Jason Altmire

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule to consider the Small Business Financing and Investment Act. This bill improves access to capital for small businesses, which is a vital step towards growing our economy and creating jobs. Time after time, I hear from small business owners in western Pennsylvania saying they would like to hire more employees and would like to expand their services, but they cannot acquire the loans necessary no matter how good their credit scores. I would like to highlight a provision that I drafted that this rule makes in order as part of the manager's amendment to this bill. My provision directs the New Market Venture Capital companies to prioritize providing financing to veteran-owned small businesses in low-income areas. The New Market Venture Capital program encourages equity investments in small businesses in low-income areas by providing tax credits, and it is just the kind of targeted program that America needs to recover from economic hardship. This provision I added, with the support of my colleagues, gives priority to the heroes of America's Armed Forces as they apply for funding in areas that qualify for the New Market Venture Capital program in order to start new lives following their service to this country. We can never fully repay our veterans, but with this provision, we can honor them by offering new opportunities to use their strength and experience to create jobs in communities that need them the most. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the bill.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about the importance of why we need to do health care reform. And the gentleman from Connecticut has heard me talk many times about an experience that I had which alludes exactly to what the gentleman was talking about, where a woman in my district came to me and she said all the reasons that she was unhappy with the Democrats in Congress, she was unhappy with the President. And she said to me, Don't you dare take my money to pay for those people who don't have health insurance. And I said to her, Well, the problem is you're already paying for them. As the gentleman articulately said, if you go to the hospital and you don't have insurance, you get treated. They cover you; right? You get whatever the health care you need. It's the least efficient, most costly setting. But they're going to transfer those costs to the next person who comes through the door that has insurance. And this woman said to me, It's interesting that you say that, because I just had a procedure done at the hospital and I had to pay $18,000 out of pocket because the insurance denied part of my claim, and I asked the hospital, she said, why does everything cost more than it should? Why does an aspirin cost $10? Why does everything cost five times more than you would think it costs? And she was told, as the gentleman talked about, well, that's because of the cost shift that takes place to pay for the people who don't have coverage, a cost shift to the people who do have insurance. And that's the crux of the whole thing. I hear all the time you guys agree on 80 percent of this; right? Everyone agrees we should do the insurance reforms, no preexisting exclusions, no caps on out-of-pocket expenses, lifetime or annual caps. The insurance companies will have to take all comers. They won't be able to drop you if you get sick or injured. They won't be able to deny you coverage for any reason. And everyone does agree on that. Yes, we should do that. The problem is we can't do that by itself. And the reason health care reform has never happened before is because of the hard decisions that have to be made, the decisions that we're going to make in this Congress and the decisions that for a hundred years since Theodore Roosevelt, literally a century ago, first started talking about health care reform we've failed to do as both Congresses and administrations, both Republican and Democrat. And those decisions include: How do you get people into the system who aren't insured? How do you do that? The only way that works, the only way that you can tell the insurance companies you have to take everybody no matter how sick they are and you can't use their health status to set their rates, the only way that works is if you get the young and healthy people into the system, the 24-year-olds who are currently offered insurance by their employers but they turn it down because they think there's something they can do better with the $200 monthly premium than buy health insurance. And they say, Well, I'm young. I'm healthy. I feel good today. I'd rather do something else with that money. Well, we have to find a way to get the young and healthy people into the system. If you're going to require people to have health insurance, you have to find a way to help them afford it as individuals and as businesses. Because if you're a small business--and almost half of small businesses are unable to offer health insurance now because it costs too much. If you're a small business that can't do that, it's not because you don't want to. It's not because you're a bad person. It's because you can't afford it. And this bill is going to help small businesses find a way to offer health insurance to their employees. It's going to offer tax credits, if we do this right, and small businesses will be able to offer health insurance. Individuals who are required to have insurance that can't afford it are going to receive some assistance to help them do that. And what that does is it offsets the risk pool. It balances out what we all know needs to be done on the insurance side with the preexisting conditions and the exclusions. So that's what we've never done. We've never made the hard decisions on the 20 percent that we all know needs to be done but we can't agree on how to do it. But there is 80 percent that is easy. But you can't do one without the other. So that's what we're going to try to do is do both.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule, which makes in order the manager's amendment, which includes a provision that I drafted to require that one of the demonstration projects in the bill be on organic solar technology. Organic solar technology turns solar cells into high-tech ink that can be printed or sprayed onto surfaces using the same general idea as a common ink-jet printer. This technological leap allows us to turn lightweight, flexible films into solar receptors, which opens the door to using solar power for items like cell phones, laptops and even military equipment that can recharge in the field. Additionally, this technology could potentially cost less than silicon solar technology because it's easier to process and because it makes solar technology more attainable for all Americans. Organic solar cells would potentially be better for the environment than would traditional silicon solar technology. Not only does organic solar technology use less energy in production because it requires less processing, but the cells can more easily be recycled. Two of the biggest barriers to organic solar technology are how long the cells last in the field and how efficiently they convert sunlight into electrical energy. My provision in the manager's amendment would ensure the opportunity for a demonstration project to pursue bringing organic solar technology to market. It is for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that I support the rule and that I ask my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman. I did want to start by joining the gentleman in a discussion of energy. I come from a region of the country where we have an incredible amount of coal reserves and where we have natural gas reserves that exceed anything available literally anywhere else in the world. We have the international headquarters of nuclear, with Westinghouse headquartered in my district, which employs 4,200 people currently; and it's growing literally every day. I have a lot of energy in the district that I represent, and a lot of it is the fossil fuels that you hear about. When you hear about coal and natural gas, you say, well, that's the old way of doing things. I would certainly take issue with that. I think we can have clean coal and liquefied coal. I think we can use natural gas to our advantage both from a homeland security aspect and from an energy independence aspect as well. Coming from western Pennsylvania, when you think about that, that does not mean we don't think about new types of energies. I want to talk about solar and about one way western Pennsylvania has taken a leadership role in solar technology. This week, for example, this House is going to consider Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Solar Technology Roadmap Act. That establishes a committee to draft a solar energy roadmap for the Nation. Now, this roadmap sets short-, medium- and long-term solar technology goals for the United States of America, identifying research, development and demonstration needs for this technology and identifying opportunities to coordinate that effort all across the country. The bill creates a solar technology research, development and demonstration program that awards merit-reviewed grants for up to 50 percent of project costs to organizations such as academic institutions, national laboratories, industry, State research agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Now, the reason I wanted to talk is I'm working with my colleagues to incorporate into the bill for one of the fiscal year 2011 demonstration projects a technology called ``organic solar technology.'' Many of us think solar power is a rigid cell of large glass plates, but organic solar technology turns solar cells into high-tech ink that can be printed or sprayed onto surfaces using the same general idea as an ink- jet printer. If you think about the way that works, that's the way organic solar would work as well. This technology leap allows us to turn lightweight, flexible films into solar receptors, which open the door to using solar power for items like cell phones, laptops and, perhaps, one day, as the gentleman was talking about, for military equipment that can recharge in the field or smart labels to track retail inventory. This technology will potentially cost less than traditional silicon solar technology because it's easier to process. Some manufacturers are confident that they can bring the cost of organic solar technology to one-fifth the cost of traditional silicon technology, making solar technology more attainable for all Americans, certainly western Pennsylvania included. Furthermore, organic solar cells would potentially be better for the environment than traditional silicon solar technology. Not only does organic solar technology use less energy in production because it requires less processing, but the cells can be easily recycled. Today, some estimates show that our Nation is falling behind in bringing this technology to the market. Half of the world's organic solar technology patent filings since 2004 came from the United States. Yet the United States lags behind Europe and Asia in the actual development of this technology in the field according to a Navigant report on photovoltaic markets in 2007. So two of the biggest barriers to organic solar technology today are how long the cells last in the field and how efficiently they convert sunlight into electrical energy. In closing, my provision would ensure the opportunity for a demonstration project to pursue these and other advancements. The points of this, as the gentleman was talking about, are military applications and the ways that we can achieve energy independence. This is one example of how western Pennsylvania, which you think of as coal country and as natural gas country--and I told you we have the nuclear headquarters--this is one way that we're taking a leadership role in solar technology as well.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, with each House of Congress finally preparing to bring a health care bill to the floor, we are now closer to reform than we have been in decades. And while we still have a few hurdles to jump before the finish line, there are major issues on which there is widespread agreement. So what can the American people be sure will be in any health care reform bill that is passed? That it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage once you get sick and that they will no longer be able to exclude you based on a preexisting condition; routine checkups and preventive care will be covered without copayment; and your insurance plan will be portable, even when you change jobs. In short, Americans will be able to keep the coverage they have and be safeguarded against losing it when they change jobs or get sick. These reforms are long overdue, but they are now one step closer to reality.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation that I have introduced that will help reduce the number of deaths and injuries occurring on our Nation's roadways. H.R. 3355, the Older Driver and Pedestrian Safety and Roadway Enhancement Act of 2009, authorizes $500 million annually to be distributed to States from the existing highway trust fund to make our roads safer for older Americans. These funds can be used to make roadway improvements as described in the Federal Highway Administration's Older Driver Handbook. While older drivers have years of experience behind the wheel, they often require more time than younger drivers to react to changes on the road and are sometimes restricted in movement and cannot always meet the physical demands of turning to look at a blind spot or making sharp turns. According to the American Traffic Safety Services Association and the National Association of County Engineers' ``Low Cost Local Road Safety Solutions'' publication, simple changes to signs and markings have a proven track record of being both affordable and extremely effective at reducing roadway deaths and injuries. Some examples of these vital road safety improvements that would be funded by this legislation are signs with more legible font, retro- reflective sheeting and retro-reflective pavement markings, left turn lanes at intersections and improved sign placement to ensure that drivers have adequate time to make informed decisions on the road. Last year, more than 37,000 men, women and children perished on America's roadways. This bill will be an effective step forward in reducing this sobering statistic. According to the AARP's Public Policy Institute, as of 2003, 80 percent of persons age 65 and older were licensed drivers, and 90 percent of all trips by older Americans are by automobile, whether as a driver or passenger. This is especially true in suburban and rural areas where mass transportation systems are limited or nonexistent. By 2020, one in five licensed drivers will be 65 years or older. By 2025, this number is expected to be one in four. With Congress continuing to debate the next transportation authorization, it is important that we do not lose sight of the older citizens in our communities. By improving the safety of our roads and highways and making their daily travel as safe as possible, we increase road safety for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation that will improve road safety in every one of their districts. Please join me in raising awareness for road safety and the wellbeing of older and younger drivers alike by supporting H.R. 3355.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Ohio. I sat with the gentleman for a while and listened to one of the groups that came before us, and I couldn't help but think about the fact that they seem to miss the fact that I would agree: The worst possible thing we could do in health care reform, as a Congress, is to pass a bill that makes the system worse. We are capable of doing that. We are not going to do that, but that would be the worst possible outcome. But a very close second is to do nothing. The gentleman from Ohio said that businesses and families in this country struggle every day with the decisions relating to the cost of health care. I, in visiting my district recently, had an opportunity to speak to a Rotary Club in my district. A business owner came up to me afterwards, and he showed me his health care statements for the past 4 years, his annual increases. The lowest increase on an annual basis that that small business owner had experienced, he had 12 employees, was 28 percent. That was the smallest increase he had. He told me, I can't do this anymore. I can't afford health care. I'm going to have to tell my 12 employees this week that I have to drop them. He couldn't offer health care any more. Well, that is unacceptable in America. And that is what is going to continue to happen if we sit back and do nothing while the cost of health care continues to rise two and three times the rate of inflation every single year. I had a woman come up to me at one of my meetings who was one of these people who had attended one of the TEA parties that the gentleman refers to. She was very angry, and she was telling me all the reasons why she opposed what she perceived us to be doing on health care and everything else that was getting under her skin. She was really getting herself worked up. She looked at me, and she said, Don't you dare take my money to pay for those people who don't have health care. Because, she said, I have worked hard for everything I have, and my family is covered, and if those people aren't, well, that's too bad. That's their problem. I'm not worried about them. I have worked to put myself in a position to provide for my family. She said, forget about those people. That's not my problem. I'm not paying for them. I said, Well, here is the issue: You are paying for them, because they show up at the hospital, they get treated, and the hospital sends the bill to us. That's how that works. And this woman who came to this event to fight, she wanted to take me on. When I said that, she softened. And she said, You know, it's so funny that you say that because I just had a procedure done at the hospital in February, and the insurance company denied part of my claim, and I had to pay $18,000 out of pocket. So she went through the bill very closely because she was the one paying the money. She called the hospital, and she said, Why does everything on this bill cost more than it should? Why does an aspirin cost $10? And the hospital told her, Well, that is because we have so many people who come through our doors that can't pay at all, we have to shift those costs to the people who can pay. So therefore, everything on the bill costs five times more than it should. Similarly, I had a gentleman tell me about all the reasons why he didn't want to do health care reform. He said that we have the best system anywhere in the world and everything worked fine, and even if you don't have insurance, you get treated, and everything is free, and it's great. He said, I have a nephew who is 15 who had a hip problem, and he showed up at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and he got the best care anywhere in the world. And he is great, and he is fine now. I stopped him. I said, wait a minute. You said he didn't have insurance. How did he pay for this great care that he got? He said, well, I guess Children's Hospital paid for it. And I said, well, no, that is not what happens. We paid for it, because Children's Hospital eats those costs, and then they transfer the loss to the people who have insurance. That's the way that works. And he got it. The point of this story is we can hear all the examples on the other side politically of why it's better to do nothing, and we should make everybody very afraid of reform. But everybody in the country, every family and every business and every individual in the country, regardless of their political affiliation, has had an experience in the health care industry that shows them that we can do better. They have had to spend a half hour on the phone haggling with an insurance claims adjuster who has just denied their claim. There is that small business owner who has to make the heart-wrenching decision to drop coverage for his 12 employees. There is someone who had to wait 9 months for an appointment with the dermatologist or had a bad quality experience with a grandparent in a nursing home. Everybody has had something happen that shows we can do better. Yes, we have to preserve what works in our system. I'm one who believes as much as anybody in this Congress that we do have the best health care system anywhere in the world. Our innovation, our medical technology, our research, our quality of care at the high end exceeds anything available anywhere else in the world. There is no question about that. And we need to preserve that. But that doesn't mean we don't pay too much, costs go up too much, we are pricing our small businesses out of the market. And if you get sick or injured and that insurance company is able to drop you, well, what is the point of having health care insurance to begin with if you only have it until you get sick or until you get injured? So what we are saying in the legislation that we are considering is, insurance companies won't be able to drop you as soon as you get sick or injured after you have paid premiums for years and years. They won't be able to do preexisting condition exclusions. They won't be able to set your rates based on your individual health status. They will have to take all comers, no lifetime caps or annual caps on out-of-pocket expenses for people with chronic diseases, which is a big problem in the insurance industry. These are the problems we are trying to solve. We are going to help small businesses afford health care by helping business owners like the one I talked about in that Rotary Club to be able to qualify for tax credits to help him afford coverage for his employees. We are going to give more information to health care consumers in the country so they can compare based on cost, based on quality, and based on access to provider, all the plans that are available to them. We're going to squeeze out the inefficiencies of the current system and apply those savings to bringing more people into the system, those who are outside the health care system that simply can't afford health insurance now. These are the reforms that we're talking about. So when you see the charts and graphs on the other side of the big bureaucracy identical to what those charts were in 1993 and they recycled them from 16 years ago, that's not what we're talking about. And we can come down here and have a discussion on the merits of the Canadian health care system or what they do in Great Britain. And that's interesting. That's an interesting discussion to have. But it has nothing to do with what we're talking about. That's not what we are doing in our bill. It's completely unrelated. But in order to scare people and gin up political support to foist a failure upon this Congress and this administration so that they can use it for political purposes, they make things up.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would just say before turning it over to the gentleman from Connecticut, on that point, as I said, we are already paying for the people who don't have health care. So to our colleagues listening here tonight and to those who may be paying attention to this debate, we are trying to bring people into the system so that we can spread out the risk pool and bring insurance costs down for everybody by bringing more people into the risk pool. So if somebody gets sick and they have insurance, they can show up and get an antibiotic in the first place, so it doesn't evolve into pneumonia where they spend 6 days in the hospital 2 months later, and then we have to pay their bill. That's the point. We are trying to rationalize the system so that we bring down costs so people who have insurance today, that's the point here. We can have a philosophical argument about what our moral obligation is as a society on offering coverage to everybody and should everybody who lives in the United States of America have access to health insurance. That's not the debate we are having. The debate we are having is, we need to get them their health care in the most appropriate, cost-efficient setting, and that's not the emergency room. That's not the appropriate setting for them, and that's only going to drive up costs. So by getting them into the system, we are bringing down insurance costs for everybody, and we are getting them their care in a way that is more appropriate and more cost effective. I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut, and I greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate tonight. We could certainly stand here and discuss the merits of the bill, and we will, the bill that has come before Congress already and the bills that we are trying to mold together and what we expect the end result to be. We can have a discussion on the need for health care reform in this country and the merits of the system that we have, what we can do better. We are going to have that discussion. But I did want to come down to agree with the gentleman. I watched some of the previous hour and Members who I consider to be friends and I work with. I certainly don't question intent, but we did hear a lot of rhetoric that does not in any way match up with the facts of the issues that we are discussing. I did not vote for the bill. I am not here to defend the bill. But when I hear Members come to the floor and talk about things that are not in the bill as though they are, and then hear them reference portions of the bill and greatly take out of context what they are talking about in that bill, I don't think that's a legitimate discussion on health care reform in this country. I am someone who wants to pass a health care reform bill. I want to find a way to make it work. I thought the House bill that was before us could have been better. I am hopeful that we are going to make it better. But I don't want to engage in a discussion and talk about how somehow we are in the process of putting together a bill that's going to lead to illegal immigrants getting health care or death panels or some of the other things that we heard over the course of the recess. That's rhetoric that is misplaced. I think, as the gentleman said, we do have the best health care system anywhere in the world if you have access to it. Our medical innovation, our technology, our research capability far exceeds anything available anywhere else in the world. That's true. And we want to preserve what works in our current system. There is no question about that. But there are things we can do better. I don't know how many people there are on the other side that think we shouldn't do any reform. I would expect not many, but we should be able to agree on the fact that in large segments of society, people who have insurance, they have access to the best health care system in the world. That's not to say that we can't do better. I want to engage in a dialogue of how we can improve upon the bill that was put forward. What can we do to achieve consensus, because in America that's where we end up. We start with an idea and we build to a consensus and we get something done. That's how legislation is passed. It offends me when I hear rhetoric put forth that is just not consistent with the facts of what's in the legislation. And, again, I am not here to defend that bill, but I understand that some of the things that we heard are just not legitimate concerns. We talk about what's the need for reform. I had an August where I went around and I talked to Rotary clubs and physician groups and hospital boards and went to all the fairs and had town hall meetings, everything that other Members of this House did. And one of the things that stuck out in my mind, I had, in a Rotary Club I was speaking at, a small business owner come up to me and handed me his statements from his previous 4 years, his rate increases, annual statement from the insurance company. The lowest increase he had over an annual period for 4 years was a 28 percent increase. That was the lowest in the 4 years. He said to me, and he clearly was upset about it, that he was going to be unable to offer health care to his employees because he couldn't sustain this increase, 4 straight years of at least a 28 percent increase. He had to drop coverage. These are the things that we can't allow to happen in this country. When you have the best health care system in the world, you want everyone to have access to it. We want our small businesses to be able to offer coverage. If you are a small business owner who can't offer health care to your employees, it's not because you are a bad person. It's not because you don't want to. It's because you can't. You can't afford to do it. So we need to bring the costs down for small businesses. Every family in America has had a similar discussion around the dinner table to talk about the increased cost of health care, the impact that's having on their family. Some of them have to make very difficult decisions on what they can afford and what they can't to keep health care. But everyone understands that costs are going up at an unsustainable rate. We all know the impact it has on government budgets, whether that be the Federal budget--but every State in America has experienced the State budget crisis that Pennsylvania has certainly experienced. And municipal budgets, with their health care costs. So it has an impact on governments at all levels. This is what we need to address when we talk about health care reform.

Mr. ALTMIRE. If I could make a point before you leave that issue. This reminds me of a couple of things that I heard when I've been back in the district. One of them was a gentleman who clearly was uncomfortable with the health care reform bill as he understood it and told me all the reasons why we shouldn't do it. The point he made was, Look, people who don't have health care, they get insurance and they get high-quality care. And he talked about his 15-year old nephew who had gone to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh with a hip injury of some sort, and he didn't have any insurance. His family didn't have insurance. And he got the treatment. And it was great quality, the best he could get. He's fine now. Everything is great. I said, Well, you said he didn't have any insurance. How did he pay for it? The gentleman said, Well, Children's Hospital paid for it. I said, No, that's not the way it works. You and I paid for it. That's how it works. And he said, What do you mean? And I'll explain what I mean. But there was a similar story of a woman who came up to me at a meeting, and she was very upset--was not a fan of the President, or me--and told me all the reasons that she thinks we as a Congress are doing a bad job. And she was really getting herself worked up. And she said, And don't you dare take my money to give it to those people who don't have health care, because I've worked hard to get where I am. And I've earned everything that my family has. And we have insurance. And we deserve it. And if those people don't have it, well, that's too bad for them. That's not my problem. The point of both those stories and what I said to both these people was, It is your problem. Because we can have a discussion about whether it's a moral imperative to offer coverage to people who don't have it. Is it our obligation as a country to make sure that whatever number of uninsured we can agree on, if it's 47 million or 31 million or 1, should we, as a country, have an obligation to cover those people? That's an interesting philosophical argument, but I'll tell you what the moral imperative is. The moral imperative is that we, who are insured, the people that I was talking to, we're already paying for them. The moral imperative is we're subsidizing them right now. And the people who don't have insurance get their treatment and their health services in the most inefficient, most costly setting--the emergency room--which leads to increased rates for us. The woman who I told you about who said that she didn't want to pay for other people's health care had an interesting story when I started to explain to her that she was already paying. She said, Oh, it's interesting that you mention that because, she said, she just had surgery done at a hospital in February and the insurance company denied part of her claim, and she had to pay $18,000 out-of-pocket, and because she was paying for it, she read that bill very closely and she noticed everything cost a lot more than it should have. So she called the hospital, she told me, and she said, Why does an aspirin cost $10? Why does everything on this bill cost five times more than it should? And the hospital said to her, Well that's because we have so many people who come through here who can't pay at all, we have to shift those costs to make up for the difference with the people who can pay. And she got it. And so did the gentleman who talked about the Children's Hospital. The point of those stories is that's why we're going to pass a reasonable, rational bill that's going to improve the health care system in this country when all is said and done, because everyone in America, even those who have great concerns about this administration and this bill and those who are never going to support the administration or this Congress for political reasons, they have had a situation in their lives that has demonstrated for them why we can do better or how we can do better. The woman I'm talking about with her $18,000 bill--but everyone has had something happen. They had to wait 9 months for an appointment with the dermatologist. They had a bad quality experience with a nursing home for their grandparents. They're that small business owner who just had his fourth straight year of 28 percent increase in his rates. Everyone has had something happen. We've all had to spend time on the phone, maybe upwards of an hour, haggling with an insurance claims adjustor who has just denied our claim or is arguing with us about that. So when you hear these stories, and you hear about how we shouldn't pay for people who don't have insurance and that that's not our problem, it is our problem. We're already paying for them. What we're trying to do by reforming the system is making sure everyone has coverage that wants it in a rational way so that we're not going to subsidize them in the least efficient, most costly setting, as we do today.

Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentleman said a couple of things that I wanted to comment on. I will get to the public option momentarily. But I agree with the way the gentleman characterized the discussion about Canada and Great Britain, the two countries that we most often hear the horror stories from. Look, I don't live in Canada. I don't live in Great Britain. I don't know what it's like to live under those systems. But I do know this. I have a master's degree in health care administration. I've spent a career in health care policy. I can tell you it is interesting to study what other countries do-- not just Canada and Great Britain, but other countries around the world--and everyone has a different system. That's a nice political science or health policy discussion to have. But, as the gentleman talked about, that has nothing to do with what we're doing in this bill. This bill doesn't in any way bring to America what Canada does, certainly. It's not even close. There's no comparison to be made. It doesn't do anything close to what Great Britain does, which is even more to the left of Canada. And so we can watch the TV and hear the horror stories. And they're interesting to listen to, but it has no place in this discussion because it has nothing to do with the proposals that we're voting on. With regard to the public option--and I'm going to use another example from when I was back in the district. I continued to hear people say, You know what? The government is inefficient, it's bloated, it can't do anything right. They would say, You can't name one program that the government has ever run that's worth anything. Everything it touches is bad. And if you have them touch a public option, it's going to cost too much, it's going to be inferior care. And I would say, Look, the public option is going to be self- sustaining. We do need to work out the details of what exactly it's going to look like, but it's going to be self-sustaining, with no taxpayer subsidies. It's going to compete on a level playing field with the insurance companies. It'll have to meet all the same regulatory requirements that they meet. And there is some disagreement on this. I would like to see it have negotiated rates like the insurers. There are other opinions on that. But the point is it's going to be a fair fight. And it'll have to meet all the same requirements as the private insurers. If you believe that the government can't do anything right, that they're going to mess up everything that they touch, and it's going to be inferior quality at a higher cost--and, under the terms of the bill no one is forced into the public option; it's voluntary--then what are you afraid of if you believe the private market can do everything better? I'm not afraid of that competition. I think the private market can't compete and win. I think there are some families and businesses that would choose the option and feel that's a better deal for them--not because it has an unfair advantage, but if it's a level playing field and you don't think government can do anything right for those that have that belief, then why are you afraid of the competition?

Mr. ALTMIRE. I agree with the gentleman on those points. I would say also let's look at the totality of what we're talking about with reform. When we talk about making reforms in the private insurance market that I think everybody agrees with, this is what you're going to get from health care reform: no more preexisting condition exclusions. No more caps for people with chronic diseases, annual caps or lifetime caps, out-of-pocket costs. Insurance companies won't be able to deny you coverage or drop your coverage because you get sick or injured. These are all practices that we know exist. They won't be available after this bill passes. The help for small businesses who can't afford health care to be able to help them, hopefully through tax credits or some other way, to afford coverage for their employees; to do the reforms in the system to incentivize quality of care, not quantity of care. We've talked about this many times on the floor where the current system is a fee-for- service system. The number of times you show up in the doctor's office, the number of tests they run and procedures they order, that's the amount of money that they make. So they have a financial incentive for you to be sick. The more often you're there, the more things you have wrong with you, the more money they're going to make. Well, that's a perverse incentive. We want to change the reimbursement system to incentivize quality to keep you healthy and keep you out of the system before you get sick. And that's why we're going to incentivize prevention and wellness, to make those services that senior citizens especially can access the Medicare system at no cost so that you can have the diabetes screenings and the mammograms and the flu shots and things that are prevention at no cost. They're going to prevent people from getting sick in the first place. So these are things that I think we all agree on when we talk about reform.

Mr. ALTMIRE. And on that point, Medicare, as we all know, is scheduled to go bankrupt within 7 years. It's already, as a trust fund, paying out more than it's taking in. It has for the last few years. It's going to be completely insolvent in the year 2016. That's because of rising health care costs which are, unlike Social Security, which is going to be solvent through the year 2040, and because of demographics, it takes a downturn thereafter, but health care costs are unpredictable. Retirement costs are very predictable. You can generally figure out how long a population is going to live in the aggregate, what kind of money they're going to make, what their salary progression is, and what their retirement benefits look like. That's easily predictable. Health care benefits aren't. You don't know how much technology is going to change, how much prescription drugs are going to cost, how much high-technology treatments are going to cost, and what the future holds with regard to new innovations and technologies down the road. So for that reason, it's impossible to predict Medicare costs in the same way. The first baby boomer becomes eligible for Medicare in the year 2011. That's a big part of it too demographically. So what we're trying to say is what can we do to preserve and protect Medicare for the long term? That's the whole point of health care reform, to bring down those costs, to make Medicare solvent, to make the reforms necessary so that it can last into the future and be there certainly for all the current beneficiaries, the baby boomers, for the gentleman and myself, and for our grandchildren. That's why we have to reform the Medicare system, the payment system, and that's why we need to reform our health care system. But we spend as a Nation $2\1/2\ trillion a year. This year, 2009, we're going to spend $2\1/2\ trillion as a Nation for 1 year on health care. So what are we talking about? Now, we used to in this House score things over a 3-year period; and then people, I think rightly, said that doesn't give you an estimate of sort of the long-term impact of the legislation; let's do it over 5 years. So for a while, several years, we scored all the bills over a 5- year period. Now in the interest of transparency and to give the public an idea of the full long-term costs, we actually score legislation that comes to this floor over a 10-year period. And what's the cost of this bill going to be? The President of the United States stood right behind where the gentleman stands about a month ago and told us that it's going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 billion over 10 years, which is going to be fully paid for. It's not going to add to the deficit. We'll talk about that. But $900 billion over 10 years. So on average, that's $90 billion per year in a system where we're spending $2\1/2\ trillion this year, and it's going to go up exponentially every year for the next 10 years. Is there anyone out there who doesn't think we can find inefficiencies in the system and waste that we can squeeze out to the tune of $90 billion a year in a $2\1/2\ trillion system, that we can't make it more efficient and save enough money to make the reforms that we're talking about? I just think that the American people, when they think about these numbers, need to remember that we're talking about reforms that are going to increase quality, that are going to increase benefits for people, but that we are talking about in the aggregate a relatively small portion of the health care system as a whole when you talk about this stuff.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I agree with the gentleman. I have said that I will not support a bill that adds one penny to the deficit. Even more important than that, the President of the United States said that from the podium behind you. He will not sign a bill that adds one penny to the deficit. I heard time and again over the course of being back in the district concerns about the spending that is taking place in Washington and the increase in the debt and the annual deficits over the past 9 years. I have young children, as the gentleman said. I completely agree, we have to do this in a way that is not going to add one penny to the deficit or the national debt. One of the Senate bills which has been finalized and is being marked up this week, in fact, saves money over 10 years. I don't know if that is going to be the finished product. Certainly it is not word for word, but it is possible to do health care where we might actually bring a bill to the floor that, at minimum, is not going to add to the debt but might even reduce the debt over a 10-year period, or reduce the deficit on an annual basis. That is something that I think the American people should consider when they talk about the need for health care reform, but also the need to bring down our long-term deficit. We can't ever address our long- term deficit without doing health care reform. It is too big a part of our economy to ignore.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of Congressman Sestak, the author of amendment No. 11.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, the legislation before us would reauthorize the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Program, which invests in advanced vehicle research and development. This program taps American ingenuity to create good-paying American jobs and, importantly, reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The Advanced Vehicle Technology Act requires the Energy Secretary to research and develop advanced automobile battery manufacturing. Automotive batteries for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles are promising, but they are not yet fully competitive in the market. Congressman Sestak's amendment would require the Secretary to consider two additional factors in bringing advanced batteries for plug-in vehicles and electric cars to market. First, electric vehicle batteries are limited by the number of times they can be charged and depleted before the battery fails entirely. To extend battery life cycles, vehicle manufacturers oversize the batteries, often extending battery life but then sacrificing cost and efficiency in the process. The gentleman's amendment would require research and development of technology to efficiently increase battery life. Second, vehicle battery manufacturing is an energy-and emissions- intensive process, which ultimately contributes to an electric vehicle's carbon footprint. Congressman Sestak's amendment would require the Energy Secretary to research and develop new technologies to increase efficiency in the battery manufacturing process. I thank Chairman Gordon, and I urge support for Mr. Sestak's amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, it's my great honor to welcome the Very Reverend George L.W. Werner, who today serves as the guest chaplain for the United States House of Representatives. As the dean emeritus of the historic Trinity Cathedral in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dean George Werner has earned a special place in the hearts of Western Pennsylvania and especially the Episcopal Church. A well-known volunteer and leader in the community, Dean Werner is involved in countless community and civic organizations, including the Ireland Institute of Pittsburgh, the St. Margaret's Foundation, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, just to name a few. And it's altogether fitting that by opening up today's House session in prayer, Dean Werner is the first person to stand at that center podium where President Obama stood last night to talk about the need for health care reform, because Dean Werner has literally made a career out of advocating for fairness for all of our citizens and helping those less fortunate. It's my distinct honor and privilege to welcome to the House today my good friend, Dean George Werner.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, the Dow is back over 9,000, and new housing starts have seen their largest monthly increase in 9 years. While, overall, the Nation's financial indicators remain mixed, there is a growing body of evidence that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has helped stabilize our economy. Because of the stimulus, more than 95 percent of American families have seen their taxes cut, and 51 million seniors and veterans have received their $250 relief payments in the mail. More than 38,000 stimulus-funded projects are already under way, many of which have come in under budget. The American people can visit recovery.org to see how every penny has been spent. Only 4 months into the 2-year recovery package, already we are seeing results. While the road to recovery is long, we have clearly taken the first steps, and we are finally headed in the right direction.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for allowing me the opportunity to come to the floor and discuss a project in my district that I'm very proud of. This is a project that is on a border area between Ohio and Pennsylvania. The service region for the project, the coverage area for the employment base, and the economic development opportunity spans nine counties in two different States. And it's in an area of the country that has suffered greatly with the loss of manufacturing jobs over the past several decades, and it's in an area of the country that's trying to retool itself and trying to gain traction with economic development activities, especially in high tech fields, high technology manufacturing. It's in an area where there used to be heavy manufacturing, an industrial site that has been reconfigured to play the role now across nine counties of job growth. It's expected that when this project is completed, it's going to create 2,500 jobs, and the money that we're directing towards that project through this bill isn't in the absence of community support. We have generated 18.7 million through the State of Pennsylvania and through local community sources to fund this project. This is a project that's ongoing. As the gentleman from Arizona points out, it was initiated in 2006, and the $500,000 that we're talking about today specifically goes towards access roads. And the Federal Government, as the gentleman knows, does play a role in transportation funding. That's what this bill is all about. So we're talking about a continuation of a project that was initiated 3 years ago, that's going to create 2,500 jobs, that's going to serve nine counties across three States, and that's going to help continue the rebirth of a region in the country that has suffered. I can think of no better way to spend transportation money than on a project of this sort. And I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I would say in response to the gentleman from Arizona, the funding that we're talking about, again, is transportation funding, and it's going to build access roads. The funding for the technology park, 18.7 million, has already gone towards the park itself. We're talking about the transportation component of that to build the roads. And before I yield to the chairman of the committee, what I will say is the gentleman holds up the chart that talks about the earmarks that go to appropriators and people who've been in this House a long time. Well, look, I'm a second-term Member. I'm not an appropriator, and I'm not a chairman of a high-level committee, but I was elected to represent the Fourth Congressional District of Pennsylvania. I was elected to survey the need and to do everything I can to fight for my constituents and to fight for my district. And despite the fact that I'm not a chairman, despite the fact that I'm not on one of the exclusive committees, I was able to convince the committee to put this money in because this is a good use of taxpayer funding. This is going to create jobs. This is going to grow the economy in two States across nine counties. And I would yield the remainder of my time to Chairman Olver.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I understand what the gentleman from Arizona is doing here. He was going through the earmarks, as he does, and somebody needs to do that to make sure that they're all on the up-and-up. He saw the word ``greenhouse'' and he said, Why are we giving $100,000 to a greenhouse in Pittsburgh? Well, what this is is the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. We in Pittsburgh have the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. We have Carnegie Mellon University. We are partnering with Cleveland, as Congressman Doyle just talked about, where you have the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve. So we have literally thousands of life science biotech startups throughout the region that are doing great work, that are creating jobs, that are growing the economy. And when you heard the word ``greenhouse,'' that's what that's about. We're growing the economy in western Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio. And this relatively modest investment that we're making through this earmark is going to fund an organization that has promoted 80 different venture capital firms that have directly funded 60 different companies through the initiatives that we're talking about. So it attracts private investment, angel investors, and venture capital firms that otherwise would not be involved in the Pittsburgh and Cleveland technology corridor, which has suffered with job losses because of trade agreements and because of the down economy over the past several years. And what we've done here is put together a group that's going to attract outside investment to capitalize manyfold above and beyond the relatively modest investment that we make here. And we are talking about an organization that just directly through this Pittsburgh technology belt, Pittsburgh-Cleveland Tech corridor, has grown 400 jobs and generated $300 million in venture capital and angel investment. So I think this is a very worthwhile investment that we can make to grow the economy, and Pittsburgh has weathered the storm very well. What we're talking about today has resulted in the fact that Pittsburgh has an unemployment rate that's below the national average.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to commend Mr. Pastor for his excellent work on this legislation and to thank him for his continued support of the Nuclear Power 2010 program, which is now in its final year. This program is a success story. It has reestablished the U.S. leadership in standardized, state-of-the-art nuclear power plants and created a licensing process that allows electric utilities the business certainty to make capital investments while also preserving public participation. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank Mr. Pastor. And as he may know, the Nuclear Power 2010 program is of particular importance to my district, home to the Westinghouse Electric Company headquarters and the thousands of my constituents who work for Westinghouse. Westinghouse helped establish the civilian nuclear energy industry, building the first emission-free electricity generating plant in 1957. Today, more than 40 percent of the world's operating plants are Westinghouse designs, and 62 of the 104 plants in the U.S. are Westinghouse designs. NP2010 has helped Westinghouse meet today's regulatory requirements for standardizing, siting and licensing the latest nuclear power plant designs.