Phil Gingrey

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today the residents of northwest Georgia are saying good-bye to a native son who died while bravely serving his Nation in Afghanistan. Specialist Ryan Charles King was killed in action on May 1, 2009, in Afghanistan when his unit came under enemy fire while on a night mission. Last evening, Mr. Speaker, I joined Specialist King's family, his friends and supporters at his visitation to honor the life of this brave soldier. In speaking with Specialist King's parents, I found out that he and I have a history together. When I was an obstetrician- gynecologist, I delivered Ryan King a little over 22 years ago on Veteran's Day in 1986. How fitting that this brave soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice for his country was born on such a special day. We remember Ryan as a man of the highest character whose receipt of the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, and NATO Medal are testament to the supreme sense of duty he felt to his country and to his comrades. Born in Marietta, Georgia, at WellStar Kennestone Hospital, Ryan attended Faith Lutheran Church for many years. He was a talented and a spirited baseball player, leaving his mark on the diamonds throughout Canton, Powder Springs, and Dallas, Georgia. A few months after graduating from East Paulding County High School, Ryan King fulfilled a lifelong dream and he enlisted in the United States Army. He went to basic training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, followed by advanced individual training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. After completing his training, Specialist King was stationed in Korea for 1 year, and it was there that he met his wife, Sergeant Rachel Nicole Smith King. As a member of the Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry, he left for deployment in eastern Afghanistan in July of 2008 and, sadly, was scheduled to return to Fort Hood in Texas in June, 2009, just 1 month from now. Specialist King leaves behind his wife, Sergeant King, his father, Charles King of Temple, Georgia, his mom, Candice R. King of Decatur, Georgia, younger brothers Tyler King of Temple and Dante Moore of Decatur, grandparents, Dorothea King of Temple and Tommy and Nancy Roberts of Dallas, Georgia, as well as many aunts, uncles and cousins. Mr. Speaker, my prayers go out to his family. And my deepest gratitude goes out to Specialist King for his selfless sacrifice for our Nation. I ask all Members to join me in honoring the distinguished memory of Specialist Ryan Charles King.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman from Utah joining us this evening. If he is going to have the opportunity to get to his district in Utah, it is not easy every week. It is pretty easy for me to go home, Madam Speaker, to Atlanta, Georgia, Marietta and Cobb County. It takes about 1 hour, 45 minutes. But our Members west of the Mississippi, I really feel sorry for them in a way, because it is tough. I wish him Godspeed and a safe trip home. But we are here to make sure that people do understand, and I think our Members do. I think Members on both sides of the aisle. And, look, I am not saying that we are above reproach on the Republican side. When we were in the leadership and controlled this body, maybe we were a little heavyhanded. Maybe we didn't keep everything open and transparent and make amendments in order from the minority. But when you campaign and say, as we are doing now, please give us another chance and you will see that we have learned our lesson, that is what the current Democratic majority said when they were campaigning in 2006: Give us an opportunity. Let's throw those bums out and we will show you, John Q. Public, what we can do in the people's House and how much better it will be for everybody. So, yes, I am disappointed, Madam Speaker, that it hasn't turned out that way. But still, we do have an opportunity, as Representative Bishop and I take this hour and talk about these two hugely important issues and let people know that we do have a second opinion. I started the hour talking about the physical health of the Nation. We talked about it last night on the swine flu discussion. And then Representative Bishop came as I yielded time to him, Madam Speaker, and he talked about the fiscal, the economic health of the country. Our country cannot be healthy without both fiscal health and physical health. So, yes, these are hugely important issues. Don't ignore the brainpower on this side of the aisle just for purely partisan reasons or, well, you did it to us and we are going to stick it to you. That is not what the American people need at the Federal or State level. I hope we can give them better, and I think most of my colleagues feel the same way. I will stay on the energy side for a few minutes, Madam Speaker. This issue in the energy bill that is coming through the committee, which I am honored to serve on under Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Barton, Energy and Commerce, this energy bill that has this strong emphasis on a carbon tax, or cap-and-trade you might call it, Representative Bishop talked about the fact that that ultimately will end up being a hidden tax, a hidden tax on mostly middle class Americans. Lower-income Americans will be, as he pointed out, hit hard. For rich people, it will be an inconvenience. For people with marginal incomes, it will be devastating. And it is up to $3,000 a family. As these producers of electricity are penalized because they are producing too much carbon or releasing too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, then they will pass those costs right on to the consumer, to John Q. Public. Madam Speaker, I was at a breakfast this morning, and I guess there were maybe 25 House Members in attendance. We were privileged to have a doctor, a Ph.D. doctor from Spain--his name, Gabriel Calzada--talk to us. He is an associate professor of applied economics at the King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, and he talked about how this cap-and- trade, cap-and-tax, following the Kyoto Protocol of 1991 to the fullest extent of the letter, that is what Spain has done. Their current President is determined for Spain to be the poster child for abiding by the Kyoto Protocol, and they do. This professor, this Ph.D. doctor told us that it is an economic disaster in Spain, that they are losing jobs, that these companies that are trying to produce electricity with alternative sources such as wind and solar and geothermal, they are losing money. Many of them are going out of business. And also, a lot of the factories in Spain that produce things, but they can only produce these things by using electricity to keep the lights on and to keep the turbines or the robotics running, the machines running, the workers working, they are packing up shop and going to other countries in this global economy. Now, we have been hearing about all these green jobs that this is going to create. Well, he said in Spain they call those jobs subprime. I will repeat it. They call them subprime jobs because they are not going to last very long. They are not lasting very long. We have got a situation where Chairman Waxman and Chairman Markey want a bill where every part of this country has to abide by these renewable standards so that 25 percent of your electric power generation by the year 2025--think ``25 by 25''--25 percent has to be produced by renewables, wind, solar, geothermal. But guess what? In my beloved area of the United States in the southeast, we don't have a constant source of wind. We don't even have a constant source of sun. We have very little geothermal. But do you know what we do have? We have lots of coal. We have lots of water. We have the ability to produce, to turn these turbines and produce electricity by just letting water fall. We pump it back uphill and let it fall again. If that is not renewable, I guess some of it evaporates, but it seems pretty renewable to me. We are not able to count nuclear power. We haven't had a new nuclear reactor go online, Madam Speaker, since 1976. And it is clean. It is efficient. And it is safe. It is expensive. Yes, it is expensive. But when you have these nations, these ``rogue'' nations I will call them, or near rogue nations, even if they are not rogue nations, they don't like us very much, charging us $140 a barrel for petroleum and strangling us with the cost of natural gas. You know, we need to become independent of that. But you can't do that if you are not going to be allowed to burn coal. And in the United States, I think we have something like 240,000 tons, enough coal to last us 150 years. I think these folks are misguided. I know they are smart people, but I think they are misguided. For them to shut all that down just because the Greenpeace folks and the environmentalists run amok, they just don't understand this global economy and how you lose jobs and you have countries like China and India with almost 3 billion people, almost half the world's population, they can do anything they want to. And they are bringing on a coal-fired power plant once a week, a new one every week. And yet we are going to do what we are doing. It just doesn't make sense. I have talked to the committee, to the powers that be, and explained the situation we have got in the southeast. And sometimes it makes you wonder, Madam Speaker, when you use the word ``scheme,'' that can be just a plan, but that word also can be interpreted in a pejorative way, a real scheme, like somebody is scheming. Lots of jobs came to my part of the United States almost 100 years ago. We had textile plants everywhere. Where was the corporate office of those plants? New York City. But they came south for one reason, because of inexpensive labor. And they could make their products, make a profit and pay well. And times were good. My dad was born in Graniteville, South Carolina, built by the Graniteville Company, a company from New York traded on the New York Stock Exchange. And that company built everything in town and employed every worker in town. Well, those jobs came from the Northeast. Now, if we follow through and pass a bill that penalizes the southeast by raising utility prices, then these factories will say, well, we will just stay up north with all these expensive union workers, because if we go down South, we will get cheaper labor, but we will have to pay out the wazoo for electricity. It is the same thing with California. So I would say to all my colleagues and everybody listening and men and women across this country, they are connecting the dots. They are figuring this thing out. There is, indeed, in my opinion, Madam Speaker, a scheme going on here. And it makes no sense. It makes no sense at any time, especially in a time of severe economic recession in which we almost are reduced to the point now of hoping and praying that we will come out of it. Bail out this one, bail out that one, stimulate this, stimulate that. But when we go back home, Mr. Bishop to Utah, I to Georgia, and you start talking to people and they are about to lose their home, and the banks are about to close, small community banks, and they are saying, Congressman Gingrey, why couldn't you get me any of that TARP money? We made loans to builders because we were literally forced to by the Homeowners Reinvestment Act or what Fannie and Freddie forced us to do because of wanting more diversification in homeownership. We knew that you don't lend money to people that can't verify that they have got a job or what the income is and they have no down payment and their annual salary is $50,000 and they want to get a loan on a $600,000 house, and it should be no more than one to three. But, we were literally forced to make these loans. And now we are about to go under. All these senior citizens who invested in the bank and the local community, they are about to lose their investment. Where is our help from the Federal Government? No. We forced the big banks to take money, and then won't even let them give the money back. Well, that is what I call ``socialization,'' ``socialism.'' And I don't know how much time we have got, but I'm going to maybe utilize a few more minutes, Madam Speaker, and if you need to gavel me down, you go right ahead, and I will just shut up immediately. But I'm going to switch back a little bit to the health care part now. As a physician, I don't want to see that socialized. I don't think men and women want the government in the examination room standing between the doctor and the patient. And it sounds like the good Speaker is letting me know that the magic hour has expired. When you are having fun, time flies. Thank you for your indulgence, my colleagues, and we will continue to talk about the Republican second opinion on many issues.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, and if the gentleman from Utah can stay with us and engage me in a colloquy as we continue the time talking about these issues, I really appreciate Representative Bishop's expertise on energy and our second opinion, the Republican alternative, a second opinion. Forgive me, my colleagues, if I utilize medical terminology, but it seems to work for me. And as we developed a caucus on our side of the aisle, as our health care provider membership grows--I think we have 11 medical doctors now on the Republican side and I think there are four or five on the Democratic side. We have psychologists, we have dentists, we have nurses. We have some medical expertise, Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber, and we want to utilize it. But this GOP Doctors Caucus is working very hard to develop a second opinion on health care reform. Rob Bishop and John Shimkus, who leads the coalition on a second opinion for energy reform, market driven, these are Republican ideas. I get a little weary when people suggest that we are just standing in the way of progress and, what is our plan? Well, these are our plans. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset of the hour, we don't get many, if any, opportunities under the leadership, I am sad to say, of the first female Speaker of this great body serving in her second Congress in that capacity. It was supposed to be the most open opportunity to get away from these Republicans who all they wanted to do was shut the place down. We were going to open the doors and open the windows and bring in some sunshine and have transparency and give everybody an opportunity to represent their 675,000 constituents, whether they were Republican or Democrat, whether you were in the minority or the majority. So what has happened? I don't know what happened. Mr. Speaker, I don't know what led the Speaker--you are the designated Speaker, but I don't know what led the Speaker to change her mind, but I, for one, am saddened by it. So we have to convince our colleagues and hopefully the American people that we do have opinions. We just don't get to express them. We are not the party of ``no.'' We are not the party of ``no'' on health care reform. We are not the party of ``no'' on having a better comprehensive energy reform bill. These are second opinions. I yield back to my colleague from Utah.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to spend some time on the floor this evening with our colleagues. I am going to talk about two different issues. We are going to talk about energy, and particularly the scheme of carbon tax or cap-and- trade and renewable energy, renewable quotas, if you will, because that's a hugely important issue that's facing the Nation and the Congress is dealing with at the present time, and particularly through the committee on which I serve, Energy and Commerce, and the other big issue also coming through the Energy and Commerce and a couple of other committees is the issue of health care reform. Now, President Obama, when he was sworn in and shortly after that when he spoke to a joint session of Congress here in this House Chamber, he talked about the importance, in his opinion, despite the economic downturn and the need for stimulus bills--hundreds of billions of dollars' worth, in fact, of stimulus bills, spending on projects and hopefully will get the economy going again, the TARP money, the money that went to banks, continuing to go to banks, and that's expanded, of course, to include insurance companies and the domestic automobile industry. We have spent literally hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars trying to stimulate the economy. But the President still feels very strongly, as does this majority party, the Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, of pushing ahead with this idea of solving the global warming issue by limiting the amount of carbon that can be produced and released into the atmosphere as we go through the process, and always have for 100 or more years, of producing electricity mainly from coal. So that is on the front burner, no pun intended, Mr. Speaker, of issues that we are dealing with right now in the House and in the Senate. And then, of course, the other issue is reforming health care. I would like to start by talking about health care. I feel I have a little bit more expertise in that area. I darn well should, having spent 30 years practicing medicine, but I will allow to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my other colleagues that just practicing medicine, seeing patients and not being in a research environment doesn't necessarily give you all the answers in regard to how we go about funding health care for 300 million people, how we deal with the massive expense of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid and still make sure that everyone in this country has access to health care and that it is affordable, that it is affordable even for those who have more than one serious medical condition that they're dealing with. So we all, on both sides of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, realize that this is a problem. It's not something that we ought to be burying our heads in the sand and just hoping it will go away. It won't. It will only get worse, just like the Social Security crisis. As we get more and more of our baby boomers reaching that magic age of 65, we don't have enough people working really to pay into the payroll tax to provide the benefit that has been promised. And I know that scares our seniors and it should, although every reform that we have talked about in regard to Social Security has assured and will continue to assure, I think, no matter who is in the majority up here or what administration--it has been Republican under President Bush. It's now Democratic under President Obama. It was Democratic under President Clinton, and these things go back and forth. But I think that people, seniors, need to be comforted by the fact that if you're over 55, as an example, there are not going to be any changes in Social Security for those of you who are within 10 years of receiving that benefit. But that doesn't mean that we don't fix the system, that we don't try to fix the system for our sons and daughters and our grandchildren as they come forward, because if we do nothing, then clearly there will be a time when people will not get the benefit that their parents and grandparents have received under this program of Social Security. And the same thing is true of Medicare, and that, of course, is our health care system for our seniors, 65 and older, and for those people who are younger but are disabled, totally disabled, and need that help. So we all recognize that there's a problem, and we have recognized it for a while and agree that something needs to be done. Now, the timing of that, I think, is in question when you talk to both sides of the aisle. Some, quite honestly, on our side of the aisle feel that we need to get the economy back on its feet before we spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reform our health care system while we are still in a deep, deep recession and people can't get loans. Businesses in particular can't get loans. People are still having a very difficult time getting a mortgage on their home. And 401(k)s are down, 401(k)s and IRAs, which are the savings that people have for their retirement, along with Social Security. I am kind of of the opinion, Mr. Speaker, that we don't need to move too quickly for fear that the economy will worsen and not get better and also for fear that in our haste to do something even if it's wrong, it might well be wrong. So that adage of ``do something even if it's wrong'' is a wrongheaded adage. But in any regard, we do agree that if the statistics are correct that 47 million people in the great country of the United States go every day without health insurance, there's something wrong with our system, and we can do better in that regard. We should do better, as I will talk about over the next 45 minutes or so. We can and we will do better. Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make sure that all of our colleagues understand something. I think intuitively they know this, that statistics can be often misleading. The 47 million uninsured statistic was obtained by the Census Bureau. And what does the Census Bureau do? You're sitting there at home watching television or whatever, reading a book preferably, and you get a call from the Census Bureau and they probably just ask this question: Are you employed? Yes or no? Do you have health insurance? Are you an adult, head of household? End of story. And the response from 47 million is ``No, I don't have health insurance.'' Now, the question that is not asked is, are you a citizen of the United States? Are you a permanent legal resident though not a citizen, in other words, a green cardholder? Are you here legally on a temporary worker program? Are you an illegal immigrant? I think at that point, Mr. Speaker, you would hear a loud click, because I'm sure if someone were here illegally, they're not likely to give that to anybody, especially a census worker. But the question that is not asked is how long, if you do not have health insurance, what are the circumstances regarding that? How long have you gone without health insurance? And then you would find that many of these people, maybe just a couple of months. And they might say, yes, well, actually, I do have insurance. I have this COBRA, this temporary health insurance that's allowed, when you lose your job, that you can continue with that company. If the company were providing the health insurance, then they would let you continue. But you would have to pay more, because you would be outside the group rate. But you could be covered hopefully, you would be, long before that, reemployed and into another group policy at a reasonable rate. So a lot of these people that say I don't have health insurance, and they add to that, up to that magic number of 47 million, they are going to get insurance when they go back to work and, probably, within a short period of time. Probably 10 million of the 47 million are the ones that clicked the phone down when they were asked if they were legal immigrants, about 10 million. So now you are down to 37 million. And it has been estimated that 40 percent of the rest make at least $50,000 a year. Now, you might say, well, gee, if you make $50,000 a year, even if you are a family of three, you probably ought to be able to afford health insurance. You are not going to be eligible for Medicaid, or you may probably not be eligible, at least in my State of Georgia. You are not going to be eligible for the SCHIP problem, PeachCare, we call it, for your children. And I am assuming that you are not 65 and you are not disabled, so you are not eligible for that. So why do these people that are not eligible for anything else, and they make at least $50,000 a year, why do they choose not to have health insurance? I would guess that most of these people are in the workforce, maybe they are single, they are probably between the ages of 21 and 40. Many of them are athletes, not professional athletes--I don't mean to imply that--but athletic, engage in sports, work out and have good genes, grandparents lived to late eighties, maybe even early nineties. They've got the Methuselah gene, where their relatives live into the hundreds. And they think, golly, why should I take $250, $300 a month, whatever it costs, maybe $400 a month and buy health insurance when I don't even go to the doctor every year. I don't even get a cold. I don't take any prescription medications, I might take a One a Day vitamin. So a lot of people like that would roll the dice and say I don't need it. And they say, I am a very disciplined person, and I will take that $350 a month and put it into--not a passbook savings, but invest in a mutual fund. And every month, you know, I put into it, the mutual fund, when it goes up in value, my money doesn't buy as many shares. But when it goes down in value, it buys more shares. That's what we call dollar-cost-averaging. And, gee, you know, over a 10-year period of time I am going to have a ton of money. And over a 30-year period of time I am going to have a quarter of a million dollars that I will have saved by not taking out a health insurance policy. I don't recommend it. As a physician Member, I think it's a bad bet. You are rolling the dice, you might get lucky, but you could crap out, in other words, come down with cancer, or, at age 35 have a heart attack, and then, of course, you would be out of luck in today's market in regard to getting it insured. Or, if you had access to insurance, it would be so expensive, because now you are a preferred risk, and it's only appropriate then that the insurance would cost you more. If you look at our Medicare program on part B, the voluntary part A, of course, 65 or disabled, you are automatically in part A, the hospital part, or the part that covers nursing home care. But for seeing a doctor and paying surgical fees and having outpatient diagnostic tests done, you don't have to take the part B of Medicare, nor do you have to take the part D, the prescription drug part of Medicare. That's optional. You might decide to, because you are still working, to continue to get your health insurance from your company. Or you might decide, well, here again, I'm healthy, and I never bought insurance before I got eligible for Medicare, I'll take the part A, because that's kind of given. I get that free, so to speak. Somebody else is paying for it, and I'm not going to take this part B. You have that option. Nobody forces anybody to sign up for part A or part B. And, of course, here again, if you get sick, 2 years later, now you are 67, let's say, and you call up Social Security and you say, oh, I've decided now, I think I want to sign up for Medicare part B and part D because now, I had a heart attack, and I'm on five medications, something to lower my cholesterol, something to make my heart beat stronger, I'm on a water pill, a diuretic, so I don't build up too much fluid. And, oh, by the way, I've come down with the gout. Well, you can sign up at that point for Medicare part B and part D. But the Federal Government says it's going to cost you more because now you are at much higher risk. Well, that's the way private insurance works as well. So, I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It would be inappropriate for us to say to the private market, insurance companies, who are insuring younger people, that if someone decides they don't want health insurance until they get sick then, clearly, they are going to have to pay more. So those people that make more than $50,000 a year and elect not to take health insurance that they could afford to pay for, they are taking a chance, they are rolling the dice. But in this country, thank God, you can do that. You are free to do that. So a lot of the people that are included, when the Census Bureau calls and says, do you have insurance, they are in that group. It is also estimated that as many as 10 million of the 47 million, guess what, are eligible for Medicaid. They didn't know it. They didn't bother to inquire. Or maybe somebody gave them some misinformation. They thought they were making too much money, and their children are eligible for the SCHIP program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is very generous on the part of the Federal Government, Federal-State partnership, even more generous than Medicaid. So you take those people, subtract them from the number, and you probably end up, Mr. Speaker, with, I am going to be generous here and say 15 to 20 million that don't have insurance over an extended period of time. It is important that all of us listen to what I said about that number not being 47 million. Because statistics, if they are not accurate, can cause us, from a policy perspective, even from a political perspective, to make some huge mistakes. Spending $2 billion or more, $3, $3.5 billion, maybe, because we still have some money left over from the $6 billion that we put in the Treasury, took out of the Treasury, put in Health and Human Services and the CDC for combating bird flu, which never really occurred in this country. And now we are probably going to put another $2 billion in this supplemental bill coming up to treat the influenza type A H1N1, forgive me if I say it at least one time, swine flu. And I hope and pray that I don't have to eat these words. It's probably going to turn out to be a fairly mild type of flu, not as severe, Mr. Speaker, as your seasonal flu, which on a yearly basis, over many years, we have lost 35,000 people, 35,000 people dying from the regular seasonal flu, even though we have developed a vaccine every year. We try to anticipate what next year's flu is going to look like. The CDC does a great job on that, by the way. I think the flu vaccine is good and certainly it's good for the elderly and the immune compromised and the very young. I am not opposed to that at all. I commend the CDC. But, again, we tend to react to the latest crisis. Sometimes it's media driven, this media frenzy, literally creating a pandemic, yes. Not a pandemic of the flu, but a pandemic, a panic. So what's the President to do? He doesn't want to get Katrina'ed over this thing, so we throw a lot of money at it that may well not be necessary. So as I talk about health care and the need for reform and bring up some of these statistics and peel the layers of the onion back and get to the real facts so that we know what the real problem is, how can you know what the response is if you don't really define the problem? So that's what the loyal opposition, the minority party, in this case the Republican Party, has the responsibility to do. That's what makes our system work, that's what makes it great, unless we don't go through regular order and don't get an opportunity to weigh in. And maybe the only opportunity we get to weigh in on the minority side is these late afternoon and late evening after-school's-out opportunities to talk on the House floor and inform. And you hope everybody is listening, but maybe not. So as I stand here this evening and talk about health care reform and also the energy bill, it's not to be partisan or political; it's to take whatever opportunity, Mr. Speaker, that I, as a member of the minority party, can grab onto on behalf of our leadership, John Boehner and Eric Cantor and other leaders on the Republican side, to put the message out. And they trust me on certain issues, other Members on other issues because of the background that I have, in this case, a background of 30 years of practicing medicine, as an OB/GYN specialist in northwest Georgia. And I don't have the last word on this. Maybe the last word comes from somebody like Sanjay Gupta for CNN or Isadore Rosenfeld for Fox News. I commend any one of those great doctors on Sunday morning where they do 30-minute shows and talk about issues like how should we reform health care, how should we respond to this latest flu crisis? What do you do when your child gets a little bit sick and you're worried? Those folks do a great job. But we have a responsibility here to share our knowledge as well. So as I talk about that 47 million, I wanted to make sure that to the best of my knowledge, I think I am giving accurate information to say that truly only 15 to 20 million people in this country are falling through the cracks in regard to not having the ability financially and maybe not having the access to health insurance and having no choice but to show up in the emergency room late at night and getting very expensive care and probably substandard care only because the doctors, the health care providers there, don't know them. They don't know their medical history. And we don't have electronic medical records now, as we should have, as President Bush has called for, as President Obama has called for, as I totally agree with, by 2014, if not even sooner. You ought to be able to, in a situation like that--or even if it's somebody that's well insured and they are just on vacation, and they get this great opportunity to go to Russia or somewhere. And, obviously, most people don't speak the language there, and the doctors don't speak English, and you show up in an emergency room, and they don't know what's wrong with you and what your past history is and what medications you are on. But if you had a radio frequency-identified card, a health care card, smaller, maybe, than even an American Express card, that you could just swipe, maybe like one of these Clear cards that some of us use to go through security at the airport, read your iris scan, whatever, and it has got every bit of medical information--every operation that you have ever had, every allergy, every prescription that you're on--and the language is immediately transferred from English to Russian or Russian to English, or whatever, and that's what we call fully-integrated electronic medical records. And the Federal Government, thank goodness, is working on that, and working very hard on it. In fact, President Obama put $19 billion in the Recovery Act of 2009. I think that's a good thing. I'm glad he did that. I think we definitely need to do it. We need to give loans and grants to doctors and hospitals, and encourage them. But every system has to be certified because the Federal Government with Medicare and Medicaid and the CHIP program and the VA program and TRICARE and our military health care system accounts for maybe 65 percent--I'd say at least 60 percent--of every health care dollar that's spent every year, Mr. Speaker. We're totaling I think now about $2.3 trillion. Seventeen percent of our Gross Domestic Product is health care dollars. So when people say to me, Well, why should the Federal Government have anything to do with what vendor I buy my software and hardware and maintenance program from that's very specific to my specialty--OB/GYN or general surgery or pediatrics or psychiatry, the answer is, Well, you don't just want to be able to communicate with the other doctors in the neighborhood or the two hospitals in the county, because the world doesn't end at the county line. That's true in regard to countries as well, as we talk about our borders, north and south, and you think about over in Europe. You have so many small countries and the borders are so porous. People move and travel and vacation. So you want all that connectivity. And I think it's usually important. So we on this side of the aisle would say to you, Mr. Speaker, and your Democratic colleagues on the other side of the aisle and to the current administration, Hey, we agree with that. We agree that let's spend some money. Let's work toward a fully integrated electronics medical system. What it would do, the Rand Corporation says, is save $160 billion a year. I don't know if it would do that. That would be quite a cut in that $2.3 trillion. But even if it's $100 billion a year, that is a significant savings. Maybe more important than saving money with that, though, is it saves lives, because people on Plavix are not going to inadvertently, because they show up with a transient ischemic attack, and it seems that maybe they're on the verge of having a stroke, some emergency room doctor who doesn't know them, who doesn't know that they have been on Plavix for years, and they decide they need some Coumadin right away--Coumadin, a much stronger blood thinner--and while trying to prevent this person from having a stroke, they cause them to have a hemorrhage in the brain. It's kind of like a stroke, but it's different. But the results are the same. They're catastrophic, and they can lead to instant death. So that's why we need to do this, and I think that it would save lives and save money. I think doctors in fact, Mr. Speaker, would ultimately be reimbursed better. Now they are very reluctant. At least 300,000 physicians in this country don't have much in the way of electronic medical records. They might send their bill electronically. They may even prescribe electronically. But the records of the patient would literally be secure, very secure, and we have to make sure of that. You don't give that information out to anybody that has no business looking at it. Other physicians, of course, as long as the patient is comfortable with that. But we will continue to work on it. I think you will have less lawsuits because doctors would be less likely to make an error in prescribing. We would have lower health care costs because a doctor would not automatically order an MRI or a CAT scan, or somebody who presents to the emergency room with a headache, if he or she, the health care provider, knew that a week ago, by looking at those electronic records, the patient just had that done. They might not do an echocardiogram if that was just done yesterday in the cardiologist's office. And then, lastly, in regard to electronic medical records, doctors are reimbursed under Medicare based on the amount of time that they spend with a patient. Now, if it's a surgical procedure or the delivery of a baby, these things are fairly easy to have a standardized reimbursement for that degree of service. But when most of the visit is cognitive--it involves the time and thinking and physical exam on the part of the health care provider, then the code that you submit is what determines the reimbursement. I will submit to you, Mr. Speaker, and to my colleagues, that most doctors are afraid that if they submit a code that is too high and then some inspector general--certainly, Medicare and Social Security has a right to do that if you're seeing Medicare patients, and look at your charts. And if you're over-coding, gaming the system, then not only would you have to give the money back and you may get kicked out of the Medicare program, but you could go to jail. You could go to jail. So doctors have a tendency to code lower rather than higher. Well, with electronic medical records, it's all done for you. There's no question about how much time you spent with a patient, what you talked about, what you did, what tests you ordered. And then it's just sort of like a neon sign. It pops up there and says this is the evaluation and management code. I think, ultimately, the doctors would be reimbursed more fairly. I didn't want to spend too much time on electronic medical records, but I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is important to talk about that and to understand why it's important and why we should, on both sides of the aisle, come together on this one. If we can't come together on anything else, we ought to come together on this one. I see that I have been joined by one of my classmates. I always like to see him on the House floor. I see him everyday on the House floor, but to hear him speak on the House floor--and you will too, Mr. Speaker--as I present to you the gentleman from Utah, Representative Rob Bishop. I don't even know what he is going to talk about. Well, when he talks, it's worth listening. And I yield to my friend from Utah.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Etowah Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Bartow County's 11th Congressional District. The Etowah Chapter of DAR was formally organized April 20, 1909, in Cartersville, Georgia, as 24 enthusiastic and patriotic women were declared the charter members. Over the past 100 years, the Etowah Chapter has been instrumental in promoting education and pride in the history of our county. In fact, during its first year, the Chapter placed a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence in each of the 50 schools in Bartow County and has since been instrumental in securing monuments for the graves of 13 local Revolutionary War soldiers, heroes. Each year the Etowah Chapter sponsors an American History Essay Contest. It awards Good Citizen medals to the local students, and it supports DAR schools, such as Berry College in Rome, Georgia. Furthermore, the members of the Etowah Chapter are proud of their heritage and patriotic service to Cartersville and Bartow County. I ask that all my colleagues join me in recognizing the positive impact that the Etowah Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution have made upon their community.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman is absolutely correct. He is absolutely correct. Thirty different studies have suggested that we need a minimum to be able to have enough planes. We have a situation in Hawaii at Hickam Air Force Base where they only have one squadron, that is 20 F-22s, and the same thing is true at Tyndall in Florida. They have one squadron of 20 planes. And it is very possible that with the limit of 187, which the Air Force clearly has said on repeated occasions that that is not enough, that it puts the Air Force in a high-risk situation, that they may just have to BRAC those bases and take those planes and put them somewhere else, Elmendorf as an example or in Guam or Okinawa. But, Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia is absolutely correct that this was a decision that was made by the administration, and it was based on cost. It was not based on the needs, as repeatedly stated by the highest ranking members of the Air Force and by 30 different studies, that we need more planes. We got off on a tangent, Madam Speaker, but it is important because what we are talking about as we discuss the appropriateness of spending $2 billion to produce a vaccine that may never be used, that is a very important decision that our country has to make, and I think the American people need to understand that. So I thank the gentleman for asking that question, Madam Speaker, and I gladly yield back to Dr. Broun.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Reclaiming my time, because that is a great segue for me; because, Madam Speaker, I represent a district, Marietta, Georgia, is part of it, Cobb County. Lockheed Martin has a plant there where we employ almost 8,000 great Georgians, probably a few folks from Alabama and surrounding States that work on those flight lines for the C-130 and also, more specifically, the F-22 Raptor. The Department of Defense has made the decision to cancel that program at 187 F-22s, when originally we thought we needed 700, the military. The Air Force in particular has said, Madam Speaker, repeatedly that even 240 planes would put us in a moderate-risk situation, and all of a sudden this administration has made the decision to cancel that flight line and I think put us at a high-risk situation. I feel very strongly that in this emergency supplemental there are four, and that is it, four of these F-22 Raptors that give us that fifth generation of air superiority, best in the world, and we are going to appropriate as a part of an emergency supplemental mainly for continuing to fight and win in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly Afghanistan now; yet, we are going to spend $2 billion possibly preparing a vaccine that will never be used? Let me tell you what happens, Madam Speaker, with that vaccine if we produce it at 50 million or however many doses like they did back in 1976 when it only cost $135 million. We might be spending $2 billion on a vaccine that gets poured down the drain and is never used, and we could have purchased 15 or 20 F-22 Raptors. Again, that is getting off on a tangent a little bit, but I feel like I really need to mention that because we have to prioritize our spending. We have to do these things in an appropriate manner. We can't let all of our spending and our reaction be media driven in responding to a panic so that we don't get Katrina'd. And I would yield back to my colleague.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If I could reclaim my time for just a second and yield right back to him, he brought up a very important point, Madam Speaker. There have been two deaths in the United States thus far attributed to the current version of this same virus, H1N1 influenza type A. One was a 2-year-old toddler, a Mexican national, who came to Texas for a visit and was actually sick before, and I think this was a little boy, before they came into Texas, and subsequently the child died in Houston in the hospital. And what you get from the news releases, from the press releases, is that it says that the child had multiple health problems before developing the flu. And now we just heard, and I'm not sure if Dr. Broun is aware of this, but another death has occurred. This was an adult woman, I believe, also in Texas that lived in a border town very close to the Mexican-Texas border. And also it says this woman that died had multiple health problems. Now, Dr. Broun and I are physicians. When you start talking about multiple health problems, are you speaking of metastatic cancer, as an example? Maybe somebody who had breast cancer that had spread to other parts of her body? Possibly. Are you talking about somebody that has coronary artery disease and has had three or four heart attacks and a bypass procedure done who is in congestive heart failure? Are you talking about somebody who has severe type 2 diabetes who is on insulin, who is on dialysis because of renal failure? I mean, I think the media has a responsibility here that they are not fulfilling because they don't give you the whole story, and I think it's very important that we get that so we understand what the true risk is and how severe the flu is. And I yield back to my colleague, but I wanted to make sure people understand these two deaths, these were sick people: one, a very young child; another, a past middle-age adult woman who had health problems. ``Comorbidity'' is the term that my colleague used.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. If I could make one point, we are not talking about meningitis here. It's not meningitis. It can be a severe illness, as Dr. Broun says, but it's not going to kill you within 24 hours. And I think you are approaching it the way Dr. Broun is describing. I didn't mean to interrupt him, Madam Speaker, but I thought it was important that people understand because people do know about situations where somebody was perfectly well one day and dead the next from meningococcal meningitis, a bacterial infection, not a viral infection. Viral meningitis usually just causes a severe headache and is time limited. I thought it was important to make that point.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Let me reclaim my time and try to wrap up, Madam Speaker, as we get close to the allotted time. What Dr. Broun is talking about, my colleagues, I want you to think about what he said, if you think we have gotten a little afar from our starting point on talking about this H1N1 influenza. The health of the Nation is more than just protecting people from a pandemic, from disease, from infection. That is certainly a huge part of the responsibility of our government, to try to protect its citizens, and I think that we do a great job and we have a great health care system. But the health of the Nation also, as Dr. Broun is suggesting so accurately, has to do with national defense and to make sure that our leadership understands the importance of us being respected. It is nice to be liked, and we all want to be liked. When our Commander in Chief goes to Latin America or goes to speak at the European Union or the Group of 20 or to Turkey or wherever, or visits our troops in Iraq, I think we need to understand the health of the Nation is more about freedom from disease. It is about strength. It is about character. It is about making the important decisions of where you spend the hard- earned tax dollars that 300 million people in this country have to write a check every April 15, that we have that responsibility, and we can't afford to squander one dime of it. I am going to yield back to my colleague maybe for the final 30 seconds, but, Madam Speaker, I just want to say that during this hour, this Republican GOP Doctor's Caucus of which Dr. Broun and I are a part, I want to point out this last slide. We are talking about strengthening the doctor-patient relationship, but we are talking about a lot of things tonight in regard to the health of the Nation. With that, I want to yield back to my colleague for some closing comments, and then we will wrap up.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Let me reclaim my time to make a request, Madam Speaker, of Dr. Broun, because I think that our colleagues and their constituents really need as much information as they can possibly get. The media creates a near hysteria situation, and then when, of course, the fires are going out and there's no longer a crisis, then they are on to the next story. I can tell you that I was scheduled on several national opportunities to talk about this issue when it was the news du jour. Then all of a sudden when things get better, they just say we don't need you anymore because we're on to another story and there's a runaway teenager somewhere or some other more exciting story. But I think, Madam Speaker, it would be great if Dr. Broun and anybody that joins us later in the hour could tell us exactly what you would do as a physician, as a health care provider, when someone comes to your office and they either have some symptoms, they think they might have the flu, or maybe they just come because they have heard that they ought to be taking Tamiflu or Relenza. They're not sick yet, but they think, well, maybe if I get on some medication ahead of time that I can somehow prevent this and I owe it to my children to get a prescription from Dr. Broun. Would you talk about that for us? I think, Madam Speaker, if we can have Dr. Broun do that, it would be very helpful for people to understand what they should do.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Absolutely, you are right, and you pointed out this earlier, Dr. Broun did, that a pandemic just means that it has spread to the point that multiple countries are involved, and they are talking about the volume of cases, not necessarily the severity. And they, by the way, so our colleagues can understand this and advise their constituents when they call, the World Health Organization has not declared a pandemic.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to address my colleagues for the best part of the next hour. What we are going to do, Madam Speaker, is talk about this current virus that is going around that we are now referring to as type A H1N1 influenza. I think most people would understand better if we said swine flu. Now I understand why we are trying to get away from calling it swine flu, and obviously in States across the country where the pork industry is hugely important to the economy, they don't want this fear--unwarranted fear, really--of consuming pork products that are completely safe. Obviously, you have known from almost childhood that pork should be well cooked to a temperature of 160 degrees and it's perfectly safe. But that is the reason why I am going to stand here tonight and probably not use the term ``swine flu'' very much, because I don't want to create an unnecessary fear of a very, very safe product that could be harmful to States across this country and to other countries as well. We are in a tough time economically on a global scale, and we don't want to make those matters worse by creating a false sense of concern. I will be joined, Madam Speaker, this evening by a colleague or two-- or three or four maybe--who are part of the GOP Doctors Caucus. We formed this caucus at the beginning of this Congress, the 111th, as we grew our numbers of health care providers in their previous life who now have morphed into Members of this great body of the House of Representatives. We have that really on both sides of the aisle, but this is a Republican hour, Madam Speaker, and I will be joined by other Republicans. I would welcome, if any of my Democratic friends, health care providers, are sitting in their offices watching us on television on C-SPAN, if they want to come over and join us and weigh in on this, I would be glad to yield them time. There is no partisanship involved here. The purpose is to try to inform our colleagues, all 435 in the House, so that they can inform their constituents. And each one, as you know, Madam Speaker, represents almost 700,000 people in their respective districts. And we are all getting calls. I mean, people are scared. I would say that some fear is warranted, but a pandemic of panic is not warranted. And so the more information that we, as Members of Congress, can give to our constituents and that our staff can give when they call the office, either here in Washington or in our district offices, then we get to keep this thing in its proper perspective. And that is my purpose tonight, and that is the purpose of my colleagues that will be joining me later in the hour to talk about this issue and to make sure that people have enough information that they can take care of themselves and their children, or maybe their elderly parents, or possibly someone in the family whose immune system is compromised so that they know what to do, they know what the risks are, they know what their government is doing. And, Madam Speaker, I want to commend and compliment the Federal Government and our respective State health departments, the Centers for Disease Control in my great State of Georgia, which, as you know, is an integral part of the Department of Health and Human Services and is really the lead agency, if you will, in regard to infectious disease, communicable disease, epidemiology. And Interim Director Dr. Besser and previously the Director of CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, these are the kinds of people, both with experience in infectious disease--in fact, Dr. Gerberding, internal medicine specialist, subspecialty being infectious disease. It is comforting to know that these kinds of professionals are standing guard, they are watching our back. We had a hearing last week when, both Republicans and Democrats, the new Secretary, the day after she was confirmed, Kathleen Sebelius, former Governor of Kansas and now Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, and Admiral Schuchat from the CDC, all spoke to us and told Members of Congress exactly what the plan was and what was being done and what is currently being done in regard to this impending pandemic. We are pleased, a week later, to find out that things are much better today on, what is it, the 5th of May, than they were a week ago or 2 weeks ago. And it looks like we are not, Madam Speaker, going to have a pandemic of this potentially very virulent virus that has occurred in our past history. We will talk a little bit maybe about what happened in 1918, when 50 million people across the world died from influenza. Of course that was a different time. It probably started in the United States in very confined quarters as men were training to be rushed into the battle of the great war, World War I, and in very close contact. But of course back then there were no vaccinations against any kind of flu, seasonal flu, avian flu, this current type, H1N1 influenza virus, no vaccine, and more importantly, Madam Speaker, no antibiotics. It was not until 1941, I think, or thereabouts, that penicillin was discovered. So you really had no effective way of treating complications, and of course the complications that would lead to death. And let's say even the 35,000 deaths that occur today following just regular seasonal flu, complications from seasonal flu, they are respiratory; it's pneumonia, it's sepsis. And back in 1918 I don't think there were any respirators that I'm aware of. I don't think that's true. My colleague from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun, a family practitioner, has joined me. And when I yield time to him, we can talk about that in a colloquy about what was available. But I think we could compare the current situation, this 2009 concern over this influenza, to 1976, when a very similar virus struck--again, originated in a military facility; I think it was Fort Dix. There was, I think, at least one death, and five soldiers came down with this type A influenza, H1N1, very similar--I said I wasn't going to say swine flu, but very similar to what we are looking at today. Back then, a vaccine was developed very specifically, and we started a big vaccine program. I think 50 million people in 1976 during the Ford administration were vaccinated against this virus. In retrospect, it may have not been necessary. And finally that program of vaccinating everybody was canceled because of complications. We had more complications really from the vaccine than we did from the flu. And I say that not to suggest today that we shouldn't prepare ourselves--and again, I compliment the respective Secretaries in the CDC and the States that are ready. And they are ready, and people should be very comforted by that. But we need to question how much money we spend. Is it appropriate to, let's say, spend $2 billion in the upcoming emergency supplemental that is primarily for the ongoing cost of trying to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, a very important spending that is probably going to end up being $90-plus billion in this emergency supplemental? But whether or not we need to spend $2 billion specifically in this emergency supplemental on developing a vaccine and vaccinating 50 million people like we did back in 1976, there is some question in my mind, as a physician who practiced for 30 years, although not infectious disease, but I do have some concerns that we don't overreact and that we make sure that we have a measured response. The President has an obligation to do that. And I can understand that he doesn't want to take this too lightly. I'm sure he remembers Katrina just as we all do. I will use the expression, he doesn't want to get ``Katrina'ed'' over this issue by not responding appropriately. And I do understand, and I think we all understand what I'm talking about when I say that. But we will spend the best part of an hour talking about this issue. I have got just a very few posters that I want to share with my colleagues, Madam Speaker, before yielding to Dr. Broun, the great physician Member from Athens, Georgia. This first slide is referencing that outbreak that occurred back in 1976. And again, it was very similar. The serotype, the specificity of the virus then was very similar to this 2009 outbreak. Five soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, I believe--contracted H1N1 influenza and one soldier died. Tests on many more--of course I'm sure everybody at the base was tested for this virus, and it confirmed that 500 actually were infected, but most of them really showed no noticeable symptoms. I mean, they may have had a sore throat, they may have had what we call rhinorrhea--technical name for runny nose, sneezing and body aches and things like that--but they really showed no severe symptoms. And over the following months, no other Americans died from that virus. The loss of one life, of course, is one life too many, especially for the family of that individual, but clearly things kind of resolved themselves in pretty quick fashion. And as I say, no other Americans died from the virus. But the inoculation that we did develop--and I think I may have this included on the slide, Madam Speaker--but we spent $135 million developing a vaccine. That was back in 1976, 1977, what, almost 40 years ago. And we have just appropriated or are on the verge of appropriating $2 billion to our response to this flu. And it may be that a lot of that expense will be developing a vaccine. And it is possible, if we do that, develop a vaccine in mass quantities, that we will never use it. Because remember in this experience, where the complications from the vaccine--and I want to talk about that just briefly--might end up being worse than the disease itself. So as I say, in 1976, this $135 million--and that was a lot of money back then--developing this vaccine and inoculating 50 million people, the vaccinations began on October 1, 1976, and by December 16--so we're talking, what, 2\1/2\ months later--the Federal Government decided we needed to suspend this program because there were increasing reports, Madam Speaker, of side effects. And I am not talking about just a little swelling or rash or itch at the injection, the vaccination site. I'm talking about some serious things. In fact, I want to talk about one thing in particular. But there were some deaths attributed to the vaccine; 50 million people received the vaccine. And one of the side effects was a very serious condition, Madam Speaker, called Guillain-Barre syndrome. I don't know who Guillain was and I don't know who Barre was, but maybe Dr. Broun will tell us about that. But it was named after some very-- not American physicians. But this Guillain-Barre syndrome is a paralysis that occurs, and it literally causes paralysis from the neck down. And these people couldn't survive back in 1918, certainly, but even today without the aid of a respirator. The good news is this condition usually goes away and they recover full function, but it can take as long as a year. And some of these patients spend most of that year in a hospital, away from their families, away from their jobs, and many months on a respirator so they can even breathe. So this was a very, very serious complication, Madam Speaker, from these vaccinations that were developed back in 1976 to treat this very similar virus that we are facing today. So what happened is pretty quickly the vaccination program was suspended. And then you have to say, well, was that $135 million well spent? I think maybe in retrospect, but you have to be careful about saying, well, you know, don't do this or don't do that, that it looks like this is not going to be a very serious flu, that it's not going to be even, Madam Speaker, as serious as seasonal flu, and there's just going to be a few people sick in a few States and maybe other countries as well, but it's not going to be a pandemic. And maybe if we have the money available to produce a vaccine in mass quantities, the decision very well could be not to do that, and then we will be able to return some of that money, maybe most of that money, to the taxpayer. Maybe we'll be able to spend it on something that's equally as important or maybe even more important. But that's a subject for debate, and I realize that you have to be very careful about saying that we don't need to do anything because clearly we do, and I think we are doing a lot. At this point I want to yield to my colleague from Georgia, who represents Athens and my home of Augusta, Georgia, and he does it very well, and that's my colleague and fellow physician, Dr. Paul Broun.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. It does. I want to continue this colloquy, Madam Speaker, with Dr. Broun, because, if, as Dr. Broun said, every person that comes in that office that thinks that they may have the flu, not seasonal flu, but this flu that everybody is panicking over, that, you know, the doctor, Dr. Broun, you correct me if I am wrong, but the doctor is going to do a physical examination on that patient. They are going to look at the throat, the tonsils where strep throat can occur. They are going to listen to the lungs; they are going to use that stethoscope. They are going to make sure that patient doesn't have pneumonia. And they are going to make an evaluation. As Dr. Broun was saying, it's the very young or the very elderly or somebody that's immune compromised, the approach may be a little bit different. But this Tamiflu, which is a pill or capsule, and this Relenza, which is a nasal aspirate, they are as effective 2 or 3 days later, I think certainly if they are administered within 48 hours. So, Dr. Broun, you might say to those folks that they are real nervous about, well, look, we are going to treat this symptomatically, and probably not with a antibiotic, as Dr. Broun said. And if in 24 to 48 hours your child is getting worse, then, absolutely, you come right back here to my office, I believe available 24 hours a day. That's the way we practiced when Dr. Broun and I were practicing, and we will then go ahead and do a culture and start your child or your mom or your dad or your mother or your sister or your wife or husband, we will put them on the antiviral, the Tamiflu or the Relenza. And then we will kind of wait and see what the culture shows. So there is time. What Dr. Broun is talking about is treating people, using your brain and using your skills and not wasting precious medication if you don't need to.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I chuckled just a little bit at what Dr. Broun was saying, but it is absolutely right. He is absolutely right. And, colleagues, I don't know, on Sunday morning you refer CNN or Fox News--I guess my Democratic colleagues, it's CNN; and my Republican colleagues, it's mostly Fox News. But they have a medical consultant, Sanjay Gupta on CNN, and Isadore Rosenfeld, a gentleman that I listen to. Fortunately, they don't limit him to a 2-minute sound bite. On Sunday morning Dr. Rosenfeld has a 30-minute interview. And he, Madam Speaker, he was so good and so practical and talked plain talk, just like Dr. Broun about, you know, the risk and the relevant, what do you do. And I imagine that he will be talking about that this Sunday, Dr. Gupta probably as well on CNN. But, generally, the information is outstanding, and I say that from the perspective of being a practicing physician, and Dr. Broun as well, and they talk about cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Avoid touching your eyes or your nose or your mouth, because germs definitely, as Dr. Broun said, spread that way. So it's so much common sense. And I commend Dr. Rosenfeld, Dr. Gupta and others, and of course earlier, Dr. Broun, before you got here, Madam Speaker, knows that I talked about the response that we have gotten from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Governor Sebelius, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Governor Napolitano, the acting director of the CDC, Dr. Bessler, and on and on and on. President Obama's response in regard to the budget, we talked about the fact that he said, well, let's put $1.5 billion in case we have to develop a vaccine specific, in case this thing does become a pandemic, and we have got lots of folks that are getting very sick, and we need to go in that direction. So I think the response has been good, but we need to make sure that we don't overreact and we don't let the inappropriate media cause panic to set in. These good doctors that speak on these shows I think are doing a good job to prevent that from happening.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Let me reclaim my time for the remaining minute or less. But Dr. Broun I think, Madam Speaker, hit on a good point. We talked tonight mostly about the physical health of the country, the Nation, and the importance of providing that and protecting people from disease, if we can. But what Dr. Broun mentioned, the fiscal health of the country, is almost as important if not as important. And so when we start recommending policy that a small group of zealots want us to go down a road of cap-and-trade or cap-and- tax, we can hurt this Nation just as badly by being fiscally irresponsible as physically irresponsible. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. They have declared a category 5, which is one step from saying there is a pandemic. I don't believe they are going to get to category 6 and make that declaration, as things have improved. I mean, that is not wishful thinking on my part. I understand that it could go the other way, but I don't think it will.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. What you're saying, Dr. Broun, is that antibiotics are not really effective in treating a viral illness. And I want to ask another question of the doctor, Madam Speaker. Does everybody that goes to see their family doctor, primary care physician, infectious disease specialist maybe, does every one of them, if they have symptoms, runny nose, aching a little bit, maybe a low- grade fever, headache, whatever, do they all need to be cultured for this particular H1N1 type A influenza virus? Do they all need to have a culture done? Respond to that, if you would, Dr. Broun.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank Representative Shimkus for leading not just this hour, Mr. Speaker, not just this hour tonight, but he has been in a leadership role on an all- of-the-above approach to solving our energy problem and our dependence on a lot of countries that don't like us very much for our sources of oil and natural gas. This goes back, Mr. Speaker, to the August recess of last year, where so many of us on this side of the aisle just spent literally the entire month with the lights down low and the microphones off and the C-SPAN cameras not running, but just bringing people on the floor of this House that were visiting the people's House on summer vacation and talking to them about an all-of-the-above approach to solving our energy problems. So I thank Representative Shimkus for that, and my colleague from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert), and Representative G.T. Thompson. I think about the person he replaced in Pennsylvania, a long-serving member in this body, who retired--John Peterson--and the work that he did in regard to clean coal and his efforts. Of course, that is a signature issue that Representative Shimkus is trying to rally us behind--clean coal technology, carbon sequestration, and things that are part of this total package of all-of-the-above. Just real quickly let me say this. I heard Representative Biggert talk about the situation in Illinois. I wasn't really aware of the dependence on nuclear for electricity in Illinois and its relationship to how much energy is generated by coal. So you have got that one-two punch in Illinois. It's just the opposite in Georgia. It's mostly coal. Some hydro and a little bit of nuclear. We are very likely to get the next two nuclear power generators come online pretty soon at Plant Vogel in my great State of Georgia. But there is no question that this cap-and-trade or cap-and-tax--you know, the word scheme can be a pejorative. And I honestly believe, as I stand here and tell my colleagues, that I think this is a scheme. It is a scheme to get jobs that have long ago located in the South and Southeast because of the low cost of labor, to get them back into Massachusetts or out in California. And this is the way they do it. They are not willing to cut the cost of labor, for obvious reasons, so they jack up the price of energy in the Southeast and in Illinois and other States of the breadbasket of the country and the Rust Belt. I think if you go around your district and you talk to people, every manufacturer will tell you, ``For goodness sake, Congressman, do something about stopping this cap-and-tax situation.'' That's what we are all about here tonight. I know time is limited so I want to yield back and let some of my other colleagues have a little time. But, John Shimkus, thank you for the opportunity. We will continue to be with you on this effort. We have got to stop this scheme.

Mr. GINGREY

Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, on March 24, 2009, the House of Representatives passed H. Con. Res. 55--recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)--unanimously by voice vote. The Members of this House have spoken in one voice affirming the need to further deepen the relationship between the United States and Taiwan. This anniversary is an important milestone and represents an incredible opportunity for us to further build upon and strengthen the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. On April 12, 2009, President MaYing-jeou in his address on the anniversary of the TRA declared ``the TRA has come to symbolize the strong friendship and trust forged between America and Taiwan over these past decades'' and the TRA has served as an anchor of ``peace and stability.'' In his address, President Ma laid out the historical and political significance of the TRA and the diplomatic path hewed by its enactment: The TRA was enacted in 1979 by the U.S. Congress to cope with the Taiwan situation after the U.S. had switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. It replaced the terribly inadequate arrangement of the Carter Administration, by keeping all aspects of the Taiwan-U.S. relationship intact except, of course, formal diplomatic ties, a mutual defense treaty and the stationing of American troops in Taiwan. One American commentator said in 1979 that while the U.S.-China Joint Communique establishing diplomatic relations derecognized Taiwan, the Taiwan Relations Act has re-recognized it. My Harvard professor Detlev Vagt said to me after the passing of the TRA that Taiwan is the most recognized unrecognized government of the U.S. In an imperfect world, the TRA, which largely accommodates Taiwan's needs for continuity, reality, security, legality and governmental status in the new Taiwan-U.S. relationship, is the second-best choice for Taiwan. Today the TRA is more than a convenient solution to a political dilemma. Its very existence changed the evolutionary course of cross-strait development by stabilizing the triangular relationship among Taiwan, the United States and mainland China. President Ma also addressed the need to promote Taiwan's economic growth and to take the necessary steps to ensure Taiwan's rightful place in our global economy: We believe that rapprochement with mainland China will improve Taiwan's prospects for expanding our international space. Certainly, the international community will benefit significantly from this change, whether by capitalizing on the new business opportunities thereby made available or simply by no longer being caught in volatile cross-strait relations. For example, the establishment of the Three Links has made it logistically feasible and economically cost- effective to fly, ship or send mail across the Taiwan Strait. The establishment of direct cross-strait travel and transport provides an incentive for the international community to include Taiwan in regional economic arrangements in East Asia. In fact, right after we inaugurated the Three Links across the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan was able to join the Government Procurement Agreement last December, which we had been unable to participate in when we became a member of the World Trade Organization six years ago. This new development is good news to many potential foreign investors in the U.S., Japan and Europe. The United States interest will always be in the defense of democracy and in honoring our commitment to the protection of democratic institutions and peoples. President Ma also expressed his commitment to these same principles: In fact, Taiwan has much to offer foreign investors. We are a country with a sophisticated legal infrastructure, a democratically open and stable political system and a viable and liberal economy. We therefore want to end Taiwan's isolation from the world by putting our economic relations with the Chinese mainland on a more normal footing. At the same time, the more contentious political issues will be left on the back burner. We will put off political talks until after a firm foundation for economic, cultural and educational exchanges has been established and buttressed by reciprocal trust and confidence on both sides. Strengthening the relationship between the United States and Taiwan is essential. This Congress must continue to remain firm in our commitment to Taiwan and meet our obligations under the TRA, as President Ma expressed: Undoubtedly, the resilience of the TRA and the recent cross-strait detente have opened new opportunities for Taiwan, the U.S. and the mainland to pave a common path towards cooperation, instead of confrontation. This new equilibrium can result in a win-win-win situation for all sides. Obviously, America's role is pivotal. For peace negotiations to continue, the United States is well advised to not only reaffirm but also bolster its commitments under the TRA. The newfound rapprochement with the mainland only means we must with equal, if not greater, effort work to fortify U.S.-Taiwan relations on the basis of mutual trust. This I believe calls for an expansion of bilateral interaction especially at higher levels so as to always guarantee clear communication and better cooperation. Furthermore, a strong commitment in U.S. arms sales and support for expanding Taiwan's international space will enhance our position in face of a power imbalance now rapidly developing across the strait. Therefore, we come here today not only to commemorate a historic point in cross-strait relations, but, more importantly, to celebrate the endurance of Taiwan-U.S. relations. The strength of the TRA is more vital and crucial at this critical juncture of development than ever before. U.S.-Taiwan relations, the stability of the status quo and even the entire region hangs in the balance. Therefore, I call on Taiwan and the United States to continue to honor the commitments that have bound their destinies together in common friendship and interest for the past three decades. Madam Speaker, it is my express hope that as we move forward from this 30th Anniversary, the United States and Taiwan will continue to recognize the importance of our shared destinies and act accordingly for the preservation and promotion of our shared values.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the Mabry Middle School Band, which is currently on a special trip to Washington, DC. Mabry Middle School is located in my hometown of Marietta in Georgia's 11th Congressional District. The Mabry Band Program, directed by Jill Barnocki and Kimberly Bruce, has 377 students enrolled in grades 6-8. Madam Speaker, members of the band program consistently earn recognition in both the Georgia All-State Band and the Georgia District 12 Honor Band. All of the school's bands earned straight superior ratings in the Georgia Large Group Performance Evaluation. The Mabry Band program has also received invitations to perform at prestigious conferences and competitions throughout the country, including the International Band & Orchestra Conference in Chicago in 2008, the Georgia Music Educators Conference in Savannah, Georgia in 2007, the Southeastern Middle School Band Clinic at Troy State University in 2003, and the University of Georgia Mid-Fest in 2002. Mabry Middle School has been an exemplary part of the Marietta City School System since it opened in November of 1978. The school is ranked in the top ten schools in the state of Georgia and is a Georgia School of Excellence. In 2005 Mabry Middle School was awarded the Scholastic and Intel's Schools of Distinction Award for Technology Innovation and Georgia's Silver Award for Academic Achievement. Mabry is also a 2008 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon School of Excellence. I ask that my colleagues join me in recognizing the accomplishments of the students and band of Mabry Middle School.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman from Texas for yielding and for giving me the opportunity to join with him on the floor tonight as we talk to our colleagues about our impression of the first 100 days. I was actually on ``Fox News Sunday,'' just yesterday, basically talking about the same thing, and my comment then was: well, you know, what bothers me more than the first 100 days and the performance of the President is the fact that yesterday was National Debt Day. It was the day on which the Federal Government had spent every bit of the money that we've taken in. All of the revenue has been spent on expenses, on discretionary spending and on mandatory spending, and now, for the rest of the year, it's borrowed money. We're going to be spending borrowed money for the rest of the year. The striking--shocking almost--thing about that, Mr. Speaker, is that this is occurring 3\1/2\ months earlier this year, the gentleman from Texas, than it did last year. So, yes, there's no way that I could stand before my colleagues and say that I would give the President a good grade on this. My worthy opponent in the majority yesterday, as we always have a Republican and a Democrat on these television shows, said: Well, you know, the President ought to be scored on a curve. I guess he meant compared to the last President--President Bush and the previous administration. In the opinion of this gentleman, the President should get an A on the curve. Now, he's a Harvard-educated lawyer, an accountant, and I think he, maybe, even has a Ph.D. In the Ivy League, I don't think they give anything, Mr. Speaker, but A's and B's. I went to Georgia Tech, and there is no curve. There is no grade inflation at Georgia Tech. I hope my friends at Georgia Tech won't get on to me about this. I'm a Georgia Tech graduate, and I speak only for myself, but I would give him at best a C-minus. One of the things that bothers me the most is this recent release, this declassification and release of these memos that were written by attorneys in the previous Justice Department in regard to enhanced interrogation to try to make sure that anything we did as a country was done legally and within the bounds of the law and within the bounds of our great Constitution. I'm sure they struggled--it was a difficult thing to do--and in good conscience said to the President: This is what you can do. This is what you cannot do. We're in a desperate situation. We have just been attacked. Three thousand or more people were killed when the Twin Towers came crashing down after the Islamic extremists-- the terrorists, global terrorists--I guess we call that overseas contingency operations now.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I guess we can no longer talk about terrorism. We were in a desperate situation, Mr. Speaker, and to think that the President--I read this in the paper about how he spent 5\1/2\ hours with his top-level people over in the West Wing, debating pro and con whether or not to release these memos--to declassify them and to embarrass, I guess, the previous administration and our country to the world. After 5\1/2\ hours of debate, pro and con, the President made a decision to release those memos, and then of course said: But now, you know, we need to move forward. I'm a leader--and I hope and pray that he is--who wants to look to the future. We've got a lot of problems. This economy is terrible. With everything we've done, we're just right back to where we were, you know, as far as the Dow goes and as far as continuing to lose jobs. So we need to move forward and not focus on the past. We're not going to be prosecuting these people because what they did they did in good faith. Then, what, 6 days later, all of a sudden, he said: Well, maybe I'm not so sure about that. Mr. Speaker, this is dangerous stuff, and I think the President really needs to rethink this. This business of gotcha and saying that, you know, everything is the fault of the previous administration, I think, has got to stop. If he wants to get a good score on his first 100 days, well then, let's start thinking about the next 100 days. I'm ready to give him a good score if he--the President, Mr. President, the 44th President of the United States--doesn't try to take over our health care system and doesn't bring us towards socialized medicine and a single-payer system, if he doesn't tax the middle class to death with this carbon trade scheme, regime, European Union idea, that, I think, is crazy in these economic times. If he wants a decent score in the next 100 days--and I'll yield back to my colleague--then hopefully he will and this Congress will and this majority will reject these ideas as we move forward.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Well, I thank the honorary Dr. Scalise for yielding time back to me because the point, before we go back to Mr. Scalise and then hear from Dr. Roe, is this a point about a new government-run health plan that, I think, we want to emphasize to our colleagues because this is the one thing that we fear the most. Well, I guess the one thing that we fear the most is, in one fell swoop, going to a single-payer system of socialized medicine like they have in Canada or in the United Kingdom or in other countries where there are major, major problems that some of my colleagues might want to address. That's the worst thing. What we fear from the strategy of the Democratic majority, Mr. Speaker, is to get there in two steps. The first step, of course, would be to have a government plan, a government health insurance plan, to compete with the private market, but the question is: Will that government plan compete fairly? We think not, and we have a great fear that it would drive the private market out of a competitive position and that it would cause employers who right now cover 119 million lives through employment-provided health insurance to just simply drop that and say, Well, shoot. You all go get it from the government. I will yield back to my colleague from Louisiana, Mr. Scalise, so he can yield time to other colleagues in the doctors' caucus.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Dr. Murphy, if you would yield back to me just for a second on that point, this second slide, the cost of the current government-run health programs, well, on this first bullet, colleagues, look at this. CBO estimates that individual and corporate income tax rates would have to rise by about 90 percent through 2050 to finance projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid. That is what Dr. Murphy is talking about. The cost of reductions in Medicare payments then are passed on to consumers who purchase their own care or get it from their employer, and that adds $1,500 annually or 10.6 percent to the annual cost of coverage for a family of four. So, Dr. Murphy, I agree with you completely that we are in a situation where if that is the model, then God help us, if that is the model that we are going to adapt for all Americans. ``Medicare for all'' I think is the way Senator Kennedy put it. I think there is a formality here, Mr. Speaker, in regard to who controls the time. Our colleague from Louisiana, he is not a physician, he is just a very smart Member of this body and my colleague on the Energy and Commerce Committee where we deal with health care, as is Dr. Murphy, where we deal with health care every day, and Mr. Scalise, the professor from Louisiana, is controlling the time, and I yield back to him as he yields to other colleagues.