Improving Mathematics and Science Teacher Quality Act

Mr. Speaker, I submit the remarks for the Record that I delivered at the American Cancer Society in East Syracuse on Tuesday of this week in support of this historic health care reform bill.

I have heard from thousands of constituents about the current health care reform debate. I've tried to listen to everything they've had to say--for and against health care reform. Their advice and their pleas and their stories and their criticisms have helped guide my advocacy on behalf of changes and improvements to proposals before Congress and my decision on the compromise legislation before Congress.

Now that the President's changes will be incorporated into the final legislation, I will support this historic health care reform effort.

I am voting in favor of this legislation not because I think it is perfect, but because I strongly believe it is in the best interests of my constituents--that it will make a positive difference in the lives of families, businesses, and hospitals in central and western New York.

First, I'm voting for this because we need to do something to control rising health care costs that keep taking a bigger and bigger bite out of the household budgets of upstate New York. Skyrocketing health care costs aren't just crippling the U.S. economy--they're emptying our pocketbooks. My entire life is filled with stories about how people-- regular middle-class people--can't afford the health care they need. How insurance companies have denied needed care. How kids graduating from college can't find affordable coverage. How people with life threatening conditions need to hold bake sales and bowl-a-thons to pay health bills. Families go bankrupt not because they were irresponsible but because they trusted their insurance plans. More than 72 million adults currently have medical debt or problems paying their bills even though most of them have insurance. It has to end--and I honestly believe if we don't take action now it never will.

Second, I'm voting for this because if we don't fix health care, businesses that are struggling to compete in a global economy will fall further and further behind.

As premiums nearly double, employees in small firms will see offers of health insurance options almost cut in half. It is predicted the 41 percent of firms offering insurance in 2010 will drop to 23 percent in 2020. Not because they are bad employers but because they cannot afford it.

Every industrialized nation has figured out a way to get people affordable coverage--the United States can, too.

And finally, I'm voting for this bill because the county, state, and country are going broke due to health care costs. Sure, we could limp

along another few years but if we do, it will only be harder to control those long-term costs.

I know many people in my district will be encouraged that we are finally moving forward, that we are finally taking action on an issue that affects us all.

I know others will be unhappy. Many of my constituents have strong concerns about this legislation. In fact, I share some of those very same concerns. I worked very hard to improve this bill. I led the fight to hold down the tax on medical devices. I advocated for businesses with less than 25 employees to get subsidies for health insurance and for a reduced burden on other businesses. I fought successfully to raise the threshold on any benefit surcharge so that it won't affect middle-class people in my district.

This is not a perfect bill. But it is an important legislation that we need to pass to move this country forward.

There are several criticisms of the proposal that do come up certainly across the country and even here in my district that I feel compelled to address.

First, many argue that this is a government take-over of health care. That is simply not true. In fact, except for Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and other already existing programs, Americans would be covered by private insurance plans. A public option which I support is not even included in this plan. There are some additional regulations that give more rights to patients such as not allowing health plans to deny coverage due to preexisting conditions. But these are widely supported and necessary changes. To assert that these new patient rights are some sort of government take-over is absurd.

Second, some will say that large majorities of the American public are against the President's plan. The Post-Standard printed an AP poll this last weekend that did show slightly more respondents nationwide opposed rather than supported the health care reform plans--by two percentage points--43 to 41. But for many it's not that the plan went too far but that it did not change enough. In fact, fully 82% of the respondents to that same poll wanted to change the health system a moderate amount or more. Only 17 percent said it should be changed a little or not at all.

So this idea that Americans don't want change is simply wrong. In this region, it is particularly misguided. While it is true that my office has received many calls objecting to the health care debate, a vast majority of them have been from out-of-state--a purposeful and well-funded attempt to jam our lines so that my constituents cannot get through. And yet thousands did and while it is clear there are diverse opinions and that my constituents are more divided on this than any other major question we've faced so far, it is also clear from our office communications and our research that a majority of my constituents want me to work as hard as I can to improve health care proposal and support the changes we need. And I will do just that.

Third, that the President's proposed changes will increase costs to businesses and taxpayers. But I ask compared to what? The current trajectory is already bankrupting businesses, states, counties, cities, and right here in central New York leading to higher and higher property taxes. Under the current system, health care will consume one of every three dollars in the U.S. economy--twice as much as it does today. The President's plan gets these costs under control by implementing nearly every idea suggested including Republican ideas on medical malpractice and increasing ability to buy insurance across state lines. It also over time implements real cuts in government spending on health care including eliminating some of the waste and subsidies.

I believe that many of these cost savers will work. I know that doing nothing will bankrupt our country and our families and our small businesses.

I know the Republicans in Washington have said that they want to make health care the central issue in the elections this coming November. Thousands and thousands of dollars have already been spent on ads running against me here in central New York. Some of these ads have been proven to be false.

Far from convincing me to oppose the health care reform, they have strengthened my resolve. Because when people who have that much money feel so strongly that they run attack ads on you, chances are that what you're doing is in the best interest of taxpayers and ordinary families.

So what's in this proposal?

People who have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition will finally have access to affordable coverage. Insurers will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get sick and are in the middle of treatment.

Never again will you lose access to insurance if you get laid off or switch jobs.

Small businesses and employers getting crushed by soaring health care costs will see lower costs.

Never again will you be subject to annual or lifetime limits on what insurance companies will pay, protecting millions of Americans from the threat of medical bankruptcy.

Insurers will be required to offer free preventive care, lowering your out-of-pocket expenses and helping ensure that diseases or conditions can be caught early on.

Seniors who fall into the Medicare Part D donut hole will see lower prescription drug costs as immediate steps are taken to close the donut hole. Employers who cover their early retirees will receive temporary funds to help offset the cost of expensive claims for retirees' health benefits--lowering premiums and protecting coverage for early retirees.

Insurers are prohibited from charging women more than men for health insurance or discriminating on the basis of domestic violence as a pre- existing condition. Required maternity services as part of the essential benefits package in the exchange.

Young adults will now be able to stay on their parents' insurance much longer, through their 26th birthday.

And finally, health reform will guarantee access to quality, affordable health insurance for 31 million Americans who don't have coverage today, also eliminating the annual hidden tax of $1,100 that American families pay to cover the cost of the uninsured. While the official health insurance exchanges are being created, a temporary insurance pool will be available for individuals with pre-existing conditions or chronic illnesses.

These benefits are all vitally important. But perhaps in the end it comes down to this: those opposed to health care reform are concerned that it will cost them more. This bill saves money and the further out you go, the more it saves. But it also saves something more precious-- it will save lives.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Today is March 21, 2010. On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a march across that bridge for the vote in this democracy.

It was a march towards a greater freedom for many Americans. It was a march for a better quality of life for many Americans. Indeed, it was a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge for freedom and a better realization of the promise of our democracy.

Today, March 21, 2010, we will cross another bridge. It is not a physical bridge, but it is a bridge that too many Americans find that they cannot cross; a river that separates them from the security of having available the best health care that is available in the world available to them.

We are here to conclude a day of debate, which concludes months of debate, in a national conversation that began more than a century ago.

But this much is beyond debate. American health care is on an unsustainable course. By the end of this debate, another family will have fallen into bankruptcy because someone had the bad fortune simply to be sick. More families will have joined them in paying more and more for less and less health coverage. More businesses will have weighted bankruptcy against cutting their workers' care and their workers will have lost.

We have before us a bill to change an unsustainable course. That is our choice this evening. It is a historic choice. It's a choice that all of us volunteered to be put in the position to make. It is a choice that we will be honored to make this evening. We stood in this Chamber tonight with John Dingell, John Dingell, who stood at that rostrum with the gavel that the Speaker will use tonight to gavel through Medicare, that ensured that millions and millions and millions of seniors would not be crushed by poverty and put into bankruptcy by the cost of health care.

Indeed, they will have been given the opportunity for a longer, better quality of life in America when John Dingell brought that gavel down on that desk and noted the passage of Medicare in 1965.

For more than 3,000 district events, more than 100 hearings, and almost 2 years of public debate, health insurance reform has stood up to the scrutiny, to criticism, indeed, to falsehoods. But this purpose is older than that. Before we were born, the task of bringing affordable health care to every American was on our Nation's agenda, waiting for this day. At the beginning of this decade in 2002, George W. Bush said, ``All Americans should be able to choose a health care plan that meets their needs at affordable prices.'' George Bush was right.

In 1976, Gerald Ford spoke of ``our effort to upgrade and perpetuate our total health care system so no individual in this country will lack help whenever or wherever he needs it.'' Gerald Ford was right.

And Richard Nixon said this, ``Let us act now.'' That was in 1974, when there were far fewer Americans who did not have health insurance and where health care was less costly. Richard Nixon was right in 1974 on this issue. Let us in 2010, in a bipartisan way, perhaps not a bipartisan vote, but recognizing that this has been a bipartisan objective, a bipartisan vision, for those Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents whom I have not quoted but whom, as all of you know, were equally committed to that vision and that objective, affordable health care for all, for all Americans. It was embraced by both parties' nominees in the last campaign, Senator Obama and Senator McCain.

But what a campaign of fear this bill has faced this last year. Its critics call it, without justification, and we will hear it tonight, a ``government takeover.'' That's not true, but if you believe it's true, perhaps you think we ought to repeal veterans health care, which is clearly government-run health care. Perhaps we ought to repeal Medicare, government participated but private sector providers. Perhaps you believe Medicare should be repealed. I don't think you do; I hope you don't.

It is more control, however, for whom? For consumers, and less for insurance companies. It is the end of discrimination against Americans with preexisting conditions, and the end of medical bankruptcy and caps on benefits. It is coverage you can rely on whether you lose your job or become your own boss, coverage that reaches 95 percent of all Americans. Its critics call it tyranny. There is none.

It is a free, competitive, transparent marketplace where individuals and small businesses can pool together to buy private insurance at low rates. It is lower cost for the middle class and an end to the prescription drug doughnut hole that has faced too many struggling seniors. Its critics mock this as ``out-of-control government.''

In truth, it is the biggest definite-reduction bill any of us will have an opportunity to vote on in this Congress and, indeed, in other Congresses as well. Indeed, it's the deepest definite reduction since the Clinton budget of the 1990s that ushered in a budget surplus and historic prosperity.

According to the nonpartisan CBO, this bill is $143 billion in savings in the first decade and more than $1 trillion of savings in the second decade. We can add to those deficit savings real cost controls that bring down the price of the world's most expensive health care. Take those into account, says leading health care economist David Cutler, and America saves an additional $600 billion in the first 10 years and even more in the second 10 years.

Yet there are some who hope for the bill's defeat. They would see that, I think, as the defeat of one party. One Senator made that observation and said this might be the President's Waterloo. If this bill fails, the Waterloo will be that of the people who are without health care insurance, the people who are struggling to make sure that their children are healthy and well and safe. But it would be a defeat for them and for our country, for a healthy America is a stronger America.

They saw the same thing in 1993, my Republican colleagues, when to a person, as I believe will happen tonight, unfortunately, in 1993, to a person they did the same thing. My Republican friends voted without a single exception against the 1993 economic reform plan of the Clinton administration.

Congressman Boehner asked, ``Who does this spending stimulate except maybe the liberal faculty at Harvard or Berkeley?''

Congressman Kasich said, ``If it was to work, then I'd have to become a Democrat. ``

It did work, and he didn't change. It was a partisan vote, Mr. Speaker, a partisan vote that helped create 22.7 million new jobs, contrary to what so many of my Republican friends said that bill would do, and a record budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, contrary to the assertion of Mr. Armey that it would create deep debt.

That bill passed through a gauntlet of slurs, hyperbole, and untruths, and so did Medicare, which Republicans called ``brazen socialism,'' and so did Social Security, which a Republican Congressman called the ``lash of the dictator.''

I don't know whether there are any Republicans in this body tonight that believe that Social Security is the lash of the dictator. I hope not.

Those slurs were false in 1935, they were false in 1965, and, ladies and gentlemen of this House, they are false in 2010. Ladies and gentlemen of this House, this bill, this bill will stand in the same company, for the misguided outrage of its opposition and for its lasting accomplishment of the American people.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to honor some of the ``little punk staffers'' who gave so much to help us bring this bill to the floor. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle who did so much to bring your prescription drug bill to the floor, they need to be honored. They need to be thanked. They need to be respected for the work they do for this House, for each of us but, more importantly, for America.

From the Legislative Counsel's Office, Ed Grossman, Jessica Shapiro, Megan Renfrew, Warren Burke, Larry Johnston, Henry Christrup, Wade Ballou and Scott Probst.

I would like to ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the majority leader of the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Today is a historic moment. We will take decisive votes to provide quality affordable health care for all Americans. This is a goal that Presidents of both parties have sought for 100 years. We must act. The status quo is unsustainable.

This bill provides all Americans the security of knowing they will always be able to afford health care for themselves and their families.

The bedrock foundation of the legislation is that it builds on what works today and reforms what doesn't, but we fundamentally reform the insurance company practices that are failing our families.

Americans with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage. We abolish lifetime limits on coverage. And we ban the practice of rescission by insurance companies when people get sick.

We strengthen Medicare. Seniors who hit the donut hole for their drug coverage will get immediate help, a $250 rebate this year, a 50 percent discount on their brand name drugs next year, and the donut hole will be completely eliminated within the decade. We provide coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. We eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. The American people will see immediate benefits.

Today we vote to make a profound difference for the betterment of the American people. Under the leadership of the President and our Speaker, we are poised to provide access to quality health insurance for all.

Today is a historic moment.

We will take decisive votes to provide quality, affordable health care to all Americans.

This is a goal that Presidents of both parties have sought for a hundred years.

We must act. The status quo is unsustainable.

This bill provides all Americans the security of knowing they will always be able to afford health care for themselves and their families.

The bedrock foundation of this legislation is that it builds on what works today, and reforms what doesn't.

If you like your doctor and your current plan, you keep them.

But we fundamentally reform the insurance company practices that are failing our families:

Americans with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage.

We abolish lifetime limits on coverage.

And your health coverage can no longer be rescinded by your insurance company if you get sick.

We strengthen Medicare.

Seniors who hit the donut hole will get some immediate help: a $250 rebate this year, and a 50 percent discount on their brand-name drugs next year.

And the donut hole will be completely eliminated within a decade.

We provide coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans--not just those without insurance today but many who would otherwise be expected to lose their coverage in the coming years.

We eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse and reduce the deficit by over a trillion dollars.

And we eliminate the special deal for Nebraska, providing all states equitable treatment under Medicaid.

The American people will see immediate benefits on enactment.

Starting this year: Your children can stay on your policy through age 26.

Preventive care under Medicare is free.

And children with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied coverage.

Today we vote to make a profound difference for the better for the American people.

Under the leadership of the President and our Speaker, we are poised to provide access to quality health insurance for all Americans.

I now want to turn to some specific provisions in the Senate bill,

Madam Speaker, I am proud at this time to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the distinguished dean of the House, who has championed the cause of health care in all of the time he has been in the Congress. And before that, his father called upon the Congress to adopt this legislation as well.

(Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield at this time to the chairman of the Health Subcommittee, who has played such an instrumental role in the legislation, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), a very important member of our committee.

Madam Speaker, I'm honored at this time to yield 1 minute to a senior member of our committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Madam Speaker, I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentlelady from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), who's played a very active role in this legislation.

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman who's played a very influential role in this legislation, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

If the gentleman will yield to me, that is correct. I agree with the gentleman from Michigan that the intent behind both the legislation and the Executive order is to maintain a ban on Federal funds being used for abortion services, as is provided in the Hyde amendment.

I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

I know that this is an issue of great concern to the gentleman from Michigan and many other members of the Energy and Commerce Committee. You have my commitment to work with you and other Members in the future.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to an important member of our committee who's played a very important role in this legislation, particularly as it relates to his State and other areas as well, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Madam Speaker, I'm pleased to yield, at this time, 1 minute to someone who's been a very active member of the Health Subcommittee and the vice chairman of the full committee, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

I yield 1 minute to my colleague from California (Mrs. Capps), who is a very active and influential member of the Health Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle), who has played a very significant role in bringing us all together and I think has a great deal of responsibility for getting this bill to the point where it is today.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Illinois, Jan Schakowsky, a member of our committee and the Health Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Inslee), a member of our committee.

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

(Mr. EDWARDS of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

Mr. Speaker, there are times in history that action is demanded. In 1935, we needed Social Security and unemployment insurance. The Democrats answered. In 1965, we needed health care for senior citizens. The Democrats answered. In 2010, the country needs health care reform, and the Democrats will answer tonight.

It was never in doubt. Business wanted a change, the medical profession wanted a change, and labor wanted a change. And the Republicans brought an economic collapse to make it clear to everybody that we all are in danger if we don't change the health care system in this country.

For me and many of my colleagues, passing a national health care reform bill is the culmination of a long process. In the late 1950s and early '60s, when I was going to medical school in Chicago, Canada's Tommy Douglas was beginning a national health care plan in the province of Saskatchewan. As I came to the end of my medical training, doctors began to strike in Canada because they didn't want to practice medicine under any system that was not totally free enterprise in nature. But as a new physician at the time, it seemed to me that the benefits of extending health coverage to everyone in Canada far outweighed the benefits of a free enterprise system. Between 1963 and 1970, while I got my training in adult and child psychiatry and served 2 years in the United States Navy, I had the opportunity to observe the American healthcare ``nonsystem'' firsthand. Every day, I watched as people fell through the cracks. When I entered politics in the Washington state legislature, I knew that it was my obligation to do all that I could to bring about a national system that would provide coverage for everyone. And during my campaign for governor in 1972, I made my first speech declaring my support for a single-payer system similar to Canada. Each year that I served in the state legislature, I faced the institutional resistance to the creation of a more orderly system. Yet people complained they couldn't get care. Hospitals complained about uncompensated care. People complained about cost shifting of the expenses of the uninsured onto the policies paid for by the insured.

In the early 1980s, I began trying to establish an uncompensated care fund that would be paid into by all hospitals and the receipts would be given to those hospitals that took care of those in the community who had no health insurance. But hospitals resisted. I did a study to find out how many people in the state of Washington either were not covered by a government program or didn't have insurance through their employment. Unsurprisingly, we found that it was a huge number. So in 1983, I began the process of trying to do in Washington State what Tommy Douglas had done a few hundred miles away in the province of Saskatchewan.

As I tried to get universal coverage in the state of Washington, I ran into numerous obstacles. The medical establishment was more interested in capital investments than they were in ensuring that medical coverage was available to everyone in Washington. Large businesses were reluctant to accept any responsibility beyond what they were already doing for their employees. Any mandate was out of the question because under a technical loophole, big employers are exempt from many regulations that deal with insurance. So instead, I ended up authoring the Washington State Basic Health Plan, which is a subsidized health insurance program to help lower-income families afford coverage. But I wasn't able to get universal coverage.

This experience taught me that it was going to be incredibly difficult to create a health care plan in one state that could be replicated across the country as had been done in Canada. I wrote the plan originally when the governor of the state of Washington was a Republican, so it didn't get anywhere until Democrat Booth Gardner was elected governor of Washington in 1984. The process was so frustrating and the final legislation so modest that I decided I'd go back to medicine. I went to work for the State Department in Africa, where I saw the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic in 1987.

One day my brother called me when I was in Africa and told me there was a seat open in Congress. He suggested that I return to the U.S. to run for the seat and work on getting universal health care. The dream was not dead, it has just been dormant. So I returned, ran for Congress and was elected in 1988. I made the decision to get on the Ways and Means Committee because I thought that was where I could be most effective in getting a national plan established. I was appointed to the committee in 1991 and began working with 95 other members who were dedicated to a single player plan. In 1993 President and Mrs. Clinton came to Washington to enact a national health plan, but we were unsuccessful.

The years between 1994 and 2006 were a painful period as we watched Republicans try to dismantle the only national health care program we have, Medicare. We breathed a great sigh of relief at the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, who stated that he wanted to enact a national health plan. The President was determined not to repeat the errors of the Clinton administration, and the process of writing the bill has been long and tortuous. Over the course of many months, we've watched this bill wind through three committees in the House and two committees in the Senate, which brought us to where we are today.

I still believe that a single-payer model is the most effective to achieve both cost control and universal coverage. But 40 years of experience prevent me from being ideological about the solution to the problems of universal coverage. Rather than establishing a single-payer system, Congress has designed a less desirable model that would more tightly regulate private insurance companies much in the same way that we do with utility companies. Members of Congress have opted for a model that provides for insurance regulation at the national level, rather than the state level as it is today. It has much in common with the French system which provides universal coverage to the French people at half the cost of what we spend here in the United States. Their system provides a quality of care that is considered the best in the world according to the World Health Organization.

I know that this bill is far from perfect and will require continued efforts to adjust and improve it in the years to come. But today we began. As the Chinese adage says, ``every journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.'' Today we have taken that step.

We all want all people to have access to affordable health care, but this trillion-dollar tragedy is just bad medicine. Medical costs are high, but this bill does absolutely nothing to help reduce costs. It does take $500 billion from Medicare, resulting in cuts in service to seniors. It does raise taxes on many small businesses, including new mandates on businesses and actually increases premiums as much as 13 percent.

In committee, I introduced an amendment that gives people access to exactly the same care that we have as Members of Congress, but Mr. Markey and almost all the Democrats voted against it. All Republicans voted for that. Last, the clear language of this bill allows abortion, and I encourage all Members to vote against it.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this unprecedented legislation that will affect one-sixth of our economy, saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, and lead to a government takeover of America's health care system.

As a member of one of the House Committees with jurisdiction over health care, I have had a front row seat to watch a legislative process that has had one over-riding theme--no reform idea, bill, or amendment on health offered by a Republican or even a moderate Democrat was given any consideration. From the start this has been a process that is best described as, ``our way or the highway.''

This bill will result in rising health care costs and premiums. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, reported in December that if the Senate bill was passed, average premiums per policy would rise by 10 to 13 percent in 2016, resulting in annual premiums of $5,500 for single policies and $13,100 for families.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, the health care bill carries a price tag of $940 billion over 10 years. Most revenue raisers come from new taxes on small business, individuals, and medical goods. Furthermore, the health care bill includes significant payment changes for Medicare Advantage and $500 billion in cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid. A number of arbitrary cuts are made to skilled nursing facilities, hospice, home health, Medicaid DSH payments, and popular Medicare Advantage plans. Specifically, the bill reduces Medicare Advantage payment benchmarks over the next 7 years, resulting in reduced access for millions of beneficiaries currently on Medicare Advantage plans. The ``savings'' Democrats purport are truly cuts to services that our seniors need. I don't think we can afford this plan and it will, in time, hurt both our economy and beneficiaries.

The scoring used by CBO and our Democrat colleagues can best be described as ``new math.'' For example, a 10-year fix for Medicare reimbursement to physicians will cost $208 billion, yet that is not counted in the CBO score. But a separate deal has been struck with the doctors to do that later this year. So by my math, the real cost of health care reform is closer to $1.3 trillion, not $940 billion.

A recent New York Times article highlighted a growing trend of physicians dropping Medicaid patients because of low payments--and the Democrats' solution to our health care crisis is to expand Medicaid eligibility to an additional 16 million more individuals over the next 10 years? In a letter to Congress following the Health Care Summit, President Obama acknowledged the need to increase Medicaid reimbursement to ensure future services and yet, those anticipated additional costs are nowhere to be found in either H.R. 3590 or H.R. 4872.

Another ``new math'' trick being used by the Democrats is to tell the American people that the Medicare Part D drug benefit ``donut hole'' will be closed. Yes, the ``donut hole'' is partially closed by this legislation, but not closed entirely until the year 2020 which is after the scoring period used by the CBO. Again, this ``new math'' is being used as a gimmick to make it appear that this bill will reduce the deficit. But it will not. This bill costs more than Democrats claim.

Last year, one of my Democratic colleagues stated, ``The fact of the matter is that some in the Republican party don't want these problems fixed because they're already doing just fine. They've got choice, they've got the federal plan, that's what I have. Well in the Democratic party we're saying something else, we want the American people to get at least as good as my friends in the Republican party have. We want at least the benefits that we have here in Congress-- choice, affordability, lower cost and lower taxes for all Americans.'' I wholeheartedly agree with Congressman Weiner that Americans should have access to the same plans as their Members. Last year I offered two amendments to Speaker Pelosi's bill. The first was my alternative plan called Simple Universal Healthcare, SUH, which creates a new health insurance program similar to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan now available to the President, Vice President, Members of Congress and all federal government employees. The plan allows the uninsured and small businesses access to more affordable insurance with options, portability and no mandates. The other amendment I offered would require that the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress enroll in Pelosi's public plan. Both amendments were prevented from a floor vote by Speaker Pelosi's rules.

Yesterday, I attempted to offer the Simple Universal Healthcare plan as an amendment in the Rules Committee, however Speaker Pelosi ordered the nine Democrats on the Committee to kill all Republican amendments and therefore my bill did not survive.

Madam Speaker, there are some in this chamber who may consider this a momentous day. And that it will be if the House of Representatives votes to spend trillions of dollars and forwards the bill to future generations. While we ramp up spending, we have not dealt with the exploding costs of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. We are on a path of fiscal recklessness that threatens the future economic growth of America. So for me, this is a sad day, one that could have been avoided had the House worked together on a bipartisan basis to provide the American people greater access to health care that we can afford.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''