Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman from Ohio.

Let me just say at the outset while I am speaking on behalf of the same resolution the gentleman just before me spoke on behalf of, I couldn't disagree more that our interests do lie in protecting our national security by being in Afghanistan. My opposition is our strategy. My opposition is that somehow we are going to control the ground by maneuvering ourselves militarily to control the ground as if it is a nation-state.

I hear my colleagues talk about the flag of Afghanistan as if Afghanistan is a country. In case anybody has bothered to look at it, it is a loose collection of 121 different sovereign tribes, none of whom get along with each other, and it is a mountainous terrain of rock and gravel; and the notion that our soldiers are over there laying down their lives to secure ground. We ought to be after the Taliban and the terrorists, anybody who is organizing to strike at our country. I am for that.

But I am not for organizing an organized military campaign where we are having to go in and take in these towns and subject our soldiers to unnecessary threats where we are putting our treasure and the lives of our men and women in uniform on the line unnecessarily.

Now, someone, I can't even believe I heard this, said, oh, I can't go to a funeral and tell the parents of someone who just died that they lost their child in vain. Somewhere I heard that during the Vietnam war. So what is it we have to do? We have to double down on a bad policy to protect the honor of those who have already died? I don't think so. There isn't a soldier in this country who has laid down their lives for our Nation that isn't a hero. And no one in here disagrees with that.

What is shameful is our policy that puts them in harm's way when they don't need to be. And make no mistake about it, this is not about national security. Because if it is about national security, it is about whether we put our treasure and our lives on the line in Afghanistan, or whether we put it in Kuwait, or whether we put it in the Sudan, or whether we put it in some other place in the world, all of which is where we need it.

Where do we need it the most? That should be the question. Because we don't have the resources to put it everywhere. So don't come and tell me our national security requires that we have it in Afghanistan because that is not the only place we need it. The question is where our priorities should be. And you take it from one place, you have to put it somewhere else.

Finally, if anybody wants to know where cynicism is, cynicism is that there are one, two press people in this gallery. We're talking about Eric Massa 24-7 on the TV. We're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, a thousand lives, and no press? No press? You want to know why the American public is sick? They're sick because they're not seeing their Congress do the work that they're sent to do. It's because the press, the press of the United States, is not covering the most significant issue of national importance, and that is the laying of lives down in the Nation for the service of our country. It is despicable, the national press corps right now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1091, supporting ``School Social Work Week.'' I introduced this resolution in order to recognize and support the critical, often thankless work performed by social workers in schools across our country. School social workers bring valuable skills and expertise to schools and student services teams to ensure that every child has an opportunity for success.

On a daily basis, school social workers help educators, administrators, and parents address students' emotional, physical, and environmental needs. School social workers help educators to understand cultural, family, and community factors affecting students.

Everyday, they work with administrators to design and implement prevention programs and policies that address school attendance, bullying, sexual harassment, teen pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, special education, and more. Issues like cyber bullying and harassment are extremely underreported and on the rise in schools across the country. Adult intervention at school is necessary to effectively curb these trends.

School social workers also work as liaisons between parents and schools. They work with parents so that they may participate in their child's education, understand special education services, and access other services related to their child's needs.

In healthcare we must treat the whole person and in education we must do the same. School social workers recognize the importance of connecting emotional, behavioral, and academic services in order to maximize children's opportunities for success.

Too many children do not receive the mental health services they need. Improved and expanded school mental health programs would help to close this discrepancy. The kinds of services that so many students desperately need are precisely the type of services that school social workers can provide. As our economy continues to struggle, and families all over the country are losing their homes and jobs; the need for school social workers only multiples.

That is why I am proud to be the sponsor of this resolution. I would like to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Education and Labor Committee for allowing this resolution to come to the floor, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize Mr. Ross Szabo, director of youth outreach for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign. After 8 years with National Mental Health Awareness Campaign--as one of the leading young advocates for mental health education in the Nation--Ross will be leaving soon for Botswana to begin work with the Peace Corps.

The National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, launched following the 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health, is a nationwide public education initiative which seeks to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness. Ross joined the Campaign 8 years ago as a speaker for the youth campaign. Using his own story of bipolar illness, Ross' success as a motivational speaker has highlighted the importance of talking about mental illness, the effectiveness of treatment, and one's ability to live successfully managing the illness.

After taking over as director of youth outreach, Ross expanded the speakers' bureau, ``The Heard,'' into the only peer-to-peer youth mental health speaker's bureau in the country. His leadership has encouraged more young people to share their stories through the Campaign, and has reached millions of students and adults in schools and military settings in 45 states. Although Ross has already trained the next generation of speakers so that this crucial outreach program is continued, his efforts will be sorely missed in the mental health community.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ross Szabo for his leadership, dedication, and advocacy. I thank him for his service to our great Nation as he embarks on this next challenge.

Madam Speaker, last fall, after eight years of the previous administration looking the other way while Wall Street and the big banks gambled, we faced a near collapse of our financial system.

Now, while we pick up the pieces, small businesses in Rhode Island and across the country are struggling to find credit.

The lifeblood of our economy can't afford to wait until the banks are ready to lend again.

Instead of waving fees, guaranteeing loans and doing cartwheels to make banks lend to small businesses, it's time we cut out the middle- man.

It's time we let the SBA lend directly to small businesses, so that our local economies aren't dependent on the decisions of Wall Street.

We don't need Wall Street middle-men slowing down lending to small businesses and skimming profits at the same time.

By lending 20 billion dollars directly to small businesses, the SBA can provide cost-effective help to struggling communities.

There's another way to cut out the middle-man. Let's let small business owners lend to themselves by passing the GROW America's Small Businesses Act.

Madam Chair, last fall, after 8 years of the previous administration looking the other way while Wall Street and the big banks exploited loopholes, we faced a near collapse of our financial system. Deregulation and lax oversight allowed Wall Street and big banks to gamble with the hard-earned money of the American people, compromising our savings and risking our future. Over the last year, Congress has had to make difficult, and frankly unpopular, decisions that were necessary to rescue our economy from the brink of disaster.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will put in place the rules to make sure that this doesn't happen again, to protect the middle-class Americans who play by the rules from the consequences of Wall Street greed. This legislation ends many of the unfair lending practices that created predatory mortgages and waves of foreclosure. By stopping ``too big to fail'' firms before they threaten to wreak havoc on our economy, H.R. 4173 will finally put an end to the era of taxpayer-funded bailouts.

While many aspects of this legislation are important, perhaps its most significant achievement is the establishment of an agency whose primary mission is to ensure the safety of financial products and look out for consumers. For too long, all of our fractured regulatory agencies have only looked out for the financial institutions they work for. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will look out for unsafe financial products the same way the FDA monitors unsafe medicines or the Consumer Product Safety Commission examines our children's toys.

While we have taken extraordinary actions to correct our economic crisis, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection act takes the necessary actions to hold accountable the people responsible for last year's crisis and to prevent another crisis in the future.

Madam Speaker, the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will expedite the adoption of electronic medical records throughout the health care sector nationwide. Creating an interoperable information technology network for health care will decrease health care costs and increases patient safety. While the implementation of electronic medical records were an internal feature of this act, another new and innovative technology, the personal health record (PHR), has emerged to further strengthen the health care system by engaging individuals directly in their health care experiences. Active consumer engagement promises better patient health outcomes, reduction in health care costs, and greater patient safety. For these reasons, I am proud to introduce the Personal Health Records Act of 2009 today with my colleague Representative David Reichert.

We are all concerned with rising health care costs. Portable, Internet-based PHRs can be a critical piece of the process of improving the quality and efficiency of the health care system in this country. With PHRs, patients can both electronically import and export pertinent medical information to their health care providers. As a patient travels between multiple health care facilities, the patient's complete medical record can be easily accessed at the nearest computer, thus decreasing health care cost through limiting the number of repeated laboratory and diagnostic tests.

PHRs also engage patients in their medical care decisions by allowing them to personalize their medical history, medication lists, and allergies from a click of their mouse at their home. Patients can avoid repeatedly having to fill out the proverbial office room clipboard repeatedly. Additionally, PHRs can give patients a vehicle for personalized communication with their providers, thus allowing them to receive reminders, as an example, for preventive care, or receive information about medications they have been prescribed.

In order to maximize the potential of PHRs, the Personal Health Records Act of 2009 would define the critical components to be included in PHRs, including past medical and surgical history, medications, and allergies. The legislation also requires the Office of the National Coordinator to develop guidelines regarding the technological standards for interoperability between PHRs and electronic health records, and makes recommendations for the incorporation of PHRs into community and behavioral health programs. As health care provider adoption of PHRs is paramount to their success, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act would be available for providers that demonstrate meaningful use of electronic medical records through the interoperability of electronic medical records with PHRs.

Since PHRs will change the landscape of how confidential, health care information is obtained across the nation, issues of privacy, security, and patient safety are incorporated into PHR development from the onset. While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 addresses many of these issues, the Personal Health Record Act further evaluates issues pertaining to PHR privacy, utilization, and patient safety.

The Personal Health Record Act aims to empower individuals to have a greater involvement in their medical care decisions. This engagement will lead to better health outcomes, not only by giving health care providers a more complete picture of a patient's medical history, but also by providing a tool through which the consumer can actively engage in their health care.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation.

Madam Speaker, depression and bipolar disorders affect one in five people and are the leading cause of disability among individuals between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States. The economic burden of depression is estimated at $83.1 billion each year. With medication, psychotherapy, or combined treatment, most people with mood disorders can be effectively treated and resume productive lives. Yet, one-third of those suffering from depression--nearly five million Americans--do not receive the necessary treatment.

For these reasons, I am proud to introduce the Establishing a Network of Health-Advancing National Centers of Excellence for Depression Act of 2009 (the ENHANCED Act) with my colleague, Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA). This legislation would establish national centers of excellence for the treatment of depressive and bipolar disorders. Currently, clinicians lack universally accepted multi-disciplinary approaches and real-time clinical and care management guidelines they need. As a result, about 50 percent of the time the diagnoses of depression and bipolar are missed. Better diagnostic approaches are needed in primary care, other medical settings, and mental health programs.

To combat this, the ENHANCED Act would create a national network with a pathway for developing and expanding up to 30 depression centers of excellence to increase access to the most appropriate and evidence- based depression care. This concept is based on work done informally by 16 academic research institutions across the Nation that have joined together to create a network of depression centers that take academic research and translate it into practice, standardize diagnoses, treat early and more effectively, and prevent recurrences of depression and bipolar disorders, as well as eradicate the stigma associated with these diseases. These centers will develop and disseminate evidence- based treatment standards, clinical guidelines, and protocols to improve accurate and timely diagnosis of depression and bipolar disorders.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure the passage of this critical legislation.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to commend Special Olympics, Massachusetts and longtime friend Donald J. Dowd. Both Special Olympics, Massachusetts and Mr. Dowd have been fixtures in New England and wonderful contributors to the people and culture of our region.

As my colleagues know, Special Olympics provides year-round sports training, athletic competition and other related programming for athletes with intellectual disabilities.

This organization founded by my Aunt Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968, contributes to the physical, social, and psychological development of people with intellectual disabilities. It is a global force for change with over 2.5 million athletes participating world wide representing over 140 countries.

In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Special Olympics does amazing things for the people of New England. Special Olympics Massachusetts also offers Unified Sports, an initiative that combines approximately equal numbers of Special Olympics athletes and athletes without intellectual disabilities, called Partners, on sports teams for training and competition.

One of Special Olympics' greatest supporters has been Donald Dowd, or Don as I affectionately call him. He worked for and volunteered for my Father in the Other Body for over 40 years, as well as for my uncles. He was responsible for coordinating the opening of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and has served as a member of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Board since its inception, helping to found the Friends of the Kennedy Library.

He is a lifelong resident of Springfield, Massachusetts, began his career in public service as President Kennedy's Assistant Regional Director of the U.S. Postal Service for the six New England States, and was a political advisor to U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. I am proud to call him a friend and thank him for his dedication to my family, to Special Olympics, to our region and to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that my vote on H.R. 3961, the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009 was not recorded in the House of Representatives today.

Had my vote been recorded on rollcall No. 909, final passage of H.R. 3961, the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act of 2009, I would have voted ``aye'' on the question.

I rise in support of mental health benefits in this bill to support suicide, addiction, and depression coverage in this legislation for whole health coverage.

General Leave

Today is truly a historic day for all Americans, and as an elected official of this great democracy, it is an extremely proud day for me. It is an occasion to celebrate and thank all those who fought to protect our nation's democratic process. It is also an occasion to recognize and remember all those Americans who have suffered waiting for this day to arrive. We have worked together to achieve this goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans. To all these people, I express my sincere gratitude, and I rejoice with you today that a new chapter in our history has begun.

The Affordable Health Care for America Act creates basic protections for all Americans seeking access to healthcare. No longer will insurers be able to drop you from your insurance when you get sick, nor can they deny you coverage for a pre-existing condition. A public option will offer a choice for consumers and provide real competition to keep private insurers honest. Affordability credits will help individuals and small businesses to purchase health insurance. Additionally, these reforms are fully paid for and will actually lower the deficit over the next 10 years.

I am proud that the final version of this legislation includes numerous provisions I have long advocated for and worked with my colleagues to achieve. While the initial draft of the Affordable Health Care for America Act gradually closed the donut hole for Medicare prescription drug coverage over 15 years, I am pleased to have worked with the Speaker to successfully reduce the timeline in which this critical reform will take place. The donut hole will now begin to close immediately and will close completely by 2019, providing much needed assistance and relief to seniors starting next year.

Likewise, I am also pleased that the Affordable Health Care for America Act eliminates lifetime caps, provisions of many health insurance plans that limit the total dollars in benefits that the insurance plan will pay out over the lifetime of an enrollee in the plan. I authored a letter, signed by 23 of my colleagues, urging this lifesaving provision to become effective immediately. I am pleased that the elimination of lifetime caps on insurance has been made effective in 2010, so that none of the 25,000 individuals who reach their lifetime caps each year will die waiting for the provisions to take place.

A key aspect of this legislation that is of particular importance to me is the extension of the mental health parity protections established into law last year by my legislation, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. Not only are these protections extended to all plans in the Health Insurance Exchange, but mental health and substance use benefits are a part of the essential benefits package created by this legislation. For 67 percent of adults and 80 percent of children needing mental health care that do not receive it, this victory cannot be understated. I commend my colleagues and my fellow citizens for their leadership in recognizing that the health of the mind truly cannot be separated from the health of the body. Today marks a new day and a giant leap forward towards our transition from a ``sick care'' system to one which is preventive, collaborative, and patient-centered.

Along these lines, I have also worked closely with my colleagues to ensure that mental health and substance use screening tools, such as Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT), were included in this legislation. Severe mental illnesses are estimated to cost the U.S. hundreds of billions annually in lost wages. Screening for mental health and substance use has proven to be a significant cost saver for our health care system. The Affordable Health Care for America Act establishes a program to provide grants to support these critical services.

I will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure that our health care professionals have the tools that are needed to recognize mental health and substance use in their patients. This means ensuring that mental health and substance use education be required of all health care professionals and integrated into the medical curricula, continuing medical education, and licensing examinations. It also includes addressing the drastic shortages of child and adolescent mental health professionals by providing loan forgiveness and making grants to professional schools to develop, expand, and improve training programs for professionals who serve children and adolescents. Language to this effect is included in

some of the Senate healthcare reform legislation, and I will work with my colleagues to ensure that these critical provisions are retained.

Again, I commend my colleagues, the leadership, and my fellow Americans for their steadfast effort, diligence, and tremendous stewardship towards realizing the dream of quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, we have an elephant in the middle of our Nation's living room. That is alcoholism and drug addiction. This country's medical system does not deal with one of the major issues in this country, and that is alcoholism and drug addiction and depression and mental illness.

If we are going to do something about our health care system, we better incorporate treatment for these illnesses in order to make sure we prevent other diseases. If you have one of these illnesses, your cost for health care goes up four times. Seventy percent of the trauma care in this country is as a result of drug addiction and alcoholism. Car accidents, stabbings, gun shots, domestic violence, many of the things you see in our emergency rooms is as a result of drugs and alcohol.

That is why we need to make sure that we have early intervention and screening and treatment reimbursement in our health care bill.

Mr. Speaker, the other side talks about the health care reform bill costing a lot of money. Right now, consumers in America are spending millions and millions of dollars paying that to the insurance companies. One-third of the health care dollar goes to no such thing as health care; it goes to the insurance companies. That's why the Democratic proposal restricts the amount of money that insurance companies can spend on bureaucracy. That's where the out-of-pocket expenses actually go to health care. That sounds like a smart idea to me.

Furthermore, the insurance companies can no longer discriminate against preexisting conditions, no longer can discriminate against people who need health care. That sounds like a good idea.

Finally, talking about reducing deficit spending, this bill requires insurance companies to keep costs under control. That saves the government money and reduces the deficit because the biggest spender in health care is the Federal Government through entitlements.

I don't know why the other side is so hell-bent on protecting insurance companies' medical inflation that only adds to the deficit in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I want to implore my colleagues to support the House reform bill with respect to the mental health parity provisions. The mental health provisions in the House support complete coverage for mental illness.

The AMA in the 1950s recognized alcoholism as a disease. In the House bill, we have full health care coverage for alcoholism and substance abuse coverage and for schizophrenia and all biological mental health disorders. The Senate doesn't have those strong provisions. I implore my colleagues to accede to the House with respect to these provisions.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people 15 to 35. It is a tragedy in this country that mental illness is the single leading cause of lost workdays and lost days of quality of life in this country.

It's time that we treat mental illness as the physical illness that it is.

I want to thank my good friend and colleague Ed Markey for organizing this Special Order and all of my colleagues for the wonderful tribute that they've given my dad tonight. I will just say that he loved people in public life because they were willing to go out and face the elements and weather the scorn of public opinion in order to stand up for what they believed in. That's why he really admired political figures, and especially in a time where political figures aren't very revered. They're pretty much down at the bottom of the public opinion polls in terms of most professions.

But he knew what a difference it meant to have people of good faith and conviction be involved in the political process because he knew what a difference it made in terms of getting good policy done for the American people. He knew how easy it would be for most people to sit back and make criticisms from the sidelines, but it took a really special person to put themselves out and really sacrifice a big part of their lives because it takes enormous sacrifice of their private lives to be in the public life, especially today.

So he always really got so much energy out of the people that he served with. They were the ones that sustained him so much because he felt like he was part of a team effort. There is nothing that he loved more than being part of a team, whether it was playing sports or whether it was just being part of a family team, being part of a family. That was his politics. His politics was simple. It was being part of a group and making sure that nobody in the group was left behind. I think it's a great kind of a spirit that he brought to his politics. It was a family spirit that I saw over and over again in every issue that he faced. He wanted to treat everybody else the way he expected to be treated if he were a member of a family, and I was included.

He was brought up to believe that everybody had dignity and everybody had a place. You know, when I was growing up in my family, we all had a place. A lot has been said about his belief in everybody having an opportunity in society. Well, in an anecdotal way, I can tell you, in my life, he always made sure that I had an opportunity to participate.

Thank you. I just will conclude now because I know my friends and colleagues have their time to speak.

I would like to say to each and every one of the folks who spoke tonight, thank you for being here tonight to pay tribute to my father. To the folks on both sides of the aisle that have been so generous to me, it's a great thing, being part of this House, to have colleagues treat you as one of their own, as a part of a collegial family of sorts, in a professional way but also in a personal way.

The thing he loved so much about serving over in the Senate was the great friendships he developed there. I can tell you, having been through what I have been through in the last couple of weeks, I can appreciate personally what a difference it's made to have the friends that I've had in this Chamber be so supportive of me through this time. I want to thank all of my colleagues for their outpouring of support and affection from both sides of the aisle. It is in times like these where you really get to appreciate the fact that you work in a place where everybody appreciates and respects one another.

I think that is the thing my father would want most for our country right now, for people from very divergent points of view to respect one another and respect this country, which was founded on an appreciation for difference of opinion. The reason why he had worked so well across the aisle on so many occasions on important issues was because he understood that this country can't move forward unless people work together in good faith.

I think the thing that he found most distressing at any point in American history was when the country would stray from its foundation of believing that we could resolve our difficult problems through dialogue, because I think he knew personally, better than any other person in American history, what happens when people don't resolve their problems peacefully and, instead, resort to violence. I think that my dad is one of those people who believed in the democratic process. And at the end of the day, people saw what a difference his work made in their lives because of the work that he did within the democratic process, to make our country a better place for everybody to live in.

Even though he was from a different station in life from many people that he worked to help, he didn't look at it from the point of view of socioeconomic background. He looked at it from the point of view that we're all human beings, that we all have a spark of divinity in us, and we all ought to treat each other with the same respect that we would want to be treated with ourselves. The golden rule, so to speak.

That's why it didn't matter what the issue was. He believed in fairness for everybody because he would want his family to be treated the same way he would want every other family to be treated. But there for the grace of God, he was lucky enough to come from a family that didn't have to worry about paying for health care, education, housing or a pension to retire. He just knew that if he had come from a different family, he would hope that he wouldn't have to worry about the basic necessities of life that too many Americans have to worry about.

And I respect that about him because through the power of example he showed me that you could be a person of conscience and really try to work to make the lives of those who didn't have it as well off as you better through the work that you did in public life. Through that, I think he showed himself as a patriot in more than one way. He not only wore the uniform of this country in the Army, but he wore the uniform in the sense that he fought in the Senate to advance the lives of people in this country through the policy work that he did as a United States Senator.

So, again, let me thank all my colleagues for their great tributes. I look forward to paying him the biggest tribute that we could pay, and that is to make sure that the promise of health care for all is a promise that we ultimately achieve in this session.