Floor Statements

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

I am pleased to support this legislation which is intended to, and will,

help ensure that FDA's medical device user fee and third-party review programs operate as intended. The goal of these programs is to promote timely access to medical devices without compromising FDA's ability to properly evaluate both the safety and the effectiveness of those devices. Successful bipartisan negotiations produced the authorizing legislation for these programs, and it is the same with this follow-up measure today.

I commend the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) as well as the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the subcommittee Chair, for their leadership on this successful committee effort. Unfortunately, the need for noncontroversial technical corrections is not the only obstacle preventing the medical device user fee program from fulfilling its potential. It is important for colleagues on both sides of the aisle to be aware that continuation of the user fee program, and it is this program that enables patients to receive cutting-edge medical devices on a timely basis, the continuation of the user fee program does in fact hinge on the appropriations process.

User fees do no incremental good if they supplant, rather than supplement, Federal spending. As in the successful prescription drug user fee program, the continuation of user fees depends on sufficient annual appropriations. Last year's appropriation for medical device reviews was insufficient to sustain the medical device user fee program in an optimal way. If this year's appropriation does not address that shortfall, the user fee program will likely fold.

Hard work went into establishing this program. The existence of the program enables patients more timely access to medical devices at no additional cost to American taxpayers. We need to make sure the program does not indeed fold.

I hope the President's budget includes sufficient funding for the user fee program, and I hope we follow through by allocating sufficient dollars to keep this program alive.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), one of the architects of this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, in last year's State of the Union address, President Bush called Medicare ``the binding commitment of a caring society.'' Last night in his State of the Union address, the President said the Medicare prescription drug bill that was enacted last year ``kept a basic commitment to our seniors.''

The new Medicare law kept a basic commitment all right, but as the tens of thousands of seniors who have quit AARP would likely agree, the commitment was not to America's seniors. The new Medicare law means an additional $139 billion in profit to the drug industry over the next 8 years. The President did fulfill his commitment, a commitment he had to the drug industry. The new Medicare bill the President signed means an additional $14 billion in subsidies to the insurance industry over the next 10 years, again a commitment the President fulfilled to his insurance company backers and contributors. But the President's commitment meant virtually nothing to seniors, many of whom will not have access to any benefit until 2006 and after that will have access to only a very inadequate drug benefit. The new benefit will cover less than half of a senior's drug costs. The average senior would do better traveling to Canada to purchase her prescription drugs. Of course the Bush administration has been busy pressuring Canadian pharmacies to stop selling medicine to American consumers.

Again, the President's commitment to the drug companies won out. The reason drug prices are lower in Canada is because the Canadian government negotiates price with the drug industry. But the new Medicare law expressly forbids the U.S. Government from negotiating with the drug industry to bring drug prices down. Get that. This new drug bill prohibits the government from using its buying power, representing 40 million Medicare beneficiaries, this new law prohibits the government from negotiating with the drug industry to bring prices down. That is why the drug industry's profits are set to explode under the President's new Medicare privatization bill. Again, it is a commitment not to America's seniors but a commitment President Bush made to his drug company contributors. If seniors had asked the President and the Congress to shortchange them on drug coverage while giving the drug industry a free ride, it would be accurate to say that yes, he really has fulfilled his commitment to them, but that is clearly not what seniors asked us to do.

Medicare HMOs enjoyed a 118 percent increase in profits last year. Yet we are about to hand them an additional $14.3 billion. According to the General Accounting Office, we already overpay HMOs by 20 percent. This new law will ensure we shower them with more money, we waste even more taxpayer dollars subsidizing the insurance industry, again a commitment to the insurance industry and the President's financial contributors in the insurance industry and HMOs, a commitment he made to them when they were so supportive in his campaign.

Mr. Speaker, in the end, we have a President who always consistently makes a choice. If it is a choice between corporate interests and the public interest, this President chooses corporate interests every single time.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush, in his State of the Union a year ago, said, ``Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.'' He then promised a prescription drug/Medicare reform bill.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, one of the authors of the bill with the Bush administration, said, ``to those who say this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is we certainly hope so.''

I wish President Bush tonight would explain what happened to the Medicare bill that he signed in December. I wish he would explain that this legislation will mean $139 billion, that is with a ``B,'' $139 billion additional profits for the drug industry. I wish he would explain tonight to the American people why this Medicare privatization bill means $14 billion in extra payouts to the HMOs and to the insurance companies. And I wish he would explain to the American people why he let in to write this bill the drug industry and the insurance industry, which sat down with the administration, with Republican leadership and actually wrote the Medicare prescription drug privatization bill. We need answers tonight, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in April 2003, the Bush administration pledged that its jobs and growth package, its Leave No Millionaire Behind Tax Cut Plan, would create 1,836,000 new jobs by the end of 2003, last month. The administration pledged to create 5.5 million new jobs this year in 2004; but as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month, the economy had a grand total of 1,000 jobs in December. To begin reversing unemployment trends, there would need to be 250,000 new jobs each month.

More than 2.3 million jobs have been lost since President Bush took office, Mr. Speaker. More than 2.3 million jobs. In my State of Ohio, one out of six manufacturing jobs has disappeared, one out of six, and most of them permanently. Despite recent good news for corporate profits and the trumpeting of the Bush administration on economic growth statistics, the labor market is still in crisis; and we have seen the worst job loss in a recovery since Herbert Hoover in the Great Depression. But for some reason, I guess political reasons, the administration calls the economy strong.

Long-term unemployment is close to a 20-year high. Currently, the average length of unemployment is 5 months. While the administration has touted macroeconomic GDP growth numbers, indicators most important to middle class Americans just simply are not so bright. Simply put, high-paying jobs, industrial, manufacturing jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs like Wal-Mart. New jobs created are forecast to pay an average of $35,000, much lower than the $43,000 average pay of jobs lost in the last 3 years.

The Bush administration now is deploying an executive agency to shortchange average workers, this time on overtime pay. The Department of Labor's publishing documents ``suggest ways that employers can avoid paying overtime to some of the $1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible this year.'' Think about that, a Federal agency is giving advice to employers on how to avoid paying overtime to some of its lowest-paid workers. Think about that. Among the options for employers would be to cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary.

This is part of an emerging pattern of using U.S. taxpayer resources to help big business, to help them cut corners at the expense of American jobs and American workers. The Labor Department's corporate assistance documents, as we call them, come just as the administration plans to eliminate overtime pay protection to 8 million American workers. The overtime plan was opposed by both conservative and progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The Department of Labor's mission statement describes itself as the primary agency to ``promote the welfare of job seekers and wage earners.''

The Department of Labor was established to represent the interest of average workers, not the interest of corporate contributors to the President. Not Enron. Not Halliburton. The Department of Labor is there to represent average everyday salaried and hourly workers. The Department of Labor now seems to represent corporations at the expense of American workers.

The consequences of the Bush administration's policies for hardworking Americans are clear: first, the greatest job loss in a recovery since the Great Depression; 2.5 million jobs have been lost in the past 2\1/2\ years. Second, massive deficits to pass on to our children. The administration came into office with a huge budget surplus. It has been squandered. We now have an annual deficit of $500 billion. That means that every day of the year about $1.5 billion more is paid out by the government than is brought in. The President has added $1.5 billion every day to the national debt that our children will pay. This collapse of fiscal discipline will lead to a $5 trillion debt over the next decade. That is $5 trillion more for our children and our grandchildren to pay.

The third result of the Bush administration's policy for working Americans is the rising numbers of uninsured and increasing health care costs for working Americans. There are 43 million Americans lacking basic health insurance today, with 4 million more Americans who do not have health insurance than those that had it when he took office. There were 39 million uninsured when President Bush took office; now it is up to 43 million, and it is climbing as we lose more industrial jobs, jobs replaced by low-benefit, low-wage jobs instead.

This administration is steering the country down the path of fiscal ruin for the benefit of a wealthy few. It is time to right our course. When we see the statistics over Christmas that the high-end stores like Neiman Marcus stores did very well, and regular stores catering to ordinary average Americans did not do so very well, that tells the story. The wealthier in this country are getting wealthier and wealthier, while the middle class is shrinking. Poor people are doing worse than ever. It is time to redirect this country.

Mr. Speaker, this is the people's House, conducting the public's business openly, or at least it used to be the people's House. 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, House Republicans slashed education and health benefits by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind tax cut bill by a handful of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House GOP passed a Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then after returning from summer recess at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night, always after the press had passed their deadlines, always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed.

With that track record, Mr. Speaker, we should not be terribly surprised that when the House passed legislation privatizing Medicare and forcing the most sweeping changes to Medicare in its 38-year history, we should not be terribly surprised that this Republican House of Representatives passed that bill at 5:55 in the early morning, Saturday morning, hours. The Republican leadership delivered this 1,100-page Medicare bill to House Members on Friday morning at 1:46 a.m. We voted on it 25 hours later.

But I do not really blame my Republican colleagues. If I had produced this bill, I would not want to give people much time to look at it either. When Republican leaders sit down behind closed doors with the insurance industry and with the drug industry and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know much about it.

This bill is not a prescription drug bill. We could have agreed bipartisanly to deliver a $400 billion drug benefit to our Nation's seniors. This bill is a Medicare privatization bill, written by the drug industry, written by the insurance industry, for the drug industry and for the insurance industry. This bill forces seniors to join an HMO or pay more for the coverage they have now. And we know how HMOs have treated seniors in county after county after county in this country. This bill creates a $20 billion, that is with a B, $20 billion slush fund for HMOs and stacks the deck so resolutely against the core Medicare program that privatization is inevitable. This bill jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for the 12 million-plus seniors who have this coverage. Several million seniors who now have prescription drug coverage as retirees are going to lose that coverage when their employers drop it. That is a certainty.

This bill leaves such huge coverage gaps in coverage that the average senior will run out of drug benefits by August each year, but will be required to pay premiums through December. So they will not get a benefit in July, but they will pay the $35, $45, $50, $60 premium. They will not get a benefit in August, but they will be paying the $35, $45, $50, $60 premium. They will not get a benefit in September, but they will pay the premium. They will not get the benefit in October, but they will pay the premium. That is what the Republican privatization Medicare bill is all about, written by the drug companies for the drug companies, written by the insurance industry for the insurance industry.

Mr. Speaker, most of these damaging provisions do not go into effect until after the 2004 elections, but this is the people's House. We should conduct our business openly. We should be honest with people whom we serve. We should throw the drug companies and insurance companies out of our offices so they are not writing this privatization legislation. The American people deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush signed the Medicare bill today, ending an ugly legislative process driven by the interests of a constituency near and dear to the Republican leadership in this House. Not America's seniors. I am talking about the prescription drug industry.

The vast quantities of time and money that the drug companies invested in selling this bill were well spent. This bill is a Christmas wish come true for every drug manufacturer in our Nation. Under the new bill, drug industry profits are expected to increase by $140 billion, a 40 percent increase in already the world's most profitable industry.

This industry, the world's most profitable industry, successfully used its

675 lobbyists in this town, about 1.3 lobbyist for every Member of the House, and used its tens of millions of dollars of campaign contributions to win a giant increase in profits at the expense of taxpayers in this country and at the expense of America's senior citizens. The drug companies on this year's Fortune 500 list posted profits of 17 percent, 5\1/2\ times the average profit margin of other Fortune 500 firms.

Not only does the Medicare bill signed today by President Bush dramatically expand the drug industry's market, it ensures that drug companies will be able to charge American taxpayers almost any price they want for medicines covered by Medicare. The word on the street in Washington is that the drug industry, PhRMA, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, PhRMA, is going to contribute $100 million to President Bush's reelection campaign.

That is why this bill specifically prohibits the government from negotiating fair prices for press medicines. That is right, the Federal Government is not allowed under this bill to even bargain for better drug prices on behalf of seniors or on behalf of American taxpayers. It is what the drug industry wants. And the drug industry in this body always gets what it wants.

The bill the President signed into law relies on the same price discount mechanisms private insurers use, the same mechanisms that have led to double-digit increases in prescription drug costs year after year after year. It is what the drug industry wants. And the drug industry always gets what it wants in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. In the private market, prescription drug costs are the fastest-growing component of health care cost increases. Prescription drug costs in the private market increased over 18 percent last year.

The bill rejects also the bipartisan will of a commanding majority in this House, who actually did stand up against a Republican leadership and against President Bush, who actually stood up to the drug lobby in July. Two hundred forty-three of us, many from that sides of the aisle, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and many others, voted to give American consumers the choice to buy safe, effective and much more affordable medicine imported from Canada. The legislation that President Bush signed today not only ignores that vote; it negates it. It drives a nail in the coffin of prescription drug importation. Why? It is what the drug industry wanted, and the drug industry always gets what it wants in this institution.

Once again, American consumers lose; the drug industry wins. Drug companies routinely charge American consumers three, four, five times what they charge Canadian customers for the same medicine. As I said earlier, the world on the street in Washington is that PhRMA, the Prescription drug trade association, is going to give $100 million to the Bush-Cheney reelection effort.

The drug industry is already 5\1/2\ times more profitable than the Fortune 500 average, yet they would have us believe any reduction in prices would jeopardize their research and development. The level of U.S. drug prices are not necessary; they are highway robbery. This bill helps to ensure that American consumers, American employers, and American taxpayers keep paying those high prices.

Merry Christmas, PhRMA.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey, who has just been dogged in his pursuit of this issue and trying to protect Medicare, trying to write a prescription drug benefit inside Medicare, and not this privatized HMO kind of Medicare inadequate prescription drug plan that the President signed today.

When you listen to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), you just keep asking the question, why is it that all this happened this way? Why would such a bill pass the Republican House, pass the Republican Senate, in very close votes, and be signed by the President? Why would they do this?

The answer is pretty clearly the kind of influence that the drug and insurance industries have in this body. The word on the street is that the drug companies, the prescription drug companies, are going to contribute $100 million towards the President's reelection. It is no surprise that nothing passes this Chamber, nothing gets through both Chambers, nothing gets enacted into law and will be signed by the President unless it has the support of the drug companies.

Let me just talk for a moment about that, and then I want to tell a couple of stories. The 10 biggest drug companies in this country had revenue last year of $217 billion, more than the entire GDP, gross domestic product, of the country of Austria. These 10 companies posted profits of $37 billion last year. That is more than the Federal Government spent on the entire VA health care system. It is more than the entire Housing and Urban Development budget for last year.

The drug companies on this year's Fortune 500 list posted profits of more than 17 percent, 5.5 times what the rest of the Fortune 500 profits were. The drug industry led all other Fortune 500 industries on two key profitability indices, return on revenues and return on assets.

Now, I want to get there, even with that, even with the drug industry's iron lock on this institution, the corruption, the incredible influence that

this industry has on this Congress, on Republican leadership, on the President, on the Vice President, on leadership in the other body, in the Senate, even with all that, I think it is important to sort of see how we got here.

At 2:54 in the morning on a Friday in March, this House cut veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:30 a.m. on a Friday in April, in the middle of the night, House Republicans slashed education and health care by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed a leave-no-millionaire-behind tax cut by a couple of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, House Republicans passed a Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House Republicans eviscerated Head Start by one vote. Then after summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday morning, in the wee hours of Thursday night in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night, always a contentious bill, always after the press had passed their deadlines, always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed.

With that track record, and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has illustrated this, we should not be terribly surprised that when the House passed legislation that privatizes Medicare, that dramatically changes the 38 years of Medicare as we know it, that the House did it at 5:55 on a Saturday morning. The Republican leadership delivered this 100-page Medicare bill to House Members on Friday morning at 1:46 a.m. We voted on it 25 hours later.

But, Mr. Speaker, in a lot of ways I do not blame my Republican colleagues. If I produced that bill, I would not want people to know a lot about it either, because when Republicans sit down behind closed doors with the insurance industry and the drug industry and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know, because this bill is not a prescription drug bill when we really look at it. We could have agreed bipartisanly. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and I and our Republican friends could have written this bill, we could have agreed bipartisanly to deliver a $400 billion prescription drug benefit inside of Medicare, delivered to people the same way that people get their doctor and hospital and get their choice: they send the bill to Medicare and it would work. But this bill is more about Medicare privatization. For that, Republicans have a long history.

Republicans have never much liked Medicare as a Federal program. Turn the calendar 38 years back to the beginnings of this most popular program perhaps in American history. When Congress passed the legislation creating Medicare in 1965, in the spring of 1965, there were 140 Republicans in the House of Representatives. Only 13 out of those 140, less than 1 in 10, fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans in this House voted to support it. Every leading national Republican voted no. Future President Gerald Ford, future Presidential nominee Bob Dole, future legislative leaders Bob Michel, John Rhodes; future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, every leading national Republican voted against the creation of Medicare.

Now, after that passed and they realized the public liked it, there were no major efforts to try to get rid of it until 1995 when Republicans had their first chance to do it when Republicans captured the majority of the House of Representatives. In 1995, Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House, immediately during the Contract With America tried to cut Medicare $270 billion to, what do we think, pay for a tax cut for the richest people and the most privileged people in the country. Gingrich in that year, in October of 1995, said, now, we did not get rid of Medicare in round one, we did not think that is politically smart. We do not think that is the right way to go through a transition, but we believe it is going to wither on the vine.

Texas Governor, then Governor George Bush was a strong supporter of that privatization effort. Majority leader Dick Armey, another Texas Republican said, Medicare is a program I would have no part of in a Free World. Bob Dole bragged, I was there fighting the fight against Medicare. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), Committee on Rules member, a Republican, told me in a meeting in 2002 at the Committee on Rules, Medicare is a Soviet-style system. It is on and on and on. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) who, with the drug companies and the insurance industry, wrote this Medicare privatization bill this year, said, to those who say that this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is I certainly hope so.

This bill, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) went through, it jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for the 12 million-plus seniors who have this coverage. Understand, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has said, there are 12 million seniors today who have pretty good prescription drug coverage as part of their retirement plans, retirement packages from their employers. Some, between one-fifth and one-third of those, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will have their employers yank that coverage, and they will then be thrown into this privatized Medicare system.

Now, this bill, in addition to the problems that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) mentioned, this bill creates a $12 billion slush fund for HMOs to encourage them to provide coverage; it increases drug industry profits by $139 billion, increasing their profits by 40 percent. We could go on and on and on and on. We know, we know about the profitability of the drug companies; we know about how the drug companies have, by and large, written this bill.

We know that the drug companies benefit from this bill way more than everybody else. They have 675 lobbyists in Congress; 675 drug industry representatives walk the halls of these Chambers. There are 1.3 lobbyists per Member of the House, and they spent $91 million in lobbying activities. That is just what they disclose; we do not know what they really spent. They spent $50 million more on everything from ads to direct mail. They spent nearly a half a billion dollars lobbying since 1997. They gave $30 million overall for the 2002 election cycle; about three-quarters of that to Republicans and, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and I have talked, we hear on the street that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are going to receive $100 million in campaign funds from the drug industry.

But let me, before finishing, let me go back to what exactly happened that Friday night, early Saturday morning when the drug bill passed. The vote started Friday at about midnight, the vote on the Medicare privatization bill. The debate started Friday at about midnight. The rollcall began at 3 a.m. Most of us took our vote cards, our little plastic cards, put them in the little box and pushed either the green or the red button. The clock runs out after 15 minutes, but it is usually kept open for another 2 to 5 minutes. Typically, a vote here is often about 20 minutes.

But the Republicans were behind the entire evening; the vote was losing. At 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning, the vote was 216 to 218. It was defeated. A majority was voting ``no,'' with only one Member, a Democrat, not yet voted. At about 4 o'clock the vote had stayed open for 1 full hour. That is when the assault began. The gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert), the gentleman from Texas (Majority Leader DeLay), the gentleman from Missouri (Republican Whip Blunt), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the Committee on Commerce; the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means all were walking the floor, surfing for stray Republicans who were most likely to cave whom they could bully or whom they could brow beat. They surrounded the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), trying a carrot and then a stick; but he stood his ground and was defiant. They tried a retiring Republican, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), whose son is running to succeed him. They promised support if he changed his vote to ``yes'' and threatened his son's future if he refused. He steadfastly, to his credit, showed his integrity and stood his ground.

Many of the two dozen Republicans who had voted against the bill had left the floor hoping to avoid the onslaught

from the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), and the committee chairmen. One Republican that I saw was hiding in the Democratic cloakroom.

By 4:30, the bullying and the brow beating had moved into the Republican cloakroom, out of sight of the television cameras and of the public. The Republican leaders by then had waked up President Bush, and the White House was passing a cell phone from Member to Member in the cloakroom. At 5:55, 2 hours and 55 minutes after the rollcall began, literally twice as long as a vote had ever taken in the U.S. House of Representatives, 2 obscure Western Republicans emerged from the cloakroom, they walked, ashen and cowed down this aisle, I was sitting right there, down this aisle to the front of the Chamber, they picked up a green card to change their votes, they scrawled their names and district numbers on the cards, and they dispiritedly surrendered the cards to the Clerk. Quickly the Speaker gaveled the bill. Medicare privatization had passed.

Now, imagine an election, an election at home when the polls close at 7:30. Everyone has voted. One candidate trails by a few votes, but election officials, just not liking the outcome, decide to keep the polls open for 3 more hours. They brow beat; they bully. They threaten, they offer jobs, they promise goodies for their neighborhood or for themselves. Finally, lo and behold, the election turns out the way they want.

The new rules in this House of Representatives, Yogi Bera might put it tell us, ``It ain't over until the Republicans and the drug companies win.'' It is sort of Florida all in one night. But the American people should expect more. They should expect the House of Representatives conducted in the open. They should expect Members to honestly, straightforwardly, openly cast their ballots; they should expect a drug pricing policy and a Medicare bill that can hold up, not only in the dark of night, but also in the bright light of the morning.

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. It is also, if we look at the context of all of this, the context is the huge, enormous influence that the drug industry has on this body. I mean, the drug industry has a strangle hold on the Republican leadership, pure and simple. They give millions of dollars to Republicans, as we have said before, we are hearing as much as $100 million to President Bush's reelection. Nothing in this Chamber, nothing happens without the drug industry saying it is okay. The drug industry puts millions of dollars in campaigns. They hire so many lobbyists, 670-some I believe at last count, well over 600. They run all kinds of television ads and radio ads under the name of something else. They basically launder their money through the United Senior Association, through other groups, these disease advocacy groups that are not really legitimate, with millions of dollars and hide who they are, the drug industry, and try to communicate with the public that way. I mean, they are so powerful and so strong, but at least we ought to keep them off the House Floor. But in that sense, in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, that Saturday morning, that late Friday night, while Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson was on the floor, which is unusual, I do not ever recall seeing a cabinet member on the floor like that, but that is not a violation of the rules and it is not unethical, either. But we could see the influence of the drug industry on the floor of the House of Representatives.

One could almost see these Members of Congress who have depended on drug company money, who are addicted to drug company money, one could see the kind of way that they were pushing

their fellow Republican Members, the Members whom they lead. So it is not a very long jump from there to what they tried to do apparently with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) who showed a lot of guts and integrity, as I might add.

And so when there is that much money at stake, the drug industry is slated to increase its profits already for 21 years straight, the most profitable industry in America, when the drug industry already so profitable, increased its profits $140 billion over the next 8 years, 40 percent increase in profits for the most profitable industry in America, not to mention the insurance industry and its impact here. With that kind of money at stake it does not come as a surprise to me that Republican leadership would play that kind of hard ball, do it in the middle of the night, or who knows what.

We do not know what was said to Member after Member after Member to pass this bill. That is not a prescription drug bill; it is a bill that turns the Federal Treasury over to the drug companies and the insurance companies and privatizes Medicare in the bargain. So it is pretty clear to more and more Members of this body and to more and more members of the public that the corruption in this body when it comes to drug money, the corruption is just unbelievable. It has increased every year since I have been here. It is getting to the point that it is almost as if Members have signed their vote card over to the pharmaceutical drug industry lobbying association.

Mr. Speaker, I saw that article. I like Tom Scully. He came to our committee and he spoke. He is a reasonable, decent guy. I do not accuse him of anything untoward. I do wonder about a system, though, where he announced several months ago he was leaving the Department and going into the private sector. And he intimated, he may have said more specifically, that he would be out doing Medicare- type work, but he stays in the Department during the 6 months he is negotiating with various law firms and Wall Street firms, I believe, his future job and then the Medicare prescription drug bill is in the conference committee and he is in these meetings. Somebody gave him a waiver. I do not quite know what a waiver means.

It is okay to be in a conflict of interest but because our administration is so pro-drug company, we give you the waiver? I wish he would answer some questions about what the waiver is all about, because I do not think the people at home understand what the waiver process is. I do not think I understand the waiver process.

How a Department gives a waiver to one guy to do this and not that. I think Mr. Scully is a man of integrity, but I do not think the system is quite right that would allow somebody to look for a job, run this Medicare system that has 40 million beneficiaries, that has got about, I think, about $300 billion roughly running through that system. He runs it. The last 6 months he said he is leaving. He is talking about companies that have a major interest in Medicare while looking for a job, and then he is helping to write the Medicare bill that will affect those companies in the agency he runs. I do not know what the waiver is all about. I hope he comes and tells us sometime.

This goes back to earlier comments that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) made just about the unseemliness, the conflicts of interest, the huge numbers of dollars that are at stake in this bill. $400 billion in taxpayer dollars is going to be distributed in the next 10 years, $400 billion. Not to mention the amount of out-of-pocket seniors will have, which is a huge amount of money, for their drug cost. So that $400 billion, we are going to see the drug industry is going to make $140 billion more; the insurance industry gets a $20 billion incentive pay, if you will, to write drug insurance. Employers are getting subsidized, so not as many of them, some still will, but not as many employers drop the coverage of their retirees who they have collectively bargained with in many cases.

So there is so much money on the table. The way that the administration has done this has been so untoward, the way that from the minute the bill really was introduced, was written behind closed doors by the drug and insurance industry, to they are not allowing amendments, to speak of, on the House floor, to the conference committee closed out to Democrats who represent in the Senate more than half the population and in the House represent 48 percent of the population; and then all of these kinds of secret deals in the bill with the drug companies and the insurance companies winking and nodding every step of the way.

I think this bill symbolizes the corruption, the sort of pinnacle of the corruption that we have seen in this House of Representatives. We are awash with corporate money, awash with all the kinds of cutting deals and conflicts of interest and billions and billions and billions of dollars available to raid the Federal Treasury. While we cannot probably get this bill repealed in the next year, I think we are going to see this Medicare issue is going to really show what the political parties stand for, what are we going to see in the election next year, where on the one hand Democrats want to see a prescription drug benefit go directly to seniors, Republicans want to run it through the drug industry and insurance industry, enriching their corporate friends and then a little bit of it trickles down to seniors. And thrown into the bargain is a privatized Medicare system.

Then they are going to come back in 10 years and say, see, Medicare does not work. Of course it does not work when the insurance company insures you when you are healthy and then taxpayers and Medicare get you when you are old and sick. Of course it is going to work that way.

That is the irony of all this. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle over and over tell us that seniors, that the private sector can do it better, that government is this huge bureaucracy, that Medicare is inefficient and bloated, that nimble, quick-on-its-feet Medicare, the private insurance system can do it better. So, okay, if that is the case, why, then, does Medicare have lower administrative costs, why does Medicare have lower marketing costs, lower salaries and all that? But if you accept that they can let them compete, so why are we giving the Medicare HMOs $20 billion and say, yeah, of course one can compete if we give you $20 extra billion, but if the playing field were really level it is clear that the public system wins.

That is why 38 years ago in the end Medicare was created. Because in 1965 when President Johnson and Democratic majorities in both Houses, because, as we said, almost no Republicans in either House voted for this bill to create Medicare, in those days half of America's seniors did not have insurance. Why? Because the private insurance market did not find seniors attractive. They did not find seniors attractive because they are older, they are sicker, and they are poorer.

So, maybe somebody 65 could get private insurance, somebody that walked every day, someone in really good shape, but someone 73 or 74 who was diabetic, who had heart problems, who was arthritic, who was not really able to take care of himself or herself, no one will insure that person. No one will under the Republican privatized Medicare program.

The whole point is a government plan with a universal coverage pool that everybody is in so when you are 65 and healthy you are subsidizing, because your health care expenses are not too high, you are subsidizing somebody who is 85 and not as healthy. And then when you get to be 85, some other 65-year-old subsidizes you. That is what the universality of the insurance pool is all about.

The Republicans want to fracture the universality of the insurance pool. They want to skim off for their insurance industry contributors and all the corruption around this place that comes from that. They want to skim off the most healthy seniors, and they want to insure them at great profit and let the government and taxpayers pick up everybody that is sick and more expensive. It is pretty simple what their plan is.

That is a very interesting point. I think seniors in my district and seniors all over the country, because I was hearing this from colleague after colleague, people were wondering why it was so complicated? Why was it so difficult? Why can Congress just not pass a drug benefit?

People understand how Medicare works. You go to a physician. The bill is sent to Medicare to be paid. You go to a hospital. The bill is sent to Medicare to be paid. There is a copay and a deductible. People understand that. They understand the premium. It is very simple insurance. It is full choice of doctor, full choice of hospital, and why not do the same with a prescription? Then you get the prescription. It is paid for by Medicare. You have full choice of your prescription.

Instead, the Republicans had to make it a lot more complicated. Why? Because they wanted to get their privatization agenda enacted. That means using the insurance companies. It means playing ball with the drug industry. It means a lot of that money, that $400 billion that should go directly to cover prescription drugs, and very little overhead, the 2 percent overhead that Medicare has been able to keep their overhead at 2 percent. Instead of that, the Republicans are seeing all kinds of money wasted through the insurance and the drug companies.

Frankly, it just kind of amazes me because seniors do think it could be simple. The other part of that $400, as the gentleman pointed out, that $400 billion would go a lot further under the Democratic plan because we would do cost controls. We would do various kinds of constraints on costs.

The Canadians, as we have heard many times in this Chamber, the price of drugs in Canada is one-half, one-third, one-fourth of what it is in the United States. Tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, is one-eighth the cost in France than it is in the United States.

If we could have restrained costs, controlled costs, brought prices down, whatever you want to call it, if we had done that and put this bill into Medicare, put this whole plan into Medicare, a lot less complicated, we could have done it months ago, years ago, we could have done it; and seniors would have a better plan. They would understand what it is about. They would not have all of these questions, but the drug industry and the insurance industry probably would not be so happy, and I guess that is in the end why this body did what it did.

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

Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for raising awareness regarding the importance of bone marrow donation. There are at least 20,000 Americans today who need a bone marrow transplant but cannot find a compatible donor within their own family.

National Marrow Awareness Month is a vehicle for encouraging more people to join the bone marrow registry, a noble goal, and it is right that Congress acknowledge the importance of this month.

But, Mr. Speaker, the timing is unfortunate. The Republican majority today is giving this body fewer than 24 hours to consider legislation which will have a dramatic impact on the financial security of 39 million retirees and disabled Americans, as well as their families. This bill takes $400 billion out of taxpayers' pockets and puts much of that money in the pockets of the drug industry and the insurance industry, the two industries that sat in back rooms with Republican leaders and wrote this bill. Every American has a stake in the outcome of this. Less than 24 hours to review, debate and vote on an 1,100-page bill that erects a brand new private insurance system for stand-alone drug coverage which replaces tried and true Medicare. The bill features such a meager drug benefit that seniors will still be unable to afford the medicines they need, a bill that creates a fast-track process to expedite reductions in Medicare benefits, a bill that makes different seniors pay different premiums for the exact same coverage, and a bill that launches a private insurance experiment, privatizing Medicare, forcing millions of seniors in this country to pay more or join an HMO. We received that bill yesterday, that 1,100-page Medicare bill, and are being forced to vote on that bill today.

With all due respect, I support this Burgess legislation and applaud the gentleman's efforts, but we need every minute we can get to try to get a handle on just how dramatically this Medicare privatization bill will turn our world upside down.

Mr. Speaker, we all know what is going to happen tonight. We have seen this same scenario play out month after month this year. In April, it started where in the middle of the night Congress passed contentious, important tax legislation by a handful of votes. Every single month during the summer, Congress voted on important, controversial legislation: Head Start, budget reconciliation, the tax cut, Medicare, last year the trade promotion bill authority, always between

12 midnight and four in the morning, always in the dead of night, always on Thursday night so the papers did not pick it up until Saturday, always when the media had gone to bed and the American public had turned off their television sets, and never appearing in the paper the next day, always held over to Saturday's paper because of that.

I hope, Mr. Speaker that does not happen with this Medicare bill tonight. I hope we can actually debate it during the late afternoon and early evening so people in this country can see what in fact is in it.

On this legislation we are considering today, I appreciate the efforts of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), but on a day when this body is asked to participate in such remarkably irresponsible decisionmaking on the most important health care vote of this session, no Member right now can devote to this Burgess resolution the attention it deserves.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me time.

We have been here before, Mr. Speaker. We will debate late into the night and consider one of the most important votes we have ever cast. At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday last March, the House cut veterans benefits by 3 votes.

At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, House Republicans slashed education by five votes.

At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind Tax Cut Bill by a handful of votes.

At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House GOP passed Medicare privatization by one vote.

At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then after returning from summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq.

Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed. And here we go again, Mr. Speaker.

Republican leadership delivered this bill to us last night at 1:46 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I do not really blame my Republican colleagues because when Republican leaders sit down with the insurance industry and the drug industry behind closed doors and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know.

When Republican leaders sit down with the drug industry to write a bill to deliver $139 billion in additional pharmaceutical profits to their biggest contributors, of course they do not want the public to know.

When Republican leaders sit down with the insurance industry to write a bill to set up a $20 billion slush fund for HMOs, some of their biggest contributors, of course they do not want the public to know.

This bill proposes the most radical changes to Medicare since its creation a generation ago. We should not do it under the cover of darkness. Americans deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan.

Earlier this year President Bush stood in this well and pronounced solemnly, ``Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.'' Today just a few short months later, those words sound so empty.

Our Medicare offers the same reliable health coverage to retired and disabled Americans regardless of whether they are rural or urban, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are healthy or sick. Our Medicare is equitable, dependable, it is flexible, and cost efficient; but their bill takes $20 billion out of our constituents' pockets and showers those dollars on HMOs. It rigs the game so that the coverage seniors have today, the equitable, reliable, flexible coverage they have today, is sure to wither on the vine. That is the way they have set it up. As one of the authors of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) said, ``To those who say this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is we certainly hope so.''

A binding commitment, Mr. President? Their bill leaves seniors with such high drug costs they still will not be able to afford their prescriptions. Their bill places retiree drug coverage of $12 million seniors at risk. Their bill forces seniors to either pay significantly more if they want to keep their doctor and their hospital, or join an HMO that may or may not cover needed drugs, that may or may not raise premiums beyond the $35 guesstimate,

that may or may not skip town if projected profits are not met. A caring society, Mr. President?

This bill is a big win for drug companies who stand to earn $139 billion in additional profits. No surprise there, the drug companies helped write the bill because the drug companies have given $50-60 billion to President Bush and to the Republican majority. It is a big win for insurance companies who are the beneficiaries of a $20 billion slush fund, no surprise there because the insurance industries and the HMOs gave tens of millions of dollars to the President and Republican leadership.

This is a tragic loss for America's seniors. Medicare should be the binding commitment of a caring society.

I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, night after night we come down here. We talk about Medicare. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle over and over say that of course they care about Medicare, that they believe in it. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) does, because I have worked with him regularly. But I also know that his leadership does not. All you have got to do is look at the Republican history of Medicare. In 1965, when Medicare came in front of the United States Congress, when the creation of Medicare happened and President Johnson signed it, July 1965, only 13 out of 140 Republicans in this body voted to create Medicare. The other 127 voted no. Gerald Ford voted no; Bob Michel voted no; John Rhodes voted no; Bob Dole voted no; Senator Strom Thurmond voted no; and Donald Rumsfeld voted no.

The first time in these years since 1965 when the Republicans actually could weaken Medicare, they tried to. Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House in 1995, the first thing he did was proposed to cut $270 billion from Medicare in order to give a tax cut to the most privileged people in this society. Speaker Gingrich said, ``We don't want to get rid of Medicare in round one because we don't think that's politically smart, but we believe it's going to wither on the vine.''

Bob Dole, who had been around 30 years earlier to try to defeat Medicare, bragged to a conservative group in 1996, ``I was there fighting the fight trying to stop Medicare from happening.'' They are not the only ones. John Linder told the House Rules Committee he did not like Medicare because it was a Soviet-style program. Dick Armey, former majority leader, said he did not like Medicare. He said, ``It's something you wouldn't have in a free society.'' And Bill Novelli, the AARP CEO, wrote a preface to Newt Gingrich's book calling him a big idea person because of his efforts to privatize Medicare. Bill Novelli, making $700,000 a year working for the insurance company that we call AARP. AARP has made, according to the Milwaukee Journal and Capital News Services, literally $100 million a year from insurance sales, that organization. Sure they endorse this bill because that organization is going to make tons of money in the insurance business.

But the fact is my friends on the other side of the aisle simply do not like Medicare. They voted against its creation and every single time they have had a chance, they have done what they could to cripple it. They cut its funding, they try to privatize it, they take options away from seniors, all in the name of choice.

Mr. Speaker, the Inslee motion makes sense. Support the Inslee motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, it has been a great week for the most influential, the most well-heeled lobbyists in Washington. Earlier in the week the House passed an energy bill which one very prominent leader of this country called the ``no lobbyist left behind'' bill. This energy legislation was full of benefits for oil companies, for natural gas companies, and for electric utility companies. As I said, it was a great week for some of the most well-heeled, most influential lobbyists in Washington.

The energy policy started with bad process as Vice President Cheney convened a secret group of energy lobbyists to draft the administration's energy plan. Citizen after citizen, group after group have tried to find out who attended these meetings with Vice President Cheney, what was discussed, and what they were all about. Vice President Cheney refused; but we should not be surprised that he would bring energy executives into the Vice President's office to secretly write an energy bill. After all, Vice President Cheney himself was an oil company executive, or should I say still is. He still receives $3,000 a week from Halliburton, one of the major energy companies in the United States. The Vice President is meeting secretly with energy company, oil company executives, and is still receiving $3,000 a week from Halliburton, that company that is making billions of dollars in unbid contracts in Iraq given by the administration, and kicking back or contributing large numbers of dollars to the Bush reelection campaign.

So Cheney is meeting with the energy companies to draft legislation that one prominent Republican said was a no lobbyist left behind bill. It was an early Christmas present for the energy industry, and for oil, gas and utilities, and some have estimated as much as $100 billion.

Some of the corporate giveaways that harm consumers in this bill were granting Enron's last wish to repeal the consumer-oriented, Public Utility Holding Companies Act, making taxpayers rather than corporate polluters pay to clean up leaking underground storage tanks, even when we know exactly which corporation is responsible for the pollution; allowing power companies to charge consumers more, ostensibly to finance system upgrades without any assurance that the resulting changes will actually benefit consumers; making taxpayers pay to clean up nuclear accidents and compensate victims even when the accidents result from a private contractor's intentional misconduct; deleting bipartisan provisions to ensure the safety and security of crosscountry nuclear shipments. All of those provisions were in there as gifts to the oil and gas and electric companies that Vice President Cheney still represents, amazingly enough as Vice President.

At the same time, that energy bill was loaded up with all kinds of tax breaks, all kinds of tax provisions helping those energy companies. At the same time this legislation, this early corporate Christmas present for which they give great thanks, included all kinds of harm to the environment. It allows oil companies to pump diesel fuels and other toxics underground and expand their operations without regard to the Clean Water Act groundwater runoff requirements, opening Federal lands to powerlines and mineral developments, and exempting significant segments of our communities and our industries from Clean Air Act requirements.

Now, Mr. Speaker, Congress earlier in the week passed one major corporate giveaway to the energy industry, to oil, gas and electric utilities. Tomorrow Congress is going to attempt, Republican leadership is going to attempt to do their second major corporate giveaway of tax dollars, and that is the so-called prescription drug Medicare bill. This is not a prescription drug bill; this is a Medicare privatization, insurance company/drug company giveaway bill.

The prescription drug companies under this legislation stand in the next few years to profit $139 billion more than they already have. And already for 20 years running, the drug industry has been the most profitable industry in America, by any measurement: return on investment, return on sales, return on equity, while enjoying the lowest tax rate of any industry in America.

Mr. Speaker, the second part of this bill gives a $20 billion gift, $8 billion this year, $12 billion in 2006, to the large insurance companies and HMOs in order to get them to offer private drug insurance.

What most of us say is let us do the Medicare bill right, give the drug benefit directly to seniors; do not do it by enriching the drug companies and enriching the insurance companies.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a good week for big business in Washington and for corporate lobbyists, and a bad week for America's consumers.

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

Mr. Speaker, colored and patterned contact lenses can be a fun way to express one's sense of style. Noncorrective contact lenses that are manufactured responsibly and worn under the supervision of a qualified eye care professional are useful and a perfectly safe commodity.

For years, the FDA saw it that way too and properly classified colored contact lenses as medical devices. In fact, just over a year ago FDA issued an official notification noting that noncorrective contacts ``present significant risks of blindness and other eye injury if distributed without the involvement of a qualified eye professional.''

But in April, for whatever reason, and we have seen an FDA that has become more and more politicized in the last couple of years, but for some reason the FDA flip-flopped deciding that colored contact lenses were not medical devices and were instead cosmetics. This quiet, but important, policy change opened the door to a new public health threat.

By reclassifying colored contacts as cosmetics, FDA eliminated the requirement that these products be manufactured to exacting standards, that they be FDA approved for safety before marketing, and that they be labeled with directions for safe use. FDA has expressed concern about the safety of noncorrective lenses administered without a doctor's involvement. But FDA's decision to reclassify them in this increasingly politicized FDA, this decision to reclassify them eliminated its authority to require that very involvement.

Despite concerns raised by Members in the House, but more importantly by Prevent Blindness Ohio and other eye health advocates, FDA went ahead with this misguided plan. This bill corrects that mistake by statutorily reclassifying noncorrective contacts as medical devices by statute. This bill was carefully drafted to ensure that this would be its only effect, and it clearly states this change will have no limiting effect on FDA's discretion in classifying other products under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

H.R. 2218 enjoys bipartisan support in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), and I have cosponsored this legislation, as have several other colleagues; and I am joined on the floor today by two other leading health advocates, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo). I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this important legislation in protecting the vision and health of American consumers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) for their leadership on the important issue of prescription drug research for children. The legislation we consider today is in large part the product of their hard work and their good work.

The FDA requires drug manufacturers to verify the safety and effectiveness of a new medicine before it can be sold in our country. But because most research has been done on adults, new medicines that are safe and effective in grownups may not be safe and effective when used in children. That is why we enacted legislation rewarding safety and efficacy testing that focuses on children. Drug companies that voluntarily conduct this testing are granted what amounts to a patent extension on the pediatric use of their medicines. Though progress has been made, an article published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed that fully 60 percent of drugs coming to the market remain unstudied and unlabeled for use in children. FDA's Pediatric Rule addressed that concern, but a Federal judge struck it down last year because, according to those judges, the agency lacked sufficient statutory authority.

The legislation today before us corrects that deficiency and codifies the Pediatric Rule. S. 650 requires pediatric testing as a condition of new drug approval every time. It authorizes responsible exceptions, though, deferrals and waivers when these actions would be determined to serve the interests of patients. This approach will ensure that most medicines are testified for safety and effectiveness in children before they hit the market. It gives the FDA the flexibility to move drugs to market when testing is unwarranted or impossible or would hold up a drug important for adult patients.

I have, Mr. Speaker, one important concern with this otherwise laudable legislation. It relates to a controversial provision added by the other body which terminates the testing requirement when the pediatric marketing exclusivity provision expires. There is no policy justification for this change. If it is responsible to require pediatric testing today, it will be no less responsible to do so after the government subsidy for pediatric testing has expired. America's children, pure and simple, are not served by this language. The only ones who benefit again are drugmakers. It has been a really good week for drugmakers in this country. As good as this bill is, they get a benefit they do not deserve. They also get a benefit later in the week if this House passes the Medicare bill to the tune of about $140 billion more in profits on a bill that, frankly, they and the Republican majority and President Bush sat down and wrote to help the drug industry and the insurance industry.

This provision in our bill is objectionable on procedural grounds, also. The other body acted months ago, but the Committee on Energy and Commerce did not schedule a markup that would have permitted us to debate and vote on the sunset provision and consider related issues important especially to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) and to other Members. I hope this process will not become the model for health legislation in this House.

Having said that, the bill is an important step forward in children's health. America's leading children's health advocates also strongly support the Pediatric Rule. The American Academy of Pediatrics called it an essential tool. The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation said it will safeguard children by taking the guesswork out of children's medicine.

I hope Members will join me in voting to send the Pediatric Research Equity Act to the White House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo), one of the authors of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) who has been an absolute leader with a great understanding on these very complicated drug issues.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.