Floor Statements

I thank Ms. Foxx for yielding. I want to ask three questions of my Democratic colleagues: Are you so arrogant that you know what's best for the American people? Are you so ignorant to be oblivious to the wishes of the American people? Three-fourths of America does not want this bill. Are you so incompetent that you ignore the Constitution; that you have to use tricks and deception to ram down the throats of the American people something that they absolutely do not want?

I hope and pray and I call upon the American people to speak louder, and I hope and pray that our Democratic colleagues will listen to the American people, listen to their constituents, and stop this government takeover of health care. I hope you will listen to President Obama when he says that the American people deserve an up-or-down vote.

I hope that I can encourage my Democratic colleagues to defeat this previous question so that Democrats and Republicans can work together, so that we can find some commonsense solutions to literally lower the cost of health care, so government doesn't take over the health care system that's going to drive a million people out of work, that's going to run the cost of everybody's health insurance up, if they have private insurance. It's going to destroy the private health insurance system. As a medical doctor, I'm not a proponent of the health insurance system. But please listen to the American people. Let's defeat this PQ and let's work together to find some commonsense solutions. This is in the best interest of America.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I've listened to you talk about this economic game that they're playing. I call that zombie economics because you have to be a dead man walking around with no soul to believe the economic parameters and the games that the Democrats have played with CBO.

And people need to understand that when CBO, Congressional Budget Office, scores a bill, they can only score the bill according to the parameters that whoever writes that bill give them to score it on.

So all of these things where you're having double counting of money, it's just a good example of that zombie economics that the Democrats utilize and force CBO to use in scoring the bill so it doesn't look as bad as it really is going to be. And there is nothing about the marked cuts in doctors' reimbursement, how much the government under Medicaid, as well as Medicare, is going to be reimbursing the doctors.

And what's going to happen--and I think the American people need to understand this very firmly--they may give a government insurance policy card to people that they can stick in their pockets, but they're not going to be able to find a doctor that will accept that card and accept that insurance. So the American people need to understand that the access to a doctor is actually going to go down, in my opinion. And in fact, that card for many, many Americans is going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar was after the War Between the States. It's going to be useless. We're going to have more people who have less access to doctors, less access to care, if ObamaCare is passed.

Another thing that policy after policy has shown is that the American people continue to overwhelmingly reject this government takeover of health care. Yet Speaker Pelosi has declared that a government takeover of health care should become the law of this land without even taking a vote on the bill. Well, that is unconstitutional.

I, as well as, I know, Dr. Gingrey, as I know Dr. Fleming, carry a copy of the Constitution. I believe in this document as it was intended by our Founding Fathers. We have absolutely no constitutional authority for the Federal Government to take over health care. None. We have no constitutional authority to even do this deem and pass Slaughter rule. Deem and pass. That sounds like an old western movie. Deem and pass. The only people who are going to be ambushed are the American taxpayers and small businesses in this country. That is exactly what's going to happen. Deem and pass is being set up by our Democratic colleagues who want to raid small business's coffers and people's coffers.

In fact, we've got a lot of taxes on small business. A lot of taxes on individuals. The Ways and Means Committee just today has put out a report on this bill. We hear from the President if you make $250,000 and above, you have to pay extra taxes for the bill. And anybody making less than $250,000 will not be taxed. But the Ways and Means Committee just today set out the parameters on the taxes. Half of the new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than $66,150 for a family of four. Let me say that again: half of the individual mandate taxes are going to fall on the shoulders--not of the rich people; I don't think a family of four making $66,000 a year is rich--but half of those individual mandate taxes are going to fall on the shoulders of families making $66,000 a year or less.

And also the IRS is going to be markedly expanded. And, in fact, it's going to be up to the IRS to get all of these new taxes.

And I have got a little slide here. Because the IRS is going to be running ObamaCare. The IRS agents in this country are going to verify whether you have acceptable health care coverage. Now, who determines what's acceptable health care coverage? Well, it's a panel here in Washington, D.C., that is going to mandate every single insurance policy in this country.

So if you have health insurance today and you like it? Forget it. Forget it. That is another distortion, something that is not true that's been touted by our Democratic colleagues.

And the IRS agents in this country are going to be prying into your health care insurance, into your life, to see if you have acceptable coverage.

Also, the IRS is going to have to hire new agents to do all of this new work that they're being given by ObamaCare: 16,500 new IRS agents. There are going to be more audits of people's income taxes because the IRS is going to be in charge of making sure that individuals have this acceptable health care coverage that is mandated by the Federal Government.

The IRS can even confiscate your tax refund. And the IRS can fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income, whichever is greater, if you don't have the minimal, essential coverage. Again, the Federal Government is going to determine what that minimal coverage is. So forget your current insurance policy. The Federal Government is going to mandate it.

Absolutely.

That's right.

I thank you for yielding back.

In fact, I want to point out something else that is going to happen with this bill the way it's set up. The tax-writing committee, the Ways and Means Committee, tells us an additional $10 billion is going to be needed to pay for this marked expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. And, Dr. Gingrey, I'm like you. I would like to totally get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. You and many people know I have been a very ardent supporter of the fair tax.

But it doesn't matter--well, it does matter how they get our taxes. The bottom line is that we have just got to stop this outrageous spending here in Washington, and we are going to increase spending of the Internal Revenue Service by $10 billion.

But something else the American people need to know is: Guess who has been left out? Guess who is not going to have all these mandates? Illegal aliens. That's what our Democratic colleagues have put in place. The illegal aliens in this country are going to get free taxpayer-funded health insurance, and they are not going to get all these fines. They are not going to be bothered by the Internal Revenue Service. It's just the American citizens and legal residents in this country that are going to be bothered by these folks.

Now, they are going to say, and I've heard them say over and over again, illegal aliens can't get free government health insurance, but Dr. Gingrey was in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Over and over again, Dr. Gingrey and many others fought to make sure that illegal aliens would not get free government health insurance by making the Federal Government verify the citizenship and the legal presence of these people here.

I want to go to Congressman Deal, too. He has been fighting for a long time to stop this birthright citizenship here in this Nation, which is actually a ruling by the Federal court system. It is an improper ruling on the 14th Amendment. It's an unconstitutional, actually, ruling on the 14th Amendment that we're giving birthright citizenship to these children who are born to illegal aliens in this country, and they are going to go on the Medicaid system. And we're going to have a magnet, a magnet to draw more of those illegal aliens in this country because they are going to get free government health care because of this ObamaCare bill that we're going to be voting on just in the next day or two.

I just want to say before I yield back, Congressman Nathan Deal, I hope he is our next Governor, and he has been right on the front line fighting this illegal alien problem that we have in this country. He lives in Gainesville, Georgia, and he has seen them there in Hall County, Georgia, how it's been a tremendous drain on the local economy and the local government for goods and services and things. And so he has been an ardent, ardent fighter to try to make these illegal aliens, who are criminals, to go home. Now we are going to give them free health care.

And the American people need to just say ``no'' to our Democratic colleagues, because it's just going to be disastrous. We are going to have an influx of illegal aliens just to come and have those anchor babies to get on Medicaid. We've already seen that happening, and that is one reason Nathan Deal has been doing it.

I yield back to Dr. Fleming.

Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I appreciate your yielding.

In fact, I've wondered, and I'm sure the American people are wondering, why is it that Democrats don't want to have a vote on a bill? Well, you're just telling them right now today in this Special Order why the Democrats don't want to have a vote on the bill--because they don't want to face the fact. They don't want to face the voters that they are doing all these special deals, sweetheart deals.

You didn't mention the ones in there for the unions on their Cadillac plans. The unions have just cut a special deal, too, with the administration, with the leadership here in Washington. But why wouldn't they want an up-or-down vote? We've heard the President say over and over again this should have an up-or-down vote.

Well, just today, just today, as my colleagues know, the Democrats voted down, through a procedural method, voted down--what we are trying to do is to have an up-or-down vote on the bill, but they don't want their yeas and nays to be recorded as is required by the Constitution of the United States. Article 1, section 7, the second paragraph says that for a bill to be passed into law, it has to be voted on by both Houses. It has to be the very same bill, and then it has to be signed by the President or a veto has to be overridden, and the yeas and nays must be recorded. So it is totally unconstitutional what the leadership is doing.

And I have one question for the Speaker. If Democrats are confident that the American people want this new multitrillion dollar program, why are they avoiding a simple up-or-down vote? Well, the simple truth is that the House Democrats just don't want that because they don't want to face the voters. They don't want to face their constituents about these special deals. They don't want to face the zombi economics that they're using. But the jig is up for the Democrats trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans, because Americans get it. They understand that this is going to be disastrous.

As I mentioned before, we are going to have costs go out of the roof for everybody. And, in fact, experts tell us that people who have private insurance, private insurance today for a family, their insurance premiums are going to go up $2,100 a year because of ObamaCare if this is passed into law.

I thank you, Dr. Fleming, for yielding. We are here talking tonight amongst ourselves during this Special Order period that Dr. Fleming is controlling--very well, thank you--and I am just honored to joining him and Dr. Gingrey here.

But the American people are asking, what can they do? They are asking, is this a done deal? In fact, I have talked to a lot of people not only in my district but around the State of Georgia and even some from other States, and the American people are saying, ``What can we do? Is this a done deal? Is this going to pass?''

I don't think it is a done deal. And it is up to the American people whether it passes or not, because the Democrats don't want their fingerprints on the Senate bill, they don't want their fingerprints on all the increase in the Internal Revenue Service and the increased taxes, the health care insurance police that is going to be put in place. They don't want their fingerprints on the increased costs; in fact, they are even denying the increased costs. Why? Because the Democrats know this is a bum deal. They know that.

In fact, I have talked to just in the last 2 or 3 days several Democrats, and I have been told by the Democrats that every one of them know it is going to raise premiums. Every one of them know that it is going to increase the cost of health care above doing nothing. Every one of them know that this is a government takeover of the health care system. And what do they do? They come down here and say we are in favor of the big insurance companies.

I don't like the big insurance companies. As a medical doctor, I have been fighting them through almost four decades of practicing medicine. I been fighting them for my patients. But they know that.

And we hear the President say, well, if the American people understood his plan, they would accept it and embrace it. Hogwash. The American people do understand his plan, and they reject it overwhelmingly. And I would yield back.

Well, it is the craziest thing because they are not going to fix taxpayer-funded abortions in reconciliation. We have got, I think it is, 41 Democrats that claim to be pro-life. They have whittled it down to 12. Those other 29 so-called pro-life Democrats cannot ever, ever again claim to be pro-life, because if they vote for this bill, they are going to be voting for taxpayers to fund killing unborn children.

And it is going to be a big boom for Planned Parenthood, which is the largest abortion provider in this country and in the world. So those 29 pro-life Democrats can never, ever claim to be pro-life again if they vote for the rule. If they vote for the rule, they can never, ever claim to be pro-life again because they are voting for abortion.

Also, the American people are smarter than what our Democratic colleagues evidently give them credit for, because the American people will know when we vote on the rule, which is what I think we are going to see on Sunday, a vote on the rule, whenever it is. When we vote on that rule, they are

going to be voting for the Senate bill with all the special deals, with abortion funded by taxpayer dollars, for cutouts so the illegal aliens won't be fined and taxed like American citizens will be, so that all of the bad things that are in the Senate bill that the American public overwhelmingly have rejected--when they vote for that rule, the American people need to take note, because they are going to be voting for the greatest government takeover of our economy ever in the history of this Nation because they have put in place a mechanism to socialize the health care system.

In the 1930s, the Socialist party of the United States said the fastest way to destroy freedom in America, the fastest way to change America from being a free Nation with free people into a Socialist Nation with government control, central control from Washington, D.C., is a government takeover of the American health care system.

The American people need to contact their Democratic members and say: ``No. Or, we are going to say `no' to you.''

One final word.

The American people can kill this bill by contacting their Democratic Congressmen and saying ``no'' to this government takeover of health care system that is going to ruin our economy.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I put up this slide here. People who have gone to school, as kids, in their basic civics class see the little cartoon with a bill. This is the bill. They have a little song that goes along with that cartoon that is kind of a catchy song. But under the Constitution, a bill to become law has to be voted upon. That's what article 1, section 7, paragraph 2 says. In fact, I think it's worth having a little civics lesson here.

Article 1, section 7, which lays out all the parameters for Congress in the U.S. Constitution, article 1, section 7, the second paragraph, it says: Every bill--in fact, I encourage people to get the Constitution and read it. Because it wasn't written by lawyers. It's understandable. This contains the Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence and every single amendment to the Constitution in this little booklet. It's not a thousand pages, it's not a hundred pages, it's not 2,700 pages that this abomination of ObamaCare is all about.

Article 1, section 7, second paragraph: Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes law, be presented to the President of the United States. If he approves it, he shall sign it. But if not, he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated.

Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Not if he deems it.

Let's go further and see if the House can deem it. Deem and pass. Western movie. The only outlaws in this particular movie are those who want to take over the health care system in this country. They're going to ambush small business.

But let's go on. Have a little civics lesson: He shall return it to the House where it originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal and proceed to reconsider it. This is how we overturn a veto: And if, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House agree to pass the bill, it should be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become law. That's how a bill becomes law. That's how this guy becomes law. Both Houses pass the bill. Not deem it, but pass it.

Let's go on. It says: But in all such cases--and this is extremely important that the American people understand this, Mr. Speaker--But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by the yeas and nays. Let me repeat that: The votes of both Houses shall be-- shall be--not may be,

not deemed--but shall be determined by the yeas and the nays. And the names of the persons--the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 10 days--and it goes on talking about--well, let's finish that paragraph.

If any bill shall not be returned by the President within 10 days, Sundays excepted, after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not become law. Period.

That's the only way a bill can become law. That's the only way that the kids see that cartoon about: I am a bill, I am a bill. I'm not going to sing it. I wish I could sing it.

Thank you.

I just wanted to bring up, after Dr. Fleming was talking, I think it was one of the other physicians from Louisiana that we were talking to today. In fact, the three us were there when he was talking. He is a gastroenterologist from Baton Rouge. But anyway, Dr. Cassidy was talking about a patient being in Great Britain. Now, our President has held up Great Britain and their health care system as being where we need to go today. Y'all correct me if I'm wrong on this story.

Dr. Cassidy spoke so quickly. I don't hear that quick, but he was saying that a lady that he was associated with went into the hospital in England and was having a bleed in her esophagus, right at the junction of the esophagus and stomach, and people can bleed to death very quickly with that kind of bleed. But the patient was told that the doctor was out at tea and she would have to wait until the tea was finished, because the doctors' union would not allow them to come and see this lady who's bleeding to death.

Now, this may sound--we're giggling and laughing about it, but it's really serious business, because that's where we're headed as a Nation, and people won't get the care. And I just wanted to add that on to what Dr. Fleming was saying. What he was saying earlier

is that people, though they may have free government health insurance, they're not going to have access to care. People are going to be denied care, and we're going to have a government panel here in Washington, D.C., that's going to tell people whether they can go into the hospital or not.

I already fight that for my patients. I have to talk to Medicare about my patients to see if they meet criteria. We all do. But it's going to get much, much worse, and people are going to be denied medicines, lifesaving medicines, lifesaving treatments, and it's going to be disastrous for the quality of care that we have in this Nation.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey. I was hopeful that Mrs. Gingrey had a second favorite congressman second to my good friend from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

I told Ms. Gingrey and all the people living over in South Carolina, I don't pay any attention to the rivers. The Savannah River divides where she lives from my district, and I'll be glad to represent her interests too.

But Mr. Thompson just brought up the issue of cost. The thing is, the American people get it. They really get it. They know that this toxic stew that Mr. King was talking about is going to increase the cost of their insurance premiums. Experts have said that a family can expect a $2,100 increase cost to their health insurance.

We hear from our colleagues on the Democratic side, they say it's going to lower the cost of premiums. They know better than that. To me, this is just showing their arrogance, showing their ignorance, and showing their incompetence. It's their arrogance because they seem to want to ignore the American people, and they show their arrogance because they know best what's best for Mrs. Gingrey or for all Americans, for the rural hospitals in Pennsylvania. And in my district in North Georgia, where just this week some of the board members from Habersham Hospital in Habersham County came to talk to me about the struggles. I talked to folks in Elberton, Georgia, about how the Elbert County hospital is fixing to close up if we don't do something. And Obamacare is going to close rural hospitals all over this country because they're going to be bled to death. They're bleeding to death today. We see hospitals closing up all over the country.

So we mentioned in the previous hour where, even when people are given free health care, as they're promised by our Democratic colleagues, that that insurance card is not going to be accepted by doctors because the doctors just cannot afford to see patients because Medicare and Medicaid won't pay them enough to be able to see them, and for the doctors to be able to pay their own salaries for their own employees.

They won't be able to see those free government patients. If they're seen today and struggling--I've talked to many of my medical colleagues in Georgia, and they want to continue to see Medicaid patients. They want to continue to see Medicare patients. But if ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that is in people's pockets is

going to be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between the States, the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

So the availability of health care is going to go down. And we are told by our colleagues that it's going to be better availability. And they're showing their ignorance. In my opinion, they're showing their ignorance of how disastrous this bill is going to be. And they're showing their incompetence because they're going against what the Constitution of the United States says. They're going against the rules of this House to try to pass a bill without anybody ever voting on it.

But the American people get it. They get it. They know that when Democrats vote for the rule, they're voting for the Senate bill that is going to be disastrous. They know that they are voting for a rule that is going to put in place, a reconciliation bill that we'll vote on secondarily, which is nothing but smoke and mirrors. And it's not going to fix all of these problems.

American people get it. The American people, Madam Speaker, need to call their Congressmen, their Democratic Congressmen because every single Republican is going to vote against this because we get it, too. We're fighting for the American people. We understand. We have listened to it. But our Democratic colleagues hopefully will open their ears and will hear the cries of the American people to save our great health care system.

I just have a question of the gentleman.

If the Slaughter House rule is put in place, doesn't that mean that the President gets everything that he wants without the fixes because the Senate bill will be passed into law?

And I yield to the gentleman to answer the question.

Will the gentleman yield?

I agree with you, but he has also said that he wants everybody in this country to be under one pool, a government total control of health care where the Federal Government is the insurance agent for everybody in this country, single-payer system where the government is the insurance system for every person in this country.

And the point I was making is if the Senate bill is passed into law, won't he have accomplished that purpose? And my contention is absolutely he will have what he wants. They'll put in place the mechanism for the Federal Government to take over the health care system to socialize medicine in this country.

The Socialist Party in the 1930s said the fastest way to take away our liberty and go from a free market economy to become a socialist nation for us to lose our freedom is for the government to take over the health care system.

And so the President will have what he wants when that bill is deemed passed by the Slaughter rule or the Slaughter House rule.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 16 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, March 19, 2010, at 9 a.m.

All of us are influenced by the people around us, people who come into our lives. Our guest pastor today, Bishop Jerry Hutchins, is one of those warriors who has tremendously influenced me and the people of Athens, Georgia. He is a warrior for righteousness, a warrior to establish the Kingdom here on Earth as our Lord Jesus Christ has charged us to do. He is a great friend; he is a great pastor, and I'm honored to have him here today as our guest pastor.

Madam Speaker, I don't think the American people can be any clearer. They do not want this government-run health care bill that the President and leaders in this Congress are trying to ram down their throats. The leadership in this House have declared that socialized health care will become law without taking a vote on the actual bill. They are forcing this reconciliation ruse.

It's a simple answer. This bill contains billions of new taxes, kills jobs, provides for taxpayer-funded abortions, and places an enormous debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. The fact is, many Democrats in Congress do not like this bill any more than the American people. They will be forced to vote for it with a promise that it will be fixed later, but we all know that this is an empty promise. It is a reconciliation to nowhere.

The Democrats may control Washington, but the American people still control this country. I urge all of my colleagues to stand up for your constituents and vote ``no'' on this scam.

Well, thank you, Mr. Akin. You have been a stalwart friend in this fight to try to stop the government overtaking of the health care system. I, as a medical doctor, have been fighting for my patients for their economic well-being for years. I just wanted to come tonight and bring up a few things.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday, there was an editorial written, coauthored by Scott Rasmussen, the famous pollster. The title of it is ``Why Obama Can't Move the Health Care Numbers.'' One of the lines in here right at the end is basically giving the bottom line. It says most voters believe the current plan will harm the economy--they are right about that--cost more than projected--absolutely--raise the cost of care--without any shadow of a doubt--and would lead to higher middle class taxes--and that is just undoubtedly a fact.

The American people get it. And one thing that the American people do get is that it is going to cost millions of Americans their jobs if this is put into place.

I thank you for bringing this forward tonight so we can talk about jobs and health care. I look forward to this discussion as we go along.

The Federal Government already sticks its nose in the doctor-patient relationship in Medicare-Medicaid. The insurance company executives do in managed care. But in my medical practice for the last 5 years prior to being elected to Congress, I saw Medicare patients, Medicaid patients, managed care patients, but they just paid me at the time of service. If they couldn't pay me, that was all right too. I've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of my services over my medical career.

We hear from Democrats, the President particularly, that the doctors are all in favor of this Obama care bill. I've got a letter here from the Medical Association of Georgia that was just sent to me and other members of the Georgia delegation that says, We oppose the Senate- passed health care bill. They

list a number of things that they see as problems with the bill. Among these include undermining the patient-physician relationship and empowering the Federal Government with even greater authority. It's unsustainable from a financial standpoint. The Federal Government will have unprecedented authority to change the Medicare program through these new boards without Congress or the courts or anybody having any oversight to that. It's devoid of proven medical liability reform.

They're concerned about many things that aren't in this bill, two of which are: it takes away the right to make a private contract between two individuals, particularly doctor and a patient or any provider and patient. Another one is, there's nothing to stop the sustainable growth rate formula that is killing physicians.

It goes back to what you were just saying a few minutes ago, Mr. Akin, where doctors are being underpaid. We have this SGR, sustainable growth rate formula, that needs to be thrown out. But we don't do anything about that. What that's going to do to the American public, and particularly Medicare patients need to understand, if this bill is passed, it's going to be exceedingly difficult for a senior to find a doctor who's going to accept their government insurance. It's already a problem, but it's going to be even much more of a problem and exceedingly difficult because the Federal Government is going to pay a lower rate, and doctors just can't afford to do that.

Will the gentleman yield?

Absolutely. You're correct about that. In fact, we're at a tipping point where this country is either going to be totally socialistic--government controls everything in everybody's life from Washington, D.C. And that's what this health care bill is designed and geared to do. Or, we are going to walk away from that and start fighting for freedom and cutting down the size of the Federal Government and let people live their own lives without all the government intrusion. That's exactly where we are.

I wanted to bring up another issue to throw this out then: That people should understand that this bill that we are supposedly going to vote upon--I guess we will, the Senate bill, H.R. 3590--the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, says that it will increase premiums for everybody who's buying private insurance today by $2,100 per family. So not only is it going to destroy the Federal budget, it's going to destroy the State's budget, but it's going to destroy everybody's family budget. It's going to be horrendously expensive, and it's also going to destroy jobs. There are going to be over 5 million people that are going to lose their jobs if this bill ever becomes law.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Akin, you made a very astute observation just a moment ago, and our good friend, G.T. Thompson, was just talking about something that I want to come back to, back to your comment that government is the problem.

Practicing medicine, I've seen the cost of health care go up for everybody in this country because of government regulations. And let me just tell you about a couple of things; one is HIPAA that G.T. was just talking about. HIPAA was totally unneeded, totally unwarranted. It's a law passed by Congress. It's a regulatory burden that's been placed on the health care system. It has cost billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches it has created.

Another bill that was passed, Henry Waxman, Ted Kennedy, Pete Stark, and others, passed a bill a couple of years ago called CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act. I was practicing medicine in a small, rural community down in southwest Georgia. Prior to HIPAA, I had a fully automated lab in my office, quality controlled so that I knew that the results I got out of my lab were absolutely correct so I could give good, quality care to my patients. Congress passed CLIA, which shut my lab and every doctor's lab down in this country.

Prior to CLIA, if a patient came in to see me with a red sore throat, running a fever, coughing, runny nose, headache, I would do a CBC, a complete blood count, to see if they had a bacterial infection which needs antibiotics to treat it or a viral infection, which does not need antibiotics. They don't need to spend the money, they don't to be exposed to the antibiotics. I could do that test in 5 minutes. It cost 12 bucks. That's what I charged, $12. HIPAA shut me down so I couldn't do that anymore, and I had to send patients over to the hospital to get the same test or else I just had to arbitrarily give them antibiotics so that they had the huge cost of going to buy those antibiotics. But if they went to the hospital, it took two to three hours and cost $75. For one test, it went from one $12, 5 minutes to $75, two to three hours for one test, for one regulatory burden. Now, you can multiply that over the whole course of the health care system in the United States and you will see that it drove up, markedly, the cost of everybody's insurance in this country.

Government is the problem. And getting the regulatory burden off of the health care system, getting the tax burden off of small businesses, we can literally lower the cost of health care and make it affordable for those that don't have the ability to buy it today. So government is the problem, and adding more government to it is going to drive the cost up.

Madam Speaker, the 111th Congress is starting its 10th week of this session, and what have we done to help the American family and our small business men and women? Absolutely nothing, Madam Speaker. Absolutely nothing.

We have not passed any legislation that would create jobs, that would lower health care costs, or jump-start our struggling economy. Instead, congressional leaders continue to show their arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence by ramming through job-killing legislation that will increase taxes and increase uncertainty for families and businesses.

Madam Speaker, 15 million Americans are without jobs. Yet Democratic leaders are still forcing their unpopular and unconstitutional health care mandates, and implementing policies that will actually discourage job growth.

The American people want Washington to start over. It is time for congressional leaders to listen to the American people and work on real issues and real solutions.

I thank Mr. Bilbray for yielding.

Madam Speaker, the census is one of the few, one of the very few truly constitutional functions that we are engaged in here in Congress. In fact, most of what Congress does today is unconstitutional according to the original intent. I am an original intent constitutionalist. I believe the Federal Government should only be doing 18 things that Article I, section 8 gives us the authority to do, but the census is certainly one of those. National defense, national security, taking care of our veterans and taking care of our folks in the armed services is, under the original intent of the Constitution, the major function of the Federal Government. And I am a very strong believer in that. I am a very strong believer in this government doing only those things that Article I, section 8 gives us the authority to do, and certainly taking the census is one of those.

Today we will be taking up a rule in the next series of votes, from what I understand, which is going to be a rule on a jobs bill. Well, jobs and the census certainly have a great correlation because the Census Bureau will be looking at who is unemployed in this country. In fact, that is what they do. Part of their job in the Census Bureau is to try to find out all of the demographic information. A lot of the things that the Census Bureau does, questions that they ask are none of the Census Bureau's or the Federal Government's business, frankly, but certainly I encourage people to fill out the census for the information that is actually required under the Constitution, and no more.

But, Madam Speaker, jobs are certainly important, and counting the jobless rate in this country is certainly an important function of knowing where we are. The States do this and the Federal Government takes all of that jobless information, and we are going to get a report just tomorrow about the new jobless rates.

Madam Speaker, just last week I was in one of my counties in Georgia in the 10th Congressional District and was talking to the county commission chairman, and in that discussion he was telling me 1 year ago the jobless rate in his county was over 14 percent.

I think it was 14.7, if I remember correctly. He said now the jobless rate in their county is down to a little over 10 percent. I said, That's great.

Is this because of the stimulus bill that we passed? Is this because new jobs were created in your county? And he said, No, we've had no new jobs in our county, none, absolutely zero. The reason that the unemployment rate is down in our county is because people have just stopped looking for jobs. They're discouraged. They're greatly discouraged. I think this is true all over this country. I think the fall in our jobless rate that we've seen recently, down from above 10 to just slightly below 10, is because people have gotten discouraged and they have just stopped looking.

We just passed an extender of unemployment benefits by voice vote. I'm not really happy that we've passed it by voice vote, but we did just last week. And, Madam Speaker, we are going to be taking up this jobs bill that we haven't even seen the text of, we have not even seen the bill. It is going to be brought to the floor of this House just like the stimulus bill was, without even having the opportunity to read these plans.

Madam Speaker, I believe that ``jobs'' by this new bill, from everything I can tell, should be an acronym. JOBS should be ``just one big slush fund,'' an acronym for ``just one big slush fund.''

Madam Speaker, I introduced my own JOBS Act. My JOBS Act is an acronym for ``jump-start our business sector.'' That's what we need to be doing; we need to be jump-starting our business sector by getting the tax burden and the regulatory burden off small business. Madam Speaker, small business is the economic engine that pulls along the train of prosperity in America, the small business. We are killing small business through the regulatory burden and the tax burden.

We're going to be taking up a health care bill very soon--we don't know when yet--ObamaCare. ObamaCare, Madam Speaker, is going to kill jobs in America. Let me say that again: ObamaCare is going to kill jobs in America. In fact, the bill that the House voted on, the President's own senior economic adviser said it will kill 5.5 million jobs, put 5.5 million Americans out of work if the House bill is put into law. The Senate bill, I haven't seen the data on it, but I'm sure those data are just the same. I'm not sure if it's 5.5 million or 5 million, but the recent proposal by the Obama administration is going to kill jobs, and creating more and more government spending is just creating more government jobs.

Madam Speaker, the American people need to decide, are we going to go down one route of socialism, total government control, total government takeover of everything in human endeavor, including health care, or are we going to go down the road of liberty and freedom? And I say liberty and freedom because I consider them to be a little different.

Madam Speaker, let me define liberty for you. This is my definition. I don't think you will find it in the dictionary, but I think it's very appropriate. Liberty is freedom bridled by morality. Liberty is freedom bridled by morality. America needs to decide, are we going to be a free people or are we going to be controlled by the Federal Government? Are doctors and patients going to make their health care decisions, or will it be some government bureaucrat in Washington?

Just yesterday, the President had a press conference where he said he wanted doctors and patients to make that decision, but his proposal will not do that. His proposal will make a government bureaucrat here in Washington, D.C. tell doctors and patients what kind of care they can get.

Madam Speaker, I am a medical doctor; I'm a family practitioner. I have fought for my patients for years as part of my practice, being concerned about their economic well-being. That's what family doctors do. I try to find the best quality care at the lowest price for my patients. That is an integral part of family medicine. But what we are heading towards with this government takeover of health care is going to destroy family medicine and destroy that basic premise of what we do as family doctors.

This jobs bill is going to be nothing more than one big slush fund. ``Jobs'' by the new bills that we've seen, at least in the Senate bill--and I think we're going to have something that is very close to that once we see the legislative language--is not going to be anything but one big slush fund, this political payback, and it's going to create jobs in the Federal Government.

Now, jobs have been created, certainly, by the failed stimulus package we passed a little over 1 year ago, but let's look back 1 year later at some of the spending low lights of that failed stimulus bill: $67,726 was used by a casino outside Green Bay, Wisconsin. They used a Federal grant to send their employees to learn how to handle confrontations with their customers. This is not constitutional. But once they went there, it was clear to the instructors of this seminar that the casino staff already knew how to handle confrontations with their customers.

We've allocated, in Massachusetts, $4 million in Federal stimulus dollars to build a 2.66-mile bike trail that connected the Manhan Bike Trail to the North Hampton and Norwottuck Trails. This would give those folks riding down that bike trail greater access to Taco Bell. I'm sure Taco Bell is very appreciative of the taxpayers' largess.

Millions of dollars were sent to Democratic operatives. Two firms run by Mark Penn, current Secretary of State Clinton's former Presidential campaign pollster, were awarded $5.9 million in taxpayer funds from the stimulus bills. I could go on and on and on.

We built bike racks in Georgetown with stimulus dollars that were put in place in neighborhoods where the average house value here in Georgetown was over $1 million. I mean, come on. The American public needs to stand up and say ``no'' to this outrageous takeover of their liberty and their freedom.

Madam Speaker, a CEO of a steel-making corporation recently said, Companies large and small are saying, I'm not going to do anything until these things, health care and climate legislation, go away or are resolved. That is what's happening, Madam Speaker, in this country. Small businesses, and large, are scared. The American public is frightened.

When I did my very first town hall meeting last August in Evans, Georgia, talking about the Pelosi health care bill, I thanked the people for coming and expressing their concern about health care. When I did, after discussing the bill, I thanked the people for coming and showing their concern about health care. The second gentleman that got up in the question and answer period said, Dr. Broun, I would like to disagree with you about something. I said, Sure, what is it? And he said, I want to disagree with you because I'm not concerned about health care; I'm scared and I'm angry. And a scared and angry American public is a power to be reckoned with. He got a tremendous round of applause. I applauded him also. And he is exactly right.

The American people need to stand up and say ``no'' to ObamaCare. Let's trash these bills that are on the floor for consideration now and let's start all over again and find something that makes sense. Let's have a jobs bill that makes sense and that really creates jobs.

The Republicans are accused by Democratic colleagues and by the President of being a ``party of no.'' Well, we are the ``party of k-n- o-w.'' We do know how to create a strong economy, and that's by getting the tax burden and regulatory burden off the small businesses in America and off the individuals, leaving dollars in their pockets so that they can expand their business and create more jobs and where consumers have more money so that they can expend it on goods and services here in America.

We know how to solve the health care financing problem we have in America where health care and drugs are too expensive. We can lower the cost of health care, not raise it as the ObamaCare bills all do. We know how to create jobs. We know how to get this economy back on track. We know how to lower the cost of health care if our ideas are just heard. But the leadership here in this House, the leadership in the Senate and the administration

have turned a deaf ear towards commonsense, market-based solutions.

And I ask, Madam Speaker, for the American people to stand up and say ``no'' to socialism and say ``yes'' to freedom and liberty.

I hope the American people will contact their Congressman and their Senators and say ``no'' to ObamaCare, ``no'' to this jobs bill, ``no'' to more socialism and more government control of their lives, and say ``yes'' to freedom and liberty.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just wanted to answer your question.

Yes, I absolutely support this. Counting the census is a constitutional duty. It's extremely important. Our Founding Fathers knew how important it was to know who people were, where they were, et cetera. So I do support the bill very strongly.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3820, the National Hazards Risk Reduction Act of 2010.

Whether they come in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, or other phenomena, natural hazards are infrequent and inevitable, and as illustrated by recent events in Haiti and in Chile, can be devastating to life and property.

The infrequency of such events is, of course, no excuse for complacency in taking steps to address them. The programs authorized in this legislation are the Federal Government's primary means of advancing science and technology to mitigate the risks of natural hazards. This legislation authorizes two programs--the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, or NEHRP, and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, NWIRP.

NEHRP was established in 1977 in response to growing concerns about the threat of damaging earthquakes. It is an agency effort consisting of four participating agencies: firstly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, supporting problem-focused earthquake engineering research and development programs aimed at improving building design codes and construction standards; secondly, the National Science Foundation, NSF, supporting basic research in geoscience, engineering, economic, and social aspects of earthquakes; thirdly, the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, conducting basic and applied Earth science and seismology research; fourthly, FEMA, which supports mitigation, response, education, outreach, and implementation of research results.

Similarly, the Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, created in 2004 and modeled after NEHRP, consists of four agencies--NIST, NSF and FEMA, as well as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which funds research in the atmospheric sciences--to better understand, predict, and respond to hurricanes, tornadoes, and other windstorms.

The goals and activities of these two programs are clear. From engineering research to improve the structural resiliency of buildings, to the development of model building codes and standards, to recovery and response operations, the opportunities for leveraging earthquake mitigation and windstorm mitigation activities are numerous and substantial. Accordingly, the primary objective of this legislation is to establish an overarching coordination structure to improve communication, to exploit potential synergies, and to ensure that new knowledge developed from both programs can be translated into practice and, eventually, into decreased vulnerabilities.

Much progress has been made with the overall authorization levels in this bill, which have been reduced from prior authorization levels. In particular, at three of the four NEHRP agencies, authorized levels have been reduced to more realistic levels that still achieve its goals--a responsible approach given our ominous overall fiscal situation. At the fourth NEHRP agency, USGS, the authorization level has been modestly increased. This reflects a position by the lead authors of the bill that earthquake research should be a priority at USGS.

These two programs, if directed to the right priorities and implemented as a true, coordinated interagency effort, can become more effective and can be leveraged many times over.

I appreciate the hard work from my fellow members of the committee and staff to balance the need for minimizing the risk of these natural disasters with the fiscal reality of large deficits and debt.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hard work that my good friend from Oregon (Mr. Wu) and my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Smith) have put into this bill. Certainly, as a fiscal conservative, I am concerned about how the agencies within the Federal Government coordinate their activities and coordinate their communications. I congratulate Mr. Wu on trying to bring overarching communications between these four governmental agencies.

Just today on Fox and Friends news, they had a seismologist who was predicting just in the very near future a major earthquake which would affect Mr. Wu's home State of Oregon, the State of Washington, as well as the State of California. We've seen a tremendous number of earthquakes recently, and, I think, having the Federal Government agencies coordinate their efforts to try to find some way to communicate between those is absolutely a much needed process. I congratulate Mr. Wu on his efforts to do that.

So, having said all of that, Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, but I do just want to congratulate Mr. Wu again on his hard work on this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman yield?

I agree wholeheartedly.

I wish we could get together on health reform and could get together and do something that's right for the American people. I wish we could get together on an economic stimulus package. Folks on our side would very much like to do so. It is unfortunate that we have such a philosophical divide on many issues.

Mr. Wu, I have enjoyed working with you on the Science and Technology Committee. I love your State. I did my internship in Portland, Oregon, and I know that's where you live, in that area. I wish we could get together on many issues. I congratulate you on your leadership and for bringing together a bipartisan bill so that people do get together at least on this issue.

I commit to you, as well as to my Democratic colleagues, to work to try to find some commonsense solutions, market-based solutions, to health reform and to getting our economy back on course and other things. I hope that we can work together on these.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1097 supports the goals and ideals of National Engineers Week, which was celebrated this year February 14th through the 20th. The National Society of Professional Engineers established one of America's oldest professional outreach efforts, National Engineers Week, in 1951, to coincide with President George Washington's birthday. President Washington is considered our Nation's first engineer, notably for his survey work.

National Engineers Week is observed by more than 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies, and more than 50 corporations and governing agencies. The purpose of National Engineers Week is to call attention to the contributions to society that engineers make. It is also a time for engineers to emphasize the importance of learning math, science, and technical skills.

During this week, a wide range of activities are planned in order to promote interest in engineering and technology fields in the K-12 levels. Some of the events this year included Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, which was held on February 18th. Schools and businesses around the country used this to spark interest and enthusiasm for science and engineering among young women.

Also Discover Engineering Family Day in Washington, D.C., occurred on February 20, 2010, at the National Building Museum. After a full day of hands-on activities and amazing demonstrations, kids and their parents went home with a new appreciation for the wonders of engineering.

Engineers are a vital part of the American economy. Everywhere you turn, there is evidence of the hard work of an engineer. From designing and constructing cardiac pacemakers to the very form of transportation we use to move us from one place to another, engineering is all around us.

I applaud our American engineers and their ingenuity and am pleased to see opportunities such as National Engineers Week that raise awareness and give credit to all of the engineers and their valuable work and contributions to society. I hope that the awareness spreads interest in this rewarding profession to all young people of this Nation.

I support the goals and ideals of National Engineers Week, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

A lot of kids in this country think that engineers

just drive trains, and it's unfortunate that that's true. But this bill, recognizing the work of engineers, is so important. Our service academies have big engineering departments--in all of our military service academies. In my own field of medicine, it's engineers in the medical field that create a lot of the new products that have helped save lives in America and has helped us have the best health care system in the world.

Bringing forth the idea of educating the American public to the importance of engineering, I think, is extremely valuable. We need to encourage our kids to consider careers in engineering because we owe, in our economy and in our society, a tremendous amount not only to those engineers that drive the trains around and help deliver the goods that we need throughout the country, but the other engineers that go to great lengths to help improve our lives and have made America the greatest Nation in the world for our innovation and our technology. And it's engineers that we owe just a tremendous debt of gratitude to for what they do for this society.

So I'm very eager to see this legislation pass. I'm very proud to be here on the floor managing this bill. And I encourage all of our Members to support this legislation so that young men and women across this Nation can understand the importance of engineering--that all of society can--and will help to develop interest in the engineering field so that young men and women will go into engineering so we can continue with the design and innovation that has made this country great and will continue the greatness of America.

With that, I congratulate Mr. Lipinski and my good friend, Dr. Ehlers, for this legislation. I ask all of our colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding a moment.

I was just sitting here thinking, I'm sure Mr. Wu's parents are extremely proud of him, and he can tell them that he is engaged in engineering. He's engaged in policy engineering and social engineering here in the U.S. House of Representatives. And I'm proud that he's my friend. We have a great time in Science and Technology because we can work together and can put personalities aside. Mr. Wu has been just a phenomenal friend and member of this committee, and I congratulate him. I'm sure the Wu family is extremely proud of him, even though he's not in technical engineering. He's involved in some kind of engineering here in another form today.

Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate your yielding.

I think the American people need to know that socialism never has worked, never will work, and we've got people here in Washington who are so arrogant, so ignorant, so incompetent that they will think that their brand of socialism is going to work, but it will not. It never has worked. It never will work. I don't care who is trying to force socialism upon our people; it's still not going to work.

In fact, the Progressives, as Mr. King was talking about recently, said way back years ago with Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first Progressive and started the Progressive movement here in this country-- the Progressives back a century ago were saying, The best way to socialize America would be to socialize the health care system. They have been trying for 100 years now to socialize the health care system.

We have a sham of a meeting tomorrow at the Blair House that the White House has set up. When it was first announced, I was very hopeful that maybe the President had seen the light from everything that the American people had been saying, in that they don't want to have the government take over the health care system. Maybe he was beginning to see the light and reach out a hand to try to work with us as Republicans. I'm a medical doctor, and I was hopeful that my input and even my health care reform bill, H.R. 3889, which is a comprehensive health care and financial reform bill, which totally looks at the private sector, would maybe be considered.

No, that's not what the White House wants to do. In fact, they've stacked the deck, actually, the final chapter of this whole sham--of the ruse, of the dog-and-pony show--that's going to occur tomorrow.

Now, I've challenged Democrats individually--in fact, many of them-- to introduce a bill that would do four things which are totally market- based, which would give patients many options and which would literally lower the cost of health insurance for every American. Four things.

One is to have cross-State purchasing for businesses and individuals so that people could go out and buy their health insurance anywhere in this country.

The second thing is to develop an association pool so that people could join an association and could have a choice of one or more multiple products in the way of health insurance that they could buy.

The third thing is to stimulate the States to set up high-risk pools to cover those people who are uninsurable.

The fourth thing is to have tax fairness for everybody so that everybody could deduct 100 percent of all their health care expenses. We don't have that today.

In fact, last night, I led the Doctors Caucus discussion about health care. Just following us, the Democrats came to the floor, and they were talking about a bill that passed the House today. It's a big insurance company protection bill, is actually what it is. Betsy Markey from Colorado, a Democrat, said she has had a small business, and she was remarking, as to her small business in Colorado, that she only has two choices of buying health insurance, and that she would like to see her employees be able to get insurance across State lines. I've had Democrat after Democrat tell me they'd like to introduce this bill, but they said that their leadership would punish them if they were to introduce it and promote it.

John Shadegg, Charlie Dent and I, all Republicans from different parts of this country, wrote an op-ed that was published in The Washington Times to challenge Democrats to introduce that bill. If we were to have it on the agenda tomorrow, we could introduce that bill. The Democrats could take control of it and could claim the bill as theirs.

Thank you.

I believe the American people know what's going on up here, and they're going to say ``no'' to ObamaCare. The American people have already spoken. They're going to say ``no'' to all of this sham, this secrecy, this putting things together with just a few people who won't let Democrats or Republicans be engaged in setting things up. It's all a show. It's a joke. It's a bunch of clowns who are just trying to make something look different than it is. It is nothing but trying to ramrod a health care takeover by the Federal Government, by this administration, and by the leadership.

The American people need to stand up and tell their Congressmen, their Senators ``no'' to this sham, ``no'' to ObamaCare--and we can defeat it. I encourage people all over this country to start calling first thing in the morning, Mr. Speaker, every Congressmen in this Congress and every Senator and

say ``no'' to this sham, ``no'' to ObamaCare and ``no'' to a government takeover of the health care system. My patients and my patients' families depend upon it--the American people just saying ``no.''

With that, we as Republicans are not the party of N-O; we are the party of K-N-O-W. We can lower the cost of health care if our issues will get on the table and if we can discuss those.

I yield back.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Billy Dilworth, a legend in Georgia broadcasting, and an award winning journalist who is known by thousands in northeast Georgia for his newspaper articles as well as his television and radio shows.

Just after graduating from the University of Georgia, his career got off to a great start. His first interview was with a rising star in the music world named Elvis. His second interview was with a well-known politician, Harry

Truman. In fact, during his time as a journalist and radio personality, Billy would interview five presidents and several country music stars. But most importantly, he always made time for folks in the community.

Over the past twenty years, Billy has hosted ``The Billy Dilworth Show'' on WNEG-TV. During the show, he and co-host Michelle Austin have entertained viewers with their great humor, music selections, and updates from political, civic, and religious leaders. One of their regular segments that I can certainly relate to was named ``Doctor's House Calls'' and allowed live call-in questions.

I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring this Georgia legend. Though he is stepping away from the limelight, he can never be replaced. I, along with the rest of his viewers, will miss him. His talent and work will not be forgotten.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am a medical doctor. I have practiced medicine in Georgia for almost four decades. As a medical doctor with all of that clinical experience--I'm a family doc, a primary care provider.

I've examined the proposal that the White House put forward just 2 days ago. Frankly, I've got a diagnosis. I cannot give ObamaCare 2.0 a clean bill of health. What I can diagnose for the American people, though, is this:

It's going to make the American people sick--sick in their wallets because it's going to cost more. Health care costs in this country are going to skyrocket because of this ObamaCare proposal that the White House recently put out.

As The Wall Street Journal just very aptly said in an editorial this morning: The White House has accomplished a great thing. They took the most onerous pieces of the House bill and the Senate bill and combined them to make the current proposal of ObamaCare that the White House is putting forward even worse than either of those bills.

The quality of health care in this country is going to go down. It's going to go down because doctors and patients will no longer be able to make health care decisions. It is going to be made by a Federal bureaucrat here in Washington, D.C.--one that doesn't, in all probability, have any medical training whatsoever.

As a health care provider, as a medical doctor today, I see Federal bureaucrats who have no medical experience telling me and my colleagues whether we can put a patient in the hospital or not, whether we can give them a certain medication or not, how long they can stay in the hospital, what kind of care we can give. So there is already control, particularly with the Medicare patients of health care.

The problems that Medicare has today are going to be exacerbated, or made worse, by what this administration is doing and by what the leadership in this House and in the Senate are doing. It's not only going to destroy the quality of health care, but it's going to destroy the budgets of States, of local communities and, most especially, of small business and of people who are working class Americans.

The reason it is going to do that is that the cost of health care is going up. It's going to go up for everybody. It doesn't contain costs at all. We've been told by the President that this--and in fact, they claim on the White House Web site that this is going to help the Federal deficit by $100 billion. Well, the reason for that is they are going to markedly raise taxes--over half a trillion dollars in increased taxes. Those taxes are going to be on everybody.

We hear from the President that he doesn't want to tax anybody but the upper 5 percent of the population, 5 percent of the income, but that's not factual. Everybody is going to be taxed because of the mandates. We have been told over and over again that, if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Folks, Mr. Speaker, if you like your health insurance, you can't keep it, because even this new ObamaCare 2.0, the second version, has so many mandates and requirements on private health insurance that it appears to me that what our administration is doing is they are putting up a system that is going to force everybody onto the public exchange.

Well, the President told us a couple of months ago that he sees the public option--or in the Senate, it's the public option lite. They call it a public exchange. That is what is in the President's current proposal. It's just the first step towards Federal bureaucrats' controlling every health care decision in this country. Federal bureaucrats are going to run the health care system for everybody.

The playing field has been laid, in this latest proposal by the President, that it is going to put the squeeze on everybody in this country, not only on the insurance companies--and I'm not a friend of the health insurance companies. I fight them all the time as a health care provider, as a medical doctor--but it's going to put the squeeze on everybody to force them off of private insurance into a public exchange or into a public option.

The President told us just a few months ago that his game plan, his purpose of all this, is to try to force everybody into a government- controlled health care system, and that's exactly the direction that he is going.

Now, frankly, I think this proposal of a bipartisan meeting on Thursday, the 25th of February, is nothing but a ruse. It's nothing but a dog and pony show either to try to make the Republican Party and Republicans to be a party that has no ideas, which the Democrats over and over claim, or to be an obstructionist party, that just want to be the party of ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, the American public needs to understand the Republican Party is the party of k-n-o-w. We are the party of ``know'' because we know how to lower the cost of health care. We know how to lower the cost of energy, to seek energy exploration here in America so that we're less dependent upon energy sources from countries that hate us and want to destroy us. We are the party of k-n-o-w, ``know,'' because we know how to create jobs. And we do that through stimulating small business, by giving them tax breaks to leave dollars in the hands of small business men and women so that they can hire new employees, so that

they can expand their business, so that they can buy new inventory. We're the party of k-n-o-w because we know how to give individuals money in their pockets so they can be good consumers again.

Mr. Brady of, Texas in his 5-minute speech, talked about the folks that he talked to just recently there in Texas, and these are small business men and women that said that we need to get the fear out of the system. We need to give assurance.

Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight as a medical doctor to try to give some assurance to the American people that there are people here on the Republican side that are fighting against this government takeover of the health care system.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have spoken very loudly. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Americans either want us to scrap the ObamaCare plans, the House plan and the Senate plan, and it would include his new plan because it's the two plans put together, or do nothing. Well, frankly, as a medical doctor, I don't want to do nothing. I have introduced my own health care finance overhaul plan, H.R. 3889, which is a comprehensive overhaul of the health care system. It's a little over 100 pages. It would put patients in charge of health care decisions, along with their doctors. And even Medicare patients. It would stop this government control of health care dollars and would put those decisions back in the hands of the patients and the families where they should be. So Republicans are the party of k-n-o-w, ``know.'' We've tried real hard.

But the President has proposed this bipartisan summit. But a senior White House official said Thursday the Democrat negotiators, talking about this summit that is going to occur this Thursday, the Democratic negotiators are resolving final differences in House and Senate health bills. That's what we saw just this week in the Obama administration's proposal that's on the White House Web site right now, 11 pages, no bill, no legislative language. We do not have a bill. All we have are bullet points and ideas that they have now resolved the differences and have one bill that passed last year with virtually no Republican help.

Our leadership went over to the White House and said, We'll be glad to come. We'll be glad to try to solve this problem for the American people. Our leadership, our Republican leadership, has offered a hand out to the White House and said to the White House, We want to find some commonsense solutions. It's good for patients, good for small business, good for America. We need to start all over again. Let's find some areas of mutual agreement. Let's find where we can agree on issues, where we can pass something to lower the cost of health care for all Americans. Let's try to find some solutions to help those who are struggling to pay their bills and can't buy health insurance by making it more affordable. Let's find solutions to those who are uninsurable because of preexisting conditions.

What was the answer from the White House? The White House's answer was, No, we will not do that. You have to accept our plan. We're going to start there. We will talk about our plan and we will see where we go from there. We're not going to start over. We're not going to try to find some common ground. You have to accept things that you do not like. That was the answer from the White House.

Our leadership said, Well, at least do this: Let's take the ramrod out. The ramrod has to do with the rule over on the Senate side that's called ``budget reconciliation,'' and it's a way of trying to ram things through the Senate.

The White House says, No, we won't do that. We're going to ram it down the throats of the American people whether they like it or not, and we will do it without your help. We will do it solely with Democrats doing this. And we don't care what you say. We don't care what you believe. We don't care what you bring to the table. We're not going to consider your proposals. We're not going to consider anything that you're offering. We're going to do it our way, like it or lump it. That's what the White House told our leadership.

Is that what the American people want? I don't think so. I don't think so at all. That's what the White House has said. Now, that was in a private meeting.

They've suggested that we have this open bipartisan meeting televised, and, frankly, I think it's just nothing but political theater to try to force down the throats of the American people a government takeover of health care so that government bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C., make your health care decision if you're out there in America; that's going to tell doctors, patients, and families whether they can get care or not, whether they can have a medication that may be even a lifesaving medication or not. And the cost is going to go up. What's that going to do? Because the costs are going to go up, it's going to hurt small business. It's going to hurt workers. It's going to hurt the middle class. We're told one thing by the President, but the President says one thing and does something else.

It's a sad day. It's really a sad day. It's a sad day for my patients. It's a sad day for working men and women in America. It's a sad day for those people who are struggling to make ends meet. It's a sad day for those people who are on government assistance today. It's a sad day for America because I think this dog and pony show, this charade, this ruse that the White House has put together for Thursday is nothing but something to try to pull the wool over Americans' eyes.

The good news is, though, America, I don't think, is going to buy it because the American people get it.

The President recently said he's just not articulated well enough about ObamaCare to allow the American people to understand how they need this government takeover of the health care system. He didn't call it a government takeover of the health care system. He said ``my plans.'' ``My,'' ``I''--all his focus is on himself. But the American people do get it. They understand very firmly that this is not what they want. This is not the change that they thought they were getting. This is not the hope and change that was promised.

I have been joined tonight by several of our Doctors Caucus members, a couple freshmen and then a longstanding Member of the House that have come tonight to talk to the American people, Mr. Speaker, through this Special Order about ObamaCare to let people know that Republicans are the party of ``know.''

To begin with, I would like to welcome and yield to a freshman, another family doctor from the State of Louisiana, from Shreveport, Louisiana, Dr. John Fleming.

Will the gentleman yield a second?

I want to point out something too so that we understand. We keep hearing from the President, we want to tax the rich. Most small businesses in this country file their income taxes individually because they're sub S corporations, which means that their income taxes are filed individually, as a person or as a couple. And over half of those people that make over $200,000, which is in the President's current proposal, are small businessmen and women, and it's taxes on their business. So, by taxing folks making over $200,000 or over $250,000, what it's going to do is it's going to take money out of small businesses so that they can't expand, so that they cannot give their employees the kind of salary that their employees deserve.

And I've talked to a lot of small businessmen and -women in Georgia who are going to have to let people go. So this is going to cost a lot of jobs. In fact, millions of jobs all over this country are going to be lost because of this tax, so-called tax on the rich, because it's really a small business tax. It's a tax on small business that's going to cost millions of people their jobs in this country. They're going to be out of work, and so we're going to have more joblessness in this country if this monstrosity gets passed into law. I thank you. I yield back.

Thank you, Dr. Fleming. I appreciate it. Now want to yield some time to another great member of our Doctors Caucus, Dr. John Boozman from Arkansas. And Dr. Boozman, before you start, I want to say that just to kind of tag on to what Dr. Fleming just said about the Louisiana purchase. He's from Louisiana. But this new proposal that President Obama has put forward is going to extend the Louisiana Purchase to every State. Now, the governors are going to love that, and the State legislatures are going to love that, because what it's going to do is it's going to take some of the financial burden off them for health care costs that are skyrocketing because of the Federal Government. But what it's going to also do is it's going to put a heavy burden on all the taxpayers in this country. So the taxpayers are going to hate the Louisiana Purchase. And it's just a cost shifting, basically, from a State level to a Federal level, and again, it's a Federal takeover of the health care system, and to get the States, as well as private insurance, out of the health care system, so--Louisiana Purchase. So I appreciate Dr. Fleming bringing up the Louisiana Purchase.

Dr. Boozman, I yield to you whatever time you may consume.

Let me reclaim my time here.

Let's say that again so we understand. The American people say, ``What? You're not including doctors who are taking care of patients? How are you going to form a health care system?''

Dr. Boozman, please say that again very clearly so the Speaker and anybody watching tonight can understand.

Reclaiming my time, I agree with you. In fact, I introduced H.R. 3889, a comprehensive bill, a little over a hundred pages, that totally would change health care financing in America and it would give patients the power to make the decisions along with their doctor.

I wrote the President. He said, If you have any ideas, my door is always open. But I've been knocking on that door over and over again, and it is slammed shut, locked, and I've been trying to open that door that he said was open and it's not been opened.

I know other members on our side, Dr. Price from Georgia, another physician, orthopedic surgeon, has introduced the Republican Study Committee Bill, H.R. 3400. Dr. Price has offered to talk with the administration. The door is locked. Bolted. Closed shut. Republicans Go Away is the sign on the door. And we're not being included in this so- called summit, bipartisan summit, on Thursday.

Why don't they want us there? Because we know about health care. They're not interested in what we, as physicians, know. They're not interested in our ideas. They're not interested in any Republican ideas.

This is a ruse. It's a show. Nothing but a dog-and-pony show to try to boost the President's approval ratings or try to make him look as if he is reaching out a hand of bipartisanship trying to find solutions for the American people. Actually, it's a fist that he is showing us, and it's a closed fist. It's a closed, locked door, and it's nothing but a show or a charade to try to look to be something different than it is.

Thank you, Dr. Boozman.

We are also joined tonight with another colleague. Louisiana is blessed by having three physician members of the Republican delegation here. We heard from Dr. John Fleming just a moment ago. We have Dr. Charley Boustany from Lafayette, Louisiana. Lafayette is one of my favorite towns. I've got some great Cajun buddies that I duck-hunt with down there. In fact, I talked to one today about he's coming to Georgia and wants to go turkey hunting. Shelly Deshotels from Lafayette, Louisiana is a good friend and a turkey hunting buddy. And Shelly Deshotels told me today, ``Keep fighting.'' He doesn't want to see this health care bill passed anyway.

We've got another physician, Dr. Bill Cassidy, who's joined us today.

Louisiana is like Georgia. We have three physicians from Georgia in the Republican delegation, and we have three physicians from Louisiana in their delegation.

I want to welcome and yield to Dr. Bill Cassidy for such time as he may consume.

Oh, really? That is news. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

That doesn't control costs.

Thank you, Dr. Cassidy.

One other thing that I want to add, too; not only is it less expensive, people can afford to buy insurance where before they had not been able to. They use more preventative services, but they take care of themselves better. So they are healthier. Diabetics control their blood sugar better. People who have high blood pressure control that better. Folks with high cholesterol tend to get their cholesterol lowered. They have less heart attacks, strokes. So they are healthier. They live longer. They are more productive. They are happier. They feel better, have more energy. So it actually promotes wellness.

If you really think about it, in the health care system today, we are not taking care of healthy folks, for the most part. We take care of sick people. That is what doctors do. That is what hospitals do, take care of sick people. Some people say we have a sick care system. Well, the system is sick because of the government.

Before I go back to Dr. Boozman, I want to tell a couple of stories about my practice and how government intrusion in the health care system has driven the cost of health care up for everybody. Back several years ago, I was practicing medicine down in rural southwest Georgia. Congress passed a bill called CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, and what this did is it shut down every single doctor's lab in this country.

Prior to CLIA, I had a fully automated, quality controlled lab in my office. And when patients came in to see me with a red, sore throat, running a fever, coughing, runny nose, I would do a CBC, or complete blood count, to see if they had bacterial infection and, thus, needed antibiotics, needed that expense, needed the exposure to the antibiotics and problems that may come from that, or whether they had a viral infection that is not helped by antibiotics at all. They don't need to spend that money. They don't need the exposure to the antibiotics. Less chance of having anybody have allergic reactions, less chance of developing the superinfections in this country.

I do that test, a CBC in my office, in 5 minutes. It costs $12. That is what I charged. That is what I charged Medicare and Medicaid as well as the patients. So this was a tool that I could use in my office, fully quality controlled. But Congress, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, in fact, Mr. Waxman, who is right in the middle of trying to push forward this government control of health care, was the one who pushed through CLIA--one of the ones.

After CLIA shut down my lab and every lab in doctors' offices across the country, to do that same test I had to send my patients across the way to the hospital. So they had to leave my office, go over there, spend 2 to 3 hours doing what I could do in 5 minutes, $75 for one test. Twelve dollars to $75. Five minutes to 2 to 3 hours for the patient.

Now, what do you think that did to the cost of everybody's health insurance in this country? What do you think it did to the cost that Medicare has to pay for lab services? It rose the cost of health care markedly all across this country. And that is with one government intrusion, CLIA. We have hundreds.

Not long ago Congress passed HIPAA. HIPAA has cost the health care industry billions of dollars. It is totally unneeded regulation. It has cost the health care industry billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches it has created. What does that do to my insurance costs and the American people's insurance costs? It drives it up markedly. Somebody has to pay that billions of dollars for that one government regulation that was put in place by Congress and the President signed into law. It has cost the health care industry. It costs all of us a tremendous amount of money.

So it is government regulation, government intrusion in the health care system that has raised the costs for me and for my patients. And here we go with another government bill, another government takeover that is going to put cost controls, that is going to put taxes out the wazoo for everybody in this country. So it is going to cost everybody. And I believe it is totally designed, to go back to what the President said just a couple of months ago, that he wants to go to a government- controlled, centrally run health care system, socialized medicine run from Washington, D.C.

Before, Dr. Boozman, I go to you, I just want to point out a couple things on this chart. What is in the new bill? It is just more of the same. It is the worst of the House bill, worst of the Senate bill put together. It is more of the same. It is a government takeover of health care. There is no question about it. There are price controls, as

Dr. Boozman was talking about. There are a lot of individual and employer mandates.

So if you have health insurance and you like it today, it is going to go away, because the Federal Government and the Federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., is going to put mandates on your health insurance to the point that it is going to go away.

In fact, I believe it is geared up to try to put all health insurance companies out of business so that there is only one health insurer in America, and that is the U.S. Federal Government.

There is no medical liability reform. The President talked about he wanted to have medical liability reform. It is not in any of the Democrat bills, the House bill, the Senate bill, nor is it in ObamaCare II. It still puts Washington bureaucrats in charge of defining what is quality health care. In fact, in the stimulus bill, the nonstimulus bill--the failed stimulus bill--the Democrats put in something that's called--what was it called? I'm having a brain freeze here. It's called an Effectiveness Research Council, or Comparative Effectiveness Research is what it's called. What that is geared to do is physicians look at the comparative effectiveness of different treatments, whether if you have cancer, whether surgery, or chemotherapy, or radiation therapy--or a combination of all three is better. That's what we do in medicine.

The comparative effectiveness that the Democrats have put in place actually is geared towards how to spend dollars. It is the comparative effectiveness of spending $1 on a 40-year-old versus a 65- or 70-year- old. And so the way the whole system is set up, it means that the Medicare recipients are going to get thrown in the stick. Senior citizens, under the comparative effectiveness, are not going to get the care; they are going to be denied it by the Federal Government.

Cuts Medicare Advantage. It still raises taxes. There is over a half of a trillion dollars of increase in taxes, and this is the only way that they can even get it anywhere close to the kind of numbers that the President promised. And he and his administration have used what I call ``voodoo economics.'' The reason I call it voodoo economics is because you have to be a dead man walking around with no soul to believe the economic parameters of the economic issues that they've put in place. But this Obamacare raises taxes and will raise taxes on virtually everybody.

And it still gives the government-run plan a beachhead to eliminate private insurance. And I think this is the bottom line. This is the purpose that Henry Waxman and Charlie Rangel and Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and George Miller and a lot of people have been pushing, the government takeover. They're very open and frank about it, and I congratulate them for being at least halfway honest. But the whole purpose of the Pelosi bill in the House, the Reid bill in the Senate, both ObamaCare and now the proposals that the President put forth yesterday morning, is a government takeover of health care, to tell the American people the kind of care that they can get.

Whether they can get it or not, it is going to take the decisionmaking process out of the hands of patients and families, out of the doctor's hands, and it is going to put it in--all those decisions are going to be made by government bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C.

So with that, I yield to Dr. Boozman.

Well, I will reclaim my time, and I thank you, Dr. Cassidy.

In fact, my health care overhaul bill, H.R. 3889, expands health savings accounts, creates Medicare health savings accounts. So it puts Medicare patients in charge of their own dollars, and they own those dollars. And those dollars, if they're not expended, would roll into their estates so that their heirs would get them.

We pay our Medicare taxes to the Federal Government, and we should get it back. I am an original intent constitutionalist, and I understand that some people would say, well, Dr. Broun, an HSA is not constitutional under Medicare, but we've got to fix Medicare. And it is a bridge to help Medicare patients start controlling their own costs and controlling their own money and controlling their own health care decisions. That is exactly what my bill, H.R. 3889, would do.

But I wanted to go back to this summit just in the last few minutes that we have. Actually, the mainstream media has written some articles that just came out today, and I wanted to read a couple of things from the mainstream media. The President has talked about he wants to reach out in a bipartisan way. The Wall Street Journal wrote today, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway. A San Francisco Examiner editorial said, Republicans publicly wondered if Obama's proposal represented a refreshing new attempt by the Chief Executive to display genuine bipartisanship and whether they should trust him to come to the summit with a truly open mind. And that is what we had hoped.

Going on with what they said: We now know the answer to both questions is a resounding ``no.''

The Washington Post said, President Obama's opening bid on health reform is not designed to entice Republicans to join the game.

And as we said earlier, I don't believe the President wants Republicans to join the game, he doesn't want the Governors to join the game. He doesn't want anyone to join the game because he has set the game rules himself, tilted towards just what he wants and what nobody else wants. It is just the leadership meeting in secret behind closed doors, with no input actually from our Democratic colleagues nor our Republican colleagues, nor Governors, nor health care providers, anybody except just the leadership has brought forth ObamaCare II.

And even in his hometown newspaper, The Chicago Tribune--not known to be a conservative newspaper--said this: Obama wants Republicans to approach the summit in a spirit of compromise. Too bad he's not leading by example.

So, Mr. Speaker, we've spent an hour with my colleagues talking about health care. Republicans are the party of k-n-o-w, know. We can lower the cost of health care. We can empower patients and doctors to make the decisions and start health care reform, health care financing reform, that makes sense economically, that will cover those that are uninsured, that will cover those who have preexisting conditions that can't get insurance today. We can do those things if the President and the leadership of this House and the leadership of the Senate would just listen to some of the proposals that we have put forward. Doctors have not been enjoined in this process. The American people have not been in this process. And the American people need to say no to ObamaCare.

Thank you, Judge Carter. I really appreciate you yielding to me tonight and appreciate you doing these Special Orders as we look at the President's proposal.

I went on the White House Web site this morning and looked at all of the parameters that were put forth, and I was looking for some legislative language. There's no bill. All they've put out is bullet points. So I went down through all those bullet points to try to figure out what's going on so that I could help inform my constituents in the Georgia's 10th Congressional District what the President was all about.

Now, let me back up a minute and say when the President announced that he was going to have a summit with Republicans and Democrats, that it was going to be televised, actually I was very hopeful that maybe we were going to get some bipartisanship, maybe we were going to get something done for the American people in the right way. But the more I've learned about that, the more I'm very fearful that this is nothing but political showmanship. It's a ruse.

The President, in secret--we don't have any clue of who is involved in putting together all these proposals that he's put forward. But in looking at those proposals, he says, if you have insurance, you can keep it.

Well, in the House bill, we saw that if you have insurance, you can't keep it. And we have a lot of people over here on the Democratic side that are very much in favor of nobody being able to keep their private insurance. They want to go to a single-party payer system, the government-run system. And, in fact, the President himself has said that the public option, or even the government exchange, is the first step toward getting the government to run everybody's health care. So a bureaucrat in Washington, DC, is going to tell my medical colleagues-- I'm a medical doctor, as you know, Judge--is going to tell my medical colleagues how to treat their patients.

Well, in reading the President's proposals, nothing has changed. There's going to be a government exchange, and the vise is going to be put on small businesses as well as individuals so that they can't afford to keep their private insurance. It's going to run people away from their private insurance and run them into the government exchange so the government can control your health care, and that's not right.

It's going to be extremely expensive. It creates all these new taxes. We hear about all these tax cuts, but the tax cuts have not been fleshed out. We don't have any clue what they mean. And frankly, we do know that there are going to be tax increases on virtually everybody.

So it's going to destroy the quality of health care. It's going to mean that doctors, when they see their patients, can't make medical decisions because some bureaucrat in Washington, DC, is going to make those decisions for the doctor.

You bet. Sure.

Well, Mrs. Lummis is exactly right. And that's the point I'm trying to make is that if you like your insurance you can't keep it. It's going to be too expensive. And this plan that the President has put forward is going to push everybody out of their private insurance on to a government insurance exchange; thus, the government is going to eventually take over the whole health care system.

But what I was fixing to say is that a patient can't make the decisions themselves either. So this is totally geared, it's a slippery slide into a government-run health insurance program so that the Federal Government is going to tell doctors and hospitals how to treat their patients, and tell patients, small businesses, individuals, about whatever kind of insurance. And if you don't take the government's insurance exchange, well, it actually mandates that you have insurance, which is totally unconstitutional.

Actually, the whole bill is unconstitutional that we saw in the House. The whole bill that we saw from the Senate is unconstitutional. I don't find anywhere in this document, the Constitution of the United States, anywhere that the Federal Government has the authority to take over the health care system in America. So that's what the President's proposal will do. That's what the House bill does. That's what the Senate bill does.

And the President said we're going to have this bipartisan meeting, and I was very hopeful, as I said previously. But our leadership, I've talked to them individually. They went to the President in a private meeting. The President said, You start with my plan. He's told our leadership, Republicans are going to have to accept some things that you don't like. He said that he would not take the ramrod over in the Senate of budget reconciliation off the table. And this is what they're talking about today.

Just today the President's spokesman has said, We're going to run it through no matter how we can get it, over all of the public's wishes. Seventy percent of the American public, in the latest poll I saw, said that either we start over or do nothing, 70 percent.

But why is this being forced down the throats of the American people? It's because this administration, the leadership in the House and the Senate, want to take over health care, and that's the only reason that they're doing this. And they think, I believe that they think that if they do it now, that maybe the economy will get better and they won't be punished so much at the ballot box in November.

But this is going to be disastrous. It's going to destroy the quality of health care. It's going to take the choice away from patients, away from doctors. It's going to mean that everybody's health care cost is going to go up. And Mrs. Lummis, the reason CBO has not scored it is because they said today they cannot score it because of all these gigantic tax increases and other things that the President proposed.

So this summit on the 25th is nothing but political showmanship. It's trying, in my opinion, to make it look to the American people like we're working in a bipartisan way, but we're absolutely not doing so. And it's a ruse. It's absolutely a ruse. And the American people deserve better, should demand better, should demand something totally different. And it's up to the American people to tell their Congressmen and their Senators, We're not going to have a government takeover of health care forced down our throats. We say no. And if you don't say no to this government takeover, we're going to say no to you in November. So I hope the American public will do that.

And I yield back to the judge.

I submit the Republican Party is the party of k-n-o-w, know, because we know how to lower the cost of health care.

I introduced a bill--that's H.R. 3889--which is a comprehensive health care financing reform, and we put doctors and patients in charge of their health care dollars, health care expenses.

We know how to give patients the ownership of their insurance so that they can solve the portability problems. We know how to insure the uninsurable as well as the uninsured in this country. We know how to stimulate the economy and to create jobs. But every effort that we've made to do all of these things has been blocked by the leadership of the Democratic Party.

We are the party of k-n-o-w. We do know how to do those things.

I have sent the President a letter. In fact, I have reached out to the President. He said if anybody has any ideas, please contact him. I have made many efforts to reach out to him to stimulate the economy, create jobs, to solve the health care financing crisis, to lower the cost of health care. Guess how many times I've been responded to. Zero. The White House is not interested in hearing from this doctor. And in fact, there is not a single medical doctor that's been invited to the White House on the 25th of February.

I am the vice chairman of the Doctors Caucus, the GOP Doctors Caucus here in this House. And nobody from the Doctors Caucus, the chairman, none of us vice chairmen--me and another co-vice chairman--have not been invited. Dr. Michael Burgess, who is on the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Health Subcommittee, he has not been invited as far as I know. So not a single doctor has been invited to this meeting on Thursday, the 25th of February. They don't want to hear from us.

They have one agenda, and that is to force down the throats of the American people a government-run health care system. And that is actually what, if you read all of the parameters of what the White House put out on their Web site today, that is exactly where it's going to lead. And the President himself said that is what he wants to do.

It's up to the American people to stop it, to contact their Congressmen, contact their Senators, and say ``no'' to this government takeover of health care. We will not fall for this trick, this ruse, this political theater that is going to come about on Thursday, not fall for that trick and understand that this is not a reaching out.

And just like you said, Judge Carter, I think you're going to hear a lot of things: We reached out to the Republicans, but they're obstructionists. They have no ideas, no ideas whatsoever. They're the Party of No. Well, we are the party of k-n-o-w. We can solve these problems.

And let me say one other thing before I yield back. I have challenged Democrats individually, as well as I wrote an op-ed with two of our colleagues, John Shadegg and Charley Dent, challenging Democrats to introduce a bill that would do four things: Number one is to have across-State-line purchasing for individuals and for businesses; number two, to establish association pools so that anybody could join any kind of association in this country and have these huge pools to offer one or more insurance products; number three, to establish State high-risk pools to cover the uninsurable; and number four, to have tax fairness to give 100 percent tax deductibility for all health care expenses.

I've had Democrat after Democrat say, Paul, I'd like to do that. I'd like to introduce it. I told them we'd give them the legislative language. All they had to do is write their name in the blank, and the three of us Republicans would work it on our side. I think we'd get 100 percent of the Republicans to vote for that bill, and we'd get most of the Democrats. But Democrat after Democrat after Democrat has told me individually, privately, I can't do it because my leadership will punish me if I were to introduce that bill and work it on my side.

We need to step back, clear the deck. Let's go ahead and start off and work off in an incremental bipartisan way to find a commonsense market-based solution so that people's insurance is lower than it is today and that they and their doctors are in control of their health care decisions. And that is what we're trying to do on the Republican side.