mr. shimkus: i yield myself the balance of my time. thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate the comments, i was going to be cool, calm and collective, of course, as i normally am in the committee, mr. chairman, as you know. and -- but of course i'm required to respond -- respond to just a couple of points. i agree that we want to get this fixed. we want to do it now and i'm going to talk about the importance of paying for it. but the public has to understand that, we're 39 seats in the minority. the only bipartisan vote was the no vote on the health care bill. anddfor the the pro stations that republicans, only one vote, the reality is, you can do whatever you want, but the bipartisan bill was no against the health care bill. why? $500 billion cuts in medicare. we talked about this yesterday in committee. not on medicare advantage, hospital cuts, doc cuts, across the board, tax increases, $1 trillion in new spending utcht think if you're going to spend $1 trillion more you could have fixed it. in fact, you all promised it. but because of a policy and the politic

mr. shimkus. mr. shimkus: thank you, my friend and colleague from california. i'd like to now recognize dr. burgess for as much time as he may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the gentleman from illinois will control the time. the gentleman's recognized. mr. burgess: i thank the gentleman for yielding. i think i should point out, when it comes to this issue, there's actually plenty of blame to go % around. because after all, it was in 1988 when a democratic congress, voting under the omnibus budget reconciliation act of 1988, created this problem under the guys of something. it's gone through several -- guise, it's gone through several names and acronyms but that's it began. 1988 there have been multiple congresses, multiple administrations, both republican and democratic, the opportunity to fix this thing has been there, but it has not been taken. patching the payment system is extremely unsatisfactory but the alternative is absolutely unthinkable. let me tell you for a minute what it means in a one or two-doctor office practicing primary c

mr. shimkus. >> yes. thank you, mr. chairman. and i apologize for you getting involved in the health care law, food fight. but we only get the opportunity to openly discuss this, and i think it does call for a hearing. that's all we're saying. that's our point. if they are right, let's have a hearing. if weaver right, let's have a hearing. and there are problems that in this law we know need to be fixed. they are smaller once, so we just take the limited opportunity we have. to address our concerns. and in response to the chairman, we did pass a bipartisan bill, it's called safety bill passed out of here on a voice vote and passed on the floor. and we were involved in that. and when we are asked to work together, i think we can do so effectively. the health care bill creates a $1 trillion new cost. i'm going to end on this $5 billion. $it wasn't all med dare. $20 billion was revision to the medicare improvement fund which was to help doctors continue to take medicare patient. $20 billion over five years. >> $156 billion came from