[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26433-26439]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    HEALTH CARE FOR WOMEN IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am so thrilled to be here tonight to 
talk about health care for women in America. Throughout this evening, 
you are going to see colleagues of mine join me on the floor as we talk 
about women's health care, to talk about the alternatives that we as 
Republicans have; how we would answer these questions that women and 
families have; how they would make the decisions; and some of the great 
ideas that we would bring forward.
  You know, I think there is something that has become very evident to 
us over the last few weeks; women make most of the health care 
decisions in their families. Indeed, we have surveys that show that 
women are making as many as 85-90 percent of all health care decisions 
for their families, for their children, for their grandchildren many 
times, and for elderly parents. The Sandwich Generation is really 
jumping in and making these decisions. They are watching so closely the 
alternatives for health reform.
  Of course, while we all agree that there is indeed a need for health 
reform, there is a big divide in this House. We have many to the left 
that are saying they want a government-centered plan, and then we have 
many of us who are on the right who are saying we want it to be 
patient-centered. We want the focus to stay with patients, with 
families, and let's not have a bureaucrat in the room.
  We know that women are indeed watching. They have seen what the 
Democrats have to offer, and they are unimpressed. They are not 
impressed with this. They know that it limits and restricts their 
options.
  Women are the drivers in the health care marketplace, and I think 
American women are going to be the drivers in the decisions that are 
made as we look at how we reform health care, because indeed it should 
be patient-centered, with families and individuals having control of 
those health care decisions. We don't want Washington and a layer of 
bureaucracy making those decisions.
  A couple of weeks ago, I saw a story in Politico, and it said the 
Democrats needed to do a better job in messaging and trying to get 
their message out to women. I wrote a response to that, because I felt 
like, you know, they have gotten that message out. Women did not like 
what they were seeing.
  So I am very appreciative that Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is vice 
chair of our caucus, and Michele Bachmann from Minnesota have taken the 
lead for the Republican women tonight in establishing this Special 
Order time. We know that we have better bills, and they will put women 
more in charge of health care decisions and bring down the cost, 
because just like too much of the family budget gets spent on taxes, 
too much of it gets spent on health care.
  We need something to bring the costs down. Even the CBO says the 
Democrat bill is going to drive the cost up. It is going to drive the 
cost of health care up, it is going to drive the cost of health 
insurance up, and we know also it is going to restrict access. We know 
that women want to have a say in this, and they don't want a bill that 
is going to end up hurting them and hurting their alternatives at the 
end of the day. So making certain that we have a plan that works for 
women is important.
  Now, we know that in Speaker Pelosi's bill the Democrats outline how 
much the government will pay for certain procedures. A doctor who wants 
to do business with the government will have to accept that rate, and 
if you are an insurance company, why would you offer any more money 
than the going rate established by the government?
  Well, we also know from what we have seen, from public option health

[[Page 26434]]

care and the test case that took place in my State of Tennessee, that 
this doesn't always work. What you see is, when you have a public 
option plan in competition with private insurance, the cost goes up, 
restriction to access takes place.
  With Tenncare, the test case for public option health care that took 
place in our State, we saw the costs quadruple within a few years' 
period of time. We know that that hurt certain procedures and access to 
certain procedures, like cardiology, and we are very concerned about 
the restrictions to cardiology that are in the bill that the Speaker 
has brought forward.
  Mammography, we are very concerned about what would happen to 
mammography and the ability to have those imaging tests and procedures 
that are needed and are necessary. The Speaker's bill does we think end 
up hurting women in a couple of specific areas that I have just pointed 
out, breast cancer health and cardiology, and we know that there is a 
better way to do this.
  Let me touch on three bills that Republicans have that I think give 
the ideas that women are looking for. They bring forward great ideas 
that are patient-centered, that are focused on individuals, focused on 
reducing costs, increasing access, and making certain that more 
individuals have the ability to access the health care that they need.
  One of those is H.R. 3218. It is by Representative John Shadegg. It 
would allow small businesses, churches, alumni associations and other 
small institutions to pool together, to come together just like you do 
when you join those associations, come together with that membership 
and then be able to look forward and say, all right, we are going to 
offer a health insurance plan. It also would allow for those insurance 
plans to be implemented across State lines. That is a pretty good idea, 
and that is a way, by pooling together small businesses and 
individuals, pooling together, then what you do is to lower that cost.
  Now, there is also H.R. 3713, and this is by Representative Mike 
Rogers out of Michigan. He is a member of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee with us. He has taken an interest in and a leadership role in 
this issue.
  What he has done is to look at the things that the President has said 
he wanted to accomplish, things that we all agree need to be done: 
Insurance market reforms, making certain that we have affordable 
insurance, access to affordable insurance for individuals who have 
preexisting and chronic conditions; making certain that individuals 
that are in good standing with an insurance policy are not dropped from 
that policy if they become ill and want to exercise that policy; making 
certain that portability is in place.
  One of the frustrating things we hear often about, especially from 
women, is the fact that they may change jobs and then they find they 
can't take that insurance with them. How many times have you talked 
with a friend or a neighbor who said, you know, I have had a great job 
offer, but I can't take it. I have a child who has a chronic condition, 
or my spouse has a chronic condition, and, because of that, I would 
have to deal with the preexisting condition issue if I were to change 
insurance, if I were to change jobs. So addressing those portability 
issues is tremendously important.
  Now, there is another component in this, liability reform. We all 
hear it. We hear it regularly. We hear from our physicians. We hear 
from our neighbors. We hear from individuals who say, you know, the 
practice of defensive medicine, having to make certain, having to make 
certain that you have a physician who is getting a validating opinion, 
who sent you to someone else for a second opinion, who sent you to 
someone else--defensive medicine drives the cost up.
  Some of the physicians who are Members of the House have told us that 
fully they believe that this drives up the cost of medicine repeatedly 
to the tune of tens of billions of dollars every single year--every 
single year. So it increases that cost. And it is also a inconvenience 
to our seniors.
  I had a constituent call me the other day and she said, Marsha, I 
just want to tell you what has happened to me as we have been going 
through this situation. She has a chronic condition. They were just 
beginning to address it. She went to her primary care physician, who 
ran a test and said, I think you need to see a specialist, and referred 
her. She went to him. He ran the test again, the same test, the same 
facility, ordered by a different doctor. He got the results back, and 
he said, I think you need to go and visit with Dr. So-and-so, so that 
you can get a second opinion on this.
  She goes back. She sees the new physician. He runs the test again. 
Then she goes back to him. That is three times. And then the insurance 
wanted her to go for a fourth test. As she said, it was the same test 
run four different times. And her question was very simple. She said, 
Why don't they run the test once? Run it once and read it four 
different times, rather than having me have to get my daughter to take 
off work, which is a half a day for her to go to the test and then 
return home.

                              {time}  2000

  It's expensive. It is invasive. It is inconvenient. It is something 
that Congress could address and do something about, and I think that 
most people agree with that. It is of concern to us that H.R. 3962, the 
Speaker's bill, is 1,990 pages of bill. It is a big bill. This bill, 
this big huge bill--and we're going to have that bill on the floor for 
you to see tonight--this bill would be, really, a bill that is not fair 
to our seniors, and it does concern us. It's one of the primary 
concerns that we do have in this piece of legislation, the unfair 
practices that it would move forward on our seniors.
  As we are going through our Special Order tonight, if you would like
to log on to my Web site,
blackburn.house.gov and pull down the legislation and follow along 
through it as we go through it, we certainly would appreciate you doing 
so. As I said, we feel the legislation is going to be very unfair to 
seniors. They're talking about making cuts to the tune of $500 billion 
in Medicare, basically doing away with Medicare Advantage. Then look 
what's happening with this, cutting Medicare by 2017. We all know the 
Medicare trust fund is going to be running out of money. But what we're 
seeing from the Democrat leadership of this House is a failure to 
recognize that Medicare is a trust fund. Medicare is not a slush fund. 
And we want to make certain that we protect our seniors as we work 
through this bill.
  I am so pleased that we have women who are joining us on the floor 
tonight. At this time, I yield to the gentlelady from West Virginia, 
Shelley Moore Capito, for her comments on health care.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Thank you. I would like to thank the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee. She has been an advocate for health care but also 
commonsense health care. I think that's what we're facing here today. 
We're looking at a bill that Speaker Pelosi has put before this body. 
We've already heard that it's 1,990 pages. I heard it weighs 20 pounds. 
It just defies logic that anybody can honestly say that they know each 
and every thing that is in this bill. For those of you who know 
Washington, who know what can happen, I think that would raise some 
serious questions--it certainly does in my mind--but in your mind as to 
what are in the far reaches of this bill.
  I would like to talk a little bit about women and health care because 
being a Member of Congress, a woman Member of Congress, we have certain 
duties, but we have so many other duties, like women across this 
country, that when we come into Washington, like many of us did today, 
we still have a little bit of our hearts or a lot of our hearts at home 
with our families, with our children, with our husbands, with our 
parents, with our siblings because we're the nurturers. We're the ones 
who, as women, oversee the health care in the family. We're the ones 
who, when the babies are little and they're coughing at night, put our 
ears to their chests to see if they're having some respiratory issues, 
and I think we're the ones that, as we become the sandwich generation,

[[Page 26435]]

much like I am--I have grown children and elderly parents--that we're 
the ones that our parents come to to help them get to the appointments, 
fill their medications, help them with the forms, make sure that things 
are going in the right direction when they can no longer depend on each 
other.
  I'm quite lucky. My parents are in their eighties, and they're 
extremely self-sufficient on their own. But someday they're going to 
need that help that I as a daughter and my sister and my brother will 
provide for them. In West Virginia, I found--just coming here today, it 
was astounding to me of the number of folks that just randomly 
approached me about knowing what is on the docket here, the Speaker's 
over 1,900-page $1 trillion health care bill, and people are concerned. 
I was in Wendy's having lunch today, and I met a woman. She asked me to 
come over and talk with her. She is 75 years old, quite remarkable, and 
her mother had died the day before. We have a great history of 
longevity in our State. She is very concerned about this bill because 
she feels that not only is the bill being balanced on almost $500 
billion in cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, which will influence her 
health care, but she is very concerned about government bureaucracy 
making decisions for her health care. She is very concerned about the 
government getting in between her decisions and her doctor's decisions. 
Quite honestly, she was afraid of a rationing of care. Because she is 
75 years old, is she going to get the same care she might have if she 
was 50 or if she was 25? These are the kinds of thoughts that are very 
real, and they were very real for her, as I talked with her over lunch.
  Then as I was going to get on my plane this afternoon, I was buying a 
bottle of water, and the lady behind the counter said, Well, you're 
going back to Washington, right?
  I said, Right, going back to Washington.
  She said, It's health care, right?
  I said, Right, it's health care.
  And this voice in the back of the room said, Don't mess with my 
health care. Again, her view was, she's not on Medicare yet, but she 
had parents that were. She is concerned about their Medicare, but her 
concern was government-run health care. She sees this bill as it is. 
It's a government reach into her health care, and she was very 
concerned.
  Then as I was coming back in from the airport, I had a man who asked 
me, Going to talk about health care, right?
  I said, Right.
  And he goes, Well, let me tell you, he said, If in any way that 
health care bill would leave a crack in the door for my taxpayer's 
dollars to go for funding of abortion, I am going to go on a rampage. 
He said, I can understand, and I want to give, and I want to help, but 
this was his line in the sand.
  So you can see that everybody has a different perspective, and the 
1,900 pages that are in the Speaker's bill are causing great concerns 
on a whole lot of levels.
  I did some research on West Virginia women. Of West Virginia 
residents, 51 percent are women, and the 442,000 women in West Virginia 
who receive health care coverage through their employer, which is 
almost 60 percent of the women, I am concerned about them because they 
have health care that generally serves their needs. We need to go in 
and make sure we make adjustments, that we fill the cracks in the lack 
of access or coverage. But I am concerned and I think it's a real 
concern that the Speaker's bill is going to come in and force over 60 
percent of the women who have coverage for their employers to be put 
into a government-run insurance program that they don't choose, is not 
of their own choosing. Then maybe if that's not what happens, then the 
insurance option that they have is going to be the one that the 
government panel says meets adequate coverage. Well, what does that 
mean? What does that mean to the 60 percent of the women covered 
through their insurance through their employer?
  I think we have to look at what this is going to do for small 
businesses. In our State of West Virginia, only 37 percent of small 
businesses who have less than 50 employees provide health insurance 
coverage as compared to over 95 percent of larger firms employing more 
than 50. We need to fill that gap. As Republicans, we've come together 
to find ways to fill the gap for small businesses, to make it 
affordable, make it available, make it accessible. But the bill that is 
created by Speaker Pelosi and those in the leadership does not do 
enough. What it does do is puts another tax on small business to 
provide that insurance.
  Lastly, I asked a lot of the women in my district what they really 
thought about the plan as they understand it, expanded government 
involvement in health care. Of the women polled, 54 percent said that 
they would not personally trade their coverage for a public plan; 56 
percent disagreed that they would be best served by government-run 
health care; 75 percent have said they don't want significant changes 
in their own health care; and 64 percent of the women in West Virginia 
said that they prefer private insurance over the public option. These 
are women that are accessing the health care system not just for 
themselves, not just for their own families. They're accessing it for 
their parents. Many of them work in the health care system. They see 
how it's working. They see the changes that could be made, and they 
really are rejecting it, I think, out of hand. I know my colleagues 
will expand on this tonight. The women are rejecting the types of 
changes where government goes between you and your health care 
provider.
  I believe that is what has happened in this plan, not to mention the 
over $1 trillion price tag that's attached to this bill, which both men 
and women across the country know that this is going to be on the backs 
of their children and grandchildren, a legacy of debt and deficit 
that's going to be passed on.
  I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee and all of my 
colleagues for being here tonight. Those are some of the perspectives 
that I have. It's so interesting to me that in the brief time today 
that I was out among folks, how tuned in everybody is to this, how 
aware. Because health care is so personal. It's such an everyday thing 
for so many people that everybody has an opinion because they're 
basically living it. This isn't something they're seeing from afar or 
they're hoping happens or it's happening to their neighbor. It's 
happening in everybody's home in America, and people are standing up 
and saying how they feel about it, where the changes need to be made, 
and how they feel. Generally speaking, today the Speaker's 1,900-page 
bill, $1 trillion bill, got a big goose egg today because I did not run 
into one person who said, That sounds like the plan for me.
  Thank you.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia, and I 
thank her for those comments about women in West Virginia and how this 
bill would affect them.
  What we are hearing all across our Nation is, This is not a bill that 
women want. Indeed, the blog spot, whymomsrule.com ran a survey, and it 
said that only 7 percent of American women think the health care 
proposals that have been brought by the leadership, the Democrat 
leadership, are proposals that reflect their concerns. We know that. We 
are listening. We hear them. And we have ways to solve this issue so it 
puts patients and families in charge of those decisions, not the 
Federal Government. It preserves that freedom. Indeed, for small 
businesses--as we all know, women-owned small businesses are a very 
active part in our economy, in our financial sectors, and we're very 
concerned about the impact for employer-based insurance that this bill 
would have on those women-owned small businesses.
  At this time, I want to turn to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. 
Biggert) who has been such an active voice not only in the Education 
and Labor Committee but in the House as a whole, as she has been a 
leader on this issue.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee, and thank you 
for having this tonight.
  You know, I was just thinking; I've got four children and eight 
grandchildren. So I think as a mom and a

[[Page 26436]]

grandmother, I've always been very concerned about health care, and I 
want to make sure that my family has the best that's possible.
  When I was raising the children, all we had was Dr. Spock. We didn't 
have all the technology and all the wonderful drug therapies and the 
health care that we have now in the United States. I am always 
concerned about the quality of health care. Sure, we need reform, but 
we want to make sure that there's that quality of health care that we 
have now. We've got moms, doctors, nurses, caregivers, taxpayers and 
women that really play a critical role in the health care debate. 
Eighty-five percent of women are the primary health care decision-
makers in the home, and that's why we take this so seriously.
  The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 82 million adult women are moms, 
and 32 million women have a child living in their homes. So women are 
overwhelmingly supportive of health care reform, but they want to know 
that this reform will improve the quality and affordability of their 
current health care. For many women and their families, higher health 
care cost means the difference between receiving care and going 
without. Unfortunately, the Pelosi health care bill empowers government 
bureaucracies and undermines a woman's ability to make the best health 
care decisions for her and her family.

                              {time}  2015

  I have got a letter that one of my constituents sent. It's from 
Maryanne, and she writes to me:
  ``As a registered nurse and mother of a severely disabled child, I 
beg you to seriously consider the long-and short-term effects of the 
new health care proposal. I am horrified to think that medical 
decisions will be determined by our government. I have seen this fail 
in many countries. I happen to be of the opinion that the precious 
commodity of life far exceeds the almighty dollar.''
  You know, one of my daughters lives in London. And when this health 
bill came up, I said to her, Seriously, tell me what is the health care 
like in the U.K.? What is it like versus here?
  And as a matter of fact, every time my daughter brings my three 
grandchildren home for a visit, she takes them to see the pediatrician 
that I took her to see just to make sure that they're in the best of 
health that they can be and make sure that somebody from the United 
States is looking after them.
  And she said, Well, now, in London it's a different system. It 
started out where doctors don't have this high debt. They don't have 
the high cost of the medical school that we have here. It's paid for. 
So they start in the system and they're in the public system. And then 
some of them become private doctors. Now, my daughter has the public 
health care, but she also has a private doctor. And she said, Well, in 
emergencies you're well taken care of. But it's the long term, and she 
gave me the example, let's say you have a rash on your arm, you go and 
they say we will make an appointment for you, but the appointment is 9 
months later. She also said that if you go on and check on the current 
wait list in London--for example, the current wait list at the time 
that I checked was 11 months for a knee replacement, 10 months for a 
hip replacement, 5 months for a slipped disc, and about 8 months for a 
hernia operation. And these are just a few of these that they wait so 
long for.
  Now, what that leads to also is rationing. And I had an event this 
morning where one of the doctors stood up and talked about his belief 
that there would be rationing, particularly with how many doctors are 
going to want to remain in a situation like this where they really 
become staff. You know, we think of them as professionals. I always 
thought, oh, if I could be as smart as the doctors. To me, it was just 
the profession that was so outstanding.
  And so this leads not only to rationing for these procedures, but 
also we've had a debate about the end of life and how 80 percent of the 
costs really are then. And I think as women, when I read in the first 
bill, and that has changed a little bit to be voluntary rather than 
mandatory counseling there, in my former life I was a probate attorney 
and I did estate planning, and what was always so important was to 
counsel families on aging and to make sure that they had the decision 
of the family, the decision of the elderly in what they wanted to 
happen.
  So there was always this durable power of attorney that we did so 
that their wishes would be addressed and a cousin or somebody would 
say, oh, no, we can't do anything. But the durable power of attorney, 
the living will, and the do-not-resuscitate, if that's the wish of the 
person who would become ill in the end of life. And it's so important, 
but it's important to do it before you ever reach that time. And this 
bill focuses on that they're doing it as you have already aged. So this 
is something that should not be put into statute. This is something 
that families should address, and this is their choice and not some 
bureaucrat making it happen.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Reclaiming my time, I just want to expound on this 
point for just one moment because the point you're making is so 
relevant to this debate.
  The bill that is before us now, the 1,990-page bill that Speaker 
Pelosi has brought forward, and we hear tomorrow there will be a 
manager's amendment that will be dropped or also added to this; so it's 
going to be more than 2,000 pages by the time we get to the end of the 
week, but in that bill there are the provisions that mandate that end-
of-life counseling.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. Well, I think that because of the concern and the 
outrage really of so many of the American people on that and 
particularly the seniors that were really put off by that, they have 
changed it to voluntary, and so it's a little bit better. But still 
that is something that shouldn't be in statute. If a family wants to go 
to the doctor and ask what are the things that we should do, but then 
to have the durable power of attorney so that the hospital, let's say 
somebody is in the hospital, they know what the wishes are of the 
patient as well as the family knows what the wishes of that patient 
are. But this should be done long before we get to that situation.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Reclaiming my time, that's one of those decisions 
that families make, that husbands and wives make, that parents and 
children make. It is not one that should be addressed with a ``shall'' 
or a ``may'' in a Federal statute. And we all know that this bill has 
over 3,400 new mandates in it.
  I yield to the gentlewoman.
  Mrs. BIGGERT. It is so important and it has really been something 
that has really hit the fan, and there has been a lot of rhetoric on 
this. But just take it as this is a decision to be made by the family, 
the children and the patient; and it should be done early in life.
  We have to make plans like that. It's not that something is never 
going to happen, but let's not mandate it or make it something that a 
doctor has to do and is paid to do as part of his job. The doctor as a 
counselor is fine, but the family should come to them and request that, 
not to say it in statute.
  And I'm concerned about the rationing. It makes you think of, well, 
you're going to float out on an iceberg or something when the end of 
life comes. And what we want is to have quality of care throughout 
everybody's life and to make sure that we have the ability to do that. 
The doctors are the ones that do deal with these issues, but they need 
to have the map as to what the family wants in that regard.
  So I think that women as the caregivers are the ones that have to 
make those decisions. And it's a tough decision to make, to bring up a 
subject early on that you really might not want to talk about; but it's 
something we all need to do, but to do it by our choice and not by a 
government-run plan telling us to do that.
  So with that let me just say a couple of things about women, and 
there's been a new poll out. In this poll that was released on October 
28, in short, women believe that their current health insurance is 
better for them and their families than what the Pelosi plan has 
proposed. And while a majority of women view health care reform

[[Page 26437]]

as an important issue, only 42 percent are satisfied with the proposal 
that is brought before Congress and only 38 percent would like to 
change their own insurance to a public option. In fact, while 48 
percent of women want slight changes to health care generally, 75 
percent of women want few to no changes to their own health care.
  That's kind of interesting. You talked about how I was on the 
Education and Labor Committee. And while we were marking up the bill, I 
had an amendment that said if you like the health care plan you have 
now, you can keep it, and that was voted down by the other side of the 
aisle unanimously.
  Women are also very concerned with costs. You know, women care about 
affordability, and they are concerned with the costs. And only 5 
percent of women believe that Congress should spend over $1 trillion on 
health care reform, which is the cost, and 45 percent of women would be 
less likely to support a candidate that votes in favor of such a costly 
health care bill.
  Women believe that health care reform is moving too fast, that 
Congress should slow down. Only 9 percent of women want reform 
legislation in the next few weeks. And we're looking at addressing this 
this week. Twenty percent would like reform by the end of 2009, and 43 
percent believe that Congress should pass a reform bill only when 
quality legislation is developed even if it means no deadline.
  So I think we have got a health care plan that if everybody thought 
it was a great plan, we would be passing it and we would have passed it 
in July. But this is now July, August, September, October, and now we 
are into November, and there still are such concerns by the American 
people on this.
  So I hope that we can slow down and really have a dialogue, a debate 
on this, and find common ground to find a bill that people would all 
get behind.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlewoman.
  I appreciate so much that you brought up the fact that they continue 
to say if you like what you have, you can keep it.
  The problem is you can't. Maybe you can keep it today or tomorrow or 
until the end of the year. But by the time you get to 2013, you're 
going to have to go through an exchange.
  I have got a list here that is 111 new bureaucracies that are created 
by the Speaker's health care bill, 111 new bureaucracies. There is 
going to be a health choices commissioner that is going to have over 60 
new directives on what kind of health care you can have. And you're 
going to have the exchange that has to approve the plan that your 
employer would possibly be able to offer. And if your employer's plan 
is not good enough, the employer gets an 8 percent tax.
  So it's a little bit of a stretch to say if you like what you have, 
you can keep it when the whole playing field is going to change within 
just a few years.
  And as you said so very well, women make those decisions. Seventy-
five percent of the women are very comfortable with what they have, and 
women want to be able to shop for a plan that is going to best meet the 
needs of their families.
  At this time I yield to Dr. Foxx, the gentlewoman from North 
Carolina, for her comments.
  Ms. FOXX. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for beginning the 
hour for us.
  We stand up here and we talk a lot about what's in this bill, and I 
know that many Americans wonder are we telling the truth or not. But as 
you pointed out, there is a provision in that bill that will do away 
with private health insurance policies beginning in 2013. And if people 
want to find that, they can find it on page 94, section 202(c). I heard 
when I came in you were talking about how to read the bill by going to 
your Web site. I think all of us have Web sites with links to the bill, 
and I'm assuming most people also have links to these page numbers and 
section numbers that will back up what we are saying.
  I think one of the best things that has come out of the debate that 
has been going on about this health care, and as our colleague from 
Illinois said earlier, if this was such a great idea, this bill would 
have been passed in July, as our colleagues across the aisle wanted. 
But it isn't a good idea, and it's been very contentious. But we point 
out to people what's in the bill, and people have been reading the 
bill.

                              {time}  2030

  I think that is a very healthy thing to do, and I hope people will 
continue to read the bill. I am a bit surprised, actually. The bill was 
introduced on Thursday, we didn't have session on Friday, and tonight 
when we had Special Orders and the Democrats had the first hour, I 
thought they would be here defending this bill and explaining to the 
American people why this is such a wonderful thing. And yet, they 
didn't show up. Here we are doing our best to explain to our fellow 
Americans what is wrong about this bill and why they shouldn't be 
supporting it. I have found a dearth of Democrats out here defending 
the bill and saying, Let me tell you on page 94 what is good, or on 
page 112. It seems to me, if they really liked this bill, they would be 
doing that. I know over time we have done that kind of thing.
  I want to say to my colleague from Tennessee how important I think it 
is to point out that there are going to be 111 new bureaucracies 
established by this bill. I am a small government conservative, and I 
have had the same experiences that my colleague from West Virginia has 
had. Everywhere I went this weekend, people said to me, Vote ``no'' on 
that health care bill. Do everything you can to stop that health care 
bill.
  I am not finding people who are saying to me vote for this. My mail 
is running about 9\1/2\ against it to 1. I think the reason is the 
American people, the average American, understands that increased 
government intrusion in our lives takes away our freedom. This country 
is the freest country in the world. We are the greatest country in the 
world because of that. But when you expand the Federal Government's 
power over our lives, that undermines our freedom. And Nancy Pelosi's 
Big Government health care bill is the single largest expansion of 
government that we have seen in over a generation. It is, I think, a 
threat to our freedoms. I believe the average American understands 
that.
  When I talk to school groups, I say to them the major difference 
between Democrats and Republicans is we believe that individuals can 
solve most of their problems. Yes, we need government. We need a police 
force. We need an Army. There are many things that we need. But very 
few things at the Federal level do we need. Republicans have figured 
this out. We have made proposals. We have not talked much about those 
tonight. I think we need to at least say that we have made these 
proposals that fit with what the American people want.
  They want to be able to buy insurance across State lines. They want 
to take a tax deduction for paying insurance premiums like their 
employer does. They want to be able to get into pools like my small 
business can join with other small businesses. We want to let the 
States come up with innovations. We have lots and lots of ideas like 
that that won't cost $1.4 trillion but will solve this problem for the 
approximately 10 million Americans who want health insurance but can't 
afford it.
  We are turning our whole country upside down to take care of 10 
million Americans who want insurance but can't afford it. We want to do 
that. What it is going to do, if the American people have any 
hesitation about what we are talking about in terms of where we are 
going with health care, we need to point out that it will allow the IRS 
to be monitoring small businesses and, ultimately, us as individuals. I 
don't know anybody in this country that wants to be dealing with the 
IRS. We know what a friendly group they are. And we know what is going 
to happen to those bureaucracies that take over our health care 
decisions. That's just the wrong way to go.
  We can beat this thing. We need the American people to be calling 
their

[[Page 26438]]

Members of Congress who are on the other side who are either undecided 
or have said that they are going to vote for it and say that this is 
not what we want. We don't want a further erosion of our freedoms. We 
want to remain the greatest country in the world.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding back, and I 
appreciate that she mentioned how States need to be able to innovate, 
how they handle the Medicaid payments that are there. This is so very 
important because they are the ones that are delivering these services. 
This bill would increase the eligibility for Medicaid to 150 percent of 
the Federal poverty level. Now, what this does is to shift that burden 
over to our States. It takes that burden from the Federal Government 
and places it squarely in the lap of our States.
  Now, most of our States have balanced budget amendments. Here we are 
handing them, and in my State of Tennessee, we know we have heard from 
our Governor's office that the expectation is this is going to cost us 
an extra $735 million per year. Every State around the country is 
looking to see what it would cost them. They know that by shifting that 
Medicaid burden, expanding that eligibility to 150 percent and then 
shifting that burden to the States, well, it may help them with 
budgeting, those that are trying to pass this bill and are looking for 
budget gimmicks and trying to say it is going to cost less than $1 
trillion. Well, that gimmickry might help them, but for the taxpayer 
who already has too much month left at the end of his money, what you 
are saying is get ready, your sales tax is going up. Your State 
property tax is going up. You are going to see State income taxes going 
up, and that is all because the Federal Government said, States get 
ready, it is coming to land in your lap.
  I recognize the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Ms. Fallin) about how this 
will affect the States.
  Ms. FALLIN. I thank the gentlelady from Tennessee.
  You are exactly right. I have heard from a lot of my State senators, 
representatives, and agencies in Oklahoma that if we pass a massive new 
Federal Government bureaucrat health care bill that has unfunded 
mandates, which this bill does, that those costs will be passed on down 
to the States, and there is only one way that you pay for those extra 
services and costs, and that would have to be through tax increases or 
cutting spending.
  A lot of States are experiencing budget shortfalls. In my State of 
Oklahoma, we have cut back services in our State. So, if we have more 
unfunded mandates upon our State government, whether it is through the 
expansion of Medicaid or whether it is through the $500 billion that is 
being proposed to cut seniors' and Medicare services or the taxes on 
medical devices or some of the services that will be eliminated, those 
costs get passed on down, and, ultimately, it will be the States that 
will be picking up those costs.
  I appreciate what Congresswoman Foxx said about taking away the 
freedom of choice and liberties and our Nation. Many people I have 
talked to are concerned about where is our Nation going. We seem to be 
looking more like a European nation where we have huge democracies and 
so much debt being piled on our children and grandchildren. Frankly, 
people are worried about the future and about our security, our 
economic security and national security, especially at a time when we 
are experiencing a recession and people are concerned about keeping 
their jobs, supporting their families, and making house payments. They 
are very concerned.
  I know some of the people I have been talking to, a lot of small 
business owners are very concerned about the proposed taxes that will 
be put onto the small businesses. We have actually had some 
congressional hearings with small business owners, and they have talked 
about how tough it is to get access to capital, to get loans, and how 
they have had to cut back employees and how revenues have dropped off. 
They tell us in congressional hearings if we pass another tax, as is 
being proposed, and it would affect small businesses, they will have to 
lay people off. And then if we have some type of government mandate to 
provide health insurance because that small business owner can't afford 
to provide that insurance to their small business employees, then they 
say they might just have to lay off people to provide for that 
insurance. Or if they had to pay that new tax, they will have to cut 
off some products or future plans to expand their businesses or drop 
the coverage they have and move toward the government plan, because 
they will pay the 8 percent tax. Getting back to your point as to 
eliminating some of our options in the private sector, if people start 
dropping the private sector insurance plans because they are seeing a 
shift to the government plans, then we will have less options.
  As I have visited people in Oklahoma, they have asked me several 
questions. They want to know is this health care reform bill that 
Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid in the Senate are proposing, is it going 
to lower costs. I can't say that it is going to lower cost. We are 
talking about almost a trillion dollars, debt and deficit. They were 
asking if their children will have more costs, more debt, more deficit 
piled on them, and I have to say I think the answer is yes.
  They are asking will this health care reform proposal offer them more 
choices or will it take away some of their say and being able to choose 
what kind of health insurance they want for their family. My analysis 
is that it is going to take away choices for those families.
  They are asking if it will make health insurance more affordable. 
Well, a lot of the estimates we are seeing, when you pile on over $800 
billion in new taxes, when you have mandates, when you have unfunded 
mandates, when you are rationing some of the care, it is not going to 
make health care more affordable.
  And then they are asking if the Federal Government is going to be 
more involved in decisionmaking for their health care choices. And 
according to this bill, it looks like there will be a Federal 
bureaucrat basically between the patient and the doctor.
  They want to know if this bill will lead to rationing of care. We 
have seen what has happened when other nations have implemented some 
type of government-run health care. It does lead to rationing of care. 
There are people who have died waiting to receive treatment. In Canada 
and Europe, it is well documented.
  So all of those questions that are being asked of me by my 
constituents, I can't prove to them that it will lower cost, that it 
will not increase the deficit, and that it will give us more choices. 
It appears to me that this is going exactly the opposite.
  I think what we have to tell the American people, there are lots of 
other health care pieces of legislation that we have been working on 
that would provide choice, that would lower costs, that would work on 
issues like portability, where you could keep your health insurance if 
you changed jobs, that would eliminate preexisting conditions so you 
don't lose coverage, which would have medical malpractice reform which 
is estimated to save health insurance costs, which would allow us to be 
able to pool together and lower our costs for small businesses. There 
is some great language that would allow work on preventive care and 
more education, those types of things.
  There are just all kinds of problems in this legislation that I think 
the American people are very concerned about, especially since we have 
been debating behind closed doors on this.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlelady, and the gentlelady is exactly 
right. Much of this has been done behind closed doors by our colleagues 
across the aisle, and many of the great ideas that have been brought 
forward that do stay focused on the patient have been brought forward 
by the Republicans in the House, whether it is the Republican Study 
Committee bill, Mike Rogers' bill, John Shadegg's bill, Paul Ryan's 
bill, any of the number of amendments, over a hundred amendments that 
we on Energy and Commerce had when we were marking

[[Page 26439]]

up the bill. So there are lots of good ideas on our side of the aisle.
  At this time I want to recognize the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. 
Bachmann) who has been so instrumental in helping to lead the debate on 
health care here in the House. I yield to her for her comments on the 
issue.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn). She has done an outstanding job leading this Special Order 
tonight, and I thank you for what you are doing.
  We have so many women in our conference that wanted to be here 
tonight, and they can't all be here. The women in our conference 
understand one thing, and it is that women in the United States 
overwhelmingly make the health care decisions not only for their 
families, not only for their children, not only for their parents, but 
quite often women run a lot of the H.R., the human resources offices as 
well in business after business.
  I think one thing that people in business are understanding is they 
are going to have fewer choices before them rather than more.
  What we have seen from the bill that the Speaker of the House 
released last Thursday, on page 92, I believe, is that by the year 
2013, no one will be able to purchase private insurance anymore. That's 
it. Now let that thought penetrate for a moment, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  2045

  If we have to be frozen in time and we can purchase no new private 
insurance after 2013, what will happen? What will happen to our 
choices? What will happen to the plans that we really have?
  Well, it's interesting; a lot of people haven't been waiting around, 
they've been doing studies. One group called The Levin Group showed 
that by looking at the health care that we have in front of us, in all 
likelihood about 114 million Americans will be thrown off the current 
health insurance plan they have and onto the government system, which 
means about 114 million Americans won't have the health care that the 
President said we would all be entitled to keep. And we remember what 
the President said, he said, If you like your current health care plan, 
no problem, you can keep it.
  The only problem is, that's just not so. If you take 114 million 
Americans, throw them off the health care they already like, well, then 
they're stuck being in the government's plan. That means fewer choices. 
And that means the women of America don't get to make the choices 
anymore, it's government.
  I think the thing that all American women really get out of this is 
that there is going to be an enormous hassle factor. There is a big 
hassle cost that's in all of this. That's what we women deal with, we 
deal with hassles--hassles with our jobs, hassles with the kids, 
hassles with trying to make the books balance, and now the biggest 
hassle of all, life and death decisions because if government literally 
controls the health care decisions from cradle to grave--because it 
would be every single American--that means the hassle cost goes way up. 
That's kind of the last thing we women need right now.
  Women are tired, we're burdened, we have so many things on our plate. 
And I think especially women who are senior citizens, because they're 
watching this debate, and they get that $500 billion is going to be cut 
out of Medicare. That's what we know--cut out, gone. So what that means 
is scarcity, and that means less. So we are all going to be paying a 
lot more, but we are all going to be getting a lot less. The simple 
fact is we can do so much better.
  The Republican women here know that there are many positive solutions 
that we can do. We can really do a lot better. I will be real brief, 
and I will end with one positive solution we could take.
  I am a former tax lawyer. Rather than government owning your health 
care and making all the decisions, or rather than your employer making 
the health care decisions for you, we change the tax code so that you, 
every American, gets to make your own health care decision. You own it, 
you make the decision, it's a wonderful thing. So you own it, you make 
the health care decision, and you get to take your own money, tax free, 
purchase the health care plan of your choice--you're not limited to 
what government says you buy, you buy any plan anywhere. Anything that 
we don't cover out of your own tax-free money you get to fully deduct 
on your income tax return. Have true lawsuit reform that costs billions 
of dollars. In fact, that covers 95 percent of Americans. For the 5 
percent who truly, through no fault of their own, can't afford health 
insurance, we can take care of them and we will take care of them, but 
we won't break the bank to do it.
  We have great solutions. Let's try that rather than burdening the 
American people, and especially women who don't need those burdens. And 
I yield back to the very kind gentlelady who's doing an outstanding job 
tonight, Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota for her good 
work on this issue and for being here with us tonight as we have 
brought forward the alternatives that are there, the good, solid, 
positive, free-market-oriented alternatives that are there from our 
conference and from the women in our conference. I thank everyone for 
joining us, and I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________