health care, what is it, 20% of all american businesses and we're going to have this commissioner tell -- we're going to take another 20%? mr. hoekstra: if the gentleman will yield. mr. akin: i yield. mr. hoekstra: think about it. if the president believes that he can decide who should run general motors, which is a decision that he made and forced the replacement of the president of general motors, taking the next step in telling each of us what kind of health care we're going to have, you know, what treatments we can have, what procedures we can have and how much the government is going to pay for each one of those is fully within the realm of possibility which is exactly where this bill goes. mr. akin: what the gentleman is saying is, if the bill passes, we better hope the commissioner is as smart as peter orszag.

mr. hoekstra: yes. mr. akin: we're getting close to closing, the gentleman from georgia. mr. brun: i want to point -- mr. broun: i want to point out that the reason there's such a difference in survival rates for these two cancers, it's not just because we're americans. it's because in those systems, people are put on waiting lists, as your prior chart put up there, mr. shadegg, and it's also because the government system won't pay for the new procedures, the new medications. so it's because of delayed treatment derks layed evaluation of lumps in a breast, because of delayed or denied services, that's going to come under this plan that the democrats have proposed today, it's coming to

every single american. that's the reason that the survival rates are so much lower for prostate cancer and breast cancer and the thing is, what's going to happen is our survival rates are going to actually go down and match some of those others. american people need to understand that. if i could speak to them, that's one thing i would say. the delayed treatment, deny treatment is going to wind up killing people. i just -- that's what this plan is going to do. it's literally going to kill people. >> the gentleman is dead right. mr. akin: we have a piece of house business that's going to take a quick intermission for the introduction of a rule. >> i thank the gentleman for his courtesy. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from new york rise? >> i send to the desk two privilege red ports from the committee on rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the

clerk will report the title. the clerk: rule to accompany house resolution 644, making appropriations for the financial services and general government for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2010, and for other purposes. report to accompany house resolution 645, resolution providing for consideration of the bill, h.r. 3183, making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2010 and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: report to the house calendar and reported printed. -- and ordered printed. the gentleman from missouri may proceed. mr. akin: reclaiming my time, i'd like to introduce a gentleman who has been joining us, congressman scalise from louisiana. i'd appreciate it if you'd want to jump into the conversation for a minute or two. mr. scalise: i want to thank the

gentleman from missouri and my colleagues who have been talking tonight, as we see the plan unveiled and the secrecy removed, i think what most americans are going to see is that this is nothing short of a government takeover of our health care system, a system that right now provides the best medical care in the world because some of those people that come from those countries, the countries that do have government-run health care, that have rationing they come to this country, if they have the means because we have the best medical care, even though it's a system with flaws, it's a system that needs reforms, but the reform this is a need to be made need to be made working with all of us. the doctors that presented these ideas, the good solutions that have been presented, not a government takeover that would ration care for american families and would add hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on the backs of small business owners and families across this country. that's what this bill does, that's why we've got a big difference between how we, here, who have been talking tonight

would approach the solution, versus the government-run takeover of our system. mr. akin: that's a great summary, i appreciate yourer is spective from louisiana, i think a lot of other people are seeing it this way, particularly the gentleman from michigan, congressman hoekstra, with all those shall, shall, shall, this doesn't look like any kind of free enterprise to me. i would like to recognize the doctor from georgia, doctor gingrey, i thought you said you wanted to do a minute or so before we call it here. mr. gingrey: i thank the gentleman, i know time is running short. in regard to the government plan, the blue dogs that sent this letter last friday to ms. pelosi and the majority leader, mr. hoyer, said providers in the government plan must be fairly reimbursed at negotiated rates and their participation must be voluntary.

the bill that was introduced today by ms. pelosi in regard to providers forced to participate, here's what it says. establishment of a provider network for the government plan, health care providers participate under medicare are already automatly prviders unless they opt out in a process established by the secretary. talking about the pows of the commissioner, i also worry about the powers of the secretary and every doctor in america should worry about that i yield back. mr. akin: i think that perhaps the democrats' biggest nightmare is the fact that if we have time to read the bill and people see what's promised and what the bill says are two different thing, that is certainly what we're dealing with here. you have the blue dog, these are democrats, asking their leadership to have this flexibility and the bill goes exactly the opposite of what they're saying. i would yield to the gentleman from michigan, mr. hoekstra.

mr. hoekstra: what we're seeing is the continued erosion of the rights of individuals and states. michigan is a donor state in terms of transportation. what does that mean? it means since the inception of the national highway or national gas tax, for every dollar michigan has sent to washington, we've received 83 cents back that hardly seems fair to me, especially when we're now number one in unemployment. when we get that money back, the federal government tells us how to spend it. the same thing happens with education. we send money here. think about what's going to happen with health care. it's going to come here to washington and we are going apportion it back to the states. some states are going to do better than others. it's going to be based not only -- not on, it's not going to be based on population or those types of thing, it's going to be based on the power of the people in this chamber and the chamber down the hall as to who has got

the most influence and there's going to be donor states and what are they? beneficiaries, the one this is a get more an the -- than the rest of us. recipients. that's no way to run a health care system. we will lose freedom and this place will become the center of distributing money and distributing power back to groups around the country. this is what we're fighting for. we're fighting for freedom for individuals and for sovereignty back to the states. mr. akin: i appreciate the summary and we're getting close on time. a number of you have come to the same basic position. what we're talking about is freedom. it's a subject of freedom. it's also a subject -- how much time -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. akin: i'll finish up and reclaim some time. go ahead. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy

of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king for 60 minutes. the speaker pro tempore: i think the speaker for -- i shank the speaker for arecognizing me. while we have so many expert here's on health care and health insurance, i ask that any of you that are willing to stay here and continue imparting the knowledge base that you have to continue in this seamless transition into the second hour of the special orders here. turns out that the democrats don't have enough confidence to show up here on the floor and defend their position nor rebut ours. so i would point out something i would add to the equation, that is that first we have the most successful health care system in the world. and it's produced the best results in the world. even though we have the secretary of agriculture who said that cuba had the model for the world, no, it's the united states of america. she got the right hemisphere, it's close to the right

continent but it's the united states of america. by the time you reduce down the numbers of the uninsured that 44 million to 47 million, a number that is arguable and take out of that, those who are illegal, take out of it those who are in transition between health insurance policies and just boil it down to the chronically uninsured, this is according to a study done by two professors at penn state university reproduced by the heritage foundation, it comes back to about 4% of the population is chronically uninsured. yet we wouldup set the entire system of health care in america to try to reduce that 4% number down to, what, 3%? 2%? not even 1% in their wildest aspirations. rather than me venting myself completely on the things i have in my head and heart on this health insurance and health care program, i am looking at a series of established experts. i'd like to yield to the gentleman from missouri to pick

up where he left off on that first hour. mr. akin: thank you, congressman king. i appreciate your love for free enterprise and your willingness to stand up for freedom. we have been joined over the last hour by a number of distinguished doctors, doctors who have given a large portion of their lives to providing good quality health care, doctor roe from tennessee, mr. gingrey just left from dwea, dr. broun from georgia, and they all, of course, know health care far better than a lot of us because they lived it for 30 or 40 years from their -- of their life. but there's something i've lived for about nine years of my life, it's called cancers. people in america, when you hear the word cancer, they call it the big c. when i got here, i waltzed down to the doctor's clinic, i felt bulletproof and fit as a fiddle, barely over 50. they said you're in pretty good shape except for one detail,

you've got prostate cancer. when i hear the big c, cancer, i pay attention to it system of although i'm not a doctor, i've had some experience. one of the sets of number this is a jumped out at me that we didn't talk about, though it was -- mentioned by the gentleman from arizona, congressman shadegg he talked about prostate cancer and breast cancer, but let's generalize the numbers a little bit moring let's talk about survival rates. the democrats want for the sake of 4% of the people who are chronically uninsured, they want to remake the best health care system in the world even though they were throwing rocks at it an hour ago, nobody gos from america to get health care from somewhere else. now what they want to do is turn us into something like canada or england or tennessee that had a bad experience or massachusetts. let's take a look at their track record before we jump too fast off this cliff. let's take a look at the

survival rates of cancer among men. in the united states, 62.9% survival rate. you get diagnosed, 62.9% -- let me get to this other one. look at this one in the u.k. that's your socialized medicine, 44.8%. you're talking b 18% difference in survival rate between these two systems. and we want to move from the u.s. system to be more like canada or the u.k. mr. king: i reclaim my time and yield to the doctor from georgia. mr. broun: i want to clarify this for -- -- for all of us in the house tonight, this is all cancers is that correct? mr. akin: that's my understanding, survival rates of all cancers among men and all cancers among women. as you know, doctor, prostate is

the most common among men, breast, women, but this is the whole deal. mr. broun: that includes lung cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, muscle cancers, bone cancers, blood cancers, etc. that is astonishing, should be astonishing to the american public to look at those values. please tell us about, if the -- mr. king: let me pose a question as you expand on that thought if you're a man, are you better off, or if you're a woman are you better off when it comes to cancer diagnosis? mr. akin: the cancer for women in -- cancer for women, 66.3%, you're better off if you're a woman in the united states than you are if you're a man in the united states. but in the u.k., still the women are 14% worse in terms of cancer. in other words if you're a man

in england, you're really in trouble, that's the worst you can be, a guy in england with cancer. if you're a woman in england with cancer, you're still 14% worse condition for survival rates than in the united states. so in other words, it's 18% worse in england for cancer than it is in the united states. mr. king: if the gentleman would yield, then, if you are a woman in the united kingdom are you worse off than a man in the united states and vice versa? mr. akin: if you're a woman in the united kingdom, you're at 52%, you're a little better off than a man in the united kingdom, but not as good as a man in the united states. mr. king: it is an inappropriate comparison to compare across gender for survival rates. mr. akin: but the point is the government-run health care system is not producing results. it's doing just what our doctors are telling us is happening and

that is that you have all of these mandates in the government that are making it so it can't be effective and of course the place where most of us when you get to be my age, there's a few old geezers here like me, what do you do when you get a government can't afford to pay for the health care? they start to ration care. who are they going to ration it to? the older people. they're going to say, yeah, it's fine, but you don't qualify for this kind of care. you're not enough benefit to society, we're going to cut cut you off. . mr. king: i had a survivor and veteran hand me a stack of magazine that came from 1948 and 1949, in those magazines it was a fascinating thing to read through the yellowing pages of those magazines where they had gone in and written these i want to call them cameo articles on the emerging national health care act of the united kingdom, 1948 and 1949. i remember in the same magazines there was a picture of a g.i.

sitting at the square in berlin where business mark's victory statute in the background of obama's speech there, he was sitting there among the trees with his helmet off eating some k-rations. we are back to just post-world war ii when the united kingdom decided because of the insecurities and they didn't know if their economy was going to collapse, had it had been so burdened they would provide in national health care act that would fix the economy with the same psychology obama has today. magically the crisis that happened the election brought about the necessity that provided the same solutions they advocated before the crisis. the united kingdom they established then the national health care act, and as i read through that, month after month, story after story, cameo appearance after appearance, the same problems that we have today were the problems they had within the first year of establishing that national health care act in the united

kingdom. long lines, rationed care, doctors, and nurses and providers whose compensation had been ratcheted down by the government and the necessity then of increasing their volume to make up for the difference in their compensation. increasing their volume that they spent last time per patient which meant that they were less able to diagnose and care for their patients which brought down the quality of the care and the threat of the rationing that came then was man fested very shortly thereafter. i see the gentleman from michigan has -- i yield. >> i'm listening to your description of the bureaucracy in the u.k. and those kinds of things. i have been paging through this bill and i think we all know i think it was last week that the majority leader said something like if we had to depend on the people who read the bill to vote for it, we wouldn't have very many votes. this is the first time i saw this bill about 15 minutes ago. i'm just paging through it. i yield.

mr. shadegg: the quote by the majority leader is, if every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn't read it in its entirety, i think we would have very few votes. they apparently think we shouldn't read the bills. >> just open it up. before we went through the commissioner shall, shall, shall, says ok he shall do everything and there's not going to be anything left for me. listen to this paragraph. changes in income as a percent of f.p.l. in the case that an individual's income expressed as a percentage of the federal poverty level for a family size -- for a family of the size involved for a plan year is expected in a manner specified by the commissioner to be significantly different from the income as so expressed used under subsection a, the commissioner shall establish rules requiring an individual to report consistent with the mechanism established under paragraph 2 significant changes in such income including a significant change in family

composition to the commissioner and requiring the substitution of such income for the income otherwise applicable. mr. shadegg: excuse me? say what? mr. hoekstra: think of how many bureaucrats it is going to take to interpret that paragraph. mr. akin: how many bureaucrats can dance on the head of a pin? mr. hoekstra: they are going to do ethics standards, accountability performance. federal bureaucrats, guess what? the same people who wrote this bill also they -- their last bill that they wrote was no child left behind. because it says, that as they collect this information, now the secretary, shall identify organizations that are enrolled in the program that have failed to significantly improve. does that sound like no child left behind? like we have in the department of education. what do we have? we have people in the department

of education who don't read anything, who don't know the schools in luddington, michigan, or detroit or ann arbor in michigan and they are identifying them as failing schools. now the federal government is going to go through the process of identifying failing hospitals, failing nursing homes, and failing those if they don't meet federal requirements. it's going to take a lot more bureaucrats. i think we ought to challenge the american people, members of congress may not read it, but they ought to read this thing and see if they understand whether this is going to improve their health care or make it worse. i think they will become ill reading this bill. mr. akin: is there a medicine to treat nausea? mr. king: i would suggest that of all of the 32 czars do we have a czar that deals with this? the failing czar? mr. hoekstra: the czar in this one now i think they have

recognized that the czar is not a popular word. the czar in this bill is called a commissioner. i guess when you get to the 33rd -- i guess we can only have 32 czars. now we are starting to create commissioners and we'll probably have 32 commissioners. then we'll have, what, grand leaders after that. i think we have topped out on czars. mr. king: i happen to remember that the aftermath of the czars was actually the marxism that arrived with the leninism in that period of time. and yes, the commissioners and the list of those people. language makes all the difference. i would like to know how they identify the failing czar or failing commissioner, put that all in his own package. mr. hoekstra: it's identified in here how you will identify the failing czar. mr. king: i'm going to need the cliff notes. mr. hoekstra: this is not plain english. mr. king: that's a lot of pages

ever gobbledygook. i would happy to yield to the gentleman from arizona. mr. shadegg: i thank the gentleman for yielding. we have done a good job of if i laying i think what needs to be if i laid. -- filleted. mr. hoekstra: with the manufacturing of all this paper to print this bill as a member of the energy commission -- committee, would this still be qualified under cap and trade? or is this a violation of cap and trade? mr. shadegg: that actually is woody biomass and there are certain rules how it gets converted into energy. i would really for just a moment like to get serious. we have done a good job here at least -- mr. hoekstra: i was serious. mr. shadegg: i mean deadly serious about an alternative. we get accused of being the party of of no. i hate to repeat that charge, but i just if i were sitting at home tonight i would watch this and say all those republicans are saying that 1,100 pages doesn't make sense.

i got to compliment my colleague from mi m he's done a great job of reading some of the absurdity in that bill. are you sitting at home saying you republicans are just against everything. and i want to point out that's not the case because that bill, hold it up, mr. hoekstra, that bill is not the only health care bill that was introduced in this body today. now, i will admit that the other one that was introduced in this body today is stunningly shorter. it's a fraction of that number of pages. but several of the members in this discussion tonight were co-sponsors of the bill i introduced today called, the improving health care for all americans act. the improving health care for all americans act. it's a simplified bill. it doesn't do top-down command and controlled government edict. all the things mr. hoekstra was reading. what it says is we need bottom upp reform. we need to empower individual americans. let me just take a quick minute

to walkthrough five major concepts in the improving health care for all americans act introduced by a group of republicans today and tell you how it's different than what the democrats want to do. first, we pointed out that the president keeps saying if you like it you can keep it. we pointed out the word of their bill says if you like it you will lose it because it says that in five years every bill that exists today will be gone. because it has to meet the standards written by a new commission. well, our bill, the improving health care for all americans act, the republican bill, says, if you like it, you can keep it. 83% of americans are happy with their health care right now. most of those people get their health care from their employer. our bill says, if you have employer provided health care and you like it, you get to choose, the patient, the employee gets to choose to keep

it. if they choose to keep it, they keep their current tax exclusion. many democrats want to take that tax exclusion away. however, we will not force you to give up your health care. we really mean if you like it you can keep it. that's what's in our bill. second, every american under our bill gets choice and every american gets coverage. how do we do that? the bill says, if you have employer provided coverage and you like it, you keep it. what about people who don't have employer provided coverage? our bill says we are going to give you the right to use your tax dollars if you pay income taxes to buy a policy that you choose. and if you buy a policy of your choice, and you spend $2,500 as an individual, or $5,000 as a family you get a dollar for dollar tax offset. so those people get to buy a policy they like and they can keep it. what about the americans that many people are concerned about?

those who don't pay income taxes. our bill gives them a tax stipend and says here, we are going to provide you the funds to go buy a plan of your choosing. now, that covers every single american. everyone who has employer provided coverage and likes it. everyone who doesn't have employer provided coverage, everyone who has employer provided coverage but doesn't like it. and everyone who can't afford to go out and buy it on their own, we cover every single american. you know what? we didn't put one of them, not one of them into a government program. why didn't we do that? the democrats say let's let the rich people buy their own insurance and put the poor into government programs. that's what we are doing now. we say why not give those who can't afford their own coverage a cash stipend to buy plan they like? why shouldn't they have control over their lives and their health care? and make it respond to them and their demands. so our bill does that. now, you say, and this happened in the last presidential debate, well, you're going to force everybody into the individual

market. and costs are much higher in the individual market. dead wrong. our bill provides new pooling mechanisms and group plan choices for every single american. this is kind of a different concept. right now everybody in america that wants to get into an insurance pool to pool their risk with other people, you know how many pools they can possibly join? one. their employer's pool. that's the only pool you and i are offered. every single one of us on the floor here are offered as a congressman the chance to join our employer's pool. can we join some other's pool? nope. this bill says we are going to let many pools be formed. we are going to let social organizations, we are going to let civic organizations, we are going to let for example, for me the university of arizona alumni association might form a pool and offer a plan. for someone who is a member of the quannies clubs international

we'll lit the quannies -- kwannis clubs international. how about the daughters of the american revolution? why shouldn't they be able to form a pool? we can have lots of different pool so you and i can choose i want to be in the employer's pool or the international pool or the aarp pool or some other kind of pool where my risk is pooled with others. that's the third piece of our bill. and now the one that many democrats are concerned about and it's one of the ones i think we agree, that is pre-existing conditions and chronic conditions. those price lots of people out of the ability to buy health care. do republicans care about that? yes. are we going to force you into something, are we going to pass a mandate like the democrats' mandate? no. what our bill says is that every single american with a pre-existing condition or chronic condition whose health care costs get so high they either can't find a policy or can't afford the policy will be able to join a high-risk pool or

a reinsurance plan, reinsurance mechanism that holds down the cost of their health care even though they have a pre-existing condition to the cost of everyone else's. i mentioned this earlier today. i have an older sister who is a breast cancer survivor. thank god she's a survivor for over 20 years. for years she was forced to keep her teaching job even if she wanted to change jobs because she had a pre-existing condition. her cancer was covered as long as she stayed with her employer. if she left her cancer wasn't covered. under our bill her cancer would have been covered even if she changed jobs. we can control costs in america by empowering patients and consumers. we can reform american health care from the bottom up not command and control from the top down. . mr. king: before we yield over to georgia, i'd like to know

what the fifth point is. i think i had four down. mr. shadegg: the fifth point is, by empowering consumers, giving them the right to buy and own their own health care, if you have a plan offered by your employer, keep it or take the tax credit and buy another plan. empowering everyone else that doesn't have employer-provided plan, that empowering of you and i to take control of our health care back will let us shop for the best quality care at the lowest price, which we can't do right now. right now, it's a third-party system. your employer pick yours plan and your plan picks your dr. the democrat says, that's a terrible, failed system. we should take the employer out and put the government. in how does that make it any bet her what we say is empower individual americans. give them the ability to make their health care chisses and by the way, they'll not only have power and control, but they'll

also have a greater stake and interest in their health care. mr. king: reclaiming my time, just prior to yielding to the gentleman from georgia, i would add that the central philosophy here is the difference between democrats and republicans, liberals ancon servetives, our understanding of human nature and what inspires human nature and the thing this is a fail to inspire human nature. they believe they can create a managed economy, a utopia managed by smart liberals on top who are taking care of the people who can't take care of themselves. we believe the markets drive the best decisions. it's the difference between free enterprise and central command. it's the philosophy that's been laid out by mr. shadegg of arizona. mr. shadegg: you're saying it's their idea of a washington-centered plan, their 1,100 page bill is all washington-centered. if it sunt have a czar, it's got a powerful commissioner, or our idea of a patient-centered plan.

mr. king: driven by the best of human nature. mr. broun: i want to applaud the gentleman's efforts to put this together but i want to oint point out that we as republicans are accused of being the party of no by folks on this other side, the democrats. if i could tell the american people, i can't in the rules of the house, but the republican party is the party of know. we know how to fix things. i congratulate mr. shadegg for putting together an alternative to present to the american public. i'm working on one in my office also that's a little different from mr. shadegg's, but -- and there are other plans being developed on the republican side. we know how to fix it. and to look to the free enterprise system to fix things, and not look to socialism.

which is what our colleagues on the democrat side look to. they look to socialism. they look to central command. they look to a washington bureaucrat to tell us how to run not only health care, but i want to also indicate, we've had plans about a lot of things. we had an energy plan, the american energy act that i was a co-sponsor of, i think probably every one of us here tonight were co-sponsors that would have made america energy independent. we've developed on our republican side plans to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes on small business and creating real jobs. the democrats create a plan with a bigger washington, more bureaucracy, has not worked. where are the jobs. but we had a plan that would have truly created jobs. over and over again, the democrats who claim that we are the party of no, n-o, will only

allow their plan to be presented and see the light of day the floor of this house, that's dictatorship in my opinion. mr. shadegg: i want to make that point more directly, not only do we know how to fix thing, but we are the party of know in another way. i want every republican in this congress wants the american people to know, t-n-o-w, what's in this bill before we pass it. we are being told we have to rush to pass this by, in less than three week the first markup of this bill will ocan cur, i believe, on thushes. it will not conclude until the following wednesday. we have less than a week and a half from that until the august break. the democrats apparently don't want americans to know, k-n-o-w

what's in this bill. i think we are the party of know, i want the american people to know when you consider this is 20% of our economy, it's one in every six jobs, it's shocking we would consider passing such a bill without knowing what's in it. mr. king: reclaiming my time, i think it's clear if this bill sits out over the august break until labor day, they understand the american people will rise up against it. i'd like to yield to the gentleman from louisiana. mr. shah degree: i thank -- mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for yielding. the gentleman's alternative bill, i serve on the energy and commerce committee as well, we'll have a heated debate this should be a debate that allows the different ideas and facts to come out. there's an old a damage that says if you don't learn from the mistakes of history, you're doomed to repeat it.

i think if you go back to january and review the last six months and look at the mistakes made along the way and transpose that to the bill filed today this government takeover of our health care system, you'll see a lot of similarities to the previous mistakes made up until this point. when the president same in in january, his first initiative was the massive so-called stimulus bill, a spending bill. $787 billion, in spending, borrowed money we don't have, must be borrowed against our children, china and other countries will be loaning us this money. this bill was touted as a way to save the economy. the president said we need to do this or else unemployment will reach 8%. today as we stand here and review that bill, as my friend from georgia said, where are the jobs? we know it doesn't create jobs. since president obama took office, two million more americans have lost their jobs. in the meantime the stimulus bill is starting to have its effects on our economy because

you're starting to see the beginnings of inflation because of all of this borrowing. you're also seeing the fact that this bill is clearly not work, not only all of us who voted against the bill and proposed an alternative and the president who vowed to be so bipartisan would not work with republicans to take some of the ideas we had, ideas to actually empower americans and allow small businesses to hire people, give tax relief to small businesses and families that are struggling out there. the president didn't want to approach those ideas. he wanted this one size fits all government-run program, spend more money, $800 billion, now just last week, his own vice president said, this plan, they misread the economy. then the president himself is going around say, first he's saying that he wouldn't do anything differently on the stimulus bill and he said the sim ulous -- stimulus bill is working according to plan. now i'm not sure what plan he had, but two million more people out of work from the day he took office, unemployment approaching

10%, he said that's the plan that's working. mr. king: he said what? mr. scalise: he said he wouldn't do anything differently and it was working according to plan? mr. king: he was planning on 9.5% unemployment? mr. scalise: clearly he was. he and his vice president are saying, not only that it's working, but they're thinking about doing a second stimulus. here are people admitting they misread the economy, everyone acknowledged the stimulus isn't work, they're talking about doing another stimulus to help unemployment. mr. akin: i have to interrupt, i remember we were promised, if we don't pass the stimulus bill, we're going to see unemployment

over 8%. and so, of course we didn't vote for it but they passed the stimulus bill and now we've got 9.5% or whatever it is, unemployment. mr. gingrey: it's 14% in many of my counties in georgia. mr. akin: this is part of the plan? maybe we shouldn't have passed that. mr. scalise: i'd like to say that wasn't the worst of it. mr. king: i'd like to point out the 9.5% unemployment rate equate into real people, that's 14.5 million that are unemployed. when you add to those that are looking for a job that are exhausting their unemployment benefits, another 6.8 million or 6.9 million people. you round that down to 20 million people looking for a job in america, that's the stimulus plan in america. mr. akin: your 20 million people are the number of people, almost

that don't have health insurance. so now we've created 20 million unemployed through this wonder of economic this is a tissue this keynesian economic -- through this keynesian economics, they say if there's a spending spree, everybody will be doing great. mr. king: by the time you take it down to the chronically uninsured, according to a couple of professors at penn state, 27 million chronically uninsured, a little less than 4% of the population of the united states of america. mr. broun: this health care bill is going to put more people out of work. more people are going to be unemployed. and it's going to hurt the economy even more. which is going to mean more cost to the american taxpayer. taxes are going to go up, the cost of health care is going to skyrocket. mr. king: if the gentleman from georgia, reclaiming my time, i pose the question back to the panel that's here of the

experts, this was president obama's economic development plan this economic crisis that we're in commands that we establish a socialized medicine program so the gentleman who has lived for that, excuse me, the gentleman who has lived with that in tennessee, the doctor from tennessee, dr. roe, if you could tell us what you learned in tennessee with the plan similar to that that occur ma has proposed. mr. roe: we have been over that previously, but a couple of things i wanted to bring out, this is from the c.b.o. this afternoon, they scored the bill we're looking at, after we have this monstrous government takeover, in 10 years we still have 17 million people uninsured. i mean, it's astonishing to me we would look at a bill like this and still have almost half the people uninsured with the government then making health care decisions. one of the things we were talking about, cancer, a moment ago, i think what we want to say

is, and i think the gentleman from arizona has hit it right on the head, you need to have patients in charge of their health care decisions. when i began my practice in the early 1970's, 80% of children who went to st. jude's children's hospital died of their childhood cancers, 80% died. today, over 80% lived. almost all of children with leukemias live now. it's unbelievable. that's happened in the last 35 or 40 years. when i began my medical practice, almost half of the women who came to me with breast cancer, and we saw all too many of those, died within five years. survival rates now are in the high 90's. it's astonishing. it's a wonderful story, when a patient comes in, they're frightened you mention how scary that was was when you're diagnosed with cancer but to know you're going to get through it, that's what this phenomenal health care system in america

has produced. what is amazing to me is we're going to have this bill that's a thousand plus, that's the start of it, will leave that many people uninsured. we heard here tonight a way to do it a much better way, a simpler way from the ground up. let me give you one other example. very simple in my own medical practice back in tennessee. we have 290 something people get health insurance through our practice. we have two plans, one is standard blue cross plan, 80/20 we're all familiar with. the other is a health savings account, high deductible plan, you have the first $5,000 out of pocket you pay for that we put $4,200 away for that. everything above $45,000 is paid 100%. 84 pk of the people in that practice, nurses, technicians, whatever, chose to manage their own health care dollars. not the insurance company, but them. they'll lose this ability with this.

that's a plan i used and people all over the country want to be in charge of their health care decisions, not the government. i yield back. mr. king: i'm watching the gentleman from michigan reading thru the thousand-plus page bill here with this exemplary model of comprehension, -- of concentration, what have you learned since the last time you imparted some knowledge? . mr. hoekstra: this is an amazing bill. we talked about the creation of this commissioner who will have the power to implement much of what is in here. you start reading it and you really can't understand it because it's not written in plain english. although in the bill there is a requirement that stuff be written in plain english. then you start getting into the penalties and the fines and payments for people who don't meet certain regulations or certain requirements. i haven't gotten to the tax part yet, but i -- as i have been briefed on this program throughout the day, i think we

all recognize that this massive new free health care from the government is not going to be free. it's going to cost us a lot of money. there is a lot of stuff in here about the authorities of the i.r.s. and what the i.r.s. can do. then you start getting into here and you start reading what services are included, which ones are excluded, and those types of things. what you recognize is we are going to see the same thing on cap -- on this bill we saw on cap and trade. remember what happened on cap and trade? there was a 900-page bill that passed out of your committee and late thursday night, early friday morning when they didn't have the votes -- mr. shadegg: 3:09 in the morning. mr. hoekstra: they added about this many more pages to the bill. mr. king: 316 pages. mr. hoekstra: to get to 219 votes. nobody knew what was in it. are you going to see the same

thing here. this bill cannot get 218 votes because this bill will be out there for the american people to read for the next couple of weeks. but don't worry the night before it will be changed and there will be 400 new pages at least buying off members' votes to get something into this bill, to get to 219. and that's how we are going to construct health care reform in america. mr. shadegg: if the gentleman would yield. i just want to say i compliment the gentleman and he asked me to go this information. i have gotten it. for any american who wants to read the bill as it exists tonight, which as my colleague from michigan has just pointed out will change, probably at 3:09 in the morning on the day we vote on it, you can go to the energy and commerce committee website, and download or read the bill yourself. to get there you go to www.

energycommerce, the word energy, then with no space the word commerce, dot house dot gov. you will then see an icon that says quality affordable health care act. if you click on that icon you yourself can download those 1,100 pages and enjoy reading it the way my colleague from michigan has enjoyed reading it and some of the bizarre things in it. mr. hoekstra: if you click on that icon, your computer will crash. i thank my colleague for getting that information for us. thank you. mr. king: reclaiming my time. appreciating the factual information that will i think rather than -- could put a person to sleep cause insomnia if anybody reads this. i appreciate the effort to do so. it can be a selfless act of intellectual scholarship patriotism to read some of this, but i have heard enough of the

gobbledygook that came out of it that the requirement that it be and required to be in plain english catches me a little off balance having heard the language in the bill. not having read it. i yield to the gentleman from missouri. mr. akin: i think that we have had a chance a little bit to take a look and i think in a constructive way to lampoon this method of doing business. we already saw the 1,100, or 1,200-page bill and 300 page amendments at 3:00 in the morning. all this kind of gobbledygook and equivalent of a czar to take over 20% of our economy which is health care. yet the fact of the matter are those of us standing here and we can do this a little bit with a sense of humor almost crying at the same time, know that there are some very plain english principles which we have all seen that make health care work. things that we all stand for and believe in. we believe in the fact that

there should be a relationship between a doctor and a patient. and the bureaucrat shouldn't get in the way. i think an awful lot of americans believe in that, too. i think that those of us standing in this chamber tonight believe in the fact that we don't want some government bureaucrat rationing our health care. and telling us we are too old and that it's too expensive for us. we would rather have a competitive system and let us see what we can buy with our own dollars rather than having a bureaucrat rationing our health care. there are other things we believe in. the gentleman has introduced another bill he didn't talk about tonight. my good friend from arizona. and that's a bill that says that you can go shopping for health care. what it does is it prevents any health care provider from cornering some section of the market. it says you can buy your health care from across state lines. if a kk -- health care provider

-- insurance provider wants to allow you to buy the insurance, can you go to a different place to get that. we create legitimate competition in the marketplace. what we have always stood for is freedom. and what is being proposed here is the same rubber-stamped baloney we see all the last six months. it is more taxes and more bureaucracy. the solution to every problem to a liberal is more taxes and more bureaucracy. the only thing is it's escalating. this is a $1.5 trillion worth of taxes that's going to be required to make this work. and there's no idea anybody has how are they going to come up that? there goes more deficit. there are plain english things that make health care work. and to try to destroy the best health care system in the world with this bureaucratic stuff is a travesty.

it's really wrong. mr. king: reclaiming my time. when the gentleman refers to plain english principles, we aren't talking about the united kingdom principles of a national health care act. we are talking about the things we understand in the language which we refer to as the plain english language we all should understand. i yield back to the gentleman for a response to that. mr. akin: that's right. what we are talking about here, though, is if you get it done late enough at night and nobody has a chance to read it, you can sneak it by. that's not a principle that americans should be proud of. we heard an awful lot about transparency but we have seen none of transparency. all we have seen is dark of the night back deal rooms and more taxes, more regulations, more bure crass, and this -- bureaucracy, and this one threatens the lives and lively hoods of our constituents. mr. king: reclaiming my time. there's a philosophy here again,

this twiding -- dividing philosophy between the people that are right on the right side of the political spectrum and the people wrong on the left side of the political spectrum. i remember when the wall went down in november 9, 1989. the iron curtain came crashing down. it came crashing down because free enterprise trumped central planning in the five-year plan. the difference is because we are in the business of seeking to enhance and improve the overall annual average productivity of every american, if we do that, our economy thrives. and when our economy thrives, our quality of life goes up in proportion to the way our economy thrives. that's the part of human nature that's at the core of the difference in this philosophy. and they, the people who don't show up down here to carry on this debate because they cannot carry out this debate in the face of the logic and plain english that they are faced with, they believe in central planning. they believe they can put together a plan and a model and

the inside that will tell everybody what to do at every moment and there will be a rule written and law written and some contingency plan for everything that might go wrong, and somehow they can put together the master utopian formula that's going to improve and strengthen -- actually the plan is to strengthen them politically not improve the lives in america so much. but their idea has failed because they don't believe in human nature being competitive, and they don't believe that there is goodness in the heart of of all of us as well as evil in the heart of all of us. we legislate against the evil and enhance the goodness. they just simply say the reason people don't succeed is because conservatives got in their way. that's the cynical approach. i yield first to the gentleman from georgia and back to arizona. mr. broun: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i want to point out something in plain english as mr. akin was just doing, we hear on the house floor here over and over again there are 45 million or 47

million people that don't have health care in this country. that's false. it's a blatant falsehood. that's been perfect pet waited on the floor -- perpetuated on the floor of this house. everybody in this country has access to health care. the question is where do they get it? who pays for it? at what cost? the reason everybody in this country has access to health care is because they walk into any emergency room in this country and under federal law the emergency room has -- emergency room doctor has to evaluate and essentially treat everybody who walks in. that's the reason if you walked in the emergency room in augusta, georgia, or athens, or any place in my district you'll see the emergency room filled with illegal aliens. who are going there, the taxpayers of america are paying for their health care in the hospitals, and the hospitals are getting to the point where they can't continue it. it's because of federal law that they have to treat these illegal

aliens. so everybody has access to health care. so we really are talking about two things in this health care debate. not one, not monolithic. we have health care system and the provision of health care on one side. which is absolutely the very best in the world. and we have health care financing on the other hand that is broken. we'll all agree health care financing is broken. but it's broken because of government and government regulation and government intrusion into the health care system. they want to make more intrusion into the system which is going to make it more expensive. it's going to raise taxes on everybody in this country. it's going to raise the cost of every single goods and service in this country because it's going to be mandated to all businesses so they are going to have to charge more for their goods and services so everything's going to go up, our economy's going to go down. i can see the headlines a few years from now.

the headlines, obama lied, the economy is dead. that's a potential that we have with this health care system. it's absolutely critical the american public understand that it's going to be extremely expensive. it's going to increase cost to everybody. and it's going to raise taxes on small business so people are going to be put out of work because of this plan that's been introduced today. i yield back. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from georgia and the references made to the health care providers that have dropped out, gone out of business, or failed to expand or diminish their operations because of having to provide free health care to let me say free health care to illegals. i'm thinking of the gentleman from arizona that i think of arizona whenever i think of losing access to health care because of having to provide free health care to illegals. and a time i stopped down in an unannounced surprised visit in

arizona at the port of entry, there as i was talking to the shift supervisor whose name i remember and decline to put in the congressional record, he got a call on his cell phone. i have to take care of something. i'll come back. he took care of it and came back and said you're going to see a mexican ambulance across the border. i already called u.s. ambulances to come down and do the handoff. and i have called the dustoff to come -- he said life flight to come and pick up this patient who has been knifed in a knife fight in mexico and this ambulance, they won't take care of him. so we are going to do that. i had a pair -- i had a medical officer with me and i asked him to look in on this and see what can you do to save this fellow's live. it turned out to be there this. they came across the border. the ambulance had no oxygen norks medical equipment in it. it only had a little bit of gauze and surblingical gloves and that was it. the u.s. ambulances showed up.

put oxygen on him and we loaded him in the help earn flew him off. i went to visit him in the tuneson university hospital the next day. he survived. it cost us $30,000 but it caused me to sit down with the c.f.o. who told me that it cost them an annual average of $14.5 million to provide health care there for illegals and that tucson university is the most sorely trauma center in all of arizona and that a bus full of illegals had been wrecked near tucson and in it were 25, 15 went in to intensive care, their i.c. unit was tied up. so they had the people from tucson that paid their premiums were taken up to phoenix where their family had to drive up there to visit the patients. that's what i saw. the man that represents a good chunk of arizona and knows it for a fact, i would be happy to yield to the gentleman, mr. shadegg. mr. shadegg: i just want to reiterate this point. republicans are here for a cause. we believe in something.

we believe in bringing down the cost of health care in america. the president has said those costs are unsustainable and they are. republicans here for the cause, our cause is to help families and businesses get a hold of their health care costs and bring them down. . but here's how we want to do it. we want to do it through patient-centered health care. it offers the best way that reduce health care costs. the old washington, d.c., centered topdown approach that democrats envision will empower bureaucrats in this city. and those bureaucrats will restrict cures, restrict treatments and get between you and your doctor. the washington-centered system will cost trillions more and they admit it. that's the price tag on their bill. the president sees the problem

but he's got the solution wrong. they want a washington-centered plan. we want a patient-centered reform. they want a washington-centered experiment. we want simple commonsense fixes. they want a closed health care system. where washington bureaucrats make the decisions. we want an open health care system where you and i, patients, people, average americans get to make those decisions. we want bottom up, empower americans, patient centered. they want top down, bureaucrat driven. the political artificial cost reductions they want about won't happen. if we embauer a big washington-run monopoly won't work. -- -- if we empower a big washington--run monopoly, it won't work. if you believe that americans should be empowered from the

bottom up, not told what to do from the top down, then help us. and don't let this plan pass. help republicans pass a plan, a simple plan that will help american families and american businesses. mr. king: and reclaiming my time. and i thank the gentleman from arizona. i just think about when i listen to you talk, i think that's the most inspiring dialogue that's floated out in the last hour and a half or two hours. and i think of hundreds of millions of individual americans who are addressing their own individual health care issues and their health insurance issues, knowing their particular problems, knowing their cash flow, knowing what the options are and making informed decisions each one individually or as a family, working in conjunction often with an employer who has a series of policies out there that can be offered, that individual, having faith in individuals, as compared to a one-size-fits-all plan that

competes directly against the private sector and takes away that individual initiative and puts us down into this thing they would call the safety net of government which clearly has a lot of holes in it and has in every government that's tried to produce that plan. i'd be happy to yield to the gentleman from tennessee, the one who's illustrated the tenncare issue and also his professional expertise as a doctor. mr. roe: i thank the gentleman for yielding. this is very simply what's going to happen, what will occur in a government-run plan? it will cost you two times. that's what happened in tennessee in our tenncare plan. the way these plans work is they ultimately ration care. when you have a certain amount of dollars thaw spend on health care and you exceeded, the demand is higher, you create weights. just as an example in canada. for a hip replacement it's two to three years to get your hip replaced. bypass surgery is 117 days.

four here in this country. george washington university or georgetown, it will be done very quickly. so those are things that happen in a government-run plan. who needs to be making health care decisions are families, patients and their physicians, that's who should be making those decisions. mr. hoekstra: are you telling me if someone breaks their hip in canada it's not going to take two to three years? mr. roe: it's elected surgery. mr. king: it isn't true for all canadians and i say even though there's a law in canada that prohibits one from jumping ahead in the line or having a policy or a plan that gives them presentation treatment they want -- preference treatment, they -- preferential treatment, they have an avenue to better health care even though the law says not, that's when the canadians.

mr. hoekstra: if the gentleman will yield for just a minute? mr. king: i'll yield to the gentleman from michigan, because i know you're on the border. mr. hoekstra: the canadians escape to the american system. you know, some of our busiest hospitals are those along the border. so the canadians that have the resources and at the bottom of the line, what they will do is jump the border and they will come and get their health care in the united states. mr. broun: will the gentleman yield? mr. hoekstra: yeah. mr. broun: i heard just recently of a patient in canada who had such severe knee pain that he was having to take narcotics. it took him over one year just to go see an orthopedic surgeon. if a patient comes to see me and has knee pain, i'll pick up the telephone and call an orthopedic surgeon and get him within a week or two. it took a knee for a man to evaluate his knee pain.

when he finally saw the orthopedic surgeon, the doctor said, well, you need this surgery. and the canadian said, well, that's fine, let's schedule it. he said, no, we have to put you on the waiting list. i don't know if he came to one of your dirict, a hospital, but he came to the u.s. to get surgery done on his knee. that's what the government program is going to do to the americans. but where will they go if they put this in place? mr. hoekstra: reclaiming your time given to me but this "wall street journal" article says access to a waiting list is not access to health care. waiting lists is what i hear all the time when i talk to our friends across the border. but what i hear from the medical professionals and the hospitals in michigan is we treat the well-to-do canadians who will come across the border

and access our health care because they're unwilling to be on a waiting list, and they recognize that being on a waiting list isn't having your problem taken care of. if you have to wait for, what did you say, 117 days or 171 days -- mr. roe: 117 days. mr. hoekstra: 117 days for a bypass, that's 112 or 113 days too long. mr. roe: 116 for me. mr. hoekstra: if it were me i would say 116 days too long. same thing for a hip replacement and all of that. the american health care will fundamentally change if this goes into effect. mr. king: reclaiming my time in the brief moment we have left. i want to make the point if the canadians were protected by constitutional rights that we have as americans, they would be protected because it's cruel and inhuman to ask the canadians to give up on their access to good health care here in the united states of america. and there are -- you can go on

the website and you can find companies in canada that have been formed by entrepreneurs that turnkey the package. if you need a hip replacement in canada, you can find a company that will set you up and say, here's your flight to seattle or detroit or wherever it might be or maybe houston for heart surgery, here's the surgeon, here's the hotel, here's the -- mr. hoekstra: we can take all of this -- we can take care of this in michigan. we have great doctors and hospitals who are ready, willing and able to serve. i appreciate the leniency of the chair to make sure that i can get this paid public announcement in for the state of michigan. mr. king: well, let me conclude by saying that this is care and inhuman to canadians and i yield back the balance of my time and thank my colleagues for being here tonight. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr.

rohrabacher, for 60 minutes. mr. rohrabacher: mr. speaker, mr. speaker, as i stand here on the floor of the house tonight and after hearing this fine presentation and thinking about all the things that are going on in washington right now, i am reminded of the television series "the twilight zone." these days i have expect rod sterling to appear from behind a curtain and announce that this is the twilight zone. well, yes, there's almost a bizarre sense of unreality here in the nation's capital. the transformation of private liability into public debt on a massive scale. the unprecedented level of deficit spending, debt piled upon debt, borrowing from china in order to give foreign aid to other countries, enacting

draconian restrictions and controls on a national economy and on the lives of our people in order to stop the planet from going through a climate cycle. what? the earth's had so many climate cycles in the past and now it's being used, the one we're in, which is very little different than any of the other cycles we've been in, it's been used to justify economy killing and freedom killing controls, taxes and mandates and putting power in the hands of international bodies that should be the power of the people of the united states to run their own life. our nation's borders leak like a spaghetti strainer. millions of people illegally continuing to pour into our country to consume limited health care, education and other social service dollars and, yes, to take jobs away from our people and in some cases to commit crimes against

our people. our government just lets it happen. we can't even build a darn fence, and we've had a one-way free trade policy with china that has all but killed medium and large-scaled manufacturing in our country and which has regulated our own people to low-paying jobs and sent trillions of dollars to communist china. no one has even suggested a change in that obviously rotten policy. if for nothing else to give our economy a little boost. instead, we beg the gangster regime that runs china to loan us even more money, money they accumulated because of a trade policy that has been monster ousley counterproductive to the -- monstrously counterproductive to a one-way free trade policy. and that's not the only counterproductive policy which has brought our economy to its knees.

needlessly suffering high energy prices, our people are suffering high energy prices needlessly. there are dollars being sivende off and deposited -- siphonned off and deposited overseas -- some of these rich foreigners are receiving all of these dollars which we have to spend to buy energy, some of these foreigners hate us. and while that -- and while what little money we have goes to buying foreign oil, massive domestic deposits of oil and gas worth trillions of dollars are left untouched, untapped and unused. off the west coast, huge caverns of valuable oil and gas are sitting there unused even as california sinks into an economic abyss and public services are cut back or canceled. trillions of dollars sent

overseas for energy while at home no new oil refineries, no hydroelectric dams, no nuclear power plants. we are told, of course, you have to rely on solar only to find out that radical environmentalists in the name of protecting the habitat of insects and lizards are blocking the building of solar plants in the desert. we can't even build an aqua duct in california because of a tiny fish, the delta smelt, so our people will suffer because of concern over a worthless little fish that's not even good enough to use as bait. people are beginning to suffer in the central valley for lack of water. there's no water for the crops. there's just about enough water for them so they don't have a job and they can't pay for food. water prices are going up for tens of millions of californians in southern california taking even more

money out of our pockets, further undermining our people's ability to pay for their basic essentials. yet, with all of this just a few weeks ago congress voted not to help our suffering people and move forward with water production but to protect that damn little fish. well, then on top of it all, last year in the name of preventing economic calamity, congress was stampeded into giving away trillions of dollars, much of it to -- well, nobody knows really who did get all of that money. we provided hundreds of billions to the financial industry, fat cats who've been giving themselves bonuses even as they drove their own companies into the ground. well, i'd rather spend the money on lizards than on that bunch. and here we are facing an economic crisis and even after all of these mind-boggling

giveaways we still face the same economic crisis. and those mind-boggling giveaways of trillions of dollars which we are now going to have to pay the interest on because it is now debt that is owed by the american people, this may well have made the situation worse and more damaging and elongated our economic hardship. all i say, it's all a bit bizarre. but if we are to pull our country out of this, we need to mobilize and activate our people. . it's time not to give up but to bung and stand up. with all that's facing us, let's not forget americans have an inherent resilience. we have met and overcome great challenges in our past. the puments were, of course, in the right place in those days. our people were strong and had a culture of self-reliance. our leaders had more courage,

common sense, and perhaps integrity than today's bunch. our freedom was our greatest asset. it was intact yet to be eroded by decades of federal expansion of our government into areas that it was never meant to go. our constitution was once revered. that more than anything else kept america on the right track. our constitution and the rights it incorporated. one of the actually protected rights often overlooked was key to the success of our country. helping us overcome hard times and ensuring the well-being and safety of our people. protecting this right is essential if we are to turn around the economic decline that we are now suffering. and it is this right and the efforts being made in congress to undermine it that is the subject of my speech tonight. that little recognized but immensely important fundamental right is the specific protection

provided in our constitution to america's innovators, creative citizens, and free thinkers and to every person with a new way of approaching a problem or getting the job done or making a system just a little bit more efficient. article 1, section 8 of that great document, the u.s. constitution, states that, and i quote, congress shall have the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for a limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries, end of quote. significantly the word right only appears once in the body of the constitution, and that is in article 1, section 8 which i just read. it was in place, that word, the right was in place even before the bill of rights was added to the constitution. which suggests these economic rights were believed to be as vital to the future of our country as were the other rights that were protected -- freedom of religion, the rights of

speech and assembly. our technological genius and the laws consistent with the intent of the constitution which was protecting and promoting that genius accomplished what they were intending to accomplish. it has been america's technological edge flowing from that fundamental legal protection that has permitted our people to enjoy the highest standards of living in the world and allowed our people a level of of opportunity which gave common people the chance to live decent lives and to control their own destiny. it has provided the technology needed to defeat tyranny and keep our people safe from foreign armies and terrorists. technology and freedom go together, our founding fathers knew this. it is also true of technology and prosperity. it's not just hard work that built america. people around the world work hard and so many of those people who work so hard live in abject

poverty. but when coupled with technology and, yes, freedom, that hard work produces vast amounts of wealth. even while easing the burden on the working people themselves. benning lynn franklin, thomas jefferson, george washington, and others all of our founding fathers were not only people who believed in freedom, but they were people who also believed in technology and the potential genius of the american people. by the way, jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence, was also the first head of our country's patent office. as our founding fathers wanted, we have had the strongest protection of patent rights of any country in the world. and that is why in the history of all humankind there has never been a more innovative or creative people. it didn't just happen. it happened because our constitution and our founding fathers saw to it that our law protected the ownership of one's intellectual creations. americans led the way in

uplifting humankind's quality of life and giving average americans the opportunity to prosper and enjoy life. who created the american dream? are people who worked hard. but also our inventors who gave them the technology they needed to do their job better than ever before. that's how highly paid people were able to outcompete large numbers of lowly paid people. america's goal was to build a country where all of us, not just the elite, could have a wonderful life and could live in prosperity. eli whitney invented the cotton gin. he also invented interchangeable parts for manufacturing. how did that change america? how did it change the world? ordinary people had clothes and jobs thanks to eli whitney and the american constitution that encouraged and protected his genius. cyrus mccormack invented the reaper. before that farmer workers had to carry heavy tools and work themselves to death.

it was all based on human strength and not the strength of a ma sheefpblet with the invention of the reaper ordinary people, farmers and laborers had better lives and lived longer lives. and stomachs that were filled with an abundance of food. samuel morris invented the telegraph tested right here in this very building, the congress of the united states, and from it came of course alexander graham bell's telephone and then there was thomas edison who invented the light bulb and so many other inventions that uplifted the life of ordinary people. these were not just accidents. these creative people were able to flourish under a system of constitution protection that is were superior to any other such protections anywhere in the world. perhaps the epitome of the little guys who with freedom accomplished greatness. with the two fellows who owned a bicycle shop in ohio, the wright brothers. these two very ordinary americans ended up inventing something just a little more than 100 years a -- ago that

changed the forever. they were told 1 n 10 years ago that what they sought to create was impossible. with limited resources and protected by our robust patent system, they took humankind from its feet planted firmly on the ground and sent us soaring into the air and then into the heavens. just two ordinary americans, the wright brothers. one segment of our population, americans, black americans, have been prolific inventors, men like jan mets linger a. former slave who invented a machine used in shoe manufacturing. it was him who protected by a patent who brought down the cost of shoes for an entire population. before this man made his invention and put it to work in the shoe industry, most americans had one pair of shoes for their entire life. there's also george washington carver and so many more black americans. why? because in that era when blacks were discriminated against, we

actually protected the rights of technology ownership of black inventors. thus they excelled when the rights were protected. and america and the world was better for it. our technological superiority provided us with prosperity that has also kept us safe. we cannot match the tyrants anti-gangsters man-for-man because they don't care if they lose theirwn people. we must beat down our competitors and our enemies with superior technology or we will lose and our people will suffer as a result. bad policies put us in our current economic crisis. tonight i warn of a huge policy shift that's making its way through this twisted legislative path into law. if the legislation i am warning about tonight passes in both houses of congress and is signed into law, the legal protections for our innovators and innovations that have made such a difference in america will be greatly diminished if not

destroyed. so take this as a fellow patriot sounding the alarm. tonight i would like to speak about something that would be devastating another awesome threat yet there is a blase attitude here and one would think this is just a minor if not irrelevant issue. the fundamental changes being proposed in our patent law will have a huge impact on or lives and will dramatically alter the lives ever our children for the worst. tonight i seek to alert my fellow americans just how significant this issue is to their jobs and their prosperity and, yes, their safety. the so-called patent reform act of 2009, h.r. 1260, is a bill that is not new to these halls. it is nearly duplicative of legislation that has been introduced time and again. each time a small group of

patriots and i'm proud to have been among them, has managed to defeat the multinational corporations behind this legislative lune icy. but -- lunacy. they keep coming back. they have deep pockets. here we go again. the same fight over nearly the same bill. but if we lose it just once, the fundamental protections of our technology rights will be lost forever. there is no going back if we lost because this is an attempt to tie us, we the american people, to international commitments rather than to constitutional protections. stick with me on this. america's economic adversaries are engaged in a systematic attack on our well-being. and thus they have noticed one of the strongest and most important elements of our country's success has been the patent protection enjoyed by our people. that is what this so-called patent reform is all about.

it is not reform. but it is about the destruction of our basic system which has served us so well. this crime in progress is being pushed by huge multinational corporations with little or no loyalties to our country or our people. the justification for this attack on our patent system as i say a patent system that has served us well, well, the justification the proponents claim our patent system is so different that it must be harmonized with the rest of the world. get this. we have to weaken the protection of our technology ownership rights to our harmonize our laws with the rest of the world. our laws are in fact substantially different. so harmonization means dramatic changes in our system. in the end that will change the lives of our people. and the change will be for the

worse. the corporate elitist pushing this consider themselves globalists. they are not watching out for us. in this battle over so-called patent reform, their goal is not reforming but diminishing the legal protections for americans, for american inventors. this in the name of harmonizing with the rest of the world our inventors will be made vulnerable to those who would rob them and thus rob america of the advantage that gives -- that we have been given due to this strong patent protection. this is what gives us the advantage, our technological advantage against overseas competition. that will be taken from us. if america is to be prosperous, if we are to be secure in the future, we must take on our own corporate elites who would change the rules to our

desstriment but perhaps to their short-term gain. those playing the sinister game are of course not saying that they are out to destroy the patent system. well, they act aghast when confronted with this suggestion. but there a -- from a distance it is clear. here's an article in the china intellectual property news about last year's legislation that as i say is a bill that will almost totally myrrh record the current bill that's going through congress. almost the same bill. this analysis was written by a former senior judge and deputy presiding judge, two of them, of the intellectual property division of beijing's high people's court who i now quote. the bill is friendlier to the infringers than to the patentees in general as it will make the patent less relibel, easier to be challenged, and cheaper to be

infringed. it is not bad news for developing countries which have fewer patents, end ever quote. and then when asked why he asks the authors who are authoring this article asks, why is it that the united states is making it easier to violate the intellectual property rights of our people while at the same time we are trying to convince china and others to respect the intellectual property rights of americans? he asks that question. now that's from a senior chinese scholar about the legislation that we stopped last year and that legislation was almost the same as what we are facing this year. certainly none of his criticisms are different for this year's bill than what they were for last year's bill. mr. speaker, it's estimated that the u.s. economy loses $250 billion a year from global intellectual property theft and that does not take into account

the jobs that are are lost here when china and other countries steal and use our technology to compete with our own companies and punt our own people out of work. . that loss is billions and billions more. now, that's under current law. they're able to steal that and use our technology against us. that's not under the watered-down system that will result from the so-called reform bill that's now being considered here on capitol hill. this time we are trying to change our laws so that it will make it easier for foreigners to steal our technology and use it against us. yet, those pushing the so-called patent reform legislation are making our innovators and research industries even more vulnerable to such blatant theft even

though we are in a time of economic hardship. foreign firms in india and china and elsewhere are getting ready to pounce. when looking at the general state of america's patent system, and that's what we're doing tonight, we need to admit, and i will fully admit, there are lots of flaws in our patent system and, yes, there are problems in our patent system that need to be addressed. we hear of horror stories concerning companies that are tied up for years in court. we hear about examiners who are undertrained and overworked, and that's absolutely true. they aren't getting the training they need and they are not getting the pay they deserve. there are delays and our innovators could use some help in protecting themselves from foreign thieves and infringers. so we have got some problems with our patent system that need to be addressed, but that has nothing to do with h.r. 1260, the bill now making its

way through congress. everyone assumes that a bill entitled patent reform would be doing that, would be correcting the problems of the patent system. the title of this bill is so fraudulent that if it were a product it would be banned from the market for making false claims. this bogus reform bill has visited us before, as i say. it's come before. we've had these same multinational megacorporations trying to undermine the patent system. we've seen it time and again. but if it ever passes once we can never get these rights back. a similar one was beaten back a dozen years ago as well as another one a year ago. the same crowd that was behind those inventors' nightmares is being hind this year's anti--- is behind this year's

anti-inventor foray. they are national electronics companies with no allegiance to americans or america. let me just note that in some of these companies, for example, have had situations in china where they ended up working with the chinese dictatorship utilizing their computer systems to track down dissidents and to stamp out people who are struggling for freedom in that country. on our side -- so that's the people who are trying to reform america's patent system. on our side, well, we are just a rag tag group of legislative insurgents trying to stop this incredible change to the fundamental rights of our people. marcy kaptur, congresswoman on the other side of the aisle and a fine friend and a wonderful member of congress, with little help from steny hoyer, now leader on the other side of the aisle, along with don manzullo

and tom campbell of california and myself and just a few others, we were able to fight that good fight over the years. but no one thought we had a chance because we didn't have any of the big money behind us. we didn't have these multinational corporations. we didn't have the high priced lobbyists who go to the judiciary committee year after year giving donations to the members of the judiciary committee in order to get this bill out in the form they want. no one thought that we had a chance because they had already laid the foundation with all of their campaign donations and all of their influence in washington. well, so we were told even though -- before it was brought up, forget it. we were labeled this trojan horse legislation, this anti-pat anti-legislation, we labeled it the steal american technologies act. again, it wasn't -- these bills that we defeated in the past are not that much different

than what we have before us today. well, that steal american technologies act, that label stuck and it worked. with a little help from talk radio and then also confirming that democracy really works, david beat goliath. yes, we, the small group of independent members of the house working together on both sides of the aisle, we won, and that means the american people won. clearly by the outcome this wasn't a democrat or a republican issue. it was an american issue. the patriots beat the globalists. now, we have another attempt very similar to the ones we have beaten in the past is being made now, it's working its way through the system in the name of harmonizing american patent law with the

rest of the world. it's still here. we defeated it in the years past. if we don't win this time all of these patent rights that we've enjoyed will be lost forever because they're trying to tie this in to international agreements rather than the u.s. constitution. but as i said, when they come back, the big companies that were pushing this have deep pockets and they're able to come back. but we who opposed it need to support the american people if we are to win this battle with goliath this year. so here we go again. it's h.r. 1260. people should remember that number. it is the son of the steal american technologies act. it contains all of those provisions that we hated so much. that bill has already passed through the united states

senate. it should be considered a primary threat to our freedom at this moment. the globalists, the corporate thieves and the looters behind this bill are intent to get it through and they will not give up. they must be defeated instead. and that won't happen on its own. those of us who are fighting the battle we here in the house and the senate, we must act in coordination with the american people. the american people need to get involved or we lose. what are some of the specifics that back up my charge that this bill undermines patent protection rather than reforms the system as we are told? well, this first glaring issues is that the bill changes a fundamental concept that has always been part of american patent law which is differentiated from the other patent laws from around the world, and that one element, the most important concept is that it is the person who

actually invents something who is the one who will get the patent and have the rights of ownership of that technology. the one who actually invents something. other countries have patents that are based on who managed to file for a patent first. in other words, who got to the paperwork, who could hire the lawyer, who managed to bribe the official or managed to understand the deadlines better, not who invented the technology, who filed the paperwork first. and this is as compared to our system where people who actually invent new technology have the right to own it. the legislation now making its roy through congress changes our current system from -- its way through congress changes our current system to what is called first to file. if put into law the new application or action -- if put into law, any new alication or action will be needed every time there's a little step

rward in research. anytime one is going towards an eventually goal, even one step there's going to be new paperwork demanded, new action, now applications to be filled out rather than waiting for the goal to be achieved, waiting for the entire invention to actually be complete so that it can be incorporated into a patent. well, because so many more patent applications are required now, if we make this change to provide exactly the same protection, there will be a major new cost of getting a patent. well, the little guys aren't going to be able to afford that cost. well, the big guys can afford it. the major companies who have lots of lawyers working for them, they will be able to afford that. the little guy will be frozen out. that's the intent of the legislation. that's what they want to do. the massive new flood of

paperwork into the patent office is also a doom's day scenario that is bound to make the patent office less effective in doing its basic job which is protecting the patent rights of our people. that is the intent of the legislation, to basically make the patent office less effective, not more effective. so the little guy will get frozen out and the system becomes less manageable because you have all kinds of new paper to be dealing with. those powerful interests pushing the so-called harmonization know very well what the results will be. this isn't a mistake in communication. they know what they're doing. they already steal what they can from the little guys, and this will make it easier for them to steal from the little guys. it looks benevolent. it sounds benevolent. patent reform but this is a sinister, sinister bill.

it will destroy rights that the american people have had since the founding of our country and have so much to do with our prosperity and our security. well, then in this legislation there is a pregrant and postgrant review section. the bill opens up new avenues of attack before and after a patent application has been acted upon. for example, a patent applicant has applied for an overseas patent and if he does it opens him up to attack even before his patent is issued here in the united states. this pregrant opposition helps only the big guys, only the infringers and the looters. it hurts the little guys, and that's the intent of the law. that's why the change is being proposed. that's why they're pushing this law. because it hurts the little guys and the big guys are pushing the bill. then the bill also contains a newly invigorated postgrant

review which means yet another avenue to challenge patents after they've actually been granted bogging down the system, increasing inventor cost, undermining legitimate inventors and opening the door for foreign and multinational corporations who are ready to pounce, to take advantage of another postgrant review of the patent. for those of you in the know, the postgrant review is a totally unnecessary change, a nonlegislative reform in the interparty's re-examination, a reform that's already taken place, has taken care of any problem that this new legislation claims to address. so the problem that they are -- were suggesting that would take care of has already been addressed through several court cases and internal reform. so the need for a postgrant review change is moot. unless, of course, your goal is

to implicate the system, to bog it down so it doesn't work, which is the intent of the bill. reform that enables large companies, foreigners and other infringers to attack our inventors again and again and at horrifying costs to the process is not reform. and it's just not foreigners who are licking their chops. as i say, there are multinational corporations that are ready, that are maybe headed by americans who think of themselves as citizens of the world, they're ready. but also we've got actually companies that are ready to assist people to try to violate the little guys' patent rights. patent assassin, that's a quote, is a california company that is ready to help potential infringers. and i quote from their website. you can easily infiltrate an existing patent while greatly reducing your company's patent

infringement risk, end of quote. h.r. 12650 will only provide -- 1260 will only provide more tools for organizations like this and foreign companies as well as major international corporations to destroy the rights of inventors -- destroy rights of inventors that they have enjoyed in this country since the founding of this country. you know, when you look at the patent bill, much of it is not changing the way the patent system works but instead changing litigation so the way litigation is. this will be a tremendous boost for lawyers who are seeking to use their skills to take something away from someone who owns a little piece of property that he sought, that he put his whole life into. so through h.r. 1260 we will add all sorts of new ways to attack america's inventors. the big guys don't care. they have lots of lawyers working for them.

the big guys will be able to beat down the little guys, americans, just like the little guys in japan are beaten down by their economic show guns. by the -- shoguns. by the way, that's why in japan there are so few groundbreaking inventions. japan has a totally different system than ours. their patent system favors the megacorporations at the expense of the little guy. in fact, the japanese system is what we to marmonize our system with. they're protecting by the constitution and the way our system works. in japan their people are vulnerable. do we really want to be like those people in japan? no. . with the weak legal protection in japan and other countries of the world, we don't want americans to be like the japanese. we want americans who are individuals who are proud of

their individual rights not people who could you -- cower before powerful interest groups as they do in japan. foreign companies and american-run multinational firms are are ready to squash the little guy. that's what this bill is all about and we've got to stop them. another example of the real threat of of h.r. 1260 is it would make it more difficult for a patent owner to get triple damages against an infringer who brazenly ignores the patent owners rights and uses his invention, even knowing he's stealing it without offering to pay royalty. without triple damages which someone gets now, the inventer will get triple damages against a big company that just willfully takes his patent rights and refuses to pay him royalty, but the -- without triple damages, these little guys won't be able to get the

lawers to work for them on a contingency which is the only way that someone who is a little guy who has been wronged by a huge multinational corporation is going to be able to have any chance of winning. only big companies with lawyers on staff will be able to protect their patents. everybody else won't be able to because the little guy without triple damages there to help pay for the lawyer, the little guy won't be able to get a lawyer to work with him. giant foreign and multinational corporate companies versus individual american inventers. if they win, we lose. and that's if this bill passes america loses. eliminating the right to triple damage is still in the house version of this so-called reform bill. that is absurdly -- an absurdly bad provision and it is not in the senate bill. but until that bill appears final from conference committee

and is voted for on the house floor and the senate floor in its final version, that provision can stay in. we have no idea whether that provision will stay in as is in the house version or be taken out as in the senate version. it's not triple damages but it's how the damages themselves will be calculated which is yet another avenue of attack on the little guy by the big guys in this so-called patent reform bill. the electronics industry is arguing that any payment for patent infringement, 3450e7bing if they stole somebody's idea and put it into their computer, the only penalty that can be paid must reflect what percentage it is, that what they have stolen, what percentage it is of the entire device or end product. thus a megacorporation will intentionally infringe because stealing that is going to be a

lot easier than norbleting a price with the in-- negotiating a price with the inventor. what it does is -- if someone is stealing someone else's invention, it basically eliminates their right to negotiate that price. if the damages can only be equal to a small percentage of the device in which -- in which its placed, the corporation will do that, will steal it rather than negotiate a royalty agreement. this is an invitation to steal. this totally destroys the inventor's right to negotiate the price for his property. combine that with the increased difficulties in claiming what willfulness is that -- they are trying to make if more difficult to prove that someone is intentionally stolen someone's property, this means that the infringers who have intended to

steal technology and have done so with an arrogant disregard for the small patent holder, that these people will get away with their crime and the patent holder will be left with a minuscule award. so minuscule he won't be able to hire legal services to help him assert his rights to the properties that he's created. this is in total violation of what our constitution was all about. our constitution was about protecting that man's right to his inventions and his discoveries. that's what it says in the constitution. but this bill is going through and it will have dramatic impact on our way of life. this if made law will kill any chance for individuals to hire legal muscle needed to enforce one's patent rights against corporate or foreign theft. again, or foreign theft. so, yes, we got megacorporations run by people who don't consider

themselves patriots, but foreign corporations will have that same power. they'll use our technology against us. the inventor who may have struggled for years to discover and develop the invention, he might have invested his life savings, but he will be at the mercy of foreign and corporate thieves. punishing the large multinational corporations for malfeesence or intended left which is what happens today when people -- when these companies steal from the little guy, that will be a thing of the past. that's what the big guys want. they don't want to get away with murder, but they want to get away with just about everything else. that's what this so-called patent reform is all about. it is clear the so-called patent reform bill is designed to help the lawbreaker, the big guns, and hurt the little guy. help foreign infringers and hurt americans. it's the patriots versus the globalists. all of this, the shift and first

to file, pre and post grant review. all of it really amounts to more than harmonization, doesn't it? we are not just talking about harmonizing with the rest are. world. when you put this together, what do you get? the electronic megacompanies behind this surlous legislation have labeled themselves -- scurrilous legislation have labeled themselves collation for patent fairness. what do they want too? it's very clear. they don't want patents at all. they would be much better off if we rid our country and the world of the idea of patents all together. it's just too bothersome for them and so to hell with all the others, the inventors, green jobs, biotechnology, the pharmaceuticals, our university research programs, all of which have a profound dependence on a

strong patent system. all of them as far as these high-tech, these megaelectronics corporations they can just go to hell. all of these will suffer by the so-called reform legislation. so big electronics is thumbing their nose at america and they think they can get away with it. all of the rest of us, all these other interest in our society, the universities and the biotechs and other interests which rely on patents, the pharmaceutical industry which pumps so much money into research will just have the research stolen from them by foreign corporations. look at h. 1260, the main proponents. i won't name who the main proponents of h.r. 1260 are. i -- these megaelectronics companies, but they are made up of only one narrow sector of the entire american industry.

these companies get to the top by using business models that at best put them in the gray area now they are at the top they want to change the rules so they can stay on top by keeping others down. just a few more than a dozen of these companies that are behind this legislation, a few more than a dozen, have faced hundreds of lawsuits for infringement in the past decade. from 1996 to 2008, these very companies who are at the heart of the coalition pushing for this destructive legislation, these companies were defendants in 730 patent infringement cases and paid out almost $4 billion in patent infringement settlements during the same period. no wonder they want to change the rules. no wonder if he they want to destroy the patent system.

by coming here and giving people campaign donations and greasing the kids here and spending this money promoting this monstrous bill, it costs them a lot less money to change the law than it would for them to have to pay for the infringement and have to pay for the crime against these small inventors. they want to make sure that actually they will be able to steal the product of other people's work, these are the small inventors in our country, and actually it will pay them to do so rather than to try to work out an understanding of where that person could be paid a royalty which is what they should be paid when they own a piece of intellectual property. we don't work for these big companies. we work for our families, our communities, and we work for america. we are the patriots. we are not globalists. most of the corporate elite of

those megafirms see themselves as citizens of the world while we are americans. these changes are are designed to help -- these changes are designed to help in this bill, a few hugely rich companies and it will devastate hundreds more. dozens and indeed hundreds of organizations have expressed outright opposition or deep concern with this bill. they are telling congress, do not favor one narrow industry simply because it has been so active and being involved with pushing this legislation. do what's best for america. but we need the american people to tell that to their representatives and let their representatives know that they are watching what goes on with patent law because the big corporate thieves are depending on us to be so bored with the issue, i'm going to tune out because it sounds likes it's boring and i couldn't understand

it. that's what they are relying on. it's not too boring and people can understand it. people should understand how important it has been that our country has had the strongest patent protection of any country on this planet. just as we have had the same and strongest protection for the other rights for our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and other rights, what would happen if in order to harmonize the freedom that we enjoy, the freedom of religion, and the freedom of speech, with the rest of the world, harmonize our freedoms, freedom of speech with the rest of the world that we were told our protection of these freedoms would have to be diminished because we would have to diminish the protection of freedom of speech and assembly and religion because it needs to be harmonized with the rest of the world. the uproar would sweep across our country. but the deletion of this right, the diminishing of patent protection, it seems so esoteric to most people they won't even

listen. if we don't listen, don't get involved, the big guns think that they can slip it over on us and they have been trying to do that for 15 years. only a small group of us have been able to stand up. but we need the help of the american people. we need the american people to speak up. we need people to call talk radio. we need people to confront their own member of congress. we need to tell the powerful infringers, are you not going to diminish the rights of the american people in order to harmonize the law internationally. the rots in this country are not -- the patriots in this country are not going to see their rights diminished in order to create a new world order where we can all live in harmony with the rest of the world, the rest of the world which of course is run by gangsters and thugs half of the rest of the world. we are not going to act like people of the rest of the world where we let the elite tell us what to do. we have constitutional rights. we are americans. but it's up to us to protect

those rights. wake up, america. our freedom is being threatened. every generation has met the challenges and now it is up to us. us, united states, u.s., it's up to us. well, let us note that we are on the edge right now. we are on the edge of a lot of things. our economy is going down. this could be the nail in the coffin. if this bill passes it will have dramatic negative long-term effects on our economy and on the well-being and prosperities of our people. we need to act. wake up, america. with that i yield back the balance of my time. i hereby move that the house do here adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. so many as are in favor say aye.

those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 not shrink from the task of thinking through what new round of financial regulation allows that industry to thrive, allows that industry to provide credit that industry to provide credit to american families, to small businesses, to allow our economy to grow, but which never, ever

puts us in the kind of risky position that we are working so hard to dig ourselves out of right now. we can do this. we can do this. there is a there's about $40 billion of tax increases. individuals making more. a big chunk of it goes to people who are millionaires, they have a 5.4% surcharge added on to their tax bill every year. people making more than 350 would have a surcharge. >> is this the way that they proposed the plan? >> yes, that is a major piece. there are some smaller pieces, some smaller tax increases. there is a tax increase on businesses that don't provide health insurance to their employees, they have to pay into a pool.

they see this as an incentive for people to provide this on their own. if they don't, they're helping to pay for the cost of the government coming in and picking up the tab. the congressional budget office estimates that about 37 million people that would not otherwise have insurance would get insured under the plan. about 17 million would not get insurance. about half of those people are illegal immigrants. >> in this draft that was released today, any surprises? >> i think that there were not a whole lot of surprises. the reality is a lot of these details will change and there is a lot of concern from various factions within the democratic

caucus over a very local issues such as how are doctors in their district going to be paid for under this new public insurance plan. if you have a medicare plan that anyone can sign up for, one people say if you have this based on medicare, that will not work because medicare does not have enough money to attract doctors. they are worried about. they want to see the rates adjusted for rural areas. that is hard to do. this is hard to write into law right now and make those compromises. there will be a lot of wrangling over that. the markets wilmark up will be . there's been a lot of complaints about time. the reality is that over the next three weeks, there will be a lot of talking going on and

probably more compromises before the house votes. >> what are the republicans saying? >> republicans are pretty clear, they oppose -- they set out some press releases. they bring to this as a government takeover that would tax small businesses in the middle of a recession. they have some allies in the business community such as a large group of small businesses and the u.s. chamber of commerce with signed a letter vigorously opposing this legislation. you have something which will seis the president endorsing ths bill. -- you have something which is

an important which is the president endorsing this bill. it will be the interesting to see the democrats getting nervous, they might be asked to vote for a tax increase. >> a lot for us to keep an eye on. thank you. >> good to be heard. >> up next, some of today's developments on health care policy. house democrats introduced their health care bill and its policy expects to pass it in the house before the august recess. after news briefing, we will bring you the republican response they are introducing their own proposals. here is nancy colusnancy pelos's briefing. >> this will benefit all americans. this is health and health insurance for the great middle- class of america. i would like to thank our

committee chairs for the work they have done to ensure quality and affordability and accessibility for the middle class. in doing so, i am joining the president of the united states in the praise that he heaped on them. i would like to acknowledge the great work of chairman waxman, chairman randall, chairman george miller, and to all of their staffs who have worked hard to make this day possible. i want to acknowledge chairman dingell. i saitalks to him earlier and he said he was happy and that his father would be happy. chairmean dingell has introduced this kind of legislation every year he has been in office and

we are very proud of him. you would like to the knowledge of some of the other leaders such as steny hoyer. mr. cliburn, mr. larsen, mr. van holland. the chairs of the subcommittee have worked hard on this, bringing their knowledge and experience to this reform. chairman stark, chairman and treeofand andrews -- a chairman andruews. over the coming weeks, congress will continue to work with president obama to make health

care reform work for middle- class americans. this bill is a starting point and a path to success. to lure costs for consumers and businesses, to give greater choice to americans, to kids better quality of care -- to give a better quality of care. this is so important for the middle-class, you cannot be denied care from a pre-existing condition if you change jobs, lose your jobs or start a new business. this is a very important. we are still on schedule to do what we have planned, to vote on this legislation before we leave for the august recess. i am pleased to introduce the distinguished

chairman of the energy committee. mr. waxman. >> thank you very much, madam speaker. this legislation is landmark legislation and this is a defining moment for our country. we are about to undertake what has diluted so many presidents and congresses for far too long. -- eluded many presidents and congresses for far too long. the president was elected with the mandate and that he undertake this very ambitious goal and he outlined how he wanted to achieve it, by building on the system that we have now. by giving people the option to keep the insurance that they have if they like it and to

allow the seniors to stay in medicare but improve that system. for those that have no insurance or for those small businesses that cannot afford insurance, our legislation will allow people to choose an insurance option. i emphasize the word "choice" because that choice and competition is one very formidable way to hold down costs. we are trying to achieve a number of different objectives, but holding down the costs of health care is certainly by far our number one objective. the system is unsustainable, we cannot continue to put more and more money into health care especially when you recognize that this country spends more money on health care than any other western industrialized nation and yet we have 46-50

million people uninsured and more stories of people that have insurance that does not work for them when they need it to kick in and pay for their medical bills. we cannot afford it as a country. we cannot afford it for those who have insurance that is going up every year. we cannot afford it for governments at local level to help pay for health care as well. our system is functional. this legislation, we hope, will bring the system together that will serve all of the american people and all of those that provide care for those people fifth jump the legislation that we are rolling out today is on improvement on the draft that was released a couple of weeks ago. it reflects the input from many of our colleagues. if we had a number of items from making sure that we protect

small businesses to making sure that people have more options and a number of other changes that we will be able to look at when you see the draft. this draft, which is the product of the three committees, will now be presented to each of our committees. on our committee, but we will work through some of the difference is that we have among the members, both democrats and republicans. with the objective that we are going to get a bill. we cannot allow this issue could be delayed. we cannot put it off again. the meat can not go on a recess unless the house and senate both passed bills to reform and restructure our health-care system. that is what we will be doing

over the next three weeks, accomplishing this goal in the house and senate said that we can get together and work out one final piece of legislation for the president to sign. i am pleased that we have had such strong leadership from our speaker, nancy pelosi and the majority leader steny hoyer. we are going to accomplish what many people felt would not come in our lifetime. we are going to make it happen in the house this next few weeks and in the congress by the end of this year, to the president's desk for his signature. i am pleased to yield the floor to the very distinguished chairman of the ways and means committee, a key participant,

chairman charlie rangel. [applause] >> thank you. i almost feel like i'm one of the luckiest people in the world, to have stayed here so long and to wait for a president who has made a personal political commitment to provide health care for all of america. to go through so many speakers and to have such a dynamic speaker to be working with and to read from one page for america, to let people know that those 50 million people that don't have insurance are getting health care and to remind america paying for, the doctors are charging forward, the health insurance people are charging for it. the rates are just soaring. there's not anyone in america that is an adult does not have a war story about someone who lost their lives, lost their jobs co our, are homeless.

people can now go on and know that they are insured. they know that a large part of their disposable income will not have to be for insurance. the american government will be there to effectively compete and people will be able to make decisions based on what is good for them and their families and to know that we are going to provide so that people can look into the future and know that if they really don't want to make a buck but to serve people and your people, how lucky we are to be in the congress was such leadership. to have a president that will give us an opportunity that if we do nothing else, we can say that we are part of the team that brought universal health to the people of america. i want to thank pete stark.

as old as he is, he has worked a lot on this topic. chairman miller has been a great person to work with. we have promised the president and the american people that we would meet this challenge. george miller, a dynamic chairperson for education. >> thank you. this is a very exciting day for so many of us that have been involved in public service. to stand here today with the introduction of our legislation that will embrace the desires of the american people to have real health care, real coverage, real affordability and real access and to stand here with the introduction that meets the goals articulated by president obama -- to lower the cost and

to expand choice. let me be specific about what orrville means to the average american. our bill will lower costs for health care. there will be no more copays or deductibles for preventative care. no more rate increases because of pre-existing conditions or your gender or where you happen to work. there will be an annual cap on your out of pocket expenses. group rates will be available for those that have to purchase for themselves. the guaranteed to an affordable for all. hearing and vision care for our children. you can keep your doctor, your choices will be protected and enhanced. you will have access to a wide variety of choices for quality and affordable plans including a health insurance option to compete with the private insurers.

our bill will increase the quality of care. you when your doctor will make health care decisions. we will help to increase your needs. our bill will offer stability and peace of mind. never again will you go without health insurance. you will have peace of mind in knowing that you will lose your coverage. if you lose your business, he will keep your coverage, you'll never meant be denied because of the pre-existing conditions. you will not face any lifetime limits on how much insurance companies will pay. you will not be one treatment away from bankruptcy. our reforms will cover 97% of americans by the year 2019. our committees will mark up

these in the jurisdiction. we will have an opportunity to offer amendments. we will continue to work on our build by working on those with constructive ideas and we will meet the demands that naturally meet this scope. we will produce a bill that is fair and fully paid for, reduces costs, preserve choice, and expand access for all americans. that was the charge that president obama gave this congress when he was sworn into office. it was a charge the american people gave president obama and this congress is working on. >> no one has worked on this longer and harder than chairman john dingell.

>> thank you very much. i would like to thank my colleagues. i am proud to be here with my great colleagues who have worked for a part in this undertaking. i am delighted to be a participant. this is the first time we have gotten to this point. we are going to cover every american and we will see to it that they have a choice. we will see to it that not only the humanitarian concerns are met but that an economic calamity which is coming and must we do so will be headed off because of the work that has been done. this is a good bill. it is a uniquely american solution to address the insecurities in health care felt

by the american people. the burden of cost has the placed on the economy and the competitive disadvantages experienced by our businesses will be removed. today marks a major step in this long journey of ours. however, this is not the last that. while we have reached this day with the light, we have a lot of work. my own father would be pleased. he started this in 1943 with harry truman and we have been working on it ever since. madam speaker, we are pleased that we can see that the house is going to consider this and we are going to consider it. i'm looking forward to working with my colleagues in the caucus to solve the greatest signaproblem faced by our peopl. this nation has a proud history

of protecting our newborns, our elders, are sick. we have created social security during a time of calamity. we have passed medicare legislation during a time of civil unrest and a divisive war. some of our greatest acts of compassion have come in the most difficult and trying of moments. we are working to accomplish something that is greater than us as members of congress and something which must, should and will transcend partisan divides and bickering. this time we will be successful. this time we must be successful. this american solution of ours will help those needing care gain access to the finest medical care in the world. there's an interesting thing about this, we have the finest

medical care that many of our people cannot afford. not only do we have a chance to do the right thing for anour people but also for our economy. this will cause a greater problem in the years to come because if you draw on the line , the first is the cost of medical care, the second is the grosgross domestic product, the two of them will cross at about 2080. we must learn from the current economic crisis we have inherited. to protect the health and well- being of our citizens and our country and our help to remain competitive. we must be bold. we must be strong.

we must respond to the challenge that we have before us. we have to address the problem current and pass this legislation now. i am proud to be a part of it. [applause] i have the privilege of introducing the great majority leader who is going to lead us in that undertaking, mr. steny hoyer. [applause] >> before i speak, i would be pleased to yield to the whip if he would like to say something. >> [inaudible] >> madam speaker. congratulations to you for your single-minded focus, for your purposeful direction on all of

us to work together to accomplish this goal. six decades we have been trying to make sure that every american has the availability of quality affordable health care. six decades. there has been a dingell in every decade. [applause] john dingell, we owe a great deal of gratitude to your father. your father was a leader on health care and you have been a leader in health care. to henry waxman, george miller, charles rangel, to whom i have worked with. we must come together to

produce a product for the american people. president obama has issued a very strong statement of how pleased he is that this product is being put on the table. it will be marked up later this week and perhaps into next week. we enter a process of improvement. this is not to the original document that was introduced or put on the table as a draft, it has been improved. it has responded to the views and concerns of not only the members of congress but also those outside of congress. those who are users of health care and those who are providers of health care. as chairman waxman has indicated, they will be continued to consider ways and means to improve this legislation. as the president indicates, this is an excellent work for the

american people. it seeks to bring costs down and it will bring costs down. not just for government but more importantly, for individuals and families who are being priced out of the market, understand that have health care now but they're worried about losing it. i had some americans say do not mess with my health care. they heard what i said and if they like what they had, they keep what they had. this does not mandate any changes and they will have a choice of doctor and hospital. this does not undermine. what it does do is give them the security that if they should lose their job or if their economic circumstances change and they cannot afford health insurance, this ensures that they will have that insurance. as we proceed in this process, let me say to you as the majority leader who has talked to you a lot about our

schedule, we are on schedule. we will be paid for. we will be on budget. we will pay for this bill. we will not add additional debt to the american people. we will produce a product that will give to the american people a sense of the jury and well-being for them, their husbands, wives and children that they so desperately want. the overwhelming majority of the american public says that they want health reform. john mccain said he wanted health reform. hillary clinton said that she wants health reform. barack obama says that he wants health reform. the american people overwhelmingly elected him president. i have talked to almost every member of our caucus and there's not a member of the caucus who is not for health care reform. to making sure that we bring

costs down, make health care affordable and available to all and make sure that they have the quality that america has to offer. in closing, madam speaker, flooded the congratulate you, john dingell. no one has kept the faith longer and more focused than you have. god bless you, sir. >> i join you in saluting the great leadership of president barack obama without whom the state would not be possible. more importantly, the day when he signs the bill into law end make significant progress for the american people. leader hoyer mention the chairman dingell and his father. during the past six decades, every single one has had a

dingell. every one of them has also had a kennedy as well and i am pleased that patrick kennedy as here. the health committee is today. they will be passing the bill in the u.s. senate. -- the help committee is today. best wishes to you and your father. with that, we are pleased to take any questions. >> [inaudible] and they have reservations about the surtax.

how are you going to address the concerns of the committee? >> we want to squeeze every dollar we can have to have more savings, to reduce the need for revenues. we will have a strong level playing field public auction and some of the concerns raised by the blue dogs. >> the blue dogs bark democrats from the rural areas who have a specific fiscal conservatives points of view. they are playing a very constructive role. i thought that their letter was outstanding, setting up the issues that concern them and concern all of us. we are going to work through those issues. this is not a correct statement

to say that they are against a public auction, they want some changes in the public auction, some would prefer not to have a public auction but we have to bring everyone together because a large part of our democratic caucus once a public auction as does the president. we want to reduce the cost. the democratic party is a big tent. we have to come together and compromise and work out our differences and then stand behind legislation that will accomplish this goal. >> the chairman is right but i just want to reiterate for you,

when i articulated that every member of the caucus wants to see health reform enacted, that included all 52 members of the blue dogs. they have a perspective like all of us and it is not unanimous. it is a different focus which is shared. because they are in favor of the objective, i expect that they will work very hard to get to a place where they will create a consensus for a majority of this bill before we leave here in august. i have great confidence. >> we will be bringing forward legislation on pay go. we have a cross section supporting pay go which is an

issue that the blue dogs have taken a lead on and that the democratic caucus has adopted. >> can you tell us what the cbo introduced? can you give us some examples of how you change the bill? >> well, one of the things that we have concern with. i learned a lot as we move along, people have different needs and different ways of providing health care and not all of it appears to be equitable. as a result, the deep interest and concern that some members have come we directed the that there would be an investigation, a study, to see where the best possible medicine is being given at the most efficient way

and price and we set aside $10 million to make up for any inequities that exist that would be handled by the federal administration. that is not the end, it is just the beginning. many reforms that were in the bill, the people did not know where to find them. we had to bring us together. the small businesses that we are able to change, these are able to provide credits. for all of these small businesses, they want to provide care for their employees. we have incentives. many of these concerns have been in the bill. we have brought them up and we are pretty certain that we have eased a lot of the concern that people have. >> the congressional budget office works its own measures of

twthe costs. as a matter of fact, we are going to have a bipartisan briefing to try to understand how they come to some of their conclusions. some of our members get perplexed when we have services that are not saving any money. i think that we look at the idea that maybe people stay alive longer and collect social security even though we don't have to pay for treatment of diseases that we can prevent. we will have an estimate very soon and this will be in the context of what we have expected

all along. we will have the need for revenue raisers as well as the ways and means committee is providing. >> it seems that you have some idea on the overall traffic. how will this [inaudible] >> i don't want to speculate about exact amounts. >> [inaudible]

>> what do you see as the role of the president in hoping to get the votes in the house and perhaps in helping to pull the senate towards your vision in the house bill? >> what one of my colleagues like to address that? >> the president's leadership is the essential point for passing this printer as was saidthis. -- for passing this. lowering costs is essential to this. as the president said, health care reform is entitlement reform. a great deal of our fiscal health. with this prevention and wellness initiative to take down

the cost of health care. >> the presidenthe president has about our economy as well. his leadership has got us to where we are now. we have our three tenors, we will move this to conference with the senate. we have th>> i have my answer, s

your question? [laughter] >> >> [inaudible] >> the changes in this proposal today compared to the original draft include something like small businesses. we will have a sliding scale on this.

the original draft had some changes. in the pharmaceutical area, there are ideas of how to hold down the cost from the pharmaceutical side of things we are having our bill requirement that the windfall the peacthat s received, categorizing people in medicaid as well as medicare as medicare instead of medicaid and losing the rebate that we used to get. that will be reinstated and the money will be used to help close the doughnut hole.

my pilot projects, accountable organizations, there are some services and fees. we will have accountability organizations, greater deals on how to manage the amount of care. we cannot hold down the cost efficiently. you might look to increasing revenue. these revenue increases are targeted at making sure that health care is affordable.

providing someone with the opportunity is to -- providing someone with the opportunity to have health care because they have been denied previously. we cannot just have insurance reform without making health insurance affordable by assisting people in purchasing their insurance coverage. that is going to recoverequire e expenditure is not only by cuts in the system but also bringing in greater revenues. i know that chairman rangel will talk about the revenue side. we will have a cbo estimate,

most people expect that it will be in range of an amount that the cbo will fill in later. >> the congressional budget office is not our friend. they don't recalrecord the actul savings that people will have in their bank accounts. it is safe to say as a guideline that when those people that have stakeholders in this, they come together to the white house and say that this bill will save people 2 trillion dollars. these cannot be scored by the congressional budget office.

i am satisfied that our country, our economy, will be saving money by the investment we are making now. >> thank you all very much. >> roy blunt responded to the democrats' health care proposal. he is the house republicans' point person on the issue. this is 15 minutes. >> we are pleased to be here. we have 1000 page bill that we will start markups on this week. i noticed that day it hit all of

the points that they wanted to hit. there will be competition and choice and then the other interesting, in number of changes that will be looked at when we see that bill. we have here is a bill that will kill jobs, limit access to health care, will raise taxes and will lead to a government takeover of health care. assuming that we have an energy amendment, one of the amendments i tend to offer is that every elected official will have to take the government option.

we will see when they will have that bill in committee. we have the leadership of the whip, and we will be quickly forced into avoiding on a bill that we might not have adequate time to look at. >> good afternoon. there's no question we are in unprecedented economic times. every community across this country needs a change. we have seen a political move in attempting to deliver on a political mission to overhaul our health care and allow us to lurch into a government controlled environment. every man, woman, and child is

impacted on health care reform. there is no need while we are witnessing an unprecedented hemorrhaging of jobs, there is no need for us to rush into passage of legislation before the end of this month. the potential cost of nearly millions of jobs is at stake. we are willing to work with the other side. we are very hopeful that we can be constructive in it the discussion on health care reform so that we understand and are given an opportunity to talk with our constituents come to talk with the doctors that we visit and the health care providers to make sure that we're doing the right thing. i would like to present the ranking member of the energy and commerce committee. >> the radically, i'm supposed to be in a briefing of energy

and commerce meetings with cbo right now. obviously that is not occurring because this morning the cbo informed my staff that they still did not have a bill that they could score. the democrats have released the bill and it is on a website. i would assume it is also on the ways and means website and the educational work force website. this will not be the bill that they attempt to mark up. they will continue to negotiate even as we move forward sporadically, haphazardly with the process. i think the reason they don't have the votes is because there bill chills' health care as we know it in america. there isn't a clear path, there are all kinds of mandates.

they illuminate physician-owned the hospital and the bees were chosen by the marketplace as an efficient way to get health care. i plan to ask chairman waxman to give us time to digest the bill, to create some bipartisan amendments. i'm very impressed with the blue dog letter that was sent last week to the democratic leadership. there are a number of discussions to see if there might be some amendments. health care is too big an issue to simply tried to rush this through like another bill.

i don't think that anyone wants to vote for socialization into the private marketplace. the good news is that the latest version of the bill is out. the bad news is that it is bad medicine and hopefully this will have a very short shelf life. >> thank you. this bill has massive tax increases. probably the most difficult one

is the surtax which we believe will fall on small businesses. about two out of three manufacturers could play hirepar taxes. this will be passed along to each individual. that will violate the president's pledge that people under $250,000 will not pay higher taxes. they will either pay higher taxes or they will lose their jobs. given that the national unemployment rate is at 9.5%, michigan, my home state has 14% unemployment. the idea that you spend more in the name of health care is one that we need to reverse. we want to see as republicans is to get the costs of health care come to the have a proposal that we do this with in three ways. you never hear them, about the duplication of madisomedicine.

why not have individuals and small business owners have the same incentives? ? for that reason, the taxes are onerous. it will fall of family income of more before, manufacture of it will cost us millions of jobs. as this debate moves ahead, we continue to try to push these ideas in committee and on the floor. thank you. >> thank you, i'm john klein from minnesota. i am newly assigned as the

senior republican and we have had a pretty full plate since i stepped up. not the least of it is his health care bill. like the others here, i have been waiting since friday for it to come out. and it was going to come out on fridays to weaken market up on tuesday and now it is tuesday so we can market thursday. i have agreed with the chairman that we will start with our opening statements tomorrow. we need the time on thursday to really be able to offer amendments and to be able to debate them and discuss them death and introduce our ideas. we have a blank piece of paper where republicans and democrats were invited in to write a bill. that is not how this has been

done. this has been done about everything else has been done in this congress. we were going to do our very best to give our ideas and to get our amendments considered. for some things in discuss bill, we had a hearing a week or so ago on education and labor on the 852 page discussion. now, that has grown by almost 200 pages. one thing that we know is it will create some new federal bureaucracy. a thing called the house choices administration. we will have a health choices commissioner, that is kind of like a czar. this is an entity that will help the government make the rules come play the game.

this is not a level playing field. this is not what the american people want. i am very concerned about the employer mandate. we will be looking at that. in short, we are very concerned that what we are going to do with this legislation is pushed out over 100 million americans from the insurance that they have, that they like, and pushed them into a government program. we have a lot of work to do coming up here. i think the american people deserve more time, they deserve to have other input. they deserve a better product. we have a lot of doctors now in congress. many of them in the republican conference. they have been working this issue for a long time. one of them is my friend and classmate, michael burgess. >> i spent the last year talking to providers across this country.

providers are very concerned. it was mentioned competition and choice. the competition is from a provider's perspective, it is pretty thin. the choice is nonexistent. if you wish to continue to see your medicare patients, you have to accept the new government option. the payment rate will be a little bit higher than medicare for the first three years and then a good luck, you fall off a cliff. it will be set up by the commissioner of health care. no provider of their trust this congress or the government to do anything in their best interest. we need to hear from you. thanks. >> questions? >> can you talk about how you

see this killing jobs? >> if you look at -- there are really two ways to finance this. one is a surtax on small business. a raid over 50% of the people will pay that tax and they are either owners or investors in small business. the other is cuts in medicare and medicaid. neither of us will be a help to the american people. the increased tax on small business will clearly kill jobs as will any mandate on business that currently cannot afford to offer any insurance but will be forced to offer this as a prerequisite to keep the door open. there is only one way to pay for this, this is to cut back the jobs you have or the growth you have. >> you are correct, as costs go up. the other part of this bill is headed doubles the tax in 2013 automatically. what rates we have now will

double. that will make it more difficult for small business to recover. if you use an economic analysis, which we have done, that is where the nearly 5 million jobs will be lost because of the cost of the employer mandate. >> you put out its principles, i was wondering when we will see legislation. >> i think this question of how do you pay for this gets it wrong because we want to do is to get cost of health care and what they are doing is saying how can we spend more and then find the revenue to pay for it. we have a number of ideas that will be offering in committee. we will amend this vehicle that is on a fast track. it has finan