we have is we have had hearings and 
hearings, hours and hours of hearings on the Democratic health bill, 
H.R. 3200, hour after hour. Think about how many people in America have 
spent hour after hour reading H.R. 3200.

                              {time}  2030

  They carefully examined it because this was the law that was proposed 
by the Democratic leadership. And they were concerned that this may be 
voted into law, and they need to know because this is going to be 
country changing.
  So they spent thousands and thousands of hours all across America to 
review H.R. 3200. Some have gone to the trouble and spent hundreds or 
thousands of hours, when you consider all the people in America are 
reading these bills because they're scared, reading the Baucus bill, 
reading some of the other bills. And then it turns out those were all 
red herrings. The American public, all the Members of Congress were 
tricked into wasting their time, spending all those hours reviewing a 
bill that they knew they weren't going to introduce.
  Mr. Speaker, you know, Thomas Jefferson laid out the rules that we 
follow. They're not Robert's Rules of Order. They're Thomas Jefferson's 
rules that get modified with each Congress. And that's what we're 
supposed to follow. And the procedure is well thought out. You have 
subcommittees that are supposed to have legislative hearings and bring 
in witnesses and consider all these different aspects, and after 
they've considered all this, someone starts working together with other 
people. You're supposed to have bipartisan support. We were told all 
year long we would have that. Yes, big joke there. So someone, though, 
is supposed to put together the bill and lots of people working 
together to get it done, and then you give everybody plenty of time to 
review the bill at the subcommittee level. And then you have a markup, 
it's called, in subcommittee, where some of those hearings are very

[[Page 26218]]

long when they're done properly because they're open to any amendment 
by anyone on the subcommittee. Once it clears the subcommittee, if it 
gets voted out of the subcommittee, then it goes to the full committee. 
And anyone in the full committee can make amendments, as many as they 
want, and you stay as long as you have to get through all the 
amendments. That's the process. And then once the amendments are done 
and the committee votes it out, that is the bill that is supposed to 
come to the House floor. You bring the bill that was amended and 
agonized over.
  Not in this Congress, oh, no. We're going to spend thousands and 
thousands of hours, and there's no telling how many of the trees in 
America got cut down to print out H.R. 3200 so that people could read 
it because this is going to be really country changing, as the 
President said. He's going to transform America. He didn't say to what, 
but he's going to transform America. And then it turns out after all 
those hearings, amendments, considerations, all that work, behind 
closed doors they were working on a bait-and-switch scheme. And today 
it played out. And now we're told by the Democratic leadership, well, 
we want to make sure you have 72 hours to review this bill.
  Well, I'm telling you what. You mark my words. You mark my words. 
We've got 1,990 pages here, but by the time this bill is voted on, 
there will be hundreds of pages added, as we've seen over and over, in 
the wee hours of the morning, and people won't have time to read it. 
And just like the crap-and-trade bill, it will be up there and they 
won't even have the whole bill put together in time for us to read the 
whole bill before we vote on this transforming bill that's going to 
change and, I would submit humbly, end some lives in America. Not 
because people are going to be denied treatment but because they're 
going to be put on lists and be required to wait an inordinate amount 
of time because you can't cut $500 billion from Medicare and not expect 
to have some people not get treated.
  Another thing you need to realize too, in this new bill, from what 
we've been able to quickly discern, this Pelosi bill, the 1,990 pages, 
reduces the size of affordable credits for patients to purchase 
insurance in the exchange, and instead it expands the eligibility for 
Medicare to 150 percent of the Federal poverty level.
  Well, our seniors are not as stupid as some people in this body think 
they are. They get it. You're going to cut Medicare $500 billion and 
you're going to expand coverage to people that have never been covered 
before, and we're supposed to feel good that we're going to get more 
coverage than ever? They're not stupid. They understand what's 
happening.
  I have been joined by some of my colleagues here, and I would love to 
get their input because we've been scrambling to see what we are facing 
here with this bill.
  I would love to yield to my friend Mr. Brady.
  Mr. BRADY of Texas. I thank my friend from east Texas, where our 
districts border each other and whom I have gotten to know and respect 
here in Congress. And I thank you for this leadership.
  The timing is now. The bill has been introduced. The fight is on. And 
rarely in our lives do we have the opportunity to make such a 
difference on a bill that can take us down such a wrong road for 
America.
  I will be brief, but what comes to mind is recently a national 
pollster whom you would know and recognize did a survey of Americans, 
and he asked them two questions, and he said, which one is most true: 
The first question is America is going to spend $1 trillion of your tax 
dollars to reform health care and it won't add a dime to the deficit. 
The second statement was there is human life on other planets. By a 
three-to-one margin, people chose human life on other planets as more 
true than we can spend all this money and not add a dime to the 
deficit.
  The American public is smart. I held more than 50 town hall meetings 
during August and September, roundtables, all types of forums, and the 
truth of the matter is this Speaker and this House didn't listen to any 
of them.
  This bill, Mr. Gohmert, you talk about and show today, 2,000 pages, 
$1 trillion, 31 new Federal agencies, mandates and commissions that 
come between you and your doctor, who ultimately decide what doctors 
you can see, what treatments the government thinks you deserve, what 
medicines they think you can get.
  This bill today, the fight we are engaged in, government will inject 
itself in our most intimate health care decisions. It raises the costs 
of health care. It increases the deficit for generations to come. It 
raises taxes on professionals and small businesses. It will force 
millions of people out of the private plan that they choose to take. It 
cuts Medicare for seniors. It will ration care in the future. It opens 
the door to taxpayer-funded abortions and taxpayer care for illegal 
immigrants. And it exempts Members of Congress from this government-run 
plan.
  This is a bill that is wrong for America. We all, everyone tonight, 
every Republican, support health care reform. Many of us have worked 
years, all of us on this floor have worked years for this day. But we 
can do better than this.
  And we've submitted now, what, Mr. Gohmert, over 40 Republican health 
care bills; five of them, comprehensive reform. We haven't gotten an 
opportunity to offer any of them. They haven't spent an hour listening 
to any of them. And as our leaders in Texas Medical Center have told 
me, it is so important we get this right. Health care is so complex. 
Take it step by step. Focus on affordability. Move to coverage for 
small businesses and people with preexisting illnesses. Pass lawsuit 
reform to end defensive medicine. Find innovative ways to squeeze the 
overhead out of health care. Make it more efficient. There are all 
these great ideas. They will never be heard in the rush to this 
national health care system.
  Now is the time to act. That's why tonight your discussion with the 
American public, even though there is a World Series Game going on, in 
truth, at the end of that 9 innings, that game is over. But at the end 
of this bill, everyone's life in America, our children and 
grandchildren, will be touched and I think harmed by this bill.
  I appreciate your leadership. I'm going to spend every waking hour 
until this vote is held to kill this bill, to kill this bill and send 
it back to the drawing board and come back with reform that all of 
America can embrace.
  Mr. Gohmert, thank you, my friend from east Texas, for leading this 
discussion tonight.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Brady.
  I think it's important to note that despite all the rhetoric about 
where are the Republican solutions, we have done everything in our 
power to try to offer good solutions, to try to sit down, and we have 
offered good solutions. And they are running into brick walls because 
the doors are locked. I know the President said, My door's always open. 
And I'm sure he wouldn't lie about that. But the gates aren't. We can't 
get to the open door. So it's deeply troubling that we could not submit 
anything.
  As I used to say in deacons meetings, unless one person has a 100 
percent lock on God's truth all the time, we really need to listen to 
each other. There are some Democrats with some good ideas. There are 
some Republicans with some good ideas. I think my health care proposal, 
patient-centered health care, patient-controlled health care, is a 
great idea. It's a good bill. It would score if CBO had not become a 
lapdog for the Democratic leadership.
  I have been trying for 2\1/2\ months to get that bill scored, and I'm 
told over and over again they don't have time. They run in the Baucus 
bill that wasn't even a bill. It was a plan. I was told unless you've 
got a bill you filed, we will not, cannot do a score. Oh, no, not the 
Baucus bill. They run in and it's a plan, just an outline, and they 
give him a score on it. I mean how fair is that that this government 
has got gotten so slanted and people are getting hurt? It isn't right 
and it isn't fair. And something this important is going to be rushed 
through.

[[Page 26219]]

  I heard my friend from North Carolina discussing this earlier today 
about the time that's been allotted and what's going on. I would like 
to yield to my friend Ms. Foxx.
  Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Congressman Gohmert. I still don't think you and 
I sound a lot alike, although people say that. You definitely have a 
Texas accent, and I know I don't have an accent from North Carolina. 
But I want to thank you for the leadership you've given on this issue. 
I know you've been here several nights, late at night, talking about 
the issues that the American people need to know about. It's so 
difficult to get the information out to them, and I appreciate what 
you're doing.
  I find it very ironic that we are a couple of days away from 
Halloween. I'm not a great phrase maker, but today it hit me that we 
really need to talk about this in terms of Halloween.
  This bill that Speaker Pelosi has introduced today is a tax increase 
bill masquerading as a health reform bill.
  In this time of Halloween, the kids get really concerned about 
monsters and get afraid of them. But I want to tell you there is no 
scarier monster that has ever been conceived of by cartoon people, by 
movie people, than this 1,990-page bill. It is a monster. It is a 
monstrosity. It is something that should scare every American to death. 
It is frightening to me, I can tell you that.
  I think my colleague from Texas has done a very good job of framing 
how a bill should come to the floor. Bills that are thoughtfully done 
go through subcommittees. People get a chance to debate them, look 
through them, find things that are not as well defined as they should 
be. We vote. That's the way legislation should be done, on a bipartisan 
basis, bringing in everybody's brain, bringing in everybody's aspect 
about it, and making sure that when we pass something, it's going to be 
as well thought out as it can possibly be, ``vetted'' sometimes it's 
called. That's what we should be doing.

                              {time}  2045

  But that is not what is going to happen with this bill because the 
President made a promise in his campaign that he would get passed a 
health reform bill. The people in this body think that they owe it to 
the President, not to the American people, their fealty is to a 
President, to help him meet his campaign promise. That is not where my 
loyalty lies. It did not lie with the President when we had a 
Republican President. My loyalty is to the American people. That is 
where all of our loyalties should be, and this bill is a betrayal of 
the American people because it takes away their freedoms. It promises 
something that it isn't. It is worse than a shell game, as I said. It 
is a tax increase masquerading as a health bill.
  The one good thing that we have been able to accomplish with the 
great help of the American people in recent weeks is to really raise 
Cain about these bills being crammed down people's throats. So we will 
have 72 hours to look at the bill. The American people may think that 
we are not telling the truth. Sometimes the things we say are in the 
bill are hard for people to believe. The bill will be there and be able 
to be read, and we will be reading it and looking at every single 
aspect of it. And I want to encourage other people to do that. We will 
put copies in libraries. We want the American people to see it. We are 
not trying to mislead people about what is so horrible about this bill.
  You all may remember that the President said in his campaign, ``We 
live in the greatest country in the world. Help me change it.'' To me 
that meant take what is good about this country and change it into 
something that is not good.
  This bill will take us down that path very, very quickly. We will be 
losing our freedoms, and we will be beholden to a government that is 
not always the most benevolent and will get less benevolent the more 
power it has.
  We have a fundamental difference between the Democrats and the 
Republicans. We believe that the American people should be in control 
of their lives. They believe that the government knows best, they and 
the government bureaucracy. It doesn't matter that the majority of the 
American people are opposed to this. They believe they have the wisdom 
and they are going to impose this on the American people.
  But not if the American people speak up as they should. We are going 
to be fighting, as my colleague from Texas has said, we are going to 
fight every step of the way until there is a vote on this bill, 
probably next week, but we need the help of the American people to 
contact your Member of Congress and tell them this is not what you 
want. This is not what America stands for. This is not what we have men 
and women fighting for all over this world. They are fighting for 
freedom. But the greatest threat to the freedom of the people in this 
country is right here in this room. Ladies and gentlemen, I am not 
exaggerating. It is right here in this room, but we can defeat it, as 
we have before.
  With that, I yield back to my colleague from Texas.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from North Carolina, and I appreciate 
so much those insights. How ironic, here we are the last day, the last 
hour Congress is in session before the witching hour of Halloween, and 
as Congresswoman Foxx observed, we have a tax bill masquerading as a 
health care bill.
  We have with us a great medical doctor here in Congress, and I want 
to point out something that affects doctors and ask him to comment, and 
on such other things as his insights that can be shared.
  On page 140 of this new 1,990-page bill, I want to be fair, it is not 
2,000 pages, it is 1,990 pages, but on page 140, it gives us some 
insights on what has been going on behind closed doors, the deal-
making. I have heard around east Texas, and these are smart, wise 
people, we had some insurance companies come out and say they thought 
that the President's plan was going to be okay. We have had some 
pharmaceutical companies say it is going to be okay. And the American 
Medical Association, some of them said it was going to be okay. The AMA 
represents maybe 17 percent of the doctors, I think. So you wonder what 
kind of deals got cut behind closed doors.
  On page 140 and 141, some insights, because those of us who have 
dealt with the law have seen medical malpractice cases, I have been a 
judge over many malpractice cases, and I have had many of them removed 
from my court, my district court to Federal court, because there are 
certain types of medical liability cases where when they could get 
themselves to be considered as falling under the Employee Retirement 
Income Security Act of 1974, then, boom, they could yank it right out 
of State court into Federal court, and it was governed by ERISA, the 
Employee Retirement Income Security Act. And the defense lawyers love 
to do that, defending the insurance companies, because if they can get 
a med-mal case to fall under ERISA, that meant that they got it removed 
to Federal court and they got it basically dismissed, that the 
plaintiff could get zero damages.
  So here we go. How could insurance companies go along with this when 
it is basically ultimately going to bring an end to private insurance. 
That is clear. We saw that in H.R. 3200 despite the promises you would 
never lose your policy. Well, all it would take is if you added one 
beneficiary to the policy, or if you changed any term or condition. 
Well, they change every year. So at most, you could keep your policy 1 
year and then you fall under the Federal situation.
  But here on page 140, it says that in the case of health insurance 
coverage not offered through the health insurance exchange, and in the 
case of employment-based health plans, the requirements of this title 
do not supersede any requirements applicable under titles 22 and 27 of 
the Public Health Service Act, part 6 and 7 of subtitle B of title 1 of 
the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or State law, 
except insofar as such requirements prevent the application of a 
requirement of this division as determined by the commissioner.
  Now most people will read through that, most laymen will read through

[[Page 26220]]

that and say, I don't know what that means. It sounds innocuous enough. 
What it means is for that year or maybe a little more that somebody 
keeps their insurance policy, if the insurance companies are sued, and 
we had a terrible case that arose, a court room case, where the 
insurance company intentionally, and there was a smoking gun memo or 
letter, as I recall, where the insurance company lawyer was saying just 
hold it up, and as I recall the woman died. And phenomenal damages 
should have been coming forth from the insurance company, but instead 
they got it under ERISA in Federal court, and the case got zero 
damages.
  So you think, wow, the insurance companies, that is the deal they 
made. So they can fall under ERISA, so even when they intentionally 
deny coverage to someone, they are protected by ERISA. They can deny 
coverage, they are protected, and they don't have to pay any damages if 
that ends up falling through, as ERISA has in the past. There is no 
reason not to believe that is the case.
  So the insurance companies got their deals, but they made a terrible 
deal because they will not be able to stick around very long. Maybe 
they will be able to stay solvent for a while trying to compete against 
the Federal Government. They didn't last long in flood insurance.
  But, boy, in 2006 we know that the biggest donors to the Democratic 
Party were the plaintiff trial lawyers. How in the world would they let 
that go through? Well, they cut a deal with them, apparently, because 
that is the next page. The insurance company got their deal. They are 
going to be protected. They can deny coverage. That is how egregious it 
has been before, deny coverage knowing it is going to potentially kill 
somebody to deny coverage, but the insurance company is protected. So 
they got their deal.
  And then the next page, it says in the case of health insurance 
coverage offered through the health insurance exchange, that is the 
Federal program, the requirements of this title do not supersede any 
requirements, including requirements related to genetic information, 
nondiscrimination, mental health parity applicable under title 27 of 
the Public Health Service Act, or under State law, except insofar as 
such requirements prevent the application of requirement of this 
division as determined by the commissioner, and individual rights, 
remedies, under State laws shall apply.
  So they cut the deal with the insurance company, made them feel 
really special. And until they go broke because they can't compete with 
the Federal plan, they may be protected from some of the most egregious 
insurance decisions. And then on the other hand, you have the trial 
lawyers, they know ultimately everybody is going to end up on the 
Federal program. And boy, do they have a deal because this means that 
they will be able to sue under State law under all of the plans. And 
that will end up being all of them under the Federal plan. That is the 
way that this looks to me.
  One other thing, and it is a big bill, and this is at page 431 and 
432. And this is amazing. This is another perk the trial lawyers got. 
Having been a lawyer and a judge, I have great respect for the judicial 
system. When someone has been wronged, rather than an eye for an eye, 
we allow them to go into court, sue and get damages. There is nothing 
wrong with that. That is a good system.
  But here we are at page 1,431, and it says that the Secretary shall 
make an incentive payment in an amount determined by the Secretary, and 
I am sure that is Health and Human Services, to each State that has an 
alternative medical liability law in compliance with this section.
  So under this bill, this is a new expense. New. New money to be spent 
by the Federal Government. Now will that be new money for health care 
for seniors? Oh, no, we are cutting $500 billion out of the seniors' 
Medicare. This is new money for any State that will follow the rule 
here on page 1,431 and 1,432, and here is the kicker at subsection 4, 
you get that incentive pay as determined by the Secretary if it meets 
these requirements, and that includes the contents of an alternative 
liability law that are required to get the incentive payments, or in 
accordance with this paragraph if the litigation alternatives contained 
in the law consist of certificate of merit, early offer, or both, and 
the law--and this is unbelievable--the law does not limit attorney's 
fees or impose caps on damages.
  Now, think about the number of States that have been able to save 
hospitals and save doctors from going out of business so women could 
get gynecological care, places that hospitals had to close, they came 
in with tort reform and they were able to open back up and have doctors 
come in and help because they put caps on damages. And in some places, 
they put a cap on attorney's fees. We are going to spend Federal 
dollars bribing every State to get rid of any limit on damages so that 
the doctors can be tagged. We are going to protect the insurance 
companies for awhile. We are going to protect the plaintiff's bar 
permanently. And the doctors, once again, are going to really get hurt.

                              {time}  2100

  I know my friend from Louisiana has a reputation as having been a 
fantastic medical doctor and also knows what it is like to suffer and 
require treatment himself.
  I yield however much time my friend needs and wishes to speak.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. Well, I thank my friend. I am amazed at all the reading 
you have done already with this bill and the scholarship that you have 
put in today. It says a lot about your character as a judge and a 
lawyer, having dug into the details of this.
  Here we are, talking about the Pelosi health care plan just released 
today, all just under 2,000 pages of it. I commend my colleague for 
shedding some light on just a couple of the provisions in this. There 
are so many unintended consequences, most likely, in this bill, and I 
have not had the kind of time to go through it that even my colleague 
has had so far, but we will be reading this bill and going through it 
very carefully.
  Let me just say, before coming to Congress, I practiced medicine for 
about 20 years. I did open heart surgery, lung surgery, oftentimes 
doing three and four operations a day, caring for anybody who needed 
surgical care in my practice, whether they could pay or not. We're 
dealing with health care, one-sixth of the entire U.S. economy, 
something that affects every man, woman and child in this country. This 
is a kitchen table issue, if there ever was one, a very important 
issue. What gives me great distress is that we're on the wrong path. 
We're not going to lower the cost of health care for families and for 
small business owners. In fact, there is nothing in this bill that is 
going to actually drive down the cost of health inflation. Those 
increases in premiums, double-digit increases in premiums year after 
year that families and small business owners are seeing, there is 
nothing in there that will do this.
  The sad thing is, I think Republicans and Democrats could agree on a 
number of areas where we could work together that would actually make a 
difference and bring those costs down, yet the decision was made by the 
leadership to ignore these things. The whole idea was to create a new 
government plan, sort of modeled after Medicare, based on the same 
faulty financial footing that Medicare is currently struggling with 
today, and now we're going to double the liability to the Federal 
taxpayer based on all this.
  This is a huge problem. What we see in this bill are increased taxes 
for families. The Pelosi health care bill, it's an increase in taxes on 
families and small businesses. It's an increase in taxes on health 
plans. It's an increase in taxes on all the research and innovation 
that have made American health care as great as it is today. Let's face 
it, we know health care is expensive. It's too expensive. We know there 
is waste in the system, and those things can be corrected. But we also 
know that we have the finest doctors, the finest nurses and the best 
hospitals, teaching hospitals and training facilities in the entire 
world. Patients come from all

[[Page 26221]]

over the world to be treated in the United States, if they're lucky 
enough to be able to get here. Doctors from all over the world come 
here to train, to learn the latest techniques. All of that innovation 
and technology is at risk because of the tax provisions and the 
punitive approaches taken in these health care proposals. This is going 
to be a major step backwards.
  I can talk about many, many instances where a new technology came out 
or a new pharmaceutical came out that made a huge difference in quality 
of life. Initially it was expensive, but with time, the costs went 
down. There are many, many examples of this. I will give an example. 
When I was in medical school, preparing to undertake a surgical career, 
I remember one of the operations we used to do the most was this big 
operation for ulcers. If you had an ulcer, a lot of times you had 
complications from that ulcer, either bleeding or you got obstructed in 
your intestinal tract or you had severe pain or even an ulcer 
perforated and caused you to get very, very sick, requiring emergency 
surgery. These were very devastating conditions. We had nothing to 
treat that, other than to do a massive operation, a major surgery under 
general anesthesia where you had to take out almost half the stomach 
and reconstruct all of it. Patients had all kinds of problems 
afterwards. I will never forget early on in my surgical training when a 
new drug came out, and everybody thought, Oh, my gosh. This is going to 
be great. This drug was called Tagamet. The generic name was 
Cimetidine. Now you can buy it over the counter, but back then it was 
expensive. Almost immediately upon the release of this drug, we quit 
doing most of those big stomach operations. We didn't have to do them 
anymore, except under extraordinary circumstances. So countless numbers 
of patients avoided surgery and had a much higher quality of life.
  Now we've seen several other generations of these drugs come about 
that have made a tremendous difference for individuals, and it's cut 
the cost of health care. But the Congressional Budget Office doesn't 
recognize that because it works in an artificial 5-year window. It 
doesn't work based on the real world, which deals with the lengthy 
process of doing research and development to get these new technologies 
and these new pharmaceuticals out.
  Think of coronary stents. Back when I started off, oftentimes when 
someone had a heart attack, they died. We had very little in the way of 
pharmaceutical treatments for heart disease. If you had blockage, there 
was nothing we could do about it. Then open heart surgery developed 
with coronary artery bypasses, and it was a big operation. Then it 
became more routine and less expensive over time, and patients have 
done very well following those operations. Then the advent of stents, 
where you go in, you have a stent put in a blocked coronary, you go 
home the same day, and you are feeling much better. We can actually 
stop a heart attack in progress by inserting a stent in a timely 
manner. Those advancements here in the United States are now being 
adopted abroad. They've made a huge difference. That innovation is at 
risk. This bill taxes businesses, taxes families, taxes innovation, 
taxes insurance plans. What happens when you tax insurance plans? 
Premiums go up. The CBO and other actuaries have said that on average, 
premiums for Americans are going to double and in some cases, triple. 
What's going to happen? That's going to put more of these insurance 
companies in a bind because their products would become untenable, and 
we're going to move to a single-payer health care system, run by the 
Federal Government with all the bureaucracy and the lack of innovation. 
And that's the goal here.
  I can tell you, it is very distressing, as a physician who practiced 
for 20 years and saw the great things that we could do in health care, 
but I have also seen the problems. I can tell you, I, myself, have had 
health problems. I would still be doing open heart surgery and not 
standing here giving a speech tonight to the United States Congress if 
I didn't have a health problem. I developed a form of arthritis that 
basically ended my surgical career early. When I closed my practice 
down, we had a health plan. I tried to shift from the plan that we had 
with the same insurance company. We tried to shift from an employer-
based plan to a family plan within the same insurance company. They 
knew everything about my history and records and everything else. Guess 
what: They denied my entire family and myself coverage, but because I 
knew how to negotiate within the health care system, I called the 
insurance company. They said, You have a preexisting condition. I said, 
I understand that. You have already been helping to treat that, and 
this is a continuous process. So why not just exclude my condition and 
at least insure my family? And after a lot of vigorous going back and 
forth with the insurance company, I convinced them to do that.
  Americans should not be denied coverage based on preexisting 
conditions. Republicans have ideas where we can get the cost of that 
kind of insurance down for all Americans by creating competition and 
choice in the insurance marketplace, which this bill does not do. It 
will limit competition and choice. We can keep those costs down. We can 
make insurance much more accessible, and at the same time, take what I 
think our colleague from Texas mentioned earlier, take this kind of an 
incremental step-by-step approach so that we don't create unintended 
consequences--we know what we're getting into--and build a system 
that's comprehensive that Americans can be proud of.
  As my colleague said earlier, we have over 40 bills that move us in 
that direction. And how many hearings have we had on the Republican 
bills in the House Ways and Means Committee where I serve? None. None. 
These ideas have not been discussed, they have not been vetted, and 
furthermore, a lot of the ideas in this bill have not been thoroughly 
vetted. That's a problem. That's legislative malpractice in my mind. 
It's wrong, and the American public deserves better. This health care 
problem has been going on for too long, and there is a lot that we can 
do to solve it if we put our heads together.
  I know there are some well-meaning friends across the aisle who want 
to work together on it, and I think that's what the American people 
want us to do, instead of an ideologically driven approach to a single-
payer health care system, run by the Federal Government, which we know 
is going to run up massive deficits for this country, which we already 
are seeing now. It's going to stifle job growth, and it's going to hurt 
the American economy.
  With that, I will yield back to my friend.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank you, Dr. Boustany, so much. You've provided so 
much insight since you've been in Congress. You've been a breath of 
fresh air. Especially for someone who has been on the other side of the 
insurance company, has been paid by the insurance company, has 
performed surgery saving lives and has been on the other side of the 
doctors providing the treatment. That provides an awful lot of wisdom, 
and I am so grateful that that wisdom from the gentleman from 
Louisiana, Dr. Boustany, is being brought here to the House of 
Representatives.
  I tell you, though--maybe it's part of my background, having been a 
judge for so many years--you look for evidence to help you know whether 
to believe or disbelieve what people are saying. As I have listened to 
our friends across the aisle--not all of them, but many of them that 
were pushing this bill, this 1,990-page bill--they knew it was going to 
be coming. We didn't know what was coming or when it was coming, but 
some of them knew. Knowing that, they have been coming down to this 
floor, coming to these microphones here and telling horror story after 
horror story about something that happened because of an insurance 
company, because of a doctor, because of bad health care problems. One 
thing after another, and never, ever having one good story to tell 
about a doctor who came in in the middle of the night. Like the doctor 
who saved my daughter's life one night when her temperature spiked to 
108. Doctors all over this

[[Page 26222]]

country, health care providers, nurses, most of them are so dedicated 
and do a great job, and yet we've not heard one good story about some 
success from the incredible health care in this country. Somebody point 
out one in the Record because it is something I didn't hear, and I will 
apologize. But I have not heard one. That's one of the pieces of 
evidence you can look to to know that something is being put over here 
on the American people because they're only getting one side of the 
story. Not one favorable story. That tells you they're trying to scare 
people.
  And another thing you look at, they're saying they are going to pay 
for this with waste, fraud and abuse. Hundreds of billions of dollars 
that will be saved by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. You mark my 
words on this: If they could save even $100 billion on waste, fraud and 
abuse, it would have been done before now. Those who are not familiar 
with politics, who are not familiar with the history of our great 
country, just take a lesson here. Anytime anyone from either party--any 
party, Independent or whomever--is elected, comes into office and cuts 
out massive amounts of waste, fraud and abuse within the government 
system, they can be elected as many times for as many offices as they 
ever care to run for. Nobody is ever going to beat them because they 
will always be able to show, Look at the waste, fraud and abuse I 
eliminated. I did that because I cared. And they will win from now on. 
Well, we've got this being dangled out there. If you'll give us this 
trillion-dollar bill--trillion-plus, probably, because we've seen how 
slanted CBO has become in recent days--but if you will give us this 
trillion-dollar bill, we'll cut out hundreds of billions of dollars in 
waste, fraud and abuse.

                              {time}  2115

  In my courtroom, you would see, through proof, that, if people know 
that fraud is going on and if they have a duty to do something about 
it, which elected officials would, and if they do nothing about it, 
then they're accomplices. Under the Law of Principles under Federal 
law, under 18 U.S.C. 2, if you aid, abet, encourage, induce, you're as 
guilty as the principal. So I don't believe they know where hundreds of 
billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse are.
  Let me also mention, you know, I filed a bill. This came after lots 
of consultation, including from my friends, from my doctor friends here 
in Congress and from people around. I've talked to all aspects, 
including to representatives of AARP, who came and talked to me. Of 
course, if my bill were to get passed, which would eliminate the need 
for any senior to ever buy supplemental insurance from AARP, it would 
financially hurt AARP, but it would be so good for their members. You 
know, they're not going to support that because that takes money out of 
their pocket.
  A big part of my bill has to do with Health Savings Accounts, not the 
kind that are still around or that were around previously where you 
could put money aside pretax and where, if you didn't spend it by the 
end of the year, you lost it. Huh-uh. We're talking about, in my bill, 
having a Health Savings Account where you could put money in there 
pretax, and where it could roll over and grow. If you don't spend it 
all, it just rolls over and grows. It is yours. It is for health care 
alone. You have a debit card, and that let's you go into any doctor's 
office, any hospital, any pharmacy to buy what you need for health 
care. You use that debit card. Then you buy catastrophic care to cover 
over that.
  Under my bill, employers would still get great tax benefits by buying 
insurance for their employees, and they would do so by buying 
catastrophic insurance to cover everything above their Health Savings 
Accounts, and then they'd put money in their Health Savings Accounts 
which would be owned by the individual but could only be used for 
health care. Then we've been told by the statisticians that, as for the 
kids in their twenties and thirties, as they get older and by the time 
they get to 65 and get ready to retire, the vast majority will have so 
much money that they're not going to need Federal Government help. They 
will not want the Federal Government intervening in their health care 
because they will be masters of themselves.
  In the meantime, to move us to that, I want to be fair to seniors and 
not promise something that ends up hurting them, like this monstrosity. 
So, under this bill, we're better off. Since it costs $10,000, on 
average, for every household in America to pay for Medicare and 
Medicaid, we're better off just saying, Senior households, here's 
$3,500 in your Health Savings Account--cash--and we, the Federal 
Government, will buy you catastrophic insurance to cover everything 
above that. There's no more need for supplemental insurance. None of 
that. You're good to go. Then that starts getting the young people 
moving on the road to getting us out of this trap of Medicare.
  Under the bill that we have right here, seniors will have a choice. 
If you want Medicare, stay on it, but when you see your neighbors are 
better covered and that they control their own destinies in health 
care, then you're going to want what they have, and then it will go 
that way very quickly.
  I just want to point out one other thing really quickly--another deal 
that was cut--and I don't have time to pull it out right now and find 
it, but let me just point out that there was a deal that was cut for 
pharmaceuticals. The deal is that, under this monstrous Pelosi health 
care bill, people will no longer be able to buy over-the-counter 
medication with their Health Savings Accounts. They'll have to buy 
prescription drugs if they want to use those Health Savings Accounts 
that are funded by their employers or they'll have to use their own 
money that has built up over the years.
  I've got a good example here. I have this in my pocket because, since 
I was 8 years old, I've suffered from hay fever. It's Chlor-Trimeton. 
Years and years ago, it was a prescription drug. Now I can buy it for 
$2.34--a big bottle of it. It's embarrassing, frankly, if you get up 
and your nose starts running. So I have one in my pocket, so that, if 
my nose starts running, I can take a Chlor-Trimeton so my nose isn't 
running and so I'm not sniffing here on the floor of the House. Yet, 
under this bill, I'll have to buy some expensive prescription 
antihistamine if I'm going to use my Health Savings Account.
  That was a deal done, and now we begin to see a little bit. Now that 
this has come out of the closet, we're beginning to see the deals that 
were done, and that's one to help the pharmaceuticals.
  I will yield to my friend.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank my friend for yielding.
  I'm really glad that you brought up Health Savings Accounts. First of 
all, Health Savings Accounts were created by a Republican Congress, so 
that was one of the things that Republicans did when we were in control 
of the Congress, among a few other things in health care; but one of 
the problems we've had with Health Savings Accounts, that I've heard, 
is that a lot of families can't put enough money into them to really 
make them meaningful.
  You know, I introduced a bill that actually, really, raises the 
amount of money that you can put into one so that you actually, really, 
do save money year in and year out and do build savings.
  Secondly, when you get to be a senior and when you go on Medicare, 
you can keep that Health Savings Account and can continue to fund it 
and can use it for things that Medicare currently doesn't cover. So 
many seniors have to buy supplemental insurance. You could use your 
Health Savings Account to fund that. So now you're using pretax dollars 
rather than really hard-earned, after-tax dollars for that health need. 
There are a number of other things that families could use these for.
  Finally, upon death, you can pass your Health Savings Account on to 
your family without a tax consequence, and now you're really building 
savings across generations to take care of our health problems, putting 
families back in control of their health care destinies rather than, 
again, a big government, one-size-fits-all-kind of a program, such as 
what we see with the Pelosi health plan.

[[Page 26223]]

  I yield back.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank you for that observation.
  That's exactly right. Some people will not be able to put money into 
the Health Savings Accounts, and those will be people we will be able 
to help as the Federal Government, and it will be cheaper to do that 
than to keep going bankrupt, which is where we're going. The projection 
is, by 2017-2018, we're going to bankrupt America with Medicare. Why 
wouldn't you try to do something to rein that in?
  Let me just say I disagree with what the President has done. I've 
been in the Army. I've seen how commanders agonize, and I know General 
McChrystal was handpicked. He went over there. He gave the President 
his assessment. We really need at least 40,000 troops. It's very plain. 
You either put them in there or we're going to lose this war. Now, to 
me, that seems like that ought not to require more than 72 hours once 
you get that general's report. My goodness.
  He says, The guy I handpicked, if we don't give him 40,000 troops 
quick, then we're going to lose the war.
  That's very clear. He didn't take 72 hours. He is taking 60 days or 
more and counting. We've got 60,000, 70,000 troops or so over in 
Afghanistan who are waiting with bated breath to know what the 
President is going to do, and so are we.
  This bill here will affect over 300 million people's lives and the 
lives of generations to come. We don't get the 60 days that the 
President has taken to make sure he gets it right. We're told we get 72 
hours. You're not going to have time to find all the pitfalls that 
we've put in there. We're talking about the future of this country and 
about future generations. They are owed so much better, not because 
they've done anything to deserve it, not because we've done anything to 
deserve the blessings that have been heaped upon us, but because those 
who went before us made the sacrifice of life--of their fortunes, of 
their sacred honor--and that's why we reap the benefits we do. We owe 
it to future generations because of what the past generations have done 
for us, and that is what we have to do.
  It breaks my heart to close out this congressional session. We're 
going home, and the President will make a lot of appearances, and so 
will Speaker Pelosi. The American people are the ones who are going to 
get hurt, and the children of the future will get hurt.
  Oh, yeah. Congresswoman Capps is a very gracious, delightful Member 
of Congress, but the Capps amendment is in there, so this type of 
public option will be able to fund abortions. I mean this stuff is 
here. We need more than 72 hours. We need at least as much as the 
President is taking to review Afghanistan.
  Mr. Speaker, with that, I know my time has run out, so I yield back 
at this time.

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