Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman from Connecticut, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate tonight. We could certainly stand here and discuss the merits of the bill, and we will, the bill that has come before Congress already and the bills that we are trying to mold together and what we expect the end result to be. We can have a discussion on the need for health care reform in this country and the merits of the system that we have, what we can do better. We are going to have that discussion. But I did want to come down to agree with the gentleman.

I watched some of the previous hour and Members who I consider to be friends and I work with. I certainly don't question intent, but we did hear a lot of rhetoric that does not in any way match up with the facts of the issues that we are discussing.

I did not vote for the bill. I am not here to defend the bill. But when I hear Members come to the floor and talk about things that are not in the bill as though they are, and then hear them reference portions of the bill and greatly take out of context what they are talking about in that bill, I don't think that's a legitimate discussion on health care reform in this country.

I am someone who wants to pass a health care reform bill. I want to find a way to make it work. I thought the House bill that was before us could have been better. I am hopeful that we are going to make it better. But I don't want to engage in a discussion and talk about how somehow we are in the process of putting together a bill that's going to lead to illegal immigrants getting health care or death panels or some of the other things that we heard over the course of the recess. That's rhetoric that is misplaced.

I think, as the gentleman said, we do have the best health care system anywhere in the world if you have access to it. Our medical innovation, our technology, our research capability far exceeds anything available anywhere else in the world. That's true. And we want to preserve what works in our current system. There is no question about that. But there are things we can do better.

I don't know how many people there are on the other side that think we shouldn't do any reform. I would expect not many, but we should be able to agree on the fact that in large segments of society, people who have insurance, they have access to the best health care system in the world. That's not to say that we can't do better.

I want to engage in a dialogue of how we can improve upon the bill that was put forward. What can we do to achieve consensus, because in America that's where we end up. We start with an idea and we build to a consensus and we get something done. That's how legislation is passed.

It offends me when I hear rhetoric put forth that is just not consistent with the facts of what's in the legislation. And, again, I am not here to defend that bill, but I understand that some of the things that we heard are just not legitimate concerns.

We talk about what's the need for reform. I had an August where I went around and I talked to Rotary clubs and physician groups and hospital boards and went to all the fairs and had town hall meetings, everything that other Members of this House did. And one of the things that stuck out in my mind, I had, in a Rotary Club I was speaking at, a small business owner come up to me and handed me his statements from his previous 4 years, his rate increases, annual statement from the insurance company. The lowest increase he had over an annual period for 4 years was a 28 percent increase. That was the lowest in the 4 years.

He said to me, and he clearly was upset about it, that he was going to be unable to offer health care to his employees because he couldn't sustain this increase, 4 straight years of at least a 28 percent increase. He had to drop coverage. These are the things that we can't allow to happen in this country.

When you have the best health care system in the world, you want everyone to have access to it. We want our

small businesses to be able to offer coverage.

If you are a small business owner who can't offer health care to your employees, it's not because you are a bad person. It's not because you don't want to. It's because you can't.

You can't afford to do it. So we need to bring the costs down for small businesses. Every family in America has had a similar discussion around the dinner table to talk about the increased cost of health care, the impact that's having on their family. Some of them have to make very difficult decisions on what they can afford and what they can't to keep health care. But everyone understands that costs are going up at an unsustainable rate.

We all know the impact it has on government budgets, whether that be the Federal budget--but every State in America has experienced the State budget crisis that Pennsylvania has certainly experienced. And municipal budgets, with their health care costs. So it has an impact on governments at all levels. This is what we need to address when we talk about health care reform.

If I could make a point before you leave that issue. This reminds me of a couple of things that I heard when I've been back in the district. One of them was a gentleman who clearly was uncomfortable with the health care reform bill as he understood it and told me all the reasons why we shouldn't do it.

The point he made was, Look, people who don't have health care, they get insurance and they get high-quality care. And he talked about his 15-year old nephew who had gone to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh with a hip injury of some sort, and he didn't have any insurance. His family didn't have insurance. And he got the treatment. And it was great quality, the best he could get. He's fine now. Everything is great.

I said, Well, you said he didn't have any insurance. How did he pay for it? The gentleman said, Well, Children's Hospital paid for it. I said, No, that's not the way it works. You and I paid for it. That's how it works. And he said, What do you mean? And I'll explain what I mean.

But there was a similar story of a woman who came up to me at a meeting, and she was very upset--was not a fan of the President, or me--and told me all the reasons that she thinks we as a Congress are doing a bad job. And she was really getting herself worked up. And she said, And don't you dare take my money to give it to those people who don't have health care, because I've worked hard to get where I am. And I've earned everything that my family has. And we have insurance. And we deserve it. And if those people don't have it, well, that's too bad for them. That's not my problem.

The point of both those stories and what I said to both these people was, It is your problem. Because we can have a discussion about whether it's a moral imperative to offer coverage to people who don't have it. Is it our obligation as a country to make sure that whatever number of uninsured we can agree on, if it's 47 million or 31 million or 1, should we, as a country, have an obligation to cover those people?

That's an interesting philosophical argument, but I'll tell you what the moral imperative is. The moral imperative is that we, who are insured, the people that I was talking to, we're already paying for them. The moral imperative is we're subsidizing them right now. And the people who don't have insurance get their treatment and their health services in the most inefficient, most costly setting--the emergency room--which leads to increased rates for us.

The woman who I told you about who said that she didn't want to pay for other people's health care had an interesting story when I started to explain to her that she was already paying. She said, Oh, it's interesting that you mention that because, she said, she just had surgery done at a hospital in February and the insurance company denied part of her claim, and she had to pay $18,000 out-of-pocket, and because she was paying for it, she read that bill very closely and she noticed everything cost a lot more than it should have.

So she called the hospital, she told me, and she said, Why does an aspirin cost $10? Why does everything on this bill cost five times more than it should? And the hospital said to her, Well that's because we have so many people who come through here who can't pay at all, we have to shift those costs to make up for the difference with the people who can pay. And she got it. And so did the gentleman who talked about the Children's Hospital.

The point of those stories is that's why we're going to pass a reasonable, rational bill that's going to improve the health care system in this country when all is said and done, because everyone in America, even those who have great concerns about this administration and this bill and those who are never going to support the administration or this Congress for political reasons, they have had a situation in their lives that has demonstrated for them why we can do better or how we can do better.

The woman I'm talking about with her $18,000 bill--but everyone has had something happen. They had to wait 9 months for an appointment with the dermatologist. They had a bad quality experience with a nursing home for their grandparents. They're that small business owner who just had his fourth straight year of 28 percent increase in his rates. Everyone has had something happen.

We've all had to spend time on the phone, maybe upwards of an hour, haggling with an insurance claims adjustor who has just denied our claim or is arguing with us about that.

So when you hear these stories, and you hear about how we shouldn't pay for people who don't have insurance and that that's not our problem, it is our problem. We're already paying for them. What we're trying to do by reforming the system is making sure everyone has coverage that wants it in a rational way so that we're not going to subsidize them in the least efficient, most costly setting, as we do today.

The gentleman said a couple of things that I wanted to comment on. I will get to the public option momentarily. But I agree with the way the gentleman characterized the discussion about Canada and Great Britain, the two countries that we most often hear the horror stories from.

Look, I don't live in Canada. I don't live in Great Britain. I don't know what it's like to live under those systems. But I do know this. I have a master's degree in health care administration. I've spent a career in health care policy.

I can tell you it is interesting to study what other countries do-- not just Canada and Great Britain, but other countries around the world--and everyone has a different system. That's a nice political science or health policy discussion to have. But, as the gentleman talked about, that has nothing to do with what we're doing in this bill.

This bill doesn't in any way bring to America what Canada does, certainly. It's not even close. There's no comparison to be made. It doesn't do anything close to what Great Britain does, which is even more to the left of Canada.

And so we can watch the TV and hear the horror stories. And they're interesting to listen to, but it has no place in this discussion because it has nothing to do with the proposals that we're voting on.

With regard to the public option--and I'm going to use another example from when I was back in the district. I continued to hear people say, You know what? The government is inefficient, it's bloated, it can't do anything right. They would say, You can't name one program that the government has ever run that's worth anything. Everything it touches is bad. And if you have them touch a public option, it's going to cost too much, it's going to be inferior care.

And I would say, Look, the public option is going to be self- sustaining. We do need to work out the details of what exactly it's going to look like, but it's going to be self-sustaining, with no taxpayer subsidies. It's going to compete on a level playing field with the insurance companies. It'll have to meet all the same regulatory requirements that they meet.

And there is some disagreement on this. I would like to see it have negotiated rates like the insurers. There are other opinions on that. But the point is it's going to be a fair fight. And it'll have to meet all the same requirements as the private insurers.

If you believe that the government can't do anything right, that they're going to mess up everything that they touch, and it's going to be inferior quality at a higher cost--and, under the terms of the bill no one is forced into the public option; it's voluntary--then what are you afraid of if you believe the private market can do everything better?

I'm not afraid of that competition. I think the private market can't compete and win. I think there are some families and businesses that would choose the option and feel that's a better deal for them--not because it has an unfair advantage, but if it's a level playing field and you don't think government can do anything right for those that have that belief, then why are you afraid of the competition?

I agree with the gentleman on those points.

I would say also let's look at the totality of what we're talking about with reform. When we talk about making reforms in the private insurance market that I think everybody agrees with, this is what you're going to get from health care reform: no more preexisting condition exclusions. No more caps for people with chronic diseases, annual caps or lifetime caps, out-of-pocket costs. Insurance companies won't be able to deny you coverage or drop your coverage because you get sick or injured. These are all practices that we know exist. They won't be available after this bill passes.

The help for small businesses who can't afford health care to be able to help them, hopefully through tax credits or some other way, to afford coverage for their employees; to do the reforms in the system to incentivize quality of care, not quantity of care. We've talked about this many times on the floor where the current system is a fee-for- service system. The number of times you show up in the doctor's office, the number of tests they run and procedures they order, that's the amount of money that they make. So they have a financial incentive for you to be sick. The more often you're there, the more things you have wrong with you, the more money they're going to make. Well, that's a perverse incentive.

We want to change the reimbursement system to incentivize quality to keep you healthy and keep you out of the system before you get sick. And that's why we're going to incentivize prevention and wellness, to make those services that senior citizens especially can access the Medicare system at no cost so that you can have the diabetes screenings and the mammograms and the flu shots and things that are prevention at no cost. They're going to prevent people from getting sick in the first place.

So these are things that I think we all agree on when we talk about reform.

And on that point, Medicare, as we all know, is scheduled to go bankrupt within 7 years. It's already, as a trust fund, paying out more than it's taking in. It has for the last few years. It's going to be completely insolvent in the year 2016. That's because of rising health care costs which are, unlike Social Security, which is going to be solvent through the year 2040, and because of demographics, it takes a downturn thereafter, but health care costs are unpredictable.

Retirement costs are very predictable. You can generally figure out how long a population is going to live in the aggregate, what kind of money they're going to make, what their salary progression is, and what their retirement benefits look like. That's easily predictable.

Health care benefits aren't. You don't know how much technology is going to change, how much prescription drugs are going to cost, how much high-technology treatments are going to cost, and what the future holds with regard to new innovations and technologies down the road. So for that reason, it's impossible to predict Medicare costs in the same way. The first baby boomer becomes eligible for Medicare in the year 2011. That's a big part of it too demographically.

So what we're trying to say is what can we do to preserve and protect Medicare for the long term? That's the whole point of health care reform, to bring down those costs, to make Medicare solvent, to make the reforms necessary so that it can last into the future and be there certainly for all the current beneficiaries, the baby boomers, for the gentleman and myself, and for our grandchildren. That's why we have to reform the Medicare system, the payment system, and that's why we need to reform our health care system.

But we spend as a Nation $2\1/2\ trillion a year. This year, 2009, we're going to spend $2\1/2\ trillion as a Nation for 1 year on health care. So what are we talking about?

Now, we used to in this House score things over a 3-year period; and then people, I think rightly, said that doesn't give you an estimate of sort of the long-term impact of the legislation; let's do it over 5 years. So for a while, several years, we scored all the bills over a 5- year period. Now in the interest of transparency and to give the public an idea of the full long-term costs, we actually score legislation that comes to this floor over a 10-year period.

And what's the cost of this bill going to be? The President of the United States stood right behind where the gentleman stands about a month ago and told us that it's going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 billion over 10 years, which is going to be fully paid for. It's not going to add to the deficit. We'll talk about that. But $900 billion over 10 years. So on average, that's $90 billion per year in a system where we're spending $2\1/2\ trillion this year, and it's going to go up exponentially every year for the next 10 years.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't think we can find inefficiencies in the system and waste that we can squeeze out to the tune of $90 billion a year in a $2\1/2\ trillion system, that we can't make it more efficient and save enough money to make the reforms that we're talking about?

I just think that the American people, when they think about these numbers, need to remember that we're talking about reforms that are going to increase quality, that are going to increase benefits for people, but that we are talking about in the aggregate a relatively small portion of the health care system as a whole when you talk about this stuff.

I agree with the gentleman. I have said that I will not support a bill that adds one penny to the deficit. Even more important than that, the President of the United States said that from the podium behind you. He will not sign a bill that adds one penny to the deficit.

I heard time and again over the course of being back in the district concerns about the spending that is taking place in Washington and the increase in the debt and the annual deficits over the past 9 years. I have young children, as the gentleman said. I completely agree, we have to do this in a way that is not going to add one penny to the deficit or the national debt.

One of the Senate bills which has been finalized and is being marked up this week, in fact, saves money over 10 years. I don't know if that is going to be the finished product. Certainly it is not word for word, but it is possible to do health care where we might actually bring a bill to the floor that, at minimum, is not going to add to the debt but might even reduce the debt over a 10-year period, or reduce the deficit on an annual basis.

That is something that I think the American people should consider when they talk about the need for health care reform, but also the need to bring down our long-term deficit. We can't ever address our long- term deficit without doing health care reform. It is too big a part of our economy to ignore.

Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of Congressman Sestak, the author of amendment No. 11.

Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us would reauthorize the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Program, which invests in advanced vehicle research and development. This program taps American ingenuity to create good-paying American jobs and, importantly, reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The Advanced Vehicle Technology Act requires the Energy Secretary to research and develop advanced automobile battery manufacturing. Automotive batteries for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles are promising, but they are not yet fully competitive in the market.

Congressman Sestak's amendment would require the Secretary to consider two additional factors in bringing advanced batteries for plug-in vehicles and electric cars to market.

First, electric vehicle batteries are limited by the number of times they can be charged and depleted before the battery fails entirely. To extend battery life cycles, vehicle manufacturers oversize the batteries, often extending battery life but then sacrificing cost and efficiency in the process. The gentleman's amendment would require research and development of technology to efficiently increase battery life.

Second, vehicle battery manufacturing is an energy-and emissions- intensive process, which ultimately contributes to an electric vehicle's carbon footprint. Congressman Sestak's amendment would require the Energy Secretary to research and develop new technologies to increase efficiency in the battery manufacturing process.

I thank Chairman Gordon, and I urge support for Mr. Sestak's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it's my great honor to welcome the Very Reverend George L.W. Werner, who today serves as the guest chaplain for the United States House of Representatives.

As the dean emeritus of the historic Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dean George Werner has earned a special place in the hearts of Western Pennsylvania and especially the Episcopal Church. A well-known volunteer and leader in the community, Dean Werner is involved in countless community and civic organizations, including the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, the St. Margaret's Foundation, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, just to name a few.

And it's altogether fitting that by opening up today's House session in prayer, Dean Werner is the first person to stand at that center podium where President Obama stood last night to talk about the need for health care reform, because Dean Werner has literally made a career out of advocating for fairness for all of our citizens and helping those less fortunate.

It's my distinct honor and privilege to welcome to the House today my good friend, Dean George Werner.

Mr. Speaker, the Dow is back over 9,000, and new housing starts have seen their largest monthly increase in 9 years. While, overall, the Nation's financial indicators remain mixed, there is a growing body of evidence that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has helped stabilize our economy. Because of the stimulus, more than 95 percent of American families have seen their taxes cut, and 51 million seniors and veterans have received their $250 relief payments in the mail. More than 38,000 stimulus-funded projects are already under way, many of which have come in under budget.

The American people can visit recovery.org to see how every penny has been spent. Only 4 months into the 2-year recovery package, already we are seeing results. While the road to recovery is long, we have clearly taken the first steps, and we are finally headed in the right direction.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I thank the gentleman from Arizona for allowing me the opportunity to come to the floor and discuss a project in my district that I'm very proud of. This is a project that is on a border area between Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The service region for the project, the coverage area for the employment base, and the economic development opportunity spans nine counties in two different States. And it's in an area of the country that has suffered greatly with the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past several decades, and it's in an area of the country that's trying to retool itself and trying to gain traction with economic development activities, especially in high tech fields, high technology manufacturing.

It's in an area where there used to be heavy manufacturing, an industrial site that has been reconfigured to play the role now across nine counties of job growth. It's expected that when this project is completed, it's going to create 2,500 jobs, and the money that we're directing towards that project through this bill isn't in the absence of community support. We have generated 18.7 million through the State of Pennsylvania and through local community sources to fund this project.

This is a project that's ongoing. As the gentleman from Arizona points out, it was initiated in 2006, and the $500,000 that we're talking about today specifically goes towards access roads. And the Federal Government, as the gentleman knows, does play a role in transportation funding. That's what this bill is all about.

So we're talking about a continuation of a project that was initiated 3 years ago, that's going to create 2,500 jobs, that's going to serve nine counties across three States, and that's going to help continue the rebirth of a region in the country that has suffered. I can think of no better way to spend transportation money than on a project of this sort.

And I reserve the balance of my time.

I would say in response to the gentleman from Arizona, the funding that we're talking about, again, is transportation funding, and it's going to build access roads. The funding for the technology park, 18.7 million, has already gone towards the park itself. We're talking about the transportation component of that to build the roads.

And before I yield to the chairman of the committee, what I will say is the gentleman holds up the chart that talks about the earmarks that go to appropriators and people who've been in this House a long time. Well, look, I'm a second-term Member. I'm not an appropriator, and I'm not a chairman of a high-level committee, but I was elected to represent the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania. I was elected to survey the need and to do everything I can to fight for my constituents and to fight for my district.

And despite the fact that I'm not a chairman, despite the fact that I'm not on one of the exclusive committees, I was able to convince the committee to put this money in because this is a good use of taxpayer funding. This is going to create jobs. This is going to grow the economy in two States across nine counties.

And I would yield the remainder of my time to Chairman Olver.

I understand what the gentleman from Arizona is doing here. He was going through the earmarks, as he does, and somebody needs to do that to make sure that they're all on the up-and-up. He saw the word ``greenhouse'' and he said, Why are we giving $100,000 to a greenhouse in Pittsburgh?

Well, what this is is the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. We in Pittsburgh have the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. We have Carnegie Mellon University. We are partnering with Cleveland, as Congressman Doyle just talked about, where you have the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve.

So we have literally thousands of life science biotech startups throughout the region that are doing great work, that are creating jobs, that are growing the economy. And when you heard the word ``greenhouse,'' that's what that's about. We're growing the economy in western Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio. And this relatively modest investment that we're making through this earmark is going to fund an organization that has promoted 80 different venture capital firms that have directly funded 60 different companies through the initiatives that we're talking about.

So it attracts private investment, angel investors, and venture capital firms that otherwise would not be involved in the Pittsburgh and Cleveland technology corridor, which has suffered with job losses because of trade agreements and because of the down economy over the past several years. And what we've done here is put together a group that's going to attract outside investment to capitalize manyfold above and beyond the relatively modest investment that we make here.

And we are talking about an organization that just directly through this Pittsburgh technology belt, Pittsburgh-Cleveland Tech corridor, has grown 400 jobs and generated $300 million in venture capital and angel investment.

So I think this is a very worthwhile investment that we can make to grow the economy, and Pittsburgh has weathered the storm very well. What we're talking about today has resulted in the fact that Pittsburgh has an unemployment rate that's below the national average.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to commend Mr. Pastor for his excellent work on this legislation and to thank him for his continued support of the Nuclear Power 2010 program, which is now in its final year.

This program is a success story. It has reestablished the U.S. leadership in standardized, state-of-the-art nuclear power plants and created a licensing process that allows electric utilities the business certainty to make capital investments while also preserving public participation.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

I thank Mr. Pastor. And as he may know, the Nuclear Power 2010 program is of particular importance to my district, home to the Westinghouse Electric Company headquarters and the thousands of my constituents who work for Westinghouse.

Westinghouse helped establish the civilian nuclear energy industry, building the first emission-free electricity generating plant in 1957. Today, more than 40 percent of the world's operating plants are Westinghouse designs, and 62 of the 104 plants in the U.S. are Westinghouse designs.

NP2010 has helped Westinghouse meet today's regulatory requirements for standardizing, siting and licensing the latest nuclear power plant designs.

I appreciate Mr. Pastor for his support of this project and am proud of my constituents who helped bring the AP1000 reactor design to market and make the NP2010 program the success that it is.

Let me thank Chairman Edwards for the excellent work he's done on this important bill, which funds our military construction projects and provides for the benefits and assistance that our Nation's veterans have so clearly earned.

It's out of concern for our Nation's veterans, specifically veterans in my home region of western Pennsylvania, that I requested this colloquy.

Pittsburgh's Veterans Benefits Administration employees are alleged to have manipulated an employee bonus reward system by delaying processing veterans' claims to my district to secure additional employee bonuses.

I yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

That's right. I thank the chairman for his awareness of our concerns, and I would comment that this report issued by the Inspector General was insufficient given the gravity of these allegations. It failed to determine the sources of the problem. And I would suggest the Office of the Inspector General should conduct a second investigation of the Pittsburgh Veterans Benefits Administration employee misconduct in delaying benefit processing to receive bonuses and submit a more thorough report.

And this strikes me as particularly possible in light of the $19 million increase in the Inspector General's budget from last year.

I would yield again to the chairman.

Mr. Chair, some of these innovative small businesses that are involved in this bill used to qualify for venture capital funding under the previous rulings that were in effect until the year 2003. I introduced the Enhancing Small Business Innovation and Research Act to modernize the key programs for this country's greatest innovators, America's small businesses.

Since its inception in 1983, the SBIR program has facilitated American competitiveness, providing quality research and spurring technological innovation. But technology has changed since the last reauthorization more than a decade ago, and my legislation reauthorizes the program to keep up with the needs of modern small businesses. Additionally, this bill expands the talent pool from which the programs can draw by broadening the types of businesses that can participate to a more diverse set of firms and making SBIR research available to all areas of the country, even those not traditionally considered to be hotbeds of R&D.

Under this bill, Federal funding for technology innovation will be focused on supporting the work most likely to develop new products by targeting resources towards small businesses with the highest likelihood of commercialization. Perhaps most important, this bill helps firms participating in the SBIR programs to attract private investment. As we respond to the recession, SBIR and the Small Business Technology Transfer programs are two critical tools that provide valuable seed money for entrepreneurs who are willing to explore untested concepts and develop new products. Today it is difficult for small businesses to access financing by any means, venture capital or otherwise. We should be helping small firms raise capital, not penalizing those that do.

In my home region of western Pennsylvania, venture capital investments have spurred a resurgence of life science and biotech startups. Some of these innovative small businesses have even partnered with businesses in Cleveland, Ohio, to promote private investment and growth. And now more than 80 venture capital funds have invested in dozens of health care enterprises throughout this tech belt region.

Allowing these cutting-edge firms to compete for SBIR grants will foster innovation and accelerate job growth.

Small businesses are our Nation's greatest innovators. I ask my colleagues to support the small businesses in their districts by supporting this bill.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

I want to highlight the one provision which I worked hard to put into this manager's amendment. I can think of few that are more deserving and in need of support under this Homeland Security bill than our Nation's first responders. In particular, volunteer firefighters represent all walks of life and are part of the fabric of nearly every community in this country.

The most important source of Federal assistance for our local firefighters is the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program that has provided for so many fire companies over the years. Volunteer firefighters make every sacrifice for our communities and are always on call; so it's the very least we can do to make certain that they're as safe and well protected as possible.

That's why I add the language to this bill to shift $10 million in funding over to the firefighter grants program. This funding will help hundreds of fire companies across the Nation make the necessary equipment and vehicle upgrades that are so critically needed.

I thank the chairman for including in the bill my language to increase funding for our Nation's volunteer firefighters, and I ask my colleagues to support it.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 59 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, June 18, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, to borrow a catchphrase from Hall of Fame hockey announcer Mike Lange, ``You can buy Sam a drink and get his dog one, too, because Lord Stanley's Cup is making a return visit to the City of Champions.'' Pittsburgh now becomes the first city to ever be home to both the defending Super Bowl and Stanley Cup champions at the same time.

This past Friday, the Pittsburgh Penguins won their third Stanley Cup, and they did it the hard way, by coming from behind on the road in game 7 of the finals against last year's champion Detroit Red Wings.

Regular season scoring champion Evgeni Malkin won MVP honors by leading all playoff scorers, and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury once again proved he belonged among the game's elites with his dominating performance in net.

Head Coach Dan Bylsma took over in midseason when the team was out of playoff contention and led them not only to the playoffs but to a championship. And in winning the title, Sidney Crosby became the youngest team captain to hoist the Stanley Cup in the 115-year history of the trophy.

As in all successful organizations, the leadership of the Penguins starts at the top. The incomparable Mario Lemieux will now have his name engraved on the Cup for the third time, this time as team owner. Just as he did when he came into the league as a player, Mario Lemieux took control of a franchise threatened by bankruptcy and relocation. But from that, he built a championship team that leads the league in television ratings, merchandise sales, and sellouts.

Yes, Madam Speaker, these Penguins can fly. Congratulations go out to the entire organization for completing the hat trick of champions, winning their third straight Stanley Cup. The 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins have earned their well-deserved place alongside the greatest sports legends in the City of Champions.

Madam Speaker, this week, both Houses of Congress put forward the initial draft of a long-overdue effort to cut health care costs in this country. And while we still have to come to agreement on all the details, there can be no doubt that the American people expect us to act to bring down health care costs.

The cost of health care affects every business and every family in this country. It is one of the leading drivers of our long-term deficit, it makes our businesses less globally competitive, and it adds uncertainty to millions of American families who are one accident, illness or job loss away from losing everything. And while we debate how best to fix what doesn't work in our health care system, we must preserve what works and build upon the best aspects of our uniquely American system.

We will spend the summer debating the details of the plan, but one thing is certain: the American people will not accept the status quo as health care costs continue to skyrocket. ``No'' is not an answer.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. It's been a pleasure working with the gentlewoman as part of the New Democratic Coalition. We are the co-Chairs of that group.

The gentlewoman hit it right on the head, that we do have the best health care system anywhere in the world if you can afford to get it. If you have access, and there are millions of Americans that have insurance and they like it and they have access to the system, our medical innovation, as the gentlewoman said, our research, our technology far exceeds anything available anywhere else in the world. Our quality at the high end exceeds anything available anywhere else. It's why people come from all over the world to the United States to get their transplants, to get their heart taken care of, to get their high-end, high-tech care because we do it better than anybody else, and there is no question about that.

The problem is the costs are skyrocketing with our health care system. Every family, every business, every individual in this country is impacted by the cost of health care and not just with what you're paying directly for your health care costs--what your copayment, your premium or your deductible is. The cost of everything that you buy in this country is higher because of health care costs. We use the example of an American-made car. $1,500 of the price of every car made in this country goes to health care costs--to the health care costs of the workers who are involved in putting that car together.

It's more than that. It's every level of the supply chain, every segment. If you think about the company that manufactures the good, the people who ship the good, the people who receive it and stock the shelves, and the people who sell it, at every level, there is a component of cost that is increased because of health care costs of the companies involved in that. This is at every level of the supply chain.

If you think about every segment of our lives, health care is a part of that. What we are trying to grapple with here in this Congress over the next few months is how to preserve what works in our current system, because we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. We don't want to lose the good things about our health care system, but we do want to address the things that don't work. So we think about the fact that we spend $2.5 trillion a year on health care in this country, far more than in any other country in the world.

Yet, with some things, we don't get mediocre results; we get bottom- of-the-pack results when compared with other countries--in life expectancy and in infant mortality. We're not in the middle of the pack. We're at the bottom of the pack. We can do better. We're not getting our moneys worth, especially when you consider the 50 million Americans who don't have any health insurance at all. Now, when they show up at the emergency rooms, they get covered; they get treated, but the bill gets passed to the millions of Americans who do have health care coverage. The reason you pay $10 for an aspirin at a hospital is due to the cost shift that takes place, making up for the difference of the people who can't afford their health care. There are tens of millions more who live in fear of losing their coverage. They are one accident, illness or job loss away from losing everything, and that, in the United States of America, is unacceptable.

So we have very high quality at the high end, but we have very high costs, way more than any other country. We have millions of Americans who have coverage and who appreciate their coverage and who like it, but we have tens of millions more who don't have coverage or who are underinsured.

So the challenge we have as a Congress is how to fix what doesn't work--what's broken--and how to preserve what does work. We've put forward a plan, and we're in the very beginning stages. There is a lot of negotiation that's going to go into this, both in the House and in the other body, to talk about how we can achieve that goal--

but make no mistake. As the gentlewoman knows, we are not going to fail. We are going to pass a health care bill this year because the American people have demanded that we do that.

As I said, it affects everybody in this country. The cost increases that are double and triple the rate of inflation every single year are simply unsustainable. We are never going to get ourselves out of the budget crisis that we have over the long term, our annual budget deficit and our structural debt that we have, unless, as the President says, we bend that cost curve on health care. We have to bring costs more into line with the rate of general inflation.

I have, and I thank the gentlewoman.

There is a lot to talk about just with this one concept, with this one component of health care. Part of the issue that we'll, I'm sure, get into is that of computerized medical records, of having an electronic health record that you carry with you everywhere so you avoid this situation that the gentlewoman described where you have, as a consumer, 50 different medications when you show up at a provider's somewhere that's out of your hometown.

If I go to San Diego and put my ATM card in the machine, I can pull up all of my financial records safely and securely. I never think about privacy. If on that same trip I end up in the emergency room, they don't have my medical history. They don't have my family's medical history. They don't have my allergies, my prescription drug regimen. They don't have any imaging that I might have had taken--x rays and so forth.

There is no reason that health care has to be the only industry in the country that hasn't gone to an interconnected/interoperable health information technology system, which is part of where the gentlewoman is going.

The other part--and this is a great point--is we have to begin to have our reimbursement system structured in a way that we incentivize the quality of care rather than the volume of care. We should not just talk about how often the patient goes to see a doctor and then reimburse based solely on that. We should be reimbursed based on: What is the appropriate setting for the patient? Where would the patient rather be? Where is the patient going to get the highest quality care?

We don't do that right now in our health care system. If you have a chronic disease, there are some cases--and certainly it would be on an individual basis and in conversation with your physician--where it shouldn't be determined based on reimbursement, based on money, as to what setting in which you're going to get that care. It should be: What is the best outcome likely based on the setting that you get? If home- and community-based care is the best setting, we shouldn't provide a financial disincentive to get it there. If that's the most appropriate, cost-effective setting and, most importantly, that's where the patient wants to be and that's where his family wants the patient to be, then, by all means, we should incentivize that setting. We're not doing that today.

I wanted to comment, following up on the gentlewoman's comment on quality of care and medical errors.

According to the Institute of Medicine, there are 100,000 people every year who lose their lives due to a preventable medical error. Needless to say, with each one of those individuals, there is a tragic component to their personal stories--to their families or certainly to their own losses of life. There is also a burden to the health care system of medical errors because there are hundreds of thousands more who, because of preventable medical errors, are injured. Their treatment costs more, and each one of those individuals, more importantly, has suffered a severe medical setback. Their families are impacted by that. Their lives may never be the same.

In the aggregate, when we talk about cost reduction, something as simple as preventing infection, as the gentlewoman talked about, or as simple as preventing medical errors through the use of information technology, these are things that are going to save billions of dollars for our health care system in the aggregate. More importantly, they're going to increase quality for every individual who enters our health care system and will prevent these medical errors.

So the gentlewoman is correct that, when you look at even that one segment of health care reform, you're talking about billions of dollars. You're talking about the quality component--impacting lives in a way that is exponential throughout the health care system, not just involving one person.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my resolution to celebrate National Physical Education and Sports Week. This resolution simply recognizes the role that physical activity and sports play in creating a healthy lifestyle for children and adults and encourages schools and communities to promote physical education and activities.

Today, there are more than 9 million overweight children in the United States. And as a result, children are now being diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes, all afflictions once thought to be age-related. And these children are at an increased risk also for chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer.

The benefits of physical activity have been well-documented. Research shows daily physical activity reduces the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, and also increases self-esteem and performance in the classroom. It is for these reasons and many more, Mr. Speaker, that I introduced this resolution, and I encourage my colleagues to support it.