Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am Keith Ellison, here to claim the time.

The Progressive Caucus message hour, which comes to the House floor every week, week after week, with a Progressive message will be short tonight. We want to let our Republican colleagues know that. Tonight, though short, it will be a very potent and effective message because it is a Progressive message.

Obviously, everything these days is health care. Health care is a crucial issue, but it's important to understand that, from a Progressive standpoint, health care reform is part of an overall package of reform for middle and working class people in America.

How are you doing with your family budget when you see, over the last 10 years, that health care premiums have increased, that deductibles are increasing and that copays are increasing? How is it going when you see your neighbors are foreclosed upon and when the houses in your neighborhood are seeing a reduction in value? That's real wealth you're losing with this foreclosure crisis.

In a Progressive vision of this world, we see middle class people and working class people--people who are making only a little bit, who are making only minimum wage--who are actually seeing their wages rise, who are seeing their health care costs level off and go down, who are seeing their home values go up, and who are seeing the doors to the universities remain open so that young people can have real opportunities in this America.

We have a vision where everybody counts, where everybody matters, where we're not constantly looking for the next person to throw under the bus. With the Progressive vision, we know that it doesn't really matter what your economic station is in life. You still have an opportunity to do well in America. You still should have that opportunity. You should still have an opportunity to have your civil and your human rights respected. As we move forward in this health care debate, we must remember from a Progressive message standpoint that it is a part of a network of things that American middle class and working class people need--people of all colors, people of all cultures and people of all faiths.

The Progressive message: We don't believe that it makes sense to rail against and to demonize people who come from other countries. We welcome new Americans. We think it's a good idea. Immigration has been good for the United States.

We have a Progressive message which says that we believe that everybody's health care in the United States ought to be covered and that your health should not be a commodity which is bought and sold on Wall Street, which is bought and sold on commodity markets, where people basically look at you and your health as an economic entity to make themselves richer and wealthier.

So it is with that opening remark that I talk about our short presentation tonight: the Progressive message about health care. It is in this context that we talk about health care, not so much about the technicalities of health care at this point, but really focusing on health care reform--patients before profits. We believe in this.

Thirty-six other nations in this world provide some form of national health care. Our country does not. We are the richest country in the world. We have a GDP bigger than any other country in the world by double, and still we say we don't have enough to go around to cover the 49 million who are left uninsured or to make sure that we hold prices down and have quality care for the 250 million who do have employer- based health care and government health care but who are seeing their premiums rise.

Tonight, though our friends on the other side of the aisle constantly bang on government and talk about government-sponsored health care, we are here to say that the government is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with government. From a Progressive standpoint, we say that, yes, government must be efficient, that, yes, government must be effective and that, yes, government must not be too intrusive. Yet, just to make blanket statements about how government is bad, this is not part of the Progressive mission, because we know the GI Bill is part of government; we know that Medicare is part of government; we know that Medicaid, which covers the poor, is part of government; we know Social Security is part of government. We don't look at the government as the enemy in a country that is by, for and of the people. The government is us. So what are people talking about when they rail on government-run health care as if it's some horrible thing?

The fact is that we're here to stand up and to stand out for real health care reform as a part of an overall package to make middle and working class people better off, with a higher quality of life and with more opportunities for themselves and for their families.

So, as we discuss this issue and as we keep it in context, it's important to also bear in mind that a key element of reform--an essential element of reform--is the public option. The public option is an essential element of reform, and I want to talk to you about it tonight for just a few minutes because we're not going to be here long. We're going to be here for a while. Most doctors support the public option.

We have this chart here--and I hope I can get a nice, wide camera angle--of both the public and private options.

Sixty-three percent of all doctors--they call it ``doctors/ providers'' nowadays, but they're really doctors. Sixty-three percent of doctors support both a public and a private option. Sixty-three percent. That's a lot. Now, you have another 10 percent of doctors who say, You know what? Get profit-based health care out of our American system. We want public-only options.

If you put all of the doctors who believe in both public and private options and doctors who believe in public-only options, that's 73 percent of doctors.

Doctors say they know the public option is better. You might have some folks who are accountable to industry interests in the insurance industry who don't want a public option, but you don't have doctors saying it. Doctors are for the public option--63 percent-plus more.

I am very pleased to be joined right now by my dear friend from the great State of New York, Anthony Weiner.

Anthony, how are you doing tonight?

If the gentleman would yield briefly--and I'll hand it right back to the gentleman from New York--I just want to throw this out there:

I propose that the people who support the public option and the people who oppose the public option do so for the same reasons.

One is that the public option will be competitive. Because we don't have to funnel monies into these things that don't really go to care, we will be able to provide cost-competitive products for people to be able to purchase.

If the gentleman would just hang with me for a minute-- well, tonight, we are short here tonight, we are going to be handing it over in a little while.

But I just want to explore this issue of competition with the gentleman from New York one more time. Now you pointed out how we have real problems with competition. We have real issues with flexibility within the market because, when you need the operation, you need it. There is not much opportunity for shopping around.

But what about the number of health care insurance companies that are in markets as they exist today? As you look around the cities of our country, are we seeing health insurance companies proliferating throughout these cities where you have multiple companies to choose from or are you looking at large markets being dominated by one to five actors?

I believe 75 percent of all the major markets are dominated by no more than five actors. Even if you could go shop around for that policy, do you have a lot to choose from?

Wait a minute, isn't this a government-administered program?

Absolutely.

I want to thank the gentleman for being as eloquent as he has been. We turn on the TV screen and the gentleman has been on national news talking about these critical issues from the standpoint of the numbers, the logic, but also from the standpoint of the person who really, really needs the change.

Congressman, you have done a great service. I have told you on the floor one-on-one how proud I am of the work that you have done. I think that you are going to keep doing it. You can count on me to support the Weiner amendment, which is a single-payer payment.

I do thank the gentleman. This will be the conclusion of our Progressive message tonight. The Progressive Caucus, appearing with Anthony Weiner, who did such a fine job, we will be back next week, everybody.

This has been Keith Ellison with the Progressive message, and we yield back.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate B. Todd Jones on his confirmation as the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota.

For U.S. Attorney Jones, my dear friend, this appointment represents the latest record in a life time of proud service to his beloved State of Minnesota, and to his country.

Upon graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1983, B. Todd served on active duty for six years in the Marine Corps. He was called back to active duty and served with distinction in Operation Desert Storm.

In the private sector, B. Todd has tirelessly worked to uphold equal justice under the law. As an attorney with several Minnesota law firms, his diligent work on behalf of his clients has earned him broad respect in the legal community.

Also noteworthy are his efforts to promote diversity in the legal community so that it may better serve all Americans. To this end, B. Todd helped found, and served on the executive board of, Twin Cities Diversity in Practice.

Mr. Jones previously served as the U.S. District Attorney for Minnesota from 1998 to 2001. Based on a life steeped in public service, I have every confidence that B. Todd Jones will once more serve Minnesota and our nation with distinction.

Madam Speaker, let me again extend my most sincere congratulations to my friend and wish him well as he continues his service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, welcome to the Progressive hour, the Progressive Message, the 60-minute period of time where the Progressive Caucus comes to the House floor to talk to the American people and our colleagues about critical issues of the day. The Progressive Message.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, is that we've got a lot to talk about today. The issue of the day is health care. And as we get started, I would like to bring our chairperson right into the conversation in the very beginning to introduce some of her ideas on this issue. Our chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, has been a stalwart leader on this issue, has been convening meetings, has been keeping us together, has been unrelenting on her insistence for a public option.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Reclaiming my time, I know the gentlewoman has to take a brief interlude, but let me just say very quickly the fact is that Senator Baucus, who has spent many hours trying to pull together a bipartisan bill, comes out of that process without any bipartisan support for his bill, and there may not be many Democrats who want to vote for that bill coming out of the Finance Committee.

The reality is we have had three House committee bills that all produced a public option and we have the Health Committee in the Senate that produced a public option, and now coming out of the Finance Committee there is no public option. I think when you look at the convergence of all these bills, it means that we're going to have a public option. But I think this is a time for grassroots activism, people to let their voices be heard, and people to be very clear on what they want.

Stepping back from a public option, health care reform is really a three-tiered thing. It's a three-legged stool. One is making sure that people who already have insurance have stable insurance, are not discriminated against, and are treated better by the insurance companies with lower costs. The other is covering the uninsured. The third leg is a public option that can compete with private market insurance so that they can hold costs down and can introduce evidence- based medical practices to give Americans the best quality care that's available. The fact is that this three-legged stool is essential in order to have the kind of reform that Americans need today. This reform, we can have it. It is well within our grasp and we can do it, but we have got a little bit more to go. At this point we now know it's on the table and we know that this Finance Committee bill is not adequate and they need to go back to the drawing board.

It's interesting to me that not one Republican said that they would support it after hours and hours of bipartisan effort to get them on the bill anyway. It's time to move forward with a bill that makes sense to all the American people.

The fact is the President is on our side when it comes to the public option. The President made himself clear right on the floor of this House Chamber only a few days ago when he came here and said that he was for a public option. The President said it, and he made himself very clear. In fact, the President was eloquent when he said that without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down, and it makes it easier for insurance companies to treat their customers badly, by cherry-picking the healthiest individuals and trying to drop the sickest, by overcharging small businesses who have no leverage, and by jacking up rates. The reality is the President was right about that, and he is on our side and wants to see reform come forward.

Let's just say that this health care reform that we are talking about needs the support of the American people. Slowly the real facts have been coming forward. Slowly the American people have been coming to a better understanding of what the public option is and what health care reform means in general. The President is on our side, as I've said, and I believe the House should act quickly to pass a bill with a strong public option as it reflects the President's preference for a public option.

The plan will do the following: It will cover preexisting conditions. How many Americans are dropped or have had their insurance go up because of a preexisting condition? The plan will stop the practice of rescission or denying you health care when you need it the most, and the bill will stop bankrupting our businesses and families for the sin of getting sick. A public option, which is an essential part of reform, as I've already mentioned, will offer choice, introduce competition and lower costs for consumers and taxpayers, and bring higher quality health care to all Americans.

Choice: The President stated last week that currently in 34 States, 75 percent of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. What does that mean? That means that if we don't have a public option, we're going to mandate 49 million new consumers into the insurance companies' arms without any way to make them compete because these markets are monopolized or duopolized or what they call an oligopoly.

What that means is they are highly concentrated. There are not a lot of sellers in the market; there are just a few.

Now, if I say you have to buy insurance and there are only two or three people to buy it from, you can bet those two or three companies that are selling it are going to give you the maximum price unless you have a public option that's going to really compete with them and make them do the right thing. So we've got to be for choice and we've got to have competition.

Let me also say that the President said--and I want to repeat this because I've said it once, but we've got to say it again--the President said without competition, the price of insurance goes up and up and quality goes down.

Now think about it, if you're a resident of the great State of Alabama--Alabama is a wonderful State, I always enjoy going there--but in Alabama, almost 90 percent of the insurance market is controlled by just one insurance company. What does that mean? That means that if you want to buy insurance in Alabama, you're dealing with a monopoly. And if the monopoly says you pay, then you pay whatever it is they say you pay, or you don't get it. There is literally no competition. So given that situation, we know that we need a public option to introduce choice, competition, and real cost control.

I want to talk about this public option because people don't always understand it. Think of the public option this way: we're going to have employer-based health care. That will be one part of this thing. Employer-based health care, you have insurance with your employer, you keep it. The second part is, if you have government health insurance already, like Medicare or the VA, you keep that. We're going to try to subsidize low-income people so that they can get Medicaid and health care like that.

But the third part of it is this: it will be something called an ``exchange.'' Now, what is an exchange? An exchange is like a grocery market. It will be online or it will look like a catalog, like this book; and you go through it and you look for an insurance product. Now, there will be different products. Some will be a basic plan, some will be a middle plan, and some will be a Cadillac plan. And they will tell you what you can get covered for a given price and you will be shopping. And you might be able to do it online, like Craig's List or eBay or something like that, or you can do it on paper. But the fact is it's a market where people are selling different products.

Now, all we're saying is that if you can imagine this health care insurance grocery store, on one aisle there would be a product offered by or administered by the government--actually, it wouldn't be run by the government because it would be private doctors who would be off actually providing the medical care, but it would be administered by a government program the same way Medicare is now.

Now, I know people who said that they've got Medicare, and they don't want the government messing with their Medicare. Well, if you think the government is messing with your Medicare, what you must not know is that the government is Medicare. That is who is administering your Medicare right now. So if you think the VA health care is good or Medicare is good, then you will also see that a public option will be good. Very important for people to understand this.

Let me also say this, and that is, you know, sometimes people on the other side of the aisle--you know, I'm a Democrat--the other guys, they say stuff like, I don't want government-run health care, and they make it sound like the government's bad. But in a democratic country, who is the government other than you and me? The government is the people-- government of the people, by the people, for the people.

In a democratic society, the government is us. And if the government isn't functioning right, then we need to be more engaged to make it function right and we need to insist on lower cost, more efficiency. We need to be active citizens to make sure things go the way we want them to. But we need to get out of this thing that government can't do anything right. Did Lehman Brothers do everything right when their company crashed? That's a private company. What about Enron? What about WorldCom? What about Bear Stearns? Private industry makes a lot of mistakes as well.

The government does good things, though. Think about this: if you or I should have the misfortune of needing emergency medical care, an EMS truck will come up here and hopefully save us. Who's that? That's the government. If you call up because your house is burning, who are you calling? The government yet again. When you start slicing into that steak you might eat tonight, who has made sure that meat is safe for you to eat? A government inspector.

Public schools have made an educational opportunity for every kid in America. Are some of them bad or in need of repair and need to be better? Of course they do. Anything human beings do is going to need more work. But you can't say that public schools in general are a failure. You can say that a public school needs to be improved.

We need to get out of this thing where we say the government can't function and can't produce good results for us. They do every day. You're going to tell me the officers who are putting their lives on the line to keep us safe are not doing a good job? The firefighters are not doing a good job? They are doing a great job.

You have got to understand that part of what's going on here is just plain old government-bashing, government-bashing in a democratic country where government is by, for and of the people.

So I hope people don't let this go by. It's not a good idea to just always run down whatever the government does. If they do, we bear responsibility because it's our government, democratic society.

Let me just say this, too: the public option really means that the government would help to cover the high cost of insurance for Americans while bringing those costs down through competition. The public option means that Americans will be free to seek health care from any doctor they choose at any facility they choose without having to fear that they could not afford or will incur tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt. The public option is a good thing.

Now, you would think, well, who should know the most about whether the public option would be a good thing? I will say I'm not the most well qualified, but I think doctors are. I think doctors are well qualified to know whether or not a public option is a good deal. Doctors who serve patients every day, serve patients day in and day out would have a good opinion that I would trust as to whether it would help the system improve. Doctors are the ones who sit up on the phone and have to argue with insurance companies over whether a procedure is going to be covered or not covered.

I'm lucky enough to have a brother who is a primary care physician in Detroit. How are you doing there, Leonard? The fact is that my brother Leonard has to spend hours away from patients because he's trying to deal with insurance companies. The fact is that we need a public option. We need a public option.

Let me just talk a little bit about this. The graph to my right here says most doctors support public option. Most doctors support public option. Here in the blue section is where doctors were asked, they said, Do we need a public option and a private option? Sixty-three percent of doctors said we need both public and private options. Twenty-seven percent of doctors said private options only and 10 percent of doctors said public options only. Most doctors say we should have both.

I trust the doctors. And you know, this is a whole lot of doctors; 63 percent of them have said that we need both. So this is who I think we should listen to and who has a good opinion as to what's really right and what's really wrong.

A large majority of doctors say that there should be a public option. Sixty-three percent of physicians support a public option. And when polled, nearly three-quarters, 75 percent, of physicians supported some form of a public option, either alone or in combination with other private insurance options. So that means that if you take this 63 with this 10 percent, that's a full 73 percent; that's about three-quarters. So this is overwhelmingly what doctors believe, that we should have a public option; and I think the doctors are right about that.

We've been joined by the gentlelady from California, the chairperson of the Progressive Caucus. What do you think about this? Do you think that doctors know what they're talking about when 63 percent say we should have public and private options and another 10 percent say we need only a public option; 73 percent, does that mean anything to you? Do you think that's an important fact to know?

I yield to the gentlewoman.

Well, if the gentlelady yields back, I look forward to that moment as well when we can have a unified House bill. I hope this is something that happens very quickly because I really believe that the public is really dying--oh, excuse me for that bad language----

The public is really calling for true health care reform.

And we were talking a moment ago about the bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee, a bill that I don't favor at all. And I just thought that I would share a few basic facts about it.

You should note that if you look at all the House bills together, even though they haven't been unified, if you look at them together, they all call for a public option. The Senate Finance bill does not have a public option; it has a cooperative, which is not nearly--which is no good, which is of no value.

Yes.

Yes, let's talk about that.

If the gentlelady would yield, I think you're right. It's not an inherently bad idea, but it's bad for this. And I want to be very clear: you and I aren't loosening up and open to co-ops. I mean, we're clear that co-ops is the wrong thing. And here's one reason why: the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan, they report on Senator Baucus' bill: ``The proposed co-ops had very little effect on the estimates of total enrollment in the exchanges or Federal costs because, as they are described in the specifications, they seem unlikely to establish a significant market presence in many of the areas of the country or to noticeably affect Federal subsidy payments.''

In other words, you mention that there are some successful health care co-ops around the country and how it took them years to build up. Well, the CBO report says that when the exchange opens up, the co-op will be too little, too small to have any market presence and will not be able to really be strong enough to actually impact the market. So the fact is that people will be left for years and years with no real successful option to lower costs. So the co-op is really not a viable option.

I don't want to completely be dismissive of the idea of co-ops in general. Food co-ops are great. There are good co-ops, right? We want to be straight with everybody. But in this case, it's the wrong thing because it will be too small, too weak, too little to compete with these insurance companies that have been in the game for a long, long time. What we need is a public option, that's what we've got to have.

A robust public option. I'm talking about a public option with some muscle.

Also, if we compare the Senate Finance bill with the House bills, the Senate Finance bill has no employer mandate. The House bill has an employer mandate to provide health insurance to its employees. So, look, employers--and I'm grateful to the employers that provide health care to their employees, but no employer will be able to say, well, we're just not going to do it because--for whatever reason. The employers are going to have to provide health care for their employees or contribute to a fund which will allow their employees to get health care.

Yes.

If the gentlelady would yield back, absolutely. That's right. We want to level the playing field. You can't go out there and just get a competitive advantage on your competition by dumping your health care insurance, so that's another important part.

The third thing is, under the Senate finance bill, taxes and the pay- fors are a tax on high-end health insurance plans and a tax on medical devices, laboratories, et cetera. Under the House bill, there is an income tax surcharge on high-income earners. At least that's one idea.

Now, I'm going to tell you this: If I am ever fortunate enough to be a wealthy individual--I assure you I am not one now--I would hope that, as an American----

Yes. Right. You'd better come here already wealthy.

That's right.

As I was saying, if I ever become a well-to-do person, I would hope that I would have enough patriotic commitment to put other people's bare necessities in front of my own luxuries. Do you understand what I'm saying?

I mean, how many boats can I ski behind? How many houses can I own? If I have to pay a little bit more to make sure that some poor, single mom and her kids have health care, why wouldn't I do that? Why wouldn't I do that? I don't know.

Do you have any thoughts on this? I yield to the gentlelady.

Right. Right.

If the gentlelady would yield back, I mean the fact is that many well-to-do people recognize that this country has been good to them, that many of them went to public schools, and that many of them have police who secure their properties. Many of them really are grateful for all of the bounty that America has given them, and they don't mind doing a little bit more to make sure that low-income, poor Americans have some way to go to a doctor.

I think it's just basic, and I'm always a little shocked when I hear, well, somehow we're punishing well-to-do people by asking them for a little more to help poor Americans. I don't understand that kind of thinking, because you find a lot of extremely generous well-to-do people.

I yield to the gentlelady.

If the gentlelady would yield back, does the gentlelady agree that we should go about 10 more minutes and hand it over?

I just want to point out that, under the Baucus--or the Senate finance bill, subsidies to the premiums of low-income people would be kept at 13 percent of the max; whereas, in the House bills, the premiums would be kept at 11 percent. So the House bill, again, is doing more to help the middle class person. The Senate Finance Committee is cutting into the middle class even more. This is just premiums. This is not copays. This is not deductible payments, payments you have to make when you have a deductible. This is not other costs associated with health care. This is just premiums. So, again, the Senate Finance Committee's bill is not nearly as good as any of the House bills.

Certainly.

Yes.

That's right.

If the gentlelady will yield back, we're wrapping up now. Yet the fact is, as to the House bills, if you look at them together, insurance companies can only charge different premiums based on age, and then it's like 2-1.

In the House bill.

The Baucus bill is 5-1.

5-1. This is wrong. This is very bad. This is very, very, very bad.

The fact is that this is going to be financially devastating for people who aren't yet elderly but who still are up to 60, 58, 59. It's going to hit them very hard if the insurance companies can discriminate like that, and there are far less stringent insurance reforms in the Baucus bill.

So, when you look at the Baucus bill, it is an inferior product. The Senate Finance Committee is an inferior product. The Senate Finance Committee bill is an inferior product. That's what it is, and it really is a nonstarter. So we're pulling for people on the Senate Health Committee to make a better bill than that which came out of the Senate Finance Committee.

We believe that help is on the way. Health care reform is right around the corner. It's time to raise the voices and to not be shy.

The President is running all over the country, talking to people about health care reform. He was in my own town of Minneapolis last Saturday. He did a phenomenal job. When the President mentioned the public option to a capacity crowd in the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota--my city--the crowd roared for 1 minute 40 seconds. They wouldn't even let him continue with his speech. They were just clapping wildly--a deafening noise. That's how much people want the public option.

So I'll leave the last word to the gentlelady of California.

So that will close us out.

I just want to say thank you, Chairwoman Woolsey, for being here and for always being supportive of our special hour and of our progressive message.

The Progressive Caucus is committed to values of shared community, of shared responsibility, of making sure that the least of us are cared for and are looked out for, of making sure that America is a country that supports peace around the world. This is what some of our essential values are: The Progressive Caucus. The progressive message. Thank you very much.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, in America today, more than 60 percent of all bankruptcies are related to medical bills. Insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than the money people take home every year. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are denied the health care they need by insurance company bureaucrats, and millions more are holding on by the skin of their teeth to keep what insurance coverage they do have.

Yet there are still those who say that there is no problem and that nothing is wrong. I don't know who they've been listening to--maybe to the insurance company CEOs who rake in millions of dollars every year in bonuses alone or maybe to the insurance company lobbyists who have flooded Washington with millions of dollars spent on ensuring that health care reform does not happen.

Americans want progress. They want a system that delivers quality, affordable health care for them and for their families. By giving them a public option to choose from, we can keep insurance companies honest through competition, and we can provide our Nation's families with the quality health care they deserve.

Here we are again, another Special Order with the Progressive Caucus.

It's an honor to be here again here before the people to talk about the issues that concern us. No issue is more prominent today than the issue of health care, and I'm pleased to be able to discuss this critical issue with our co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey.

And I yield to the gentlelady.

Let me commend you for your leadership.

We have sent letter after letter to make sure that the White House knew exactly where we stood. The last letter we sent, I think we had 60 signatures, but that was not the only letter we sent. We have been letting the White House know, letting Democratic leadership know that a public option was essential to reform.

And so last night I was very gratified to hear the President not back away from a public option but to embrace the idea. And I will take credit on behalf of the Progressive movement in saying that I think that we helped inform and shape the position that the President ultimately took.

The President made a great line, I think you might agree, Congresswoman Woolsey, when he said we don't fear the future; we're here to shape it. That is absolutely true for the Progressive Caucus under your leadership and that of Congressman Grijalva.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has been coming here week after week, but not just coming to the House floor but in the debate. We've been in meetings. We've been writing letters. We've been having communication. Through your advocacy, Congresswoman Woolsey, and that of Congressman Grijalva, we have been very clear

that we grasp the magnitude of the moment that we're in. We're not going to make any mistake about the historic nature of this time and that we are grasping that moment and making sure that we set our country on a path to true health care reform, and that starts with a public option, I believe.

And I believe yesterday--we can't celebrate because we haven't gotten the ball over the fence yet, but I'm happy with the fact that we have kept the President on course, and I am very encouraged by what happened yesterday.

And before I yield back to you, Congresswoman, I want to just share with you something, if I may, and that is this big red box. Do you see this box right here? This box represents 63,692 people who signed a petition saying that they wanted a public option. This is no joke. This is, like, a lot of work, and this is an enormous document right here. All of these people said, Hey, look, you know, if we're going to mandate care for 49 million new people, then how can we mandate care for them if we're going to mandate that they go do business within a monopoly or a duopoly without any way to have competition introduced so that prices can be pushed down.

So this huge document, which has signatures from every State in the Union--Congresswoman Woolsey, the first ones up here are Alaska, and if I dip in through a little further, then there's California. And they're even by congressional district. Then we can go further and we're still in here, California, because you guys have got a big State over there. The Congressional District 22.

What congressional district is yours?

Let me tell you, we've got a bunch of sixes in here.

We've got sixes for days here. They signed this petition, too. Their names are right here.

Then we could even jump back here to my State of Minnesota, which is in here as well, but also Massachusetts and Missouri and New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Tennessee. This is the voice of many, many Americans who understand the time for reform is now.

So I thought I would mention that in terms of making sure that the public option remains a critical part of the discussion, maintains its status as a central part of reform.

I give credit to the President last night. I give credit to you and Congressman Grijalva for your leadership, but I also give credit to the Progressive movement, because we're all in this same thing together.

I yield back to the gentlelady.

If the gentlelady yields back, let me say we're defining the public option. What is it? What is this thing they're talking about, this public option? And the gentlelady has made a good number of points to show what it is. Let's sharpen the points a little bit.

Think not only of the public option but the whole overall package of reform.

First of all, if you have health insurance through your job, you will keep that. If you have health insurance through Medicare or Medicaid or the VA, you will keep that. There will be more people added to the program because there are a lot of people who don't have any health care who are indigent who could apply, but there will be money to make sure that those folks get in. Those programs will stay in place as they exist now.

But then the new thing will be an exchange, and what is an exchange? It's kind of like a grocery store, but it will be online. You can shop for health care insurance products online, and this will be the exchange.

If you've ever bought furniture or anything else in a catalogue or if you have ever gone on eBay or anything or shopped or shopped this way, it's going to be like that. But the question is that on this grocery store that we're talking about, this exchange, it's just a market, will you be able to go into a certain aisle and stop and pick up the public option in addition to all of the other private options. That's all it is.

I've been somewhat surprised by people who claim to be free marketeers who don't want any competition. It always surprises me when I hear people say competition and choice, and I say, Wait a minute, the public option is just one more choice. What could be wrong with it? It's just one more thing you can get among an array of different choices. Why would you not like it?

Another good thing about the public option is that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will save about $150 billion. One time I said ``million'' by accident. I was quickly corrected. It's ``billion.'' And the President made it clear last night that, hey, it's got to survive based on the premiums it collects. And the public option I don't think is worried about that because, as the gentlelady points out, you don't have to pay a bunch of lobbyists $1.4 million a day. You don't have to buy a bunch of, pay out a bunch of company donations to politicians. You don't have to advertise and try to create demand where there really isn't any.

The head of the public option will be the Secretary of Health and Human

Services who I think makes about $174,000 a year, quite a bit less than CEOs at some of the insurance companies. The chief executive of Aetna makes, what, $24 million a year. The United Health Group person makes about 3-point-something million. This is just base salary. This isn't even other incentives in their packages. So the public option will be able to offer a good product which people can rely on.

You ask people how do they feel about other public options, because, by the way, this will not be the first public option. This is not the only public option in American society. It is not the first public option. Look, Medicare is a public option. Social Security is a public option for income for seniors. The VA is a public option. You don't have to take these services. You can not accept them. They are an option available for you if you want to take it. So people don't even have to take the public option.

I've heard some people say that this is going to be a government takeover of health care. Wait a minute, if you don't like the public option, don't get it. Get one of the other products that will be listed on the exchange, and you will be perfectly free to do that. So these are just a few things about the public option that need to be understood.

We have just been joined by one of our personal heroes, John Conyers, who never stops fighting. We are talking about the Progressive message tonight. We are talking about health care, the public option. And you, Congressman Conyers, are the original author of H.R. 676, the single- payer bill, which I'm a coauthor on, and Congresswoman Woolsey is as well. We will yield to you. Thank you for coming.

Let me thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers. And let me yield now to Congresswoman Woolsey.

Congresswoman, how do you react to some of the things that Congressman Conyers shared with us just now? Do you have any thoughts inspired by that?

If the gentlelady yields back, there's other another thing about the public option that we do need to point out, and that is, it is a vehicle to introduce evidence-based practices that improve the quality of care.

The fact is that the private market could only be trusted to do whatever makes it the most money. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that; I mean, that's the country we live in, that's fine. But a public option can take on a public interest and a public spirit, which can then say, You know what? There are certain medical practices that enhance health, that make people more well, that are safer, that are less expensive--just because something costs more money doesn't mean it's better medicine.

So it's a way to introduce evidence-based practices like cooperative and coordinated care, medical home, medical bundling, things like that, so that if you're a patient, you're getting a number of people, a number of providers helping to keep you healthy so that you don't end up in a very difficult situation. That's another important aspect of this, because the more we keep people well, the less we have to spend on hospitalizations and other expensive aspects of the system, another key as to why a public option is important.

But I just want to ask you all this question: You know, I've been asked--and I'm sure you have, too--Well, are you going to stand in the way of a bill if you don't get your public option? And they ask this question in such a challenging way like, Oh, boy, I don't want to be the one who messes everything up, right? And you kind of feel like on the spot a little bit. Well, my question is, I'd like those people who are against the public option to justify handing over nearly 50 million newcomers into an industry that you're going to mandate that they get health care coverage, but absolutely provide no vehicle to diminish costs, no competition, no choice.

Many markets around the country--and the President pointed this out very well--have one provider. Alabama has one provider. Many have two providers or three--no, I'm misusing the word ``provider''--insurance company, because a provider and an insurance company aren't the same thing. These people have market power. And there has been this proposal, Well, let people buy health insurance across State lines. Well, if my State has one insurance company and your State has two, how much choice is that? So the fact is even that is kind of a red herring. I'm not saying it's a bad idea in essence, but it's nowhere near enough.

So my question is, if somebody were to tell you, I want you to buy this stool, but it only has two legs. And then they say, by insisting on that third leg on that stool, are you going to allow yourself to not have a stool? Why do you have to have the third leg on that stool? Or better yet, oh, we're going to buy a car, but you insist--and they want to suggest unreasonably so--you demand that there be an engine in the car, right? Like you're being this unreasonable person because you insist that there be an engine in the car or an extra leg on that stool.

I mean, a public option does not make the bill perfect; it makes the bill function. And so it's important to really drive this point home because people use terms like, Oh, well, don't make the perfect be the enemy of the good. Well, look, you know, we're not talking about perfect. Perfect would be, in my mind, a single-payer bill. The Conyers bill would be the perfect bill. But the fact is we've compromised already. So this public option does not perfect the health care bill; it makes it work, it makes it function. It is essential to the functioning of the whole package.

I will yield to the gentlelady.

If the gentlelady will yield, not only have you drawn the line, you've held the line, and we're all grateful for that.

Let me yield to the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman Conyers.

Will the gentleman from Michigan yield?

Thank you, sir. Forgive me if you would, but you inspired me, Mr. Chairman, because you mentioned tort reform. And I really think the whole tort reform thing is completely bogus. I mean, if you talk to

health care professionals, they say that 1 percent of health care expenditures are associated with lawsuits. In my own State of Minnesota, you have to have a doctor who is an expert in the field swear on an affidavit that is detailed and lengthy before you can even file the complaint for the medical malpractice lawsuit. And insurance rates and medical malpractice insurance rates are not plummeting. The reality is insurance companies charge doctors a lot of money and then blame lawyers for it. That's the scam going on, and that's the way that it is.

Tort reform--there is no need for tort reform. But if the President wants to discuss tort reform, fine, I'm not going to die on that hill. I'm going to die on the public option hill. I've got my battle lines squared off. Fine, if you want to waste time to satisfy some people talking about tort reform, that's okay, but the reality is that doesn't save any money; it's not the problem.

You know, do doctors run a lot of tests sometimes because of defensive medicine, as they sometimes say? Or do they run a lot of tests because we compensate doctors based on tests and hospitalizations?

I yield to the gentleman.

Yes. And the doctors at the Mayo Clinic are paid by salary; they're not paid by how many tests they run.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan, Congressman Conyers, for spending the time with us. And have a wonderful weekend, Congressman.

Well, Congresswoman Woolsey, we've been having a great dialogue here. We've got about 10 more minutes left in our hour. And we can take that time by continuing to help define this idea of the public option. Do you think that's a good use of our time?

I yield to the gentlelady.

I think those are some essential factors. I think it is important to point out the Progressive Caucus has been crystal clear on what we mean by public option from the very beginning and has simply reiterated the position that we have taken.

Again, I simply believe that it is the dogged efforts of your leadership and that of co-Chair Grijalva, together with the Progressive Caucus as we support our leadership in the caucus, together with other members of the Democratic Caucus, together with the progressive community out there, people who signed the petitions that were in the huge stack when they gave them to you, people who amassed all of these documents, which are double-sided, by the way, all of these, 63,692 people sending them to 65 Members of Congress to encourage them to stick with the public option.

It goes to show Americans are really ready for the kind of change we are talking about right now. It is essential that President Obama debunked myths last night. You know, in this body where we are standing now, which has maybe 20 or 30 people in it, of course, there are a lot of folks in the gallery, the fact is it was packed last night. But each one of the people who was here last night to hear the President's speech heard the President take on those myths head on, and I was very, very proud of the President when he did that.

He made it clear that health care reform is not just for the 49 million uninsured, though it is for them too. It is also for the people who have insurance, who have seen their rates double over the last 2 years, who have seen their copays go up, who have seen their deductibles getting higher and higher and higher, so if they do have an accident or need the medical care, that more and more of the money is going to come out of their pocket.

He talked about the importance of saying this is something we all need and this is good for everybody. He said, look, if you think you are invincible and are never going to get hurt and you don't have health insurance because you want to, like, save money by doing it, if you do get hurt, and we all know accidents happen every day, then we all are going to cover you because you are going to show up at the emergency room and that is going to come out of our taxes.

So he talked about how we are really all in this together, and it is a myth if you think you will be that rugged individual and just go it alone.

He didn't take on the myth of the death panels, but I wish that he did. I just want to reiterate that there are no death panels. This is a myth. It is not true. It is just really a simple lie. And the fact is is that what the legislation calls for is to compensate doctors if they have a conversation about end-of-life with their patients.

This is an extremely good idea. Why? Because anyone who has found themselves in that very difficult situation, having a loved one on a ventilator, you want to know what your loved one would want you to do. You want to know is there a DNR, is there some sort of will, is there something to help you, give you guidance as to what their wishes would be. So this is just dignity. This is just the way we should treat each other. I wish the President would have had time to really hit that point. But I know he understands that there is no such thing as death panels.

So I was happy by and large with the President's speech last night. As Congressman Conyers pointed out, I wasn't happy about everything, but, of course, we understand we have to stay in the game long, not just short.

In the final minutes, I am going to hand it to the gentlewoman from California, Congresswoman Woolsey, our fearless leader in the Progressive Caucus, and you can take us out.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the extraordinary services provided by the Robbinsdale Fire Department throughout the past 100 years. Established in 1909; the Robbinsdale Fire Department has dutifully responded to fire calls, assisted neighboring communities, extinguished structure fires, grass fires, vehicle fires, responded to gas leaks, hazardous material spills, and advocated fire prevention through inspections and community education. The members of the fire department are residents of Robbinsdale who serve and protect their families, friends, and neighbors 365 days a year, regardless of the perilous nature of their work.

I applaud their dedication and service to their community. The professionalism of the Robbinsdale Fire Department is an inspiration to those they serve. Their commitment to public service is honorable and I encourage all who encounter past, present or future members of the Robbinsdale Fire Department to thank them for their selfless service to their city. On behalf of the residents of Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District, I commend the members of the Robbinsdale Fire Department for their hard work and sacrifice and wish them well in their next century of service.

Mr. Chair, during rollcall vote No. 663 on H.R. 3326, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``no'' when I should have voted ``aye.''

I ask unanimous consent that my statement appear in the Record immediately following rollcall vote No. 663.

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, this is the Special Order hour of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. We come every week to talk with each other and to talk on the House floor about a progressive vision for America, a progressive vision that embraces everybody, where we all do better when we all do better, a progressive vision that says that the greatest moments of American history were when we passed the civil rights bill, when we invested in our infrastructure during the Roosevelt era. The greatest moments in American history were when we passed the 19th Amendment recognizing the right of women to vote. These are the great moments of American history. And this great tradition of a progressive vision for America is what we carry on week in and week out. I want to say that if you want to communicate with us, our Web site is here at the bottom of the page, cpc.grijalva.house.gov.

What I would like to do, Mr. Speaker, is right away turn the microphone over and yield to our caucus cochair, one of the stalwart, big-time fighters who never backs down and always is for the people, who has lived it, who knows it, and who is now representing the people of California in a great struggle to promote a progressive vision, none other than Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey--who, by the way, has more 5 minutes against the Iraq war than anybody else in history. I yield to the gentlelady from California.

So as the Chair of the Progressive Caucus, along with Congressman Grijalva, are the Progressives and others hanging tough and sticking up for a robust public option?

We thank the gentlewoman for reading that letter into the Record.

I want to say that we are joined by Congresswoman Edwards of Maryland, who has been a courageous fighter for many issues but has not shrunk from the battle in this fight for real health care reform.

Let me ask the gentlewoman, I think Congressman McDermott has a quick thing he wants to say. So, if the gentlewoman will allow me to yield to him first, then I will yield to her.

Thank you, Dr. McDermott, for your passionate advocacy.

Now I yield to one of my favorite Members. I love to hear her talk about these issues because she is so articulate. I yield to Congresswoman Edwards.

I actually have a few questions, but I am going to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Before I do that, I just want to say that if we just took some of these salaries that are out there and put them into providing care for people, maybe we wouldn't have nearly 50 million people without health care and another 25 million without adequate insurance. It's really outrageous. And they're spending about $1.4 million a day to lobby against health care, and that's nothing but pocket change for some of those folks, and I can see why they would do that.

With that, I will yield to the gentleman from Illinois, Congressman Davis.

Let me thank you again, Congressman Davis. You have been putting it out there for so long. There are 57 Members who insist upon a robust public option. It is wonderful to count you among one of those. I think the American people can rest assured there are people in this Congress who are sticking up for their interests and fighting for them, and your leadership in that regard is inspirational. Thank you, sir.

Let me then yield back to the gentlelady from Maryland, Congresswoman Edwards. You have got some pretty good stuff over there. What else do you have?

Reclaiming my time, the reform that we are talking about

includes employer-based health care, where there couldn't be an exclusion for preexisting conditions. There are the existing government programs, Medicare, Medicaid. Part of the money, if we get the version we are looking for, would be to help States cover everybody for Medicaid.

Then the third thing, this would be new and would include a robust public option. The public option would be a program run by an agency in the government that would be not looking to generate a profit. In that case, would the public option that we have been talking about, would they be reaping a portion of those, what is that, $84 billion in profit? Would that be a cost measure within the public option, if we were able to achieve that?

That is right. And lobbying expenditures, CEO compensation and profits will not be there.

We will have to yield back and be back the next time. This has been the Progressive Hour.

Mr. Speaker, the time is now. Members on the party opposite say we need more time, slow down.

But what about six decades of demanding that we fix health care in America? What about the 45 hours of bipartisan debate in three separate House committees on this legislation? What about the 79 House hearings that we've had? What about those people who today face being turned down because they have a preexisting condition? What about those folks who got a

$10,000 deductible and who are being told that they have got to spend up all that money just to get procedures to maybe perhaps deal with a bladder infection or something like that?

The time is now. The fierce urgency is now upon us. Mr. Speaker, let those who want to delay the care and well-being of others do something else. But for us who care about and have heard the calls of the people, let's pass health care now.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 645, I was stuck in a meeting on health care and did not get back in time. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Madam Speaker, Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of the fierce urgency of now. He talked about the fact that you cannot set a deadline or timeline on somebody else's freedom. Well, there's another civil rights movement going on today in America, and that is the right for health care.

Health care is what we need now, and we cannot delay. I urge my colleagues to come together and pass a health care reform bill before we go out for the August recess because people absolutely need it, people who are fearing being dropped or put off for preexisting conditions, people being subject to discrimination because of their age or their gender.

We've got to stop this. We have got to make sure that a caring Nation cares for the health of its people. The time is now. We cannot delay. We've had enough time, Madam Speaker.

Six decades America has debated about what to fix about our broken health care system. We've done 45 hours of markups, 79 House hearings, 215 pages of bills and work to make sure that we have every input and every point of view shared.

The time is now, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it is to claim this hour, this Special Order, on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is the body of Members of Congress who believe that we're all better off together than we are separated and apart. We believe that we need a mixed economy, in which, yes, people are entitled to pursue their private dreams and make their money, but also there are certain things that we should do together, things like take care of the water, things like provide for transportation, things like provide for education and things like health care.

The Progressive Caucus is the body of people here in the Congress who stand by the idea that the civil rights movement was a great moment in American history, that FDR and the New Deal was another great moment in American history and that the steps forward to end slavery was a great moment in American history.

And yet the greatest moments of American history have not yet been written but are really still in front of us. We still have more people to bring into the ambit, bring into the embrace of this great American ideal, the progressive ideal, this idea that America

has not yet done the best it can do. We have more people to include, more people to help find that internal light of their own and that this is the time to walk forward into that history.

We have the Congressional Progressive Caucus that comes together today. We started out, Mr. Speaker, as a group that said, we would like to see in the area of health care a single-payer system. This was our position. But we've compromised, because we're practical progressives. We said we can have health care reform if we have a public option, but we can't go any further than that. There must be a public option in the health care plan. And it looks like we are going to have one. We are excited about the prospect of seeing this public option. It appears as though it is moving forward, Mr. Speaker. And it's a good thing because it's what America needs. It's what America needs.

This is the Progressive Message, and we are here to talk about health care tonight. Health care, Mr. Speaker, is the boiling issue. It is the issue that is all the talk around the Congress; it is the issue that is all the talk around America. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, it is a fact, it is a belief and a firmly held belief of my own that health care is a movement that is essentially a civil rights movement. It has the same level of intensity as that movement. And it has the same urgency as that movement.

I'm inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Mr. Speaker, who said that we have the fierce urgency of now, the fierce urgency of now, that we can't say that somebody else can get their freedom at some other time, at a more convenient time, at a time when it makes sense and is comfortable for everybody.

No, he said civil rights now, not later, and not have to say today we have got to have health care for all, right now, not later. The fierce urgency of now, Mr. Speaker.

I want to let you know, Mr. Speaker, that when I was watching television last night, I was tuned into President Barack Obama. And I want to let you know that I was very proud of President Obama last night, Mr. Speaker. President Obama came before the American people and articulated a case, as skillfully as any arguer or orator ever could, for health care, health care now.

The thing that really grabbed my attention, Mr. Speaker, is when he was asked by a reporter, why does it have to be now, and the reporter asked in somewhat of a challenging and slightly derisive tone of voice, why does it have to be now? Can't it just be some other time? Mr. Speaker, President Obama said, you know, I can't delay it when I read the letters that I get. The letters tell me that we have got to act now. We can't put it off another day. We've got to do it now. And I actually was cheering at the television screen as President Obama was saying these things. It's so nice to have a President that you truly agree with and believe in and think is a real champion for the people who elected him.

So in that spirit of President Obama saying that the letters and the stories that people are going through propel him toward action, let me share a few stories of my own, Mr. Speaker, because my constituents write me letters too, and those help move me and motivate me toward action for true health care reform. Instead of my hitting you first with the facts and figures and all those things, I just want to start out tonight, Mr. Speaker, with stories and letters from my constituents.

Let me talk about Mary from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Mary says, my daughter needed her wisdom teeth out. At the same time, with insurance, we were told to pay $375, which we did, then got billed over $1,000, resubmitted, eventually the amount was reduced to $750. In the meantime, my husband got no paycheck. I have calcium deposits in my back which make it difficult to walk, and I can't afford the copays, so I'm waiting until it's so bad that I can't walk.

Mr. Speaker, Mary needs help. Mary needs a caring, committed government that is listening to her and is going to help bring forth legislation which can allow her to work with her doctor and her health care provider with the solutions that she needs. No government official in the middle between Mary and her health care provider. That's nothing but spooky, scary stuff, and it's not true.

Let's hear from Denise: I find more and more often that my family and I are skipping doctor visits for preventive care, and when we would have made a visit to the doctor in the past, but now can't afford the co-payments to be seen. This is especially true for childhood illnesses such as allergy visits or medication, dental problems that could potentially be serious, and injuries that, in reality, should be checked out by a doctor. My family is insured. Yet because of our current employment situation, combined with rising health care costs, it has come out of reach to have the kind of health care we have enjoyed in the past. I feel that we are being left behind for an inability to be able to bear the burden of the cost. This may mean that we will pay dearly in the future for things that could have been prevented or less serious had they been able to see a doctor initially.

As I listen to Denise from Minneapolis's story, I'm thinking, Mr. Speaker, about the global, the larger trends in our society that are sweeping her up and affecting her. She's talking about being insured, having a job, but having to go without because of the costs of copays and premiums. Well, Mr. Speaker, one of these startling facts that you might want to know is that over the last 9 years, premiums have doubled for people who have insurance, and while wages have been flat, premiums have been increasing much faster than wages have, and this has made a squeeze on the American household budget. Denise needs a hand, Mr. Speaker. Denise needs somebody to care.

Janice from Golden Valley, Minnesota: I've worked every day since I turned 15, and I'm currently 51. I'm married with two teenage children. I have a college degree. We have always lived a balanced and frugal life. We do not take exotic trips and mostly buy generic groceries and thrift or discount store clothing. I do not and never have smoked or drank, and I have been in my job for 20 years, yet I bring home less and less each year due primarily to health care premiums and costs. Health care premiums and copays cost about 25 to 30 percent of my income. Health care premiums cost me more than my Federal, State, Social Security, union dues and retirement plan deduction combined from each paycheck.

The increase has been so great that we have stopped being able to contribute to savings for 4 years. The one thing I fear more than anything is me or my family member getting sick because of what treatment will cost even beyond the premium costs. When I have a strange new sensation in my eye or a vein hurting in my leg or a dull pain in my chest, I just pray it will go away on its own because I'm afraid of what it will cost me.

We pay out so much for health care insurance, yet we cannot afford to really even use it. And I feel even worse for those who have no health insurance at all. This reflects badly on what America has become, a place where only the wealthiest survive and profit by a few takes priority over the basic needs of all.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you about the story of Anita. I'm armed with statistics tonight, Mr. Speaker, and I have them. But they don't mean a thing next to these stories of these citizens, these good, honest Americans from my State of Minnesota whose stories I want to bring to you tonight.

Let me talk to you about Cynthia from Minnesota. Cynthia says: As an asthmatic and a mother of an asthmatic, I would think the insurance company would be happy that we go for our annual check up and would be willing to cover our medicines so that we stay healthy and don't end up costing them more. Much to my surprise, the insurance company would not cover our asthma checks, and the cost of our prescriptions has gone through the roof. Unfortunately, our meds are not part of the formulary drug list. What ends up happening is I cover my child's meds, and I don't get any. I just hope we are near each other if I have an attack.

Mr. Speaker, that is no way to treat Americans who are trying to make it in this society.

How about this one. Maria from Minnesota: My daughter is 24. She has had a polycystic ovarian disease since she

was 15 requiring three surgeries, five hospital visits and many, many office calls. This is a chronic condition which will probably result in infertility or at the least difficulty in achieving pregnancy. This is physically draining, as she is often in pain and has been on many narcotic pain meds, including Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin.

In addition, the idea of not having children is a tough thing to face as a teenager and young adult. If that wasn't enough, she also has a degenerative disk disease in her cervical spine. This has resulted in a herniated disk and chronic constant pain. Again, there is no cure for this and no real treatment. Since she is an adult, she no longer is eligible to be under our insurance plans. She has a BA degree, but has not been able to find long-term employment in her field which would offer benefits. Rather, she is managing a bar restaurant, which is a good job, but it's not what she went to school for.

She's working as a bartender at least 60 hours a week, on her feet all the time. She pays her own bills, lives on her own, but because of her chronic condition, has not been able to get COBRA insurance and, instead, has a policy through a private insurance company paying over $200 a month, which doesn't cover many of her needs. This is outrageous.

Please, please understand she is not sitting at home waiting for a handout. She's so motivated and such a hard worker, but the insurance costs are eating up her paychecks. She's my hero, as I can't imagine facing these conditions and then having the minimum coverage while paying the maximum bill.

Mr. Speaker, I just thought I'd start off this Progressive Hour with some real stories from real people, real stories for real people who are dealing with a very difficult situation. Mr. Speaker, let's not relegate them to the status quo.

My colleagues, many of them on the other side of the aisle, are essentially saying let's keep it how it is. Let's stop moving so fast. Let's not let this process move along too quickly. And some have been caught offhandedly making the comments that they think that they can take President Obama down. Is that what this is about, taking somebody down?

This should be about lifting somebody up, the American people, lifting them up, not trying to score a partisan point in a political game. This is real life people are going through, real life like the Minnesotans that I just talked about. But as I speak here tonight, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that in every State in this Union and in every territory of this country, there are stories exactly like these.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about what the bill actually does a little bit, but before I do, I want to talk a little bit about the cost of this health care reform because, you know, first of all, there is this big fear thing around cost, and this is one of the major ways that some detractors are trying to stop things. So first let's talk about the individual cost, the cost to the person.

Without reform, the cost of health care for the average family of four is estimated to rise $1,800 every year for years to come, and insurance companies will make more health care decisions. Okay. Status quo, hand the insurance companies 1,800 bucks every year. In 2 years that's 3,600, in 4 years it's more than that. The fact is this is the status quo. And I was so proud to hear President Obama last night saying, if somebody offered you a plan that was going to double, that was guaranteed to double in cost and was going to push more people into the ranks of the insured, would you want that, because that's what we have now. Again, another brilliant oratorical flourish rooted in the truth.

So one cost is the 1,800 bucks every year estimated to increase, but let's talk about the individual costs a little bit more. If we have health care reform, if we have health care reform, Mr. Speaker, no more copays or deductibles for preventive care. That will help a family budget. No more rate increases for preexisting conditions, gender or occupation. That will help the family budget. No more annual cap on out-of-pocket expenses. That's going to help the family budget. Group rates of a national pool, if you buy your own plan, that should hold costs down. Guaranteed affordable oral, hearing and vision care for your kids, that will definitely help the family budget out.

The fact is that this bill is designed to help families deal with the escalating costs of health care. It's not about increasing costs or increasing debt or anything like that. It's about helping the family budget stay in a place where families can actually get ahead a little bit for the first time in a long time, for the first time under a budget, under an economic philosophy where the rich didn't have enough and the poor had too much in the minds of some people.

The fact is, Mr. Speaker, we need to talk about costs tonight. We need to talk about it, and I want to go now to the recent--the CBO budget scores have been tossed around a lot. We've been hearing a lot about what the CBO says. The CBO says this, the CBO says that. Let me talk about what the CBO actually says, really says.

On July 17, the Congressional Budget Office released estimates confirming that the health care insurance reform policies of H.R. 3200, America's Affordable Health Care Choices Act, are deficit-neutral over a 10-year budget window. That means that they don't add to the budget. They're deficit-neutral, even producing a $6 billion surplus.

CBO estimated that the cost of the bill's insurance reforms was $1.042 trillion, while the bill's cost savings and revenues totaled about $1.48 trillion. This is over a 10-year period. CBO estimated that these reforms will provide affordable coverage for 97 percent of Americans 2 years after the program starts. Now, that's really something, Mr. Speaker.

It was also reported in the press, CBO also estimated that the overall bill has a net cost of $239 billion over 10 years, but this is entirely due to additional provisions in the bill to maintain current Medicare physician payment rates costing $245 billion over 10 years by preventing scheduled draconian cuts.

The House agreed earlier this year that this $245 billion cost would be exempt from PAYGO. The President's budget acknowledged the flawed Medicare physician payment formula and allotted money to address it. Then, in voting for the budget resolution in April, the House voted to exempt Medicare physician payment provisions from PAYGO. The statutory PAYGO bill to be considered by the House this week, passed through this House this week, also exempts these provisions from PAYGO.

Mr. Speaker, let me also add that this bill preserves and increases options, plan options. Those eligible for the exchange--and I'll talk about that in a moment--choose from all options, private and public. No one can steer them to any particular plan.

CBO projects that by the year 2019 about 9 to 10 million Americans, or a little more than 3 percent of Americans, will choose the public option. CBO projects that the most of these using the exchange will choose private sector plans. This confirms that the bill creates a level playing field where the public option will compete with private plans on a fair basis and that the public plan will not necessarily push them out of existence.

Again, I'm a single-payer advocate, but I wanted to talk about, just a little bit about this cost, because this is the very thing that detractors are using to try to scare Americans away from real health care reform with, and I think that Americans deserve better. They deserve the truth, and they should know that this plan is one that's designed to help save them money. Let's talk a little bit more about health care costs.

Health care costs for small businesses have grown 30 percent since the year 2000. The average family premium costs $1,100 more per year because our health care system fails to cover everyone. The average individual premium costs $410 or more.

The fact is we're joined here tonight by one of the great, great, great stalwarts and heroes of health care reform, none other than John Conyers, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, second-most senior Member of the House of Representatives.

Good evening, Congressman Conyers.

Certainly I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan.

Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan, Chairman Conyers, for coming down here. We have a chance to do a little bit of give-and-take. Actually, I'd like to ask the gentleman a few questions if the gentleman would take a question.

And my question is for you, Mr. Chairman, is why do you author H.R. 676, the single-payer bill, and why did you work so hard to try to get so many authors in the House? And you ended up getting about 80-plus authors. And why did you go all over the country, to my State of Minnesota, and talk to so many people? Why did you work so hard to push this idea of single payer forward?

I yield to the gentleman.

If the gentleman will yield for another question, do you think, Chairman Conyers, that your advocacy for single-payer health care, H.R. 676, which was widely supported, wildly supported in my district when you showed up to talk about it in Minnesota--we packed the house. Everybody was so excited. We've had several other hearings on health care since then. People always mention that hearing because the spirit was so high. Do you think that that effort for a single payer actually helped gain enough momentum to at least make sure we had a public option for consideration in the current version of the bill?

If the gentleman would yield back, I wonder if the gentleman would offer another question. As the Chair of the Judiciary, the chief author of H.R. 676, we're talking about a public option. Could you offer your opinion as to why anyone who claims to be in favor of free markets would be afraid of having the public option included in other private insurance offerings in the exchange?

The health care proposal is that if you have your health insurance, employer-based health insurance, you can keep that and that some improvements would be no exclusion for preexisting condition, no discrimination for age and gender. And then, the second thing, if you have a government program now, like Medicare, you can keep that. And we try to get more people enrolled in Medicaid who are eligible for that.

And then, of course, the third option, the new option, would be the exchange standardized benefits, which would include eight private insurance offerings, together with a public option.

And so my question to you is: Why are the free marketeers afraid of a public option? What are they scared of? I thought they were in favor of competition.

I yield to the gentleman.

Well, if the gentleman yields back, if the cost of health care is lower for families, will this allow them to be able to meet more of their basic needs and put food on the table, send kids to school, buy adequate amounts of clothing? Will this allow them to escape having to rely on credit cards and payday lenders just to be able to make it through the week?

I yield to the gentleman.

That's an interesting point. Do people who live in conservative areas where their Representatives are fighting for the status quo, are these people exempt from these escalating health care costs, these escalating premiums? And do people who live in the so- called ``red'' States, folks who are being excluded for preexisting conditions, being dropped, do people who have Representatives who fight for the status quo get some sort of a pass under our current health care system?

Well, if the gentleman yields back, I just want to point out that you mentioned Medicare has an administrative fee of about 3 to 5 percent. The fact is, however, that if you look at the top five health insurance companies, their administrative costs are 17 percent, and if you look at the average overall private insurance, it's about 14 percent.

What do they spend all that money on? How come they can't get down to a reasonable percentage of medical loss ratio? Does the fact that some of these CEOs just get exorbitant pay have anything to do with it? And if there was a public option--the CEO of the public option, I guess, would be Governor Sebelius, who is the Secretary of HHS, Health and Human Services. She is not making $10 million a year as a public servant. I guess my question is what are they spending all that money on. How come they can't be more efficient?

Well, if the gentleman would yield, it was recently reported that the lobbyists are spending $1.4 million a day to try to stop health care. Why would they want to spend so much money? And does this amount of money, $1.4 million a day, how does that compare to the profits that they reap by, say, excluding people? They are excluding their enrollees and are not covering medical procedures.

I just want to say that in this last 5 minutes that we're here tonight with this Progressive Hour that the goal and the purpose and the soul of our efforts to reform health care should focus on the word care, health care. We should act like we care. This is not widgets; this is people.

At the beginning of this hour, Mr. Speaker and Congressman Conyers, I shared stories about people from my district. I know you could have done the same thing. You get letters. The President gets letters. We all get letters. But care should be what drives us. I believe that you, Mr. Conyers, have worked so hard and done so much to start with a single payer, but because of your advocacy, we have gotten to a point where a public option is a real option, and I thank you for that.

But public option is not the best name. It could be called patient option or a we're-in-this-together option, an option that says that we're going to have a public plan that could compete with the private plans, that could have some real cost drivers; not just drive down cost, but can offer best practices so that we really put an emphasis on health care and wellness, not just on processing people, fee-for- service, overutilization, which, as you know, has been a very serious, serious problem.

I think as we close up, Mr. Speaker--and I want to leave the gentleman from Michigan time to make some closing remarks, and we'll give him the final word since he's so eloquent--I just want to say that it's important for us to understand that if Americans want real health care reform, the time is now, I think, Mr. Speaker, to raise your voice. I'm not saying what people should or shouldn't do, but I'm saying that if you want health care reform, this is not the time to be silent. It's a time to raise your voice. And if you happen to live in an area where you have a Representative who is not for reform, I think that this is an especially important time to have something to say about that and exercise your constitutional right and offer your views on that.

I just want to say that we've fought hard here, and this piece of legislation that we're fighting for now is every bit of a civil rights issue as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed just a few years before you came to Congress, Mr. Conyers, so you really were in the ambit and in the aura of this great triumph of American democracy. You were a friend of Martin Luther King. In fact, Rosa Parks worked in your office for many years and was a dear friend of yours throughout her life.

I think I feel something like what you must have felt then, that we are on the doorstep of seeing great change in the American democracy, but it's going to take the energy and the prayers and the voices of everyone to get us over the line. When the President comes out on the television here at prime time, it's not just because he doesn't have anything else to do.

It's serious. It's important, and it's very essential that everybody click in, raise their voice and make sure that if you want health care reform, if you want an end to being dropped and kicked off and denied for a preexisting condition, that if you're tired of discrimination because of gender and because of age, if you feel that a public option should be able to compete with a private insurance to drive cost down, and if you really believe that in our country that a health insurance company should be able to operate with a 4 or 5, 6 or 7 percent administrative cost as opposed to 17, 18, 19 percent, completely inefficient, then it's time to step up and do something about it. It's time to step forward.

If you want to do something about health care disparities between people of color and other people, it's time to step up and do something about it. This is not the time to sit back and figure, Well, Conyers will probably save us. Obama will save us. Somebody will do the right thing. No, this is time for everybody to step up and demonstrate their own leadership.

With the moments remaining, I just want to yield--I think that's it. The gentleman from Michigan has yielded to me. Therefore, what I'm going to do is thank the Speaker for allowing us to come to the floor tonight and talk about the Progressive Caucus, arguing for a public option, starting out our debate for single-payer health care, but being reasonable and being practical and saying that we've got to have a public option, that that is where we stop compromising.

We've done our part already. We are proud that people like Congressman Kucinich have made it possible for States to be able to pursue single-payer. We're practical Progressives. We're not doctrine here. We're practical. What we want is good results for the people of the United States so we can join the 36 other countries in this world who have national health insurance.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the life of Sai Yang, a passionate and determined woman, a wife, mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Sai was the matriarch of the Chang family and influential in the lives of not only her own children and grandchildren, but that of her entire community. Sai was also the mother-in-law of my good friend, Senator Mee Moua of St. Paul.

Sai was born in 1934 to Cha Doua Yang and Ying Kue in the remote jungle village of Nhu Ka in Laos.

After the United States left Laos in May of 1975, Sai and her family sought refuge in the jungles and remote villages of Laos for several years before finally arriving on freedom's shore in Thailand in 1979.

After six months in a Thai refugee camp, Sai's family was granted political asylum to the United States and arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii on February 1, 1980. A year later, her family moved to Minnesota.

In her new life in the U.S., Sai learned how to read and write in her native Hmong language and in conversational English. In 1997, she became a U.S. Citizen. She subsequently voted in five presidential elections and helped to elect her daughter-in-law Mee Moua to the Minnesota State Senate; the highest among elected officials in the United States.

In 1995, Sai was chosen as part of the delegation of Hmong American women who attended the United Nation's Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China.

Sai Yang passed away on July 7, 2009 in St. Paul and is survived by five sons, three daughters, 39 grandchildren, 27 great grandchildren, a brother, a sister, and the extended Chang and Yang families in Minnesota, across the U.S. and other countries.

Sai Yang enriched many lives and she will be missed dearly by all who knew her.

Madam Speaker, on July 17, 2009, I inadvertently failed to vote on rollcall No. 574. Had I voted, I would have voted ``yea.''

My name is Keith Ellison; and I am appearing on behalf of the Progressive Caucus, which is again coming to the House floor to discuss a progressive vision for America, a vision of America that has a central focus of the American quality of life being better for all people, that has a central focus of the welfare of Americans being better than it was before. In the Progressive Caucus, Mr. Speaker, we have a set of values which say that yes, we can live in harmony with the planet Earth; yes, we can engage in activity that will allow all Americans to have health care; yes, we can have civil rights for all people; yes, America can be a party and a member in the global village in which we promote peace and in which we stand with nations who are struggling to emerge around the world.

The progressive vision for America, a progressive vision that says that the greatest points in our Nation's history were when we passed the law for civil rights for all people; a progressive vision where we said the Wagner Act, where workers will have rights, was a great moment in American history; a progressive vision where we put together the resources necessary to pull America out of the Great Depression and into a greater level of rights, a greater level of prosperity and a greater level of community.

Tonight we're talking about health care, and I hope to be joined by my colleague soon. But I just want to set out that this is the congressional progressive message; and if anybody wants to communicate with us, they can do so at cpc.grijalva.house.gov. It is very important that folks know how to get in touch with us. Mr. Speaker, this is the progressive message where we come every week on the House floor to talk about a progressive vision. Health care is the topic. Health care is the issue for the American people today. Health care is what everybody is talking about here on Capitol Hill, and this is the progressive message where we talk about a progressive vision for America.

Now I'm using these boards to help illustrate a point; but the main concept here, as we talk about the progressive vision for America's health care, we want to start out with a central idea; and that is, care should be the watchword. We should be talking about care, not who pays, not who doesn't pay. Care. We should not be talking about all the complicated mechanisms first. We'll get to that as it's time to talk about that and there will be a good and appropriate time to debate these more complicated issues.

But the first thing we start with, as we talk about a progressive vision, is care, health care. Care should be where we start. Care should be how we end. If we care for each other, as Americans, if we regard all Americans as essential and important, we will construct a health care system and bring forth health care reform which makes sense for everybody, which costs less than this system does now because this system is not driven by care. It's driven by something else, which I will get to in a moment. We also have to have in this health care reform package a public option. But when I use the word public option, what I really mean is a we're-all-in-this-together option. A public option is an option that says that, look, we will have a public option, together with private options, in which the public can say, look, I want to select that public option because it works for me and my family or my business, and that's what people can take advantage of. There will be private options in the system, in the exchange. But this health care reform starts with the idea of care and states that the public option, which will be included in this health care reform bill and is in the bill now, is really a we're-in-this-together option.

That is what it is about. That is the point. That is what we are going for. And we will talk more about that later. But I think it is important that when people talk about a public option, we are talking about an option that is available for Americans to select which really says, we are not going to leave you out in the cold, you're not by yourself, this ownership society is not a you're-on-your-own society. In fact, it is a society in which we are all in this thing together. So, Mr. Speaker, as I said before, care is what drives our vision.

But the system, the status quo, has something else driving the vision. Health care reform means patients before profits. That is what health care reform means. Health care reform doesn't mean that there won't be profits. Of course, there will be. There will be private businesses on the exchange. There will be people making money. Doctors will continue to make good salaries, nurses as well; and other people who do good things for society will be compensated fairly, of course.

But the fact is we will not have these insurance companies that are not allowed to just charge anything they want and pay their CEOs anything they want. We will have something where patient care will be what is important in this health care reform system.

So, I want to talk tonight, Mr. Speaker, about exactly what health care reform must include. And so let me just get to this board, and then I have a chart which will simplify it. Mr. Speaker, I believe there are folks who want to make this thing complicated. They want to make it hard to understand, and people just sort of switch off their minds and say, well, it is really complicated, so I don't get it, and they seem to be talking bad about it, so I am just not going to plug in.

I believe Americans really, really want health care reform. And I want them to know what this health care reform bill is talking about. As I said, a progressive vision is a vision that makes ``care'' the operative phrase in health care and puts patients before profits, although profits are not out of the picture. They are still around. But patient care is really what is driving the conversation.

A health care reform bill must include guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or preexisting condition. Mr. Speaker, how many Americans are at home right now who are checking over their bills, who are perhaps anxiety ridden or maybe even in tears because they have just been dropped or denied coverage because of a preexisting condition?

I told a story last week, Mr. Speaker, about a dear friend of mine who called me aside at a community forum I had on health care in my hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She said to me with tears in her eyes that she had a dilemma. She didn't know what to do. Her sister and her mom had succumbed to breast cancer. She thinks she is at risk. She knows that if she goes to get the test to find out, then she will be presumed to have a preexisting condition and could be dropped. But if she doesn't, and she does have the early stages of breast cancer, she will not be getting the care that she needs. So she gets the test now, she can be dropped for having a preexisting condition. If she doesn't get the test now, her breast cancer could be advancing. This is the situation that so many Americans are in today, and it is wrong.

The health care reform we are talking about, guaranteed eligibility, no American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of illness or preexisting condition, meaning that insurance companies just can't insure the people who are well and the people who never make claims. They have to insure everybody, comprehensive benefits.

The new public plan, this is the you're-not-on-your-own plan, will cover all essential medical services including preventative, maternity, mental health and disease management programs. This is comprehensive benefits. This is different from some of those plans you get that is a good plan for health care only it doesn't cover anything, only it has a high deductible, high co-pay, high premium and doesn't offer any real coverage, and this is excluded, that is excluded, doesn't cover this, doesn't cover that. That is not the kind of plan we are talking about.

Comprehensive benefits, affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles, as I just said they got a certain version of health care out there now that the private market has coughed up where they have high co-pays, high premiums, high deductibles, meaning if you go to the doctor, you got to pay a lot, you got to pay a lot out of your check every 2 weeks or every month when you get paid; and then if you need a procedure, you got to cough up a lot of your own personal money because they don't cover everything or even nearly everything.

So, participants will be charged fair premiums and minimal co-pays and deductibles for preventative services. So that means if you want to stay healthy by doing preventative health care, that option will be available to you.

Subsidies. Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but who still need assistance will receive income-related Federal subsidies and keep health insurance premiums affordable. So we are not going to leave anybody out. Even people who are the lower income scale and have to have health care, have to be able to go and see a doctor, have to be able to get preventative services; and this will be covered.

So health care reform, guaranteed eligibility, no exclusion for a preexisting condition, comprehensive benefits, a good plan that covers things that you need, affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles and subsidies for people who need them.

So this is a chart that we developed, Mr. Speaker, to try to make it simple for folks, because it is complicated. It is our job in Congress to try to boil this stuff down and make it digestible. And so we came up with this little chart to try to talk about what is going on. Let's just say, here is the path to health care for all. Up here at the top of the box, Mr. Speaker, you got every American.

What the plan will yield is basically three of these bubbles that you will fit into. One of them is employer-based insurance. You have heard President Obama say, if you like your health care, keep it. That is what that is. If you like your health care, keep it. It is exactly what you have now if you have employer-based health care, but it is going to cost less. There will be no more discrimination for preexisting conditions. There will be no discrimination for age or gender. And we will have a medical loss ratio of 85 percent because 85 percent of the premiums must go to patient care. So they won't be able to just stuff their pockets with those $100 million salaries some of these health care insurance companies CEOs make.

This is a lot like we have now, only we will have improvement because of cost, because of the medical loss, what is known as the ``medical loss ratio'' and because of the banning of the exclusion for preexisting conditions. Then also we have public programs that exist now, Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, still available to children, seniors and families below the poverty line. This will still be there. This is not going anywhere. We are going to have Medicare, we are going to have Medicaid, and we are going to have SCHIP. That is still there.

What is going to be new, Mr. Speaker, is a health care insurance exchange. This is going to be new. This bubble is going to be kind of new. And it is going to go into effect in a few months perhaps after we pass the bill, perhaps as much as 12 months; but it will be counted in months.

Who is eligible for the health care insurance exchange? Individuals and small businesses will be able to go into the exchange. And what will be on the exchange? Private insurance plans that people can purchase, and what you will have there is a public option.

Now, people who go into the health care exchange will be subsidized for up to 400 percent of the poverty level. That means if you are at the poverty level times four, you take that income you have at the poverty level times four, if you make 400 percent of the poverty level, meaning you make well over the poverty level but still you don't have enough to afford health care, you can receive some sort of subsidy to make sure that you can afford coverage.

Then, you can go into the exchange, and you might be able to pick your policy because the policies will be standardized, and you will be able to pick one, be it a public plan or a private plan. And you will be able to get your health care policy picking the one that you want, guaranteeing that you will have choice, guaranteeing that you will have options and you will be able to select based on your needs. We are going to revisit this chart in a moment, Mr. Speaker, because it is important to go back to it.

So I just wanted to say that tonight what we want to do with this Progressive hour is talk about helping folks to understand the health care reform plan, helping folks to understand what the public option is. As I said before, the public option should be understood. It is something that is going to help you, something that means that this is our commitment to each other, like Social Security is our commitment to each other, like other important public programs are a commitment to each other, our roads are a commitment to each other. It is what we all do together to make sure people can make it. This is what the public option represents.

So, Mr. Speaker, many in Congress, the House and Senate, believe that any significant health care reform package must include a robust public option. We have seen leaders, brave and courageous legislators like Russ Feingold in the Senate and Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer in the Senate over in the other body talking about the importance of a public option. But here in the House we have heard the same commitment from some great leaders like John Lewis, Lois Capps and Congresswoman Pingree from Maine, who is new to this body, all making important commitments to support a public option, on both sides, of course. We heard the President talk about the public option as well.

So we have people in all three, in both Houses and in the President's Office, talking about the public option. We have talked a little bit about what it means. But let me just elaborate on that a little bit. What it means at its heart is it means giving the uninsured the option to enroll in a public health care plan that is sort of like Medicare. That is what it means at bottom, giving the uninsured the option, the choice, the choice to enroll in a public health care plan like Medicare. A public insurance option would compete. We are talking competition here, Mr. Speaker. We are not talking about not competing. We are talking about competing.

Under the system we have now, we don't have much competition. But with a public option, we will have some competition. And this public option will compete on a level playing field with private health insurers, and the uninsured individuals would get a chance to choose which plan is best for them.

If you look at the health care market today, and you go into a given area, everybody knows that one or two firms dominate in that particular area, maybe three. Sometimes you just really don't have any options at all, Mr. Speaker. And so we have a lack of insurance right now, a lack of a competition now; and what we need to do is get some real competition.

Why is having a public health care option important? There are many reasons, but here are a few. A broad number of research and a broad spectrum of research has confirmed that a public health insurance option is a key component of cost containment. To drive down the cost of health care, you need a public option, because what it does is it introduces more competition, lower administrative expenses and drives cost-saving innovation. Some folks don't know that our health insurance industry right now is exempt from antitrust legislation and doesn't really have to compete. But a public option will drive them to competition, which is a good thing.

Also, need for a public option, according to research from the Commonwealth Fund, the net administrative cost for Medicare and Medicaid are 5 and 8 percent respectively. These are plans, Medicare and Medicaid, which already drive reasonable cost down so that the folks who participate in these programs are not being charged for a bunch of stuff that they don't need. They are getting low administrative costs.

Now I just want to say that I have been joined now by one of my favorite

colleagues, Donna Edwards, who by the way, is a pretty good softball player, that is an aside, but Congresswoman Edwards is here. She represents a district in Maryland. And let me just give her a chance to sort of jump in on this important conversation going on in Congress right now.

Congresswoman Edwards, how are you doing tonight? Let me yield to you.

Will the gentlelady yield to a question, perhaps?

Congresswoman Edwards, we've been hearing a lot of rhetoric about this health care plan. This health care plan, which I agree with you, we need to be excited about it because this is a great and propitious moment in America. But we've been hearing detractors. We've been hearing this government-run health care, all this kind of stuff. Have you heard this kind of rhetoric before? And should anyone listen to it?

I yield to the gentlelady.

If the gentlelady would yield, I hope the gentlelady doesn't mind me asking her a few other questions.

My next question is, why do you think that it's been reported that the detractors to health care reform are spending up to $1.2 million a day here to lobby Congress?

I'd yield to the gentlelady. Why are they spending so much money?

I agree with the gentlelady, and couldn't agree more. And I want to thank her for making the point she's made.

We've been joined by Congressman Hank Johnson from the great State of Georgia. And we're talking health care reform tonight. The Progressive Caucus offering a progressive vision to care for Americans. And we were just speaking a moment ago about how we need a robust public option; that we're excited about the possibility to pass health care for Americans. This is a 60-year debate. Some people go back to 1994. But we all know this debate goes back way before that.

This is an opportunity, equal to passing, in my view, civil rights legislation, equal to passing environmental protection legislation, equal to making a leap forward for the benefit and welfare of all Americans.

And I guess my question to you, and I don't want to tailor what you want to share with us tonight, Congressman, but I do just want to see if I could get your views on why, for example, the Washington Post reported that the Nation's largest insurers, hospitals, medical groups, have hired more than 350, 350 former government and staff members and retired Members of Congress in hopes of influencing colleagues in opposition to health care reform to the tune of about 1.4, I'm reading now, I was going from memory before, $1.4 million a day. Why would they do such a thing, unless they thought that this was a reasonable cost of doing business?

Does the Congressman have any views?

I yield to the gentleman.

So I thank the gentleman.

If the gentleman yields back, I just want to do a very quick update for the folks who may have just tuned in. We're talking about health care reform tonight with the Progressive Caucus, and the health care reform must include guaranteed eligibility. That means no American will be turned away from any insurance plan because of an illness or preexisting condition.

The bill also includes comprehensive benefits. This is what we need to have. This is what the bill offers: affordable premiums, copays, and deductibles. Participants will be charged fair premiums, minimal copays, and subsidies of families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need assistance.

What this bill calls for--and I think it's important, and I hope my colleagues agree--is to try to make this thing simple so that people can get a grip on it. The path to health care for all, under the proposed bill, what would happen is under these three bubbles, if you have employer-based health insurance now, you will be able to keep that, but you will have certain things that control costs, including no more discrimination for preexisting conditions, no discrimination for gender, for issues like that.

Also medical-loss ratio, 85 percent, so that at least 85 percent of the premiums must go to patient care. People who have public programs now such as SCHIP or Medicare or Medicaid can keep their program if they qualify. And there won't be much that they have to worry about. It will be pretty much how it is now.

But then there will be this exchange which is new. And who will qualify for the exchange? People who are the uninsured--individuals and small businesses. And they will be subsidized for up to 400 percent of the poverty level. And within this exchange will be a public plan, and there will be private plans which have standardized benefits which they will have to compete for and will drive down costs.

The fact is, it's not complicated. It's not that difficult. Of course, the bill has a lot of pages because there are a lot of things to consider. But the fact is that this is not a difficult thing, and we're going to be working to make sure people understand it.

I would also like to just mention that change is necessary. Change is necessary, and there will be some pay-fors. The fact is only 1.2 percent of American households will have to pay the American surcharge for health care reform. That leaves about 98 percent of American households who will not pay any surcharge.

And people who are blessed to be at that top, tip-top part of the income scale, I really believe, as good Americans who care about their fellow countrymen and -women, that they would not mind helping to cover the costs of health care. I think it's an act of patriotism, and I think it's a good act of social responsibility to say that if we, the top 1.2 percent, have been able to benefit from the massive tax cuts that have benefited this group of people over the last number of years, that now that the country needs health care insurance, now that it's not given up a substantial part of their income, that they would be able to contribute this.

But I think it's important to talk about the fact that under this bill, a family making up to $350,000--which is a pretty good amount of money--in adjusted gross income will not owe any surcharge at all. And a family making $500,000 a year in adjusted gross income will contribute about $1,500 to help reduce cost and provide access to affordable health care for all.

The fact is it's important to try to keep on talking about what the bill calls for so people will understand it.

We've been very fortunate to be joined by John Hall, who is out front on nearly every progressive issue. Let me welcome the gentleman and yield to him so he can get in this conversation.

Now let's hear from the Congresswoman from Maryland, Ms. Edwards.

How do you react to these claims?

I thank the gentlelady for yielding back.

Let me now go to the gentleman again from Georgia. And I actually have a question I would like to pose to the gentleman, although the gentleman will talk about whatever he wants.

And the question that I would like to pose to the gentleman is: Is this thing that we're embarking on, this health care reform plan which includes the public option, historically, is this a small thing or is this a big deal? Is this a time for rejoicing? Is this a big moment in history that people should be excited about?

I yield to the gentleman.

I want to thank the gentleman. Again, this is the Progressive Caucus coming with our weekly progressive message on the floor tonight with three progressive leaders who have been speaking up for health care reform.

Let me turn now to Congressman Hall for a moment. We've only got about 10 minutes left. So I'd like to see the three colleagues share this time equally, and I don't need much time to close, but I'd like the public to hear, Mr. Speaker, from these three leaders in our Congress, and I guess I will just hand it right on over to Congressman Hall.

I want to thank the gentleman, and that was a very important story for us as we wind down, and now I turn to the gentlelady from Maryland, Congresswoman Edwards.

I thank the gentlewoman, and let me yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Well, let me thank the gentleman, and let me remind everybody that this is the Progressive message, the Progressive Caucus coming together; and I just want to leave us with this.

Mary from Minneapolis says, My daughter needed her wisdom teeth out. At the time with insurance we were told to pay $375 and we did. Then we got billed over a thousand. Resubmitted, eventually the amount was reduced to 750. In the meantime, my husband had no paycheck.

Her second story was, she had calcium deposits in her back which make it difficult for her to walk, and yet she's having to delay her treatment until such time that it gets to be an emergency.

There are health care nightmare stories all across America. This Democratic Caucus is hearing the cries of the American people and bringing forth reform, with a bill that includes a robust public option, will stop people being dropped and denied for preexisting conditions; and we hope, Mr. Speaker, that people all over America talk about the fact that hope is on the way, change is on the way.

And I'm looking forward to pushing green on this bill, just like my colleague from Maryland talked about, feeling good about this change that's coming. Not that we don't have some tweaks to do, but, hey look, any tweak is nothing compared to the hope that this bill represents to the American people.

So, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you and the Congress.