because the v.a. is a direct provider of services, they need to have the same ability to plan ahead. it's about delivering a quality product. i urge my colleagues to take this giant step in improving the v.a.'s ability to deliver quality health care services to our nation's veterans. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from arkansas. mr. boozman: thank you, mr. speaker. i continue to reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves his time of the the gentleman from california, mr. filner. mr. filner: mr. speaker, mr. hare of illinois came to us as the successor of a legendary member of our committee, mr. lane evans, who worked so hard for veterans during his whole career. our thoughts are with him as he faces his disease. mr. hare was on our committee. he had to go off this year, but we miss him greatly. he's one of the strongest leaders for veterans in our nation. i yield to him as much time as he may consume. the spe

the substitute states that v.a. shall make reasonable efforts to notify schools and appropriate entities such as foundations of the opportunity to be linked by the v.a. website as a provider of scholarships for veterans. the bill, as amended, also requires v.a. to require statements on its website noting that v.a. does not endorse or guarantee any assistance offered by an entity on the website, nor should the individual consider the list to be all-inclusive. finally, it sets an effective date of june 1, 2010, to allow the v.a. to consen trailt on getting the post 9/11 g.i. bill up and running, which is so important. i think this will bill will help veterans identify scholarships spended for their quse. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. filner: i'd like to recognize the gentlelady from south dakota for as much time as she may consume and thank her for her incredible leadership as chair on the subcommittee of economic opportunity. lots of bills have come forwa

the v.a. has informed 10,000 veterans in three states to get retested. more than 50 patients tested positive for infections including some with h.i.v. but that's just the beginning of the medical malpractice by the v.a. v.a. patients with prostate cancer were put through their own particular set of horrors. in philadelphia a patient received a common surgical procedure where a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds to attack the cancer. but the doctor's name was more than a little off. most of the radioactive seeds, 40 to be exact, ended up in the patient's healthy bladder instead of the prostate. the mistake was a serious one and under federal rules it was investigated by the bureaucrat regulators. the regulators allowed the doctor to rewrite his surgical plan to make his mistake just disappear. in the private sector somebody would have been held accountable for this negligence. not with government-run health care v.a. style. they cover up their errors. the patient had to undergo a secon

because what the v.a. does is there are millions of veterans, they negotiate on behalf of veterans with individual drug companies for individual prescription drugs, individual pharmaceuticals, and they get a rate at about one half of what you would pay if you went to drug part or rite aid or any of -- drug part or rite aid or any of the other stores. the medicare bill when it came through the house and senate, president bush pushed that bill. they didn't allow us to negotiate drug prices. we know what this is about. we know if we fl the lead of the drug industry and the insurance industry, which this congress did through most of the first part of this decade with president bush, we end up with -- with special interest laws that protect the drug companies or insurance companies. or we can now pass health care with a public option plan give the public the option of going to a medicare-like plan instead of a private insurance company plan if they want to or stay in the plan that they're in and then they decid

the v.a. said this in his passing, he truly exemple flies the commitment to service and love of his country. the people of utah, this hospital and the veterans he tirelessly served have lost a remarkable man, end quote. indeed they have, we all have. thank you, madam speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? >> to address the house for one minute and to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. culberson: thank you, madam speaker. you know, congress is operating under some of the lowest approval ratings in history, and clearly the public has lost confidence in its federal government. perhaps that's because the federal government is rapidly moving down a past that shows that the government is losing confidence in the american people. when it comes to health care, should the government help americans or should the government actually control everything when it comes to health care

when you leave the military and become a veteran and enter the v.a. system under the current system, the department of defense sends a p.d.f. file by email to the v.a. and somebody has to open up that file, can't manipulate it in any way, they have to type by hand your entire career's medical history if you've been there 30 years think about what we're talking about, into the new system for the v.a. now, secretary shinseki and secretary gates announced that moving forward, they're going to merge the systems for the new people who enter the military, moving forward with the newer generation of our military men and women and our veterans, we're not going to have this problem, but for the millions who have served up to this point, it's not interoperable. they can't communicate with each other. mr. murphy: mr. altmire you know, scale it down. there are thousands of hospitals, some of which in the state of connecticut, that have competing systems even within their own hospitals that don't talk to each other. there are hospitals that have one record system,

concerns that many women veterans have that the v.a. doesn't understand their needs. this is why i support h.r. 1211 and strongly urge my colleagues to vote yes on this important bill. i thank the chairman and yield back the balance of my time. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california. mr. filner: thank you. i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on h.r. 1211 as amended. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. filner: when i was listening to ms. herseth sandlin talk about the need for pilot programs for childcare, we have had testimony that if a woman veteran showed up with her child or children, they would be denied their appointment. and sent home. this is a way that the culture just must change and which this bill is the first step to doing that. i urge my colleagues to support h.r. 1211 as amended. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the -- the gentleman yields back the balance of his t

because of this study, the v.a. has raised the standards to make them national cemeteries of which we can all be proud. while i'm encouraged that the response in addressing this problem since i brought it to the nation's attention in 2007, we still have a little ways to go. you can see what andersonville looked like then. here is normandy. normandy comes under the battle monument commission. and arlington under the oversight of the army. then we have a v.a. cemetery in san diego under the national shrine program. excellent. but what happened when i complained about let's get rid of the weeds around the stones. they took a weed whacker and now we have dirt all around the stones. that is not the shrine program that we're talking about. mr. dicks: would the gentleman yield? i would like to thank you for bringing this issue to light and i would be happy to work with you to improve the standards of these cemeteries. i agree we must improve these cemeteries to ensure that our appreciation for our veterans' sacrifices is ap

does this all the time, they combine the purchasing power of the v.a. to purchase for veterans across the nation. yet we don't let individual do that we don't let a small business with only 20 employees do this. that wall placed by insurance companies and by the government leads to higher costs. we ought to allow business to do the same thing the federal government does and use that as a mechanism to drive down costs substantially. mr. kent: -- mr. kirk: one thing you mentioned is the need for public health. that puts forward a critical point missing in the debate. we know of the uninsured, 44.7 million, of the uninsured, 14.7 million are already eligible for public coverage. as we have found -- mr. dent: that's medicaid and schip. mr. kirk: that's right. as we found in the state of massachusetts, when a mandate that everyone has to buy health insurance is put forward, what they have generally found is that a technical and legal solution is not adequate. they thought by putting a health insurance signup machine at the entrance of every emergency room at

these people are mega rich already, and you go to the v.a. hospitals and see the horror there, what is happening to the whole country, everything is in shambles. we have corrected -- we have collected make up profits already. but the worst thing is, americans keep swallowing the fact that we have to pay for these wars after other people come in, like corporations. we clear the land of its ownership and then we go ahead and exploit the resources underneath. host: did you serve in the military? caller: yes, i was in the marine forces in vietnam. i was alarmed when i first started telling people about it in 1968, how the corporations are actually enslaving us. when you look at another part of -- of a bad policy decisions, sending all our food down to mexico. mexicans cannot afford to eat, so they send part of their family up here. what that does is it it collapses labor movements and unions, disrupt our society and things like that. all they have to do is make sure that the mexicans can eat a decent price down there, and they will not come up her

the v.a. refused to do the surgery. you people out there who want all this stuff, you need to wake up. please. guest: when you have a government run health care systems, you can have the saving of money by rationing care. or you can have systems that do not ration care, like medicare, but the cost expenses there go through the roof. host: what exactly is the single payer system? guest: single payer is a euphemism for a national government provision of health insurance. the government pays for all health insurance, there are not any private health insurance companies anymore. you have one entity that pays all the bills. i oppose it because, you know, i think we have got extensive experience that markets work better than government, including health care. and the single payer system would create all kinds of perverse consequences, including rationing. host: our next caller is on the independent line from new york. is it water leak at? are you with us? i think we have lost him. we will never know. hi there. caller: i am fr

v.a. hospital in johnson city. he shows up there and the doctor in the emergency room at mountain city does not have access to his v.a. record, to his electronic record that they have at the v.a. now i think we can do better than that. and that's going on right now. that veteran -- maybe he is a world war ii veteran with a complicated medical history, that emergency room doctor is flying by the seat of his or her pants. i think we can do better. again, the health care decisions should be made between a patient and a doctor. and i don't want to let the private insurers off the hook. you and i know this and dr. fleming also, one of the last cases i did in practice, i spent almost as much time on the phone and a private insurer trying to get the case approved than actually doing a major surgical procedure. that's the ridiculous item of the day when you do that and you're not providing care to someone and arguing with a bureaucrat at the private health insurer. mr. gingrey: those stories are just all too familiar. and it's a shame that that tim

public programs like medicare, medicaid, and the v.a. are administered for far less money. in recent years while we have experienced an acute shortage of primary health care doctors, as well as nurses, as well as dentists, and many other health care personnel, we are paying a huge -- we are paying for a huge increase in health care bureaucrats and bill collectors. over the last three decades the number of administrative personnel has grown by 25 times the numbers of physicians. so instead of investing in primary health care -- insteading of investing in doctors, instead of addressing the nursing shortage where our health care doctors are going is into health insurance bureaucrats who spend half of their lives on the telephone telling us that we are not covered for the procedures we thought we had paid for, that is a dumb way to spend health care dollars. further, and not surprisingly, while health care costs are soaring, so are the profits of private health insurance companies. from 2003 to 2007 the combined profits of the nation's major health insuranceompanies increased b

social work in nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living, and i worked with medicare and medicaid in the v.a. system. it is terrible. people have a terrible time with it. you have to employ two or three people to try to get reimbursement from medicare, to argue with medicaid. i worry that a national health- care system run by the government is going to be another problem like that. i saw my doctor recently, my heart doctor. i saw him for 10 minutes and it cost me $92. that is part of the problem with health care. host: also, what do you think congress is going to vote on? guest: i would say to sandy, if you talk to most physicians, they will tell you that dealing with the private and insurance companies is a lot worse than dealing with medicare or dealthe v.a. in terms of paying $92, citing issues doing pretty well. i have heard stories of people coming out with a bill of $1,000. that deals with reimbursement rates among other things. in many ways, we're not putting enough money into primary health-care. too many doctors are going into specialty care. the conclusions of doctors and specialty

single republican come to the floor and say, we need to eliminate medicare, eliminate medicaid, close the v.a. hospitals because it's all government health care. no, for most people being served by these programs, they believe that they're god sends a they don't want to lose them. yesterday the minority leader, the republican senator from kentucky, came to the floor and talked about a future which is fictitious. he said a government plan where care is denied, delayed, and rationed. well, those are fighting words because nobody wants their coverage denied. they don't want to wait in a long line for surgery, and they don't want to believe they're victims of rationing when it's important for them to have medical care given to them. the language that we hear from the other side of the aisle is language we're all-too familiar with. the miracle of the internet is that people can come up with a written document now and just by pressing a button or clicking a mouse, they can send that document to lots of different people. well, a couple of months ago there is a republican strategist named frank luntz

as for the v.a., my impression is that the quality varies from place to place and some people are extremely happy with it. one of the places it seems -- one of the things it seems to do extremely well is integrate care, and that i think is a function of the fact that the fiber market -- that the private market does not do the great job of that. if you switch jobs or if your employer switches insurers, your care tends to be disrupted. . the risk of catastrophic events -- then people become less cost- conscious and the system goes a little haywire. i don't think you need to outlaw that. i think you need a system where people can see it is less expensive to them to buy an insurance policy that allows for some out of pocket expenses up front. host: scott joins us from the independent line from birmingham, alabama. caller: i have a friend of mine who worked for years and the construction industry, made good money and had insurance, blue cross, got laid off, could not find a job so start working for myself. went to get insurance, $800 a month but they would not cover any existing illness and he h

v.a. facility that we have. host: who pays for it? caller: well, the government. he is going to spend over $one trillion already -- $1 trillion already. it would be much simpler, and everybody would be covered. host: go to twitteredr.com/cwj. mike is joining us from lagrange, texas, good morning. independent line. caller: good morning, steve. i would like to say something about this myth about socialized medicine being so bad. i would like to tell a story about back in the 1980's in scotland. my wife got ill, real sick. a doctor came to her room three times within one night, took her to the hospital. but before they rolled her out of the room, the doctor looked at me and said, mike, i know you are concerned about how much this is going to cost you, but we have socialized medicine. please do not be concerned about the cost. her care was excellent. i would also like to point out that if you look at your chart and see when the price of health care escalated, i think it was senator fritz from tennessee whose family owns a big portion of united healthcare, if i am not

look at the v.a. which is run very cost-effectively. if i had time i could tell you details. pecially when i was offered in shun the job -- i was told there are certain procedures that they expected me to deny the first time around. -- when i was offered and showed the job. host: would they have had to raise your taxes? caller: yes, within reason. people should remember that we have cost overruns everywhere, especially in this war we did not need to fight. audit the government. host: let's listen to some good economic news this morning. the ap reports that retail sales rose by the largest amount in four months in may. a rebound in demand helped to offset weakness in department stores. jobless claims had dropped more than expected. the tally of the newly-laid off americans fell for the third -- the third time in six weeks. let's go to the republican line from california. caller: good morning. this is my first time in and the election. host: first-time voter? caller: yes, my parents were republicans, but we all voted for obama. i am kind of confused. i believe healthcare is a ri

far away and must travel a long distance like a veteran in texas who must drive back and forth to the v.a. office in temple in what may take four or five hours. but this is not the only long road that some veterans confront. this legislation is the result of problems texas veterans brought to my attention. they said wounded veterans should not be fired after they exhaust their sick and vacation leave to receive care for injuries that a v.a. doctor says they need, that they incurred while defending our country. i agree, and they said there ought to be a law supporting our veterans, and i felt confidence when the veterans' affairs committee and this congress heard their plea they would answer as they have today. you see, madam speaker, as some employers have policies limiting the amount of time that an employee can be out on sick leave, an employee exceeds that limit may be terminated. and as the law is written today, this means an employee -- an employer can legally terminate a veteran with service-related disability for receiving the care that he or she so desperately needs. i stand here

fact, we are going to be strengthening veterans benefits and tricare under the great leadership of the v.a. secretary. so, let the message be clear. before all the fear mongering and before all the misleading information begins. if you are serving our country, if you're wearing the uniform of our nation, your health care will be protected and strengthened under president obama's health care reform effort. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from louisiana rise? >> request permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. >> thank you, mr. speaker. critical to health care are reform is who has the power. currently the pair has the power. ask a medicare recipient if she has the power or the government agency which pays. ask a patient denied a procedure if he has the power or the insurance company which pays. reform must fix what's broken. what's broken is who has the power. real reform gives the patient the power. government already controls 50% of health care spending. by controlling doll

i have a vietnam veteran that the -- he passed away, but the v.a. had told him that agent orange has been resolved, so essentially we are not going to deal with you. and he had to -- luckily, he was helped by the medical organization that -- by the medical organization in farmington, conn. guest: we republicans did not seay let them eat cake, we said let them eat cake and ice cream. seriously, though, it leads to rationing. it leads to restrictive formularies. it's certainly is not what the patients whaant. you look at the medicaid program, the medicaid formulary in those states where prescription drugs are provided by the medicaid plan. there is a restrictive formulary, and that is not what we want. clearly if this program, though -- and i would be willing to accept, after a three-year trial period in which it was not working, i would want to go back and look at other possibilities, even including having the government come in and negotiate prices. but if the free marketplace is working, why not let that merkel continue? why come in and -- why not l

because canada and not because of a single payer health care system but because the government did with the v.a. does in this country negotiates drug prices directly on behalf of 30 million canadian consumers and with the drug industry got price savings of 50 or 60 or 80% as of the mccain approaches the right approach and cost savings that are so important will be contributed to this bill and we pass the mccain and language without the weakening language. out at those same cost savings we can see in the biologics when we do the section of the bill later because it would be how generic drugs have cut the cost of chemical pharmaceuticals and we also know the same process will save billions over 10 years plus and has a pretty good score as we're trying to consider this quarter. and keeping the cost down and so this is one element of doing that. not to be weak in the by the cochrane firm of language as suggested and coupled with what we can do in biologics i think it will bring prices down for consumers for hospitals and private payers and taxpayers. >> mr. chairman, i am going to apologize to my c

i have absolute faith that with a public option along the lines of medicaid, medicare, or the v.a., that it will out-compete what these other guys are doing and you know, if they can't out-compete them, that's fine, but the fact is, i believe they will. let me yield to the gentlelady. do you want to respond to this question that 2,275 people ask from www.progressivecongress.org, do you want to ask that question, what's wrong with single pay her merchandise hirono: i don't think there's anything wrong with the single payer, but we're dealing with a lot of interest and -- interests and ideas and as president obama said, this is a time when all of the perspectives ought to be given consideration and due respect. i think that moving this discussion to a consideration of a public insurance option is a pretty large step in my view. if you add that in addition to the promoting of the use of informational technology for medical records and other things we can do to move the ball. quality medical care for more people and visit affordable, and what we're talking about right now with the options, m

maybe the v.a. diagnosis should have been accepted by the army. in any case after he was discharged, like other army members, he still had four years of ready reserve commitment. he was recalled back to iraq, served, returned to new jersey in may of this year, committed suicide in september of this year. his father wrote, he fell through the cracks. he had no advocate. no army machinery to help him find his way through the system. he was literally on his own. mr. chairman, this amendment is to address what i think is a gap in our suicide treatment efforts to deal with the individual ready reserve. i urge passage of this en bloc. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california. the gentleman from california. mr. mckeon: we have no further speakers, mr. chairman. we'll reserve our time. the chair: the gentleman from california reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from missouri. mr. skelton: i yield one minute to my friend, my colleague, the gentlelady who is a member of the armed services commit

provides assistance for those who have have low income through medicaid, for the elderly through medicare and veterans, v.a. but for those just above, that's the group we are deeply concerned about because we want to make sure they get the care they need. one thing that is important with that, is make sure they have a health care home. those who have a doctor or specialist they can go to when they have a illness are much more likely to have that illness treated in a timely manner and provide a cure for them. care delayed, care denied. sometimes it takes an act of congress to get something done. let me give you a couple of examples of how there are problems with that. if you are in a suburban hospital and you receive a stroke, sometimes they don't a neurologyist on staff or radiologyist. what happens? wouldn't it be great and imagine that they could connect up with the patient looking at them on video camera, that doctor could be half a country away or 20 miles away or whatever that might be. doing the exam with the assistance of a nurse, look at the sign, look at the way the patient responds and offer does

the president's proposal would phase in full concurrent receipt of military retired pay and v.a. disability compensation for these deserving veterans over five years. we share the president's view. there are veterans and their families and particularly disabled retirees with less than 20 years and made tremendous sacrifices for our country, but this bill moves us closer to fulfilling the president's pledge and the commitment of congress to give disabled veterans full access to the benefits they deserve. while h.r. 2990 is an important step, we must recognize that it is an incremental step that reaches only the most severely disabled over the first year of the president's phased implementation plan. congress has been working to find a way to permanently eliminate the disabled veterans tax for many years. funding this entitlement program is an immensely difficult task. i'm grateful to all of my house colleagues who've worked to find the budget offsets needed to provide this temporary fix for our veterans. as we pursue this legislation, we'll continue to do all we can to honor our co

during the months andrew spent recovering in d.o.d. and v.a. hospitals his neighbors and friends in vermont worked together to complete an incredible project to modify his home to make it accessible to him upon his return. his kindergarten teacher and countless of individuals and company spent time, money and labor to make it possible for andrew to return to home with a new addition to his home, a living room, a bedroom, a bath and a bay for his new van. now andrew will have the resources he needs to focus on rebuilding his strength as he works to fulfill his new dream of becoming a teacher. he should know that all vermonters and all americans are with him in spirit as he continues on his courageous journey. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? mr. murphy: i ask permission to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. murphy: mr. speaker, yesterday secretary sabalias spoke on the energy and commerce committee said there was not many choices for

v.a., even though v. >> is improving it's still not up to the level of the health care of the rest of the country. the idea that a bureaucrat somewhere will make decisions about health care and coverage i think is unattainable to most americans what most americans want is the ability to afford the health care to get it when they want it, where they want it and by whom they want it. and i think we can accomplish a great thing for the country coming together. if we solve the real problems that are out there. we spend $2.4 trillion in this country on health care. and about a third of that doesn't help anybody get well or prevent it from getting sick. so we don't need more money in health care what we need is better value. i think there's a lot of ways to do that. host: the discussion that took place a few weeks ago about controlling costs, do you see anything substantial coming out of that? guest: i think the way you control costs is to create a transparency where people can see what it costs and give them decision-making power with some economic -- small economic risks. i had an orthopedist in my of

the gentlewoman for raising this important issue. i certainly share her concern for our federal firefighters while protecting our national trend military installations, nuclear facilities, v.a. hospitals and other federal facilities. federal firefighters are routinely exposed to toxic substances, biohazards, temperature extremes and stress. i will be pleased to continue working with the gentlelady on this important issue. mrs. capps: i want to thank the gentleman for improving the health of our firefighters. 42 states already recognize this link by providing some sort of presumptive disability for their state, county firefighters. this creates a serious difference in benefits between federal and municipal firefighters, which is basically unfair. more states enact presumptive disability legislation each year. so this is a problem that continues to grow and the disparity continues to be more apparent. clearly there's a pressing need for this legislation. mr. skelton: the gentlelady knows that i certainly share her admiration and appreciation for our federal firefighters, and i thank her for her dedication. mrs. capps: i thank the chairman and i look forward to working with hi

on our military identification card, we have the medical technology to pull up my medical records. if i rode into a hospital or a v.a. facility or a military hospital, on my card, they would scan it in and my complete medical history would come up. and on that, you would be able to tell what type of treatments you haand that is going to cost hospitals less because they won't run the battery of tests to see if this person is a difficult betic because they know what sa john doe's medical history. it's something we ought to explore for americans so they can have quick access to medical records. ms. pingree: i think it's one of the reasons why earlier this year we went along with the president's proposal and invested so much on health information technology. it's been clear to people for a long time that so many different insurance companies and so many different kind of forms make it difficult for practitioners to run a business and hospitals to operate. and as you said, for people to get the kind of medical care they really need. we are about time to wrap up here and i will go over again from my perspective and certai

sent a pipe four miles over to a v.a., named after a congressman who served here for 34 years, huge campus, heat and cool that campus with the methane campus, which is the second largest greenhouse gas outside of carbon dioxide. the taxpayer gets a 15% discount on our bill. we the local taxpayer make royalties and the private company created jobs and made money. that's the way you do it. we cut our consumption from a million gallons of fuel a year to 850,000. and when gas was $4 a gallon, that is very significant. around the country, we did some simple things like change the lights, in a stop light from the 150-what the bulb to an l.e.d. bulb. in every intersection, could you save $800 per intersection and multiply that across the country, the carrot versus the stick we're seeing now. and you may have talked about this before i got here, but we were faced within days of getting the stimulus package which arrived as a 455-page document and came back to conference with 1,071. i carried it around in my car, of which we had four or five hours to read it. we got it at 9:00 clock on friday morning and passed it that afternoon. and

the republicans and democrats, everybody running around calling themselves a democrat. they have to divide and conquer. they have more lobbyists. i work at two jobs for many years, ok? i am a v.a. i went two years with my right hand being injured. all i got was this and that. that had to remove all my bones in my wrist. two years. i have a woman in my office, a young girl, 22 years old. she is going through some kind of problem that women goes through. she is not going to get any health care. everybody is talking about the government paying for it, it will become worse. have you all woken up yet? host: we hear from the present one more time, talking about change of his proposals pass. >> if you like your health care system and your doctor, the only thing reform will mean to you is your health care will cost less. if anyone says otherwise, they are either trying to mislead you or do not have their facts straight. now, if you do not like your health care coverage, or you do not have any insurance at all, you will have a chance, under what we have proposed, to take part in what we are calling a health insurance exchange. this exchange will allow you to one-stop shop for a healthc

and the v.a. and other federal programs spend an additional $9.6 billion. the rest of this cost is about $28 billion, and is borne by private payers. so the financial cost is $96 billion a year. the senate is about to embark on the enormous task of expanding health care coverage and access for the 47 million americans without insurance. now, imagine instead of spending $96 billion every year to treat tobacco-related illnesses we could use this money to improve our health care system. it could fund a significant portion of health reform. one, we could nearly triple the budget of the national institutes of health, a very good thing. two, only two months of tobacco-related health spending could provide a year of health insurance for every uninsured child in america. and, three, let me put it another way: we could provide health insurance to every uninsured child in america and still have $80 billion left over. that's the inordinate, inexplicable cost of tobacco products in this country. instead, we continue to spend $96 billion every year on preventable illness

bill to provide special pays and allowances to certain members of the armed forces, expand concurrent receipt of military retirement and v.a. disability benefits to disabled military retirees and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill. members will record their vote by electronic device. this will be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] the speaker pro tempore: on this vote, the yeas are 404 and the nays are zero. 2/3 being in the affirmative, the rules are suspended. the bill is passed and without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from iowa rise? mr. king: i move the house do now adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the noes have