Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I continue to hear my friends on the other side of the aisle refer to the stimulus bill as a failed policy, apparently in the belief that if you say it over and over again it will be true. But it's not true, not by a long shot.

Last year at this time, the stock market was at 6,500 and today it is at 10,600. One year ago, during the first quarter of 2009, GDP came in at a staggering 6 percent decline, but in the last quarter of 2009 it rose almost 6 percent. And monthly job losses, while not where we want them to be, are literally 20 times better than they were a year ago today.

Some may say this would have happened anyway and that the stimulus had nothing to do with it, but I would ask my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to consider that would be quite a coincidence, don't you think, for all those economic indicators to begin such a dramatic turnaround at precisely the time the stimulus passed. Quite a coincidence indeed.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have demanded that Congress begin working together to solve this Nation's problems, and we have done just that.

On Monday, our friends across the Capitol, in the other body as we say, passed their version of the jobs bill by a vote of 70-28. We, in this House, have already passed a different version, and yesterday we passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 406-19 a long overdue elimination of the antitrust exemption that health insurers have enjoyed for decades. We hope our friends in the other body will join us in a similarly bipartisan vote to send that bill to the President.

And today a bipartisan group of congressional leaders meets at the White House to discuss ways to bring down the cost of health care for every family and every business in America. While we're not yet finished, and there's clearly much work yet to be done, Congress this week has made great strides in moving forward on the issues that are of most concern to the American people.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania and I thank everyone who has spoken tonight.

I want to talk about western Pennsylvania and what Jack meant to western Pennsylvania, his home region and my home region.

A lot has been said over the past few weeks, and certainly tonight, about the impact that this ``giant of the Congress'' made on this institution, that he made on this country, and certainly the impact that he had on the American military, and there is nobody here that supported them more than Jack Murtha.

I wanted to talk about the impact he had on his home region. I am fortunate enough to represent a district that is intertwined, due to gerrymandering, with Mr. Murtha's district, the district that he represented for so many years. I was born in a hospital that is in the district that he represented. I grew up in a town that is in the district that he represented. And I can tell you that we have lost a giant in this Congress and we have lost a giant in this country, but we've lost a giant in western Pennsylvania. He will not be forgotten in his home region.

And it should not be forgotten that this is somebody--and we talk about the work that he did as a member of the Appropriations Committee. He put, over the course of his career, $1.5 billion into breast cancer research. He put nearly $1 billion into diabetes research as a member of the Appropriations Committee. I don't think that there is anybody in this Congress that has a record that can match what he has done in promoting health and promoting wellness--yes, in our military, but across all segments of society. And again, this is somebody, as Congressman Doyle talked of earlier, that epitomizes the work ethic that represents western Pennsylvania and the constituency that we represent.

I am fortunate to have known Mr. Murtha. I count him as a true champion of the region that I grew up in and somebody who will never be forgotten. There will never be his like again in western Pennsylvania, in the Congress, or in the country.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for the time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to wish the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Organization of Chinese-Americans a happy and healthy New Year for the year 4708, the year of the Tiger.

I hope this New Year brings the Chinese-American community of Pittsburgh much joy

and thanksgiving. I am thankful for the positive impact this organization has had on the lives of Chinese-Americans and Pittsburgh as a whole. Chinese-Americans have greatly contributed to the progress of Pittsburgh as well as the entire nation. I am very honored for this opportunity to wish them a very happy 4708.

I ask my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives to join me in wishing the members of the Organization of Chinese-Americans a very happy and prosperous New Year.

I thank the gentleman and I thank him for his kind words as well. He hit the nail right on the head, Madam Speaker, I think it is appropriate today to take a look at what was happening 1 year ago today. A year ago today, the budget deficit was forecast by the Congressional Budget Office for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, to be $1.8 trillion. The jobs that were lost in the month of January were more than 700,000 jobs 1 year ago in January. The stock market was trending straight down, and it bottomed out in March at 6,500. We had just had a loss of 6 percentage points for the quarter in GDP, one of the largest in recent memory drops in gross domestic product. That is what we were facing 1 year ago today.

As the gentleman from Ohio said, this Congress was elected to make difficult decisions. This Congress was elected to work together and do give and take. Look, every bill that you pass is going to have some things that you like and some things that you don't like, but when the country is staring into the abyss, literally facing economic calamity if we fail to act, 1 year ago moving into the spring of 2009, this Congress did act. In fact, February of 2009.

What has happened since then compared to 1 year ago today? I talked about how the budget forecast was expected to be $1.8 trillion in deficit. Well, we ended at about $1.2 trillion in deficit. Now I am not going to have a big party here, because that is the largest deficit that we have ever faced because of some of the circumstances that the gentleman described that were beyond control and unforeseen because of the economic catastrophe, but we saved $600 billion from the deficit because the economy was starting to rebound in a way that the Congressional Budget Office did not foresee.

The gross domestic product, instead of losing 6.5 percentage points in a quarter like a year ago, we are on the verge of announcing back- to-back quarters of positive growth in GDP, and we expect a very strong number for the last half of 2009.

We talked about all of these factors relating to our economy, and things are starting to improve. We are certainly not out of the woods yet. But it was the actions of this Congress, instead of sitting on our hands and saying, Well, let's just let everything solve itself. That is how we got here in the first place. That is how we found ourselves in the hole that we are in the process of digging our way out of.

What I would say to the gentleman is, you cannot solve our long-term budget circumstance, our deficit, as the gentleman eloquently said, without addressing the cost of health care. Health care affects everybody in this country, every business, every family, every level of government--Federal, State, and municipal. We are at a competitive disadvantage to all of the nations that we have to do business with. The gentleman represents a district similar to mine. He is in the Youngstown area; I have southwestern Pennsylvania, very hard-hit by losses in manufacturing. A lot of that has to do with health care costs. A lot of the competitive disadvantage that America has with foreign nations is because of the cost of health care. But businesses every day struggle to make that decision: Are they going to be able to continue to offer coverage to their employees for one more year facing another 20 percent rate increase?

Senior citizens in my district on average saw a 45 percent increase in their

Medicare Advantage plans. A 45 percent 1-year increase. That is simply unsustainable, and the government certainly is never going to balance its budget without addressing the cost of health care.

The gentleman talks about the impact that policies have. And exactly right on the point of job creation. We are in a brand new decade here. Look at the decade past. It was the first decade since they started keeping the statistic on job growth over the course of a 10-year period. The first time we went through an entire decade and did not have a statistically relevant increase in jobs. Went an entire decade basically flat line. Well, that is not helping anybody.

When we talk about the Clinton budget in 1993, sometimes when I am researching different Members' positions on issues, I will go back and look at some of the things that were said on

this floor back in 1993, saying that if we passed the Clinton plan to balance the budget that we were going to cause the greatest recession in American history and collapse the economy. And some of the arguments that were made, I think it is fair to say, were proven false when the last 4 years of the Clinton administration we had four consecutive budget surpluses, the last four budget surpluses that we have had in this country.

Now, I don't want to go back and battle old battles or rehash old fights, but the point is past is prologue. And you can look at the fights that we are having today, and the same people who were predicting disaster if we passed those policies are the same people who are trying to prevent this Congress from addressing the systemic issues that we face right now.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

That is right. And as we have continued to talk about the key issues to balancing our budget have to be paying for any increase in expenditures or decrease in revenue. And the gentleman talks about his surprise to hear that people would oppose taking a look at the way Wall Street firms do business and taking a look at the way things have been run over the last several years and what that led to a year-and-a-half ago.

I was just as surprised as the gentleman to learn that there was opposition to the concept that we should have to pay for things that we pass in this House. Because I mentioned the four straight budget surpluses that President Clinton had in the last 4 years of his administration. That was due largely to pay-as-you-go budget scoring, which to give credit where credit is due, was instituted by President Bush's father in 1990. It was in effect throughout the 1990s. Wildly successful time in our economy. And as I said, four straight budget surpluses.

So this Congress, before myself and Mr. Ryan became Members, allowed it to expire, allowed pay-as-you-go budget scoring to expire. And now what have we had? Instead of having four straight budget surpluses, we are approaching 10 straight budget deficits. Deficits extended as far as the eye can see.

So in this House we had a debate on whether or not to require any piece of legislation that comes through this House that raises revenue or that raises expenditures or decreases revenue, very simple concept, you would have to have an offset for that. Find somewhere else in the budget to make a cut. Find somewhere else in the budget to come up with the money to pay for whatever the policy idea is that you are putting forward.

It is what every family and every business has to do every day in this country. If you want to spend more money on one side of the ledger, you have to find it on the other side of the ledger. Well, this Congress over the past 10 years has not operated under that commonsense accounting rule, and it has led to these enormous deficits, and in the long term the incredible astronomical debt facing this country.

So I was surprised to hear some of my colleagues on the other side oppose the concept--pretty simple--pay for what you want to spend. Pay for revenue decreases. We don't even find agreement on that in this Congress. It doesn't bode well for having a debate, an informed debate on how to solve these key problems of our economy at this important time.

Mr. Speaker, it was not long ago that our economy bottomed out and we were on the brink of an economic catastrophe. We avoided a complete collapse, but that is little consolation to the Americans who lost trillions of dollars in retirement savings due to the years of reckless behavior on Wall Street.

As we continue to show positive signs in our economy, this House last week passed legislation to make sure that we never again find ourselves in such a dire situation. The regulatory reform bill we passed creates an orderly process through which large, failing financial institutions can effectively be dismantled. No more ``too big too fail.'' We end taxpayer bailouts by ensuring that in the future, Wall Street, not the taxpayers, will pay to dismantle endangered firms. And we end the predatory lending practices that helped cause the crisis by requiring banks to ensure that they only lend to borrowers who can actually repay the loans.

These changes are long overdue but come just in time for the American taxpayer.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to pay tribute to Bobby Bowden, who will coach his last game on January 1. Coach Bowden will retire following the Gator Bowl, ending an amazing career as one of college football's most successful coaches.

Many of us may not realize that Bobby Bowden was an outstanding football player in his own right. He graduated from Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, and he achieved his dream of playing quarterback for the University of Alabama before transferring to Howard College, now Samford University.

After college, Bowden worked his way up to becoming head coach for 4 years at Samford, and he later was head coach for 6 years at West Virginia, but it's his 34 years as head coach at Florida State for which he will most be remembered.

In 1976, he took the reins of his Seminoles team that had gone winless the previous season. From that unlikely beginning, he built one of the powerhouses of modern college football. During his 34 years at the helm of Florida State, he led his teams to 31 bowl games, including the past 28 years in a row, during which he once went 14 consecutive bowl games without a loss. He was named coach of the year six times, and is already a member of college football's hall of fame. From 1987 to 2000, Bowden's Florida State teams compiled a streak of 14 consecutive years in the season-ending top 5. During that time, he coached two Heisman Trophy winners, and his Seminoles played in five national championship games, winning two.

It was in the beginning of that streak in the late 1980s that I first encountered Coach Bowden. As he did with so many, he left upon me an indelible impression. As a walk-on on the Seminole football team, I had the good fortune to see firsthand Coach Bowden's rare skill on the practice field, but it was his kindness and generosity away from football that I will most remember.

While serious about winning, with the results to prove it, what most stands out about Bobby Bowden is his love of people. Known for his down-to-Earth colloquialisms and disarming Southern drawl, he can charm even the most intense personality. He is never at a loss for words, and sportswriters across the country will surely miss his quick wit and accessibility.

On the Seminole practice squad, I occupied, perhaps, the lowest possible position on the team, yet Coach Bowden treated me and every player with respect. When you crossed paths with

him, he never failed to ask about your schoolwork, your family, your hometown or about some other personal facts about you that he somehow remembered. I used to think that this was just coincidence or somehow related just to me, but what you quickly learn in spending time around Bobby Bowden is that he is like that with everyone, not just on the team or on campus but anywhere he goes in the country, whether it be to an alumni meeting, to a business luncheon, or to a church service. He has that rare ability to make a personal connection with everyone he meets. It is why the National Citizenship Award, presented annually by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, now bears his name.

So, for all of his success as a football coach, the true legacy of Bobby Bowden is the impact he has on people and on the lives he has touched. Just as much as his coaching record, the relationships that he built and the friends he made during his 80-plus years and counting will long be remembered. My best wishes and congratulations go out to Bobby and Ann Bowden as they now embark on this next chapter of their lives together.

Madam Speaker, since our economy bottomed out in late winter and Democrats took bold and decisive action, the stock market has risen 4,000 points and America experienced its first positive GDP growth in 15 months. But more can be done and more must be done.

So as we recover from one of the most severe recessions in our Nation's history, Democrats will focus on helping Americans on Main Street, not Wall Street. We will build upon the momentum we have created for positive growth in our economy and bring to the House floor strong legislation to create jobs. American families are depending on their leaders to focus their attention on job creation and make the difficult decisions necessary to curb employment and begin growing our job force once again. Americans expect nothing less, and House Democrats are committed to bringing to the floor a strong jobs bill and work to turn around our Nation's economy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule to consider the Small Business Financing and Investment Act.

This bill improves access to capital for small businesses, which is a vital step towards growing our economy and creating jobs. Time after time, I hear from small business owners in western Pennsylvania saying they would like to hire more employees and would like to expand their services, but they cannot acquire the loans necessary no matter how good their credit scores.

I would like to highlight a provision that I drafted that this rule makes in order as part of the manager's amendment to this bill.

My provision directs the New Market Venture Capital companies to prioritize providing financing to veteran-owned small businesses in low-income areas. The New Market Venture Capital program encourages equity investments in small businesses in low-income areas by providing tax credits, and it is just the kind of targeted program that America needs to recover from economic hardship.

This provision I added, with the support of my colleagues, gives priority to the heroes of America's Armed Forces as they apply for funding in areas that qualify for the New Market Venture Capital program in order to start new lives following their service to this country. We can never fully repay our veterans, but with this provision, we can honor them by offering new opportunities to use their strength and experience to create jobs in communities that need them the most.

I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the bill.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about the importance of why we need to do health care reform. And the gentleman from Connecticut has heard me talk many times about an experience that I had which alludes exactly to what the gentleman was talking about, where a woman in my district came to me and she said all the reasons that she was unhappy with the Democrats in Congress, she was unhappy with the President. And she said to me, Don't you dare take my money to pay for those people who don't have health insurance.

And I said to her, Well, the problem is you're already paying for them. As the gentleman articulately said, if you go to the hospital and you don't have insurance, you get treated. They cover you; right? You get whatever the health care you need. It's the least efficient, most costly setting. But they're going to transfer those costs to the next person who comes through the door that has insurance.

And this woman said to me, It's interesting that you say that, because I just had a procedure done at the hospital and I had to pay $18,000 out of pocket because the insurance denied part of my claim, and I asked the hospital, she said, why does everything cost more than it should? Why does an aspirin cost $10? Why does everything cost five times more than you would think it costs? And she was told, as the gentleman talked about, well, that's because of the cost shift that takes place to pay for the people who don't have coverage, a cost shift to the people who do have insurance. And that's the crux of the whole thing.

I hear all the time you guys agree on 80 percent of this; right? Everyone agrees we should do the insurance reforms, no preexisting exclusions, no caps on out-of-pocket expenses, lifetime or annual caps. The insurance companies will have to take all comers. They won't be able to drop you if you get sick or injured. They won't be able to deny you coverage for any reason. And everyone does agree on that. Yes, we should do that. The problem is we can't do that by itself.

And the reason health care reform has never happened before is because of the hard decisions that have to be made, the decisions that we're going to make in this Congress and the decisions that for a hundred years since Theodore Roosevelt, literally a century ago, first started talking about health care reform we've failed to do as both Congresses and administrations, both Republican and Democrat. And those decisions include: How do you get people into the system who aren't insured? How do you do that?

The only way that works, the only way that you can tell the insurance companies you have to take everybody no matter how sick they are and you can't use their health status to set their rates, the only way that works is if you get the young and healthy people into the system, the 24-year-olds who are currently offered insurance by their employers but they turn it down because they think there's something they can do better with the $200 monthly premium than buy health insurance. And they say, Well, I'm young. I'm healthy. I feel good today. I'd rather do something else with that money.

Well, we have to find a way to get the young and healthy people into the system. If you're going to require people to have health insurance, you have to find a way to help them afford it as individuals and as businesses. Because if you're a small business--and almost half of small businesses are unable to offer health insurance now because it costs too much. If you're a small business that can't do that, it's not because you don't want to. It's not because you're a bad person. It's because you can't afford it. And this bill is going to help small businesses find a way to offer health insurance to their employees. It's going to offer tax credits, if we do this right, and small businesses will be able to offer health insurance. Individuals who are required to have insurance that can't afford it are going to receive some assistance to help them do that. And what that does is it offsets the risk pool. It balances out what we all know needs to be done on the insurance side with the preexisting conditions and the exclusions.

So that's what we've never done. We've never made the hard decisions on the 20 percent that we all know needs to be done but we can't agree on how to do it. But there is 80 percent that is easy. But you can't do one without the other. So that's what we're going to try to do is do both.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, which makes in order the manager's amendment, which includes a provision that I drafted to require that one of the demonstration projects in the bill be on organic solar technology.

Organic solar technology turns solar cells into high-tech ink that can be printed or sprayed onto surfaces using the same general idea as a common ink-jet printer. This technological leap allows us to turn lightweight, flexible films into solar receptors, which opens the door to using solar power for items like cell phones, laptops and even military equipment that can recharge in the field. Additionally, this technology could potentially cost less than silicon solar technology because it's easier to process and because it makes solar technology more attainable for all Americans.

Organic solar cells would potentially be better for the environment than would traditional silicon solar technology. Not only does organic solar technology use less energy in production because it requires less processing, but the cells can more easily be recycled. Two of the biggest barriers to organic solar technology are how long the cells last in the field and how efficiently they convert sunlight into electrical energy.

My provision in the manager's amendment would ensure the opportunity for a demonstration project to pursue bringing organic solar technology to market. It is for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that I support the rule and that I ask my colleagues to support the bill.

I thank the gentleman.

I did want to start by joining the gentleman in a discussion of energy. I come from a region of the country where we have an incredible amount of coal reserves and where we have natural gas reserves that exceed anything available literally anywhere else in the world. We have the international headquarters of nuclear, with Westinghouse headquartered in my district, which employs 4,200 people currently; and it's growing literally every day. I have a lot of energy in the district that I represent, and a lot of it is the fossil fuels that you hear about.

When you hear about coal and natural gas, you say, well, that's the old way of doing things. I would certainly take issue with that. I think we can have clean coal and liquefied coal. I think we can use natural gas to our advantage both from a homeland security aspect and from an energy independence aspect as well. Coming from western Pennsylvania, when you think about that, that does not mean we don't think about new types of energies. I want to talk about solar and about one way western Pennsylvania has taken a leadership role in solar technology.

This week, for example, this House is going to consider Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Solar Technology Roadmap Act. That establishes a committee to draft a solar energy roadmap for the Nation. Now, this roadmap sets short-, medium- and long-term solar technology goals for the United States of America, identifying research, development and demonstration needs for this technology and identifying opportunities to coordinate that effort all across the country. The bill creates a solar technology research, development and demonstration program that awards merit-reviewed grants for up to 50 percent of project costs to organizations such as academic institutions, national laboratories, industry, State research agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

Now, the reason I wanted to talk is I'm working with my colleagues to incorporate into the bill for one of the fiscal year 2011 demonstration projects a technology called ``organic solar technology.'' Many of us think solar power is a rigid cell of large glass plates, but organic solar technology turns solar cells into high-tech ink that can be printed or sprayed onto surfaces using the same general idea as an ink- jet printer. If you think about the way that works, that's the way organic solar would work as well.

This technology leap allows us to turn lightweight, flexible films into solar receptors, which open the door to using solar power for items like cell phones, laptops and, perhaps, one day, as the gentleman was talking about, for military equipment that can recharge in the field or smart labels to track retail inventory. This technology will potentially cost less than traditional silicon solar technology because it's easier to process. Some manufacturers are confident that they can bring the cost of organic solar technology to one-fifth the cost of traditional silicon technology, making solar technology more attainable for all Americans, certainly western Pennsylvania included.

Furthermore, organic solar cells would potentially be better for the environment than traditional silicon solar technology. Not only does organic solar technology use less energy in production because it requires less processing, but the cells can be easily recycled.

Today, some estimates show that our Nation is falling behind in bringing this technology to the market. Half of the world's organic solar technology patent filings since 2004 came from the United States. Yet the United States lags behind Europe and Asia in the actual development of this technology in the field according to a Navigant report on photovoltaic markets in 2007.

So two of the biggest barriers to organic solar technology today are how long the cells last in the field and how efficiently they convert sunlight into electrical energy. In closing, my provision would ensure the opportunity for a demonstration project to pursue these and other advancements.

The points of this, as the gentleman was talking about, are military applications and the ways that we can achieve energy independence. This is one example of how western Pennsylvania, which you think of as coal country and as natural gas country--and I told you we have the nuclear headquarters--this is one way that we're taking a leadership role in solar technology as well.

Mr. Speaker, with each House of Congress finally preparing to bring a health care bill to the floor, we are now closer to reform than we have been in decades. And while we still have a few hurdles to jump before the finish line, there are major issues on which there is widespread agreement. So what can the American people be sure will be in any health care reform bill that is passed?

That it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage once you get sick and that they will no longer be able to exclude you based on a preexisting condition; routine checkups and preventive care will be covered without copayment; and your insurance plan will be portable, even when you change jobs.

In short, Americans will be able to keep the coverage they have and be safeguarded against losing it when they change jobs or get sick. These reforms are long overdue, but they are now one step closer to reality.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation that I have introduced that will help reduce the number of deaths and injuries occurring on our Nation's roadways.

H.R. 3355, the Older Driver and Pedestrian Safety and Roadway Enhancement Act of 2009, authorizes $500 million annually to be distributed to States from the existing highway trust fund to make our roads safer for older Americans. These funds can be used to make roadway improvements as described in the Federal Highway Administration's Older Driver Handbook.

While older drivers have years of experience behind the wheel, they often require more time than younger drivers to react to changes on the road and are sometimes restricted in movement and cannot always meet the physical demands of turning to look at a blind spot or making sharp turns. According to the American Traffic Safety Services Association and the National Association of County Engineers' ``Low Cost Local Road Safety Solutions'' publication, simple changes to signs and markings have a proven track record of being both affordable and extremely effective at reducing roadway deaths and injuries.

Some examples of these vital road safety improvements that would be funded by this legislation are signs with more legible font, retro- reflective sheeting and retro-reflective pavement markings, left turn lanes at intersections and improved sign placement to ensure that drivers have adequate time to make informed decisions on the road.

Last year, more than 37,000 men, women and children perished on America's roadways. This bill will be an effective step forward in reducing this sobering statistic. According to the AARP's Public Policy Institute, as of 2003, 80 percent of persons age 65 and older were licensed drivers, and 90 percent of all trips by older Americans are by automobile, whether as a driver or passenger. This is especially true in suburban and rural areas where mass transportation systems are limited or nonexistent. By 2020, one in five licensed drivers will be 65 years or older. By 2025, this number is expected to be one in four.

With Congress continuing to debate the next transportation authorization, it is important that we do not lose sight of the older citizens in our communities. By improving the safety of our roads and highways and making their daily travel as safe as possible, we increase road safety for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation that will improve road safety in every one of their districts. Please join me in raising awareness for road safety and the wellbeing of older and younger drivers alike by supporting H.R. 3355.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio.

I sat with the gentleman for a while and listened to one of the groups that came before us, and I couldn't help but think about the fact that they seem to miss the fact that I would agree: The worst possible thing we could do in

health care reform, as a Congress, is to pass a bill that makes the system worse. We are capable of doing that. We are not going to do that, but that would be the worst possible outcome.

But a very close second is to do nothing. The gentleman from Ohio said that businesses and families in this country struggle every day with the decisions relating to the cost of health care. I, in visiting my district recently, had an opportunity to speak to a Rotary Club in my district. A business owner came up to me afterwards, and he showed me his health care statements for the past 4 years, his annual increases. The lowest increase on an annual basis that that small business owner had experienced, he had 12 employees, was 28 percent. That was the smallest increase he had. He told me, I can't do this anymore. I can't afford health care. I'm going to have to tell my 12 employees this week that I have to drop them. He couldn't offer health care any more.

Well, that is unacceptable in America. And that is what is going to continue to happen if we sit back and do nothing while the cost of health care continues to rise two and three times the rate of inflation every single year.

I had a woman come up to me at one of my meetings who was one of these people who had attended one of the TEA parties that the gentleman refers to. She was very angry, and she was telling me all the reasons why she opposed what she perceived us to be doing on health care and everything else that was getting under her skin. She was really getting herself worked up. She looked at me, and she said, Don't you dare take my money to pay for those people who don't have health care. Because, she said, I have worked hard for everything I have, and my family is covered, and if those people aren't, well, that's too bad. That's their problem. I'm not worried about them. I have worked to put myself in a position to provide for my family. She said, forget about those people. That's not my problem. I'm not paying for them.

I said, Well, here is the issue: You are paying for them, because they show up at the hospital, they get treated, and the hospital sends the bill to us. That's how that works. And this woman who came to this event to fight, she wanted to take me on. When I said that, she softened. And she said, You know, it's so funny that you say that because I just had a procedure done at the hospital in February, and the insurance company denied part of my claim, and I had to pay $18,000 out of pocket. So she went through the bill very closely because she was the one paying the money. She called the hospital, and she said, Why does everything on this bill cost more than it should? Why does an aspirin cost $10?

And the hospital told her, Well, that is because we have so many people who come through our doors that can't pay at all, we have to shift those costs to the people who can pay. So therefore, everything on the bill costs five times more than it should.

Similarly, I had a gentleman tell me about all the reasons why he didn't want to do health care reform. He said that we have the best system anywhere in the world and everything worked fine, and even if you don't have insurance, you get treated, and everything is free, and it's great. He said, I have a nephew who is 15 who had a hip problem, and he showed up at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and he got the best care anywhere in the world. And he is great, and he is fine now. I stopped him. I said, wait a minute. You said he didn't have insurance. How did he pay for this great care that he got? He said, well, I guess Children's Hospital paid for it. And I said, well, no, that is not what happens. We paid for it, because Children's Hospital eats those costs, and then they transfer the loss to the people who have insurance. That's the way that works. And he got it.

The point of this story is we can hear all the examples on the other side politically of why it's better to do nothing, and we should make everybody very afraid of reform. But everybody in the country, every family and every business and every individual in the country, regardless of their political affiliation, has had an experience in the health care industry that shows them that we can do better. They have had to spend a half hour on the phone haggling with an insurance claims adjuster who has just denied their claim. There is that small business owner who has to make the heart-wrenching decision to drop coverage for his 12 employees. There is someone who had to wait 9 months for an appointment with the dermatologist or had a bad quality experience with a grandparent in a nursing home. Everybody has had something happen that shows we can do better.

Yes, we have to preserve what works in our system. I'm one who believes as much as anybody in this Congress that we do have the best health care system anywhere in the world. Our innovation, our medical technology, our research, our quality of care at the high end exceeds anything available anywhere else in the world. There is no question about that. And we need to preserve that. But that doesn't mean we don't pay too much, costs go up too much, we are pricing our small businesses out of the market.

And if you get sick or injured and that insurance company is able to drop you, well, what is the point of having health care insurance to begin with if you only have it until you get sick or until you get injured?

So what we are saying in the legislation that we are considering is, insurance companies won't be able to drop you as soon as you get sick or injured after you have paid premiums for years and years. They won't be able to do preexisting condition exclusions. They won't be able to set your rates based on your individual health status. They will have to take all comers, no lifetime caps or annual caps on out-of-pocket expenses for people with chronic diseases, which is a big problem in the insurance industry. These are the problems we are trying to solve.

We are going to help small businesses afford health care by helping business owners like the one I talked about in that Rotary Club to be able to qualify for tax credits to help him afford coverage for his employees. We are going to give more information to health care consumers in the country so they can compare based on cost, based on quality, and based on access to provider, all the plans that are available to them. We're going to squeeze out the inefficiencies of the current system and apply those savings to bringing more people into the system, those who are outside the health care system that simply can't afford health insurance now. These are the reforms that we're talking about.

So when you see the charts and graphs on the other side of the big bureaucracy identical to what those charts were in 1993 and they recycled them from 16 years ago, that's not what we're talking about. And we can come down here and have a discussion on the merits of the Canadian health care system or what they do in Great Britain. And that's interesting. That's an interesting discussion to have. But it has nothing to do with what we're talking about. That's not what we are doing in our bill. It's completely unrelated. But in order to scare people and gin up political support to foist a failure upon this Congress and this administration so that they can use it for political purposes, they make things up.

I would just say before turning it over to the gentleman from Connecticut, on that point, as I said, we are already paying for the people who don't have health care. So to our colleagues listening here tonight and to those who may be paying attention to this debate, we are trying to bring people into the system so that we can spread out the risk pool and bring insurance costs down for everybody by bringing more people into the risk pool. So if somebody gets sick and they have insurance, they can show up and get an antibiotic in the first place, so it doesn't evolve into pneumonia where they spend 6 days in the hospital 2 months later, and then we have to pay their bill.

That's the point. We are trying to rationalize the system so that we bring down costs so people who have insurance today, that's the point here. We can have a philosophical argument about what our moral obligation is as a society on offering coverage to everybody and should everybody who lives in the United States of America have access to health insurance. That's not the debate we are having. The debate we are having is, we need to get them their health care in the most appropriate, cost-efficient setting, and that's not the emergency room. That's not the appropriate setting for them, and that's only going to drive up costs.

So by getting them into the system, we are bringing down insurance costs for everybody, and we are getting them their care in a way that is more appropriate and more cost effective.

I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.