Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. It is also, if we look at the context of all of this, the context is the huge, enormous influence that the drug industry has on this body. I mean, the drug industry has a strangle hold on the Republican leadership, pure and simple. They give millions of dollars to Republicans, as we have said before, we are hearing as much as $100 million to President Bush's reelection. Nothing in this Chamber, nothing happens without the drug industry saying it is okay. The drug industry puts millions of dollars in campaigns. They hire so many lobbyists, 670-some I believe at last count, well over 600. They run all kinds of television ads and radio ads under the name of something else. They basically launder their money through the United Senior Association, through other groups, these disease advocacy groups that are not really legitimate, with millions of dollars and hide who they are, the drug industry, and try to communicate with the public that way. I mean, they are so powerful and so strong, but at least we ought to keep them off the House Floor. But in that sense, in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, that Saturday morning, that late Friday night, while Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson was on the floor, which is unusual, I do not ever recall seeing a cabinet member on the floor like that, but that is not a violation of the rules and it is not unethical, either. But we could see the influence of the drug industry on the floor of the House of Representatives. One could almost see these Members of Congress who have depended on drug company money, who are addicted to drug company money, one could see the kind of way that they were pushing their fellow Republican Members, the Members whom they lead. So it is not a very long jump from there to what they tried to do apparently with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) who showed a lot of guts and integrity, as I might add. And so when there is that much money at stake, the drug industry is slated to increase its profits already for 21 years straight, the most profitable industry in America, when the drug industry already so profitable, increased its profits $140 billion over the next 8 years, 40 percent increase in profits for the most profitable industry in America, not to mention the insurance industry and its impact here. With that kind of money at stake it does not come as a surprise to me that Republican leadership would play that kind of hard ball, do it in the middle of the night, or who knows what. We do not know what was said to Member after Member after Member to pass this bill. That is not a prescription drug bill; it is a bill that turns the Federal Treasury over to the drug companies and the insurance companies and privatizes Medicare in the bargain. So it is pretty clear to more and more Members of this body and to more and more members of the public that the corruption in this body when it comes to drug money, the corruption is just unbelievable. It has increased every year since I have been here. It is getting to the point that it is almost as if Members have signed their vote card over to the pharmaceutical drug industry lobbying association.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Then they are going to come back in 10 years and say, see, Medicare does not work. Of course it does not work when the insurance company insures you when you are healthy and then taxpayers and Medicare get you when you are old and sick. Of course it is going to work that way. That is the irony of all this. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle over and over tell us that seniors, that the private sector can do it better, that government is this huge bureaucracy, that Medicare is inefficient and bloated, that nimble, quick-on-its-feet Medicare, the private insurance system can do it better. So, okay, if that is the case, why, then, does Medicare have lower administrative costs, why does Medicare have lower marketing costs, lower salaries and all that? But if you accept that they can let them compete, so why are we giving the Medicare HMOs $20 billion and say, yeah, of course one can compete if we give you $20 extra billion, but if the playing field were really level it is clear that the public system wins. That is why 38 years ago in the end Medicare was created. Because in 1965 when President Johnson and Democratic majorities in both Houses, because, as we said, almost no Republicans in either House voted for this bill to create Medicare, in those days half of America's seniors did not have insurance. Why? Because the private insurance market did not find seniors attractive. They did not find seniors attractive because they are older, they are sicker, and they are poorer. So, maybe somebody 65 could get private insurance, somebody that walked every day, someone in really good shape, but someone 73 or 74 who was diabetic, who had heart problems, who was arthritic, who was not really able to take care of himself or herself, no one will insure that person. No one will under the Republican privatized Medicare program. The whole point is a government plan with a universal coverage pool that everybody is in so when you are 65 and healthy you are subsidizing, because your health care expenses are not too high, you are subsidizing somebody who is 85 and not as healthy. And then when you get to be 85, some other 65-year-old subsidizes you. That is what the universality of the insurance pool is all about. The Republicans want to fracture the universality of the insurance pool. They want to skim off for their insurance industry contributors and all the corruption around this place that comes from that. They want to skim off the most healthy seniors, and they want to insure them at great profit and let the government and taxpayers pick up everybody that is sick and more expensive. It is pretty simple what their plan is.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I saw that article. I like Tom Scully. He came to our committee and he spoke. He is a reasonable, decent guy. I do not accuse him of anything untoward. I do wonder about a system, though, where he announced several months ago he was leaving the Department and going into the private sector. And he intimated, he may have said more specifically, that he would be out doing Medicare- type work, but he stays in the Department during the 6 months he is negotiating with various law firms and Wall Street firms, I believe, his future job and then the Medicare prescription drug bill is in the conference committee and he is in these meetings. Somebody gave him a waiver. I do not quite know what a waiver means.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. It is okay to be in a conflict of interest but because our administration is so pro-drug company, we give you the waiver? I wish he would answer some questions about what the waiver is all about, because I do not think the people at home understand what the waiver process is. I do not think I understand the waiver process.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. How a Department gives a waiver to one guy to do this and not that. I think Mr. Scully is a man of integrity, but I do not think the system is quite right that would allow somebody to look for a job, run this Medicare system that has 40 million beneficiaries, that has got about, I think, about $300 billion roughly running through that system. He runs it. The last 6 months he said he is leaving. He is talking about companies that have a major interest in Medicare while looking for a job, and then he is helping to write the Medicare bill that will affect those companies in the agency he runs. I do not know what the waiver is all about. I hope he comes and tells us sometime.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. That is a very interesting point. I think seniors in my district and seniors all over the country, because I was hearing this from colleague after colleague, people were wondering why it was so complicated? Why was it so difficult? Why can Congress just not pass a drug benefit? People understand how Medicare works. You go to a physician. The bill is sent to Medicare to be paid. You go to a hospital. The bill is sent to Medicare to be paid. There is a copay and a deductible. People understand that. They understand the premium. It is very simple insurance. It is full choice of doctor, full choice of hospital, and why not do the same with a prescription? Then you get the prescription. It is paid for by Medicare. You have full choice of your prescription. Instead, the Republicans had to make it a lot more complicated. Why? Because they wanted to get their privatization agenda enacted. That means using the insurance companies. It means playing ball with the drug industry. It means a lot of that money, that $400 billion that should go directly to cover prescription drugs, and very little overhead, the 2 percent overhead that Medicare has been able to keep their overhead at 2 percent. Instead of that, the Republicans are seeing all kinds of money wasted through the insurance and the drug companies. Frankly, it just kind of amazes me because seniors do think it could be simple. The other part of that $400, as the gentleman pointed out, that $400 billion would go a lot further under the Democratic plan because we would do cost controls. We would do various kinds of constraints on costs. The Canadians, as we have heard many times in this Chamber, the price of drugs in Canada is one-half, one-third, one-fourth of what it is in the United States. Tamoxifen, a breast cancer drug, is one-eighth the cost in France than it is in the United States. If we could have restrained costs, controlled costs, brought prices down, whatever you want to call it, if we had done that and put this bill into Medicare, put this whole plan into Medicare, a lot less complicated, we could have done it months ago, years ago, we could have done it; and seniors would have a better plan. They would understand what it is about. They would not have all of these questions, but the drug industry and the insurance industry probably would not be so happy, and I guess that is in the end why this body did what it did.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey, who has just been dogged in his pursuit of this issue and trying to protect Medicare, trying to write a prescription drug benefit inside Medicare, and not this privatized HMO kind of Medicare inadequate prescription drug plan that the President signed today. When you listen to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), you just keep asking the question, why is it that all this happened this way? Why would such a bill pass the Republican House, pass the Republican Senate, in very close votes, and be signed by the President? Why would they do this? The answer is pretty clearly the kind of influence that the drug and insurance industries have in this body. The word on the street is that the drug companies, the prescription drug companies, are going to contribute $100 million towards the President's reelection. It is no surprise that nothing passes this Chamber, nothing gets through both Chambers, nothing gets enacted into law and will be signed by the President unless it has the support of the drug companies. Let me just talk for a moment about that, and then I want to tell a couple of stories. The 10 biggest drug companies in this country had revenue last year of $217 billion, more than the entire GDP, gross domestic product, of the country of Austria. These 10 companies posted profits of $37 billion last year. That is more than the Federal Government spent on the entire VA health care system. It is more than the entire Housing and Urban Development budget for last year. The drug companies on this year's Fortune 500 list posted profits of more than 17 percent, 5.5 times what the rest of the Fortune 500 profits were. The drug industry led all other Fortune 500 industries on two key profitability indices, return on revenues and return on assets. Now, I want to get there, even with that, even with the drug industry's iron lock on this institution, the corruption, the incredible influence that this industry has on this Congress, on Republican leadership, on the President, on the Vice President, on leadership in the other body, in the Senate, even with all that, I think it is important to sort of see how we got here. At 2:54 in the morning on a Friday in March, this House cut veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:30 a.m. on a Friday in April, in the middle of the night, House Republicans slashed education and health care by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed a leave-no-millionaire-behind tax cut by a couple of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, House Republicans passed a Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House Republicans eviscerated Head Start by one vote. Then after summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday morning, in the wee hours of Thursday night in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night, always a contentious bill, always after the press had passed their deadlines, always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed. With that track record, and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has illustrated this, we should not be terribly surprised that when the House passed legislation that privatizes Medicare, that dramatically changes the 38 years of Medicare as we know it, that the House did it at 5:55 on a Saturday morning. The Republican leadership delivered this 100-page Medicare bill to House Members on Friday morning at 1:46 a.m. We voted on it 25 hours later. But, Mr. Speaker, in a lot of ways I do not blame my Republican colleagues. If I produced that bill, I would not want people to know a lot about it either, because when Republicans sit down behind closed doors with the insurance industry and the drug industry and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know, because this bill is not a prescription drug bill when we really look at it. We could have agreed bipartisanly. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and I and our Republican friends could have written this bill, we could have agreed bipartisanly to deliver a $400 billion prescription drug benefit inside of Medicare, delivered to people the same way that people get their doctor and hospital and get their choice: they send the bill to Medicare and it would work. But this bill is more about Medicare privatization. For that, Republicans have a long history. Republicans have never much liked Medicare as a Federal program. Turn the calendar 38 years back to the beginnings of this most popular program perhaps in American history. When Congress passed the legislation creating Medicare in 1965, in the spring of 1965, there were 140 Republicans in the House of Representatives. Only 13 out of those 140, less than 1 in 10, fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans in this House voted to support it. Every leading national Republican voted no. Future President Gerald Ford, future Presidential nominee Bob Dole, future legislative leaders Bob Michel, John Rhodes; future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, every leading national Republican voted against the creation of Medicare. Now, after that passed and they realized the public liked it, there were no major efforts to try to get rid of it until 1995 when Republicans had their first chance to do it when Republicans captured the majority of the House of Representatives. In 1995, Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House, immediately during the Contract With America tried to cut Medicare $270 billion to, what do we think, pay for a tax cut for the richest people and the most privileged people in the country. Gingrich in that year, in October of 1995, said, now, we did not get rid of Medicare in round one, we did not think that is politically smart. We do not think that is the right way to go through a transition, but we believe it is going to wither on the vine. Texas Governor, then Governor George Bush was a strong supporter of that privatization effort. Majority leader Dick Armey, another Texas Republican said, Medicare is a program I would have no part of in a Free World. Bob Dole bragged, I was there fighting the fight against Medicare. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder), Committee on Rules member, a Republican, told me in a meeting in 2002 at the Committee on Rules, Medicare is a Soviet-style system. It is on and on and on. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) who, with the drug companies and the insurance industry, wrote this Medicare privatization bill this year, said, to those who say that this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is I certainly hope so. This bill, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) went through, it jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for the 12 million-plus seniors who have this coverage. Understand, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has said, there are 12 million seniors today who have pretty good prescription drug coverage as part of their retirement plans, retirement packages from their employers. Some, between one-fifth and one-third of those, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will have their employers yank that coverage, and they will then be thrown into this privatized Medicare system. Now, this bill, in addition to the problems that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) mentioned, this bill creates a $12 billion slush fund for HMOs to encourage them to provide coverage; it increases drug industry profits by $139 billion, increasing their profits by 40 percent. We could go on and on and on and on. We know, we know about the profitability of the drug companies; we know about how the drug companies have, by and large, written this bill. We know that the drug companies benefit from this bill way more than everybody else. They have 675 lobbyists in Congress; 675 drug industry representatives walk the halls of these Chambers. There are 1.3 lobbyists per Member of the House, and they spent $91 million in lobbying activities. That is just what they disclose; we do not know what they really spent. They spent $50 million more on everything from ads to direct mail. They spent nearly a half a billion dollars lobbying since 1997. They gave $30 million overall for the 2002 election cycle; about three-quarters of that to Republicans and, as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and I have talked, we hear on the street that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are going to receive $100 million in campaign funds from the drug industry. But let me, before finishing, let me go back to what exactly happened that Friday night, early Saturday morning when the drug bill passed. The vote started Friday at about midnight, the vote on the Medicare privatization bill. The debate started Friday at about midnight. The rollcall began at 3 a.m. Most of us took our vote cards, our little plastic cards, put them in the little box and pushed either the green or the red button. The clock runs out after 15 minutes, but it is usually kept open for another 2 to 5 minutes. Typically, a vote here is often about 20 minutes. But the Republicans were behind the entire evening; the vote was losing. At 3:30, 4 o'clock in the morning, the vote was 216 to 218. It was defeated. A majority was voting ``no,'' with only one Member, a Democrat, not yet voted. At about 4 o'clock the vote had stayed open for 1 full hour. That is when the assault began. The gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert), the gentleman from Texas (Majority Leader DeLay), the gentleman from Missouri (Republican Whip Blunt), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the Committee on Commerce; the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means all were walking the floor, surfing for stray Republicans who were most likely to cave whom they could bully or whom they could brow beat. They surrounded the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), trying a carrot and then a stick; but he stood his ground and was defiant. They tried a retiring Republican, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), whose son is running to succeed him. They promised support if he changed his vote to ``yes'' and threatened his son's future if he refused. He steadfastly, to his credit, showed his integrity and stood his ground. Many of the two dozen Republicans who had voted against the bill had left the floor hoping to avoid the onslaught from the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), and the committee chairmen. One Republican that I saw was hiding in the Democratic cloakroom. By 4:30, the bullying and the brow beating had moved into the Republican cloakroom, out of sight of the television cameras and of the public. The Republican leaders by then had waked up President Bush, and the White House was passing a cell phone from Member to Member in the cloakroom. At 5:55, 2 hours and 55 minutes after the rollcall began, literally twice as long as a vote had ever taken in the U.S. House of Representatives, 2 obscure Western Republicans emerged from the cloakroom, they walked, ashen and cowed down this aisle, I was sitting right there, down this aisle to the front of the Chamber, they picked up a green card to change their votes, they scrawled their names and district numbers on the cards, and they dispiritedly surrendered the cards to the Clerk. Quickly the Speaker gaveled the bill. Medicare privatization had passed. Now, imagine an election, an election at home when the polls close at 7:30. Everyone has voted. One candidate trails by a few votes, but election officials, just not liking the outcome, decide to keep the polls open for 3 more hours. They brow beat; they bully. They threaten, they offer jobs, they promise goodies for their neighborhood or for themselves. Finally, lo and behold, the election turns out the way they want. The new rules in this House of Representatives, Yogi Bera might put it tell us, ``It ain't over until the Republicans and the drug companies win.'' It is sort of Florida all in one night. But the American people should expect more. They should expect the House of Representatives conducted in the open. They should expect Members to honestly, straightforwardly, openly cast their ballots; they should expect a drug pricing policy and a Medicare bill that can hold up, not only in the dark of night, but also in the bright light of the morning.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, President Bush signed the Medicare bill today, ending an ugly legislative process driven by the interests of a constituency near and dear to the Republican leadership in this House. Not America's seniors. I am talking about the prescription drug industry. The vast quantities of time and money that the drug companies invested in selling this bill were well spent. This bill is a Christmas wish come true for every drug manufacturer in our Nation. Under the new bill, drug industry profits are expected to increase by $140 billion, a 40 percent increase in already the world's most profitable industry. This industry, the world's most profitable industry, successfully used its 675 lobbyists in this town, about 1.3 lobbyist for every Member of the House, and used its tens of millions of dollars of campaign contributions to win a giant increase in profits at the expense of taxpayers in this country and at the expense of America's senior citizens. The drug companies on this year's Fortune 500 list posted profits of 17 percent, 5\1/2\ times the average profit margin of other Fortune 500 firms. Not only does the Medicare bill signed today by President Bush dramatically expand the drug industry's market, it ensures that drug companies will be able to charge American taxpayers almost any price they want for medicines covered by Medicare. The word on the street in Washington is that the drug industry, PhRMA, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, PhRMA, is going to contribute $100 million to President Bush's reelection campaign. That is why this bill specifically prohibits the government from negotiating fair prices for press medicines. That is right, the Federal Government is not allowed under this bill to even bargain for better drug prices on behalf of seniors or on behalf of American taxpayers. It is what the drug industry wants. And the drug industry in this body always gets what it wants. The bill the President signed into law relies on the same price discount mechanisms private insurers use, the same mechanisms that have led to double-digit increases in prescription drug costs year after year after year. It is what the drug industry wants. And the drug industry always gets what it wants in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. In the private market, prescription drug costs are the fastest-growing component of health care cost increases. Prescription drug costs in the private market increased over 18 percent last year. The bill rejects also the bipartisan will of a commanding majority in this House, who actually did stand up against a Republican leadership and against President Bush, who actually stood up to the drug lobby in July. Two hundred forty-three of us, many from that sides of the aisle, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and many others, voted to give American consumers the choice to buy safe, effective and much more affordable medicine imported from Canada. The legislation that President Bush signed today not only ignores that vote; it negates it. It drives a nail in the coffin of prescription drug importation. Why? It is what the drug industry wanted, and the drug industry always gets what it wants in this institution. Once again, American consumers lose; the drug industry wins. Drug companies routinely charge American consumers three, four, five times what they charge Canadian customers for the same medicine. As I said earlier, the world on the street in Washington is that PhRMA, the Prescription drug trade association, is going to give $100 million to the Bush-Cheney reelection effort. The drug industry is already 5\1/2\ times more profitable than the Fortune 500 average, yet they would have us believe any reduction in prices would jeopardize their research and development. The level of U.S. drug prices are not necessary; they are highway robbery. This bill helps to ensure that American consumers, American employers, and American taxpayers keep paying those high prices. Merry Christmas, PhRMA.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is the people's House, conducting the public's business openly, or at least it used to be the people's House. 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, House Republicans slashed education and health benefits by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind tax cut bill by a handful of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House GOP passed a Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then after returning from summer recess at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night, always after the press had passed their deadlines, always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed. With that track record, Mr. Speaker, we should not be terribly surprised that when the House passed legislation privatizing Medicare and forcing the most sweeping changes to Medicare in its 38-year history, we should not be terribly surprised that this Republican House of Representatives passed that bill at 5:55 in the early morning, Saturday morning, hours. The Republican leadership delivered this 1,100-page Medicare bill to House Members on Friday morning at 1:46 a.m. We voted on it 25 hours later. But I do not really blame my Republican colleagues. If I had produced this bill, I would not want to give people much time to look at it either. When Republican leaders sit down behind closed doors with the insurance industry and with the drug industry and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know much about it. This bill is not a prescription drug bill. We could have agreed bipartisanly to deliver a $400 billion drug benefit to our Nation's seniors. This bill is a Medicare privatization bill, written by the drug industry, written by the insurance industry, for the drug industry and for the insurance industry. This bill forces seniors to join an HMO or pay more for the coverage they have now. And we know how HMOs have treated seniors in county after county after county in this country. This bill creates a $20 billion, that is with a B, $20 billion slush fund for HMOs and stacks the deck so resolutely against the core Medicare program that privatization is inevitable. This bill jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for the 12 million-plus seniors who have this coverage. Several million seniors who now have prescription drug coverage as retirees are going to lose that coverage when their employers drop it. That is a certainty. This bill leaves such huge coverage gaps in coverage that the average senior will run out of drug benefits by August each year, but will be required to pay premiums through December. So they will not get a benefit in July, but they will pay the $35, $45, $50, $60 premium. They will not get a benefit in August, but they will be paying the $35, $45, $50, $60 premium. They will not get a benefit in September, but they will pay the premium. They will not get the benefit in October, but they will pay the premium. That is what the Republican privatization Medicare bill is all about, written by the drug companies for the drug companies, written by the insurance industry for the insurance industry. Mr. Speaker, most of these damaging provisions do not go into effect until after the 2004 elections, but this is the people's House. We should conduct our business openly. We should be honest with people whom we serve. We should throw the drug companies and insurance companies out of our offices so they are not writing this privatization legislation. The American people deserve better.

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. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for raising awareness regarding the importance of bone marrow donation. There are at least 20,000 Americans today who need a bone marrow transplant but cannot find a compatible donor within their own family. National Marrow Awareness Month is a vehicle for encouraging more people to join the bone marrow registry, a noble goal, and it is right that Congress acknowledge the importance of this month. But, Mr. Speaker, the timing is unfortunate. The Republican majority today is giving this body fewer than 24 hours to consider legislation which will have a dramatic impact on the financial security of 39 million retirees and disabled Americans, as well as their families. This bill takes $400 billion out of taxpayers' pockets and puts much of that money in the pockets of the drug industry and the insurance industry, the two industries that sat in back rooms with Republican leaders and wrote this bill. Every American has a stake in the outcome of this. Less than 24 hours to review, debate and vote on an 1,100-page bill that erects a brand new private insurance system for stand-alone drug coverage which replaces tried and true Medicare. The bill features such a meager drug benefit that seniors will still be unable to afford the medicines they need, a bill that creates a fast-track process to expedite reductions in Medicare benefits, a bill that makes different seniors pay different premiums for the exact same coverage, and a bill that launches a private insurance experiment, privatizing Medicare, forcing millions of seniors in this country to pay more or join an HMO. We received that bill yesterday, that 1,100-page Medicare bill, and are being forced to vote on that bill today. With all due respect, I support this Burgess legislation and applaud the gentleman's efforts, but we need every minute we can get to try to get a handle on just how dramatically this Medicare privatization bill will turn our world upside down. Mr. Speaker, we all know what is going to happen tonight. We have seen this same scenario play out month after month this year. In April, it started where in the middle of the night Congress passed contentious, important tax legislation by a handful of votes. Every single month during the summer, Congress voted on important, controversial legislation: Head Start, budget reconciliation, the tax cut, Medicare, last year the trade promotion bill authority, always between 12 midnight and four in the morning, always in the dead of night, always on Thursday night so the papers did not pick it up until Saturday, always when the media had gone to bed and the American public had turned off their television sets, and never appearing in the paper the next day, always held over to Saturday's paper because of that. I hope, Mr. Speaker that does not happen with this Medicare bill tonight. I hope we can actually debate it during the late afternoon and early evening so people in this country can see what in fact is in it. On this legislation we are considering today, I appreciate the efforts of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), but on a day when this body is asked to participate in such remarkably irresponsible decisionmaking on the most important health care vote of this session, no Member right now can devote to this Burgess resolution the attention it deserves. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for yielding me time. We have been here before, Mr. Speaker. We will debate late into the night and consider one of the most important votes we have ever cast. At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday last March, the House cut veterans benefits by 3 votes. At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, House Republicans slashed education by five votes. At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind Tax Cut Bill by a handful of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House GOP passed Medicare privatization by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then after returning from summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed. And here we go again, Mr. Speaker. Republican leadership delivered this bill to us last night at 1:46 a.m. Mr. Speaker, I do not really blame my Republican colleagues because when Republican leaders sit down with the insurance industry and the drug industry behind closed doors and write a bill to privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know. When Republican leaders sit down with the drug industry to write a bill to deliver $139 billion in additional pharmaceutical profits to their biggest contributors, of course they do not want the public to know. When Republican leaders sit down with the insurance industry to write a bill to set up a $20 billion slush fund for HMOs, some of their biggest contributors, of course they do not want the public to know. This bill proposes the most radical changes to Medicare since its creation a generation ago. We should not do it under the cover of darkness. Americans deserve better.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan. Earlier this year President Bush stood in this well and pronounced solemnly, ``Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.'' Today just a few short months later, those words sound so empty. Our Medicare offers the same reliable health coverage to retired and disabled Americans regardless of whether they are rural or urban, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are healthy or sick. Our Medicare is equitable, dependable, it is flexible, and cost efficient; but their bill takes $20 billion out of our constituents' pockets and showers those dollars on HMOs. It rigs the game so that the coverage seniors have today, the equitable, reliable, flexible coverage they have today, is sure to wither on the vine. That is the way they have set it up. As one of the authors of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) said, ``To those who say this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is we certainly hope so.'' A binding commitment, Mr. President? Their bill leaves seniors with such high drug costs they still will not be able to afford their prescriptions. Their bill places retiree drug coverage of $12 million seniors at risk. Their bill forces seniors to either pay significantly more if they want to keep their doctor and their hospital, or join an HMO that may or may not cover needed drugs, that may or may not raise premiums beyond the $35 guesstimate, that may or may not skip town if projected profits are not met. A caring society, Mr. President? This bill is a big win for drug companies who stand to earn $139 billion in additional profits. No surprise there, the drug companies helped write the bill because the drug companies have given $50-60 billion to President Bush and to the Republican majority. It is a big win for insurance companies who are the beneficiaries of a $20 billion slush fund, no surprise there because the insurance industries and the HMOs gave tens of millions of dollars to the President and Republican leadership. This is a tragic loss for America's seniors. Medicare should be the binding commitment of a caring society.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, night after night we come down here. We talk about Medicare. I hear my friends on the other side of the aisle over and over say that of course they care about Medicare, that they believe in it. I know the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) does, because I have worked with him regularly. But I also know that his leadership does not. All you have got to do is look at the Republican history of Medicare. In 1965, when Medicare came in front of the United States Congress, when the creation of Medicare happened and President Johnson signed it, July 1965, only 13 out of 140 Republicans in this body voted to create Medicare. The other 127 voted no. Gerald Ford voted no; Bob Michel voted no; John Rhodes voted no; Bob Dole voted no; Senator Strom Thurmond voted no; and Donald Rumsfeld voted no. The first time in these years since 1965 when the Republicans actually could weaken Medicare, they tried to. Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House in 1995, the first thing he did was proposed to cut $270 billion from Medicare in order to give a tax cut to the most privileged people in this society. Speaker Gingrich said, ``We don't want to get rid of Medicare in round one because we don't think that's politically smart, but we believe it's going to wither on the vine.'' Bob Dole, who had been around 30 years earlier to try to defeat Medicare, bragged to a conservative group in 1996, ``I was there fighting the fight trying to stop Medicare from happening.'' They are not the only ones. John Linder told the House Rules Committee he did not like Medicare because it was a Soviet-style program. Dick Armey, former majority leader, said he did not like Medicare. He said, ``It's something you wouldn't have in a free society.'' And Bill Novelli, the AARP CEO, wrote a preface to Newt Gingrich's book calling him a big idea person because of his efforts to privatize Medicare. Bill Novelli, making $700,000 a year working for the insurance company that we call AARP. AARP has made, according to the Milwaukee Journal and Capital News Services, literally $100 million a year from insurance sales, that organization. Sure they endorse this bill because that organization is going to make tons of money in the insurance business. But the fact is my friends on the other side of the aisle simply do not like Medicare. They voted against its creation and every single time they have had a chance, they have done what they could to cripple it. They cut its funding, they try to privatize it, they take options away from seniors, all in the name of choice. Mr. Speaker, the Inslee motion makes sense. Support the Inslee motion to instruct.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it has been a great week for the most influential, the most well-heeled lobbyists in Washington. Earlier in the week the House passed an energy bill which one very prominent leader of this country called the ``no lobbyist left behind'' bill. This energy legislation was full of benefits for oil companies, for natural gas companies, and for electric utility companies. As I said, it was a great week for some of the most well-heeled, most influential lobbyists in Washington. The energy policy started with bad process as Vice President Cheney convened a secret group of energy lobbyists to draft the administration's energy plan. Citizen after citizen, group after group have tried to find out who attended these meetings with Vice President Cheney, what was discussed, and what they were all about. Vice President Cheney refused; but we should not be surprised that he would bring energy executives into the Vice President's office to secretly write an energy bill. After all, Vice President Cheney himself was an oil company executive, or should I say still is. He still receives $3,000 a week from Halliburton, one of the major energy companies in the United States. The Vice President is meeting secretly with energy company, oil company executives, and is still receiving $3,000 a week from Halliburton, that company that is making billions of dollars in unbid contracts in Iraq given by the administration, and kicking back or contributing large numbers of dollars to the Bush reelection campaign. So Cheney is meeting with the energy companies to draft legislation that one prominent Republican said was a no lobbyist left behind bill. It was an early Christmas present for the energy industry, and for oil, gas and utilities, and some have estimated as much as $100 billion. Some of the corporate giveaways that harm consumers in this bill were granting Enron's last wish to repeal the consumer-oriented, Public Utility Holding Companies Act, making taxpayers rather than corporate polluters pay to clean up leaking underground storage tanks, even when we know exactly which corporation is responsible for the pollution; allowing power companies to charge consumers more, ostensibly to finance system upgrades without any assurance that the resulting changes will actually benefit consumers; making taxpayers pay to clean up nuclear accidents and compensate victims even when the accidents result from a private contractor's intentional misconduct; deleting bipartisan provisions to ensure the safety and security of crosscountry nuclear shipments. All of those provisions were in there as gifts to the oil and gas and electric companies that Vice President Cheney still represents, amazingly enough as Vice President. At the same time, that energy bill was loaded up with all kinds of tax breaks, all kinds of tax provisions helping those energy companies. At the same time this legislation, this early corporate Christmas present for which they give great thanks, included all kinds of harm to the environment. It allows oil companies to pump diesel fuels and other toxics underground and expand their operations without regard to the Clean Water Act groundwater runoff requirements, opening Federal lands to powerlines and mineral developments, and exempting significant segments of our communities and our industries from Clean Air Act requirements. Now, Mr. Speaker, Congress earlier in the week passed one major corporate giveaway to the energy industry, to oil, gas and electric utilities. Tomorrow Congress is going to attempt, Republican leadership is going to attempt to do their second major corporate giveaway of tax dollars, and that is the so-called prescription drug Medicare bill. This is not a prescription drug bill; this is a Medicare privatization, insurance company/drug company giveaway bill. The prescription drug companies under this legislation stand in the next few years to profit $139 billion more than they already have. And already for 20 years running, the drug industry has been the most profitable industry in America, by any measurement: return on investment, return on sales, return on equity, while enjoying the lowest tax rate of any industry in America. Mr. Speaker, the second part of this bill gives a $20 billion gift, $8 billion this year, $12 billion in 2006, to the large insurance companies and HMOs in order to get them to offer private drug insurance. What most of us say is let us do the Medicare bill right, give the drug benefit directly to seniors; do not do it by enriching the drug companies and enriching the insurance companies. Mr. Speaker, it has been a good week for big business in Washington and for corporate lobbyists, and a bad week for America's consumers.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) again, and especially the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) for her work raising awareness about epilepsy. I would add that the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) is interested in this legislation in response to what constituents have told her, that when people come forward and express what is important to them, often a Member of Congress responds to their constituents and really goes to bat for them, and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown) did that with this legislation. Epilepsy is a devastating and prevalent illness in our country. Ineffective treatment, delayed or lack of access to high-quality specialized care and the severity of the underlying neurological disorder are all possible contributors to the development of hard-to- control seizures. Education and public awareness initiatives encouraging timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment can reduce the risk of severe brain damage. These strategies also can address damaging misconceptions which so many of us have about this disease. The resolution we are considering today recognizes the importance of our continuing fight against epilepsy,and the significant role the National Epilepsy Awareness Month plays in this effort. I hope my colleagues will join me in honoring the nearly 2.5 million Americans with epilepsy, will pass this resolution, and encourage all of us to take extra steps to combat this awful disease. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Bilirakis) and the cooperation that he always shows in putting together good legislation out of the Subcommittee on Health. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) for yielding time and thank her for her leadership on this Medicare issue and her leadership on health care issues generally. Mr. Speaker, I heard my friend from Florida not once, not twice, not three times, maybe not even four times, maybe five, six times say, ``You should just read the bill.'' That is the problem. As bad as the Medicare bill is, the process is even worse. We would like to read the bill. We cannot find it. The reason we cannot find the bill is the bill was, first of all, written by the prescription drug companies, by the insurance companies, in private, similar to how Vice President Cheney wrote the energy bill, Vice President Cheney who still receives $3,000 a week from an oil company as part of his pay, but these bills have been written in secret. The prescription drug bill has been written by the insurance industry, by the drug industry. At the conference committee when the House and Senate were trying to work together to write a bill, no House Democrats were allowed in the room. No House Democrats were allowed to look at the bill, to discuss the bill, to debate the bill or to offer amendments. When I hear my friend from Florida sort of gratuitously say we should read the bill, we would like that opportunity. The problem with this prescription drug issue, it is not really a prescription drug bill. We could have passed a prescription drug bill, take $400 billion and distributed it to seniors who need drug coverage. We could have done that cooperatively, bipartisanly in a day or two, but what this bill really is, it is a Medicare privatization bill. When you think about this, and I have been a ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Health for 4, 5, 6 years, I have been on that committee for more years than that and watched sort of how the Republicans look at this Medicare issue. They all say, my mom's on Medicare, my grandfather's on Medicare, I like the program. Ultimately, when you look at what Republicans do in Medicare and you look at the history of the Republican Party with Medicare, the problem is they simply do not like Medicare. You can say, well, that's not true. Let us do a little bit of history. When Congress passed the legislation to create Medicare, President Johnson signed the bill in July of 1965 creating this program that now insures 39 million Americans. At that moment, half of American seniors had no health insurance. The other half did, but it was clearly a big problem. Lyndon Johnson signed this bill. The fact is only 13 Republicans in the whole House of Representatives supported the bill to create Medicare. Gerald Ford, a Member of the House, opposed it. Bob Michel, the Republican leader, opposed it. John Rhodes, another Republican leader, opposed it. Bob Dole opposed it. Senator Strom Thurmond opposed it. Donald Rumsfeld voted against the creation of Medicare. They simply did not like the idea of a government program. They wanted to continue to let these seniors be out in the market, be in the private market. If they could get insurance good; if they could not, that was just too bad. They should have thought of that and made more money or whatever the reason. Nothing much happened to change Medicare except it worked, from 1965 until 1995. Then the first time Republicans had a chance, the first time Republicans were in the majority in 1995, right out of the box Newt Gingrich tried to privatize Medicare. He tried to cut $250 billion from Medicare to pay for a tax break for the most privileged people in society, just like they do now. He immediately tried to privatize Medicare. Fortunately, President Clinton stopped that. Fortunately, other Members of this Congress stood up and fought it and stopped it. Speaker Gingrich, in 1995, bragging in a meeting of the American Conservative Union, said, We don't get rid of Medicare right away. We don't think it's politically smart. We think the right way is to go through a transition, but we know it's going to wither on the vine. That is what Speaker Gingrich wanted to do. He wanted to privatize it. Bob Dole, then a Senator, then a Presidential candidate, Bob Dole bragged that he was in the arena trying to fight Medicare, trying to fight its creation 30 years earlier. It is pretty clear that Republicans in 1965 voted against the creation of Medicare, including one future President, one future Presidential candidate and other leading Republicans. Then in 1995, when they had a chance, they immediately tried to privatize Medicare and cut its funding. In fact, AARP president Bill Novelli, who has gotten sort of famous this week in his sellout to the drug companies and the insurance interests, Bill Novelli wrote the preface in Newt Gingrich's health care book, his health care privatization book. He called Newt a big-idea person. The Republican majority has continued to rally behind Newt Gingrich's call for Medicare privatization. John Linder told the House Rules Committee last year that Medicare was a Soviet-style program. Dick Armey, majority leader of the House of Representatives last year, said, in a free society we wouldn't want to have Medicare. Former Congressman Rick Santorum says the traditional Medicare program has to be phased out. And Bill Thomas, working with the drug industry and the insurance industry in writing this Medicare privatization bill, told a reporter, to those who say that this bill would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is, we certainly hope so. The conference bill does that. It would end Medicare as we know it, because Republicans would rather throw money at a private failure rather than continue support for a public success. Mr. Speaker, Medicare has worked for seniors in this country. We need to add a prescription drug benefit inside Medicare, not turn this program over to the insurance interests who are getting a $20 billion taxpayer gift once this bill is signed into law if it passes, and we do not want to turn this program over to the drug industry who will profit 140 billion additional dollars under this bill. Mr. Speaker, my Republican friends, it is an honest debate. They simply do not like Medicare. They do not believe there should be a government program called Medicare. They think the insurance industry and the drug industry ought to do this. That is their view. Mr. Speaker, I hope that enough Members rally around because it is clear that seniors in this country want to protect Medicare. They do not want it privatized. They want a public health system that works for everybody and treats everybody the same.

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. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), for his tireless work on the issue of developmental disabilities, as well as the ranking member of the committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), and their staff, who deserve plaudits for their work in bringing this to the floor. Mr. Speaker, 150,000 children are born each year with a birth defect. That is 150,000 families too many who receive the news no new parent should ever have to hear. Both genetic and environmental factors can cause birth defects, but for over 60 percent of them, the causes still remain unknown. In 1998, Congress passed the Birth Defects Prevention Act, which created a Federal birth defects prevention and surveillance strategy. A couple of years later, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and I introduced and worked together to pass the Children's Health Bill Act of 2000, which established the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Passage of these two bills demonstrated a congressional commitment to address two significant threats to children's health, birth defects and developmental disabilities. The bill we are considering today, the Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Prevention Act, will strengthen that commitment towards children and has the overwhelming support of the children's advocacy community. The National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at CDC does extensive research and provides indispensable resources on birth defects, such as autism, spina bifida, and fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as research and support focusing on childhood and adult disabilities. Passage of this bill will go a long way towards continuing these critical efforts. The bill also continues the important work States have done expanding community-based birth defects tracking systems, programs to prevent birth defects and activities to improve access to health services for children with birth defects. History has shown when we choose to confront a public health problem that threatens the health and lives of children, we can indeed and often have stopped it in its tracks. Before the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s, an estimated 50,000 people in the U.S. were affected by polio each year. With the widespread vaccination of children beginning in the 1950s, polio has been virtually eliminated in the United States, and there have been no new cases since 1991. Mr. Speaker, I wear on my lapel a pin, which is a canary in a bird cage. The mineworkers took a canary down in the mines 100 years ago, and if the canary died, the mineworker knew he had to get out of the mines. In those days, 100 years ago, the workers had no real protection in the mines from government or from labor unions. In those days, a child born in the United States 100 years ago had a life expectancy of 46, 47, 48 years old. One hundred years later, because of our public health infrastructure, because of legislation like the one that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) worked on, because of Medicare and Social Security and the safe drinking water and clean air laws and seat belt laws and prohibitions on child labor and civil rights laws and laws protecting the women and the disabled, we have come so far so that our life expectancy is literally three decades longer. That is not because of transplants or because of chemotherapy, it is mostly because of public health initiatives like we are addressing today. The only threat to that, Mr. Speaker, is that some people, sometimes in this body, have fallen short on providing for that public health infrastructure. We have too often, in efforts to privatize Medicare or Social Security or to weaken environmental laws and worker- safety laws, we have sometimes backslid on some of these advancements we have made in the last hundred years. Unfortunately, this week is an example, with the bill to privatize Medicare, of sliding back. It will do nothing to lengthen people's lives. In fact, it will do the opposite. However, today, Mr. Speaker, this legislation brought to the floor by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), and I, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), and others will, in fact, strengthen that public health system, will, in fact, strengthen the Centers for Disease Control to help us and them tackle other children's health problems with the same resolve that we tackled polio. Passage of the Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Prevention Act is an important step towards that goal, and I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROWN of Ohio

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

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I think the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) has one. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.