Paul Broun

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. All of us are influenced by the people around us, people who come into our lives. Our guest pastor today, Bishop Jerry Hutchins, is one of those warriors who has tremendously influenced me and the people of Athens, Georgia. He is a warrior for righteousness, a warrior to establish the Kingdom here on Earth as our Lord Jesus Christ has charged us to do. He is a great friend; he is a great pastor, and I'm honored to have him here today as our guest pastor.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I don't think the American people can be any clearer. They do not want this government-run health care bill that the President and leaders in this Congress are trying to ram down their throats. The leadership in this House have declared that socialized health care will become law without taking a vote on the actual bill. They are forcing this reconciliation ruse. It's a simple answer. This bill contains billions of new taxes, kills jobs, provides for taxpayer-funded abortions, and places an enormous debt on the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. The fact is, many Democrats in Congress do not like this bill any more than the American people. They will be forced to vote for it with a promise that it will be fixed later, but we all know that this is an empty promise. It is a reconciliation to nowhere. The Democrats may control Washington, but the American people still control this country. I urge all of my colleagues to stand up for your constituents and vote ``no'' on this scam.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Absolutely. You're correct about that. In fact, we're at a tipping point where this country is either going to be totally socialistic--government controls everything in everybody's life from Washington, D.C. And that's what this health care bill is designed and geared to do. Or, we are going to walk away from that and start fighting for freedom and cutting down the size of the Federal Government and let people live their own lives without all the government intrusion. That's exactly where we are. I wanted to bring up another issue to throw this out then: That people should understand that this bill that we are supposedly going to vote upon--I guess we will, the Senate bill, H.R. 3590--the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, says that it will increase premiums for everybody who's buying private insurance today by $2,100 per family. So not only is it going to destroy the Federal budget, it's going to destroy the State's budget, but it's going to destroy everybody's family budget. It's going to be horrendously expensive, and it's also going to destroy jobs. There are going to be over 5 million people that are going to lose their jobs if this bill ever becomes law.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Akin, you made a very astute observation just a moment ago, and our good friend, G.T. Thompson, was just talking about something that I want to come back to, back to your comment that government is the problem. Practicing medicine, I've seen the cost of health care go up for everybody in this country because of government regulations. And let me just tell you about a couple of things; one is HIPAA that G.T. was just talking about. HIPAA was totally unneeded, totally unwarranted. It's a law passed by Congress. It's a regulatory burden that's been placed on the health care system. It has cost billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches it has created. Another bill that was passed, Henry Waxman, Ted Kennedy, Pete Stark, and others, passed a bill a couple of years ago called CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act. I was practicing medicine in a small, rural community down in southwest Georgia. Prior to HIPAA, I had a fully automated lab in my office, quality controlled so that I knew that the results I got out of my lab were absolutely correct so I could give good, quality care to my patients. Congress passed CLIA, which shut my lab and every doctor's lab down in this country. Prior to CLIA, if a patient came in to see me with a red sore throat, running a fever, coughing, runny nose, headache, I would do a CBC, a complete blood count, to see if they had a bacterial infection which needs antibiotics to treat it or a viral infection, which does not need antibiotics. They don't need to spend the money, they don't to be exposed to the antibiotics. I could do that test in 5 minutes. It cost 12 bucks. That's what I charged, $12. HIPAA shut me down so I couldn't do that anymore, and I had to send patients over to the hospital to get the same test or else I just had to arbitrarily give them antibiotics so that they had the huge cost of going to buy those antibiotics. But if they went to the hospital, it took two to three hours and cost $75. For one test, it went from one $12, 5 minutes to $75, two to three hours for one test, for one regulatory burden. Now, you can multiply that over the whole course of the health care system in the United States and you will see that it drove up, markedly, the cost of everybody's insurance in this country. Government is the problem. And getting the regulatory burden off of the health care system, getting the tax burden off of small businesses, we can literally lower the cost of health care and make it affordable for those that don't have the ability to buy it today. So government is the problem, and adding more government to it is going to drive the cost up.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. The Federal Government already sticks its nose in the doctor-patient relationship in Medicare-Medicaid. The insurance company executives do in managed care. But in my medical practice for the last 5 years prior to being elected to Congress, I saw Medicare patients, Medicaid patients, managed care patients, but they just paid me at the time of service. If they couldn't pay me, that was all right too. I've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of my services over my medical career. We hear from Democrats, the President particularly, that the doctors are all in favor of this Obama care bill. I've got a letter here from the Medical Association of Georgia that was just sent to me and other members of the Georgia delegation that says, We oppose the Senate- passed health care bill. They list a number of things that they see as problems with the bill. Among these include undermining the patient-physician relationship and empowering the Federal Government with even greater authority. It's unsustainable from a financial standpoint. The Federal Government will have unprecedented authority to change the Medicare program through these new boards without Congress or the courts or anybody having any oversight to that. It's devoid of proven medical liability reform. They're concerned about many things that aren't in this bill, two of which are: it takes away the right to make a private contract between two individuals, particularly doctor and a patient or any provider and patient. Another one is, there's nothing to stop the sustainable growth rate formula that is killing physicians. It goes back to what you were just saying a few minutes ago, Mr. Akin, where doctors are being underpaid. We have this SGR, sustainable growth rate formula, that needs to be thrown out. But we don't do anything about that. What that's going to do to the American public, and particularly Medicare patients need to understand, if this bill is passed, it's going to be exceedingly difficult for a senior to find a doctor who's going to accept their government insurance. It's already a problem, but it's going to be even much more of a problem and exceedingly difficult because the Federal Government is going to pay a lower rate, and doctors just can't afford to do that.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, thank you, Mr. Akin. You have been a stalwart friend in this fight to try to stop the government overtaking of the health care system. I, as a medical doctor, have been fighting for my patients for their economic well-being for years. I just wanted to come tonight and bring up a few things. The Wall Street Journal yesterday, there was an editorial written, coauthored by Scott Rasmussen, the famous pollster. The title of it is ``Why Obama Can't Move the Health Care Numbers.'' One of the lines in here right at the end is basically giving the bottom line. It says most voters believe the current plan will harm the economy--they are right about that--cost more than projected--absolutely--raise the cost of care--without any shadow of a doubt--and would lead to higher middle class taxes--and that is just undoubtedly a fact. The American people get it. And one thing that the American people do get is that it is going to cost millions of Americans their jobs if this is put into place. I thank you for bringing this forward tonight so we can talk about jobs and health care. I look forward to this discussion as we go along.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, the 111th Congress is starting its 10th week of this session, and what have we done to help the American family and our small business men and women? Absolutely nothing, Madam Speaker. Absolutely nothing. We have not passed any legislation that would create jobs, that would lower health care costs, or jump-start our struggling economy. Instead, congressional leaders continue to show their arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence by ramming through job-killing legislation that will increase taxes and increase uncertainty for families and businesses. Madam Speaker, 15 million Americans are without jobs. Yet Democratic leaders are still forcing their unpopular and unconstitutional health care mandates, and implementing policies that will actually discourage job growth. The American people want Washington to start over. It is time for congressional leaders to listen to the American people and work on real issues and real solutions.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank Mr. Bilbray for yielding. Madam Speaker, the census is one of the few, one of the very few truly constitutional functions that we are engaged in here in Congress. In fact, most of what Congress does today is unconstitutional according to the original intent. I am an original intent constitutionalist. I believe the Federal Government should only be doing 18 things that Article I, section 8 gives us the authority to do, but the census is certainly one of those. National defense, national security, taking care of our veterans and taking care of our folks in the armed services is, under the original intent of the Constitution, the major function of the Federal Government. And I am a very strong believer in that. I am a very strong believer in this government doing only those things that Article I, section 8 gives us the authority to do, and certainly taking the census is one of those. Today we will be taking up a rule in the next series of votes, from what I understand, which is going to be a rule on a jobs bill. Well, jobs and the census certainly have a great correlation because the Census Bureau will be looking at who is unemployed in this country. In fact, that is what they do. Part of their job in the Census Bureau is to try to find out all of the demographic information. A lot of the things that the Census Bureau does, questions that they ask are none of the Census Bureau's or the Federal Government's business, frankly, but certainly I encourage people to fill out the census for the information that is actually required under the Constitution, and no more. But, Madam Speaker, jobs are certainly important, and counting the jobless rate in this country is certainly an important function of knowing where we are. The States do this and the Federal Government takes all of that jobless information, and we are going to get a report just tomorrow about the new jobless rates. Madam Speaker, just last week I was in one of my counties in Georgia in the 10th Congressional District and was talking to the county commission chairman, and in that discussion he was telling me 1 year ago the jobless rate in his county was over 14 percent. I think it was 14.7, if I remember correctly. He said now the jobless rate in their county is down to a little over 10 percent. I said, That's great. Is this because of the stimulus bill that we passed? Is this because new jobs were created in your county? And he said, No, we've had no new jobs in our county, none, absolutely zero. The reason that the unemployment rate is down in our county is because people have just stopped looking for jobs. They're discouraged. They're greatly discouraged. I think this is true all over this country. I think the fall in our jobless rate that we've seen recently, down from above 10 to just slightly below 10, is because people have gotten discouraged and they have just stopped looking. We just passed an extender of unemployment benefits by voice vote. I'm not really happy that we've passed it by voice vote, but we did just last week. And, Madam Speaker, we are going to be taking up this jobs bill that we haven't even seen the text of, we have not even seen the bill. It is going to be brought to the floor of this House just like the stimulus bill was, without even having the opportunity to read these plans. Madam Speaker, I believe that ``jobs'' by this new bill, from everything I can tell, should be an acronym. JOBS should be ``just one big slush fund,'' an acronym for ``just one big slush fund.'' Madam Speaker, I introduced my own JOBS Act. My JOBS Act is an acronym for ``jump-start our business sector.'' That's what we need to be doing; we need to be jump-starting our business sector by getting the tax burden and the regulatory burden off small business. Madam Speaker, small business is the economic engine that pulls along the train of prosperity in America, the small business. We are killing small business through the regulatory burden and the tax burden. We're going to be taking up a health care bill very soon--we don't know when yet--ObamaCare. ObamaCare, Madam Speaker, is going to kill jobs in America. Let me say that again: ObamaCare is going to kill jobs in America. In fact, the bill that the House voted on, the President's own senior economic adviser said it will kill 5.5 million jobs, put 5.5 million Americans out of work if the House bill is put into law. The Senate bill, I haven't seen the data on it, but I'm sure those data are just the same. I'm not sure if it's 5.5 million or 5 million, but the recent proposal by the Obama administration is going to kill jobs, and creating more and more government spending is just creating more government jobs. Madam Speaker, the American people need to decide, are we going to go down one route of socialism, total government control, total government takeover of everything in human endeavor, including health care, or are we going to go down the road of liberty and freedom? And I say liberty and freedom because I consider them to be a little different. Madam Speaker, let me define liberty for you. This is my definition. I don't think you will find it in the dictionary, but I think it's very appropriate. Liberty is freedom bridled by morality. Liberty is freedom bridled by morality. America needs to decide, are we going to be a free people or are we going to be controlled by the Federal Government? Are doctors and patients going to make their health care decisions, or will it be some government bureaucrat in Washington? Just yesterday, the President had a press conference where he said he wanted doctors and patients to make that decision, but his proposal will not do that. His proposal will make a government bureaucrat here in Washington, D.C. tell doctors and patients what kind of care they can get. Madam Speaker, I am a medical doctor; I'm a family practitioner. I have fought for my patients for years as part of my practice, being concerned about their economic well-being. That's what family doctors do. I try to find the best quality care at the lowest price for my patients. That is an integral part of family medicine. But what we are heading towards with this government takeover of health care is going to destroy family medicine and destroy that basic premise of what we do as family doctors. This jobs bill is going to be nothing more than one big slush fund. ``Jobs'' by the new bills that we've seen, at least in the Senate bill--and I think we're going to have something that is very close to that once we see the legislative language--is not going to be anything but one big slush fund, this political payback, and it's going to create jobs in the Federal Government. Now, jobs have been created, certainly, by the failed stimulus package we passed a little over 1 year ago, but let's look back 1 year later at some of the spending low lights of that failed stimulus bill: $67,726 was used by a casino outside Green Bay, Wisconsin. They used a Federal grant to send their employees to learn how to handle confrontations with their customers. This is not constitutional. But once they went there, it was clear to the instructors of this seminar that the casino staff already knew how to handle confrontations with their customers. We've allocated, in Massachusetts, $4 million in Federal stimulus dollars to build a 2.66-mile bike trail that connected the Manhan Bike Trail to the North Hampton and Norwottuck Trails. This would give those folks riding down that bike trail greater access to Taco Bell. I'm sure Taco Bell is very appreciative of the taxpayers' largess. Millions of dollars were sent to Democratic operatives. Two firms run by Mark Penn, current Secretary of State Clinton's former Presidential campaign pollster, were awarded $5.9 million in taxpayer funds from the stimulus bills. I could go on and on and on. We built bike racks in Georgetown with stimulus dollars that were put in place in neighborhoods where the average house value here in Georgetown was over $1 million. I mean, come on. The American public needs to stand up and say ``no'' to this outrageous takeover of their liberty and their freedom. Madam Speaker, a CEO of a steel-making corporation recently said, Companies large and small are saying, I'm not going to do anything until these things, health care and climate legislation, go away or are resolved. That is what's happening, Madam Speaker, in this country. Small businesses, and large, are scared. The American public is frightened. When I did my very first town hall meeting last August in Evans, Georgia, talking about the Pelosi health care bill, I thanked the people for coming and expressing their concern about health care. When I did, after discussing the bill, I thanked the people for coming and showing their concern about health care. The second gentleman that got up in the question and answer period said, Dr. Broun, I would like to disagree with you about something. I said, Sure, what is it? And he said, I want to disagree with you because I'm not concerned about health care; I'm scared and I'm angry. And a scared and angry American public is a power to be reckoned with. He got a tremendous round of applause. I applauded him also. And he is exactly right. The American people need to stand up and say ``no'' to ObamaCare. Let's trash these bills that are on the floor for consideration now and let's start all over again and find something that makes sense. Let's have a jobs bill that makes sense and that really creates jobs. The Republicans are accused by Democratic colleagues and by the President of being a ``party of no.'' Well, we are the ``party of k-n- o-w.'' We do know how to create a strong economy, and that's by getting the tax burden and regulatory burden off the small businesses in America and off the individuals, leaving dollars in their pockets so that they can expand their business and create more jobs and where consumers have more money so that they can expend it on goods and services here in America. We know how to solve the health care financing problem we have in America where health care and drugs are too expensive. We can lower the cost of health care, not raise it as the ObamaCare bills all do. We know how to create jobs. We know how to get this economy back on track. We know how to lower the cost of health care if our ideas are just heard. But the leadership here in this House, the leadership in the Senate and the administration have turned a deaf ear towards commonsense, market-based solutions. And I ask, Madam Speaker, for the American people to stand up and say ``no'' to socialism and say ``yes'' to freedom and liberty. I hope the American people will contact their Congressman and their Senators and say ``no'' to ObamaCare, ``no'' to this jobs bill, ``no'' to more socialism and more government control of their lives, and say ``yes'' to freedom and liberty.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I just wanted to answer your question. Yes, I absolutely support this. Counting the census is a constitutional duty. It's extremely important. Our Founding Fathers knew how important it was to know who people were, where they were, et cetera. So I do support the bill very strongly. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1097 supports the goals and ideals of National Engineers Week, which was celebrated this year February 14th through the 20th. The National Society of Professional Engineers established one of America's oldest professional outreach efforts, National Engineers Week, in 1951, to coincide with President George Washington's birthday. President Washington is considered our Nation's first engineer, notably for his survey work. National Engineers Week is observed by more than 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies, and more than 50 corporations and governing agencies. The purpose of National Engineers Week is to call attention to the contributions to society that engineers make. It is also a time for engineers to emphasize the importance of learning math, science, and technical skills. During this week, a wide range of activities are planned in order to promote interest in engineering and technology fields in the K-12 levels. Some of the events this year included Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, which was held on February 18th. Schools and businesses around the country used this to spark interest and enthusiasm for science and engineering among young women. Also Discover Engineering Family Day in Washington, D.C., occurred on February 20, 2010, at the National Building Museum. After a full day of hands-on activities and amazing demonstrations, kids and their parents went home with a new appreciation for the wonders of engineering. Engineers are a vital part of the American economy. Everywhere you turn, there is evidence of the hard work of an engineer. From designing and constructing cardiac pacemakers to the very form of transportation we use to move us from one place to another, engineering is all around us. I applaud our American engineers and their ingenuity and am pleased to see opportunities such as National Engineers Week that raise awareness and give credit to all of the engineers and their valuable work and contributions to society. I hope that the awareness spreads interest in this rewarding profession to all young people of this Nation. I support the goals and ideals of National Engineers Week, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding a moment. I was just sitting here thinking, I'm sure Mr. Wu's parents are extremely proud of him, and he can tell them that he is engaged in engineering. He's engaged in policy engineering and social engineering here in the U.S. House of Representatives. And I'm proud that he's my friend. We have a great time in Science and Technology because we can work together and can put personalities aside. Mr. Wu has been just a phenomenal friend and member of this committee, and I congratulate him. I'm sure the Wu family is extremely proud of him, even though he's not in technical engineering. He's involved in some kind of engineering here in another form today.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. A lot of kids in this country think that engineers just drive trains, and it's unfortunate that that's true. But this bill, recognizing the work of engineers, is so important. Our service academies have big engineering departments--in all of our military service academies. In my own field of medicine, it's engineers in the medical field that create a lot of the new products that have helped save lives in America and has helped us have the best health care system in the world. Bringing forth the idea of educating the American public to the importance of engineering, I think, is extremely valuable. We need to encourage our kids to consider careers in engineering because we owe, in our economy and in our society, a tremendous amount not only to those engineers that drive the trains around and help deliver the goods that we need throughout the country, but the other engineers that go to great lengths to help improve our lives and have made America the greatest Nation in the world for our innovation and our technology. And it's engineers that we owe just a tremendous debt of gratitude to for what they do for this society. So I'm very eager to see this legislation pass. I'm very proud to be here on the floor managing this bill. And I encourage all of our Members to support this legislation so that young men and women across this Nation can understand the importance of engineering--that all of society can--and will help to develop interest in the engineering field so that young men and women will go into engineering so we can continue with the design and innovation that has made this country great and will continue the greatness of America. With that, I congratulate Mr. Lipinski and my good friend, Dr. Ehlers, for this legislation. I ask all of our colleagues to support this legislation. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I agree wholeheartedly. I wish we could get together on health reform and could get together and do something that's right for the American people. I wish we could get together on an economic stimulus package. Folks on our side would very much like to do so. It is unfortunate that we have such a philosophical divide on many issues. Mr. Wu, I have enjoyed working with you on the Science and Technology Committee. I love your State. I did my internship in Portland, Oregon, and I know that's where you live, in that area. I wish we could get together on many issues. I congratulate you on your leadership and for bringing together a bipartisan bill so that people do get together at least on this issue. I commit to you, as well as to my Democratic colleagues, to work to try to find some commonsense solutions, market-based solutions, to health reform and to getting our economy back on course and other things. I hope that we can work together on these.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3820, the National Hazards Risk Reduction Act of 2010. Whether they come in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, or other phenomena, natural hazards are infrequent and inevitable, and as illustrated by recent events in Haiti and in Chile, can be devastating to life and property. The infrequency of such events is, of course, no excuse for complacency in taking steps to address them. The programs authorized in this legislation are the Federal Government's primary means of advancing science and technology to mitigate the risks of natural hazards. This legislation authorizes two programs--the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, or NEHRP, and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, NWIRP. NEHRP was established in 1977 in response to growing concerns about the threat of damaging earthquakes. It is an agency effort consisting of four participating agencies: firstly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, supporting problem-focused earthquake engineering research and development programs aimed at improving building design codes and construction standards; secondly, the National Science Foundation, NSF, supporting basic research in geoscience, engineering, economic, and social aspects of earthquakes; thirdly, the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, conducting basic and applied Earth science and seismology research; fourthly, FEMA, which supports mitigation, response, education, outreach, and implementation of research results. Similarly, the Windstorm Impact Reduction Program, created in 2004 and modeled after NEHRP, consists of four agencies--NIST, NSF and FEMA, as well as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which funds research in the atmospheric sciences--to better understand, predict, and respond to hurricanes, tornadoes, and other windstorms. The goals and activities of these two programs are clear. From engineering research to improve the structural resiliency of buildings, to the development of model building codes and standards, to recovery and response operations, the opportunities for leveraging earthquake mitigation and windstorm mitigation activities are numerous and substantial. Accordingly, the primary objective of this legislation is to establish an overarching coordination structure to improve communication, to exploit potential synergies, and to ensure that new knowledge developed from both programs can be translated into practice and, eventually, into decreased vulnerabilities. Much progress has been made with the overall authorization levels in this bill, which have been reduced from prior authorization levels. In particular, at three of the four NEHRP agencies, authorized levels have been reduced to more realistic levels that still achieve its goals--a responsible approach given our ominous overall fiscal situation. At the fourth NEHRP agency, USGS, the authorization level has been modestly increased. This reflects a position by the lead authors of the bill that earthquake research should be a priority at USGS. These two programs, if directed to the right priorities and implemented as a true, coordinated interagency effort, can become more effective and can be leveraged many times over. I appreciate the hard work from my fellow members of the committee and staff to balance the need for minimizing the risk of these natural disasters with the fiscal reality of large deficits and debt. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hard work that my good friend from Oregon (Mr. Wu) and my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Smith) have put into this bill. Certainly, as a fiscal conservative, I am concerned about how the agencies within the Federal Government coordinate their activities and coordinate their communications. I congratulate Mr. Wu on trying to bring overarching communications between these four governmental agencies. Just today on Fox and Friends news, they had a seismologist who was predicting just in the very near future a major earthquake which would affect Mr. Wu's home State of Oregon, the State of Washington, as well as the State of California. We've seen a tremendous number of earthquakes recently, and, I think, having the Federal Government agencies coordinate their efforts to try to find some way to communicate between those is absolutely a much needed process. I congratulate Mr. Wu on his efforts to do that. So, having said all of that, Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, but I do just want to congratulate Mr. Wu again on his hard work on this bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you. I believe the American people know what's going on up here, and they're going to say ``no'' to ObamaCare. The American people have already spoken. They're going to say ``no'' to all of this sham, this secrecy, this putting things together with just a few people who won't let Democrats or Republicans be engaged in setting things up. It's all a show. It's a joke. It's a bunch of clowns who are just trying to make something look different than it is. It is nothing but trying to ramrod a health care takeover by the Federal Government, by this administration, and by the leadership. The American people need to stand up and tell their Congressmen, their Senators ``no'' to this sham, ``no'' to ObamaCare--and we can defeat it. I encourage people all over this country to start calling first thing in the morning, Mr. Speaker, every Congressmen in this Congress and every Senator and say ``no'' to this sham, ``no'' to ObamaCare and ``no'' to a government takeover of the health care system. My patients and my patients' families depend upon it--the American people just saying ``no.'' With that, we as Republicans are not the party of N-O; we are the party of K-N-O-W. We can lower the cost of health care if our issues will get on the table and if we can discuss those. I yield back.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. King. I appreciate your yielding. I think the American people need to know that socialism never has worked, never will work, and we've got people here in Washington who are so arrogant, so ignorant, so incompetent that they will think that their brand of socialism is going to work, but it will not. It never has worked. It never will work. I don't care who is trying to force socialism upon our people; it's still not going to work. In fact, the Progressives, as Mr. King was talking about recently, said way back years ago with Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first Progressive and started the Progressive movement here in this country-- the Progressives back a century ago were saying, The best way to socialize America would be to socialize the health care system. They have been trying for 100 years now to socialize the health care system. We have a sham of a meeting tomorrow at the Blair House that the White House has set up. When it was first announced, I was very hopeful that maybe the President had seen the light from everything that the American people had been saying, in that they don't want to have the government take over the health care system. Maybe he was beginning to see the light and reach out a hand to try to work with us as Republicans. I'm a medical doctor, and I was hopeful that my input and even my health care reform bill, H.R. 3889, which is a comprehensive health care and financial reform bill, which totally looks at the private sector, would maybe be considered. No, that's not what the White House wants to do. In fact, they've stacked the deck, actually, the final chapter of this whole sham--of the ruse, of the dog-and-pony show--that's going to occur tomorrow. Now, I've challenged Democrats individually--in fact, many of them-- to introduce a bill that would do four things which are totally market- based, which would give patients many options and which would literally lower the cost of health insurance for every American. Four things. One is to have cross-State purchasing for businesses and individuals so that people could go out and buy their health insurance anywhere in this country. The second thing is to develop an association pool so that people could join an association and could have a choice of one or more multiple products in the way of health insurance that they could buy. The third thing is to stimulate the States to set up high-risk pools to cover those people who are uninsurable. The fourth thing is to have tax fairness for everybody so that everybody could deduct 100 percent of all their health care expenses. We don't have that today. In fact, last night, I led the Doctors Caucus discussion about health care. Just following us, the Democrats came to the floor, and they were talking about a bill that passed the House today. It's a big insurance company protection bill, is actually what it is. Betsy Markey from Colorado, a Democrat, said she has had a small business, and she was remarking, as to her small business in Colorado, that she only has two choices of buying health insurance, and that she would like to see her employees be able to get insurance across State lines. I've had Democrat after Democrat tell me they'd like to introduce this bill, but they said that their leadership would punish them if they were to introduce it and promote it. John Shadegg, Charlie Dent and I, all Republicans from different parts of this country, wrote an op-ed that was published in The Washington Times to challenge Democrats to introduce that bill. If we were to have it on the agenda tomorrow, we could introduce that bill. The Democrats could take control of it and could claim the bill as theirs.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am a medical doctor. I have practiced medicine in Georgia for almost four decades. As a medical doctor with all of that clinical experience--I'm a family doc, a primary care provider. I've examined the proposal that the White House put forward just 2 days ago. Frankly, I've got a diagnosis. I cannot give ObamaCare 2.0 a clean bill of health. What I can diagnose for the American people, though, is this: It's going to make the American people sick--sick in their wallets because it's going to cost more. Health care costs in this country are going to skyrocket because of this ObamaCare proposal that the White House recently put out. As The Wall Street Journal just very aptly said in an editorial this morning: The White House has accomplished a great thing. They took the most onerous pieces of the House bill and the Senate bill and combined them to make the current proposal of ObamaCare that the White House is putting forward even worse than either of those bills. The quality of health care in this country is going to go down. It's going to go down because doctors and patients will no longer be able to make health care decisions. It is going to be made by a Federal bureaucrat here in Washington, D.C.--one that doesn't, in all probability, have any medical training whatsoever. As a health care provider, as a medical doctor today, I see Federal bureaucrats who have no medical experience telling me and my colleagues whether we can put a patient in the hospital or not, whether we can give them a certain medication or not, how long they can stay in the hospital, what kind of care we can give. So there is already control, particularly with the Medicare patients of health care. The problems that Medicare has today are going to be exacerbated, or made worse, by what this administration is doing and by what the leadership in this House and in the Senate are doing. It's not only going to destroy the quality of health care, but it's going to destroy the budgets of States, of local communities and, most especially, of small business and of people who are working class Americans. The reason it is going to do that is that the cost of health care is going up. It's going to go up for everybody. It doesn't contain costs at all. We've been told by the President that this--and in fact, they claim on the White House Web site that this is going to help the Federal deficit by $100 billion. Well, the reason for that is they are going to markedly raise taxes--over half a trillion dollars in increased taxes. Those taxes are going to be on everybody. We hear from the President that he doesn't want to tax anybody but the upper 5 percent of the population, 5 percent of the income, but that's not factual. Everybody is going to be taxed because of the mandates. We have been told over and over again that, if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. Nothing can be further from the truth. Folks, Mr. Speaker, if you like your health insurance, you can't keep it, because even this new ObamaCare 2.0, the second version, has so many mandates and requirements on private health insurance that it appears to me that what our administration is doing is they are putting up a system that is going to force everybody onto the public exchange. Well, the President told us a couple of months ago that he sees the public option--or in the Senate, it's the public option lite. They call it a public exchange. That is what is in the President's current proposal. It's just the first step towards Federal bureaucrats' controlling every health care decision in this country. Federal bureaucrats are going to run the health care system for everybody. The playing field has been laid, in this latest proposal by the President, that it is going to put the squeeze on everybody in this country, not only on the insurance companies--and I'm not a friend of the health insurance companies. I fight them all the time as a health care provider, as a medical doctor--but it's going to put the squeeze on everybody to force them off of private insurance into a public exchange or into a public option. The President told us just a few months ago that his game plan, his purpose of all this, is to try to force everybody into a government- controlled health care system, and that's exactly the direction that he is going. Now, frankly, I think this proposal of a bipartisan meeting on Thursday, the 25th of February, is nothing but a ruse. It's nothing but a dog and pony show either to try to make the Republican Party and Republicans to be a party that has no ideas, which the Democrats over and over claim, or to be an obstructionist party, that just want to be the party of ``no.'' Mr. Speaker, the American public needs to understand the Republican Party is the party of k-n-o-w. We are the party of ``know'' because we know how to lower the cost of health care. We know how to lower the cost of energy, to seek energy exploration here in America so that we're less dependent upon energy sources from countries that hate us and want to destroy us. We are the party of k-n-o-w, ``know,'' because we know how to create jobs. And we do that through stimulating small business, by giving them tax breaks to leave dollars in the hands of small business men and women so that they can hire new employees, so that they can expand their business, so that they can buy new inventory. We're the party of k-n-o-w because we know how to give individuals money in their pockets so they can be good consumers again. Mr. Brady of, Texas in his 5-minute speech, talked about the folks that he talked to just recently there in Texas, and these are small business men and women that said that we need to get the fear out of the system. We need to give assurance. Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight as a medical doctor to try to give some assurance to the American people that there are people here on the Republican side that are fighting against this government takeover of the health care system. Mr. Speaker, the American people have spoken very loudly. A recent poll showed that 70 percent of Americans either want us to scrap the ObamaCare plans, the House plan and the Senate plan, and it would include his new plan because it's the two plans put together, or do nothing. Well, frankly, as a medical doctor, I don't want to do nothing. I have introduced my own health care finance overhaul plan, H.R. 3889, which is a comprehensive overhaul of the health care system. It's a little over 100 pages. It would put patients in charge of health care decisions, along with their doctors. And even Medicare patients. It would stop this government control of health care dollars and would put those decisions back in the hands of the patients and the families where they should be. So Republicans are the party of k-n-o-w, ``know.'' We've tried real hard. But the President has proposed this bipartisan summit. But a senior White House official said Thursday the Democrat negotiators, talking about this summit that is going to occur this Thursday, the Democratic negotiators are resolving final differences in House and Senate health bills. That's what we saw just this week in the Obama administration's proposal that's on the White House Web site right now, 11 pages, no bill, no legislative language. We do not have a bill. All we have are bullet points and ideas that they have now resolved the differences and have one bill that passed last year with virtually no Republican help. Our leadership went over to the White House and said, We'll be glad to come. We'll be glad to try to solve this problem for the American people. Our leadership, our Republican leadership, has offered a hand out to the White House and said to the White House, We want to find some commonsense solutions. It's good for patients, good for small business, good for America. We need to start all over again. Let's find some areas of mutual agreement. Let's find where we can agree on issues, where we can pass something to lower the cost of health care for all Americans. Let's try to find some solutions to help those who are struggling to pay their bills and can't buy health insurance by making it more affordable. Let's find solutions to those who are uninsurable because of preexisting conditions. What was the answer from the White House? The White House's answer was, No, we will not do that. You have to accept our plan. We're going to start there. We will talk about our plan and we will see where we go from there. We're not going to start over. We're not going to try to find some common ground. You have to accept things that you do not like. That was the answer from the White House. Our leadership said, Well, at least do this: Let's take the ramrod out. The ramrod has to do with the rule over on the Senate side that's called ``budget reconciliation,'' and it's a way of trying to ram things through the Senate. The White House says, No, we won't do that. We're going to ram it down the throats of the American people whether they like it or not, and we will do it without your help. We will do it solely with Democrats doing this. And we don't care what you say. We don't care what you believe. We don't care what you bring to the table. We're not going to consider your proposals. We're not going to consider anything that you're offering. We're going to do it our way, like it or lump it. That's what the White House told our leadership. Is that what the American people want? I don't think so. I don't think so at all. That's what the White House has said. Now, that was in a private meeting. They've suggested that we have this open bipartisan meeting televised, and, frankly, I think it's just nothing but political theater to try to force down the throats of the American people a government takeover of health care so that government bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C., make your health care decision if you're out there in America; that's going to tell doctors, patients, and families whether they can get care or not, whether they can have a medication that may be even a lifesaving medication or not. And the cost is going to go up. What's that going to do? Because the costs are going to go up, it's going to hurt small business. It's going to hurt workers. It's going to hurt the middle class. We're told one thing by the President, but the President says one thing and does something else. It's a sad day. It's really a sad day. It's a sad day for my patients. It's a sad day for working men and women in America. It's a sad day for those people who are struggling to make ends meet. It's a sad day for those people who are on government assistance today. It's a sad day for America because I think this dog and pony show, this charade, this ruse that the White House has put together for Thursday is nothing but something to try to pull the wool over Americans' eyes. The good news is, though, America, I don't think, is going to buy it because the American people get it. The President recently said he's just not articulated well enough about ObamaCare to allow the American people to understand how they need this government takeover of the health care system. He didn't call it a government takeover of the health care system. He said ``my plans.'' ``My,'' ``I''--all his focus is on himself. But the American people do get it. They understand very firmly that this is not what they want. This is not the change that they thought they were getting. This is not the hope and change that was promised. I have been joined tonight by several of our Doctors Caucus members, a couple freshmen and then a longstanding Member of the House that have come tonight to talk to the American people, Mr. Speaker, through this Special Order about ObamaCare to let people know that Republicans are the party of ``know.'' To begin with, I would like to welcome and yield to a freshman, another family doctor from the State of Louisiana, from Shreveport, Louisiana, Dr. John Fleming.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Well, I will reclaim my time, and I thank you, Dr. Cassidy. In fact, my health care overhaul bill, H.R. 3889, expands health savings accounts, creates Medicare health savings accounts. So it puts Medicare patients in charge of their own dollars, and they own those dollars. And those dollars, if they're not expended, would roll into their estates so that their heirs would get them. We pay our Medicare taxes to the Federal Government, and we should get it back. I am an original intent constitutionalist, and I understand that some people would say, well, Dr. Broun, an HSA is not constitutional under Medicare, but we've got to fix Medicare. And it is a bridge to help Medicare patients start controlling their own costs and controlling their own money and controlling their own health care decisions. That is exactly what my bill, H.R. 3889, would do. But I wanted to go back to this summit just in the last few minutes that we have. Actually, the mainstream media has written some articles that just came out today, and I wanted to read a couple of things from the mainstream media. The President has talked about he wants to reach out in a bipartisan way. The Wall Street Journal wrote today, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway. A San Francisco Examiner editorial said, Republicans publicly wondered if Obama's proposal represented a refreshing new attempt by the Chief Executive to display genuine bipartisanship and whether they should trust him to come to the summit with a truly open mind. And that is what we had hoped. Going on with what they said: We now know the answer to both questions is a resounding ``no.'' The Washington Post said, President Obama's opening bid on health reform is not designed to entice Republicans to join the game. And as we said earlier, I don't believe the President wants Republicans to join the game, he doesn't want the Governors to join the game. He doesn't want anyone to join the game because he has set the game rules himself, tilted towards just what he wants and what nobody else wants. It is just the leadership meeting in secret behind closed doors, with no input actually from our Democratic colleagues nor our Republican colleagues, nor Governors, nor health care providers, anybody except just the leadership has brought forth ObamaCare II. And even in his hometown newspaper, The Chicago Tribune--not known to be a conservative newspaper--said this: Obama wants Republicans to approach the summit in a spirit of compromise. Too bad he's not leading by example. So, Mr. Speaker, we've spent an hour with my colleagues talking about health care. Republicans are the party of k-n-o-w, know. We can lower the cost of health care. We can empower patients and doctors to make the decisions and start health care reform, health care financing reform, that makes sense economically, that will cover those that are uninsured, that will cover those who have preexisting conditions that can't get insurance today. We can do those things if the President and the leadership of this House and the leadership of the Senate would just listen to some of the proposals that we have put forward. Doctors have not been enjoined in this process. The American people have not been in this process. And the American people need to say no to ObamaCare.

Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Thank you, Dr. Cassidy. One other thing that I want to add, too; not only is it less expensive, people can afford to buy insurance where before they had not been able to. They use more preventative services, but they take care of themselves better. So they are healthier. Diabetics control their blood sugar better. People who have high blood pressure control that better. Folks with high cholesterol tend to get their cholesterol lowered. They have less heart attacks, strokes. So they are healthier. They live longer. They are more productive. They are happier. They feel better, have more energy. So it actually promotes wellness. If you really think about it, in the health care system today, we are not taking care of healthy folks, for the most part. We take care of sick people. That is what doctors do. That is what hospitals do, take care of sick people. Some people say we have a sick care system. Well, the system is sick because of the government. Before I go back to Dr. Boozman, I want to tell a couple of stories about my practice and how government intrusion in the health care system has driven the cost of health care up for everybody. Back several years ago, I was practicing medicine down in rural southwest Georgia. Congress passed a bill called CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, and what this did is it shut down every single doctor's lab in this country. Prior to CLIA, I had a fully automated, quality controlled lab in my office. And when patients came in to see me with a red, sore throat, running a fever, coughing, runny nose, I would do a CBC, or complete blood count, to see if they had bacterial infection and, thus, needed antibiotics, needed that expense, needed the exposure to the antibiotics and problems that may come from that, or whether they had a viral infection that is not helped by antibiotics at all. They don't need to spend that money. They don't need the exposure to the antibiotics. Less chance of having anybody have allergic reactions, less chance of developing the superinfections in this country. I do that test, a CBC in my office, in 5 minutes. It costs $12. That is what I charged. That is what I charged Medicare and Medicaid as well as the patients. So this was a tool that I could use in my office, fully quality controlled. But Congress, in its supposedly infinite wisdom, in fact, Mr. Waxman, who is right in the middle of trying to push forward this government control of health care, was the one who pushed through CLIA--one of the ones. After CLIA shut down my lab and every lab in doctors' offices across the country, to do that same test I had to send my patients across the way to the hospital. So they had to leave my office, go over there, spend 2 to 3 hours doing what I could do in 5 minutes, $75 for one test. Twelve dollars to $75. Five minutes to 2 to 3 hours for the patient. Now, what do you think that did to the cost of everybody's health insurance in this country? What do you think it did to the cost that Medicare has to pay for lab services? It rose the cost of health care markedly all across this country. And that is with one government intrusion, CLIA. We have hundreds. Not long ago Congress passed HIPAA. HIPAA has cost the health care industry billions of dollars. It is totally unneeded regulation. It has cost the health care industry billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to treat the headaches it has created. What does that do to my insurance costs and the American people's insurance costs? It drives it up markedly. Somebody has to pay that billions of dollars for that one government regulation that was put in place by Congress and the President signed into law. It has cost the health care industry. It costs all of us a tremendous amount of money. So it is government regulation, government intrusion in the health care system that has raised the costs for me and for my patients. And here we go with another government bill, another government takeover that is going to put cost controls, that is going to put taxes out the wazoo for everybody in this country. So it is going to cost everybody. And I believe it is totally designed, to go back to what the President said just a couple of months ago, that he wants to go to a government- controlled, centrally run health care system, socialized medicine run from Washington, D.C. Before, Dr. Boozman, I go to you, I just want to point out a couple things on this chart. What is in the new bill? It is just more of the same. It is the worst of the House bill, worst of the Senate bill put together. It is more of the same. It is a government takeover of health care. There is no question about it. There are price controls, as Dr. Boozman was talking about. There are a lot of individual and employer mandates. So if you have health insurance and you like it today, it is going to go away, because the Federal Government and the Federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., is going to put mandates on your health insurance to the point that it is going to go away. In fact, I believe it is geared up to try to put all health insurance companies out of business so that there is only one health insurer in America, and that is the U.S. Federal Government. There is no medical liability reform. The President talked about he wanted to have medical liability reform. It is not in any of the Democrat bills, the House bill, the Senate bill, nor is it in ObamaCare II. It still puts Washington bureaucrats in charge of defining what is quality health care. In fact, in the stimulus bill, the nonstimulus bill--the failed stimulus bill--the Democrats put in something that's called--what was it called? I'm having a brain freeze here. It's called an Effectiveness Research Council, or Comparative Effectiveness Research is what it's called. What that is geared to do is physicians look at the comparative effectiveness of different treatments, whether if you have cancer, whether surgery, or chemotherapy, or radiation therapy--or a combination of all three is better. That's what we do in medicine. The comparative effectiveness that the Democrats have put in place actually is geared towards how to spend dollars. It is the comparative effectiveness of spending $1 on a 40-year-old versus a 65- or 70-year- old. And so the way the whole system is set up, it means that the Medicare recipients are going to get thrown in the stick. Senior citizens, under the comparative effectiveness, are not going to get the care; they are going to be denied it by the Federal Government. Cuts Medicare Advantage. It still raises taxes. There is over a half of a trillion dollars of increase in taxes, and this is the only way that they can even get it anywhere close to the kind of numbers that the President promised. And he and his administration have used what I call ``voodoo economics.'' The reason I call it voodoo economics is because you have to be a dead man walking around with no soul to believe the economic parameters of the economic issues that they've put in place. But this Obamacare raises taxes and will raise taxes on virtually everybody. And it still gives the government-run plan a beachhead to eliminate private insurance. And I think this is the bottom line. This is the purpose that Henry Waxman and Charlie Rangel and Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi and George Miller and a lot of people have been pushing, the government takeover. They're very open and frank about it, and I congratulate them for being at least halfway honest. But the whole purpose of the Pelosi bill in the House, the Reid bill in the Senate, both ObamaCare and now the proposals that the President put forth yesterday morning, is a government takeover of health care, to tell the American people the kind of care that they can get. Whether they can get it or not, it is going to take the decisionmaking process out of the hands of patients and families, out of the doctor's hands, and it is going to put it in--all those decisions are going to be made by government bureaucrats here in Washington, D.C. So with that, I yield to Dr. Boozman.