Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, not all American heroes make headlines. In fact, most don't. They don't seek the spotlight and they don't need slaps on the back. American heroes go to work every morning, do a good job and provide for their families.

We celebrate our heroes on Sept. 11, just as we mourn the innocent victims of that day.

Sept. 11 marks a time when Americans grieve and remember our terrible losses. But it's also a time when we celebrate the patriotism, courage and valor of public servants and extraordinary citizens.

Heroism manifested itself that day in people from all walks of life. Travelers flying from New Jersey to California said goodbye to their loved ones, prayed together and one said, ``Let's roll!'' Hundreds knowingly sacrificed their lives so that hundreds more in our nation's capital could live.

Police and firefighters in New York City ran up the stairs of the twin towers. Looking to save lives, they lost their own.

Today, we honor our heroes, those who perished in the line of duty, and those who proudly serve us today.

Our U.S. soldiers continue to serve our nation and the world, from the soaring mountains of Afghanistan to the searing deserts of Iraq. Georgians have played a proud and important role in the war on terror, as have the state's military bases such as Fort Benning in the 11th Congressional District.

Other men and women in uniform, firefighters and police officers in the 11th District [or insert county here] serve us every day on the homefront.

We thank our everyday heroes for all their dedication to their communities and to their country. We honor soldiers, firefighters and police officers today as we remember those who died two years ago.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, as the State of Georgia and indeed the entire Nation suffered the loss of a true hero. Two days ago, at the age of 88, General Ray Davis passed away in a Georgia hospital.

Mr. Speaker, after graduating with honors from Georgia Tech with a degree in chemical engineering in 1938, Raymond G. Davis, Sr. joined the Marine Corps with a commission as a second lieutenant. He began a long and distinguished service to our Nation during World War II when he earned a Purple Heart and Navy Cross for actions in the Peleliu and Palau Island operations. In 1952 he was rewarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Truman for his part in the Marine Division's historic fight to break out of the Chosin area during the Korean War.

Overall during his military career, General Davis was awarded, among others, the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, two Distinguished Service Medals, two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merits, one Bronze Star and one Purple Heart. During the Vietnam conflict, he had various military assignments and duties including Commander of the 3rd Marine Division, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, as well as three personal medals from the Vietnamese government.

He was promoted to lieutenant general shortly after returning from Vietnam and became Commanding General Marine Corps Development and Education Command. President Nixon nominated him for the grade of general and reassigned him to the position of Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.

Upon receiving his fourth star and retiring in 1972, General Davis returned to Georgia and continued to serve his home State and the Nation. He ran the Georgia Chamber of Commerce for several years, attracting business and employment to our great State.

Mr. Speaker, our entire Nation benefitted from General Davis's service, and his passing touches us all today. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, three children, seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor today expressing a

word of caution to my friends on the other side of the aisle. Recently there have been questionable advertisements on television that present a misleading picture of President Bush.

During this year's State of the Union speech President Bush cited intelligence about the possibility that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Africa. To hear the advertisements sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, you would guess President Bush, on a whim, decided to add this language without any consultation or evidence.

Let me enlighten my colleagues with the facts by reading our President's entire quote. ``The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' This is quite different from the half statement, 10 words, that our colleagues in the minority attribute to President Bush.

Shame on some of my colleagues for politicizing the war on terrorism for their own political gain and using half-truths while pretending to seek the whole truth. I call for the immediate removal of these blatant misleading ads.

Madam Speaker, I did not rise to speak on this issue, but I just feel compelled to respond to some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are not directly questioning the honesty and truthfulness of President George W. Bush, but yet are doing it secondarily through these so-called ``constituent letters.''

I want to remind them that it is inappropriate, indeed, out of order, for a Member of Congress to speak in this House from this well and to suggest that the President is lying, that the President is untruthful, that the President deceived the American public. Whether they are saying that directly or they are suggesting it through these so-called constituent letters, they are getting very, very close to crossing that line.

I want to remind my colleagues that this president was elected, for more than any other reason, because of his honesty and his integrity. The American people trust President Bush and applaud him for what he is doing, what he has done and what he will continue to do to bring peace to the Middle East.

Madam Speaker, actually I am rising today to celebrate the 105th anniversary of Bowdon, Georgia, a jewel of a city in the 11th Congressional District which I represent.

Bowdon has a proud history that dates back before the official founding of the city. In 1847, Carroll County troops from the Bowdon area, fighting under General Winfield Scott, defeated a large army under Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo, Mexico. The town of Bowdon was originally called Cerro Gordo to commemorate that victory. After Alabama Congressman Franklin Welch Bowdon assisted the town in securing a post office, the citizens honored him by renaming their town Bowdon in 1848.

Several years later, in 1853, about 30 local residents selected the present town site. Lots were sold to the highest bidder, with the most expensive lot going for $10.50. The city grew quickly, and by 1855 Bowdon had five stores, several shops, a primary school and a high school. At least one of those original houses in Bowdon still stands today.

It was not long before the people of this community chartered Bowdon College in 1856. The college was the fifth chartered in Georgia. The school was a trailblazer in the State, as it was first to educate both men and women. With few resources, but with the commitment of a devoted community, Bowdon College educated thousands of poor but ambitious students until 1936. After the Civil War, Bowdon College was one of five endowed by the State of Georgia to educate wounded and disabled veterans, in 1866 and 1867. The program educated more than 200 veterans.

In the early part of the 20th Century, Bowdon flourished with cotton and lumber sales. Soon there was a demand for rail service, and a rail line was completed in 1910. Governor Hoke Smith and Congressman William Charles Adamson, a native of Bowdon, attended the ceremony to celebrate the completion of the line.

Bowdon expanded its job-base during the Great Depression, when Bowdon College graduate Warren Palmer Sewell opened a clothing plant in 1932. Warren Sewell Clothing was one of the top ten manufacturers of clothing in the country when he died in 1973.

Today, Bowdon remains a proud city in Carroll County. Each August, Bowdon holds its annual Founders Day celebration. This year, the city's 105th anniversary, the celebration will be particularly special.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), for yielding me this time. I would like to thank the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), as well as the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee). We have worked very closely, very good together, as the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) pointed out, in a very bipartisan fashion. And, as the chairman just mentioned, it is not all about funding; it is certainly also about accountability. That is what we are trying to do in the reauthorization of the Title II part of the Higher Education Act: We want to bring additional accountability so that we make sure that no child is left behind by assuring that a qualified teacher is, indeed, in every classroom.

H.R. 2211, the Ready to Teach Act of 2003, is a bill that I introduced to help ensure that teacher training programs are producing well-prepared teachers to meet the needs of American students. H.R. 2211 updates the teacher provisions of the Higher Education Act. Specifically, this legislation amends Part A, Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants for States and Partnerships, and also Part B, Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology of Title II of the Higher Education Act. In addition, H.R. 2211 authorizes teacher preparation Centers of Excellence for minority-serving institutions.

The purposes of the Ready to Teach Act are to increase student academic achievement, elevate the quality of the current and future teaching force by improving the preparation of prospective teachers and enhancing professional development activities; hold teacher preparation programs accountable for preparing highly qualified teachers; and to recruit highly qualified individuals, including minorities and individuals from other occupations, into the teaching force.

As in current law, H.R. 2211 authorizes three types of competitive grant programs: State grants, partnership grants, and teacher recruitment grants.

State grant funds must be used to reform teacher preparation requirements, coordinate with activities under Title II of No Child Left Behind Act, and ensure that current and future teachers are highly qualified. Programs administered through State grants will focus on effective teacher preparation, placing a renewed emphasis on the skills needed to meet the ``highly qualified'' standard.

The partnership grants allow effective partners to join together, combining their strengths and resources to train highly qualified teachers and achieve success in the classroom. The eligible partnerships must include four partners: a high-quality teacher preparation program at an institution of higher education; a college of arts and sciences, presumably at that same institution; a high-need, local educational agency; and a public or private educational organization. It can include additional partners, but it must include those four. These partnerships will require the faculty of the teacher preparation programs to serve with a highly qualified teacher in the classroom, allowing effective in-class experience to ensure that teachers are truly prepared to teach. Among other things, partnership activities will help to ensure that teachers are able to use advanced technology effectively in the classroom, address the needs of students with different learning styles, including students with disabilities, and receive training in methods of improving student behavior in the classroom.

As America holds teacher preparation programs accountable for preparing teachers who will ensure that no child is left behind, the need to recruit individuals into the teaching profession will only expand. Teacher recruitment grants will help bring high-quality individuals into teacher programs and ultimately put more highly qualified teachers into the classrooms. H.R. 2211 recognizes the need to ensure that high-need, local educational agencies are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers, and will help answer that need by increasing the number of teachers being trained.

H.R. 2211 also includes a new program which is based on provisions submitted to the committee by the United Negro College Fund and the Hispanic Education Coalition to authorize teacher preparation Centers of Excellence at minority-serving institutions. In general, the purpose of this program and this amendment brought to us by my colleague and good friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns), are to increase teacher recruitment and to make institutional improvements to teacher preparation programs at minority-serving institutions.

While current higher education law contains annual reporting and accountability requirements for institutions of higher education, these measures, as the chairman indicated, have proven ineffective in determining the true quality of teacher preparation programs. H.R. 2211 in this reauthorization adds accountability provisions to the Higher Education Act that will strengthen these current law provisions and hold teacher preparation programs accountable for providing accurate and useful information about the quality of their programs.

Mr. Chairman, in summary, H.R. 2211 is specifically designed to align teacher preparation programs with the high standards of accountability and results provided for in No Child Left Behind Act. This Ready to Teach Act will help to ensure that program effectiveness can accurately be measured and places a strong focus on the quality of teacher preparation and a renewed emphasis on the skills needed to meet the ``highly qualified'' standard found in the No Child Left Behind Act.

In conclusion, I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their assistance in moving this bill through the process. It is a bipartisan product, Mr. Chairman, of which we can all be proud. I urge each and every one of my colleagues to support H.R. 2211, the Ready to Teach Act of 2003.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to the rule, I offer amendment No. 1.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The manager's amendment to H.R. 2211, the Ready to Teach Act of 2003, makes refinements to the bill as reported by the Committee on Education and the Workforce on June 10, 2003. This has been a bipartisan bill every step of the way, and I believe it will enjoy broad support among my colleagues in the House. I will not take a great deal of time to describe the amendment in detail since it was drafted in consultation with our Democratic Member, and it contains mostly technical and clarifying changes as recommended by the Department of Education.

However, Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a moment to point out a few of the changes of this proposed amendment. As currently drafted, H.R. 2211 authorizes grants to design or redesign teacher preparation programs that are based on rigorous academic content, scientifically based research, and challenging State student academic content standards. This amendment adds language to ensure that teachers in these programs are able to understand the scientifically based research and how to apply that in their classrooms.

Under H.R. 2211, each partnership that applies for a grant must include at least a high-quality teacher preparation program at an institution of higher education; second, a school of arts and sciences; third, a high-need local education agency; and, finally, a public or private educational organization. In addition, this legislation requires that at least 50 percent of partnership grant funds be used to ``directly benefit'' partner local education agencies. This provision in the amendment is designed to ensure that each partner local education agency has the ability to influence grant activities, and guarantees that partnership activities focus on the needs of teachers and students in the classroom.

My amendment adds a provision to the bill to require that partnership grant applications contain a certification from the partner local educational agencies stating that they will ``directly benefit'' from the proposed grant activities. This amendment ensures that the partnership grant funds are used only to supplement, not to supplant, other Federal, State, and local funds that would otherwise be used for teacher preparation activities.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, my amendment ensures that teacher preparation program average raw score data that is reported to the State is also included in the State report card on quality of teacher preparation.

This amendment makes common-sense, noncontroversial changes to the legislation, and I ask for my colleagues' support. Support it because it improves the quality of the programs authorized under Title II of the Higher Education Act.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and, pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) for giving me an opportunity to speak on this issue. I rise in favor of the rule and in favor of this bill.

I have delivered probably 5,000 or more babies over a 30-year medical career; but I will be prouder today of this delivery that we are giving to our seniors, that we have promised them for the last 2 years. Finally today that delivery will occur. This will be the best delivery that I have ever given because what we are talking about is not just a prescription drug benefit; we are also talking about modernizing Medicare so that it will not be going bankrupt by the year 2030.

With a prescription drug benefit, we will have an opportunity for our seniors to avoid prolonged hospital stays and prolonged nursing home stays, difficult expensive surgery. Let them take those medications early in the disease process so that high blood pressure does not result in a stroke or heart attack or so the diabetes they are suffering with does not end up in them being a dialysis patient.

This is a good bill. This is a bill that our leadership is finally going to give to our seniors; and I tell Members this is the day to do it, and this is the finest delivery we can offer to our seniors.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, as a physician Member of this body, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003.

I do not take lightly voting for a Federal program that expends $400 billion of the taxpayers' money. Being responsible with that money is a burden that I take very seriously. As appropriators of the people's revenue, we must assure that each dollar is spent wisely. That is a high hurdle, but I believe the Medicare Modernization Act clears that hurdle.

This act is an investment that brings Medicare into the 21st century. We will save money as we expand the focus of Medicare spending to include preventive care. Seniors who take the right drugs at the right time are more likely to stay healthy; and they are less likely to need expensive, prolonged hospitalizations, painful and complicated surgical procedures and, sometimes, yes, extended nursing home stays. For that reason, I do not think that this program will really cost $400 billion over 10 years. It will only cost that much if it does not work.

My experience as a physician for more than 28 years teaches that a prescription drug program for preventive care will pay dividends and increase health and a better quality of life. It is true what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it is a lot less expensive.

This Congress has a great opportunity to expand the coverage for seniors, particularly our needy seniors, while, at the same time, strengthening the system so that it will be around to serve the baby boom generation as it moves into retirement. We will serve tomorrow's seniors as we are serving today's.

Some of our friends on the other side of the aisle insisted today that this bill could be the death of Medicare. They were even grandstanding around with black arm bands. That is interesting, Mr. Speaker, because their Democratic alternative would cost nearly $1 trillion, threatening to slam the entire Medicare system onto the rocks of financial insolvency long before 2030.

The plan that we will vote on tonight provides a good, strong benefit for our seniors; but just as important, it provides a sustainable benefit that will be there for future generations of seniors.

I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to bring Medicare into the 21st century. Vote for the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act tonight and deliver on your promise to our beloved seniors.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about one of my favorite subjects, health care, and in particular to talk about the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003.

I am surely thankful this evening that I have this opportunity to talk about something which truly should be a bipartisan issue, the health of our Nation. I am particularly pleased that it is bipartisan on a day like today, when I learned before boarding a plane to come back to the Congress that a

great man in Georgia had fallen. Former mayor, three-term Mayor Maynard Jackson has died. And I stand here tonight with a great deal of humility following some of the speakers who have already paid tribute to Mayor Jackson: the minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi); the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson); the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters); and my colleagues and friends from the Georgia delegation, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis); the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop); the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott); and the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Majette).

Maynard Jackson was a great Georgian and a great American. For me to stand up here this evening and talk about the many things that he has accomplished would be a little bit redundant. I could talk about his efforts to bring the Olympics to the city of Atlanta in 1996, and he of course played a great part in that; but that is just a small thing that Mayor Jackson has done, and it would be not nearly enough just to point to that. My colleagues have done a wonderful job tonight in describing him and their deep friendship with him.

Let me just say that all Georgians mourn tonight the passing of Mayor Maynard Jackson, and we extend our heartfelt sympathy to his family. I would like to actually take just a few seconds of my time tonight for a moment of silence in tribute to Mayor Maynard Jackson.

I thank my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, America has the world's best health care system because it relies on innovations of the private sector. A competitive free market system provides incentives to develop better drugs, better treatments, better care, and better forms of health care delivery. The President's framework for Medicare reform would apply the best practices of the private health care market to Medicare.

As successful as Medicare has been, it has not kept pace with dramatic improvements in health care because it is a government program, immune to many market forces. Medicare still does not provide seniors with an out-patient prescription drug benefit, full coverage for preventive care, or limits on high out-of-pocket expenses. As a result, our seniors lack many of the choices and benefits available to millions of Americans who have private health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to call on some of my doctor colleagues in this body who are with me tonight to talk about Medicare and the reform that we are going to pass in H.R. 1. So at this time I would yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), to address this topic.

I thank, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), who, of course, talked a lot about the prescription drug benefit and how important a part of this Medicare reform that piece is, and indeed it is.

I want to call my colleagues' attention to this poster to my left in regard to, of course, strengthening Medicare. There are some other points that I want to make that I think are extremely important and that the President and the leadership of this Congress know all too well. Of course, my colleague from Pennsylvania was talking about the prescription drug benefit for our seniors, but this plan does so much more than that. So much more than that.

The Republican plan preserves Medicare for the future. We all know of the actuarial studies. We know of the bipartisan Commission on Medicare Reform. Everybody knows that if we do not do something in this legislation about preserving Medicare for the future that by the year 2030 the program, particularly the trust fund, the hospital trust fund, will be completely insolvent.

Then the other thing about this reform is the very, very important point of giving seniors choices. What this bill will give to our seniors is a choice to remain if they want to remain in traditional Medicare, fee-for-service, something they are comfortable with. If they are not ready for a change, yes, they can remain in traditional Medicare and get the complete prescription drug benefit that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) was talking about. So this is very important. This is not a one-legged or two-legged stool; it is a three-legged approach, and we are going to have a good program for our seniors.

Of course the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) was talking about sometimes a senior in his district could not see very well or hear very well or maybe their limbs are aching and they do not get around as well as they used to; but if Members come to my district and my town hall meetings, Members know they are thinking and are smart and understand this issue and want relief and want it now. That is what H.R. 1, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003, is going to give to them.

Now, let us talk a little bit about some of these seniors. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy) did a great job of touching on that and talking about some of the people in his district. Let me point out in this poster, providing for catastrophe, assistance for seniors in need, provisions in this legislation assist seniors facing catastrophic medical costs. Let me give an example of some folks in my district that are facing catastrophic medical costs.

Mr. And Mrs. Grady Jenkins are senior citizens who live in Rome, Georgia, in Floyd County, northwest Georgia, the heart of my district. Mr. Jenkins is 79. He is a World War II Navy veteran, and he worked at Georgia Craft, a paper mill. He and his wife have to pay $1,200 a month for their medicine. After they pay for their medicine and their living expenses, they can barely afford to eat. This could easily be a picture of Mr. And Mrs. Grady Jenkins. They are worried because the cost of fuel for heating and air keep rising. They do not know how they are going to make it.

Let me give another example, again in the 11th Congressional District of Georgia, George and Vera Rohr live in Buchanan in Haralson County. Mr. Rohr is a 72-year-old veteran and a Purple Heart recipient. He worked and retired from Lockheed. They are drawing Social Security, and they have a supplement. Unfortunately, he suffered an aneurysm last year; and with the doctor bills and the medicine they both have to take, they have depleted their savings, and now they are struggling to make ends meet. They go from paycheck to paycheck. She tries to pick up odd jobs when she can just to buy the groceries.

Horace Cline was a pharmacist for 49 years in Cave Springs, Georgia. He remembers a time when it only cost 50 cents to fill a prescription. Now he sees antibiotics that cost more than $10 a pill. He does not see how people can afford their medicine. Most of his elderly patients are on a fixed income, and most have three or four prescriptions a day to take. Many people have more than that. The average 75-year-old senior is taking 4\1/2\ prescription medications a day, and many of these do cost $10 a pill. This cannot stand.

In his little community, this pharmacist, he hears tragic stories every day of people sacrificing basic needs to buy the drugs they or their spouses need to stay alive. He remembers a little lady that only received $400 a month from her husband's retirement fund. Her prescriptions cost $300 a month, hardly leaving anything for food. He said it is not uncommon for people to ask for a stronger dose of the medicine so they can buy fewer pills and break them in half to be able to afford them.

Mr. Speaker, if you have ever tried to break apart one of these pills, let me say it is not easy. It is not easy for some of our weight-lifting friends, much less our senior citizens who are not so strong any more. People are improvising anywhere they can just to be able to afford the medicine and the doctor bills.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor to be in this 108th Congress, to be a freshman Member of a great group of men and women. I have great respect for Members on both sides of the aisle. I have a special deep respect for some of my physician colleagues who are Members of the 108th Congress, and one in particular, a freshman like myself who for many years practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Texas. He has only delivered fewer babies than I have because he has not been at it as long as I have.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) to speak on this very important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I must say I absolutely deny being there at the inception of Medicare; maybe it was close, but not at the inception.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) and, of course, the gentleman brings up some very good points about other reforms that this Republican majority, this administration and this leadership are going to present to the American public.

The gentleman mentions the new and improved medical savings account. These are not for our seniors, and we are here tonight primarily talking about what we are doing to reform and improve Medicare, both the traditional fee-for-service and the Medicare advantage and the enhanced fee-for-service option; but also as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) points out, we are thinking much broader. We are thinking about what we can do for younger workers so they can plan for their future, so they can plan for the day that they become a senior. That is what the gentleman is talking about with regard to medical savings accounts which are so important because so much of the money that is spent on health care in this country today is going toward extended care and skilled nursing facilities as an example, many times after prolonged hospital stays.

The current Medicare program has no catastrophic coverage whatsoever. After an individual has spent 60 or 90 or at the very most 120 days in the hospital in any 1one year, there is no coverage. Our seniors have no coverage; and whatever nest egg that mom or dad or grandparents have accumulated it is gone, it is exhausted. In many instances when they have to go to an extended nursing care facility for a prolonged stay those benefits are extremely limited and there is no money left to pay for it. The part paid for by Medicare is very limited.

So what happens to these individuals? They do not get thrown out on the street. Thank God, we are more compassionate in this country than that. We would never let that happen. But they become indigent. They literally become indigent. Then they are Medicaid eligible and so much of that Medicaid money which, of course, being a Federal-State cost sharing, in some instances 60-40, maybe 50-50, very expensive, and where are most of the dollars going? They are going to pay those bills in these extended care facilities.

The gentleman from Texas is so right. I am so appreciative, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Texas for pointing that out to us. We are doing more than just reforming Medicare for the future and providing a prescription drug benefit for our seniors. We are going to make sure that those who will become our seniors in the future and ad infinitum will have a way to pay for things like extended care insurance. This is so very important and I am so appreciative of the gentleman from Texas for bringing that up.

I thank the gentleman for bringing that to our attention because he is so right, and to have someone like the gentleman from Texas who has spent an entire career practicing medicine, being there every day and, of course, as an OB-GYN every night and every weekend as well, he understands the big picture. That is why it is so important to have Members like the gentleman from Texas bringing this information forward.

I see the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite) has joined us, the former Speaker pro tem of the Assembly in the great State of Florida. I yield to her on this very important subject. I thank the gentlewoman from Florida for being with us tonight.

(Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I thank the gentlewoman from Florida. The gentlewoman from Florida brought up a couple of, I think, really, really good points, and that is the fact that our seniors who are not on a plan, and they are probably close to 30 percent, by anybody's estimate, probably 30 percent of our seniors have absolutely no coverage whatsoever. They do not have so-called MediGap or supplemental insurance. They are not getting a retirement health benefit that includes prescription medications from their employers. Thank goodness, many in that group are not poor enough to be dual eligible; that is, eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Those dual eligibles, of course, have a prescription benefit. And so we do have maybe 65, maybe 70 percent of our seniors do have a prescription drug benefit, but even those, Mr. Speaker, probably spend at least 50 percent out of pocket, what they have to pay. That 50 percent when you are talking about being on four or five or six pills a day and some of them costing $9 and $10, that mounts up in a hurry and that is where you get into these situations where people are having to choose between groceries and their medications. That is a very sad, dangerous situation.

I really appreciate the gentlewoman from Florida bringing up the fact that when these seniors go to their internist, to their primary care physician, indeed, yes, occasionally to their OB-GYN and get a prescription, but sometimes it is not just one prescription. They have these multi-system diseases. Sometimes there are two or three things that are failing at the same time. It takes these medications to keep our seniors healthy and well. So when they go to that pharmacist, as kind, as caring, as loving as the local corner druggist may be, they have got a handful of prescriptions, they do not have a plan to help them get a discount with volume purchasing and that sort of thing. There is no pharmacy benefit manager for them. They are paying sticker price. Our seniors know it. They are paying sticker price. It is pretty painful when they go back to that car and maybe they were only able to get half of that prescription filled or as we pointed out earlier, I think, one of the speakers mentioned that our seniors sometimes will ask for double the dose or maybe quadruple the dose so they can go home and get out that little pen knife and cut that pill in half or in quarters so they can stretch the budget, if you will. It is a very dangerous situation. Mistakes can be made, sometimes catastrophic, tragic mistakes.

The gentlewoman from Florida is bringing out a very important point, that these seniors are getting no breaks in the marketplace. We need to give it to them. That is what we are going to do in this prescription drug benefit under Medicare modernization.

I thank the gentlewoman. Mr. Speaker, no Member of this body understands this better than the gentlewoman from Florida. The Sunshine State is where all of us want to go to retire and live out a very, very healthy life there in that beautiful State of Florida. She has got probably a disproportionate number of her constituents who are our beloved senior citizens. She knows of what she speaks. I really appreciate her bringing that to us.

I would like to at this time recognize once again my physician colleague in the House, the gentleman from Texas.

I wanted to ask the gentleman, I am glad he brought that point up, about medical malpractice premiums and what it is doing and, of course, has resulted in a lot of defensive medicine practiced not just by our physicians like myself and the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Speaker, but also by the hospitals, by our facilities who are forced to protect themselves, to order in many instances a lot of tests that they really feel are not absolutely necessary but it is done in the interest of defending themselves against possibly a frivolous lawsuit that could be devastating to either that individual practitioner or to that little rural hospital in our small communities, and like my 17 counties in the 11th Congressional District of Georgia, many of these hospitals as an example, these rural hospitals, disproportionate-share hospitals that see so many Medicare and Medicaid patients, they are going to end up closing their doors.

And I really appreciate the gentleman from Texas, that Lone Star State mecca where actually, as he pointed out, every day is a good day to be in Texas, not just during retirement years. But I wanted to ask the gentleman from Texas about the cost and what kind of estimates, if any, do we have on the cost of defensive medicine without getting a good tort reform bill passed?

Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Texas, I appreciate that. And that is exactly right, when we extrapolate that, and I have gotten verification of these numbers from the gentlewoman from Connecticut, the chairman of the Health Subcommittee under the Committee on Ways and Means who has done so much work on this bill, and I really commend her leadership. She has indicated to me that defensive medicine is costing the Federal Government and indeed the taxpayers of this country $14 billion estimated over the next 10 years. That would go a long way toward paying for this prescription benefit that we are going to be offering this year.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas was talking earlier about the cost of prescription drugs and what we can do about that. Of course we are going to be providing a good prescription benefit for not just our neediest seniors. Of course the program is weighted toward them as well it should be, but we are providing a benefit for all of our seniors. But along with that, along with that, as the gentleman pointed out, it is very, very important that we address this issue of the cost of prescription medication. I think most people in this country, certainly the seniors that have to go and purchase those expensive drugs, know that it is just too much; and we need to continue to work very hard, as the gentleman from Texas points out, to get the market forces working to bring the price down, to make the pharmaceutical industry compete, as well they should and they are doing; and that is what we want.

We do not want government price controls. We want the market to determine, and we want of course these businesses, pharmaceutical businesses to have an opportunity to make a fair profit to recover, as the gentleman from Texas pointed out, the tremendous cost involved in research and development; and that of course is something that I think is extremely important. But we definitely feel that the competitive forces of the marketplace will bring prices down. And certainly, as we pointed out earlier, when a senior is part of a group, as we know, with the wonderful organization many of our seniors have memberships in AARP and they have a drug discount card.

In fact, I would like to just point out if I can get everyone's attention on one of the posters to my left, this is the typical medical prescription card which seniors will have, and they will be issued by a number of organizations. And with those cards if we did nothing else, and we are doing much more, as we pointed out earlier, but if we did nothing else, just the opportunity to buy as a group and the force of the marketplace, it is going to bring down the price of prescription drugs for all Americans but especially for our seniors.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about the Medicare program; and of course the gentleman from Texas mentioned a little earlier that the gentleman from Georgia, myself, was there from the inception of Medicare, and my wife told me to be sure to let the Members of this body know that of course I was there from the inception. I was just a very precocious first grader, but I do remember very well in 1965 when the Medicare bill was first passed, and the emphasis then in most health care was seeing one's physician, occasionally of course being admitted to the hospital for a needed surgical procedure. Nobody thought too much really in 1965 about the fact that here in 2003 that people would be on maybe four or five drugs. The average person 75 years old could be on that much medication. So there just really was not the emphasis in 1965, but things changed. Things have changed in many other aspects of our society. When I was in college, we used a slide rule. Nobody even knows what a slide rule is today. Our automakers gave us an Edsel, and now we have the new and improved and revised and beautiful Thunderbird. We need to

do that with Medicare. We truly need to do that with Medicare.

I have been practicing long enough to see some significant changes; and I have seen managed care, health maintenance organizations with a great emphasis on preventative healthcare, preventative healthcare; and I applaud that because it is extremely important. If we wait to treat people when an episode of poor health or an accident has occurred, then it is so expensive, not to mention the tragedy and the suffering and the loss of life that occurs, but just the expense of waiting until a person is so sick and they show up in the emergency room, that paradigm has got to shift. That paradigm has got to shift.

I tell my colleagues in the House, Mr. Speaker, of my experience recently of going through so-called open heart surgery that I was faced with right after winning this election to the Congress, and now I am on five prescription medications every day. I am not a senior citizen yet. I am not Medicare-eligible. But I know they are very, very expensive, very expensive; and it just makes me think how important it would have been for me and how important it is for our seniors who maybe just turned 65 to be able to get the medications that they need to strengthen their bones, to prevent osteoporosis, to lower that blood pressure so they do not have a premature heart attack or a stroke and end up in a nursing home for the rest of their lives.

So things are changed. Society has changed. And now I do not think there are many physician colleagues of mine in this great United States who would not agree that a prescription benefit is every bit as important as a hospital benefit or a surgical benefit, and we have got to make that change. And that is what this President is doing. That is what this administration, that is what this leadership, what the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and the chairmen of our committees of jurisdiction, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) of the Committee Ways and Means and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and their subcommittee Chairs are bringing to us. They are bringing not just this prescription benefit, but they are also bringing an option for change so that our seniors can get the same health care benefit that we, Members of Congress, have available to us and that all Federal employees have available to them, to be able to go to enhanced fee for service or a Medicare advantage plan where there is an emphasis on preventative health care, where they can get a routine physical done, where they can get their blood screened for lipid profile and cholesterol so that we will know early, early on, if they are at great risk for developing one of these serious illnesses. That is what it is all about. Colonoscopies, mammograms, things that will keep people healthy and prevent them from getting so far down the line with an illness that they cannot recover.

So that is what we call, Mr. Speaker, compassionate conservatism. That is what this President and this administration and this Republican majority and this leadership is all about, and that is what we are going to bring to the seniors of this country. We are going to bring a prescription benefit that is weighted toward the needy, that has a catastrophic cap; and, yes, that cap is going to vary depending on a person's income or net worth, as well it should. I think it is only appropriate that we take care of our neediest first, but all seniors need the same kind of benefit that I enjoy and other Members of Congress and Federal employees enjoy.

So that is a very, very big part of this program. It is not just providing a prescription benefit but also giving our seniors an opportunity and an option. Of course, they can remain in traditional Medicare, which we all know about a comfortable pair of shoes and we get used to something and change is difficult. I know change was difficult for me when I gave up a medical career to join the Congress and get on this rather steep learning curve. It is scary. It is scary, and maybe some of our seniors will decide to stay in traditional- fee- for-service Medicare, but they will have a prescription drug benefit. They will have the same prescription drug benefit.

What they will not have in that traditional paradigm is they will not have any catastrophic coverage. They will still have catastrophic coverage of course for the prescription benefit, but not for other costs involved like hospital stay or nursing home stay; and that is what we are trying to avoid by giving them an opportunity to join one of these other options where it is a competitive environment and an opportunity for these plans to compete against each other and lower the cost at the same time they are providing this preventative health care benefit like I mentioned, routine physicals, routine screening, and, yes, indeed, catastrophic coverage so that people who have worked all of their lives to build a little nest egg not become destitute and burdens on society in their senior years. That is not right. That destroys their dignity.

And if I do anything in this Congress, I am going to work hard to make sure that that does not happen to our seniors.

So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues who are with me tonight to discuss this tremendously important issue. We do not have the perfect plan. Yes, bills can be improved, and that is what the committee process is all about. That is why we have two committees of jurisdiction and very intelligent people working on this bill to perfect it. This is so much better, Mr. Speaker, this is so much better than what we have currently. I am just very proud of our leadership, and I am very proud to be supportive of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Small Business Health Fairness Act, H.R. 660, and against the amendment.

By anybody's estimate, 41 million uninsured Americans is entirely too many, and the Bureau of the Census has estimated that over 60 percent of those uninsured Americans are employed. They are not unemployed. They are just working for small businesses, small employers that cannot afford to go into that small market and purchase health insurance, which is rising at least 14 percent a year. The AHPs, with a minimum pool of 1,000 or more employees, spreads the risk, and it gives them the opportunity to get that same volume discount that the Fortune 500 companies and the large labor unions enjoy.

But maybe the most important savings and the reason that the premiums are lower is that they are not bound now by each and every of the 50 States with their multiple mandates. The

other side wants to talk about how unfair it is that these plans could not include a routine screening mammogram or could not exclude the fact that some plans have so-called drive-through deliveries, and that patients might not be able to stay overnight when they had a radical mastectomy. Mr. Speaker, these plans that are being offered under ERISA protection have all of these provisions in them.

What we are talking about, and I know this as a physician member of the State legislature, and the demands to include one mandate after another, things like coverage or screening for chronic adult fatigue syndrome, or carpal tunnel syndrome, or a blood test for this or a blood test for that, pretty soon they will be requiring routine screening for fissle phosphate levels in everybody's blood. It just goes on and on and on, and it becomes absolutely ridiculous and prohibitively expensive.

So that is why we need this bill. That is why we need these AHPs. I think we will insure not 330,000 more people, but probably over 2 million.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 294, the voting machine did not properly record my vote. I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns) for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, as I listen to this debate, of course I stand here fully in favor of H.R. 8 and against the Pomeroy amendment because it is really not about who has received and who has not this double taxation, this so-called death tax.

The other side says that there is a $3 million exemption under the Pomeroy substitute, that 99.6 percent of estates would be exempted from the death tax. I personally do not need that $3 million exemption or even the $600,000 exemption. I would probably be fine with a $300,000 exemption; but the point is, it is a double taxation and it is wrong. It is wrong to tax anybody twice on the same income.

These people, no matter what their net worth, they have paid taxes. They have paid at the highest marginal tax rate; and it is totally wrong, as the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof) said, to have to worry about paying taxes after death.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to address the House in support of the Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act, which will be marked up in the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Energy and Commerce this morning.

Modernizing Medicare with a prescription drug benefit puts a down payment on a healthy future for Americans. The House has an historic opportunity to bring up to date our health care system for millions of seniors.

The bill that will soon be before this House reflects the compassionate conservatism of my party. It is compassionate because it is providing much needed prescription drug coverage to Americans on a fixed income. It is conservative because prescription drugs often provide the ounce of prevention that beats the pound of cure. It is conservative because this legislation will serve the people today without breaking the bank tomorrow. It makes no financial sense to cover astronomically expensive surgery and not cover drugs that could have prevented that surgery.

We have promised a benefit to our seniors for years. This year, this year, Madam Speaker, it is time to deliver.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit, of course, as a freshman legislator, I am here to speak in favor of the rule for the conference agreement to S. 342, the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003, and to speak in favor of the overall piece of legislation. But I stand here and I am listening to the other side and all of the discussion I hear is about a tax bill, and it just makes me wonder if the speakers from the other side plan to vote against this bill, if they are opposed to keeping children and families safe for the foreseeable future.

I am, as most of my colleagues know, a physician Member, Mr. Speaker, of this body; and, in particular, I am an OB-GYN doctor. As such, over the past 28 years, I have delivered over 5,000 precious children. Unfortunately, I wish I could say they were all born healthy and well and in the best of circumstances, but unfortunately, some

were not. I think that my passion for this type of legislation, for protecting children and making sure that every child has an opportunity to be well born and in a healthy environment and going into a healthy family situation, that is what this legislation is all about.

We can talk about the child tax credit and tax issues ad infinitum, but we have already had that debate. What we are talking about here today on the floor of the House is this conference committee report and the reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, the Adoption Opportunities Program, the Abandoned Infants Assistance Act, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act. That is what this debate is about. I would hope and trust that the Members of the other side will support unanimously this legislation, because we desperately need to protect those of our society, the most precious and vulnerable members of our society; and that is what this great piece of bipartisan legislation is all about.

I am very proud to serve on the Committee on Education and the Workforce and to serve under my subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), who brings this bill to us, this reauthorization. It was an honor, it was an honor indeed for this freshman Member of Congress to be appointed to the conference committee on this bill. In fact, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) said to me, he had been here 10 years before having an opportunity to be appointed to a conference committee.

So it is indeed a privilege. I think it shows a lot of respect for me as a physician Member and someone who is often in that delivery room seeing these children who may be very possibly born in a situation where the mom has been on substance abuse or drugs during the pregnancy and we, many times, are highly suspicious of that situation because of the condition of the child, the irritability of the child during the physical examination. These children have a certain physical appearance which is very suggestive in some instances of alcohol or substance abuse. And to just simply go from that delivery room to the next one or the next one, or go from there to a surgical procedure, and then back to the medical office where you might see an additional 30 patients a day would be unconscionable.

So this bill calls for, among other things, reporting these instances. I cannot tell my colleagues how supportive I am of this legislation, and I am proud of the leadership for bringing it to us.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, as a physician Member of this 108th Congress, I just want to say that I practiced medicine, an OB-GYN practice, for over 28 years; and, of course, most of my patients were fairly young, in the child-bearing age range, and I did not really see a lot of Medicare patients. However, if I were back in that practice today and doing just the gynecology part of that specialty, my practice would be predominantly Medicare patients like my precious 85-year-old mom who has been on Medicare now for 20 years.

This program, as we all know, came to us in 1965. I was a freshman medical student in 1965. I really did not understand the system too well. But I knew that back then, prior to Medicare, physicians gave away a lot of their services. They made a lot of house calls. They took a bushel of corn sometimes in lieu of any other financial payment for their services; and they were glad to do that, especially for the neediest of our citizens, many of them seniors. In 1965, Medicare, in a way, was good for these doctors. They were able to get paid for some of this care that they were rendering and at least maybe break even.

Over the past 25, 30, 35 years, of course, medicine has changed very much now. And it is extremely difficult, especially for our primary care physicians, our family practice specialists, our general internists, our physicians who are treating cancer, our medical oncologists who see a lot of the seniors. They are not able to continue to provide this care. It is costing too much. The reimbursements are not there. And so many of our physicians, these primary care doctors that are so essential to our precious senior citizens, no longer can they afford to take Medicare patients. So as we go forward and talk about a prescription benefit for our seniors, we need to keep in mind that there have to be providers there, there have to be primary care physicians there to write these prescriptions.

So that is why I say that in this 108th Congress, of which I am proud, of course, to be a Member, a freshman Member, this President; this administration; this leadership; this Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert); this majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay); this majority Republican Party, and, yes, hopefully the minority party and their leadership, we are ready. We need to address this issue, not only of providing a prescription benefit, especially for the neediest of our seniors, but also of reforming and revitalizing Medicare and bringing it from 1965 to the 21st century. We are dealing now really with what is the equivalent of an Edsel. It is time to get a Thunderbird on the market in regard to health care.

Let me just tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, and to all of the seniors who are out there, hopefully, listening to this great C-SPAN program tonight, let me tell my colleagues what is wrong with Medicare as it exists today. Not only did we not have any prescription benefit, no prescription benefit whatsoever in 1965, also there was no emphasis on preventive health care. One cannot go to the doctor today under traditional Medicare and have a routine screening physical examination done. One cannot go under Medicare and have a routine cholesterol screening, lipid profile to determine if you are on the verge and at risk of having a serious heart attack or a stroke. If you get that service, you pay for it out of your pocket. And, of course, many of our seniors can ill afford to do that.

And the other thing, and maybe most significant in regard to Medicare, is there is absolutely no catastrophic coverage. These seniors, maybe they can, many of them, afford to pay $2,000, $3,000, possibly $5,000 a year in out-of-pocket expenses for a prescription benefit. But once they get to the point of needing four or five or six medications, very expensive medications, I might add, just to sustain the quality of life and to relieve them from suffering, they can no longer afford that. And pretty soon, yes, they do reach the point where they have to choose between paying the rent, buying the groceries, paying the utilities, or getting their prescription drugs filled.

So this is the situation that we find ourselves in today. It is imperative that we do something for our seniors. This issue has been with us for several years, long before I became a Member of this Congress. But I am proud to stand here today as part of this majority, realizing that they understand the big picture. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), they understand what needs to be done and they realize that this is not just one leg of a stool, but that there are three legs to this stool; and it includes not only a prescription drug benefit for our seniors, but of course it includes a reform of this outdated, antiquated, 1965-era health care system that looks nothing like what my colleagues and I and other Members of Congress have available to us under our Federal health insurance benefit plan.

We do not have to worry about being put in the poor house once we get into a situation of serious illness. We have prescription coverage after a copay. So this is the same thing that we want to offer to our seniors. I am proud of the commitment that we have this year, this year, today, hopefully within the next several weeks, that we will have a bill on President Bush's desk that he can sign to give this very, very important relief to our seniors and to reform of the Medicare system.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to present this information tonight and to talk especially, especially to our senior citizens, our moms and dads, our grandparents and, indeed, us in the very near future. It is critical. We need to do it now, and we are going to get the job done.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my wife told me not to dare admit that, but I did it anyway.

Well, I thank the gentleman from Texas. Some of the things I think that we need to point out is that, as I mentioned in my remarks earlier, in 1965, when this plan was devised, there was not a great emphasis on drug therapy. It seemed back then that the main emphasis on health care was the opportunity, of course, to see a physician, to see a health care provider; and many people did not do that because of lack of access, and there just was not that great emphasis on preventive health care certainly.

Then a lot of things were cured, quite honestly, by the surgical approach, and as we know today, surgery is extremely important, and our surgeons and our subspecialty surgeons do a great job, but thank goodness a lot of people today, and I think the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) would agree with me, we would love to keep people out of the hospital.

We would love to be able to prevent very expensive surgery, and I can certainly give a personal testimony to that, having recently undergone open heart surgery. Maybe if 15 years ago I had been taking that drug to lower the cholesterol and improve that so-called lipip profile, or if I had been taking a little bit of a blood thinner or something to lower my blood pressure a little bit, I would not have had to undergo that very, very expensive somewhat dangerous and definitely painful surgical procedure.

That is why today it is so important, it is so important that our seniors at least have an opportunity not just to go to the emergency room to treat that episode of health emergency care or to be admitted to the hospital after a motor vehicle accident or those who need to after an extended period of stay go to a nursing home, they need prescription medication to keep them out of the hospital.

In the final analysis, we know the CBO, the committee on Medicare and Medicaid service and their actuarial services, we know that this prescription benefit, Mr. Speaker, will save money in the long run.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, just as a follow-up to what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) was saying about this other issue, and as everybody knows, we dealt with the HEALTH Act of 2003 earlier in this 108th Congress, H.R. 5, the Medical Malpractice Tort Reform Accountability Act, and of course, we hope that the other body will soon pass that and we will have that legislation before our President. He is so much supportive of this. Let me tell my colleagues the reason why he is so supportive.

The savings from bringing a level playing field, we are not in any way wanting to take away the right of anybody to have a redress of their grievances if they have been harmed by their medical care that they received at the practice, either from the physician or from the facility is below the standard of care. Absolutely, they should have their day in court, but just trying to level that playing field, and the estimation, Mr. Speaker, is that there would be $14 billion in savings to the Federal Government on what we pay reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid and military and veterans benefits because, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) pointed out, the number of unnecessary and duplicate tests that are ordered and procedures that are done, the doctors know they are not necessary, but they are forced into a position because of this risk, this tremendous risk of the next case putting them out of practice or causing that hospital, that rural hospital, to have to close its doors. That is the reason defensive medicine is being practiced, and it is costing us $14 billion. That is 5 percent of our estimated cost of this prescription benefit for our needy seniors.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to ask the gentleman from New Hampshire to go over once again because it is so important. His comments were so important in regard to our senior citizens fully understanding what is in this proposed legislation in regard to the neediest, and if the gentleman does not mind kind of repeating himself for emphasis in regard to those needy seniors and what they would have to pay, and what is the cap, if you will, above which they would not have to pay anything for those additional drugs?

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will further yield, this is so important, and I am glad the gentleman from New Hampshire has brought this out because we hear sometimes from constituents proffering the argument that, well, why should we provide a prescription benefit for all seniors, many of whom already have a prescription drug benefit, either through their Medigap supplemental health insurance plan or possibly through their former employer?

And I think the statistic that I have heard quoted is it may be up to 65 percent of seniors that have some type of coverage, and I think the gentleman from New Hampshire agrees with me on that.

But explain to us why it is still necessary, even though 65 percent have some coverage, that there are certainly some gaps in their coverage. Would you not agree?

I thank the gentleman, my colleague from Georgia, Mr. Speaker. I really want to thank him for reserving this time tonight to give us this opportunity to present during this past hour what it is that we are all about.

I think my colleague did an excellent job of emphasizing something that is so important for all of us to keep in mind, which is that this is first of all an option that seniors have. And as the gentleman from Georgia was talking about, it would do very little good, in fact, it may do some harm to try to pass a stand-alone prescription benefit even for our neediest of seniors, even for our neediest of seniors, without bringing along with that in this Medicare modernization bill some significant changes.

The gentleman from Georgia talked about that and talked about the Medicare Advantage, which was the old Medicare+Choice, a new and enhanced Medicare+Choice, if you will. He talked about enhanced Medicare fee-for-service. These are the kinds of options that this President, this leadership, is bringing to the American public and bringing to our seniors.

But as the gentleman from Georgia emphasized, it is a choice. If a senior wants to stay in traditional Medicare, certainly they could do that, but they would be staying in a traditional health care delivery system which gave them no reimbursement for preventive health care and gave them no protection, as the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns) pointed out, from a catastrophic illness that could literally put them out of their home.

I wanted to ask the gentleman from Georgia to explain to us in the remaining few minutes in regard to the prescription benefit for those seniors who are scared to move into the Medicare Advantage or the enhanced Medicare, which I think would be a better service for them. But let us say they do want to stay in that traditional Medicare, it is an old shoe, it is comfortable, they are nervous about it initially, what benefit, what prescription drug benefit will they get? Is there a difference in the traditional Medicare and these enhanced plans?

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this substitute amendment. The Greenwood-Hoyer substitute, make no doubt about it, will gut this bill to ban late trimester pregnancy termination just as surely as the procedure itself barbarically guts the life out of nearly born healthy children.

There are physicians who, unfortunately, and for a generous consultation fee, will readily certify that a woman's health is endangered by the pregnancy. In fact, the coauthor just a few minutes ago said that health exceptions would include psychological syndromes such as, you name it, extreme anxiety, as well as nebulous physical syndromes, such as chronic adult fatigue. So, in essence, the mother's health exception could be claimed literally in every one of these cases if we approved this substitute amendment and we would have no bill.

You talk about the fact that the Supreme Court could possibly rule this ban on partial-birth abortion as unconstitutional. If we vote in support of this substitute amendment, the bill dies right here tonight. In fact, the so-called consultant that I mentioned theoretically could come into the delivery room and declare the woman's health to be endangered within minutes of a spontaneous live birth.

The gentlewoman from Connecticut talked about sepsis. I have actually seen these tools that are used to perform this abominable procedure called partial-birth abortion. And you talk about the risk of sepsis developing after that type of a procedure. The gentleman from Virginia talked about the loving parents who would want to terminate the life of a child who was not going to be born perfect. A loving parent will allow that child an opportunity for life no matter how short it may be.

If the gentleman will yield, will the gentleman mind repeating that question?

The gentleman from Texas earlier talked about other late-term pregnancy termination procedures other than this one we know as partial-birth abortion. I do not know exactly what he or you are referring to.

I do not believe there is another way to terminate a pregnancy in late term.

I am sorry. I am not understanding you.

It is the only way to terminate a pregnancy without delivering a live born child. These pregnancies can be terminated by injecting saline or they can be terminated by performing a cesarean section, but the problem there is it is a live child.

In those instances, the child would be alive.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Ready to Teach Act of 2003 to reauthorize teacher quality provisions under Title II of the Higher Education Act through fiscal year 2008. The first in what will be a series of bills to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, the Ready to Teach Act seeks to meet the call of the No Child Left Behind Act to place a highly qualified teacher in every classroom by making improvements that will help ensure teacher training programs are producing well-prepared teachers to meet the needs of America's students.

The caliber of teacher education programs at institutions of higher education has come under increased scrutiny over the past several years. Among other things, teacher preparation programs have been criticized for providing prospective teachers with inadequate time to learn subject matter; for teaching a superficial curriculum; and for being unduly fragmented, with courses not linked to practice teaching and with education faculty isolated from their arts and sciences faculty colleagues.

Accordingly, the Ready to Teach Act authorizes competitively awarded grants to: (1) increase student academic achievement; (2) improve the quality of the current and future teaching force by improving the preparation of prospective teachers and enhancing professional development activities; (3) hold institutions of higher education accountable for preparing highly qualified teachers; (4) and recruit highly qualified individuals, including minorities and individuals from other occupations, into the teaching force. As in current law, funds for these grants will be distributed in the following manner: 45 percent of the funds are reserved for State grants; 45 percent of the funds are reserved for partnership grants; and 10 percent of the funds are reserved for teacher recruitment grants.

State grants under the Act must be used to reform teacher preparation requirements, coordinate with teacher activities under Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act, and ensure that current and future teachers are highly qualified. Programs administered through state grants would focus on effective teacher preparation, placing a renewed emphasis on the skills needed to meet the highly qualified standard: the use of advanced technology in the classroom, rigorous academic content knowledge, scientifically based research, and challenging state student academic content standards.

In addition, states are authorized to use grant funds for innovative methods for teacher preparation programs, such as charter colleges of education, which can provide an alternative gateway for teachers to become highly qualified. Teacher advancement and retention initiatives will also be created, such as merit-based performance systems and professional growth opportunities. These activities will help ensure that schools are able to recruit highly qualified teachers while having the necessary flexibility to remove incompetent or unqualified teachers.

The Ready to Teach Act authorizes partnership grants so educational entities can combine expertise and resources to improve teacher training. Each eligible partnership must include at least: (1) a high quality teacher preparation program at an institution of higher education; (2) a school of arts and sciences; (3) a high need LEA; and (4) a public or private educational organization. Among other things, partnership activities will help to ensure that teachers are able to use advanced technology effectively in the classroom, address the needs of students with different learning styles (particularly students with disabilities), and receive training in methods of improving student behavior in the classroom.

Teacher recruitment grants under the Ready to Teach Act will help bring high quality individuals into teacher programs, and ultimately put more highly qualified teachers into classrooms. The Ready to Teach Act recognizes the need to ensure that high need local educational agencies are able to effectively recruit highly qualified teachers, and will help answer that need by increasing the number of teachers being trained. Additionally, this legislation places a priority on applicants that will emphasize measures to recruit minorities into the teaching profession.

Current law provisions in Title II of the Higher Education Act include annual reporting requirements to hold states and teacher preparation programs accountable for producing a competent teaching force. The Ready to Teach Act strengthens these reporting requirements to ensure complete and effective information is available to determine the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs. Under this legislation:

States must report annually to the Secretary of Education on the percentage of students passing state certification or licensure and rank the quality of all teacher preparation programs in the state.

The Secretary of Education must analyze teacher qualifications and preparation in the United States, providing: a comparison of states' efforts to improve teaching quality; and the national mean and median scores on any standardized test that is used in 1 or more state for teacher certification or licensure.

Institutions of higher education with teacher preparation programs must report on the number of students passing state certification requirements, with improved reporting requirements that will prevent ``gaming'' of data that leave results without meaning. Additionally, institutions must compare both pass rates and average scores of their program participants with those of other programs in the state, making effective comparison data available to measure program quality.

The Ready to Teach Act of 2003 will improve the quality and accountability of our nation's teacher preparation programs. I ask my colleagues to support this legislation and look forward to working with the distinguished Chairman of the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness, Mr. McKeon, and the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr. Kildee, to move this bill so we can ensure our children are receiving a world class education.