Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic health care bill fixes a number of long-standing problems with health insurance and health care in America. The health insurance industry is exempt from antitrust law in the United States. That means they can and they do get together and collude. They collude to drive up your premiums, they collude to curtail your coverage, they divide up the world and determine where each of them might or might not sell policies so there isn't competition in any way. That is all legal. They are exempt.

The Democratic bill with my amendment repeals that privilege for this industry. They will have to play under the same rules as every other business in America. That will lower premiums between 10 and 25 percent, according to the Consumer Union. That is one step. That is in the Democratic bill. The Republicans wouldn't touch that with a hundred-foot pole. The insurance industry is so generous at campaign time, they want to actually give new loopholes to the industry, which I will get to in a moment.

The Democratic bill outlaws denying you coverage because you were once sick, preexisting condition. The Democratic plan denies canceling your policy when you have been paying your premiums for years because you got sick. That is called rescission by the industry. No more. No lifetime caps which are hidden in the small print. People find out about them when they get a serious illness. Outlawed by the Democratic bill.

And, also, the Democratic bill will put annual caps on people's spending. No one will ever again lose their house in America because they lost their job and their health insurance and they got sick. Yes, the hospital still has to take them, but they will take your house. That won't happen if the Democratic bill is adopted. The Republicans will deal with none of those abuses, in their obeisance to the Republicans, their patrons in the insurance industry.

We are going to begin to fill in the doughnut hole which they created. We are going to help small businesses buy plans with health credits. It is a good start. It is not perfect. It can be improved as we go through the process. But it is a good start at reining in the costs of an out-of-control health care system.

Now the Republicans' alternative, as I said, they continue the anti- trust exemption and the price fixing by the insurance industry. They allow them to continue to deny you coverage because you were once sick. They allow the insurance industry to do rescissions and cancel your policy when you got sick, even though you have been paying your premiums. And, of course, individual coverage will not be limited, so they will still have bankruptcies and people losing their houses.

But wait. It gets better. They have something called the new national plan. That is the key to what they are doing here. You can buy a national policy, and it will be cheaper. And, oh, wait a minute. Here is the small print, page 122 of the Republican bill: Your national policy will only be subject to the rules in the State in which it is written. Not where you live. If you have a problem, you will have to file with the insurance commissioner in the State where it is written. That is probably not too good because we have some States that basically don't regulate the industry at all.

But it gets better. The Republicans are so creative. They have created a 51st State called the Northern Mariana Islands because of the convicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the scandals around him, the sweat shops, the sex scandals, all that stuff. That is where your new national plan will be based, is the Northern Mariana Islands.

So if you buy a policy in my home State of Oregon and you want to file a complaint, you will be calling the insurance commissioner in the Northern Mariana Islands. And perhaps, when he gets out of jail, that might even be Jack Abramoff. What a great deal. It would be a joke if they weren't serious about it. This is something that the industry wanted. They wanted a new loophole to better abuse consumers, and the Republicans want to deliver it to them. They can't be serious.

So I would say to my colleagues, you can throw in with the insurance industry which they seem to think is totally benign and always there for the American people. Or you can throw in on the side of consumer protection, lower costs, and health care for all Americans. That's the choice tomorrow.

Unlike any other industry or business in America, the health insurance industry is exempt from antitrust laws. That means they can and they do collude to drive up your premiums, to exclude you from coverage, to rescind your policy, a whole host of abuses. We do have a little bit of State regulation, but the Republicans are going to take care of that. They're going to create a new safe haven for insurance company abuses.

Insurance companies will be able to offer national plans--that's their big thing, yes--but they can choose any State in the 50 in which to base that plan. And no matter where you live and no matter what the laws are of your State, if you've got a problem--if they've denied you coverage, if they revoked your policy because you got sick, all the other abuses that go on every day within the insurance industry--if you live in Oregon, you'll have to be talking to the insurance commissioner in Delaware or Mississippi with your complaint. And guess what? They don't have consumer protections there for health insurance. The States will provide and compete, some States, the lowest common denominator, the least regulation to attract this great new business of abusive health insurers.

That's the Republican plan. They're always delivering for their buddies in the health insurance industry while the payments roll in at campaign time.

Mr. Speaker, well, 140 days after the Republican leaders promised a health care plan, it was leaked. It is a bold proposal. I think it was actually drafted downtown by the health insurance industry association, just like their prescription drug bill was drafted by the pharmaceutical industry.

Now the Democrats' bill outlaws the most abusive practices of the insurance industry: preexisting condition exclusion policy cancellation when you get sick, called rescission. Not the Republicans, they can still cancel your policy when you get sick. Even if you have been paying your premiums, they can still discriminate against your preexisting conditions. The Republicans wouldn't touch that one.

Now the Republicans actually are going to facilitate further abuses. The Democrats rescind the antitrust exemption of the insurance industry. Not the Republicans. In fact, they are creating a new safe haven for this industry. The industry can sell a national policy which will solve all of the problems, but they can go to any State they choose to sell that policy from.

They will choose the most abusive, least regulated State in the Union. And if you live in Oregon and you have a complaint about your insurance provider, you will have to file it in Delaware with the corporation commissioner. No, give it to the Republicans, new safe havens for the abusive insurance industry. Good work, guys.

Mr. Speaker, it's hard to reform health care. You have got to take on some of those powerful special interests in America. Perhaps that's why it's been 139 days since the Republican leadership announced they would have an alternative, but they don't have one yet.

Perhaps it's because at the heart of this is the insurance industry. Most people don't know, but the Republicans do know very well.

The health insurance industry is exempt from antitrust law. They do not have to play by the same rules as any other American business. They can and do collude to jack up rates. They can and do collude to divide markets and exclude competition.

They can do anything they want, and it's legal. They are outside the antitrust law of the United States of America. The Democratic bill will repeal this unfair antitrust exemption, bring real competition to this industry for the first time since the 1940s. The Republicans don't want to touch that with a 100-foot pole or maybe a $10,000 contribution.

Madam Speaker, the following essay was presented to me at a health care townhall. I believe this historical analogy is very sound.

Preventing Extortion

(By Jack Churchill)

The debate about a public health insurance option mirrors

the debate about public power in the 1920's and 30's. The

arguments then were very similar to the arguments we hear

today.

The principal issue then was whether the federal government

should enter the public power business by investing

taxpayers' money to build the Tennessee Valley Authority and

to harness the Columbia and other rivers for electrical

energy or the sites should be transferred to the private

sector. A second issue was who should build transmission

lines and set wholesale prices when the Federal government

built dams.

The answer to the second question was first enunciated on

the Senate floor In the fight over the Wilson Dam in 1920 by

Senator John Sharp Williams of Tennessee. He said ``The

government should have somewhere a producer of these things

that should furnish a productive element to stop and check

private profiteering.'' Thus was born the yardstick federal

policy which later found its way into TVA legislation through

the efforts of Nebraska's Senator George Norris. In a 1932

campaign speech in Portland, Oregon, Franklin Roosevelt

referred to his TVA and other regional proposals as

``yardsticks to prevent extortion against the public.''

Roosevelt's statement enunciated America's public power

agenda, which through the years has saved the federal

government and electrical consumers hundreds of billions of

today's dollars. This public investment provided the

electrical energy to build the bombers and the atomic bomb

and was a critical factor in winning World War II.

At the time of the Yardstick Public Power legislation of

the 1930's, most of the farms and homes in rural America were

without electrical power. Only in the cities could private

power companies make a profit selling electrical energy. With

the launching of the New Deal yardstick pricing, together

with publicly owned electrical cooperatives and public

utility districts, rural America was electrified and private

utilities ended up serving a large majority of rural

consumers.

Because we adopted yardstick pricing back in the 30's,

today America possesses a healthy and balanced mix of

private, public, and cooperative electrical systems.

The public power analogy might be a useful device in

combating the brutal campaign against a federal public health

insurance option. History is repeating itself. We see the

same epithets of socialism, unfair competition, and

government interference with private enterprise.

Both America's constitutional system of government and our

free enterprise economic system are built upon the

fundamental notion of balancing power between institutions.

It is only when there is an imbalance of power within one of

the two systems or the share of power between them that we

fail. Recent disasters created by imbalance, including

Enron and California energy manipulation and the collapse

of the American banking system, wiping out our citizens'

retirement accounts, are painful examples.

Most importantly and perhaps most painful for great numbers

of our citizens today, America trails all developed countries

by many years in fashioning an effective national health

services delivery system.

There is no industry that has a more shared and complex mix

of nonprofit, government, and private for-profit delivery

systems. Yet we have a system that is neither cost-effective

nor meets the needs of our citizens whether insured or not.

It is a system that is out of balance. It desperately needs

an effective yardstick

The imbalance in our system began in 1975 when the Supreme

Court gave the green light to commercialization of medicine

by removing medicine from protection of the antitrust laws.

The imbalance was greatly exacerbated in 1980 when the

American Medical Association changed its ethical guidelines

to declare that medicine was no longer a professional service

but both a business and a profession. The other factor of

great influence that has led to imbalance is the dominance of

investor-owned private insurance companies born from the

establishment of employer-based health insurance systems.

Thus began the corporatizing and domination of Wall Street

in organizing and pricing for-profit medical services. Rather

than a system organized to deliver cost-effective medical

services to patients, today we have a system designed for

profit.

Despite the roles of federal Medicare, state Medicaid,

members of Congress health care programs, federal delivery

systems such as the Veterans Administration, and nonprofit

group health cooperative associations, the balance of power

in our national health care delivery system is now largely in

the hands of Wall Street-driven for-profit enterprises. Every

medical procedure from putting on surgical gloves to sending

bills to the insurance company has become a profit center.

And the pricing for all the services are set largely in an

oligarchical framework of administered pricing. There is

absolutely no competitive pricing. Have you or anyone you

know ever negotiated the price of medical service?

So history repeats itself. The Democratic party is charged

with formulating another national yardstick policy that will

have enormous consequences for the health and welfare of our

citizens in generations to come. Like Franklin Roosevelt,

President Obama is simply leading the nation to create

sufficient power in the public sector to balance against the

private sector and the Wall Street pricing effect. Or in

President Roosevelt's words, ``a yardstick to prevent

extortion against the public.''And as President Obama stated

the issue ``to keep insurance companies honest.''

The failure of Congress to build in an effective market

yardstick for pricing medical services would cost future

generations trillions and fail to deliver cost-effective

medical care to all our citizens. No amount of regulation

will suffice. Only the market mechanism will provide

effective cost reduction to pay for universal coverage.

Madam Speaker, today the House of Representatives is voting on a motion to instruct conferees to insist on language that would prevent any funding in this bill from being used to implement an EPA rule requiring the largest manure management systems to report annual greenhouse emissions.

The EPA rule was finalized in September 2009. It would require entities emitting only more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year--the equivalent of emissions from 58,000 barrels of oil--to report on annual emissions. According to the EPA, the rule will impact approximately 100 manure management systems across the country, five of which operate in the state of Oregon. Small farmers--those emitting less than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year--would be completely exempt from the rule.

I applaud the EPA's rule and President Obama's leadership in taking serious action on climate change. After losing eight years under the Bush administration in addressing the most serious environmental challenge of our time, it's time for bold U.S. leadership. Compiling accurate and complete data on greenhouse gas emissions is a critical piece to crafting a smart and effective climate policy.

For these reasons, I intend to oppose the motion to instruct conferees before the House today. Congress should not place funding restraints on the EPA that would prevent the agency from executing its Supreme Court-confirmed authorities to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

I hope the gentleman who spoke before me in the well would be willing to accept one minor thing. I hear a lot from the Republicans about they want competition, they want the free market, but the problem is that insurance is exempt from antitrust law. Unlike any other industry or business, small or large, in America, except for professional baseball, they are exempt. They can and do get together and collude--collude to drive up the price of premiums, collude to stay out of one another's markets and not compete, collude not to exclude people with preexisting conditions, collude to do a whole host of anticompetitive things to stick it to the American people. So before I hear any more from that side of the aisle about supporting the private insurance industry, let's hear about having them play by the same rules as every other industry in America. But that's not why I came to the floor this afternoon.

I came to the floor because there seems to be a little disconnect downtown at the White House with the President's economic team, yet, once again. Big surprise.

The GDP, gross domestic product, is growing, so the economy is recovering. We're out of the recession. Whoops. Well, it's a so-called jobless recovery, and we're still going to lose about 250,000 jobs a month. But they're down there celebrating.

We need to take concrete steps--not to make a bad pun--here in the House of Representatives, in Congress, to put people back to work. And one of the things that we could do best would be to ignore the President and his advisers who want to delay a new transportation policy for America, one that will deliver projects more quickly and with less expense, getting people out of congestion, giving people more transit options, fixing some of our 160,000 bridges that are either structurally deficient--there was a little problem yesterday with the San Francisco Bay Bridge--or functionally obsolete, building made-in- America streetcars, made-in-America modern buses, like the fuel cell bus I saw yesterday. But guess what? It's going to take some investment and some money.

This White House, after cutting a deal with Republican Senators for $340 billion in tax cuts in the so-called stimulus, which isn't putting anybody back to work--ask your neighbor, ask your friend, ask anybody, What did you spend your $12 on last week, your tax cut? How did you invest it for the future of America?

We need something that is not consumer-driven. We need a recovery that is investment and jobs-driven in this country, and a 6-year highway authorization could get that job done. The difference between the Obama plan--do nothing, extend current law and current levels of expenditure for a crumbling Third World-like infrastructure in this country--and what we're proposing here in the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is 1 million jobs next year.

Now, apparently, the President's economic team thinks that they can tell those 1 million people who won't get jobs, Well, don't worry. The GDP's up, and we are losing less jobs than we were losing before. Or maybe they could get on board with us, help us write that 6-year bill, wake the Senate up from its nap, and put 1 million more Americans back to work next year rebuilding America's transportation infrastructure.

And, by the way, it meets another one of his goals. It will help him with his goals of reducing pollution, reducing carbon emissions because we'll get people out of sitting in traffic as we expand the system, deal with congestion and giving them more transit options.

I recommend that the President look for a new economic team and help us to

do things that will benefit the real American people, not pointy-head economists and not Wall Street.

Well, the Republicans are invoking Freddy Krueger and saying that he wrote the Democrats' health plan, and it's going to be dangerous for Americans. Really scary.

I'll tell you what's scary. Scary is losing your job and being confronted with a bill for continued health insurance that eats up two- thirds of your benefits. Even more scary--and this has happened to people in my district--is having your company go bankrupt and being told that your health insurance will cost more than your unemployment benefits. That is, if you can get it; if you've never been sick, if your kids have never been sick. You can go into the private market and buy a policy that exceeds your unemployment insurance. Of course if you have ever been sick, a preexisting condition, forget about it.

The Republicans promised 132 days ago that they would have their own health care plan. Where is it? Now 132 days later, you know why we don't have it, why there is a resounding silence on that side? Because if you are going to take care of people with health care, you have to take on their two biggest benefactors, the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry. And that's the last thing the Republicans want to do, take on their biggest campaign benefactors. We have to take on pharmaceuticals, take on the insurance industry and have meaningful reform for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, all across America unemployed Americans, struggling small businesses heaved a sigh of relief today because we know the recession is over. Goldman Sachs reported profits of $3.19 billion. They are on track to pay bonuses of over $20 billion, $700,000 average per employee. The recession is over for Goldman Sachs.

Of course, there is a little problem with this whole equation. Over the last year, they have received over $60 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Hmm, that

happens to be about five times their projected profits and three times what they are going to pay out in bonuses.

They got $13 billion from AIG after we gave AIG $80 billion to pay off bad debts. They changed into a bank-holding company magically, but are exempt from bank-holding company rules, and got another 50-or-so billion dollars of subsidies out of the Federal Treasury.

What a wonderful system this is. They are creating tremendous wealth. They are an engine of growth. They have recovered from the recession. All hail Goldman Sachs.

Next month, the government is going to go to the expense of sending out a letter to well over 40 million Social Security recipients telling them they are not going to get a cost-of-living adjustment, but they didn't experience inflation this year. Now, the only problem with that is the way we measure inflation is heavily oriented toward nonessential consumer goods of which seniors do not buy a lot.

Seniors have to buy certain essentials; pharmaceuticals, up double digits in the last year. Seniors buy health insurance, Medigap policies up high single digits in the last year. Seniors have rent, utilities, probably also up depending upon where they live. But they are not entitled to a COLA because of a defect in the way we calculate COLAs.

I have tried to fix this for years by having a special calculation for seniors and not one for younger consumers, which is essentially what the CPI is oriented towards. It isn't even very reflective of the cost of average American families. It is very skewed. It was skewed beginning in the Reagan years, and it has never been fixed to try and understate real inflation to real Americans.

In this case, we have an opportunity. We could fix this injustice to our seniors and help those most in need, many of whom are either principally or totally dependent upon a Social Security income. We could give them a one-time $250 payment, which would equate to almost a 2 percent cost-of-living adjustment. That would cover the increase in their Medicare part B premium, maybe some of their Medigap insurance, maybe a little bit of what they're having to pay in higher pharmaceutical costs. For many seniors it could avert a disaster in terms of their personal budgets.

So I have introduced legislation, along with 14 of my colleagues-- today, I reintroduced it--which would give a one-time $250 payment to 48.9 million people who are on OASDI, that is Social Security and disability, 5.1 on SSI, 1.4 million veterans, and 200,000 railroad retirees.

Now, I want to be fiscally responsible; I don't want to take it out of the Social Security trust fund which is looking toward problems some 37 years down the road or so, or starting in 2037. So I would pay for this, and it's quite simple: in order to give this benefit to over 50 million people, something for them to make ends meet and scratch by, all we have to do is ask that that select group of Americans--many of whom work on Wall Street--who will earn over $1.4 million this year, that for their earnings over $1.4 million they pay the same Social Security tax as every working American who earns less than $106,000. The tax now is only applied to income up to $106,000. After that, you don't pay it. That means if you earn $1.4 million, your tax rate is about 7 percent of someone who earns $40,000 a year.

Let's make it fair. I hear a lot about flat taxes and fairness. Let's make it fair; let's make it flat. Let's ask those people who are earning over $1.4 million to pay the same percentage of that income in Social Security tax as people who earn less than $106,000. And if they did that just for 1 year, we could give those 50 million seniors and disabled and veterans and railroad retirees a small, $250 one-time cost-of-living adjustment. I think it's only fair in this tough economy that those at the absolute tiptop just do a little bit more to help those most in need.

I recommend this legislation to my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the House passed a bill that will give relief to about a quarter of the Nation's seniors on Social Security by not having them experience a Medicare premium increase this year. That's all well and good and meritorious. Times are tough. But it doesn't go to the other three-quarters of the Nation's Social Security recipients, and it doesn't get to the bottom line that there is, for the first time since we had a regularly adjusted Social Security COLA-- it used to be into the fifties and early sixties before we put in place a regular COLA, a cost of living adjustment for seniors on Social Security. They would get one in election years, strangely enough. The Congress would wake up, notice that seniors were out there and give them some sort of an increase.

We fixed that problem many years ago by saying, Well, Social Security benefits would be automatically adjusted. But the measure that is used is incredibly flawed, and it was not only flawed to begin with. The cost of living index is calculated on a lot of things that seniors don't buy, things that have gotten cheaper in this bad economy, actually, like giant flat screen televisions, computers and cell phones and other things that are not consumed to any great extent by our Nation's seniors.

But if anybody has checked the price of pharmaceuticals or medical care or basic utilities or many other must-have expenses, they haven't gone down. In fact, they've gone up. But seniors, some of whom are living only on a Social Security check, many who are principally dependent upon a Social Security check, are not going to get a cost of living adjustment this year because the formula that is used is faulty. It's not only faulty; it was actually tampered with by the Republicans and Alan Greenspan, that great guru, the guy who helped almost destroy the world's economy recently through his deregulationist philosophy which became so embedded that Wall Street ran wild.

Alan Greenspan has always hated Social Security since he was on a commission many years ago and tried to find ways to go after it. A number of years ago he convinced a Republican Congress that the cost of living index actually overestimated inflation and that you should take away one point before you give a COLA to seniors on Social Security. The Republican Congress did that.

Now here we are today. We have a Democratic Congress. We're being told that there is no inflation; seniors won't get a COLA. The Obama administration says probably for 2 years they won't get a cost of living adjustment. That's not right. The things they are buying are going up in price, dramatically, and they're having tremendous difficulties making ends meet, living on that fixed income.

I have had a bill for many years that would put in place a new cost of living index for seniors called a CPIE--elderly--to look at the things they really buy and have to buy to live and get by. That hasn't gone anywhere, but I'm still pushing that idea.

But while we're working on developing a true index that would really look at the costs for seniors, we should pass a 1-year cost of living adjustment. And we can do that without borrowing the money, with no impact to the Social Security trust fund, very simply. We would just say that those who earn between $250,000 a year and $359,000, they would pay the same rate of Social Security tax as every normal wage- earning American who earns less than $106,000 a year. If you earn less than $106,000 a year, you pay Social Security tax on every penny of your income. If you earn $250,000, well, no, you just pay on the first $106,000. You don't pay after that. Your tax rate is lower.

Let's have a little bit of equity here. So we would simply have people earning between $250,000 and $359,000 pay the same rate of Social Security tax as every other American that would pay for a one- time COLA for seniors to help them make ends meet. We must act and act soon to get this done before this injustice happens next year.

I thank the chairman.

The gentleman from Virginia can try and change the subject about some future possible increase in gas tax or user fees. That is not what is before us today.

Plain and simple, what is before us today is on October 1st, a very short time from now, will the States see a loss of $4.5 billion in funding for highway, bridge and transit projects across this country? Our economy is teetering, and they want to play politics

with a simple extension of existing policy under the existing gas tax, which has been the same since 1993. That is not too much to ask. But they want to play politics with that. They want to jeopardize it. They want to delay it.

Now, let's just go to the delay. If they are totally successful, $4.5 billion in spending goes away October 1. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are lost. Transportation projects across the country come to a halt; transit systems grind to a halt, because the Federal funds aren't there, even though we can finance all those things, without borrowing a penny, out of the existing gas tax. That would go away too.

Maybe that is the world they want to live in. I don't. Bridges falling down, transit systems that are unsafe to ride on, road surfaces that are unacceptable, growing congestion. That is not a vision for the future. But that apparently is their vision--the status quo or worse, because now they are talking about an 18-month extension.

If we do an 18-month extension, that will be 24 months or 30 months of the status quo, which is failing us. We aren't rebuilding the system; 160,000 bridges are weight limited, are functionally obsolete. People are sitting in congestion. Transit systems have $60 billion backlogs in outdated equipment. But that is okay with the Republicans, apparently. They want the status quo, because they are so afraid of talking about any sort of remedy of any type and any sort of investment.

Then, if they aren't successful in killing the whole program, if they just delay this temporary extension, on October 1 the States will lose $1 billion under the continuing resolution, $1 billion, all across America. There is 20 percent unemployment in the construction trades, and they are going to increase that number because they want to walk away from the $1 billion that would be there with the simple extension of this program for 3 months.

They can have the fight and the debate later when they want to play politics about the levels of investment in the bill and how we might get there. But that is 3 months from now or longer, depending upon what we can work out with the Senate.

But the point is, you are playing politics here. You want to have a vote on a gas tax that isn't before this body, that is not likely to be before this body at any time in the near future, at least for 3 months if this bill is passed.

Don't play politics with investment in our infrastructure. Don't play politics with the economy. Don't play politics with people's jobs. Don't bring America to a screeching halt on October 1 and walk away from your obligation to extend this program.

Just to correct the gentleman, what I said is, we could continue the current levels in this bill over the next 3 months without borrowing any additional money. The funding is there. Yes, some money was transferred this summer to make up for past expenditures for emergencies and other things from the trust fund, but we would not be borrowing any money to extend this program for the next 3 months. It will be paid for, and it would put a heck of a lot of people to work. The bottom line is, do you vote ``yes'', extend this critical $4.5 billion investment next month in our transportation infrastructure, keeping our transit systems running? Or do you vote ``no'' and bring it to a screeching halt?

Madam Speaker, there was a lot of bloviating on the Republican side yesterday about the government takeover of the student loan business. What nonsense. I mean, what we are going to do is stop subsidizing the banks. That's what the Republicans are really upset about here.

Today, for every dollar in student loans, the taxpayers are dinged 15 cents--subsidies to the banks. If we convert to a National Direct Student Loan Program--the minority of the loans today go through that-- for every dollar we lend to a student we will get back $1.03.

Now, they want to run government like a business, but their idea of a business is shoveling subsidies to the private sector. I want to run government like a business. I want to give more loans to students, more effectively, at lower cost to the taxpayers. That's the National Direct Student Loan Program. This is a reform that's long overdue. Stop crying about the subsidies to the banks.

I thank the gentleman and my friend for the time. Five years ago, an obstinate penny-wise, pound-foolish Bush administration stonewalled a bipartisan proposal in Congress to increase trust fund revenues. They sent us on this path to insolvency. At the same time, they condemned us to a transportation system in America that is headed toward third-world status. On the National Highway System, 150,000 bridges are either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. That means they could fall down. Then we have 40 percent of the pavement on the National Highway System in fair or poor condition. Billions of gallons of fuel wasted in congestion and traffic, Americans wasting their lives sitting, frustrated. Businesses losing tens of billions of dollars because of delayed deliveries in a just-in-time competitive world economy.

We need a 6-year investment in our transportation system with new policies and a new vision to move us toward a competitive 21st century transportation system, not living off the dregs of one that we built in the fifties. But on the way to that new future, we need this infusion of cash. The States are out there in good faith, putting millions of people to work, rebuilding as much as they can with inadequate resources. They're bringing in bills for over $1 billion a week. That's a lot of jobs, folks, out there in America going on today, rebuilding our infrastructure. We need to make good on those obligations with this infusion of money.

I'm willing to pay for the enhanced investment in the coming legislation, and I'd urge my Republican colleagues to keep an open mind. They're either going to deny us the investment we need and condemn us to a transportation system that can't meet America's needs, or they're going to join us in a 6-year bill with adequate investment and funding, fully paid for, investing in the future of America.

Mr. Speaker, while the Republicans are mounting a fabulous defense of the health insurance industry, the party of do nothing is saying reform and health care is not needed.

They talk about competition, except they ignore the fact that the health insurance industry is exempt from antitrust law, so they can and they do collude to jack up the rates--two times the rate of inflation. Profits are up 250 percent in the last 10 years, while wages and earnings are down for most Americans and small businesses. But they ignore that little fact when they talk about we can't have a public plan. That would hurt competition. No, it will bring competition for once to the health insurance industry.

Then they forget about a few other things. They collude also to exclude individuals from coverage because you have been sick or you might get sick. Preexisting conditions or anything an insurance company doesn't like, they can deny you coverage, even if you are willing to pay their full premium.

They can and do, insurance companies, their friends, deny people renewals because they had the temerity to get sick after paying their premiums.