Louie Gohmert

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, we heard a good friend across the aisle just a little bit ago say, Hey, where is the Republican bill? You don't have one scored by CBO? Well, I'm sure he didn't know, but some of us have bills, we have many bills. I've been trying for 2\1/2\ months to get a score from CBO, but I've been shut out. I haven't been able to get a score. And it is a bill that will give coverage to everyone; it will make sure seniors have complete coverage like they've never had before; it would be a savings for people. But the Democrats have a bill. They cut a deal with pharmaceuticals, forcing people with HSA to buy prescriptions instead of over the counter, cut a deal with some insurance companies so they will have liability limitations, cut a deal where States will be bribed to eliminate caps on attorneys' fees and caps on damages, cut a deal with unions. It appears that there's not adequate requirements for identification, then it's a deal for illegals, and also for abortion. This is not the bill we should be supporting. Let's get a new bill. We've got it.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, today Speaker Pelosi, with a lot of fanfare and locked doors, invitation only, which didn't include any Republicans, just as the input in this bill included no Republicans, this is the bill, 1,990 pages. I haven't had a chance to read it. They just got it out today. I have been trying to get through it. One of the frustrating things we have is we have had hearings and hearings, hours and hours of hearings on the Democratic health bill, H.R. 3200, hour after hour. Think about how many people in America have spent hour after hour reading H.R. 3200. They carefully examined it because this was the law that was proposed by the Democratic leadership. And they were concerned that this may be voted into law, and they need to know because this is going to be country changing. So they spent thousands and thousands of hours all across America to review H.R. 3200. Some have gone to the trouble and spent hundreds or thousands of hours, when you consider all the people in America are reading these bills because they're scared, reading the Baucus bill, reading some of the other bills. And then it turns out those were all red herrings. The American public, all the Members of Congress were tricked into wasting their time, spending all those hours reviewing a bill that they knew they weren't going to introduce. Mr. Speaker, you know, Thomas Jefferson laid out the rules that we follow. They're not Robert's Rules of Order. They're Thomas Jefferson's rules that get modified with each Congress. And that's what we're supposed to follow. And the procedure is well thought out. You have subcommittees that are supposed to have legislative hearings and bring in witnesses and consider all these different aspects, and after they've considered all this, someone starts working together with other people. You're supposed to have bipartisan support. We were told all year long we would have that. Yes, big joke there. So someone, though, is supposed to put together the bill and lots of people working together to get it done, and then you give everybody plenty of time to review the bill at the subcommittee level. And then you have a markup, it's called, in subcommittee, where some of those hearings are very long when they're done properly because they're open to any amendment by anyone on the subcommittee. Once it clears the subcommittee, if it gets voted out of the subcommittee, then it goes to the full committee. And anyone in the full committee can make amendments, as many as they want, and you stay as long as you have to get through all the amendments. That's the process. And then once the amendments are done and the committee votes it out, that is the bill that is supposed to come to the House floor. You bring the bill that was amended and agonized over. Not in this Congress, oh, no. We're going to spend thousands and thousands of hours, and there's no telling how many of the trees in America got cut down to print out H.R. 3200 so that people could read it because this is going to be really country changing, as the President said. He's going to transform America. He didn't say to what, but he's going to transform America. And then it turns out after all those hearings, amendments, considerations, all that work, behind closed doors they were working on a bait-and-switch scheme. And today it played out. And now we're told by the Democratic leadership, well, we want to make sure you have 72 hours to review this bill. Well, I'm telling you what. You mark my words. You mark my words. We've got 1,990 pages here, but by the time this bill is voted on, there will be hundreds of pages added, as we've seen over and over, in the wee hours of the morning, and people won't have time to read it. And just like the crap-and-trade bill, it will be up there and they won't even have the whole bill put together in time for us to read the whole bill before we vote on this transforming bill that's going to change and, I would submit humbly, end some lives in America. Not because people are going to be denied treatment but because they're going to be put on lists and be required to wait an inordinate amount of time because you can't cut $500 billion from Medicare and not expect to have some people not get treated. Another thing you need to realize too, in this new bill, from what we've been able to quickly discern, this Pelosi bill, the 1,990 pages, reduces the size of affordable credits for patients to purchase insurance in the exchange, and instead it expands the eligibility for Medicare to 150 percent of the Federal poverty level. Well, our seniors are not as stupid as some people in this body think they are. They get it. You're going to cut Medicare $500 billion and you're going to expand coverage to people that have never been covered before, and we're supposed to feel good that we're going to get more coverage than ever? They're not stupid. They understand what's happening. I have been joined by some of my colleagues here, and I would love to get their input because we've been scrambling to see what we are facing here with this bill. I would love to yield to my friend Mr. Brady.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Mr. Brady. I think it's important to note that despite all the rhetoric about where are the Republican solutions, we have done everything in our power to try to offer good solutions, to try to sit down, and we have offered good solutions. And they are running into brick walls because the doors are locked. I know the President said, My door's always open. And I'm sure he wouldn't lie about that. But the gates aren't. We can't get to the open door. So it's deeply troubling that we could not submit anything. As I used to say in deacons meetings, unless one person has a 100 percent lock on God's truth all the time, we really need to listen to each other. There are some Democrats with some good ideas. There are some Republicans with some good ideas. I think my health care proposal, patient-centered health care, patient-controlled health care, is a great idea. It's a good bill. It would score if CBO had not become a lapdog for the Democratic leadership. I have been trying for 2\1/2\ months to get that bill scored, and I'm told over and over again they don't have time. They run in the Baucus bill that wasn't even a bill. It was a plan. I was told unless you've got a bill you filed, we will not, cannot do a score. Oh, no, not the Baucus bill. They run in and it's a plan, just an outline, and they give him a score on it. I mean how fair is that that this government has got gotten so slanted and people are getting hurt? It isn't right and it isn't fair. And something this important is going to be rushed through. I heard my friend from North Carolina discussing this earlier today about the time that's been allotted and what's going on. I would like to yield to my friend Ms. Foxx.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank you, Dr. Boustany, so much. You've provided so much insight since you've been in Congress. You've been a breath of fresh air. Especially for someone who has been on the other side of the insurance company, has been paid by the insurance company, has performed surgery saving lives and has been on the other side of the doctors providing the treatment. That provides an awful lot of wisdom, and I am so grateful that that wisdom from the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Boustany, is being brought here to the House of Representatives. I tell you, though--maybe it's part of my background, having been a judge for so many years--you look for evidence to help you know whether to believe or disbelieve what people are saying. As I have listened to our friends across the aisle--not all of them, but many of them that were pushing this bill, this 1,990-page bill--they knew it was going to be coming. We didn't know what was coming or when it was coming, but some of them knew. Knowing that, they have been coming down to this floor, coming to these microphones here and telling horror story after horror story about something that happened because of an insurance company, because of a doctor, because of bad health care problems. One thing after another, and never, ever having one good story to tell about a doctor who came in in the middle of the night. Like the doctor who saved my daughter's life one night when her temperature spiked to 108. Doctors all over this country, health care providers, nurses, most of them are so dedicated and do a great job, and yet we've not heard one good story about some success from the incredible health care in this country. Somebody point out one in the Record because it is something I didn't hear, and I will apologize. But I have not heard one. That's one of the pieces of evidence you can look to to know that something is being put over here on the American people because they're only getting one side of the story. Not one favorable story. That tells you they're trying to scare people. And another thing you look at, they're saying they are going to pay for this with waste, fraud and abuse. Hundreds of billions of dollars that will be saved by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. You mark my words on this: If they could save even $100 billion on waste, fraud and abuse, it would have been done before now. Those who are not familiar with politics, who are not familiar with the history of our great country, just take a lesson here. Anytime anyone from either party--any party, Independent or whomever--is elected, comes into office and cuts out massive amounts of waste, fraud and abuse within the government system, they can be elected as many times for as many offices as they ever care to run for. Nobody is ever going to beat them because they will always be able to show, Look at the waste, fraud and abuse I eliminated. I did that because I cared. And they will win from now on. Well, we've got this being dangled out there. If you'll give us this trillion-dollar bill--trillion-plus, probably, because we've seen how slanted CBO has become in recent days--but if you will give us this trillion-dollar bill, we'll cut out hundreds of billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse. In my courtroom, you would see, through proof, that, if people know that fraud is going on and if they have a duty to do something about it, which elected officials would, and if they do nothing about it, then they're accomplices. Under the Law of Principles under Federal law, under 18 U.S.C. 2, if you aid, abet, encourage, induce, you're as guilty as the principal. So I don't believe they know where hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse are. Let me also mention, you know, I filed a bill. This came after lots of consultation, including from my friends, from my doctor friends here in Congress and from people around. I've talked to all aspects, including to representatives of AARP, who came and talked to me. Of course, if my bill were to get passed, which would eliminate the need for any senior to ever buy supplemental insurance from AARP, it would financially hurt AARP, but it would be so good for their members. You know, they're not going to support that because that takes money out of their pocket. A big part of my bill has to do with Health Savings Accounts, not the kind that are still around or that were around previously where you could put money aside pretax and where, if you didn't spend it by the end of the year, you lost it. Huh-uh. We're talking about, in my bill, having a Health Savings Account where you could put money in there pretax, and where it could roll over and grow. If you don't spend it all, it just rolls over and grows. It is yours. It is for health care alone. You have a debit card, and that let's you go into any doctor's office, any hospital, any pharmacy to buy what you need for health care. You use that debit card. Then you buy catastrophic care to cover over that. Under my bill, employers would still get great tax benefits by buying insurance for their employees, and they would do so by buying catastrophic insurance to cover everything above their Health Savings Accounts, and then they'd put money in their Health Savings Accounts which would be owned by the individual but could only be used for health care. Then we've been told by the statisticians that, as for the kids in their twenties and thirties, as they get older and by the time they get to 65 and get ready to retire, the vast majority will have so much money that they're not going to need Federal Government help. They will not want the Federal Government intervening in their health care because they will be masters of themselves. In the meantime, to move us to that, I want to be fair to seniors and not promise something that ends up hurting them, like this monstrosity. So, under this bill, we're better off. Since it costs $10,000, on average, for every household in America to pay for Medicare and Medicaid, we're better off just saying, Senior households, here's $3,500 in your Health Savings Account--cash--and we, the Federal Government, will buy you catastrophic insurance to cover everything above that. There's no more need for supplemental insurance. None of that. You're good to go. Then that starts getting the young people moving on the road to getting us out of this trap of Medicare. Under the bill that we have right here, seniors will have a choice. If you want Medicare, stay on it, but when you see your neighbors are better covered and that they control their own destinies in health care, then you're going to want what they have, and then it will go that way very quickly. I just want to point out one other thing really quickly--another deal that was cut--and I don't have time to pull it out right now and find it, but let me just point out that there was a deal that was cut for pharmaceuticals. The deal is that, under this monstrous Pelosi health care bill, people will no longer be able to buy over-the-counter medication with their Health Savings Accounts. They'll have to buy prescription drugs if they want to use those Health Savings Accounts that are funded by their employers or they'll have to use their own money that has built up over the years. I've got a good example here. I have this in my pocket because, since I was 8 years old, I've suffered from hay fever. It's Chlor-Trimeton. Years and years ago, it was a prescription drug. Now I can buy it for $2.34--a big bottle of it. It's embarrassing, frankly, if you get up and your nose starts running. So I have one in my pocket, so that, if my nose starts running, I can take a Chlor-Trimeton so my nose isn't running and so I'm not sniffing here on the floor of the House. Yet, under this bill, I'll have to buy some expensive prescription antihistamine if I'm going to use my Health Savings Account. That was a deal done, and now we begin to see a little bit. Now that this has come out of the closet, we're beginning to see the deals that were done, and that's one to help the pharmaceuticals. I will yield to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from North Carolina, and I appreciate so much those insights. How ironic, here we are the last day, the last hour Congress is in session before the witching hour of Halloween, and as Congresswoman Foxx observed, we have a tax bill masquerading as a health care bill. We have with us a great medical doctor here in Congress, and I want to point out something that affects doctors and ask him to comment, and on such other things as his insights that can be shared. On page 140 of this new 1,990-page bill, I want to be fair, it is not 2,000 pages, it is 1,990 pages, but on page 140, it gives us some insights on what has been going on behind closed doors, the deal- making. I have heard around east Texas, and these are smart, wise people, we had some insurance companies come out and say they thought that the President's plan was going to be okay. We have had some pharmaceutical companies say it is going to be okay. And the American Medical Association, some of them said it was going to be okay. The AMA represents maybe 17 percent of the doctors, I think. So you wonder what kind of deals got cut behind closed doors. On page 140 and 141, some insights, because those of us who have dealt with the law have seen medical malpractice cases, I have been a judge over many malpractice cases, and I have had many of them removed from my court, my district court to Federal court, because there are certain types of medical liability cases where when they could get themselves to be considered as falling under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, then, boom, they could yank it right out of State court into Federal court, and it was governed by ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. And the defense lawyers love to do that, defending the insurance companies, because if they can get a med-mal case to fall under ERISA, that meant that they got it removed to Federal court and they got it basically dismissed, that the plaintiff could get zero damages. So here we go. How could insurance companies go along with this when it is basically ultimately going to bring an end to private insurance. That is clear. We saw that in H.R. 3200 despite the promises you would never lose your policy. Well, all it would take is if you added one beneficiary to the policy, or if you changed any term or condition. Well, they change every year. So at most, you could keep your policy 1 year and then you fall under the Federal situation. But here on page 140, it says that in the case of health insurance coverage not offered through the health insurance exchange, and in the case of employment-based health plans, the requirements of this title do not supersede any requirements applicable under titles 22 and 27 of the Public Health Service Act, part 6 and 7 of subtitle B of title 1 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 or State law, except insofar as such requirements prevent the application of a requirement of this division as determined by the commissioner. Now most people will read through that, most laymen will read through that and say, I don't know what that means. It sounds innocuous enough. What it means is for that year or maybe a little more that somebody keeps their insurance policy, if the insurance companies are sued, and we had a terrible case that arose, a court room case, where the insurance company intentionally, and there was a smoking gun memo or letter, as I recall, where the insurance company lawyer was saying just hold it up, and as I recall the woman died. And phenomenal damages should have been coming forth from the insurance company, but instead they got it under ERISA in Federal court, and the case got zero damages. So you think, wow, the insurance companies, that is the deal they made. So they can fall under ERISA, so even when they intentionally deny coverage to someone, they are protected by ERISA. They can deny coverage, they are protected, and they don't have to pay any damages if that ends up falling through, as ERISA has in the past. There is no reason not to believe that is the case. So the insurance companies got their deals, but they made a terrible deal because they will not be able to stick around very long. Maybe they will be able to stay solvent for a while trying to compete against the Federal Government. They didn't last long in flood insurance. But, boy, in 2006 we know that the biggest donors to the Democratic Party were the plaintiff trial lawyers. How in the world would they let that go through? Well, they cut a deal with them, apparently, because that is the next page. The insurance company got their deal. They are going to be protected. They can deny coverage. That is how egregious it has been before, deny coverage knowing it is going to potentially kill somebody to deny coverage, but the insurance company is protected. So they got their deal. And then the next page, it says in the case of health insurance coverage offered through the health insurance exchange, that is the Federal program, the requirements of this title do not supersede any requirements, including requirements related to genetic information, nondiscrimination, mental health parity applicable under title 27 of the Public Health Service Act, or under State law, except insofar as such requirements prevent the application of requirement of this division as determined by the commissioner, and individual rights, remedies, under State laws shall apply. So they cut the deal with the insurance company, made them feel really special. And until they go broke because they can't compete with the Federal plan, they may be protected from some of the most egregious insurance decisions. And then on the other hand, you have the trial lawyers, they know ultimately everybody is going to end up on the Federal program. And boy, do they have a deal because this means that they will be able to sue under State law under all of the plans. And that will end up being all of them under the Federal plan. That is the way that this looks to me. One other thing, and it is a big bill, and this is at page 431 and 432. And this is amazing. This is another perk the trial lawyers got. Having been a lawyer and a judge, I have great respect for the judicial system. When someone has been wronged, rather than an eye for an eye, we allow them to go into court, sue and get damages. There is nothing wrong with that. That is a good system. But here we are at page 1,431, and it says that the Secretary shall make an incentive payment in an amount determined by the Secretary, and I am sure that is Health and Human Services, to each State that has an alternative medical liability law in compliance with this section. So under this bill, this is a new expense. New. New money to be spent by the Federal Government. Now will that be new money for health care for seniors? Oh, no, we are cutting $500 billion out of the seniors' Medicare. This is new money for any State that will follow the rule here on page 1,431 and 1,432, and here is the kicker at subsection 4, you get that incentive pay as determined by the Secretary if it meets these requirements, and that includes the contents of an alternative liability law that are required to get the incentive payments, or in accordance with this paragraph if the litigation alternatives contained in the law consist of certificate of merit, early offer, or both, and the law--and this is unbelievable--the law does not limit attorney's fees or impose caps on damages. Now, think about the number of States that have been able to save hospitals and save doctors from going out of business so women could get gynecological care, places that hospitals had to close, they came in with tort reform and they were able to open back up and have doctors come in and help because they put caps on damages. And in some places, they put a cap on attorney's fees. We are going to spend Federal dollars bribing every State to get rid of any limit on damages so that the doctors can be tagged. We are going to protect the insurance companies for awhile. We are going to protect the plaintiff's bar permanently. And the doctors, once again, are going to really get hurt. I know my friend from Louisiana has a reputation as having been a fantastic medical doctor and also knows what it is like to suffer and require treatment himself. I yield however much time my friend needs and wishes to speak.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank you for that observation. That's exactly right. Some people will not be able to put money into the Health Savings Accounts, and those will be people we will be able to help as the Federal Government, and it will be cheaper to do that than to keep going bankrupt, which is where we're going. The projection is, by 2017-2018, we're going to bankrupt America with Medicare. Why wouldn't you try to do something to rein that in? Let me just say I disagree with what the President has done. I've been in the Army. I've seen how commanders agonize, and I know General McChrystal was handpicked. He went over there. He gave the President his assessment. We really need at least 40,000 troops. It's very plain. You either put them in there or we're going to lose this war. Now, to me, that seems like that ought not to require more than 72 hours once you get that general's report. My goodness. He says, The guy I handpicked, if we don't give him 40,000 troops quick, then we're going to lose the war. That's very clear. He didn't take 72 hours. He is taking 60 days or more and counting. We've got 60,000, 70,000 troops or so over in Afghanistan who are waiting with bated breath to know what the President is going to do, and so are we. This bill here will affect over 300 million people's lives and the lives of generations to come. We don't get the 60 days that the President has taken to make sure he gets it right. We're told we get 72 hours. You're not going to have time to find all the pitfalls that we've put in there. We're talking about the future of this country and about future generations. They are owed so much better, not because they've done anything to deserve it, not because we've done anything to deserve the blessings that have been heaped upon us, but because those who went before us made the sacrifice of life--of their fortunes, of their sacred honor--and that's why we reap the benefits we do. We owe it to future generations because of what the past generations have done for us, and that is what we have to do. It breaks my heart to close out this congressional session. We're going home, and the President will make a lot of appearances, and so will Speaker Pelosi. The American people are the ones who are going to get hurt, and the children of the future will get hurt. Oh, yeah. Congresswoman Capps is a very gracious, delightful Member of Congress, but the Capps amendment is in there, so this type of public option will be able to fund abortions. I mean this stuff is here. We need more than 72 hours. We need at least as much as the President is taking to review Afghanistan. Mr. Speaker, with that, I know my time has run out, so I yield back at this time.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, we have heard people on both sides of the aisle talk about the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, as this unbiased entity, and it has a proud history of being unbiased. But the fact is that after the CBO director got called to the woodshed, to the White House, after CBO delivered a score that the White House did not like, it has become more of a lapdog than a watchdog. One example is, we keep hearing people across the aisle. There were 1 minutes given over and over last week asking, Where is the Republican bill? We have a number of bills. I have had one filed since the end of July. We have specifically asked CBO to give us a score since August 19. They said show support from your party. Every leader who had an impact--they told us they could help get it scored--has requested it. We have been shut out. We have been shut out. Where is that unbiased body? It is sad they have disappeared.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, and I appreciate the gentleman, my dear friend from Iowa, for yielding. It is interesting when we talk about people who do not have coverage. As my friend from Iowa knows, earlier today, there were a great many 1- minute speeches given by Republicans and numerous 1-minute speeches given by Democrats. A Democrat, whom I happen to like a great deal--he has always been most gracious to me--gave a 1-minute in which he pointed out that he had a friend who had called a doctor's office, seeking help with a medical problem. The doctor's office asked the question, Do you have health insurance? He responded that he did not. They said, Well, we will see you, but you'll need to bring $250 to pay for the visit and treatment, to which he responded, as I recall, Look, I'm not from this country. I don't have $250. The doctor's office responded, Well, then you'll need to go to the emergency room. So this individual is going to get health care, is going to have it provided. Obviously, somehow this person got into this country, and we don't know if he was legally here or illegally here. My friend across the aisle, my Democratic friend, said that's why we've got to have this universal health care bill. That's why we've got to pass this so that people like his friend could have health insurance and could be covered and would not have to go to the ER to get, apparently, his free care. Well, that, I think, really points out a distinct difference between the approaches of the two parties. That is why, even though the Democrats have about 40 votes more than they need to pass any bill they want to, they still haven't got the votes they need, because our Democratic friends have indicated they can't support the bill that has been presented to them. Yet they take the opportunity to blame Republicans. We're not on board. When you have someone come into this country--and let's give him the benefit of the doubt--who's here legally, he comes into this country and immediately demands free health care? I mean, that's incredible that somebody would have that kind of demand. I know that, in China just recently, someone from the United States was over there, and required a test. He was required to pay the money up front before he could get his testing. That goes on. China, for example, and Europe have been chastising the United States for squandering money--imagine that. Here you have the Democratic position that somebody from another country who is visiting here, who is not a citizen, who is maybe here legally or illegally should be able to call up and demand that any doctor in the country he wants to see should be forced to see him even though he can't pay for it. It is amazing to me because, you know, I thought the Civil War was fought and won to show, among other things, that the Constitution did not allow people to become or to be made slaves. That's what would happen to the health care profession if you were to allow that kind of thing. By golly, the heavy-handed government is going to demand that you, Doctor--you who went through so many years of training and education and through all those sleepless nights while working as an intern and as a resident--will be required to provide free health care to someone who just comes into this country. I was recently with a group that went over to the Middle East. We flew on a commercial airline--that is a long flight--and one of our congressional friends said that the lady next to him seemed well-to-do and that she had commented during the long flight that her husband worked with Hamas. Well, we recognize Hamas as being a terrorist organization, and here she's very cavalier about it. Well, he works for Hamas. During the course of the trip, she also volunteered that her son-in-law is with Hamas. Eventually, she said they were about to have their second grandchild, and with this grandchild, they were going to do as was done with the first: This daughter who was pregnant was going to fly over to the United States right before the baby was due, at the end of August, and have the baby. She pointed out that their family liked the option of having American citizens in their family. That's why they call them ``anchor babies.'' That would allow them--her husband with Hamas and her son-in-law with Hamas--to come into the United States as an excuse because they're raising an American citizen. So they get visas. They come over here. They have babies. As she pointed out to a fellow Member of Congress, not knowing who he was: Do you know what the best thing about it is? She'll fly home with her new grandbaby, and she won't have to pay a dime. That's what's going on, and that's what our friend across the aisle was pointing out earlier today that he thinks should go on, that people should be able to come into this country and demand free health care from whomever. Most of the people I know on our side of the aisle take the position that this country is such a blessing and that, through this country, we've been the most philanthropic country in the history of the world. We've been able to help people around the world in times of crisis, and we're willing to do so in times of crisis; but if we take on the health care expense of the whole world as much as we're doing with pharmaceutical costs--and we seem to be subsidizing the pharmaceutical costs. If we do that with all of the health care costs for anybody who wants to just come in and get free health care--anybody who wants to at any time anybody wants to--we will bankrupt this Nation. This blessing that we've been handed will not be around to be passed on to our descendants. You know, we've heard over and over--and I get so tired of hearing it because it's so untrue--that Republicans have no solutions. This is a bill that I've filed. It's a health care solution that, I think, trumps anything that I've heard any of the Democrats point out since we now know from Secretary Sebelius that the President, even though he keeps talking about ``my bill'' and ``my plan'' actually doesn't have any bill. He's talking about a set of principles. That was quite a revelation. Anyway, in my bill, section 301 reads that, notwithstanding any other provision of law, a consular officer defined in section 101(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a), may not issue or renew an immigrant visa to an alien unless the alien presents evidence, which may be in the form of an attestation, by a sponsoring employer or individual in the United States in whose household the alien intends to reside who will be responsible for providing the requisite coverage, that the alien and the alien's spouse and children who are accompanying or following to join the alien will be covered by a high-deductible health care plan as defined in section 223 and will be an account beneficiary of a health savings account under such section after the alien's admission to the United States as an immigrant for the duration of the alien's residence in the United States or be subject to removal. In other words, the long and short of this is, under my bill, we welcome immigrants coming into this country. We welcome them. It has made this country strong. Yet, since it's a matter of national security that we not let non-American citizens bankrupt this country, then in the future, if they allow my bill to come to the floor for a vote, anyone wanting to come in will have to prove that they will be covered, that their health insurance needs will be covered. They'll be met before they get visas. If their health insurance expires before their visas do, they will be subject to removal from the country. That would help provide some sanity. And I know my dear friend from Iowa was with me when we journeyed to the United Kingdom, over to England, to talk about immigration over there, and we had one conversation with some people with the British Government. And it was a bipartisan trip. There were people from both parties who were there. But a lady, she may have been on their type of Social Security, but she pointed out that before you can receive Social Security in the United Kingdom, they require, as I understood, that you be there paying into their system for at least 5 years before you could get a dime. And one of our friends from the other party was outraged: But that's discrimination based on national origin. You shouldn't be forcing them to pay in before they can receive. That doesn't seem fair. And she very calmly, and with that beautiful English accent, pointed out that, Well, in this country we happen to think it's fair that before you receive benefits from everyone else in the country, you help pay into the benefits pool.

Mr. GOHMERT. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. And I note interesting headlines in the news this evening. For example, one article says, the headline, ``Reid Targets Government Takeover of Health Insurance.'' Another says, ``Snowe,'' talking, I'm sure, about Senator Snowe, ``Rejects Reid Public Option Plan.'' Another says, ``Democratic Senator Lincoln, Public Option a Nonstarter.'' Another headline, ``Lieberman Backs GOP Filibuster of the Public Option.'' Another Gallup poll: ``Conservatives Outnumber Moderates.'' So these can't be too good of news. This article from Monday says that in an appearance at a Florida senior center during the day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested a new name for the same approach to ease the opposition, talking about the public option. She suggested, ``the consumer option.'' Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a friend from across the aisle, Democrat from Florida, appearing at Pelosi's side, used the term ``competitive option.'' The article says, ``Critics say that by any name, the approach amounts to a government takeover of the insurance industry,'' with which I would tend to agree. This article quotes Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to vote with Democrats on health care so far this year, issued a statement saying she was ``deeply disappointed'' in the approach the Democratic leader had chosen. But, anyway, it can't be too good of news for ramming this bill down America's throat and forcing us to take care of people who come into this country and immediately demand free health care. We just have a difference of opinion across the aisle as to how that should be handled, but I also do know that we have friends across the aisle that simply do not believe that that will restore our country's ability to avoid bankruptcy by ensuring and providing health care to the world.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it is always an honor to be here on this floor where so much history has been made. I can't help but think of the quote from Thomas Jefferson: ``The natural course of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain.'' What we have been faced with and what is being negotiated behind closed doors, interesting negotiations, there are no Republicans that have been allowed anywhere near, despite all the promises of the most open government that we would have once President Obama was in the White House and Speaker Pelosi was Speaker and Harry Reid was the Majority Leader in the Senate. Those things just simply have not materialized. I keep hearing people, and I have heard them on both sides of the aisle, say we want health insurance for everyone. What I want for everyone is health care; health care that is affordable, health care that is accessible. Health insurance? I gave a speech to health insurance folks here last year and I pointed out, you think you are selling insurance, but this is not insurance. You are selling management by health insurance companies of health care. It is not insurance. Look it up. Insurance is not paying a company to manage everything for you. Insurance is when you pay a little premium, a small premium, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly, sometimes for a whole year. You pay that to insure against some unforeseeable event out there in the future. Now, when I was growing up in East Texas, there were precious few people that had any insurance, but the ones that did, they paid a tiny premium to insure against some catastrophic illness overtaking them or some terrible accident that left them in need of expensive health care, and that insurance would cover them. For the rest of us, if you got sick, you knew exactly what the cost was at each doctor's clinic, at the hospital, and you also knew if you got sick and had to go to the doctor's office what it would cost. But if it was more than you could pay, then there was usually someone near the front counter who could work out a monthly payment for you to pay. But, as a patient, you had control of your health care. I have been intrigued. It just leaves you with a broken heart to hear all the troubling stories from our colleagues across the aisle about the tragedies of sickness or accident. But I have heard the same thing except, many-fold more, about socialized medicine. As an exchange student in the Soviet Union in 1973, I had a chance to see socialized medicine up close and personal, the way it gets after it has existed for a number of years. People rarely ever saw the same doctor when they went. The doctors, it was not an honor to be a doctor there. College students with whom I came in contact and got to know, if they had a parent, a father or mother that was a doctor, they were not all that thrilled to tell you. They were tickled to death to tell you if they had a parent that was assistant to the assistant manager of a factory, but not so much of doctors. Here in the United States, doctors traditionally have been paid well, and it has inspired the very best and brightest among us to aspire to go to medical school and become doctors to help people. And what seems to have been missing from heartrending story after heartrending story are any good stories. So if someone is visiting the United States, and the only exposure that they have to hearing about our health care is from the stories from our friends across the aisle, they would certainly want to avoid U.S. hospitals, U.S. doctors and U.S. clinics because of all the terrible tragedies that seem to be the only thing that occur; when the fact is, this country provides a better level of care than anywhere not only in the world but in history. I've had doctors who were historians indicate that before 1910--not even a full 100 years ago--before 1910, if you went to the doctor, the odds were about 50-50 that you would actually be helped by going to the doctor instead of being harmed by going to the doctor. Just down the road out here you can get to Mount Vernon, to George Washington's home. We have a beautiful painting over here similar to the one hanging in the White House of George Washington, all 6-foot-3\1/2\. Though some say he was not that tall, they knew he was that tall when they measured him on the slab after his death. But he died at an age that was unexpected for him because he seemed to be in such good health. He had been out marking trees that were going to be cut down. He didn't know that he might someday get a carbon credit for them, so he had marked them to be cut down. It was during the cold and during the rain, and he got a cold. He didn't get out of his wet clothing very quickly. He had dinner the night he came back. He didn't do much about the cold. But before long, it began to overtake him. One of his closest friends in the world was his doctor, Dr. Craik. I think he was bled three times, and they just could not understand why they kept draining out the bad blood, as they thought, out of the great father of our country, and he just seemed to not be getting better. They didn't know the damage they were doing to this giant of a man. But we get past 1910, and because of the free market system in this country, health care has been elevated to a level never before seen in the history of mankind. What is missing in some of the stories that have been told are some of the stories that I have personally heard and have become familiar with. Sue Clark lives in Tyler. She told me that she emigrated from England. Her mother got cancer living in England and, as is normally the case with socialized medicine, there, in Canada and soon to be here if the health care bill either the House or the Senate is talking about makes its way and gets passed, signed into law, people will go on lists the same way here. So when the President says, We're cutting $500 billion or so in Medicare, but we're not going to deny coverage to anyone, not going to deny treatment, what we see in these other countries is that they're not technically denied treatment or care. They're put on lists. And as it goes with socialized medicine, in order for the socialized medicine health care system not to go broke, people end up dying on the list, waiting to get their health care coverage. That's what Sue said happened with her mother. Because her mother got cancer in England, she died of the cancer, which would have been an unnecessary outcome, had she been living in the United States, as Sue said. Sue got cancer here in the United States. She didn't go on a list. She is a secretary, as I recall, and she said she didn't go on a list. She knows she's alive today because she emigrated from England and got away from the socialized government, single-payer health care, whatever you want to call it, public option. Over there it's not a public option. It's a public requirement. But, anyway, her mother died of cancer because she was in a country that had the kind of health care that those across the aisle--many of them that is, not all of them--are aspiring to give us here. By the same token, I know personally of incredible stories, of people who didn't have money for health care and doctors provided it, doctors who answered the call in the middle of the night and came rushing down to help, even though they knew there was a good chance they wouldn't get paid. Doctors, hospitals and clinics providing free care. I come back to my friends across the aisle who seem to indicate, like the one indicated earlier today that the guy was told because he was not from here in the United States and because he didn't have health insurance and because he didn't have $250 to pay cash, he could not demand and require that the doctor he wanted to see had to see him. My friend across the aisle was upset about that. He was told he'd have to go to the emergency room to get that treatment. I've also talked to physicians who said that if there was any way to require even a $5 copay, it would root out so many of the people that just show up at the emergency room with colds, things like I get--maybe because of the stress or I'm not getting more than 2 or 3 hours sleep so often around here. We get colds. I don't go to the hospital. I don't go to the doctor. We have got great over-the-counter medical supplies. So you can go pick them up. I don't use insurance for those kinds of things. You just get what you need. I am familiar with what it costs. When I went out on my own as an attorney and left the big firm I started with, I was determined not to steal any clients, as I knew some lawyers had been accused of doing. So I started out with next to nothing. That first year that I was on my own, my adjusted gross income was $12,000. We had a daughter who was about 2, and the only thing we could afford to give her that Christmas was a free puppy dog that my late mother had found and thought my daughter would love, and she did. I know something about having to scrape and scrimp and build a business. Within 3 years of going out on my own, I ended up paying more in income tax than I ever made at the big firm where I went to work after I got out of the Army service. So I know something about scrimping. I know something about not having the money to give your child everything you want. I understand. But the free market system, when allowed to work properly, can do amazing things. But I'm telling you, Madam Speaker, and I would tell the world, I don't want health insurance companies or the government managing my health care. I want to make those decisions, and I want everybody else to have that same freedom. I want them to have coverage where they can afford it, and I want them to have the best health care that is available in this country, and that's doable. But not by socializing medicine. You hear the stories over and over. We heard about a company in Canada which, in order to attract the best and brightest employees, was offering them the added perk that if you get sick and need surgery or need testing, we'll put you on a plane and fly you to the United States to get it done within 24 hours. That's what they were offering as part of their contract because you couldn't get that in Canada, working up there. But here if we emulate those systems, you go on lists. The seniors, having lived on this Earth for so long, they understand what's going on. They understand when you talk about cutting Medicare $500 billion what that means, that they're expected to do as Robert Reich recently said, You know, they're not going to get the health care they need at the end of their lives; it's too expensive. Basically, we'll let them die within a couple of months. If you remember the President's own town hall meeting at the White House, there was a lady there named Pam Sturm. She had said that her mother was 99, close to 100. Her own doctor said that he couldn't do any more unless she got a pacemaker, but that seemed awfully old to be getting a pacemaker. Everyone else said, Yeah, sure. Go for it, except, according to Ms. Sturm, the arrhythmia specialist. But he had never met her mother. Well, her doctor contacted the arrhythmia specialist and said, You really need to meet this lady before you make that medical call. Don't just do it off a list. You really need to meet her. He met her, and according to Pam, the specialist saw her and saw her joy of life, and he said that he, indeed, was going forward with the pacemaker. It's been 5 or 6 years since then. She's now 105 and doing well, according to Pam. Now the question she asked the President, she wanted to know under President Obama's plan what treatment someone elderly could have, and asked this question: ``Outside the medical criteria for prolonging the life for somebody who is elderly, is there any consideration that can be given for a certain spirit, a certain joy of living, a quality of life? Or is it just a medical cutoff at a certain age?'' I watched the video, and I typed this up so I could have every comment exactly right. President Obama said, ``We're suggesting--and we're not going to solve every difficult problem in terms of end-of- life care.'' My English teacher mother taught eighth grade English for most of her adult life, actually taught me English my whole life and got frustrated with me quite a bit. But I know that she would outline that sentence and say, The President needs to clean that up, just as she did with some of mine. Anyway, he apparently is talking and thinking and trying to come up with an answer, kind of beating around the bush. But he goes on and says, ``A lot of that is going to have to be--we as a culture and as a society starting to make better decisions within our own families and-- and for ourselves.'' The President goes on and says, ``But what we can do is make sure that at least some of the waste that exists in the system that's not making anybody's mom better, that is loading up on additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care, that at least we can let doctors know and your mom know that, you know what, maybe this isn't going to help; maybe you're better off not having the surgery but taking a painkiller.'' That is the President's answer. How ironic. She had just explained that her mother had lived 5 or 6 years, a very joyful life after the pacemaker, and here the President is saying, Maybe you're better off not having that pacemaker surgery but just take a painkiller. The seniors get that. They understand what that means to them, and they don't need a death panel to read them the writing on the wall that comes from that kind of approach to health care. I had one senior say that she's concerned that they're cutting health care costs for seniors because they know that's where all the wisdom-- not all of it but a great deal of most of the wisdom resides. The longer you are around, hopefully the greater your wisdom grows. I know from having been a judge that it is true. You live and you learn. Unfortunately, there are those who just live. Very unfortunate. Some never get to that learning part. But we have seniors who have lived and learned. They've seen the threats of fascism. They've seen the threats of communism. The greatest generation that provided us the protection and afforded us the opportunity to enjoy the blessings we enjoy, and now we say, ``You know what, maybe you're better off taking a painkiller''? What have we come to? You know, are we so self-absorbed, and we look at the money that we're throwing around from this body. We're supposed to have the purse strings and have some self-restraint as an obligation to those who sent us here, and yet we pass a bill to spend $770 million on wild horse habitat to buy them another area the size of West Virginia so they can roam around more when we have 3 million or so people, I understand, who have lost their habitats? Why aren't we taking care of their needs by creating new jobs and creating the ability to afford health care? My health care, my health insurance here in Congress, is part of the same big thick booklet that all other Federal employees get to have, but it was costing over $1,000 a month. It was just too much. So I elected to go with a health savings account, and it went to $300--well, it's under $300 a month, but a majority of that goes into my own health savings account. I've had some disagreements with the insurance company. I hear lots of people say, Everybody in America ought to be able to have what our Congress has for health care insurance. My answer to that is you don't want my insurance. I'm changing it at the end of the year. I don't like it. I'm changing it at the end of the year. But what you want is not the insurance I've got right now, I don't think. What you want are my choices, because I've got a big, thick book like everybody else in here, and all the clerks, all the support staff and personnel, all the Federal employees have the same opportunities. It's not exclusive to Members of Congress. I do support I believe it's H.R. 615 that John Fleming came up with that a number of us have signed onto. I think it's a good bill, that Congress shouldn't pass any health care system created at least with legislation that we do not put ourselves on. It seems fair to me. But people should have choices, and that will bring about better health care options for people. But you have health insurance companies right now managing health care. It's not insurance. They're just taking care of people's health care. And it reminded me that--and someone, Madam Speaker, may be interested in taking this idea and actually going public and trying to sell the public on the idea. Maybe it will work. It sure worked in health care. And that is to tell people, You know what? Gasoline goes up. Sometimes it goes down, but it seems like more often it's going up. So why don't we tell the American public, Look, we will provide you what we will call gasoline insurance. You pay us a truckload of money every month, and we'll give you a copay and a deductible, and then we will pay your gasoline bill above that every month. How does that sound? Well, that's what people are doing with health insurance, and they're paying an awful lot of money. The same thing is true with Medicare and Medicaid. When you take the total expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid in the year 2007--we're still looking for 2008 full-year numbers, don't have them yet--we were approaching $10,000 average for every household in America to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. A small percentage of the population is on Medicare and Medicaid; yet the average is $10,000 for every household in America just to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. That just seems outrageous. There's an easier way. I filed a bill that has a solution. There are lots of other people that have suggested solutions. I want health insurance companies to get back into the business of insurance, and the way to do that is to have a high deductible policy and to provide tax incentives for companies to pay into employees' own personal health savings accounts, not like the old kind where if you don't use it by the end of the year, you lose it. No. If you don't use it, it rolls over to the next year, and it will accumulate and grow. And statisticians tell us that young people in their twenties and thirties, the vast majority of them, if they do that, will have such tremendous accumulated amounts in their health savings account by the time they reach retirement age that they won't need nor want Federal assistance with their health care decisions or payments because they can address it themselves with their own health care savings account and with the money that they have stored up. We provide tax advantages for businesses to do that. Now, I do agree with those on both sides of the aisle, and not everybody agrees but I think we do have some joint agreement, on the fact that we should have health insurance policies where the insurance company just can't up and cancel the insurance policy after you find out you have some dreaded disease. That seems grossly unfair. And I would agree that would be fair, and the Federal Government can do that. We can be about making sure there is a level playing field and there's fairness across the country. That's what we are supposed to do. This body was never intended to run everyone's life in the United States. But you give control, you give the cost to the Federal Government of all health care in America, well, that can't be paid for by the Federal Government unless they get it from the people living in America; so they're forced to tax Americans more to pay for their health care, and then you have the Federal Government, whose role is supposed to be that of referee, not only being referee but being the player. I mean, we are constantly, it seems, most every day having people come in who are having problems with the Veterans Administration or the Social Security Administration, and it is such a nightmare dealing with the Federal Government when they are the player and the referee. There's nobody else to go around. The Federal Government is it; whereas, if it took its role from our original Constitution, it would be the referee. I heard someone call into my friend Sean Hannity's show and he was berating health insurance companies, and he said, One of your precious health insurance companies had to settle a lawsuit for $3 million dollars and that's why the Federal Government ought to be providing the health insurance for health care. Well, he didn't know what he was talking about because what that shows is you don't want the Federal Government in the business of being both the player and the referee because they don't play fair when they're the only player and the referee. They treat you as some of our veterans have been treated or, should I say, mistreated. What you want is the Federal Government to be the referee. To me, if the insurance company got tagged for $3 million for some heinous way they handled somebody's situation, that means the Federal Government is doing its job. It provided an arena in the judiciary system where people could have a right of redress. That's what we are supposed to do. And by having such a heavy hammer as the arena of redress, forcing the free market players out there to play by the rules, to be fair and don't mistreat people, we do a better job when that is what we concentrate on; not telling automakers how to make cars or taking control of all these other areas that we seem to have taken control of in the last year or so. I want to go back to the comment of Thomas Jefferson: ``The natural course of things is for liberty to yield and the government to gain.'' Of course, it was John Adams that commented, ``In my many years I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.'' What a wise man John Adams was. With regard to health insurance, my bill that has been filed we have been trying to get CBO scoring on. But it may be recalled that earlier this year after CBO came out with a score on a Democratic bill that upset the White House, the head of CBO, the Congressional Budget Office that does all the scoring that people constantly refer to as this unbiased source, the head was called over to the White House, called to the woodshed at the White House. And lo and behold, after that trip to the White House, it's amazing how CBO seemed to try to reach out and help the majority party, the majority in the House, the majority in the Senate, and the White House. So Senator Baucus can rush in a bill, rush in something that is not even a bill, just a plan, and get them to score it. Well, I was told back in June that they would not score my health care bill unless I could get it into the form of a bill that could be filed here in the House. Well, I couldn't get my bill. I had the plan all drafted, what we wanted in it, and I could not get Legislative Counsel to put it into the form which is required in order to file it normally. And so we pushed and pushed. I told Newt Gingrich about my health care plan. He said you need to get that in bill form and get it scored. That should score. Well, I tried and tried. I was told, well, you are in the minority party and besides that, you are not on the Energy and Commerce Committee. So I got the highest-ranking Republican, Joe Barton, who was extremely helpful. He made the request. He and his office started pushing to get my plan into a bill form so I could file it. That wasn't good enough. We got other Republicans. We kept pushing and pushing. It took about a month, but we finally got it into bill form so we could go about getting it scored by CBO. We got it filed on July 31, and there are some amendments that we have prepared in this bill here that I am holding that we will file shortly. But we have been trying to get it scored by CBO. We made the official request August 19. We were told by CBO what we had heard from the Legislative Counsel Office, you are not in the majority. We knew that. I'm smarter than I look, perhaps. Then we were told, and you are not on the committee of jurisdiction, Energy and Commerce. So we got again Ranking Member Joe Barton to assist and make the request. That was done in September. And then we were told later, you know what, you don't have anybody from the joint commission, tax commission, who has made this request. So we got the highest-ranking Republican on the commission to make the request. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson down in the Senate had requested a scoring as a Senate amendment, and she has not been successful in getting CBO to score that. What happened to the fair government we were going to get when this Obama administration took over? What happened to the fairness and the openness and treating both parties alike? We have been shut out of all negotiations. Unless the President has allowed a Republican into the White House to talk health care in the last few weeks, we had heard that it had been since March since a Republican had been allowed in. When he stood there at that second level during the joint session and said, Look, if you have solutions, my door is always open. Well, lots of us have filed bills. Lots of other Republicans have plans that they would like to get into bills, but they can't get Legislative Counsel's assistance. I am still plugging to get CBO's assistance to score my bill. But amazingly, they fall prey to the gimmickry of the Baucus bill of saying, oh, well, 10 years of revenue and 5 or 6 years of cost may come close to balancing out and only costing the country just under $900 billion. But as we know, that has been bumped up to over $1 trillion. What happened to the openness and fairness? We have solutions. We held them up so the President would see we have solutions. We would love to talk to him, to someone drafting the bills, because they are good ideas. As I mentioned back during the days when I was on the active deacon status of my church, sometimes people would say we all ought to be of the same mind here in this body. And my comment was, unless one person has a 100 percent lock on God's truth all the time, we ought to listen to each other. In a deacon body, you need to do so prayerfully and seeking truth in God's grace and help. In this body, it wouldn't hurt to do that either. We ought to listen to somebody. There seems to be such an atmosphere of arrogance when someone will say that there is not one single thing that nearly half of the Congress can contribute. We all have basically the same number of constituents. There are the same number of constituents who elected Speaker Pelosi that elected me from my district. But it means just under half of the country is now not allowed input into the bills that are being passed and put together in this body. We have some proposed solutions, and the great thing is, as I have continued to talk to Democrats and Republicans, I find new things that will make my bill better. So one of the things that we deal with is this issue of people owning their own policy. That is required in my bill. An employer will have the tax advantage, the business expense, of paying for employees' health care insurance, but that will change in the respect that it will now be the employee's policy. So that means if the employee goes elsewhere or is fired, the business goes out of business, it is still the employee's policy and they can keep paying. We will get rid of COBRA. I saw that after I left the Bench and started running for Congress. My health care was going to go up so dramatically under COBRA that I couldn't afford it. My wife and I cashed out every asset we had except our home in order to make the run for Congress. So I do know something about sacrifice. It is kind of tough when you know you can't provide your children what you know you could have if you had stayed in the private sector, but that is what we did. I came representing my constituents with their expectation that everybody, as Speaker Pelosi and President Obama and Senator Reid have promised, that everybody would have input, and we have been shut out. It really is a tragedy. For seniors, since Medicare came into existence, seniors have never had complete coverage nor control of their own health care. The government has had that control. They would have to find out if the government was going to cover a medication or a procedure. They would have to find out from the government. The only thing worse I can imagine would be if we had a system like Canada or England where the government puts you on a list. And as one individual told me from Canada, that his father needed bypass surgery and he went on a list. He was told we do make adjustments in the lists based on our own determination. I can just picture some guy in a cubicle looking at the list, I think I will move this guy, not this one. He said he guessed wrong with my dad. He needed the bypass surgery very quickly, he didn't get it, and he died on the list, waiting to get bypass surgery for a number of months. We want people to control their own destiny and have access to affordable health care. I saw across America it was currently costing over $10,000; in 2007, it had gone from $8,500 to $9,200 a household. For every household in America, on average they were paying nearly $10,000 to cover the people on Medicare and Medicaid. We would be better off to say to our beloved seniors, you know what, we can do better if we just pay for what you need and we put cash money in your Health Savings Account. If you are an individual living alone, $2,500, if it is two or more, $3,500 in your household Health Savings Account, and then we will buy you health insurance to cover everything over that. You control the first amount, up to $2,500 or $3,500, with a debit card that is coded so it will only pay for health care treatments, medications, over the counter, prescription drugs, the things you need for your health care; and then health insurance, a private health insurance company, would provide insurance for everything over that that was not elective. We're not going to pay for liposuction, but if it's not elective, then it would take care of it. We're better off doing that for seniors; then they have absolute control of their own destiny and they have full coverage so people like seniors and our families would not have to buy supplemental Medicare coverage. I know that scares AARP. The loss of revenue would be just so traumatic to AARP. I get it. I understand that. But it would be better for AARP's members if they didn't have to buy the supplemental coverage from AARP, if they didn't have to buy wraparound coverage from some outside source, if we took care of it and gave them what they deserve for handing us the greatest country with the greatest freedoms in the history of the world. We owe that to them. That's what we owe to those who have gone on before us. To those who are coming behind, my heart breaks. We're spending money like it grows on trees. Of course we're printing it like it grew on trees. Instead, we're cutting down massive forests and printing it. Chairman Bernanke told us he wasn't monetizing the debt, and we find out it appears the Federal Reserve is buying our debt with newly printed money. I wish that we could get Madam Speaker to bring the bill to the floor that has over 300 cosponsors--it only takes 218 to pass-- that would require an audit of the Federal Reserve, but we can't get that to the floor. In any event, we owe future generations so much better than we're giving them. And I just keep thinking about how absurd, if a parent brought a bunch of kids and grandkids into a bank and said, I need a loan because I can't stop spending, I'm just spending wildly, it's more than I earn, it's more than I could ever get, but I need a loan so I can just keep spending--you know, $25 million on rare dogs and cats that don't even live in the United States, $770 million for wild horses, $400 billion for a land omnibus bill, $800 billion for a stimulus package that won't stimulate anything, hasn't saved jobs, it doesn't appear, just a few thousands of jobs while there has been millions lost; $800 billion for that? And don't think that I exclude the TARP bailout, that ridiculous bill that never should have been passed through this House 1 year ago. That's part of the problem, spending money like crazy. Can you imagine that parent saying, give me the loan, and see all my kids and grandkids back here? I am going to swear that when I'm gone and quit spending--because I'm dead--they're going to pay it all back to you. That is what we are doing. We owe them so much better after what we got in this country, and we're leaving them debt they will never be able to pay off and they will have to pass to their children and their children's children. With us and this arrogant spending that's going on in this body--and I know it didn't just start with the Democratic majority, but they've kicked it in exponentially since taking the majority and especially since January. They won the majority on promising America they would bring down the spending, and it's been exponential, it seems, since then. We owe future generations so much better. So we're told, gee, the initial H.R. 3200, it was probably going to cost $1 to $2 trillion. We were told the Baucus bill is going to be over $1 trillion. Folks, the last numbers we were able to get is around 119 million households in America, you divide 119 million households into $1.19 trillion--which is a conservative estimate of any of the Democrats' bills--and what you have is an additional $10,000 per household for their health care bill that will not cover all Americans, but will cover a lot of illegal immigrants in this country. My bill deals with that. By the way, this bill I have before me, it would be a choice for seniors; if you want to keep Medicare, keep it, but I know in my heart that when you see what an advantage it would be to have the government give you a health savings account with cash in it and the government pay for the insurance to cover anything over that, that's the way people will want to go. And then eventually we will be able to bring down dramatically the cost. And as the young people move up, it costs less and less and we get this spending under control. But one of the things that we've heard is about how many people come into this country knowing they've got a health care problem, knowing they may need heart surgery, come in, present to the hospital, get heart surgery. See, you can do that in this country; you can't necessarily do that in other countries. But we've got to rein that in. In my bill, there is a specific provision that says, if you want a visa to come into this country--whether it's a migrant worker visa or whether it's a travel visa or whether it's coming in for some extended stay to work here--you have to show that you will be covered by health insurance either by your employer, by the household in which you're going to reside, that you will be part of their health insurance, you have to show that document or you don't get a visa. It is a matter of national security that we not let people coming in bankrupt the country. We've got to get this under control. The law of the land is--and has been and allowed to stand--if you're illegally in this country and you present for health care, you'll get it. We believe in abiding by the law, and so that will be addressed, that will be taken care of. You will get the health care. But because it is, again, a matter of national security that you not be allowed to bankrupt our country, then if you're here illegally and get free health care, then you will be deported. And since we can't let you keep coming in to bankrupt this country, if you come back in, then it would be a crime. It's not considered a crime right now, but if you come in illegally, get free health care, and then after being deported come back in, that would be a crime under this bill. Another thing we need, though, is transparency. These are all part of Republican solutions. And it's in this bill. It's in other people's bills. Transparency. People don't know what it costs for health care. I have seniors get scared. They say, wow, that costs $30,000? Oh, my goodness. Thank goodness for Medicare because I only have $10,000 in the bank. I could never have paid for that. Well, guess what? It didn't cost $30,000. It probably didn't cost more than $3,000 for that $30,000 in care. As I've mentioned before, I know of a specific instance where $10,000 in 2 days of hospital care, ambulance, doctors, testing was paid in full by a health insurance company for $800. Americans ought to be able to do the same thing. It shouldn't just be Blue Cross or some other health care insurance company. Americans ought to be able to get the same good deal that insurance companies or the government can get, and they could do that if they had their health savings account and start saving. And even if someone is self-employed or wants to put in money of their own, they can do that. That's pretax money if they're willing to do that. Those are the kind of things that would help us. With regard to transparency, under this bill, health care providers would be required to provide you the exact cost of the treatment of whatever it is you're getting in the way of health care from the health care provider before the treatment. They also, under my bill, would have the right to know if you are providing that service to anyone else cheaper. They have the right to know how much it is. Chances are, if a health care provider is providing it cheaper to one than they will with a health savings account or somebody with cash, then that person with cash or the health savings account will take their little debit card down the road, like we used to do growing up. The truth is we used to go back and forth between doctors. My parents were looking for a good deal and didn't have money to waste, and so you knew what things cost and we might go to a different doctor. But you might know in advance. That's the way it ought to be now. You ought to know, and you might get the same deal, Madam Speaker, that Blue Cross gets. That's in this bill. Another thing would be that insurance companies--and that's in this bill, and John Shadegg is the one that talked about it so adamantly for so long. It's a good idea. Insurance companies should be able to cross State lines. I have been looking on the Internet lately for some new term life insurance--and I am not giving out my e-mail address, because I sure don't want any more of the spam that I keep getting--but you can get that online. People are competing across the country, and there are some very good rates on life insurance. You ought to be able to do that with health care insurance. People ought to be able to get as good of health care plans no matter who they are. But, unfortunately, under H.R. 3200, and basically the Baucus bill, as I understand it--I haven't read it like I have 3200--you will not have a lot of choices. There will be one basic plan. There will be one enhanced plan. There will be one premium plan. It may be that you are in an area of the country where you only have one policy, the basic policy. The terms will be dictated by the Federal Government. It's not choices. You may have a number of companies initially that offer those, but if there is a public option, then, just like with the flood insurance, the government will put private insurance companies out of business and you will have one choice of company; that's the Federal Government. You will have one plan, and that's what's dictated. My bill avoids that problem. There are lots of solutions out there, but I do want people to know that, again, when they are told that you can keep your own insurance company, here is the House bill here, 3200, Section 102, the grandfathered health insurance coverage means an individual has insurance coverage. In order to keep this, you have to meet these requirements: The insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1. You can't add a single individual to your policy. If you do, you will lose the policy. It's a retirement medical policy, and one more person retires and goes on, that's gone. You are back under the Federal bill here. Then the second is the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost sharing. That means nobody is going to be keeping their own health insurance policy is exactly what it means. The other stuff, even if you take out the public option, this kind of stuff that you can find in our 1,000-page bill--and I bet this kind of stuff is in the Baucus Senate bill, studying reports. It shall, the commissioner, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Labor, shall conduct a study of the large group insured, self-insured employer health care markets. It will include types of employers by key characteristics, including size that purchase insured products versus those that self-insure. Similarities and differences between typical insured, self-insured health plans. The financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self-insure by employer size. The risk of self-insured employers not being able to pay obligations or otherwise becoming financially insolvent. You get that, being able to pay obligations. That means we are going to send in--we have never balanced anything around here for very long. We are going to send in a Federal agent to help people in private business, that we think you are not making good decisions and so we are going to help you run your business because you are not making good calls. We are doing a study. I mean, this opens the door for the Federal Government to come in and service people in a way they don't want to be serviced. We don't need the Federal takeover of health care. We just don't. We need a referee. We do not need the Federal Government to be the player. That's the way it always works out. I would encourage, Madam Speaker, anyone in this body or anybody across America who would like to know exactly what the President's plan says, because he has referred to it constantly, my bill, my plan, this bill, this plan, contact the White House if they would be interested and ask for a copy of the President's bill. Anybody on this floor can do that, anybody across America. What you will find is what we finally found--the President has no bill. There is no bill. There is no President's bill, nothing there. All those claims about my bill, this bill, my bill, it's not there, doesn't exist. They finally admitted it. Madam Speaker, I am so hopeful that Americans will speak out and make sure that their Representatives or their Senators and the President know how they feel about the government taking over another aspect of their lives, and I hope and pray that doesn't happen. Madam Speaker, I yield back.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. I will yield to my friend.

Mr. GOHMERT. Reclaiming my time, I absolutely got that reaction from people. They didn't believe it. And that's why I would carry my copy of the bill and say, Here, you read it. You figure it out, because these are smart people and they would figure it out. But let me tell you, most people wouldn't even get this far. But if you could get clear over to page 828 of the bill, this does not impose a tax. I want to be clear about that. The President is right, there is no new tax here. This is called a fee. It's a fee, not a tax, according to the proponents of this bill. Anyway, section 4375, There is hereby imposed on each specified health insurance policy for each policy year a fee--not a tax, a fee-- equal to the fair share per capita amount determined under section 9511(c)(1) multiplied by the average number of lives covered under the policy. The fee imposed by subsection A to be paid by the issuer. That means there will be a fee, or, the truth is, many of us do call fees taxes. Some like to call them contributions. And I think that's very noble that we have people out there that make contributions on April 15 of each year to whatever whims happen to come before the Congress. But anyway, that is there. There are fees. There are lots of other fees mentioned. But I'll tell you one of the most astounding things that I heard. It came a few weeks ago, is we know that the President, in his speech in this room, right there at that second level--at the second level, not the top, because we all know in here, this is the people's House, the Senate joins us, the President is not allowed to come in here without an invitation. And so we extended a unanimous invitation from the House, a unanimous invitation from the Senate. I thought about objecting if he was just going to come berate us, but as a Christian, I got to thinking, you know, what if he's coming to extend an olive branch and since the first time since March allow a Republican to have some input into this bill--even though we've been shut out for so long. What if he's coming in and saying, You know what, I heard the American people during August. I saw them rise up. I saw how upset they were, and I heard them, as I said I would over and over and over and over when I was running, and you know what? I want to work with you. I'm going to reopen the White House, and we'll start tonight as soon as this is over. We can just have an informal sit-down downstairs over in the New Visitor Center somewhere. Let's talk about this, you know, something to indicate that we were really going to work together. But instead, the President came in--and these are all words that he used in his speech. He said that those of us who are critical of the Democrat proposal are not engaged in honest debate. He said we were using scare tactics. He said we were making bogus claims. He said we were making wild claims. The President said we were engaged in demagoguery, distortion, acrimony. Those are all words he used and leveled at us. He said we were cynical and irresponsible, that facts and reason are thrown overboard, that we were robbing the country of this opportunity, that we were killing--he used that word, ``killing''--his good bill. And then two sentences before Joe Wilson used the ``L'' word, the President used the ``L'' word first when he said, That's a lie, plain and simple. It's unfortunate that the President would come in throwing words around like that. We have rules against that kind of thing. The President doesn't have to play by the rules, as we saw by the Auto Task Force, doesn't have to play by the laws. You can always get the Congress to look the other way. You can always get judiciary to look the other way, find a lazy bankruptcy judge to sign stuff so he doesn't have to have all the hearings. And then one of the Supreme Court judges, bless her heart, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, put a freeze on for 24 hours. That was lifted off. All of the checks and balances the Founders put in place were completely emasculated, abrogated. There were no checks and balances. So the President's Auto Task Force was free to violate the law in so many ways, and did. And here we're coming at it again, same kind of deal. But the unbelievable quote that I heard a few weeks ago, having been told by the President if we misrepresent his bill, he's going to call us out? I mean, those are fighting words. He's going to call us out? I'm not even sure I know what that means. In the old West, that meant you're going to have a duel. I guess that's what Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr did. And that was over the issue of candor and honesty and comments that had been made. So I felt like I was being demonized by the President because I've been reading from H.R. 3200, and at the time we had no other Democratic bill. So in a meeting with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Sebelius, very gracious person, I had the opportunity to ask her in front of a number of other Members, since the President has constantly referred to this bill, my bill, this plan, my plan, used those words many, many times, said we would be called out if we misrepresented it, I said, Where can I get a copy of the President's bill so I can be sure not to misrepresent it? Her exact words were, I think he is talking about a set of principles. There is no bill. The President has no bill. Now, they're working feverishly, apparently, behind closed doors. That does violate his promise that it would all be open, be covered on C-SPAN, all this stuff, that everybody would get to see the discussion so they could feel comfortable about the health care bill coming. None of that has happened. None of that has happened. And so we come back to this point--that I know the gentlelady from North Carolina has looked into as well--about how many people don't have insurance, and we're told, at most, 15 percent. You're going to destroy health care as we know it, the best health care ever created in any country in the history of the world, because 15 percent of the population needs some assistance? Are you going to change everything else? Then we get down to brass tacks, and it turns out actually, if you take out illegal aliens and people who could afford the health insurance but who are young and who don't think they'll be sick so they don't buy it, then it may be as few as 3 to 5 percent that we're talking about. Dramatic drops. I mean it could be that 3 to 5 percent for which you're going to throw out the whole health care system the way we've come to know it when it just needs some serious things fixed. Throw out the whole thing? I grew up in East Texas. I've lived in East Texas all my life, except for the 4 years when I was in the Army, because I love East Texas wisdom. I had a guy in East Texas tell me--he said, You know, you're going to throw out the whole health care system because a small percentage of people don't have health insurance? He said, When my ice maker broke, I didn't remodel the kitchen. I fixed the ice maker. That's pretty logical. Why don't we concentrate on those who need some help and concentrate on what needs fixing? Instead, the information that we've been able to get indicates we're still going to have a vast number of people who will not have insurance once this bill is passed. Oh, there's one other thing I wanted to mention. I see the gentlewoman from North Carolina has some wonderful posters. I've heard friends from across the aisle repeatedly come to the floor and talk about all of the money that lobbyists are spending on health care lobbying and that they're just all over Washington. Well, it's interesting because they don't call me or my Republican friends. In fact, I had heard that some of them--and it has been reported in the news--that they've been told, if you talk to a Republican, don't expect to talk to me, and we're the ones who are making the decisions. So, when they talk about all of the lobbyists' efforts in Washington, they're not directed towards Republicans, because they know we've got some great bills and that we've got some things that will fix the problems instead of create more problems. They're not coming to us. They're going to the Democrats. That's who they're going to, and that's the way the Democrats want it. Don't go to Republicans, say some of them. Just make sure you come to us. So, anyway, I want to yield to my friend from North Carolina.

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from North Carolina for some wonderful insights. It does get very frustrating being a Member of the House of Representatives, because, I know, so much history, it never ceases to be an honor to get to serve here where so many wonderful, caring, selfless people have. But at times you just wonder, do the American people not realize the power that they have to change what goes on in this body? The old adage is true: democracy ensures people are governed no better than they deserve. What breaks my heart is that the American people for too long have deserved a very poor government, apparently, because they have not gotten a very good government. When my friend from North Carolina brings up the automatic increases in spending every year, that is an issue that crosses party lines. Of course, when the Republicans took Congress, the majority, in 1994, then they worked very hard and they pushed the President, President Clinton. There was a lot of friction between the Congress and the President, but the Congress prevailed. We got a balanced budget and the President ultimately signed on. We got some accountability. Then the Republicans got the White House in 2000 and began to have both the House, Senate and the White House. Spending got a little bit giddy. It was unfortunate. I know in 2006, while Republicans were still in the majority, that I was pushing for a zero baseline budget. What that means is we eliminate the automatic increases in every department in the Federal Government, and you start with zero increase. Because the game that's played in this town is you increase automatically every year. If you decrease a little bit from the automatic increase, than you are considered mean-spirited, that you are hurting people by making these draconian cuts when actually it's a decrease to the increase but not a decrease overall. In 2006, when I pushed my zero baseline budget bill, my Republican leadership friends did not allow that bill to come to the floor. It didn't get voted on. It didn't get fixed. That certainly was not allowed when I re-filed it in the last Congress, and it doesn't look like this Democratic leadership this time will allow it either. But that's the kind of thing we are talking about. The games that are played around here, this is in page 149 of H.R. 3200, section 313 is entitled in bold letters, all capital letters, ``Employer Contributions in Lieu of Coverage.'' Most thinking people would call those tax, but this says it's an 8 percent tax, or it says it's an 8 percent contribution to the Federal Government. In any event, we need transparency. The government, it seems these days, is rarely right. But the health insurance companies have not been right. As I explained to some folks in the health insurance business, they say they're in the health insurance business, but what we have in this country is not really health insurance; it's health management. Insurance is what very few people had. When I was growing up in a small east Texas town, Mount Pleasant, very few people had health insurance. But some people did, and they would pay a little bitty premium, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly. That little bitty tiny health insurance premium would ensure against some unforeseeable event in the future, a catastrophic accident or illness that you just couldn't foresee, so you paid a premium just in case that ever came. That's called insurance. When you buy car insurance, you are ensuring against an unforeseeable event, an accident that you might have someday, or somebody hit you and they're not covered with the insurance. Something you can't foresee, you pay a premium in order to have that. But with health insurance over the years, that got adjusted. It became not health insurance, but it became health management, so that big health insurance companies began to manage health care. They would cut deals with doctors. And I know Blue Cross has just forced them down to where some of them are getting hurt, but they continue the threat of, Well, we'll include these other doctors over here if you don't sign on, and then you'll be out of the loop, and we're the biggest health insurance folks on the block, so you'll be out of our loop; and they are able to talk them down. Well, it's good to talk people down in price if it's the fair thing to do. But normally all of that has to be transparent and above board to be effective and to work. We don't have transparency in the health care business these days. You can't just ask a hospital chief executive officer, as I have, how much a hospital room costs and get an answer, because they either don't know or it depends on whether it is the insurance company, the Federal Government, somebody paying cash, all these kinds of things. But I know from one personal relative, the bills they had for 2 days of hospital care was around $10,000, and the health insurance company satisfied every one of them, paid in full all $10,000 in costs, with $800 from the insurance company. That is the kind of transparency we need. But that kind of transparency right now is protected by contracts, and the State and Federal law have continued to allow that kind of thing to go on. We need transparency. For those that wondered, I have mentioned a solution. The bill I filed, H.R. 3478, deals with these issues. First of all, when you heard the President talk about his health care plan, the Democrats down the hall have talked about their plan, and at first they were so excited because it was going to come to just under $900 billion. Then we find out we made a mistake; it is going to be over $1 trillion. Whether it is the President's plan, over $1 trillion, or the Baucus bill, over $1 trillion, whatever it is, even around $1 trillion, the last numbers we got from the census indicated there were about 119 million households in America. If you divide 119 million households into $1.19 trillion in the Democratic health care bill, the cost, because it is going to be around there--some have said it might be closer to $2 trillion. They are probably right, but we don't know, they don't know, we don't know. But if you divide that by the number of households in America, then it is an extra $10,000 average per household for the Democrat new bill. And that doesn't even cover all the people they are saying need to be covered. It still leaves a gap, people uncovered. So we need to get back to health insurance that people can afford that will get the health insurance companies back into the health insurance business. Of course, many of them came rushing to the White House and said they needed a seat at the table. I tried to explain, whether it is the AMA, the American Hospital Association, or individual health insurance companies, that you don't need a seat at the table when you are on the menu and your profession will be devoured. You may be able to negotiate it to be the third or fourth course, but are still going to be devoured. You don't want a seat at that table. Anyway, my bill, when I saw that Medicare itself was apparently costing around $10,000 average for every household in America to pay for a very small percentage of our population who needed health insurance, our seniors, for Medicare and Medicaid, over $10,000 now apparently being paid per household average for that small part to have health care through Medicare and Medicaid, when I saw that, I thought, my goodness, this is outrageous. I know my mother and other people pay all this extra money for supplemental coverage, wraparound coverage of Medicare. For what we are paying for Medicare and Medicaid, we would be better off to give them cash money, say, $3,500 for a household with more than one person in it getting Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP, just give them $3,500 cash in a health savings account they control with a debit card that can only be used for health care, and then buy them health insurance that covers anything that is not elective. We can't be paying for people if they want liposuction, things like that. But if it is necessary health care, then provide insurance to cover everything beyond the $3,500, and buy them that insurance. Now, I have a bill we have been trying to get scored since August 19th. We have been trying. We have had all of the Republican prominent people involved in the committees--the Joint Tax Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. They have all been begging CBO to give a value to my plan. It also deals with illegal aliens and with people coming in who want visas. They would have to have health insurance. It gives transparency. It is a great bill.

Mr. GOHMERT. If I can follow up on that point, the gentlelady raises a wonderful point. Here we are in the government. We are going to send out people to help examine businesses to see if they are making good decisions, and yet the biggest spender, the biggest risk to the entire country is the Federal Reserve. We can't even get a look at what they are spending, but they are going to come in. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that revolutions are started over. The government will not let anybody know what they are doing. The Federal Reserve is scared to death that this Congress and the people in America will find out what businesses, what banks, what guarantees they have made, what money they have spent. There has to be some pretty scary stuff for them to fight so hard to not open up their books so we can see what the Federal Reserve is doing, and yet at the same time we want to help people examine their businesses. And it brings again the wonderful example of flood insurance to the fore. That is there were numerous private insurance companies who were selling flood insurance. If this sounds familiar, it should. The Federal Government said we are going to add a Federal option because we are not sure that the private insurance companies are being fair enough in what they are charging for flood insurance. So the Federal Government provided a Federal option. Well, the Federal Government began immediately running into the red because it was willing to take very little to insure people whose homes were constantly blown away by hurricanes and floods. Yes, build back, we will pay again next year. So what has happened, they drove the private insurance companies out of business because they cannot continue to operate in the red like the Federal Government does. And continues to do, but there will be a day of reckoning. Instead, it drove the private companies out. It didn't provide an option. What it provided was ultimately there was no option. There is where we are today. There is the Federal Government's flood insurance, and the others got out of the business. That is where we see this headed. That is why when we hear about a public option, a federally funded co-op, and even if they say we can work a compromise, we will put a trigger in. We will put it back here, we're sure it won't happen, but just in case there will be a trigger and it will kick in. Give me a break. Those triggers always happen, and the Federal Government takes over that whole issue. People need to know the kind of stuff that is in here. One other unbelievable thing, and I say ``unbelievable'' because we can't say anybody is lying, I guess, but we are told that this Federal plan is about providing people more options. Well, go to page 84 of H.R. 3200. You want to find out about more options, page 84, this says the commissioner shall specify the benefits to be made available under exchange participating health benefit plans during each plan year consistent with subtitle C of title I of this section. It sets out what plans the commissioner will set up the conditions for, the terms of, and there will be one basic plan. The entity offers only one basic plan for such service area. So many areas in the country may have one policy offered. One policy. Now initially there will be insurance companies that want to try to participate who can offer that one policy, but there will be no flexibility. There is one policy and that's what they have to offer or they can't offer any insurance. So instead of having the big, thick booklet like all Federal employees, including Members of Congress, have, they give us these great choices. Many insurance companies, many different types of policies. Now what you will have is a little bitty pamphlet that says here is the basic plan, and here are the companies that offer it. Now if you offer one basic plan and you want to go further, you can offer one enhanced plan, but you have to make that comply. They will all be the same, meeting the conditions that the commissioner sets out. And if you offer a basic and an enhanced plan, then you can offer a premium plan for that particular area. So there is a optional offering for premium plus plans if you offer those three. You could have some areas where they have four or five policies. That is possible. They will be the same policies. Now there are over a thousand policies. Then we will have--probably most areas will have two or three at the most. Some will have one policy with different people offering it. But there are provisions in here, there is some good language for an ACORN-type group or ACORN because this requires the commissioner shall, on page 99 and page 100, assist exchange eligible individuals in selecting exchange participating health benefit plans and obtaining benefits through such plans. And then it says, The commissioner may work with other appropriate entities to facilitate the dissemination of information in this subsection, provide assistance described in paragraph two. So they can hire ACORN folks to go out and give people the information they want them to have--hopefully not telling them how to set up prostitution rings, but probably try to confine themselves just to the health care. But ACORN is paid to do so many different things, it's reasonable to figure that they may give advice on several things at the same time, perhaps would tell you how to avoid tax problems for your prostitution ring, and then we'll tell you about how to sign up for the Federal plan as well. But anyway, that's all in there. This is not about choices, though. This is going to eliminate choices like have never been eliminated in our country's history.

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do appreciate this time, and I do appreciate the comments from my friend Mr. King from Iowa, and I do want to follow up on that subject, a little different approach from a little different angle, because I think it is important that we talk about truth, honesty, and integrity. It is inappropriate on the House floor to accuse anybody else of lying who is a Member of Congress or the President. We are not going to do that tonight. But we are going to talk about what the truth really is, and people can compare the truth to things that have been said both here in the House and around this country by our leaders and let them figure out for themselves what is truth. In fairness to the President, we heard him say repeatedly, ``You have heard their lies. Where is their solution? Well, they don't have one.'' Well, actually we have many, and we tried to get his attention. I know he said if we have proposals, if we have solutions, there is always an open door, and I have no doubt that he is correct about that. I just have not been able to get past all those massive gates and armed guards in order to talk to the President about that. I am sure the door is open, just like he said. It is just I haven't been able to get there. One of my friends from Georgia has indicated he called for weeks and weeks to see if he could get an appointment and had been unable to. So this is our opportunity to come to the floor and actually speak without all of the craziness and the hoopla and the political bantering. I did notice last week on the floor right over there at that podium with an easel behind some friends across the aisle, Democrat after Democrat got up, and they had a poster and they kept pointing out and finishing their comments by saying, it has been so many days, where is their solution? I would like to point my Democratic friends to the fact that if they are looking for the Republican solutions, we have many of them. We have tried to give them to them. We have tried to get them to the floor. We have tried to get them to be brought up in committees, because there are really some excellent solutions to health care reform, some great bills that actually do reform, instead of this stuff that is being attempted now. Anyway, I want my friends across the aisle to know that if you are coming to the floor of the House of Representatives and asking where is the Republican solution, well, even though there are dozens and dozens of excellent proposals, solutions in bills, and I have one myself, they will not find those here on the floor of the House, because they control the House. The Speaker controls the House. The Speaker has unbelievable power to influence the Rules Committee in what she believes. No matter who is Speaker, that Speaker has fantastic power to influence the Rules Committee. Then the Rules Committee has absolute power, despite what the Speaker says, to do what they wish. Unfortunately, the Democratic friends can come to the floor of the House all they want to and say where is the Republican plan, where is their solution, and there won't be one here, because they have been effective in preventing us from bringing our solutions to the floor. So I hope that that spirit of political bantering that they continually brought here, speaker after speaker, where is the Republican solution, they still don't have one, when are you going to bring one; it won't be found on the floor while they are in the majority. If they would like to give the majority back, like they are apparently working on, we will be glad to take that and immediately bring so many of the wonderful solutions that have been proposed. I heard a wonderful comment recently. Someone said the Democratic leadership say they want to reform health care. What they are trying to do is deform it. I would have to agree. I note, also, that so much of the Democratic bills are proposing to have payment coming for those bills from cuts in Medicare that they say will be found in waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, if they know there is that much in waste, fraud, and abuse in the health care system, then aren't the Congress, the House and the Senate, and the President being accessories if we don't bring that fraud to the attention of the other lawmakers so that we can immediately do something about it? Why would anybody want to allow fraud to continue unabated, costing taxpayers billions and billions and, they say, hundreds of billions of dollars, and they are not going to do anything about it unless we first give them this health care deform, or reform, as you may wish? Now, for so long the only bill we had was H.R. 3200. This is half of it. The other half is in the other notebook I have here. And I divided it up so it was easier to carry. I was afraid that the way things have played out in the past with the crap-and-trade bill and also the stimulus bill and land omnibus that so much would be brought to the floor without the opportunity to properly review those things. And, of course, as we know in the crap-and-trade bill, it came to the floor the morning that 300 pages of amendments were filed around 3:08, 3:09 a.m. And right here from this podium, I had made a parliamentary inquiry, which we are allowed to do when there's a legitimate parliamentary question, I wanted to know where can I find a copy of the 300 pages of amendments. Because, after all, normally right outside here in the Speaker's lobby, there are tables out there and they have copies of whatever we are taking up that day. There were no copies of the amendments out there. So I came on the floor, looked around at the Democratic whip table, the Republican whip table. There was no copy to be found anywhere. So I made a parliamentary inquiry as to whether or not we were supposed to have a copy of the amendments since we were actually voting on them right then. And I was told initially by the Speaker, well, there is a copy at the desk. And one of my Democratic friends came up and set four copies of something on the bottom level of the Clerk's table and then pointed to those. So I thought, well, I guess those are copies that they just brought in. So I went there, checked. They were not copies of the amendments. It was the minority report, two copies of that, and two copies of the thousand-plus-page bill, but none of the amendments. So I came back, made another parliamentary inquiry, and was told that there was one copy of the amendments at the desk. I made further inquiry because I'd been to the desk and couldn't find them, and I was pointed to the chair of the individual who actually had the copy, and she was dutifully going through the original copy of the bill and had the only copy anywhere about these parts of the amendments. And where the amendment would say at page such and such, delete line so and so, insert line so and so, and it would have injected language, she was inserting the language, lining out those. So we know that kind of stuff goes on, that we vote on things that nobody could read together in one bill because there wasn't even an official copy of the entire bill here. I made a further parliamentary inquiry since there was not an assimilated copy of the whole because, as you go through these bills and they're constantly referring to other sections, unless you have the correct language of the other sections, you can't really effectively read the bill. So, anyway, we got this bill, H.R. 3200. There's no telling how many hundreds or thousands of hours that have been spent by individuals across this country reviewing it. I think many more outside Congress have reviewed it than inside. And I didn't the first week or so start going through and reading the bill because I was afraid there would be another 3:08 amendment that would massively change the thing. But then I figured this would give us an indication of where things were trying to be taken. And we heard repeatedly from the President, from leaders here, that if you like your health insurance policy, you're not going to lose it. Well, page 16 of H.R. 3200 deals with that issue. And so that I am not accused of playing politics, I will just read this section. It's the ``Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Insurance.'' That's section 102 of page 16 of H.R. 3200. Subsection (a), ``Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined: Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term `grandfathered health insurance coverage' means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met,'' Y1 being the year that this health care plan kicks in. Subdivision (1), ``Limitation on New Enrollment. A, In general, except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.'' That means, of course, if an insurance policy adds an additional insured, someone else comes to work for the company who has bought this insurance and is added to the policy, the policy is gone. It's not grandfathered. It doesn't meet the exception here. And it does have B, Dependent Coverage, you can add a dependent if it's a dependent of someone already on the policy. Then subsection (2) of A, ``Limitation on Changes in Terms or Conditions.'' This is a good one. ``Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.'' ``Restrictions on Premium Increases,'' that's subparagraph (3). ``The issuer cannot vary the percentage increase in the premium for a risk group of enrollees in specific grandfathered health insurance coverage without changing the premium for all enrollees in the same risk group at the same time as specified by the Commissioner.'' That's about more Federal control for sure. Anyway, look at number 1 and number 2. And I was talking to some constituents. One was quite proud of his retirement policy from a large company that's been very successful here in the United States, and he says, Our union was very effective in getting us a very good policy. They've been very reasonable; so our company is very profitable, doing very well, and we have got great health insurance as retirees, and it looks great for the future, so I'm not really worried about having health care coverage. It doesn't affect me what you guys do. I've still got good coverage. Wrong. He had not read page 16 regarding the grandfathered health insurance that he would be allowed to keep. So I asked him, Will there be any additional people retiring that will be added to your policy? He said, Well, of course. They retire all time. There goes your policy. Because on page 16 it says you can't add another individual. You can't enroll another individual. So if you have more people retire from your wonderful company, then they're added to policy, your policy is gone, and you're kicked over under the Federal plan. So that brings us to here. I thought people ought to know that. And I have heard some friends, wonderful Senators down the hall who had the best of intentions who said, well, you know, if we take out the public option, I think we could get this agreed to. I have heard some other Republicans indicate similar things. The problem is they must not have read the Baucus bill or the House bill because this bill is not about health insurance coverage, it is about a government takeover, whether there is a public option in it or not. How about page 21 of H.R. 3200. This is section 113, B, Study and Reports, one study, commissioner in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Labor shall conduct, that is shall, meaning they have to, conduct a study of the large group insured and self-insured employer health care markets. Such studies shall examine the following: the types of employers by key characteristics, include size that purchased insured products versus those that self-insure. Key characteristics are not defined. The government will decide what is a key characteristic of the individual's particular business. Maybe they need to know how much you keep in inventory in your business; how much you are paying your best employees in your little mom and pop business, we are going to study those under this. It is going to be required. Shall study. It will compare the similarities and differences between typical insured and self-insured health plans. It will study, under C, the financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self- insure by employer size. So we are not just going to look at the big ones, we will look at them by virtue of size. We will look at their financial solvency; how are they doing. And since the Federal Government has never balanced any business activity that it has undertaken, this is going to be a real stretch as we send Federal agents into businesses around the country to help them figure out if they are making good decisions that are going to help them stay solvent so they can be sure to provide for their employers. How about D, the risk of self-insured employers being able to pay obligations or otherwise becoming financially insolvent. How do you like that? The government is going to send in somebody to analyze your business for you to help you figure out if you are at risk.

Mr. GOHMERT. I yield to my friend from North Carolina.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. GOHMERT

Mr. GOHMERT. Sure.

Mr. GOHMERT. Absolutely correct. Texans will be devastated. I understand a lot of folks aren't concerned about what affects Texans, but Texans are. But you have to look across the country at the way it affects overall the Nation, and this is devastating. I wanted to follow up on something my friends were talking about with regard to the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. We had just heard earlier tonight from my friend from New York, that, gee, the actual overhead cost of Medicare is, he said 3.5 percent, and the overhead cost for insurance companies is 30 percent. I don't know where he is getting those numbers. The numbers that I have seen, the numbers I have gotten from reports here, I have got them in front of me, indicate it may be 3 percent or so for Medicare average, but that is not all-inclusive of their costs, and private insurance averages around 12 percent. But Medicare, as this article notes, Medicare is devoted to serving a population that is elderly and therefore in need of greater levels of medical care, and it generates significantly higher expenditures than private insurance plans, thus making administrative costs smaller as a percentage of total costs. This creates the appearance that Medicare is a model of administrative efficiency. But what John Alter sees as a miracle is really just a statistical sleight of hand. This notes that private insurers have a number of additional expenditures falling into the category of administrative costs, like taxes that they have to pay that Medicare does not pay. Additionally, when you compare the administrative costs on a per- person basis, Medicare is dramatically less efficient than private insurance plans. And, as this article notes, Medicare's administrative costs from 2001 to 2005 were, on a per-person basis, 24.8 percent higher on average than private insurance. So when they talk about adding millions of more people on a Federal plan, you add that additional per-person amount, it is going to be dramatic. My friend from Pennsylvania asked that I yield.

Mr. GOHMERT. And John Stossel had made that point well and referred to the Cato Institute, that 10 to 20 percent of private insurance administrative costs goes to preventing fraud because the private insurers care about whether or not they lose money. But, on the other hand, as he points out, Medicare is just taxpayer money, so they haven't been as concerned with waste, fraud and abuse. From my days as a judge, what we saw was when somebody knows where there is fraud going on and they have a duty to do something about it and don't, they are accessories to the fraud. So it grieves me much to hear leaders around this town in the majority and the administration at the White House saying, if you will pass this bill, we will cut out the waste, fraud and abuse, and that will pay for $500 billion in cuts. Why don't you quit being an accessory and cut it where it is? I have just got to mention this. I was talking to a senior that I consider a very wise individual, and this weekend she said, You know what concerns me about the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare? Maybe not, but I can't help but think, they know that as seniors, we have been through World War II, we have seen the evils that lurk in this world. We have gained great wisdom from our years. And they are willing to let us die off more quickly so that we are not around to try to get our wisdom across to the young people of what is at risk by this government takeover.

Mr. GOHMERT. I've driven further than that to get cheaper gasoline. I've driven a lot further. In fact, I'm a guy that when I get my gasoline and I turn off the pump, I will still make sure I get all the gas out of that hose into my car that I paid for. Americans do that kind of thing when it matters.

Mr. GOHMERT. I doubt that if anybody's got my credit card and paying for my gas that they'd go to that much trouble that I do when I'm paying for it. But I'll tell you, to follow up on what's been discussed here and mentioned about health savings accounts, even yesterday we had people across the aisle coming to this floor and saying, Republicans have no solutions. And I don't care how many times they say it, it is still not true. As my friends have been talking about, we have some plans. I have a bill that uses the HSA, the health savings account, as the method of getting health care on track, of getting patients the power they haven't had in years, the coverage they haven't had in years, or ever. And we had people on the floor from across the aisle just saying yesterday and today that we want people to get on Medicare; we have no alternative to that. They need to read some of our proposals. My bill, it gives seniors an option. You can stay on Medicare or we will give you money every year in a health savings account and pay for the catastrophic care to cover everything above that. You won't need supplemental. You won't need wrap-around, and we'll give you that choice, because I know where they're going to go, and when we incentivize the young like we do in my bill, like my friend Dr. Roe was talking about, that is going to get the young people on there. So as they get older, they will have accumulated, most of them, so much in their HSA they're not going to want anybody from the government interfering in their health care.

Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman would yield, another thing that does is it gets transparency back in the process, because when you come in with an empowered HSA debit card and you tell them, as Dr. Roe did, give me your best price, and under my bill, it requires that they give everybody exactly what the prices are in advance. And if Blue Cross is getting a better price, they have to tell you that, too. And then you would say, well, you either give me the Blue Cross price or I'm going down the street where they will. It gets competition back in when you get that transparency. We have that in our alternative bills that are not getting the chance here on the floor.