[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 26768-26775]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun) is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, our previous speaker went through 
a long list of Republican districts insinuating that Republicans wanted 
these people to die, it seemed to me.
  I'm a medical doctor. I've practiced medicine for almost four 
decades. I literally have given away hundreds of thousands of dollars 
of my own services with no compensation whatsoever to people who don't 
have health insurance. I'm joined tonight by my good friend and 
colleague, in fact, one of my mentors, Dr. Phil Gingrey, who is an OB/
GYN from Marietta, Georgia, and he and all the other physicians in this 
body on our side are very, very concerned about the future of our 
patients and about where we are going as a Nation.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, Republicans have offered 53 bills, fixing to be 
54 bills with the Republican Conference's bill, that will literally 
lower the cost of health care, make it more affordable for all 
Americans.
  Our bill will not put people out of work like the Pelosi health 
insurance bill that we are going to be voting on very shortly. In fact, 
it's been estimated by the experts, in fact, Barack Obama's own 
economic adviser, that 5.5 million people are going to lose their jobs 
because of the Pelosi health care bill. Mr. Speaker, 5.5 million 
Americans are going to lose their job that they have today because the 
Democrats want to force down the throats of the American people a 
health insurance bill that's not about health care, Mr. Speaker. It's 
about power. It's about control. It's about taking over one-sixth of 
our economy.
  There are many solutions that Democrats and Republicans alike could 
embrace. In fact, I've challenged many times one on one and I've 
challenged publicly and I challenge today Democrats to take a bill that 
I will give them--they can put their name on it, take credit for it--
that will do four things: One is across-State purchasing for 
individuals and businesses to be able to buy insurance wherever they 
can find it cheaper in whatever State. The second issue is to have 
association pools where individuals can come together in an 
association, and that association can offer anybody that is affiliated 
with it a health care insurance package or multiple insurance packages 
that they would have their choice of purchasing. The third thing is to 
have some stimulation of the States to develop some high-risk pools. In 
fact, there are several States that have already done this, and they've 
been very successful in covering patients with preexisting conditions 
and high-risk medical conditions. And the fourth thing is to have a 100 
percent deductibility for all health care expenses for everybody in 
this country.
  Right now businesses get to deduct their health insurance that they 
provide, the costs anyway. They deduct the costs of the health 
insurance that they provide to their employees. The employees can get 
that health insurance as a tax-free benefit, and whatever they pay into 
it is not taxed. But a small business man or woman, an individual has 
to pay taxes on their money. They have to buy it with after-tax 
dollars. That makes it so expensive for individuals and small 
businesses to be able to buy insurance.
  But if a Democrat will pick up that bill and convince Ms. Pelosi to 
allow us to have a debate on this floor, I will just about guarantee 
that 177, and I think that's what we have now on our side, 177 
Republicans will cosponsor and vote for that bill and the majority of 
Democrats will vote for that bill and we will pass it into law.
  It will make health care affordable for everybody. It won't raise 
taxes. It will not increase the deficit. It will not do anything to 
harm our economy. And we could pass that bill. We could pass that bill 
this week.
  I challenge Democrats to take the bill. I will give them the 
language. I'll give them the bill. All they have to do is write their 
name into it. I will be the first Republican cosponsor. They'll drop it 
in the hopper, and we will have health care insurance financing reform 
that will make sense on an economic basis. It will put market-based 
principles into the health care financing system.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, we hear people talk, particularly on the 
Democratic side, about health care as if it's one big monolithic theme, 
that if people don't have health insurance, they don't have

[[Page 26769]]

health care. That's hogwash. It's just balderdash. It's hogwash from 
the first order. It's not true.
  I've treated those people. I'm also on the foundation board for St. 
Mary's Hospital in Athens, Georgia. St. Mary's Hospital is a Catholic 
East Hospital, and in that hospital the doctors, the nurses, physical 
therapy people, all the allied health personnel, the hospital itself, 
treat people without insurance.
  You go to any emergency room in this country, Mr. Speaker, and it's 
filled with people that do not have insurance. In fact, every single 
individual in this country can walk into any emergency room in this 
country with an emergency condition and can be seen and treated. 
Everyone. Every single person in this country has access to health care 
today.
  Not everybody owns insurance, that's true. Why? Insurance has become 
very, very expensive. I don't think there is a single person, Mr. 
Speaker, in this body that doesn't want to do something to help people 
to be able to afford insurance.
  But we're going to destroy our economy. We're going to destroy our 
economy because we are going to spend a trillion, $1\1/2\ trillion, $2 
trillion, $3 trillion on this government takeover of the health care 
industry in America. It's going to destroy our economy. It's going to 
increase the debt, Mr. Speaker, markedly increase the debt.
  When President Obama came and spoke in the Speaker's podium to a 
joint session of Congress, Senate and House Members were here. I was 
sitting right back there that night. Mr. Speaker, the only person who 
spoke the truth that night was Joe Wilson. Joe Wilson spoke the truth 
that night. Mr. Speaker, the Pelosi health care bill is going to be 
disastrous.
  When I graduated from medical school, I took the Hippocratic Oath. It 
said, ``do no harm.'' Mr. Speaker, the Pelosi health insurance bill is 
going to do a lot of harm. In fact, people on Medicare right now today 
are going to be denied lifesaving treatments, lifesaving procedures.
  Medicare already today rations care. It tells me and my colleagues 
when we can put patients in the hospital, how long they can stay there, 
what services they'll pay for.
  Mr. Speaker, we're going to have more rationing of care under the 
Pelosi health insurance bill. Why? The Pelosi health insurance bill is 
going to destroy Medicare Advantage, which there are millions of 
Medicare recipients on Medicare Advantage today. It's going to destroy 
Medicare Advantage, and it's going to move those people into the 
regular Medicare system. We're going to put more people on Medicare. 
Plus we're cutting the dollars spent on Medicare by $500 billion. Five 
hundred billion, a half a trillion dollars is going to be cut out of 
Medicare.

                              {time}  2145

  You're going to put more people on and cut the financing of Medicare.
  What does that mean? They're going to have to ration care. And, in 
fact, the bill itself says that the health care czar--it's called a 
commissioner in the bill--can establish waiting lists and rationing of 
care. The bill itself says that. And it's going to absolutely be done. 
Plus right now today, also, Mr. Speaker, you have doctors all over the 
country that cannot afford to see Medicare patients anymore. They want 
to, they're trying to, but they can't afford to, because Medicare today 
pays doctors and pays hospitals less than it costs them to give the 
service. I repeat that. Medicare pays doctors and hospitals less today 
than it costs to deliver the service.
  Now if we cut $500 billion out of Medicare and we put more people on 
Medicare, what's going to be the result? Not only is it going to be 
rationing of care and long waiting lines, Mr. Speaker, rural hospitals 
all over this country are going to go out of business. The long-term 
result is going to be, we'll have just a few big regional hospitals 
that are going to be extremely expensive for everybody; and small rural 
hospitals, small rural communities, even mid size rural communities, 
are going to be without hospitals, without doctors, without health care 
in their community.
  That's what the Pelosi bill is going to do. This is not about health 
care with the Pelosi insurance bill. It's about power and control, and 
it's going to destroy America.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Yes, I will be glad to yield. I welcome my good 
friend from Michigan, Mr. Pete Hoekstra, who has been a great spokesman 
about these issues.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague for yielding and I think you made 
a great point. It's not about the quality and the quantity of health 
care; it's about control. That's why you see such a difference between 
the Republican proposal and the Democrat proposal. Because the Democrat 
proposal says we're going to totally wipe, out over a period of time, 
private sector health insurance and we're going to take the freedom 
that the American people have to direct their insurance, to direct 
their health care, and we're going to move it over and we're going to 
put that responsibility, that authority and that control in the Federal 
Government.
  This is their bill, but that's not all of it. That's their bill. This 
is their bill. This is almost all of it. I don't have the last 40 pages 
that the Speaker added to it last night. But when you're going to take 
over health care and move responsibility from you and me and our 
constituents and move it to government, it takes you 2,000 pages to 
describe what you're going to do, create the 3,000 times where it says 
the commissioner shall, will or must, because those are new decisions 
that the Federal Government is going to make and we're not going to 
make.
  If you want to fix health care and address the problems, this is all 
you really need. That's the Republican proposal.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That's the Republican bill.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. The Republican proposal says we want to do tort reform, 
we want to deal with preexisting conditions, we want to do some stuff 
with competition and those types of things.
  This fixes health care; takes steps toward improving and fixing the 
problems that we have identified. This creates massive government 
bureaucracies. This represents a loss of freedom. And this says we're 
going to fix the problems that are out there.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, I want to bring up a point 
just to re-approach something that you brought up that I think the 
American people need to understand, Mr. Speaker. In that humongous bill 
that the gentleman from Michigan has his hands on right there, the 
Pelosi health insurance bill, in that bill it says that by 2013, no one 
can sell private insurance to individuals or businesses.
  Remember when we heard from the President that if you have health 
insurance and you like it, you can keep it? That's a bald-faced lie, 
because the bill itself says that after 2013, no one--no one--can sell 
private insurance to individuals and small businesses.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. They've got to be approved by this new bureaucracy, the 
czar.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That's right.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. So what we've got is this 2,000 pages, but it's still 
an outline. This outline creates that which is going to make all of the 
decisions. And when you take a look at all the bureaucracy and 
paperwork that's going to come out of here, this is only the beginning. 
This is not the end. This is the beginning of government-run health 
care in America.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I will reclaim my time.
  Our previous speaker was just saying that he wanted universal health 
care. The President himself has said he wants universal health care. 
Many of the Democrats have said they want universal health care. What 
does that mean? That means that the government runs all the health 
care, the socialized medicine, one single insurance company in America, 
and that's the Federal Government.
  I now want to yield to my dear friend, Dr. Phil Gingrey, an OB-GYN, 
graduate of the Medical College of Georgia. We were there at the same 
time, my medical school alma mater

[[Page 26770]]

and his, too. Unfortunately, he went to the North Avenue Trade School, 
Georgia Tech, where I went to the University of Georgia. Dr. Gingrey 
has been a leader on this issue here, and I will yield to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate Dr. Broun 
yielding to me. And in reference to the gentleman from Michigan, 
Representative Hoekstra, who just showed that 2,000-page bill and all 
the bureaucracy that's involved in that, I think it's appropriate for 
our colleagues to look at this chart that I have here at the desk that 
Representative Hoekstra is helping me hold; and it shows actually the 
bureaucracy involved in H.R. 3200. That was about a 1,200-page bill. 
Now the Pelosi health care reform that the Representative from Michigan 
just showed us, the 2,000-page monstrosity, these 53 bureaucrats, 
czarocrats, czarinas, whatever, have grown to about 150. And this is 
what it takes to grow a bureaucracy to have a Federal Government 
complete takeover of one-sixth of our economy.
  And I just think it's appropriate, Mr. Speaker, for all of our 
Members on both sides of the aisle to understand where the almost $1.1 
trillion is going to in this takeover of our health care system. You've 
got to feed all these animals in this bureaucracy, every one of these 
czars.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Does the gentleman mean it's not all going to health 
care?
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. The gentleman from Michigan is absolutely 
right. It is not all going to health care. And we are proud to be able 
to present information this evening, Mr. Speaker, a letter from the 
Congressional Budget Office to Leader Boehner, the Honorable John 
Boehner, the minority leader of the House, in regard to the Republican 
alternative.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, the Republican alternative 
that the Democrats say we don't have, but we do, CBO has already scored 
our alternative. Actually we've got 54 alternatives, but this is one. 
This is one that the conference, Mr. Boehner and the whole Republican 
Conference, is introducing; and CBO has literally scored the Republican 
alternative that the Democrats deny we have, and it's that small bill 
right there on the desk in front of the gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I am holding, as the gentleman said, Mr. 
Speaker, the letter from the Director of the Congressional Budget 
Office, Mr. Doug Elmendorf, who says that this Party of No, this 
Republican Party of No, who has no alternatives, no plan, well, 
surprisingly, we have a letter from the Congressional Budget Office 
that says this Party of No has a plan that will actually reduce health 
insurance premiums by 10 percent across the board.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Say that again, please.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. And also over a 10-year period of time, saves 
something like $60 billion.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Please repeat that.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I just want to say that the Republican 
alternative that we have, and we can talk about some of the specifics 
of that as we go on tonight in this hour. Tort reform obviously is one 
of them; allowing people to buy insurance across State lines is one of 
them; creating high risk pools within the States is another. Again, 
there are a number of us here on the floor tonight and we can talk 
about this. But, overall, the CBO report, the all-important, 
nonpartisan CBO report, says that it reduces the cost of health 
insurance premiums 10 percent across the board and saves $61 billion 
from our deficit over the next 10 years.
  Our plan works, and it doesn't break the bank. Their plan breaks the 
bank, and it is an Edsel. They have paid for an Edsel.
  I will yield back to the gentleman that's controlling the time, but 
it's a pleasure to bring these facts to my colleagues tonight.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank my friend, Dr. Gingrey from Georgia, 
for bringing that up. If you wouldn't mind, let's talk about some of 
the specifics, along with Mr. Hoekstra.
  But I want to yield to my good friend, Steve King from Iowa, who has 
been very diligent in trying to bring information. In Hosea 4:6 we 
read, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
  The American people really don't have the knowledge about this health 
care bill that Nancy Pelosi has presented that's going to really 
destroy our economy. It's going to destroy jobs. It's going to destroy 
a lot of things. Mr. King from Iowa has been very vigilant in trying to 
inform the American people and I thank you, sir, for your effort. I 
will be glad to yield to you, sir.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for heading up 
this Special Order tonight and for covering my back every time that I 
need it covered. It's a strong sense of duty that he has and a sense of 
friendship that I feel, and I appreciate it.
  I listened to the other doctor from Georgia who showed our poster a 
little bit earlier, that poster with all of those colored new Federal 
agencies. That's enough to scare the living daylights out of anybody. 
But this bill that the gentleman from Michigan has just showed, these 
1,990 pages plus 40, if you can stack them all up together, so it's 
over 2,000 pages. But in that are now, not as the colored chart 
originally showed was 32 new agencies and some added up to 54, but this 
2,000-page bill is 111 new agencies.
  I have here a list of them. I'm not going to read them all off 
because it would put me to sleep before I got to the bottom, but I 
highlighted just a few of them to give us a sense of what kind of 
government bureaucracy and empire building would be launched if the 
Speaker has her way and socialized medicine is imposed upon America in 
the form of this bill.
  H.R. 3962 has in it a program of administrative simplification. So we 
have to have a government agency to simplify the government 
bureaucracy. That's one of those that would be from George Orwell. 
Another one, Health Choices Administration. It is the scariest. That 
director of the Health Choices Administration becomes the commissar-
isioner that writes all the new rules for everybody's health insurance 
policy.
  Then you have the Qualified Health Benefits Plan ombudsman. Well, 
that's the person that has to be in between the regular person and the 
government, because the government will be so complicated that a 
regular person can't deal with the government. That's why they put an 
ombudsman in here.
  Then you have the Health Insurance Exchange. That's where every new 
health insurance policy would have to qualify. There is not a single 
policy out of the 100,000 that are available for purchase in America 
today that are issued by 1,300 companies in America that the President 
of the United States, the Speaker of the House or the Majority Leader 
in the United States Senate can point to and say, that policy will be 
available in 2013 if a bill passes that goes to the President's desk, 
because they all would have to comply with new rules to be written 
later.

                              {time}  2200

  Then you have program for technical assistance to employees of small 
businesses buying exchange coverage. Well, that gives me confidence, 
having something that long.
  Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund, where the money goes for the 
new health insurance exchange.
  State-based health insurance exchanges.
  Public health insurance option.
  Oh, yes, the ombudsman for public health insurance option because no 
regular person could possibly deal with the public health people. They 
have to have an intermediary called an ombudsman.
  The list goes on. Demonstration programs, Center for Comparative 
Effectiveness Research, Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission 
to run the center.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Let me reclaim my time because you have hit 
something that we need to flesh out here a little bit. Comparative 
effectiveness research, now Dr. Gingrey and I know, as medical doctors, 
we look at comparative effectiveness for different treatment 
modalities. For instance, for

[[Page 26771]]

prostate surgery, does surgery work better than chemotherapy or 
radiation therapy, or does the combination of one or both or all three 
work best? That is the kind of comparative effectiveness we do in 
medicine.
  But what this comparative effectiveness research is going to do, it 
is going to look at how to spend these limited dollars that the Federal 
Government is going to take away from small business and individuals 
through increased taxes on the middle class, increased taxes on small 
business that is going to rob people of their jobs, they are going to 
take the effectiveness of spending those dollars on a young person 
versus an old person. And the old person is going to get the short end 
of that stick. That is the reason why seniors all over this country are 
fearful. And they should be, rightfully so, because they are going to 
be denied treatments. They are going to have rationing of care.
  I see Mr. Hoekstra is chomping at the bit. He wants to jump in here. 
I yield to Mr. Hoekstra.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is kind of interesting. We did a telephone town hall 
tonight, and we had a thousand, 1,200 people on the phone. People were 
asking, When is this bill going to come up?
  And we say right now the plan is to have it come up on Saturday.
  They say, Why?
  The Senate has now said they are not going to vote on this bill, or 
they are not going to vote on health care reform until when? I think 
the majority leader has said in the Senate they are not going to do 
this until after the first of the year.
  So we have 1,990 pages, plus 40, we are supposed to not only read 
this but understand it in 7 days, and we will not have any opportunity 
to go back to our constituents and say, What do you think of this? Or 
explain it to them and explain the difference between the two bills, 
the difference in approaches, government takeover of health care, 
freedom for you and more opportunity for you to select your health 
care.
  These folks, they are outraged, saying why don't you take an extra 
week? Why don't you taken an extra 2 weeks? We are supposed to be home 
next week for Veterans Day, why not schedule a whole series of town 
hall meetings? We saw some of the impact of this yesterday where people 
from around the country sent a clear message to the White House and to 
the leadership of this Congress saying we don't like the arrogance with 
which Washington is treating our concerns and our issues. This stuff, 
we are not going to have an opportunity to provide an insight or a 
perspective on these bills to our Representatives in Congress. They are 
just going to ram this through.
  The end result is they sent a clear message and they sent it across 
the country. They sent it in Virginia and New Jersey and in Michigan, 
all across the country, saying if this is the change that came as a 
result of the elections last year, we sure don't like it and there is 
an arrogance that is saying we are going to force this down Congress. 
We are going to force this on the American people without providing 
them with the opportunity to provide feedback.
  This is why my colleague and all of us are excited about this 
process, saying if we can't take this bill to the American people, the 
American people are going to come to Washington tomorrow, and I think 
my colleague from Iowa wants to talk about this house call that 
hopefully the American people will participate in tomorrow.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I will yield to Mr. King
  cause he and Michele Bachmann have been right at the beginning of the 
discussion about the house call on Congress. I am excited about that. 
As a medical doctor, I made house calls full time. I went to see my 
patients at their home, at work, wherever they needed to me to come. I 
did that from 2002 until 2007 I was elected to Congress, so for 5 years 
I was doing house calls full time trying to take care of the needs of 
my patients. We are asking people to make a house call on this House. 
It is absolutely critical.
  I yield to Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  It works like this. This is the invitation to the American people. 
There are American people up and down the Eastern Seaboard, there are 
Americans who have already converged into this city. They are walking 
around the Capitol grounds tonight. They are here to defend their 
freedom to own their own health insurance policy, the one of their 
choice.
  What we have seen happen is from the first part of August, Members of 
Congress deployed out across this country and did hundreds and hundreds 
of town hall meetings, and hundreds of thousands of people came, filled 
those meetings up and said I want my freedom. I don't want you taking 
away my health insurance policy. Eighty-five percent of the people in 
America are happy with the policy they have. But that was August. This 
is November. The people that have come back to serve in this House have 
been caught in the echo chamber, in the Speaker's pressure chamber that 
says vote for socialized medicine and a national health care act. What 
changes their mind is when they have to look in the eyes of regular 
American people, and what we have asked is that America come to this 
Capitol, fill up these Capitol grounds, fill up this building, be here 
for a press conference at noon tomorrow over on the West Side of the 
steps of the Capitol, and we will have there these Members of Congress 
that are here tonight, Michele Bachmann, Tom Price, Scott Garrett, 
Michael Burgess, and others, along with Mark Levin, Jon Voight, the 
actor, and many others. This will be a gathering where we talk about 
how we preserve our freedom at noon tomorrow on the West steps of the 
Capitol, and stay on the Hill because you will taken the Hill, and you 
have to hold it until this bill gets pulled down.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. As we were meeting in a Member's office last night we 
got a call, and it was two people from Oregon saying, We are coming. We 
will be there on Thursday. So late Tuesday night, they were wondering 
what can we do to have an impact.
  I think another one of our colleagues reported, because we really 
don't know how many people are going to show up tomorrow. Yesterday he 
said there are 10 buses coming from New Jersey. Tonight he said 24 
buses are coming from his congressional district in New Jersey tomorrow 
to be here with us. We don't know exactly what is going to happen, but 
it is a clear indication that in 4 or 5 days, we have touched people 
around the country who want to come to this press conference or some 
call it a rally, or whatever. But it is a press conference.
  We have touched people from around the country. They came here in 
August. They came for the tea party and those types of things. This is 
another opportunity to express our opinion, and hopefully by coming to 
the Capitol and meeting with our Representatives, they will finally get 
the message that we want freedom, we don't want government health care.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I will reclaim my time here. I have been trying 
to gear up people all over the country, trying to light grass fires 
with grass root support against the Pelosi health care bill. In fact, I 
carry a copy of the Constitution in my pocket.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, I don't think that is the 
Constitution. That can't be the Constitution. I mean, if that is the 
framework for how we run this country, if it takes 1,990 pages to do 
health care, it ought to take at least 20,000 pages to be the 
Constitution. How many pages are in the Constitution?
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. This is not only the full text of the 
Constitution, but it is every single amendment that has ever been made 
to the Constitution, plus it has the entire text of the Declaration of 
Independence in this little book.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. When you are talking about freedom, it doesn't take 
very many pages, does it?
  How many pages?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Forty-six pages.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I think the point is made when you are talking about 
freedom, it doesn't take a lot of pages. When you are talking about 
government control, it takes a lot of pages and a lot of bureaucracy.

[[Page 26772]]

  I thank the gentleman. You made a great point.

                              {time}  2210

  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, I point out, too, with this document, the 
beginning of this document starts with three very powerful words, ``We 
the People.'' It is time for America to take this country back, to take 
their freedom back, to fight for liberty. And that's what this House 
call on Congress is all about is for the people to come here and take 
America back, to make sure that they have good quality health care 
continuing, and lower the cost of insurance so that people can afford 
insurance.
  We have been joined tonight by another good friend of ours, a 
freshman Member that came in with me. He was elected in a special 
election when I was in the last Congress, so he is serving his second 
term now as I am, Mr. Steve Scalise from New Orleans, Louisiana. But he 
has been actively trying to inform the people about how awful this is.
  I thank you for joining us, and I yield to you, Mr. Scalise.
  Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding and for 
taking leadership in tonight's discussion that we're having, this House 
call, as we're trying to continue to go through this debate on health 
care.
  When you showed that important document--what I think is the second 
most important document ever written since the Bible--the U.S. 
Constitution starts with those powerful words in the preamble, ``We the 
People.'' Last night, we heard what we the people said in those two 
elections in both the State of Virginia and the State of New Jersey, 
where the people very vocally said they don't want this kind of rampage 
to socialism, they don't want this massive government takeover of all 
aspects of their life when they spoke in those two elections last 
night. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has not heard that same message.
  When we talk about health care, all of us agree we need to reform 
things that are broken in health care, but I think those of us here 
tonight would all also recognize that many things about health care in 
this country make this the best medical care system in the world with 
some problems, and so you should go and fix those problems. And what is 
Speaker Pelosi's answer? It's a 1,990-page government takeover of 
health care.
  We have gone through and we have broken this bill down, and we have 
seen so many bad things that would actually make health care worse. 
First of all, we have seen $700 billion in new taxes on American small 
businesses and families. We've seen $500 billion in cuts to Medicare in 
this bill. And if you go through this bill, with all of the regulations 
and the czars and the different things that take away components of 
health care that people like and want, one thing we do see is the real 
cost of this bill. It adds up, with over $1 trillion of new spending. 
The real cost of this bill is over $530 million per page.
  When you look at a bill this big, 1,990 pages, you know, people ask 
me, what is $1 billion? When you hear of all the ridiculous, outrageous 
spending in Washington and trillions of dollars being thrown around 
left and right, people say, What is $1 billion? Well, you can just take 
pages one and two of Speaker Pelosi's bill. At $530 million a page, 
these first two pages right here add up to over $1 billion in spending 
on health care that doesn't do anything to improve health care.
  What we have done is we have gone through and come up with a 
commonsense alternative. It is going to be filed in response to this 
bill, but it's a representation of legislation we have been pushing for 
months to actually fix the problems in health care. And those problems 
are:
  Preexisting conditions. We would all agree that it's not fair that 
somebody is discriminated against because they have a preexisting 
condition. We address that in our bill.
  People should be able to have portability so that if they leave a 
job, they can take their health care with them. We address that in our 
bill.
  We should have commonsense medical liability reform so that people 
don't have to go through all these invasive tests, as you know, Doctor, 
that people have to go through where about one-third of all the tests 
and procedures that are run are just strictly defending against 
frivolous lawsuits.
  And then you look at this bill, the 1990-page bill, this could be 
called the ``trial lawyer protection act'' because there's not one page 
dedicated to commonsense legal reforms. So we save hundreds of millions 
of dollars to lower the cost of health care in our bill. In fact, the 
CBO has now scored our bill and said that it would reduce health care 
premiums by at least 10 percent and save billions of dollars in 
deficits that we wouldn't have to pass on to our future generations.
  So our bill lowers the cost. It addresses preexisting conditions. It 
allows portability and buying across State lines, and it lowers the 
cost of health care while lowering the deficit. Their bill has $700 
billion in new taxes. It has $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and it 
makes health care in this country worse. Two very different approaches 
to this health care issue.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman would yield, what is the other 
document in front of the gentleman here?
  Mr. SCALISE. And as my friend from Michigan points out, we do have 
another document here, and that is the United States Constitution. I 
think the most dramatic contrast is when you take Speaker Pelosi's 
approach to health care--20 pounds, by the way, and I've carried this 
thing around enough to know it is about 20 pounds of paper--and yet you 
take the U.S. Constitution and contrast it to this massive document of 
1,990 pages--and this is the founding document of our country--we don't 
need a government takeover of health care. We need to fix the problems 
that are broken. We don't need to break all the things that make 
medical care great in this country.
  That is why I thank you for your leadership. We need to continue this 
debate and encourage the American people to stay engaged because the 
American people want the problems fixed, but they don't want the 
government--that couldn't even run a Cash for Clunkers program 
properly--to be taking over their health care and interfering in that 
relationship between the doctor and the patient.
  I yield back.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I will reclaim my time, and then I will yield 
to you, Mr. King, in just a moment.
  Frankly, if you look at that document, the small one that you just 
dropped down, the Constitution of the United States, you won't find any 
constitutional authority in that document--none--where the Federal 
Government has the authority, where we in Congress have the authority 
to take over the health care system of America. There is absolutely 
zero constitutional authority for that big bill, none.
  But I also want to remind the people in America that this is not 
about health care. That bill is really not about health care either. 
It's about power and control, and it's about health insurance. It is 
creating a big government insurance company that is going to be 
subsidized by taxpayers. The bill itself is going to pay for 
abortions--taxpayers are going to be paying for abortions. The bill 
itself is going to give taxpayer-funded free health insurance to 
illegal aliens in this country.
  We have tried, as Republicans, to change those in that humongous, 
outrageous bill. The Democrats have over and over again blocked every 
attempt we've put forward to try to make at least a little modicum of 
sense to that bill, and they blocked it over and over again.
  It's about power. It's about control. It's about establishing a 
government insurance program that's going to take people's choices 
away. It's going to take their liberty away. It's going to take jobs 
away. It's going to take money away.
  I yield to Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Before the gentleman from Louisiana gets off the 
floor, I wanted to just make a point in all fairness to the very sharp 
attorney from down there in Cajun country

[[Page 26773]]

whose hospitality I have enjoyed. There is a little bit of a 
technicality in the presentation, and that is that the Pelosi bill 
actually does address some tort reform by establishing some new grant 
programs at the State level. But the caveat is that it is conditional 
to--those laws that they might set up at the State level can't limit 
attorneys' fees and they can't impose caps on damages. So if you can't 
cap damages and you can't limit attorneys' fees, then simply there 
can't be reform, and this is more gobbledygook Orwellian speak. It is 
in the bill, a matter of technicality. But functionally, I agree with 
the gentleman from Louisiana. I wanted to make that point.
  Mr. SCALISE. If my friend from Iowa would yield through my friend 
from Georgia, that's one of the reasons we call this in some ways the 
``no trial lawyer left behind act,'' because this gives a protection to 
trial lawyers so that they can continue to raise up the cost of health 
care by forcing doctors to run all of these tests that they know they 
don't have to run for the health of patients. And all of us patients 
have to endure those tests. We have to pay for those tests, not because 
it's better for our health, but because those doctors are concerned 
that they're going to be faced with these frivolous lawsuits that we 
protect in our bill. And in fact, they prohibit in their bill those 
protections to patients.
  So that's why their bill does so many invasive things. It protects 
the trial lawyers, and it prevents us from trying to address those 
issues that would actually lower the cost of health care, which is why 
we're addressing it in our bill. Unfortunately, they're blocking it in 
theirs.
  And I yield back.

                              {time}  2220

  Mr. KING of Iowa. I appreciate the clarification.
  I would point out that the cost of medical liability and the 
litigation and the defensive medicine is put at 8\1/2\ percent of the 
overall cost of health care in America by the health insurance 
underwriters. That is a low number compared to some of the other 
estimates, but the simple multiplier is $203 billion a year, or over $2 
trillion over the course of this bill over 10 years, that would go to 
the trial lawyers and to the premiums and to the defensive medicine.
  That's just one of the reasons we've got to come in, and we, the 
people, have to assert ourselves tomorrow at noon at this Capitol 
Building. The press conference will be on the west steps. It's a House 
call. The American people are here. Some are here now. Many are on 
their way. There will be many here tomorrow who will be surrounding 
this Capitol and filling up the grounds. They will be claiming their 
freedom, and they will be making their opinions known to these Members 
of Congress who are hanging in the middle and who have maybe decided 
that they are a little more afraid of the Speaker than they are of 
their constituents, but they like their jobs.
  We know that August was effective and that early September was 
effective, but the energy has gone down. It gets wound up tomorrow, Mr. 
Speaker. It gets wound up to the maximum here tomorrow.
  I'm going to ask people: Come. Come up on this Hill. You take this 
Hill. Hold this Hill, and don't give it up until this socialized 
medicine bill is pulled down.
  I yield back.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. In fact, I will reclaim my time.
  Mr. Speaker, a lot of people in this country may be saying, I can't 
do it. Congressman King from Iowa suggests that, but I can't come to 
Washington tomorrow. They may ask what could they do.
  What I've told people, Mr. Speaker--to many people, I've told them, 
What you can do is you can contact your Congressmen at home. You can 
contact their district offices. You can go to the U.S. Senators' State 
offices. You can visit them. I suggest that people at home go at noon 
tomorrow to their Congressmen's offices and say ``no'' to the Pelosi 
health insurance bill, ``no'' to the government takeover of health 
insurance.
  Maybe you're working and can't do that, Mr. Speaker. What I suggest 
to folks is that they get on the telephone and call their Congressmen's 
offices here in Washington. Call the Congressmen's offices in their 
districts. Email them. Fax them. Contact them somehow.
  I've reminded people over and over again that former U.S. Senator 
Everett Dirksen said, when he feels the heat, he sees the light. When 
he feels the heat, he sees the light. Now, what is he saying there?
  What he's saying is that, when he's going in one direction and he 
gets all of these phone calls, letters, faxes, emails--there weren't 
emails when Everett Dirksen was around, but when he gets these contacts 
from his constituents--because Members of Congress want to be reelected 
usually, and those contacts say, Buster, you're heading in the wrong 
direction. Suddenly, they start seeing the light and saying, Maybe I 
ought to listen to the people who've elected me, and maybe I ought to 
go in a different direction.
  So it's important for the American people, Mr. Speaker, to contact 
their Members of Congress and to tell their Congressmen that they do 
not want a government takeover of their health insurance, that they 
don't want the destruction of the health care system in America. It's 
absolutely critical, Mr. Speaker, for the American people to get 
actively engaged in taking America back and in making sure that we 
don't destroy their health care insurance and the health care system.
  Mr. Hoekstra is sitting there, just jumping around, wanting to speak, 
so I'll yield to Mr. Hoekstra.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague, and I thank him for sharing his 
copy of the Constitution. We made the point that the Constitution 
establishing this Nation and the amendments to the Constitution are 44 
pages. This is 1,990 pages, but I think more powerful is what this 
document says.
  When you are protecting freedom, it doesn't take a lot of words. When 
you're limiting government, it doesn't take a lot of words. Think about 
the difference. This document, the Pelosi health care document, I 
think, over 3,000 times says ``the commissioner shall,'' ``the 
commissioner will,'' ``the commissioner may.'' That's all losing 
authority.
  If you take a look at the Constitution and if you read what the 
Constitution says, the Constitution puts limits on what government will 
do, and it protects individual rights. Here it says that Congress shall 
make no law a limitation on us--not on the people.
  This expands government.
  Shall not be infringed. No soldier shall without the consent. The 
right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches. No 
person shall nor shall private property be taken. The accused shall 
enjoy. This. This document. It protects the American people from 
invasive and from overintrusive government. That's what the Founding 
Fathers thought.
  They would be horrified by this bill to see that the commissioner 
shall develop the health care plans that you and I will have the 
opportunity to choose from. The commissioner shall establish penalties 
for those people who don't buy insurance. The commissioner shall 
develop this. The ombudsman shall do this. There are no limitations on 
government in here. This is all about the expansion of government, and 
our Founding Fathers were all about limiting government. This is night 
and day. This is 44 pages guaranteeing our freedoms. This is 1,990 
pages taking freedoms away.
  Many have called and said, Congressman, is this actually 
constitutional?
  Maybe they'll find a court that says this is constitutional; but in 
the spirit of the Founding Fathers, they would have been horrified by 
what this document does and how it limits individual American freedoms.
  We'll have to take a look and see if we can't--although, I think the 
people who will be at our House call tomorrow understand this document, 
and they understand the night and day difference between this document 
and what Speaker Pelosi is trying to do here with this document in that 
this

[[Page 26774]]

shreds the Constitution. It shreds personal freedom. It gives power to 
Washington and bureaucracies and, in one vote, 16-18 percent of the 
economy. That amount of freedom moves from our constituents, and it 
moves to Washington, D.C. It goes flying right through this House, and 
it goes right into unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
  I yield back.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I'll reclaim my time.
  In fact, those unelected bureaucrats are going to stand right between 
every patient in this country and their doctors. In fact, it's 
unelected bureaucrats appointed by the President who are going to be 
part of this health care czar panel, as I call it. The commissioner 
will be appointed and will go through confirmation by the Senate, but 
the panel will not. They're going to make decisions about every single 
health care insurance policy in this country.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the American people need to understand very clearly: 
if they have insurance today that they like, they can forget it because 
it's going to be thrown out. The health care czar is going to establish 
every single health insurance policy in America.
  The President, himself, has said his desire, his ultimate goal, is to 
completely take over the whole of the health care system and to put it 
into one single health insurance program, administered by government 
bureaucrats who are going to make decisions for every single American 
person. The doctor won't be making the medical decisions. The patient 
won't be making the medical decisions. The families won't be making the 
medical decisions. It's going to be a government bureaucrat who's going 
to be making those.
  The American people need to understand that, Mr. Speaker. Are they 
going to sit back and idly let this happen? Right now, it's slated to 
happen Saturday night. Saturday night we're supposed to vote on that 
monstrosity, on what I'm calling a dead, rotten, stinking fish that 
Nancy Pelosi is trying to force down the throats of the American 
people. The American people need to say ``no,'' Mr. Speaker.
  I yield to Mr. King.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.
  I wish they'd take that 1,990-page bill--and with the 40-page 
amendment, it's 2,030 pages--and put it back into the tree. It would 
have a lot more use there than it does here. I have to call it what it 
has been called before, especially by the Congresswoman from Minnesota, 
Michele Bachmann, who called it the ``crown jewel of socialism.'' This 
is socialized medicine. It's more than cradle-to-grave medicine. It 
goes beyond the nanny state, Mr. Speaker. This is conception to state-
managed death health care that's being imposed here.
  As I said earlier, there isn't a single health insurance policy that 
we know which could qualify beyond 2013. Any policies that are set 
today, according to this, would be outlawed, and they would have to 
jump through new hoops that would be written by the new health choices 
commissioner, the czar--the commissar-issioner of health choices, I 
would call him. Yes, he may be confirmed, but it doesn't prevent the 
President from appointing someone to supersede his power. He has done 
that a number of times, some 57 times.
  This is a call to the House. This is a House call. This is the 
American people coming here to this Capitol. For months, Mr. Speaker, 
the American people have said to me, What can I do? What can I do?

                              {time}  2230

  I don't always have a good answer. I said write letters, get on the 
phone and send e-mails. Go to district offices. All that needs to be 
done.
  There are those who already have resigned themselves also. I am not 
among them. I believe we can kill this bill. And I would draw the 
parallel of about 3 years ago when there was a comprehensive amnesty 
bill that was pushed out of the White House with bipartisan support, 
and the American people rejected amnesty. A lot of people thought it 
was all set to pass through, pushed by the White House through the 
Senate to come over to the House and be passed in a comprehensive 
amnesty legislation. But the American people rose up and they jammed 
the switchboards of the United States Senate. And they did it twice 
that summer. They killed the bill.
  We can kill this bill. It doesn't have the greased wheels like the 
comprehensive amnesty did. This bill is one that is wobbling along like 
a wounded duck, and it got wounded a lot more when it flew through the 
flak in New Jersey and in Virginia last night, when the Virginians and 
the New Jersians stood up and said we have had enough of this growth of 
government. We have had enough of this debt, that our grandchildren 
will have to be paying the interest on and that our great grandchildren 
will have to pay the principle on. We want to maintain our freedom.
  That message was resounding out of Virginia. It was resounding out of 
New Jersey. And it does affect the thought process and the voting of 
the Members that are sitting on the fence tonight. And the American 
people that are in this city right now and those on their way will 
affect the judgment, and they will provide the good judgment for those 
who are sitting on the fence. Those that are more afraid of their 
Speaker than they are of their constituents, tomorrow they are going to 
see the whites of our eyes. They are going to look in the pupils to the 
soul of the American people that say I love my Constitution and my 
country and my flag and our history and our common cause.
  We do not have a common destiny if we can't maintain our freedom. 
Already a third of our private sector has been nationalized in the last 
year. This is another one-sixth. This is 17.5 percent. It does take us 
over 50 percent.
  This is the time, this is the place, this is the ``Super Bowl'' of 
our resistance. Take the Hill tomorrow. Hold the Hill until this bill 
is killed.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. King, I thank you for this effort to get 
this house call on the U.S. House of Representatives. It is absolutely 
critical that the American people, Mr. Speaker, understand what is 
happening here this week and particularly is scheduled to happen 
Saturday night. It is going to kill 5.5 million jobs if we pass the 
Pelosi health insurance bill, it is going to kill our economy, and it 
is going to kill our children and grandchildren's future, because we 
are stealing with this outrageous spending that the Democrats have been 
doing under the leadership of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry 
Reid. We are stealing our grandchildren's future. Their standard of 
living is going to be less than ours today if we continue down this 
road.
  We have to take America back, Mr. Speaker, and it is up to we people, 
the American citizens, the good citizens, freedom-loving citizens, who 
want to work, take care of their families' needs, and want the Federal 
Government out of their hair. That is what we are trying to do as 
Republicans. But the Democrats are trying to socialize this country.
  Mr. Hoekstra, some people may have joined us since you first started 
speaking. There are two stacks of paper right there before you, and I 
want you to please tell the Speaker so that he can pass on to the 
American people what those two stacks of paper represent.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. We have three.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. That is not a stack.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. This is the 44 pages that our Founding Fathers put 
together to establish this country and articulate and lay out the 
freedoms for the American people. This is a document of freedom.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. The Constitution of the United States and the 
Declaration of Independence.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right. And this is the document that Republicans have 
proposed to fix health care, the parts of health care that have been 
identified as being broken, 232 pages.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, let's make it clear. That 
is the Republican alternative that the Democrats keep saying we don't 
have.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right. And then this is Speaker Pelosi's bill, most of

[[Page 26775]]

her bill, 1,990 pages introduced last week. It doesn't have the 40 
pages of the manager's amendment which were added to the bill late last 
night. This is the document that contains in it the phrase ``the 
commissioner shall'' or ``the government shall'' something like 3,000 
times.
  The Constitution is all about freedom. This is all about the loss of 
freedom.
  I thank my colleague for doing this session this evening.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. It is a loss of jobs, it is a loss of 
everything that has made America great.
  I want to thank my friends, Steve King from Iowa, Pete Hoekstra from 
Michigan and Dr. Phil Gingrey from Georgia. This has been I hope an 
instructive evening for the listeners and for the Speaker, because we 
cannot let this bill pass. It is going to destroy freedom. It is a 
steamroller of socialism being driven by Nancy Pelosi. The American 
people need to put a stop sign in front of that steamroller of 
socialism.

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