W. Akin

Mr. AKIN

Mr. AKIN. And that then is adding to the cost of everything. So we have already, talking about nationalizing health care, Tennessee just about crashed their economy trying to do the same thing, is that correct?

Mr. AKIN. So it isn't like all of these promises that this is such a wonderful health insurance, in other words, the thing that strikes me a little bit would be, let's say somebody said to you, It sounds like what they are selling sounds pretty good. The government is going to give you free health insurance, free health coverage, not just insurance, but even health care access. If somebody said, would you like the government to give you a free home? I mean we would be crazy to say no. Of course, I would like a free home. Then they would follow it up with a followup question, do you want to live in government housing? Oh, that's a different question, isn't it? And isn't that the parallel that we're talking about now? We're going to give you free medical insurance, except that you've got to wait a whole lot longer, and it is a whole lot more expensive. Wait just a minute. I like the idea of free medical insurance. But is that really what we're getting? You have to take a look a little bit below the surface. So we have seen it didn't work in Massachusetts. It didn't work in Tennessee. We are joined by another doctor, a good friend of mine. It is interesting that doctors are coming out to talk about this plan, isn't it? We have got a Dr. Broun from Georgia, another medical doctor. He has a great reputation and is bold in just laying things out and telling it like it is. It is terrible English but it is a good phrase. Dr. Broun, please join us.

Mr. AKIN. Now, just butting in for a minute, I heard a congresswoman from this Chamber on television this morning, walking past a TV set in the gym of all places, and she was saying, if you like what you have, you can keep it. And yet we had copies of the bill that was proposed, the Democrat plan, on the floor, and it didn't say that, did it? Go ahead, please.

Mr. AKIN. Say that again? In other words, today, you have got some insurance, you have a doctor you like, and if you like that, what the Democrat said is you can keep it, and, in fact, what the bill says is you're going to lose it? Now that is really a radical difference.

Mr. AKIN. Wait a minute. You're saying there is some high level government bureaucrat and they call him a ``czar'' or a ``commissioner?''

Mr. AKIN. He could be a czar. A commissar?

Mr. AKIN. But this is not a czar, this is a commissioner though?

Mr. AKIN. But maybe you call him a commissar. We can compromise. Go ahead.

Mr. AKIN. So he's independent, and he can do whatever he wants.

Mr. AKIN. So what does the section say of the bill?

Mr. AKIN. It sounds a lot like a dictatorship. What does the section say? Does this contradict what I just heard a congresswoman saying on television today?

Mr. AKIN. So what you're saying is this bill literally says that by the end of a 5-year period, a group health plan must meet the minimum benefit requirement under section 12, 121. So in other words, what we're saying is that you could have a plan you might like now, you have got private health insurance, but if it doesn't meet the government plan, then at the end of 5 years at the longest you just can't have it, because your plan has to be exactly like the Federal one, or at least has to have all of the things that the Federal one has.

Mr. AKIN. I would like to stop for a minute just as I started out this evening, Doctors, the whole secret of bringing something to the floor really fast, do it at 3 o'clock in the morning, get that 300-page amendment--they haven't even got the bill together--and quick, quick, vote on it before anybody knows what is in it is great strategy if you want people who are voting not knowing what they are voting for, especially if you're trying to hide stuff in the bill. And what I would like to do is, I would like to just take a moment and just go around and let's start thinking about the people that if they understood this bill, which you're going to have to be pretty smart, because this is an organizational chart of the bill. But let's start talking about the people who might want to vote against it if they knew what were in here, because the promise is it's all free, you can keep what you have. It's all free except what? A couple trillion dollars, or if you cheat with the numbers, a trillion dollars more than the biggest tax hike. You can keep what you have except you can't keep what you have, and you're supposedly going to get good health insurance and good coverage. And there's, of course, a difference between insurance and whether you get coverage or not. I would like to start categorizing who are the people, if they were us, they would be voting, ``No, by golly, darn it all, we don't want it, no, no, no.'' Who is going to vote ``no'' on this thing? Because I think as we look at this, we'll see that there's a lot of hidden stuff here, and there's a lot of people that have good reason to encourage every one of us to vote ``no'' on it. Let's just start talking about some of the groups, and you brought the first one up, Dr. Broun, and that is the people who let's say they are pro-life. In America, you have constituents, I have constituents, we have some who are pro-life, and some who believe in abortion and that people should have a right to abortion. Those are deeply held views. But what is going to happen in this bill--and if this were not going to happen, there could be an amendment offered to make sure that it doesn't happen--and that is that the government plan is going to include that you could get free abortions. We did that for a while in America. We had subsidized abortions. So if you're pro-life, or let's say you're pro-abortion, but you think it's unfair to make people who have deep religious convictions that think that killing the unborn is a wrong thing to do, are you going to make them pay taxes to fund something that you think is fundamentally wrong? So if you're pro-life, you're not going to vote for this thing unless there's some amendment that says we want a guarantee that this government plan doesn't give people a right on government money to abort their kid. So if you're pro-life, that is one group that will say ``no,'' I think. But go ahead, Dr. Broun.

Mr. AKIN. Amendments were offered where? In committees?

Mr. AKIN. Party line vote, the Democrats are saying they don't want that amendment that says you can't get a free abortion?

Mr. AKIN. So if you're pro-life, first off, that is one group of people if this weren't in the dark of night and all were known about this bill, certainly the pro-lifers wouldn't vote for it, is that right?

Mr. AKIN. Okay, two doctors are here.

Mr. AKIN. So the doctors voted ``no'' about supporting this. So you guys are both doctors, and the other doctors said, No, this isn't a good idea, right?

Mr. AKIN. We have two groups. I'm going to keep score. First of all, if you're pro-life, you're not going to like this bill. Second of all, in general, the doctors don't like the bill. Even though the AMA cut some deal, their membership told them, We really don't support this thing.

Mr. AKIN. So the AMA doesn't represent all doctors, just only 20 percent. Even the 20 percent wasn't in favor of it?

Mr. AKIN. I'd just like to keep going on the list because we've got one. The people who are pro-life, they don't want this thing. The doctors don't like this thing. We have two doctors here that don't like it. I want to bring up another category because, when I wake up in the morning sometimes, I'm feeling a little older and achier. I just hit 62. I want to talk about old geezers like me. Seniors. If you were a senior citizen in America, what do you think about the government running health care? Do you think you're going to like that idea very much?

Mr. AKIN. I do yield to Dr. Fleming.

Mr. AKIN. So we're going to gut Medicare first. So if you're a senior you're not going to like gutting Medicare.

Mr. AKIN. Okay. So there's a committee somewhere in this chart that's a Comparative Effectiveness Committee. And what is it going to do?

Mr. AKIN. So let's say you're a smart bureaucrat, and you've got an awful lot of money being spent on health care in America, and the budget is going bust, and you're thinking, oh, my goodness, how am I going to fix this. And so you find that the old 80/20 rule is working just fine right here in health care; that is, that 20 percent of the people have 80 percent of the cost. And guess who the people that have 80 percent of the costs are--it's old geezers like me. And so you're going to say, hey, we're going to need to regulate this system, and so we're going to deny care. In other words, what we're going to do is we're going to say that the doctor and the patient don't make the call. We're going to say some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. decides whether you get treatment or not. That may seem pretty outlandish or harsh, but the fact of the matter is that's what's going on in Canada. And this is personal to me because I've got a bad hip. And people keep saying, Akin, how come you're limping? I fell on some ice 10 years ago. Well, the reason that I'm limping is that I'm postponing getting a hip replacement. In Canada, if you're my age, at 62 you can't get a hip replacement. In fact, if you're later fifties in Canada you can't get a hip replacement. Guess where you get your hip replacement? You come to the good old USA. And so if you're an old person, what's going to happen is there's going to be rationing of care, and you're not going to get taken care of because the bureaucrats say you're too old, it's not a good financial investment, but we'll give you some pain killers. So if you're an old person, first of all, Medicare is going to get taken. But the second thing is you've got the problem of somebody coming between you and your doctor, and that's the bureaucrat from D.C. So if I'm an a older person I'd say, if I'm a senior I sure don't want to touch this thing. I want to yield to my friend from Georgia.