Mr. Speaker, we are clearly in a technical revolution in our country. People now have more information available to them than literally at any other time in probably the history of our country. They know more about what is going on in…
Mr. Speaker, we are clearly in a technical revolution in our country. People now have more information available to them than literally at any other time in probably the history of our country. They know more about what is going on in their government than they ever have before. I think that is one of the reasons we are seeing people all across America rise up and start to make such bold statements and attending these TEA parties and attending these Members that are having meetings in their districts, and they are coming in record numbers.
Back this August, I had an opportunity to have a number of town hall meetings in my district, and thousands of people came to voice their opposition to what they think is happening to
their country, and particularly in opposition to this health care bill.
Every morning, Americans wake up and follow with deep interest public policy issues that we are sent here to solve, and many people watch C- SPAN. I know that when I am back in the district, many people will say, Congressman, I saw you on C-SPAN.
In fact, recently I had a conversation with one of my constituents who lives over in Muleshoe, Texas. She was calling to express her great concern about what is going on to her country, these huge deficits, trillions of dollars of spending money that we don't have, the government taking over the health care, and she was concerned about what is going on. What I learned, as she spoke more and more, she knew a lot about the issues that are facing our country, and she said she picked up a lot of that by watching C-SPAN.
A lot of the viewers that call in to C-SPAN on a daily basis, they'll voice their disappointment or concerns about what is going on in their country, and they'll say, And thank God for C-SPAN.
C-SPAN is kind of the watchdog, the eyes and ears, the vehicle that enables millions of Americans to see what we are up to here in Washington, D.C. Every day, people can view Congress raising their taxes, decreasing their freedoms, forcing business owners to pay more fines. All of this, thanks to C-SPAN, it is here for millions of Americans to see. Except, that is not going to be the case for health care reform in our country.
Mr. Speaker, it is no secret that the majority plans to negotiate the final thousand-page health care bill without C-SPAN cameras present.
President Obama promised when he was running for President that he was going to change Washington. He vowed, at least eight times, that the American people would get to see the negotiations of the health care bill on C-SPAN.
Speaker Pelosi promised that the Democratic-led Congress would be the most transparent Congress in history. She went on to say that the work on the health care bill will be displayed transparently, while simultaneously, unapologetically, denying C-SPAN cameras access to capture the ongoing negotiations.
In fact, those negotiations have been going on somewhere in this building. None of us, very few of us know where, and very few people are in the room making decisions that are going to impact the American people, not for this generation, but generations to come. All of this talk about transparency and openness, yet nobody knows who is actually in the room and actually what is happening.
But we do know what happened when they went into the room, for example, in the Senate and other places: Deals were cut. And I think one of the problems that this majority has and this White House has is they have got a health care bill that is so unpopular that they have to meet in secret to talk about it so that they can cut deals so they can get enough votes to pass it.
Wouldn't it be nice if the American people could experience some of that transparency that the Speaker and the President of the United States promised the American people, that they could be able to see the negotiations.
I had the opportunity to experience what is positive about having these negotiations in a public setting when we did the farm bill a couple of years ago. We sat down at a table. We had Republicans and we had Democrats. The cameras were on. The discussions were frank, they were honest, they were open, and in the end, democracy took its place and a bill was crafted and it was passed by the House and the Senate.
I don't understand why we can't have that same transparency and openness when we are talking about people's health care. Probably one of the most important things to many Americans is the ability for them to have some control over their health care. We have now a bill that is talking about taking over the government and government taking over the health care of our country, yet we are negotiating and debating this bill in the darkness of some room somewhere in the Capitol, and who knows where.
Let's turn the lights on to this debate. Let's turn the lights on in that room. Let's turn the lights on so that the American people can see what is going on as these decisions are being made about their health care. It is too important.
Now, the Democrats are going to say, Yeah, but when the Republicans were in charge, that is the way they did things. Well, that sounds like kind of a schoolyard taunting contest. But the fact is, that is not the truth.
I want you to remember these dates: July 15, 2003, September 9, 2003, November 20, 2003. And you say, Well, what happened then? One of the good things about C-SPAN is they have a great library of American policy and democracy in action. In fact, it is probably one of the most extensive ones in the world, and people can come and research and see actually what did happen on the floor of the House on a particular day.
And what happened on that day was that Members of Congress met to resolve their differences between the House and the Senate version of the Medicare reform legislation that provided medical prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients. A very important piece of legislation, one that was not without some controversy. The House passed a version, the Senate passed a version, and then, in the light of day, these two versions were negotiated on these days. The American people got to see the discussions that went on and got to see this bill being crafted that eventually became law.
If the Democrats weren't engaging in these backroom deal-making deals, I think they wouldn't mind the lights being turned on. But the problem is that they are cutting deals. And the reason they are having to cut deals is because they are trying to pass a piece of legislation that the American people don't embrace.
Many of us agree that health care needs to be reformed. And my colleagues on my side of the aisle, Republicans, conservatives, have been offering some commonsense ideas that could reform the current system without turning over health care to the government, without limiting patients' rights, and bringing more transparency and making health care more affordable and available and accessible to the American people.
If the President and the Speaker and the congressional leaders are serious about this new era of openness and transparency, then why, Mr. Speaker, why, Mr. President, why aren't the lights on and why aren't the cameras in the rooms so that the American people can see what is going on in their country? I believe they deserve to know.
This is a very important issue to the American people, and I hope that the Speaker and the President of the United States will keep their word and allow the lights to be turned on for this important issue.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson).
Would the gentleman yield?
The interesting thing, again, about this not being done in the daylight is now we're hearing that the unions have gone over and sat down and cut a deal that if the Cadillac insurance plan was negotiated by labor contract, they're going to be exempted. So the question is that that burden then is going to be transferred more and more and more to families that didn't have a health care plan negotiated by a union. Again, that's the reason, I think, as the gentleman stated, we need to be doing this in the light of day, because the American people need to see what is going on here. And, quite honestly, what is going on isn't necessarily in everybody's best interest.
I yield back to the gentleman.
Well, I thank the gentleman. One of the things the gentleman brought up, I think the American taxpayers didn't get the benefit, as someone who, I think you said,
someone with over 30 years as a health care professional and, as you know, in the Congress we have, particularly on our side, we have a number of physicians that have worked in health care, have dealt with Medicaid and dealt with Medicare, have seen the private payment system, all of the existing systems, and bring a huge amount of knowledge to this process, but unfortunately the American people didn't get the benefit from their knowledge, your knowledge. And, quite honestly, it's a shame.
As you said, you have 660,000 customers. Every Member of Congress has about 660,000 people that are looking to them to come up here and have serious discussion, serious debate, and work on things that are good for the American people. It's not good for the American people when very few people sit down and make a decision about something that's going to impact not only my 660,000 people, but yours and the other gentleman from Ohio. This is serious policy.
It's now my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Latta.
Well, I thank the gentleman for pointing out the taxes that are in this bill. I think the bad news is that they're going to have to be higher tax because they are disguising, as you know, what this bill actually costs. Now the stated cost that the Speaker of the House says is this bill costs $891 billion. But if you add the mandated cost of the employer-mandating tax, it's another $135 billion. And if you add the cost of individual mandate tax for individuals that are going to be penalized under this plan, it's another $33 billion. So the total cost, the CBO score is $1.06 billion.
You don't hear the Speaker or the leadership or the President talking about this number. Now the other piece is that in the House bill, there is no provision for what is being called the ``doc fix.'' Today we have reimbursement levels that are being projected to be reduced by a substantial level, which is going to cause more and more doctors not to see Medicare and Medicaid patients. So this leadership team has promised and made a deal with the docs that they will bring a separate bill. They don't want to bring it in this one because, why? It cost $209 billion. So now instead of $1.06, you have got a nearly a $1.2 trillion bill.
Now the other piece is that Medicaid is being transferred to--part of this cost is going to be Medicaid which is going to be transferred to States, unless you're from Nebraska. What is the cost of that? That's $34 billion. Now here is the real sleeper. I hope that the American people are watching C-SPAN and the like because the lights are on here, and the lights are on this chart. And guess what, this little bill collects taxes that the gentleman was talking about for 10 years, but it only has expenses for 7 years.
Now think about all of the businesses and families all across America that if you could collect 10 years' worth of salary but you only had to pay 7 years' worth of expenses, that's like the first 3 years you don't have to make your house payment, you don't have to buy your gasoline, you don't have to make your car payment. You just get your paycheck. Nothing taken out of it, no Social Security, no withholding. What a great deal that would be. Well, that's the way this bill has been put together in order to disguise the real cost of this.
So once the 3-year period passes, then on an annualized basis, this bill costs another $727 billion more than what is being represented to the American people. So what does that total? $2.1 trillion. So a bill that this leadership says is $891 billion--it's not $891 billion. It's $2.1 trillion. And at a time in which, as the gentleman was talking about, small businesses are struggling to keep their doors open--in my district--and I think the gentleman's district as well--small businesses play a huge part in creating jobs. Who is going to pay this $2.1 trillion? Because the taxes that they're talking about collecting only pay for a bill that costs $891 billion, but this bill costs $2.1 trillion.
Now here's the other thing that people have looked at: this bill mandates, as both of my friends know, mandates that every American have health insurance. And in fact, if you don't, there is a penalty for it. So one of the things, people say that if the government is requiring to you do something to pay for health care or to have health care, and there is a penalty for doing it, it becomes a tax or a cost. Some people who have kind of calculated what that means for the economy, GDP and overall, said maybe that's a $4 trillion number. So possibly what we are looking at, if we shed light on this bill, as we should, that really the impact of this is that it's a $6 trillion piece of legislation.
Now I don't know about you, but I think the American people think that whether it's $2 trillion or $6 trillion or even $891 billion that we should have had more debate than we did on this bill. As my colleagues will remember on the day that we passed this bill, very little debate was--I think one amendment--there was one amendment to a $2 trillion--to a $6 trillion bill was allowed.
These are the kinds of things that cause me to say, Mr. President, we have to hit the pause button here because we're talking about something that impacts families all across America. We have some numbers here that are big. We are now spending money that we don't have. Every dollar that the government spends, they have to go out and borrow nearly 40 cents of that from people, like in China and Japan; and it is not a sustainable thing. Yet now we're talking about more taxes and I think potentially bigger deficits because we've not had good discussions on this bill.
Now I will yield some additional time to the gentleman from Pennsylvania to reflect on these important issues again.
I thank the gentleman, and the gentleman brings up a very important point. On top of this being a very expensive bill and the fact that we are going to be spending money that we actually don't have, when I look at this chart, I think about my new grandson, Miles, and I think about my two grandsons, Nathan and Noah, and I think about what kind of legacy, what kind of future are we leaving these young people, the next generation, that by 2012 we are talking about a $16.7 trillion debt in this country. And as the gentleman said, by 2020 we are talking about $20 trillion.
When I was back in the district, and maybe you all have used this analogy, but for people to get their arms around what is a trillion, if you counted to a trillion, it would take you 19,000 years to count to a trillion. We are talking some serious money here. So I thank the gentleman for bringing up those important points.
This is all intertwined. We are talking about jobs and the impact of health care on patients' rights and also small businesses, but we are really talking about the impact on an entire Nation of, one, turning health care over to the government; and, secondly, continuing down this road of borrowing and spending money that we don't have and charging it to future generations.
I know each Member here on the floor tonight has this voting card, and right now it is a credit card and it has a huge credit limit on it. What I think many in the Chamber with me tonight want to do is turn this into a debit card where we are spending money that we actually have instead of borrowing from our children and grandchildren.
I thank the gentleman, and I yield to the other gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta).
The other gentleman from Ohio brought up a point about the current interest payment that is approaching a billion dollars at the most historically low rate time in the history of our country. The gentleman reminded all of us there was a time in our country, and I was in business when we were paying 15, 16, 17 percent for money. It was hard to get, and once you got it, you had to have a really good idea to make it. So you begin to think about what happens to our interest payments if we--let's just say we doubled the interest rates that the Treasury is doing right now. That begins to double the payment. So now instead of $1 billion, it is $2 billion. What that begins to do is, as we put together our budget, there is less and less money for discretionary spending because the first thing you have to do is make your mortgage payment, and we are mortgaging the future of our country. So these are important issues and I appreciate the gentleman bringing that point up.
I think the other thing that kind of concerns a lot of people is the point that the gentleman made about our creditors. What if China, for example, who is our largest creditor, and as the gentleman points out, they have said, We are not quite sure what our appetite in the future is for continuing to loan America money to just spend and borrow without some kind of discipline, and that is something that we have to look at.
I have another chart, and I would like to make one quick point and then go back to see if any folks have departing comments.
One thing that the American people are also pretty tired of is all of these bureaucracies. I know when I went around in August, and I think a lot of my colleagues did, too, we brought this chart around to show the American people. This is a diagram of the House version of this bill. You can see all of these new bureaucracies and all of these new agencies, and somehow this is going to simplify health care for Americans? This is going to make it better for Americans?
What we do know is hidden in this is a czar that is given very broad powers that is going to be able to determine what kind of policy you and I get to have. That concerns me that the Federal Government is going to be picking and choosing the kinds of coverages that are going to be offered to the American people instead of the American people being able to pick and choose the things that they think are coverages that they need.
So I think when you look at the cost, when you look at the complexity of this, it is no wonder the American people are asking the Speaker of the House and they are asking the President to keep their promise about transparency here because they are very concerned about this.
I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I think he probably showed this chart to his folks back home, too. What was their reaction?
I thank the gentleman. And I think he makes a great point. And I think one of the things that is the center of all of this is, you know, the administration is talking about jobs. I thought it was interesting today that they are going to quit tracking jobs tied to the stimulus plan because you know what, the stimulus plan hadn't been creating any jobs. This health care plan is going to stimulate, it is going to stimulate a bunch of new hires in Washington, D.C., and not across the heartland of America, because they are going to have to put people in place here to fill all these positions. And they are going to be shuffling paper, and they are going to be asking hospitals and doctors and health care providers to jump through all of these hoops so that they can justify their jobs.
I think the American people want to create jobs out there in States like Ohio and Texas. So, you know, the job creation, unfortunately, is moving in the wrong direction if you are creating jobs in Washington, D.C. we need to be creating jobs in the heartland of America.
I want to yield some additional time to my friend from Ohio.
I would now like to yield some time to another one of our colleagues who has joined us here, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
I thank the gentleman. And I thank my colleagues for entering into this very important discussion so that the American people can have a little light shined on a very important issue.