[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3577-3582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Titus). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I appreciate the opportunity to come up and 
continue the discussion on health care from a little different 
perspective than my friends on the other side have been giving the 
American people.
  I want to talk about the need for health care reform in the United 
States of America and what we need to do here in the Congress to get it 
done.
  We had a nice discussion yesterday in Cleveland with the President of 
the United States. I've been one who has said that if we're going to do 
this, we need to do it. We have got other issues that we're dealing 
with simultaneously now with jobs, passing a second jobs bill. My 
community back in northeast Ohio has benefited a great deal from the 
original stimulus package that has passed here. But we need to continue 
the work of getting the American people back to work. And in the short 
term, that means job packages, that means financial reform so we should 
bring some integrity back.
  But in the next week or so, we have to pass this health care bill. 
And I

[[Page 3578]]

know there's been a lot of controversy surrounding this bill. There's 
been an extended discussion over the course of the last year or so on 
this issue. We have talked about all of the issues, and now it's time 
for us to have a vote in the House of Representatives--hopefully here 
in the next week--and pass this bill so that we can move the country 
forward and start addressing the other issues with regulatory reform on 
Wall Street, trying to bring some discipline back to the financial 
system. It's also allowing us to go back and continue to focus on the 
jobs issue.
  But under this bill, you talk about long-term economic growth as we 
try to be competitive in the United States, globally competitive 
competing with China, competing with India. The American businessperson 
now has an anchor strapped around their neck in the form of health care 
costs. And if we think that we can continue to grow our economy, hire 
American workers, make the proper capital investments, make the 
investments in technology, if our businesses are asked to compete while 
dealing with the health care system that over the last 5 years has 
increased over 120 percent for small business people, we are asking our 
small business owners to go into the shark-infested waters of the 
insurance market so that they can cover their citizens, their workers, 
and then ask to compete on the global playing field.

                              {time}  2045

  They can't do it. The small business people are screaming for health 
care reform. Now, you want to get into an ideological battle, but what 
we are trying to deal with on this side of the aisle are practical, 
pragmatic solutions to the problems that are facing us, looking at the 
facts, looking at the issues that are facing our country, and 
addressing those issues in a bipartisan way.
  I know many on the other side have said, well, we have been locked 
out of the debate. I want to know one time when the last President 
spent 7 hours sitting around a table with people from both parties to 
discuss any issue, let alone health care. President Bush never sat 
down, Madam Speaker, for 7 hours. President Bush never came to our 
caucus and had the kind of discussion and question and answer that 
President Obama had a few months ago when he went to the Republican 
Caucus. And I think this shows why he is the President of the United 
States, by dealing directly with their questions. He was able to do 
that and has included the Republicans and tried to include the 
Republicans every single step of the way.
  But the Republicans are getting their marching orders from their 
pollsters and their consultants. And one of the memos was leaked early 
last year, as many of us remember, that said to the Republican Caucus, 
do not let Obama pass health care, because he will succeed, and the 
Democrats will succeed, and you will be in the minority for decades. 
That is what their consultants told them.
  So right from the get-go, our friends on the other side of the aisle 
had no interest in being part of the solution here because their 
pollsters were telling them that they had to defeat this bill before we 
even knew what the bill was. Our friends on the other side were calling 
it socialism and government-run medicine before we even had a bill to 
actually look at and discuss.
  So they got the media machine all cranked up, got everybody all fired 
up before we even had something to talk about. So fast forward through 
a long discussion, long talks where we included both sides of the aisle 
to try to solve these problems, and now we have a solution. We have a 
compromise that President Obama has submitted for us to vote on. And we 
continue to get some numbers, hopefully here tonight, on the exact 
scoring, but we are close, we know give or take a few bucks where we 
are at, and we know that this bill will cover 30 million more Americans 
and this bill has a number of issues in it that are going to benefit 
the American people.
  Let's look at some of the issues, some of the pieces of this 
legislation that will be implemented within the year. Small business 
tax credits, the President's proposal will allow small businesses tax 
credits up to 35 percent. We close the doughnut hole in Medicare. Now 
our seniors have $2,000, $3,000, where it's covered through Medicare 
part D, and then they fall into a doughnut hole for months and months 
and months until part D picks back up again several thousand dollars 
later. Our Medicare recipients have to come out of pocket. We close 
that hole up. We close that doughnut hole up.
  We end the rescissions so that insurance companies can't kick you off 
the rolls once you get sick. We eliminate insurance companies from 
being able to deny people coverage because they have a preexisting 
condition. That is in this bill. We have a provision in this bill that 
says no child can be denied health insurance because they may have a 
preexisting condition. We eliminate the lifetime caps of policies so 
that when someone in your family gets sick and they need coverage, that 
all of a sudden the insurance company can't say, well, you have spent 
your allotted amount of money, you're on your own.
  It is our moral responsibility to prevent millions of Americans from 
getting hurt, from getting hurt under the current health care system. 
And there is no denying it: free preventative care under Medicare under 
this provision, free Medicare under private plans in this piece that we 
are putting together here.
  Also for people who are 55 and older, between 55 and 64, this creates 
a temporary reinsurance program until we get the exchange up and 
running to help offset the cost of expensive health claims for 
employers that provide health care benefits for those people between 55 
and 64 years old. That's what's in this bill. Those are the things that 
just come online this year. And the improvements will continue.
  This is a good bill. Is this a perfect bill? Of course it's not. But 
we have people on the left saying it doesn't go far enough and voting 
against the bill, and we have people on the right saying it's 
socialized medicine. But if it were socialized medicine, people on the 
left would be voting for it.
  This is a pragmatic bill, a pragmatic solution to the health care 
crisis in the United States of America. And our friends on the other 
side of the aisle and our friends in the insurance industry say that we 
should start all over, we should start from scratch, get out a blank 
sheet of paper. Well, maybe the insurance industry should start from 
scratch and go back to 1992 and '93 and revoke all of their increases 
that they have given to the American insurance consumer over the last 
20 years or so, rescind all of those increases. You start over. Let the 
insurance industry start over, and then maybe we can consider starting 
over.
  But people in my district over the last few months, few days, few 
weeks, were getting 20, 30, 40, 50 percent increases. Small businesses 
are almost going bankrupt because of the increase of 50 percent to 
their health care costs. This fixes it. This allows small businesses to 
go into the exchange, to get tax credits so that they can provide 
insurance for their employees.
  Now, some of those things that I read, and I know a lot of our 
friends on the other side say that people don't want this, here is the 
poll that says American people don't want this. And I'm the first to 
recognize and acknowledge that we probably haven't done a very good job 
of telling the American people what's in this bill. And that was the 
essence of Speaker Pelosi's comments about when you pass the bill 
you'll find out what's in it, meaning that when we pass the bill, the 
rhetoric and the fiction that has surrounded this bill for the longest 
time will fall away, and there will be a document that we can all point 
at, and the American people between now and November will be able to 
look at what has passed.
  We know what's in this bill. We've been debating this for a month. I 
like how our friends on the other side in one breath say we're trying 
to jam it through, and then you look, and the American people are tired 
of the debates. But you can't have it both ways.
  Now all of those things that I mentioned, here is a Kaiser poll: tax 
credits for small business, 73 percent of the

[[Page 3579]]

American people more likely to support the bill. Tax credits are in the 
bill. In fact, these are all in the bill. Insurance exchanges, 67 
percent of the American people support the insurance exchanges. The 
ability to keep what you have, 66 percent of the American people are 
more likely to support this bill if you can keep what you have. You can 
keep what you have in this bill. Ban preexisting condition denials, 63 
percent are more likely to support this provision of banning 
preexisting conditions denials. Expanding Medicaid, which is what we 
do, 62 percent; dependent coverage through 26 which means if you're 26 
or under, you can stay on your parents' insurance. How many people 
support it? Sixty percent. Closing the Medicare doughnut holes, as I 
mentioned earlier, 60 percent; subsidy assistance to individuals, 67 
percent more likely to support the bill.
  So we have not done a good job of messaging this bill, but I will 
tell you what is going to happen. We are going to have an election in 
November, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the 
debate because in the debate our friends on the other side are going to 
want to repeal this piece of legislation. They are going to run their 
campaign in November about repealing health care reform.
  So they are going to have to go out and run commercials saying, those 
small businesses tax credits are up to 35 percent, we want to repeal 
them. The ban on preexisting conditions, we want to repeal that. The 
ban that says no kid, no child can be denied because they have a 
preexisting condition, they're going to run a campaign in the fall 
saying, we want to repeal that. The lifetime caps that we're going to 
eliminate so you can get coverage no matter how sick you get, our 
friends on the other side are going to run an election saying, we want 
to repeal that.
  The subsidies that people are going to get so that they can afford 
health insurance, our friends on the other side are going to run a 
campaign in November saying, we want to repeal that. Helping people 55 
to 64 get reinsured, they're going to want to repeal that. Closing the 
doughnut hole in Medicare, I can't wait to go to the senior centers in 
my district when this has already been implemented and we've started to 
close that doughnut hole and the seniors have seen some of the 
progress, and we go in there and we say, our opponents want to repeal 
that provision where we closed up that doughnut hole.
  Let's have this debate. Let's have this discussion. Let's do it. 
That's what this is all about. We implement our agenda, then we go out 
and defend it. And we know what happened. The 8 years, more like almost 
two decades, 14 years, 12 years actually, that our friends on the other 
side were in charge, and then with President Bush controlling the 
House, the Senate, the White House, our Republican friends on the other 
side had an opportunity to implement their political philosophy.
  House, Senate, White House, we got their supply side economics, we 
got their foreign policy, we got their health care policy, we got their 
energy policy and we got their education policy. And look what 
happened. We got their Wall Street policy, and look what happened. We 
had a collapse of the financial markets, we had college tuition balloon 
through the roof, we had energy costs balloon throughout the roof, we 
had health care costs balloon through the roof, the collapse of our 
economic system, a prescription drug bill that was not paid for with a 
doughnut hole you could drive a truck through, and a foreign policy 
that forced us to a war, an elective war in Iraq.
  All of these things were implemented when our friends were in charge. 
And we had elections on those. And now we are going to pass health 
care, and we are going to pass our agenda and you look and you see what 
happened with this stimulus package, the economy is starting to open 
up, trying to straighten up Wall Street. But we know we can't move 
forward until we get health care costs under control. We know small 
businesses are never really going to be able to grow at the pace and 
the capacity that they need to grow to with this health care anchor 
hanging around their neck.
  Now, I believe that, and many of us on this side of the aisle 
believe, the government has a moral mission, a mission, a moral mission 
to protect its citizens. Whether it be terrorists or criminals on the 
street, there is a moral mission to the government to protect people. 
And that doesn't stop at the borders. That doesn't just stop with the 
issues of crime. That responsibility hits every aspect of our society. 
And if we have an industry that is hurting people, then we have a 
responsibility to step in and push back that industry and say enough is 
enough. You're hurting people.
  In our country, the government has a moral mission to stop that from 
happening. That is what this debate is all about, yes, the role and the 
responsibility of government. And the government is not allowed to just 
completely step aside while industry abuses happen and happen and 
happen.

                              {time}  2100

  And that is what this debate is about. That is what this bill of 
rights, health care bill of rights is all about.
  And our friends on the other side say, We are for this stuff. They 
say, We are for it. You pull it out; we are for it.
  Well, that is interesting, because we had some votes over the last 
day or so in committee. This is the House Budget Committee that is 
starting to pass the legislation that is going to be needed.
  Here we go. Protecting Medicare for America's seniors and closing the 
prescription drug doughnut hole, 15 Republicans voted against it.
  Closing the doughnut hole, voted against it. If you talk to them, 
Well, we are for closing the doughnut hole. We have got to close the 
doughnut hole.
  Protecting Americans from insurance caps, as I just talked about, and 
banning annual and lifetime limits on health care coverage, 15 
Republicans voted ``no,'' we don't want to do that.
  Holding health insurance companies accountable, 15 Republicans voting 
``no.''
  Bringing down the cost of health insurance for everyone and providing 
tax credits to small businesses, all of them voted ``no.'' Every 
Republican on the Budget Committee voted ``no'' for giving tax credits 
to small business people.
  I mean, this is the equivalent of our friends on the other side who 
all voted against the stimulus package, and then they go back to their 
districts when money is coming in and they say, This bridge, this road, 
this money is going to create jobs in our district.
  But you voted ``no'' against the stimulus package. Don't tell 
anybody. That is the kind of thing that has been going on in 
Washington. That is called the old Potomac two-step. The old Potomac 
two-step.
  So we have these provisions in this bill that, when you pull them out 
and you explain them to the American people, have anywhere from 57 to 
73 percent. This is what the American people have been crying out for. 
And when this bill passes, we are going to have a lot to campaign on 
and run on.
  But our friends on the other side like to talk a little bit about 
polarizing issues. One of the most recent polarizing issues that they 
have tried to pull out is the issue of abortion and trying to say that 
this is going to publicly fund abortions.
  Well, we have a letter here from, I believe, 25 or so of the top pro-
life citizens in our country: Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland 
Church. I believe he was head of Focus on the Family at one point; Jim 
Wallis from Sojourners Magazine; a lot of evangelical and Catholics; 
the former associate general secretary of the U.S. Conference of 
Catholic Bishops, all saying that this Senate health bill upholds 
abortion funding restrictions. The Catholic Health Association, 600 
Catholic hospitals.
  I went to Catholic school for 12 years. I know where the Catholic 
church and the Catholic hospitals stand on the issue of public funding 
for abortions, and believe me, believe me, I had a lot of nuns and a 
lot of priests and a lot of brothers going to Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 
in Warren, John F. Kennedy High School, and I will tell you that

[[Page 3580]]

those nuns and those administrators who run Catholic hospitals, 600 of 
them, would not support this legislation if they believed that there 
was public funding for abortion.
  And I think the head of the Catholic hospitals said that--we are all 
pro-life, but they believe that the language in the Senate bill, some 
of the language that we kicked around here early on in the House 
version, will sufficiently prevent public funds from being used for 
abortions.
  That is 600 Catholic hospitals saying that. That is not me saying 
that. That is not the Democrats say that. This is Joel Hunter and a 
variety of others who are professors of Christian formation and 
disciplines, discipleship, Pentecostal, theological seminary, 
Leadership Institute, Loyola University, University of Dayton, 
Duquesne. These are some of the leaders. Jim Wallis from Sojourners; 
Ron Sider, Evangelicals for Social Action; Catholics and Alliance for 
the Common Good, on and on and on.
  But our friends on the other side, because I know, I was getting 
calls in my office today, getting people all hopped up on the abortion 
issue. Let's look at the facts. Let's look at what is in this bill, and 
we are going to have that debate. And just like the discussions in 
August about death panels and we are going to kill people's 
grandparents and all that nonsense that we heard in August, where did 
that go? It dissipated. It just disappeared because it wasn't the 
truth. And so it just faded away. And all of these arguments that our 
friends on the other side are making now are just going to fade away 
because they do not reflect the facts. What reflects the facts are the 
things that we are trying to deal with here.
  Now, look at some of the stuff that we are trying to address. Between 
2009 and 2010, monthly prices in the doughnut hole increased by 5 
percent or more for half of the top 10 brand-name drugs. So increased 
by 5 percent or more for monthly prices for these drugs that most of 
our seniors get.
  Now, from 2006, full negotiated prices for top brand-name drugs 
between 2006 and 2010, and I will just use some of the percentages 
here: Plavix, for example, 25 percent. Lexapro went up 25 percent; 
ADVAIR, 32 percent. Unbelievable increases in prescription drugs. And 
we are asking our seniors to continue to pay these increases that 
happen when they fall into the doughnut hole.
  So, Madam Speaker, we have got a moral responsibility because so many 
people are being hurt in our country today, and I stand here this week 
as we stand on the brink of passing a significant piece of legislation 
that is not perfect, and I don't think anybody says it is. We are all 
human here in this Chamber and in the Senate. The President and his 
team, we are all human. We are going to make mistakes. It is not going 
to be perfect. But what we are doing is moving forward in a significant 
way.
  One of the huge issues we have in this country is that we have 
millions and millions of Americans who don't have health care, so what 
they do is they show up at the emergency room and have no money. They 
are not on Medicaid. They are not on Medicare. They don't have private 
insurance. They are not a veteran, so they go into the emergency room 
when they get sick. This is what happens.
  Not only is that inhumane and not only, I would think, do we have 
some kind of moral duty as elected officials in the United States to 
say, you know, that is just--I have got a problem with that. That is 
just not right. What do we do? We have got to do something.
  So this bill is an attempt for us to do that, to step in and help 
people, empower them to be able to afford insurance, and create a 
system where they are able to afford their health insurance and go into 
this exchange and be able to afford insurance. Because some people say, 
Well, I don't want to pay for those people. I got mine and I got my 
health insurance and I am cool. I have got a job and it is all right.
  But you are already paying for them, because what happens is four or 
five uninsured go into the hospital, go into the emergency room, costs 
a lot of money but don't have any way to pay for it, and then you walk 
in behind them and you have your insurance card. Guess who is paying 
for their treatment that they didn't pay anything for? You are and the 
next guy who walks in with an insurance card and the next person. These 
costs all get shifted and so you see these huge increases.
  So we have a system where we don't prevent anything. We wait until 
people get deathly sick, go into the emergency room, stay there for a 
week instead of getting a $20 prescription that would have saved us all 
a boatload of money.
  This is not a discussion about whether the government is going to run 
the health care industry or the insurance companies are going to run 
the health care industry. This is about doctors running the health care 
industry. This is about making sure doctors don't have to call up the 
insurance companies and haggle with them over what is covered and what 
is not covered.
  It is 2010 in America. We are the wealthiest country on the planet, 
and we have the most dysfunctional health care system going. Yes, we 
have got tremendous high-end care. But if you were setting up a system, 
you wouldn't certainly say to 30 million people in your country, Just 
wait until you get absolutely deathly sick, then show up at the 
emergency room and we will take care of you then. That is not how you 
would set it up.
  And our friends on the other side love to have this discussion about 
we are losing your freedom. You are losing your freedom. You are not 
losing your freedom. How free are you when you are sick and you can't 
get anybody to take care of you? How free are you then? How free are 
you when you want to leave your job and go get another job, but you 
can't because you have a preexisting condition or your spouse has a 
preexisting condition or your child has a preexisting condition and you 
are stuck? That is not our idea of freedom.
  How free are you if you want to go start a business and create wealth 
and jobs in the United States, but you can't because you have a 
preexisting condition? How free are you as a small business person? If 
you are just the average small business person, you had a 126 percent 
increase over the last 5 or 6 years. Now, how free are you to run your 
business the way you see fit, to make the investments that you want to 
make into capital, into technology, into worker training, into wages 
for your workers, more into the pension plan for workers, hire more 
workers? How free are you?
  And these folks that can't afford health care and they get a lot 
sicker than they would normally have gotten, what kind of quality of 
life is that? Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. These things mean 
something. And when you talk about what the Founding Fathers meant when 
they said life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they meant that 
government has the responsibility, a moral responsibility to protect 
people's lives, liberty, and their ability to pursue happiness. And 
when we have a system in place now where an industry is limiting that 
freedom, reducing that quality of life, the government has an 
obligation to protect them so that they can be free, and that is what 
we are doing with this piece of legislation.
  I mean, look at what is happening here, the issues that we are 
addressing. Think about this. This is what is in the bill. This big 
bogeyman that you hear about on Fox News that is going to end western 
civilization as we know it if this thing passes has a 35 percent tax 
credit for small businesses. It says that children cannot be denied 
health insurance because the kid has a preexisting condition. It is 
going to say that the lifetime caps that people have on their insurance 
will be eliminated so, no matter what, kids will get covered. It will 
extend coverage so that young people can stay on their parents' 
insurance until they are 26 years old. If they are getting out of 
college and want to go on to get an advanced degree or they hit a rough 
patch with the job market or they are trying to figure things out, you 
are not going to be booted. And how many parents aren't going to have 
to worry about that anymore? Free preventative care under

[[Page 3581]]

private plans, free preventative care under Medicare so we can prevent 
a lot of these problems from happening.
  If you are 55 to 64, there will be a reinsurance opportunity for 
employers who are employing people 55 to 64 to make sure that those 
people have coverage. The doughnut hole will be closed over time so 
that senior citizens can afford their prescription drugs. And when you 
look at all these things, from time and time and time again, these are 
very popular among the American people.
  Tax credits for small businesses, 73 percent more likely to support. 
Insurance exchanges, 67 percent. Keep what you have, 66 percent. Ban 
preexisting conditions, 63 percent. Medicaid expansion, 62 percent. 
Dependent coverage through 26, 60 percent. Close the Medicare doughnut 
hole, 60 percent. Subsidy to individuals, 57 percent. And all of these 
things, as we start to vote on them, our friends on the other side say, 
Well, we are for those.
  So in the last day or so the House Budget Committee was working on 
this legislation and they had some opportunity to vote on these issues, 
and so I just want to share with Members of the House how our friends 
on the other side on that committee voted.
  Protecting Medicare, closing the prescription drug doughnut hole, 15 
Republicans voted against that.
  Protecting Americans from insurance caps, banning annual and lifetime 
limits on health care coverage, 15 Republicans voted against that.

                              {time}  2115

  Holding health insurance companies accountable; 15 Republicans voted 
against that. Bringing down the cost of health insurance for everyone 
and providing a tax credit to small businesses; 15 Republicans voted 
against that.
  These are the basic provisions of our health care reform bill that 
between 57 and 73 percent of the American people support. This is not 
Medicare for all. This is not single-payer. There's no public option in 
this bill. Many of us on this side don't like some of that--the fact 
that those aren't in there. But this is a significant step forward, 
some basic reforms, and when we have 15 members of the Budget Committee 
on the Republican side consistently vote against tax credits for small 
business to get health care, you know they're doing it for one reason: 
They're doing it for politics. Madam Speaker, this is all about 
politics. Go back to the memo that someone left somewhere in some room 
that the press got a hold of that told the Republicans, Do not let 
Barack Obama pass health care reform. Do not let them. Do not let the 
Democrats get this big victory because you will be in the minority for 
another decade or two.
  And so right out of the gate they had no interest, Madam Speaker. Our 
friends on the other side had no interest in cooperating. No interest 
in adding to the debate. They were against this bill before there was 
even a bill written. They were calling it socialism before there was 
one item printed on this piece of paper here telling us what was on 
this bill.
  That's not what the American people want. The American people want us 
to sit down, work together--no one is going to get everything they 
want--and pass something and move it forward that's going to help the 
American people, that's going to allow us to meet our moral obligation 
to protect the American people, to protect those kids who are being 
denied because of a preexisting condition, to protect those seniors who 
fall into the doughnut hole, to protect those families who get denied 
because of a preexisting condition, to protect those families who hit a 
lifetime cap and get thrown out on their own.
  This is what this is about--to help empower thousands of small 
businesses who've got the anchor around their neck because they get 20, 
30, 40 percent increases in health care. That's what this bill is 
about. It's about protecting our citizens, it's about empowering our 
citizens, it's about making our citizens freer than they are today when 
they're trapped in this ungodly health insurance system that hurts many 
of them. We can't stand by and stick our finger up in the air and see 
which way the wind is blowing and allow millions of people to go get 
hurt, and then 30, 40, 50 years from now go sit on the rocking chair. 
Our children are going to ask us what we did when we were in Congress. 
What did you do to move the country forward? And we're going to say 
what? We failed. We didn't muster up the courage to make the tough 
votes. We didn't have the ability to look through the clouds and the 
smoke and the mirrors, look past the bogeymen that have been created on 
this bill.
  I love it. I love how these arguments have just fallen apart, from 
death panels, now abortion. They're saying everything is publicly 
funded abortion here. And 600 Catholic hospitals are endorsing the 
bill. Now how do you say that this is public funding for abortion when 
600 Catholic hospitals have endorsed this piece of legislation? So our 
friends on the other side need to go to all these 600 hospitals and all 
the sisters that are there, intimately involved in the health care of 
their patients, and all of the Catholic administrators of all of these 
hospitals and say, You're pro-abortion. Good luck having that argument. 
It's a phony argument that's being created for politics, just like the 
death panels were, just like the illegal immigrants were going to be 
covered under this bill. All of those issues have been demagogued in 
this House and across this country to try to scare legislators and the 
American people. And the dust is going to settle, and we're going to be 
able to look back on this vote.
  I look forward, Madam Speaker--I will tell you this--I look forward 
to the debate in the fall discussing with the American people exactly 
what is in this bill. I look forward to talking to my Chamber of 
Commerce, my friends in small business, that they're going to get a 35 
percent tax credit, and they're going to be able to go into this 
exchange and negotiate with a bunch of other small business people, 
thousands, to have some bargaining power to reduce their health 
insurance costs. I look forward to going into a debate saying, You know 
what was in this health care bill? We made sure that no insurance 
company could deny any child because they have a preexisting condition. 
No insurance company could deny a citizen of this country because they 
have a preexisting condition. That our seniors are going to get more 
prescription drug coverage. That our citizens, when they hit a 
catastrophic health event in their life, that there won't be any 
lifetime caps or limits to how much they can be covered. Madam Speaker, 
that is what this health care debate is about.
  No matter how many times our friends on the other side try to say 
they want to work with us, they have been given the opportunity to sit 
down and work. And they say they're for a lot of these things but, 
again, already in committee, peeling out the votes, closing the 
prescription drug hole in the Budget Committee, 15 Republicans voted 
``no,'' we don't want to close the doughnut hole. Protecting Americans 
from insurance caps, banning annual and lifetime limits on health care 
coverage. This is the vote. That's all the vote was on. Fifteen 
Republicans from the Budget Committee voted ``no,'' we don't want to 
protect Americans from the caps and ban annual lifetime limits. Holding 
health insurance companies accountable, 15 Republicans said, No, we 
don't want to hold them accountable. Bringing down the cost of 
insurance, providing a tax credit to small businesses, 15 Republicans 
voted ``no'' for a tax credit for small business because their 
consultants and pollsters told them they couldn't let this bill pass.
  So out of 15 Republicans on each one of these votes, a majority of 
the Republicans on all of these votes, out of the 15, voted ``no,'' we 
don't want to do it. In some instances, it was close to all of the 15.
  Madam Speaker, we have an opportunity here to make history. But 
that's not why we're doing it. We're doing it because this government, 
from its inception, this government from its inception has had a moral 
mission; a moral mission to protect and empower its citizens. And when 
an industry and their unsavory business practices are

[[Page 3582]]

hurting the American people, we have a moral obligation to intervene. 
And we have a moral obligation to empower by making sure that our 
citizens are free to go in and have expanded choice, that they are free 
from an insurance company saying, You're off the rolls now because you 
got sick. You're empowered because you can be healthy and get access to 
care and you can experience the liberty that this country has 
provided--life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's what this 
bill is about, and I look forward to having an opportunity to continue 
to advocate for it.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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