Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, one day after the health care summit at the Blair House, Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal, and I quote: What the meeting made clear is what the Democrats are going to do, not step back and save the moderates of their party, but attempt to bully a bill through the Congress. This is boorish of them, and they will suffer for it.''

Indeed, Madam Speaker, I think the Democrats will get slaughtered for it. But, unfortunately, the collateral damage is to the health of the American people. I ask all my colleagues, join with me and my constituents in the 11th Congressional District of Georgia and vote ``no'' on this rule and this so-called deeming legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 1055, a resolution supporting the designation of the 2nd week of April as National Robotics Week. As co-chair of the Congressional Robotics Caucus and lead Republican sponsor of this resolution, I would like to commend my colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle, for his leadership in robotics and as the chief author of this legislation.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, education is instrumental to our ability to stay at the cutting edge of the global economy. Yet, the United States is falling behind the rest of the world in the number of students that are graduating from STEM fields.

Madam Speaker, according to a 2006 Association of American Universities study, 50 percent of students in China receive their undergraduate degrees in natural science or engineering; in Singapore, that number is 67 percent, and 38 percent of South Korea's graduates fall into these fields. Unfortunately, the United States is lagging behind with a staggering 15 percent of graduates in natural science or engineering.

H. Res. 1055 reflects the support and understanding that the promotion of robotics will help inspire current and future students to pursue careers in robotics and other various STEM-related fields. In addition to simply supporting the designation of National Robotics Week, this resolution encourages schools, universities, and other robotics companies to use that week as a way to demonstrate the impressive and ongoing technological advancements in the field of robotics.

Madam Speaker, as a graduate of Georgia Tech with a degree in chemistry, STEM education is an issue that is near and dear to me, and I am very happy to see this body consider a resolution that supports National Robotics Week. Robotics technology gives students a ``hands on'' learning experience and can provide them with the tools to keep them engaged in STEM fields with the hope that those students will pursue higher education opportunities and careers in those cutting edge fields.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H. Res. 1055.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to honor a very distinguished individual from the 11th District of Georgia, Mr. Terry Lindsey.

Terry is not only a dear friend but a very renowned member of the Polk County community. Terry is retiring this March after 31 years of employment with Engineered Fabrics in Rockmart, Georgia. Engineered Fabrics manufactures fuel bladders for many platforms, such as the Blackhawk helicopter and the Abrams tank.

Terry's hard work with the company has ultimately helped to ensure the safety of our pilots and of our soldiers who are in harm's way.

Terry started with Engineered Fabrics in 1979 as the manager of Contract Management, and 10 years later, he was made vice president of Business Development. He is an integral part of Engineered Fabrics' success, and I know he will be deeply missed by the company.

Terry is also a very active volunteer in the Polk County community, serving on the Rotary, and he has been a board member of the Chamber of Commerce for many, many years. He is very committed to the youth leadership committee, often speaking to their graduation classes.

Terry is married to his college sweetheart, Jean, is a wonderful father of two, and is a grandfather of four.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to call Terry a friend. I want to congratulate him on his retirement, and I want to thank him for his hard work on behalf of our community and the military.

Mr. Speaker, in January, Georgia's unemployment rate hit a record-high level of 10.4 percent. There could be no clearer proof that the Democrat majority should have long ago shifted this body's focus to the economy and to jobs.

Back in Georgia, Democratic Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said yesterday, ``I'm concerned that thousands of pending government layoffs will further cripple Georgia's struggling private job market. Our elected leadership must come together to develop a bipartisan plan that will balance the State budget and jump-start private sector hiring.''

Mr. Speaker, listen to our State leaders. Unlike the current health care bill, which the Democrats are going to attempt to ram down the American people's throats without any bipartisan input, please do not bring any more legislation to the floor that will raise taxes and kill jobs. Listen to Commissioner Thurmond and work with us. Let's get our economy back on track.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an outstanding athletic coach from my hometown of Marietta, Georgia, on the occasion of his retirement.

James ``Friday'' Richards had dedicated more than 30 years of his life to Marietta High School, retiring on January 22 of this year as the head coach of the Marietta Blue Devil football team. Coach Friday is also a teacher at the high school and will retire from full-time teaching at the end of this current school year.

Coach Friday graduated from Marietta High School in 1972 and went on to play football at the University of Florida. He then spent two seasons in the NFL playing for the New York Jets and the Washington Redskins before coming back to where it all started.

Working at Marietta High School is the only job outside of professional football that Coach Friday has ever had. Up until his retirement, he was the longest serving football coach in Cobb County, Georgia. During his 15-year tenure as head coach, Coach Friday compiled a record of 107 victories and 58 defeats. He took the Blue Devils to the playoffs 10 times and won four region titles.

Before he became head coach, Friday was a Marietta assistant, first for Coach Ray Broadaway and then for Coach Dexter Wood. Additionally, under Coach Friday, more than 100 players from Marietta have earned college football scholarships.

Coach Friday told the Marietta Daily Journal, when announcing his retirement, that the thing that he will miss most about coaching are the kids. Well, Coach Friday, four of those kids were my kids: Billy, now 38 years old; Gannon, 37; Phyllis, 35; and Laura Neill, 33. Where in the world did the time go? Coach Friday, I can tell you that those four children that you mentored and coached, three of them cheerleaders, one of them a wide receiver for the Blue Devils, they miss you, too. It is your attitude of putting students and players first that made you, Coach Friday, such an outstanding teacher and football coach.

Mr. Speaker, he will indeed be a tough act to follow.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to represent Calhoun High School and want to congratulate the students, faculty, and staff on their achievements thus far this year.

Principal Wanda Westmoreland, a 17-year Calhoun veteran, has told me that Calhoun's victories in the athletic arena are a direct result of academic achievements in the classroom. Principal Westmoreland leads by example and will be greatly missed when she retires at the end of this school term. Her leadership is one of the reasons Calhoun was listed as one of America's top schools by the U.S. News and World report. Additionally, Calhoun's One Act Plays were the regional champions this year and placed third overall in the state of Georgia.

On the athletic side, I'd like to recognize the following Yellow Jacket teams for their achievements this year: Varsity Football, runner-up in the State Championships and nine time Regional Champions; Competition Cheerleading, the three time State Champions; and, Calhoun wrestler--Hunter Knight--who won a state championship this year.

Congratulations to Calhoun High School for their accomplishments on and off the field this year. Keep up the great work and go Jackets!

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this rule, as well as to the underlying legislation, H.R. 4247, the Preventing Harmful Restraint and Seclusion in Schools Act. As a former Marietta, Georgia School Board Member and as a grandfather with grandchildren in both public and private schools, I believe that it is critically important that students can feel safe in schools.

However, this legislation is not the right way to address this important matter. H.R. 4247 represents a ``Washington knows best'' solution and a one-size-fits-all approach to educational decisions where there is not precedence for federal action. Currently, there are 31 states that have actively taken a role in enacting policies that address the restraint and seclusion of students. Furthermore, 15 additional states--including my home State of Georgia--are planning on addressing this issue this year.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 4247 is a gross infringement on states' rights under the 10th amendment to the Constitution. This legislation tells our states that the work they do to keep our children safe is woefully inadequate and leaves them no flexibility to meet the individual needs of their students.

Additionally, I have grave concerns about the scope of this legislation as it relates to private schools. On page 9 of the bill, H.R. 4247 specifically defines a school subjected to this legislation as ``public or private'' and ``receives . . . support in any form from . . . the Department of Education.''

Madam Speaker, this clearly undermines the longstanding policy that limits federal intrusion into private schools. If this legislation passes, I fear that private schools will begin to limit services that their students are entitled to receive under federal law as a way to avoid being subjected to the law. Therefore, the federal safety standards afforded to children under H.R. 4247 will come at the sacrifice of the educational experience for those students who choose to be in private schools.

Make no mistake; the 10 cases that our colleagues on the Education and Labor Committee examined in their May 2009 hearing on this issue are absolutely tragic. My condolences go out to all of the victims of these horrific acts. There is no doubt that mechanisms should be put in place to protect the safety of both our students and faculty so that tragedies like the ones that have already occurred can be avoided in the future.

However Madam Speaker, I do not believe it is the job of this body or the federal government as a whole to tackle this issue when we leave educational decisions primarily to the states. Instead of passing H.R. 4247, we should be encouraging the 19 states that do not have existing policies on student restraint and seclusion to act as quickly and as swiftly as possible so that all states can keep their students safe in schools.

Madam Speaker, for the sake of the 10th amendment and states' rights, I ask that all of my colleagues oppose this rule, and I urge the defeat of the underlying legislation, H.R. 4247.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minority leader for giving me the opportunity to spend some time with my colleagues tonight on the House floor talking about, yes, one of the most important issues not just of the day, but of the year, and in fact the past year-and-a- half, and that is, of course, the issue of health care in this country.

Colleagues, I know that we all watched very closely, as did men and women across the country last Thursday, when there was a health care summit at the Blair House. Leadership from both the majority Democratic Party and the minority Republican Party, my party, were invited to the White House, about 20 on each side of the aisle, moderated by none other than the President himself.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that that was a good thing. I commend the President for calling that summit. I think that each side, leadership and Members, particularly I think my colleagues from the Senate and our colleagues from the House, the medical doctors, did a great job of explaining their view and position on health care reform, alternative ideas which I think the President listened very carefully to.

It is hard to know what actually came out of that particular session, seven hours of dialogue, the whole thing televised. But, again, Mr. Speaker, I think it was good that we showed that there can be some comity and bipartisanship in this body and in the Congress. Indeed, it was a good opportunity.

Well, here we are almost a week later and we get an announcement from the Associated Press just moments ago, Mr. Speaker. I was reading my BlackBerry, and apparently the President is going to come forward tomorrow yet again with some change to the health care plan even different from the 11-page change to the Senate bill that was posted on the Internet last Monday in anticipation of the health care summit on Thursday. I don't know what that is going to say, Mr. Speaker. I don't know what the President has in mind. Maybe we will spend a little bit of time this evening talking about that.

I am pleased that my good friend and fellow physician co-member of the House GOP Doctors Caucus and fellow OB-GYN specialist from the great State of Tennessee, Dr. Phil Roe, has joined me, and we will engage in a colloquy.

But I just wanted to kind of set the stage tonight for our colleagues and say to both sides of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, and also to the administration, especially to the administration and to the President, again, I am not sure what we will see tomorrow, Mr. President. I look forward to very carefully looking at any proposals, especially if they are adopting some Republican ideas so that we can do these things, these important things for the American people, in a bipartisan way. We were elected to do that.

But I would very much liked to have been at the Blair House last Thursday. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the President knows that, or at least some of his staff knows. I don't know if he ever got to read my letter when I requested to come and speak on behalf of the Doctors Caucus in the House on the Republican side. I didn't get to go, but Dr. Charles Boustany, our colleague from Louisiana, a cardiothoracic surgeon, was there, and did a great job. I am awfully proud of Dr. Boustany.

But had I been there, had I had that opportunity to get my 5 minutes of fame or whatever, I would have said to the President, You know, one thing that you have done that I think is probably one of the most important things in regard to health care reform, that is money that was allocated, $19 billion in fact, to try to get electronic medical records in the hands of every practicing physician in this country, all 750,000 of them, and every hospital in this country, so that we could clearly reduce medical errors, we could ultimately save lives, and, in the long run, save money.

This is an idea that I think, at least from this Republican viewpoint, Mr. Speaker, is bipartisan, and I commend the President. President Bush had the same idea, and again it was a plan to get fully integrated medical records by the year 2014-2015. So we can do things in a bipartisan way.

There are a number of other things that Dr. Roe and I would like to talk about, Mr. Speaker, tonight. We don't need to spend $1 trillion. That expenditure on electronic medical records is something like $20 billion. Now, $20 billion is a lot of money, but it is a long way from a thousand billion, and that is a conservative estimate by the CBO: $1 trillion for this 2,700-page reform. We don't need that, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I am not sure what the President is going to say tomorrow, but I hope that finally he will be listening to the American people and realize that there are some targeted things that were mentioned, yes, by Democrats and Republicans, but the President I think wants to adopt some Republican ideas, and we are talking about things especially like medical liability reform.

The CBO gave a very conservative estimate of saving $54 billion over 10 years. But if it is the kind of medical liability reform that is comprehensive, fair, absolutely fair and balanced, so that patients who are injured by practitioners of medicine and by facilities that are practicing below the standards of care, that they absolutely have a redress of their grievances and a decent recovery.

But the President, Mr. Speaker, in the bills that we are currently looking at, the House and Senate bills, there is just a pittance, like $25 million worth of grants to States to look at it, to study. We keep creating these study commissions, but not even allowing States who have already capped noneconomic damages, so-called pain and suffering--in many instances these are these frivolous lawsuits--those States wouldn't even be eligible for any of this $23 million in grants.

So I hope his comments tomorrow include adoption in a new bill or a modification, and hopefully a vast shrinkage of the existing bill, and that it is true medical liability reform.

Because that's the only way we save lives and save money and bend that cost curve down in the right direction.

So with those opening remarks, Mr. Speaker, I want to yield time to my colleague from Tennessee, Representative Phil Roe.

Dr. Roe, thank you so much. I hope you will be able to stay with us for a little bit more time tonight as we continue the colloquy.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to show a few slides to our colleagues. Of course, starting with the Second Opinion, the subtitle: When will the White House listen to the American people? When, indeed, Mr. Speaker, will the White House listen to the American people?

In the second slide, let's just go back to last August, 7 months ago. Americans attended town hall meetings across the country in record numbers. In fact, my town hall meetings, instead of having 40 or 50 people there, I had 1,500. And I'm sure other Members experienced the same thing. These people were asking that the Democratic majority stop their plans to implement a government takeover of health care. And here's a quote, Mr. Speaker, from ABC News, and the date is August 5, 2009. That's when all these town hall meetings were going on across the country. I quote from the newspaper, There were no lobbyist-funded buses in the parking lot of Mardela Middle and High School on Tuesday evening, and the hundreds of eastern Maryland residents who packed the school's auditorium loudly refuted the notion that their anger over the Democrat health care reform plan is manufactured. That's what ABC News was saying back 6 months ago.

Now fast forward to today, March 2, 2010. Americans are still trying to be heard by the White House and Democratic leaders as Democrats continue to try and ram a government takeover of health care through the Congress by any way possible. This is a quote from Rasmussen, the polling guru. Everybody's familiar with the Rasmussen poll: February 23, 2010, just last week, Voters still strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats and think Congress should focus instead on a smaller plan, smaller bills, that address problems individually rather than a comprehensive plan.

Well, Mr. Speaker, that's what we're talking about tonight, that's what Dr. Roe is discussing, that's what I said in my opening remarks, about had I been at the Blair House, what I might have said, very respectfully, to the President, to Majority Leader Reid, and to the Speaker of this House of Representatives, Ms. Pelosi.

The American people were not an angry mob, as they are not today, my colleagues. They are men and women, a lot of seniors, yes, very concerned about the massive takeover by the government. And that is the thing, the bottom line that the people fear the most, is having government take over every aspect of our lives. Indeed, colleagues, we are talking about, and we all hear this quote and don't argue with the statistics, this is one-sixth of our economy; $2.5 trillion a year on health care.

We see the same thing, quite honestly, happening in education. We have a bill on the floor tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, a bill with a special rule in regard to telling school systems all across this country how they can discipline children. I am sure there are some concerns and there may be some abusive behavior in very small pockets and a small problem. But we have this attitude up here, Mr. Speaker, that the Federal Government knows best, and we have these knee-jerk reactions to things, and all of a sudden we make this huge mountain out of a mole hill, I think, in some instances and say the Federal Government has to take over; that school boards, elected by a local community, can't run their local schools. I think that is hogwash, quite honestly.

The American people have spoken about this. They want us to correct the things that they can't deal with themselves. And yes, they want us, Mr. Speaker, to rein in the abuses, in this instance, of the health insurance industry. But you have to understand, colleagues, that there are a lot of good, honest, ethical men and women in this country who work in the insurance industry, whether they are selling life insurance or property and casualty, or health insurance. Independent agents.

And there are some great health insurance companies, large companies, small companies, probably over 3,000 total. We need to be careful that we're not beating up on them so bad that all of a sudden we destroy an industry, and how many hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process.

I would be proud to yield for comments from my colleague from Tennessee.

I thank the gentleman for pointing that out. This is the kind of wisdom that we need to hear and need to stop and think.

Certainly Dr. Roe would agree, and I fully agree, Mr. Speaker, that if insurance companies are rescinding, is the word that is used, a rescission action, rescinding a policy after the fact. Somebody has got health insurance for their family, including their children, and they have a teenage daughter, and she, lo and behold, has to go into the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. The surgery is a success, everything goes fine, and they expect that the insurance company will pay whatever is above the copay and the deductible. And then all of a sudden they are told, ``Well, no, we've looked back through your policy that you took out, Dad, for the family 10 years ago when your teenager was just 3, and you gave us the wrong birth date, or you failed to dot an I or cross a T, and therefore this $20,000 bill, you're on your own, buddy.'' Well, that has to stop. Of course it has to stop.

And this also not allowing people with preexisting conditions, particularly if they are in the individual market, just make it so impossible, either deny or make the premiums four times the standard rate, and that essentially is denial, too, isn't it, Mr. Speaker? Well, Dr. Roe and I agree, and everybody in this body, all 435 of us agree that we need to stop things like that. Those things can be done, but it doesn't take 2,700 pages and 32 additional Federal bureaucracies to deal with that.

Again, I don't know what the President is going to say tomorrow. I read that AP report that he is going to indeed address four subjects in maybe yet another bill, or maybe in addition to the current Senate bill, that were brought up last week on Thursday at the Blair House by the Republican Members that were there. Let me just on my BlackBerry, Mr. Speaker, refer to that. And just for my colleagues, maybe some of you had already read that.

The proposals President Obama listed are four: Number one, sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud and waste. I want to get

back to that, Mr. Speaker, in just a minute. Expanding medical malpractice reform pilot programs. Sounds good to me. Increasing payments to Medicaid providers. Absolutely. If we are going to have any Medicaid providers, I hope we will do that. And last, the fourth thing, and I am really interested in reading about this because I'm most in favor of it, expanding the use of health savings accounts.

But I do want to go back to that first one, Mr. Speaker, if I may. Sending investigators disguised as patients to uncover fraud, waste, and abuse. I know that was brought up at the Blair House by a Republican, but, quite honestly, if we don't already, Mr. Speaker, have enough Inspector Generals within CMS and other government programs, health care, TRICARE, the veterans program, CHIP program across the country, I think we could do a better job with combating waste, fraud and abuse than sending undercover patients into doctors' offices.

I haven't practiced in a while, but I spent 31 years, Mr. Speaker, as a medical practitioner, it has only been 7 or 8 years since I practiced, but I worried all the time about making sure that I didn't make a mistake, that I ordered the sufficient number of tests. And in fact, I practiced like everybody else, probably Dr. Roe as well, I welcome his comments on this, what we call defensive medicine. And many times getting a blood test, or an x-ray, or a CAT scan, or an MRI, or something that I knew wasn't necessary. I hoped that it wouldn't be harmful to the patient. If you draw too much blood, you can certainly turn them into an anemic patient.

And, Lord knows, we had a hearing just last week, Mr. Speaker, in the Energy and Commerce Committee about x-ray exposure, particularly from MRIs and CAT scans and things that you really don't know if 10, 15, 20 years from now if that exposure couldn't indeed lead to a cancer that that patient might not otherwise have contracted. So all of that defensive medicine that we practice, and my colleagues, the OB/GYN specialists, are in town this week, and I have had the conversation with them, so I know that we need to stop that.

But this business of saying we're going to disguise people and have them go into a doctor's office as a fake patient, I sure hope they don't go in as a fake patient and decide to have a hemorrhoidectomy to see whether or not the doctor is qualified. Some of this stuff is a little bit ridiculous, I think.

I want to yield to my colleague from Tennessee, because he's got almost as much clinical experience as I have. I would like to know how he feels about that particular aspect of reducing waste, fraud, and abuse.

Thank you for sharing that with our colleagues in regard to the tele-town hall meeting and the poll that you conducted with your constituents in Tennessee. You referred to this next slide that I have got titled, and I want to point it out to my colleagues, ``What Americans Want.'' Just like Dr. Roe said, poll numbers, 73 percent of Americans think Congress should start over on health care reform, or if they can't start over and get it right, do nothing.

I mean for goodness sakes, this business of when you are talking about health care and somebody comes along and says to you, ``Do something, even if it's wrong,'' think about that for a minute. Do something even if it's wrong? Regarding health care? Regarding an operation? Regarding a delivery of a child? No. Don't do something even if it's wrong. You better get it right. And if you can't get it right with what your plan is, drop the plan.

Then going on the bottom half of this slide, Mr. Speaker, 56.4 percent of people indicated they would prefer Congress to tackle health care reform on a step-by-step basis, not take the comprehensive approach as embodied in legislation that passed the House and Senate last year but is now stalled, thank God, for the past month.

I want to yield to my colleague so he can further elaborate on this.

Dr. Roe, if you will yield back to me for just a second, I want to continue on this point that you are making. I think what you just said, if I understand it correctly, Mr. Speaker-- what Dr. Roe just said is that if we would allow individuals to go online, they wouldn't have to get in their car. I wouldn't have to drive to Tennessee to apply, to sign up for a health insurance policy that's offered in Tennessee. From the comfort of your home, you do it over the Internet.

And if we would simply allow that--and also, by the way, allow small employers that maybe employ 10 or 15 people to come together with others in what we refer to as an association--and very quickly, you could get to 1,000 or more and form an association, and that way you spread the risk. You have some people that have preexisting conditions. You have some people that have had a heart attack or already have high blood pressure or whatever. But if you spread it among 1,000 people, you have lots of healthy people in that association, so you are able to bring down the cost.

And the same thing with individuals being able to buy across State lines because they're part of a--people all across the country in every one of the 50 States might be getting on that computer and buying a plan that's offered in the State of Tennessee or in the State of Georgia. And that way, as I understand what Dr. Roe is saying, Mr. Speaker, you wouldn't need these exchanges because that would be the exchange.

And then to sort of complete the thought, you also--within every State, or you could come together on a regional basis if you wanted to with neighboring States. You could have these high-risk pools within the State so that individuals that do have these preexisting conditions, these insurance companies, health insurance companies that offer their products within a State, they would have to participate, and they would have to agree that, Hey, you take one high-risk patient; I will take a high-risk patient. You take another one; I will take another one. And do it in a fair and balanced way and not have the premiums be more than, say, 2, 2\1/2\ times the most standard rates. Then if they are low-income, but yet they don't qualify for Medicaid because they're not quite that low but they certainly can't afford the premium, then the State and the Federal Government can help with some subsidies. But not this business of $500 billion worth of subsidies. That's what's causing this bill to be so expensive. In fact, you know, you cut money out of Medicare, $500 billion out of Medicare, tax the American people $500 billion.

So, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Roe is offering us--it's a Republican idea, yeah, but it ought to be bipartisan. And we talked about it at the Blair House last week. So we really don't need these exchanges, do we, Dr. Roe? And I will yield back to you.

Dr. Roe, if you will yield back, and I think you make a good point. And I hear the same argument, Well, only people that are well-to-do, well-off, high-income people can afford to have a health savings account in combination, Mr. Speaker, with that low monthly premium and a high deductible that Dr. Roe just explained so well. But I have seen statistics, and I think they're accurate, that 50 percent of people that have these high deductible, low monthly premium combined with a health savings account make less than $50,000 a year. And some 75 percent of them make less than $75,000 or $80,000 a year. So we're not talking about wealthy people. I think Dr. Roe makes a good point.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, as I was reading in the Associated Press about what the President might include tomorrow, these four things I did ridicule a bit, this idea of combating waste, fraud, and abuse with fake patients. I have embellished or maybe overstated, but I wanted to make a point, Mr. Speaker. But as far as expansion of health savings accounts, I say to the President, Kudos, Mr. President. I am looking forward to hearing about that, and I hope that this report from the Associated Press is true.

I also hope, Mr. President, that the report about expanding the medical liability reform is true, although I would guess that it doesn't go nearly far enough, because this report, if it's accurate, Mr. Speaker, says instead of $23 million worth of grants to States to enact pilot programs on alternative ways of dealing with medical liability issues, it increases that amount to $50 million. Well, that's not much, and that's not really, I don't think--and I think Dr. Roe would agree with me--going nearly far enough to do what we need to do in regard to caps on pain and suffering judgments, which sometimes can be in the millions of dollars in a frivolous case.

And then a couple of other issues, Mr. Speaker, regarding medical liability reform. The defendant in a medical malpractice case could include somebody that was just covering--let's say as an example, Dr. Roe has a patient and asked Dr. Gingrey to step in and say hello to that patient on Sunday morning while Dr. Roe takes his family to church, and Dr. Roe is going to operate on that patient the next day. Dr.

Gingrey just walks by and says hello to the patient and lets her know that Dr. Roe will be in later in the evening, and that's the only contact that Dr. Gingrey has with this particular patient. Well, if something, Mr. Speaker--and it's not likely that anything would go wrong under the care of a doctor like Dr. Roe, but sometimes things do, and that Dr. Gingrey who just really had essentially nothing to do with the patient's care would be drug into court. And if he or she had the deepest pockets and the most liability coverage, then they would be the ones that would be responsible for most of the judgment and settlement or whatever. So we need some robust reform. And I hope that the President, Mr. Speaker, is talking about that.

I yield back to my friend to see what his thoughts are on that.

Dr. Roe, yielding back to me for a second, we've already talked about the health savings plans and expanding that and allowing people--if there still is an exchange, and you and I have talked about it, Mr. Speaker. Dr. Roe and I have talked about it, and I hope our colleagues understand this. We don't think that we have to have this exchange, this expensive exchange where you have to subsidize people's premiums. That's how the President was able to say last week, Mr. Speaker, that 47 percent of people in the exchange will be paying less than they currently are for their health insurance. Well, yeah, they are paying less out of their pockets, but they're reaching in everybody else's pockets--John Q. Taxpayer--to help them pay those premiums. So really when you do a little fact check on that, you find that most people under that plan are going to end up paying more.

And what Dr. Roe is talking about in the four or five things he mentioned, of course, even if you had an exchange, you shouldn't say to people that the only kind of policy that they can buy is a first dollar coverage, the most expensive kind of policy, when young people, healthy people and people who are just out of college or just out of high school or just back from the military and they are trying to pay for a car, they're trying to rent an apartment or buy a little starter home, or buy an engagement ring for their fiancee, and the last thing they can afford is $15,000 a year for a first dollar coverage health insurance plan that they don't even need. So what's still in the bill, it prohibits a person from having one of these plans.

It's counterintuitive, isn't it, Dr. Roe?

And I yield back to you.

That is exactly right, Dr. Roe. I have a daughter who lives in the great State of New York. Her health insurance policy covers so much more than many of the policies cover in the State of Georgia, for example. And it is much, much, more expensive as a result of that. So Dr. Roe makes a good point of buying across State lines.

One thing before our time expires, Mr. Speaker, I want to just say again that hope springs eternal. I don't know what the President is going to say to us tomorrow, but I hope that I like what I hear because the American people need relief. But as we stand here tonight, what is still in these bills? Well, a government takeover, that is one thing. Price controls is another. Individual and employer mandates, and I don't know that it is really even constitutional to say to an individual in this country you, under the penalty of law, fines, and jail time, have to buy health insurance. We hope they do, and we hope we create the environment where we can bring down the price and people can afford--maybe it is a health savings account combined with a high deductible, low monthly premium, but to hold a gun to their head and say they have to do it, no, that is not right. That is not constitutional.

In the bill, there is no meaningful medical liability reform. Again, hope springs eternal, but the bill puts Washington bureaucrats in charge of defining quality health care. That is where those 32 new bureaucracies do their work. It cuts $500 billion over all Medicare, but $120 billion of that is cut out of Medicare Advantage, and 20 percent of our seniors get their care from Medicare Advantage. Why do they call it Advantage? Because it is an advantage. It covers wellness. It does screening, appropriate screening. It keeps people healthy so they are not spending all of that money in the last weeks or months of their life.

Finally, this bill raises taxes to pay for new entitlement programs, and it gives the government-run plan a beachhead to eliminate the private insurance market. And, unfortunately, many of our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have said it loud and clear, whether members of Energy and Commerce, or Ways and Means, or Education and Labor, that they want the government to take over, just like it exists in Great Britain or Canada or other countries. The American people don't want that. They want us to do something in an incremental way, and I think we can do it and do it in a bipartisan way.

I thank Dr. Roe for being with me tonight, Mr. Speaker. There are 14 health care providers on the Republican side. Ten of them are M.D.s. There are five M.D.s on the Democratic side. We have two doctors in the Senate. We probably have 500 years in clinical experience in the aggregate. Let us help.

In closing, I want to refer to my colleague who was here a number of years ago, Dr. Roy Rowland, a member of this body when the Democrats were in the majority. Back in the early 1990s, Dr. Rowland, a family practitioner from Dublin, Georgia, he had a bipartisan bill back then that he worked very closely on with his Democratic colleagues and his Republican colleagues, and he presented that bill. I think it was called the Bipartisan Health Reform Act of 1994, and he offered that in lieu of HillaryCare. Unfortunately, the Democratic majority didn't accept it. Don't make the same mistake this time, Mr. President. Let's do it in a bipartisan way and in a small, incremental way.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Obviously the gentleman has, during this hour, spoken of, already, some of the arcane machinations that are going on in regard to how the Democratic majority and President Obama plan to get this bill, this massive health care reform bill, through the Congress and to describe, of course, that process called reconciliation.

I know it's difficult for a lot of folks, Mr. Speaker, even Members of Congress sometimes, to understand all of these parliamentary tricks which can be used, but clearly, the American people, the American people can't be tricked. I absolutely have faith in them. We have heard from them during the town hall meetings all across this country; last August, the Million Med March on Washington; the Doctors for Patient Care march on Washington; the Tea Party Patriots; the Freedom First Foundation, led by a former majority leader, Dick Armey.

Mr. Speaker, these folks cannot be tricked, and I was really disappointed in yesterday's proceedings. I think it was a good thing that the Republican minority was willing to go over to Blair House, realizing that the deck

was stacked against them, but to have an opportunity, in a very respectful way. And I commend my colleagues in the House and the Senate and my Republican colleagues. I think they did a great job of that.

But it was clear, it really was clear on Monday of this week, Mr. Speaker, when the President put his 11-page edition online to add to the Senate bill, it was pretty clear that there was going to be no opportunity--and my colleague from Iowa has stated this so well--no opportunity, as the President, Mr. Speaker, gave, indeed, to Iran and their leader, Ahmadinejad, to say, We are going to unclench the fist. I guess, Mr. Speaker, the President was referring maybe to the fist of the previous administration, his predecessor in the oval office. I am not sure. But to say to Ahmadinejad, of all people, We are going to unclench this fist and we are going to reach out with the hand of friendship as we negotiate with you in regard to trying to appease you and beg you and triple-dog dare you to stop in your progress toward developing a nuclear weapon.

I didn't see that kind of outreach yesterday at the Blair House as I watched the deliberations on television, Mr. Speaker, and that really is what we needed. That really and truly is what we needed. We needed to have an agreement from the President and from the Democratic majority to start over, to reject this bill that the American people, what, 70 percent, Mr. Speaker, had rejected. They want us to start over, and they know now that we have great Republican ideas. They were articulated.

I can't go through a litany of all the Members. I think there were 18 or 20, including House and Senate Republicans. Dr. Tom Coburn talked about medical liability reform. Senator Alexander spoke eloquently. Our own Dr. Boustany from this body I thought did a great job representing our doctors.

We know now what's in store for us. I want to just say to my colleagues and to my friends back home, let's don't give up the fight. If this is what they want to do, if this is what the Democratic majority wants to do, if this is what the President insists on, they're going to pay the consequences politically. Unfortunately, that's not the greatest concern; the greatest concern is, of course, the health, both the physical health and the economic health of this country, and I think it's at great peril.

I know we have other Members, Mr. Speaker, that have joined Representative King and want to weigh in on this, and so I will yield back. But I thank you for the opportunity to be with you this afternoon.

If the gentleman from Iowa will yield just for a second on the gentlelady's point.

The gentlelady from Minnesota, Mr. Speaker, is absolutely right. And it was interesting, in that discussion yesterday that was a little tete-a-tete between the President and Senator Alexander about whether or not the health insurance premiums for people within the exchange, as they were forced, according to provisions in the law, if it becomes law, the requirement that everybody has health insurance--it was pointed out by the President that many in the exchange would be paying less for their premiums. But as we deciphered through that--and I think maybe the President finally came to the realization that what Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee, a part of the Republican team, the point he made was absolutely right, the premiums were coming down, Mr. Speaker, only because some of those that were purchasing as individuals through the exchange mechanism were getting government subsidies. So if you subtract the subsidy from the cost of their health insurance policy-- that by law they would be forced to purchase, even if they didn't want to--then, yeah, the price would come down. But it ain't free, Mr. Speaker. That subsidy is paid for by, guess who? John Q. Taxpayer, that's who. And that's where the big cost driver in this bill is. That's why the bill costs $1 trillion over 10 years, all these subsidies.

So to suggest that these individuals, albeit forced to purchase health insurance, are going to get a reduction in their premium, absolutely not true when you add what they pay and what their taxpayer friends, men and women of this country that are busting their you-know- whats to try to support themselves and the people in the exchange, pay, the price goes up.

I yield back to my colleague.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This Declaration of Health Care Independence that Representative King just so eloquently described--and I love the format--Mr. Speaker, when you look at those principles, those 10 principles that Representative King just described, these were--and are--promises that this majority, this Democratic majority--Speaker Pelosi, Leader Reid and, indeed, President Obama--have said on so many occasions over the last--well, really 2 years now, because he was saying these things as he was asking the American people to give him an opportunity to bring ``change you can believe in'' as the next President. Indeed, he was successful in doing that. But many of these principles, if not all of them, were promised by the President.

I don't know what the total number, Mr. Speaker, of signatures on the Declaration of Health Care Independence Representative King has. I think it approaches 100. I'm not going to ask him specifically how many of those are Republican versus how many are Members of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives. But golly, I would think that Speaker Pelosi would love to sign this Declaration of Health Care Independence. Indeed, yesterday at the Blair House, in her summary remarks, she said that absolutely not one dime of taxpayer money was going to fund abortions. I don't know if she really believes that, Mr. Speaker. I guess the proof of the pudding will be whether or not she can get that contingent of people that agreed with Representative Bart Stupak and insisted that the House version of health care reform be amended such that there was absolutely a provision that would make sure the Hyde amendment was not violated, that being that no public dollars would go toward the funding of abortion.

So I just bring that point up. And I would say to Representative King, I'm sure he's going to continue to try to get signatures, but this ought to be bipartisan. And maybe he has already done that; maybe, Mr. Speaker, he can explain that to us. But from my vantage point, I don't see Speaker Pelosi's name on the bottom of the declaration, but hope springs eternal.

I yield back to my colleague.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding back to me. I realize time is getting short, but thank you for a few more moments.

Of course, I think it's important that our colleagues understand that those 13 members of the whole-in-the-wall gang--I think our colleague from Iowa was referring to the esteemed Rules Committee. It's just one more opportunity that we don't have to get our amendments made in order so that we can bring them down on the floor, whether we are Republicans in the minority or Democrats in the majority who are very concerned about many provisions in this bill. Yet, you know, they don't get to have an up-or-down vote, which is totally wrong.

I just want to say, just within the past week, I got a call from a former physician Member from Georgia, from Middle Georgia, Dr. Roy Rowland, who served with distinction here for about 12 years. He was here during the HillaryCare debate.

In a very bipartisan way, Dr. Rowland, along with Dr. Ganske from Iowa and other Members, had some great ideas in regard to not only bringing down the cost, Mr. Speaker, but also in regard to making sure that more people had not only an insurance card--you know, that doesn't guarantee you access to care--but that they had an opportunity, through expanded community health centers, which were not necessarily government subsidies, to pay on a sliding scale depending on what their incomes were. Obviously, Medicaid patients, many of them, were seen in community health centers.

Also, Dr. Rowland had the idea of having medical liability reform-- Dr. Rowland, a family practitioner from Dublin, Georgia. I just mention him because I would say to the President and to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: we can do this. Yes, let's unclench the fists. Let's get away from what we were trying to cram down the throats of the American people that they clearly don't want. Let's start over with good ideas like Dr. Rowland had 16 years ago and like, I think, many of my colleagues have today on both sides of the aisle.

I yield back for concluding remarks from my colleague from Iowa.

Madam Speaker, on Friday, January 29, Russia's fifth-generation fighter jet, with stealth capabilities, successfully completed its first test flight. This is an ominous development indeed, as it comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision to terminate production of our own fifth- generation air superiority fighter, the F-22A Raptor.

The administration's decision to end the F-22 program at 187 aircraft was clearly not driven by military requirements, as a longstanding Air Force requirement for the F-22, developed to meet the national military strategy, is 381. While President Obama and Secretary Gates were expending great capital in shorting the Air Force by nearly 200 F-22s, it should be clear to all of us what the Russians have been doing.

Air superiority is not something we should take for granted, Madam Speaker, for owning the skies is what enables us to own the battlefield. The President's shortsighted decision on the F-22 ignores the possibility that at some point in the future, we could find ourselves in conflict with a conventional military power that could challenge our air superiority, a possibility I don't think any of us would like to imagine.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, President Obama submitted his fiscal year 2011 budget to Congress with the claim that he was planning on restoring fiscal discipline to Washington. However, once you look beyond the rhetoric, it's clear that the budget the President delivered to Congress does not deliver on its promises.

Mr. Speaker, the President's budget request totaled a new record of approximately $3.8 trillion in Federal spending--that's 25 percent of our GDP--and increased our deficit to $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year 2010. In order to pay for this record level of spending, the budget request increases taxes by approximately $2 trillion over a 10-year period. His so-called spending freeze--well, that only applies to 13 percent of actual spending. With 10 percent of our workforce unemployed and over 15 million Americans out of work, there are families all across this country that are making sacrifices by cutting their expenses.

So, Mr. Speaker, we need a budget that recognizes that we cannot spend, tax, and borrow our way into prosperity. That's never worked. Unfortunately, the President's budget does not recognize this simple fact.

Judge Carter, I thank you. I am glad to be with you tonight talking about a very, very serious issue. I will make the light comment before I begin and say that my good friend from Texas is not a right wing wacko, he is just a regular wacko. I am a right wing wacko from Georgia. But Judge Carter is actually not right wing nor is he a wacko, Mr. Speaker.

What he is talking about tonight is extremely important. And I hope our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are listening. I know that my former colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee listened very carefully ever since this incident occurred. And now of course the judge is talking about this 50-page report that our Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, ordered, commissioned to be done by a former Army Secretary and former Chief of Naval Operations.

And Judge Carter, Mr. Speaker, I think expresses the view of probably most members of the House Armed Services Committee. I can't put words in their mouth, but I have served with them 6 years, loved being on that committee, led by the great chairman Ike Skelton and our ranking member Buck McKeon from California. And it is a great committee. And it is a bipartisan committee. It is probably the most bipartisan committee in the entire House of Representatives. I bet that is true on the Senate side as well.

But Judge Carter is disappointed in this report, Mr. Speaker, and I am disappointed in this report. When we heard about this tragedy at Fort Hood in the great State of Texas at this Army military installation, which really is probably the epitome of the Army military installations--when you think about the Army you think about Fort Benning, the home of the infantry in my great State of Georgia down in Columbus, and you think about Fort Hood, probably the first two that come to your mind.

But we were briefed. We, all members of the House of Representatives, all 435 of us, had an opportunity to go to a briefing that the military, the people from Fort Hood, commanders, I forget their names, probably good I don't remember the names because I don't want to use them here tonight, but they were telling us, ``Well, look, we responded correctly.'' Mr. Speaker, this is exactly what was said. ``The response to this incident, you would be proud. Members of Congress, you would be proud. Everything, we got all the emergency teams in, we locked down.'' The judge is talking about locking down the schools and all that and making sure the kids were safe.

And they went on for about 30 minutes, describing how the response to this tragic attack, where this guy kills 14 and wounds 43 before we were able to take him down, and I want to say of course that we salute the heroism that was shown that day at Fort Hood, and I don't know who they were, but Judge Carter probably does, and God bless them for what they did. But my concern at the time was how do we have ourselves in a situation where anybody that goes nuts--of course we know this situation was far more than just an incident of somebody going nuts. And that is the purpose of the hour tonight the judge is talking about. But we should have been able to take this guy out you would think after he had shot three or four people at the most. But that is kind of another story, Mr. Speaker.

I was just so concerned when I heard that briefing shortly after the incident that it was like the military was telling us, you know, you should be proud of the fact that we responded after the fact. And that is my whole point, Judge, in sharing a little bit of this time with you. It was like locking the barn door after the horse is long gone. And that is what we did. We did a good job of that.

But what the judge is talking about here tonight, Mr. Speaker, is that when you have clear evidence that someone is a radical, has become radicalized, and you have this information and you don't share it--and indeed, as was pointed out tonight, Major Hasan was promoted during this time just right up through the ranks. You know, no holes on his promotion, no concern, because of, yes, I will say it, political correctness. They did not want to be in a position where let's say somebody could lose their job because they were calling out someone, blowing the whistle and saying this guy is showing signs of Islamic extremism. And we need to connect these dots, and somebody needs to examine this person and let a psychiatrist see him, the psychiatrist, Dr. Hasan. Doctor, you can't treat yourself, you need some help.

Well, and I think that what the judge is saying, Mr. Speaker, is that we have got to stop this political correctness

nonsense. We did the same thing I think, in my humble opinion, on Christmas Day with the undie bomber, when a decision was made after 50 minutes by one or two FBI agents talking with someone in the Justice Department, and that someone most likely was the Attorney General, Eric Holder, and saying, all right, this is not a terrorist, let's Mirandize this guy. And so he immediately gets lawyered up, as the expression goes, and shuts up on the advice of counsel.

I was reading today, looking over the budget, the $3.8 trillion budget proposal which the President delivered to Congress on Monday. And in that budget the line item section in regard to what we have always called, and I think the world has known the global war on terrorism and the amount of money that we want to fund for that, we call it overseas contingency operations or some such nonsense like that. Nowhere in that budget, no matter how many hundreds of billions of dollars we need to fight that war, do we call it a war on terror. Oh, God no. God forbid we do that because it is politically incorrect. We don't want to offend anybody. I say call a spade a spade.

And that is exactly, Mr. Speaker, what Judge Carter is trying to point out to our colleagues tonight. Make sure people understand if we are serious about protecting this country, the security of this country, we are going to stop all this nonsense and we are going to call a spade a spade and we are going to fight terrorism where we find it.

Judge, would you yield just for a second? Judge Carter, I don't know whether you pointed this out before I got to the floor, but this guy, Major Hasan, was quoted as saying that sharia law should trump the United States Constitution. Am I correct on that?

I yield back.

Thank you, Judge. I want to thank John Carter, Mr. Speaker, for introducing two pieces of legislation. I hope he'll discuss that with our Members tonight in regard to the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. H.R. 4267 is the number of that bill, Mr. Speaker. And then the other one, equally important, the Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, H.R. 4088. I know Judge Carter, Representative Carter, will talk about that as a great Member who is actually cochairman of the House Army Caucus.

So this is a labor of love on the part of this Member, Mr. Speaker. I can understand how upset he must be, as we all are, regarding this 50- page report. Here, again, distinguished cochairs--the former Army Secretary, the former Chief of Naval Operations--who were charged by our Secretary of Defense, Secretary Gates, in a very timely manner to produce a 50-page report. But, you know, Mr. Speaker, this report, again, there's not a word in there in regard to terrorism, Islamic extremism. I don't know whether they scrubbed it before they did the report or they scrubbed it after they did the report.

It's so disappointing to see that you spend all that time saying, Well, maybe we need to streamline the way the sergeant talks to the lieutenant and the lieutenant talks to the captain and the captain talks to the major and the majors talk to the colonels and lieutenant colonels and then finally we get the information to the generals and to the admirals. That's all well and good, but it's almost like a deliberate attempt to miss the point.

The point is, as Judge Carter has pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that we are dealing with an individual, in the case of Major Hasan, that is a terrorist. He has been radicalized. The judge has pointed out that there was information even from his time in the Army Medical School that he made radical statements. I mentioned just a second ago that he was quoted as saying that sharia law should trump our Constitution. Well, when you're commissioned as an officer in the military, when you enlist in the military, you make a pledge of fidelity to this country. And so the warning sign was there.

I will go back to the time, Mr. Speaker, when Representative Carter, Judge Carter, and I were freshmen Members of the 108th Congress. The 9/ 11 issue had occurred shortly before we got here. And the families of those victims, over 3,000, insisted that we form a commission, a 9/11 Commission, and we really look into this. Quite honestly, President Bush at the time was a little reluctant. He felt like the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, and the military intelligence could do all that.

In any regard, a commission was formed. And we were told by the commissioners that this was a problem in regard to Islamic extremism and we needed to do something about it. And to then come along with this report that was commissioned by Secretary Gates, I think, is a tremendous disservice and disappointment. And I will yield back to Judge Carter.

If the gentleman will yield, and, Mr. Speaker, I thank Judge Carter for yielding. I don't think that the logic of this legislation is a stretch in any way. I'm sitting hear listening, Mr. Speaker, to my colleague from Texas describe this bill, Fort Hood Families Benefits Protection Act, H.R. 4088.

I would think that you ought to get 434 votes, if not 435, in the House of Representatives, and 100 in the Senate, Judge, is my opinion, because that Islamic extremist--and, as you say, camouflaged in an Army uniform with officer's insignia on that uniform--is every bit of an Islamic extremist as those characters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, aided and abetted, I think, by Iran, in many instances, that make those improvised explosive devices, that put them in the ground, that detonate them cowardly in a remote fashion and blow our young men and women to smithereens. I've had over 30 from my congressional district in the 11th of Georgia pay the last full measure. And that's what these 14 that were killed and 43 or whatever the number is in Fort Hood. Same thing. Exact same thing.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I commend them. I think it's absolutely right. They should have a status to ensure full benefits and eligibility for the Purple Heart and a civilian equivalent award for those who are civilians. They were killed not by just some ordinary nut. They were killed by an Islamic extremist in the same fashion that our men and women are being killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for yielding.

I just wanted to quote some of my friends on the Armed Services Committee, the ranking member--actually also on the Education and Labor Committee--Colonel John Kline. Colonel Kline is a subcommittee Chair, I believe, on Armed Services as well. He has been there since we were elected in the 108th, back in 2003. So this is his eighth year on the Armed Services Committee. It is very appropriate that Colonel John Kline is there because of his service in the United States Marines.

But Judge Carter, here is what Colonel Kline said. Mr. Speaker, I want to quote this. ``The American people recognize that the 9/11 Commission was correct when it said we have an enemy, and it's Islamist extremists--their words--and the concern is that we may not be paying attention to the fact that the alleged perpetrator was, in fact, an Islamic extremist.''

Judge Carter is telling us, Mr. Speaker--and certainly I agree with him--that this is not about diversity, the importance of diversity in the military. We all understand that. We all understand that. We have great men and women of all kinds of ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds. They have one thing in common: They swear, as we do, as Members of Congress, to uphold the Constitution and defend this country. And that will be continued to be held in common. But this business of being politically correct for fear of offending but not being able to say, He did it, and here is the evidence, and everybody knows it, and for fear that you are going to get reprimanded--and that's what Judge Carter's other bill is all about, Mr. Speaker. So I thank him for giving me the opportunity to join a good friend on the floor to encourage our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

There are 95 cosponsors. I hope tomorrow there will be 150, and the next day there will be 300, and that when this comes to a vote--and hopefully it will--we'll get a near--maybe we can put it on the suspension calendar and it will pass without controversy.

I yield back to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Con. Res. 158, a resolution expressing support for the designation of an Early Detection Month for breast cancer and all forms of cancer.

Breast cancer in women is one of the most frequent forms of cancer recognized in the more than 2 million new cases of cancer diagnosed each year in the United States. In fact, every 13 minutes a woman dies from breast cancer, and in 2009 alone, 192,370 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the U.S. This resolution recognizes the importance of early detection for breast cancer victims and is paramount due to the deadly nature of the disease.

Mr. Speaker, the United States Preventative Services Task Force recommendations--against routine mammography for women ages 40 to 49 and breast self-examinations--were shocking to say the least. As a practicing OB/GYN physician for nearly 30 years, I saw first hand the benefits that early detection of cancer in women can have on saving lives and improving quality of life. Therefore, it is imperative that this House duly recognizes the significance of self-examination and early detection of breast cancer.

The designation of Early Detection Month will enhance public awareness of the catastrophic and devastating effects of cancer. Hopefully, this resolution will shine further light on a disease that so commonly affects millions of Americans and in turn help to promote research and advanced medical procedures that will one day lead to a cure.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I think that I thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding. And I am not going to say one word about the Hawkeyes and the Yellow Jackets. Maybe we will come back to that another year. But congratulations, by the way, to the Hawkeyes. They did a great job.

Mr. Speaker, it is an opportunity to come before our colleagues tonight and to join with Representative King from Iowa and Representative Roe, Dr. Roe from Tennessee, and later on you will hear from Michelle Bachmann, Representative Bachmann from Minnesota, talking about the health care bill and health care reform in general.

I think we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the election yesterday in the Bay State, Massachusetts. Many of my colleagues have already spoken about that. And there is a lot of political pundits on every channel, cable, broadcast, network, whatever, trying to analyze and say, well, what happened? How did this occur? And, you know, we all have our own opinion,

but quite honestly, I think it is a lot about health care.

It was kind of instructive that when people were asked, coming out of a voting booth, what they thought about the health care reform bill in the Bay State that the same percentage that were opposed to it is the percentage that Senator-elect Scott Brown received in the election. It was the same margin. So clearly, health care was a significant issue in that race in my opinion.

I think the people in Massachusetts clearly had about a year-and-a- half, 2 years to look at the commonwealth care that was enacted. And they don't like it, Mr. Speaker. They don't like it because it, instead of lowering the cost of health care, it has driven it up. Although more people are insured and have coverage in the Bay State, they are, as my colleagues have talked about in regard to other systems, there is a long queue, there is a long wait. It is very difficult to get a physician to see you, particularly if you are one of those who has a subsidized policy.

And basically, the state is going broke. And they have had to make a number of changes. They have had to drop dental care as part of the coverage. They have had to drop many thousands of legal immigrants who were not citizens, but had coverage. They no longer have coverage. And I know my colleague especially, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Roe from Tennessee has probably already talked about TennCare and their experiment 10, 12, 15 years ago, and the miserable failure of that.

So yes indeed, health care had a lot to do with the outcome yesterday in Massachusetts. But it was not just health care. I think that people are so tired, Mr. Speaker, of this Federal Government ignoring them and dissing them, as the expression goes. We had the August recess that lasted 5 weeks, and all of these town hall meetings all across the country, and we come back, and you would think that the majority party and the administration would have listened to those people. And instead, what they did is they simply changed the number on the House bill. They took off H.R. 3200, because the people had railed against it so loudly over that 5-week period of time, instead they just changed the number on the bill.

I gladly yield to my friend from Tennessee.

Absolutely, the gentleman is right. And so people are sick and tired of being disrespected. They were very disappointed of course in the economic stimulus package, $787 billion that was supposed to keep the unemployment rate at 8 percent, no higher than 8 percent. It is 10.2 percent now. 16 million Americans out of work, many of them in the Bay State.

I think it is a message. It is a message to the administration, to President Obama, and the Democratic majority, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Harry Reid in the Senate. Look, you still have an opportunity, my colleagues, you still have an opportunity to come together in a bipartisan way and do things in an incremental fashion that truly will lower the cost of health insurance for everybody and make it better and rein in, yes, the abuses of the health insurance industry as well.

And what is this big rush, anyway? The Democratic majority, Mr. Speaker, insisted on getting it done in 2009. They didn't want to face this during an election year. Well, look, the American people are saying to us, and especially to the majority and to the President, We don't care about the next election. Get it right. Don't rush to judgment. What is the big hurry? Why not get it done in 2011 if it takes that long? But get it done right.

The people of Massachusetts went to the polls, they knew that their bill was an abject failure, and that is basically what they were saying. If the administration and this majority ignores it, they do it at their own peril.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from Iowa, because I know there are others that want to speak tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 1008 to honor the contributions of Catholic schools across the country, and in honor of 2010 National Catholic Schools Week from January 31st through February 6th. I want to thank my colleagues--Mr. Lipinski of Illinois and Mr. Smith of New Jersey--for their leadership in bringing this resolution to the House floor today, and I am proud to join them on this important resolution as an original cosponsor.

As a graduate of Catholic elementary and high schools--Sacred Heart Academy and Aquinas High School in Augusta, Georgia--I am keenly aware of the contributions that they provide to the 2.2 million students educated in Catholic schools across the country every year. These include close to 1,200 students at three Catholic schools in my District: St. Catherine of Siena in Kennesaw, St. Joseph's in my hometown of Marietta, and St. Mary's in Rome.

Not only do Catholic schools--like Sacred Heart and Aquinas--provide a strong and competitive academic environment, they also teach moral and ethical standards, skills for living and self esteem, and a Christian integration of spirit, mind, and body in each of their students.

Upon graduating from Aquinas, I thought that the Catholic school curriculum would be what best prepared me for my future. However, I must admit that I was wrong. While the strenuous academics at Sacred Heart and Aquinas did lay the foundation for success at Georgia Tech and the Medical College of Georgia, it was the faith and ethical standards taught at these schools that truly prepared me for life's struggles.

Mr. Speaker, while opening and running my medical practice, the respect for life taught at Sacred Heart and Aquinas led me to value and care for life at all stages, indeed from the moment of conception until natural death. Now that I have left my medical career to serve as a Member of Congress, I find the lessons learned from my days in Catholic schools more valuable now than ever. On a daily basis, I am confronted by difficult questions that affect millions of lives. If it were not for the moral standards and faith in God taught at Sacred Heart and Aquinas, I do not believe that I could properly represent the people of Northwest Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, our education system is only made stronger by Catholic schools in Northwest Georgia and throughout the nation which

fully prepare their students for a brighter future. I urge all of my colleagues to support H. Res. 1008, and I yield back the balance of my time.