Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment about fulfilling our obligations. This is an amendment about the government being truthful with our veterans. This is an amendment about supplying health care to veterans that is equal to what one can get in the private sector. We are going to hear a whole lot of things as we discuss this amendment about where we are getting the money, how it is going to be affected. This past Saturday night, I had the pleasure and also the terrible, gut-wrenching remorse to see a very new movie called ``Saving Private Ryan,'' and I want to tell my colleagues that for the first time in my life, I truly now am understanding what some of the veterans have been telling me for the last 4 years. When we see the price paid by our veterans, the price that they have paid with loss of limb, with loss of health, with loss of life, we can do nothing less than to fulfill our obligation to those men and women of the commitment that we made for them. This is a very simple amendment. It is not complicated. It takes money that was used for a mandatory program last year, and the last 7 years, and moves that money, which has now been moved from a mandatory spending account, to veterans health care. It still will not get us to the point that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs authorizes and states we should be spending on veterans health care. When our veterans are not given what they have been promised in terms of health care, we will never in the future be able to recruit the men and women that we need to defend our country because we will not have a track record of fulfilling our commitments. There is going to be 9.3 million veterans in the year 2000. That veteran population is aging severely. We will see a large number of the World War II veterans require hospitalization, both now and in increasing amounts over the next few years. There is going to be almost 3.5 million World War II veterans at that time. The Veterans Advisory Committee recommends that we increase spending minimally $250 million just to catch up to the point where we can meet minimum needs. I want to tell my colleagues, the people that are on Federal Health Care Employment Benefit policies in this body do not have near the worry that our veterans have. We have written for ourselves, and all the rest of the Federal employees, a health care plan that is comparable to none. It is better than. But we have not given that same thing to our veterans. To not supply the minimal needs as required and recognized by the authorizing committee is inappropriate and it is also unpatriotic and it fails to recognize the tremendous sacrifices that have been paid. Under law, veterans centers are mandated, prosthetic spinal cord clinics, chronic care clinics, blind rehabilitation, which we are not funding adequately that which has been mandated. We are cutting services at every hospital. We are decreasing the quality of care by increasing the quantity of patients seen, and giving tertiary providers and secondary providers their care. Not that it is substandard in the regular community, but it is less than what they were promised. Just to keep up with fiscal year 1998 level services, spending needs to be increased by $681 million over last year just to account for health care cost inflation and increases. What this bill does is move $304 million. It moves it from the administration, a nonoverhead administrative account, into veterans health care. As Members are asked to vote for this amendment, the real question that they are going to have to ask themselves is do they think we ought to be absorbing the administrative overhead of HUD programs in the mandatory accounts or can we and dare we continue to do and manage HUD the way we have in the past, and in fact do what we are obligated to do for our veterans? Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back, noting that I would like to hear from the gentleman from California (Chairman Lewis) on this amendment.

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

Mr. COBURN. Mandatory spending does not count on 302(b) allocations.

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

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, this bill, under current FHA operation, increases FHA administration by 50 percent over what it was last year in terms of the dollars. Number two, this is into an account called nonoverhead administrative expenses. It is a new provision. It was not in there last year. Neither the committee report nor the actual text of the bill provides any explanation as to what this money will be used for or why FHA needs more than a 50 percent increase in funds for administrative and overhead expenses. While the President requested this money, there is no explanation other than to say that the result of FHA correcting the allocation of administrative expenses among its budgetary accounts. Finally the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over FHA, made no mention of these nonadministrative overhead expenses in their review and their view on the fiscal year 1999 budget request. HUD claims they need this money to keep the Federal Credit Reform Act. For the past 7 years, FHA has used mandatory spending to meet these costs. Now OMB tells them they need discretionary funds to meet these costs or they need statutory language so that they can continue to use mandatory money. This amendment will allow the conference to add the language, as the Senate seems to intend on doing, by not appropriating money for this account.

Mr. COBURN. I understand. But mandatory spending is not appointed against 302(b) allocations.

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

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a couple of points. Number one, I do appreciate the chairman's work for veterans. This amendment is not intended to imply in any way that his concern and care for veterans and that his responsibility for increasing veteran spending in the last 4 years is anything less than stellar. I think the assumption made by the gentleman from Wisconsin that if this money is not in there that everything is going to shut down is not an accurate assumption. As a matter of fact, that assumption would mean to say that the Senate intends to shut down HUD and FHA loans because they have put no money in for this amendment. The other thing that I would want to make sure that the Members are aware of, that the American Legion, the Order of Purple Heart and the Veterans of Foreign Wars adamantly and fully support this amendment. It will in fact move us in a direction of meeting the obligations that we are obligated and morally bound to fulfill.

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

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

Mr. COBURN. That is right. What we are saying is if we write that statutory language, we will continue to take administrative expenses from the mandatory side rather than from the discretionary side. That is how you have been doing it the last 7 years.

Mr. COBURN. Yes, I am, and I still would tell him that I will vote for a priority for our veterans over the administrative overhead of HUD every day.

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

Mr. COBURN. First of all, they are already spending this money, so it is offset. It is already being spent.

Mr. COBURN. Yes. Under mandatory spending. It is already being spent. The money is being spent. Otherwise, we would not have had the administration in the last year. I would just ask to make one additional point. Given all that technically, we have not met our commitments to our veterans. There is no need for a 50 percent increase in the funding on this bill, and we need to move it to the veterans. If there is a problem with that, then we need to prioritize somewhere else so that we meet what we need to do for our veterans.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, the author of this amendment was in vocal opposition to the highway bill.

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

Mr. COBURN. First of all, I am not stating that a legislative waiver is necessarily the best answer. I know that may be the temptation of us as a body, and in fact we may need to do that. What I am saying is that there is a lack of available discretionary funds made between the two bodies. What the explanation for that is, I do not know. But the question that I would have is why does the CBO score a legislative waiver as a cost? CBO scores it as a cost because it is an actual change in the law. It is not, however, a change in practice.

Mr. COBURN. If the gentleman will yield further, I would not have that interpretation of the facts, especially not in that absolute manner. I would also say, and I would reemphasize again, if this causes heartburn: ``So be it''. Our veterans are underfunded.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, the actual numbers of people with AIDS in our country declined 6 percent this past year. That is a fact produced. It is because we are doing a good job on triple drug therapy and there are more people living with HIV that the actual number of people living with AIDS is down 6 percent in our country, living with AIDS.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a separate vote on the so-called Coburn amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Madam Speaker, I understand and respect those who disagree with my opinion on this procedure. They have my respect. I disagree with them. But I wanted to describe an alternative to this. There is not a fetal malformation that this is required for. ACOG says that. Their words are ``may.'' It is not ``must.'' I want to tell my colleagues about patients that I have delivered who have had these tremendous malformations of their children. And I want my colleagues to decide, is it easier to kill a baby four-fifths of the way out of the mother and lie to her about the real consequences of the procedure, or is it better to encourage her to carry her baby to term even though it is not going to live and give her the opportunity and the husband, the mother and her husband and the father, an opportunity to hold and to love and to care for part of us? I want to tell my colleagues about Jakey. Jakey had a courageous mom and dad. Jakey was a patient of mine. Jakey did not have all of his brain. His mother and father could have chosen to go to Kansas or lots of other places and have a termination. But what they chose was life. Maybe a very short life, but they chose life. They chose 4\1/2\ hours of life for Jakey. They chose 4\1/2\ hours where they could hold what God had given them and say, we will deal with this. We will not run away from it. We will not put it out as a convenience. We will deal with the fact that life sometimes brings us things other than perfect and we will face that. Partial birth abortion, whether it is for an elective procedure or for a fetal malformation, ducks the very value of life that all of us, whether we are pro-choice or pro-life, know we have to have as a society that is going to continue. And to deny the truth, and that is what this whole argument is about, the truth that we can do it some other way that serves us as a human race in a much far better way that teaches our children to value life rather than to throw life away, we do a disservice to our Constitution, we do a disservice to the human race. That is what I would ask my colleagues to think about. They may not be the most convenient ways to handle the problem. They may not be the fastest ways to solve the problem. But they are by far the best way to solve the problem.

Mr. COBURN. Madam Speaker, we now come before the House again on a subject that has been debated many times. The advantage that we have today is that the American public now knows this subject. The American public knows that there is no truth in the statement that there is a need for this procedure at any time, at any place, in any way. How do I know that? I have delivered well over 3,000 babies. I have handled every major known complication of pregnancy. This debate in the past has been about untruth. It has been about a desire to preserve an option of not fulfilling one's responsibility to a child. We have already heard today mischaracterizations and facts that do not exist. Those are called untruths about this procedure. It is my hope that we can come together as a Nation and understand that partial-birth abortion is murder. Nothing short, nothing less. There is never an instance in which a woman would have to have a partial-birth abortion versus some other means of saving her life and caring for her infant. That is something that people should keep in mind as we debate this issue.

Mr. COBURN. Madam Speaker, the statement that this will not eliminate any abortions is not a correct statement. The vast majority of partial birth abortions are elective abortions. Elective. That means somebody who is pregnant who does not want to be pregnant. It has nothing to do with the quality of life of the child. It has to do with the choice to kill a baby at any stage. So this is about eliminating abortions in this method. Number two, end this procedure. Everyone who practices medicine realizes this is a terrible procedure. This is not medicine. This is death.