doctors. you invested i don't know how many years in med school, i flunked fetal pig, i would never have made it, but part of the reason was you wanted to treat patients and to have some insurance person sticking their nose in that has to rub you the wrong way. at least if it's the insurance company, you can get rid of the insurance company. what happens if it's the federal government? congressman broun, please. mr. broun: the federal government already sticks its nose in the doctor-patient relationship in medicare and medicaid, the insurance company executives do in managed care. but i, in my medical practice for the last five years, prior to being elected to congress, i saw medicare patients, medicaid patients, managed care patients, and they paid me at the time of service, if they couldn't pay me, that was all right, too, i've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of my services over my medical career.

but we hear that the doctors are all in favor of this obama care bill. i've got a letter here from the medical association of georgia just sent to me and other members of the georgia delegation that says that we oppose the senate-passed health care bill. and they list a number of things that they see as problems with the bill. . empowering the federal government with greater authority. it's unsustainable from a financial standpoint. the federal government will have unpress departmented authority to change the medicare program through these new boards without congress or the courts or anybody having any oversight. and devoid of medical liability reform. and they are concerned about many things that aren't in this bill, two of which of, it takes

away the right to make a private contract between two individuals, particularly a doctor and an individual. and there's nothing to stop the sustainable growth rate formula that is killing physicians. it goes back to what you were just saying a few minutes ago where doctors being underpaid and you have this formula that needs to be thrown out. but we don't do anything about that. and what's that going to do and particularly medicare patients need to understand is if this bill is passed, it's going to be exceedingly difficult for a senior to find a doctor who is going to accept their government insurance. it's a problem and much more of a problem because the federal government is going to pay at a lower rate and doctors can't afford to do that. mr. akin: everyone is going to have medical insurance, but you won't have a doctor to go see.

dr. fleming. mr. fleming: let me say something that is not as obvious but it should be clear. coverage under health care does not mean access to health care. look at cuba. in cuba, you have universal health care, universal access and it's all free. the problem is, there is no health care in cuba. and anti-buy on thics medication, nonexist tant. how does that apply to us? what we are doing in effect with this bill is taking two big entitlements, medicare and medicaid, the states can't afford medicaid. the federal government can't afford medicare. it will run out of money in eight years. we are taking out $-- half a trillion of dollars out of it

and then tax people and create a new entitlement, stacking one entitlement after another. look, the bottom line here is, there are two ways to bend the cost curve down in health care. one is to have a giant system like this and create bureaucrats who are going to control things and micromanage and ultimately save money through long lines, waiting list and rationing. the other, one i prefer, is the free market, where we attack the doctor-patient relationship and we empower him where he has power and clarity and transparency and health savings accounts and he can go and decide and have patient choice as to what the cost what the providers are going to be and where he can get his best value for the money. mr. akin: today, i was talking to my constituents back in the state of missouri and we were having this forum.

and i spoke in pretty strong terms. i told my constituents that this bill, first of all, would destroy the quality of health care in america. the second thing it was going to do was it was going to destroy the federal budget. and that if i were to put this bill on a scale of all the legislation i've seen since i have been in congress and i'm getting older, this is my 10th year, that this bill is more than twice as bad as the next worse bill that i have ever seen. so this bill is all together in another category. i spoke before a group this last weekend, and i looked out, there were a lot of other legislateors i served in the state of missouri and i said, we have served in the majority and minority but i said the last year and a half, we served in the willeder necessary and the difference is that i -- wilderness and it's like walking up to the edge of the grand

canyon and contemplating what happens when you go over that abyss. and tell me if i'm not overstating this, we are standing on an abyss and if we step off the edge by passing this bill, america will not be the same country and we will not be able to recover from that. mr. broun: you're correct about that. we are at a tipping point where this country is either going to be totally social is particular, government controls, in everybody's life and that's what this health care bill is designed to do or we're going to walk away from that and start fighting for freedom and cutting down the side of the federal government and let people run their own lives without government intrusion. i wanted to bring up another issue to this, that people

should understand that this bill that we are supposedly going to vote upon, the senate bill, h.r. 3590, the c.b.o., congressional budget office, says it will increase premiums for everybody who's buying private insurance today by $2,100 per family. not only is it going to destroy the federal government, but going to destroy the state's budget and zoy everybody's family budget. it's going to be expensive and also going to destroy jobs. there are going to be over five million people that are going to lose their jobs if this bill ever becomes law. mr. akin: when we're running at whatever it is -- and these numbers, i don't really believe them, but 10% unemployment, and you dump five million more jobs lost on a bill that is already going to cost trillions of

dollars that we don't have, this thing, it just seems like someone has to have blind faith to have their foot down on the battleship and drive it through the dark. in my district, this is a working day today. we rented a facility, st. charles convention center and had seating for 800 people. where are you going to find 800 people that care about politics in the middle of a wednesday, wednesday morning at 10:00 in st. louis? and when the beginning of the town hall started, we had over 1,000 and by the time it got going, we had 2,200 more people. you couldn't get more people in the room and their sentiment was what we sense here, we really don't like this bill. and they were begging, what can

we do to stop this thing. and so my sense is that we aren't the only people who are thinking like this in this country. my good friend from texas, congressman gohmert. mr. gohmert: there is great wisdom in what president obama said that's on the chart right behind you and that is reconciliation therefore is the wrong place for policy changes. in short, the reconciliation process appears to have lost its proper meaning, a vehicle designed for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility has been hijacked to facilitate reckless deficits and unsustainable debt. the president called that exactly right. and i need to ask my friend, i can't see the date there, was that last week that he said that? when was that? mr. akin: that's the ironic thing about this quote and the reason we put it on this chart,

the president has been saying a lot of things. the most truthful thing he said was, i'm going to bring you change. not much else that i heard that doesn't seem to have some contradiction. this quote, reconciliation, the government taking over 1/6 of the economy. in short, this process has lost its proper meaning, a vehicle designed for deficit reduction. that's what it was designed for, deficit reduction, fiscal responsibility. it has been hijacked. of course -- yeah. i'm glad you asked the question, the date here is december, 2005. so i don't think he really wants us to remember what he said in 2005, because if you were to take this today, this would mean that they aren't going to pass this bill. mr. gohmert: that's right. mr. akin: kind of depends of

whether it's your bill or my bill. mr. gohmert: as we understand now in the 2005, senator obama was moving forward, campaigning towards a presidential run. it just breaks my heart to hear president obama say in the summit -- well, it wasn't the white house, blair house -- when he said to senator mccain, we're not campaigning anymore. i said, great. the president is going to stop campaigning. that was good news to me because that means the president is going to quit campaigning and just try to govern. if he were to campaign, he would have gone off to missouri, giving another speech. but the fact that we aren't campaigning anymore means he is back here trying to figure out how we can reform health care

without cramming it down the throats of 60% to 70% of americans that don't want this bad medicine that is about to be rammed down their throats. mr. akin: calling attention to the fact that this reconciliation is hijacking the entire legislative process and he is willing to do this to pass this particular piece of legislation. my good friend from pennsylvania -- it is pennsylvania, isn't it? mr. thompson: keystone state. mr. akin: sock said if you have a busted faucet or sink in your kitchen, the best thing is to fix the faucet, not to remodel the kitchen. does it appear to you that the difference between the two political parties is that the democrats have really decided they're going to remodel the kitchen whether you want it or not. and the republicans, we have a lot of different health care

bills as republicans, but ours are fix the sink or fix the drain. we are looking at what we have, what needs to be fixed to make it better and we are doing that whereas they are going to take 1/6 of the economy and have the government run it. mr. thompson: that comes close. actually, i believe that if the health care issue is more like a leaky faucet and what my good friends from the democratic side of the aisle are choosing to do is to burn the house down versus just remodel -- mr. akin: remodel the entire kitchen. mr. thompson: and taking it from a system that has been a model for the world actually. and i give you one example. one of the issues we talk about, we need to improve access to quality health care. and i would have been much

happier if this whole debate when we started it and i came to congress thinking we could have that debate. what are we debating? health insurance. not even the right topic. and i want to put it in the perspective of probably an example that touches all the colleagues that i have on the floor, i'm from a very rural district. i have probably -- almost 24 different rural hospitals in my congressional district. those hospitals, in addition to the economic engines are incredibly important to those communities. physicians are doing great jobs. they purchase resources, good neighbors. they purchase resources in the community. they're good for the economy. beyond that, having them in those rural communities provides access to quality health care. you never want to see a hospital close. i don't believe that. but if you're going to close one, if you close one in the

city, probably within a six-block radius, you will find another hospital. you close a hospital in my district, what you wind up with is a commute that makes the difference between life and death. we're talking hours to get any type of access to health care. so here's the rub when it comes this bill when it's being proposed. cuts to medicare. my good friend talked about how medicare pays only 80 cents to 90 cents for $1 worth of care that a hospital physician provides. medicare is already underfunded. we have talkt talked about how that is one of the contributing factors why commercial insurance is so expensive. it pays 135% of costs. federal government pays only 80 cents to 90 cents per costs.

what is the obvious solution? let's cut more medicare. let's throw half a trillion -- mr. akin: this whole bill seems to be counterintue ittive. let me ask a question. two medical doctors here, one is a judge, one is a former medical professional, i'm an engineer by training and now we're congressmen and one of the things we have to do and we should pay attention to is our constituents. we get calls from people saying, hey, i've got a problem with this, congressman and you need to help me. and they ask us to do them some weird stuff. i'm not a job agency but a congressman. we try to help out. my question to you is, let's say we jump off the abyss and now we've got this mess and we have

people back home calling saying, my mom, my mom is sick, she got cancer. she got it bad and she's going to need help right away. and i want to get health care for my mom and they said i have to wait six months. what i'm asking you is this question. how as congressmen are we going to get through this mess to try to help our constituents and worse, how are our constituents ever going to get from here over to get their medical care. does that concern you? congressman gohmert, do you want to take a shot at that? this doesn't look friendly to me. mr. gohmert: that's because it's not friendly. i was privileged, back in 1973, for the summer, to be an exchange student in the soviet union. i saw socialized medicine firsthand. that's where this is going.

it's socialized medicine where the government controls it. i don't want the insurance companies between me and my doctor, that means i also don't want any of that just massive amount of government between me and my doctor. but that's where this takes us. you wonder why would a group risk losing the majority in congress to pass a bill like this. when they know what's at stake politically and the answer is, it puts in place so much government that once it's in place, it won't matter which party is in the majority. it's kind of like department of education or other things that are not enumerated powers in the constitution. once it's there, you can't do anything about it. the school districts lose billions of dollars over the years that have been usurped by just a bureaucracy in

washington. it's going to happen with health care. and just quickly, let me tell you, what inspired me to get with professionals, health care professionals, economists, to come up with a solution, was when i saw that if you added together the amount of money we spend on medicare and medicaid, and divide that by the total number of households in all of the united states, it's an average of over $10,000 from every household in america to fund medicare and medicaid. when i saw that, i was thinking, my goodness! all that government, all that we're paying for, we're better off if we say to every household that has people on medicare or medicaid or even schip, here's $3,500 cash from the federal government in a health savings account, you

control it with a debit card, we'll by you private insurance that's catastrophic care to cover everything above that. you don't have to buy any more supplemental coverage or wraparound coverage. i know that scares aarp because they make a lot of money off that supplemental insurance. but this will help seniors and you give them a choice. you want to keep having medicare, you want to keep having medicaid, or do you want us to give you cash you control and get the insurance company and the government out between you and your doctor, and i think people, when you give them that voluntary choice, they will make the choices that will save us from bankruptcy that medicare is driving us to. mr. akin: you got me all confused, congressman gohmert, because my understanding is republican, from what the president said, don't have any ideas. we don't have any bills. he also said he read our bills,

that was confusing too. but you just described getting up at 50,000 pete and looking at the problem and saying, we don't want the government to get in this, take the money the government is saying, just designate the number of families in our country and it's going to work. mr. gohmert: it's cheaper than what we're doing now, it saves money. let me say a lot of people kowtow to c.b.o. in this congress, and i know the director has called me and said, we're very objective. i know they do the best they can to be objective, but since he got wood sheded at the white house, let me tell you, there have been, i believe it's 56 health care bills that have been scored by c.b.o., we have about 70 bills from republican study committee members to reform health care, 70 bills. and you know how many we have gotten scored on the republican side?

six. six bills. i have been begging in writing, all kinds of way, i've had the ranking member of the subcommittee committee of jurisdiction, joe barton, request my bill be scored, i've had dave camp, when they said, you don't have the joint commission ranking member, cave damp -- dave camp requested it. i realize by making a big deal about c.b.o. not scoring republican plans that they may say, oh, gohmert, we'll take your bill, we'll score it you may not like the way it comes out. i realize that's a risk. but i'm telling you it's been so abusive, c.b.o. has done virtually nothing, about a tenth of the republican bills they have scored are democratic bills. if they want to bring equity to this, it is time c.b.o. started scoring republican bills and not just democratic bills. i had to get that in mr. akin: i appreciate, congressman gohmert, you know, those of us who know

congressman gohmert, i know my colleagues do, know that he has a gift of persistence. i recall one of his more persistent moment, right here on this floor, when there was a bill that i would say is probably the second worst bill i've seen, it's only half as bad as this bill, and it was a bill that was amended with 300 pages of amendments at 3:00 in the morning, i think it was the late part of spring of this last year. i remember gohmert was -- had the same sense of persistence. he got this idea that maybe if we're going to vote on a bill, that it ought to be here in the chamber because there is a rule that the bill we're debating and voting on is supposed to be in the chamber. i remember just asking, is it north, south, east, or west. it was like a kid looking for a button hidden in the room somewhere. he's back and forth and back and forth, trying to find -- finally they said, the bill is

right up there on that desk he went up and looked for it and guess what, it wasn't there. i don't know, people like to hide things on you, congressman, i don't know what to tell you. it would be interesting if we knew what the financial score on some ideas such as what you have that's innovative and it's the fact that republicans of course don't have any ideas, except the president did read them and all, that makes it interesting, but i notice we're joined by some other good friends of mine, congressman scalise from louisiana is here and i just want to let you vf a -- have a chance to talk about this really amazing medical bill being pushed forward. mr. scalise: i want to thank my colleague from missouri for hosting this and my other colleagues who are expressing leadership and really trying to make this last stand. we are at the last stand for health care. as the president continues to try to ram down the throats of the american people this

government takeover and here we are on the house floor, speaker pelosi is trying in the next week, possibly, to have a vote here on the house floor on a bill that the american people have said, in every way possible, that they don't want. you had the elections in virginia and new jersey and then you had the election in massachusetts, of all places, where scott brown said, i'll be the 41st vote against health care and he won. and even after that, this tone deaf liberal leadership here in congress is saying, they're going to continue to try to ram down this government takeover, and you're pointing out and my colleagues are pointing out are some incredibly important facts that i think the american people themselves have been seeing as they've been reading the bill, in this latest version, it's over 2,100 pages long. there's a couple of points, i want to touch on one, you've touched on a few others. there's over $500 billion in new taxes in this bill, over $500 billion cuts to medicare

in this bill. it would devastate medical care in this country as people know and enjoy it. we want to reform health care to lower costs and not penalize pre-existing conditions. in the issue of abortion funding, taxpayer funding of abortion has been one of those at the core of who do you believe and what are the myths? of course you've got speaker pelosi say, don't worry, abortion funding won't be in this bill. i want two pieces of information i want to point out and i think a lot of people have started to see all this. but it really clarifies what's going on this first letter, i want to read a few sentences from it, it's from the united states conference of catholic bishops. they don't have a vested interest in with the -- whether the republican approach or democratic approach is taken, they don't want abortion funding and they want a conscience clause protection.

i want to read a few sentences, first on human life, disappointingly, the senate passed bill in particular does not meet our moral criteria on life and conscience. specifically, it violates the long-standing federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortions in health plans that include such abortions. it goes on to say, we believe legislation that fails to comply with this policy and precedent is not true health care reform and should be opposed until this fundamental problem is remedies. s the united states conference of catholic bishops and then one other i want to read, national right to life. very respected organization, a bipartisan organization, national right to life also addresses the senate language as it relates to taxpayer funding of abortion. quote, any house member who votes for the senate health bill is casting a career-defining pro-abortion

vote. this is national right to life. the final sentence i'll read, the senate health bill is a 2,400 page labyrinth streamed with legislative equivalent of improvised explosive devices that will result in federal pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for abortion. that's national right to life. as the american people are contemplates this, they're going to have to ask themselves who do they believe as this information and misinformation is out there do they believe speaker pelosi who said taxpayer funding of abortion is not in this bill or do they believe the united states conference of catholic bishops and national right to life, who both clearly state that the senate bill does contain taxpayer funding of abortion. one of just many big points of opposition we have to this government takeover of health care. i yield back.

mr. akin: i appreciate the gentleman making that point. it is usually presented as a pro-life position that we don't want the government funding abortions. it all struck me as kind of two different things, almost. one, do you think it's a good idea to abort little children, but the second question is, is a conscience question, do you think it's a good idea to force people to pay taxes and then use those taxes for something they believe is the destruction of a human life. you know, one of the things that's really encouraged me, you talked about that election in massachusetts, you know, in america, there's always been a few people who say they're an agnostic or atheist and what encouraged me about that election is nobody can claim they're an atheist or agnostic anymore in america because only god could have elected a republican in the state of massachusetts, couldn't have been done by anyone else. i'm glad we won't have too many of those kicking around. i'm joined here also