Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure again to come to the floor to talk about the issue that is capturing all of the national attention and a lot of attention of this body, and that is our pursuit of affordable health care for all Americans.

There has been a lot of discussion about this so-called public option, this choice people would have when they are searching for insurance when they don't have it, the idea being that if you have a public alternative, an option that doesn't rely on profits, that doesn't rely on high overhead, that consumers would have a chance to choose it if they don't have insurance through their own employers.

Now, it is interesting, because just this week we got an enormous boost, those of us who care about having a public option in the final bill, and it came from, of all places, the health insurance lobby. In a rare moment of candor, in a rare moment of telling us exactly what it is that they are going to do, they have told us something that should come as no surprise to anyone that has health insurance. They said they are going to keep raising rates. They said we can pass whatever we want here in Washington, they are going to keep raising rates. As a matter of fact, by their calculation, by 111 percent.

Well, on one hand, I am stunned that they told the truth. On the other hand, I am not very surprised. Our rates have been going up twice if not three times the rate of our salaries every year. They have been going up about $1,000 for people who have health insurance. So the idea that they are thumping their chest and saying they are going to keep doing it is not a surprise. But the fact that they were so honest about making it very clear that we need competition for the health insurance companies is refreshing.

They have made it crystal clear. The private insurance companies have said, you know what? If you don't have competition for us, rates are going to keep going up.

The public option, by the way, is not a mysterious thing. A lot of my colleagues here in the House of Representatives have it. Yes. They have Medicare. And I checked. Not a single one of them that is eligible for the government public plan we have today has said no. Maybe it is because they are like the country, that says, you know what? Ninety-six percent of people say they like Medicare. They like the care they get. It only has 3.5 percent overhead, not the 30 percent overhead and profits that private insurance companies get.

They like it, but they don't want you to have it. They don't want you to have the plan that they have. So many Members of Congress who are 65 say, no, you can't have it if you are 55 or 45 or 35. It is only for us.

Well, that is not exactly true. It is for every single American who turns 65. It is a government-funded, single-payer, government- administered health care plan that every year we do a survey about, and 96 percent of people who are on Medicare say they like it.

You can do the following test: Knock on the door or go to a neighbor or stop someone at the diner who looks like they are 55. Ask them, would you like it if tomorrow you got Medicare? Watch their face light up. They would love it.

Now, we are not proposing that. The President is not proposing that. I know I would like to have a program like Medicare for all Americans. All that is being proposed in the public option is that people who don't have insurance through their work, people that don't have insurance through Medicare or Medicaid, that relatively small group of people, the 10 percent or so of the country, that when they go out and

shop for insurance with the subsidies we are going to give them, one of the options is not the insurance companies that said in this report they are going to raise rates 111 percent. That is it. That is what the big bogeyman is all about.

Let me show you this chart here to give you a sense for how unfrightening that concept would be. This is the $2.6 trillion of money we spend every year on health care. $2.6 trillion. I ask my colleagues, do you think we can do a little better for $2.6 trillion. We are getting such a great bargain?

Well, let's take a look at this. These boxes here, Medicare, Medicaid, DOD, Veterans Affairs and Department of Health Services, are all single-payer, government-funded, government-administered health care plans. And every day I hear my Republican friends thumping their chest, you gotta protect the VA, you gotta protect Medicare.

Oh, yeah? But you don't want to extend it to the rest of the country. Why is that? What is the big fear? The fear is, they are in a wholly owned subsidiary of this group right here. This is the private insurance companies, the ones that wrote this report that says that rates are going to go up 111 percent.

Now, in this $854 billion, do you know how much of that is profits and overhead? Take a guess. Up to 30 percent. And what some us are saying is, if you want to find savings in the system, and you don't want to cut into health care, maybe it is a place to start. Can you do maybe with 10 percent? 12 percent? 15 percent? Up to 30 percent. That is savings that we can get right there. But we are trying to get savings using a free market model. Competition. Let's see if there is someone that can do it more efficiently than 30 percent overhead.

We know, for example, Medicare can do it with about 3.5 percent overhead. That is the public option, and my colleagues don't want them to have what they have, which is government-funded health care.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 26) proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution proclaims Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously and recognizes his contributions in aiding the American colonists in their fight for independence against the British.

Casimir Pulaski came from Poland to fight on the side of the American colonists against the British. At the Battle of Brandywine, he led a courageous charge that averted defeat of the American Cavalry and saved the life of George Washington. Washington soon elevated Pulaski to the rank of brigadier general of the American Cavalry, and we know him now as the Father of the American Cavalry.

Two years later, Pulaski died heroically fighting for American independence. In 1929, the House of Representatives passed a resolution recognizing October 11 of each year as Pulaski Day.

Once in a great while, Congress bestows the honor of posthumous citizenship on a highly deserving person. We've done this previously for six such persons, must recently in 2002 when we honored the Marquis de Lafayette. Lafayette was the famed French general who, like General Pulaski, fought alongside the American colonists during the Revolutionary War.

This resolution is a symbolic honor that has no substantive effect on the immigration status of his surviving family, but the honor is well earned by General Pulaski.

I want to thank Mr. Kucinich of Ohio for sponsoring this important resolution and for bringing General Pulaski's important contributions to our country to the attention of the United States Congress.

I also want to thank Chairman Conyers who cosponsored House Joint Resolution 26, Chairwoman Lofgren, and the ranking member of the committee and subcommittee for swiftly moving the resolution to the floor in advance of the celebration of Pulaski Day.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. This is important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the sponsor of this important resolution, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. Speaker, there is no city with a richer tradition and a larger population of Polish Americans for whom this day represents another day of tribute for another one of their heroes than Chicago, and I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the Chicago, Illinois area, Mr. Lipinski, to express the sentiments of his constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Tonko.

Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. I just want to tell the gentleman that when that mistake was made by the Speaker, referring to you as a Member from New York, I think you would need a translator in New York as much as I would need one if I were ever to be the Representative from Texas. And I would like to thank him for his leadership.

I want to thank Representative Kucinich for bringing this resolution to us. I also, on behalf of those of us in New York who represent large Polish American communities for whom Pulaski is an enduring hero, for communities like Green Point and Williamsburg that Congresswoman Velazquez represents, this is a great moment of celebration. Those communities and Bridgewood also, Congresswoman Velazquez and I represent that community of South Park Slope, these are communities that every day, proud Americans of Polish descent teach their children about the heroism of the many Polish Americans that came before, and how important that community has been to building this country to what it is.

You know, we forget it sometimes, but we never should on this floor, that all of us come from someplace else. And we do so with this notion that we are deeply American, but we never forget where we came from. And all of us point with great pride to the people, the ethnicities that we represent, that have their moments of celebration. And then Casimir Pulaski is someone not just who brings great pride to people of Polish descent, but who reminds us all what it took to make this country what it was at the very earliest days.

No one came here and says, Hey, I'm an American, so I'm going to fight for this country. We came from other places and fought for the American ideal, and that's something Casimir Pulaski reminds us. And by making him an honorary citizen posthumously, and by taking up Mr. Kucinich's call, I think we do great honor, not only to the memory of Casimir Pulaski, but also to this House and the traditions of our fine country. And I ask a ``yes'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the one-hundredth anniversary of the beautiful Forest Hills Gardens, the first planned garden community in the United States--one of which of which I am a proud resident.

A bucolic extension of the Olmsteads' New York legacy, our neighborhood was designed by none other than Frederick Law Olmstead Jr., the son of the visionary who gave New York Central and Prospect Parks, two of our most cherished gifts. Much like those glorious testaments to Mother Nature, Forest Hills Gardens brings the natural world to the very heart of a New York City borough while being seamlessly integrated with its decidedly urban surroundings.

While set apart from the thronging streets of Queens, Forest Hills Gardens has evolved to truly embody the diversity of the borough in which it lies, with Christians and Jews living alongside Hindus and Muslims--all of whom are proud New Yorkers and proud Americans.

In tribute to the nation this community represents, Forest Hills Gardens recently rededicated their flagpole following a three-year, painstaking restoration. Madam Speaker, I rise also to recognize this historic occasion. The ninety-eight foot pole is the refurbished mast of the ship Columbia, the swift sloop that was the first to win the America's Cup consecutively, in 1899 and in 1901.

A ship whose history is inextricably tied with New York's, the Columbia was designed by Nathanael Herreshoff and launched in 1899 by J.P. Morgan for the New York Yacht Club. It was sailed in the cold and choppy waters of New York Harbor by Captain Charlie Barr to two glorious victories against Great Britain and retired to New York's own little port at City Island in 1913.

Towering high above the borough of Queens, the Columbia's restored mast tells us of past glory and of future promise. It symbolizes the resilience and ambition that has always and will continue to define New York and its people.

I take this opportunity to present to the community of Forest Hills Gardens a new flag worthy of the Columbia's mast and salute the Forest Hills Gardens Corporation for ensuring that

our flag continues to wave high over the greatest city in the world.

Mr. Speaker, before I proceed with the subject I want to talk about, I just want to summarize the last hour.

Apparently ACORN is going to kidnap your children and drag them to Planned Parenthood where they're going to be forced to have national health care.

That sounds pretty frightening. But if you were having trouble following that, Mr. Speaker, so were the rest of us.

And for you, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues and for anyone watching, if you're looking for a 1-hour screed about the ghosts that lurk in the closets of our government, I can't help you.

But I would like to have a little bit of a conversation about the discussion that we're having around dining room tables and diners and church basements all throughout this country about the health care we provide Americans, how we pay for it, and what we should do to make it better. And to any of my Republican colleagues who are watching in their offices, who are watching off somewhere in the congressional campus, and this is kind of quiet at this hour, I am interested in having a real discussion and a real debate.

There are things that we disagree with. There are philosophical schisms that have emerged in this. But, frankly, a lot of the debate, unfortunately, has been too much like the last hour, which is just something bordering on nonsense.

But let me just start with the notion that we're really trying to solve with health care three problems, two of which are relatively easy to solve and one of which is very difficult to solve.

The first problem we're trying to solve is that there are a lot of people that don't have health care. Well, I shouldn't say that. There are a lot of people that don't have health insurance. They get health care. Everyone in this country, everyone who's got insurance, not insurance, documented, undocumented, old, young get health care. And what I mean by that is if someone right now outside the steps of this Capitol falls down with a stroke, we're going to come and there's going to be an ambulance that's going to rush to get them. They're going to take them to an emergency room. A doctor is going to do everything medically possible to revive them and to make them healthy. The only question is, How do we pay for that service?

If you have health insurance, you pay for it one way. If you have Medicare or Medicaid, you pay for it another way. If you pay for it out of your own pocket, you pay for it a third way. But if you have no health insurance at all, we the taxpayer by and large pay that bill. And it's a lot of money. It's a relatively small number of people who are uninsured, but the expenses that they have are very, very high because when you go into a hospital emergency room for care, that is usually pretty expensive care. And it might not come directly back to us in taxes, although a lot of it does.

In New York City, for example, about $2 billion each and every year we pay for the uninsured that come into our emergency rooms. Some of it is paid for by everyone else that has health insurance paying higher premiums, but a lot of it is just passed along to the hospitals and doctors and saying, hey, you foot the bill. As a result, in my home county, there are three fewer hospitals than there were just a year ago. It's an unsustainable dynamic that the people who are not insured, frankly, if they can afford to pay, well, in some cases they do, but in a lot of cases, they pass along the expense to us.

But that problem is pretty easy to solve. What do you do? You give them some money or you give them some tax benefit or you give them some tax credit and you say go out and go shopping for health insurance. Go buy some. We'll require you to do it. You go out and buy some.

It gets a little bit complicated in how much you provide the subsidy, and it does get complicated when you're trying to figure out will they be able to afford that health insurance plan. And that's where the public option discussion comes in, but I will get to that in a moment. But that problem is a relatively easy one to solve. As some of my colleagues have pointed out, it's only 10 percent of the American public. How hard can it be?

The second problem is also relatively easy to solve, but it's important: for all of us who have health insurance, making sure our health insurance company treats us relatively well. When we need care, do we get it? Do we get dropped because we have preexisting conditions? When they're deciding how to set a price for it, do they price it in an unfair way where effectively we're locked out of the market? That too is relatively easy to solve, and I think there is some agreement.

Look, no one should be able to drop someone for preexisting conditions, and now that we in the Democratic Party are in charge of this Chamber, we're going to pass something to fix that. Those things are relatively easy. In fact, since insurance companies are regulated in all 50 States, a lot of States have tried to do those things, some with more effect than others.

But the third problem, and it's the mother of all problems, is the overall cost to the system. The overall cost to those of us who have insurance, the overall cost to those of us who are taxpayers is getting so large that it's drowning everything else in the economy. And the question is, How do you solve that problem?

Now, what has been suggested by the President and the majority party in Congress through the various committees is essentially what you try to do is if you require everyone to get insurance, meaning insurance companies will have more people to cover, that hopefully what that will mean is they'll have more money coming in from lower-cost people, meaning people that don't have a lot of illnesses, and that the insurance companies will be magnanimous and they'll lower their prices. That's basically what the argument is. Maybe it's right. Maybe that's what will happen here.

Now, I believe, and what I would like to devote a little time to today, is I believe that we are using a bank shot when we should go directly at the problem. I say we are using a bank shot because we are basing all of this on private insurance companies to help us.

I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what is it that health insurance companies do? They don't provide checkups. They don't provide clinical services. They certainly don't operate on you. What do they do? We know they take your money. They take my money. We know they take the money from your employers. But then what do they do? Unlike any other insurance plan, they don't apportion risk because they don't cover anyone over 65. All of those people are on Medicare. They price a lot of people out of the market by saying to people like those who are of my father's age when he retired, we're going to charge you $15,000 or $16,000 for a policy. So the question becomes, What is it that insurance companies do?

What they do is they make money. They take money out of your pocket, give it to doctors, and along the way they take some money for themselves. How much? Up to 30 percent. And the question that many of us are asking in the context of this debate is, Why do it that way? Why not try something different? Why not try to say if you're going to take your money and give it to your doctors and give it to your insurance companies, why not do it a little bit more directly? Why not do it the way we fund, I don't know, the fire department or the department of sanitation in your town? Why not treat it as if it's a service?

Frankly, the fire department model is a pretty good one. If you think about it, it's very similar. You don't need the fire department every day. Day in and day out, you go without needing the fire department to be there. But when it's there, you really want it to be there for you. You need it. You can't put out the fire yourself. You need brave men and women of your local fire department, and maybe they're volunteers, to come to your home and put out your fire. So we all put in money into the fire department hoping that it won't be there; and when it does, we understand and it's a service that we willingly pay for.

But you don't have to fantasize what it would be like in health care to have a government-run health care plan. And when I say ``government run,'' to some degree I am borrowing the language of our opponents because when I say ``government run,'' I mean really government running the reimbursement system. We do have some experience with that and it's called Medicare.

Now, people have different views of Medicare. People either love it or they like it a lot or they think, oh, my goodness, it's never going to be there for me or it's unsustainable or it's growing broke. In a way both sides are right, both groups are right about that. Medicare has been an exquisite model of efficient government care and government services for 44 years. It didn't start out being all that much of a bipartisan program, but now it is, as you see from my Republican friends who thump their chests about how they are trying to defend Medicare. But the problem is at the very same time they say, But I'm against anything that's government run. I'm not quite sure I see the disconnect.

Now some of them argue, but, wait a minute. Isn't Medicare on an unsustainable financial track? No doubt about it. All health care is on an unsustainable financial track. I'm going to borrow some of the charts that have been used previously to give you a sense of what that means. This is the average health insurance premiums from 1999 to 2008. It went from about $5,800 to $13,000 from 1999 to 2008, in 7 years. It essentially doubled. That is unsustainable. And this is private insurance.

Now, it is true that Medicare is also seeing that type of strain. Why? Well to some degree, it is a victim of its own success. Today the average life expectancy of someone is about 10 years longer than it was 44 years ago when Medicare was created. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, you're not getting those 10 years when you're a teenager. You get them at the end of your life. So that is adding to a lot of expense. Technology has added to a lot of expense. And there's a lot of things that we do in Medicare that don't make a lot of sense that we could do to save money. A lot of them I hope we are going to do in our national health care fix that we are going to do. But one of the things you can absolutely say is that no money is going for profits. Very little money is going for overhead, only about 3.5 percent, according to a Rand study, compared to 30 percent for health care for health insurance companies.

So the question has to be, what are the benefits that we are getting from those private insurance companies? Well, my colleagues frequently say, it gets you competition. Really. Competition? Explain to me how competition works in the health care business. If I fall down here, not to keep using morbid examples, but if I fall down and I have an appendicitis attack right now and I have to get my appendix replaced, tell me about competition. Do I get to shop around to see maybe I will have a liver or a spleen instead? Of course not. Do I get to say, I'm not going to get my appendix done right now, I'm going to wait and I'm going to get it done in December when I hear they go on sale? No. In fact, I also can't go out and say, wait a few years, don't operate on me. I'm going to go to medical school and learn how to do it myself in my garage to take out my appendix.

The notion of competition is further folly in that for most people that have health insurance at their work, they don't have a choice of plans. The employer comes in and says, on the floor of the warehouse, they say, guys, gather around, you are going to get Oxford or you're going to get Aetna. That's our plan. I'm going to pay 60 percent, you're going to pay 40, that's it. You don't get to say, no, I'm going to do it different. I'm going to go to Blue Cross instead. There is not real effective competition in that context as well because most people get their insurance through their work.

Remember something, the basic element of competition does exist within Medicare in a very important way. Patients have their choice of what doctor to go to. They have their choice of what hospital, what clinician to go to. They have absolute choice. So we are right back to where we started that both private insurance and Medicare both have financing problems. The private insurance, as I said, is worse. They both have some elements of choice, Medicare more choice than the private insurance companies. But the difference, and this is that third problem we are trying to solve, the difference is how much private insurance companies take out of the pot for their shareholders, for advertisements, for overhead. It's an enormous amount. And we should want it back.

Now some have suggested, and I keep trying my best to do the other side of the argument, since none of my colleagues on the other side of this argument have taken me up on my offer to come down and discuss it with us tonight, but some have said, well, those insurance companies, the money that they are taking, they employ a lot of people, their shareholders have a right to take that money from the taxpayer, to take that money from patients. That might be an argument that you make at a shareholders' meeting, but it shouldn't be an argument you make on the floor of Congress. We shouldn't be standing up fighting for shareholders.

I guess the equivalent would be in the 1980s when we discovered we were paying $700 for toilet seats in the Department of Defense, I guess I would have heard my colleagues stand up and say, yes, but there are many hardworking people making those toilet seats. You can't take that money away from them. Of course not. We said, you find a way to get a $10 toilet seat like everybody else because we are here fighting for the taxpayers' money, and we are here fighting to improve the lot of patients.

So I believe that where we have to start is taking an example of something that worked, which is Medicare. Now Medicare, as you all know, begins when you turn 65. So the Speaker has about another 30 years before he has to worry about it. But frankly, I don't understand what the magic is about the 65th birthday that makes it a plan that works. Ninety-six percent, every year we do a survey of people on Medicare. We ask them to grade the care that they get, the efficiency of the care, the quality of the care. They gave it a 96 this year, 96 percent. By the way, we also asked the contractors. We always hear how terrible Medicare is for providers. We also ask each year, CMS

asks the providers, they call them contractors, the doctors and the hospitals, they gave them a 4.5 out of 6. So basically both elements are pretty happy with it. We started at age 65.

Try this little experiment next time you go to the supermarket. Tap someone on the shoulder who looks like they are 55 or 60 and say, would you like to have Medicare now when you're 55 or 60? They will say, heck, yeah. Because those are the people for whom health insurance is the most expensive. Many of them have trouble getting it. Those are the people more likely to be laid off in this economy, that kind of in between group. Yet we don't offer it to them. Why? We have a system that works, Medicare, and yet instead of trying to figure out a way to take a system that works and expand it to more people, we say, no, it has got to be 65. Why don't we provide Medicare for those that are like 21 to 25 who are just off their parents plan or just out of college? Those are people that we would like to have covered. Those are the so- called invincibles. Those are the people who have trouble finding health care. Why don't we provide them with Medicare? Now, some have suggested oh, wait a minute, you're taking over health care, socialized medicine. Well, putting aside for a minute that socialism has a meaning, and it means that government controls the means of production and no one is suggesting that, the doctors are still going to be the doctors, the hospitals are still going to be the hospitals, if you take a look at that argument, you realize that, I don't know, what do you think, Mr. Speaker, 50 percent of this place has Medicare? Sixty? I don't see them complaining. They don't seem to mind socialized medicine when they are getting it. I don't hear anyone saying, we have heard a lot in this discussion, well, how come Members of Congress don't take the public plan? They already do have the public plan. They have got Medicare. And by the way, when I turn 65, sign me up. It's going to be a while, Mr. Speaker, so don't rush me. But look, the fact is we have a model of something that works.

Now, as I said, and I want to stipulate to this, that it's expensive. And we need to contain that cost. But this brings us to the ideas about how you do it. And I will say this at the risk of antagonizing any of my colleagues or breaching the rules--I just wanted to see if the Parliamentarian would perk up at the suggestion I might be breaching the rules. But my Republican colleagues have not been honest in trying to deal with the cost of the argument. They have said a couple of things repeatedly. They say, oh, if only we had tort reform. We have tort caps in 46 of the 50 States. In some of the States that have the toughest cap, you have got the greatest rates of increases in health insurance and the malpractice insurance. Why? Well, it's obvious why. The health insurance companies lobby for the caps, and then they keep the money. They don't pass it along to us. And their shareholders cheer. Tort reform they say. Well, we asked them, by the way, we said to the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, we said what would happen if you overnight can reduce 30 percent of all tort claims? What would happen? They said you get some savings, .4 percent. And we went back and said how can this be if you reduce 30 percent of all the tort claims, you don't do better than that? And they said to us--These are propeller heads. They are pencil pushers. They are not politicians. They said, yes, because we looked at the different States, and what did we find out? We find out that when you get caps, the insurance companies keep the money. So that's one thing they said about cost containment, and that clearly doesn't prove to be right.

And then they said something else that's interesting. They said, why don't we let all health insurance companies compete in every other market, essentially adding to competition? Now this is an interesting one because it kind of argues for the public option in an odd way, but let's take it where it goes. Now, first of all, let me make it clear. There is a reason that a health insurance company in Maine doesn't come in and offer a health insurance policy in New York, because the first thing they have to do is develop their network of doctors in New York. That is very expensive and very difficult. But New York has made it very clear that they are willing, more than happy, there are no applications pending for someone who wants to come in and offer insurance. And that is true of most of the States. Now, why is it you need to apply to a State? This is where my Republican friends tie themselves into a little bit of an intellectual knot. Insurance is regulated by the 50 various States. And why is that? Because, and this is a place where as much as I'm critical of insurance companies, I kind of agree. Health insurance companies say, listen, we need to be able to do things that might be deemed anticompetitive under other laws. We need an exemption from the antitrust laws so that we can share information across State lines and across companies, essentially--it's too strong a word, but I'll use it anyway--essentially collude, share information about patients. You don't want somebody who gets into a car accident in New Mexico being able to hide it by going to New Jersey. So each and every State, since it's not regulated federally, it's not interstate commerce technically, each individual State has it, so each individual State has their own process for allowing insurance companies to come in. Do you know what? Nobody is saying no. You look at the 50 State insurance commissioners, nobody is saying, oh, I'm getting overrun with applications to provide health care in Idaho. No. They are not doing that because insurance companies have no real interest in competing on price. So once all the customers are basically locked up, there is no interest in coming in. But I guess the logical extension of the argument for people who want to have that type of competition is to take away the antitrust exemption from insurance companies. You can do that. I don't think that your patrons, the insurance industry, who provide so much funding for campaigns and some of my colleagues, would be very happy about that though.

So what is it that the President proposes? And what is it that H.R. 3200 proposes? It proposes that for some Americans, not many to be honest, some Americans, meaning those that don't have insurance through their work, are not working but are not eligible for Medicaid, who are individuals, who are just looking to get insurance but are not covered, that is a relatively small group of people, remember, 45 percent or so of all Americans have either Medicare, Medicaid, health care from the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, you have got about 55 to 60 percent who have health care through private insurance, so you're talking 10 percent, 5 percent, 8 percent, who are going to then be able to, we're going to give them a tax benefit, they're going to then go shopping. But in order to make sure that there is some competition so that the rate of health insurance that they're buying doesn't keep going up, we're going to have a public plan like Medicare that is going to be introduced for those people.

Now, it's anticipated that maybe a third of all of those people at most would go into the public plan. So you have a tiny sliver if you are covered by insurance at your work. Theoretically you can say to your employer, keep your money, keep your money, I'm going to absorb all the costs and go try to shop for the public option. But that is not going to realistically happen according to CBO. If you have your own insurance policy, if you have Medicare, you're not going to be able to do it. But you're going to be able to get something resembling a choice if you're one of those people. And the argument that H.R. 3200, which is the bill we have all been discussing, and an argument that President Obama made when he spoke to us before Congress, is that if you have that element of choice, you will have low overhead, you won't be advertised, you won't be given bonuses, you won't be taking money out for shareholders, and that people, that company, that public option will hold down costs.

Now in a strange way, both proponents of the public option and opponents of the public option argue for the Weiner plan, argue for single payer. And I will tell you why. People who argue for it say it's going to be an effective way to hold down costs because people are going to choose that public plan, because they are going to like the low prices, the low overhead and the

like. People who are opposed to it say, no, we are opposed to it because people are going to choose that plan. And if they do, private insurance companies won't be able to get those customers. They won't be able to compete. But in both cases, they are saying the same thing. They are saying that citizens are going to go to the public option. They are going to go to the Medicare for everyone else, whatever we are going to call it.

So the question gets begged, why not just go there directly? Why give people tax benefits that they can go buy in the private market to take 30 percent off the top? Why not just say let's expand a program like Medicare? Let's find ways to get cost savings for Medicare by doing things like not paying $900 for a slip and fall for a night in a hospital for a senior citizen, but maybe $30 to build a handrail next to their shower. Why spend an enormous amount of money in the very final days of life and do nothing in the early days to try to get people living a better life, living a healthier life?

Mr. Speaker, so that the question comes back to how you get the savings, and it also comes back to who's accountable for those savings.

Now, I believe we've got to get savings in Medicaid. We've got to get savings in Medicare. We've got to get savings. Frankly, this is not just something that has to be done by the private insurance companies. We have to find savings because, frankly, as the President said when he stood here, virtually our entire deficit right now is health care costs, and the health care costs that are paid for by the taxpayer are going up.

And people say, well, why is that happening? Well, everyone watching this broadcast tonight is not only paying their premiums, not only paying their copayments, but they're paying taxes that are supporting the city workers in your town for health care. You're supporting the State workers, the Federal workers, all of the retirees. You're paying an increasing amount because that health care inflation is coming back to you in a lot of ways.

I had someone stand up at a town hall meeting--and I had 13 of them I think over the August recess--come up to me and he says, well, Congressman, why can't you give all of the uninsured the same plan you have? I don't think the person who made that suggestion realizes he's my employer. He's putting in the 70 percent I think for the health care plan that I and every other Federal employee gets. So you might not see that you're paying it, but you're paying it, and we need to turn that cost down.

But before I yield back the time, I do want to try to address some of the kind of visceral concerns that the opponents to this health care plan have had. One I've already touched upon but I'll do a little bit more now, and that is the notion, you know, that it's going to be a government-run program, and by definition, government-run programs are not good programs. You know, there are some good government programs, and there are some not-so-good government programs.

I think Social Security is a program that worked. You know, people talk how we're falling off a demographic cliff that's unsustainable. Baloney. It's got giant surpluses. It's the only part of the budget right now that does have giant surplus.

I think Medicare has worked. I think that people haven't gotten rich off it, but it took a group of people, seniors, who had about a 28 percent poverty rate and lifted them to the point now that we have single digits, that it's so popular now that the Chair of the Republican national party put out a couple of weeks ago the Republican plan to protect Medicare, which I thought was unintentionally ironic because at the same time he was lamenting the growth of government- funded health care.

There are some maybe government programs that aren't so good. This one works. And there's a certain level of phoniness about going home to our districts, as I know opponents of this legislation do, and they rail against government-funded plans, the government-administered plans, and then embrace Medicare.

But listen to what the choice is. The choice is health insurance companies. Now, some of my colleagues have come to the floor with clever and creative boxes showing different where your money goes, where you go to try to show how bureaucratic health care is. Well, this is the present. This is the way private insurance operates today. You think it's not bureaucratic?

You know, you've got consumers, and then they're passing through their costs to employers who then have copayments. Then they have to go out and try to figure up--by the way, don't forget about this. This system that we right now, it's employers have to go out and get health insurance. Actually, let me spend a moment on this.

You know, why is it that we have health care that's provided by our employer? Where did that come from? Why should a shoe store on one side of Queens Boulevard in my district have a different obligation to its workers than one on the other side? Why should they compete based on what health care plan they have? I mean, that's what happened. If Joe's shoe store on one side decides, you know what, I want to do the right thing and cover my employees; I'm going to put, let's say, $7,000 an employee into the till--yet, he's competing against the guy across the street who says, wait a minute, let me see about this; no, I'm going to provide no insurance; I'm going to send them to the neighborhood emergency room for their health care, but since I'm saying $7,000 an employee, I'm going to cut the cost of my shoes by 15 percent. How is that fair?

Medicare says we're not going to do it based on employers, and that's what, frankly, I think we should do with all health care. Ask your neighborhood employer who's wrestling with trying to keep a business afloat whether having to provide health care is a bureaucratic headache for them. It ain't for Medicare. Medicare's a 4 percent overhead. The doctors say it's efficient; patients say it's efficient.

Getting back to this, this is the way private insurance is modeled right now because they've got to go through all the rigamarole. They've got to go negotiate with hospitals and communities and doctors. They deal with drug companies. They take a couple of dollars off the top there as well. Then they're dealing with the sellers of goods, and you've got administration of costs, then there's profit.

Well, here's what Medicare looks like on a chart. Patients get health care, the patients pay taxes, and then administrators, Medicare pays the doctors. That's it, over and done with, pretty simple. The only thing simpler is taking money out of your own pocket and giving it to your doctors which, frankly, Medicare being able to take this pool of people together has been able to do much more efficiently than you or I could do.

You know, another thing to keep in mind as we take a look at this is that there's a lot of money being spent on health care that we don't see. If you do a single payer plan like I have suggested here, no longer will you have cities and States being left holding the bag for unreimbursed expenses? What happened to my colleagues lamenting the unfunded mandate? Health care is the mother of all unfunded mandates because our States and our cities and our businesses all have to pay because you're doing nothing. That's the ultimate unfunded mandate.

So, hopefully, what we are going to do here as I conclude, hopefully what we are going to do here is try to come up with a plan that does provide additional choices for people that don't have choices right now: the uninsured. We're going to try to improve the circumstances that people that have private insurance find themselves under, and we're going to try to do something to introduce some element of competition to hold down costs.

But I tell you, I don't think that that's the right way to go, and I'm going to offer a different plan when we're on this debate in the next month or so. And I'm going to offer legislation, a modified version of H.R. 676 offered by Congressman Conyers with many cosponsors, that says, you know what, we're going to take a plan like Medicare and we're going to offer it to all America. We're going to take their payroll taxes and the taxes they pay, and we're going to fund the system. We're not going to do a backdoor way. You're not going to have to dump all your city and State taxes. We're going to say, you know what, we're going to

do it Federally. We're not going to do it based on employer. It's not going to be just based on the luck of the draw; hey, I got lucky, I didn't get born with asthma. That's not the way we're going to choose who's going to get health care.

We're going to take hospitals and we're going to fund them globally. We're not going to incentivize them to run up the bill. We're going to say here is your area, this is the number of people you have in it, this is the number of uninsured people you have in it, this is the number of seniors you have in it, this is the number of people who have higher needs; here's your budget. You come in under budget, you keep the extra money.

Doctors are going to be the same way Medicare is. Patient gets to choose, you come in, you provide the service. And if you think we can't afford to pay for it, this is an old chart from a couple of years ago. $2.2 trillion we're paying for health care in this country, $2.2 trillion. It's actually $2.5 trillion today. This is the dreaded socialized part: Medicare, Medicaid, DOD. So essentially this is what it would like for more Americans. By the way, you're paying this out- of-pocket number, and you're paying about, let's say, let's round it, $200 billion in profits of this guy, for your private insurance companies.

And what we're saying is don't do it that way anymore. Other countries don't do it that way, but put aside other countries. When you hear people come to the floor of this Congress and say, oh, you want to make a system like England, you want to make a system like Canada? No, I want to make a system like United States of America where we tried something 44 years ago that has been an abiding success and that's Medicare.

I want to try that. I want to try that plan that--I don't know, I really do have to get the exact number. It would be a good thing to get--that half my colleagues have. A third of my colleagues have Medicare. If it's good enough for Congress, why isn't it good enough if you're 55 or if you're 60 or if you're 45?

That's the kind of plan that we should have, and if you think we can't afford to do it for less than $2.5 trillion, you're wrong. We can, because the present system is completely unsustainable.

And so the question is not whether we're going to do something. It's kind of like Buddhism. It's not whether you're going to have change but what type of change it's going to be. We can continue along this arc-- it's funny, the 30 Something Group's charts aren't nearly as good as mine--but this arc here that says our national health expenditures are going to keep going up and up, they actually have a better one here. Here it is. Share of our GDP, are we going to let it get to 20 percent of our GDP? How about 50 percent? Sixty percent? How far are we going to let it continue to grow?

The answer isn't whether we're going to do something; it's what we're going to do and when. Well, the what we should do is take a system like Medicare that is efficient, that is well-liked, that is understood, that is simple, and extend it to more Americans.

What we're not going to do, what we're not going to do is follow the advice and counsel of my friends on the other side who for the hour preceding mine went on some screed about ACORN, you know, kidnapping, Planned Parenthood, babies, and bringing them into Obama-funded death camps or something. We're not going to have a conversation like that. I mean, you can keep doing it. It didn't stop you for the last 6 years. I guess you've got to do it and you've got to feed the beast of the talk radio and everything else, but the adults of this institution and President Obama and the Senate, we're going to try to solve this problem because that's what we get paid to do.

And we have the luxury in this body of laying down our head tonight with pretty good insurance, Medicare many of my colleagues have, and I see no reason why all Americans shouldn't have that, they shouldn't have what so many Members of Congress have.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 58 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, October 1, 2009, at 10 a.m.

I thank you very much.

I am an honorary member of the Progressive Caucus. I am not a member of the caucus, but I am very interested in the work that you've done on this issue. I just want to pick up on a point that you just made.

Part of the reason doctors understand the need for the public option is that they deal every day with insurance companies. You and I, when we get sick--and God willing, that's not often--and when our constituents get sick, they have to deal with their insurance companies. They deal with them every day. They've got six or seven different in-boxes on their desks. About 20 percent of their overhead is dealing with insurance companies, and I don't mean dealing with them as in, ``Hey, how are you doing? Let's have a doughnut and coffee together.'' I mean sitting on hold, getting approval, trying to find out when they're going to get reimbursed, spending months and months and months waiting for insurance companies to give them money for services they've already provided.

So when doctors look at this debate, they say, You know what? Having some level of competition is helpful to them as well. Just so we understand the context of this, we swing wildly between people who say the public option in this health care debate is going to transform the world and people who say it's not really going to do anything. Somewhere in between is probably right.

When this health care plan goes into effect under the President's proposal we have here in the House, for most Americans, they're not even going to have the ability to go sign up for the public option because they get health insurance at their work. If they decide to leave their employers, they're going to leave whatever the employers are putting into the kitty, so they're probably not going to do that. They effectively are not going to go into the public option. If you're on Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, or the Department of Defense, you're not going to be even eligible to go into the public option.

So the people who are going to benefit are a small group of people, an important group of people who are underinsured, meaning their employers don't provide even the basic health insurance we believe they should, or those who have no coverage at all. They're going to be able to shop. Even for those people, it is going to take a while for this public option to get up and running.

The reason it's so important--and you've made this point continually during the debate--is that we should have at least some experiment with how it might work. We should have some way to look through the lens and say, You know what? Here's a private insurance company that's paying for advertisements and that's paying bonuses. The CEO of the public option will probably make--I don't know--$190,000 a year, whatever it is, versus an institution, a public option, which might say, You know what? Maybe we can do it for less because we don't have to look out for shareholders. That sliver of competition has the insurance companies mortified.

The question is why. Why are they so afraid?

Because, I say to my colleague from Minnesota, at the end of the day, it could just be that these insurance companies say, You know what? If I'm going to compete, maybe I'll have to turn a little bit less over to profits, a little bit less over to advertising and over to bonuses. Now, for them, that might not be so good, but for the rest of us and for the country as a whole, that is actually, probably, a pretty good thing.

Well, let me make one other point. First, that's funny, you made that observation, great minds think alike or average minds think alike.

I had written an op-ed a month ago, made the same exact point that actually the two sides agree on this. But what's interesting about some of my Republicans friends who have fought so vehemently against it is, at the end of the day, we are introducing another market player. That is, you always want more market players because that's where competition comes from.

We are introducing another one. Now we have tied its hands behind its back a bit more than I would have liked, but we are introducing another market player. It's fascinating because the argument seems to be, wait a minute, if you give my constituents choice, they might take it. Now, it's fine that--we apparently believe that our constituents are smart enough to choose us to be their representatives, but, oh, no, we can't trust them to be smart enough to choose the health insurance plan.

By the way, I already see the TV commercials. Don't go with them, you don't want government-funded health care. Yes, the private insurance companies are going to do everything possible to compete in that way. But at the end of the day, we are trying to introduce market forces where they don't exist today.

Let me just make this one final point. We hear all the time from the other side. Let the marketplace work. There is no marketplace for health care as a commodity the way we know it.

If I have an appendix burst right now standing here, I am not going to say, You know what, I am not going to get an appendix, I am going to shop for a liver instead. Or I am not going to say, You know, I am going to wait. I understand appendix goes on sale in December, I am going to wait. Or I don't have the ability to say, I am going to go buy some books and learn how to sew up my own appendix. That doesn't happen.

If I am like 80 percent of all people that get their insurance from an employer, I have one option. My employer walks in and says, Congratulations, everyone here at the supermarket. We have Blue Cross or we have Oxford, and here is the coverage.

I don't get to say, Hey, boss, uh-uh, give me my money, I am going to go shop around a little bit more. That doesn't happen.

So the idea that we have some kind of a free market guaranteed choice doesn't exist. Now we are introducing a little bit here, but at the end of the day, this is not a commodity, like a suit of clothes that you can say I am going to buy or I am going to not. It's also true when people say, Why should I have to get insurance, I am not sick.

Well, you might not be sick today, but if, God forbid, you get hit by a car and you have $170,000 worth of insurance, of health care costs, and $100 in your pocket, you know who is paying? You and I are.

But what happened to the idea of letting us all make free choices? The right of your choice stops where it starts impacting me. As my father would frequently say to me when he was explaining to me the law, the right of my fist stops at your nose. You can't have this kind of conversation that--but if you really believe in the marketplace, introduce more players.

That's what Mr. Ellison has talked about, and that's what the Progressive Caucus talked about. That's what, frankly, overwhelming numbers of Americans and overwhelming numbers of doctors are talking about.

If you are interested in making sure that we have a marketplace that is not just dominated by the idea if you can afford to pay, you do, and let me make this final--I know I keep saying final point. There is one other thing. You know, I have made the point that insurance companies for health care at the end of the day are not like insurance companies in any other walk of life.

Your car insurance company, since we all have automobile insurance coverage, they are apportioning risk. They are trying to figure out how you spread risk around. Health insurance companies don't do that. They are not covering anyone over 65. They are not covering anyone that has a preexisting condition. People like my father who tried to get health insurance before he was 65 were charged so much he effectively couldn't get it. So they are not doing that either.

So the question becomes what are the insurance companies doing? They are taking our money and giving it to doctors, giving it to hospitals, giving it to clinics. But they are putting 20 percent in their pocket.

So why don't we, if we are trying to figure out savings, not that I have anything--I mean insurance companies aren't venal people; they are doing what we frankly have allowed them to do and they have risen up for natural reasons. Let's start with that 20 percent. Let's start with that 350 or so billion dollars out of a $2.5 trillion pot. You know what, let's put that back into health care, let's put that back into tax cuts. Let's put that back into other service.

Frankly, that's the argument behind the public option, and it's 4 percent overhead, compared to the health insurance plan that I have, which has about a 25 percent overhead.

It's an interesting point. One of the most common things we hear from people who oppose this comprehensive health plan is they pick a reed of information and say, Why don't we do this? Why don't we let all insurance companies around the country compete in every market?

Well, I am open to the idea, but I have got to tell you they don't seem to want to. We have 50 States that have 50 State insurance commissions, and you can knock on the door of any one of them and say, I am an insurance company, I want to apply to provide insurance here in Minnesota or New York.

Now you know we have a grand total of zero applications from insurance companies in New York who want to operate in Maine. I tell you why, for an obvious reason. If you are a health insurance company in New York, you don't know any of the doctors in Maine. What your patients and your customers are going to want is my doctor in your network.

So they have to go organize all these doctors, create a whole new network. It's hard to do. I honor health insurance companies for trying to do it. They make a lot of money. Maybe it's because they were able to do that. But you want to know, there is one insurance entity that has been able to do it for the entire country. It's called Medicare. Not only have they have been able to do it, but they have been able to do it at 3.5 percent overhead compared to a 30 percent overhead.

Well, not long ago on this floor, my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, who thump their chest and beat the rostrum about being against government-funded single payer health care plans, all voted for it. I mean, maybe not all of them; most of them voted for it.

They are the defenders of Medicare? Well, that's a single-payer, government-funded, government-controlled health care. Now it is not one thing, though--that really needs to be clarified. It's not socialism, and I will tell you why. Socialism means that government controls the means of production.

Government doesn't run the doctors or the hospitals any more than Oxford, Blue Cross or Aetna does. Now it's a common thing to say--and never or hardly ever do my colleagues on the other side of the aisle actually try to figure out the literal sense of what they are saying. It's not that.

It is, in a way, trying to figure out a way that we as a society figure out how to deal with the society problem, but the problem that we have here is the private insurance companies pick and choose markets the same way they pick and choose customers. I have got to tell you something. We can pass a law tomorrow saying that everyone can compete, all over the 50 States. You won't have people applying to go into Idaho and set up a--or probably going into Minnesota.

We have in New York a pretty rich--because we have a lot of customers, a lot of senior citizens. But we also have some of the toughest regulatory regimes because of many of the abuses that we have seen.

Look, I want to tell you something. It is my view we should have something like Medicare for all Americans. We should treat health care like we treat the fire department. Hopefully we don't need it very often. We all pay taxes so that when there is a fire they will come and put out the fire. It's good for our economy that our neighborhood shoe store should worry about selling shoes, not health care.

Under a vote that I am going to be offering, and I think it will have your support----

We are going to take the shoe store guy and say, You focus on that. We, the government, have an infrastructure that we know that works for health care. It has a financing problem like all health care does. Actually the curve for health care is not as severe as it is for private insurance. That's the way we should do it.

We should make it less expensive, not more expensive for citizens, because we shouldn't say, Your State taxes are going to go up, your local taxes are going to go up, your hospitals are going to close. We are going to run it the way we run Medicare, which is efficiently, and we will provide it as a service.

But putting that aside for a moment, at the very least, if we're going to have insurance companies be the primary place we get it, how about a tiny reed, a tiny sliver of competition. If you don't do it because you think you should have choice, do it because you think we should save money.

The Congressional Budget Office says that if we take a public option and we link it to Medicare plus 5 percent, we will save another $100 billion. If you are a fiscal hawk, you want the public option. If you want choice, you want the public option.

If you are a doctor, you want a public option. If you are uninsured, you want a public option. If you have insurance, you may not know it, but you want a public option too.

I thank the gentleman for just about every day talking about these important issues.

Let me say very briefly what the single payer--consider it Medicare fraud. Ask your neighbor, if you are not old enough to have Medicare, ask them how their service is.

Every year they do a survey of all Medicare beneficiaries; 96 percent say they are satisfied with it, which any program or any business would be glad to have that. They also ask the providers, the hospitals, the doctors: Rate it on a score of 1 to 6. Last year the average score was 4.5. That is pretty good. That is essentially an A minus.

What it does is say, Look, we are not going have high overhead. We will not pay you the bust-out top of the market. For every single person you are going to get prompt payment. Everyone is going to be covered. You are going to have customers all around the neighborhood, and we will try to do some smart things to contain cost.

Now make no mistake about it. The canard that's raised--wait a minute. Medicare is a successful program. We don't like it, but there are costs to it. It's true. We have more older people. To some degree Medicare's success is why it's having trouble financially.

We are living 10 years longer today than we were when Medicare was passed. By the way, it's not 10 years in our teenage years, we get 10 years at the end of life when we have more health care costs.

But if we want to solve a problem in Medicare, you call your Congressman. You get on the phone. The taxpayers employ those people. If you want to fix your private insurance, if they shut you down, they kick you out, you get on an 800 number or you buy shares in their company. Those are the two ways you influence it.

What we are saying is, let's have a more efficient model, let's have a model that's lower cost, let's have a model that you know works. If you don't think it works, ask our Republican friends how come they keep voting for it over and over and over.

I offered an amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee. I see my colleague from the Judiciary Committee, but the Energy and Commerce Committee--I said, You don't like single-payer health plan, put your money where your mouth is. I offered an amendment on the day of the 44th anniversary of Medicare to eliminate the program. They say they don't like government-run health care. Eliminate the program.

Not a single one of those people--and I am prohibited on the floor from calling them phonies--not a single one of those people voted ``no''--or voted ``yes'' to eliminate Medicare. Oh, no, no, no, we love Medicare. You like Medicare if you are 65 but not if you are 64?

Not if you're 60, not if you're 45. Why? What's the intellectually honest explanation of that? If you believe the program that you're going to fight and defend--you should have it when you're 65--what's magical about that?

When my dad retired at 60, he wasn't eligible to get Medicare, and he went to the private insurance market. They said, Fine. For $15,000 a year, a retired guy, why not give that guy Medicare? And then maybe in a couple of years we give younger guys Medicare. And we get down to the twenties, where you are, we give you Medicare.

The point is, we know what works. You want simple? We got simple. Medicare for all Americans. You want inexpensive, you want low overhead? We got that. Medicare for all Americans. You want something that every doctor accepts? Medicare for all Americans. You want complete, 100 percent choice of what doctor you go to? Medicare for all Americans.

Now, one thing it doesn't do. It doesn't skim off 20 percent for profits. You won't see TV commercials with people sitting in rocking chairs saying, Boy, I'm glad I got Medicare. No, they're going to put that money into health care.

Does it need some fixing? Yeah. We do some dumb things. We'll put $900 for someone to be in a hospital bed. We won't pay $50 to put up a handrail when one-third of all seniors get into a hospital emergency room because of slips and falls. We do some dumb things, and we need to fix it.

But I've got to tell you something. As a Member of Congress representing 650,00, 660,000 people in Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, in God's country, I would much rather fight with CMS, fight with the Federal bureaucracy which, by the way, I get far fewer complaints about them than I do about private insurance companies, than having to hope that I get a good response from my insurance company.

So that's basically the philosophy behind the single-payer thing. I have to

take exception to one thing the President said in his speech. He said, Some people in this Chamber want a single-payer system like they have in Canada. No. I want a single-payer system like we have in the United States of America. I want a single-payer plan that my father has. I want a single-payer plan that my mother has.

I want a single-payer plan that took my grandparents, whose generation had a 30 percent poverty rate before Medicare, and is now at 8 percent. That's the American single-payer.

So don't let people distract you by, Oh, it's Europe; it's socialism; it's Canada. It's the United States of America. We know how to do health care in the United States, and it's called Medicare. The Democrats created it. The Republicans now embrace it. It's got bipartisan support. Let's expand it.

I appreciate it. Let me just yield on this point. First of all, I appreciate it. I'm not a member of the Progressive Caucus. The final stage of the application, as you know, is the talent competition, and I was never able to make it through that last threshold.

But the fact that you, in hour-long blocks, have real thoughtful conversation--this present company excluded--but real thoughtful conversations about this issue that explore the actual facts and the underpinning is exactly why this has been, I believe, a proud moment in our American civic life.

You put aside the people yelling, call people names, put that aside for a moment. This is something all Americans see through the lens of their own experience. They feel very compassionate about it.

So I ask all of the people watching today and all of the people here observing this debate, ask someone about their experience with Medicare and you'll see it's a pretty good ambassador for a government program that works pretty well that we should try to expand to more Americans.

I thank you for your kindness.

I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and my good friend from California, who has done an excellent job in explaining the bill. Let me just make a couple of general points that my colleagues can understand.

You know, unlike a lot of the housing market, FHA loans have actually performed remarkably well. Some people may look to the floor today and say, Why would you want to do anything to expand lending when we have already seen some of the problems that we've had? Well, frankly, FHA only has a serious delinquency rate of about .3 percent, compared to nearly 8 percent in the rest of the marketplace.

But to understand how FHA has worked so well, what they essentially do is take people who are essentially developing rental housing. They say, You're having trouble getting credit elsewhere, like it was when they were created after the Great Depression. We'll go ahead and provide you credit to provide rental housing that you can rent to middle-class residents all around the country.

Unfortunately, what was never truly acknowledged by the program until now is that some parts of the country have rental housing that doesn't go side-to-side, but goes north and south, up and down. Congressman Miller has instances like that. I know I do in New York City.

By definition, elevator buildings, combined with the fact that they are in big cities, make them more expensive. And so what we're saying here is, let's make sure the program keeps up with the real demand that we have for housing.

Now it is imperative that we do this because, despite the best efforts of this Congress and the President, the banks are simply not doing what we wanted them to do, which is extend more credit so people who have good enough credit can go ahead and find apartments that they can rent, homes that they can buy.

FHA is going to, under this piece of legislation--and I thank my colleague from New Jersey for quarterbacking it--is going to have the opportunity now to change their standards to reflect the way different things are regionally.

I should say to all of my colleagues, if you're doing things to perfect farm programs, just because they don't benefit me in New York City doesn't mean I don't support them. This is a way to make housing programs reflect what truly is going on in the marketplace.

Let me make one other point about this. It is true what my colleague says about Guam and Alaska and Hawaii. They're high-cost areas for different reasons. They're high-cost areas because getting building supplies to Guam, getting building supplies to Alaska and Hawaii, those are expensive.

One of the things that makes housing expensive in areas like New York City is that you have got to install elevators in any building that's north of six stories. And if you wind up getting into that place, you wind up adding a great deal to the amount per square foot that is required to do the building.

Nothing, I should say to my colleagues, does anything here to put taxpayers in any more jeopardy. The FHA program is entirely self- funded. It's the premiums that are collected from people who benefit from the program. All we're doing now is stopping what is a bottleneck in the program that has said we've got a lot of moribund programs-- which is a word my assistant, Mr. Beckelman, who has developed this legislation, coined--these moribund programs that are ready to go but simply can't get the financing.

So this House will be doing what desperately needs to be done. I thank the chairman of the Financial Services Committee for quarterbacking it and for getting it--tailbacking it; you quarterbacked, he tailbacked it--and for Mr. Miller of California, who has helped see the importance of this, and want to thank him for the great work he has done.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to hear a lot of people that are opposed to the Democratic plan to reform health care, and a lot of them are on this side of the House of Representatives. Why? They already have health care. They've got a pretty good plan, like all other Federal employees. They have choice already.

If you want to make a phone call, Mr. Speaker, dial 202-224-3121 and ask for your Congressman and say, Will you give up your health plan? You've got choice already. And some of them are old enough to have Medicare, which is, that's right, a government-run plan. Are you prepared to give up that? I don't believe that they are.

The fact of the matter is that some in the Republic Party don't want these problems fixed because they are already doing just fine. They've got choice, they've got the Federal plan--that I have, by the way--they have Medicare, a government-run plan, and the rest of the country can be damned.

Well, we in the Democratic Party are saying something else. We want the American people to get at least as good as my friends in the Republic Party have. We want at least the benefits that we have here in Congress--choice, affordability, lower cost and lower taxes for all Americans. That is the Democratic plan.

Madam Speaker, I rise to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the tragic events that took place at the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. This tragic attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires left 85 innocent people dead and 300 wounded in what remains the largest terrorist attack in Argentine history.

This bombing is a reminder of the very real and dangerous threat of anti-Semitism in the world. In an ongoing investigation, the Argentinean courts formally charged officials in the

Iranian Government, including former President Rafsanjani, as well as militants from their proxy group Hezbollah for plotting and carrying out this attack.

In 2006, Argentina issued arrest warrants for these individuals. The following year, INTERPOL issued arrest warrants, but 15 years after the attack no arrests have been made. Iran and its neighbors continue to offer a safe harbor to these terrorists. These warrants were ignored by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, who did nothing to apprehend Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohsen Rezaei, two suspected terrorists who attended a conference last June hosted by the Saudi Government. According to a State Department report, Hezbollah and Hamas sympathizers continue to raise funds and support in the border region of Argentina as well.

The people responsible for such a brutal attack on a Jewish community center, as well as whatever government or organizations supported them must be brought to justice. As we mark the 15th anniversary we must continue to condemn these attacks, support its ongoing investigation, and urge the rest of the world to do so as well.

You know, I would say to the American people who are watching the oncoming debate about health care that in many ways we already know what the two sides are--the Republic Party, the party that opposed the Medicare Act, opposed Social Security, opposed Medicaid. The Republic Party has made it very clear they're not only the Party of No; they're the party of ignoring the problems of the middle class and those struggling to make it.

The Democratic Party, the party that is producing this legislation, is the party that has again and again said, We're going to step up to the challenges facing this country.

Now, if you believe that we are spending just the right amount, that we're not spending too much money on health care, you're alone, because I think we're spending trillions upon trillions of dollars more than we need to. If you think that the hundreds of billions of dollars people are paying for out-of-pocket is just right, then you probably want the Republic Party's plan, which is to do nothing.

But the Democratic Party under the leadership of Frank Pallone and Barack Obama and others are saying, We're going to try to solve this problem. You know why? Because that's what we do. That's what Democrats do.

Now the Republic Party doesn't do that. They say, No, no, no. But we have a problem. If you want choice, if you want affordability, and if you want health care for your family, you're going to get it with the Democratic Party, not with the Republic Party.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the accomplishments of five young people who demonstrate the best of our Nation's values. This not only includes understanding what it means to be a patriotic American, but also understanding what it means to keep a connection with your parents, your grandparents and your great grandparents.

I want to thank these exceptional New Yorkers for taking the time to submit their essays and for understanding what it means to celebrate our country and to celebrate the Statue of Liberty. As the first public visitors to walk up the steps to the crown the Statue of Liberty since September 11th, 2001, I asked these young essayists to try and remember the millions of new Americans that came by that beautiful Lady and what it meant for them.

The Statue of Liberty is more than just a tourist site, it is something that connects us with our immigrant tradition. It is one of those symbols that unify us as Americans. We often are drawn to focusing on our weaknesses, our foibles and our conflicts, but it's good every so often to take a deep breath and remember some of the things that we have to be grateful for. These students and the dozens like them that submitted essays to the Daily News are to be celebrated for taking the time to help us remember why America is great.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Daily News for keeping the reopening of the crown of the Statue of Liberty on the front page and hammering away in 23 editorials when the Statue of Liberty was closed. You know, as with any campaign, it is not one person banging a drum, it is our whole community. And the Daily News jumped in there when it was time to figure out how to raise money to reopen the Statue of Liberty, and then when it became clear that the National Park Service was doing worse than dragging their feet, but refusing to open it, the Daily News wouldn't let up. And every time, whether it was passing an amendment or having hearings, every time I ran up this hill in Washington, I knew I had the Daily News behind me. And I think every one else knew--they were either going to be on that Daily News bandwagon, or under it.

When the Statue of Liberty was closed after the tragic events of 9/ 11, it symbolized Americans coming to terms with new threats, but while every other national monument reopened, the crown remained closed. With the reopening of the Crown on July 4, we were able to once again show our appreciation for the diversity that has always been the foundation of our Nation's strength.

To recognize these young patriots I submit the following essays.

Dear Lady Liberty,

The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are both very

important in U.S. history because they both changed the lives

of many people in and out of the U.S.A. Ellis Island gave

great opportunities and hope to people in other countries.

If Ellis Island was never created, then the dreamers (from

other countries) who wanted so desperately to come to America

and be an American, wouldn't have had their dreams come true.

In addition, without Ellis Island, America wouldn't have

experienced new cultures, new food and of course new

religions.

Personally, to me Lady Liberty expresses the freedom of our

beautiful country. With her hand up in the air, holding that

torch, she shows that we have won the battle for our freedom!

As you can see, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty will

always be an important part of American history.

Mona Platt.

I have an amendment made in order by the rule.

I thank the Chair and I thank the body for its patience, allowing me to breathlessly run over and offer my amendment.

Let me begin with a noncontroversial statement. The American people and this body of their representatives believes that there should be no money, no taxpayer dollars, going from the people of the United States of America to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I can say that with some confidence because in fiscal year 2007, 312 Members said so. In fiscal year 2006, 293 Members said so. I can say that with some certitude because the bill we have before us says that no money in this bill will go to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yet, despite the fact that we in this House keep expressing that sentiment loudly and clearly, for reasons that would be mysterious anyplace else but Washington, money continues to flow. That has to stop.

The reason it happens, by the way, is because we always feel this sense that we have to include language in the bill offering an exemption, a loophole you can drive a truck through, that says: Unless the President says so.

Well, I have news for you, my colleagues. Democrat and Republican alike, Presidents seem to develop a love affair with the notion of Saudi Arabia based on what they say. They say they want to be friends to the United States. They say they want to be a fulcrum against terrorism. They say they want to be a moderate force in the Middle East. And yet, year after year, we see evidence that they do the opposite.

We know this, for example, by reading the human rights reports over the last several years that see more and more stories like the one of a 75-year-old woman being sentenced to be lashed nearly to death for having the audacity of being in a home of two unrelated men.

We know, based on research that was done this year by my office, that they continue to teach hate in their textbooks now; things that teach ninth-graders, for example, to say things like, The hour of judgment will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. If there is a Jew behind me, come kill him. This is what ninth-graders are being taught.

We know, for example, that 15 of the 19 homicide bombers that attacked my city on September 11th were Saudis, and we also know, based on evidence that came out in the lawsuit against the Saudi Government, that these were agents that were not acting apart from the Saudi Government but, in many cases, were intertwined.

So my amendment does something simple. It takes the very good work of the Chair of the subcommittee that says, No money, and takes out the loophole. Because, to be honest with you, even if the administration certifies something, I can tell you already that the United States Department of International Narcotics Control Strategy said in February of this year that the Saudis were responsible for laundering money that ``continues,'' in their words, ``to be a significant jurisdictional source for terrorism financing worldwide.''

If you believe that there should not be money going to the Saudis, like I guarantee your constituents do, you have to vote ``yes'' on the Weiner amendment. If you want to kind of have it both ways, that you get to vote and then but you really want the money to go, then vote ``no.'' But I believe overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way in this House we have made it clear.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman yield on that point?

I guess the question is what are we doing here. I think what we're doing here with this entire bill is saying what we, the Representatives of

this country, who have the power of the purse, think should and should not be in the bill.

What's the purpose of doing that, I ask the gentleman, if year after year after year, despite the preferences of this Congress, Presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, say, We don't really care what Members of Congress say.

What is this exercise for? Why not have one giant waiver authority on everything and say we don't want to tie his hands. We do want to tie his hands; 319 of us say we do want to tie his hands. And if it wasn't abused year after year, I wouldn't be standing here.

Actually, that's not true.

If the gentleman would yield, first of all, the last time when it passed the House and died in the Senate, I had the waiver struck in that amendment as well, in fairness.

Will the gentleman yield?

First of all, I would ask the gentleman to observe decorum on the floor, referring to the gentleman in the first person, but I will respond.

Do you know whose words these are? This is the Saudi Arabian Department of Education teaching to its ninth-graders. I did not write this. Now, I did translate it, but I did not write it. If the translation is incorrect, the gentleman will be the first to ever point that out.

But I will say this. The simple question is this for my colleagues: If you want aid to go to Saudi Arabia, if, as the gentleman says, you somehow believe they need our foreign assistance, one of the richest kingdoms, on our blood money, that there is on Earth--

I would ask the gentlemen to let me continue my point, because it's a good one.

If he believes that our paying $80 a barrel for oil when the Saudis would do nothing to help us with it is a good idea, vote ``no'' on this, but don't say it's because you don't want to tie hands.

What we want to do here is tie the President's hands to finally live up to what this Congress has said, which is not a dollar, not a shekel, not a pound, not a dime going to the Saudi Arabians of our tax dollars.

Enough is enough. And I think that the gentlelady has it exactly right. No money. And you can't have it both ways. You can't say, Yes, I want no money, but I want there to be some wiggle room.

We want no wiggle room in this case, I say to my colleagues. We want there to be no money going to this nation. They have blood on their hands. They say one thing and do something else. We all know it. 319 of us--and maybe with some help around here we'll get closer to 419 of us--have said, Enough is enough.

Year in and year out. 2004, 217 said no more money; $960,000 went. In 2005, 293; $1.5 million went. 2006, 312 Members said no money, and $319,000.

Have you no sense of dignity around here?

Let me just finish. I'm reaching a crescendo.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of language in the manager's amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 2647) requiring the Government Accountability Office to study the costs to states and localities that choose to cover the difference between a first responder's military salary and their city salary.

After the tragic events of September 11th, many New Yorkers heard the call to service and joined the Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force in defense of their country. More than 11,000 New Yorkers went to Iraq and Afghanistan and 59 tragically lost their lives in defense of our country. Among these New Yorkers were the brave first responders who had already performed so admirably on that day, the police officers, fire fighters, and paramedics who put their lives at risk to help their fellow New Yorkers. In recognition of this further sacrifice, New York City revised its personnel code to maintain first responders' municipal salaries even during active duty military service.

Five hundred ten New York City municipal employees, including 76 firefighters and 293 police officers, are currently serving overseas, putting the total number of City first responders who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 at over 2,000, with New York Police Department Officers comprising close to half of these. The combined salaries of these employees is over $ 148 million dollars, and it is estimated that the city has recouped only $59 million, costing the City over $89 million. These financial costs are further compounded by lost man hours, over 800,000 in all. This lost manpower has disproportionately affected the New York City Police Department to the tune of over 472,000 days.

To explain this program better, let's take the hypothetical case of NYPD and Army Reserve Sergeant Smith. Sergeant Smith makes $55,000 annually as an NYPD officer and his active duty salary is $35,000. Being called to Iraq for a year-long tour of duty costs Sergeant Smith $20,000. New York City's program continues Sergeant Smith's $55,000 annual salary and Sergeant Smith would pay his military salary back to the City. Through New York City's policy, Sergeant Smith is made whole while still patriotically serving his country.

New York City is not alone in honoring its first responders who choose to serve overseas in this way. Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and San Jose have similar programs, and many states, including Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Washington have laws that provide full pay for all state and municipal employees serving on active duty. At this time, it is not known how many millions of dollars these programs are costing cities and states around the country. Through my amendment the GAO will study the costs incurred by local governments for picking up the costs for their employees serving on active duty. I would like to thank Chairman Ike Skelton and Ranking Member Buck McKeon for accepting this amendment.

The chairman will be recognized for generations to come for confronting the challenges that we face. You know, the fact of the matter is that the EPA, under a court's decision, is going to have the ability to write these regulations. We're taking the responsibility to do it here in this Congress. The fact of the matter is, despite some of the contrarian views on this floor, there is a real global crisis that we face. Despite the objections of my colleagues on the other side, there is a need to create new jobs, and this bill would create 1.7 million of them. But I want to give you one other reason that we should support this change in our policy. Ahmadinejad, the Saudi kingdom, they want exactly what my Republican friends are advocating--Don't do anything. Keep pumping the same amount of petroleum. Keep using

the same amount of oil. Every time we put the pump to our gas tanks, we are helping the tyrants in Iran and the tyrants in Saudi Arabia export their terrorism. Why do we keep doing it? We need to change our behavior, and this bill recognizes it. It reduces carbon emissions and makes our Earth safer, of course; but it also creates new jobs and takes away the lifeblood to these terrorist regimes. We can't come to the floor and say I'm outraged at what's going on in Iran, I'm outraged at what's going on around the world with the exporting of terrorism and then continue the same policies where we pay for them. That's what our present policy does. Our policies are paying for the terrorists around the world, whether we like it or not. The American people understand that. We need energy independence. We need a thriving economy that creates 1.7 million new jobs. We need to reduce the carbon emissions, despite the fact that still some people in this House deny it's a necessity. We need to act, and that's what the Democrats are doing.

global warming wow facts

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost

doubled in the last 30 years. Source: Inconvenient Truth

Average global temperatures could increase 11 degrees

Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with greater overall

increases in the United States exceeding global averages,

Source: US Global Change Research Program

By 2030, local temperatures in NYC could rise by two

degrees. This compounds an existing problem, known as the

``urban heat island effect.'' This is due to the fact the

NYC's urban infrastructure absorbing and retaining heat. As a

result, NYC is often four to seven degrees warmer than the

surrounding suburbs, Source: PlaNYC 2030

key provisions in the bill

Keep costs low for American families: the bill directs 15%

of the allowances be auctioned with the proceeds going to

consumers through a combination of refundable tax credits and

electronic benefit payments. EPA and C130 estimate that the

bill will cost American families less than 50 cents per day.

Bill will cut foreign dependence on oil: Would require

electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand

through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by

2020.

Cut Greenhouse gases: Bill reduces carbon emissions from

major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050

compared to 2005 levels.

economic benefits

The stimulus bill and the energy bill will create 1.7

million new clean energy jobs nationwide, Source: Center for

American Progress

The energy efficiency provisions alone in the Waxman-Markey

bill will generate 770,000 jobs nationwide by 2030. Source:

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

Clean-energy investments create over 16 jobs for every $1

million in spending. Spending on fossil fuels, by contrast,

generates 5 jobs per $1 million in spending. Source: Center

for American Progress

NYS will see 109,000 new jobs and a net increase of about

$10 billion in clean-energy investments. Source: Center for

American Progress

First of all, let me express my great gratitude to the chairman and ranking member for including language that I had suggested and also into improving general transparency in the bill.

The language that I inserted, that hopefully will be a part of the manager's amendment when passed, will ask the GAO the fundamental question, not only how much do the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost to our Federal taxpayers, but how much do they cost localities like mine where literally hundreds of thousands of hours have been lost by patriotic New Yorkers, particularly in homeland security jobs like police, fire and EMS, going off to fight on the frontlines, and yet the city taxpayers still wind up paying for it. Hundreds of thousands of hours have been lost.

Now obviously the primary cost of the war is the lost lives and the injured men and women who serve for us, and we should always keep them in our thoughts and our prayers. But there also is a growing cost to localities, particularly ones with profound numbers of employees, like New York City has. How much is this costing? The GAO is going to have to come back to tell all of us in our localities how many of the Reservists have gone off but yet the local taxpayers still are winding up picking up those costs. These are important things to know. I want to thank the chairman for including it. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the manager's amendment so it can be included in the law.