Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 1849, I would like to salute the people of Hungary, a trusted ally of the United States, for the great heritage of those freedom fighters who stood up against tyranny and risked their lives in the name of liberty. I know that Hungarians today are no less committed to the principles of freedom, self-reliance and national sovereignty than our heroic ancestors.

As an American of Hungarian origin I recognize that celebrating 1848 is nothing less than celebrating freedom. And indeed, it is the ideals of freedom and liberty that have linked our countries so inextricably together for centuries.

It is a little known fact, that after the Revolution was crushed with the help of the Russians, it was the United States that negotiated Kossuth's release and thanks to this, the great freedom fighter could sail across the Atlantic to raise public awareness about the situation in Hungary. And this year marks the 160th anniversary of his Congressional address which he delivered in these very chambers to U.S. Representatives.

In his address he said: ``Your generous part in my liberation is taken by the world for the revelation of the fact, that the United States are resolved not to allow the despots of the world to trample on oppressed humanity.'' Even in the most difficult times, when domestic affairs in Hungary were hard to decipher, Americans found the proper and prudent way both officially and unofficially to help those who were truly committed to freedom against those who strove to ignore the will of the people.

Hungarians in 1848 took up arms in order to reclaim their national sovereignty, an ideal that I know Hungary's current government values very much. As Kossuth said while in America, ``The sovereign right of whatever nation to dispose of itself to alter its institutions, to change the form of its government, is a common public law of nations, common to all, and therefore put under the common guarantee of all.'' Americans treasure our own independence and share in the celebration of the Hungarian revolution.

Mr. Speaker, today I offer my sincerest thanks and appreciation to my District Director, Patrick H. Daly, Jr., for his seven years of service to me. Pat has been a vital part of my staff from before I was even elected to Congress, serving in my Maryland State Senate office as a Legislative Assistant. As District Director to a House freshman, he took on the many logistical challenges of setting up my three district offices in Kent Island, Salisbury, and Bel Air. He also oversaw my casework operations, which provided help to 1,200 constituents in the last year. He coordinated many constituent events and town hall meetings to keep me in tune with my District and hear the voice of the people. Simply put, Pat has always been there to see that the job is done, no matter how large or small the task may be. Pat has crossed the First Congressional District too many times to count in the name of constituent service, and provided goodwill among its residents that is immeasurable. I offer my very best wishes to Pat and his family for his bright future ahead.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin F. O'Brien on his recent selection to serve in the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI. We in the Archdiocese of Baltimore have been blessed by his service and leadership as the 15th Archbishop of the nation's oldest See, the city of Baltimore. We applaud the Pope's decision to recognize his leadership in serving Him and His mission in Baltimore by elevating the Archbishop to serve in the College of Cardinals.

Archbishop O'Brien, we thank you for your devotion to God and for your service to the Roman Catholic Church in Maryland and we congratulate you as our newest Cardinal.

Mr. Speaker, it's day 7 since the loss of religious freedom for Americans guaranteed under the First Amendment. We know that last Friday, when the final rule was issued by the Department of Health, it was identical to the rule issued last September, with no further accommodations for individuals of faith.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, on day 6 of the loss of religious freedom for Americans guaranteed under the First Amendment, outside the White House a Catholic priest and Presbyterian minister were arrested for protesting that loss of religious freedom when they knelt to pray for the restoration of religious freedom. Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is now illegal in the United States to kneel and pray in front of the White House for the restoration of religious freedom. These Americans had to pay a $100 fine for exercising their religious freedom in front of the White House.

Mr. Speaker, you know that if they were Occupy protesters, I guess they would just put a tent over them and they would be immune from anything happening to them. But they weren't Occupy protesters; they were there to kneel and pray for the restoration of religious freedom.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we don't go past day 7 of that loss of freedom.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, we have one of the most serious assaults on religious liberty in American history. The President's rule, finalized last Friday, in its unchanged form, as we just heard, violates the individual rights to religious freedom that every American shares.

The Bill of Rights doesn't pertain to organizations. It wasn't written for groups. It was written for individuals, every individual having the right to exercise their religious belief. The President's rule not only restricts individuals, but it restricts everything except what exists between the walls of a church building. Mr. Speaker, that's not what the First Amendment is about.

My parents, like many immigrants to this country, fled countries where those beliefs weren't held. My parents came from communist countries where we don't find it farfetched to believe that they would imprison, they would punish individuals for their religious beliefs.

Let's look at what the President's Affordable Care Act has turned into.

We knew and America knew when that bill was passed, because the previous Speaker of the House said: We just have to wait to pass it; we'll find out what's in it. Mr. Speaker, we are finding out what's in it, and America doesn't like it, because what's in it is the ability, under the current rule, to restrict individual religious freedom. And if you choose to exercise your religious freedom, you are punished by the government with a fine. And it's not just a few dollars; it's $2,000 per employee.

If an employer has deeply held religious beliefs, deeply held, it's not up to the President or the Secretary of Health or anyone in the Federal bureaucracy or government to decide if those are appropriate religious beliefs. Yet that is exactly what this rule does. It says if you don't share their religious beliefs or their beliefs in certain types of health care, you are going to pay a fine to the government. Well, that sounds a lot like governments where immigrants have fled from to this country to share in the individual religious belief.

Let's go down the list of what this final rule impairs. It violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed in this Congress two decades ago. It obviously violates the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause because it does place a substantial burden on individuals who choose to exercise religious belief. That's all they're doing. We have made it an effective crime to hold a certain religious belief that this administration disagrees with. That's not America. That describes a whole lot of other countries in the world, but it doesn't describe America.

It violates the First Amendment free exercise rights because it intentionally discriminates--intentionally discriminates--against religious beliefs. It imposes requirements on some religions, not on others. It picks winners and losers. That's exactly what the First Amendment was meant not to do.

And, Mr. Speaker, it's not going to be adequate if we just extend it to religious organizations because, I remind you, the First Amendment is not about groups or buildings or churches or any institutions; it's about the ability of every American to not violate their conscience. And if their conscience says, It would be wrong for me to provide insurance to an employee that would provide something that my religious belief disagrees with, who are we, as the government, to step in and say, You have to violate your religious beliefs; and if you don't, you pay a fine to the government.

That's not the America we believe in. It never has been; hopefully, it never will be.

We know that the President's final rule, because we just heard it-- and, Mr. Speaker, you know, some people listening to us will say, That's not true; that's not true. Go Google the final rule and compare it to the rule last summer, the final rule, issued hours after the President claimed a compromise, and compare it with the interim rule issued last summer. Not a comma is different; not a comma was changed. The smoke and mirrors was: Don't listen to what I say; don't watch my hands as I do this magic.

Go and read the final rule. There was not a single change. There was an accounting gimmick. Americans understand accounting gimmicks. That's why we're in the fiscal mess we're in, because Washington likes them. This time the accounting gimmick attempts to override Americans' religious conscience, and you can't do that. Americans understand there's no such thing as free anything. Somebody pays for it. And if the government is going to mandate that an employer provide insurance that includes provisions that conflict with their conscience beliefs, this is an accounting gimmick to say that somebody else has to pay for the rest of that insurance policy that you provided. Every American knows that's not true. We know specifically for larger institutions that self-insure, they are the insurer. There is no other insurance company. Large bodies, and if they happen to be religious, self-insure. You will now force them to violate their conscience or pay a $2,000 per person fine.

I want to thank the Representative from Colorado for bringing this point up tonight, reminding the American public to pay attention to the debate. Go look at that final rule and understand that we're in the same situation as we were last week with a violation of religious liberty that we should never tolerate.

Thank you for yielding to me to speak on this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from Louisiana has said, we really have to talk about saving Medicare. Medicare is under assault in a way that it has never been under assault before. The gentleman from Louisiana mentioned quite accurately that the President's health care bill passed 2 years ago would take $500 billion from Medicare spending on our seniors who are currently receiving Medicare--$500 billion. Now, how are they going to do that? What are we not going to deliver to those seniors?

Well, the way it's done is the President appoints the Independent Payment Advisory Board, 15 appointed, not elected members, no appeal from their judgment.

What they're going to do is they're going to say in a year when it looks like we're going to spend a little more

on Medicare than the country can afford by the budget, we're going to decide what can and can't be delivered. The President's budget he just released this week makes it even worse because it sets even a lower budget target for Medicare spending. And, of course, the President doesn't even deal with the issue that's before the House this week, which is what are we going to do about physician payments.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I represent a rural area of Maryland, Maryland's First Congressional District, where it's already very difficult for seniors to find a physician who is willing to take a new Medicare patient because, to be honest with you, they're afraid that their pay is going to be cut 30 percent at the end of this month, on February 29. And the President, in his budget, doesn't even deal with this issue. The President doubles down on the President's health care act. He sticks to that $500 billion in cuts that are going to occur. And not only that, he lowers the threshold for that Independent Payment Advisory Board to begin rationing care to our seniors. We have got to save Medicare.

Mr. Speaker, some of the people listening are going to say, well, we're not going to believe these people. They all wanted to vote against the President's health care bill. Mr. Speaker, they don't need to believe us. Go to the Congressional Budget Office's Web site. It's nonpartisan. It doesn't pick sides. It says that the Medicare plan is going to go broke by the end of this decade. And if you don't believe them, go to the Medicare trustee's Web site. Just go to Google and search Medicare trustee's report. They say it goes bankrupt a few years after that.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is right. We have to address Medicare, and we have to address it now before the President's health care act destroys health care for seniors. My mother, who is 88 years old, depends on her Medicare. She depends on her prescription drug coverage. She depends on it to have access to the physicians that she needs for her health care. And, Mr. Speaker, I'm afraid that under the President's plan, my mother, and millions of other Americans, our seniors receiving Medicare, are just not going to have the care they're used to and that they deserve. We need to save Medicare.

Mr. Speaker, I think we're going to hear about some of the ideas tonight about how we're going to do that. So I want to thank my colleague from Louisiana for yielding me these few minutes, and thank you for coming to the floor and doing this work tonight so that we show our Members and show the public who's watching how we have to save Medicare for our seniors. Thank you for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, once again we are reminded why we need to repeal the President's Affordable Care Act, which most Americans know as ObamaCare. Mr. Speaker, a majority of Americans already understand how harmful ObamaCare will be to American health care, especially to the millions of seniors on Medicare who will have that program cut by $500 billion if we don't repeal it.

But 2 weeks ago, the latest administration rule implementing ObamaCare was announced by the Secretary of Health, and that rule would impose the latest mandate, this time, a mandate on all religious institutions to provide government-mandated coverage for drugs and surgery that is contrary to the beliefs of those religions.

The greatest uproar was from the Catholic Church over the rule that would force Catholic institutions to pay the full cost of all government-mandated drugs and procedures, and that would include sterilization and abortion-causing drugs. That mandate would put those institutions in the position of either paying the full cost of those drugs and procedures that violate their beliefs or paying a government fine. I repeat: It would end up being a government-imposed fine to practice your religious beliefs, with the administration using the broad mandates of ObamaCare to impose those fines.

But the religious intimidation by the administration didn't stop there. When the Archbishop for the Military Services, Timothy Broglio, wrote a letter about this new mandate to his diocese to be read at Sunday services, the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains, a recent Obama appointee, ordered his chaplain corps not to read the letter at those Sunday services. Mr. Speaker, you know that those services are attended not only by the military, but by family and DOD employees. And this order was a clear violation of the First Amendment guarantees not only of the freedom of religion but the freedom of speech.

Let me read from the letter, and you will see why the administration was so concerned:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: It is imperative that

I call to your attention an alarming and serious matter that

negatively impacts the church in the United States directly

and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious

liberty for all citizens of any faith. The Federal

Government, which claims to be `of, by, and for the people,'

has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those

people--the Catholic population--and to the millions more who

are served by the Catholic faithful. It is a blow to a

freedom that you have fought to defend and for which you have

seen your buddies fall in battle.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced

that almost all employers, including Catholic employers, will

be forced to offer their employees health coverage that

includes sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs, and

contraception. Almost all health insurers will be forced to

include those immoral `services' in the health policies they

write. And almost all individuals will be forced to buy that

coverage as part of their policies.

In so ruling, the administration has cast aside the First

Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying

to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom,

that of religious liberty. And as a result, unless the rule

is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to choose

between violating our consciences or dropping health coverage

for our employees.

We cannot--we will not--comply with this unjust law. People

of faith cannot be made second-class citizens. We are already

joined by our brothers and sisters of all faiths and many

others of good will in this important effort to regain our

religious freedom. Our parents and grandparents did not come

to these shores to help build America's cities and towns, its

infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture,

only to have their posterity stripped of their God-given

rights.

Mr. Speaker, after protest, the Chief of Chaplains finally allowed most of the letter to be read, but ordered that the line ``We cannot-- we will not--comply with this law'' still not be read.

Mr. Speaker, now you can see why The Wall Street Journal--not usually a paper that comments on religious matters--found this issue so compelling

that today's lead editorial deals with this under the headline, ``ObamaCare's Great Awakening,'' with a highlight line, ``HHS tells religious believers to go to hell. The public notices.'' Yes, Mr. Speaker, the public noticed.

Let me just read the opening of that editorial:

The political furor over President Obama's birth control

mandate continues to grow, even among those for whom

contraception poses no moral qualms, and one needn't be a

theologian to understand why. The country is being exposed to

the raw political control that is the core of the Obama

health care plan, and Americans are seeing clearly for the

first time how this will violate pluralism and liberty.

Mr. Speaker, in the last few days, a strategist in the President's campaign--not the Secretary herself or an administration official--has suggested that, well, maybe something can be done. Really, Mr. Speaker? Are we leaving dealing with First Amendment rights violations to campaign staff for resolution?

This latest controversy has given us yet another reason to repeal ObamaCare, a bill forced on America by the last Congress and this administration. Given the obvious willingness of regulators to force their value system on all Americans regardless of religious belief, the editorial comes to the right conclusion: ``Religious liberty won't be protected . . . until ObamaCare is repealed.'' Mr. Speaker, the time for repeal is now.

May I inquire of the Chair how much time remains.

I want to thank the gentleman from Texas who spoke so eloquently about the condition of the country and the condition it's left in. I want to remind the American people that one of the obstacles we still have to overcome is that we have a health care plan that was passed out of the last Congress that isn't in full effect yet, but we're starting to feel the problems with it.

What I'm referring to is, of course, what everyone else calls the ObamaCare legislation, passed 2\1/2\ years ago now, not fully implemented until after this next election, but influencing Americans in their daily lives. Now, the majority of Americans don't agree with the plan. A majority of Americans don't want the plan, but we still have it.

Interestingly, about a third of Americans think we don't have it anymore, that when the House passed their repeal last year in January-- one of the very first actions we took in the new House--they thought we were done with it, that America could wash its hands of it. But, in fact, the repeal bill was sent to the Senate where, as many other bills coming out of the House last year, it suffered the same fate. It sits in the Senate without the Senate taking action to do what the American people want, which is to repeal ObamaCare.

America understands that that bill has many, many problems, some of which we'll talk about in the next few minutes, just to remind Americans this is still there. It's still causing problems.

The gentleman from Texas spoke about the problems with our economy. As I go through the district I represent, I talk to businessmen and - women every week; and they tell me the same thing: they're worried about the economy. They're worried about government regulation. They're worried about health care insurance for their employees because they're worried about what the effect of ObamaCare is. And as this shows, 74 percent of American businesses surveyed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say: The recent health care law--that's ObamaCare--makes it harder for their businesses to hire more employees.

The bottom line is they don't know what the rules are. The rules are changing. As we know, 1,700 businesses and unions have to get waivers from that bill in order to keep their health care going this year. And of course those waivers will disappear in a year, and businesses don't know what's going to happen once those waivers expire.

A real life example: a furniture business owner in the Fifth District of Texas, this is what he said: I could start two companies and hire multiple people; but based on this administration and the lack of facts with ObamaCare, I will continue to sit and wait.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Speaker, America knows that you can't possibly make another empty government promise to ensure 14 million additional Americans while you are going to save money, increase access, and increase quality. Americans have figured this out a long time ago. You can't get all those things. And they know and they suspect what's going to happen is what will happen: the quality will go down, and the amount of money spent on other health care programs by the government will go down.

What's the other major health care program paid for by the government? Medicare. The ObamaCare bill takes $500 billion out of Medicare over the next 10 years. Most worrisome is how it takes that $500 billion out of Medicare. It sets up what's called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Now, every American ought to be familiar with those terms because this is what's going to control your health care when you get old or your parent gets old or a loved one you know enters Medicare.

These 15 bureaucrats, chosen by the President, not accountable to anyone, with no appeal of their decision, will decide what gets covered and what doesn't get covered in Medicare when the government runs short of money.

Now, Mr. Speaker, you read the same headlines I do. The government's $15.2 trillion short of money, with no end in sight. The President's last budget, submitted to Congress a year ago--we're waiting to see the budget he's supposed to submit next week, which we understand will be a week or two late--that budget never balanced.

Mr. Speaker, I don't have that luxury in my household. I actually have to make a budget balance. And Mr. Speaker, I would never make a financial move that I knew was passing along a debt to my children and my family. I wouldn't go out, buy a big house, buy a big car, take an expensive vacation, put it on a credit card that I knew my children are going to have to pay.

But, Mr. Speaker, that's exactly what the President's budget and ObamaCare does. It takes the big government credit card, which is already past its credit limit, $15.2 trillion, runs it through the swiper one more time and says, we're going to insure 14 million more people. But don't worry, the cost will go down, the access will go up, and the quality will go up. Americans just don't believe it, and they have a right not to believe it.

This 15-member board, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, IPAB is what we call it around here. What you ought to call it is the Voucher Rationing Panel.

Mr. Speaker, what they are are 15 bureaucrats, specifically excluding someone who practices medicine from participating in the decisions of what Medicare is going to cover and not cover if and when the government runs out of money. But we know the government's going to run out of money. We know Medicare's going to exceed its budget. It does every year.

But if that were all that was bad in the bill, we might be able to just repeal that and move on. But it's not. We saw earlier there were provisions on small businesses called the 1099 provision, making small businesses do tens of billions of dollars worth of paperwork so that the government can collect a few billion dollars more in taxes, meanwhile, strangling small businesses. This Congress was smart enough to repeal that aspect.

Just last week we repealed another aspect of the bill. It was called, strangely enough, the CLASS Act. Now, what this act did is, this was long-term care insurance under the Medicare provisions that starts collecting the premiums now, but doesn't provide services until the future, meanwhile, spending those premiums on other expenses in the government.

Sound familiar? Sound like what's happening to your Social Security dollars and your Medicare employment taxes now, your payroll taxes? That's exactly what this was. Set up what even Democrats called, in the Senate, a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud. So we repealed it.

But last week, in perhaps one of the worst parts of the bill, which really had nothing to do with money, was when the Secretary of Health held that religious institutions had to provide care under their insurance policies that was not consistent with their religious beliefs. That is, sterilization, contraception, and abortion. Full coverage, no deductible, zero deductible, putting it in the same category as breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, the other measures that were meant to be covered by that clause in ObamaCare, the preventive care clause.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that assumes, if you want to prevent illness, that pregnancy is a disease. Or pregnancy is an illness. What a long way we have come from when society felt that pregnancy was something to be celebrated, it was an extension of life, it was an extension of society, the next generation.

The Secretary of, and I put it in quotes, ``Health'' in this administration, has decided that pregnancy is a disease or illness that needs to be prevented. That's not a good recipe for the future of our society or this country. And worst of all, it's a stark violation of the First Amendment of the United States that the government shall not compel anyone to go against their religious principles.

They'll tell you there's an exemption, but there isn't. Yes, if you're a church, you're the church itself, you are. But God forbid that church goes into the community and runs a center for social justice, a center for adoption, a hospital. That religious institution running that other entity would be forced to provide coverage for something that is antithetical to the religious beliefs of that religion.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is just wrong. It's bad policy, and it violates the First Amendment of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, if I might inquire, how much more time do I have remaining?

So let's walk through some of this.

Why do we need to repeal this bill?

The bottom line is there is so much wrong with this bill, a bill that not only will cut $500 billion from current Medicare recipients, because you'll hear a lot of talk about, oh, that Ryan bill, it destroyed Medicare as we know it. Well, they forget to tell you that it doesn't touch Medicare for people over the age of 55. In fact, we restore that $500 billion for people who are currently covered or for people who are 55 and older who will be entering Medicare in the next 10 years.

The little secret of ObamaCare is it takes current Medicare and cuts it by $500 billion. Now, my mother's 88 years old. I don't want a board of bureaucrats in Washington making a life-or-death decision on whether she gets Medicare treatment paid for--by 15 bureaucrats sitting in Washington who never met her. I think that decision ought to be made by my mother and her health care providers. No government bureaucrat in the room, no appointed bureaucrat with no appeals process who can say no, we don't really know your specific situation, but you know what? This is what it sounds like to us, and we think that shouldn't be covered, so you're not getting that care covered.

And ladies and gentleman, you know, with the cost of medical care, if the government says it's not covering it, it's not getting done. Is that the way we want health care delivered in the United States? Is that what we want?

Do we want a bill that says what kind of care you're going to receive, even if you're not on Medicare, that you have to go into specific health care plans, your employer is shoehorned into them? That promise--don't worry, if you like your plan, you'll keep it--had to have 1,700 waivers in the first year alone, 1,700 waivers. That's not the kind of health care we need. That's not the kind of health care plan we need.

Do we want a plan that can be taken to the extreme by the Secretary of Health to say that we're going to violate closely, deeply held religious principles in certain religions in the United States, and we're going to force those people to do things against their religion? Is that what we've come down to?

So, ladies and gentlemen, the cure is simple. We need to simply repeal ObamaCare. There is too much wrong with it. We tried to fix it piece by piece. We tried to pull out the things that hurt small business. We tried to deal with why you need 1,700 waivers. We tried to deal with that long-term care coverage. I'm convinced that bill will go to the Senate and it will die. We'll have instituted yet another Ponzi scheme in the United States.

And those are not words from this side of the aisle. Those are the words of a Democrat Senator describing that long-term care plan that was part of ObamaCare, the one that takes your dollars, your dollars that you will put in it now, spends it now, with a promise, don't worry, when you get old and need it, there will be some money there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've heard that before. That dog don't hunt anymore. We've heard it with Medicare. We've heard it with Social Security. Americans have realized this Congress has spent us into bankruptcy with promises like that in the past. If we have made those promises in the past, we have to keep the promises we've made.

But ladies and gentlemen, we have not implemented ObamaCare in its fullest, and now is the time to repeal it before we begin that. So, ladies and gentlemen, that's why over the next few weeks you'll hear, and Mr. Speaker, we'll see things come to the floor that deal with it, like we did last week and repealed that long-term care act that a Democrat Senator called a Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be proud of. A Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be proud of. That's why

congressional approval rating is at 9 percent, because America watches as we come down to Washington and create Ponzi schemes.

It's just time to stop. It's time for common sense to prevail. Common sense is we have to stop spending more money than we have. We have to stop burdening the hardworking taxpayers of America. We have to balance our budget. We have to pass a balanced budget amendment so that future Congresses can't create more Ponzi schemes.

We have to deal with the debt and the deficit. Are they hard decisions? They certainly are. Are they decisions the American public expects us to come together and make? They certainly do. Let's rise to the occasion. I join with the President, who, a week ago, says let's work together to solve these problems.

Mr. President, you don't solve these problems by impeding people's First Amendment rights to freedom of religion. You don't solve these problems by proposing $300 billion new stimulus spending in your State of the Union speech. You don't solve these problems by going out and doubling down on Solyndra. You don't solve these problems by denying the Keystone XL pipeline.

Mr. President, we're ready. Let's come together and solve America's problems.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Will the gentleman yield for just a question?

You know, the gentleman's been talking about the President's health care bill. I assume you don't mean President Reagan's health care bill, you don't mean President Bush's health care bill. You're talking about--because a lot of people at home might be a little confused, you're talking about ObamaCare, I take it?

And when you talk about the conscience protection that

has been infringed in the last week, is it correct that that is directly a result of the ObamaCare legislation?

And in fact, as you well know, you're a surgeon, I'm an anesthesiologist, as physicians, when we were trained, the whole idea behind that part of the law would treat pregnancy as a disease. Because in my understanding, isn't that correct, that part of the law dealt with preventing disease? And in some strange way, shape, or form, what a lot of Americans think about as a thing of wonder, pregnancy--you know, the ability to bring a new life into the world--for the first time is treated as a disease to be prevented using taxpayer dollars to the point where, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Secretary of Health-- because that's her title, the Secretary of Health and Human Services-- is treating pregnancy as a disease. And not only saying that, but that it's so important to prevent this disease that every American employer should be forced to pay every penny of the prevention. Is that what I understand the Secretary's decision to mean?

Well, Mr. Speaker, as the doctor has said, this is a very strange path to go down, from a bill that was brought to the American public as a bill that will help the uninsured get insurance has now gone to the point of not dealing about whether someone has insurance, but whether every employee should pay what we call first dollar coverage--that is, no copay, no deductible--free treatment to treat what the Secretary of Health now I guess considers a disease, pregnancy. Now, if that's true, you know, I've got five children, I guess my wife was struck with that disease five times.

But I will tell you, as a physician who's treated patients, Mr. Speaker, as the other gentleman from Michigan has, with diseases, to put pregnancy in the same category as breast cancer, as colon cancer, as prostate cancer, as leukemia, as other diseases that have screens that can be done, where, yes, maybe to prevent those life-threatening diseases--because, doctor, if you can correct me, I don't think it says that this is only for life-threatening pregnancies. I think this dictate from the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States is to prevent and treat, in whatever fashion someone decides to treat this disease--it doesn't have to be life-threatening; it's not a cancer, it's a pregnancy.

To place that in the same category and to use our precious health care resources to treat disease and a pregnancy is a very different objective than to pass a bill to provide basic important health insurance. And I think the gentleman, as I say, you're being very generous and perhaps confusing to the American public, because I think they've come to understand this bill. It's ObamaCare.

I'll tell you what's interesting. Most of the time, when someone here has a piece of legislation, signature legislation that passes, they're thrilled if the legislation is referred to by their name, and there are plenty of examples. But interestingly enough, as the doctor may know, when we write a letter to our constituents and refer to the Affordable Care Act, we've actually been told we can't use the name that all Americans know this bill by. They call it ObamaCare. For some reason, someone's sensitive. I guess the President's too sensitive. Why wouldn't he want--if he is so proud of this bill, why, every time we refer to it by the name all America knows it by and, I might add, dislikes it by, is ObamaCare.

We know what the public polling says. A majority of Americans know it was a mistake. Interestingly enough, a third of Americans don't realize it's still the law of the land. But they did get a rude awakening last week when, if you happened to be a member of a religion that doesn't believe that pregnancy ought to be treated as a disease, that doesn't believe that you ought to be forced to fund sterilizations with no copay or deductible as part of your insurance policy you provide to your employees, that that comes under the ObamaCare legislation that is still in effect.

Mr. Speaker, you know that if you travel through your district and you talk to the small business men and women in your district, you know how afraid they are of this bill being fully implemented. They understand that it will break the bank in their business, it'll break the bank in their State, and it'll break our bank here in Washington.

We have a $15 trillion debt, and everyone knows, when you add 14 million new people to a government entitlement, as this bill did, all that you're going to do is make that situation worse. And our small business men and women realize this. They know that cost is going to be born to them.

We know what the unemployment rate is. It's not under 8 percent like the President had promised when that stimulus bill was passed in this very Chamber 2 years ago, I will say, when the other side was in charge. The unemployment rate's over 8 percent. The Congressional Budget Office, just this week, projected it will be 9 percent by the end of the year.

Times are tough. Gasoline is $3.60 a gallon. And what is the President's administration doing? Going full steam ahead on implementing a bill, ObamaCare, that Americans don't want and can't afford.

So I'm going to thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding the time to me and thank the gentleman for bringing this up to the American people once again, to remind them ObamaCare is with us. It may not be after the next election. We don't know. But we know that America agrees, this was a bad idea at a bad time, and due to what happened last week with the conscience protection that's always been present in Federal law being abridged by our Secretary of Health.

Will the gentleman yield?

Gentlemen, I appreciate the very passionate discussion that you had about the way physicians interact with patients, and patients kind of expect that their care is going to be a personal decision between their health care provider and themselves and their family.

My understanding, and the gentleman from Louisiana mentioned this, Independent Payment Advisory Board, are 15 bureaucrats appointed by the President. Do either of the gentlemen know, correct me if I'm wrong, they are by law--cannot be a practicing physician.

You might want to check one of those 2,700 pages because I believe that the act by law says they cannot be a practicing physician.

Now, the gentleman from Michigan pointed out something that every senior in America ought to really care about, or those who take care of seniors or whose parent or grandparents are seniors. When your loved one is ill, do you really want the decision about whether they can receive care being made in an office in Washington by somebody who's got to find a way to pay for that ObamaCare bill?

Because, Mr. Speaker, that's the whole purpose of that Independent Payment Advisory Board. They've got to find $500 billion to take out of that Medicare program. Who among us doesn't believe that when that bureaucrat sits down, they're not going to be thinking about what's best for your loved one?

They're not going to be thinking about what that physician or that health care provider's decision is about what the best care is. They're going to be thinking how they're going to make that budget work.

To the gentleman from Michigan, I will tell you, I think that's the way America thinks that decision is going to be made. They're going to believe that when government runs health care, it's going to be run just like government runs a whole lot of other things it runs.

Ask a senior in your district, doctor from Louisiana, the doctor from Michigan, the doctor from Arizona, the doctor from Georgia, ask the next Medicare patient you take care of how long they have to wait on the phone when they call Medicare.

To the gentlelady from New York, my mother is 88, God bless her. And I have to tell you, she has made the mistake a couple of times of calling Medicare on the phone. My poor 88-year-old mother spent 90 minutes one time on the phone to get an answer. That's the kind of care we're going to get from the Affordable Care Act. It's not affordable care. It's not accessible care. It's not good care.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding and giving us the opportunity to remind the American public, we repealed ObamaCare in this Chamber. That repeal bill is sitting over in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, Americans who are watching are probably going to have a deja vu. Last time they watched Congress in action on a contentious bill near the Christmas holiday was in 2009 when the Senate had plenty of time to come into town and pass the ObamaCare bill. And the House, under the leadership of what is now the minority party, thought it was just fine to do whatever the Senate wanted.

How'd that work out for you, America?

Today, we're actually going to do what we should be doing, which is going to conference and compromising with the Senate. Now, the motion is to concur with the Senate amendments. The Senate amendments say 60 days. Mr. Speaker, that's not kicking the can down the road; that's barely nudging the can down the road.

And why doesn't that work?

Because as a physician, I'll tell you, the real danger to our seniors is passing something that's short term time and time again, which the 111th Congress did. And I work with these docs. What they tell you, especially in rural areas where physicians are in shortage, they say: You know what? If you're only going to give me a 1-month or 2-week extension, as has been done, I'm going to have to stop seeing Medicare patients. I want to take care of Medicare patients, but that uncertainty that those short-term extensions create, I can't deal with in my practice.

Under this, if a senior wants to see a specialist, especially a good specialist, they might have to wait 2 or 3 months. They're going to have to wait until after this extension. That specialist is going to say: I don't know what's happening in March. I'm not going to see those patients.

The minority whip says the Republicans pretended to support a tax cut. I ask America, let's look at the record. We had a vote last week on the tax cut. Go look and see which party rejected the tax cut for middle class Americans.

The gentleman from New York says we pretend to be for the working class.

I would ask that America go to House.gov and look at the vote last week. Which party rejected a 1-year-long middle class tax cut and which party was in the majority to move that tax cut?

The minority doesn't want a 1-year tax cut. They made it clear in last year's vote. The Senate made it clear in this action they took last week.

Yes, we're going to drag them kicking and screaming to a conference. It's too bad that's what the legislative process has come to. We need to support going to conference and compromise.

Thank you very much, Mr. Floor Leader, for yielding the time.

The last time the Senators passed a major bill over just before Christmas, it was 2009. It was the ObamaCare bill. That last Congress, the 111th Congress, decided not to go to conference and accept what the Senate sent over.

Mr. Speaker, I ask those Americans watching to ask themselves: How did that work for you? That's what they want us to do with this piece of legislation, just accept what the Senate says. They want to go home for Christmas, and we'll just see how it all works out. Didn't work out so good that time; won't work out so good this time.

The gentleman from California said you almost need a playbook to figure out what's going on. Mr. Speaker, thank goodness we have one. It's called House.gov. You can go and you can see exactly how your Representative voted on a 1-year tax cut extension.

We took a vote last week. You can go see that one. We're going to take three today, whether you want a 1-year or a 2-month. Go to House.gov. You don't have to believe what anyone says on the floor. Go to House.gov.

Now, Mr. Speaker, let's talk about the other part of the bill, which is a 2-year Medicare fixed SGR. I ask those seniors who are watching, pick up the

phone once this debate is over and call your doctor's office. Ask him one question: Do you want a 2-month fix or do you want a 2-year fix? That's all. Simple question. Let's see what the doctors want.

I know we in Washington like to think we know best for everything that goes on, including what our Medicare seniors want and their doctors want. I ask our seniors to do that.

Mr. Speaker, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was not only a culmination of Hungary's struggle for freedom, democracy and independence, but also presaged the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Indeed, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Fight for Freedom was the first tear in the Iron Curtain. Hungarians from all walks of life rose up against insurmountable odds to fight the brutal Soviet-installed Hungarian communist government. Many died fighting, others were tortured and executed, while 200,000 were forced to flee. 2011 marks the 55th anniversary of that historical chain of events.

The American Hungarian Federation, founded over 100 years ago and the oldest and largest umbrella Hungarian American organization in the United States, honors those whose enormous sacrifice seemed futile 55 years ago but that today is universally recognized as having contributed to the ultimate demise of Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe and the restoration of freedom and independence in Hungary and the region.

We must never forget the heroes of 1956--the students, the intellectuals, the workers, the farmers and the cross-section of the entire Hungarian nation--who knew exactly what they wanted 55 years ago and were prepared to realize their dreams at great personal sacrifice. They fought and died for freedom, a multi-party democracy and independence from the Soviet Union.

Two of our great presidents, among many others who cherish freedom and the courage to struggle for it, remembered the Hungarian Revolution as follows:

``October 23, 1956, is a day that will live forever in the annals of free men and nations. It was a day of courage, conscience and triumph. No other day since history began has shown more clearly the eternal unquenchability of man's desire to be free, whatever the odds against success, whatever the sacrifice required.''--John F. Kennedy, on the first anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution.

``The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a true revolution of, by and for the people. Its motivations were humanity's universal longings to live, worship, and work in peace and to determine one's own destiny. The Hungarian Revolution forever gave the lie to communism's claim to represent the people, and told the world that brave hearts still exist to challenge injustice.''--Excerpt from Ronald Reagan's Presidential Proclamation issued on October 20, 1986.

We also recall the impact the massive Soviet invasion had on the Hungarian communities in states neighboring Hungary. One consequence was the solidly Stalinist Romanian government's virtual liquidation of the Hungarian-language Bolyai University in Romania, which was implemented by the secretary of the Central Committee, Nicolae Ceausescu. Five years ago Nobel Laureates and Wolf Prize Laureates, including Elie Wiesel and George Olah, and 69 other internationally acclaimed scholars called upon Romania to take ``immediate steps'' to ``re-establish the public Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca/Kolozsvar.'' The university has yet to be restored.

Another victim of communism was Janos Esterhazy, who despite being the only member of Slovakia's parliament to vote against the deportation of Jews in 1942, nevertheless died in a Czechoslovak prison in 1957. While Russia has done so, Slovakia has yet to exonerate him.

Righting wrongs against Hungarian minorities (e.g., the Esterhazy case and the Bolyai University matter) that extend back to the Cold War period and respecting the rights of such minorities would be a fitting commemoration of 1956 and a tribute to the memory of thousands of unsung heroes who did not compromise but sacrificed their lives for the cause of liberty fifty-five years ago. Moreover, in order to strengthen democracy and safeguard freedoms throughout the region, today's generation--the beneficiary of the restored freedoms following the demise of communism--must be vigilant and guard against the curtailment of democracy and infringement of fundamental human rights and Western standards relating to minority rights.

Consistent with its practice of fifty-five years, the American Hungarian Federation is committed to keep the memory of the heroes of 1956 alive. As we contemplate the promise of Hungary 1956, we are reminded that that promise must never be forgotten or abandoned, as the heroes of 1956 deserve nothing less.

Much has been said on the floor about perhaps taking time out from a jobs agenda to pass the bill. The fact of the matter is this bill corrects a problem with the bill that shouldn't have been discussed by the last Congress; they should have spent time dealing with the jobs issue instead of leaving it to this Congress. So we do need to make a correction.

Madam Speaker, this one very important correction is the conscience protection in this bill. And I know as someone who's worked in a hospital where abortions are done--but they never forced me to do it because we have conscience protections in the State of Maryland. We need those conscience protections for everyone in the country, so that if you don't believe in abortion, you don't have to participate in it. That's a basic freedom, a basic religious freedom, we should protect for every single American health care provider.

Madam Speaker, I would like to introduce into the Record four letters from obstetricians who work in facilities who point out that the conscience clause is not going to harm anyone's health in this bill. There's no evidence that it will.

Madam Speaker, in conclusion, the conscience protection clause is needed. It's a correction for the work of the last Congress. We should pass this bill.

Virginia Commonwealth

University Health System,

Richmond, VA, October 12, 2011.

Hon. Joe Pitts,

Hon. Dan Lipinski,

Hon. Eric Cantor.

Dear Representatives Pitts, Lipinski, and Cantor: I

understand that the House of Representatives may soon

consider H.R. 358, the Protect Life Act. As a physician I am

especially interested in this bill's section reaffirming

federal protection for health care providers' conscience

rights on abortion. I have heard there may be an effort in

the House to insert an exception into this law, so

governmental bodies can discriminate against providers who

decline to provide abortions in ``emergency'' cases.

As a physician who has worked in emergency rooms for over

30 years, I am well versed in the federal Emergency Medical

Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and similar policies.

I continue to practice emergency medicine, and to teach it at

Virginia Commonwealth University. Based on then decades of

experience, I see absolutely no merit in the claim that

conscience laws on abortion pose any risk of allowing

pregnant women to die in emergency rooms. Current federal

laws as well a Virginia state law respect conscientious

objection to abortion in all circumstances and I have never

seen or heard of a case in which these laws created any

conflict with women's safety or with legal obligations to

stabilize patients' conditions in emergencies.

Your provision on conscience protection is warranted and I

do not think it should be weakened in any way.

Sincerely,

Edward J. Read Jr., MD, FACEP.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to job creation, the American people are not waiting for the right speech but, rather, the right leadership.

While the Obama administration claims to seek common ground on which to help employers hire workers, House Republicans have already produced and passed more than a dozen job-creating bills through the House this year. We're going to do that here later today with the three trade bills that will create 250,000 jobs.

Unfortunately, these measures have long been ignored by the Senate and the White House. Where was the leadership? If President Obama is serious about helping create jobs, then he must listen to what job creators are actually saying. More than anything else, they need long- term confidence that Washington will stop punishing them with reckless red tape and threatening them with new taxes.

House Republicans are ready to work with the President, but not if it means supporting policies that only work against job creators and job- seekers.

Mr. Speaker, it is proper and fitting that the United States offer our sincere congratulations to The Republic of China (Taiwan) on the 100th anniversary of the origins of their Democracy on October 10, 2011.

Taiwan is a true democracy and a beacon of freedom in a part of the world where it is notably needed. A true strategic ally of the U.S., Taiwan has led the fight for freedom, equal education and advancement of human rights in many areas across the globe.

Taiwan is also a willing partner in helping to respond to the economic melt-down which has so adversely affected the world economy. President Ma Ying-jeou has made stabilizing the world economy a priority, for which he should be congratulated.