Michael Burgess

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for bringing this hour to the floor of the House tonight. I think it is important to talk about this issue. It is important to talk about opening the doors, opening the windows on this Congress, on this health care legislation. We have seen this bill now take several forms over the past 12 months since the President was inaugurated. And certainly the bill that we had in committee, and Dr. Gingrey and I serve on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and we had this bill for several days in what is called a markup in committee. That was covered on C-SPAN. People got to see us argue, and Republican members attempt to amend the bill. Not many of those amendments were accepted, unfortunately. But nevertheless, it was an open process. And Henry Waxman, the chairman of that committee, to his credit, did allow a relatively lengthy discussion on that legislation. However, when we left for August and went through the very famous August recess and August town halls, we came back to Congress, I thought we would hit the pause button, I thought we would hit the resets button, I thought we would hit the rewind button on this legislation, but no such luck. The President came and talked to us here on the floor of the House and said this was going forward, it was going forward rapidly, there was no time to lose, no time to stop and study what we had done. We were simply going to push ahead. So between that date, which was the middle of September, and the very first part of November, another bill was written. It was a different bill from what we had in the committee. It was a different bill than what Dr. Gingrey and I attempted to work on in committee. It was a bill that was essentially written in secret. It was written in the Speaker's suite of offices, heavy, heavy input from the White House. But none of us saw the bill. And I mean to say none of us, none of us Republicans, nor in fact no Democrats who weren't in leadership, who weren't part of this process, this secret process in the Speaker's suite, none of them knew what was in this bill. So as a consequence, we had a bill come forward, we had a very tumultuous week here in early November, and it culminated in the House bill passing on the floor of the House by a very slim margin, late in the night, late on a Saturday night in early November. Then it goes over to the Senate, and the same thing. We had the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee mark up the bill in June. Then it went to the Senate Finance Committee. They never had a bill. They debated talking points, but then they did a bill. And then the final product was written in secret, in secret in Majority Leader Reid's office with a heavy input, a heavy hand from the White House, and then came to the Senate floor, and famously was laid out for the Senators right before they left for Christmas Eve. So it has been a process that has been draped and cloaked in secrecy really since it left the committee process July 31. The American people haven't had a chance to see it, rank and file Democrats haven't had a chance to see it, rank and file Republicans have had no chance to see it. None of us who are the so-called back benchers on both sides of the aisle, none of us had any part in drafting this legislation, or carrying this, or modifying this legislation after it left the committee. And that is important to remember. The Rules Committee met here in the House late into the night. One amendment, one amendment was accepted, famously the one by Bart Stupak from Michigan, a Democrat, that dealt with the issue of abortion, funding of abortion in the bill. But one amendment out of the many hundreds that were offered during the course of that time it was in the Rules Committee, one amendment was made in order. Many, many amendments we could talk about that had merit, that should have had an airing here on the floor of the House were never even considered. So we have a process that has been cloaked in secrecy. And so when it came out that, well, there is going to be some sort of reconciliation process, whether it is a formal conference or whether it is what is famously referred to now as a ping-pong match between the House and the Senate, there is going to be some coming together of these two very different pieces of legislation. And it is important. So why not, at least at this point, open it up and open it up to the cameras, the C-SPAN cameras. They are not there with commentary. They are not there with an editorial agenda. They are simply there with their cameras to show the give and take. And the President, when he was running for office, thought this was so important he wanted to show the American people which representatives, which Members of Congress stood with the American people and which stood with the special interests. In fact, I would like to know that very thing myself, but we are prevented from knowing that. Now, early in this process, in May or June of this past year, there were several of those special interests that met down at the White House. There were headlines that were made on those days, there were photographs taken, hands that were shaken, agreements that were made. $2 trillion in excess has been wrung from our health care system by the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, my AMA, the American Hospital Association, AdvaMed, the medical device manufacturers, and the Service Employees International Union, all of those six groups got together at the White House and gave up, they came to the White House to give up something to get this bill the momentum it would need. But none of that information has then subsequently been made available to us. And thus you had situations occur, such as in the Senate Finance Committee, when a Senator asked legitimately, ``Well, I thought we could tax this on the hospitals, but the hospitals say that wasn't part of the deal that they struck at the White House.'' Well, what is that deal that they struck at the White House? We are the legislators. We should be privy to that very information so that when we write the legislation we can do so with the full knowledge.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, today I rise to recognize the Greater Fort Worth Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Committee, for its work on promoting and honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Since 1985, the Committee has held a Scholarship Awards Banquet, as well as a Fort Worth March/Parade, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. This organization is one of the oldest in our country that has a commitment to promoting the legacy of one of our nation's greatest civil rights leaders. In fact, the first Fort Worth Parade honoring Dr. King was held one year before the national holiday was observed. This year, the Committee has several activities planned around the holiday, including a Scholarship Banquet, a Gospel/Jazz Social, and a Parade and High School Band Exhibition. All events are scheduled to be held during the weekend of Saturday, January 16, through Monday, January 18, 2010. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today and recognize the Greater Fort Worth Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Committee for their commitment to upholding the legacy of Dr. King. I am proud to represent this charitable organization and the City of Fort Worth in the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman has done an excellent job at delineating where we've been, what's been happening, and perhaps where we're going. You know, this summer was truly a remarkable time in this country when the beauty of participatory democracy was on display literally from sea to shining sea, from border to border. I certainly felt it in my district. I know it was felt in a number of congressional districts. We've seen the results of that. The gentleman is quite correct, the Blue Dogs, who were so active during the summer months leading up to the August recess, have really been under enormous pressure by their leadership on their side. And now we've seen, in the past several days, I think by my count, four retirements from that group. I don't know whether we will be seeing more, but it certainly is something that you cannot fail to notice. Now, the gentleman from Iowa has correctly identified this to be a fight about ideology. You will notice through the discussions going on in the other body right now, there is really very little that's going on about health care, per se. There is very little talked about as far as health care policy. It is all a question about, well, let's get the numbers right. Let's get the Congressional Budget Office. Let's get the actuaries over at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Let's get these numbers right so we can then present this to the American people and stay within the President's prescription of delivering health care for all for under $1 trillion. Now, we know that to be a fantasy. The gentleman outlined the reasons why that is a fantasy. There are a number of things that have been taken out of this bill that will have to be added back at some point in the future, but this has become a fight about ideology just as the energy bill has been a fight about ideology. Cap-and-trade is no longer about the number of molecules of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is about ideology. This is about holding the United States to $3 trillion in ransom to the rest of the world and, oh, by the way, you've got to give up your ability to be in charge of our own future. You've got to give up your sovereignty along the way to Copenhagen. This is a fight about ideology. The Financial Services bill that we passed on the floor of this House last week had nothing to do to prevent future problems with meltdowns in the financial industry. If it had, we would have seen something that would actually have made a difference. Instead, we got big carve-outs for big companies. The smaller community banks are still going to have to pay into a fund to bail out the big guys if they get in trouble again in the future. In fact, we've institutionalized the failure of those institutions who are too big to fail by this bill that we passed last week. But again, it's not about what you know about financial policy; it's about ideology. That is where we are today over in the other body with this health care debate. Nobody is really interested in whether or not there is the right vaccine policy involved. No one is really interested in what the United States Preventive Services Task Force does. It's all about control of every facet of your life. And if we can control your health care, we can control more about you than we've ever been able to control in the past. That is why it is so important that this be stopped. It's not because we want to prevent anyone from having health insurance. It's not that we want to prevent anyone from having health care, but we want to prevent this type of power grab that is going on at the level of the Federal Government over the lives of honest American citizens. If we lose, if we are not successful in stopping this, ultimately it's not a Democratic win or a Republican loss. Ultimately, it's the American people who will lose in this transaction. It is transactional politics at its worst, and we've all seen that on display. One year ago, we were faced, on our side, with the very stark realization that we had lost the White House, lost 20 seats in the House, lost a number of seats in the Senate, and in fact, when the eventual Senator from Minnesota was seated, the Democrats had a proverbial unstoppable majority of 60 votes over on the Senate side. This all happened very early in the calendar year 2009. I would have thought, facing that kind of harsh reality, that many of these things that we've talked about tonight--energy policy, health care policy, financial services policy--many of those things would have already been done; after all, what was to stop them? Were Republicans going to be able to stop much of anything? No. We didn't have the leadership, the money, or the ideas to put a stop to much of anything. In fact, I still believe to this day, had the President put health care ahead of the pork barrel spending that was present in the stimulus bill that they passed in February, if the President pushed health care to the front of that agenda, that would have been done in February. It would be the law of the land today, and there would have been nothing that anyone could have done to stop it. But they didn't. They didn't. In fact, I still puzzle over why cap-and-trade was suddenly thrown into the mix at the end of June, sort of all at once. We passed it out of committee a month before and it sort of languished there. Everyone was uncomfortable about it, but it was never coming to the floor, after all, so we really didn't need to worry about it. Then suddenly, the last week of June, boom, here it is and it's going to pass, and Democrats' arms were twisted and hair was pulled and eyes were gouged in order to get this thing passed. I don't know if the gentleman from Iowa recalls, but there was the instance where a Democratic Member from Florida sold his vote for $30 million here on the floor of this House. The Democrats were going to usher in a new era of transparency. That was about as transparently transactional as I have ever seen on the floor of the House, but they got the bill passed. And then what happened? We went home for 4th of July recess, marched in that 4th of July parade right behind the American Legion, just in front of the Cub Scouts. And from both sides of the parade route, people were yelling at their Member of Congress, What in the world were you thinking? Next time, read the bill. On and on it went along the parade route. By the end of the 4th of July parades, Members of Congress, both sides, Republicans and Democrats, were saying, Oh, my God, what have we done? What are we up against? So we came back in July and said, We're not so anxious to pass this health care bill. In fact, the Blue Dogs, to their credit, ground things to a halt, starting about the 15th of July, when we finally got the bill--and remember, we got this 1,000-page bill and we were supposed to pass it before the August recess and go home and deal with the consequences, but not so fast. The Blue Dogs did slow things down. We did not have a bill passed by the August recess. And then, it was a beautiful thing to watch, the participatory democracy that we saw again across this country came to bear and brought pressure to every Member of Congress, whether conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat. Every Member of Congress heard from their constituents. Now, to be sure, the Speaker of the House labeled these individuals as Astroturf or rent-a-mob, but I've got to tell you, I had 2,000 people show up for a town hall in Denton, Texas, on a hot Saturday morning in August, and these were my friends and neighbors, a town where I grew up. I know most of the people in the town. And it was not an imported crowd to give grief to the poor Member of Congress. These were people who were legitimately concerned. Just as the gentleman from Iowa accurately points out, we're trying to fix a problem for less than 5 percent of the American population and disrupt what 65, 70, or 73 percent of the American population sees as something that is working relatively well for them. Sure, they're concerned about costs for the future. Sure, they're concerned about what happens if they lose their job to their employer-sponsored insurance. But by and large, those that have insurance do want to keep it. That's why we don't hear that brought up anymore. I thought we'd come back in September and hit the reset button--the pause, the replay. No. We hit the fast-forward button, and we pushed this thing through. Don't check the weather. We're going to fly anyway. The Speaker pushed it through in the early part of November, again, purely on a party-line vote, and now it's over in the Senate. The people are asking, Well, what are you going to do to fix this? Sixty percent of the people do not want this to happen. So, Mr. Member of Congress, what are you going to do to stop this? I do have to say that I am, once again, going to ask, going to call on, going to cajole, going to plead with Americans across the country who are looking at this happening right now: It's not hard to figure out who your Senators are as every State has got two. Most of the time, if you go to a search engine of choice and type in ``Who is my United States Senator for the State of Iowa or Texas?'' it will come back, and it will tell you. You can go to Senate.gov and can put the name of your State in, and it will tell you who your Senators are. It will, in fact, tell you how to contact them. It will give you their Washington telephone numbers and their phone numbers back home in the State. Your Senators need to hear from you in these coming days that are immediately ahead of us. You know, if you think back to the days in May of 2005, there were a couple of Senators who decided they were going to do something that fundamentally would have changed the way this country dealt with problems surrounding immigration. The American people rose up as one and said, Not so fast. Not so fast. We have a voice in this. We have a say in this. They stopped the Senate cold in its tracks. The Senate, true to form, decided maybe that was a misnomer. Maybe they didn't really mean ``not so fast.'' So they tried again. Once again, they heard ``not so fast.'' Their switchboards shut down. Their servers crashed because of the volumes of information that were coming in, telling them ``not so fast.'' Well, I would submit to the gentleman from Iowa that he and I are going to be hard-pressed to stop this thing on the floor of the Senate in the days ahead. It is going to require participatory democracy on a level that we saw this summer, and then some, in order to bring this thing back to the realm of where, perhaps, we can actually deal with the problems that we're required to deal with. Remember, it's all about ideology right now. It's about a hard left turn that has been taken by the administration and by the Democratic leadership in the House and in the Senate. That's where they want to go with this thing. If that's okay with you, stay silent. Have a nice Christmas. We'll see you next year. If that's not okay with you, if you feel like the gentleman from Iowa and I feel about this, your Senators do need to hear from you. Your Members in the other body need to hear from you. They need to hear from you straightaway. I've got some other ideas which I'll be happy to share with the gentleman, but I've taken up enough of his time, and I'll yield back the time to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. BURGESS. Well, I think the gentleman has summed things up very well. I cannot be nearly as eloquent as he is, delineating the history and what created greatness in this country. All I know is the people who seem to be making the decisions today are the people who have never held a job in the private sector. For those of us who signed more paychecks on the front than on the back, it is a startling thing to watch as we see, once again, the administration is going to lurch forward with a jobs-creation strategy when a jobs-creation strategy exists right before our eyes. It's the small businessmen and women in America who have the capabilities of creating those jobs that we desire. What's happened to them today? They are scared to death. They are scared to death of this 8 percent payroll tax that we are going to slap on them for health care. They don't know what we are going to do in energy. This Financial Services bill, they are going to be another several weeks trying to figure out what we just did to them last Friday night, late. Is it any wonder why small businesses across this country are holding back. They know about taking risk. That's what brought them to where they are now. But when so many things are in flux, tax policy, health care, energy, financial service regulation, when so many things were in flux, what's in it for them to go out on a limb and go out and hire that extra one or two people that they might hire. The problem is, not those one or two jobs in that one business, it's the vast number of jobs across the greater and broader economy that that one or two job hold-back that small business is making right now-- that's where the jobs are. That's why this has been a jobless recovery, and why it will remain a jobless recovery until Congress, until Congress and the administration, stop making the environment and the prospects for the future seem so threatening that small businesses again feel comfortable in taking on the role of being the leader of job creation. We don't need another Federal program to stimulate jobs. We just need to get out of the way. I just have to reference an exchange I had with the Secretary of the Treasury a few weeks ago on our Joint Economic Committee when I asked him that very question. Wouldn't it be better if we, instead of making it a more challenging economic environment, brought some stability for small businesses in America, allowed them the freedom to do what they have done every time in the past with every other recession, which is create the jobs which provided the prosperity which allowed us to get out of the recession? Wouldn't it be better to do that? The Secretary of the Treasury looked at me and said, That is the same broad economic philosophy that brought this country to the brink of ruin. Mr. Secretary, I just described market capitalism to you, and I am just a simple country doctor. You are the Secretary of the Treasury, you are supposed to know this stuff. I was dumbfounded by the Secretary's response, the Secretary not understanding what it is that made this country great in the first place, has no clue, then, about how to do, how to set the tone and set the environment so this country can, indeed, recover from this economic downturn. Of course, very famously, in that exchange earlier the other gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady) had encouraged the Secretary to resign for the sake of our jobs. I said I didn't think he should resign; I didn't think he ever should have been hired in the first place. It was a mistake a year ago. It was apparently a mistake today. Not only does he not know how to fill out his tax form, he doesn't know what creates jobs and wealth in economy and what makes this country great. I appreciate the gentleman from Iowa letting me be here. I appreciate him doing this hour. I think it is so important to set the tone. These next couple of days are going to be extremely important in this country and the American people do need to be engaged. They do need to be paying attention. They do need to be responding to the cues that are being given to them by the gentleman in the other body.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. I thank you so much for taking the initiative to do this hour tonight. I think it is extremely important and extremely timely. Last month when the United States preventive service task force came out up with their guidelines, I went home from Congress to my desk and there was a copy of OB-GYN News that had just been delivered the week before these task force guidelines came out. This was the current state of the art, the current state of thinking just prior to these task force recommendations being made. In the article, and I am quoting here, the most effective method for women to avoid death from breast cancer is to have regular mammographic screening, said Dr. Blake Cady at a breast cancer symposium sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Interestingly, in their article they cite some statistics, and I'll be honest, these are statistics that I knew but I had forgotten. The rates of cancer deaths in the current study, 25 percent of them occurred in women who had regular screenings. Seventy-five percent occurred in women who did not. That's a 3-to-1 risk ratio of dying from breast cancer between those who were screened and those who were unscreened. In fact, they go on to say that amongst women who were unscreened, the 56 percent mortality is the same overall mortality we used to see in breast cancer up until 1970 prior to the onset of widespread mammographic screening. Another piece of information I wanted to share tonight is from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology from their president, Gerald F. Joseph, who wrote to me December 4 of this year: As you know, the American College of OB-GYN expressed concern about the new breast cancer screening guidelines in a letter to the United States preventive service task force in May where we raised concerns that the C recommendation against routine screening mammography in women ages 40 to 49 would be misunderstood by clinicians, by patients, misunderstood by policymakers and insurers and ultimately this could prevent women in that age group from receiving important services. Immediately following the release of the new guidelines, the American College of OB-GYN instructed fellows of the college that it would continue to recommend routine screening for women in this age group. Here is probably the most critical point of Dr. Joseph's letter. In his last paragraph, This is especially critical right now as we caution Congress against giving the United States preventive service task force authority over women's health in health care reform. Today, these guidelines are simply that, they are just guidelines. Any doctor or patient is free to take them or disregard them, however it is their wish. Once this bill, as the gentlelady correctly pointed out, becomes law, no longer will that be an optional exercise. Those will be the mandated screening guidelines that will be established in law. And I will tell you as a physician, if an insurance company decides they're not going to cover something, the patient isn't going to get it done. It is just as simple as that. This is a step backward, as Dr. Cady pointed out. It is going back prior to 1970 when we had that 56 percent mortality prior to the institution of regular screenings. We don't need to do that. We don't need to do that as a country. We have the information, we need to act on the information, we need to keep patients involved in their own health care. I cannot tell you the number of people who came to me ultimately who had a diagnosis of breast cancer who found the cancer themselves. I didn't find it on a clinical exam. They found it on a breast self-exam. It wasn't detected on a mammogram. It may have occurred in that 2-year period between screens, but the patient found it herself. The earlier diagnosis was made possible by the patient's involvement in her own care. And to say that we are unnecessarily alarming patients by teaching them to be involved in their own care I think does women a great disservice. So I thank the gentlelady for bringing this to the floor of the Congress tonight. I am going to submit the letter from the American College of OB-GYN president for the Congressional Record, and I thank you for providing this very valuable service for women tonight on the House floor. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Ponchatoula, LA, December 4, 2009. Hon. Michael Burgess, M.D.FACOG, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Dr. Burgess: On behalf of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), representing over 53,000 physicians and partners in women's health, thank you for your remarks at the December 2nd Breast Cancer Screening Recommendations hearing held by the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. Your opening statement and questions to the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) panel highlighted both the importance of the doctor-patient relationship in making medical decisions, and the flaws in the USPSTF recommendations process. Once again, your medical knowledge and expertise are proving invaluable to Congress' development of good health policy. As you know, ACOG expressed concern about the new breast cancer screening guidelines in a letter to the USPSTF in May, where we raised concerns that the C recommendation against routine screening mammography in women ages 40-49 would be misunderstood by clinicians, patients, policymakers, and insurers and that ultimately, this could prevent women in that age group from receiving important mammography services. Immediately following the release of the new guidelines, ACOG instructed its Fellows that the College would continue to recommend routine screening for women in this age group. Your questions to the panel effectively highlighted the flaws in the process by which the USPSTF makes recommendations. Lack of transparency and public input are part of the problem; there is no formal mechanism for the public to comment on proposed guidelines, and comments that the Task Force receives from experts are not often taken seriously. We also appreciate your comment that the USPSTF is comprised mostly of primary care doctors and includes only a limited number of ob/gyns and other specialists. This point is especially critical right now, as we caution Congress against giving the USPSTF authority over women's health in health care reform. Thank you again for your remarks and for always standing up for women's health. Sincerely, Gerald F. Joseph, M.D., President, ACOG.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to speak on the five amendments that I offered in the Rules Committee that were made in order under the rule. The first, Burgess amendment No. 20, to strike the word ``orderliness'' on the list of descriptors of title I's definitions of the duties of the Council. In the language of the underlying bill, there is no explanation for what ``orderliness'' means in financial parlance. Without that word, this section still has power, and what this amendment would do is remove a word that seems nebulous without a common understanding. The second amendment, No. 21, index Systemic Dissolution Fund amounts to inflation. In the language of the underlying bill, the section creating the Systemic Dissolution Fund indexes the amount to inflation whereas any mitigatory action imposed by the Council involving the sale, divestiture or transfer of more than $10 billion in total assets by a financial holding company subject to a stricter set of standards does not. This amendment would index those amounts. Burgess Amendment No. 22. The metrics of what determines ``significantly undercapitalized'' will be determined by rule or regulation. In the language of the underlying bill, title I portends to elaborate on what ``significantly undercapitalized'' means, but in its definition, it neither gives a fixed dollar amount, a ratio or even a formula. Without a specific metric, this definition is left too much to individual interpretation, just like on page 494 of the bill where ``substantial net position'' requires a specific definition by rulemaking, ``significantly undercapitalized'' should be defined in rule or regulation. I would further point out that the very next section of the bill gives the term ``significantly critically undercapitalized,'' and under ``critically undercapitalized,'' there is, in fact, reference to at least a ratio at another part of the bill. ``Significantly undercapitalized'' is never adequately defined, and I am concerned about the effect of unintended consequences if we do not provide that definition. Burgess No. 23, the outer limit of 2 years on the amount of time the Federal Reserve has to do their audit. During the Financial Services markup, Representative Paul offered an amendment which was accepted 43- 26. This amendment is generally reflected in title I, section 1000A, which allows for the auditing of the Federal Reserve, and it shall be completed as expeditiously as possible. My amendment seeks to put an outer time limit on the amount of time which can pass or otherwise be defined as ``expeditiously as possible.'' An audit by the IRS for an individual usually does not take very long. In fact, the IRS has 3 years to audit an individual if there is not a substantial omission or if there is no tax fraud. In those cases, it would take 6 years, but the IRS is given so much time to do an audit because there are 143 million individual returns to examine. The Federal Reserve is different. Presumably, as a government agency, while they wouldn't be as easy to audit as an individual, because the government is supposed to have greater transparency, checking the Federal Reserve balance sheet of over $70 billion of assets should not take more than 2 years, simply for two reasons: we know who to audit and we know what to audit. While I note the historic nature of even getting an audit of the Federal Reserve is in place, we cannot let the audit go on interminably, especially in times of financial crisis. We need to know what they have and where they have it. I applaud Representative Paul for his laser-like dedicated focus to this issue, but this amendment would add an outer limit of 2 years on the amount of time that the Federal Reserve has to obtain that audit. Finally, Burgess No. 24 strikes the phrase ``have engaged in information sharing or'' from the SEC ``revolving door'' study. In the language of the underlying bill, the definition of what or what is not information is not sufficiently evidenced so that if an employee of the SEC shares information as basic as the date of a meeting on a calendar, they would be considered a part of the SEC ``revolving door.'' This amendment proposes to get to the heart of the issue, which is to find those who have circumvented Federal rules and regulations without bringing in those who have basic and nonessential information. I liken this to the innocent spouse provision in the IRS statutes. If someone just simply shares a page from an Outlook calendar, that does not make them or should not make them part of the ``revolving door'' which we attempt to contain and restrain with the underlying language of the bill. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS. I will claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed.

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, the silence of the administration and, indeed, the House of Representatives on the subject of a senior presidential appointee to the Department of Education is astonishing. Kevin Jennings needs to be replaced. He needs to be replaced today. The so-called Safe Schools czar appointed by the Obama administration to the Department of Education is dangerous for our school children. An editorial in yesterday's Washington Times titled ``Obama's risky- sex czar''--now, I don't know that I've ever seen an editorial in a major newspaper that came with a bolded warning, just like a new FDA drug: This editorial includes discussion of topics that are sexually graphic. Under usual circumstances, we would never entertain these subjects or the language involved. In this case, however, a very unusual exception must be made because the issues are central to the background of a senior presidential appointee in the United States Department of Education who is in a position to influence how and what our children are taught in our Nation's schools. Please do not read any further if you will be offended by the sexually graphic language. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, December 9, 2009. Re Kevin Jennings. President Barack Obama, The White House, Washington, DC. Secretary Arne Duncan, Department of Education, Washington, DC. Dear President Obama and Secretary Duncan: Enclosed for your reference is an editorial written in today's The Washington Times. The individual who is the subject of this article is someone with whom you are familiar, as he is a presidential appointee to the U.S. Department of Education. On at least one prior occasion, my fellow Members and I have written to you regarding the type of behavior that Mr. Jennings has been promoting to our school-age children; however, the premise of the enclosed The Washington Times editorial heightens the complete lack of regard this Administration has followed regarding sexual relationships between adults and children. Must I remind you that such behavior is never ``okay''--and is illegal. The fact that this Administration stands by quietly while Mr. Jennings goes out into the public, under the cloak of protection of a presidential appointment, and informs our schoolchildren on behavior which is not only unspeakable, it is criminal. This letter is about a grown man. Kevin Jennings, teaching school children as young as 14 years-of-age, that it is okay for them to have sex with grown adults. Mr. President, this is never okay. The callousness of this type of instruction is further evidenced by his relationship, and subsequent endorsement, of an individual who has an organization whose sole purpose is to advocate sexual relationships between grown men and adolescents. This activity is not one, and can never be one, in which the U.S. Department of Education promotes either by omission, through action or commission through silence. The silence of this Administration with regards to Kevin Jennings cannot stand. He must be fired and must be fired today. There are plenty of knowledgeable, honorable, respected and forceful advocates of your policies who could ably fill this job. Kevin Jennings is not that person, has never been that person and must not stay that person. I respectfully request you remove him today and then submit an appropriate nomination to the U.S. Senate for his replacement. With kinds regards, Michael C. Burgess. [From the Washington Times, Dec. 9, 2009] Obama's Risky-Sex Czar Warning: This editorial includes discussion of topics that are sexually graphic. Under usual circumstances, we would never entertain these subjects or the rancid language involved. In this case, however, a very unusual exception must be made because the issues are central to the background of a senior presidential appointee at the U.S. Department of Education who is in a position to influence how and what our children are taught in our nation's schools. Thus far, out of fear or squeamishness, there has been public hesitance to examine closely the beliefs of this individual because many are afraid even to touch the risky content. Our scruples cannot be used against us when traditional moral precepts need to be defended. Simply, the deep level of depravity involved in this subject cannot be portrayed without providing a couple of examples to illustrate the inappropriate content. Please do not read any further if you will be offended by sexually graphic language. The Obama administration is stonewalling serious inquiries about sexual filth propagated by a senior presidential appointee who is responsible for promoting and implementing federal education policy. Democrats clearly are terrified of ruffling the feathers of their activist homosexual supporters, who are an influential part of the Democratic party's base. This scandal, however, is not merely about homosexual behavior; it is about promoting sex between children and adults--and it's time for President Obama to make clear that abetting such illegal perversion has no place in his administration. It is curious why White House officials and Education Secretary Arne Duncan believe it's worth it politically to continue taking arrows for defending Kevin Jennings, who is Mr. Obama's controversial ``safe schools czar.'' The evidence suggesting he is unfit to serve as a senior presidential appointee is startling and plentiful. It was revealed this week that Mr. Jennings was involved in promoting a reading list for children 13 years old or older that made the most explicit sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable. This brought up anew Mr. Jennings' past controversies, such as his seeming encouragement of sex between one of his high school students and a much older man as well as his praise for Harry Hay, a notorious supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association. But there is more. There are shocking new revelations this week of tape recordings from a youth conference involving 14- year-old students. The conference, billed as a forum to encourage tolerance of homosexuality, was sponsored by Mr. Jennings' organization and was held at Tufts University in March 2000. Mr. Jennings was executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) from its founding in 1995 until August 2008. The conference sessions appear to have had less to do with promoting tolerance and more to do with teaching children how to engage in sex. Andrew Breitbart's Biggovernment.com provides tapes of some of the sessions. Describing the subject matter as smut would be putting it lightly. The conference discussions were very graphic and cannot be relayed in full detail in a family newspaper. A few examples are sufficient to describe the depravity of the subject matter. During one session about oral sex, a presenter asked the 14-year-old students: ``Spit or swallow? Is it rude?'' In another session, the 14-year- olds are taught about a gross practice called ``fisting,'' in which ``the man leading the discussion position[ed] his hand and show[ed] 14-year-olds how to insert their entire hand into the rectum of their sex partner.'' Teaching children sexual techniques is simply not appropriate. Unfortunately, it is part of a consistent pattern by some homosexual activists to promote underage homosexuality while pretending that their mission is simply to promote tolerance for so-called alternative lifestyles. It is outrageous that someone involved in this scandal is being paid by the taxpayers to serve in a high-powered position at the Education Department, of all places. At some point, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Jennings, Obama administration spokesmen and the president himself are going to have to start answering questions about all this. Refusing to do so won't make the issue go away.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Barbara Dee Bradford. After 21 years, Barbie, as she is warmly known by friends and coworkers, is retiring from her post as Director of the Learning Center at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Barbie began her career at UNT in 1988 as a counselor in the Counseling and Testing Center, and has spent her entire career at UNT dedicated to student success and learning. In 1998 she created the Learning Center and has served as its only Director. Under her leadership, the Center has grown from an office with only one full-time employee and a handful of student workers to one that has seven full- time staff, several graduate assistants, and hundreds of student workers. Barbie implemented Supplemental Instruction at UNT, a program where students who have recently completed a course return in future semesters and serve as study session tutors for those in the class. This successful program has helped improve the grades of thousands of students at UNT. Today, the Volunteer Tutor program thrives, and hundreds of students volunteer their time to assist other students. Barbie has devoted time, even on weekends, to assist parents with their child's transition to UNT. For ten years, she has delivered a presentation to parents at each summer orientation session. Barbie uses personal examples to help parents feel at ease. Over the years, she has received numerous phone calls from parents and had students show up on her door. In all those situations, Barbie has welcomed the opportunity to be of assistance to the student, and the family. Barbie has mentored hundreds of students, graduate students and staff members. Whether the students worked in her office or appeared at her door, she always has taken time to provide guidance and lend an ear. All who have worked for Barbie hold her in the highest regard. Barbie is a walking example of a lifelong learner and exemplifies that to all with whom she comes in contact, which has allowed her to positively influence the lives of thousands of students over her 21 years at UNT. As a proud alumnus, I appreciate her dedication in support of their academic success as they build the foundations for their future. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today and recognize Barbie Bradford for her years of dedication and selfless service to the University of North Texas. I am proud to represent her and UNT in the United States Congress.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I stand today to recognize and congratulate St. Peter Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Texas, as they celebrate the groundbreaking for their first facility. St. Peter Lutheran Church was founded in September of 2006, when a small group of 37 families from Roanoke and surrounding cities in North Texas decided to plant a new church in their rapidly growing community. The congregation met under the guidance of Pastor Robert Balduc in a school gym, and later in the Roanoke Recreation Center. The church's small beginnings did not stop them from reaching out to the community. Members of St. Peter Lutheran Church actively contribute to their community in many ways, such as participating in Habitat for Humanity, providing free games and activities for local children at city events, holding food and supply drives for local food pantries, among countless other acts of generosity. The church even has its own barbequeing team--the Holy Smokers--who use their grilling and smoking talents to serve others. The church now encompasses over 100 families, and is still growing. Their rapidly increasing size has led them to purchase 11 acres of land in Roanoke, where they will break ground on Sunday, December 6, 2009, and build their first multi-use church facility. Future plans also include a school, Concordia Academy, which will one day serve and educate children throughout North Texas. Madam Speaker, St. Peter Lutheran Church is a shining light in Roanoke, Texas. I am extremely proud to represent Pastor Balduc and the entire church congregation in the 26th Congressional District. Their service to the community is valued and appreciated, and I look forward to watching the church grow, and observing the positive impact they will continue to have in North Texas.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for leading this important discussion tonight because it is critical that people understand not only what is at stake but what realistically is possible. The programs that are talked about in the bill that was passed here late on Saturday night by the slimmest of margins, none of those programs are going to be available the day after the bill is signed, or the day after the day after the bill is signed. In fact, it is going to take time to construct this massive new government entitlement program/ insurance program. And as a consequence, it will be some 4 years before those programs are available to help the people that were in the 4 percent margin of folks who are uninsured. Now, the gentleman talked about the health benefit czar, whatever we are going to call that person that is yet to be named, and we don't know what that office will do, what their responsibilities will be, but here is what we do know. We do know we passed a 2,000-page bill and it goes over to the appropriate Federal agencies and all of the rulemaking starts. Think back to 1996 when this Congress passed a bill called HIPAA, and HIPAA was supposed to give us portability in health insurance. And it was a good thing. People needed to have portability in health insurance. But a little paragraph in the bill that required some privacy provisions to be included in the bill turned into, what, 10,000 pages in the Federal Register, and every doctor's office across the land in early 2000 had to start complying with these. You know, you go to the doctor's office now and the first thing you've got to do is sign three forms. You've got to sign them every time you go in, and they are the HIPAA disclosure forms. Congress, your Congress, required your doctor to do that. And to be perfectly honest, doctors' offices were never the problem with disclosure of sensitive information in the first place. But we are the recipients of that. Okay. Now we've got a 2,000-page bill. It is going to go over to the Department of Health and Human Services, and all of the rules and regulation are going to be written regarding that 2,000-page bill. Remember a single paragraph led to thousands of pages in the Federal Register and thousands of comments on the rule-making. Well, we do have a Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Sebelius. Part of that agency that will be charged with writing these rules and regulations is the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We do not have an administrator in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS has lacked an administrator since a week before inauguration when the previous administrator who was under the Bush administration said thank you very much and left. And that agency has been without an administrator since that time. Now, why is that important? Because this is the individual who is going to have to sift through all of the legislative language in this bill, match it up with the Social Security Act and Medicare Act, put all of these things together and write the rules and regulations under which your doctor's office will have to practice. And we don't even know who that individual is. It may be someone quite competent. It may be someone who is just a political appointee. We don't know, and therein is the problem. Now, the gentleman has done a very eloquent job of talking about the 4 percent of the people that we actually likely set out to help when we started down this road. And I'm sure the gentleman heard it in Iowa during the summer. I certainly heard it in north Texas in my town halls. At that time it was only a 1,000-page bill. I can only imagine what they're saying about a 2,000-page bill. We don't want a 1,000-page bill to take care of a problem that actually could be taken care of with simple reform within the insurance industry. The problem that needed to be corrected was the individual who had a tough medical diagnosis, a preexisting condition, who loses their job, loses their insurance, doesn't get coverage within the appropriate timeframe and therefore is excluded from coverage for time immemorial because of this tough medical diagnosis. Someone my age loses their job, has a heart attack, their insurance coverage lapses. They're going to have a tough time getting back in. These are the people we heard from during the summer. Yes, we didn't want the Democrats' bill, but we do need some help for this segment of population who falls into that category. They want insurance. They would even be willing to pay a little more for the insurance because they recognize their human vulnerability is now on display. Yet they cannot find it at any price. And some of the things that we could have talked about, had we been reasonable about this, had we been truly bipartisan about this, is we could have talked about what type of insurance reform. And, in fact, the President, when he stood here before the House of Representatives in September acknowledging that it's going to be 4 years before any of this stuff becomes available, he referenced John McCain's discussion during the campaign a year ago where perhaps something like an upper- limits policy or a high-risk policy would possibly bridge that gap during those few years until their new policies are available. Well, I would just simply submit if we would have spent the effort working on that bridge policy, if you will, maybe the rest of this stuff would not have been necessary. There are ways to get at this, with high-risk pools, with reinsurance, subsidize those States that are willing to participate in that. The Congressional Budget Office estimated it would cost $20 billion over the 10-year budgetary cycle in order to beef up those high-risk plans to be able to accommodate those individuals who are involved, even make it a little more generous than that if you want. For heaven's sakes, $20 billion over 10 years is a far sight less than a trillion-plus dollars over that same 10-year interval. And I would suggest that this Congress, if they were willing to pass the liability reform the gentleman referenced, save that $54 billion that the Congressional Budget Office said we could save, and put all of that money toward helping those people with preexisting conditions, we could go a long way towards solving these problems.

Mr. BURGESS. Well, in fact, that is a fairly narrow window that they're looking at. They're only looking at in the Federal system Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, Indian Health Service. The Federal Government pays about 50 cents out of every health care dollar that's spent in this country; so in effect you could double that number to $100 billion that you would save over all persons who are insured, covered, cash customers, and those covered by Federal programs. In Texas we did pass significant liability reforms back in 2003. It has made a substantial difference in Texas. I will just tell you from the standpoint of a practicing OB/GYN doctor, in 1999 the cost of a policy for a million dollars of liability coverage in the Dallas/Fort Worth market was around $25,000. It had more than doubled to $57,000 by 2002. It is back down now to $35,000 in the years since this bill was passed. So there is an immediate substantial benefit in premiums, but the big savings come in the backing out of defensive medicine that is practiced.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Last spring and summer, as we got into this debate, America's doctors were pretty clear of what they wanted to see if Congress was going to undertake health care reform. They wanted to see some relief in the medical justice system. They wanted to see some medical liability reform. They desperately needed a fix to the payment formula in Medicare that shows reductions in Medicare reimbursement rates every year for as far as the eye could see, and they wanted a little help with antitrust relief. After all, if we're going to ask our doctors to be our partners in this brave new world of health care reform, the least we could do is let them talk amongst themselves about the best way to deliver high-quality care at low cost. Well, what happened? Antitrust; not in this bill. SGR; we'll take that up at some point in the future. Medical liability; a smidgeon of medical liability reform in this bill, but nothing compared to what doctors actually need. In the last 6 years, Texas has done what this country needs to realize would be the way forward in medical liability reform. Caps on noneconomic damages have worked in the State of Texas. You don't have to take my word for it. There are almost 15,000 new physicians that have come to the State of Texas since 2003 when this was enacted. There are 82 counties that now have doctors which did not have them before. Emergency room services and OB services particularly have seen significant increases since Texas passed their sensible liability reform.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Well, if the gentleman will yield for a moment on that point, minimally invasive surgery has changed the face of operations like hysterectomy operations, like a cholecystectomy, removal of the gall bladder. I am sure you remember, I remember when I was in medical school and a resident, this large incision that would go underneath the person's rib cage. They would be in the hospital 7 days; not because their gall bladder surgery was that traumatic, it was the incision that was traumatic. Now it can be done laparoscopically through two or three 1-centimeter incisions. That patient is out of the hospital the next day, or sometimes even the same day if it is done in a surgery center, and that has vastly decreased the cost of hospitalization for that procedure and that has vastly decreased the cost of the time lost from work for people in recovery for operations like gall bladder removal and hysterectomy. I yield back.

Mr. BURGESS. If the gentleman would yield on one point, it is hard to see if we make health care more expensive that we are going to make it more affordable. I yield back my time.

Mr. BURGESS. If the gentleman would yield, you bring up a great point about tobacco. One of the problems with this bill is you are not allowed to rate on tobacco use. In fact, there will be only 2 ratings bands, based on age. Health savings accounts--I am a big believer. I have had a medical savings account since 1996. I skipped for a few years when I came up here, and we didn't have them available. Now I have it established again, and it is working very, very well. But the problem is, that will not be a qualified plan. It will not meet the minimum benefit standards under the new health care commissar that is going to be developed by this bill that we have before us. So the very thing that may lead to a reduction in costs, we are not going to be allowed to have. Now, since the gentleman disagreed with me, I do feel obligated to point out that it is not that Republicans don't have alternatives or shouldn't have alternatives. I individually have 20 bills dealing with health care under my name and have cosponsored at least 30 additional bills. There are a plethora of bills out there with Republican names that do everything from fix the problems that doctors have with the sustainable growth rate formula in Medicare to liability reform. They are not part of this bill. They are not part of the discussion this week. What is the discussion this week is that monstrosity behind the gentleman. It is our obligation, it is our obligation to our patients and to our profession to kill this bill so we can then begin to talk about some of the alternatives that are rational, because it makes no sense to preclude a wellness program simply because it doesn't fit into some chairman's idea of what a health care bill should look like, some chairman who might have been here since 1974, by the way. That is the problem we have before us this week, is this bill. After we get rid of this bill, after we get past this bill, yes, we can begin to talk about those things to provide benefit to the American people, help to the American people who actually need it. You said it earlier in this hour. It is that 8 to 10 million people that have a preexisting condition. If we could make their problem go away, and we can, the Congressional Budget Office estimates between $8 billion and $20 billion over 10 years. That is a far cry from $1 trillion. We could make that problem go away with State reinsurance programs and State high-risk pools. We have that power within our hands. Some people may argue that constitutionally we don't have that power, but it would be a darn sight better than what we are talking about doing tonight. Mandates have no place in a free society. There was no mandate that required me to buy an iPod, yet everyone in the country has an iPod or iPhone today because it is a great product, and everyone wants one. That is what we should be looking at in our insurance policies, how to create products that people actually want, not making someone take a policy that the insurance company says I can make money selling. That is where we will go with mandates.

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for yielding. I was watching the events of this Special Order hour as you all were discussing it earlier. I felt like I needed to come over and talk for just a minute about words we heard on the floor of this House the middle of September that this bill could be passed, and it would be entirely paid for, not one dime would be added to the deficit. The American people look at this, whatever the figure is, 890 billion, 1.055 trillion, 1.4 trillion, whatever the number is, and they know a statement that it will not add one dime to the deficit is, on its face, preposterous. No one believes that. Yet if we are asking people to believe that statement, what else is hidden in this bill that we are not telling you, because again, clearly, the American people do not believe us on that. The gentleman talked about how we pay for it. Some significant cuts to the Medicare program in order to fund a new entitlement; a lot of people have difficulty with that. But what about the taxes? What about the promise that there will be no taxes on individuals in the middle class, no taxes on individuals who earn less than $250,000 a year? And yet, we are going put a tax on so-called Cadillac insurance premiums. We are going to put a tax on medical devices. I did a press event this morning at a library where I distributed copies of the bill for people who wanted to read the bill. A woman said, Well, then on my $1,000 insulin pump, am I going to have to pay a 15 percent tax? I said, Well, at some point someone will. She said, Well, how will that be assessed? I said, My understanding is it will be like a sales tax or value added tax. She did some quick math and said, That's a lot of money to add to my already stressed budget trying to cover my medical expenses, because I do have diabetes. Ten percent of people earning under $50,000 a year, 10 percent of the taxes will be paid by people who earn under $50,000 a year. Ninety percent of the taxes are going to be paid by people who earn under $240,000 a year. Clearly, this is a tax on the middle class. That is how it's going to be paid for. I did have some people ask me, Well, if the benefits don't kick in for 4 years, is there perhaps not a way to, if this passes, if no one can stop this and the Speaker gets her way and this bill passes on Thursday or Friday or Saturday, what about, then, since the benefits don't kick in for a while, maybe we can dial it back over the next several years. My concern there is if we already start collecting the taxes for a benefit that is to occur in the future, it may be very, very difficult to indeed dial back the portion of this bill if we are going to--the sensible thing to do would be to hit the pause button, the reset button. Let's sit down and figure out really what the American people want us to do. We heard participatory democracy all the way through the month of August. I know. I was on a listening tour of sorts through my town halls in my district. Some people were quite vociferous about what they felt about this bill, both pro and con. But I felt that, after listening to her this summer, that we would come back here to Congress and perhaps sit down and try to rethink where we were. It was almost as if the Democratic leadership said that didn't happen, it didn't matter. It was some sort of national fugue state. This was all an illusion this August. People really weren't upset with the bill. They just wanted it so badly that you misinterpreted their passion because they want the government to control. They want the government to take over the health care system in this country. One of the other things, and I don't think we can underestimate this, is the effect that this bill will have on jobs and job creation. More people are concerned about jobs in this country than they are about health care right now by a factor of 4 to 1. We are going to go over 10 percent, in all likelihood, on Friday when the jobs report comes up from the Department of Labor, will be the first double-digit unemployment in this country in decades. People are concerned about jobs; yet, at the same time, our small business people, the people that we, as politicians, say they are the backbone of the economy of America, they are the engine that drives economic growth, they are scared to death of what we are going to do to them in the coming months. They are scared of this health care bill. They are scared of an 8 percent payroll tax that may be levied upon them. They are scared of what we are going to do in cap-and-trade, and they are scared of what we are going to do in financial regulation, not to mention the fact that there are significant tax increases just around the corner when the tax laws of 2001 and 2003 expire. This is a debate that we must keep at a fever pitch all week. This is the opportunity. Now is the time to aggressively document and talk about what is in this bill. Doesn't really matter so much about what I think, what I would do if I was in charge. Right now, the task before us is to lay out to the American people what is in this bill, let them see for themselves whether they like it or not. Then, Madam Speaker, the American people need to tell us. Quite honestly they will have a chance on Thursday at noon, the west front of the Capitol, the people will have an opportunity to speak up about this bill.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, on January 31, 2008, during the Democratic Presidential primary, President Obama said during the campaign, ``That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting these negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process.'' Not negotiating behind closed doors. It has now been over 5 months since the White House announced numerous deals with major stakeholders in the health care debate. Little to no details of these negotiations have been released by the White House. Despite the assertion of then-candidate Obama's promise to make all health care reform negotiations public, we have very few details on exactly what was agreed to in this highly publicized, yet guardedly secret, negotiations. How can the United States Congress be diligent in creating the policy before us without these crucial details surrounding these deals? We must learn what the negotiations mean for the millions of concerned Americans. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, September 30, 2009. President Barack Obama, The White House, Washington, DC Dear Mr. President, I write you once again on the topic of health care reform. As you know, Democrat leaders in the House of Representatives are currently working to merge the three committee bills. Meanwhile, the two Senate products are waiting to be merged pending completion of the Senate Finance Committee's mark-up. I have closely followed the health care debate for months, making note of actions by all parties involved, including the House, Senate, White House, advocate groups, and the health care industry. These reforms have wide-reaching implications, and you have stressed the importance of conducting business in public so that the American people are aware and involved in the process. In fact, during a Democratic Presidential primary debate on January 31, 2008, you said: ``That's what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process.'' It has now been over four months since the White House announced numerous deals with major stakeholders in the health care debate to save upwards of $2 trillion in the health care system. Little to no details regarding the negotiations have been released, and recent actions and press reports have reminded me of the importance of openness and transparency throughout the legislative process. Roll Call reports today that negotiators working in the House to merge the three committee bills plan to trim the cost of the legislation by roughly $200 billion. I wonder what programs or services are being cut, who will be affected, and how these cuts are being decided. In the Senate Finance Committee's mark-up, Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fl) introduced an amendment regarding drug prices in Medicare and Medicaid. During the debate on the amendment, Senator Tom Carper (D-Del), while arguing against the amendment, said ``Whether you like PhRMA or not, we have a deal,'' referring to the deal PhRMA cut with the White House earlier this year. In addition, within the Senate Finance Committee plan is a commission to slow the growth of Medicare spending, most likely through changes to reimbursement policy. However, hospitals would be exempt from this commission because, according to CongressDaily, ``they already negotiated a cost cutting agreement'' with the White House. Despite your promise to make all health care reform negotiations in public, we still have very few details on what exactly was agreed to during these highly publicized negotiations. In fact, even the stakeholders involved have, at times, seemed at odds with what was actually agreed to. But the one thing we all know is that, through press statements, many deals were made. Unfortunately, even where brief descriptions of policy goals are available, details on achieving these goals are absent, a point made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). I am compelled to ask--how could Congress have done its due diligence in creating the policy before us without crucial details surrounding these deals? Were the votes we have seen in the Senate Finance Committee as of late a direct result of these backroom negotiations? Will CBO be able to actually score any of these deals to apply those cost savings to legislation? Were these negotiations in the best interests of patients? Having little to no information, I cannot judge. However, this begs even more questions. Is Congress enacting the best policy reforms for Americans, or are certain changes being made or not made because of the negotiations orchestrated by the White House? Will smaller stakeholders suffer more from our policy choices because of what larger groups may have negotiated behind closed doors? Mr. President, I do not write this letter to chide you for engaging in what I consider the most pressing debate before Congress. I applaud you for your leadership in compelling Congress to act. In order to fully understand the policy choices before us, though, we need to know what took place earlier this year during these meetings at the White House. You have made it very clear that you value transparency and have sought to make your Administration stand out in this regard. As a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, so do I. The last thing I would want to see is a formal investigation of these meetings. Thus, I formally request full disclosure by the White House in the following areas regarding all meetings with health care stakeholders occurring earlier this year on the topic of securing an agreement on health reform legislation, efforts to pay for any such legislation, and undertakings to bend the out year cost curve: 1. A list of all agreements entered into, in writing or in principle, between any and all individuals associated with the White House and any and all individuals, groups, associations, companies or entities who are stakeholders in health care reform, as well as the nature, sum and substance of the agreements; and, 2. The name of any and all individuals associated with the White House who participated in the decision-making process during these negotiations, and the names, dates and titles of meetings they participated in regarding negotiations with the aforementioned entities in question one; and, 3. The names of any and all individuals, groups, associations, companies or entities who requested a meeting with the White House regarding health care reform who were denied a meeting. In our efforts to improve access to health care services, the American people expect us to act in their best interests, rather than protecting business interests of those who are interested in currying favor in Washington, DC. If these health related stakeholders have made concessions to Washington politicians without asking anything in exchange for the patients they serve, Congress and, more importantly, the American public deserve to know. Conversely, if they sought out protections for industry-specific policies, we need to know that as well. We must learn what these negotiations mean for the millions of concerned Americans. How they will be better served, including having affordable health coverage and access to the providers they need? These negotiations may have produced consensus on policy changes that are proper and needed, but Congress will never know for sure that we are acting in our constituents' best interests until all the facts are known. I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you at your earliest convenience on this matter. Should your staff have any questions about this request please contact me or my Legislative Director J.P. Paluskiewicz at my Washington, D.C. office. Sincerely, Michael C. Burgess, M.D., Member of Congress.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the partnership between the City of Flower Mound and the Flower Mound Chamber of Commerce, and to honor the businesses that reside there. I am proud and grateful to be given the opportunity to represent the strong communities and businesses of north Texas. This pride, however, comes from the energy, creativity and commitment by the individuals within these neighborhoods and institutions that contribute to the growth and opportunity we are blessed to receive in calling this area home. It's because of cities like Flower Mound and businesses like the ones present tonight that north Texas is able to claim the rare title of being one of the few areas that has retained its economic health in this rough economic climate. The forward-thinking partnership between the city of Flower Mound and the Chamber of Commerce has produced an ideal environment for business prosperity that has remained strong, that sustains the community. That is certainly something to be proud of. Flower Mound has created, in essence, a haven for new businesses and an environment where small and large businesses alike can take root, grow, and thrive. You are a bright spot in north Texas, and a true example of excellence for the rest of the nation. I. is with great pride that I stand here tonight to join in celebrating the prosperity of Flower Mound. I wish you--the local leadership, the businesses, and the residents--all the best, and let me say that it is my very distinct honor to represent you in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I actually didn't intend to come over here talking about HSAs. But having initiated the discussion, I do want to just mention that the HSA is a way to save significantly on the premium. I currently have an HSA. It costs me about half of what a PPO insurance cost last year. Most importantly, in addition to an insurance card, I also have a debit card, and that debit card is something I can use to pay for expenses that occur throughout the year, and as Dr. Gingrey pointed out, the money in that account does roll over at the end of the year. It does not go away if it is not used at the end of the year. You know, earlier today, we had many people come down to the floor of the House and speak on the issue of health care reform. One of the criticisms that was leveled at Republicans was that we were doing nothing but obstructing the process and that we had no ideas of our own. I did feel obligated to just touch on that point for a moment. Let's be honest. We do not have the numbers. We do not have the organization. There is no way that the Republicans in this body can obstruct anything that the Democrats wish to do. They have a 40-seat majority in the House. They have all kinds of ways of getting to 218, and really, because they are the majority party, it is up to them to do it. True, they don't have much Republican support, but tell me: If you have an excess of 40 votes and if you can't pass your own bill, it tells you that something may be wrong with the bill, that it's not something wrong with Republicans. Something is wrong with the bill the Democrats have crafted. More to the point, what makes a bill bipartisan? Is it because you can pick off a couple of Republicans at the final vote and can record a couple of Republican ``yeas'' in the final tally as the vote is passed? No. What makes a bill bipartisan is inviting the minority party in at the beginning and encouraging them to have their ideas as well as the ideas from the majority. That's exactly what didn't happen through this discussion. In November, I reached out to the transition team. I told them I didn't leave a 25-year medical practice to sit on the sidelines while we discussed health care. I was thanked very much for my interest. Never heard back. I reached out to the chairman of my committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Again, I reiterated that I did not give up a career to sit on the sidelines. Again, no response from the committee. There was ample opportunity early in the year, as these bills were being crafted, to bring members of the minority party in and to get their ideas on paper, on record. Maybe there was room for some horse trading. Who knows? The problem is we never tried. Then 5 weeks ago on the floor of this House, when the President came and spoke to us--and this is the same President who said he would meet with Hugo Chavez and with Ahmadinejad without preconditions but who won't meet with congressional Republicans without preconditions. This is the same individual who, as a candidate in 2004, said there are not just blue States and red States. There is the United States. This individual was elevated in the eyes of the Nation as someone who could rise beyond partisanship. Yet we see a city today that is absolutely immobile because of partisanship. The fact of the matter is they've got the votes. They've got the votes on their side in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. They have a 60-vote majority in the Senate. There is nothing they can't pass if they want to. Please do not attribute the lack of passage of this bill to Republican obstruction. Again, I'd like to take credit for it, but the fact is we don't have the numbers. The American people deserve a great deal of credit because, during the month of August, they spoke up and gave many Members pause, and caused them to reflect on where we were going with this bill. Unfortunately, today, it's almost as if August did not happen, because we're going full speed ahead with the direction they intended to go in the first place. Never mind what we heard or saw during the month of August. I know the time is tight. I'll yield back to the gentleman the balance of my time.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, in August, in addition to the town halls in my district, I hosted two roundtables with small- and medium-sized businesses in North Texas. Parts of health care reform are going to affect business, like it or not. They are going to see a tax increase, a new employer mandate, and penalties for noncompliance. The North Texas business representatives said they needed more tools, not more regulation, to make health care affordable for small and medium businesses. With regard to an employer mandate, one panelist explained this would add to the burden during what are arguably tough economic times. An individual who was the health benefits manager at a large manufacturing plant in Denton said, Our employees are already very well taken care of without mandates. If more gets mandated on us, then we are going to have to look at what we will cut, what we are going to take away in order to be competitive. Another individual said, If we had to furnish health insurance, if it is mandated on us, we just simply will not be able to afford to do so. We will have to cut jobs. I promised to take the lessons learned back to Washington, D.C., as we continue to work on health care reform. Most Americans today are actually concerned more about jobs and the economy than the current health care proposals that we are debating here in Congress. Washington should be working to help businesses create jobs, not writing penalties for those who are trying to provide employment.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I think you are accurate in your assessment. I spent the weekend talking to a good number of doctors back in Texas, and I will tell you there is a great deal of concern, a good deal of anxiety on the part of America's physicians as they watch us go through this process and recognize that at the end of the day their two biggest problems are no closer to being solved than they were when the President came to the American Medical Association and spoke to them in June of this past year. It is, the gentleman mentioned, the monetary issues involved with liability reform. Those are truly significant, but there is no way to calculate the emotional toil, the emotional wear and tear that it takes on physicians and their families as they go through every episode of litigation. It is an unfortunate by-product of our system and, again, it is something where the Nation's doctors thought if nothing else, we'll give up a lot of our freedom, we'll give up a lot of our autonomy, but at least we'll have these two problems solved. It looks like at the end of the day they get to give up all that autonomy and all that freedom, and their problems are no closer to being solved than they were when we started this process.

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. You know, I was on a conference call a little while ago when you started, and I saw you going through those charts. They do look terribly complex, and lest anyone who is watching your discussion of those charts thinks that, well, perhaps the good gentleman from Iowa is just engaged in a little political hyperbole or perhaps that he is overstating the case for the purposes of discussion, when you look at the bill, H.R. 3200, there are a lot of words contained in here. We had this bill in my Committee on Energy and Commerce. It was also debated and voted on in the Committee on Ways and Means and in the Committee on Education and Labor. We all had the same bill. We all ended up with a little bit different product at the end. Well, this bill ended up being about 1,000 pages in my committee, so you could just imagine, with 1,000 pages, there is room for lots of twists and turns and rabbit runs and dead ends, as the gentleman from Iowa so eloquently expressed. That was July 31, and here we are near the end of October. So we have volume 1 and volume 2 of the same bill. I would submit that the gentleman, if anything, is guilty of, perhaps, not having a graph that's complicated enough, because this bill has expanded beyond anyone's reasonable belief of what this bill should be. Now, Madam Speaker, I would submit to you that 1,000-page bills scare people, and they scare people for a good reason. They scared people when we were in charge, and they scare people now. They scare people because they don't think we're going to read this. They don't think we're going to take this insurance ourselves. They know that their taxes are going to go up and that their freedoms are going to go down. So 1,000-page bills scare people. We all agree that something needs to be done. Reform is necessary. It would be so straightforward to pick those things that need attention, to work on those problems, to deliver for the American people, and not to scare them so close to Halloween with now a 2,000- page bill--or actually, it turns out to be about 2,400 pages. I realize parts of this are duplicative and that parts of this are even contradictory because no one has really gone through and has sorted out what Ways and Means did and what Energy and Commerce did. It's just kind of a merged product that we have now. It really doesn't matter because this bill that was delivered to me on Friday afternoon really could go straight into the round file. The actual bill is being written in the Speaker's rooms even as we speak. I suspect the gnomes who work on bills are over there, crafting away on the legislative language, probably with heavy doses of input from down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Certainly, if you looked around the room, I'll bet you wouldn't find any Republicans, and I'll bet you wouldn't even find any backbench Democrats. Isn't it ironic that the President, who stood on the floor of this House and who said he'd be open and straightforward with the American people and who said that all of these processes would be aboveboard--in the daylight, on C-SPAN--has this all being conducted in the dark in the Speaker's office? The doors are closed and locked. Mr. King is not allowed in the room. I'm not allowed in the room. No Republicans are in the room. Again, I rather suspect many of the rank-and-file Democrats are not allowed in the room as well. What will happen now is this bill, which will be written in the Speaker's office, will come to us at some point. They have graciously consented 72 hours for us to read the bill. Will it be this big? I don't know. It certainly could be. It was 1,000 pages when it left our committee. It was 1,500 pages when it left the Senate committee. It's not likely that it has diminished in size with all of these people working on it. We have 72 hours to review the bill. Madam Speaker, the people of America will have 72 hours with the bill up on Thomas to review what's in there. Then we'll vote. We'll vote, and it will be a vote we will cast not just to affect the rest of health care in the rest of our natural lifetimes but in the rest of our children's natural lifetimes and in the lifetimes of our children's children. That is the implication of what is contained herein. The American people don't trust us with a 1,000-page bill. They don't trust us with a 2,000-page bill, but there are some things they want fixed. Isn't it ironic we've got over 50 pages in this bill which are dealing with the types of language services you must offer in hospitals and in doctors' offices, but there is not a single word about liability reform? Yet the Congressional Budget Office, in a letter to Orrin Hatch last week--or in a letter to a member of the other body last week--said that we could save $54 billion if we would enact the right kind of liability reform. Why wouldn't we do that? We also had the event last week where the Nation's doctors were told, Sorry, we can't help you. You're going to get some bad pay cuts over the next 10 years, but there's just nothing we can do to stop it because we don't have the money to do so. Well, why not take that $54 billion? There's also other money we could find in other places. Why not find that money and why not help the doctors rather than say we can't do it? So here we're going to ask our Nation's doctors to be our partners with us as we go through this. They're going to have to live with whatever we pass for the next two or three generations of physicians, and we won't do those two simple things that are so important to the Nation's physicians--liability reform and payment reform in Medicare. It seems so simple. I would just have to ask: Why is that too much trouble with all the king's horses and all the king's men working on this legislation? I yield back to my friend from Iowa.

Mr. BURGESS

Mr. BURGESS. I thank the Speaker for the recognition. I come to the floor tonight to talk about cybersecurity. We all hear about data breaches. They're so common, it seems like you can hardly pick up the newspaper without reading about another occurrence. And unfortunately, the rate at which they're occurring is also increasing. A report in 2009 found that more electronic records were breached in 2008 than in the previous 4 years combined. Almost 10 million United States adults were victims of identity theft in 2008. These are expensive. A 2009 report found that the average cost of a data breach had risen to $202 per customer from last year's $197. Over $600 is lost out of pocket per second to identity fraud, costing consumers and businesses over $52 million a day. Examining some of the sources of the breaches, 29 percent come from government and military, 28 percent are from educational institutions, 22 percent in general business, 13 percent in health care companies, 8 percent in banking, credit card and financial services. Within the government itself, on the May 2008 Federal Security Report Card, the Department of Interior, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Agriculture all scored failing grades. Within the military, the personnel data of tens of thousands of United States soldiers has been downloaded by unauthorized computer users. The data included Social Security numbers, blood type, cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and the names of soldiers' spouses and children. A 2006 Department of Veterans Affairs data breach put almost 30 million veterans' names, addresses and Social Security numbers at risk. Within the retail segment, in 2009, a Miami man was charged in the largest case of computer crime and identity theft ever prosecuted. He, along with two unknown Russian coconspirators, were charged with taking more than 130 million credit card and debit card numbers from late 2006 to early 2008, and they did it as an inside job. They reviewed lists of Fortune 500 companies, decided where to aim; they visited the stores to monitor the payment systems used; they placed sniffer programs on corporate networks; and the programs intercepted credit card transactions in real time and transmitted the numbers to computers in the United States, Netherlands and the Ukraine. An expert said the case provided more evidence that retailers and banks needed to strengthen, needed to harden, industry standards. And finally, educational institutions. As I noted earlier, second only to government and data breaches are educational institutions, probably the most disturbing statistic. In 2007, the number of data security breaches in colleges and universities increased almost two- thirds from 2006, and the number of educational institutions affected increased by almost three-quarters. In August of 2005, hackers stole almost 400,000 electronic records of current, former and prospective students in my congressional district at the University of North Texas. The hackers got away with names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security account numbers and possibly credit card numbers. So what can we do? Of the breaches, 87 percent are considered avoidable if reasonable controls had been in place. Madam Speaker, now is the time for Congress to enact a meaningful national standard to protect commercial and government data. This requires leadership at the top levels of an organization to take an active role in ensuring that their systems are secure. Federal Government subcontractors that have access to sensitive and personally identifiable information should be required to comply with the same standards as Federal agencies and departments. Finally, we must all be involved from the top down and the bottom up. We must encourage leaders of government agencies and private enterprises to actively manage and rigorously protect the data collected and stored within their institutions. We must make this a priority, and Congress should take up and pass House Concurrent Resolution 193. This bipartisan resolution, introduced by myself and Charlie Gonzalez of Texas, expresses the Sense of Congress for the need to pass meaningful legislation to protect commercial and government data from data breaches. There are a lot of disturbing statistics. Let's take action now so that the occurrence, cost and individuals affected do not continue to increase.