Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, the gentleman from California asked where the jobs are. Well, this 1-year extension of the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund will produce more than 160,000 subsidized job placements in clerical, health care, maintenance, human service, and customer service jobs in 35 States; and many of them are already up and running. Even Haley Barbour down in Mississippi thinks it's a good idea.

My office has received a tremendous increase in calls from out-of- work Americans who are reaching the end of their UI benefits. The long- term unemployed need help transitioning back into the changing job market, and they also need jobs right now. Proven programs like the Emergency Contingency Fund are already creating jobs at a lower cost than virtually any other program. If States are uncertain of the fund's extension, they will begin ramping down their subsidized employment programs beginning next month. It is critical that we pass this extension immediately. We have already received strong bipartisan support from the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Association

of Counties, all of them urging the Congress to extend this program.

Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said, ``Given the state of the labor market, it is hard to imagine how any sensible person could oppose extending this emergency fund. If they are to be more than the party of `no,' Republicans need to rally around the Democrats who have shown such reserved pragmatism.''

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

As the dust settles, Mr. Speaker, on the Capitol today, I read and article called ``Waterloo,'' by President George W. Bush's speech writer, David Frum. I think it sums up nicely what we've just witnessed, and I wanted to share some excerpts with you.

He began, Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s. It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections, but, first, it's a good bet that conservatives are overly optimistic about November--by then, the economy will have improved and immediate goodies in the health care bill will be reaching key voting blocs. Second, So what? Legislative majorities come and go. The health care bill is forever.

Now comes the hard lesson: A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans themselves.

At the beginning of this process, he says, we made a strategic decision. Unlike, say, Democrats in 2001, when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all he marbles. This would be Obama's Waterloo, just like it was for Clinton in 1994.

The hard-liners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected by 53 percent of the vote, not Clinton's 42 percent; the liberal bloc within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-1994; and, of course, the Democrats also remember their history and also remember the consequences of the failure of 1994.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended up with none.

No illusions, please. This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994-style landslide in November, how many votes could they muster to reopen the doughnut hole and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a preexisting condition? How many votes to banish 25-year-olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there, would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, he says, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. They were leaders who knew better, would have liked to deal, but they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that dealmaking was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother or, to be more exact, with someone whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder your grandmother?

I've been on a soapbox for months, he says, now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters, but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for Representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio. They have very different imperatives from people in government.

Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say, but what is equally true, is that he also wanted Republicans to fail. If Republicans were to succeed--if they governed successfully in office and negotiated attractive compromises out of office--Rush's listeners would get less angry. If they're less angry, they listen to the radio less and hear fewer adds about Sleep Number beds.

So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on radio and television. For them, it's a mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo--ours.

This is a very good self-reflective view of what happened yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, there are times in history that action is demanded. In 1935, we needed Social Security and unemployment insurance. The Democrats answered. In 1965, we needed health care for senior citizens. The Democrats answered. In 2010, the country needs health care reform, and the Democrats will answer tonight.

It was never in doubt. Business wanted a change, the medical profession wanted a change, and labor wanted a change. And the Republicans brought an economic collapse to make it clear to everybody that we all are in danger if we don't change the health care system in this country.

For me and many of my colleagues, passing a national health care reform bill is the culmination of a long process. In the late 1950s and early '60s, when I was going to medical school in Chicago, Canada's Tommy Douglas was beginning a national health care plan in the province of Saskatchewan. As I came to the end of my medical training, doctors began to strike in Canada because they didn't want to practice medicine under any system that was not totally free enterprise in nature. But as a new physician at the time, it seemed to me that the benefits of extending health coverage to everyone in Canada far outweighed the benefits of a free enterprise system. Between 1963 and 1970, while I got my training in adult and child psychiatry and served 2 years in the United States Navy, I had the opportunity to observe the American healthcare ``nonsystem'' firsthand. Every day, I watched as people fell through the cracks. When I entered politics in the Washington state legislature, I knew that it was my obligation to do all that I could to bring about a national system that would provide coverage for everyone. And during my campaign for governor in 1972, I made my first speech declaring my support for a single-payer system similar to Canada. Each year that I served in the state legislature, I faced the institutional resistance to the creation of a more orderly system. Yet people complained they couldn't get care. Hospitals complained about uncompensated care. People complained about cost shifting of the expenses of the uninsured onto the policies paid for by the insured.

In the early 1980s, I began trying to establish an uncompensated care fund that would be paid into by all hospitals and the receipts would be given to those hospitals that took care of those in the community who had no health insurance. But hospitals resisted. I did a study to find out how many people in the state of Washington either were not covered by a government program or didn't have insurance through their employment. Unsurprisingly, we found that it was a huge number. So in 1983, I began the process of trying to do in Washington State what Tommy Douglas had done a few hundred miles away in the province of Saskatchewan.

As I tried to get universal coverage in the state of Washington, I ran into numerous obstacles. The medical establishment was more interested in capital investments than they were in ensuring that medical coverage was available to everyone in Washington. Large businesses were reluctant to accept any responsibility beyond what they were already doing for their employees. Any mandate was out of the question because under a technical loophole, big employers are exempt from many regulations that deal with insurance. So instead, I ended up authoring the Washington State Basic Health Plan, which is a subsidized health insurance program to help lower-income families afford coverage. But I wasn't able to get universal coverage.

This experience taught me that it was going to be incredibly difficult to create a health care plan in one state that could be replicated across the country as had been done in Canada. I wrote the plan originally when the governor of the state of Washington was a Republican, so it didn't get anywhere until Democrat Booth Gardner was elected governor of Washington in 1984. The process was so frustrating and the final legislation so modest that I decided I'd go back to medicine. I went to work for the State Department in Africa, where I saw the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic in 1987.

One day my brother called me when I was in Africa and told me there was a seat open in Congress. He suggested that I return to the U.S. to run for the seat and work on getting universal health care. The dream was not dead, it has just been dormant. So I returned, ran for Congress and was elected in 1988. I made the decision to get on the Ways and Means Committee because I thought that was where I could be most effective in getting a national plan established. I was appointed to the committee in 1991 and began working with 95 other members who were dedicated to a single player plan. In 1993 President and Mrs. Clinton came to Washington to enact a national health plan, but we were unsuccessful.

The years between 1994 and 2006 were a painful period as we watched Republicans try to dismantle the only national health care program we have, Medicare. We breathed a great sigh of relief at the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, who stated that he wanted to enact a national health plan. The President was determined not to repeat the errors of the Clinton administration, and the process of writing the bill has been long and tortuous. Over the course of many months, we've watched this bill wind through three committees in the House and two committees in the Senate, which brought us to where we are today.

I still believe that a single-payer model is the most effective to achieve both cost control and universal coverage. But 40 years of experience prevent me from being ideological about the solution to the problems of universal coverage. Rather than establishing a single-payer system, Congress has designed a less desirable model that would more tightly regulate private insurance companies much in the same way that we do with utility companies. Members of Congress have opted for a model that provides for insurance regulation at the national level, rather than the state level as it is today. It has much in common with the French system which provides universal coverage to the French people at half the cost of what we spend here in the United States. Their system provides a quality of care that is considered the best in the world according to the World Health Organization.

I know that this bill is far from perfect and will require continued efforts to adjust and improve it in the years to come. But today we began. As the Chinese adage says, ``every journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.'' Today we have taken that step.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell the story of an 11- year-old boy from Washington State who visited Congress last week to lobby for health care reform. His name is Marcellas Owens, and he had lost his uninsured mother to pulmonary hypertension which could have been treated.

He shared his story with Senator Patty Murray and then presented to an audience of 100 people at a hearing, telling them that he thought ``health care should be for everyone.'' He was an articulate and bright young man, and his story exemplifies why we desperately need health reform.

So in one of the clearest signs of Republican desperation, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin took to the airwaves to tear Marcellas apart. Mr. Limbaugh came up with the most unconscionable line, telling his listeners, I would say this to Marcellas Owens, ``Well, your mother would have died anyway because ObamaCare doesn't kick in until 2014.''

FOXNews' Michelle Malkin came in a close second with a column entitled ``Desperate Dems Cling to Human Kiddie Shield.'' Perhaps the only accurate word in Ms. Malkin's piece was ``desperation,'' but she used it to describe the wrong party.

In all my years of public service, I can't remember the last time I saw such a cheap and disgraceful campaign. Republican determination to derail reform at any cost is reprehensible, and I cannot find words to describe how shameful I think it is to direct vitriol at an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother.

On my way to work this morning, I saw a group of tea baggers, and I'm really happy that they will be in Washington to witness Congress pass this historic health care bill tomorrow. When I got to the office, I did a little research on my own and found the Web site of a tea bagger group called the 9/12 project, which includes a page which they call ``the nine principles.''

Number 7 reads, ``I work hard for what I have, and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.'' That reminds me of another gem Glenn Beck said on his show last week, when he had started criticizing a new poverty measure that would help us understand what it really means to be poor in this country. He said that if it were implemented, he would be considered poor. Glenn Beck reportedly made $23 million last year, which means that in one workday, he earns the equivalent of what four families earn in poverty over a whole year.

``Government cannot force me to be charitable.'' I have always been a little confused about what would motivate someone to get up in the morning to attack an 11-year-old boy who lost his mom or compel someone to drive 500 miles to protest reforms that would help millions of Americans.

But I'm finally beginning to understand the mentality behind the tea party crowd and its spokespeople Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They are simply selfish, greedy, and indifferent, and they don't seem to care about helping anyone in need.

I should note that when Marcellas heard what these three said about him, he graciously responded by saying, ``My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion, but that doesn't mean they are right.'' When an 11-year-old outshines and outclasses your party's three top mouthpieces, it might be time to look for some replacements.

When I vote for health care reform tomorrow, I will dedicate it to Marcellas Owens and the memory of his mom. And if I had to write my seventh principle, I think I would use one of the my favorites quotes from the book of James in the Bible. ``Suppose a brother or a sister is in rags with not enough food for the day, and one of you says, `Good luck to you, keep yourselves warm and have plenty to eat,' but does nothing to supply their bodily needs. What is the good of that? So with faith; if it does not lead to action, it is in itself a lifeless thing.''

That is what we are doing here. We are making the first step to return to the concept of the common good that we will take care of each other.

Mr. Speaker, it is deja vu all over again.

On December 2, 1993, William Kristol wrote the Republican playbook. He said, ``The Clinton health care proposal is a serious political threat to the Republican Party. Republicans must therefore clearly understand the political strategy implicit in the Clinton plan and adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy designed to delegitimize the proposal and defeat its partisan purpose.''

He went on to say, ``The long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse, much worse. It would relegitimize middle class dependence for security on government spending and regulation that will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of the middle class interests, and it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.''

Nothing has changed. The Republicans refuse to deal with the problems of America and provide health security. They sat for 16 years since that date and did nothing. The time has come to pass the health care bill.

Mr. Speaker, after hearing the hysterics of my Republican colleagues over the last several days, I was reminded of the adage I've heard about the legal profession. It said that if you have the facts, pound on the facts. If you have the law, pound on the law. But if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound on the table.

I give my Republican colleagues credit for doing a remarkable job of pounding on the table for the last few months. I've heard my colleagues saying outlandish things about how we're doing violence to the Constitution and sticking our fingernails in the eyes of the American public. But it's all an elaborate distraction from what the real debate is about. What we're talking about is what happens when you don't have health insurance.

I heard a story last week that I think gets to the heart of what we're doing and why we're doing it. It's about a family of five, including a newborn child, that's going through a rough patch. When the baby was born, the mother's employer didn't offer her maternity leave, so she was unable to earn an income. When the father's entire drywall crew was laid off because there was simply no work, the family lost their income, aside from the unemployment benefits her husband received. All five of them had to move into a relative's living room. And when stress and strain caused the mother to stop producing breast milk, she had to buy formula that she couldn't afford.

So she applied to get some supplemental food benefits under the WIC program, which comes only once a month. When those benefits ran out, she went to the office for more help, and they said there was none. Without additional support, she was forced to dilute the formula with water, causing the baby to become malnourished. As a result of malnourishment, the baby developed something called starvation diarrhea, a very serious and very painful illness. When the baby's parents took her to the hospital, her diarrhea had become so severe that she was treated in the same way as people with severe burns. She stayed in the hospital for 10 days. Remember, this is a family with parents who worked, whose baby was born healthy, who had health insurance. They simply fell victim to this economy.

I read another article recently about an insurance company called Fortis, one of the largest in the country. Fortis designed a computer program that would automatically flag any policyholder with HIV-AIDS and trigger an automatic fraud investigation. Knowing the treatment was expensive, the executives were looking for anything they could use to revoke health insurance policies for people with HIV. Then, when nothing turned up, they would essentially invent a reason.

Now I know everyone in this room has at least 20 stories like this. And after hearing just one of them, I can't understand how anyone with a conscience can stand in the way of reform for one second. I've sat in this Chamber and listened to hours of foolishness and nonsense about what this bill will allegedly do. Despite being deafened by a year's worth of Republicans banging on the table, I'm thrilled we're going to get a chance to vote on a health care reform bill that will help millions of Americans. Eighty years from now, like the 80 years ago when Social Security passed, 80 years into the future people will look back at this as the bill that helped them take a sick child to the doctor. They'll look back and be shocked that there was a time when insurance companies were allowed to deny health coverage--even to children--just because they were sick, because they had a preexisting condition. And they'll be appalled that anyone would refuse to vote for this bill for no other reason than political grandstanding or trying to gain political advantage in the next election.

When we hit 216 votes on Sunday, I'm going to be proud that we will be helping millions of Americans right now and here in this day but also generations that are yet to come. A country is judged by how it handles the people who are least able to care for themselves. And when you're sick and you don't have health insurance and your country says, We don't care--go to the emergency room, that's your health care. Stand in an 8-hour line, that's your health care. We're going to change that on Sunday.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a physician out of concern for my Republican colleagues, many of whom seem to be suffering from chronic amnesia or chronic ignorance. When we started talking about the possibility of using this ``deem and pass'' procedure to finish the job on health care reform, Republicans couldn't run fast enough to find a television camera to complain. Fact check: This procedure has been widely used since the 1930s and was, in fact, used no fewer than 202 times under Speakers Gingrich and Hastert, amounting to 30 percent of the rules put forth by the committees under their leadership.

All this hypocrisy is kind of galling. I hope my Republicans can recover from this amnesia in time to watch the Congress pass a bill that the American people need and want. They do not like the health care system that is in this country. They want reform, and we are going to give it to them.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4851) to provide a temporary extension of certain programs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Mrs. Capps be allowed to control 10 minutes of the time allocated to me and be allowed to yield time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

This bill, Madam Speaker, provides another short-term extension for a number of programs that are expiring at the end of the month. If we fail to act on this bill, Americans around the country will begin running out of unemployment benefits by the beginning of the next month. We've been here before. By the end of April, over 1 million Americans will exhaust their unemployment benefits.

This bill would merely continue the existing Federal unemployment programs for 1 month, as Congress works toward a longer extension. It does not increase the number of weeks of benefits provided by these programs.

Now, I know many of my colleagues are as frustrated as I am that we have to keep extending these programs every month, as opposed to continuing them to the end of the year.

Jobless Americans shouldn't have to wait until the last minute to know whether their economic lifeline will continue. We need a long-term extension of these programs, a goal I very much hope we will achieve before the end of the next month.

In the meantime, I'm urging my colleagues to join me in supporting this critical stopgap legislation to extend unemployment benefits, as well as other critical assistance, including help for paying for continuing health coverage under COBRA.

Before I close, let me say that I hope we don't see a repeat performance from last month when a single Republican Senator blocked these vital benefits for so many Americans. He complained about the cost of these benefits for unemployed workers. Where were those concerns when we embarked on two wars without paying for one cent of them?

Where were the cries of outrage about the budget deficit when two tax cuts for our wealthiest citizens were enacted with no offsets whatsoever?

Where were my colleagues on the other side of the aisle when President Bush turned the biggest budget surplus in our Nation's history into the biggest deficit in our history and brought on the unemployment which is now facing us?

When Republicans complain about the deficit, it's like an arsonist complaining about a fire. He lit the match, but takes no responsibility for the resulting blaze.

The truth is, there is no better use of Federal resources than helping Americans who are struggling to find work. Workers today are facing a situation where there are six people looking for every available job in this country. It is a bad situation. So I hope my friends on the other side of the aisle will join me in supporting this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleagues. I think they wanted the 20 minutes to talk about the health care bill. They didn't really want to talk about this piece of legislation that's out here in front of us.

This bill is here because the Republicans in the Senate continue to use the filibuster to stop any orderly process over there of dealing with the problems of this country.

And I don't know whether it's ignorance or amnesia, but ``deeming'' is a process that comes out of something that some of the senior Members know about, maybe the junior Members don't know about. This is called the Jefferson's Manual, and it provides the rules for the House, and it's where ``deeming'' comes from and all of the rest of the things that happen in the House.

In fact, just to remind you, Speaker Hastert, Speaker Gingrich used deeming on 202 occasions. Now, this is no big surprise. This is no surprise that fell out of the sky.

And no, I won't yield. I think I've listened to you talk about deeming enough. I want to talk about deeming for a second.

Deeming is rules of the House, and the reason you're doing that is so that we can get something done because people in the Senate are requiring, through the filibuster, that 60 votes be in the way of anything that happens. Now, if you insist on that when 50 votes is a majority, then you're going to get things like using arcane rules in this thousand-page rule book. And we will use it just like Speaker Gingrich used it, just like Speaker Hastert used it, to get around obstructionists.

And now I would yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Ultimately, we have to go out and face this. And when we pass this health care bill, you are free to campaign against a bill that gives health coverage to 30 million Americans and that closes the doughnut hole. If you want, you can go home and argue with the seniors and say, I didn't want a bill that closed the doughnut hole. That was a stupid bill. I voted against it. What you are free to do after this bill passes is to go home and argue against the things that are in the bill. The people back home have no understanding what ``deeming'' is. It's inside baseball in this place. You wait, when you go and try, on the campaign trail, to sell the idea that you were against doing anything for 30 million people.

I yield.

I would suggest that the gentleman has tried to create

an issue, but it won't last. Nobody remembers any of the debate before Social Security. Nobody remembers any of the debate before Medicare. Of course, there were people saying all kinds of things out here. But when the bill is in, the people will take the benefits and be grateful for the Congress that acted on their behalf. I urge everyone to vote for this bill. The unemployed should not suffer again because of Senate filibusters.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, the great philosopher George Santayana said, Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Now the Republicans say we should scrap the bill and start all over again. In 1994, Newt Gingrich very proudly killed Mrs. Clinton's health care effort. We have waited 16 years. Twelve years we had Republicans in control of this House. We had 6 years with the Republican Senate, a Republican House, and a Republican President--and nothing was offered.

What you're saying today is, Let's kill the Democratic bill, and we'll wait another 16 years to 2026 until we try again. The Americans are going into bankruptcy--two-thirds of them because of health care. We cannot wait any longer. The time has come for a vote, folks. Let's stand up and tell the American people you want to wait until 2026 to try again. That doesn't make sense.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating Canada and Vancouver, specifically, for putting on a great Olympics this winter. They are our neighbor in Seattle, and we welcome and were pleased with having our neighbor have such a good party.

To compete in the Olympics is an enormous accomplishment, and I want to commend each and every one of the Olympians who participated. It's not a national team that goes; it's individuals. The spirit of the Olympics is that an individual strives to have his best or her best performance in whatever event he or she is involved in.

And I want to take this time to recognize at least one athlete from my district, in particular, whose career I've followed since he was a young man in Seattle. Apolo Ohno exemplifies what it means to be an Olympian. He trained not in Seattle, but he went up to Canada, to Vancouver, and trained every week. And after winning his eighth medal in this Vancouver Olympics, he is now the most decorated American athlete to compete in the Winter Games. He has now appeared in three Winter Olympics and has both won and lost races, but he has always returned to compete against younger and sometimes even faster opponents.

I also want to congratulate his father, Yuki Ohno, who has raised Apolo by himself, and helped him realize the dream of competing in the Olympics.

When I think about Apolo's achievements and all he has overcome, I recall a quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who said, ``The credit belongs to the man or the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his or her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.''

To all the athletes, and to Apolo Ohno especially, I commend you for your performance in this Winter Games.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to debunk some of the health care myths we've heard from my friends across the aisle. Listening to my Republican colleagues, you'd think that lawyers were single handedly responsible for breaking our health care system. It's one of the major pillars of their health care proposal they recently unveiled and has long been one of their favorite talking points. They seem to have little else to talk about when it comes to health reform.

I have always believed that you can have your own opinion but you can't have your own facts. For years, Republicans have claimed that because patients are able to sue doctors at whim for inordinate sums of money, doctors have been forced to buy expensive malpractice insurance. This system, they say, is one of the major causes of the nation's beleaguered health care system. But it seems Republicans have been very inventive with their facts.

A new report from Public Citizen undercuts the Republican refrain that health care costs have skyrocketed because doctors have been forced to practice ``defensive medicine.'' The report found that the value of malpractice payments is actually at its lowest since 1999, and when adjusted for inflation, malpractice payments are at their lowest since 1992. The report goes on to show that for five consecutive years, the number of medical malpractice payments has fallen and for six straight years, the value of malpractice payments has fallen. Have we seen a corresponding decrease in health care costs for the last five years? Absolutely not. Quite the opposite, in fact: health care spending rose a staggering 83 percent between 2000 and 2009, while malpractice payments actually fell 8 percent during the same period. Litigation costs were found to be less than one-half of one percent of health care costs. Blaming our health care crisis on litigation costs is just baloney.

So instead of looking into how we can hold the insurance industry more accountable, my Republican colleagues have made a boogeyman out of devilish trial lawyers. But medical malpractice costs have been wholly stagnant and represent an inconsequential portion of our total health care spending. It's time the Republicans brought some new ideas to the table.

The rest of us know the real reasons why our health care costs are spiraling out of control. Medical inflation continues to outpace general inflation. Insurance companies are making record profits and rewarding their executives with jaw-dropping salaries. The third quarter net income for Humana was almost $300 million, a 65 percent increase from the third quarter of 2008. The CEO of Aetna made almost $24 million last year while the CEO of WellPoint made nearly $10 million. In many areas of the country, people can only get health insurance from only one or two companies, and with such diminished market competition, those companies can charge whatever they want. And the list goes on and on. But my Republican colleagues have conveniently buried their head in the sand and have literally chosen to ignore 99.5 percent of the reasons for our nation's broken health care system.

Sure, it is easy to demonize the trial lawyers. But if we fail to address the true reasons for rapidly escalating health care costs, we will never fix the real problems we're facing and health care costs will continue to skyrocket. To do otherwise would force prevent us from taking this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get reform right. While I know the final health reform bill will be far from perfect, it will still include meaningful and enduring reforms that will drive down costs and help millions of Americans. In the meantime, I hope my Republican colleagues will find themselves a new theme song.

Madam Speaker, Republicans have talked so much about the need for tort reform, you would think that lawyers single-handedly were responsible for America's skyrocketing health care costs. But a new report from Public Citizen found that the value of malpractice settlements is actually the lowest it has been since 1999, and that for 5 consecutive years the number of malpractice settlements has actually dropped.

And, of course, the health care costs have gone down; right? No, absolutely not.

Health care spending increased 83 percent between 2000 and 2009, while malpractice payments fell 8 percent during the same period.

Blaming our health care crisis on litigation costs is simply baloney. I hope my Republican friends can find another theme song for their attempt to derail what the American people want, and that is health care that is guaranteed and will not bankrupt America.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of Representative Kucinich's resolution to call our troops home from Afghanistan. When the President announced in December that he wanted 30,000 additional troops sent to Afghanistan, I said that I was unconvinced his plan would work. And now that many of those troops are in place, I'm still not convinced. We recently watched the start of Operation Mushtarak, the largest coordinated offensive since 2001, which is intended to loosen the Taliban's grip in the Southern region of the country. It was originally supposed to take a few weeks, but now estimates say that it may take 12 to 18 months. I think this is a perfect example of the biggest obstacle we face: we are asking troops to fix problems that the military is not capable of solving.

American soldiers have been in Afghanistan for nearly a decade and have been doing a magnificent job of what's been asked of them. But with every passing year, I grow more doubtful that we have the ability to build a stable democracy with the military alone. And I certainly do not believe that committing more troops will bring about the change necessary to stabilize the country, nor do I believe that it will hasten the process.

But that's the course that many continue to advocate, including President Obama. And while I know that the President wants to get out of Afghanistan as fast as possible, I also believe that if we want to help the Afghani people form a stable democracy and functioning economy, we need to help them with even more aid and support, not an increase in troops.

Over the last 30 years, Afghanistan has served as a battlefield in a series of devastating conflicts, first between the Soviet Union and the United States, and then between the United States and the Taliban. We hear a lot about the problems with poppy farming in the region, but we don't hear much about the cause. Before any of these incursions, Afghanistan was considered the orchard capital of central Asia, with nearly 80 percent of the population working on the land. But now it is estimated that more than 60 percent of the orchards and vineyards have been destroyed, which led many Afghanis into poppy production and the drug trade. This is in part due to the fact that the Soviets thought that orchards were too good a place to hide, so they cut them all down.

The kinds of problems that Afghanistan faces are not the kinds of problems the U.S. military or NATO are equipped to solve. That is ultimately up to the Afghani government and its people, and we need to realize that our involvement can only do so much. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we can make a strategically acceptable exit.

I rise today to voice my support for Representative Kucinich's resolution to invoke the War Powers Act to call all of our troops home from Afghanistan within the next 30 days--or, as the legislation outlines, by the end of the year if 30 days is deemed too dangerous. I refuse to watch as we send soldier after soldier into a battle I do not believe the military can win.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize this week as National Peace Corp Week.

In October of 1960, when then-Senator John F. Kennedy was campaigning for the Presidency, he visited the University of Michigan. At about 2:00 AM in front of the University of Michigan Union, he first outlined his plan to create a program that would send Americans to countries around the globe for 2 years of service. He said that night:

``. . . I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past. Therefore, I am delighted to come to Michigan, to this university, because unless we have those resources in this school, unless you comprehend the nature of what is being asked of

you, this country can't possibly move through the next 10 years in a period of relative strength.''

Since that speech, more than 200,000 Americans have spent 2 years of their lives in parts of the world that many of us have never heard of. And right now, dozens of Peace Corp volunteers from the Seattle area alone are serving in countries as far as Mali, Turkmenistan and Cambodia. Participants have worked on everything from helping farmers produce more food to stave off hunger to teaching computer skills and helping governments bolster their technology infrastructure. While I've heard from many Peace Corp volunteers that their years of service are far from easy, they also tell me about the tremendous impact those years have on their education and how their time abroad helps build their character and self-esteem.

But the program does far more than just provide services to communities in other countries and enrich the lives of its volunteers. It helps participants come back with a far better understanding of other cultures. I have long believed that America's ability to operate in the world depends on how well we understand what's going on in other nations. President Kennedy understood that our nation's strength depended on our level of engagement in the global community, and the Peace Corp each year provides thousands of emissaries to places that the U.S. might not otherwise touch. In many ways, the Peace Corp is like community-based diplomacy.

And when participants return, many continue their service. Some, like my colleagues Senator Chris Dodd, and Representatives Honda, Garamendi, Farr, Driehaus and Petri, go on to serve in Congress. Other alums go on to serve in Foreign Service, including stints in USAID, the Organization of American States and the Department of State. Others serve in the non-profit sector in organizations like the Sierra Club and Catholic Relief Services. And many others join the National Peace Corp Association, an organization of some 30,000 former Peace Corp participants that helps keep them engaged in service and advocacy.

The Peace Corp has done enormous good around the world, so let us recognize the thousands of Americans who sacrificed and served. Let us reaffirm this week as National Peace Corp Week.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4691) to provide a temporary extension of certain programs, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

This bill provides a short-term extension for a number of programs.

When you have the other body basically operating on filibusters continuously on everything, it's not surprising that suddenly somebody wakes up over there and figures out that they're going to have to go to work and pass some legislation.

By the end of March, 1.2 million people will run out of unemployment benefits, so we're extending unemployment benefits through the 8th of April, 2010. That is another month. The Senate likes to have a vote on unemployment about once a month. For whatever reason they want to come out here and do this when they can see the problem and they want to drag the American people through this process over and over again, I cannot understand. The Republicans over there using filibusters to stop the Senate from doing anything simply don't care about workers in this country.

Now, there is also an extension of COBRA assistance. We're extending that until the 28th of March, 2010, so people have health insurance for another month. Thanks a lot. And we're extending surface transportation programs, which makes related expenditures for surface transportation until March 28, 2010.

We're extending the Medicare physician update, which extends the increase in physicians' payments until March 28, 2010. We're extending the Medicare therapy cap exceptions until March 28, 2010. We're extending the poverty guidelines. And I could go on down this list. I have got a whole bunch more.

The fact is, we passed, in December, out of this House, a 6-month extension in unemployment benefits, but somebody decided we had to have a filibuster in the Senate, so they stepped on the bill. And suddenly we come to 5:28 p.m. on the 25th of February and somebody says, oh, my God, there are going to be people in my district with no check. They have been calling my office for the last 2 weeks. Are they going to extend benefits? Will my benefits be extended? What's going to happen to us?

Well, this is their answer. We will give them another month's reprieve, and I urge all my colleagues to vote for this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to my friend from Michigan (Mr. Levin) talk about the situation, it brings you almost beyond anger to realize that one person in the other body has stopped the unemployment extension for several months. We don't know, even as we pass this bill over there today, what will happen if that gentleman does not lift his restriction on the Senate bill. We may be into a cloture situation again. Now what they did before, they held up unemployment insurance, they held it up and held it up, and then, when it came to the end, everybody voted for it.

It is clear, from the first words out of my colleague from California's mouth, that this is about trying to prove to the people that the Democrats can't run the Congress. They can't run the Congress with the filibuster in the Senate stopping issues like this that are going to go through here unanimously. Nobody in his right mind is going to vote against health care and unemployment benefits for people who are out there struggling, and nobody is going to vote against flood insurance for people and nobody is going to vote against small business loan guarantees and a lot of other things that are in this extension bill because of the filibuster in the Senate.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this, and I urge the other body to think about changing the filibuster.

I yield back the balance of my time.