Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of the IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of my resolution is as follows:

Whereas the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Broun submitted an

amendment to the Committee on Rules to H.R. 3326, Department

of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010;

Whereas that gentleman's amendment would have required that

none of the funds made available in this Act be used to

standardize the design of future ground combat uniforms

across the military branches;

Whereas defense appropriations have typically been used to

provide funding for various types of equipment such as

uniforms;

Whereas the gentleman's amendment complied with all

applicable Rules of the House for amendments to

appropriations measures and would have been in order under an

open amendment process, but regrettably the House Democratic

leadership has dramatically and historically reduced the

opportunity for open debate on this Floor; and

Whereas the Speaker, Ms. Pelosi, the Democratic leadership,

and the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Mr.

Obey, prevented the House from voting on the amendment by

excluding it from the list of amendments made in order under

the rule for the bill: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That H. Res. 685, the rule to accompany H.R.

3326, be amended to allow the gentleman from Georgia's

amendment to be considered and voted on in the House.

Well, I thank y'all. I appreciate y'all doing this tonight, and I appreciate your yielding me some time. I think the American people need to know several things about this, and y'all have brought up some very good points.

The CBO says that this ObamaCare plan is not going to save money. It says that, in 10 years, we're still going to have almost 20 million people in this country who won't have health insurance. They need to understand that illegal aliens are going to be given free health insurance by the Federal Government.

Now, last night I was watching C-SPAN, and one of our Democratic colleagues was just railing on about how illegal aliens will not get ObamaCare.

The reality is, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, just today, this morning, one of my Georgian colleagues introduced an amendment to the bill that basically said that you have to look at people's citizenships and confirm whether they're U.S. citizens or not. That was defeated almost on a party-line vote. All of the Republicans voted for the amendment. Most all of the Democrats did not. I think there were one or two who voted with my Republican colleague from Georgia. The amendment was to just affirm that somebody was here legally to get free health insurance. We saw that with SCHIP.

When I first came up here during the last Congress, we had numerous debates about SCHIP, and we had fights over giving State Child Health Insurance Programs to illegal aliens. Our Democratic colleagues absolutely fought and won the fight on this issue. People who come are going to be asked a question, Are you an illegal alien? When they say, No, I am not an illegal alien, then they're not going to do anything to check the legality or the truth of that statement. So it's a self- determination by the applicants as to whether they're legal or not. If they say they're not illegal, then they're going to be given free health insurance under this government plan.

The other thing that, I think, is extremely important for the American people to understand is that this plan is going to cost American workers a tremendous salary decrease. Plus, it is going to put a lot of American workers out of work. In fact, it has been projected that over 100 million people are

going to be forced off of their private insurance. Also, as Dr. Roe was just talking about, it happened in the TennCare.

So I've heard a figure of 114 million people who have private insurance today who are going to be forced off their private insurance plans onto this so-called ``public option.'' Well, how does that work?

Well, I have businesses in my own district in northeast Georgia that have told me, businessmen and -women, that they'd rather pay the 8 percent tax, the pay-or-play tax. It would cost them less to pay the extra tax and then put their folks, whose insurance they're paying for today, over on the government plan, the socialized medicine/government plan.

I saw a video today of Barney Frank, who was questioned about the government option. He said in this video, in his own words, that this is the way to get everybody in this country on a single-payer system. So, as to the claim that our Democratic colleagues put forth, which is, if you have private insurance you can keep it but if you don't then we'll give you a public option, is not factual.

They're setting up the game such, as Barney Frank just very blatantly said in this video today--and I think it's on YouTube, and you can go look at it--that this government option is the means to get everybody on one single-payer system provided by the Federal Government, socialized medicine.

Dr. Roe, would you yield for 1 minute?

While you're talking about the seniors, I think the seniors need to understand, too, about this ObamaCare plan and understand that it mandates that those seniors have counseling, I think it is, every 5 years. They have to go get counseling every 5 years about dying. This is a government bureaucracy. I'm not sure where it is in your chart there because it's so hard to figure out what all this bureaucracy is that's being placed between the patient and the doctor.

Yet one of those bureaucracies is going to every 5 years tell people over 65 years of age, basically, that they have a responsibility to look at how they're going to die and how they're not going to cost the American taxpayer money, is basically what they're going to tell them.

It does not.

It does not address tort reform.

Well, I was just fixing to ask Dr. Boozman to yield so I could tell him a story.

Two days ago, I talked to the administrator of one of the major hospitals; it's a regional hospital within my congressional district in northeast Georgia. He was telling me just that day that one of the CAT scan techs, a lady, was up in his office, asking for more help in their CAT scan unit at night.

He asked her, Why do you need so much in the way of help there? She said, Because of all the massive amounts of CAT scans that we're running up here through the night which are ordered through the emergency room.

They did 10 CAT scans in one night on patients who'd come in. The administrator's question was, How many of those CAT scans were positive? Zero. Not the first one.

I've worked full time for part of my career as a director of emergency medicine at Baptist Hospital in Georgia.

I've been involved in emergency medicine throughout my medical career, sometimes part time, sometimes no time, when I was just doing family medicine, and other times full time.

Particularly doctors in the emergency room are having to do CAT scans on people who come in with all sorts of aches and pains when they really don't need to do those, but they're having to do those CAT scans and MRIs just because somebody might come back later on and sue them for missing a diagnosis.

If you would yield just a moment, I would like to point out something. The commerce

clause of the Constitution--I'm an original constitutionist, as many people in this House know. In fact, I carry a copy in my pocket. I carry it all the time, even when I'm home doing all sorts of things. I don't take it with me when I go in the shower, but almost.

But the commerce clause under its original intent was supposed to do just exactly what you're talking about, Dr. Boozman, is allow interstate commerce across State lines. And what we've done is we've perverted the Constitution in many ways. And this is one way that commerce clause has been perverted tremendously.

The commerce clause was supposed to make sure that there would not be a lockbox of goods and services at the State line. It was supposed to facilitate interstate commerce, not to control interstate commerce but to facilitate it.

And so we have perverted the Constitution markedly. And this is one good point that the Republicans are pointing out today about trying to give patients the ability to buy the insurance directly from an insurance company across State lines or have these pools with their alumni association. I went to the University of Georgia. We could have a University of Georgia Alumni Association pool. I went to the Medical College at Georgia for medical school. We could have an MCG pool. I'm a Rotarian. We could have a Rotary pool. We could have these huge pools that would help stop some of these problems with portability. It would help solve some of the problems that we have.

Dr. Cassidy if you will yield for a second, to draw a contrast here, too, is this the plan that you were just talking about, Mr. Fleming. A patient or an employee can choose whether they want to purchase their plan through their employer or not; is that correct?

Well, in the Democratic plan, they're going to be forced to buy the employer-provided health care insurance or they're going to be taxed at a 2 percent increased tax rate over what they're being taxed today. So their taxes are going to go up by 2 percent. They're going to be forced into that employer-provided health care plan that's going to be dictated--if you'll hold just a second, I want to make one very strong point here that people need to understand.

That employer-provided health care plan is going to be dictated by the health care czar panel. It is established on this menagerie of colors and blocks and things.

So the employers won't have a choice anymore about the plan that they offer their employees, and the employee won't have a choice either. And both of them are going to pay a penalty if they don't do what the Federal Government mandates or dictates to them; is that correct?

That's the point I was trying to bring up, too, doctors, if I could speak directly to the American citizens, as I cannot due to the rules here.

But if the American citizens understand, the Democratic plan is going to dictate their plan to them. It's all going to be run by government dictation or dictum from Washington, D.C., and this health care czar; whereas, the Republican plan gives the patient and the employer the choice of what they want to do. And that's why I wanted to try to draw that contrast as you were talking.

I yield back.

Not our plan but the Democratic plan.

I thank you, Dr. Cassidy, for yielding. I just wanted to give you a couple of quick stories, one that goes along with Dr. Roe's story. I have a surgical colleague that I was talking to who told me about getting a phone call from a government bureaucrat about a Medicare patient that he had in the hospital. The doctor got the call from the Medicare bureaucrat in Atlanta who said, Doctor, we have reviewed such-and-such a patient that I understand you have in the hospital. Yes. We have reviewed it. She does not meet criteria to be hospitalized, and we want you to discharge her today.

The doctor said, Well, have you seen my patient?

No.

Are you a doctor?

No.

Are you a nurse?

No.

So you're just a government bureaucrat, is that correct?

Well, I work for CMS.

He said, You've not seen my patient at all?

No.

But you have determined that this patient should not be in the hospital, and you want me to discharge her?

That's correct.

He said, This patient is extremely ill; and if I discharge her, she is very likely to die. I'm not going to discharge her.

The government bureaucrat said, Doctor, you don't understand. We've determined that if you don't discharge this patient today, we're going to fine you $2,000 a day.

So the doctor went and talked to the patient's family and the patient. What were they to do? Well, he discharged her. She died that night at home.

This was a Medicare bureaucrat.

That's the kind of care that the Democratic plan is going to not only give us more of, but it's going to take it down to lower age groups besides those 65 years of age and older. It's government intrusion into the health care system that has run up the cost tremendously. CBO has already said that the Democratic plan is going to cost more money. It's not going to bring the costs down.

Y'all were talking about the cost curve going up. What that means to the people who don't understand, that means it's going to be more costly for the health care system under the Democratic plan than what we have today.

Dr. Cassidy, if you don't mind yielding for another moment, let me tell you about something that happened in my medical practice down in rural southwest Georgia. Congress passed CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments. I had a fully automated lab in my office where I would do blood sugars, blood counts and things like that. If a patient came in to see me with a red sore throat, running a fever, white patches on the throat, coughing, runny nose, I would do a complete blood count to see if they had a bacterial infection and thus needed antibiotics to treat it. Or if they had a viral infection, they could have the same clinical picture but didn't need the cost or the exposure to the antibiotics. CLIA shut my lab down and every doctor's lab in this country down. Prior to CLIA, I charged $12 for that CBC. It took 5 minutes to do with quality control. After CLIA, I had to send patients across the way to the hospital, it took 2 to 3 hours to get the test and cost $75 for one test. It goes from $12 to $75, and 5 minutes to 3 hours. Now this is how government intrusion into health care markedly drives up the cost.

Well, not exactly. In fact, I have discharged patients at the time I see them. I don't have that concierge practice where I am prepaid. But actually, I charge less. My practice was a full-time house call practice. I was not working in an office.

And the Republican plan allows patients to do that, where the Democratic plan does not.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chairman, yet again, the Democratic leadership has decided to close down this process. I have submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee to prohibit funding in this bill from being used to standardize ground combat uniforms across the military services. The House version of the defense authorization has language that was slipped in to require one standardized future ground combat uniform for the military to eliminate the uniqueness of the branches.

The Marine Corps has stated, ``A standardized ground uniform will negatively impact USMC recruiting, retention, and tactical/operational employment for deploying forces.'' Given the unique and differing missions of each of the branches, I believe that the leadership of each Service should maintain the flexibility to determine what uniform is best-suited for the specific role for its members.

I am very disappointed that we have been denied the opportunity to debate my amendment here today. I want to say I'm a strong supporter of H.R. 3326. I am a marine. Once a marine, always a marine. I am also one who believes in a very strong national defense. I believe the Founding Fathers meant for a strong national defense to be the major function of the Federal Government.

I applaud this bill, and I applaud the leaders on both sides for bringing this strong bill. I want to say I agree with my colleague, Mr. Gingrey, that I believe very firmly that we need to continue funding the F-22 and the C-17.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to passing a health care bill, leadership insists ``this will happen.'' Speaker Pelosi claims to have the votes to get it passed on this floor.

If that's true, Madam Speaker, then show us the bill. If the rhetoric coming from the Democrats is true and if they're planning to steamroll a $1 trillion health care experiment through this body before August, let's see it. Let's debate it. Let's let the Americans see it.

The American people deserve to see a bill with plenty of time for an open and honest debate about exactly what is in store for them if this partisan experiment is passed. The American people have seen enough smoke and mirrors about the Washington bureaucrat who will be inserted directly between patients and physicians. They've seen enough smoke and mirrors about how many people will be forced off of their current health care plans. They've seen enough smoke and mirrors about the real cost of this plan. If you have the votes, then clear out the smoke. Show us the bill, and finally give hardworking Americans answers to their questions.

Show us the bill, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the 50th anniversary of a remarkable radio personality in my district: Mr. Harley Drew. After serving 50 years in radio, ``Handsome Harley Drew'' has established himself as a broadcasting icon in Georgia radio, having distinguished himself in every area of radio broadcasting.

At an early age, Harley displayed an aptitude for radio. He was only nine years old when he began to explore electronics and, as a young teen, received his first part-time radio job at WBRO in Waynesboro, Georgia. It was July 1959 when young Harley got his broadcast license; he had been bit by the radio bug.

In 1962, he helped put WFNL on the air in Augusta. Two years later, he landed a job at WBBQ as its program director and stayed with the station for the 25 years. Harley has worn many hats over the years-- operations director and later vice president at WBBQ, national program director for the Arrow Communications Group, and general manager at Sunny 105.

For the last 16 years, Harley has been with Beasley Broadcast Group, one of Augusta's largest radio broadcasters, where he is currently program director and host of ``Augusta Morning News.'' Thousands wake up each weekday morning in the Central Savannah River Area to the beloved, baritone voice of ``Handsome Harley Drew.'' For three hours in the mornings, he and his co-host, ``The Lovely and Vivacious Mary Liz Nolan'', deliver news of current events to their loyal listeners, culminating in ``The Morning News Coffee Break.'' This 30 minute program touches the lives of thousands of people each morning with an uplifting and informative program to start their day.

In May of this year, Harley inspired countless listeners to go to their doctors and undergo tests for heart disease after Harley spent seven weeks recovering from triple-bypass surgery. Harley became aware of his own heart condition when a physician guest on his morning show suggested Harley have a Cardiac Calcium Score. When Harley returned to the airwaves, he did not try to hide his medical history, but instead used the opportunity to bring awareness to this vital issue.

Harley Drew is known far and wide for his honesty and integrity in broadcasting. He is a founding board member of The Georgia Radio Hall Of Fame and also serves on the board of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters. He has received numerous awards and is well-respected and loved for the positive impact he has made on the lives of the people in Augusta and beyond.

Madam Speaker, I applaud the great work of Harley Drew and congratulate him on celebrating 50 years of broadcasting excellence.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to passing a health care bill that the Democratic leadership insists that this will happen, they claim to currently have the votes to get it passed on this floor. If that's true, Mr. Speaker, then show us the bill. If the rhetoric coming from the other side of the aisle is true and you are planning to steamroll a $1 trillion health care experiment through this body before August, then let's see it. Let us debate it. Let the American people see it. The American people deserve to see the bill with plenty of time for an open and honest debate about what is exactly in store for them if this partisan experiment passes.

The American people have seen enough smoke and mirrors about the Washington bureaucrat that will be inserted between them, as a patient, and their physician. They have seen enough smoke and mirrors about how many people will be forced off of their current health care plans. They have seen enough smoke and mirrors about the real cost of this plan. If you have the votes, then let's clear out the smoke, show us the bill, and finally give hardworking Americans answers to their questions.

Mr. Speaker, this morning on ``Fox and Friends,'' one of my favorite golfists, Phil Mickelson, was there talking about his wife, Amy, and his mother, Mary, having breast cancer. He made an astonishing statement. He said that the treatment of breast cancer today is better than it was 5 years ago, better than 10 years ago, and he's absolutely right. Mr. Mickelson's hope in the cure for his mother and his wife's breast cancer, this devastating illness, is very high.

But, Mr. Speaker, the American people need to understand if we pass the Democratic health care reform bill that they are proposing, innovation in health care is going to quit or go down and be very little. The quality of care is going to go down. As a physician, I can tell the American people that the quality of your care will be worse a few years from now because of the Democratic Party's health reform plan.

The American people need to stand up, Mr. Speaker, and say ``no'' to this and say ``yes'' to some of the alternatives that Republicans are presenting. We have a plan, but it will not be heard unless the American people demand it.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased to see that finally after 10 appropriations bills under closed rules, the Democratic majority has finally seen fit to allow this sensible cost-reduction amendment. The underlying bill increases the funding for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education by 25 percent.

Mr. Chairman, isn't a 24\1/2\ percent increase over last year enough? Is the Department of Labor really going to feel the effects of this modest amendment? We're only talking about reducing their increase for half a penny for every dollar that the agency spends. The American people are feeling the squeeze of this economy and, to date, Congress has done nothing to ease their burdens or address their frustrations. This modest reduction, Mr. Chairman, however small, is an important step. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as to the question of privileges of the House.

The form of my resolution is as follows:

Whereas the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Broun submitted an

amendment to the Committee on Rules to H.R. 3288, the

Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related

Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010;

Whereas the said gentleman's amendment would have required

that none of the funds made available in this Act be used for

bike paths;

Whereas transportation appropriations have previously been

used to build and repair bike paths;

Whereas the construction and repair of bike paths is not a

legitimate function of the federal government, since they do

not contribute to interstate transportation or interstate

commerce;

Whereas the gentleman's amendment complied with all

applicable Rules of the House for amendments to

appropriations measures and would have been in order under an

open amendment process, but regrettably the House Democratic

leadership has dramatically and historically reduced the

opportunity for open debate on this Floor; and

Whereas the Speaker, Mrs. Pelosi, the Democratic

leadership, and the chairman of the Committee on

Appropriations, Mr. Obey, prevented the House from voting on

the amendment by excluding it from the list of amendments

made in order under the rule for the bill: Now, therefore, be

it

Resolved, That H. Res. 669, the rule to accompany H.R.

3288, be amended to allow the gentleman from Georgia's

amendment be considered and voted on in the House.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I come before you today to protest this restrictive process.

Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a handful of very simple, straightforward, and commonsense amendments to this body. This arbitrary process of choosing which amendments are allowed to be considered on the floor is unworthy of this institution and has damaged the democratic process.

Is the majority leadership so afraid of making their Members vote against such commonsense measures as cutting this bill by half a percent that they wouldn't even allow debate?

I also submitted an amendment that would have prohibited any money in this bill to be spent on bike paths. Mr. Chairman, maintaining bike paths is clearly not a function of the Federal Government, and especially in these tough economic times and an era of large deficits.

This is not an appropriate use of Federal funds and taxpayers' dollars. At a time when our Federal Government is hemorrhaging money and selling bonds to foreign countries like China just to be able to keep the lights on, building bike paths is certainly a frivolous expense that should be cut out of this bill. Unfortunately, this amendment was not allowed to be debated.

The distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee has made it known that he is conducting the appropriations process in this restrictive manner in the interest of time. But, Mr. Chairman, that argument does not make any sense.

The Constitution has mandated this body with a finite number of basic responsibilities. Chief among those is allocating Federal dollars. If we cannot spend more than 1 hour debating appropriation bills that allocate hundreds of billions of dollars, then I would suggest that our priorities, the ones that deserve time on this very floor, are misplaced.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation and for the majority party to turn the legislative process back to regular order.

Thank you, Mr. Wamp. I appreciate you yielding me some time.

Mr. Speaker, government is growing, freedom is going. Many of us came to the floor through Special Orders and said, Where are the jobs? Mr. Wamp very eloquently told you, Mr. Speaker, where the jobs are. They're going to China and India and Sri Lanka and all the different countries around the world where the energy costs and the environmental regulations aren't such a hamper to industrial growth and development.

Mr. Speaker, I have several manufacturing plants in my district in northeast Georgia that have told me if that tax-and-trade, cap-and-tax bill passes the U.S. Senate, that they're just going to have to lock the door. They're going to lock the door and all the people who work in those factories in northeast Georgia are going to be out of work.

Right now, today, this very day, many of the counties in my Tenth Congressional District of Georgia have unemployment rates pushing over 14 percent. In Georgia, just a couple of days ago, it was announced that the State unemployment rate is 10.1 percent.

I heard today in Augusta, Georgia, which because of all the job- producing entities that have to do with government, State and Federal Government, such as the Eisenhower Army Hospital on Fort Gordon, Fort Gordon itself, the Savannah River site Department of Energy facility over in South Carolina, in my good friend Gresham Barrett's district, and the Medical College of Georgia, my alma mater, those four entities, plus the VA hospital--we have two VA hospitals in Augusta, Georgia-- those give a buffering effect to job losses. But in Augusta, Georgia, it's 10.1 percent now, from what I understand.

So where are the jobs? Well, they've left. And why? If you look at what has happened, we see over and over again our colleagues on the Democratic side blame George W. Bush for this bad economy and all the things that are going on today. I heard Members of the Democratic Party just this week blame the stagnation and poor economy on George W. Bush.

Well, George Bush was a big-spending President. There's no question a about that. He did create some deficit and debt. There's no question about that. And I was against that. I wasn't here during most of that period of time in Congress, but the last almost 2 years of his Presidency, I was here, and I voted against every big spending bill, every tax increase.

But I want to remind you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to remind the American people, if I can speak to them directly, that it's been on the Democratic leadership for the last 2\1/2\ years that most of the jobs have been lost. And if we look at the deficit and debt that's been created just in the last 6 months under this Democratic administration and under the rule of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in Congress, we have seen more debt, more deficit created than George Bush ever thought about doing.

The Democrats need to quit talking about George W. Bush because it's their deficit, it's their debt.

And then they passed this tax-and-trade bill. They call it that. They also call it cap-and-tax because it's about taxes. The President himself a few weeks ago said he had to pass this cap-and-trade bill to be able to fund his health care reform. Now what's that mean? It means that he needs the revenue.

It's about revenue. It's not about the environment. In fact, that bill, if it passes in the U.S. Senate, is going to cost more jobs. And it's going to hurt the very people that I hear over and over again that the Democrats claim that they represent.

They claim the Republicans only represent Big Business, but actually, Mr. Speaker, it's the Democratic Party that represents Big Business, because Big Business prospers under Big Government.

It's small business that we as Republicans represent. And this energy bill that's sitting over in the Senate is going to hurt small business. It's going to hurt everybody. It's going to hurt the poor people because they're going to be paying for higher energy costs.

Dr. Foxx was talking about it, and I think my good friend Mr. Wamp from Tennessee was saying that everybody in this country is going to have to pay more. They're going to pay more for gasoline. When you flip on the light switch in your home, you're going to pay more for that electricity. When you go buy groceries, you're going to pay more for groceries. When you go to the drug store to buy your medications, you're going to pay more because these energy costs are going to be passed to every single good and service in America. Every single one.

It's been estimated that it's going to cost, because of higher energy costs, the average family, as Dr. Foxx was saying, over $3,100 per average family in America. Now some people try to refute that. The MIT economist said, Well, we're taking this a little out of context. But the thing is, what he looks at is not what it's going to cost people out of their pocketbook. In reality, it's going to cost every average family in this country over $3,100 per average family for higher energy costs if that bill passes the U.S. Senate.

So we're going to lose jobs. We're going to lose jobs because small businesses are going to have a hard time paying the energy costs with this tax-and-trade bill that this House passed.

All small business can do is increase the cost of their goods and services to the public or they have to cut back or they have to cut back on their expenses. And the way they do that is by letting people go or reducing salaries or cutting hours to their employees.

So the average worker in this country is going to take home less money if that tax-and-trade bill passes the U.S. Senate. This health care reform bill that we hear the Democrats are going to bring before the August break is going to cost more jobs.

Well, how many more jobs are these two bills going to cost? Mr. Speaker, it's estimated it's going to cost many millions of Americans, working class, blue collar, small business jobs all across this country.

Just last night, the President said if the burden primarily falls on the middle class, he won't be for it. That's hogwash because his bill, his plan is going to fall on the backs of everybody, including the middle class. It's not true. Middle class is going to pick up the bill for this health care reform, for the tax-and-trade. We've got to stop it.

Now, Republicans aren't going to stop it. Only the American people can stop it. Former U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen one time said when he feels the heat, he sees the light, Mr. Speaker. And what he's saying is when he gets calls and letters, faxes, e-mails, visits about an issue, he starts feeling the heat.

Most Members of Congress in the House and the Senate are going to be running for reelection at some point. Most want to get reelected. And so when their constituents contact them about an issue, that's how we feel the heat.

So, Mr. Speaker, if I can speak out to the American people and tell them what to do to defeat this, Mr. Speaker, what I would tell every single individual who wants to solve the economic problems is to stop this cap-and-tax bill that the Senate is debating, also this health reform bill that's going to destroy quality health care, put a Washington bureaucrat between every patient and their doctor and the decisions are going to be made by that Washington bureaucrat, not by the patient, not the patient's family, but by a Washington bureaucrat. It's not going to even cover everybody, and it's going

to be extremely expensive, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

If the American people really understood what was going on in those two bills, they would rise up and say ``no'' to their U.S. Senators, ``no'' to their Members of this House, to their U.S. Congressmen. They can call, Mr. Speaker, they can e-mail, they can fax letters, they can visit the district offices, State offices, and say ``no'' to cap-and- trade, ``no'' to Barack Obama's plan, ObamaCare, and it's critical that we do that, because if we don't, our economy is going to be destroyed, jobs are going to be destroyed, the environment is not going to be any better worldwide. In fact, I think it will be worse.

And we're going to go down a road towards exactly what Mr. Obama's good friend Hugo Chavez has taken in Venezuela. We have a clear picture of what's going to happen in America if we continue down this road that this administration and the leadership in this House and the Senate today, the Democrat leadership, has taken us. All we have to do is look off the shore of Florida at Cuba and see where America is going, because that's the picture of what this country is going to be like several decades from now if we go down this road the way we're going.

So I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the American people will understand. God says in Hosea 4:6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Please, please, our American people need to be informed. We need to have that knowledge spread among the people. And the American people, Mr. Speaker, need to rise up and say ``no'' to ObamaCare, ``no'' to cap-and-trade, ``yes'' to jobs, ``yes'' to a strong economy, ``yes'' to creating jobs.

We're accused, as Dr. Foxx said, of being the Party of No on the Republican side. But, actually, we are the Party of Know, K-N-O-W. We know how to stimulate the economy, we know how to create jobs. We know how to be good stewards of the environment. And we will be. And that's what we need to do.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding. God bless you.

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 9: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Broun of Georgia

Amendment No. 10: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following:

Thank you, Mr. Akin. I appreciate your yielding me some time. As you know, I just walked in a moment ago. I wanted to bring out something that you may or may not have talked about. The American people need to understand something. They've been promised that if they like the private health insurance that they have today, they can keep it.

No. In fact, that's what I wanted to bring up. If you like what you have today, you're going to lose it. Thank you, Dr. Fleming, for giving me this chart. But if you like what you have today, the American people are going to lose it.

Well, that's correct. And the reason that people are going to lose their private health insurance that they have today is because the bill requires the health care czar, they call it a ``commissioner'' in the bill, is going to set the health care plan for every single individual in this country.

They call him a ``commissioner.''

No, they don't call him a ``czar.'' They call him a ``commissioner'' in the plan, but this fits the pattern of the czars that the President has established. The funny thing is this President has set up more czars than Russia did throughout its history through 200 years. We have more czars in the last 6 months than Russia has ever had.

Well----

The bill calls him a ``commissioner.'' But he fits the pattern of this health care czar because he is not confirmed by the Senate. He has no one to answer to but the President of the United States. Congress has no control over what he does.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. It is kind of like a dictatorship.

Absolutely, because what it is going to do is this health care commissioner, I won't use the word ``czar,'' but that's what he is going to be, this health care commissioner is going to set every single private plan in this country, and the employer is not going to have a choice about it, and neither is the employee. If the employee doesn't want that plan that's set by this health care commissioner, established by the President, appointed by the President, then that individual is going to be fined through the Tax Code, and they're going to be fined by having to pay higher taxes for just not accepting the mandated coverage that this health care commissioner and this administration is going to put upon them.

Let me point out a specific here. Particularly with this administration, which is the most pro-abortion administration that we have ever seen, obviously what this plan is going to include, if Barack Obama has anything to say about it, is taxpayer-funded abortions. And people are not going to have a choice. They're going to have to be buying a plan and help support a plan, even if they disagree with abortions, that will pay for abortions.

And it may be, there's a very high potential that that plan to cover everybody within an employee of a particular business, it may be that a single male is going to have to pay for OB coverage. It may be that a person who is past, a couple, for instance, who works for a particular company who is past the childbearing ages are going to have to pay for OB coverages, because this health care commissioner is going to mandate to every single business, every single private insurance company, whether it's individually purchased or whether it's purchased through the company that they work for, this health care commissioner is going to mandate coverage to every single human being in America.

The American people need to understand that, that this plan, though it is silent on abortions, amendments to the plan have been presented to make sure that the plan does not make taxpayers pay for abortions.

It has been offered in the committees. And those amendments have been defeated. In other words, the Democrats, and it has been pretty much party line--

That's exactly right.

That's correct.

There have been two other medical groups that have endorsed ObamaCare. One is the American College of Surgeons, and the other one is the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Well, ACOG, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, have been promoting abortion. So go back to your pro-life group; they wouldn't sign on to a plan if we pay, with taxpayers' funds, abortions. That's one thing. Secondly, back to the AMA; I don't think they represent but about 20 percent of doctors here in this country.

That's right. In fact, AMA represents very few doctors in this country. I'm a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Jane Orient is the executive director. It has very ardently opposed a government takeover of health care for years and years, and looking to the marketplace, has presented ideas about how to lower the cost of health care for everybody in this country to make it more affordable. But the liberals in Congress won't hear of that type of philosophy. So the AMA's endorsing this plan, actually I think they have been very shortsighted, because as Dr. Fleming said, they cut a backroom deal by just a little handful of the leadership in they AMA.

They didn't consult any doctor here in Congress that I can find. Neither did any of the other two groups. They didn't consult any of us who serve here in Congress, and cut these backroom deals on the SGR, sustained growth rate, or what we have called ``doc fix'' here.

But they're being very shortsighted because, the thing is, the taxes for all those doctors is going to go up above what they have been promised to be given in not cutting their fees. And so net income for the doctors is actually going to go down, and the doctors ought to understand that the AMA has sold them out.

Thank you, Mr. Akin.

I just want to talk a little bit more about something that Dr. Fleming brought up is this comparative effectiveness research that was funded through the stimulus bill; got a ton of money to set up this commission or study group to look at comparative effectiveness research. Age is one of the parameters. What happens in Canada today, if you need coronary bypass surgery, you just go on a waiting list and you just stay there till you die, if you're past a certain age. If you're diabetic and develop renal failure and need dialysis, I think the age is 55. I'm not certain of the age up there. In Great Britain it's the same way. They say, well, that's fine. We'll put you on the list for a renal transplant, or even for dialysis. You just never get off the list. You just die there. And very quickly.

Will the gentleman yield?

Well, you're not going against what I was saying. In Canada, it happens that way. But they have a relief valve, and that's called the United States and the excellent quality of care that they can get here on demand. But in the Canadian system, in the British system, if they stay there, they just die. They don't get the care that they need to save their lives.

And so you and I agree. You, in Michigan, have seen that first and foremost in your communities in places like the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

How's that?

Will the gentleman yield?

I want to point out a chart that Dr. Fleming pulled up. The one that Mr. Akin is looking at here is about all cancers. But if you look at prostate cancer and breast cancer, it's absolutely phenomenal at the difference in the rate. For instance, in the U.S., which is the purple bar here----

I was looking at the word prostate, so I apologize. But breast cancer, actually, with the new technology we have of imaging and the diagnosis to try to diagnose this

early, as well as some of the new drugs that are coming out on the market today that will all be denied actually under care because it's not cost effective. But 5-year survival rate for women is way over 90 percent in the United States. But look in England, it's hard to tell, but it's much lower.

Not in his daughter.

Almost 100 percent. Five years.

Yes. I was going to talk about that with prostate cancer in a minute or two.

Will the gentleman yield?

I'd like to go back to what Governor Hoekstra, Pete Hoekstra, our friend, just said from Michigan about Mayo Clinic and the innovative techniques that they're developing. And they're being developed at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Georgia that I represent. Innovative techniques are being developed all over this country for all sorts of health problems.

But now let's take the cancer that you have, prostate cancer. That's the most common cancer in men. With the new techniques that we've done and the stereotactic surgery and some of the things that go on today, we have developed surgical techniques to take care of prostate cancer that by and large will prevent men who have prostate cancer from having what in medicine we term incontinence which means urine leaks out and they don't have any control of the urine and have to wear a condom catheter with a bag on their leg to catch the urine because they can't control it. That is almost a thing of the past because of these new techniques that have been developed.

Absolutely. And in the past, people who had prostate cancer, there are many of them following that surgery were sexually impotent and could not perform sexually. With these new techniques, we've developed these new surgeries that prevent the impotence, prevent the incontinence, but the types of research and the innovative efforts that doctors make in this country today are going to be totally--

Government does fund some research through NIH and other entities, and thus there is--

Yes, sir. It's private sector and it's doctors all over this country; but when we go to rationing care, then what we're going to do is demand the lowest quality of care for everybody in this country.

So those techniques will not continue to be developed.

Absolutely.

We don't know how many illegal aliens are here. They're not immigrants. They've committed crimes so they're criminals. They not only come here illegally, which means they're criminals, but virtually all of them have illegal documents, forged documents so they're guilty of many law infractions. But this health care plan, ObamaCare, is going to give every single one of those illegal aliens in this country free health insurance at the cost of taxpayers.

And what that means is as we ration care to everybody in this country, that means American citizens, American taxpayers are going to have less care provided to them because we're funding these illegal aliens. And when we hear this number that 47 million people don't have health insurance--they say don't have health care. Everybody has health care. They have access to health care in this country today. Everybody has access--that 47 million people don't have health insurance, of that is at least 10, if Dr. Fleming's right, it could be up to 15, even 20 million illegal aliens in this country. So it's a huge part of that 45, 47 million people that don't have insurance.

They will get free health insurance.

They will get it, yes, absolutely.

Let me bring up another category of folks if you don't mind, if you will yield just for a second, and that's employees.

If you work for a company, you shouldn't like this, and the reason for that is that mandated coverage directed by the health commissioner--

The health czar, the health commissioner that is going to mandate to the employee's employer what kind of care that they're given, it's going to do two things at least to the employee and maybe even more.

Number one, the employee has to accept the insurance provided by the employer. Now, of the 47 million people who are not insured today, some of those are eligible for insurance through their employer, but they just choose not to take it. But they're going to be mandated to take the insurance through their employer, and if they don't, they're going to be fined through the tax system. It's a 2 percent tax or fine for them not taking employee-mandated----

That's correct. And another thing that's going to happen to that employee, because the employer is going to be taxed or have to pay more for the plan--in fact, a lot of companies are saying already that it would be better for them to just pay the 8 percent tax on those employers than it is to continue to giving them the insurance.

So it's going to force those employees off of their private health insurance that the employer's giving and force them on this so-called public option, the socialized medicine, Medicare-lite or Medicaid-lite that already has huge problems, but they're going to be forced into that. And a lot of them aren't going to want to do that either.

That's correct.

Or the Senate.

Will the gentleman yield?

Even if you're employed, you won't like this bill, because what's going to happen is millions of people are going to be put out of work. They're going to lose their jobs because of this ObamaCare plan.

They're going to lose their jobs because of the increased taxes and burden.

It's going to lose millions of jobs. And those that are working are actually going to have a lower take-home pay because of the increased cost and the mandates on the individual as well as on their business.

So incomes literally are going to go down if you're employed and you keep your job, but there are millions of Americans that are going to literally lose their jobs because of ObamaCare.

Will the gentleman yield?

Well, I'd like to tell you, my dear friend from Michigan, Mr. Hoekstra, that everybody in this country has access to health care. Today. Everybody, whether they're employed or unemployed. The reason they have access to health care is because anybody can walk into any emergency room anywhere in this country and they can get evaluation and treatment for any problem that they have.

I used to work full time as a director of emergency services at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Sylvester, Georgia, and anybody that walked in the door for any problem was evaluated and treated, whether they had health insurance or not. And that's true all over the country.

So everybody in this country, whether they have health insurance, whether they're employed, whether they're unemployed, whether they're legal immigrants, whether they're illegal aliens, whether they're American citizens, whether they're taxpayers or nontaxpayers, everybody in this country today has access the health care system.

The thing that they don't have, the 45 million or 47 million, is they don't have a health insurance card or policy in their pocket to pay for it.

You're exactly right. We have been, as Republicans, by our Democratic colleagues, have been described as the Party of No, N-O. But the reality is we are the Party of Know, K-N-O-W, because we know how to lower the cost of health care. We know how to get those uninsured people so that they can be insured.

In fact, even the ObamaCare plan, the director of the CBO said that even in 10 years there's still going to be millions and millions of people uninsured even under the Obama plan.

So we are the Party of Know to know how to solve these problems, to put people back to work, to give them lower cost for insurance. We have multiple plans on our side. I hope the American people understand that.

Well, Mr. King, I am glad you brought this up because the American people have been promised by this President over and over again. He's saying, if you like your insurance, you can keep it. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's not factual. It's just totally falsehood. If you like the policy that you have today, you will not be able to keep it under ObamaCare. The other thing that you're talking about there--let me just tell you what happens to me as a physician with Medicare payments.

You bet.

Congress.

It was over 100 million nationally.

Let me tell you where I was going to begin with. Say a Medicare patient comes in with some chest pain, and I decided that they needed an x-ray of the chest or an MRI of the chest, I have to call a Federal bureaucrat to get permission for that patient to have those studies done right now today. In fact, even with a lot of the HMOs that are privately administered, if I prescribe an anti- hypertensive, something to control blood pressure, I have to call a pharmacy benefits manager to get permission and approval to prescribe a medication, which I am totally against that.

In my office we're writing a health care reform plan that will put patients in the position where they make the decision, not a pharmacy benefits manager, not a Federal bureaucrat. It's one of the plans that's going to be offered as a bill. But right now today, that Federal bureaucrat tells me, as a doctor, what kind of x-rays that I can do on my patients if they're on government plans, Medicare and Medicaid. It's already a broken system. Care is already being rationed in the government-supplied insurance programs today, in Medicare and Medicaid. It's going to get a lot worse under ObamaCare, a lot worse. We'll have more rationing of care, more denial of care. There will be longer waiting periods.

Would the gentleman yield?

I would like to tell you a story that I recently heard about a patient that actually helped my friend from Michigan's economy. Mr. Hoekstra, you might be very interested in this because it actually provided some funds into your State, from what I understand.

A patient in Canada had severe knee pain, such severe knee pain that he required narcotics. He went to see his family doctor, the gatekeeper to the health system up there. The doctor told him that he was just going to treat him with some physical therapy and give him narcotics. This went on for over a year before he could get in to see an orthopedic surgeon. It took him over a year to be on the list to see the orthopedic surgeon for evaluation of this severe knee pain.

When he finally got to see the orthopedic surgeon after a year--of course here in this country if a family doctor, like me, wants to get a patient to the orthopedic surgeon, we can do it within a matter of days and certainly weeks, if the orthopedist is extremely busy. But it took him over a year to see an orthopedic surgeon that was mandated by the government. He had to see this particular one. It took him over a year to see him. The orthopedic surgeon finally did some x-rays on him and told the patient, Yes, you've got such and such a condition in your knee; and you need an operation.

This patient said, Fine. Let's go to the hospital. I want to get rid of this pain. I want to get off the narcotics. The orthopedic surgeon said, No, no, no, no. You can't do that. We'll have to put you on a waiting list to get in the hospital for your surgery. The patient said, Well, how long is that going to take? We don't know, is what he was told. So the patient left Canada and came to the United States--I think to Michigan--to get his much-needed simple knee surgery that was denied immediate care, may even have made him a narcotic addict because he was put on those narcotics that he had to take for the severe pain. So he had to deal with that too because the government delayed his evaluation and his treatment.

That's exactly what's going to happen to people here in America under this plan that's being presented by the Democrats.

No.

No.

Tell me it's not so.

It's almost 14 percent in many of my counties in Georgia.

Will the gentleman yield?

Well, I want to bring up that we hear all of these grandiose promises from the President, but I want to remind the Speaker and my colleagues here in the House--I can't speak to the American people--but if I could speak to them, I'd remind them, too, that the President just recently said that his non-stimulus bill is working just like he thought it would. Yet we have more people out of work today, and the promises made have been broken, and I was coming to that very point. The Chief of Staff of the President, Rahm Emanuel, who used to be a Member here in this House--

The point being that the President and his administration give us all of these grandiose promises, and they use all this sleight of hand, shell game of words to try to tell people what they want to hear, but the reality is what they say is not factual. It's just absolutely not factual, and the American people need to understand that.

Will the gentleman yield?

I would like to come back to something that my friend, Mr. Hoekstra from Michigan, was just saying about the government bureaucracy. And I want to remind all my colleagues that Mr. Hoekstra was talking about that putting the bureaucrats in charge of this gives us more power. But we won't have any control because the commissioner, or the health czar, is going to be making these decisions, and we won't.

As Members of Congress, as the duly elected representatives of each of our districts, we won't have any say whatsoever on what that commissioner does. And coming back to what my friend, Michele Bachmann, was talking about and my friend Steve King was talking about, we have got a clear picture of what is going on here, about taking over the economy by this President. Because he is doing exactly the same thing that his Marxist buddy, Hugo Chavez, is doing in Venezuela. We have a very clear picture long term of where that leads.

And that leads to what another one of our President's good buddies, Fidel Castro, has done to Cuba. We are headed down that same road. The American people can look at Cuba, at their health system, at their economic system, and see that that is exactly the direction that this administration is taking us. I'll yield back.