Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I regret missing floor votes on Friday, May 18, 2012 due to a visit to a wounded Iowa warrior at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Personal Explanation

Mr. Speaker, courage is a virtue that is too often in short supply. That's why I congratulate former Iowa Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Justices David Baker and Michael Streit. These courageous public servants received the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for doing their jobs on the Iowa Supreme Court. Together, they stood up for equal protections under the law for all Iowans. These courageous Justices were part of a unanimous decision that recognized marriage equality for all Iowans.

Although these Justices faced intimidation and threats after deciding the landmark case Varnum v. Brien, they did what they were supposed to do: uphold the Constitution. Justice Baker's words are a great example of why they deserve such a prestigious honor, ``I am comfortable with my vote in that case and even if I had known what would have occurred, I would have not changed my vote. We fulfilled our role as judges.''

Efforts to intimidate judges and try and turn the bench into a political soap box will do nothing to advance justice. Iowa judges are chosen based on merit, not politics. After they are appointed, their positions are subject to retention elections. In 2010, these judges were on the ballot for a retention vote and were ousted from their positions on the Supreme Court after large sums of out-of-state money funded a ``Vote No'' campaign.

They were voted off the bench because they fulfilled their sworn oath to uphold the Constitution of Iowa, which guarantees equal protection under the law to all citizens of Iowa, without regard to their sexual orientation. They are great role models for my children and all Iowans. By their actions, they became symbols that doing what's right isn't always easy; and doing what's easy isn't always right.

Mr. Speaker, I take a moment to honor and congratulate a constituent and personal friend, Bob Osterhaus. Bob is being recognized by the University of Iowa with an Honorary Doctor of Science degree for his service to our State and his work with the University of Iowa pharmacy program.

Bob has spent his entire life serving other people. After he finished his education at the University of Iowa, he served in the United States Army and later served in the Iowa House of Representatives, contributing his perspective as a health care professional in shaping legislative initiatives like the HAWK-I insurance plan for children from low-income families.

He has served his community of Maquoketa, Iowa, in many ways. Osterhaus Pharmacy is a staple in the community, and he is active with the Maquoketa Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Sacred Heart Church, and the Knights of Columbus. He was cofounder of the Maquoketa Area Community Foundation and served as its chairman for 7 years.

Tomorrow, Bob will receive his Honorary Doctor of Science degree. The university could not have made a better selection, and I congratulate Bob for his outstanding service to Iowa, the pharmacy profession, and his country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend Mike Glover of Windsor Heights, Iowa. For more than three decades, Mike Glover has been as familiar a feature of the Iowa statehouse as its golden dome. Today marks a bittersweet occasion: its Mike's last day of work for the Associated Press as its chief political reporter in Iowa before he retires.

After serving his country in Vietnam, Mike continued serving his community as a journalist. After working for newspapers in Burlington, Illinois and Fort Dodge, Iowa, Mike made Des Moines his home when he took a job with the Associated Press.

For the past 32 years at the AP, Mike has been writing the first draft of Iowa's political history.

He's covered state legislators, governors, senators, presidents, and candidates alike with the same meticulous reporting and low tolerance for spin. He's watched the Iowa caucuses grow from a curiosity to an international news event. He's traveled with presidential candidates as they crisscrossed the country. And he's challenged them all to be more specific about their plans to improve America.

Mike has the ability to slice through prepared talking points with a pointed question. You knew you were in the crosshairs when you sat opposite of Mike at a taping of Iowa Press, Iowa Public Television's long-running public affairs program.

I'll never forget my first time in the hotseat. Mike came out with his guns blazing--he asked tough, fair, and provocative questions.

As the next election season draws closer, Iowa will be missing a familiar face.

Mike Glover was and is a genuine article. Iowans will miss his sharp mind and his sharp wit. I will miss seeing him at events. I thank him for his years of hard work and wish him the best in retirement.

Mr. Speaker, the Patient Safety and Drug Labeling Improvement Act is meant to address a troubling inconsistency in the law, created by Pliva v. Mensing, which does not allow consumers injured by generic drugs to hold the manufacturer accountable for inadequate warnings.

The Mensing ruling also eliminates any incentive for generic drug manufacturers to monitor the safety of the products they sell and propose necessary changes to labeling to the FDA, as currently required by federal law.

Under the Patient Safety and Drug Labeling Improvement Act manufacturers of generic drugs assume the same duties as brand manufacturers to monitor the safety of the drugs they sell and to ensure that their labeling contains accurate risk information. More specifically, the legislation authorizes generic drug manufacturers to independently initiate labeling changes through the Changes Being Effected (CBE) process under the same circumstances that apply to manufacturers of branded drugs in order to ensure that all drug labels accurately reflect current health and safety information.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 158, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mr. Grijalva

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, here we go again. My conservative friends are once more trying to take away rights of American citizens that are as old as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. They're doing it by talking about taking away the rights of patients without ever mentioning the words ``patient safety.''

This issue has been with us for a long time. In fact, about 10 years ago, the highly regarded Institutes of Medicine did three studies on the issue of patient safety and the alarming cost it adds to our overall health care delivery system.

The first of their studies was called ``To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.'' On this cover it says: ``First, Do No Harm.'' The study concluded that every year up to 98,000 people die in this country due to preventable medical errors. It also talked in this study about the cost of those medical errors. It estimated that the cost of failing to stop these preventable medical errors is between $17 billion and $29 billion a year. Now, if you multiply that over the 10 years of the Affordable Care Act, that means if we eliminated those errors, we would save $170 to $290 billion a year.

So do we focus on patient safety and preventing medical errors? No, we focus on taking away the rights of the most severely injured. Because it's what caps on damages do, they penalize those with the most egregious injuries and those who have no earning capacity. So who are those people? They're seniors, they're children, and they are stay-at- home mothers. They're the ones most severely penalized when you take away rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. So I oppose this bill in the name of the Tea Party, not just the current Tea Party, but the original Tea Party, which was founded in opposition to taxation without representation.

If you go to Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, you will see that grievance against King George listed. Right below it in the Declaration of Independence is this grievance, that he has taken away the right to trial by jury. That right was so important, ladies and gentlemen, that it was embedded in the Seventh Amendment to the Bill of Rights. It says very clearly that in suits at common law, which is what a medical negligence claim is, the jury gets to decide all questions of fact and no one else. Well, one of the most important questions of fact in a jury trial is the issue of damages. My friends are trying to take away that right from the jury--the very same people who elected us to Congress--because they apparently think that Congress knows more than the people who sent us here, those who go into jury boxes all over this country in your State and listen to the actual facts of the case before deciding what's fair, including the all-important issue of what are fair and reasonable damages.

So they're talking a lot today about defensive medicine. I want to tell you about the myth of defensive medicine. Every time a health care provider submits a fee-for-services, they represent that that medical procedure or that medical test was medically necessary. If they don't make that representation, they don't get paid. Well, guess what, folks? If something is performed and billed as ``medically necessary,'' that, by definition, is not defensive medicine, because defensive medicine is when you're doing something that's not medically necessary to protect yourself from litigation. So you can't have it both ways. You can't take the money and claim you are practicing defensive medicine.

We also heard about the myth of setting these caps 30 years ago and never adjusting them for inflation. They always want to talk about the California bill that was passed in the mid-seventies and impose the very same cap in this bill, $250,000.

What they don't tell you is, if you adjust that cap based on the rate of medical inflation over that same period of time, the cap would now be worth almost $2 million and that, if you reduce that $250,000 cap to present value, those people in today's dollars are only getting the equivalent of $64,000, no matter how serious their injury is.

That's why I oppose this legislation, and that's why people who believe in the Constitution and in the States' rights, under the 10th Amendment, to decide what their citizens will receive as justice should be outraged that this bill is on the floor today.

Mr. Chair, during rollcall vote number 103 on Himes amdt. H.R. 3606, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 81, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Northeastern Iowa Community College (NICC) in my district. NICC was recently named one of the top ten community colleges in the country by the Aspen Institute. This recognition is a high honor and speaks well to the education service that NICC provides in Northeast Iowa.

NICC's success stems from the wide array of education opportunities that are offered by the school. The school does an incredible job with identifying the career goals of each of their students. Many of their students will receive a degree then transfer to a four-year college or university, while others will enter the workforce after graduation. NICC offers degree programs in nursing and other technical education programs. The school has also done a tremendous job of offering job- relevant degrees and certificate programs. NICC partners with local businesses to determine what jobs need to be filled. The school then offers certificate programs for the jobs that have the most demand, such as welding. This approach has been a tremendous success that has put many people back to work in Northeast Iowa.

In selecting their top ten finalists, the Aspen Institute looked for community colleges that were meeting the demands of today's workforce while educating and graduating their students in a timely fashion. NICC easily met these criteria. The Aspen Institute, a non-partisan think tank, is highly regarded as a national leader in identifying successful education models around the country and the world.

NICC has and will continue to provide valuable education opportunities for my constituents in Northeast Iowa. I'm proud to have NICC in my district and congratulate them on this important achievement.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 21, I put my card in the machine and voted ``nay,'' but my vote was not recorded.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding results achieved by St. Columbkille Elementary School, Dubuque, Iowa by being named a 2011 No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon School.

The program honors elementary, middle and high schools that are superior academically or that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement to high levels.

St. Columbkille Elementary is one of only seven schools out of 1,633 in Iowa and one of 304 schools out of 132,656 nationwide to achieve Blue Ribbon status this year. Less than 1 percent of schools nationwide were chosen for the award. This is a true credit to the staff and teachers who continually challenge students to want more and be better.

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of St. Columbkille Elementary School and its Principal, Barb Roling. Earning this award shows strength and persistence and I am proud to serve these fine students in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I regret missing floor votes on Wednesday, January 25, 2012. Had I registered my votes, I would have voted:

``Yea'' on rollcall 10, motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass H.R. 1022--the Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks Study Act;

``Yea'' on rollcall 11, motion to Suspend the Rules and Pass H.R. 3801--to amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to clarify the definition of aircraft and the offenses penalized under the aviation smuggling provisions under the Act, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, today, I'd like to congratulate Mike Abrams on his new position with the Ohio Hospital Association. Mike has been at the Iowa Medical Society for 15 years, and he has been a friend and adviser to me since I came to Congress in 2007.

For years, Iowa has suffered from unfair Medicare reimbursement rates, and a flawed equation that determines payments. Within the first few months of my Congressional career, Mike was in my office helping me find solutions to that problem. It was only with Mike's help that we were able to increase payments to Iowa doctors, and take significant steps towards a reimbursement structure based on quality of care, not just quantity of care. He has been a resource to me, and he often served as my ``lifeline'' during late-night, high-level health care negotiations over the last few years.

Mike's knowledge and understanding of current health care issues is matched only by his terrific wit and shining personality. Iowa doctors and patients have benefited from his time at Iowa Medical Society, and he has helped me advocate for improved access to health care in Iowa. Thank you, Mike, and we wish you the best in your new endeavor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank Stephen Blake, Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army Sustainment Command. Today CSM Blake is retiring after 30 years of service to the U.S. Army and our country.

CSM Blake has served with distinction throughout his career. He has completed multiple overseas tours including combat tours in Southwest Asia during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a tour in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He has earned numerous awards and decorations.

During his time at ASC Headquarters at Rock Island Arsenal, CSM Blake and his wife Karen have been tremendous ambassadors for the Army to communities throughout Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. They have opened their home and generously shared their time. The Quad City region is a better place because they are in it.

Since CSM Blake arrived at Rock Island Arsenal in 2008 I have observed and admired his service to soldiers, military families, and our community. I've seen him embrace and support Gold Star Families. He has mentored community leaders including my own staff. Through his words and actions he consistently demonstrates compassion for others. He does what all of us are called to do: help each other.

Congratulations to CSM Blake and the entire Blake family. We are grateful for your service.