Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, so President Bush and the Secretary of the VA have decided the VA should offer services to American veterans, but they are not allowed to tell anybody that they are offering these services?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. The lawsuit was basically to force the VA to do what it is charged by this Congress to do, and he will explain. But it was not just a question of policy decisions that the Congress and the President have made to cut benefits, to fail to take care of the soldiers with body armor; it was not just bad decisions by Congress and the President. It also was incompetence by the VA and underfunding by the VA to take care of many of the people who were in their charge. I would ask the gentleman from Ohio to explain that.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) filed a lawsuit some time ago.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I think we have established pretty well tonight why Republican leaders and George Bush do this, why they have made these cuts in veterans benefits, why they made cuts to close the Brecksville Hospital. It is a question of choices they have made between giving a $123,000 tax cut to a millionaire or funding these programs. The second question to ask, as we examine the whole question of are we better off, are veterans better off today or the American people better off today than they were 4 years ago, is to the look at how all this happened. The three of us, joined by 400 of our colleagues, sat in this Chamber in the middle of the night, month after month after month, passing some of the worst legislation, legislation that my friends in the Republican leadership do not want people to see, so we passed these bills literally in the middle of the night, after midnight; and I want to talk about a couple of them. Starting a year ago, starting literally 14 months ago, at 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April the House slashed education and welfare by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the leave-no-millionaire-behind tax cut by a handful of votes. At 2:33 on a Friday in June, Republicans boarded the midnight express and passed the Medicare privatization prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the Republicans again boarded the midnight express and eviscerated Head Start by one vote. Then, after returning from summer recess, after the August recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the GOP again boarded the midnight express and voted $87 billion for Iraq. Two months later, again in the middle of the night, the Medicare bill passed. The debate started at midnight, the vote started at 3 a.m. Normally, the vote takes 20 or 30 minutes. The roll call stayed open until 6 a.m. It was a 3-hour vote. In every single case, these bills were passed after the press had gone home and people had turned their television sets off, those watching C-SPAN, and the country had gone to bed. So not only are they passing legislation that cuts veterans benefits, legislation that discriminates against veterans, proposals that shut down hospitals and cut back drug benefits and reduce education benefits for veterans, they are doing it, and again this is not made up, it is documented in the Congressional Record, they are doing this in the middle of the night, under the cover of darkness, as they board the midnight express. So the public does not see this. By the time it gets in the paper on Saturday, it is old news. It is a couple of days later. It is never on the front page, and the public only learns about it when they realize their veterans' benefits have been cut again by the Bush administration.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), my friend, was mentioning that people watching this at home just sometimes might think it is almost like we are making this up, this could not be like this. Why would people do these kinds of things? Why would President Bush talk such a good game about the military? He was in the military, and remember when he landed on the ship and was in his flight suit, and he certainly showed the American people that he was one of the military, but why would he then turn around and make these cuts? But these are political choices. I mean, we sit in this body, the 435 of us, we come down to the House floor with this little plastic card and we vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on issues. This is a question. Government is about making choices. We decide. What do we do about prescription drugs, what do we do about Medicare, and what do we do about the environment? Well, the Congress has made a series of choices about tax cuts and the budget and expenditure of money, and this Congress and this President who has pushed this Congress, and the Congress pretty much rubber-stamps, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) pretty much rubber- stamps what the President wants. This Congress made a choice. If you make $1 million a year, you get a $123,000 tax cut. If you are worth $100 million and you pass away, rather than $30 or $40 million of that going to the government, now, under Republican plans, even though that is only one-half of 1 percent of the public that would pay this tax, that has been eliminated. So when somebody that makes $1 million pays a tax of $123,000 and no longer pays it, then that money has got to come from somewhere. So what happens is Congress makes a choice. Do you give that millionaire, the guy making a million, do you give them the $123,000 tax cut, and when you do it, it means you have got to cut veterans benefit? Or do you not give him the tax cut and fund these veterans' programs? Clearly, my Republican friends have made the decision, as has President Bush, to give the millionaire the $123,000 tax cut and to deny veterans health care benefits, education benefits, raised their prescription drug costs, closed the Brecksville Hospital and Pittsburgh Hospital and Mississippi Hospital. These are choices that people make. That is why we hold elections. The voters will say, Yeah, we like it that George Bush gives a millionaire a $123,000 tax cut and cuts veterans benefits; or they will say, We should not give these tax cuts to the superwealthy. Instead we should meet our commitments on health care and education. I had a group of people come into my office today, and it is a little off the subject, not much, a group of people with Lou Gehrig's disease, ALS, and this government has refused to fund research the way we have been funding it the last 4 or 5 years. And the question, again, is: Do you give a millionaire a tax cut of $123,000 or do you fund programs in research and development that really are going to make wonderful scientific discoveries and save lives? To me, the answer is pretty clear. To my friends on the other side of the aisle it is equally clear, but they have a different viewpoint. I am not saying they are immoral or sleazy. I am just saying they made the choice that they would rather give a millionaire a tax cut than to fund veterans benefits, than to keep Brecksville open. They would rather give a tax cut to the wealthiest 5 percent. Not somebody making $50,000 or $100,000. I am talking about people making $1 million a year, to give tax cuts to them; and when they do, we end up closing VA hospitals, we end up cutting veterans health care benefits, we end up cutting veterans education programs, and we end up with State university tuitions going up through the roof, at Ohio State, at Kent State, and Akron U and all over. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last week, prescription discount drug cards became available under Medicare. Should America's seniors and disabled Americans take a look at the new discount cards? Absolutely. Are discount cards a substitute for giving Americans access to safe, effective and affordable drugs? Absolutely not. Some seniors and disabled Americans will probably save some money with the discount cards, but some cards may not cover the drugs that you use, and which drugs they cover and how big their discounts are may change once a week without notice, even though every senior will have to keep the same card the whole year. Even if your card covers your medicine, it may mean little, because the drug companies have already jacked the prices up 15, 20, or 25 percent. President Bush and the FDA and our government allowed drug prices to go up 20 or 25 or 30 percent a year, yet then they say we are going to give a drug discount of 5, 10, or 15 percent. What a deal. At least it is a good deal for the drug companies, if not America's seniors. What to do instead is to allow reimportation; allow American wholesalers, American drug retailers to go in the world market and buy their prescription drugs from countries which actually do something to bring down drug prices. Last year, a solid, bipartisan majority in this House passed a solid drug importation bill issuing a declaration of independence from the drug industry. But President Bush said no and the Republican leadership said no. Last month, a bipartisan coalition introduced a comprehensive bill that could win an importation vote in the other body, but President Bush said no, and again the Republican leadership said no. The Bush administration, the FDA, and opponents of free markets in medicine say importation is unsafe. They have claimed that drugs sold in Canada and France and Germany, Israel, and Japan are not safe. Yet have we ever read a story about a Canadian or a French person or a German or a Japanese or an Israeli dropping dead in the streets of their countries because a drug is contaminated? Of course not. Those countries have FDAs similar to ours to protect the safety of their drugs. Seniors in Ohio and throughout the country, in spite of the Bush administration claiming these drugs are unsafe on behalf of the drug industry, in spite of the FDA saying these drugs are unsafe, again on behalf of the prescription drug industry, seniors understand from personal experience that medicine sold in Canadian pharmacist is the same effective medicine sold here. It just happens to be one-third, one-half, one-fourth, sometimes, the price. Now, the Bush administration and opponents of free markets in medicine say U.S. prices are high because other countries have forced the drug companies to sell the drugs for less there. They actually argue that if they can get drug prices higher in Australia and France and Germany that then the drug makers will just drop the price to Americans. In fact, the Bush administration is putting pressure on the Australian Government through the negotiation of a trade agreement for the Australians to raise the prices they are paying to these drug companies for their drugs, with the implicit understanding, if you believe this, that the U.S. drug companies will voluntarily lower their prices. Johns Hopkins University health economist Gerald Anderson told the Wall Street Journal last week, Say that you are the Pfizer CEO, and you go to your board and say, guess what? We just got a great deal in Australia on our drugs, so we are going to lower our prices in the U.S. You would be fired if you were the CEO of Pfizer and said that. Of course they are not going to do that. These are giant multinational corporations whose profit margins dwarf the profit margins of any other industry in America. Drug companies in 2001 earned profit margins of 18 percent, three times the profit margins of other Fortune 500 companies. This has been the most profitable industry in America for 20 years running, with the lowest tax rates. They are companies that clearly have had taxpayers in this country do a lot of their research and development, yet they continue to charge Americans more than any other country in the world. The reason for that is that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. President has simply stood by and let the drug companies continue to raise prices. It might have something to do with the fact that the drug industry gives George Bush millions of dollars for his campaign. The word on the street in Washington is that President Bush will get $100 million from the drug industry for his reelection. My Republican friends on the other side of the aisle, especially their leadership, have raised millions of dollars from the drug industry. As a result, the drug industry and the insurance industry wrote the Medicare bill. That is why the Medicare bill simply will not work the way that it should, that is why drug profits continued to go up, that is why seniors continue to pay two and three and four times what they do in Canada. We have got to break the leash and the connection between the drug industry and the Republican Party and President Bush.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last week, President Bush came to Ohio, my home State, to try to defend his economic policies, a State that has lost 222,000 jobs since he took office. One out of every six manufacturing jobs in the State has disappeared since he took office. We have lost almost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration. Yet the President's answer, again and again and again, is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country, with the hopes that maybe it will trickle down and provide a few jobs, which it has not, and more NAFTA-like trade agreements, which continue to hemorrhage jobs, continue to shift jobs overseas. The White House, instead of those two failed attempts at creating jobs and building our economy, the White House should support extending unemployment benefits to those 50,000 Ohioans who have seen their benefits expire, should pass Crane-Rangel legislation, bipartisan legislation that will give incentives for American companies to manufacture in this country, instead of giving incentives, as the Bush administration does, to the largest companies in the country that continue to export jobs overseas.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding me this time and for his leadership on health care issues. In my home State of Ohio, we have a successful multi-employer health insurance program sponsored by the Council of Smaller Enterprises, or COSE. Some 14,000 businesses participate. For 30 years, Ohio's COSE has been negotiating with commercial insurers to offer small businesses coverage and rates usually reserved for the largest companies. Each year, COSE members collectively save almost $50 million in health insurance premiums. Unlike the association plans envisioned under 4281, COSE works within the framework of State insurance law. That means COSE is not subject to the scams, to the insolvencies, to the indiscriminatory coverage schemes that are the hallmark of association plans. This bill puts Ohio COSE at risk. It is like a poker game. If one person is playing by the rules and the other is cheating, the cheater will probably win. Now the stakes are even higher. Not only is health coverage at risk for those who play by the rules, but the gains are short-lived for those who do not. Companies that join an association health plan may see favorable premiums one year and be priced out of coverage the next. Their employees may or may not be covered for needed health care and claims may or may not be paid. It is simply a crap shoot. The American Academy of Actuaries has no stake in the outcome of this debate. Private insurers hire actuaries to calculate premiums. Here is what the Academy has to say about this bill. ``This bill will likely have unintended negative consequences.'' The Academy says ``AHPs produce fragmentation of the market,'' as we have heard over and over and over today. They say, ``AHPs are likely to lead to cherrypicking, to adverse selection, and to increased costs for sicker individuals.'' The academy says that AHPs create an unlevel playing field, there have been many examples of AHP-like organizations becoming insolvent, and that the anticipated expense reductions are simply unlikely to materialize. Even though 44 million Americans are uninsured, the Republican majority has no intention of seriously considering proposals to expand access to health insurance.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I share the consternation of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). In this country we are facing problems in Iraq, yet this House does nothing. We are listening to seniors say please fix the Medicare discount card program bill; this House does nothing. We are hearing from people in my State of Ohio that we have lost 200 jobs every day in the Bush administration; we are doing nothing about that. We will not extend unemployment benefits or anything else. We are hearing people talk about drug prices being one-half and one-third in Canada what they are here; we are not doing anything about that. We have lost so much manufacturing in this country, 1 out of 7 manufacturing jobs has simply disappeared since George Bush took office. Yet for the fifth time in 14 months, as the gentleman from Michigan said, we are debating a medical malpractice bill that does not do anything about medical malpractice. I support malpractice reform, as most Members of this body do, but I oppose this bill. The Republicans lay the blame for rising medical malpractice premiums on the victims of medical malpractice. The bill does not have one provision acknowledging the insurance industry's accountability for skyrocketing premiums, not one provision to keep the insurance industry accountable. Insurers have tripled their investment in the stock market over the past 10 years, now they are trying to recoup their losses from doctors and premiums from hospitals and other medical providers, and from patients. Insurers low- balled their rates to attract new customers, and then they went overboard and depleted their reserves. That is not our fault, that is not the patients' fault or doctors' fault. Rates have to exceed costs to stabilize those reserves, and the recklessness on the part of insurers is clearly a factor in the recent rate spikes. Democrats have repeatedly tried to negotiate with the Republican majority on this issue. We asked the majority to consider insurance reforms; they absolutely refused even to talk about it. We asked the majority to subpoena insurance company records so we really could understand and get to the bottom of the rate spikes and so we could be sure we were solving the real problems; the Republicans refused to even talk about it. There were avenues we could take to stabilize medical malpractice premiums: reinsurance pools, rate bands, loss ratio requirements, reserve requirements, and improved transparency, but the insurance industry opposes these changes. The insurance industry gives a lot of money to President Bush and the Republican leadership, so the Republican leadership does not even consider these insurance company issues. This bill assumes the insurance industry's business decisions play no role in setting premiums. It is always the patient's fault. In the Committee on Energy and Commerce and in the Subcommittee on Health, I had an amendment that said whatever money we save from the caps has to go towards lower premiums for doctors and hospitals. Because the insurance industry gives a lot of money to Republicans, it was voted down on behalf of the insurance industry on a party-line vote. This bill is doomed to fail, even if it would become law, and the proof is in California. California has had damage caps since the 1970s. It now has the most stringent caps in the country; but caps alone did nothing. They were a colossal failure in California. Premiums for medical malpractice were higher than the national average. They were growing faster than the national average. Eventually, California recognized its mistake and implemented a set of malpractice insurance reforms. Since then, premiums have moderated. But this bill does not emulate California's successes. It only imitates California's mistakes. It is bad enough the bill ignores the failure of a cap-only approach. It takes another swipe at patients with a cap system that says the same injury causes more harm in dollar terms if it happens to a CEO than it does if it happens to his gardener. Like its predecessor, this bill contains provisions wholly unrelated to the medical malpractice issue. It says HMOs that deny patients needed medical care cannot be held accountable, yet HMOs continue to post robust profits, earning $6 billion in the first 9 months of 2003, a 52 percent increase over last year. This bill says drug companies who sell medicine with toxic side effects are not responsible. Yet they are protecting the drug industry which has been the most profitable industry in America for 20 years running. And the bill says manufacturers of defective medical equipment get a free pass. They are doing all right, too. In this bill, businesses are never at fault, patients are greedy, the U.S. Congress knows better than a jury of your peers in your community, and State laws are just cast aside without a second thought. If my friends in this body really wanted malpractice reform, if they really wanted to help doctors deal with these outrageous premiums they are paying, they would not use this bill to help their drug company contributors, they would not use this bill to help their insurance company contributors, they would not use this bill to help their HMO contributors. That is what this bill is all about. At a time when the public is calling for greater corporate accountability, this bill turns on the public itself and says injured patients, not the system that is designed to protect them, are at fault. This is not reform. It is callous injustice. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. So to make sure I understand this, the FDA, the same FDA that has begun to throw overboard science, the same FDA that is clamping down on Americans going to Canada for less expensive drugs, the same FDA that approves prescription drugs, if they approve them, this FDA which is way too controlled by the drug industry, which is controlled and influenced by the drug industry, if they approve a new drug, even if that drug is found to be unsafe and injures hundreds of thousands of people, there is no liability? There is no way to bring suit?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I am almost a little embarrassed to be here today. This country is dealing with serious problems in Iraq, this country is dealing with serious unemployment problems. In Ohio, we have lost 1 out of 6 manufacturing jobs. This country is facing incredible confusion with the new Medicare bill and seniors are sorting through 50 Medicare cards to get a 10 or 15 percent discount while drug prices go up 15 or 20 percent a year, yet we are here today to debate issues which have already passed in the House and bills that clearly will not make a dent in the problem of the uninsured, the 40 some million uninsured. Instead of debating proven solutions, solutions that we know will work, but solutions that just might, they just might hurt the drug industry and the insurance industry, they might be bills the insurance companies do not like, instead of working on bills that expand access to health insurance, the Republican leadership has chosen to pat itself on the back. They are frittering away the Cover the Uninsured Week by reconsidering bills which have already passed this House, bills that cater to the insurance industry, some of the biggest contributors to President Bush and the Republican Party, bills that give away the Federal Treasury to the drug industry, industries that give tens of millions of dollars to Republican leadership and to President Bush, and bills that help the HMO industry by sheltering them from liability. These bills will not necessarily reduce the number of uninsured, but we know they will undermine hard-fought State insurance laws, they will cover some small number of employers at the expense of others, they will provide tax shelters to people who already have coverage, and they will perpetuate the type of high-deductible coverage that actually discourages people from seeking preventive care. Republican leadership will spend this week, Cover the Uninsured Week, trying to cull out the uninsured issue so they can hand out more tax breaks to their HMO and insurance companies and prescription drug company contributors and butter up more of their campaign contributors. The President's budget does not spend a dime on the uninsured, but it will cut $24 million from the Medicaid program, clearly a program that works and which has helped millions of America's elderly and poor families. The President's plan will increase the number of uninsured. My Republican colleagues would also cut the Medicaid program by billions, stripping health insurance coverage from the most vulnerable among us. So let me see, the Republican bills protect the drug companies and the HMOs from harm they cause their patients, they destabilize the entire small group insurance market to buck State insurance laws, and they give tax breaks to the already insured. I am sure none of this has anything to do with the fact this is an election year, President Bush is out raising $200 million, Republican leadership is trying to equal that amount of money, and so much of it comes from the drug industry, the insurance industry and the HMOs. Now, this is my Republican friend's response to the fact that 43 million people in this country are uninsured. It is outrageous that we are voting for a second time on these issues. It is not just futile; frankly, it is shameful. The other side of the aisle were talking about the malpractice crisis for physicians which is very real in many places. The gentlewoman from New York said this bill has liability protections, not just helping the doctors but for the drug industry?

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin has fought as hard as anybody in this body for universal health care for people who play by the rules, pay their taxes, most of whom have jobs and simply have been left out of this system, left out because this Congress, this President, do not seem to care. We had 40 million people uninsured 3 years ago; today that number is 44 million. Of those people who do have insurance, many of them are underinsured. Many do not have a decent drug benefit. Many seniors do not have a good drug benefit, and this Congress has either done nothing or moved backwards as they have tried to privatize Medicare and tried medical savings accounts and other kinds of Rube Goldberg ways to try to provide health insurance, when in fact most of what they are trying to do is enrich the drug companies and the insurance companies. We are also joined by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone). My State of Ohio has 1.2 million people without health insurance, and 85 percent of those who lose their jobs also lose their health insurance. In Ohio, as much of the Great Lakes States, particularly Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, those States have suffered dramatically because of high unemployment, because of large numbers of job layoffs. In Ohio, we have lost one-sixth of our manufacturing jobs since President Bush took office. We lose 200 jobs every day, and about 170 of those people lose their health insurance, yet this Congress sits on its thumbs and does nothing about it. But these are numbers, and I want to share some stories of people to put life situations to these numbers so people really see what this means. Joseph from North Ridgeville writes, ``Something has to be done about health care. We are going in the wrong direction. I cannot even think about retirement because of the cost of health insurance in Ohio. I am in Local 546, and a lot of us feel the same way. I am not sure how long I am going to have a job, to make matters worse. Sorry to complain.'' Mr. Speaker, he writes, ``Sorry to complain.'' This is a gentleman who works hard, plays by the rules, pays his taxes. He does not have the health insurance he needs. His employer, it sounds like, is doing the best they can, and Joseph says sorry to complain. If people are playing by the rules, this society needs to do better. Joseph also does not want to be a burden on society. Judith from Medina writes, ``We are currently without any health care coverage because the company where my husband works raised the monthly premium so high we could not afford it. It was either health care or food. So many people are finding themselves in this predicament now that something must be done on a national level. ``Surely Congress can come up with some kind of help for those of us in this situation before it is too late and before something tragic happens to us. We could lose our home and be out on the street if a catastrophic disease hit one of us. Please, please make this a priority. So many need help. What will the insurance companies do when so few can afford their coverage that most cancel? What will happen to the health care system in this country then? Please give this top priority. I believe it is vital to this Nation. Thank you.'' That letter was from Judith of Medina, Ohio. Again, this family plays by the rules. They are working hard, and our government simply has not stepped up and fulfilled its obligation to them to make health care a right, not just a privilege. Thomas from Cuyahoga Falls in my district writes, ``Representative Brown, I have a question. I have a full-time job, a wife and children. My employer does not offer health care benefits. I cannot afford to purchase coverage on my own. What can I do? Please let me know what the government is trying to do to remedy this problem. I am sure I am not the only one dealing with this. Thank you very much for your time.'' All these letters suggest, first of all, great hardship that people face, great risk people face if they get a catastrophic illness, and they underscore the point that we are the only Nation in the world, as wealthy as we are as a country, we are the only Nation in the world that does not provide health care to all of its citizens. We are the only Nation in the world that allows drug companies to charge whatever they want to charge. Our government's response is more tax cuts for the richest people in the country. President Bush's tax program gives a person making $1 million a $123,000 tax cut, yet they cannot provide insurance to Thomas of Cuyahoga Falls, Judith of Medina, Joseph of North Ridgeville, and all of the people that the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin) mentioned in Wisconsin. We give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people, we spend $1.5 billion in Iraq setting up a health care system there, and my friends on the other side of the aisle and the President simply turn their backs on these people who are playing by the rules. These are people who work and have full-time jobs that are trying to raise their family, and we do not help. What we ought to do is four things. First of all, we should extend unemployment benefits to the 1 million workers in this country and the 50,000 workers in the districts of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) and my district who have lost their unemployment. They are working, they have lost their jobs and they are trying to find jobs, and their unemployment insurance expired. Second, we should do the Medicare buy-in bill to allow people 55 to 64 who do not have insurance for whatever reason, to allow them to buy into Medicare. Third, we need to work on the children's health insurance program. There are 8.5 million children in this country who do not have health insurance. In most cases, their parents have jobs at companies like Wal-Mart and places like McDonald's and places that do not do health insurance, even though the companies are making billions of dollars, in the case of Wal-Mart. And then last, fourth, we need to pass the legislation we introduced today to give small businesses incentives to insure their employees. Those three bills, the unemployment extension we have pushed and pushed and pushed. The majority and the President have stopped it dead in its tracks. The other three bills were introduced today by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin), the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), myself, and a whole host of others. We should move quickly on those bills as the number of unemployed workers in this country who have lost their jobs is way too high and too many people who have lost their jobs have lost their health insurance. It is discouraging, but worse than that, it is outrageous that we as a country, as rich as we are, simply will not take care of those who play by the rules, pay their taxes, contribute to their communities, and we do not do anything about their health insurance.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last week President Bush came through my State, the State of Ohio, in a bus trip to argue and defend his economic policies which have inflicted great damage on my State. We have lost, since President Bush took office, 177,000 manufacturing jobs. One out of every six manufacturing jobs in Ohio has simply disappeared since President Bush took office. We have lost 200 jobs every single day of the Bush administration, and the President's answer is more tax cuts for the rich, hoping it trickles down and creates some jobs. That has not worked. His other answer is more trade agreements like NAFTA, which frankly have shifted all too many jobs to China and Mexico. Instead, Congress should extend the unemployment benefits for those workers who are trying to find jobs, 50,000 in Ohio, a million across the country, who are trying to find jobs, who have lost their jobs. Extend unemployment benefits and pass the Crane-Rangel bipartisan bill which will give incentives to companies that manufacture in this country, rather than to give incentives and tax breaks to the President's biggest contributors, those corporations which shift jobs overseas.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, last week President Bush took one of his bus trips through the State of Ohio trying to argue for his economic policy. Ohio is a State that has lost 170,000 manufacturing jobs. Virtually every month during the Bush administration, we have lost manufacturing jobs. One out of six manufacturing jobs in the State of Ohio has disappeared since President Bush took office. His answer always is more tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our society with the hope some will maybe trickle down and create jobs. That has not worked. His other answer is more trade agreements like NAFTA that shift jobs overseas. Instead, Congress should extend unemployment benefits for the 1 million American workers whose benefits have expired, and Congress should pass the Crane-Rangel bill which gives incentives to those companies that manufacture in the United States, not continue to give big corporate tax breaks to the largest companies in the world who send jobs to China and send jobs to Mexico.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this week enrollment began for the prescription drug discount cards available for the Medicare bill passed last year. For some seniors in my home State of Ohio, this could mean $600 in prescription drug benefits. That sounds great. We want seniors to look into these cards. If they can get help, that is obviously a good thing. However, the real story about these cards is found in the details. The discount drug cards will further complicate an altogether too confusing process for America's seniors. Instead of implementing a prescription drug benefit under one program, Medicare, which serves 39 million American beneficiaries, the administration fought to create an unnecessarily complex system that diverts money away from benefits and gives it to drug companies and the insurance companies. The drug companies under this legislation, this new law, according to bipartisan studies, will profit $150 billion more than they are already making, and at the same time, this bill gives a $46 billion subsidy, a $46 billion direct subsidy, taxpayer dollars, to the Nation's insurance industry. That is not any real surprise, considering that President Bush's reelection campaign has received tens of millions of dollars from the drug industry and tens of millions of dollars from the insurance industry. But this new program will feature 70 cards, 70 choices of private insurance prescription drug cards, by 70 different companies. It is a lot like the multiple HMO system our Republican friends are trying to foist on Medicare beneficiaries. So here is the deal. Beginning this week, seniors will get notices at their houses. They will get visits, in Ohio, from up to 50 insurance agents, they will get mailings from up to 50 companies, and then they will get to choose these cards. Now, what we could have is one Medicare card where seniors get a discount negotiated by the government, the way they do it in every other country in the world, as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) said, one card with prices negotiated by the government on behalf of 40 million beneficiaries. But the Bush administration way, in part because one of his best friends and biggest contributors owns one of these card companies, but let us get back to this, the Bush administration is going to give you a choice of 50 cards. Now, you buy one of these cards. Pick this card. This card perhaps might have a 30 percent discount or a 20 percent discount on Fosamax. This card here might have a 15 percent discount on Zoloft, or this card here might have a 12 percent discount on Celebrex. Then you choose this card. You can only choose one card. You pay $30 for this card that you get to choose, one of these 50 cards, as these insurance agents come to your home and these mailings come to your home and these fancy brochures come to your home. You choose one card; you pay $30. And then this card company can actually change what drugs are covered by this card any week during those 52 weeks, during that year, or it can change the percent discount. So you get this card, this one right here, because it has got a pretty good discount for Fosamax and Vioxx and Zoloft, three drugs you are taking, it has a 15 percent discount. But then after you pay the $30, three weeks from now the card company can say, well, we are not going to cover Vioxx anymore, we are going to cover Celebrex, and we are not going to give you a 20 percent discount on Fosamax, we are going to drop it to 10 percent. You have no control over that. So it is a question of do you want to choose among 50 cards, the way that President Bush and his big contributors in the drug industry, the insurance industry and the insurance discount card industry want, or would you rather have one Medicare card, where the government has negotiated a good discount? That is the way Canada does it, and that is why my constituents in northeast Ohio, why they drive to Canada. Canadian drugs are 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent cheaper, same drugs, same dosage, same manufacturer. So you got one card, or you got a choice of 50 cards. Now, there is one other part of this bill, Mr. Speaker, that is really pretty incredible. As I mentioned, in this bill we give, taxpayers give, out of our pockets, reach into our pockets, $46 billion direct subsidy from taxpayers to insurance companies. Think about what we could do, instead of that $46 billion going to the insurance industry, with their huge executive bonuses and stock options and marketing costs and all that, instead of $46 billion going to the insurance industry, if that money went to Medicare beneficiaries for their drug costs, that would be almost $1,200 for every one of the 39.5 million Medicare beneficiaries. So we are giving $46 billion directly to the insurance industry instead of taking care of our seniors. Again, the question is, why would this possibly happen? How could Congress be this stupid, how could Congress be this greedy, how could Congress be this out of touch, to choose this, over this? It has got a whole lot to do with how much campaign contributions George Bush has gotten and how much campaign contributions my friends on the other side of the aisle have gotten from the drug industry and the insurance industry.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) for his leadership on this critical and growing health problem, and I would like to thank my friend from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, for his good work on this issue and on many others. One of the more eye-opening meetings I have had in my 12 years in Congress was with the family of an autistic child. The first time I did that, it was sobering to listen to the mother and father talk about their son's diagnosis of autism, a disease about which the causes are disagreed and generally unknown. It is sobering to learn what these caring parents deal with every working hour of every day, trying to carve out as normal a life as possible for their son, trying to break through emotional barriers, intellectual barriers, barriers they do not fully understand, barriers that no one really fully understands. It is sobering to learn the steps that these parents take to improve their son's development: consulting with the developmental pediatrician; a child psychiatrist; a clinical psychologist and occupational psychologist and therapist; a physical therapist; a speech and language therapist; as well as often a social worker, if they have the wherewithal to be able to get the best they can for their son. This family could. Many families in our health care system that does not cover many people so well do not. It is heartbreaking to know these parents get no help from health insurers, forcing them to spend thousands of dollars each year towards treatment that may improve their son's development or may not improve their son's development. My home State of Ohio's families of autistic children have a tremendous resource in the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism. This unique center provides specially designed services and support to children with autism, or while fostering research on autism, to gain a better understanding of its causes and its effective treatments. But families throughout my State and throughout the Nation deserve similar support. The resolution we are considering today brings us closer to achieving that. The resolution raises awareness about the unique needs of autistic children through a number of avenues, a few of which I want to mention. Perhaps most importantly, the resolution recognizes the dedication of the parents and families of autistic children. To the countless families in Ohio and around the country who care for autistic children, you demonstrate every day what it means to be outstanding parents. The resolution also recognizes the important work the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta does in studying the trends of autism throughout the country. It supports the critical need for early intervention in caring for an autistic child and the need to train teachers in addressing the needs of a growing population of autistic children in our schools. The resolution supports Federal research into causes and treatments of autism at the National Institutes of Health. If this Congress is serious about the causes that we articulate so well in this resolution, we will be equally serious about providing adequate funding for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers For Disease Control, something the Republican majority continues to fall short on because they want to do our tax cuts and choose to give tax breaks to millionaires instead of funding these public health programs that are essential to the well-being of families of children with autism and so many others rich and poor in this country alike. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the resolution, and I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) for their work on this issue.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues together tonight: the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee), the gentlewoman from Ohio ( Mrs. Jones), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Alan). I want to close with an interesting point that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) raised. He said it just seems that Republicans do not much like the Medicare program. On the surface, that does not sound like it makes sense, because I have a whole lot of Republican constituents who love Medicare. They know it has saved their lives and let them live longer, let them live healthier lives; but there is something about Republican politicians and their relationship with Medicare. Back in 1965, 12 Republicans, 12 Republicans total voted for Medicare, to create Medicare. Bob Dole voted against it, Gerald Ford voted against it, Strom Thurmond voted against it, Donald Rumsfeld voted against it. Then, 30 years later, the first time the Republicans had control of this House and the majority, they tried to cut $270 billion, with a B, billion from Medicare. That failed because President Clinton got out his veto pen and said, Do not even try. Then, in 2002, or in 1999, Congressman Armey, the second top Republican in Congress, said, in a free society, we would not have Medicare; we would not want something like Medicare. Whatever that meant. Then, in 2002, another Southern Republican Congressman in the leadership, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), said that Medicare is a Soviet-style program, whatever that meant. The fact is that a lot of us in this institution, every single Democrat and some of the Republicans, care deeply about Medicare and want to preserve it, and that is why we fought against the privatization of Medicare that President Bush tried to foist upon us. That is why instead of these 50 cards, we want to see one discount card where seniors get a good benefit under Medicare, get a 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 percent discount like our neighbors to the north, the Canadians have, and like our neighbors across the ocean in Europe have. Instead, what we got was a bill written by the drug discount card companies, written by the insurance companies, written by the drug companies, all of whom are major contributors to the President of the United States. Mr. Speaker, it was a sad day last December when this bill passed. It was a sad day when President Bush signed this bill. We all have work to do.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. When it could have been so simple. When it could have simply been one discount card where the government negotiated price, using 40 million beneficiaries as the negotiating pool, could have gotten one much lower price. Instead of that, because the drug and insurance companies wanted it, the President made it very, very confusing.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his compassionate commitment. I yield to my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, imagine if everybody in this Chamber had known, Democrats over here, Republicans, if all of us had known that this bill would send 46 billion taxpayer dollars directly to insurance company coffers. If people in this hall had known that, Members of Congress had known that that would mean $1,100 for every Medicare beneficiary would just be a gift to the insurance industry, no matter how much money the drug companies gave to Republican leaders, no matter how many calls George Bush had made to Republican Members, no matter how many arms they twisted, no matter how many drug company lobbyists had descended like vultures into this institution, no matter all of that, if we had known, if they had not broken the law and been honest with us, if we had known 46 billion in taxpayer dollars were going directly from taxpayer pockets to insurance companies, there was no way this bill would have passed. There is just no way. No matter how many lobbyists, how much campaign money, how many calls from the President, this bill simply would not have passed. I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

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