Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. Speaker, about a year ago, April 24, 2003, President Bush came to Canton, Ohio, to address workers at the Timken Company, a company which makes ball bearings and other metal products. The President chose his visit to Timken to showcase his economic policy. During his speech, the President told Timken workers:

``Here at Timken last year, productivity rose 10 percent. Which means that America can compete with any nation in the world because we got the finest workers in the world.''

President Bush told the Timken workers that if his tax plans were enacted ``more than a million new jobs will be created by the end of 2004.'' He then went on to say, ``That's what the whole purpose of our economic package is, to create the conditions for job growth so people can find work.''

One million jobs created by 2004. He was so confident of this that he mentioned it twice during his speech. Last week the Timken management announced the company will close its Canton plant, eliminating 1,300 more Ohio manufacturing jobs. Third- and fourth-generation workers at this plant who helped build this company now face unemployment. Timken is closing its Canton plants, three of them, while building another facility in China.

Like a host of other predictions and promises delivered by President Bush, the record just has not matched the rhetoric. The Bush economic record of the last 4 years, ship jobs overseas, give tax cuts to large corporations, help corporations reap big profits, lay off American workers. It happened at Timken. It has happened at plant after plant after plant in my State and all over the country. In my State alone, we have lost one out of six manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. One hundred eighty thousand manufacturing workers have lost their jobs. That comes out to about 200 Ohioans a day who have been thrown out of work since George Bush took his oath of office.

The recent modest job creation numbers are welcome that we are seeing in some places around the country but too many of those jobs are low- paid service jobs, too many of these jobs are seasonal work, too few of them have health and pension benefits. The men and women at Timken, the men and women who build things in America, want to know where they are going to find the good-paying jobs to send their kids to school, to feed their families and to pay their mortgages.

The Timken Corporation, however, is doing just fine. Three weeks before announcing the Canton plant closure, Timken boasted in a press release of its record quarterly sales of $1.1 billion for the first 3 months of this year. They also added that earnings per share were up 63 percent over earnings per share 1 year ago. In a speech to Timken workers, the President bragged that worker productivity, productivity of these workers for the previous year, was up 10 percent. So we have worker productivity up 10 percent, we have corporate profits going up significantly, we have sales setting records, yet Timken laid off hundreds of workers, 1,300 workers, and closed down three plants.

Last spring, the President when he visited Timken was also visiting Tim Timken, the chairman of this company. Mr. Timken is a Ranger, meaning he raised more than $200,000 for the Bush campaign in 2000. Mr. Timken also raised soon after that 2003 visit another $600,000 for an event for the 2004 campaign. In other words, President Bush's economic policies have worked just fine for Mr. Timken and his family but the Bush economic program has failed the families of 1,300 Timken workers.

We can do better for America's workers. First of all we can extend unemployment benefits to 1 million Americans in this country who have lost jobs, who are looking for work, who have not found work and whose benefits have expired. Fifty thousand of those workers live in Ohio. Second, Congress can pass the bipartisan Crane-Rangel bill which instead of rewarding those companies that go overseas and do their manufacturing as the Timken company is doing, instead of rewarding them we give tax breaks, we give tax incentives, we reward those companies that stay in the United States and manufacture. If 100 percent of your manufacturing is in the U.S., you get 100 percent of the benefits. If 10 percent of your manufacturing is in the U.S. and 90 percent is in China and Mexico and Indonesia, you only get 10 percent of the benefits. The third thing we need to do is quit using our Tax Code to send our jobs overseas. Too many workers have seen their tax dollars go to subsidize their companies who go overseas and cost American jobs. Something has got to change.

Mr. Speaker, it has happened again. The Timken Company of Canton, Ohio, owned by one of

the President's biggest fund-raisers, a place where the President a year ago said his tax cut policies were working, look at the prosperity of this company, the Timken Corporation closed its doors in Canton, Ohio, laying off 1,300 people.

The Bush economic record in Ohio: One out of six manufacturing jobs has disappeared, 177,000 manufacturing jobs in the State are gone, 200 jobs a day have been lost since President Bush took office.

The Timken Company sent out a press release 3 weeks ago, bragging about its quarterly sales of $1.1 billion, saying it set some kind of record.

The Bush administration economic record over the last 4 years has been to ship jobs overseas, give tax cuts to large corporations; those large corporations have huge profits, then they lay off American workers. It is the same old story.

This economic policy is not working for my State of Ohio. It is not working for manufacturing. It is not working for working Americans. It is not working for our communities.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to act on legislation to permit prescription drug importation.

Drug companies are the most profitable businesses in America. The drug companies earn profit margins of over 18 percent. That is three times the average of Fortune 500 firms.

These companies are huge multinational juggernauts. In 2001, the 10 biggest U.S. drug companies reported profits of $37 billion. That is more than the Federal Government spends each year on VA health care. It is more than the entire U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development budget. It is a full billion dollars more than the combined gross domestic product of Lebanon, Panama, and Yemen. That is not total revenue of the drug company; that is its profits.

So how is it the drug companies are able to do so well, even as other manufacturers and companies around this country are having trouble in many cases with staying afloat? By gouging American consumers, that is how.

Drug companies routinely charge American consumers, two, three, four, five, sometimes even ten times what they charge their customers in Canada and other wealthy countries. Medicine sold in Canada is the same safe, effective medicine, same manufacturer, same packaging, same drug, the same ones that our constituents buy at a neighborhood grocery store or drugstore in Elyria, Ohio, but it costs a fraction of the price.

Price data collected last fall by the Alliance for Retired Americans tells the story. Drugmakers charged Americans $89 for Celebrex, an arthritis medicine; Canadians paid $44. The drug industry charged Americans $108 for the cholesterol medicine Lipitor, which happens to be made in Ireland; Canadians paid $61 for Lipitor. Drug companies charged American women $246 for Tamoxifen, the breast cancer drug; Canadian women paid $44.

Our constituents paid 500 percent more for cancer medicine than Canadians paid, same manufacturer, same drug, same dosage. In fact, U.S. taxpayers helped develop that drug. But because the U.S. Government allows drug companies to charge any price they want for essential medicine, that is why these drugs cost so much more.

The best response would be for the American Government to stand up to the drug industry, but Republican leadership and President Bush have already rejected that common-sense policy. In fact, the Medicare prescription drug bill, written by the drug companies for the drug companies, and enacted last year and signed by the President, explicitly prohibits the Federal Government from negotiating on behalf of American consumers for fair prices for prescription drugs.

Think about that. Forty million Medicare beneficiaries ought to be able to get a get a great price because of the number of people that Medicare represents. Yet the Congress has prohibited negotiated prices. Since this Congress, the Republican leadership, will not allow the government to stand up to the drug industry, we should at least allow our constituents to benefit from the tough stance taken by other nations.

A bipartisan majority in this House on this, both sides of the aisle, solidly supported legislation last year that would give our constituents access to prescription drugs imported from Canada and other nations. That vote was a declaration of independence from the powerful drug lobby and a real step forward for our constituents.

Two big drugstore chains in America have announced their support for importation of safe, effective drugs and affordable medicine. They see the tough choices that their customers in this country make every day. We should heed that call. Four States have already established drug importation Web sites, five local governments have set up importation programs, 20 additional States are considering importation as a way to respond to their constituents.

These public officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, are doing what they can because Republican leadership in this body and President Bush have failed to act, and continue to do the bidding of the drug companies.

Seniors in Ohio and throughout the country continue to go to Canada for a better deal on prescription drugs. They know a full deck of discount cards does not offer a discount comparable to the fair prices charged to our neighbor country to the north. Their continued grass- roots fight against the drug companies is a cry for help.

We should answer that call. This Congress should send to the President's desk a responsible, bipartisan drug importation bill before the Fourth of July recess. The President should wean himself of drug company money and influence and sign that bill. America needs a declaration of independence from the drug companies. Let us get it to the President's desk before July 4.

Mr. Chairman, I yield my time to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) and ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control the time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the bill, but more specifically I want to speak in support of the Waxman-Tierney amendment. The amendment should garner the support of every Member of this body, because this body authorizes and funds the activities of CDC, of EPA, of FDA and every other Federal agency.

We have an oversight role, and under our watch, science is being subverted to promote political and ideological goals. Advisory goals are being stripped of scientific experts and seeded with industry representatives and ideologues. Reports are being censored and data is being manipulated to promote the administration's political and ideological objectives.

This is a dangerous, dangerous precedent. This did not happen with President Bush, Sr., it did not happen with President Clinton, it did not happen with President Reagan, it did not happen with Republican or Democratic Presidents the way that it is happening today under this very politicized, very partisan, very ideologically driven White House.

The Federal Government has no business hiding from the facts, much less suppressing them. That means the Federal Government should not turn over science, real science, to ideology, to industry representatives, to corporate interests.

In February of this year, 20 Nobel Laureates and dozens of other leading U.S. scientists issued an unprecedented statement of concern about the misuse of science by the Bush administration. This is not a Democrat on the House floor saying this, this is 20 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and dozens of other leading scientists.

``When scientific knowledge has been found to be in conflict with the political goals, the Bush administration has manipulated the process through which science enters into its decisions.''

These are Nobel Laureates and other scientists talking.

``This has been done in the Bush administration by placing people who are professionally unqualified or who have clear conflicts of interest in official posts and on scientific advisory committees, by disbanding existing advisory committees, by censoring and suppressing reports by the government's own scientists, and by simply not seeking independent scientific advice.'' That is from 20 Nobel Laureates, not from a bunch of Democrats complaining about it.

To prove the point that these are not our words, the Director of the National

Bureau of Standards in the Nixon administration, another Republican who played it straight, did not have this ideologically driven agenda, Dr. Lewis Branscomb of the Nixon administration, said, ``I am not aware that President Nixon ever hand-picked ideologues to serve on advisory committees or dismissed from advisory committees well-qualified people if he didn't like their views. I don't think we have had this kind of cynicism that we see today with respect to objective scientific advice since I have been watching government, which is quite a long time.''

The Bush administration is manufacturing reality to fit its beliefs, and then they have the nerve, they have the gall, to call it sound science. That is not science, it is censorship. This Nation cannot afford it, this body should not abide it. I urge my colleagues to pass this amendment. Regardless of our political affiliation, we should not be afraid of the truth, nor should we permit its subversion.

Mr. Speaker, I received a letter in the mail from a young friend.

``Dear Congressman Brown:

``I'm happy to be writing to you.

``I have an issue I think is important. I don't want the FDR dime to be changed to the Reagan dime because FDR has a real story. The story is when FDR tried to find a cure for polio, he asked children and grown-ups all over the United States to send dimes to the White House. By the end of the year, they had collected more than $1,000 in dimes.

``There would be no particular reason to have Mr. Reagan on the dime, but there is a reason that FDR should be on the dime. It is almost like having a monument to FDR in your pocket.

``I think another very important issue is health care. I believe we should have a national health care system. If people don't have health care and they get sick, they could die. If I get a very bad disease, I might get very good antibiotics and live. I would get those antibiotics because I have health care. But other people couldn't get antibiotics if they didn't have health care and couldn't afford them.

``Thank you for letting me write to you.''

It is signed Alex Friedman.

``P.S. I am an 8-year-old in the third grade.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight with my two friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) from Niles in northeast Ohio and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) from a district that runs from Portsmouth, along south from the Ohio River, up east including parts of Mahoning County near Youngstown. We will talk about the treatment of veterans in this country and the problems that we have seen, and the strength of the veterans administration, the good things it has done but how it really has fallen short, a Federal agency that has done remarkably good work for so many, but fallen woefully short in the last couple of years.

I want to continue the theme that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) mentioned, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), others, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) earlier this week, Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago? And I think this theme particularly is reinforced when asking about veterans. Are veterans in this country today better off today than they were 4 years ago?

And I think we will see as the evening goes on in the next 30, 40, 50 minutes or an hour, how the veterans really have been shortchanged by this administration, how the Veterans Administration does not work as well as it did. Our benefits to veterans are not nearly as adequate, never really generous, as they used to be. I want to talk about that, whether veterans are better off today than they were 4 years ago.

As I said, I am joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland). Last week Secretary Principi and President Bush announced that they would close three Veterans Administration hospitals in the United States: one in Mississippi; one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area; and one in Brecksville, Ohio in northeast Ohio. The Ohio facility serves 48,000 veterans in our region of northeast Ohio.

I find it ironic and a little sorrowful that as we head into Memorial Day next week, as we prepare to dedicate the World War II memorial, that the President and Secretary Principi and his administration announce plans to close VA hospitals. Prior to Secretary Principi's announcement, I, along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) sent a letter to the Secretary asking him not to close the Brecksville hospital.

Our letter echoed the sentiment of more than 5,000 veterans who signed petitions; it echoed the sentiment of several thousand more who came to rallies and meetings and wrote us letters and made phone calls to us saying this VA hospital in Brecksville, one of the best in the country, treating homeless veterans, a model for the country in treating veterans with mental illness, protesting that this hospital be closed.

I met with hundreds of local veterans who voiced their opposition, as has the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and as has the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). Instead of listening to the men and women who served this Nation, the administration is foisting upon American veterans a plan that will force them to travel further and wait longer for health services they depend on.

In the case of Brecksville, they are closing a facility with a leading reputation for mental health services, and for the last 43 years Brecksville has pioneered innovative, nationally recognized programs and services for homeless vets and veterans with mental illnesses.

Since 1971, Brecksville has offered inpatient mental health services, including acute substance abuse treatment and acute and long-term psychiatric care, to veterans from all 50 States.

We are creating new veterans. The irony of closing these three hospitals, the irony of cutting veterans benefits, health and education benefits, which has happened in this House of Representatives on this floor and with this President, the irony of doing that, the irony of closing these hospitals that lead up to Memorial Day is every day we are creating more veterans in this country as soldiers return from Iraq, sometimes with scars, emotional scars, physical scars, mental scars, where they really do need treatment.

Approximately one-third of the adult homeless population served their country in the armed services. On any given day, as many as a quarter million male and female veterans are living on the streets or in shelters, and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of the year.

For many homeless and mentally ill veterans who struggle with local public transportation, closing Brecksville will double, even triple, the number of miles they will be forced to travel.

The administration made big promises to American veterans. George Bush can hardly go anywhere without singing the praises of our men and women in uniform, even though, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) has pointed out many times on the floor, they sing their praises but do not provide them with safe drinking water, did not provide our soldiers with body armor, do not outfit our Humvees with metal plate armor underneath the Humvees and on the door of the Humvees, so that they are much more dangerous.

There is hardly a day goes by that the President does not in one of his fund-raising speeches around the country, which are almost daily, that he does not, the President, sing the praises of our veterans.

At the same time, this administration has cut veterans benefits, cut education and health care benefits, raised the price of prescription drugs, and now, strike three, is closing these three hospitals which are serving hundreds of thousands of veterans.

When I think about a veteran in my district who originally was paying a relatively small copayment per drug per month, that copayment has tripled, and now the administration wants to double that copayment again. It is just amazing to me the President of the United States would do that in a time of war.

It is especially amazing when you look at the price of drugs in Canada,

the price of drugs in France, in Germany and around the world, how much less drugs cost in those countries. In fact, every once in a while I have taken, over the last 6 years, busloads of seniors to Canada to buy less expensive drugs, but how can you look a veteran in the eye and say, Hey, you ought to go to Canada and buy your prescription drugs? How can you tell a veteran he or she should go to Canada and buy their prescription drugs because they are cheap?

Under this administration, a third of America's veterans have unprocessed claims, and 130,000 veterans are waiting for appeals decisions.

New enrollment fees and increased costs of prescription drugs will cost veterans $2 billion over the next 5 years.

This administration is opposed to the renewal of imminent danger pay for families of active duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of that. The administration and the Secretary of the VA sing the praise of American soldiers, and then oppose giving those soldiers a little extra money when they are in the face of danger in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We are spending $1.5 billion a week in Iraq turning our young men and women into veterans. We ought to be able to ensure when they come home that they receive the best health care. Our veterans deserve better.

It begs the question earlier, are veterans better off than they were 4 years ago? I think when you look at what this administration has done with soldiers and with veterans, it is a decided no.

I yield to my friend from Ohio (Mr. Strickland).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would add that there are 50,000 Ohioans alone who have seen their unemployment benefits expire in the last 6 months, 1 million Americans. These are people looking for a job, playing by the rules, but cannot find a job.

The President said the economy is growing. We heard our friend from Iowa and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) saying things are great, jobs are coming back, the economy is great. Well, 50,000 Ohioans cannot get their unemployment benefits.

I thank my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), for his comments, and I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), my friend, was mentioning that people watching this at home just sometimes might think it is almost like we are making this up, this could not be like this. Why would people do these kinds of things?

Why would President Bush talk such a good game about the military? He was in the military, and remember when he landed on the ship and was in his flight suit, and he certainly showed the American people that he was one of the military, but why would he then turn around and make these cuts? But these are political choices.

I mean, we sit in this body, the 435 of us, we come down to the House floor with this little plastic card and we vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on issues. This is a question. Government is about making choices. We decide. What do we do about prescription drugs, what do we do about Medicare, and what do we do about the environment?

Well, the Congress has made a series of choices about tax cuts and the budget and expenditure of money, and this Congress and this President who has pushed this Congress, and the Congress pretty much rubber-stamps, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) pretty much rubber- stamps what the President wants. This Congress made a choice.

If you make $1 million a year, you get a $123,000 tax cut. If you are worth $100 million and you pass away, rather than $30 or $40 million of that going to the government, now, under Republican plans, even though that is only one-half of 1 percent of the public that would pay this tax, that has been eliminated.

So when somebody that makes $1 million pays a tax of $123,000 and no longer pays it, then that money has got to come from somewhere. So what happens is Congress makes a choice. Do you give that millionaire, the guy making a million, do you give them the $123,000 tax cut, and when you do it, it means you have got to cut veterans benefit? Or do you not give him the tax cut and fund these veterans' programs?

Clearly, my Republican friends have made the decision, as has President Bush, to give the millionaire the $123,000 tax cut and to deny veterans health care benefits, education benefits, raised their prescription drug costs, closed the Brecksville Hospital and Pittsburgh Hospital and Mississippi Hospital.

These are choices that people make. That is why we hold elections. The voters will say, Yeah, we like it that George Bush gives a millionaire a $123,000 tax cut and cuts veterans benefits; or they will say, We should not give these tax cuts to the superwealthy. Instead we should meet our commitments on health care and education.

I had a group of people come into my office today, and it is a little off the subject, not much, a group of people with Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, and this government has refused to fund research the way we have been funding it the last 4 or 5 years.

And the question, again, is: Do you give a millionaire a tax cut of $123,000 or do you fund programs in research and development that really are going to make wonderful scientific discoveries and save lives?

To me, the answer is pretty clear. To my friends on the other side of the aisle it is equally clear, but they have a different viewpoint. I am not saying they are immoral or sleazy. I am just saying they made the choice that they would rather give a millionaire a tax cut than to fund veterans benefits, than to keep Brecksville open. They would rather give a tax cut to the wealthiest 5 percent. Not somebody making $50,000 or $100,000. I am talking about people making $1 million a year, to give tax cuts to them; and when they do, we end up closing VA hospitals, we end up cutting veterans health care benefits, we end up cutting veterans education programs, and we end up with State university tuitions going up through the roof, at Ohio State, at Kent State, and Akron U and all over.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I think we have established pretty well tonight why Republican leaders and George Bush do this, why they have made these cuts in veterans benefits, why they made cuts to close the Brecksville Hospital. It is a question of choices they have made between giving a $123,000 tax cut to a millionaire or funding these programs.

The second question to ask, as we examine the whole question of are we better off, are veterans better off today or the American people better off today than they were 4 years ago, is to the look at how all this happened.

The three of us, joined by 400 of our colleagues, sat in this Chamber in the middle of the night, month after month after month, passing some of the worst legislation, legislation that my friends in the Republican leadership do not want people to see, so we passed these bills literally in the middle of the night, after midnight; and I want to talk about a couple of them.

Starting a year ago, starting literally 14 months ago, at 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April the House slashed education and welfare by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the leave-no-millionaire-behind tax cut by a handful of votes. At 2:33 on a Friday in June, Republicans boarded the midnight express and passed the Medicare privatization prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the Republicans again boarded the midnight express and eviscerated Head Start by one vote. Then, after returning from summer recess, after the August recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the GOP again boarded the midnight express and voted $87 billion for Iraq. Two months later, again in the middle of the night, the Medicare bill passed. The debate started at midnight, the vote started at 3 a.m. Normally, the vote takes 20 or 30 minutes. The roll call stayed open until 6 a.m. It was a 3-hour vote.

In every single case, these bills were passed after the press had gone home and people had turned their television sets off, those watching C-SPAN, and the country had gone to bed. So not only are they passing legislation that cuts veterans benefits, legislation that discriminates against veterans, proposals that shut down hospitals and cut back drug benefits and reduce education benefits for veterans, they are doing it, and again this is not made up, it is documented in the Congressional Record, they are doing this in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness, as they board the midnight express.

So the public does not see this. By the time it gets in the paper on Saturday, it is old news. It is a couple of days later. It is never on the front page, and the public only learns about it when they realize their veterans' benefits have been cut again by the Bush administration.

I yield to my friend from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) filed a lawsuit some time ago.

The lawsuit was basically to force the VA to do what it is charged by this Congress to do, and he will explain. But it was not just a question of policy decisions that the Congress and the President have made to cut benefits, to fail to take care of the soldiers with body armor; it was not just bad decisions by Congress and the President. It also was incompetence by the VA and underfunding by the VA to take care of many of the people who were in their charge. I would ask the gentleman from Ohio to explain that.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, so President Bush and the Secretary of the VA have decided the VA should offer services to American veterans, but they are not allowed to tell anybody that they are offering these services?

Mr. Speaker, just before I wrap up, this is all very puzzling. I understand why President Bush is hostile to good environmental policy, because environmentalists do not vote for him. He does not seem to care.

I understand that President Bush pushes legislation that kind of restricts the rights of minorities because minorities do not vote for him. I understand why he is hostile to organized labor because he does not get many labor union votes from steelworkers or auto workers or food and commercial workers.

But I do not understand why he is so hostile to veterans. That really puzzles me because a lot of veterans voted for President Bush. They liked the fact that his father was a decorated veteran. They liked the fact that he served this country through the National Guard honorably and fully, at least before the news broke they thought he did, and they voted for him because they thought he was sort of a stand-up tough guy and would stand up for American interests.

It astounds me that this President would change our policy and military doctrine, would attack Afghanistan, attack Iraq, make noises about Iran and other places such as North Korea, but when the veterans come home, not treat them any better than he treats them.

The only answer I can figure is, he is so wedded and focused on his tax policy, on cutting taxes for the very wealthy, saving literally over a trillion dollars in taxes for the richest 1 percent, that everybody else suffers, veterans suffer, school kids get shortchanged, seniors through the Medicare program get shortchanged, environmental enforcement gets shortchanged, food safety enforcement, research for the NIH get shortchanged; and that is the only explanation I can come up with.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), and I look forward to

the comments of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding me this time and for his leadership on health care issues.

In my home State of Ohio, we have a successful multi-employer health insurance program sponsored by the Council of Smaller Enterprises, or COSE. Some 14,000 businesses participate. For 30 years, Ohio's COSE has been negotiating with commercial insurers to offer small businesses coverage and rates usually reserved for the

largest companies. Each year, COSE members collectively save almost $50 million in health insurance premiums.

Unlike the association plans envisioned under 4281, COSE works within the framework of State insurance law. That means COSE is not subject to the scams, to the insolvencies, to the indiscriminatory coverage schemes that are the hallmark of association plans. This bill puts Ohio COSE at risk.

It is like a poker game. If one person is playing by the rules and the other is cheating, the cheater will probably win. Now the stakes are even higher. Not only is health coverage at risk for those who play by the rules, but the gains are short-lived for those who do not.

Companies that join an association health plan may see favorable premiums one year and be priced out of coverage the next. Their employees may or may not be covered for needed health care and claims may or may not be paid. It is simply a crap shoot.

The American Academy of Actuaries has no stake in the outcome of this debate. Private insurers hire actuaries to calculate premiums. Here is what the Academy has to say about this bill. ``This bill will likely have unintended negative consequences.'' The Academy says ``AHPs produce fragmentation of the market,'' as we have heard over and over and over today. They say, ``AHPs are likely to lead to cherrypicking, to adverse selection, and to increased costs for sicker individuals.''

The academy says that AHPs create an unlevel playing field, there have been many examples of AHP-like organizations becoming insolvent, and that the anticipated expense reductions are simply unlikely to materialize. Even though 44 million Americans are uninsured, the Republican majority has no intention of seriously considering proposals to expand access to health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, last week, President Bush came to Ohio, my home State, to try to defend his economic policies, a State that has lost 222,000 jobs since he took office. One out of every six manufacturing jobs in the State has disappeared since he took office. We have lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration.

Yet the President's answer, again and again and again, is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country, with the hopes that maybe it will trickle down and provide a few jobs, which it has not, and more NAFTA-like trade agreements, which continue to hemorrhage jobs, continue to shift jobs overseas.

The White House, instead of those two failed attempts at creating jobs and building our economy, the White House should support extending unemployment benefits to those 50,000 Ohioans who have seen their benefits expire, should pass Crane-Rangel legislation, bipartisan legislation that will give incentives for American companies to manufacture in this country, instead of giving incentives, as the Bush administration does, to the largest companies in the country that continue to export jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, last week, prescription discount drug cards became available under Medicare. Should America's seniors and disabled Americans take a look at the new discount cards? Absolutely. Are discount cards a substitute for giving Americans access to safe, effective and affordable drugs? Absolutely not.

Some seniors and disabled Americans will probably save some money with the discount cards, but some cards may not cover the drugs that you use, and which drugs they cover and how big their discounts are may change once a week without notice, even though every senior will have to keep the same card the whole year. Even if your card covers your medicine, it may mean little, because the drug companies have already jacked the prices up 15, 20, or 25 percent.

President Bush and the FDA and our government allowed drug prices to go up 20 or 25 or 30 percent a year, yet then they say we are going to give a drug discount of 5, 10, or 15 percent. What a deal. At least it is a good deal for the drug companies, if not America's seniors.

What to do instead is to allow reimportation; allow American wholesalers, American drug retailers to go in the world market and buy their prescription drugs from countries which actually do something to bring down drug prices.

Last year, a solid, bipartisan majority in this House passed a solid drug importation bill issuing a declaration of independence from the drug industry. But President Bush said no and the Republican leadership said no.

Last month, a bipartisan coalition introduced a comprehensive bill that could win an importation vote in the other body, but President Bush said no, and again the Republican leadership said no.

The Bush administration, the FDA, and opponents of free markets in medicine say importation is unsafe. They have claimed that drugs sold in Canada and France and Germany, Israel, and Japan are not safe. Yet have we ever read a story about a Canadian or a French person or a German or a Japanese or an Israeli dropping dead in the streets of their countries because a drug is contaminated? Of course not. Those countries have FDAs similar to ours to protect the safety of their drugs.

Seniors in Ohio and throughout the country, in spite of the Bush administration claiming these drugs are unsafe on behalf of the drug industry, in spite of the FDA saying these drugs are unsafe, again on behalf of the prescription drug industry, seniors understand from personal experience that medicine sold in Canadian pharmacist is the same effective medicine sold here. It just happens to be one-third, one-half, one-fourth, sometimes, the price.

Now, the Bush administration and opponents of free markets in medicine say U.S. prices are high because other countries have forced the drug companies to sell the drugs for less there. They actually argue that if they can get drug prices higher in Australia and France and Germany that then the drug makers will just drop the price to Americans.

In fact, the Bush administration is putting pressure on the Australian Government through the negotiation of a trade agreement for the Australians to raise the prices they are paying to these drug companies for their drugs, with the implicit understanding, if you believe this, that the U.S. drug companies will voluntarily lower their prices.

Johns Hopkins University health economist Gerald Anderson told the Wall Street Journal last week, Say that you are the Pfizer CEO, and you go to your board and say, guess what? We just got a great deal in Australia on our drugs, so we are going to lower our prices in the U.S. You would be fired if you were the CEO of Pfizer and said that. Of course they are not going to do that.

These are giant multinational corporations whose profit margins dwarf the profit margins of any other industry in America. Drug companies in 2001 earned profit margins of 18 percent, three times the profit margins of other Fortune 500 companies. This has been the most profitable industry in America for 20 years running, with the lowest tax rates. They are companies that clearly have had taxpayers in this country do a lot of their research and development, yet they continue to charge Americans more than any other country in the world.

The reason for that is that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. President has simply stood by and let the drug companies continue to raise prices. It might have something to do with the fact that the drug industry gives George Bush millions of dollars for his campaign. The word on the street in Washington is that President Bush will get $100 million from the drug industry for his reelection.

My Republican friends on the other side of the aisle, especially their leadership, have raised millions of dollars from the drug industry. As a result, the drug industry and the insurance industry wrote the Medicare bill. That is why the Medicare bill simply will not work the way that it should, that is why drug profits continued to go up, that is why seniors continue to pay two and three and four times what they do in Canada.

We have got to break the leash and the connection between the drug industry and the Republican Party and President Bush.

Mr. Speaker, last week President Bush came through my State, the State of Ohio, in a bus trip to argue and defend his economic policies which have inflicted great damage on my State.

We have lost, since President Bush took office, 177,000 manufacturing jobs. One out of every six manufacturing jobs in Ohio has simply disappeared since President Bush took office. We have lost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration, and the President's answer is more tax cuts for the rich, hoping it trickles down and creates some jobs. That has not worked.

His other answer is more trade agreements like NAFTA, which frankly have shifted all too many jobs to China and Mexico.

Instead, Congress should extend the unemployment benefits for those workers who are trying to find jobs, 50,000 in Ohio, a million across the country, who are trying to find jobs, who have lost their jobs.

Extend unemployment benefits and pass the Crane-Rangel bipartisan bill which will give incentives to companies that manufacture in this country, rather than to give incentives and tax breaks to the President's biggest contributors, those corporations which shift jobs overseas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I am almost a little embarrassed to be here today. This country is dealing with serious problems in Iraq, this country is dealing with serious unemployment problems. In Ohio, we have lost 1 out of 6 manufacturing jobs. This country is facing incredible confusion with the new Medicare bill and seniors are sorting through 50 Medicare cards to get a 10 or 15 percent discount while drug prices go up 15 or 20 percent a year, yet we are here today to debate issues which have already passed in the House and bills that clearly will not make a dent in the problem of the uninsured, the 40 some million uninsured.

Instead of debating proven solutions, solutions that we know will work, but solutions that just might, they just might hurt the drug industry and the insurance industry, they might be bills the insurance companies do not like, instead of working on bills that expand access to health insurance, the Republican leadership has chosen to pat itself on the back. They are frittering away the Cover the Uninsured Week by reconsidering bills which have already passed this House, bills that cater to the insurance industry, some of the biggest contributors to President Bush and the Republican Party, bills that give away the Federal Treasury to the drug industry, industries that give tens of millions of dollars to Republican leadership and to President Bush, and bills that help the HMO industry by sheltering them from liability.

These bills will not necessarily reduce the number of uninsured, but we know they will undermine hard-fought State insurance laws, they will cover some small number of employers at the expense of others, they will provide tax shelters to people who already have coverage, and they will perpetuate the type of high-deductible coverage that actually discourages people from seeking preventive care.

Republican leadership will spend this week, Cover the Uninsured Week, trying to cull out the uninsured issue so they can hand out more tax breaks to their HMO and insurance companies and prescription drug company contributors and butter up more of their campaign contributors.

The President's budget does not spend a dime on the uninsured, but it will cut $24 million from the Medicaid program, clearly a program that works and which has helped millions of America's elderly and poor families.

The President's plan will increase the number of uninsured. My Republican colleagues would also cut the Medicaid program by billions, stripping health insurance coverage from the most vulnerable among us.

So let me see, the Republican bills protect the drug companies and the HMOs from harm they cause their patients, they destabilize the entire small group insurance market to buck State insurance laws, and they give tax breaks to the already insured. I am sure none of this has anything to do with the fact this is an election year, President Bush is out raising $200 million, Republican leadership is trying to equal that amount of money, and so much of it comes from the drug industry, the insurance industry and the HMOs.

Now, this is my Republican friend's response to the fact that 43 million people in this country are uninsured. It is outrageous that we are voting for a second time on these issues. It is not just futile; frankly, it is shameful.

The other side of the aisle were talking about the malpractice crisis for physicians which is very real in many places. The gentlewoman from New York said this bill has liability protections, not just helping the doctors but for the drug industry?

I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

So to make sure I understand this, the FDA, the same FDA that has begun to throw overboard science, the same FDA that is clamping down on Americans going to Canada for less expensive drugs, the same FDA that approves prescription drugs, if they approve them, this FDA which is way too controlled by the drug industry, which is controlled and influenced by the drug industry, if they approve a new drug, even if that drug is found to be unsafe and injures hundreds of thousands of people, there is no liability? There is no way to bring suit?

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

Mr. Speaker, I share the consternation of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). In this country we are facing problems in Iraq, yet this House does nothing. We are listening to seniors say please fix the Medicare discount card program bill; this House does nothing. We are hearing from people in my State of Ohio that we have lost 200 jobs every day in the Bush administration; we are doing nothing about that. We will not extend unemployment benefits or anything else. We are hearing people talk about drug prices being one-half and one-third in Canada what they are here; we are not doing anything about that. We have lost so much manufacturing in this country, 1 out of 7 manufacturing jobs has simply disappeared since George Bush took office.

Yet for the fifth time in 14 months, as the gentleman from Michigan said, we are debating a medical malpractice bill that does not do anything about medical malpractice. I support malpractice reform, as most Members of this body do, but I oppose this bill.

The Republicans lay the blame for rising medical malpractice premiums on the victims of medical malpractice. The bill does not have one provision acknowledging the insurance industry's accountability for skyrocketing premiums, not one provision to keep the insurance industry accountable.

Insurers have tripled their investment in the stock market over the past 10 years, now they are trying to recoup their losses from doctors and premiums from hospitals and other medical providers, and from patients. Insurers low-

balled their rates to attract new customers, and then they went overboard and depleted their reserves. That is not our fault, that is not the patients' fault or doctors' fault. Rates have to exceed costs to stabilize those reserves, and the recklessness on the part of insurers is clearly a factor in the recent rate spikes.

Democrats have repeatedly tried to negotiate with the Republican majority on this issue. We asked the majority to consider insurance reforms; they absolutely refused even to talk about it. We asked the majority to subpoena insurance company records so we really could understand and get to the bottom of the rate spikes and so we could be sure we were solving the real problems; the Republicans refused to even talk about it.

There were avenues we could take to stabilize medical malpractice premiums: reinsurance pools, rate bands, loss ratio requirements, reserve requirements, and improved transparency, but the insurance industry opposes these changes. The insurance industry gives a lot of money to President Bush and the Republican leadership, so the Republican leadership does not even consider these insurance company issues. This bill assumes the insurance industry's business decisions play no role in setting premiums. It is always the patient's fault.

In the Committee on Energy and Commerce and in the Subcommittee on Health, I had an amendment that said whatever money we save from the caps has to go towards lower premiums for doctors and hospitals. Because the insurance industry gives a lot of money to Republicans, it was voted down on behalf of the insurance industry on a party-line vote.

This bill is doomed to fail, even if it would become law, and the proof is in California. California has had damage caps since the 1970s. It now has the most stringent caps in the country; but caps alone did nothing. They were a colossal failure in California. Premiums for medical malpractice were higher than the national average. They were growing faster than the national average.

Eventually, California recognized its mistake and implemented a set of malpractice insurance reforms. Since then, premiums have moderated. But this bill does not emulate California's successes. It only imitates California's mistakes.

It is bad enough the bill ignores the failure of a cap-only approach. It takes another swipe at patients with a cap system that says the same injury causes more harm in dollar terms if it happens to a CEO than it does if it happens to his gardener. Like its predecessor, this bill contains provisions wholly unrelated to the medical malpractice issue. It says HMOs that deny patients needed medical care cannot be held accountable, yet HMOs continue to post robust profits, earning $6 billion in the first 9 months of 2003, a 52 percent increase over last year.

This bill says drug companies who sell medicine with toxic side effects are not responsible. Yet they are protecting the drug industry which has been the most profitable industry in America for 20 years running. And the bill says manufacturers of defective medical equipment get a free pass. They are doing all right, too.

In this bill, businesses are never at fault, patients are greedy, the U.S. Congress knows better than a jury of your peers in your community, and State laws are just cast aside without a second thought. If my friends in this body really wanted malpractice reform, if they really wanted to help doctors deal with these outrageous premiums they are paying, they would not use this bill to help their drug company contributors, they would not use this bill to help their insurance company contributors, they would not use this bill to help their HMO contributors. That is what this bill is all about.

At a time when the public is calling for greater corporate accountability, this bill turns on the public itself and says injured patients, not the system that is designed to protect them, are at fault. This is not reform. It is callous injustice.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin has fought as hard as anybody in this body for universal health care for people who play by the rules, pay their taxes, most of whom have jobs and simply have been left out of this system, left out because this Congress, this President, do not seem to care.

We had 40 million people uninsured 3 years ago; today that number is 44 million. Of those people who do have insurance, many of them are underinsured. Many do not have a decent drug benefit. Many seniors do not have a good drug benefit, and this Congress has either done nothing or moved backwards as they have tried to privatize Medicare and tried medical savings accounts and other kinds of Rube Goldberg ways to try to provide health insurance, when in fact most of what they are trying to do is enrich the drug companies and the insurance companies.

We are also joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). My State of Ohio has 1.2 million people without health insurance, and 85 percent of those who lose their jobs also lose their health insurance. In Ohio, as much of the Great Lakes States, particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, those States have suffered dramatically because of high unemployment, because of large numbers of job layoffs. In Ohio, we have lost one-sixth of our manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. We lose 200 jobs every day, and about 170 of those people lose their health insurance, yet this Congress sits on its thumbs and does nothing about it.

But these are numbers, and I want to share some stories of people to put life situations to these numbers so people really see what this means.

Joseph from North Ridgeville writes, ``Something has to be done about health care. We are going in the wrong direction. I cannot even think about retirement because of the cost of health insurance in Ohio. I am in Local 546, and a lot of us feel the same way. I am not sure how long I am going to have a job, to make matters worse. Sorry to complain.''

Mr. Speaker, he writes, ``Sorry to complain.'' This is a gentleman who works hard, plays by the rules, pays his taxes. He does not have the health insurance he needs. His employer, it sounds like, is doing the best they can, and Joseph says sorry to complain. If people are playing by the rules, this society needs to do better. Joseph also does not want to be a burden on society.

Judith from Medina writes, ``We are currently without any health care coverage because the company where my husband works raised the monthly premium so high we could not afford it. It was either health care or food. So many people are finding themselves in this predicament now that something must be done on a national level.

``Surely Congress can come up with some kind of help for those of us in this situation before it is too late and before something tragic happens to us. We could lose our home and be out on the street if a catastrophic disease hit one of us. Please, please make this a priority. So many need help. What will the insurance companies do when so few can afford their coverage that most cancel? What will happen to the health care system in this country then? Please give this top priority. I believe it is vital to this Nation. Thank you.'' That letter was from Judith of Medina, Ohio.

Again, this family plays by the rules. They are working hard, and our government simply has not stepped up and fulfilled its obligation to them to make health care a right, not just a privilege.

Thomas from Cuyahoga Falls in my district writes, ``Representative Brown, I have a question. I have a full-time job, a wife and children. My employer does not offer health care benefits. I cannot afford to purchase coverage on my own. What can I do? Please let me know what the government is trying to do to remedy this problem. I am sure I am not the only one dealing with this. Thank you very much for your time.''

All these letters suggest, first of all, great hardship that people face, great risk people face if they get a catastrophic illness, and they underscore the point that we are the only Nation in the world, as wealthy as we are as a country, we are the only Nation in the world that does not provide health care to all of its citizens. We are the only Nation in the world that allows drug companies to charge whatever they want to charge.

Our government's response is more tax cuts for the richest people in the country. President Bush's tax program gives a person making $1 million a $123,000 tax cut, yet they cannot provide insurance to Thomas of Cuyahoga Falls, Judith of Medina, Joseph of North Ridgeville, and all of the people that the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin) mentioned in Wisconsin.

We give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people, we spend $1.5 billion in Iraq setting up a health care system there, and my friends on the other side of the aisle and the President simply turn their backs on these people who are playing by the rules. These are people who work and have full-time jobs that are trying to raise their family, and we do not help.

What we ought to do is four things. First of all, we should extend unemployment benefits to the 1 million workers in this country and the 50,000 workers in the districts of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and my district who have lost their unemployment. They are working, they have lost their jobs and they are trying to find jobs, and their unemployment insurance expired.

Second, we should do the Medicare buy-in bill to allow people 55 to 64 who do not have insurance for whatever reason, to allow them to buy into Medicare.

Third, we need to work on the children's health insurance program. There are 8.5 million children in this country who do not have health insurance. In most cases, their parents have jobs at companies like Wal-Mart and places like McDonald's and places that do not do health insurance, even though the companies are making billions of dollars, in the case of Wal-Mart.

And then last, fourth, we need to pass the legislation we introduced today to give small businesses incentives to insure their employees.

Those three bills, the unemployment extension we have pushed and pushed and pushed. The majority and the President have stopped it dead in its tracks. The other three bills were introduced today by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin), the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), myself, and a whole host of others. We should move quickly on those bills as the number of unemployed workers in this country who have lost their jobs is way too high and too many people who have lost their jobs have lost their health insurance.

It is discouraging, but worse than that, it is outrageous that we as a country, as rich as we are, simply will not take care of those who play by the rules, pay their taxes, contribute to their communities, and we do not do anything about their health insurance.

Mr. Speaker, last week President Bush took one of his bus trips through the State of Ohio trying to argue for his economic policy. Ohio is a State that has lost 170,000 manufacturing jobs. Virtually every month during the Bush administration, we have lost manufacturing jobs. One out of six manufacturing jobs in the

State of Ohio has disappeared since President Bush took office. His answer always is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our society with the hope some will maybe trickle down and create jobs. That has not worked. His other answer is more trade agreements like NAFTA that shift jobs overseas.

Instead, Congress should extend unemployment benefits for the 1 million American workers whose benefits have expired, and Congress should pass the Crane-Rangel bill which gives incentives to those companies that manufacture in the United States, not continue to give big corporate tax breaks to the largest companies in the world who send jobs to China and send jobs to Mexico.