Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 815 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, we are a Nation at war, and our Commander-in-Chief is more focused on how to engineer a government takeover of our health care system than he is on prosecuting the war in Afghanistan. It is my belief, having read General McChrystal's 65-page report on what is necessary to win this war, that he was pressured by the administration to strip his request for how many troops out of this report.

When things were going bad in Iraq in 2007, the Commander-in-Chief then, George W. Bush, turned to his military commander on the ground in Iraq and said, What will it take to turn this situation around? And General Petraeus came up with a plan, came before the Armed Services Committees for the House and the Senate to address what was necessary to turn the tide in Iraq, and he was granted what he requested for.

The President needs to allow General McChrystal to give an honest assessment of what it will take to win in Afghanistan, and General McChrystal needs to share that with the Congress of the United States.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 801. I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Tonight, I am joined by Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado and by Congressman Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania.

What we want to talk about tonight is the impact that health care reform, or the Democrat proposal, is having on small businesses throughout this country. It wasn't that long ago that the President's chief economic adviser, Christina Romer, looked at the proposal, H.R. 3200, and said that this could cost up to 5.5 million jobs. So it is important that we talk about why this happens.

About $900 billion is the target for the cost of the proposal, of H.R. 3200, with half of it coming from Medicare and with half of it coming from increased taxes, surcharges and penalties.

So, with that, let me first refer to my colleague from Colorado, Congressman Doug Lamborn, to talk about the effects of these new taxes, surcharges and penalties on small business.

Will the gentleman yield back just for a moment?

Congressman Lamborn, let's talk about that whole thing.

It starts out at 2 percent. As we know, in looking at section 313 of the bill, when we talk about the gross annual payroll of $250,000 to $300,000, it's at 2 percent. Then it moves up to 4 percent when going to $350,000. Then with $400,000 of gross annual payroll and above, it goes to 8 percent. So it's at 4, 6 and 8 percent.

Many small businesses which cannot afford health care insurance are going to be hit with a penalty of 8 percent. Clearly, they're going to have to make a decision: Either they're going to have to reduce that payroll to be able to pay that tax or they're going to have to close their doors--one of the two.

I think what Washington doesn't understand is that these small businesses are hanging on by their fingernails right now trying to keep their doors open, and unlike the Congress of the United States, they can't simply print money when they don't have it. So this is putting them in an impossible position. I think, simply, that the liberals in this Congress just don't get it. They're just not understanding the stresses of small businesses in America today, small businesses which have been, historically, the greatest job creators in our economy.

I yield back.

At this time, I would like to recognize Congressman Glenn Thompson from the State of Pennsylvania.

Congressman Thompson, what do you think about this issue in terms of H.R. 3200, which is the Democratic bill before the Congress, and its impact on small business in the State of Pennsylvania?

I yield to my fellow Congressman from the State of Colorado, Mr. Jared Polis.

In this proposal, that it is not--I think the Congressman well-stated it as to the issues on the income tax and that this is an additional burden, but this is on the payroll tax. This is a payroll tax. This is whether or not the business is profitable.

The business could be hit hard, could be stressed, losing money, trying to keep his doors open. If it cannot afford health care, then it will be hit with an 8 percent surcharge of its gross annual payroll.

We also have Congressman Rob Bishop. I yield to Congressman Bishop to address this issue.

Let me go to Congressman Thompson and then we will go to Congressman Lamborn.

Thank you, Congressman Thompson.

Congressman Lamborn, when we look at this, H.R. 3200, it not only says that there could be up to an 8 percent surcharge on a small business that doesn't have health insurance, the schedule goes to 8 percent if they have adjusted gross wages of $400,000 or more, which isn't a lot for a small business, given the number of employees that it might have, but it also goes beyond that. And it says they have to pay 72.5 percent, at a minimum, of a federally qualified plan under the insurance exchange, and for the family, for a full-time employee, they have to cover about 65 percent. And so what impact is that going to have for your folks in the Fifth Congressional District in Colorado?

Congressman Bishop, when we talk about the issue of competition, you have mentioned some innovative things that Utah is doing. But it is amazing to me that right now, by law, we don't allow small businesses to band together for the purchase of health insurance to get the same kind of discounts that large corporations have. We have a law in the Federal books that provides an antitrust exemption for the insurance industry, and small businesses and individuals in particular are limited and can't purchase health insurance across State lines to get the most price-competitive policy, the best quality that they can afford.

What, in your view, is needed to fix this system? Because one of the reasons why we are talking about the public option is because the Democrats are saying there's not competition, there's not adequate competition, and so we have to introduce government into this equation. Is there a free market solution to this?

Thank you, Congressman Bishop.

Congressman Thompson, when we talk about the safety net that exists today, and you came from the health care industry, the first bill that the President signed was the SCHIP bill that went four times above the poverty level to provide a public insurance program for children, so that's $88,000 for a family of four, and States can do income disregards and raise the amount up more; we have Medicaid for the poor and disabled; we've got Medicare for elderly.

In my State, we have 183 community health clinics that, if you look at their Web site for the 2008 annual report, shows that they had about 400,000 patients in 2008, not patient visits, but patients that received preventive care, primary care, dental care and mental health services. This is in a State of 5 million that is publicly funded. Some of it folks can pay as they have the ability to. It's for the uninsured and the underinsured.

We have a high-risk insurance pool in the State of Colorado for everyone who buys an insurance product, pays a premium tax, and part of that goes into a pool for anybody, regardless of their income, that can't qualify for a public program; and irrespective of their preexisting condition, they receive health insurance that is capped at 140 percent of the average premium price in the State of Colorado.

Can you address to us your view as a former health care professional about the safety net that exists in America?

Would the gentleman yield for a question?

Representative Thompson, the bill, H.R. 3200, strips hundreds of billions of dollars out of the Medicare system, and it effectively shuts down the Medicare Advantage program. The trustees of Medicare have already said that in 2017, not by 2017, but in 2017, Medicare is expected to go broke. So there's solvency issues in Medicare. And yet we're stripping hundreds of billions of dollars out of the Medicare system.

Can you speak to that and its impact on the elderly?

Would the gentleman yield for a question? Congressman Thompson, we talked about cost shifting, and I know clearly there's cost shifting for uncompensated care, but there's also cost shifting for

Medicare and Medicaid. The underfunding of those government programs have done much more in terms of cost shifting on to the private insurance market and have had a big factor in escalating premiums.

But when we talk about how government sets rates, it doesn't set rates really to the market, as a private company would have to do. It can set rates at an artificially low level because it doesn't have to respond to the market.

I wonder if you could address that, and why the public option would destroy private insurance?

Congressman Bishop, you have talked about some of the health care reform measures before the Congress, some of the Republican measures. I think you referenced one by Congressman Shadegg, and you referenced another one, let's see, Congressman Shadegg and Congressman Price. I think you referenced two Republican health care proposals.

I think that everybody in the Congress agrees that reform is necessary, that the system isn't working as it should, that people are paying too much for health care, that we need to do more for the uninsured. It is a question of how we get there, and do we do a government takeover of the system by inserting a government-controlled health care plan, or are there market-based solutions.

I wonder if you could give your view on how you see reform.

Thank you.

Congressman Thompson, there is a great deal of discussion, particularly among seniors, that are very concerned about changes in their health care--is their health care specifically going to be rationed? When we look at the fact we are stripping hundreds of billions of dollars out of Medicare to fund the public option, and the fact that Medicare has solvency problems of its own, it is projected to run out of money in 2017, so then we have a commission. If they revert to the public option, the services that are allowed to be provided in the public option are going to be defined by bureaucrats. It is not going to be about a doctor-patient relationship in terms of what is going to be provided. There is a commission, I believe, that is established to decide what services will be provided in the public option.

And seniors are concerned because 25 percent or more of health care is used in the latest stages of life. And so what does that mean for them? And maybe you could address that.

Thank you, Congressman Thompson, and thank you Congressman Bishop. And we had Congressman Lamborn from Colorado, Doug Lamborn earlier, and Congressman Polis as well talked about these issues. I certainly hope that we can have a bipartisan solution on what I think is a very critical issue, and that really needs to involve both parties of Congress in a negotiation that we don't have right now. And I think that's a great tragedy that it hasn't been a bipartisan process. But I believe that there are market-based solutions that will not endanger this economy in terms of creating unemployment through the burdens on small business and driving the deficit and driving the debt of this country beyond what it is today. And from the Republican point of view, thank you.

Madam Speaker, Happy New Year.

Today is October first, the start of the 2010 Fiscal Year. That means it is also Fiscal New Year.

My short time here in Washington has convinced me that many inside the Beltway are out of touch with the real day-to-day lives of those in the rest of the country.

So we should do what many Americans do, and use the New Year as an opportunity to reassess how we are doing, and to make resolutions to improve our behavior.

Today, I offer some Fiscal New Year Resolutions for Congress:

Number One: Balance the budget.

CBO estimates that the 2009 deficit will be 1.6 trillion dollars, and the cumulative deficit over the next ten years will equal 9.1 trillion dollars.

Number Two: Lower our debt.

Even if we stop deficit spending, we already carry 11 trillion in debt. We should be addressing this burden, not increasing it.

Number Three: Act responsibly.

We need to make sure Congress can and does read the bills they pass. We need time to study and evaluate them before a vote.

Number Four: Study economics.

Congress obviously needs some lessons in how markets work. We need to recognize that Government control in what should be the private sector destroys efficiencies. We need to reward success, not bail-out failure. And we need to understand that government competition destroys markets.

Madam Speaker, I hope Congress can so resolve.

Mr. Speaker, in 2007, the Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush, relied on his military commander on the ground to give him an assessment as to what it would take to turn around what was then a very bad situation in Iraq. General Petraeus made his case before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and he was given the resources that he requested. The surge in Iraq provided the necessary level of security that ultimately allowed the political process there to move forward.

Similarly, General Stanley McChrystal has been charged by the Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, to give an assessment of what it will take to win in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that the President had committed to earlier this year.

I believe General McChrystal's report was politically sanitized and General McChrystal needs to appear before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees to give an honest assessment of what is going on in Afghanistan.

Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today to commemorate the 220th Anniversary of the United States Marshals Service on September 24, 2009. The U.S. Marshals Service is our Nation's oldest and most versatile federal law enforcement agency. Since its national inception in 1789, the U.S. Marshals Service has served a unique place in America's history.

The first U.S. marshal in the Colorado Territory was appointed by President Lincoln and began his service on March 25, 1861. On August 1, 1876, Colorado became the 38th State, which created the Judicial District of Colorado. U.S. marshals and their deputies have served the District of Colorado since with great valor and courage. With their broad statutory law enforcement authority granted by the Judiciary Act of 1789, U.S. marshals and their deputies distributed presidential proclamations, tamed the American West, registered enemy aliens in time of war, helped conduct the national census, protected the President, and served on the front lines of the civil rights movement. More recently, deputy U.S. marshals have been called by Presidential orders and have served valiantly during national emergencies--large-scale natural disasters, hurricanes and to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Today the men and women of the U.S. Marshals Service, District of Colorado, maintain their core mission to serve and protect our Federal courts. They ensure the safe conduct of judicial proceedings and protect Federal judges, jurors, and other members of the Federal judiciary. They provide for the safety and security of protected witnesses through the Witness Security Division. The U.S. Marshals Service also provides for the safe and secure transportation of federal inmates for federal court proceedings and to and from correctional facilities. Additionally, the U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for managing nearly 1.7 billion dollars worth of seized property illegally acquired through criminal means by maintaining and promptly disposing of assets through its Asset Forfeiture Program.

Most notably, the U.S. Marshals Service is the federal government's primary agency for conducting fugitive investigations. The men and women of the Marshals Service apprehend more federal fugitives than all other federal agencies combined. Working with law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels, Marshals-led task forces arrested an additional 73,000 state and local fugitives, clearing 90,600 state and local felony warrants. The Marshals currently leads 82 district fugitive task forces and seven regional fugitive task forces dedicated to locating and apprehending wanted criminals. The U.S. Marshals Service has developed close working relationships with other law enforcement agencies on fugitive matters, and provides assistance, expertise and training to agencies on the federal, state, local and international levels. The U.S. Marshals Service is the premier agency to apprehend foreign fugitives believed to be in the United States, and it is the agency responsible for locating and extraditing American fugitives who flee to foreign countries.

In closing, Madam Speaker, I would therefore submit that we congratulate the U.S. Marshals Service on their 220th Anniversary for their past and present accomplishments, and that those men and women we recognize wear ``America's Star'' nationally in their selfless dedication to Justice, Integrity and Service.

Mr. Speaker, the President's mention of a tort reform demonstration project in his speech to Congress last week was a red herring. By putting Secretary Sebelius in charge of evaluating a tort reform demonstration project, the President has left tort reform to the former executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. The President may have well just said, ``We need to protect the hen house, so I'm appointing the fox to evaluate security.''

Democrats deride the status quo in health care, waving their fingers and blaming special interests, but their rhetoric fails to meet reality. In a moment of extreme candor, Howard Dean, the former DNC chairman, said, The reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers, and that is the plain and simple truth.

Talk about beholding the special interests.

Mr. Speaker, if Democrats were serious about reducing costs and about making health care more affordable without bankrupting our country, they would embrace tort reform. The fact is they just aren't.

Mr. Speaker, it is unconscionable that Democrat leaders have put forth legislation under the guise of health care reform that will result in the direct loss of 5 million jobs from crippling new pay-or-play taxes on small businesses.

Our economy is hurting, and Congress should be creating jobs. The Democrats' health care proposal will do the exact opposite. It will take away jobs.

The Democrats have chosen to try to fund a trillion dollar government takeover of our Nation's health care industry in the midst of the worst recession in half a century. Worse than that, they have chosen to make small businesses, long the lifeblood of our economy, bear the brunt of these costs.

The simple fact is that the Democrats' rhetoric is deceptive. It does not match the legislation they have proposed. They use words like ``reform'' and ``choice,'' but all their plan does is tax and spend to fund new government mandates.

Mr. Speaker, my Democrat colleagues are presenting the American people with a false choice by comparing their proposal with the alternative of doing nothing.

We deserve better. We deserve real reform.

Mr. Speaker, President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, reflected on the administration's lack of focus on the economy earlier this year when he said that our Nation's financial crisis presented an opportunity to accomplish agendas unrelated to the economy.

A good example of that was the so-called stimulus bill that had nothing to do with helping to save or create jobs in the private sector, but everything to do with expanding government programs and pushing our Nation $787 billion deeper into debt.

The Obama administration and the Congress should be focused on one issue and only one issue, and that is stabilizing our Nation's economy so that Americans can keep the jobs they have and get back the jobs they lost. Only when the economy is stabilized should we be debating other issues such as energy policy and health care reform.

Mr. Speaker, the American people are hurting, and it's time that our President and the Democrats in Congress stop ignoring their pain and get to work on fixing this economy.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 548, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, soon we will be debating health care reform on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. The goal is to pass legislation before the upcoming August recess. No doubt one of the most significant features of the debate on health care reform will involve what is now known as the ``public option.''

The public option is a government-run health care program. The President has said that anyone who has private health care insurance will be allowed to either keep it or join the government plan. Mr. Speaker, the public option is the first step to a complete government takeover of our private health insurance system. The public option will have advantages by virtue of being a government entity. It will destroy the private health care insurance market, turning the entire system over to a Federal bureaucracy.

The Federal Government's record of managing Medicare, Medicaid, and the care of our veterans is one of allowing massive fraud, inefficiencies, and the abuse of patients.

Mr. Speaker, our private health insurance is in need of reform, but I would urge my fellow Members of Congress to mend it and not end it.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 421, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 336, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''