[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11745-11749]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE DOCTORS CAUCUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I thank you and I thank my 
leadership on the Republican side, Leader Boehner, and our leadership 
team for giving me the opportunity this evening before this packed 
House Chamber, of course, Mr. Speaker, with the exception of those few 
names that you just read off, but on this occasion of the 3-month 
anniversary, if you will, the 3-month anniversary of the signage into 
law of the health care reform bill, better known as the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, sometimes referred to, with 
no disrespect, as ObamaCare, not unlike HillaryCare of 1993, which 
never became law.
  And, Mr. Speaker, indeed, when I say ObamaCare, I do not mean any 
disrespect, although I consistently, along with my colleagues on this 
side of the aisle, voted against the passage of that legislation. I 
would hope, Mr. Speaker, I would hope when we on my side of the aisle, 
on behalf of the American people who overwhelmingly continue, 3 months 
after passage of this bill, continue in all polls taken oppose this 
legislation, so when my Republican colleagues and I, Mr. Speaker, 
regain the majority and control this Chamber and we repeal ObamaCare 
and we replace it with legislation that I am going to talk a little bit 
about tonight, I would not be offended in the least, Mr. Speaker, if 
they called it GingreyCare, or maybe even better Dr. GingreyCare. I 
would be very proud of that.
  Mr. Speaker, the concerns I think of the American people and their 
continued opposition to this reform is not that they are opposed to 
certain health insurance industry reforms. No, not at all. Nor are we 
in the loyal minority for things like the rescission of a policy after 
the fact. So many of our colleagues in their own families, or maybe 
their distant relatives, extended families, have seen situations like 
that where health insurance industry abuse directly affected their 
families.
  I have a grand-niece who went into the hospital, Mr. Speaker, to have 
a gall bladder removed. It was an emergency situation. And after the 
fact, she was told that the health insurance that they had had for a 
number of years--her family, of course, her mom and dad, that covered 
the children--was not going to cover, would not be applicable because 
somewhere in filling out that policy, 8, 10, 12, 14 pages worth of 
minutiae, they failed to dot one I or cross one T. Fortunately, as a 
Member of Congress, and this is what we do in regard to helping not 
just our constituents but our family members as well when we can work 
with other Members of Congress in their district, we were able to get 
the insurance company to pay that claim.
  But people across the country are rightly outraged about health 
insurance abuse. And we need to change that. We need, indeed, to make 
sure that people with preexisting conditions have a way to be able to 
get affordable health insurance. And certainly that can be done and was 
being done even before this bill, Mr. Speaker, in a number of States 
where they have these high-risk pools. And the health insurance 
companies that are licensed to sell their product in those specific 
States, like my State of Georgia, are required to participate in these 
high-risk pools and are not allowed to charge, say, an arm and a leg--
that really gets medical, doesn't it--but you know what I mean, my 
colleagues, way over and above four, five times what a standard policy 
premium would be. Well, that's a de facto denial of coverage. So we all 
agree that that needed to be changed and the American people would like 
to see that changed. Of course they would.
  But their concern, and I see this, Mr. Speaker, every time I go back 
home. And I go home, as most of my colleagues do. As soon as we get out 
of here, we head to the airport so we can get back in our districts and 
have those town hall meetings and those tele-town hall meetings and, 
you know, go see folks at senior centers and church and Rotary clubs 
and Kiwanis clubs and wherever our constituents are, ballparks with 
their children on Saturdays. And we talk to them about these things and 
we listen to them. More importantly, we listen to them.
  And what I have heard from day one, Mr. Speaker, I am talking about a 
year-and-a-half ago, was: Why are we doing this? Why are we doing this 
when 15 million of us are out of work? The unemployment rate in Georgia 
is 10

[[Page 11746]]

percent--a little higher in my 11th Congressional District of northwest 
Georgia. We need to go back to work. Why are you men and women in 
Congress, you Democratic majority, Republican minority, why aren't you 
all working together in a bipartisan way to stimulate this economy and 
to put us back to work? Many of us have been out of work for 6 months 
or more and we don't have health insurance but, you know what, we don't 
have a job either. And we will take our old job back even if we don't 
have health insurance. Eventually, we will be concerned about that, but 
right now we can't put groceries on the table. We can't clothe our 
children. We can't pay our taxes. We cannot pay the mortgage on our 
home. We are going to lose the roof over our head. And you guys are 
spending a year-and-a-half trying to figure out how to come up with a 
trillion dollars. We know how you're doing it. You're doing it by 
slashing the Medicare program to the bone, $500 billion worth, and you 
are raising taxes $575 billion worth. How is that going to create jobs?
  So, Mr. Speaker, that's why the people were opposed to this. That's 
why the people in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Bay State, 
elected Scott Brown to replace Teddy Kennedy, a Senate seat I guess 
held by the Kennedy family going back to our former President JFK, all 
those years. And the whole delegation in Massachusetts is totally 
Democrat. But the people in the Bay State, when Scott Brown was 
campaigning, Mr. Speaker, what was his main point to make on behalf of 
his candidacy? I am going to go to Washington, if you give me this 
opportunity over Ms. Coakley--a decent candidate in her own right. You 
give me this opportunity, and I am going to be the 41st vote in the 
United States Senate, and you know what that means. That means that 
stops this bill dead in its tracks under regular order, under normal 
operating procedures.

                              {time}  1945

  The people of Massachusetts understood that. They understood that 
very clearly. They were, Mr. Speaker, very concerned, weren't they, 
about Commonwealth Care? They had had about 2, 2\1/2\, 3 years of that, 
and they knew that the cost of health insurance with that kind of 
approach, those premiums didn't go down; they went up. They wanted no 
more of that. They wanted Scott Brown--the Honorable Senator Scott 
Brown now--to go to Washington and be that 41st vote, so that cloture 
could not be invoked, the filibuster could not be overridden, and this 
bill could be stopped dead in its tracks.
  And it would have been, Mr. Speaker. It would have been, except for 
smoke and mirrors, hook or by crook, promise them everything, anything 
you have to to get a vote, and then this arcane, strange stuff called 
reconciliation. And really, Mr. Speaker, what was done here 3 months 
ago, we celebrate this 3-month anniversary, a bill, a massive 2,500-
page bill, was crammed down the throats of the American people.
  Now they ain't done. I will say this, Mr. Speaker. It ain't over--it 
isn't over--it isn't over until the people win. And I tell them, I tell 
them in Georgia and my colleagues tell them all across the country, you 
resist. You continue to resist. Don't roll over and say, it's done, 
it's a fait accompli, it's passed, there's nothing we can do about it.
  Yes, there is. Yes, there is. We can resist, we can resist, we can 
resist right up until November 2; and then we can make some changes. We 
can't change hearts, so we change faces, Mr. Speaker. And then we 
repeal. And then we start over. And we do this in the right way. We do 
it indeed by making sure that health insurance companies don't continue 
to literally abuse their clients by rescission of policies, by denying 
coverage.
  All of these things we can take care of, and we could do that 
probably in six or eight pages' worth of legislation. It doesn't take 
2,500. It doesn't take the creation of 130 new bureaucracies. It 
doesn't take 15,000 new IRS agents to go over with a fine toothed comb 
everybody's return to make sure they not only have a health insurance 
policy but the one the government dictates to them; and, lo and behold, 
if they don't, they get to pay a fine, eventually of up to something 
like $695. And if they don't pay the fine, Mr. Speaker, John Q. Public 
gets to go to jail, spend a little time in the crossbar hotel, as my 
father used to call it.
  Can you imagine in this country that that could happen under the ruse 
of the commerce clause? Indeed, what does the commerce clause of our 
Constitution say? I know I have it here somewhere in my pocket. I try 
to keep that with me all the time. In fact, I tell folks in my 
district, if you catch me without it, the first person that catches me, 
I'll have a $5 bill in my pocket to hand to them.
  But when you look at the commerce clause, it doesn't mandate 
commerce; it regulates commerce. And that's so important, Mr. Speaker, 
for our colleagues to remember. You can't mandate to someone that they 
engage in commerce, that they buy something against their will. If 
they're involved in commerce and it's interstate, and I realize most 
commerce is interstate, then the government's heavy hand is always 
involved, to regulate. But to mandate? To tell a young man or woman who 
has just graduated from college or maybe had a nice job opportunity 
straight out of high school, and they're making less than $25,000 a 
year, they take care of themselves, they're healthy, they were an 
athlete in high school or college, they don't smoke, they don't drink, 
they're not obese, they don't have a family history of heart disease or 
cancer. Indeed, their family seemed to have the Methuselah gene. They 
have grandparents in their late nineties. Those people that decide, 
even though maybe their employer offers health insurance and pays 60 
percent of the premium or 50 percent of the premium but they've got to 
pay the other half, and they can't afford it. They just can't afford 
it. So they opt to take a chance and hope that that healthy living will 
serve them well, and it will be many years before they'll have a need 
to spend a great deal of money on health insurance.
  You tell me, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, 
that they should not be allowed to do that in this country? To continue 
to forever be able to make that choice? I'm not as a physician Member 
going to stand up here and say that that's what I would advise them to 
do. No. I would be glad to do a public service announcement, if 
somebody would pay for it, saying, folks, don't take that chance now. 
It's kind of like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. It might look 
cool with your sideburns flapping in the breeze, but there's a tree up 
ahead, or somebody is going to run a stop sign, and you don't have much 
protection.
  I would encourage them to try to economize and maybe have a health 
insurance policy that has a very low monthly premium and a high 
deductible. That deductible, let's say, is $3,000 or $4,000. In other 
words, they're going to have to pay the first $3,000 or $4,000 each and 
every year of health care expenditures out of their own pocket. But in 
return for that, their monthly premium is low, very affordable, and it 
gives them catastrophic coverage so that if they do hit that tree on 
that motorcycle without that helmet and they have a massive head injury 
and they're not dead but they're in a coma for a long, long time, that 
they're not financially totally wiped out and forced into bankruptcy. 
They have that kind of protection. That's called a health savings 
account combined with that low monthly premium, high deductible with 
catastrophic coverage.
  Those plans, Mr. Speaker, have gotten so popular. They were limited 
by Teddy Kennedy back when they were first proposed a number of years 
ago, but since then they have been expanded and are very popular with 
young people. So, so many of these folks that are so-called 
``uninsured,'' they're really not uninsured; they have some coverage, 
and it is good coverage. But under this bill--now I know people will 
say, well, that doesn't kick in until 2014, 2013.
  Hey, Mr. Speaker, it seemed like yesterday when I walked off the 
campus of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Augusta, Georgia, in 1960, 
and I

[[Page 11747]]

thought I was done learning and grown up. And it seemed like that was 
yesterday. By golly, it's been 50 years ago. So the time flies. It will 
be like a blink of an eye, we'll be at 2014, 2015, and all these 
horrendous requirements in this bill, ObamaCare, will kick in: like the 
requirement under penalty of law with those IRS agents, 15,000 of them, 
looking over your returns and, ah, we caught another one. I don't know, 
maybe they get a bonus every time they catch some poor, young 
individual who's not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid or 
PeachCare or SCHIP, that's taking a chance, and even those that have 
the insurance but it's not adequate because the Federal Government 
said, oh, that's not good enough, we want first-dollar coverage, we've 
cut this deal with the insurance company for them to go along with 
ObamaCare, and we're going to require first-dollar coverage.
  That's the kind of thing that really, Mr. Speaker, is appalling to me 
as a physician Member. I am honored to be cochair of the GOP Doctors 
Caucus along with my good friend from Pennsylvania, psychologist Tim 
Murphy, child psychologist, author of several books, and now a 
lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserves. These are the kind of folks 
on my side of the aisle.
  There are about 15 of us. Most are MD's. We have probably 375 years' 
worth of clinical experience. The whole spectrum of specialties: 
whether it's OB-GYN, my specialty; or family practice, the specialty of 
Dr. John Fleming; gastroenterology, the specialty of Dr. Bill Cassidy; 
psychology, the specialty of Tim Murphy; cardiothoracic surgery, the 
specialty of Dr. Charles Boustany; OB-GYN, again the specialty of Mike 
Burgess and Phil Roe; orthopedic surgery, the specialty of my colleague 
from Georgia, Tom Price; family practice, indeed, house-call medicine, 
the specialty of my colleague again from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun. I 
could go on and on.
  These are Members on our side of the aisle who were just begging, 
calling, writing letters to the White House: let us participate. We 
know about that sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship. We know 
what rationing will do and the fear that our seniors have of being 
rationed because they're too old to have taxpayer dollars spent on 
their hip replacement. So you just say, no, take a couple of Advil and 
we'll buy you a walker, maybe even a wheelchair, although that's 
debatable as well.
  And, Mr. Speaker, to compound this problem, ObamaCare, now our 
President has named the new director of CMS, Centers for Medicare and 
Medicaid Services, Dr. Donald Berwick. Dr. Berwick may be a fine human 
being, I'm sure he is, I don't know him personally, but I have read 
quotes and I know that he's written a book. And one of those quotes, 
and I'm not going to be able to give it verbatim, but basically, Mr. 
Speaker, says, it's not if we need to ration; it's that we need to 
ration with our eyes wide open. It's not if we need to ration care, but 
that we ration with our eyes wide open.
  I'm looking forward, as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee 
and the Health Subcommittee, to having Dr. Berwick soon after his 
appointment as director of CMS to come before the committee and explain 
to us just what he means by that. So that the seniors who are relying 
on Medicare, like my mom, my 92-year-old mom, is she going to be able 
to, as she did last year, to have her knee operated on? Or is she just 
going to get a walker and a bottle of Advil and told, you're just too 
old? We can't afford it. We're going to ration care.
  Again, this is what people are concerned about. Mr. Speaker, when 
half of the pay-for, the trillion dollars, to be able to get an 
additional 15 or 20 million people into some kind of health care 
coverage, whether it's these State exchanges, or eventually I'm 
convinced that the real plan is to go to a U.K.-type system, Canadian-
type system and have national health insurance; the Federal Government 
to take over one-sixth of our economy, one-sixth of our entire gross 
domestic product, $2.5 trillion a year, the Federal Government 
controlling this, lock, stock and barrel.

                              {time}  2000

  Madam Speaker, the American people don't want that. The American 
people didn't want the Federal Government to completely take over the 
student loan industry, but they did. This President did. This majority 
did, Madam Speaker. The American people don't want a cap-and-trade 
bill, an energy bill, that results in a $1,500-a-year minimum increase 
in the cost of electricity in this country. The American people don't 
want that.
  The American people want our borders secured, Madam Speaker--ask any 
of them--and not just the people in Arizona. Ask the people in Georgia. 
Ask the people in Michigan. They want our borders secured. They don't 
want amnesty. That was tried in 1986, and I think something like--I 
don't know--6 million, maybe, were granted amnesty, and now we've got 
12 million to 14 million illegals in our country.
  So it is just a fact, as I said, Madam Speaker. It's not that people 
don't want to have more affordable health care, lower insurance 
premiums, and better coverage. They want that--of course they want 
that--but they don't want the Federal Government to take it all over 
and to literally come between a doctor and her patient in an exam room:
  No, no, Doctor. You can't do that. It says here in the manual that 
bureaucrat No. 128 of the 131 new ones is over that, and you can't 
order that test because there is a cheaper way to do it.
  The doctor says, Well, yeah, but you know, for this patient, I know 
this medication will work. We tried the other, and it didn't work for 
my patient. In fact, she had a bad reaction to it.
  Well, you're going to have to get a waiver then, Doctor.
  But, Madam Bureaucrat, the patient needs care today.
  Well, you know, we'll probably have an answer for you in a week or 
two.
  That is the kind of stuff that we are talking about. So I'm going to 
tell you this, Madam Speaker. That is the reason there are physicians 
all across this country, on both sides of the aisle, who are seeking 
the nomination of their party to come join us, to become one of the 435 
or one of the 100 in the other body. I've never seen so many running 
for office, giving up, you know, more lucrative careers financially 
than what you earn as a Member of Congress.
  They want to make a difference. They want to make a change. They are, 
I'm sure, pretty frustrated and disgusted about their lot, about their 
wonderful medical profession that many of them devoted 25, 30 years of 
their lives to. They probably didn't even get started until they were 
in their early thirties and had $200,000 worth of student loans to pay 
off.
  They went through all of that, and now we're going to come along and 
say, Well, you doctors work for us now. You work for the President. You 
work for Ms. Sebelius. You work for Dr. Barwick. We are going to call 
the shots. Not only are we going to set your salary--and, indeed, until 
today, you were facing a 21 percent cut, a 21 percent cut over last 
year in what we reimbursed you for anything: seeing a patient, doing a 
consultation in your office, making a diagnosis, taking out an 
appendix, delivering a baby, seeing someone at 2 o'clock in the morning 
in the emergency room--but, if they are Medicare, we are going to pay 
you 21 percent less.
  Actually, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, that went into effect last 
Friday. So, for any claims that Medicare was holding, the doctors will 
be reimbursed. Now, yeah, okay. In this bill we passed today, they will 
be able to hire, I guess, a new employee who will spend the next 
several months resubmitting those claims. Maybe, within a year, they 
will get that 21 percent cut back.
  Though, do you know what we did here today? It's amazing. We should 
have done this months ago. We certainly should have done it last 
Thursday so that this effect, this cut, this 21 percent cut, would not 
have been allowed to go into effect.
  Madam Speaker wanted to hold that up so that these other things could 
get

[[Page 11748]]

done and could be attached to it. In other words, kind of using this as 
an incentive to pass some other things that--yes, you guessed it--
involved more government spending, more deficit, and more debt. Thank 
goodness our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and especially 
our Republican colleagues, said, no, we will not vote for that. We are 
$13 trillion in debt, and our deficit for the year is $1.6 trillion. If 
you look at it over a 10-year period, it is going to average to about 
$850 billion worth of red ink each and every year over the next 10 
years. We are not going to spend another dime on whatever you want to 
call it--Stimulus I, Stimulus II, Stimulus III. The first one hasn't 
worked. Yet our Speaker wanted to hold out for the passage of that and, 
really, figuratively, wanted to hold a gun to the heads of the doctors.
  Well, we finally did pass it, as a stand-alone measure, to mitigate 
those cuts, but do you know what? Colleagues, you know what. Of course 
you do. We mitigate it until the end of November--barely 6 months. 
Then, all of a sudden, they are hit with it again. If we don't 
permanently fix this problem, then next year the cut will be 25 
percent.
  With ObamaCare, with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 
we had an opportunity, and the President promised the doctors at the 
convention of the American Medical Association in Chicago, his 
hometown, that tort reform would be in there, that payment reform would 
be in there--``in there,'' the bill, the Patient Protection and 
Affordable Care Act--but, oh, no, it was stripped out because it cost 
too much. Yet we gutted Medicare of $500 billion, and $130 billion of 
it was taken from the Medicare Advantage program.
  Fully a fourth of our seniors on Medicare get their care from a 
Medicare Advantage plan. Why? Because screening procedures are offered 
and paid for. Annual physical examinations are offered and paid for. 
Nurses call the patients to make sure that they are taking their 
medications--and the medications are paid for.
  Yes, it costs a little bit more, and our majority party said, Well, 
you know, we shouldn't be paying more for those programs, but look how 
much more you're getting if you believe in wellness rather than in just 
treating episodes of illness?
  That's why you came up with this program, for goodness sakes. That's 
why we passed Medicare part D, the prescription drug part. This was 
when you criticized us so severely back in 2003 and said, Oh, you're 
not paying for that. It's going to cost another $450 billion on the 
Medicare program to provide these seniors with coverage for their 
prescriptions.
  Well, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, you know that many of these 
seniors--I know. I'm one of them--are taking four, five or six 
medications a day to lower their cholesterol, to lower their blood 
pressure, or to get their blood sugar in line to make sure they don't 
end up on renal dialysis, to make sure they don't end up having their 
coronary arteries bypassed or stented.

                              {time}  2010

  In the long run, this cost of Medicare part D will be a savings 
because we won't be spending as much money paying cardiothoracic 
surgeons to crack people's chests; we won't be paying nursing homes for 
all these folks that couldn't take medication for the blood pressure 
that end up with massive strokes and, God bless them, they didn't die 
and they are in a nursing home for the rest of their lives, which may 
be another 20 years. So in the long run, that bill was a good bill, and 
we will save money because we will shift costs from Medicare part A and 
part B to part D, the prescription drug part. And isn't it a more 
compassionate way to treat a human being?
  Madam Speaker, I'd like to suggest that we have a lot of good ideas 
that were ignored. But it ain't over. It ain't over.
  I've got a couple of posters here I wanted to show my colleagues. I 
don't know how much more time I have. Maybe I will ask the Speaker how 
much longer we have.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Markey of Colorado). The gentleman has 
26 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, thank you very much.
  Well, I said, colleagues, that I'm representing the Republican 
minority tonight during what we call the Leadership Hour. Our 
Democratic colleagues will have the second hour. They may refute every 
word I've said, Madam Speaker. I hope not, but they could. But that's 
what we do up here. And it's important that we try to bring, as 
honestly as we can, from our own perspective our views so we can learn 
from each other. But, again, as representing the leadership and as 
cochair of the Doctors Caucus, as you can see on this first slide, this 
just says: Yes, today, ObamaCare. Three months later.
  I'd like for my colleagues to pay attention to the easel, if you 
would, because I want to go through a few important things--quotes and 
promises. What we were promised. And this is a quote, ``Health care 
reform that will provide access to quality, affordable health care for 
all Americans is now law. The enacted reforms will help bring down 
costs for American families and small businesses. It will give all 
people the security of health insurance that can't be taken away.'' The 
majority leader, the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Steny 
Hoyer) said that on June 23, 2010. I believe that was Wednesday. That 
was yesterday that Steny Hoyer made that quote, that statement.
  Well, that's part of what we were promised. Here's what we got. My 
colleagues, again, I refer you to the easel: ObamaCare hurts small 
businesses. And these three bullet points. Small businesses were 
promised a tax credit to help with compliance with ObamaCare. On paper, 
the credit seems to be available to companies with fewer than 25 
workers and average wages of $50,000, but in practice, a complicated 
formula that combines the two numbers, that works against companies 
that have more than 10 workers and $25,000 in average wages.
  I will give you an example on this same slide, the last bullet point. 
An Illinois furniture supply store owner, Zach Hoffman, he ran the 
math. And his small business with 24 employees and $35,000 average 
wages would get--listen carefully, colleagues, if you can't see it--
zero help because he created too many jobs and he paid them too much. 
And he's got 24 employees and an average salary of $35,000, and he's 
not going to get any help. So much for the promises.
  More of what we got. More of what we got. ObamaCare hurts all 
employees. Increased costs. The majority of employers anticipate health 
care reform will increase health costs. Most say they plan to pass on 
increases to their employees--they have no choice--or reduce health 
benefits and programs. Some say that less benefits will be available 
for retirees.
  Now, I want to elaborate on this a little bit. More than three in 
four employers--85 percent--believe health care reform will reduce the 
number of large organizations offering retiree medical benefits, and 43 
percent of employers that currently offer retiree medical plans plan to 
reduce or eliminate them. Well, let me explain that to my colleagues.
  Shortly after ObamaCare became law, a number of companies--IBM was 
among the companies; Caterpillar. I can name several others that would 
be recognized, I guess, by everybody in the Chamber as Fortune 500 
companies--companies that employ a lot of people, companies who have a 
lot of retirees who were promised that they would have a health care 
benefit, and if they retired at age 50, they could rely on that company 
providing them health care until they became eligible for Medicare, and 
then I guess it would become secondary to Medicare. But what a great 
benefit. But after all, when you work for a company--I guess a lot of 
people don't do that today, Madam Speaker. But if you spend 25 or 30 
years, 5 days a week, 365 days a year being loyal to that company, you 
have earned it. It's not a gift. It's something that you have earned.
  And when Medicare part D was passed, a lot of concern on the part of 
the Federal Government that these companies would just say, Well, okay,

[[Page 11749]]

we'll just drop the coverage for our retirees and they can, when they 
get eligible agewise for Medicare, they'll just pick up their health 
care then.
  Well, a tax break was given to these companies on that cost that they 
incurred in providing the health care benefit for their retirees, and 
indeed it did include prescription drugs for many of these companies. 
And all of a sudden with this new law, ObamaCare--ObamaCare, Patient 
Protection and Affordable Health Care Act--that tax break was taken 
away. I really didn't realize it. I'm on the Energy and Commerce 
Committee and very involved in all the markups and back-and-forth that 
went on for a year, but I wasn't aware of that provision. But in the 
aggregate, something like $6 billion worth of tax advantage to 
incentivize these companies to continue to pay the health insurance for 
their retirees was taken away.
  Well, they were required, the companies, as this was a cost to their 
bottom line, the SEC requirement was that they immediately let the SEC 
know, to make a filing to that effect. And what they did, they were 
literally threatened to be drug before the Energy and Commerce 
Committee with the threat of subpoena to come and prove they weren't 
lying.
  Madam Speaker, my colleagues, and the American people, that is a 
pretty scary scenario, is it not? Is it not? It's unbelievable is what 
it is. But these companies submitted all the required documents that 
the committee demanded and then the committee realized that the 
companies were right and they were wrong. This indeed was an unintended 
consequence. And this bill is riddled with stories like that. It's been 
3 months and we're finding something new like that almost every day.
  Here's also what we got, as I refer you back to the easel. ObamaCare 
hurts all employers. Independent Mercer Survey on ObamaCare: 97 percent 
of employers responded that the legislative changes would cause 
premiums to rise. And indeed they have.

                              {time}  2020

  The survey also examined business' fears about the law's new employer 
mandate penalties. More than one in four employers, 26 percent, and 
nearly two in five retailers, 39 percent, may not be in compliance with 
provisions requiring coverage of all employees working over 30 hours 
per week. And finally, of those, a majority, 59 percent, said they 
would consider changing their business practices so that fewer 
employees work 30 hours or more per week.
  So what we're talking about, again, is that this bill, while it may 
get a few more people health insurance, it's going to cause so many 
more people to lose their jobs, to add to that 16 million. And, Madam 
Speaker, as I said earlier, these people, once they've been out of work 
a while, they want health insurance, but they also want a paycheck 
because they have to support their families. And they'll do everything 
they can to protect their health.
  You know, they won't let them walk to school on a busy highway, and 
they'll make sure they're wearing their helmets when they get on their 
bicycles. But, you know, food is not free, clothes are not free, 
mortgage payments are not free.
  So, again, this is why the American people said, you know, we're in a 
rut. We're in a ditch, and we think it's time for you to stop digging. 
You are making it worse. You are digging the hole deeper, borrowing all 
of this money and us being $13 trillion in debt. You cannot spend your 
way out of debt. It's impossible. It can't be done. It's never been 
done. Let's get this country back on its feet and get people back to 
work, get that unemployment rate down to 6 percent again; and then we 
can do the things that we need to do.
  Madam Speaker, I could talk about a number of Republican 
alternatives. Wally Herger, my good friend from California who is the 
ranking member of the Health Subcommittee on Ways and Means, just 
introduced a bill within the last couple of days that does all the 
things that we need to do. And I can assure you, Representative Wally 
Herger's bill is not 2,500 pages long. And that's a commonsense sort of 
thing.
  I am going to mention one other thing to my colleagues, and then I'm 
going to wrap up this evening. I was so disappointed, and my physician 
colleagues were so disappointed, Madam Speaker, when the President did 
not follow through on his promise to do something about medical 
liability reform, so-called tort reform. We've tried to many times pass 
that in this Chamber under a Republican majority, but we couldn't get 
it through the Senate. I have given a lot of thought to that. And 
particularly when the CBO says that we could save $54 billion over 10 
years, I think it's probably closer to $100 billion a year. I have seen 
many other studies that suggest that.
  But I think that the bill that I am introducing right now--it's 
called MEDMAL Act of 2010. MEDMAL is an acronym. It stands for 
Meaningful End to Defensive Medicine and Aimless Lawsuits. Doctors all 
across this country are ordering all of these unnecessary tests. 
They're getting criticized for getting a CAT Scan on everybody that 
comes into an emergency room with a headache. But I'm telling you, 
they're doing it not to gin up their own revenues. They're doing it 
because they're scared to death that if that one in a million situation 
where the person has a brain tumor or an impending stroke is missed, 
they will be sued and not only lose all of their assets, they would 
lose their profession. We can't continue that way. And I would think 
Republicans and Democrats alike, if we could join hands can do 
something about that.
  So I have introduced a bill, and, Madam Speaker, I think that it will 
really make a difference. And I will be talking about that a lot as we 
go through these remaining 6 months of the 111th Congress and trying to 
work my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure it's 
something that's fair, that our trial attorneys who, for the most part, 
are great people and are very skilled in what they do, and they're 
representing their clients who have been injured maybe by some doctor 
or hospital practicing below the standard of care, they deserve their 
day in court. We don't take that away. That would not be right.
  But we also try to end this frivolous jackpot justice that exists 
today. And I think this bill will do that. So while I don't have too 
much time to talk about it tonight, Madam Speaker, I certainly do plan 
on sharing it with my colleagues maybe as we come back next week.
  Well, let me thank you for your attention tonight. I thank my 
leadership for giving me the opportunity. I probably needed another 
hour to really go over everything that I wanted to talk about. But I 
think it's important for us to know that the American people are not 
done with this. As I said, it's not over until the American people win 
because that's why we're up here. We're up here to win for the American 
people, not for the special interests, not for ourselves. We're public 
servants, and we're obligated to continue to work to try to do what's 
right for the American people. And I think we can and will do that.

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