Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Barton) for his good work on this legislation, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Bilirakis) for offering this legislation reauthorizing the Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) pioneered this important legislation a dozen years or so ago. By increasing the breast cancer early detection rate, this legislation has undoubtedly contributed to the battle against this deadly disease. Breast cancer is the top cancer threat for American women. This year alone, in our country, almost 216,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and more than 40,000 will lose their lives from it. Accurate reading of mammograms is essential to early detection of breast cancer. Mammography has increased the survival rate for women in their 40s by 16 percent. Over a decade ago, Congress recognized the importance of high-quality mammography screening by passing the Mammography Quality Standards Act. This act was designed to ensure that mammography is safe and reliable and that breast cancer is detected during its most treatable stages. This act established national standards for mammography facilities, for personnel, including doctors who interpret mammograms, for equipment, and for operating procedures. This legislation today, H.R. 4555, ensures that American mammography providers continue to be held to high standards and that mammography continues to become a safer, more accurate tool for detecting breast cancer. It makes sense to update and extend this program to make certain we are fighting breast cancer as early as possible and as accurately as possible. I am pleased to support this important legislation.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Madam Speaker, heart disease kills more Americans than any other condition. Nearly a quarter of a million Americans die from cardiac arrest every year. The American Heart Association, which supports this resolution, estimates that with widespread access to and use of defibrillation, 50,000 of those lives could be saved every year. We are starting to see real success in ensuring that there are defibrillators in major public places in this country. In Summit County, in my district, a successful effort led by Dr. Terry Gordon has resulted in public defibrillators in all of the county's 59 middle schools and high schools, and in 23 other public buildings, coverage that probably is unprecedented in the United States. As these efforts continue, we are making strides towards public access defibrillation in all major public venues, in schools and sports arenas, in large hotels, in concert halls, in high-rise buildings, in gated communities and high-security companies. Currently, 60 percent of heart attacks take place in venues like these outside of hospitals, and the survival rate for these attacks is only around 5 percent. Public access to defibrillation programs provide defibrillators to facilities and train nonmedical personnel in how to use a defibrillator. If administered within 3 minutes of a victim collapsing from cardiac arrest, a defibrillator can increase the patient's survival rate, it is estimated, by 70 percent. Knowing these statistics, Madam Speaker, it is clear we can do better in preventing death from cardiac arrest. This House can begin by fully funding the Community and Rural Defibrillation Program for fiscal year 2005. My colleagues, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), along with the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), and especially the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) have been champions of these important programs, and it is critical their funding levels be maintained. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), our chairman, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, as well as my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for bringing this measure up for consideration before the House today. It is an important bill that will save lives. This will matter to the lives of family members of so many Americans. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, I want to join the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), our chairman, in thanking the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. McCarthy) for her good work, not just on this legislation, but her years of service to this Congress, and especially her years of participation on the Committee on Energy and Commerce and her good work there on a whole myriad of issues. I especially, as I said, want to thank her for her work on this resolution, which encourages private health insurance companies to take a more proactive role in promoting healthy lifestyles. The number of Americans who are overweight and obese continues to rise. Obesity is problematic in large part because of the myriad of health complications it can cause. It is appropriate that health insurance companies, along with doctors, public officials, and community leaders, encourage people in the United States to lead healthier lifestyles. Moderate weight loss of 5 to 10 pounds can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, reduce high blood sugar, and help prevent other health conditions associated especially with obesity. Making prevention work and encouraging healthy lifestyles requires cooperation from all parties involved in health care, including insurance carriers, and I am pleased to support the gentlewoman's resolution. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. McCarthy).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy), my friend.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, millions of Americans, including my wife, suffer from asthma. In a classroom of 30 children, on the average, three are likely to have asthma. The disease killed more than 200 American children in the year 2000. Some States, however, prohibit children from carrying emergency asthma medicine to school. Some of these prohibitions occur despite the fact that parents have authorized the medication's use. This creates an unnecessary delay in administering these medications, when it only takes seconds for an asthma attack sometimes to turn deadly. The ASTHMA Act, H.R. 2023, encourages States to modernize their laws. I commend my friend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) for his leadership on this legislation and my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), for introducing the proposal. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has done terrific work in examining and recommending strategies for combating asthma in school- based situations and has laid out six strategies for addressing asthma in schools. This bill also commends those efforts. Allowing children to self-administer their asthma medication will save lives and will make our schools healthier and safer. I am pleased to support this important legislation.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the sponsor of the bill. (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes, and I want to begin by thanking the chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), for his good work today with this whole slew of eight or nine bills that we are doing bipartisanly. It is legislation that clearly helps health care in this country, and I want to thank Chairman Barton for that, and also the chairman of the subcommittee, (Mr. Bilirakis), for his work. Too many Americans face financial barriers to health care. The American Cancer Society and other patient advocates support H.R. 918 because they know many Americans also face serious nonfinancial barriers. These include significant racial and cultural and linguistic and geographic barriers, barriers that have contributed to the striking disparities across racial and ethnic lines in the incidence and the treatment of cancer and other chronic diseases. This patient navigator bill is intended to ease the way for patients confronting a serious illness in an intimidating array of treatment options. With this legislation's passage, we will begin to see increased enrollment in clinical trials, we will see greater community involvement in health awareness, and we will have a more coordinated approach to health care services that will benefit all patients in the end. I want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) for this legislation, my colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce), for her hard work also on this bill; and I am pleased to support it. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I really just want to make sure I understand. So if the President wrote a bill with the drug and insurance industry, then by my saying that the drug and insurance industry gave money to the President's campaign, that is improper to say?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I only said that the President and Vice President sat down with the drug and insurance industry and wrote this bill, and I never said the President did anything illegal. I questioned that it was the right thing to do. Am I not allowed to say that, Madam Speaker?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. What was that, Madam Speaker? Madam Speaker, I do not understand. I did not say the President. What did I say that was improper?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I was talking about the leadership of this Congress being corrupt by passing a Medicare bill the way they did.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, November 17 a year or so ago, just three weeks before the Medicare bill was signed into law, President Bush said this law would cost $400 billion. That is what he told the American public. That is what he told the Congress. Five months earlier, his actuaries in the center for Medicare/Medicaid services, the Medicare bureau, estimated the President's Medicare bill would cost $534 billion. I am not saying that the President lied about this, but it is pretty clear the President's people knew this bill cost $134 billion more than it really did. Whether the President knew about it, whether his top aides told him, remains a question. Now, the White House says, though, the bill will cost $576 billion. It is bad enough that the President and Republicans in Congress advertised one thing to this Congress and to the American people and sold them on another. What is worse is the deliberate nature of this deception and tactics used to achieve it. But let us go back and look at this whole Medicare bill and how we ended up where we did, starting from the time the drug industry and the insurance industry met in the Oval Office with President Bush and wrote the bill. Starting with then and following through all the way until Labor Day weekend, 3 weeks ago, where the President announced a 17 percent, a record increase, 17.4 percent in Medicare premiums that seniors will be forced to pay. First the bill was written with President Bush and Vice President Cheney sitting down with the drug industry, sitting down with the insurance industry and writing a Medicare privatization bill. You know that it was written by the drug and insurance industry because the drug industry profits go up $180 billion under this bill, that is $180 billion with a ``b,'' and you know the insurance industry was part of this because they benefit to the tune of billions of dollars in direct subsidies from seniors through increased premiums and taxpayers in increased dollar subsidies to the insurance industry. Now, we also know that the passage of this bill was perhaps the most sordid spectacle we have seen in this Chamber of the House of Representatives in decades. The debate started at midnight, the votes started at 3 o'clock in the morning after most of the press had gone home and after most Americans had turned their televisions off. Normally, a vote takes about 20 minutes, but this took 2 hours and 55 minutes. There was arm-twisting on the House floor, when this bill was actually defeated, for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes. The bill was down 216 to 218. We also know that there was a Member of Congress from Michigan, Republican, who the next day told a radio station in Michigan that Republican leaders attempted to bribe him on the House floor with campaign money. We know all of that. And we know that as a result of this bill, we end up with a 17 percent premium increase. So the vote was taken in the middle of the night when people were not paying attention, Members of Congress had their arms twisted and were made promises, with one Member of Congress reporting an attempted bribe, and we also know that come March, after this bill passed, that even though the drug benefit does not start until 2006, we find out that starting in March, the Federal Government and seniors whose premiums have gone up begin to pay a monthly payment to the Medicare HMOs. In March 2004, Medicare HMOs were paid $229 billion by taxpayers. In April of 2004, the Medicare HMOs were paid by taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries through a premium increase of $229 billion. In May, June, July, August, and September, every single month, taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries have paid HMOs $229 billion. Next month, November, December, and all of next year, the government and seniors will pay $229 billion to the Medicare HMOs, and the drug benefit does not start until 2006. There are 22 months of direct payments from seniors through an increased premium, and taxpayers, to the tune of billions of dollars, 22 months of $229 billion a month payments to the insurance industry, insurance company HMOs, from seniors and taxpayers, even though the drug benefit does not start until 2006. Mr. Speaker, you can see the perfect circle here. You can see that the bill was written by the drug and insurance industry with the President and the Vice President and Republican leaders. The drug and insurance industry get huge subsidies, much bigger profits, direct subsidies, with seniors paying a 17.4 percent premium increase, and taxpayers paying billions of dollars in order to pay off the insurance industry and the drug industry. And the completed circle ends this way: with the President and Republican leaders of this Congress getting tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the drug and insurance industry. It is corrupt, it is shameful, and it is morally reprehensible.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, they would prefer that this senior not announce that they are getting the $4,000 from the drug companies when they say that, I would understand.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam Speaker, it is easy to understand why President Bush and the Republicans have had such a hard time selling the Medicare law to the American people. Their Medicare law has more than its fair share of dirty laundry, as we can see from this chart. Cost estimates hidden from Congress, the administration violated ethics laws, Members of Congress strong-armed to change their vote. We know this Medicare bill was passed in the middle of the night. The roll call was kept open an unprecedented 3 hours. One Member was literally bribed on the House floor, he claimed, the next day, or they attempted to bribe him on the House floor, a Republican leader attempting to bribe a Republican Member. Seventy-eight different drug cards with no guarantee. Breaking the deal on drug reimportation which the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) will talk about in a moment. And the crowning point was that Medicare Part B premiums increased a record, 39-year history of Medicare record of 17.4 percent. This bill had big problems from the start, from its passage, as I just pointed out, using threats and bullying to suppress an internal estimate, the middle-of-the-night vote, the bribery on the House floor. The administration then turned around, spending tens of millions of dollars on infomercial-style ads making Medicare almost look like an item for sale on the Home Shopping Network. That bad process, the middle-of-the-night, the bribery, the campaign contributions, the sleazy kind of tactics to get this bill passed, the expenditure of tax dollar money to sell a bad product to the American people, that whole process, that bad process resulted logically in a bad product. The drug benefit offers a part-time response to a full-time problem, requiring year-round premium payments for drug coverage that ends in August. And the Medicare law is confusing, handing seniors a stack of discount cards and saying if they cannot figure this out, here is an 800 number. The Medicare law does nothing to contain the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs. Instead, instead, the Republicans and the President went out of their way to write the drug industry a blank check. No surprise there. This bill means $180 billion, with a ``b,'' in extra profits above and beyond what the drug companies' record profits already are, $180 billion in extra profits for this drug bill; and, again no surprise, to complete the circle, the drug companies have given President Bush and Republicans in Congress tens of millions of dollars for their campaign. We will hear more about these and other serious flaws in the Medicare law from the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) tonight, from the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), and from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland). I want to get started by talking for a moment about the Bush Medicare premium hike. We heard about it. It was in the papers. Despite the Bush administration's efforts to keep it as quiet as possible, they released the information about the biggest Medicare hike in history, a 17.4 percent premium hike. They released it on the Friday before Labor Day, hoping people would not notice. But the biggest premium increase in Medicare history, they just cannot keep it quiet. So the news that Saturday was all about the Bush administration's plans, President Bush's plans to impose a 17.4 percent Medicare premium increase. The Republican spin machine is nothing if were not tenacious; so faced with bad news, they did what they always do, they blame the Democrats or they blame someone else. In this case they tried to convince us that Democrats are really the reason the premium hike happened. The fact is Republicans control the House, they have for 10 years, the Republicans control the Senate, the Republicans have had the White House. During the Clinton years, premiums stayed almost even for the last 4 years of the Clinton years, the second term of the Clinton administration, and now they have jumped up. In fact, before the Bush Medicare bill became law, the nonpartisan Medicare trustees estimated the monthly premium increase for next year would be $2. After the Bush Medicare bill became law, the premium increase jumped to $11.60. That is per month. That is not much to a Member of Congress, but a senior citizen whose Social Security only went up 2, 2\1/4\, 2\1/2\ percent, when faced with a 17 percent increase, well over $100, that is a serious amount of money. Five times larger than the premium increase estimated before the Bush Medicare law. So where is that money? Where is that billions of dollars, the 17 percent increase, the billions of dollars that seniors have to pay out of their pockets? Whose pockets is that money going into? Where does that money go? The fact is much of it is going into the pockets of Medicare insurance HMOs. The Medicare law creates a $23 billion slush fund that HMOs can use to lure seniors out of traditional Medicare into their private insurance plans. Seniors already spend 25 percent of their income on out-of-pocket health care costs. The Bush Medicare law hands them a giant increase in their Medicare premiums. HMO profits already this year have jumped 50 percent over last year. Now we are giving them this $23 billion. And here is how it works: Last March the government, taxpayers, gave the first $229 million payment to insurance company HMOs. In April, taxpayers gave another $229 million payment to insurance company HMOs. In May and June, all the way through this year and all the way through next year, $229 million every month from taxpayers to insurance company HMOs. But do my colleagues know something? Seniors do not get the prescription drug benefit until 2006. So $229 million for 22 straight months go from seniors through this premium increase and taxpayers directly into the pockets of insurance company HMOs before they even get a drug benefit. So it makes us wonder why. And the answer to the question why is insurance companies and drug companies wrote this Medicare bill, insurance companies and drug companies benefit from this Medicare bill, and the President and Republican leaders get major campaign contributions from the drug and insurance industry. It is all pretty simple. It is also corrupt. It is also outrageous. It is also morally reprehensible. And it is also something that we all need to think about when we make a decision this fall, come November 2. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), who has been a leader particularly in the reimportation issue. One of the most important things this Congress has failed to do; that is, getting the price of prescription drugs down.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Emanuel) said about Costco, think about that. This is the same company, one in Toronto, one in Chicago, the exact same company, and it is not Costco that is marking up the prices in the United States. Obviously they buy their drugs from a U.S. wholesaler connected with the drug companies, and in Canada they buy them from a Canadian wholesaler which has negotiated cheaper prices. And Costco could not buy its drugs that it is selling at the Toronto store and ship them to its Chicago store because the Bush administration will not let them. That is why this break in the deal on drug importation is so important that we are simply saying, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) have said many times, that we have NAFTA, we have the North American Free Trade Agreement. We are allowed to buy and sell across country lines, but we are not allowed to go to Canada and buy those prescription drugs, bring them back to the United States, and sell them at a much lower price. The same drugs, the same packaging, the same manufacturers, the same dosage, everything. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, we do not know yet, Mr. Speaker, but it will be less than 3 percent.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.