Ensuring an up or down vote on certain health care legislation.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1190 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx). All time yielded during consideration of this rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1190.

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1190 authorizes the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules at any time through the calendar day of Sunday, March 21, 2010.

This rule is necessary because under clause 1(a), rule XV, the Speaker may entertain motions to suspend rules only on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of each week. The rule also provides that the Speaker shall consult

with the minority leader on the designation of any matter considered for suspension. In order for suspensions to be considered on other days, the Rules Committee must authorize consideration of these motions.

And I want to remind my colleagues that any legislation passed under suspension of the rules still must receive at least a two-thirds vote. This rule will help us move important bipartisan legislation before we recess for the upcoming district work period.

A list of suspension bills will be provided by the majority leader at the appropriate time. We expect a number of important bills to be considered. Additionally, we expect the Rules Committee to meet again to make several other rules in order.

Before I reserve my time, let me just state the obvious. We are waiting for the health care bill to ripen and be ready for floor consideration. While we wait, there is business that this House must attend to, and this rule helps us do that.

But let me be clear. We will vote on the health care bill in the next few days. We will do so with a publicly released CBO score that shows the health care bill does not increase the deficit; in fact, it reduces the deficit. And we will do so while allowing 72 hours for anyone who wants to read and analyze the bill before we vote on it, and we will do so knowing that we will insure 32 million people, 32 million people who currently lack health insurance today.

Madam Speaker, this rule simply allows the House to conduct business until that health care bill is ready to come to the floor for a final vote, a vote which I am confident will prevail.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, let me just state for the record that this has been an incredibly open process. And when I contrast it to the way my friends on the other side of the aisle handled a similar bill related to health care, and that was the prescription drug bill, I don't know what they are complaining about.

When they brought up the prescription drug bill, this is what it looked like, and it was given to the Rules Committee less than an hour before we were asked to vote on it, and then it was rushed to the floor a total of 27 hours between the time it was brought to the Rules Committee and the time Members were asked to vote on this bill. Contrast that to what we have done on this health insurance reform effort.

President Obama began with a health care summit at the beginning of 2009. Republicans and Democrats were invited and participated. Over the past year and a half, the House held nearly 100 hours of hearings and 83 hours of committee markups. We heard from 181 witnesses, both Democrat and Republican. Two hundred thirty-nine amendments were considered, 121 amendments were adopted. You know, this is the big lie that we are hearing from the other side that somehow this has been a closed process. The Rules Committee will convene on the health insurance reform bill with C-SPAN cameras present.

So this has been an incredibly open process. And I want to commend the Speaker of the House and the chairwoman of the Rules Committee for this open process, in contrast to the way they did their prescription drug bill, and just shoved it before the Rules Committee without anyone being able to read it. So I think that this has been an open process, and we stand by it.

But do you want to talk about process? Let's talk about the process by some of the big insurance companies in this country that routinely deny people coverage for the most silly reasons. They do it because they can.

In some States, Madam Speaker, believe it or not, insurance companies consider domestic violence as a preexisting condition. I mean, does anybody here think that is acceptable? And the gentlelady's home State of North Carolina, they are one of the States that still allow domestic violence against women to be used as an excuse to deny somebody health insurance. That is unconscionable, and the bill that we are talking about will fix that.

They were in charge for a lot of years, too many years, if you ask me. They drove this economy into a ditch. And during all that time, they did nothing, nothing, to deal with the rising cost of health insurance that families and small businesses face each and every day. They did nothing about the insurance companies denying people insurance because of preexisting conditions. They did nothing to deal with this issue that domestic violence in some States, including the State of North Carolina, can be used as a preexisting condition to deny somebody health care.

So we need to do what is right for the American people, and enough of the misinformation and enough of the lies and enough of the distortions. We need to do what the people want, and that is, fix this health insurance industry that we have in this country that, quite frankly, has denied millions and millions of people in this country insurance.

And even those who have insurance have found out as they have been wheeled to the operating room that their insurance didn't cover what they thought.

The time is now for reform, and we are going to do that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Give me a break. That somehow Republican ideas have helped anybody in this country dealing with the high cost of insurance, it's ridiculous. In California alone, 8 million people last year went without health insurance. That's about 25 percent of all Californians under the age of 65; 25 percent in California, where they have some of the strongest malpractice laws in place.

I mean, this is crazy. The fact is that people are struggling to pay for their health insurance. And people who pay for it ought to be able to get the insurance that they think they're going to get. We have a situation now where it's not just we have to worry about the uninsured; we have to worry about people with insurance who all of a sudden find themselves sick or a loved one sick and find for crazy reasons that they are somehow going to be denied coverage. This is the United States of America. We could do better. We can have the best for everybody. Why not?

At this point I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

I think the gentleman from Georgia nicely summed up the tone of the opposition. They'd rather engage in name-calling than at finding solutions. Grand Old Party, indeed.

Let me tell you what I think incompetence and ignorance is, Madam Speaker. That's allowing 46 million Americans to go without health insurance. It's putting profits over patients. It's allowing insurance companies to discriminate for preexisting conditions. We can do better. This is the United States of America. We can do better for our people.

At this time I'd like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Madam Speaker, can I inquire how much time remains on both sides?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to make something clear, and that is the President has said over and over and over again that if you like what you have in terms of your insurance, you can keep it. No matter what my friends on the other side say, no matter how much they don't like the fact that people can keep their own insurance--and the President has assured that over and over again--no matter what you say, the facts are the facts, and that is a fact.

The other facts are: what will health insurance reform do starting the first day it becomes law? On day one, on day one annual caps on coverage would be eliminated. On day one, rescissions, the practice of dumping people even if they have paid their premiums, would be eliminated. On day one, preexisting conditions, exclusions for children would be eliminated, and, over time, all preexisting condition exclusions would be eliminated. On day one, parents would be allowed to carry their children on their health insurance policy until their 26th birthday. On day one, a down payment toward completely closing the doughnut hole for seniors would be met with a $250 rebate for those in Medicare part D.

This is all what will happen on day one when we pass it. These things here are important to the American people. These are the things that when they were in charge, they didn't have time to do. We had to do tax cuts for people who were wealthy. We had to give corporations more tax cuts and more subsidies. Well, the time has come for us to care about the American people and do something for the American people, and this is it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

On your time, I will.

Madam Speaker, gamesmanship my foot. There is no Federal money in this bill for abortion. The Hyde amendment applies to this bill. That's the law of the land. To get up here and to try to----

No, I will not yield on that. There is enough misinformation being said on this floor. I will not yield.

And, Madam Speaker, in terms of scores, let me read the CBO score today from how it appeared in Roll Call. `` `An analysis of the Democratic health care

overhaul by the Congressional Budget Office shows it would cost $940 billion over a decade and expand insurance to 32 million people. The package also will slice the deficit by $130 billion in the first decade and a whopping $1.2 trillion in the second,' a House Democratic leadership aide said Thursday. `The CBO report, which will soon be published, will show that the plan cuts the growth of Medicare costs by 1.4 percent per year while eliminating the doughnut hole. Those cuts would extend the solvency of Medicare for at least an additional 9 years.' ''

If you want to talk about scores, that's one of the scores here. This bill will not only insure 32 million people, it will cut our deficit, which is something that everybody says they want to do. So let's stick to what's real here.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds.

Again, just to reiterate that there are no Federal funds in this bill to cover abortion, there was an amendment in the Senate by Senator Nelson which made that clear. It is crystal clear. There should be no debate about it, and anybody here on the floor who is saying that somehow it does is just plain wrong.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I don't know how to respond to that tirade. Let me just say this. The reason why this bill is good is because it insures 32 million people right now in this country who don't have insurance. The reason why this bill is good is it's going to ultimately contain the costs that average families and small businesses have to deal with right now with the rising cost of health care. The reason why this bill is good is it prohibits insurance companies from discriminating against people with preexisting conditions.

We have heard story after story where people were denied insurance because their preexisting condition was acne. I mean, we have heard stories where insurance companies have cut people off from insurance because their weight was wrong on the application. I mean, we have heard stories where women have been denied insurance because their preexisting condition was they were a victim of domestic violence. I mean, give me a break. We are supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in this country. We should be talking about how we solve these problems, not all these rhetorical flourishes that are just misinformation, blatant misinformation.

Enough. Let's get down to what matters, and that is doing something for the American people.

I know it may not be convenient for your elections in November. I know, you know, you're all trying to figure out how do you deny President Obama any victory. How do we obstruct the process? You here in this House, your friends over in the Senate who used the filibuster over and over and over again.

People are sick of that. People want us to help deal with this issue that, quite frankly, is becoming an issue that they can not handle because the costs are going up and up and up. Small businesses aren't hiring people because their health insurance costs are going up. Average families are going bankrupt when someone gets sick. So let's do the right thing.

I reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I find it so interesting that our colleagues across the aisle talk about the problems with the filibuster in the Senate. But that is exactly why bills could not

get passed that Republicans in the House passed but couldn't get them passed in the Senate because Democrats filibustered.

And about misinformation, there probably has never been a bill that has been more misrepresented to the American people than what is going on here in terms of this bill. And I do think the American people understand the truth, and they're going to act on the truth later on this year. They're doing it now. They're telling them, don't vote on it. But they feel obliged to do it.

I want to say that while my colleague across the aisle keeps ranting and raving about corporate profits for insurance companies, he doesn't say a word about the corporate profits for the Big Pharma companies. And yet, these are, they are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Big Pharma companies.

Of all the single industry lobbies in Washington, the largest is the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. PhRMA sent $26.2 million on lobbying last year. That's nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby, which spent only $8.9 million.

And let's talk about profits. Drugmakers' combined profit margin last year--this is from an article of The Examiner from March 17, 2010, yesterday--profit margin was 22.2 percent, compared with the insurers' 4.4 percent. Drugmaker Merck's net income, $12.9 billion, exceeds that of the 10 largest insurers combined. And I can go on and on. Madam Speaker, I'd like to put this article in the Record.

And the reason they don't talk about Big Pharma and the drug industry is because Big Pharma helped write this bill, because it protects them. They know that they are going to get a windfall out of this bill, and they, again, our colleagues across the aisle, are wholly owned subsidiaries of them.

Madam Speaker, our colleague, my colleague from Louisiana, brought up a very, very important point that I think needs to be mentioned again and again. What Chairwoman Slaughter has proposed, and what will be done here, is to use a rule providing for consideration of both the Senate and reconciliation bills to deem the Senate bill passed, avoiding the political problem that stems from taking a true up-or-down vote on the horribly unpopular legislation.

If this legislation is doing so much good for the American people, then our colleagues should be proud to be voting for this in an up-or- down vote. They keep saying it, but you know, saying it doesn't make it so.

Even though, again, Speaker Pelosi said on page 23 of her ``New Directions for America'' document issued in the 109th Congress that ``Every person in America has a right to have his or her voice heard. No Member of Congress should be silenced on the floor.'' Then on page 24 she states that ``Bills should come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate, and Members should have at least 24 hours''--later expanded to 72 hours--``to examine the bill text prior to floor consideration.''

Yet, as Mr. Scalise has said, all we've seen are broken promises. And now, Speaker Pelosi is advocating parliamentary trickery to avoid an up-or-down vote on the Senate health care bill. And he quoted her as saying, ``This is a great way to do it because it avoids an up-or-down vote.''

This is not what the American people sent us here for. They didn't send us here to undermine the rule of law and to do things with tricks. They know this is the wrong thing to do. That's why they have been jamming the phones and telling our colleagues, vote ``no.''

[From the Examiner, Mar. 17, 2010]

Dems Tap Drug Maker Millions for PhRMA-Friendly Bill

(By Timothy P. Carney)

As they whip for the health care bill, Democratic leaders

pack a mean one-two punch of populist rhetoric and the hefty

financial backing of the drug industry.

In the heated yearlong health fight, President Obama has

often accused his opponents of willful misrepresentation,

even as he and his allies have endlessly repeated the biggest

whopper of all--that the bill would rein in the special

interests.

The Obama team regularly dismisses opponents as industry

lackeys. The Democratic National Committee blasted out e-

mails this week warning that ``for every member of Congress,

there are eight anti-reform lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill''

and ``Congress is under attack from insurance lobbyists.''

But drug industry lobbyists, according to Politico, spent

the weekend ``huddled with Democratic staffers'' who needed

the drug lobby to ``sign off'' on proposals before moving

ahead. Meanwhile, we learn that the drug lobby is buying

millions of dollars of ads in 43 districts where a Democratic

candidate stands to suffer for supporting the bill. The

doctors' lobby and the hospitals' lobby are also on board

with the Senate bill.

So the battle at this point is not reformers versus

industry, as Obama would have you believe. Rather, it is a

battle between most of the health care industry and the

insurance companies.

(And the insurers are not opposed to the whole package. On

the bill's central planks--limits on price discrimination,

outlawing exclusions for pre-existing conditions, a mandate

that employers insure their workers and a mandate that

everyone hold insurance--insurers are on board. They object

mostly that the penalty is too small for violating the

individual mandate.)

Pharmaceuticals are a far more entrenched special interest

than the insurers.

Of all the single-industry lobbies in Washington, the

largest is the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers

of America. PhRMA spent $26.2 million on lobbying last year--

that's nearly three times as much as the insurance lobby,

America's Health Insurance Plans, which spent $8.9 million.

If you include individual companies' lobbying

pharmaceuticals blow away the competition, beating all other

industries by 50 percent, according to data at the Center for

Responsive Politics.

Given this Big Pharma clout, it's unsurprising that the

bill Obama's whipping for--Senate bill--has nearly everything

the drug companies wanted; prohibiting reimportation of

drugs, preserving Medicare's overpayment for drugs, lengthy

exclusivity for biotech drugs, a mandate that states

subsidize drugs under Medicaid, hundreds of billions in

subsidies for drugs, and more.

PhRMA chief Billy Tauzin, who was vilified by Obama on the

campaign trail, worked out much of this sweetheart deal in a

West Wing meeting with White House Chief of Staff Rahm

Emanuel. Tauzin visited the White House at least 11 times. He

left his imprint so deeply on the current bill that it should

probably be called BillyCare rather than ObamaCare.

Recall that pharmaceutical executives and political action

committees dug deep trying to save the flailing candidacy of

Democrat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts--a race that was

explicitly a referendum on health care. She took in more than

10 times as much drug company cash as Republican Scott Brown.

This week, PhRMA, through a front group called Americans

for Stable Quality Care, is rolling out millions of dollars

in advertisements for the Democrats' jury-rigged package

consisting of the BillyCare bill and some as-yet-undetermined

``budget reconciliation'' measure. The ads reportedly will

target wavering Democrats.

But supporters of BillyCare will continue to attack

opponents as shills for insurance companies, demonizing, as

Obama puts it, ``those who profit from the status quo.''

Let's look at those profits. Drug makers' combined profit

margin last year was 22.2 percent, compared with insurers'

4.4 percent. Drug maker Merck's net income, $12.9 billion,

exceeds that of the 10 largest insurers combined.

Pfizer, which netted $8.64 billion last year, gave its CEO,

Jeff Kindler, a 12.5 percent salary increase, bringing his

compensation to $14.9 million. Pfizer, in a federal filing,

attributed the raise partly to Kindler's work ``developing

and advancing U.S. and global public policies that serve the

overall interests of our Company,'' including his

``constructive participation in the U.S. legislative

process.'' Kindler contributed the maximum to Obama's

election, and Obama raised more money from the drug industry

than any candidate in history.

On this bill, Republicans side with insurers, and Democrats

mostly side with the richer and more powerful drug makers.

The difference: Republicans didn't cut a backroom deal with

the insurers. Obama will still play the populist card, even

as the drug lobby is his ace in the hole.

Madam Speaker, I am going to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I'd like to yield 1 minute to my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Madam Speaker, I want to say that what my colleague from Massachusetts just said about all those hours of hearings, it was a totally different bill. No hearings have been held on this bill; a totally different bill. That isn't the way we work around here.

What they're asking people not to vote on is a bill that came from the Senate. It isn't the House bill. So let's, again, get real here and let's talk about what we should be talking about.

You know, my colleagues across the aisle were against the Senate bill before they were for the bill, and I would like to quote my distinguished colleague who is the Chair of the Rules Committee when she said on December 23, 2009, ``Under the Senate bill, millions of Americans will be forced into private insurance plans which will be subsidized by taxpayers. That alternative will do almost nothing to reform health care, but will be a windfall for insurance companies.'' She went on to then say ``The Senate has ended up with a bill that isn't worthy of its support. Supporters of the weak Senate bill say, just pass it. Any bill is better than no bill. I strongly disagree.''

Now that very same person has done everything possible to get this bill passed in this House so that it will become law. It is no wonder that the majority is considering procedural tricks and sleight of hand, because the bill that they are proposing to pass doesn't provide true health care reform. And the process doesn't pass the sniff test.

Republicans will never accept the status quo for health care. We can do better. We need to have a bill that will lower the cost of health care in America. But you do not lower the cost of health care by creating new government-run programs. We can lower the cost by putting patients, average, everyday Americans in charge of their health care, not insurance companies and not the government. Lower costs will result from putting patients in charge of their health care through innovations like expanded health savings accounts and by making sure that trial lawyers are not driving up the cost of health care with a blizzard of frivolous lawsuits.

We should be revitalizing America's economy and promoting economic freedom. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Republican plan will reduce the deficit by $68 billion.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding, and of course congratulate her on her fine management of this extraordinarily important rule because of what we are going to be doing when we deal with the previous question.

Now, before I get to that, I would like to engage in a colloquy, if I might, with my good friend from Worcester, and say that we have had this constant drumbeat of us versus them, class warfare. The Democrats are for the people; the Republicans are only for the insurance companies. I mean, we continue to hear that over and over and over again. So what I would like to do, Madam Speaker, is to disabuse my friend and others on the other side of the aisle and many people in the media who continue to put forth this argument by saying or making the charge that we have tried to do nothing to deal with this issue out there, and that is crazy. And, Madam Speaker, I would like to go through a few of the things that we have done that have been designed to bring the cost of health insurance down to make sure, to make sure that more Americans have access to quality health insurance.

Let's begin by something that I introduced, and I am happy to say we have put into law. I introduced it 23 years ago in 1987, the first bill to call for the establishment of medical savings accounts, which incentivize Americans to put more dollars aside to save for direct health care costs or health insurance costs.

The second thing that we have done, I am very proud of the work product of Medicare part D by ensuring that more seniors have access to affordable prescription drugs.

But, Madam Speaker, what I would like to do is talk about a couple of things that we have worked on and when we were in the majority that we passed through this House, but, unfortunately, were blocked by my friends on the other side of the aisle in the other body. Those two things are, number one, associated health plans.

Now, President Obama has said that he believes that the notion of allowing small businesses to come together to pool so that they can have the benefit of lower insurance rates is something that he finds somewhat appealing; and yet, when we passed that in this House, sent it to the other body, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle chose, unfortunately, to block that measure.

And what is it that has happened? Well, we have seen an increase in the number of people who don't have health insurance in this country because of the fact that Democrats in the other body chose to block our establishment of associated health plans so that small businesses out there can come together.

And the second issue, which, again, the President stood here in his address to the joint session of Congress, Madam Speaker, and talked about and he believed was important for us to utilize, and that is real lawsuit abuse reform.

Now, unfortunately, one of the reasons that we see this dramatic increase in health care costs is that--what has happened? Many doctors--and listen to this: Many doctors have to engage in what is described as defensive medicine. They have to constantly prescribe all kinds of tests which are unnecessary, but they do it for one reason, Madam Speaker, and that is they do it because they are afraid of being sued.

Now, Madam Speaker, in the last Republican Congress, in our attempt to bring the cost of health insurance down we passed out of this House real lawsuit abuse reform legislation. It was blocked in the other body by our Democratic colleagues.

So this notion that was put forward by my friend from Worcester that we somehow have done absolutely nothing to deal with the plight of those Americans who don't have access to quality health insurance is preposterous.

Now, Madam Speaker, we have heard about this issue of transparency, and disclosure, and accountability, and I listened to my friend from Worcester argue that we have had this great deal of transparency. Then I ask you, Madam Speaker, why is it that the American people are saying that we should start over and we should in fact have a process that is transparent and open?

Never before, never before in the history of the Republic have we seen the process that is being contemplated used on such a massive issue and on the signature issue of an administration. We all know that this is the signature issue that has been put forth, argued for more than a year; and now what we've had is the Speaker and the majority leader and the distinguished chairwoman of the House Committee on Rules say that it is acceptable for us to completely deny accountability, to avoid accountability, and to prevent Members from actually being responsible for the votes that they cast.

Well, Madam Speaker, the American people get it. No matter how diligently they work overtime in the back rooms in this Capitol to block any opportunity for transparency, the American people are able to see through what it is that they're doing. It's one of the great benefits of the new technology that exists today and the fact that there are Democrats as well as Republicans who are decrying this.

I joke with my friend from the Grandfather community that sometimes I watch some of the programs on television that may be a little left of center. And I'm proud to do that. I watch them with regularity. And I have listened to a number of their commentators who would in no way be considered supporters of the Republican vision that is out there actually say that it is wrong. It is wrong for Democrats to go down this road of self-executing this massive, massive bill. They're arguing for transparency and disclosure and accountability, and I believe that it makes a great deal of sense.

When we defeat the previous question--I hope, Madam Speaker, we will be able to do that--we will take the initiative that has been launched by our newest Republican colleague, Parker Griffith, who has come forward and offered a proposal to say that if we're going to debate this health care bill, we should have an up-or-down vote and we should have extended debate, because the process that's being contemplated right now, Madam Speaker, would not allow one single minute of debate on the floor of the people's House to debate the health care bill. The only thing that we would debate is 30 minutes on either side on the special rule that would come to the House floor.

And so, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. And when we do that, we will bring up and allow a vote on the Griffith proposal that will ensure that we will have an up- or-down vote on the health care issue and the kind of free-flowing debate that the American people deserve.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding time.

Madam Speaker, we are on the cusp of voting on legislation to permit a Federal Government takeover of one-sixth of the Nation's economy.

This is the most significant piece of legislation in our generation. The American people get that, and they do not want this bill. They want health reform that makes sense and that will make health care more affordable and accessible.

When the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, floated the proposed Slaughter solution last week, the outcry was immediate. You would think that my colleagues would take their title of ``Representative'' seriously and want to listen to the American people and have an open process. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question today, so that we can amend this rule to allow the House to consider H. Res. 1188.

This resolution, sponsored by Mr. Griffith, will ensure an up-or-down vote on the Senate's health care takeover by preventing the Speaker from using the Slaughter solution to ram the Senate health care bill through the House, bypassing regular order. The American people do not want the Senate bill, and neither do most Members in this Chamber.

The American people deserve an open process and an up-or-down vote. Voting ``no'' on the previous question, Members will be on the record opposing the Slaughter solution and voting to allow for consideration of a remedy aimed at protecting against this attempt to ram through the Democrat plan to socialize medicine.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, my colleague across the aisle talks about what the State of North Carolina does and does not do.

This insurance should be a State issue; it should not be a Federal issue. Maybe changes need to be made in the State of North Carolina, but that is up to the State of North Carolina. This is a Federal Government takeover, which is inappropriate.

Let me talk about the AARP and what they do about preexisting conditions, because our colleagues have put a special carve-out in this bill for the AARP. They deny access with preexisting conditions by imposing waiting periods on Medigap plans. They have a tremendous turn- down on preexisting conditions. Medicare turns down more people, twice as many people as the insurance companies do, and they want to put us all in Medicare-type plans. My colleague is a little disingenuous when he brings up selective situations like this.

I now would like to yield such time as he may consume to my distinguished colleague from California, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Dreier.

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

I want to say that, again, our colleagues across the aisle are in the business of picking winners and losers. They do love one insurance company. They love the AARP, which in 2008, from their financial statements, had royalty fees of $414 million. Pure profit on their bottom line. I raised this issue with Mr. Rangel when he was at the Rules Committee before, because I am very concerned about the way AARP is being represented to the people. Their profits have skyrocketed in recent years, jumping 31 percent just from 2007 to 2008. So we find, again, that they want to pick the winners and losers instead of allowing individuals in this country to make their decisions on what they should be doing.

I'd like now to yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

Madam Speaker, I want to say to my colleague from Kentucky, even his own President has said that Americans will not have competition and choice in terms of what they are able to keep. He said that people will not be able to keep the insurance plans they like under this plan. So I wanted to make a correction of that.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague from South Carolina and the next Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Barrett.

Would the gentleman yield for a question?

Let me say, Madam Speaker, that the gentleman obviously did not pay attention to what the President said at the Republican retreat, because he said he had made a mistake in saying that people could keep their insurance plans if they liked them, that a few stray cats and dogs had gotten into the Senate bill. And what I wanted to ask my colleague is: Can he guarantee the American people that, in the Senate bill that they are going to vote on under a trick being used by the Rules Committee, that the American people will be able to keep their insurance plan if they like it? Because the President has said that isn't the case, and I think it's really important that we get that said here.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Madam Speaker, I think the thing that my colleague across the aisle fails to mention when he talks about the deficit is that, in order to do that, they raise taxes, and that's something they always leave out. They're never real about that.

I yield an additional 30 seconds to my colleague from Texas.

Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, let me just yield myself 30 seconds to remind my colleagues that there's a cost to doing nothing. There's a cost to embracing the status quo, as my Republican colleagues have suggested. For middle-income families alone, the number of uninsured people in this income group would increase by 7.3 million people. That's in the middle-income categories. Is that the direction we want to go? To force millions and millions of more people into the ranks of the uninsured, which will ultimately add to our deficit and to our debt? I don't think so.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds. You want to talk about process? Over the past year and a half the House held nearly 100 hours of hearings. In 83 hours of committee markups we heard from 181 witnesses, both Democrat and Republican. Two hundred thirty-nine amendments were considered, and 121 were adopted. I think that's a pretty good process.

I reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I'm the final speaker, so I would yield to the gentlelady to give her closing, and I'll reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

My friends on the other side of the aisle would have you believe that there won't be a vote on health care in the next few days. Nothing could be further from the truth. My friends on the other side of the aisle are very good at making things up.

Let me be clear: This House will vote to move the Senate bill forward. The process will work. The President will have a bill to sign and the Senate will have a set of corrections and improvements to the bill, much of what we have done here in this Congress. We will have corrections and improvements to the bill that President Obama will sign into law. This idea that the House will not vote on the health care bill is simply not true. It is I guess a good smoke screen, but it is simply not true.

Madam Speaker, our friends are using this previous question to hide the fact that they simply do not want to improve the health care system, that they prefer to leave 32 million people uninsured. Because that is what will happen if we do nothing. And that they are happy to have skyrocketing insurance premiums and health care costs drive our country into further economic distress.

No one in this Chamber, no Member of Congress has to worry about their health insurance. Why can't the American people have the same plan and the same choices and the same assurances as us? Why do my Republican friends think that somehow we should have some sort of special privilege? You know, if it is good enough for us, the American people ought to have the same thing. And that is what this bill would do.

For political purposes, Republicans have been against this important reform from the start. Remember, it was Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican, who said that Republicans must oppose this plan at all costs, and that its defeat will be President Obama's, quote, ``Waterloo.'' The debate and votes that we are going to have are simple. You are either on the side of the patients or on the side of the big insurance companies. You are either on the side of people who no longer want insurance companies to discriminate against them because of preexisting conditions or you are on the side of the status quo and the special interests.

Let me close with one example. Eight States, including North Carolina and the District of Columbia, do not have laws that specifically bar insurance companies from using domestic violence as a preexisting condition to deny health coverage. Now, just think about that for a minute. In 2010 in the United States of America a woman can be denied health care because she has gotten beat up by a husband or a boyfriend. That is wrong. That is unconscionable. That has to change. And we are going to change it.

I urge my colleagues to do what is right. Stand with the American people who are sick and tired of waiting for Congress to act on health care. Vote ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on the rule.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.