[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2394-2400]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Polis). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. It is a privilege to be on the floor any time when you 
know the history of this place and what all is going on before us. I'm 
so grateful for my friend from Missouri, my friend from Utah pointing 
out such important things about the health care debate that is ongoing. 
It is critical. We're talking about the lives of Americans. This is not 
something that should be considered lightly or done too quickly.
  It is incredibly ironic to realize here we are now into March of 
2010, and beginning back over a year ago we were told there is no time 
to waste. We do not have time for Republicans to have any input. We 
don't really want to hear from Americans. This is too important, we 
were told, to delay. We have got to have this done by May. Well, even 
though the Democrats have plenty of votes to more than pass this bill, 
they didn't get it done by May. They could have done it without any 
votes from Republicans, yet it was the Democrats themselves that were 
not able to pass this bill, and the reason is there were Democrats who 
were also concerned about what was in this bill, just as many of them 
are still very concerned that what's in the bill is not appropriate and 
not good for the people in their districts or their States. So here we 
are.
  Then we heard, Well, we need to get this done by July 4th. Then we 
heard we need to get it done by the August recess. Then, we need to get 
it done before Halloween. Well, then we need to get it done by 
Thanksgiving. Each time, the need to pass it immediately was given as a 
reason that there just wasn't time to incorporate any Republican ideas.
  The trouble is, these were not Republican ideas. These are ideas that 
come from some of the smartest people in the country; that come from 
doctors, that come from economists, people that have worked through 
these issues, and yet still the effort has been made to ask America--
not ask, but demand America stick out your tongue and say ``ah'' while 
we cram this down your throat.
  It needs to be looked at even more closely. And there is a technique 
that's been known in debate world as creating a straw dog. You create 
the straw dog and say that's what your opponent believes and is trying 
to do. You get righteously indignant, and you beat up the straw dog, 
showing how you tore your opponent up because your opponent had this 
ridiculous idea. The problem was, in that debate device it's simply not 
accurate because that is not what the opponent was saying.
  In this case, I don't really see us as having opponents. We are out 
here trying to do what is best for America, and yet most of America, 
through their representatives, have not had a chance to be heard. That 
includes many represented by Democrats.
  We are joined by my friend from Utah. And I would be glad to yield 
such time as Mr. Bishop might use.

                              {time}  2015

  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I appreciate the gentleman from Texas not only 
for his insights he is going to present on this particular bill, but 
you have a special talent that I think the gentleman from Missouri and 
I did not have a little bit earlier in this with a legal background. 
First of all, I appreciate you bringing up the fact that there is 
bipartisanship in their concern for this particular bill.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Sure.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I also appreciate the fact that sometimes we 
present arguments and I need to have a specific legal expert explaining 
them to me.
  We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that apparently in his 
speech today, the President once again said, If you like your plan you 
can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. 
That if you are on an insurance company right now and you are happy 
with that, it will not change. And maybe I can ask you now as an 
attorney, as someone who reads this stuff for a living and tries to 
understand the gobbledygook that we always pass, if you can tell me if 
that is really accurate. Is it indeed the fact that if you like your 
plan you will be able to stay on that plan? And insurers who have 
private insurance plans will be able to maintain that commitment to 
people if either the Senate or the House version were to pass?
  Mr. GOHMERT. The answer is that yes, you can keep your plan if you 
like it for maybe a year, then you lose it. Maybe 2 if you are lucky. 
On the other part, if you like your doctor--and the gentleman from Utah 
has quoted it exactly. I have the text of the President's speech here. 
He said, ``If you like your plan you can keep your plan. If you like 
your doctor you can keep your doctor.'' The thing is nobody, not even 
my dear friends here on the floor with me, can promise you that if you 
like your doctor you get to keep your doctor. I will give you one good 
reason why.
  I have talked to numerous doctors that are my age and older who have 
told me, many of them, that I have not accumulated what I had hoped to 
by this time. But they are very sincere, and they say, But it has 
gotten so frustrating dealing with the government over Medicare and 
Medicaid, and even dealing with insurance companies, they've had 
enough. And I have been told, I am sure my friends have been, too, that 
if this bill passes they are walking away from the practice of 
medicine. They are walking away. It will not be worth it. I have heard 
that from so many people.
  So for somebody to say if we pass this bill, and I don't care who it 
is, any Democrat or any Republican that were to say if we pass this 
bill and you like your doctor you can keep him, it is wrong. You can't 
make that promise because many of the doctors you like the best have 
already said we are walking away.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. If I can add a follow-up question to that, in the 
law that is proposed to be passed, either the House or the Senate 
version, does it allow me to maintain my insurance in the present form 
if I want to maintain that insurance in the present form?
  Mr. GOHMERT. One of the things I love about being on the same 
committee with the gentleman from Utah is he may not be a lawyer, but 
he has incredible insight and discernment and can shoot right to the 
crux of an issue. So when we do that, as the gentleman has asked, and 
we look at page 91 of

[[Page 2395]]

the House bill, and I have asked others, look at the 11-page summary 
the President proposed and then look at the 19-page summary of the 
summary that the White House gave to us, both the 11-page summary and 
the White House 19-page summary of the summary, and see if you can tell 
if one single letter of the law under section 202 of the House bill is 
changed.
  I have been told by attorneys that have looked at it, it does not 
appear the President is proposing any change to page 91 of the House 
bill. So when you look for the answer, Do you keep your insurance?, 
well, you look to the language. And the language is this:
  ``Section 202, Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.
  ``(a) Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined. Grandfathered 
health insurance coverage means individual health insurance coverage 
that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if 
the following conditions are met.'' And Y1 is just the day that the new 
bill starts.
  ``Number one, Limitation on New Enrollment.'' In order to keep your 
insurance if you like it, number one, and I quote, ``The individual 
health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any 
individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is 
on or after the first day of Y1.'' So if you add a single additional 
insured to the policy that you have--you are on a company policy, or if 
you are like a couple of guys that told me recently that their unions 
negotiated a fantastic health care plan, they love it, they are not 
worried about the rest of the country because they get to keep their 
plan. Unfortunately, as I asked, Does anybody ever get added to your 
health care policy?
  And they said, Well, yeah, people retire all the time and they get in 
there and we all have the same great policy.
  I had to explain, Bad news. As soon as they add one more person on 
your health care policy, you lose your policy. And then that throws you 
over under the Federal insurance exchange program that the government 
controls.
  There will be private insurance companies that will be allowed 
initially, until they go broke, they will be allowed to offer policies, 
but they are mandated exactly what they have to provide in those 
policies.
  But here is the real kicker, the second limitation on changes in 
terms or conditions. The second condition about keeping your policy is 
this, and I quote, ``The issuer does not change any of its terms or 
conditions, including benefits and cost sharing.'' Now, that is why I 
replied to the gentleman earlier, the answer is you might get to keep 
your insurance policy for a year, 2 years if you're lucky. But there is 
no way that you could have an insurance policy go for more than a 
couple of years without having to make some changes in their terms and 
conditions.
  For one thing, we know that health care, with medicine, knowledge, 
and practice changes all the time. We find out that some types of 
procedures are more dangerous than we knew. And so a policy said we 
will no longer cover that because the benefits do not outweigh the 
risks that are involved. Another thing is you have new technology, 
sometimes less expensive ways to treat something. Well, obviously you 
want those included in your coverage. They would be added. That changes 
a term or condition. So within 1 year or 2 years everybody in the 
country that liked their policy, just as the President promised, get to 
keep it for about a year or 2, and then they lost it.
  So when the President says you get to keep it, that is accurate. He 
just doesn't tell you you won't keep it very long.
  I would be glad to yield to my friend from Missouri (Mr. Akin).
  Mr. AKIN. I just appreciate your discipline, and having worked 
through specifically and exactly what the bill says. Because it is easy 
to say that this bill isn't going to cost a dime because somebody can 
say it isn't going to cost a dime. Well, that is because it is going to 
cost a trillion dollars instead. And you are clarifying the importance 
of words here.
  But let me ask you this question: Is it true that the policy defines 
what insurance has to cover? And therefore, does the Federal Government 
tell you that you have to have this, this, and this in your policy, and 
therefore force the policy to be changed even if you didn't want to 
change it?
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman asks a good question. I appreciate the 
question, because once again, that affords great insight. If you look 
over at page 167 of the bill that was passed in the House, and as best 
I can tell, even though all we have is the 11-page summary and then the 
19-page summary of the summary----
  Mr. AKIN. The summary of the summary is longer than the summary of 
the bill.
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. AKIN. So if we had the summary of the summary of the summary, 
would that be 3,000 pages?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Absolutely. We would have even more information. And 
that would be more helpful. But the best we can tell, since the 
President did not propose a specific bill, once again very elusive in 
what is being proposed, page 167 does not appear to have been changed. 
And that says the commissioner shall specify--that is the Federal 
commissioner under this bill--the benefits to be made available under 
the Exchange-participating health benefits plans.
  Now, that means every plan that has had a term or condition change or 
has added an additional insured, those have been lost, and then within 
a couple of years everybody is under this. So the commissioner shall, 
one of about 3,000 or so ``shalls'' in the bill, specify benefits to be 
made available. And then it goes on and says the entity offers only one 
basic plan for such service. So the commissioner is going to require 
that everybody provide exactly the same plan.
  Mr. AKIN. So this is a one-size-fits-all.
  Mr. GOHMERT. One-size-fits-all for the area.
  Mr. AKIN. Then using your logic, the one-size-fits-all then has to 
change existing policies. And when you change those policies, then you 
don't have the same policy that you were promised you could keep.
  Am I getting the drift of this right?
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman is exactly correct.
  If you go on further, everybody that is offering insurance in an area 
has to offer the same exact basic plan. It is a basic plan. And then if 
an insurance company provides that one basic plan, they may offer one 
enhanced plan. But again, the commissioner specifies exactly what that 
plan is. And if you offer an enhanced plan, you may also have one 
premium plan for such area.
  But the bottom line is there will be many areas in the country, once 
everybody loses their own health insurance within a couple of years, 
everybody goes under this plan, the commissioner tells everybody what 
has to be in their plan. Everybody. And you have no choice, you have to 
go with what they said. And so the other thing is that once an 
insurance company provides that, they have no flexibility.
  Now there is debate about whether or not there would be a public 
option or a publicly financed insurance company to compete. We know how 
that works. We saw it with flood insurance. When the Federal Government 
comes in and provides that alternative, that competition, you run the 
private insurance companies out of business because the Federal 
Government operates in the red, run the private businesses out, and 
then the Federal Government does as our Federal flood insurance program 
has, continue to run deeper and deeper into red ink.
  Mr. AKIN. So you have got one choice. It is a little bit like Henry 
Ford's automobile. You can get any color you want as long as it's 
black. In this case, you can get any health insurance you want as long 
as it's the government policy.
  Mr. GOHMERT. The gentleman is correct.
  And one of the great ironies in this is we have so many friends 
across the aisle that I know are very sincere when they believe with 
all their hearts they want to help what they call the little guy in 
America. I am sure they haven't

[[Page 2396]]

read this bill as thoroughly as I have. But if they will trouble 
themselves to do so, they will see that under the bill that passed the 
House that we just had to rush through, if you make just above the 
poverty line as determined in the bill so you don't get free health 
insurance, but you don't make enough to buy the policy that the Federal 
Government mandates, you pay an extra percentage, I believe it is 2 
percent on your income tax. We are talking about low middle class, some 
of those folks working two and three jobs just to keep food on the 
table.
  And what is the majority going to do to them? Why, if you can't 
afford as good a plan as we order you to get, we're going to increase 
your income tax.

                              {time}  2030

  You can't afford insurance, and yet you're going to increase the 
income tax? I just know that there are people that care deeply about 
the poor, those who are the working poor, doing what they can to 
struggle to get by. And yet they're going to hammer those very people. 
It's just ludicrous.
  Mr. AKIN. So what you are really talking about is a mandate, isn't 
it? This is a mandate that says that you've got to buy the government 
product.
  Mr. GOHMERT. That's exactly right. And I know the President before us 
mentioned--well, you know, States require you to buy car insurance. The 
fact is, you buy insurance for the privilege, as the law has 
determined, to drive on the road. You don't have to drive just to live 
in America. If this bill passes, you will have to buy insurance just to 
live in America, or you will be fined; you will be hammered with the 
extra amount of money you will have to pay.
  And let me finish one other thing about that insurance. There is no 
State in the United States of America that requires anyone to insure 
their car for damages to their own car or damages physically to 
themselves. The only requirement in any State is for insurance to cover 
against the damage you may do to someone else. So once again, this will 
be breaking brand-new ground, never done in history, not envisioned by 
the Constitution, not anywhere in the enumerated powers. You have to 
buy insurance on yourself just to live. So I yield to my friend.
  Mr. AKIN. Well, actually, you got to the point that I was going to 
ask. I know that you are not only an attorney, but you have also served 
as a judge, as well as a Congressman that we've come to respect. And so 
what I was going to ask is, is it constitutional for the Federal 
Government to tell somebody that they have to buy insurance this way? 
And what I'm thinking I'm hearing you say is that this would be 
something, if the Supreme Court would look at it--and I know you don't 
know exactly how they think or what they're going to rule, but if you 
use the basis of the Constitution, this would be marginally and maybe 
not constitutional. Is that what I'm hearing you saying?
  Mr. GOHMERT. If the Supreme Court takes a fair and literal look at 
the Constitution, they will know this was not an enumerated power 
reserved to the Federal Government. Therefore, under the 10th 
Amendment, it's reserved to the States and the people.
  I would like to point out one other thing. In this article that was 
already out, that came out so quickly after the President's speech 
today--it's from CNN. It can be found on the CNN Web site. But they 
point out that the President is proposing four different things. First 
of all, combating waste, fraud and abuse, and I will come back to that. 
But this article says: ``Obama is also considering a Republican-
supported idea to appropriate $50 million to help States find 
alternative resolutions to medical malpractice disputes, including 
health costs.''
  Well, when this information came out today during the President's 
speech, I was in a meeting with about 50 other Republican Members of 
Congress, and I couldn't believe that statement. He said this was a 
Republican idea, and he said, You know, we're embracing this Republican 
idea.
  I want to know which one of my moronic Republican friends proposed 
such a ridiculous program as that. Nobody knew of any Republican who 
proposed that. I know the President wouldn't lie, but I'm sure there is 
a Republican somewhere in the country--maybe somebody that deems 
themselves half socialist, half Republican that proposed this. I can't 
find anybody who knows of a Member in Congress who has proposed this 
bill because we don't need to give the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services $50 million, $50 billion or one red dime to come up with a way 
to help States find alternative resolutions for medical malpractice 
disputes. That's already in the House bill, and what this provides is a 
fund for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to bribe States--
that's my word. Any State that has a cap on attorneys' fees or a cap on 
noneconomic damages, the Secretary is authorized to pay whatever sums 
are necessary, in her opinion, basically to reward a State that gets 
rid of any caps like that. That's what it boils down to.
  Mr. AKIN. That's the punitive damages, right?
  Mr. GOHMERT. No. Actually, pain and suffering is noneconomic damages. 
So attorneys' fees and things like pain and suffering, which is hard to 
put a figure on.
  Mr. AKIN. So we have got not tort reform but reverse tort reform, 
where the States that have enacted tort reform and have reduced the 
cost of health care accordingly are now going to be told that they're 
going to have to reverse that legislation so there is a tort reform. 
Isn't this the reverse?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, the gentleman is accurate. It is the reverse, but 
the States are not going to be told, You have to get rid of your caps. 
We have already seen in Texas and California medical malpractice 
insurance rates come plummeting down.
  Mr. AKIN. Missouri has enacted the same thing. We've had the same 
experience. It's dropped the cost of health care.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I'm sure the gentleman then would agree there is no need 
for further study or to try to look for ways to have alternative 
resolutions to medical malpractice disputes. We've seen what works, and 
yet it's not going to force States to get rid of their caps on pain and 
suffering or attorneys' fees. It merely will allow the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services to generously reward any State that will get 
rid of their caps on damages and attorneys' fees.
  Let me also mention this, that is only one of the proposals. Another 
is that health care exchange plans are what is being proposed in this 
supposedly cut-down bill. The health care exchange plan is the skeletal 
structure that allows the government to take over health care. So to 
say it's scaled back, you know, the snake is still in there. It's just 
going to have to go a little further to bite you. So this is not a good 
proposal. It's not a fair proposal.
  And one other thing in the President's speech that I thought was very 
unfair, he says, On the other end of the spectrum, there are those--and 
this includes most Republicans in Congress. Now I prefer to speak for 
myself and not have somebody who profoundly disagrees with me tell me 
what I believe. But according to this, the President's speech, this 
includes most Republicans in Congress who believe the answer is to 
loosen regulations on the insurance industry.
  The gentleman from Missouri and I have been on this floor many times, 
and in the last 5 years--particularly that I've been here, I know the 
gentleman's been here longer than I have--but repeatedly I know we have 
all said, I don't want the government between me and my doctor, and I 
want the insurance company restricted so they're not between me and my 
doctor. I don't want the insurance company to just run amok and run 
wild. I want us to get back to a doctor-patient relationship.
  So when somebody speaks for us and in the next paragraph, the 
President says, I don't believe--as opposed to the crazy Republicans he 
mentioned in paragraph four--I don't believe we should give government 
bureaucrats or

[[Page 2397]]

insurance company bureaucrats more control over health care in America, 
we've been saying that same thing for years. We agree on that. We don't 
want the government, we don't want insurance companies to have more 
control over our health than we do. It's time to put the patients back 
in charge.
  Mr. AKIN. Didn't you start by saying that there is this sort of 
fallacious line of reasoning where you create a straw horse; is that 
correct?
  Mr. GOHMERT. Yeah, I called it a straw dog. A straw horse, I have 
heard that used as well.
  Mr. AKIN. A straw dog or a straw horse. And you say that your 
opponents think this, and then you beat it up. Yet you and I have been 
here. I have been a Republican now--this is my 10th year. I have never 
heard Republicans say, We want to reduce or relax what health insurance 
companies are doing. We've been railing on the fact that we don't want 
them to get somebody who is not a medical person between a doctor and a 
patient. We've been trying to defend that point, and certainly we 
wouldn't do what this bill does, which allows an insurance company to 
get between a doctor and a patient, make a medical decision in practice 
and then not be held accountable for that decision.
  I don't know where the President comes up with this idea or who it is 
who writes the speeches for him, but it just isn't really true.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I would direct your attention to the Declaration 
of Health Care Independence. I know my friend Mr. Akin was there when 
we unveiled that declaration here in the Capitol when I think we've got 
100 or more Members of Congress that have signed on to that. There are 
thousands and thousands of people across the country that have gone 
online and looked for a Declaration of Health Care Independence and 
found Web sites where they could sign on so that people could keep 
building the pressure.
  So the truth is, I'm very gratified by some of the comments the 
President made here because, once again, he is embracing many of the 
things that we have had in this Declaration of Health Care Independence 
for some time. And the wonderful thing about these 10 points that we 
asked people to pledge who signed this is that the President has 
already said that he supports these things. I would just like to run 
through these 10 again.
  Number one, protect the vital doctor-patient relationship. As the 
President should know, we have signed a pledge to that effect. That's 
what we want. So we're gratified to see him include it in his speech 
today, but we've been there. We were hoping we could get him to sign it 
before now to join with us to show that we are of one accord. I yield 
to my friend.
  Mr. AKIN. But the problem is, it's one thing with lip service to say 
that you like the doctor-patient relationship. It's another thing to 
try to substitute a bureaucrat in between that relationship. And that's 
what we've been objecting to all the way along.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, and I heard the brilliant gentleman Frank Luntz at 
a focus group that analyzed the summit. Fifteen of the people in there 
had voted for President Obama, 15 of them had voted for John McCain, 
and it was interesting to hear some of the observations. I loved what 
one gentleman said. He didn't sound like a lawyer. He just sounded like 
a good commonsense person. He said, I just know that I have never been 
in a government office in line to get some service and seen a 
government employee come running out and say, Let me open another 
window. This line is too long. But he said, You know, we've seen that 
in private businesses because if you make somebody wait in the line too 
long, they'll go to the next business and not stay in your business. 
And his point was, he did not want those people who would not come 
around and open an extra window to be the ones that are in charge of 
his health care. I thought it was a beautiful point.
  Mr. AKIN. It paints a vivid picture. And as much as you and I have 
always railed against insurance companies making health care decisions, 
that's not quite so bad, because if you don't like the insurance 
company, you can change to a different insurance company. You might 
have to change your job to do it. But you can change your insurance 
company. It's not so easy to change the U.S. Federal Government.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, we sure know about that, don't we.
  Number two on the list of pledges is, Reject any addition to the 
crushing national debt heaped upon all Americans. And I know there's 
been--in the summit there are all these wonderful, glowing things that 
were said about the Congressional Budget Office, CBO. Everybody talks 
about the CBO scoring. Well, the CBO scoring says this. CBO scoring is 
sacrosanct, and I know people have paid great tribute to it. But I 
still remember last year when the President was not happy with CBO and 
called the Director over to the White House. There was a little 
woodshedding that apparently went on. We were not allowed to see that 
on C-SPAN. That would have been a real interesting conversation.
  Mr. AKIN. I bet you a lot of people would have wanted to tune in on 
that.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I sure would have tuned in to watch that. But of course 
if it had been on C-SPAN, the content of the conversation may have been 
a whole lot different. But we do know what has occurred in this 
Congress since last year. Now, it bugs me to no end to continue to 
hear, as I did--and I heard a friend from across the aisle say in just 
a ridiculous misrepresentation that the Republicans--again, they don't 
have any plans. They don't want any changes. That is absolutely 
ridiculous.
  In our Republican Study Committee--the more conservative of the 
Republican Members of Congress is generally the way it's touted. There 
are Republicans that aren't conservative that aren't part of the RSC. 
But we have just a summary of 70 bills to help reform health care, not 
to give more control to the insurance companies, not to give more 
control to government, but to help reform health care so that it's 
patient controlled, and it's affordable, accessible, all of these 
things.

                              {time}  2045

  These are real bills. They have numbers on them. Let me just share 
with you, I had addressed I guess probably around November the fact 
that I had been trying to get my health care bill scored since August. 
I realize who is in the majority and with that comes lots of privilege. 
We sure know about that. It is hard to get a meeting room, the kind we 
used to have, and the kind we used to provide to the other side, just 
to have a meeting. But we do with what they allow us to have. But we 
can meet outside. That doesn't stop us from doing what we need to do.
  But when it comes to CBO, I appreciated getting a call from the 
Director of CBO and I appreciated all of the glowing things that were 
said about the wonderful bipartisan gentleman he is, but the trouble is 
you have to look at what has been produced since that woodshedding at 
the White House. I really do believe he wants to be fair, and I really 
believe he thinks he is fair. But when it comes to health care bills, 
there have been 50 bills that have been formally scored that are 
Democrat-requested scores for their bills, and there have been six 
Republican bills formally scored. We have been able to get about one-
tenth of the bills scored that the Democrats have. I have been trying 
since August. I made the request in writing of CBO back in August.
  Then eventually I am told, well, you don't have the highest ranking 
Republican on the committee of jurisdiction requesting it. So I talked 
to Joe Barton, our highest ranking member of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee where Chairman Waxman rammed this thing through the 
committee. He sent a letter requesting that CBO score my bill. We 
waited awhile. Okay, do you have it in the works? Is it coming? Then we 
were told you don't have a request from the highest ranking Republican 
on the Joint Tax Committee. So I asked Dave Camp, a wonderful 
colleague. Dave said absolutely. He shoots a letter over to CBO and 
says score Gohmert's bill. That was back in September. And since then, 
on a spur of the moment, it could be a Democratic

[[Page 2398]]

Senator or the Speaker or Chairman Waxman or somebody down here, man, 
they request one, they won't even have a full bill, and until just last 
week when they were given an 11-page summary and 19-page summary of the 
summary, thank God CBO finally did the appropriate thing and said that 
we can't score a summary and a summary of a summary. We don't have 
enough to work with to give you a score. Thank goodness they finally 
said that, because they have sure scored some stuff that wasn't 
appropriate to be scored.
  Mr. AKIN. And yet they have still not scored your bill that has been 
sitting there since last summer.
  Mr. GOHMERT. And they have still not scored my bill. I would go ahead 
and point out that it is not just in health care that CBO has scored 50 
Democratic bills and six Republican bills, which does not include mine, 
despite the efforts and the requests from the highest ranking 
Republicans. From the legislation that has formally been scored by CBO 
in the 111th Congress, there have been a total of 530 bills scored; 442 
of those were Democratic bills and 88 were Republican bills.
  So I appreciate very much the Director of CBO, Mr. Elmendorf. He 
sounds very sincere that he is doing everything that he can to be fair 
and objective. But you as the CBO Director, knowing that you really 
probably would rather not be woodshedded again at the White House and 
knowing that if you do not allow any of these wonderful Republican 
ideas to be scored, you can profoundly change the discussion on health 
care in America. You can prevent some of the best ideas in America on 
health care that didn't just come from the people whose names are on 
the bill. The ideas on my health care bill, they came from brilliant 
people from around the country who have dealt with the issue. I 
appreciate Newt Gingrich sending friends of his over, some of the 
brightest minds on health care helping come up with some of the best 
proposals. I appreciated Newt's help and those he sent over. And now 
you get a score and see what you've got. I appreciated his direction. I 
can't get a score because the so-called fair and objective CBO wants to 
score 50 Democratic bills, six Republican bills, and one of those will 
not be mine. It could make a difference.
  Now I realize, and I have waited a long time to get loud and vocal 
about the ignoring that Republicans have had from CBO because I know by 
making such a big deal about their lack of objectiveness in the number 
of Republican bills scored by CBO that I am inviting CBO to come in, 
and there are so many variables in any bill, Democrat or Republican, 
where they can take a presumption and that presumption can just run the 
cost right through the roof or run it right down through the floor, and 
that is all dependent upon the presumptions that they make. So I 
realize by coming forward there is a good chance that if one day a 
rather angry and upset CBO finally gets around to scoring my bill, they 
are probably going to fix my wagon. I understand that. I understand 
that the presumptions might not be what they should be in order to give 
the bill a proper scoring to my way of thinking, but I just felt like 
we had to say something to point out that the emperor doesn't have the 
beautiful set of clothes that everyone is going around saying he has. 
There is a lack of objectivity certainly in the bills that are being 
scored.
  Mr. AKIN. That makes it awfully awkward, because let's say that some 
of these bills were scored. You know this well, some of these bills 
would save a lot of money. And somebody is going to ask: We have a 
President who wants to spend a trillion dollars at the cost of $5 
million in jobs to pass a government takeover of health care, and the 
Republicans have a plan that is actually going to cut the cost of 
health care, doesn't have tax increases in it, why not take the less 
expensive plan? Somebody is going to ask that question. But it is a lot 
easier if the Republican bills have not had a chance to be scored.
  Interestingly, there is a guy who is scoring the President's bill who 
is not CBO, and he is a Democrat. I don't know if you have heard of 
him, but he is the Democratic Governor of Tennessee. Why would he say 
anything bad about the Democrats' health care bill, the President's 
health care bill? The reason is because, guess what, Tennessee is going 
to have to pay for this government takeover of health care. That 
trillion dollar price tag that CBO hooked on this bill is not all the 
cost because some of it is hidden. And guess who is going to pick up 
some of the pieces of that, it is going to be the various States, and 
the various States like Tennessee that have tried this government-run 
scheme of health care. They know it is a disaster. It wrecked health 
care in Tennessee and Massachusetts. It ran the cost of health care in 
Tennessee and Massachusetts way up. So that Democrat Governor, who also 
could be taken to the woodshed, says no, this is a bad idea. This is 
going to be very expensive, and States have balanced budgets, how are 
we going to pay for this thing.
  So there is somebody that is scoring the bill and it is not CBO; it 
is a Democrat. And he is saying no, it is too expensive.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate that observation from my friend from 
Missouri. I would like to finish the declarations, the pledges that he 
and I have both made.
  Number 3 is improve, rather than diminish, the quality of care that 
Americans enjoy.
  Now, we have heard so many horror stories, terrible situations where 
someone did not get proper health care. And nobody wants to see that 
happen. But despite the problems, most of us here contend that we have 
the best health care available of anywhere in the world. It is right 
here in America. We saw a good example of that after years and years of 
hearing some friends say we need to have a health care system like 
Canada. We need to have a health care system like England. Well, you 
start hearing stories like the secretary in Tyler. She told me she 
immigrated from England. She said her mother had cancer in England. And 
what happens in that scenario, you are put on a list. You are put on a 
list to get a mammogram, to have surgery, a biopsy, to get radiation or 
chemo. Whatever you are going to get, you are put on a list. She said 
my mother died from cancer not because it was not curable, but because 
she lived in England.
  She said I was found to have cancer. I didn't have to wait on some 
list to get it taken care of. She said I know I'm alive because I moved 
to America and didn't stay in England, which brings me to an article in 
February. This was from the National Post, ``Newfoundland Premier Danny 
Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United 
States. Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media. 
The Premier's press secretary confirmed the report Monday evening. 
Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale confirmed the treatment at a news 
conference Tuesday, but would not reveal the location of the operation 
or how it will be paid for. Ms. Dunderdale will become acting Premier 
while Williams is away. He is expected to be away from 4 to 6 weeks. 
For many, the Premier's need for heart surgery comes as a surprise, 
especially in light of the fact that he is an avid hockey player and 
has shown no outward signs of illness as of late. On Friday, Mr. 
Williams met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and while speaking to 
reporters seemed healthy and in good spirits. A decision to leave 
Canada for the surgery, especially if it is available here, raises 
questions about the Premier's confidence in Newfoundland's health care 
system.''
  So you have a Premier from Canada, his health care is important to 
him. He wants to keep being the Premier, and so he comes to the United 
States, or already has. As I understand it, he already has had the 
surgery here in the United States. We have the best health care that 
has ever been anywhere in the world in time or in geography. It's here.
  Mr. AKIN. You are making a point here, my friend. I don't know if you 
knew that you left off to preaching and went on to meddling, because 
when you talk about cancer, I am a cancer survivor myself.

[[Page 2399]]

  If you take a look at cancer survival rates in England, you find they 
tend to be about 20 percent worse than they are in America. Why is 
that? Well, you have explained it very accurately, and that is cancer 
is particularly sensitive. When you diagnose it, you want to get to it 
quickly before it spreads or gets too bad. The idea of putting someone 
on a long waiting list is deadly when you are dealing with cancer.
  So if you have cancer, you have a much, much higher percent of dying 
from that if you are in Canada or particularly in England, and it is 
because of the waiting list. Governments have a little bit of 
sensitivity to them. Instead of telling you that they are going to deny 
your health care, they say no, you have to get in line. You can get a 
free Cesarian section; you just have to wait 12 months. But I needed it 
in 9. Well, that is a problem, isn't it.
  So what you are talking about is a sensitive subject to me because I 
had cancer in this country. When they discovered it, I thought it was 
time to take care of it right away and so did the doctor and so did the 
hospital. I had it on spring break. I had an operation to try to get 
rid of the cancer back 9 years ago, my very first spring break down 
here.

                              {time}  2100

  But in America, when you get cancer, something the doctor says is, 
it's time to move, let's go. That's why we have such better survival 
rates, and that's why the guy from Canada wants to come here to get 
health care.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, and it is so important that people understand 
that. To say that no one will be denied care or coverage is accurate to 
a point, but the fact is they're told in Canada and England, gee, we're 
not going to deny you treatment or care, we just have to put you on 
this list.
  The gentleman brings up an important point about how much greater the 
survivability rates are in the United States from diseases like cancer, 
but some want to try to compare apples and onions and say they both 
taste and smell alike when they're not at all the same. The fact is, 
when you hear some people say, well, in this country--England, Canada, 
you know, these other countries--they apparently have much better 
health care, even though they have government-run health care, because 
people have a longer average life span. Well, that's not exactly fair 
to put that on the health care in the country because it's sad, but 
true, when you make those comparisons, we have a much higher murder 
rate in America than they do in England or Canada. Those numbers go 
into the statistics.
  Another involves what was explained by a health care expert that most 
countries do not include preemies, premature babies, the death of 
premature babies in their numbers. Well, we sure do here because every 
little baby born counts, premature or otherwise, unless it's one of 
those horrible tragedies where somebody aborts a baby and realizes 
they're alive and goes ahead and takes action to make sure they're 
killed or allowed to die on their own without proper care.
  But number four on the pledges of the Declaration of Health Care 
Independence is, ``Be negotiated publicly, transparently, with genuine 
accountability and oversight and be free from political favoritism.'' 
Well, we saw an effort last Thursday at the summit to look like there 
was going to be a publicly, transparently negotiated health care bill, 
but the President announced beforehand, here's the bill we're going 
with and the summary of what we're going to do to that, and the summary 
of the summary. It had all been negotiated behind closed doors. You had 
a union representative, an AARP representative who said, oh, we've 
already worked this out in secret behind closed doors where nobody saw 
what was negotiated. Now we're going to bring the Republicans in and 
put a little window dressing on it.
  Well, I don't know how many people or Members of Congress who are 
certified as mediators or have been through the certification process. 
It's pretty extensive to become an arbitrator, an international 
arbitrator, but I've been through those processes. And I can tell you 
that what happened last Thursday was not a negotiation or a mediation. 
It was structured to look like perhaps it was, with the President being 
the objective and all-caring mediator in the middle, but the trouble is 
the mediator kept cutting off one side when they said something that he 
didn't want to go there.
  I'll tell you the most gratifying comment to me that just touched me 
deeply--and I was so proud of the President because it meant a lot to 
me to hear him realize this--when John McCain was speaking and the 
President pointed out that the President had finally realized, for the 
first time since November of 2008, that we're not campaigning anymore. 
That meant a lot to me that the President finally realized it was time 
for him to quit campaigning and actually work on the bills rather than 
the campaign. But then, after that I read this weekend that the White 
House is already preparing the next campaign for 2012, so apparently 
maybe it only lasted a day or two they weren't campaigning.
  But number five, ``Treat private citizens at least as well as 
political officials.'' Well, Americans weren't fooled, went in--and 
this is just one volume; there are four volumes of this, the House 
bill, and I don't have time to pull out the other--but in there, to 
address America's concern that Congress was being treated more 
specially than rank-and-file citizens, they added a line in there that 
said, Under the Federal Insurance Exchange program, that Members of 
Congress may be covered under that if they want to be. Most people, no 
matter how low you read what was in the bill, they pick up on that 
pesky little word ``may.''
  Mr. AKIN. You know, it's sort of a ``shall'' bill.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Over 3,000 ``shalls,'' but that was a big little ``may'' 
there.
  Mr. AKIN. One little ``may'' sitting in there. And the American 
public picks up on that and says, well, maybe you're not that sure that 
this bill is such a good thing. It doesn't seem like it's good for you 
guys.
  I think you have really been pretty humble here in talking about that 
Declaration of Health Care Independence because you're one of the 
people that wrote it, and you're laying out those basic principles.
  I had a chance to speak this last weekend to a pretty good size crowd 
back in St. Louis, and one of the things that I wanted to talk about or 
mention was the fact that if Republicans have made the mistakes, it 
seemed to me we have made just one mistake, but we make it over and 
over, and that is when we don't stick to basic principles that we 
believe in.
  What you took time to do, gentleman--and I want to just let people 
know that the guy from Texas that worked on writing this declaration of 
health care rights, what you're doing is you're laying out these basic 
principles. You talk about transparency; that's something that is 
supposed to have been promised to us. You talk about if it's good 
enough for everybody else, it ought to be good enough for those of us 
in Congress. That's kind of a basic principle you're talking about that 
you should not get in the way of the doctor-patient relationship. 
You're laying out those basic principles in this health care 
Declaration of Independence, and I think you have--and I was in the 
meetings where we were writing it too. The point is, other people can 
write it, other people can sign their name on the bottom, too; isn't 
that correct?
  Mr. GOHMERT. That is absolutely correct.
  And we just have a few minutes left, let me finish the 10 here.
  Number six, ``Protect taxpayers from funding of abortion or abortion 
coverage.'' And one might wonder, well, is the President really on 
board with that? He has said it more than once. He said it standing 
right there at that podium right behind the gentleman from Missouri 
that no abortions would be funded by Federal tax dollars. Well, this is 
just getting him to agree, if he would, to what he said was the real 
case.
  Number seven, ``Reject all new mandates on patients, employers, 
individuals or States.'' Now, the President, in

[[Page 2400]]

his speech today, said we want to loosen all the controls on insurance. 
No, we want to loosen the controls on patients; that's what we want to 
loosen. Patients need more control, not the insurance companies and not 
the government.
  And then eight, ``Prohibit expansion of taxpayer-funded health care 
to those unlawfully present in the United States.'' One of the things 
in my bill, if you're going to get a visa to come into this country, 
then you will do--and some countries already require it--then you have 
to show that you will have health care insurance coverage while you're 
in this country or you don't get a visa. And if your health care 
insurance expires while you're here, the visa does too--you've gotta 
go.
  It also provides that since we've been told there are probably 1.5 
billion people in the world that would love to emigrate to the United 
States--and that would destroy this country because we can't handle 
that many immigrants, even temporarily. We can't let people bankrupt 
this country, and therefore, another provision in my bill says, if 
you're illegally in this country and you present for health care--we 
believe in following the law, the courts have said it, we believe we've 
followed the law--we will provide you health care coverage even if 
you're illegally here that one time. And when you're well enough to 
travel, you're going to be deported. And if you're ever found back in 
this country again after you were here illegally and got free health 
care, it's a prison sentence. We can't let people bankrupt this country 
or there is no hope for those other 1.5 billion that want to at least 
come here at some point.
  And then number nine, ``Guarantee equal protection under the law and 
the Constitution.''
  Ten, ``Empower, rather than limit, an open and accessible marketplace 
of health care choice and opportunity.''
  I know the Speaker knows that we begin our practice every day with 
prayer, and that it goes back to 1787--I believe it was June 28 at the 
Constitutional Convention. They had gone on for about 5 weeks and 
accomplished nothing. And some people say Ben Franklin was a deist. He 
said these words: ``I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I 
live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: God governs in 
the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without 
His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?''
  He went on, and Franklin said, ``We have been assured, sir, in the 
sacred writing that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain 
that build it.'' He said, ``I firmly believe this. And I also believe 
that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political 
building no better than the builders of Babel.'' And he went on to 
speak longer and then said, ``I, therefore, move henceforth we begin 
every day with prayer in this room.'' And from that day, June 28, 1787, 
to this day today that we are about to wrap up, we begin with prayer.
  So America works when people let their elected representatives hear 
from them and let them know their mind. It works when we do what Ben 
Franklin suggested. That doesn't sound like a deist.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

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