because i think it's very important. we have 57 members of the house of representatives who have signed this letter just today. and it says, dear madam speaker -- i'm reading it to make sure it is in the record. . we write to voice our opposition to the negotiated health care reform agreement under consideration in the energy and commerce committee. we regard the agreement reached by chairman waxman with several blue dog members of the committee as fundamentally unacceptable. this agreement is not a step forward toward a good health care bill, but a large step backwards. any bill that does not provide at a minimum for a public option with reimbursement rates based on medicare rates not negotiated

rates is unacceptable. it would ensure higher costs for the public plan and would do nothing to achieve the goal of keeping insurance companies honest and their rates down. to offset the increased costs incurred by adopting the provisions advocated by the blue dog members of the committee, the agreement would reduce subsidies to lower and middle-income families, requiring them to pay a larger portion of their income for insurance premiums and would impose an unfunded mandate on the states to pay for what were to have been federal costs. in short, this agreement will result in the public both -- as taxpayers paying higher rates -- may i read that last sentence again, i kind of made a mess of it. in short, this agreement will result in the public, both as

insurance purchasers and as taxpayers paying even higher rates to insurance companies. we simply cannot vote for such a proposal. mr. ellison: would the gentlelady yield? as the chair of the progressive caucus along with congressman griff, are the -- gri halla standing up? ms. woolsey: we want the chairs of all three committees when they mush the three bills together to know that the ways and means committee and the education and labor committee have bills that we can support do not weaken those bills with what is being proposed in the energy and commerce committee this week. that is our goal. and it was not only progressive caucus members, but also the tri caucus that signed on to this, which is the congressional black

caucus, congressional hispanic caucus and asian american caucus. this is our letter and this is what we stand for and this is what we're hoping we will have when we are voting for real health care reformulater this fall. mr. ellison: does the gentlelady yield back? ms. woolsey: i yield back. mr. ellison: we are joined by congresswoman edwards of maryland, who has been a courageous fighter for many issues but has not shrunk from the battle in this fight for real health care reform. i think congressman mcdermott has a quick thing to say. can he say it? mr. mcdermott: i appreciate you giving me a chance to say something. one thing i wanted to say, in seattle, they announced that on

august 1, the premiums on insurance policies are going up 17%. now when people talk about fear and have the fear of the government and fear of the government option, this is a real fear. this 17% increase in seattle is going to hurt people badly. some people are not going to be able to afford continuing their insurance. and that's why it's so important that the progressive caucus, led by you and ms. woolsey are out here making sure that people understand that there is an option to these absolutely unacceptable increases in premiums. nothing else has gone up 17%. housing prices have dropped. gasoline prices have dropped, but health insurance, up 17%. the only way we're going to stop that with a government option.

thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for letting me speak. mr. ellison: the gentleman yields back. thank you, dr. mcdermott for your passionate advocacy and let me turn it over to one of my favorite members. i love to hear her talk about these issues, congresswoman edwards. ms. edwards: i thank the the gentleman from minnesota. we have been talking about health care reform and out in america, when they watch congress, they might think this is about blue dogs, liberals and conservatives and republicans and democrats, but health care reform is actually about people. and it's about, for example, a young woman in my congressional district, who wrote to me that she was 13 years old when her father developed cancer.

and they were struggling without insurance. and she said no one should be 13 years old and wondering if the insurance company would pay for her father's treatment so that he could see his daughter's next birthday. your support and determination to improve this system means the world to so many of us. on behalf of my family and the american cancer society, thank you. it's about ariella and about the millions of people across the country who don't have health care, it's about millions more who are underinsured and it's about millions who are insured and are paying skyrocketing costs just discussed by our colleague from washington, skyrocketing costs of premiums and deductibles and co-pays that are rising three times the rate

of wages. a good friend of mine from new hampshire, one of our colleagues put together this chart. and it shows what the alternatives are. and we can either really work for reform together or not. and so some people know that if you don't have any money and you don't have any insurance, you get sick and it's a disaster. if you have a pre-existing condition and you don't have health insurance, you get sick and it's a disaster. if you're laid off and you don't have insurance, you get sick, and it's a disaster. if your employer drops your coverage, you don't have any insurance, you get sick, it's a disaster. and so really, the republican plan for health care reform is just don't get sick. well, that's not an option for most americans. and i know we have a process here. and i think americans across the

country, mr. speaker, are trying to understand that process, but that's kind of internal. it's not about ariella who doesn't have health insurance. i know that probably so many of our offices here in the congress have received letters just as i have from people throughout my congressional district who are begging us to change to reform this health care system. they are begging us for their 77-year-old mother who has a gap in her health insurance. they're begging us for their cousin who has breast cancer, who's not getting paid to work, is too sick to go to work, but can't afford even to stay home and get treatment. they're begging us for their children who have pre-existing conditions and can't get insured at all. the american public is begging us to do something about health care reform. we can't just have a plan that

says just please don't get sick. i tried that plan. this member of congress tried that plan. 17 years ago, i didn't have health insurance, and i just crossed my fingers every night not to get sick. i ended up getting sick. i was sick in the produce section of the grocery store. i passed out and was rushed to the hospital emergency room and i ended up with thousands of dollars in health care costs. it took me years and years to pay it off. i almost lost my home as a result of that. no american should have to make that kind of decision. and you know what it would have been? it would have been a couple of hundred dollars to get antibiotics and instead of it was thousands of dollars of financial disaster and almost losing my home in the process. that's what americans are suffering from right now and that's why we have to fix this system. now, i know mr. ellison and mr.

speaker, we have a process, but that process has to involve, i believe, a public health insurance option that says no matter if you get sick, if you don't have insurance now you're going to be covered and we're going to bring down the costs for everyone. that's what americans want and it doesn't matter whether you're a middle-income family, a working family, a poor family, you shouldn't have to make a life decision about whether you and your children and your family get health care because you can't afford it. and so i'm excited about the prospect for reform, but i know that you know there are some bad guys in this fight and the bad guys are out there. and i'm going to yield to you in just a moment, but i want to share with you who some of the bad guysr because the challenge is helping the american people understand that in this country

there are people who share interests who don't want to reform the system. the big winners in this broken health care system. the c.e.o. of united health group. his annual financial report, united health made $81.2 billion. their net income, $2.9 billion, his salary, $3.2 million. mr. speaker, this is what is at stake. c.e.o. of well point, $61.3 billion they made. income, $2.5 billion. americans can't even count these zeros. what was her salary? $9.8 million. this is outrageous, this is the money at stake. c.e.o. of cigna. annual revenue, $19.1 billion.

$292 million in net income. his income, $12.2. let's call out these names because i think it's important for americans to put the names on the faces of those who are reaping billions of dollars of profit netting pill i don't know, sir of dollars in salary and then taking the american public to the bank without health care reform. ronald williams of aetna, $30.9 billion in revenue for aetna. $2.8 billion in net income. and his salary, $24.3 million. this is outrageous. there's a lot at stake. i understand why these folks are fighting health care reform.

i understand, because they stand a lot to lose. and our job here in the united states congress is to make sure that it's the american public that wins, that it's the taxpayer that wins, that it's the patient that wins, that it's the doctor who has a relationship with its patient and not these insurance companies standing between you and your health care, between you and your doctor. with that, i yield. mr. ellison: the gentlelady yields. actually i have a few questions. but i'm going to yield to the the gentleman from illinois. before i do, i just want to say if we just took some of these salaries that are up there and put it into providing care for people, maybe we wouldn't have nearly 50 million people and another 25 million without adequate insurance. it's really outrageous.

they are spending $1.4 million a day to lobby against health care. and that's nothing but pocket change for some of those folks. with that, i yield to the the gentleman from illinois, danny davis. congressman davis. mr. davis: thank you very much, representative ellison. let me commend you for the leadership that you continue to display as the message leader for the progressive caucus. i see you here every week and oftentimes representative edwards here with you, so i'm pleased to join with you and she and representative mcdermott, with whom i serve on the ways and means committee. and i know chairman rangel was here a few minutes ago and others. as i listen to representative edwards and as she talked about the winners and the losers, you know it's amazing that

individuals in the health care arena are earning these kinds of salaries and that people are able to somehow or another not want to pay and people somehow or another don't want to add a few extra dollars. i come from a county with over five million people. and unfortunately, many of them are low income. they are poor. many of them don't have any insurance at all. don't have anyway to access care , anyway to be taken care of. some of them go to emergency rooms of hospitals that are as many as eight and 10 miles away in an urban area and they can't

get there. and to think we now have an opportunity to reform in a real way health care delivery and to create the kind of health care delivery system that all of our citizens have worked. . i don't know those opposing public option, i don't even know how you could begin to talk about reforming seriously our health care delivery system without a public option. i have sat through the many hearings that we have had in ways and means. i have sat through countless hours of discussions with staff and experts. and no matter what we come up, we know that we need a robust,

not a minuscule, not a weak, not an anemic public option, but we need a real public option. one that can help build upon the network of community health centers that we have spread across the country who have proven to be worth their weight in gold. who have proven that they can deliver first rate health and medical care in a cost efficient way with individuals who understand the language, the culture, the lifestyles of the people who come. i agree with the progressive caucus members as well as others that there just ought not be a plan without a serious public

option. again i want to commend both of you for the tremendous leadership that you continue to display. and i know with the kind of attention and care that you give to these issues that our congress and our people are going to be in good shape for many years to come. and so it's been a pleasure for me to stop by and to join with you and have a few words to say. and of course you know i remember a term that we used to use a lot back in the 1960's and 1970's, we used to say the struggle must continue and we will conquer without a doubt. if we dare to struggle, we dare to win. thank you so much and it's a pleasure to be here. mr. ellison: let me thank you again, congressman davis. you have been putting it out there for so long. there are 57 members who insist

upon a robust public option. it's wonderful to count you among one of those. i think the american people can rest assured that there are people in this country who are sticking up for their interests in fighting for them and your leadership in that regard is inspirational. thank you, sir. mr. davis: thank you, very much. mr. ellison: let me yield back to the gentlelady from maryland, congresswoman edwards. what else you got? ms. edwards: i thought about this a lot as many of us have, and i know our leadership, the democratic leadership in this congress, is moving toward reform at a pace and for a reason that we know is really important. we also know that our president wants real reform. so i think the importance of the discussion that we are having this evening is about how we define reform, particularly how we define a public option and why it's needed. and i think congressman davis said it, that the system won't

really work without a public option. we won't be able to bring down costs without a public option. we want people to have choice. choice of their doctor. choice of their providers. we want people to have the choice to look at the various plans stacked up against each other and say, i want this one over that one. we can do that with a robust public option. one that's tied to the medicare network. today is the 44th anniversary of the enactment of medicare. it's instructive that we are here on this day because there are those who like to say government can't do anything, government doesn't know how to do health care. well, government sure knew how to do medicare. for 44 years people in this country have had the benefit of medicare, have had the benefit of a medicare provider network. that's the kind of network we want for a public option. one that has doctors.

we need more doctors. and this legislation that we are looking at provide more doctors an more nurses. will ensure people get primary care and preventive care. will ensure we are not focused on -- that people aren't excluded because of pre-existing conditions. and we know that he that's a problem. there are a loft good things that we have to celebrate about where we are today. but we also have to be vigilant as congressman davis said. we have to be vigilant to ensure we have a robust public option tied to the medicare provider network. and that relies on a payment structure that's stable so that we can inject real competition into the system. not competition upward for premiums and deductibles and co-pays. competition downward. so that we can lower cost, provide quality care, and have a choice of doctors. you know i have been thinking, congressman ellison, and to the

speaker, i have been thinking that there are a lot of enemies to reform. and there's a lot at stake out there. there is money flowing all over the system. not just the c.e.o.'s salaries and the bonuses and the profits. that's bad enough. so the insurance companies have a lot to lose. you know what? we found out that that's why they decided they are going to put skin in this game. and the skin that they put in the game to oppose reform is in the form of their money. all you have to do is follow the money to know why the enemies of reform are cal vanizing. and we have to be strong and courageous in our fight against them and for the american people for health care reform. so if you follow the money, let's look at c.e.o. compensation. $85.4 million. lobbying expenditures, what they have been spending to fight

reform, $62.5 million. phrma alone in the pharmaceutical industry has spent $233.7 million. look at their profits, $8.4 billion. this is a lot of money that's at stake. so if you follow that money, and then follow it right to campaign contributions. they have been throwing campaign contributions all over the map. $28 million, $220 million for the 10-year period from 1998 to 2008. you know why? because they don't want reform. so that's why it's up to those of us in the congress who are looking out for regular people, looking out for people throughout our congressional district, who really are struggling to pray their premiums and -- pay their premiums and deductibles and struggling to pay their co-pays that are going up. i look at my own district and i

know -- we have a lot of people actually who have health insurance. and the reason is because they have it through their employers. even their employers are really struggling now. it's getting in the way of our competitiveness. it's getting in the way because people know that they can't afford any more. these premiums. the premiums are going up three times the rate of our wages. but you know what? the wages of those c.e.o.'s have been going up, some of their wages have gone up 26% in just this last year. but have any of us seen our wages go up like that? the american public hasn't. it means those deductibles and premiums and co-pays are no longer affordable. i yield. mr. ellison: if the gentlelady would yield. the reform we are talking about includes employer based health care where there couldn't be an exclusion for pre-existing condition. existing government program, medicare, medicaid, part of the

money would be to -- if we get the version we are looking for to help people, states cover everybody from medicaid. the third thing would be new and would include a robust public option. public option would be a program run by an agency and a government that would be not looking to generate a profit. in that case, would the public option that we have been talking about, would they be reaping a portion of those, what is that $84 billion in profit? would that be a cost measure within the public option if we were able to achieve sna? -- achieve that? ms. edwards: i think the public option would be competitive -- keep in mind the c.e.o. of the public option, the secretary of health and human services, doesn't make $9.8 million a year. it's a basic government salary. i don't know about $175,000,

$185,000 a year to run all of medicare. this is -- our c.e.o. is a government employee who doesn't make a ton of money. not reaping millions and millions of dollars in compensation and this is only compensation. maybe next time i'll bring the bonus chart. that would require a lot more zeros. but i think that really there's so much overhead in the private insurance and it's really sending costs up. all we want with a public option and what the american people want with a public option because something like 70 some percent of the american public actually supports a public option. what they want is something that competes with the private insurers. after all, mr. ellison, i'm not really sure what the private insurers are afraid of because if they believe in the free marketplace, put the public option in there, let it compete in the free marketplace, and i'll tell you what, the

competition will be on and costs will be down. mr. ellison: and lobbying expenditures, c.e.o. compensation -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. ellison: we have to yield back and be back at this next time. this has been the progressive hour. thank you very much, mr. speaker. we yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following message. the clerk: to the congress of the united states, section 202-d of the national emergencies act provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless prior to the anniversary date of its declaration the president publishes in the federal register and transmits to the congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. in accordance with this provision i have sent to the federal register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared with respect to the actions of certain persons to undermine the sovereignty of lebanon or its democratic pros setses and

institutions is to continue in effect beyond august 1, 2009. in the past six months, the united states has used dialogue with the syrian government to address concerns and identify areas of mutual interest, including support for lebanese sovereignty. despite some positive developments in the past year, including the establishment of diplomatic relations and in exchange ever ambassadors between lebanon and syria, the actions of certain persons continue to contribute to political and economic instability in lebanon and the region and constitute a continuing and unusual extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the united states. for these reasons i have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared on august 1, 2007, to deal with that threat and the related measures adopted on that date to respond to the emergency. signed, barack obama, the white house, july 30, 2009. the speaker pro tempore: referred to the committee on foreign affairs and ordered printed.

under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from louisiana, mr. cassidy, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. cassidy: thank you, mr. speaker. we are pleased to be here. we call this the doctor's hour because there's a fair number of us on the republican side who are physicians or in some way health care providers. optometrist, practicing psychologist. and some other way connected with the health care field. so we give our own perspective. my own bio aside from being a physician, i have worked with the uninsured in my state of louisiana for the last 20 years. almost 90% of my practice is working with the uninsured in a public hospital. when i speak of what we need to do to help the uninsured, is purely flown out of my life experience. i think as the others come up, i'll give them a chance to speak what they are about. i'll start off with a couple comments.

i have learned in my 20 years whether private practice or public practice that the only thing that lowers cost is if you make things patient centric. if the government is in charge, or the insurance company, a bureaucracy run by anybody is in charge, it becomes something that doesn't work for the patient. the patient separated from cost, they have more -- they have harder time accessing benefits, it doesn't work. . if you put the patient in the middle and tell the woman you can go to the physician you wish to see and when you go in there there is minimal administrative hassle. if you don't like that physician, you can see another physician, it works. the patient is satisfied. and typically the physician- patient relationship is stronger. and key to getting good health care is having a strong patient-physician relationship. the only thing innovative we have heard from the other side, although their plan is changing

on a day-by-day basis. the only thing about that plan, which is radical is that it nationalizes health insurance. i was amused by my democratic colleagues saying, republicans are defending insurance companies. i think they are defending insurance companies. they like them so much because they want to nationalize it. now i'm thinking now we have an insurance company run by the private sector that if it doesn't work, constituents call congress and we pass a law that changes that so the private insurance company plays by better rules. now it's going to be the referee and the player, the government will make the rules and compete. as it does that, in some way, we're supposed to expect that the government-run insurance company is going to be kinder and gentler, most cost effective

effective than the private insurance company. i think it's the triumph of hope over experience. we hope it will be better. we know that medicaid and medicare don't work as we wish. in fact, they're going bankrupt and their bankruptcy is what's driving this plan. and so we're going to believe the third try is going to be the charm and this time we get it right. without going further, i yield to my fellow physician from louisiana, john fleming. mr. fleming: i thank my friend and fellow colleague, both a physician and fellow member of congress, bill cassidy and also fellow from louisiana and of course, tonight, we are going to be talking a lot of different things about what is the hottest topic in maybe a decade, health care reform, which both sides of

the house are very interested in. you hear often from this side of the aisle that well, for heavens sakes, we want health care reform, but republicans, you want the status quo. i can tell you personally that i ran for congress with the over arching intent of getting up here and participating in reform. what i want to bring forth first before we get into details is i think there is a litmus test as to how good a government-run system is, that proposed by the president and the democrats. and so the question is, the rhetorical question is, if it's so good, shouldn't congress be the first ones to sign up for it individually for them and their families. and in fact, to see to that, i set forth house resolution 615, which is supported by 66 republicans, including our leadership on down. and all it says is that if a

member of congress votes for a government-run health plan, a public option, if you will, then he or she is willing to forego the waiver to carve out the exception if you will that's built into their version and join it immediately for themselves. mr. cassidy: how many democratic co-sponsors do you have? mr. fleming: i'm sad to say to my friend and i thank you for yielding back, so far we have no democrats, goose eggs. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time, because we heard a presentation prior to this that by gentleladyy, this is the best thing since sliced bread. why wouldn't you be on it. why wouldn't they want to be on it? mr. fleming: that is the $1.6 trillion question, because

apparently, they're not enthraled in it as they would like to be in it themselves. i put it to the test by actually putting it on my website and asking people if they would like their congressman to support it, that they would actually reach out. we have 150,000 americans who signed the petitions. and the number is growing drastically every day. so i would say as we go through this date that we simply ask our constituents out there to hold us, hold us in congress accountable by contacting your congress person, senator or president and saying, mr. president or mr. or mrs. congress person, mr. or mrs. senator, would you go to fleming .house.gov and sign up on house resolution 615 that says if you are willing to vote for it, you

are willing to join it. mr. cassidy: i appreciate that. what we've heard before is that this plan does not put government between the patient and their physician. and yet, i would have to think if that weren't the case, why wouldn't anyone agree to your bill. i think the amendment was proposed in our committee and deeted on party-line votes. i think dr. roe may have some thoughts what would become between the patient and the physician. we know the closer the doctor is to the patient, the better it works. let's ask dr. roe what might come between the patient and the doctor. mr. roe: we want to talk to you about health care solutions. we ran for congress because we saw challenges in our health care system and wanted to be part of the debate on how to improve it.

this is my first term. and when i first arrived i was energized by the opportunity to reform how the health industry works and how to make health care more affordable which is the two biggest complaints. i realized that the house democratic majority had a different vision of how health care should be delivered. relying on doctors to make decisions, the health plan decides what is and what is not allowed based on its cost effectiveness. mr. cassidy: can you show me up there where there is an example of a washington democrat -- a bureaucrat on that chart. show me where the patient is and where the bureaucrat is. mr. roe: the patient is here and here. these are the parets over here. and this person right here, whoever this may be, will be the most powerful person in the u.s. this will be a health care

commissioner who will decide what is adequate and not adequate insurance coverage. this bureaucrat will be in the health care plan. mr. cassidy: what you're telling me this is a top-down figured out from washington and laid on the rest of the country? mr. roe: that's correct. and the solution should come from the other way, grassroots up. absolutely. in addition, they, the bureaucrats would create a system so complex that today's system would look like a walk in the park. the plan called for creation of a government-run insurance company, the so-called public option, which would over time bleed out the private insurance company because it would be mandated less than the costs of care. in the 1st district of tennessee, they call this socialized medicine and they sent me here with a clear message, please defeat this

bill. people want health care reform, they really do. i talk with people all the time who hate insurance companies and in my time as a doctor as you all have, i have spent more time on the phone getting an insurance company to approve the procedure. i talk to people who believe reform is possible and results in -- that results in them getting the same care for less money. i tell them it's possible if we focus on rooting out waste in the system. people in my district are clear that increasing washing bureaucrats' role in health care is not the direction they want our health care system moving in. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. we don't want this to be a partisan issue. now frankly, as i know, republicans have not been invited into the discussion and there are some things in that democratic plan that i think are very good. but there are other things and i think the general concept, but

it's not just us, david brooks, a columnist for the "new york times," you see him on tv. i have a quote here, the health care system is as big as the entire british economy. there's no way that big, complex and dynamic can be run out of washington. we have to set up a dynamic system not trying to establish a set of rules to be imposed by fiat. i think what you're telling me is that this is a big complex plan run out of washington and not the dynamic system, but rather a set of rules. and whoever that really powerful person is in that purple box, that person will be establishing the rules by fiat, is that correct? mr. roe: that is correct. one of the things that i think is very important that i have heard, when you hear about the costs of this health care plan.

this is around $1 trillion over 10 years, which doesn't start paying money out o the plan until 2013. it is $1 trillion over 5 1/2 years. let me explain why that is an extremely low number. mr. cassidy: let's call on our colleague, dr. fleming. david brooks talking about the c.b.o. report. quote, this is devastating. the plan was sold as a way to bend the cost cumbing and instead of the cost of the plan to the federal budget would rise by 8% and wouldn't anything be close to offsetting revenues to pay for it. dr. fleming, can you sustain a health care system, which is -- has out-of-control inflation, if you will? mr. fleming: my answer to the

gentleman is that i would look to the experience of other health care systems in other countries. if you look at medicare and medicaid, we have not been able to do that. medicare is running out of money. we don't have a solution to that. the states all across the country are are having tremendous difficulty figuring how they are going to pay for medicaid. and look at u.k., canada, countries around the world who have these systems, none of them have been able they have been able to control costs. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time, part of this plan is to increase medicaid eligibility, i.e. put people under medicaid, yet what we just heard is that medicaid is bankrupting states. mr. fleming: absolutely. mr. cassidy: going back to my question, if you cannot control costs, can you sustain a health care system? mr. fleming: in my opinion, no. again, if you can't do it for a

smaller system, how can you enlarge the system and make it work, particularly when there are no models. massachusetts, ten care, tenncare. no one has a system. mr. roe: let me tell the folks out here and we will spend the last half of this half hour about the positive solutions and what we agree on. when i first came to d.c. and heard about the public option i said i heard this about this before. we had managed care that was going to control the costs. we got a waiver from h.h.s. and formed tenncare and had 10 organizations competing for your business. now we have one. in the 1993 and 1994 year, the state of tennessee spent combined $2.5 billion. 11 years later, that had gone to over $8.5 billion.

it had tripled and took almost a third of the state's entire budget. if i could finish my point. we were complaining about 17% now. this took up a third in almost every new dollar that the state took in. mr. cassidy: let me pray the motivation that the people in tennessee, they clearly cared about the uninsured, but it was a flawed model and couldn't be sustained and we know that those patients are now uninsured again, probably worse off than before the experiment. mr. roe: actually what happened just to go over that a little bit, over that period of time in tennessee, it was a noble goal to cover as many people in our state as we could, but over a short period of time, 45% of the people who got on tenncare had private health insurance. and our governor is a democrat, the way he head control the cost

-- helped control the costs. and the way costs are controlled is by rationing care. in tennessee, about 200,000 people were removed from the rolls and what did a significant number of those people do? they went back on their private health insurance. and the other thing we got, you have to ask yourself, by tripling the amount of money you spend on health care, what kind of outcomes, because ultimately that's what you are interested in. and what we ended up in tennessee is the highest per capita drug use and number two in health outcomes. . mr. cassidy: this is an optometrist from arkansas. mr. boostman: one of the things i hear when i'm home very very much from seniors is if we have a medicare system that's functioning pretty well, yet when you look at it in 2017 it

has all kinds of fiscal problems. and their question to me is, why aren't you fixing the government prom we have now before you expand -- program we have now before you expand it greatly to billions of people? they tell us -- you guys can correct me or add, i have heard anywhere from 10% of the medicare bill that we pay is just wasted fraud. why aren't we addressing that? they tell us about the pizza parlors. mr. cassidy: 10% is in medicare, generally accepted figure s. waste and fraud. so we hear from our colleagues across the aisle that medicare has lower overhead cost, if you include in that 10%, is a common way to define overhead, actually that 3% becomes at least 13%, fair statement? i think an economist would say if your overhead is so meager that you can't watch out for

fraud and abuse, you need to lump the cost of fraud and abuse into your overhead. mr. boostman: i agree. as a guy from arkansas i just know there is a heck of a lot of fraud and waste in the system. rather than expand it, like we are talking about doing now, why not fix that first? we hear about the pizza parlors charging for dialysis, things like that. so again i would say we need to get our act together there, reform the medicare system that we've got. i know i'm in a situation now, it's not uncommon at all for me to have people my age call and say my mom has moved to town, i can't find a medicare provider, because the fees are so low for physicians, that people have started either limiting the slots that they use for medicare practice or simply discontinue the practice in their clinics. mr. cassidy: dr. broun, you joined us. can we have your thoughts? mr. broun: i appreciate you

yielding me time. i think the american people need to know several things about this. you-all brought up some very good points. the c.b.o. says that this obamacare plan is not going to save money. it says that in 10 years we are still going to have almost 20 million people in this country that don't have health insurance. they need to understand that illegal aliens are going to be given free health insurance by the federal government. last night i was watching c-span and one of our democratic colleagues was just railing on about how illegal aliens will not get obamacare, but the reality is is in the energy and commerce committee, just today, this morning, one of our -- my georgia colleagues introduced an amendment to the bill that would basically said that you have to

look at people citizenship and confirm whether u.s. citizens or not. that was defeated on a party-line vote. all the republicans voted for the amendment. most all the democrats, i think there was one or two, that voted with my colleague, republican colleague from georgia, to just affirm that somebody was here legally to get free health insurance. so we saw that with schip. when i first came up here in the last congress, we had numerous debates about schip. and fights over giving state child health insurance programs to illegal aliens. and our democratic colleagues absolutely fought and won the fight on this issue. they do -- people who come, they are going to be asking a question, are you an illegal alien? when they say no, i'm not an

illegal alien, then they are not going to do anything to check the legality or truth in that statement. so it's a self-determination by an applicant whether they are legal or not. if they say they are not illegal, then they are going to be given free health insurance under this government plan. the other thing i think is extremely important for the american people to understand is that this plan is going to cost american workers a tremendous salary decrease plus it's going to put a lot of american workers out of work. in fact it's been projected that over 100 million people are going to be forced off their private insurance also as dr. roe was just talking about happened in the tenncare. i heard a figure of 114 million people who have private insurance today are going to be forced off their private insurance on to this public,

so-called public option. how does that work? well, i have businesses in my own district in northeast georgia that have told me, business men and women, they would rather pay the 8% taxer, it would cost them less to do -- pay the tax breaks tax and then did did the extra tax, and then put the folks who they are paying for insurance today on the government plan. i saw a video today of barney frank who was questioned about the government option. he said in this video, in his own words, that this is the way to get everybody in this country on a single payer system. so the claim that our democratic

colleagues put forth if you have private insurance you keep it, but if you don't, then we'll give you a public option. that is not factual. what they are going to do, they are setting up the game as such, as barney frank just blatantly said in this video today, i think it's on u -- you tube, barney frank said this government option is the means to get everybody on one single payer system provided by the federal government. mr. cassidy: if i can reclaim my time. let's give credit where credit is due. the advocates for public option plan, they will point out there is decreased administrative cost. dr. roe, can you look up at that chart once more, maybe you can, drmplet boostman, give us a sense what would be the administrative cost -- boozman, give us a sense of what would be the administrative cost.

mr. roe: you have -- if you look at this, it is -- it's so complicated it's almost comical, the problem with it is, this is how your health care's going to be administered. i do want to say for every physician in this room and in this congress, both democrat and republican, and i truly from the bottom of my heart it has been a privilege to be a physician, to be able to provide care for people and to administer to them. i believe i think everyone, both republican and democrat, believe that health care decisions should be be made between a family, patient, and the doctor. having said that, you take a look at having to go through this, you're going to have a benefits advisory committee and i don't mean this funny, but when the lord got tired, a committee built a moose. basically here is going to be deciding what's adequate care as administered by this down here. you'll have the bureau of health information. we'll have comparative

effectiveness outcomes. i want to tell you the other thing the people who really need to be fearful are senior citizens. when you start looking at getting rid of medicare advantage. when you start talking about carving as much as $500 billion out, i don't think our seniors feel like too much is being spent if you talk to them and see what their supplementals cost. you are talking about, you know what that means, when you spend less money you provide less care. there is no plan in the world that can provide more and more care for a lot less money. mr. broun: would you yield one minute. while you're talking about the seniors, i think the seniors need to understand about this obamacare plan that it mandates that those seniors go to have counseling, i think it's every five years, they have to go get counseling every five years about dying. and this is a government bureaucracy, i'm not sure where it is in your chart there

because it's hard to figure out what all this bureaucracy is being placed between the patient and the doctor, but one of the those bureaucracy is going to every five years tell people over 65 years of age, basically that they have a responsibility to look at how they are going to die and not cost the american taxpayer money. mr. cassidy: thank you for offering that. dr. boozman, john, when you look at that some of our patients are not as sophisticated as others. let's face it, some folks don't have the same education. maybe they have had to struggle a little bit to get through life. imagine if a patient had a problem with that and didn't have a counselor coming to them as dr. brown mentions, but by golly they just have a doctor they don't like. don't get along with. they can't to complain to someone. where would they complain? mr. boozman: i think that's a real problem. as was mentioned, one of the things that we see in this type of plan is rationing for

seniors. are they going to be able to get the knees, the hips, in my case being very familiar with cataract surgery, is somebody going to allow them to have that as they get older and allow them to ease their pain and lead a quality of life? we are talking about preventive care and all this. you do a great job and live and get up in years, and then we are going to take away the ability for you to go ahead and continue the quality of life. mr. roe: the bill itself is scored -- mr. fleming: the bill itself is scored over $100 billion taken out of the medicare program. over $400 billion taken out of the current medicare program. so that's actually in their bill itself. so i don't see how they can claim that the elderly would get more care.

mr. boozman: there are so many questions unanswered. when you look at this chart. if you get denied, who do you appeal to? is there any appealing? mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. i found one page that spoke on ombudsman that you would call up and have a complaint. i read an article in the mckenzie quarterly, there are three things they absolutely have to do if we control cost. we've got to decrease administrative cost. i look at that and it gives me a migraine. mr. boozman: the first thing you got to do is have tort reform. you guys have to spell out how you practice defensive medicine. people come to him with headaches and things like that. and there's one thing that's not on that chart. there's nothing about nuisance lawsuits that are driving up the cost of medicine and make it such that we have counties in arkansas where i'm from that

don't have any o.b. because the guys can't afford the malpractice insurance. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. dr. broun, how does the bill address tort reform? mr. brou it does not. it does not address tort reform. mr. cassidy: we just heard from our colleague from arkansas that's a critical thing to do. mr. broun: i was fixing to ask dr. boozman to yield to tell him a story. two days ago i talked to the administrator of one of the major hospitals, it's a regional hospital within my congressional district in northeast georgia. he was telling me just that day one of the cat zahn techs, this lady was up in his office asking for more help and their cat-scan unit. at night. and what he said is he asked her, why do you need so much in the way of of help there?

she said because of all the massive amount of cat scans that we are running appear through the night that are ordered through the emergency room. they did 10 cat-scans in one night on patients that came in. the administrator's question was, how many of those cat scans were positive? zero. not the first one. i have worked full-time and part of my career as director of emergency medicine at baptist hospital in gag georgia. i have been involved in emergency medicine throughout my medical career. sometimes part-time. sometimes no time when i was just doing family medicine and other times full-time. but doctors in the emergency room particularly are having to do cat scans on people that come in with all sorts of aches and pains. when they really don't need to do those, but they are having to do those cat scans and m.r.i.'s

just because somebody might have something that would come back later on and sue them for missing the diagnosis. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. earlier dr. roe had suggested we spend our first half as a critique of what the folks, our colleagues across the aisle put forward. we send our second half to talk about what works. this is a nice segue. i think, one, we know administrative cost, lowering that will help. we know that malpractice reform can also address some of these issues. . and i go back to the central thing that, any effective reform has to put the patient in middle. you have to give them transparent costs, they know what they're buying for before they go in there and encourage them to make the lifestyle changes because ultimately a patient, she or he, is ultimately responsible for their own health. i know that dr. fleming in your business, because you're not

only a physician and congressman, husband and a father, but you're also a small businessman, you can relate your experience with health savings accounts, perhaps define them for us and say how they worked in your small business? mr. fleming: absolutely. i thank the gentleman. i'll tell you, approximately five years ago, this is when health savings accounts -- >> would you define what thanks? -- that is? mr. fleming: it's really very simple where either the subscriber, the employee, or the employer, as in our case, puts part of the subscription cost into a savings account -- >> so instead of paying a health premium, you put a portion of that health premium into a bank account of sorts, that the patient-employee then controls. mr. fleming: not only does he control but it is nontaxed and he can use it to buy prescription drugs, to pay the deductible or whatever, and we were up against a situation where many small businesses, our premiums were going up, 9%, 10%,

sometimes 15% per year and we were pulling our hair out trying to figure out what else we can do and this idea of health savings accounts came out and we said, well, let's try this. i had some reluctance from my employees but we increased the deductible and the extra amount that we would have paid for the increase in subscription costs, we put it into a health savings account for each and every one of them. the results were dramatic. the cost flatlined. they did not go up and they've -- since then they've never gone up more than 3% per year. it's empowered the employee, the patient, the family, to buy medications at will and it was very interesting, i had one employee who was complaining as we implemented, she said, well, gee, you know, i spent $200 a month for inhalers and how is this going to help me snout because i'm going to be spending a lot of time. and she said, -- and i said, well, let me suggest that you

stop smoking and with the money that you save by not having to use inhalers, you will have plenty of money left over. she took me up on it. and now she doesn't need inhalers. >> reclaiming my time, could she have used her h.s.a. to buy the medications to help her get off the cigarettes? mr. fleming: absolutely. i like that because it puts the patient, the empowered patient, in the middle, so that she's making the best decisions not only for her walt -- wallet, but also to -- also for her health and by the way, for her job, because you're able to keep your costs down and keep her employed. fair statement? mr. fleming: absolutely. mr. cassidy: also you've had experience with putting patients in the middle through these sorts of plans. you can relate that, please? >> in our own practice we had traditional health insurance, as most people did, 80%/20% cost. costs were continuing to go up. we introduced this plan for the physicians, 11 of us in the group, and all of us decided to go on this plan and two years

ago we have a group that has 294 employees that elected to get their health insurance through our plan at the office, 294. 70 providers, doctors and extenders. 84% of our people, our employees in our office, chose this plap because it put them -- plan because it puts them in control of the dollars. if you believe in wellness and prevention and the way our plan worked was you had a $5,000 deductible that scarce everybody to death, but our group put $4,200 per person in there. that was our contribution. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. you had a savings account for the patient, $4,200 that you put in there to help pay that high deductible. mr. roe: yes. mr. cassidy: but now it's coming out of their pocket if they buy the expensive medicine as opposed to the insurance company. mr. roe: as opposed to generics. then at the end of the year if they've been healthy, they've taken care of themselves, they

keep that money. but let's say they have an illness, let's say they have a wreck or something that happens to them. anything above that deductible's paid 100%. so you have catastrophic coverage. but you're in control of the first dollars and by doing that, again, i think you pointed out in our education and labor meeting, that particular type of insurance protection is 30% lower than standard. and you -- mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. for a similar size family, similar benefits, with a health saves account, costs are 30% lower relative to traditional insurance. week of talked about and quoted david brooks talking about the congressional budget office comment that the plans being presented to us do not bend the curve, they elevate the cost curve. and yet here's something which has been proven, it's not a hope, but it's experience, to lower costs by 30%. mr. roe: that's correct. when you empower consumers, as

i've said, how many of us have driven a car -- across four lanes of interstate to buy gas three cents a gallon cheaper? americans are great shoppers and they'll look after -- as opposed it to when they're spending their own money, they're careful with it as opposed to the government which is not careful with their money. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time, john, if i can ask you, those patients we talked about earlier, and maybe they haven't had the same educational opportunity, the same economic opportunity, but nonetheless, if gas were cheaper three cents a gallon on the other side of the interstate, do you think they'd go over four lanes to get it? >> very much so. i was looking on the chart and it's not on there. but other things, the associated health plans, where if you're a floorist, a small businessman, and you've got your little store and you go in and try to negotiate with the insurance company, you don't have a very strong negotiating position. but if we would allow them to go in with other, thousands of floorists, then they can negotiate as a group and get a

much better rate, like a major corporation. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. may i add that that is part of some of the republican alternatives that are being proposed. allow those small business men and women to band together, perhaps to purchase one of these empowering h.s.a.'s. mr. fleming: why is it that they can't do that now? mr. boozman: in doing that you have to go across state lines. also, different states have different mandates as far as what they -- you have to offer in particular states. so we could do that at the federal level and just get rid of all that stuff and then go across the state line. mr. broun: i'd like to point out a something, the commerce closs of the -- clause of the constitution, i'm an original intent constitutionist, i carry a copy in my pocket, this is not a prop. i carry it all the time. even when i'm home doing all

sorts of things. i don't take it with me in the shower or those types of things but almost. but the commerce clause under its original intent was supposed to do just exactly what you're talking about, dr. boozman. allow interstate commerce across state lines. what we've done is we've perverted the constitution in many ways and this is one way that commerce clause has been perverted tremendously. the commerce clause is supposed to make sure that there would not be a lock box of goods and services at the state line. it was supposed to facilitate interstate commerce, not to control interstate commerce, but to facilitate it. and so we have perverted the constitution markedly and this is one good point that republicans are pointing out today about troying to give patients the ability to buy the insurance directly from an

insurance company across state lines or have these pools with their alumni association, the university of georgia we could have the university of georgia alumni pool. i we have an mcg pool -- m.c.g. pool. we could have a rotary pool. we could have these huge pools which would help stop some of these problems with portability, it would help solve some of the problems we have with the high overheads and other things. mr. cassidy: this is another, you give me these nice bridges to segue into some of the republican alternatives. and you're actually addressing those very nicely. and if you're a member of rotary, you can do it. now, i like that, so i can call on my good friend, will dr. fleming, if he can then maybe initiate some of the discussion of just what the republican study committee is putting forth, not necessarily what mr. ryan has put forth or others but even just that plan? mr. fleming: i thank the gentleman. you know, you often hear

rhetoric from the democrat side of the aisle that we are the party of status quo, we're the party of no, we don't want reform. again, i reiterate, that was the main thing i ran on to come to congress. i want health care reform. but i want commonsense reform, not nonsense reform. and that's what the democratics -- democrats are offering us. the first completed bill, there are different versions of bills on the republican side, but the first completed bill that's actually been dropped, because we've been working behind the scenes for weeks and months to get it perfect, is the empowering patients first act which i am a proud original co-sponsor and here are just some basic points of it. access to coverage for all americans. it covers pre-existing conditions, and that is the big problem that everybody's talking about here tonight. risk pools -- mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. so, if will you, what's being said by our colleagues across the aisle to misrepresent our

positions, we absolutely favor insurance reform to allow folks with pre-existing conditions to get coverage, correct? mr. fleming: absolutely. mr. cassidy: that's what you just said. so next time someone gets up to a podium and says we don't believe that, that's incorrect, correct? mr. fleming: you're correct. mr. cassidy: the fact is that that is misleading and that's one thing that when i liken their plan and i liken our plan. mr. fleming: it also protects employer-sponsored -- employer-sponsored insurance, but on the other hand, it actually gives ownership of the plans to the individual. and also the individual can buy it outside of their employer. mr. cassidy: again, the anecdotes you gave and dr. roe gave regarding the empower patients by giving them these health savings accounts, we empower patients, that's in our plan? mr. fleming: exactly. mr. cassidy: it's not the government bureaucracy between our friends up there, rather it is empowering patients.

mr. fleming: this does not exist. this matrix you see with dr. roe and dr. boozman that does not exist in this plan. mr. broun: if i could -- if you would yield just a second, to draw a contrast here, too, is in the plan that you were just talking about, dr. fleming, a patient, or an employee, could choose whether they want to purchase their plan through their employer or not, is that correct? mr. fleming: that is correct. mr. broun: in the democratic plan, they're going to be forced to buy the employer-provided health insurance or they're going to be taxed at 2% increase tax rate over what they're being taxed today. so their taxes are going to go up by 2%, they're going to be forced into that employer- provided health care plan that's going to be dictated, if you'll hold just a second, i want to make one very strong point here,

that people need to understand, that employer-provided health care plan is going to be dictated, dictated, by the health care czar czar panel that is established on this board of colors and blocks and things. so the employees won't have a choice anymore about the plan that they offer their employees and the employee won't have a choice either. and both of them are going to pay a penalty if they don't do what the federal government mandates or dictates to them. is that correct? mr. fleming: that is correct. also the government will have to actually certify all health plans. it will be a one-size-fits-all. mr. roe: the empowering patients first act that you just talked about does not contain, as dr. broun just described, these mandates, these taxes. mr. cassidy: may i just interrupt for a second?

a clear contrast between our plan, if you will, one of our plans, and their plan, aside from their increased administrative cost, aside from their top-heavy, aside from our being lower administrative costs and patient-centered, one of the plans being presented to us has the mandates and -- but the republican plan does not? mr. roe: that's correct. mr. broun: that was the point i was trying to bring up, too, doctors, if i can speak directly to the american citizens, as i cannot, rules here, but if the american citizens understood that the democratic plan is going to dictate their plan to them, it's all going to be run by government dictation or dictum from washington, d.c., and this health care czar, whereas the republican plan gives the patient and the employer the choice of what they want to do. and that's why i wanted to try to draw that contrast as you were talking.

i yield back. mr. fleming: let me complete -- because there's only a couple more points left, it also reins in out of control costs. this goes back to malpractice reform. this has malpractice reform. the government-plan has not a word about malpractice reform. and finally, this is budget neutral. that plan is, over on this side of the aisle, is $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion depending on which year span you're talking about, of course. with the c.b.o. telling us that the cost curve up, not down, despite what the president has told us, this one starts out with no cost, no net cost. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time, it's important that the people watching realize that that's not just republicans saying this. again, i'm going to quote the congressional budget office as we know has spoken about how costly this bill would be. so from nytimes.com, i again quote david brooks.

the theory of the democratic bill seems to be that 98% of the americans can party on with the latest and costliest health care manageable, no matter how infective and the top 2% will pay for it all. he goes on to say, if you don't control the rate of health care inflation, even the rich won't be able to pay for the cost increases. . it's others commenting on the cost, or commenting on the congressional budget office comments. mr. fleming: just to get down to the basics. if the public, consumer doesn't have skin in the game, there's no money to be saved in this. if it's all on the providers and government, you'll never see cost control. let me add one other thing before yield, we were talking a moment about the fact that illegal immigrants will be covered under this plan. 10 million or more. this also -- mr. broun: not our plan. mr. fleming: the democratic plan provides for coverage for

illegal immigrants. the republican plan does not. the republican plan presumes that we will deal with immigration problems through an immigration reform process. but getting to my final point here is, the other thing that the government-run plan, democrat plan provides for, is taxpayer funded abortions. not only taxpayer funded abortions, but actual mandate requirement for convenience. they'll have to be convenient centers throughout the country so that young women will not only have access but will have easy access all to the taxpayer's expense. none of that is provided for in the republican plan. mr. roe: i have a letter that i received from a constituent, was given to me this past week, i think it's worth passing on. dear dr. roe, my wife and i are aware of the struggle you face on capitol hill over government-run health care. we wish to offer you our personal story of of how current -- the current system saved our

son robby to use as you see fit to put a human face on our side of this issue. robby suffers from unbearable pain that began when he had a severe infection he contracted in september of 2007. began one saturday, went to bed feeling off. woke up the next morning with a severe earache. within five hours his ear drum ruptured n spite of several courses of antibiotics, this infection continued to spread into every cavity of robby's head and dwan -- began to attack his nervous system. he was admitted to the knocksville children's hospital for over a week. the infection finally stopped but the damage had been done. he lost the ability to walk. he also developed a motor vocal tick associated with constant shooting pain in his head. we researched robby's symptoms and found doctors at vanderbilt hospital in nashville and philadelphia. he was treated by the head of the pediatric neurology there. we were able to visit these doctors only because our private health insurance gives us the

flexibility to do so. in the last 18 months robby's been hospitalized six times, including most of this march. pain medicine including morphine, democrat rol, gave no relief. he had to be sedated for over a week until the pain subsided. there is stilling no definitive diagnosis. in spite of this he's had multiple exploratory procedures and tried nearly 20 medications. we finally found a medicine that helped four months ago. this has eased his symptoms significantly. he's doing better but still unable to return to school. throughout this or deal the -- ordeal the medical system has been helpful, timely, and accessible. we were always allowed to be part of the decisionmaking process in our son's care for medicines and proceed ureds to which doctors and hospitals treat him. recently learned of another boy in our area about robby's age that suffered from similar symptoms. he died. we believe competent, fast, flexible care that would be impossible under a government control system saved robby from this fate.

we lived under government health care system in the army. i grew up in an army family. i remember sitting for hours in the military emergency room with a broken arm. he goes on, we had no recourse. you can't sue the government. we are not weahy people. we make well below the median income and have had to pay thousands of dollars out of our own pocket to get robby where he is now. it's been a strug. we would gladly pay any amount to ensure the timely care and freedom of choice needed to treat our son. it is true that under a government control system we wouldn't have had these medical expenses. we believe they would have been funeral expenses. please feel free to use our 120rry. we would be glad to testify or do anything else you feel would be beneficial. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. one, it's a tremendous testament to the faith of that family and their love for their son and to those fine physicians at vanderbilt. but it's not -- i think all of us share the hope to have high

quality health care, affordable, accessible to all americans. our concern is that the solutions being brought upon us are going to not only not achieve that, but interfere with that relationship. it's not just folks who are on -- conservatives. i have an editorial in my local paper by susan. recall she was chief of staff for walterer mondale when he -- walter mondale when he ran for president. i don't agree but she's a bright woman. she writes, don't risk your health care. she begins, the president is, quote, not familiar with the bill. no one can explain how it will work yet. as senator ben cardin said, there are various plans and negotiations are still in the early stages. but whatever it is, we should be be for it. she goes on to say, am i missing something? then she describes the relationship that she and her family have with their physician. and they are not sure, she wants to be reassured and has seen

nothing that reassures her yet, that that relationship will be preserved. so it isn't just folks in this arena, it's folks across the country. dr. boozman, what are your thoughts? mr. boozman: i say all of us, in hearing the letter, all of us have seen patients in our practices that we knew as we prescribed the treatment that they couldn't afford. hardworking people that just didn't have the ability to afford that. so we definitely need reform. and we have talked about that. we need portability. we need tomorrow -- more competition. things like that. what we don't need, though, is to try to get this thing done in two or three weeks. i was on the school board for seven years f we were trying to change the curriculum of the high school class, we spend more than two or three weeks doing due diligence. to try to do that in a period of two or three weeks makes no

sense at all. the other thing i would say is is that we don't need government-run health care. we don't need to go down the path towards great britain and canada. something i'd like for you guys to comment on because you have treated them, tell us about the results of cancer and things like that in the canadian and great britain systems compared to the united states? i guess my concern is an effort to fix our pretty good system, it's working pretty good, we actually destroy the system to fix the part that's broken. mr. cassidy: it works for 85% of the people. we none the less we would favor the reforms that would ease the insecurity if you get sick you lose your insurance or it's priced out. we favor that reform. we favor the reform that deals with pre-existing conditions. at the same time we don't want to ruin it for the 85%. i yield to my friend. mr. broun: i just want to give you a couple of quick stories,

one that goes along with doctor roe's story. i have a surgical colleague i was talking to who told me about get getting a phone call from a government bureaucrat. a medicare patient he had in the hospital. the doctor got the call from medicare bureaucrat in atlanta and said, doctor, we have reviewed such and such a patient i understand you have in the hospital. yes. we have reviewed it, she does not meet criteria to be hospitalized. and we want you to discharge her today. and the doctor said, well, have you seen my patient? no. are you a doctor? no. are you a nurse? no. so you're just a government bureaucrat, is that correct? well, i work for c.m.s. he said, you have not seen my patient at all? no. but you have determined that this patient should be in the hospital, you want me to discharge her? that's correct. he said this patient is extremely ill. if i discharge her, she's very

likely to die. and i'm not going to discharge her. the government bureaucrat said, doctor, if you -- you don't understand, we have determined if you don't discharge this patient today, we are going to fine you touchdown,000 a day. so the doctor went and talked to the patient's family and patient, what were they to do? he discharged her. she died that night at home. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. c.m.s. is the agency that governs medicaid and medicare. mr. broun: this was a medicare program. thank you. that's one story. that's the kind of care that the democratic plan is going to not only give us more of, but it's going to take it down to lower age groups besides those 65 years and older. it's government intrusion in the health care system that's run up the cost tremendously. we are going to have -- c.b.o. has already said the democratic plan is going to cost more money, it's not going to bring

the cost down. you are talking about the cost curve going up. what that means to the people who don't understand, that means it's going to be more costly for the health care system under the democratic plan than what we have today. mr. cassidy: reclaiming my time. i just want to wrap that in with a comment dr. fleming said about how the best system is one in which the patient's involved. i think you said skin in the game. value transparent pricing for value conscious people. quote interesting david brooks, "new york times" columnist, thoughtful man, i say there have to be cost conscience consumers within a closely regulated market. unless you get proper incentives for providers and consumers, i doubt you are going to go far. the current plans meaning those across the aisle all the emphasis is on the providers. mr. broun: dr. cassidy, if you don't mind yielding for another moment. let me tell you about something that happened. in my medical practice down in

rural southwest georgia, congress passed the clinical laboratory improvement act. i had a fully automated lab in my office where i would do blood sugars and blood counts. if a patient came in to see me with a red soar throat, runny fever, coughing, running nose, i would do a complete blood cut to see if they had a bacterial infection and needed antibiotics. or viral could have the same picture. they shut my lab down and every doctor's lab in my country down. prior i charged $12 for that c.b.c., five minutes to do. with quality control. after clea i had to send patients across the way to the hospital it took two to three hours to get the test and cost $75 nor one test. $12 to $75. five minutes to three hours. this is how government intrusion into health care marketedly

drives up -- mr. cassidy: i think you are involved in what's called a patient centered practice where the patient will prepay you say 50 bucks a month and if you don't satisfy that patient, she goes to see another doctor, do i recall that correctly? mr. broun: not exactly. i discharge patients at the time i see them. i don't have that concierge practice where i'm prepaid. actually i charge less -- my practice was a full-time house call practice. i was not working in the office at all. mr. cassidy: i want to mention that one thing. there are physicians, a lot of them on the west coast, that have practice 245 is so patient centered and works beautifully. in that practice the patient pays 50 bucks to 100 bucks a month and gets all their primary and preventive services cared for. if the patient doesn't find another doctor. next month. it's like target or wal-mart. if my wife doesn't like the sale at target she goes to wal-mart. if she doesn't like the service at wal-mart, she goes to target. the fact is the physician knowing that those folks can go

is going to be more patient sensitive. mr. broun: the republican plan allows patients to do that where the democratic plan does not. mr. cassidy: thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. by cheery, for 60 minutes -- mr. boccieri, for 60 minutes.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio, mr. bow cheery, is recognized for 60 minutes. mr. boccieri: thank you, mr. speaker. this snuck up on me with respect to the timing. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle finished much earlier. didn't have as much to say as we are going to have tonight about clean energy. i'm joined with my colleague from new york, congressman mcmahon, who i'll recognize very shortly to talk about one of the pillar issues, one of the seminal issues that we are going to address in this congress. in this boddy. we have already taken action with respect to moving an energy policy forward that puts our country first. . our country first and truly this is

about making america stronger. making our country stronger by investing in america. i know some may think that that's a novel idea but this is not about democrats or republicans. this is not about their ideas versus our ideas. this is about americans and american innovation. and something think a feel so passionately about. today we're going to talk about this energy bill that passed through the congress here, through the house of representatives, we're going to talk about what has made this such an important issue in the coming weeks, that we hope that the senate will take action as soon as possible. and before i get too deep into my long speech here i'd like to recognize the gentleman from new york to say a few opening remarks with respect to energy and what we have to offer here in the house of representatives. mr. mcmahon. mr. mcmahon: thank you, congressman boccieri, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. mr. chairman, and mr. boccieri,

it is a privilege and honor to stand here on the house of representatives tonight and talk about this very important issue. i bring to it a perspective i think that is very important in this debate. you see, i come from new york city. i grew up in staten island, new york, and i now have the privilege and honor of representing staten island and brooklyn, new york, here in the house of representives. and for the last few weeks and months i've been very disappointed at the rhetoric that i've heard in this chamber and beyond from those on the republican side of the aisle. they, quite frankly, have had their heads in the sand. they, quite frankly, have been tied up in the rhetoric of partisan politics. and i say that as a new yorker, as someone who suffered and saw first-hand what happens when this country doesn't deal methodically and honestly with energy policy. you see, september 11, a date that we all know too, too well, in my opinion, and the opinion

of the people in new york and the peop around the world, occurred because our country has not dealt honestly and fairly with energy policy. oh, i know it was the act of terrorists, there's no question. men bent on hate, men bent on islamic fundamentalism to bring down this nation. but you see, our country's been caught up too long in an addiction on oil from the countries from which these men came. every time an american goes to the gas pump and puts gas into his or her car they are sending money back to a saudi government that had sent and continues to send money to al qaeda. and every time you go to the pump and put your gas in your car you're sending money to iran. so ahmadinejad can send that money to hezbollah and round about to hamas. we are paying for terrorists to arm and to be energized in a war against america and all the things we stand for. so i know there can be honest

debate on things that we disagree about. i know that we can stand on this side of the aisle and that side of the aisle and have a fair and honest debate about those things. but the things that i've heard over these last few weeks, the lies, the mistruths, are all too much for us to take. just think about the way that they've tried to scare, the republicans have tried to scare the american people by saying that if we pass an energy security bill here in washington it will mean an increase in home heating and energy prices of $3,100 a year and when they did that they cited a study from an m.i.t. produce professor. upon hearing that immediately that professor said, that's not true, you are misquoting my study, i did not say that, that's not what this study says. weeks and months after that professor issued that disclaimer, we continue to hear from the other side of the aisle these very same pronouncements.

there are untruths, there are misstatements and it's time for it to end. the american people deserve more , the security of our nation deserves more, the people who lost their lives on 9/11, the families who suffered, the emergency workers who suffered, all those people deserve more. and the men and women who write this -- right this moment are in places like iraq and afghanistan , they deserve better. they deserve an honest and up front discussion about energy policy, what it means to our security and that if we don't get it right now then more lives could be lost in the future. mr. boccieri, i'm so glad to be here with you today to talk about these important issues and i know that the people from ohio to new york out to california will be united in knowing that america is a country, we sent a man to the moon, we can deal with energy policy as well. and it's something that i look forward to working with you on. mr. boccieri: i thank the

gentleman from new york and he is absolutely correct in his assessment of this. this is a matter of our national security. the american clean energy and security act that was passed out of this chamber is about our nation's national security. moving away from our dependence on foreign oil and more importantly creating jobs right here in our country that can't be outsourced. we build a brand new nuclear reactor, it can't be outsourced . when we lay the foundation for new solar panels on top of buildings and homes or perhaps on tops of our carser recharging our batteries, those are jobs that can't be outsourced. the maintenance, the delivery, the processing that will go into these jobs are going to create jobs right here in america. and i'm so proud that we are leading the edge, my predecessor, congressman regula, started investment in these technologies in our district. and i'm glad and proud to be following in his foot steps to make certain that these types of energy investments are making -- are will and honestly will be

making our country stronger in the long run. let's revisit some of the things we've talked about here, congressman mcmahon, and, mr. speaker, the fact that this is about our national security. first and foremost this chart right here really is a tell-all with respect to our national energy crisis that we face. 66.4% of our oil comes from foreign countries. 66% of our oil, 66.4% of our oil comes from overseas. that means $475 billion has been sent overseas. we are distributing our wealth, we're sending our resources, our hard-earned dollars overseas to buy a commodity that we can produce here, we can refine here, that we can explore here. in fact, the senate version of the bill adds exploration and drilling right here in the gulf of mexico that will add 3.8 billion barrels of oil but we know that's not enough because we don't have enough oil here in

america to fill the demand that we have. and in fact it's been reported that we have nearly 3% of the world's reserves here in america, in the northern hemisphere, but we consume about 24% of the world's oil. so you do the math. at 22 million barrels a day, 3% of the world's oil here in the northern hemisphere, we would exhaust that resource very, very quickly. the number-one, the number-one user in the united states of oil, the number-one consumer of oil in the united states is the department of defense. and in fact we consume so much oil in the department of defense that we have grown very, very concerned here on capitol hill about our dependence on foreign oil. because our nation's military is so dependent on foreign sources of oil, oil that we import, and the fact that we have so many military operations going on overseas, so many of our troops are men and women spread across

the world that we have a national security crisis right here on our hands. and that's why, mr. mcmahon, that's why, congressman, we have begun testing synthetic fuels. that's why beeve within testing blended fuels in the department of defense. they just started testing these blended fuels, synthetic fuels, in our aviation -- in our aircraft. because we know that of the department of defense, the largest consumer of oil in the department of defense is our aviation asset, 77% of it is used with respect to our oil needs. and we have got to find an alternative source and that's why this energy legislation is so important to investing in alternative energies and understanding that our nation's military is so dependent on this fossil fuel. now, in 1944, when the united states bombed the oil fields, we effectively cut off the supply of oil to the germans. but they quickly transitioned to

use synthetic fuel which is a derivative of coal. a derivative of coal. now, we know that we have quite a bit of coal here in the united states. it's abundant, it's a natural resource that's very cheap to us and we're going to continue using it. in fact, the e.p.a. has said with the passage of this bill, coal use in the united states is actually going to increase. and with it being so abundant, boy, i would love to see with investment that we have charged in this legislation, to invest in carbon capture, to invest in coal and synthetic fuel and coal to gas liquefacation, these new types of technology that can make our country less dependent on foreign oil is going to makes i stronger in the long run. and if we can put that synthetic fuel, that clean-burning fuel, that clean coal tech unwilling in our airplanes someday, we're going to be less dependent on our foreign sources of energy. one last point before i turn it over to my colleague for some remarks, 66.4% of the oil comes from overseas.

do you know how much comes from the middle east, congressman? 40% of our nation's demand is filled by the middle east. by opec-producing nations. that is way too much. we have two wars going on in the middle east, we have countless numbers of our troops over there and it is argued and has been argued so many times on this floor that our nation's interaction overseas and in the middle east is about our dependence on that natural resource and it's time we put america first, american troops first, and invest in our country, our people, and i would much rather rely on the innovation in the midwest than the oil in the mid east. i yield to my gentleman friend. mr. mcmahon: thank you, congressman, and, mr. speaker, and congressman boccieri, congressman, you've remember really established and hit home how this is about national security. and you know, there was a time in our nation's great history, in fact, throughout most of its history, when we would talk about national security, both

sides, republicans and democrats, would put down the partisan rhetoric, they would put away the myths and the half truths and they would just talk to the facts because what was at stake was not the gain of one side or the other, it was about the very essence of our country, our security and the safety of our young men and women in uniform. whether it's the uniform of our armed services or the uniform of our first responders back here at home. and unfortunately what we've seen throughout this debate from the republican side is an onslaught, a deluge of untruths, of myths. i want to talk about a couple of those myths before i turn it back over to you. you know, one is about the notion of the household energy audits and i've stood on this floor and sat in this chamber and heard our colleagues from the republican side of the aisle say, if you pass this bill and if america deals honestly and forth rightly with its national security energy policy, every

homeowner in america's going to have to do an audit, an energy audit, before they can sell their home. well, you know, congressman boccieri, and i know, that that's nowhere near, nowhere anywhere in that bill. that language does not exist, it's not in the bill, it was not in the bill that we passed. the energy security bill contains no provision requiring that buildings or homes undergo energy retrofits or audits of an existing home's energy efficiency. the bill does create incentives for builders and homeowners to take steps to reduce the waste in their homes and in their new buildings and that's to everyone's benefit. the homeowner would save money on their energy bills and we as a nation would use less energy and therefore put ourselves less at risk. and yet we hear over and over again how there are these imposed requirements on america's homeowners. there is no federal energy audit

requirement and it leaves the decisions to the homeowners and the local governments to deal with that. and there's also -- the bill actually prohibits the e.p.a. from regulating residential and commercial buildings as per the clean air act and yet we hear the rhetoric over and over again. but you know, congressman, in the debate there clearly have been, i believe, people from the other side of the aisle, republicans, who have talked fairly and honestly about this issue. and i bet you you'd be able to tell us about some of them tonight. mr. boccieri: yes, i would. i thank you for those remarks. this is about our national security. this is not something that congressman boccieri's saying, it's not something the speaker's saying, because he's been on the floor right with us before talking about our national security needs. it's not something that congressman mcmahon is saying. this is something that the department of defense is saying.

and the c.i.a. is saying. the u.s. department of defense in 2003 conclusioned that the risk of abrupt climate change should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a u.s. national security concern. . le economics disruptions of glonal climate change are projected by the c.i.a. and our intelligence experts in the united states to put increased pressure on weak nation that is may be unable to provide the basic needs and maintain order for their citizens. you see a component of this energy legislation is about moving away from our dependence on foreign oil, investing in clean energy and technology right here in our country, jobs that can't be outsourced, producing jobs that can put america back to work. and another component of that is addressing the issue of climate change. cap and trade has gotten all the attention in this energy debate. it shouldn't get all the attention because it's one segment of this bill that we are working on. but even that, which i know that

we focus more on the national security part of it, but even that, our security experts and our nation's military is saying, it's a matter of our national security. let me give you some statistics here. today over 80% of the world's oil reserves are in the hands of governments and their respective national oil companies. 16 of the world's largest 20 oil companies are state owned. are owned by some state. and as you know we import 66% of our oil. this is matter of our national security. and we have got to take action now. and we must move away from our dependence on foreign oil. cap and trade and the climate change legislation, the energy security that we can derive from a substantive and robust energy policy in this country is a matter of our national security. that's not something congressman mcmahon is saying. that's not something the speaker is saying or congressman boccieri is saying. that's something john mccain is

saying, a proud american who put his life on the line for our country. ran for president. he said cap and trade, it's cap and trade, there will be incentives for people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. it's a free market approach. let me repeat that again, congressman. it's a free market approach, theure peaans are doing it. we did it in the case of addressing acid rain. for 20 years we had a cap and trade policy enacted in policy in the united states we have found very big successes from. if we do it, we'll stimulate green technologies. this will be a profit making business. and it won't cost the american taxpayer. let me repeat that again. it won't cost the american taxpayer. much this is something that we've got to enact now, mr. speaker. this about our national security. every presidential candidate that ran for office last year, democrats and republicans alike, said it's a matter of national security.

let me revisit a couple of what our friends have said. mr. romney, an astute businessman, said there are multiple reasons for us to say we want to be less depend interon foreign energy and develop our own sources. that's the key, of course, additional sources of energy here as well as being more efficient use of energy. that will allow the world to have less oil being drawn down from the various source it is comes without dropping prices too high a level and it will keep people, some of whom are unsavory characters, from having an influence on our foreign policy. that was mr. romney. mr. huckabee, he has another quote in addition to this one on our chart here. he said a nation that can't feed itself, a nation that can't fuel itself, a nation that can't produce the weapons to fight for itself, is a nation forever enslaved. with respect to our national

energy policy, he said it's so critical that for our own interest economically frrks a point of national security, that we commit to becoming energy independent. and we commit to doing that within a decade. we have to take responsibility in our own house before we can expect others to do the same in theirs. it goes back to my basic concept of leadership. leadership -- leaders don't ask others to do what they are unwilling to do themselves. we are a leader here in the united states. we are a leader. we sent a man to the moon in just 10 years. and i vow to you we can become energy independent. we can have an energy policy that invests in our people, creates jobs here, and moves away from our dependence on foreign oil because we believe in the innovation of america. we don't believe that we need to be depend interon mideast oil. i yield. mr. mcmahon: you're so right, congressman boccieri. it's just somehow infuriating,

it really is beyond words to think that the republicans try to take an issue that is so important, not just to our economy, not just to our environment, not just to the fuhr of the generations of people who want--future of the generations of people who want to live in america and share the american dream. but the national security, the lives ever our children, the young people in uniform right now. those have been lost and those who will continue to be at risk. and what do they do? they take an important issue like this and they come up with some quick catch phrases. like the one that they like to use, you talk about cap and trade. they like to call it cap and tax. why do they do that? there's no tax anywhere involved in this bill. the word tax is not involved. in fact, in order to tax someone from the national government perspective, you have to invoke the internal revenue code.

the internal revenue code is never mentioned in this bill. instead, this is a proven system as you said to bring free mart principles to the system of manufacturing that will allow for not only cleaner environment but for a new birth, a new generation of manufacturing jobs in this country. we have lost our manufacturing base for a whole host of reasons. here we are as you said, when you build a nuclear power plant, you can't do that somewhere and importer it. it's got to be done here. when you build a windmill farm, that has to be done here. instead of addressing this very important issue, the other side comes up with catchy phrases and certainly one they have done to cap and trade across america i think is very shameful. let's talk about cap and trade for a minute because some people will say, well, this is a new concept, congressman boccieri, how can it be we know whether or

not this will work? there are a couple ways to know that. we have already done it in this country. many americans, certainly in the northeast where i come from, remember the concept of acid rain caused by sulfur dioxide. and 23491980's we realized that lakes and rivers were dying across this country because of sulfur dioxide. and we implemented in 1990 a cap and trade system when it comes to sulfur dioxide. what does cap and trade mean? it simply means that you set a standard of how much pollution can be emitted in the country in a given year and that becomes your cap. for what we have done now for the greenhouse gases is the year 2005. same was done with sulfur dioxide. then that allowance to be able to pollute is something that has value to it. you create value. and in the first go-round in the system that we are implementing or want to implement, 75% of those allowances will be free.

there there will be no immediate cost to anyone. no increase in prices. over time by 2020 hopefully we'll get to a point where we reduce our rye lieance on foreign oil -- reliance on foreign oil, and we move forward with a good national security polcy. we did that with sulfur dioxide. everyone thought it would take 20 years, but it took six years. and six year's time without any impact on our economy, we put an end to the overpollution of sulfur dioxide. many plants put scrubbers on themselves, on their smokestacks, and guess what? in the year 2009 those lakes, in my home state of new york, are alive again. the fishes are no longer swimming on top of the water being dead from pollution. they are alive again. and alive with wildlife and they are alive with a future that our country needs. about our water resource, it's about our environment, geas our jobs, it's about our national

security. you're right, con man boccieri, when you say -- congressman, 7 -- congressman boccieri, when you say it's about national security. i only wish the republicans in the house of representatives and in the senate would put politics aside and put the interest of the american people first and get serious about an energy policy that deals with national security. mr. boccieri: i couldn't agree with the gentleman more. we have to get serious about our nation's energy supply. this is not about democrats or republicans. this is about making america stronger. democrats and republicans alike in the last presidential election said, we need to create jobs here in america. we need to create jobs here -- 1,000 manufactured parts go into making one of those wind turbines. can you imagine someday rorle bearings in my hometown would be making the roller bearings that go into these wind turbines, or

sara plastics could make the moldings for these wind turbines? these are jobs that can be made -- and profit right here in america. that can't be outsourced. and we'll be killing two birds with one stone. creating jobs here in america and making us less depend interon energy from abroad. we have to go back to just a few more of thoost these gentlemen who ran for president last year. i just want to finish up with these two, rudy giuliani. good italian. said, we need to expand the use of hybrid vehicles. we need to expand the use of hybrid vehicles, clean coal, carbon sequestration, we have more equally reserves in the united states than they have oil reserves in saudi arabia. this should be a major national project. this is a matter of our national security. rudolph gulediany got it right. you know what -- giuliani got it

right. you know what if we put 27% of our vehicles on the road in america, 27% of the vehicles on our roads in america were gas electric hybrids, we could end our dependence on oil from the middle east. we get 40 orse of our nation's demand from oil from the middle east, opec producing nations. just 27% of the vehicles on the roads of america were gas and electric hybrids we could end our dependence on oil from the middle east. that is a vision that we should all strive for. let me talk to you about one of our colleagues here, mr. paul. i spoke with him about two weeks ago. one of our colleagues here in the house, he said true conservatives and libertarians have no right to pollute their neighbor's property. you have no right to pollute your neighbor's air, water, or anything, and this would all contribute to the protection of all air and water.

mr. paul is somewhat of a visionary. because he believes that america , if we make the right investments, we cannot only protect our country, move away from our dependence on foreign oil, but invest in our people, our way of of life, and more importantly create jobs here in our country. i want to yield some time to my good friend from virginia, mr. perriello, who is joining us. welcome. mr. perriello: thank you very much, mr. boccieri. as i said before the people who have been against this bill, there are two things that bother me about them. i want to mention. one is these people aren't just climate skeptics. they are america's skeptics. i'm sick and tired in this country of hearing the word can't. they were the same ones who said we couldn't possibly take the lead out of gas leefpblet we couldn't possibly solve the sulfur dioxide problem or clean up our water and streams. we couldn't integrate our troops or go to the moon. can't, can't, can't. when i was growing up i had

coach after coach in sports say get the word can't out of your dictionary. that is not an american word. america is all about how are we going to solve the problem? we know there's nothing we can't do if we can't put our problems -- put our minds to it, put our innovative spirit to it. we see that here. people keep saying on the other side of this debate, let's just let china do it. that's basically what they are saying. we don't want to go ahead of china. we would rather have china invent all the technology so we buy it from them? i'm sick and tired of buying everything from china. i want us to be making it right here in america and importing that technology back to them. so these people aren't climate skeptics. they are america's skeptics. they have given up on the idea that america can do it bert than other countries. i don't believe that. we are still more innovative than any other country. we are better capitalists than any other country. we are going to be the first to crack carbon capture and

sequestration technology. we are going to be at the cutting edge again of wind, solar, and biomass. the farmers in my district want to be freedom fighters on the frontlines for the strug of of energy interpens -- independence. that word can't that seems to echo across the other side of the aisle does not have any place in this hall because america is better than that. and there's a second thing that bothers me about those who seem so angry about this bill in this body of ours which is the intense partisanship of it. the worst kind of partisanship is when you think an idea is a good idea until the other side agrees with you and then all of a sudden it becomes the worst idea ever. cap and trade to their credit is a republican idea. the first president bush was a visionary and a leader on this in solving the acid rain crisis because it was a republican notion that we can use the power

of the free market to solve these environmental threats. we saw it again when mccain -- senator mccain and then governor palin both agree some form of cap and trade was a good idea. former senator from my state, john warner, a great war hero, great american, also saw the power of a tradable permit scheme. this was fundamentally a republican idea. and in our spirit of bipartisanship we think this problem is so big of energy dependence, it is threatening our security so much, we will look anywhere, we don't care if that idea comes from one side of the aisle or the other. we just want to solve the problem. . and as soon as we agreed and said these are good ideas coming from the republican side, all of a sudden the only play they had in the play book was to say it must be a bad idea because you agree with us. we can't even do bipartisanship when you agree with one of our ideas. this is something that's upsetting the american people,

when the problems run this deep. that's not what this country's about. it's about putting problemsolving ahead of partisanship. so, mr. boccieri, thank you for doing this hour, it's so important for our national security, for our national competitiveness, but also for the very culture, the very soul of this country, that is all about that infinite horizon of possibility that says there is nothing we cannot do as a nation. particularly when we unleash the power of the free market and that call to serve the common good that has led generation after generation to leave this country stronger than they found it. mr. boccieri: i find you very inspirational. you're very right. and you know, it's often been said that fear is not a tool of leadership, fear is a tool of the status quo. and that's exactly what we see from the other side right now. injecting fear, talking about taxes. listen, folks, there are no taxes in this bill. don't believe me, believe senator mccain who ran for president last year, senator mccain said this is a free

market approach and it won't cost the american taxpayers. we know here in this body that the jobs of tomorrow won't come on their own. we must incubate them and grow them domestically so they cannot be outsourced. that's what this bill is about. we're joined by two of our -- our other colleagues, distinguished colleagues, bright minds here, young, bright minds here in the house of representatives, congressman kratovil from virginia, and -- or maryland, excuse me, and our good friend from new york, congressman tonko. why don't we start with congressman tonko. welcome. mr. tonko: thank you, thank you, representative boccieri. i listened intently to our colleague from virginia and when representative perry talked about the lack of response from the other side, the anger that is expressed, the politics of fear that are engaged, those in and of themselves would be enough measure of concern, but

the fact that that's coupled with an agenda that back burnered over the last administration so much of the progress, we're reminded of a huge failure of the delivery system, the energy delivery system, in august of 2003. here six years later we're not responding as well as we should. this measure allows us to. with a smart metering investment, with an upgrading of the grid. you know, it was brought to our attention in a very painful and dark terms -- in very painful and dark terms where blackouts gripped not only the northeast and the midwest, the u.s., but southeast canada, where two nations suffered from failure in the grid system. we have opportunities to embrace technology, technological improvements, advancements in smart metering and investments in the grid, to respond to that sort of failure.

that was back burnered. so were the investments in updating our renewable opportunities, investing in renewables. this measure will allow us to look seriously at renewable investments across the country. i'm alsooupling that exercise with the bill that deals with wind turbine efficiency where we'll look at materials that will allow for greater response from mother nature, where we're able to take the elements of nature and make them work to our energy needs, all through american jobs to produce america's energy needs. that will enable us to take the advancements that we know are possible. we look at situations like super conductive cable where in my district they are now breaking their own records, super power is, by developing even stronger opportunities for to us re-invest and invest in innovative ways in the delivery system in a way that, again,

takes advantage of the intellectual capacity of this nation. so this is about entering into a mix that already finds global competitors but it advances an american agenda in a way that will place us in the role of leader. we cannot continue to sit by idly along the sidelines of this global green energy race and advance the notion that china will build all of the solar systems, that germany will embrace the same sort of renewable or advanced manufacturing process he's, we have opportunities here in this nation -- processes. we have opportunities here in this nation to create a response to the stimulus package. i see what g.e. is working on as it enters into this fray, to provide for an array of battery opportunities, where it's not just lithium eye ron that we develop but per -- eye on that we develop on, -- ion that we develop on, where we can have

energy storage for intermittent type power and we can also use it for heavy fleets and lighter fleets. so there are tons of applications here. just that g.e. battery application would find 300 jobs to 400 jobs in my district that will enable to us provide the lynch pin, to open the doors, to limitless possibilities. you know, it's that sort of fervor that we saw in the 1960's, in the 19 -- in the late 1950's and 1960's, where we went forward with the boldness of definition and the expressness of definition where we could be better and move into a space race and we knew we invested and won for that investment. we need to do that here. clean energy jobs for every state in this nation is a great theme. and politics of fear that respond to the efforts of progress that we have embraced just don't have a place in this mix. it is unfair to the american public as it looks not only for job creation but for the establishment, for the igniting of an innovation economy.

and, representative boccieri, thank you for bringing us together so that people can share thoughts of what's happening today and where we can expand and extrapolate upon that progress in untold terms. mr. boccieri: congressman tonko, are you so right. i know you and congressman kratovil believe like i do and like teddy roosevelt said that the worst thing you can do in a moment of decision is nothing. is nothing. the energy policy that we have right now in the united states is failing us miserably because we have troops overseas right now that are putting on their -- putting their life on the line for a natural resource that we could become independent from if we invested in our country and our people. mr. tonko: one of the reasons i ran for this role in congress is to establish a comprehensive energy policy where we have a plan, where we act accordingly, where we update and implement that plan and where it's all inclusive. we haven't had that. and this is one solid way to grow jobs that are meaningful, where we are going to express

and exercise our right to energy security, energy independence and therefore national security, which is critically important with the outcome here. mr. boccieri: congressman kratovil, welcome. mr. kratovil: thank you all for being here. it's so nice hearing my very articulate colleagues talk about. mr. boccieri, thank you for bringing us together once again to talk about this. you have mentioned a number of the presidential candidates in the last election that talked about the significance of cap and trade and talked about the significance of reducing our dependence on foreign oil but i think it's important that we give some additional historical perspective to this debate. you mentioned that what we are doing now is failing us. but it's been failing us for 40 years. we have been talking about reducing our dependence on foreign oil for the last 40 years. we've been talking about the significant impact this has on

us in terms of our national security. we've been talking about the need to move towards renewable energy and renewable fuel and reducing our dependence on foreign oil and yet we haven't done anything, really substantial, until now. so, every president since richard nixon has advocated the need for our energy independence. in 1974, nixon promised we could achieve it within six years. gerald ford said, we can do it in 10 years. and jimmy carter pledged to wage the moral equivalent of war to achieve it. and yet once again, as years have gone by, we haven't had the political will to do what needed to be done to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. getting back to some of the comments that mr. perriello made about the political part of it, you know, the bottom line is, at some point we do have to put politics aside and recognize that we are here for a reason. we are here to represent the

best interests of the people of this country and not to represent necessarily simply our political parties. and you were right to say that these initiatives came, many of these ideas, the cap and trade, came from the other side of the aisle. and yet when we push that forward we got very little support from the other side of the aisle. now we did have some courageous republicans in the house that voted with us. i think there were probably seven or eight that voted with us. but the bottom line is, we have been talking about this for years and it was time that we did something about it and i'm happy to be here with those of you that were lling to do what needed to be done to move us towards a better future for this country. and with that i'll yield back. mr. boccieri: congressman kratovil, i know you believe in america, you believe in an american innovation, you believe in an energy policy that moves away from our dependence on foreign oil and makes us energy independent within a number of years is the right energy

policy, the right economic policy for our country. investing in our people, investing in our ingenuity and our innovation and our, you know, the most that we have at stake in this is the fact that tom perriello, congressman kratovil, congressman tonko, congressman mcmahon, we all have families and you think about where our moms and dads have come from in terms of what they have seen and the changes they've seen, they've seen us put a man on the moon. we can do the same in 10 years. our families have seen a lot. and we can produce the type of innovation with the right policy in this country that will move our nation forward. and i know, congressman mcmahon, you believe in our nation's national security. i'll yield to you. mr. mcmahon: thank you, congressman boccieri. we all, i think, take serious umbridge at the fact that the republicans throw out these myths, these lies, when it is about national security.

let's look at one. i mentioned how they talked about what it would cost every homeowner, and they said it would be $3,100 a year and there was a study that was disproven, we mentioned that earlier. but the congressional budget office, the independent authority that they rely on so often for their facts, at least whenever they favor their position, has said that under our clean and energy and national security bill, every homeowner in this country on average, between now and 2020, will pay $175 extra because of this bill. not per year, over the whole course, over the next 11 years. and in many places like the northeast, because of how we get our energy already, and because of the infrastructure we have in place, our costs will actually go down $5 a month by 2018. think about that. some of us will save money. at most, $175.

those rates would go up anyway. yet the other side, when it's about national security, it's about young men and women risking their lives in the uniforms of our country, are throwing out lies. i just want to tell you one quick story about what happened to me today and it really struck home about a visit i had in my office. staten island, for 50 years, watt the site of the municipal garbage dump for the city of new york. congressman tonko knows the story well. he's very involved with environmental politics. it took us 50 years to get it closed and it was 2,200 acres, the largest landfill in the history of the world. and today because of this law that we passed in the house and hopefully that will get passed in the senate, a company came to see me because they wanted to put solar panels on that landfill. wouldn't that be a great american story, a great success for staten island, the people i represent in staten island, brooklyn, the city of new york, and our country, that in a short period of time, within 10 years, you go from a disgusting landfill and environmental

nightmare to a place that is producing energy through solar panels or wind mills as our president has suggested? what a great thing. that's america. that's the america we grew up in, that's the america we believe in. that's the america you've spoken about, congressman boccieri, and congressman perriello, congressman kratovil, congressman tonko, that's the america that we came to washington to fight for. that's the america that the republicans have turned their backs on and that's the america that is worth fighting for. mr. boccieri: you're so right, congressman mcmahon. we all believe in the hope and promise of america, that with the right investment and the right guidance with respect to public policy in this country, that we can become energy independence and create jobs here in america -- independent and create jobs here in america. we hear the raw fear that the other side spews out to try to scare people away from supporting the public policy that was truly a republican idea in the very beginning in its essence. we hear the fact about rates and we talked about how this is

going to, you know, charge up rates and how these government inspectors are going to show up and check in your light bulbs and this is utterly ridiculous. first and foremost, in the state of ohio, we have a public utilities commission, the electric industry and other industries in the state of ohio is a regulated industry. they can't just arbitrarily walk in and raise rates. there has to be a justification. our public utilities commission, puco, is a function of state government and we have empowered state governments in this legislation to make sure that these big utility companies are not going to run away as they transition to alternative forms of energy. . there are no taxes. john mccain said it is a free market approach and won't cost the american taxpayers. he was right. he introduced the cap and trade bill three times with senator leiberman. so this is about putting america

first. mr. perriello: we are trying to do that in my district in southern virginia and trying to turn waste and by that, i mean manure, we have powell try waste, cattle farmers ready to turn this into power. talk about a country that was built into making lemonade out of lemons. we are making energy out of that. the u.s. department of agriculture has estimated that by 2015, that will deliver over $1 billion to our farmers. and in the decades ahead, it could be up to $15 billion a year extra to our farmers. they are the hardest working people in this country and willing to be a freedom fighter. not only what is it going to do, the most important thing i think in this bill and one thing i hear so much, whether it's

farmers, business owners or people trying to keep the lights on in their own house is the crazy fluctuations in prices. all of a sudden, you are at $4.60 and then down to $2 and then $3 a gallon. that fluctuation is driven in part by the speculators who are just gambling on the kitchen table budgets of the american people. and for years and years, both parties have used the huge enron loophole was out there driving 9 speculation and we went out there and protected consumers in this bill. the c.b.o. figures of being about $12 month crease is the maximum. that's assuming we do nothing to reduce our energy consumption and doesn't take into account that we are going after the speculators that have been driving up the price, these people making billions of dollars at the expense of the average american home. that's what we have done, is to

go out and protect consumers. it's a smart bill. one quick thing before i yield back, people say, have you read the 1,200 pages in this bill? i say, have you? there is a lot of good stuff out there. it's protecting consumers. some of the best things for our farmers are in those pages. there are a lot of serious people here who are looking out for consumers and farmers and small business owners. mr. bo cherry fought hard for manufacturing areas to get them more in this bill. there is a lot of good stuff in this bill. that means you step up to the duties of citizenship, go out there and read the bill and look at it as a an invitation and this is a good step in that direction. i yield back. mr. boccieri: i thank the congressman for his passion and

before we wrap this up, we have to hear from a young bright mind from ohio, congressman ryan, thank you for joining us tonight. mr. ryan: i was reading an article and i was telling the congressman from virginia this, there was an article in the "new york times" today, because a lot of people in our district are like, well, china's not going to abide by this and india is not going to have to deal with and we are on our own here and we have to compete against these people. and there are provisions in this bill on steel, paper that control imports coming from these other countries. today in the "new york times" there was an article about this town in china where there is a big factory that was poisonning people who were living within the area of the factory. and these people were going to the hospital. they were sick. it was a bad scene. and it was because of the pollution that was coming out of the factory. 400,000 people a year die in china because of air pollution.

and at some point, based on china's long history, they have these uprisings among the people. the government squelches and tries to fix the problem. if you have 400,000 people a year dying in china, at some point they were go to go want clean air. i say this, let china sleep for a couple of years. let us get ahead of the curve and make these investments and then produce these products and finally, we can export products to china that they're going to want because their people are demanding it. i wanted to come down and join this chorus because i think this is an opportunity for youngstown, ohio, northeast ohio where we have a manufacturing base, to finally export things. 8,000 component parts to a windmill. 400 tons of steel.

solar panels have these complex components. we can do this. this is opportunity. let's see it like it is. and i tell folks back in our district, and we have a general motors plant that is going to make this new car, chevy cruise. where are they building at cruisetown. 40 miles to the gallon. let's read the tea leaves. we can be at a point where we export products to china and we make money and create jobs here. that's what this is about. and we can talk about clean air and climate change and i believe in all that and i think it's great, but the bottom line is, this means jobs for northeast ohio. and i think the more we talk about that, the more we recognize that and plug our businesses in. you got a $30 million amendment

to help the auto industry convert over to alternative energy. and those are the things that are in this bill. but i yield back. and this is opportunity. and if we see it as opportunity, it will work for us. mr. boccieri: you are right, the pillars of this legislation are about creating jobs in america and getting away from foreign oil and making our nation more secure. mr. kratovil? mr. kratovil: you are absolutely right. there was a lot of talk obviously in this bill about climate change and that was certainly a significant part of it, but the bottom line is, what was more important to me in terms of voting for this is exactly what you said, national security and creating american jobs. and the energy bill clearly presents an incredible opportunity to spur innovation and create new jobs in this country and that was one of the big reasons i supported it. i want to go back to something you said about the fluctuation

in prices. again, the irony in this country is that oftentimes we are faced with a crisis and we deal with whatever that crisis is but we never deal with the underlying issue that causes the crisis. and you were talking about the gas fries prices. a year ago when it was $4 a gallon, the population was saying, what are we going to do about this? it's outrageous that we are sending money overseas to the people who seek to destroy us. what are we going to do about it? and a year later, people in this chamber have apparently on the other side of the aisle apparently forgot. we should never forget that if we were paying $4 a gallon for gas last year we could be paying it tomorrow. that has not changed unless we

take responsibility and do what we should have done 40 years ago and started making an effort to have energy independence and reducing our dependence on foreign oil and shouldn't get angry, but should get even and do what we need to do to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. mr. ryan: if we do nothing, which is our friends on the other side of the aisle want us to do is nothing, we know that over the last eight years, $1,100 increase in energy costs. keep doing that, you know what you're going to get. we can't afford to keep doing nothing and we have to do something. we are reducing our dependency, give us control over what we're doing. we have no control in many ways when we are depending on sheiks in the middle east. we have to take control of this issue. we're americans, for god's sake. and when we have we been afraid

to do big things. let's wrap our arms around the energy issue and take control of it and take it under the umbrella of the united states of america and take control. if gas is $4 a gallon this summer we would be getting calls from our constituents. if it wasn't for a recession, it probably would be. and next year, it will be $4 but hopefully we are fixing this problem. mr. boccieri: mr. tonko, wrap it up. mr. tonko: it's great to develop this colloquy with our colleagues here in the house. but i can't help but wonder which of us would have the opportunity to serve in this house if we pledged at election time to make certain that we develop jobs in competing nations for developing green energy innovation? which of us would serve here?

which of us would serve here if we pledged to sepped dollars some of the most troubled spots in the world that find us defending freedom-loving nations against some of these forces around the globe? we would be rejected resoundingly by that electorate. that's what is happening here. the agents of status quo are content to continue this effort to have other nations build the renewable resources out there. they would be content to have the american public send tons of their hard-earned dollars into the economies of the middle east on which we rely for well over 60% of our oil supply. that is unacceptable. and we can do it cleaner and greener and do it through american resources that develop american jobs to respond to the energy crises around the world. we can become that go-to nation that will be the exporter of

energy intellect, innovation and ideas, just like we won the race in the 1960's, the space race, we need to win this race. we don't have a choice to enter in. that choice has been made, because there is a competitive edge already that is being developed with other nations out there. we need to go forward with an aggressive investment. the investment here is to combat a huge deficit that was inherited by this administration, by the obama administration. it was driven high and it started with the surplus. they spent away that surplus and drove us into a deficit situation and now it is necessary for us to invest in an innovation economy that creates jobs. mr. boccieri: i thank the gentleman for joining us tonight. this has been a very intriguing dialogue. i hope that we garner a deeper appreciation for what it means to become energy independent. you all have the right vision, now we have to find the courage in the senate and find 60 pates

in the senate who i will bsh patriots in the senate and this is about creating jobs in our country, protecting our national security and removing our dependence on foreign oil. i yield to my good friend from new york to wrap it up. why don't you make the closing remarks. mr. mcmahon: thank you for convening the freshman power hour and thank you for having a special guest in congressman ryan. his wisdom for so many years here in congress. you guys have said it all. this is a no-brainer. can and trade was a republican idea and makes sense, market principles. it's about national security, jobs, manufacturing good jobs for electric trish answer and carp enters and plummers and steam fitters and engineers and

scientists and our environment, too. you are talking about the people in china saying we want clean air, we have the highest lung cancer rate in america. the people of staten island, brooklyn and new york city, we want clean air, too. it's about the environment, too. this is a bill that allows us to do all those things in a uniquely american way, the right way. i'm glad we voted for it in the house. i'm disappointed that the republicans keep lying about it. but i hope the senate will find a way to get it done and send it to the president's desk and get it signed. mr. boccieri: mr. speaker, we yield back. let's get this done for america. the speaker pro tempore: the chair thanks the gentleman from ohio and his colleagues. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, for 60 minutes.

mr. gohmert: thank you, mr. speaker, i do appreciate the time. it is, as frustrating as these timesr as difficult as these times are for america, it never ceases to be an honor to serve in this body and to be serving in my case, the constituents of east texas. it does mean so much. and the more you know about history and where we've come from, the -- >> would my colleague from texas yield for a moment? ms. foxx: i would like to make a parliamentary inquiry -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman will state the parliamentary inquiry. ms. foxx: one of the gentlemen just said republicans keep lying about it. i thought there might be some concern about the use of that phrase and i would like to have

a -- ask the speaker if that is an acceptable phrase to be used on the floor when speaking about other members. the speaker pro tempore: members are reminded not to engage in personalities. . ms. foxx: thank you, mr. speaker. unfortunately the folks who said it are not here to hear you say that, but thank you very much. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. gohmert: i appreciate ms. foxx pointing that out. i was in the back the gentlewomanning down a few notes, but -- the gentlewomanning down a few notes. i had -- jotting down a few notes. it is inappropriate under the house rules for someone in this body to call another person in this body a liar. that violates the house rules, clearly.

it's inappropriate to call names in here and engage in personality destruction. that's not appropriate. i've had constituents wonder why those of us on the floor don't call each other names like gordon brown was called in parliament in england and i've explained to him, well, we have rules in the house, we don't do that kind of thing here. it's entirely inappropriate. and you can be called down, you can be censured for inappropriate conduct here on the floor. in doing name calling and engaging, as the speaker said, in attacks on personality. but there was a comment i did hear in the discussion by my colleagues across the aisle about energy and what i noted when i wrote down the comment was, if we do nothing like those on the other side, and --

contribute no ill motive or intent to that comment, but the trouble is that's just not accurate and obviously it indicates just an ignorance with regard to what has been proposed on this side. for example, in the area of energy we have proposed bill after bill that would provide this country more energy. for example, 80% or so of our coast is off limits to drilling off that coast. could drill off the coast of texas, louisianamississippi. there's some areas where drill something going on, but we have found in texas that despite all the naysayers who said it would kill off fishing, when i was growing up in texas, if they allowed platforms off the coast

we ended up having platforms off the coast of texas drilling for oil and gas and lo and behold, guess what happened? fish proliferated out there. they used the platforms as an artificial reef and so if you go out fishing in the gulf with a guide, they're likely to take you to an oil and gas platform because fishing abounds out there. lo and behold, man and environment can work together for the good of both. and not only would we produce great amounts of energy and avoid this country going back to $4 a gallon gasoline, which we're going to go to because of the policies of the current administration and current speaker who want to put more and more -- not just want to, they are constantly putting more and more of our natural energy resources off limits, just constantly, and so, anyway, if

we, some have had bills, supported bills, that have used the information available to say, if we allow drilling off the outer continental shelf it will do a number of things. for one thing, it will provide tremendous amounts of money into the federal treasury because of the royalties coming from that. not only that, there are estimates that if we allow offshore, outer continental drilling, that it would produce at least 1.1 million to 1.3 million jobs. well, the president promised originally he would create three million jobs and now -- and he backed off of that so he may save that many or may save them and obviously you can never document that you saved a job. only if you created them or didn't. so that's why it was important to inject the word save in there. but with regard to drilling the

outer continental shelf there would actually be real jobs created. not just on the platforms, there, of course, but the information, it would create jobs in every single state. and then also if we allowed drilling up in anwr, and it's not this beautiful mountain, beautiful mountainesque area up there, it's not. you go up there, there's nothing there. nothing lives there, there's caribou that may go through once a year but they can't live there, there's nothing to live on. birds may fly through every now and then but there's nothing there for them to live on. that's the area that jimmy carter designated for drilling because it was an ideal place and there was plenty of oil there. but if we allowed the oil to be pursued there it would create a tiny footprint and compared to the massive size and it gets smaller constantly with

technology, would be required, there would be another million jobs created around the country, the united states. more federal money, more jobs, which actually would create more federal money, and then also there's some slopes in alaska where drilling for natural gas has not been allowed and that's estimated to create another 1.1 million to 1.3 million jobs. we could have between three million and four million jobs without taxing an extra quarter of a penny. it would cost nothing extra if we just use the resources we've got. so i appreciate the gentleman on the other side saying that -- ms. foxx: would the gentleman yield? mr. gohmert: yes. i yield to my friend. ms. foxx: i appreciate your helping to correct some of the things that they said. but i was very concerned with the fact that they said we on this side want to do nothing.

you know, i can challenge the veracity of their comments, particularly on that one. the gentleman, i know, is aware of the fact that republicans have been trying for 2 1/2 years to do something about the situation with with energy. and i know that you shared with 130 of us, i think, who came down last summer and spoke all during the month of august, but just for my sake and for anybody who's watching tonight, would you please verify that republicans have offered several bills to do the very kinds of things that these gentlemen were talking about tonight? the unfortunate thing is that we're in the minority, they're in the majority, so they can talk a lot about it and they

could do something about it, when we could not at the time, except bring it to the attention of the american people. but please make a comment about the american energy act. mr. gohmert: sure, we had the american energy act. there are so many republican bills that have been filed and they encompass virtually everything. we want more solar, we want more wind, all these different sources of -- nuclear power, and i never thought i would end up indicating we ought to emulate france about anything, but they've done a terrific job in producing energy from nuclear energy. and so that is another area that we can utilize. natural gas from the horizontal drilling, the hydraulic fracking, when it's properly done, it has produced now in

recent years we find out much more natural gas than we thought and we have plans that encompass all of these things. every single source of energy. and what also our friends across the aisle have not realized, they made a comment about how their energy, their crap and trade bill would actually create jobs. and that does indicate to me they didn't read their own bill and that's rather unfortunate. because there are things that contradict what they said. but we've had many bills and we've called them all of the above and as my friend, ms. foxx , recalls, we were pushing an all of the above, we want to utilize all of the gifts with which this country has been blessed. we have more coal, now coal burned improperly pollutes the atmosphere. we can demand better. coal to liquid that produces --

doesn't produce all the pollution that just burning coal does. we can require scrubbers as we have over the years to help clean up the environment. all these -- we have more coal than any nation in the world. we got vast supplies of natural gas, now over 100 year's worth. we have vast amounts of oil. we had estimates in our natural resources committee and we talked about so many of these issues there, in a 500-square mile area that includes utah, wyoming and part of colorado, there's a very thick shale there that we would like to see oil produced. and some estimates are $1 -- one trillion to three trillion barrels of oil could be produced. we're told there's only about a trillion barrels of oil left in the entire middle east and we may have one to three times that much in one 500-square-mile area if we allowed people to go after

it. our plans all include those things but one other thing about pursuing that energy ourselves would be we have a plan, we have bills that would actually take the money from the outer continental shelf revenue and would take money from anwr production, would take money from the gas production in alaska and would actually use that to do research and find these other sources of energy. and i have a bill myself that they won't let come to the floor and it's far reaching and some might say, well, it's kind of like the star wars idea that reagan pushed, which ended up bringing down the soviet union and providing cover for so much of the world these days. but i really believe that some day solar energy will be our best source of energy and we'll be able to utilize it more so than ever.

but we don't have a good way to store electricity. we can store energy. energy can be stored as it is in a place or two around the country where during low usage times they'll maximize production of electricity to use it to pump water up into high reservoirs is a so that in peak times the water can flow down turbines, produce additional amounts of electricity. that's storing energy, but it's not storing electricity. so i had a bill that would say, for anyone who comes up with a way to store electricity in megawatt amounts for 30 days without losing more than 10% of the power, you get a $300 million cash prize. now, obviously somebody comes up with a way to do that they're going to make a lot of money off the process. some say there's no way that could ever happen. some scientists i've talked to said, man, if we could do that,

found a way to hold that electricity, we would never need any other source again. it would revolutionize everything. we might even be able to harness electricity. i mean, the lightning from electricity that would come down, we could just store that. and so those things, i think they're out there. and i don't know the democrat bill that addresses that. that's a republican bill. that's my bill. that's far reaching, it's not going to happen the next two years, but we believe if you use the energy resources we've got, the carbon-based resources we've got, demand clean air, clean water and be good stewards of the environment, but then use the proceeds to develop the next generation of energy, then we don't have to have people lose jobs. now, our friends across the aisle were talking -- talking about -- they were concerned about jobs going to china and places like that. the fact is, that crap and trade bill is going to run jobs to china, india, brazil, and i

don't see how anybody can say they're going to help the environment by closing down manufacturers in this country and driving them to countries who produce four to 10 times more pollution to do the same job. that goes into the same atmosphere. that is ridiculous. that doesn't preserve our environment. it makes it worse. and another thing, too, it's historical fact, when a country's economy is struggling, the country quits worrying about the environment. they quit being good stewards of the environment. . you have to have a vibrant economy to do that. so why in the world would you want to put extra requirements on your industry in order to drive them to country that will pollute as much. it makes no sense at all.

i yield to dr. foxx. ms. foxx: i think this is great to talk about the other subject that we wanted to talk about tonight, which is health care. and what is happening with the health care -- mr. gohmert: let me reclaim my time briefly, but i do want to point out one other thing, when i hear the talk about what this body is doing to create jobs, i want to mention this. they didn't read the crap and trade bill because it says and i pulled it out here on the floor, but i didn't have the floor bill, because there was only one bill in which both the 300-page amendment filed at 3:09 a.m. was being interfaced with the other i bill and that was right up there on the second level and i found out where the one -- and the speaker ruled, after consulting with the parliamentarian, that even

though there was no final bill that was put together with the amendments in the final bill that that two stacks of documents that was not put together and didn't have all the lines deleted, that that bill constituted the official copy that was supposed to be here on the floor. but in that bill, there was a climate -- i believe it was called climate adjustment fund, something like that, and it created a fund and in the face of people saying across the aisle, nobody's going to lose their jobs, it will create jobs. and i heard it tonight. if you read the bill, these weren't the bill that wrote it, but whichever staffers wrote it, they knew someone was going to lose their job. but the staffers that put their bill together knew people were going to lose their jobs, because the fund says it was to compensate people who lost their

jobs because of the crap and trade bill. and not only that, it created money in there to help people with relocation. but the problem is, it wasn't going to help them relocate to china, india and brazil where those jobs were actual going to go. that was in the bill. whichever staffers drafted that bill, they knew people would lose their jobs but the members who didn't read the bill didn't know that was in that. and as my friend, dr. foxx knows , what have we been doing? we have been concentrating on jobs, jobs, jobs. last week we passed a bill for $770 million for wild horses and burros. i love horses, i grew up riding them. i love them.

but after our friends took the majority and outlawed controlling the heard hhhhhs of -- h -- herds, and now they want to spend so the horses can continue to run around. there was some money in there that would have created a few jobs. it was going to help the stallions with their contraception. and that was going to be interesting to see somebody apply for that job and help the stallion with his contraception needs. but anyway, that was $770 million. not only that, my friend knows, that we just passed and i know we didn't vote for it, we passed

a bill for $25 million to help the otters and as i pointed down here when we passed the bill for $25 million for the cranes, not the whooping cranes, and $25 million for rare dogs and cats, none of which is in our country. you talk about wanting to save jobs, we have americans with habitat problems right here and you're sending money to china that we have to borrow from china in order to buy land and let the rare dogs and cats so somebody can move into that area that is starving, i mean that's insane when we have americans having habitat problems. when i hear people say, we are all about jobs, jobs, jobs, i'm very concerned. but i was able to point out some of my friends who supported the

crap and trade bill, actually there is good news for the people who supported that like our friends across the aisle that did that actually when the voters find out what all is in that bill that they didn't read, there's good news for them, because they may be eligible for both relocation and that allowance because they will lose their job as a result of that bill. they may be able to get proceeds under the fund when they lose their job for voting that bill. now, i did want to point those things out. and sea turtles, 80% of that is required to go to foreign countries and not stay here. people here have habitat problems and we're spending money like it's growing on trees up here. and we are going to be in trouble. but now, i would like to get into the health care issue, because there is money being

spent again like it's growing on trees. the estimate of the president's plan, $1 trillion to $2 trillion. we have just gotten the data back in may for 2007 that showed all the spending for medicare and medicaid, didn't even include schip. and we want to help people because we are a caring nation, but you have to spend your money wisely. we got the data. and you divide the number of house holds in america into the amount of money spent by government on medicare and medicaid and it is $9,200 per household, forever household in america. the average is every household in america had to come up with 9,200 in order to fund 1/3 of the population on medicare, medicaid and s chip. and that's insane and i started

putting together my own bill that basically would save tremendous amounts of money. and for the first time ever, senior citizens would have complete coverage. they wouldn't have to buy wraparounds. they would have complete coverage would a -- with a high deductible insurance, which is so much cheaper, because you have the high deductible. and then, to cover that deductible, we would give them for any household which people on medicaid, medicare or schip, we would give them cash money, $3,500 in a health savings account that they access with a debit card and it is theirs to access for health care and for anybody -- if they want to spend it on anything else, it wouldn't work because it is coded that

items such as prescription drugs, treatment at the doctor's office would be covered. and when you ran up $3,000 500, if you did, then the insurance we purchased every year would kick in and you would be covered. to provide $3,000 500, give them that cash money in the health savings account, they completely control that debit card. no gate keeper, insurance company or government telling them they can't if it's truly really for health care needs. and then above that, the private insurance, we would purchase with federal money would cover them so well, they wouldn't need any kind of other simental. now that is showing care for senior citizens, for those who are in the poverty, for all of

those who are in poverty, senior citizens, disabled that they needed medicare, medicaid and schip that is the kind of caring that republicans care about without some government bureaucrat jumping in between people and their doctor. i have a health savings account right now and insurance to cover. people say congress have this gold-plated insurance policy. i have $3,000 deductible. i had better insurance when i was a judge and chief justice. but i have a $3,000 deductible policy and i try to accumluate each month into my health savings account. under the bill that i'm going to file, about got it finished, it actually lets your health savings account now roll over if

you have excess in there each month. all those on medicare, medicaid and schip would get a new $3,500 and new insurance purchased every year and couldn't be dropped because of a pre-existing condition or anything like that. they would just be covered and we take care of them. that's the kind of thing that shows when you really care about people. and i yield to my friend, dr. foxx. ms. foxx: i appreciate my friend leading this special order tonight on health care. and i always like to start with setting the stage in getting the facts. you know, i come from a background in education and in business and i like to put the facts out so that people can see what they are and then judge -- make judgments themselves instead of just saying like some of our colleagues do what is happening.

and so i would like to show a chart that i have. and i would to really talk about what has been talked about and what has driven this emphasis on doing something about health care. we hear that it's being called health care reform, although i think some of our colleagues and the president have stopped using that term health care reform. but i think it's really important that we put into perspective what it is we're talking about. we hear all the time that there are 47 million americans who do not have health care. that is not accurate. so -- i have the numbers. i have the sources for them, if anybody wants to get these from me, they are from the census

burro from the congressional research service, the national institutes of health, the national institute for health care management and the until survey of american families. so these are not numbers that i've made up or republicans have made up, these are numbers that come from government sources. so, first of all, we don't have 47 million americans who do not have health care. i have said before. i have been criticized for saying it, but it is the truth. all americans have health care. all they have tdo is go to a doctor or go to a hospital, they will get health care. we do not turn people away from health care providers in this country. so they have health care. but what these people should really be saying is talk about the number of people who do not have insurance.

there's a big difference between saying a person doesn't have health care and doesn't have any insurance. and even that number needs to be clarified. so the folks who are making a big issue out of 47 million americans, which is an inaccurate figure really should be saying, we are 45.7 million people in this country who are uninsured. now let me break that down. of those, 9.5 million are not citizens. so when you hear it's americans who do not have health insurance, that's not accurate either, when you are using the 45.7 million, because 9.5 million of them are noncitizens. many of them are here illegally. then we have people who are eligible for public programs, eligible for public programs, medicare, medicaid, schip.