Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, what about the school nurse?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I believe the gentlewoman from California makes a great point. The reason that I am going to object to her unanimous consent is I believe the House ought to have a separate vote on moving the income requirement from 80 percent.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment does not delete the 50 percent benefit of purchasing a HUD home at 50 percent. Let me clarify that. Let me read what the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers say about pay: ``It is clear that compensation packages between the private sector and public sector at the State and local level is highly competitive and does not favor one over the other.'' By the union's own admission, they are competitive in their salaries. I do not question the intention of both gentlemen from New York. Their motives are pure in what they are trying to accomplish. What I say is what they are accomplishing is entirely unfair to the people who are paying the taxes that will make up for the 50 percent discount that goes with that. If this program is so good for teachers, so good for the FHA, so good for improving the surplus, then I am sure that if they deny this amendment, they would want to support the other one, that expands that to clergy, that expands it to union members, expands it to the carpenter who builds the house when the carpenter who works for the city can buy the house. I am sure they would want to support that. The next amendment that I am bringing up in terms of trying to correct this, I do not disagree with their motivation, but would expand this pie. And if we create 150,000 new mortgages with their amendment, we would create 300,000 if we expand the pie. What we would do is we would put it on an even basis. If we are going to pick winners, let us pick everybody to be a winner. Let us allow everyone the same opportunity. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlemen from New York for yielding me this time, and for three or four specific provisions in this bill that I think are great. I think the removal of the barriers for housing affordability has been great. The regulatory impact analysis, the grants for removing regulatory barriers, these are things I see in my own community that limit people's ability to achieve housing. I think also the title III section 8 homeownership option is a great step forward to allow people to get into a home that otherwise was not there. The pilot program with that is great as well. The transfer of unoccupied and substandard HUD housing is something that has been long awaited because it needs to have that option if we are in fact going to clean up some of the neighborhoods that we have and clean up some of the homes. The last thing I am appreciative of is the rural housing opportunities that were made, and that is very important to my district. I do have some concerns about it, and I would just take a moment to say that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters) has an amendment, and if we combine her amendment with my second amendment, what we do is to enlarge this pie to all Americans to in fact go into these neighborhoods and create greater demand and greater assistance to raise the level of the neighborhoods. I am hopeful as we debate that that we can talk about fairness and equal opportunity to all, not just municipal employees and not just firefighters and not just policemen but the other significant members of the community, including pastors. Because a spiritual component in any community is just as important as any other aspect in terms of crime, in terms of drug addiction, and in terms of some of the other problems we face.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that of the few people in our body that have experience with this issue, that we now have an attempt to cut off debate. The fact is, I am all too familiar with this procedure. The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) I think made one misstatement, and the fact is that whether this passes or not, it will have no effect on first-trimester abortions, none, zero.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, in fact, and in actuality, this procedure is never used in first trimester, because it is way too dangerous. No physician who should be licensed and who should continue to be licensed would ever use this procedure in the first trimester. So regardless of the testimony, the medical facts are, one would never use this procedure in the first trimester. The second point I would like to make, as we defend the right of women in this country under a health exception to destroy their unborn children, we need to talk about how we define death in this country. Because we define death in this country as the absence of a heartbeat and the absence of brain waves. All 50 States, every territory, upheld by the Supreme Court. Now, if that is death, let me tell my colleagues what the opposite is: present heartbeat, present brain waves. That is life. I say to my colleagues, at 41 days past the last menstrual period, every fetus has a heartbeat and brain waves. So we can have the debate on whether it is not all right for us to chew up our unborn; that is not what this debate is about. This debate is about whether or not we are going to continue to convenience the abortionists with a procedure that put women at risk, even for that small percentage of time when we have, as the gentlewoman from Connecticut described, a hostile pregnancy. Those of us that are pro-life believe all life has value, and we do not believe that it is proper to rationalize one moral error with another moral error. The first moral error is attaining an unwanted pregnancy. The second moral error is to eliminate that pregnancy because it inconveniences someone. Now, we can talk about this issue, and there are some tragedies, I agree. But I also will tell my colleagues that this is never the best way to solve those tragedies. I understand why it is out there, I understand why it is used, but medically it is never the best way to solve those tragedies. Mr. Speaker, I want to share a story with my colleagues. This little child's name is Jakie Johnson. Jakie Johnson as an encephalic baby. I want to describe to my colleagues the difference that would have occurred had his mother had a partial-birth abortion. She would have had a 3-day procedure where she developed, as she went through the procedure, forced dilatation. On the third day the doctor would have reached into her womb, ruptured her membranes, the water would have drained out, he would have grabbed with tongs, pulled the baby around, forced the baby out, collapsed the skull, and the baby would have been born dead. I want to tell my colleagues what happened with Nancy Johnson and her son, Jakie. Nancy chose not to terminate her pregnancy. I delivered that baby in the middle of the night, alive. That baby died 3 hours later in its mother's and father's arms. Now tell me which is the better outcome for the mother and father and the child, to have some vague, horrendous, risky procedure done, or to have a delivery of a malformed baby which dies in its parents' arms? If Members think we should abandon the love and caring of a parent as a child dies, then Members should vote against this rule. If Members think there is something to parenting, loving, and caring, then vote for this rule.

Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I would just ask the gentlewoman from Michigan to look at the experience in Kansas. Every one of the partial birth abortions that have been provided for this year have been on the basis of the health exception. A health exception for the woman. Eight of them from Kansas, seven or eight from Kansas, the rest from outside of Kansas but on a health exception. Very few of those were based on the physical health of the woman, but on the fact that she did not want to have a baby. Now, I understand that in our country that is okay. That is legal today. I want to make one other point, that we sometimes forget. Why is partial-birth abortion out there? Because if you abort a baby a different way, guess what? The baby is born alive. When the baby is born alive in most States if it is at viability, then you have to express the will of the State to do everything you can to keep that child alive. So we abort a baby, have a baby that is viable, and then we work to keep it alive because that is what the States say we must do. So partial-birth abortion is developed so you deliver a dead baby. That is why it is there, so you get around this idea that it is alive. Again, I would remind the vast majority, upwards of 90 percent of all partial-birth abortions are on absolutely normal babies. Normal. Not abnormal. I have delivered tons of abnormal children. I have dealt with every consequence associated with terrible errors in reproduction. They are tragedies. But to couch partial-birth abortion on the basis of 1 or 2 percent of those issues, and that is what you are really talking about, 1 or 2 percent, not the vast majority, to justify it as a means to terminate the life of a well, healthy child is unconscionable. Most women if they truly had informed consent would never allow partial- birth abortion to be performed on them.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I think anytime a woman chooses to abort a baby, it is a difficult decision. And it is a tragedy regardless of the reason for it. What we just heard is not an accurate representation of partial-birth abortion. All you have to do is look at the facts from Kansas this year. So far this year, there have been 180 partial-birth abortions performed in Kansas. Seven of them were from women from Kansas. The rest of them were from out of State. Not one of those babies had a lethal defect. There was nothing that was going to keep them from living an adequate and acceptable life. We can say that partial-birth abortion is about terminating pregnancies on babies that are not viable. But the facts do not bear that out. Does it occasionally happen? Yes. When it happens for a nonviable baby, it is being done only for the convenience of the abortionist. It is not being done for the safety and health of the woman. Because in fact if it was for the safety and health of the woman, they would terminate the pregnancy in a very much different way. They would not put at risk her reproductive future. They would not put her at risk for a pulmonary embolism from amniotic fluid, they would not put at risk the ability for her cervix to maintain its muscular strength by dilating it against its will. The facts about partial-birth abortion are that it is done for the abortionist, not for the woman. I know that because I have helped thousands of women deliver children. I have done D&Xs. I know the procedure very well. It is the last procedure I would ever do to help a woman eliminate a nonviable child. That does not go to say how right are we in expressing our knowledge, scientifically based, on whether or not we are accurate about a child's viability. So let us dispel the three myths that are put forward. Partial-birth abortion in this country is not being done for the health of the woman. It is being done for the convenience of the abortionist. That is number one. Number two, it is not being done because children have lethal defects. It is being done so that late-term abortions can be accomplished. That is why it is being done. Number three, this procedure puts the health of a woman at much greater risk than any of three other procedures that could be used to terminate her pregnancy. We can agree to disagree on whether abortion is right or wrong. I do not have any problem with that, and I have a great deal of respect for those who disagree with me on that issue. But you cannot confuse the medical facts of the risk that a woman is put to when this procedure is used on her. It is a marked increase in risk for her health. If in fact it was an emergency to eliminate this baby, we would do a saline injection, take the life of the baby and put prostaglandin in and have the baby deliver head first. The baby would be dead, it would come out, and the woman would have labored it out. But instead, we do not do that. We put in japonicum, which is seaweed, we allow it to dilate up, then we dilate the cervix further, we reach in with instruments, we turn the baby around, we pull the baby out, puncture the head, collapse the head and pull the baby the rest of the way out and then forcefully extract a placenta. When we do that, we expose the woman to loss of fertility and loss of competency of her cervix, we expose the woman to significant hemorrhage, and we expose the woman to fluid embolus from amniotic fluid. Nobody who is thinking about the woman would use this procedure.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am amazed at what I just heard, and I want to tell my colleagues that medically, what we just heard is an incorrect, inaccurate statement. This procedure is never used in first trimesters, it will have no effect on first trimester abortions whatsoever. That was the implication. The Kansas data for the first 3 months of this year show that what the gentlewoman from Illinois just stated is not true. The Kansas data shows that, in fact, these were viable infants with no significant medical complication. So I do not deny that I want every abortion in this country to end, but that is not why I am supporting this. This procedure harms women, and there are several other procedures under which the same end result could be accomplished. So let us keep clear what the facts are here. Babies without brains can be delivered other ways than this way at a whole lot less risk to the mother. Do not lose sight of that fact. There is no question I am not much of a politician, but I am a physician, and I have delivered 3,500 babies and I have cared for women with complications from this procedure. Let us stay on what the issue is. The issue is, women who have children that are nonviable can, in fact, have a termination under another method. Number two, under the laws of Kansas, as now is happening, viable fetuses and babies are being terminated with impunity when there is no cause to do so. The other thing to think about, we are not talking about mature women making these decisions, because most of these are teenagers who end up showing up and telling their parents about a pregnancy when they are 24, 25 weeks along. I heard an earlier speaker say about the 7th month. Well, let me tell my colleagues, by the 6th month, babies are viable. We now say babies at 22 weeks. So let us keep the facts about the procedure in line.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman I would fully support that amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I want to change the focus of the debate a little bit. Last year the President, in 1999, sent to the Congress his State of the Union message and budget in which he said we were going to save 60 percent of Social Security. The Congress, led by the Republicans of Congress, said, no, Mr. President we are going to save 100 percent of Social Security. And we did just that. We stopped the raid on Social Security. It is time it look at the other program under which we are stealing money, and that is Medicare. The CBO announced in March that the estimated budget surplus of this country for fiscal 2000 will be $27 billion. It is interesting if we look to see where that money comes from. $23 billion of that made up of excess, Medicare, Part A Trust Fund payments and the interest thereon, is from Medicare. So what we are really saying is this surplus that we have, the vast majority of it, is Medicare Part A Trust Fund, and we are about to spend most of it. Let me outline for my colleagues for a minute where it is going to go: $26 billion surplus, $6.9 billion we have already spent by reversing through the budget that was passed by this House. There is going to be $2.2 billion in new supplemental outlays from this bill. There will be another $6 billion that we are going to use for agricultural emergency support payments. There is $4.2 billion in gimmicks in the budget from 601 to 596. And then there is $4 billion that I suspect we are going to pass on the House floor today to retire debt. That leaves us with $2.7 billion left. What that really says is we are going to spend $20 billion this year of Medicare Part A Trust Fund money. How should we do it? The only things that are emergencies are the things that should be in an emergency supplemental. That is number one. Number two is, it should be accompanied by a rescission bill that finds the excesses or trims other areas of government if, in fact, these are true emergencies. I would ask my colleagues to consider if they really want to take money from a program that is going to be bankrupt in 2014 and fund the vast array of items that are in this bill? I think not, on further reflection.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. This is not a bidding war for the veterans. As a matter of fact, right now for every veteran we spend $4,000 more per veteran than we spend on the average Medicare patient in this country. So if we are going to spend more money into the VA system we have now that is not offering them the care, not giving them equivalent care, not offering them quality care that they could get in the private sector, you are throwing money down a rat hole. The fact is we spend $4,000 per year per veteran more than we do for the same person in Medicare. So yes, we may not direct it the way that your budget directs it; but the fact is we recognize that there is not an efficient system out there and that needs to be changed. Every veteran in this country needs to be given a card. Go get your health care wherever you want because we have an obligation to you. And if we did that, we can deliver the same health care for about 30 percent less than we are doing in the VA system now.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I was not going to speak on this bill, but after hearing what I have heard and thinking about $31 million to honor politicians that were intimately involved in giving us a $6 trillion debt, there is something not quite right with that as I sit and think about it. There is no question that these were great public servants, but the fact is that on their watch, our children's future was mortgaged, and not mortgaged just to a small extent, to a very great extent. We talk about this being an authorization bill. Well, why is it an authorization bill with the very anticipation that the next appropriations cycle, the money is going to be spent. So we are going to take $31 million of the taxpayers' money and create new university setting programs in honor of these five former Senators. We are fighting with the President right now, and we are playing all sorts of games with the budget so we will not touch Social Security, and we are here adding $31 million back. This may be a very worthwhile project, but the timing on it stinks. This is not the time to do this; this is not the year to do this. When we truly are in a surplus, and that means no Social Security money spent, no Federal employees' money spent, no inland waterway trust fund spent, no highway transportation money spent out of the trust fund, no airway trust fund money spent, that is the time for us to do this. The American taxpayers today pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than they have ever paid in their lives, with the exception of World War II. Why is it that we cannot pass a tax cut, but we can spend $31 million to build new glory centers for former Senators of the United States Senate? I object, not on the grounds for me personally, but I object for my grandchildren and the children that are going to follow them, and every grandchild in this country, that we should not be spending and authorizing $31 million to be spent for any purpose that is other than absolutely necessary at this time.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of truth to what the gentlewoman from New York said. However, there is an absence of appropriate timing with that. There is no question we are going to have an oversight hearing on this. There is no question we are going to do it. There is no question that they are violating the law and the intent and purposes of the law. We are going to do that. But this needs to be inflamed, I say to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), because this is exactly the slippery slope we said we would be going down. Let me tell my colleagues what this process is creating. If I am in there to rent some space from their abortion clinic and I tell them that can I sell a brain for a thousand dollars, do my colleagues know what I am going to do if I am an abortionist? I am going to do an abortion now that is most important in saving the brain rather than in caring for that woman who is having a pregnancy terminated. Because money then becomes the driving object in my abortion, not in the care of the woman who has made a difficult decision and is giving up a life. So now what we have had is we violate this law and the intent of it, although technically they may not be, but in fact their intent is to, we are inducing through the profit motive abortionists to put the life of their patient at risk for monetary gain, a fetal brain for a thousand bucks. How abhorrent can we be? Why should we not be inflamed? Why should we not be agitated? Why should we not be angry, in fact, when this process is going on exactly in contraindication to what we said in the law? We should inflame this. Everyone in America should know that the value of life has just gotten less, not the value of the fetus, the value of the very woman undergoing abortion. Because now her life is going to be put at risk because somebody is going to try to capture a brain intact regardless if that is the best and safest indication for that woman. So we do need to send the letters, and we are going to, from the Subcommittee on Health, I assure my colleagues. We are going to have an oversight. And we should as a body say, this is not right. This should stop. There are all sorts of unintended consequences occurring because this procedure is ongoing. The reason the phone is disconnected is just like the phones were disconnected a month ago at another one of them, because when everybody finds out, they shut down and move somewhere else simply because they know it is not right, not right ethically, not right morally, and not right legally. So I am inflamed about it. I am upset about it. Because the purpose of the law, what their intent is, is to go completely around that. I assure my colleagues that the Subcommittee on Health and the Oversight and Investigation Committee of the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Commerce is going to look at every aspect of this. And we already know what the answers are. We have had good undercover investigative reporting that has shown us the answers. But we are going to allow the people to give us the opportunity to do that. I hope, in our heart of hearts, that as we protect abortion in this country, the first thing we do is protect the women undergoing the abortion.

Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the purpose of the resolution is to raise the awareness of how foul, how dirty, how nasty, how abhorrent this is.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I have less than a year left in this body, and if I could make a change in anything, I would return it 150 years earlier so that the trick that we are seeing today would not be used. I have the greatest respect for the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). He is a great politician, and rarely do I use that word in a positive sense in my lifetime. But I want to tell you what this motion does. What this motion does is it is going to allow the unions and the trial lawyers to run the hospitals, based on the clause that is in this as far as whistle blowers. It is a totally unneeded portion of the bill, but was put in to build constituencies and consensus. It will ruin quality assurance in all the hospitals. There is no question in my mind about that. Number 2, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) said at the outset that we were mainly interested in patients. I happen to be qualified because I voted for the bill of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) when it left the House. I am one of that 270. I voted for it for one purpose, I think we need to have some action. With this motion to commit, there will be no health care bill for my patients. There will be no right to go after our HMO, if we follow this motion to commit, because there will be no combined bill, no compromise, and therefore, the President will never get to sign a bill out of this conference. If that is what we want to accomplish, and we want to use that as a political pawn in the next year's debate over who should be in control of Congress, then that is a legitimate thing. But it ought to be said that that is what it is for. That is not what a motion to instruct should be for. A motion to instruct should be, take out the whistleblower. Give the members of the committee, the conference committee, the ability to do what is right for our patients and for our country, not what is right for the Republican or the Democrat party. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) deserves a lot of credit for his work in this body. He worked, worked, worked. We have a health care bill on this floor because because of the courage of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood); not for any other reason, because of the courage of the gentleman from Georgia. Let us not ruin a display of courage by making this a purely political ploy. That is what this is. I was not going to speak against it, but Mr. Speaker, my patients, the people in this country, the people in my district who are under HMOs who have no right of recourse today against unqualified medical personnel making decisions about their health care, they have no right, and this bill that we are going to have has no adequacy of network whatsoever in it. They do not even have to have an adequate network. The heck with specialists. They can say, I have a specialist, and they can have 1 and they need 200. This bill does not even address that. Do Members want to leave that that way in conference? No, they do not. I know they do not. Let us talk about what this really is. This is a political ploy, partly because of the inappropriate, and I will agree, the inappropriate naming of conferees on this bill. I agree with that. But it is the wrong way to accomplish the purpose. If we really care about patients, if we really want to solve the inequities in the health care system, and if we really want to solve the overall problem, which is opening up the market and allowing choice and markets to work in health care, Members will defeat this thing solidly.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I seek time in opposition, and I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady).

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, absolutely.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).