Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my colleague saying there is no money in here for abortion because the Henry Hyde amendment doesn't allow it. He is correct with regard to the appropriations through Labor and HHS. That's all the Hyde amendment applies to. It doesn't apply to the trillions of dollars that are appropriated in this bill around Labor- HHS. That is money the Hyde amendment doesn't apply to. My colleague asked us to get real. That's as real as you get. There's money that goes around the Hyde amendment.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend from Iowa so much, and I appreciate the wonderful points you are making. I was here just out off the Chamber for the whole discussion by our colleagues across the aisle. I always appreciate when people across the aisle attempt to speak for me and what I support and what I would like to have happen and what I will and do vote for and vote against. But the great thing about debate is that the other side can be presented. Of course, you know, there was the occasion a year and a half ago where the Speaker cut off the microphones and that was prevented, but we stood here on the floor and spoke anyway. That's the great thing about America. But I would like to correct some things. Although I know my friend had the best of intentions of speaking on Republicans' behalf, but when he said Republicans have no interest in being part of the solution, I have to differ on that. And I appreciate my Democratic friend saying we don't wish to be part of the solution, but that's simply not true. And, in fact, I know Republicans that begged and pleaded to be allowed to have input into this bill, but it's hard to have input into a bill that's negotiated secretly. You get the union and AARP and you don't tell any Republicans when they're going to be meeting, when they're going to do their secret deals. You get the pharmaceutical industry and, yes, you get insurance companies to be part of secret negotiations. And I can promise you this, every industry, every individual who has come out and said I think this is a great bill on behalf of some industry, they got a deal cut for them in this bill. Now, this is the Senate bill here. I've had our House bill until this week. That's what I'd been working from. But it looks like they're serious about cramming the Senate bill down our throats, and they use real thin paper and print on both sides so that it's this small. But some other things that need to be corrected my friend across the aisle said during his time, Our friends on the other side of the aisle support the insurance industry wanting to start all over. Well, my friend's not completely informed, because there are those in the insurance industry that say, You know what? This bill, the Senate bill, it's okay with us. It would be all right. And if you're in the insurance industry and you have the Federal Government mandating that everybody has to buy a policy, then, you know, your eyes get big and you start thinking, Wow, think of all those sales. Of course, they don't look far enough into the future and realize that that plan and they, themselves, as insurance companies, won't last very long. They'll go the way of private insurances or insurance companies offering flood insurance. When the Federal Government got involved, it's hard for a private company to compete with the Federal Government that goes in the red and stays in the red, as the Federal flood insurance policies have done. He also commented that the Democrats are holding health insurance accountable. And that's nice to hear being said, but if they were holding health insurance companies accountable, you would not find one insurance company that's going to be okay with this, and there are those out there. My friend also commented that 67 percent of Americans support an insurance exchange. Well, in the House bill, which we've talked about it, there's the Federal insurance exchange program, and that's what will take over as they finish killing off the private insurance companies. And as my friend and I both agree, we don't want insurance companies between us and our doctor. We don't want the government between us and our doctor, and the proposals we've made get them out from between us. They get insurance companies back in the position of insuring and out of the business of managing. Why would we want the Federal Government to come in and manage our health care decisions when we don't even want private insurance companies managing our health care insurance? And I do appreciate my friend's honesty and candor when I understood him to say, first, that we have a moral mission. We have a moral mission, he said, to protect even the terrorists and the criminals on the street, and that that moral mission apparently does not stop at our border. Well, this is just a difference in philosophy. And I have a few other points that I want to make here, but I feel like my friend from Iowa will want to comment on this because we've had such lengthy discussions about this issue. And it is just a difference in philosophy that we have friends across the aisle that believe we have a moral mission to protect terrorists, to protect criminals on the street, and that that moral mission does not stop at the border. And see, my belief, and I believe it's shared by my friend from Iowa, is that when I took an oath to the Constitution, when I was in the United States Army, as a prosecutor, as a judge, as a Chief justice, and as a Member of Congress, there was nothing in my oath that I take so seriously about supporting and defending those on the other side of our borders or supporting and defending all enemies, foreign and domestic, that want to kill me. It was not that I want to support and protect and defend all terrorists and enemies, foreign and domestic. No, it was I'm going to help protect America from all enemies, foreign and domestic, protect from those enemies, not go across the border and take my morality to other countries and be the policeman of the world. And, in fact, I think we do make a mistake when we begin to be country building, nation building, government building in other nations. Our job is to protect this country. And when there are terrorists in this country, our job is to take them out, eliminate the terrorists so that they are no longer a threat. Now, what normally happens when people declare war on another group or country and you capture some of those people, in a civilized society like ours, you hold them until such time as their friends, their colleagues, their comrades decide and announce we're no longer at war. Then you can release all of those, except for the ones you believe or have reason to believe, probable cause to believe committed war crimes. Then you go ahead and try them. But it's just a difference in philosophy. And I'd love to hear my friend from Iowa if he has a comment on that obligation.

Mr. GOHMERT. If you look at page 122, the exact point is made that you are making. It says that there is at least one such health care plan that provides coverage of services described in clauses i and ii of subparagraph (b). You look at subparagraph (b)(i), and it says: The services described in this clause are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted based on the laws in effect at the date that is six months before the beginning of the plan year. So this has actually misled people into thinking, oh, there is a provision here that prevents you from using money---- I am sorry. We were told we had 6 minutes, and we have used 4. Okay.

Mr. GOHMERT. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. GOHMERT. Why would you want to go to any other country? So who could blame the Newfoundland prime minister when he had a heart problem, for saying, I love you, Canada, you're my country, I love you and I am totally devoted, but I am flying to the United States for my heart surgery, which he did. He is a smart man, obviously. But you look at breast cancer, and I've been shown statistics that are not on here. For example, in breast cancer, if a tumor is found localized in a breast, then we have a 98 percent survival rate, 98 percent survival rate, if a cancerous tumor is found localized in the breast. In England, it's about 20 percent less than that. In other words, even though both countries have wonderful technology, when you have a government-run program, you have to put people on lists. And the President is right. He is not being disingenuous when he says we are not going to deny coverage. For the most part, that is right. What you do is you put them on lists so that they die before they get what they need. And I was talking to a really sweet secretary in Tyler, Texas, my hometown, and she has emigrated from England. And she told me that her mother got cancer in England and died of that cancer because she was in England. Each step of the way, finding the tumor, having surgery, having therapy, all the things that you have, chemo, all those things, you get on a list. She said, my mother was found to have cancer, and she died because she lived in England. After I emigrated to the United States, I was found to have cancer, and she said I'm alive because I was in the United States instead of England. She said, because I didn't go on a list. And this is not some wealthy person. This is a middle class secretary with a lot of class. And she knows just how good we have it here. And so you've got all men's cancer: 66.3 percent survival rate here; in England, 44.8 percent; 53 percent in Canada. That's a lot of people. We heard our friend from Florida come down and rant and rave about people and you're killing folks in our district. But all I can see when I look at these cancer survival rates and death rates is when you want us to go to a government-run health care--I know it's not intentional, I know it's not intentional--but the fact is you will cause people to die unnecessarily. There is no reason to have this kind of drop in prostate cancer success, but that's what we have. And it's so unnecessary. You've got all women's cancer, 62.9; 55.8 in England. There's not quite as big a discrepancy, but if you're one of the 9 percent or 7 percent in these different categories or even 41 percent that are going to die because you don't live in the United States, then you probably think the United States is the place to be for health care. You take out the murder statistics and you make all countries deal with their statistics of premature babies who die after they're born, then you would find the United States at the top of the charts on life expectancy. So I appreciate the gentleman yielding on that particular issue.

Mr. GOHMERT. And I certainly appreciate the question, because we just happen to have a chart here. And this is a chart, as it says, government-run care means lower survival rates for cancer. Now, we have been told by friends across the aisle, well, but if you look at England or you look at other countries, you find that they have a longer life expectancy than we do in America. Well, not if you're looking at cancer survival rates. If you compare apples to apples, you find out, as my friend from Iowa said, there is no better health care anywhere in the world when you want a good, the best survival rate, whether it's cancer, heart disease or whatever. Now, the place where the statistics get skewed is our life expectancy in the United States has added in and this is terribly unfortunate, a higher murder rate than some of those countries have. And one other thing that really skews the figures in the United States is that when a baby is born, it doesn't matter if that baby is 20 weeks premature, 10 weeks, 8 to 10 weeks, like my wife's and my first child, if that child is born alive and subsequently dies, even if it's an hour later, that counts in our statistics because in America the majority still feels that every life counts. Well, in many of the countries that they try to compare us with with our life expectancy, if a baby is born prematurely and dies, they don't count that. We count it here. And when you have a child that dies within an hour or 2 hours, it dramatically brings down the life expectancy. But it's one of the things I love about America. We care about lives here in America. And so you look at this chart, if you could choose a country to go to if you got cancer, well, you could go, this green here is England, but that is not the greatest survival rate. My goodness, look at prostate cancer, 50.9 percent survival rate. That's not so good. In the United States, we have a 91.9 percent. That is phenomenal, up 41 percent. That means in the United States, if you get prostate cancer, for every two people that get prostate cancer in the United States, most of the time, both of them are going to live. However in England, you have two people that get prostate cancer, one of them will die. And it's so unnecessary because they have access to the same types of health care we do.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I appreciate that very much. I would like to follow up on that with something that our friend across the aisle said before us tonight. He said that when this bill passes, we'll have a lot to run on, and I agree. And I think they'll need to be running a great deal after this bill were to pass because the vast majority of Americans don't want it to pass. That's very clear. So you ask yourself, Why would the majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate and the President try to cram a bill down the throat of a majority of Americans that don't want the bill when it could hurt them politically? Well, there is so much government in this bill that they know if this bill passes, then the government intrusion, whether you want to call it socialism or progressivism, it's the government taking over such a massive part of our lives, basically taking over our lives. But I would want to point out page 100 of the Senate bill. You know, why were the unions so happy to jump on this? You know, unions are beginning to look at their health insurance policies as--some of them are--as a massive debt, and they'd like to get rid of it, and we know that they'd be unable to do this under the bill. But people will be glad to know, people who are in unions who are retired and have union health insurance, they'll be glad to know that they won't lose their union-negotiated health care, at least not until the date on which the last of the collective bargaining agreements relating to the coverage terminates. So people will be able to keep, if you're in a union, or, Madam Speaker, people are in a union or they have retired and they have union health care, they can be assured they do not lose their health care--at least not until the date on which the last of the collective bargaining agreements relating to the coverage terminates. And then, of course, once a new union contract has to be negotiated, all bets are off. So that should provide some comfort if there is a year or two left on a collective bargaining agreement, then they can be comforted. They have got that insurance if they like it, and they can keep it until the collective bargaining agreement terminates.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I just appreciate all the work you've done. There are several bills that have been proposed by Republicans.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. If you look at page 1,957, along the same lines of what kind of deals that are in this bill, this has to do with health savings accounts. We know that there are millions and millions of dollars in health savings accounts that only can be used for health care. Well, I know I have an HSA, and if I can get an over-the-counter drug, a generic drug, that is what I buy. Well, good deal for the pharmaceutical industry here beginning at page 1,957, because it says that such terms shall include an amount paid for medicine or drug only if such medicine or drug is a prescribed drug. So you may want--like in my case, I have hay fever. I've had since it since I was a little kid. I go and get a generic for like $2.50. And now if I want to spend my HSA on it, I can't go spend $2.50. I've got to go pay megabucks to the pharmaceutical companies in order to get a prescription drug. Wow, maybe that is part of the deal that made them think, You know what? You know Joe Six-Pack, as my friend from Arizona says, may not get anything out of it, but by golly, we're going to make a lot of money on this bill. Let's throw our support behind it, and the President will love us for it, too.

Mr. GOHMERT. Maybe 904 is one of several reasons AARP said, you know what, this could be all right. We could get millions and millions of dollars in new insurance sales. But did you see that the pharmaceutical industry says they like this bill, they are okay? And I read a headline today that the pharmaceutical industry was going to spend millions trying to get people to vote for it.

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, it seems like maybe they do sell some supplemental medical insurance. So by golly----

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, clearly the majority leadership thinks that the American people are so stupid that if you have a rule that says, you know what, if you vote for the rule, then the bill automatically is deemed passed. I just don't know anybody in the American public that can't figure out when you voted for the rule, I don't care what you say, you voted to pass the bill. As far as it passing constitutional muster, who knows anymore with this Court. But I do know, as the gentlemen, both of you have been talking about the deals and Medicare Advantage, and I have got the Senate bill here, this lovely thing, and the truth is the only people that ought to pass this bill are people that eat it. A little digestive humor there. If you eat it, then yes, you should pass it. But otherwise this bill should not be passed. But if you look at page 904 of part one of two parts of the Senate health care bill, and you wonder, gee, I wonder why AARP came out a couple weeks ago and said, oh, yes, we like the proposal, we are all on board. Well, you look at the Senate bill, it says that nothing in this section shall be construed as requiring the Secretary to accept every bid submitted by a Medicare Advantage organization. And so also the Secretary may deny a bid submitted by a Medicare Advantage organization for a Medicare Advantage plan if it proposes significant increases. But the bottom line here is the Secretary doesn't have to accept a bid. And what is the consequence of saying we are not going to allow any more Medicare Advantage bids, we are just going to cut that out? Do you know what retirement organization is in the business of selling a kind of supplemental insurance?

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this bill is based on so many fictions, it should not be passed. One is that we're going to do a rule and then that is going to be self-perpetuating. And that's going to pass the bill. That's a fiction. It ought to be an up-or-down vote on this bill. And if you read the very basics on this bill from the Senate, it says, Resolved, the bill from the House of Representatives, H.R. 3590, entitled: An act to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the first-time homebuyers credit in the case of members of the Armed Forces. We're going to pass this on the backs of the Armed Forces. This should not be passed by anyone unless they eat it. If they eat it, then I'm in favor of them passing it. Otherwise, don't pass it.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate that. And my friend, Dr. Burgess, has done probably more work in the area of health care reform and potential legislation than anybody I know of in the House. And so, it'd be great to hear from him tonight. But I think it was critical, and it is critical for people to understand, who are really wrestling with whether or not they can satisfy their conscience and their concern over Federal tax dollars being pried out of people's hands to fund abortions against their will. It's important that those people understand that David Axelrod-- apparently, we're told he's an honorable man, so are they all, so are they all honorable men--but that he apparently was ignorant of the law of which he spoke because he's just wrong, completely, on three counts. And so if anybody's trying to salve their conscience over Federal funding of abortion, they need to understand there are three ways that Federal funding will pay for abortions if this Senate bill is passed. And I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. GOHMERT. Will the gentleman yield for just a moment?

Mr. GOHMERT. My understanding is we're not going to be given that opportunity to amend the bill here in the House. The House will have to pass the bill exactly as the Senate did. And actually, there was an effort in the Senate to amend the bill to put Stupak-type language in there, and they voted it down. Now, why would anybody in the Senate fight that kind of battle and work so hard to try to get that kind of Stupak language in the Senate bill and go to all the grueling fight that they had to try to get it in there if it was unnecessary?

Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I can imagine that it's an innocent mistake by those who are talking about the bill. I do not believe it's an innocent mistake by those who've drafted this bill. It's unfortunate that we don't know who they are. We were not privy to those private sessions that were not under C-SPAN cameras, that were not covered--or reporters were not allowed. Nobody was allowed to see. Certainly there were no Republican in the House or Senate that were allowed in there when this stuff was drafted. So, yes, I think it can be an innocent mistake, and I believe it is by many who don't realize what this does. But to answer the gentleman's question, it's certainly not innocent by those who've drafted this to spend billions in tax dollars of tax money that can fund abortion.

Mr. GOHMERT. This is the Senate bill. This is the one that the House is expected to vote on this week, maybe Saturday. This is the bill that the House is going to vote on. So anybody that comes in here and thinks--or has been sold a bill of goods, because so often if you don't read the bill and you allow somebody to tell you who you think may have read the bill that, Oh, no, no, no. That's not--Oh, no, it doesn't change existing law, they just don't know. It does change existing law. You just have to read it and understand the implication of the Hyde amendment, what's covered and, you know, the implication here. But there's another thing, too. Section 1303 of the Senate bill that we're expected to vote on only limits the direct use of Federal tax credit to fund abortion coverage. The credit still could be used to pay premiums for health care plans that allow abortions. So the Federal tax law, the Federal tax dollars, through their credits, are going to fund health care plans that allow abortion. That's a third way that the Senate bill that we're going to supposedly vote on the end of this week will fund abortions. Now I know there are people in this body who think that's a great thing, to fund abortions with Federal funds. Others, like me and my friends here, believe that it is not appropriate to take money away from people who know in their hearts it's murder to kill an unborn child and make them take their tax dollars and pay for abortion. That's been the law of the land for over 30 years, and it is changed dramatically by the Senate bill. And people just need to understand, if they're going to vote for this bill or they're going to vote for a rule if it's self-effectuating, then they are going to vote for and bring into effect a dramatic change to the law on Federal funding of abortions.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate my friend yielding. You make great points. This is unprecedented, what is going on--to have the leaders in Congress and in the White House trying to ram through a health care bill that the majority, not just barely over 50 percent like the President won with, but way over 60 percent of Americans do not want this bill passed. Yet they're forcing it through. You wonder, why would someone work so hard to push through a bill that they know is grossly unpopular. Even if you think it's so grossly unpopular, why wouldn't you want to back up and start over? There are a number of things that have been said that are not true about the Senate bill. Now, you could be cynical like some people and say, Well, I think they're lying. They're dishonest. I wouldn't say that. I think they're just completely ignorant. And we all have areas of ignorance where there are things we don't know. But I think that just like with the crap-and-trade bill, we had people come down here and say, This bill will not cost a single job. Well, that told you immediately that they had not read the bill, because toward the back of the bill, there was a fund created, and it said that the fund was explicitly for those who lost their jobs. So we know that there is a vast ignorance by people who don't read the bills that they come down here to talk about. Now, speaking of ignorance, we have David Axelrod down here. I see you have his quote there: The law of the land right now--this is what he said Sunday. I heard him say this. He seems like a really decent guy, so I'm sure that he didn't intend to deceive, but he said? The law of the land right now is that Federal funds should not be used for abortion services. There's nothing in the proposal that he's--Obama's advanced. There's nothing in what would be approved by the Congress that would upset the existing status quo. And I appreciate my friend for yielding because there are three things about this bill that allow for the Federal funding of abortion and, in fact, can require it. Number one, until now, all plans regulated by the Office of Personnel Management have been required to exclude nonfederally covered abortions. So the Senate bill allows all but one of the federally subsidized health care plans in each area to cover abortion. They'll say, Now, you may have one plan that doesn't take care of people like it needs to. We'll offer one plan over here that probably nobody's going to want to buy that will not cover abortions, but the plans that may well be what most people need will cover abortions. So if you want to buy the plan that you're going to need, then you're going to have to cover abortions. That's one thing that's very clear. So that's one way. A second way under the Senate bill, it authorizes and appropriates billions of dollars in new funding outside the scope of the appropriations bills covered by the Hyde amendment. And the billions of dollars that are here--this is under section 10503, Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps. Well, I don't want to make the President look bad, so I will call it ``corpse'' also. The Service Corps Funds, subsection B funding, it's authorized to be appropriated, and it is appropriated out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated to the CHC fund--that's Community Health Center fund. And then subsection 1 of that to be transferred to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide enhanced funding for the Community Health Center program; $700,000 for fiscal year 2011, $800 million for fiscal year 2012, $1 billion for fiscal year 2013, $1.6 billion for fiscal year 2014, and $2.9 billion for fiscal year 2015. Now, the reason that's significant is that the Hyde amendment, which is existing law, only pertains to money appropriated--actually, appropriated in the Labor and HHS bill. This money is not being appropriated in the labor and HHS bill. It is not covered by the Hyde amendment, and that's why I'm sure that it's got to be ignorance instead of the lie that David Axelrod is demonstrating. He probably doesn't realize that the Henry Hyde amendment only pertains to money appropriated through Labor and HHS. This is separate money that is not restricted, and so it can go to community health centers to provide abortions. That is allowed under this bill, and people need to understand that.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I am curious about the gentleman's opinion.

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate this opportunity to speak here on the floor. The topic again will be health care because, even though most of Americans are more concerned about the economy, as am I, and jobs, because the President keeps trying to shove this thing into the lap of Americans--actually, it will control the lap of Americans--we have to deal with this until we can start over, start fresh, get the special interest groups, the unions, AARP, those people who have been meeting in the last few weeks behind closed doors, away from C-SPAN cameras, getting special deals for themselves, we start over and start fresh. And the number one most important aspect is not the unions. It is not AARP. It is retired people. It is seniors. It is Americans across the country. It is the poor. It is the wealthy. It is everybody. Those people who are United States citizens, those are the number one concern, should be, under a newly negotiated bill. I just got sent a copy of an e-mail that has gone all over the country apparently from a group called Organizing Against America--I'm sorry, Organizing for America, it just sounds like they're organizing against America--and it has an individual's name, first name. It says: ``President Obama has called for the House to vote to move health reform forward as early as next week. Your representative''--in this case, Louis Gohmert--``voted last fall to allow insurance companies to continue to jack up rates, drop coverage when folks need it the most, and discriminate against people with preexisting conditions.'' You know, the rules of the House do not prevent me from calling this what it is: that's a lie; that's simply not true. But it goes on to say: ``We're in the final margin, one last chance to do the right thing.'' It says: ``Call Representative Gohmert today,'' and it says: ``Let them know''--that's not correct grammar, but that's not the only thing that's not correct--``know that there is a political price to favoring big insurance companies over the American people. ``Organizing Against America''--I'm sorry, ``Organizing for America supporters in Texas have pledged 506,830 volunteer hours to fight for candidates who support reform.'' So, anyway, what they're not apparently aware of is that the vast majority of Americans, the vast majority in my district, they know what this bill--I've got four volumes to get it all, that's the bill that was passed in the House--they know what this represents. It's a government takeover not just of health care, but a whole lot more than that. Anyway, that's the stuff that's going out in this hour of desperation to try to cram this bill through, cram it down on America. I heard our valiant Speaker Pelosi, I saw and heard the video of the Speaker saying we've got to pass this bill so that we can find out what's in it. I understand that she was talking about apparently there's a big fog around the bill and we really won't see what's in the bill until we pass it and then the fog is lifted; but some of us have been concerned that we need to look at this bill, and everybody needs to know what's in it now and not wait until later. We also know that secretly negotiated--I saw an AARP rep and union rep saying that before this summit the President was going to have his health care bill that would be discussed at the summit between Republicans and Democrats. I know my friend, Eric Cantor, brought a copy of the bill, and it seemed like that made people mad. I suggested that they have a copy of the Senate bill and the House bill there so that when somebody made a representation that wasn't accurate as to what was represented in the bill, you could immediately turn to the bill during the summit and correct whatever inaccuracy was painted. Well, one of the problems with the President's health care bill, like my friend, Ms. Foxx, pointed out earlier, is that there is still no President's bill. He came in here and spoke from the second level up there and kept referring to ``my bill,'' ``this bill,'' ``my plan,'' ``this plan''; but as I asked Secretary Sebelius later, I said, I've been trying to find a copy of the President's bill; he keeps referring to it, said he was going to call us out if we misrepresented it, and I just want to know where I get a copy of it. And that's when she told us, Well, actually, I think he was talking about a set of proposals or principles. Well, I was told by CBO that they could not score my plan until I had it in a hard and fast bill. So we did, we got it in bill form. And that took a lot of work because legislative counsel, who prepares the bills in legislative form, were so tied up with all the Democratic bills that were being filed and being shoved to the front so quickly. But we finally got it done. It took, I think, around 6 weeks or so. And then we got it filed. And then we couldn't get a CBO scoring. We were finally told in August, well, you know, you don't have the request from the highest-ranking Republican on the committee of jurisdiction, Energy and Commerce. So I talked to Republican Joe Barton, and Joe said, yeah, it sounds great; let's get it done. He said to send a request that my bill be scored. Then, about 1 month later, we were told, well, we haven't scored it. You still don't have the approval of the highest-ranking Republican on the Joint Tax Committee. So I got Dave Camp, told him about the bill, showed him what I had. He said, sure. He sends over a letter saying, Please score Gohmert's bill. That was in September, I think September 19, something like that, 20th, somewhere around there. In the meantime, anytime a Democratic leader doesn't have a bill, just has an idea, a plan, wow, they can rush that in to CBO. Every now and then CBO will say, you know, you just don't give us enough to work from, we're making presumptions, but here's a score usually is what they get to anyway. That is something that is so grossly unfair. There is a summary of 70 health care bills in this document here that have been filed by Republicans to help reform health care. So if someone bothered to read that before they sent out a false e-mail saying we don't want to do anything to reform insurance, they would find out they're wrong. We've got all kinds of good proposals because the truth is, and I'll say it again, all the people I know want health care reformed. They don't want insurance companies between us and our doctors or between any American and their doctors. And they don't want government in between them and their doctors. That's what we're trying to get to. And even though CBO hasn't been kind enough to, after all these months--and we have the data here that shows what CBO has done. There have been 50 total health care bills formally scored in the 111th Congress, and six of them--six--have been Republican plans. We've got 70 others we'd like to get scored, but they're not going to get to those, they're not even going to get to mine. In the 111th Congress there have been a total all together of 530 bills that have been scored by CBO: 442 were for Democrats, 88 were from Republicans. But we didn't even get that good of odds as far as the health care scoring. So we are obviously working at a severe disadvantage here. I know that there are so many things the President said that even though they're inaccurate, he has no intent to deceive. It's just that when you're President of the United States, obviously you can't have all the facts at your fingertip. You have to rely on people who work for you to give you accurate information. Unfortunately, our good President has not been given all the accurate information he needs in order to address things properly. I've been joined by my good friend from Georgia, and I would like to yield such time as Mr. Lynn Westmoreland might need.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate so much the insights from the gentleman from Georgia. You make such good points. Madam Speaker, I've heard people say before, Well, you know, I see you go down to the House floor and just pour your heart out, and you're really trying to convince people of what's right. I wonder. It has got to be pretty frustrating when there's not more than a handful of people around on the House floor. I think what a lot of people don't realize is, since C-SPAN came about, every Member of Congress whom I know has a television in his or her office, and they watch C-SPAN. A lot of folks will have more than one so that you can monitor C-SPAN and watch the news. You can monitor what is being said, and you can monitor debate. We've been told there may be 200,000 or there may be many more people watching on C-SPAN. Yet this is a chance, under the Constitution, under the Speech or Debate Clause, to come in and to try to bring light. Light is the best disinfectant to any kind of infection. That's what we're trying to do, to shed some light on this. We have been joined by my dear friend, Ms. Virginia Foxx. When you're talking about someone who has been the president of a university before--and I know her work hours as they're not unlike my work hours-- I know that she comes to the floor informed. I yield such time as Ms. Foxx may need.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the comments of the gentlelady, Ms. Foxx. They were really on target. Thank you so much. When she mentions banana republics, I actually had the experience in 1973 of being an exchange student to the Soviet Union for a summer, and I got to see firsthand how the former Soviet Union operated before, of course, it went broke. It couldn't borrow enough money. It couldn't print enough money, so it went broke. In looking at the President's comment in his speech on March 3 of this year, it was after the so-called health care summit, and I am quoting: ``My proposal would give uninsured individuals and small business owners the same kind of choice of private health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves, because if it is good enough for Members of Congress, it is good enough for the people who pay their salaries.'' And there was applause on that. But apparently he hasn't read the bill that was passed in the House that he is trying to join and mesh up in his so-called proposal. This is in the first volume. Let me get over here to that, the benefit package levels. It says, ``The commissioner,'' this is another czar- type person he will appoint, ``shall specify benefits to be made available under the exchange participating health benefit plans.'' Then subparagraph B, ``Limitation on health benefit plans offered by offering entities.'' I haven't seen anything in the President's proposal that changes this. It says, ``In every area of the United States,'' and it will be cut up into different service areas, it says, ``the entity only offers one basic plan.'' The commissioner will designate what has to be in the health care insurance policy. Then their idea of that is you will have a slew of insurance companies that will offer the same policy, one basic plan. And then you could, if you wanted to, as an insurance company, offer an enhanced plan. But the big deal is the same exact plan will be offered by different insurance companies. I had an experience that this reminds me of so much when I was in a city stay in Moscow. We had read and heard that the largest department store in the world was in Moscow, and the Russian letters in the English equivalent are GUM, which stood for governmental universal store or department store. I needed some 110 film for my little camera. There were probably a dozen camera stores on three or four different levels, and there were several different sections. It was enormous. I went to every one of them, and every single one had the exact same products, the exact same prices. And that is what we are talking about in this plan. There is no choice. And it won't be long, there will only be one insurance company, and that will be the Federal Government. We have been joined by my good friend from California, former attorney general, former Member of Congress before coming back, who has always terrific insights. I yield to Mr. Lungren.

Mr. GOHMERT. There is nobody talking with an accent that I have heard.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I appreciate so much the points my friend from California has been making. Here there have been discussions about health care and the White House wanting to take that over for the American people, and it really is highlighted by something that I ran into just this morning at the White House. Now, we know from the prior hearings that were held that apparently the Social Secretary had a meeting with people at security at the White House and decided to change protocol so she wouldn't be there, and so some people got waved in that shouldn't have gotten waved in. As a result, what has happened now, with Members of Congress, it used to be that if you gave 24 hours' notice with Social Security numbers, date of birth, all that kind of thing, you could get six people into the White House at 8 o'clock, 7:45, something like that the next morning. Now, under this White House that was changed to where they want 48 hours. Okay, fine. As a result of the incompetent handling over letting people into the White House that shouldn't have been, not by the Secret Service, not by the armed guards there--now they have doubled the number of guards that are out there--they now make both Members of Congress and those people who are obviously law-abiding and have had their security checked and double-checked with not one smudge on their record, now they have to go clear down a block away to 15th Street and go through security there. The Member of Congress, like today in the rain, has to go down a block and then go through security there, with double the number of guards, and then come up and go through security again and go through guards again, all not because Secret Service messed up or the armed guards that are now doubled in number, but because somebody in the White House staff screwed up. Now they are deciding to punish Members of Congress and law-abiding citizens that normally just get in. The point here is that this is a circus over there. Nobody seems to know what is going on. When accountability was demanded and the Social Secretary was requested by Members of Congress to come testify, they said, ``We are not going to let you come testify.'' The same thing happened on the Auto Task Force. Could you have them at least come tell us about their secret meetings, these czars and all that stuff? ``We are not going to be accountable.'' It is a circus going on over there, and now the people in the circus want to be in charge of your health care. Good grief. It is time to say we don't want clowns in charge of something as important as our health care. I don't even want them in charge of algal blooms. With that, I appreciate the time.