Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, if truth in advertising applies to legislation, we would have a duty to warn America's seniors, beware, the Republicans' prescription drug bill could be hazardous to your health. This bill is nothing less than an historic betrayal of America's seniors. The GOP pretends that it is merely extending Medicare, but in fact the bill is the most dangerous attempt yet to dismantle the most popular health care program in history. The Republicans fought the adoption of Medicare in 1965. Their majority leader said that Medicare should not exist in a free society. Yesterday the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, the architect of this bill, said on television, and the Members can read it here, ``To those who say that [the bill] would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is we certainly hope so.'' This bill would drive seniors out of Medicare and into the arms of private insurers. There is no guaranteed monthly premium. There is no defined benefit for seniors. There is no guaranteed access to drugs seniors must have. The only guarantee in this bill is that it would leave a huge gap in coverage. Seniors would pay a $250 deductible, $420 a year in premiums, and all costs between $2,000 and $5,100 in drug expenses. That is $3,100 left to seniors to pay. This bill even prohibits the government from negotiating lower drug prices for seniors. In contrast, the Democratic substitute offered by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) would provide a prescription drug benefit that guarantees affordable, universal and voluntary Medicare coverage for prescription drugs. There are no gaps in coverage. Seniors would pay $25 a month, $100 deductible, and then 20 percent coinsurance. Their out-of-pocket expenses would be limited to $2,000 a year. That is 1,100 under the gap that exists in the Republican bill. The Republican plan also does not give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to negotiate prices. Our bill does. I would ask the Members to vote for this substitute which guarantees prescription drug coverage for seniors.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished gentleman from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution which condemns the unconscionable terrorist attacks directed at the state of Israel since the Aqaba summit earlier this month and which expresses our solidarity with the Israeli people in the fight against terrorism. I might add that we ought to have solidarity with those Palestinians who join in the fight against terrorism. Let me add, too, I am very proud to have joined the gentleman from California as well as the chairman of the Committee on International Relations and the majority whip in circulating a letter that was signed by more than 300 Members of this House that urges President Bush to adhere to the principles he articulated a year ago concerning the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. That letter and this resolution share this nonnegotiable demand: Any road map for peace must require the Palestinian side to unconditionally cease its campaign of terror and violence against Israel. Like the Dean of the House, my good friend, I desire to be an honest broker. But in that honesty, I need to observe what each side does. We must require the Palestinian side to unconditionally cease its campaign of terror and violence against Israel. There are some who believe the United States and other nations must demonstrate more evenhandedness on the Palestinian question. However, Mr. Speaker, we must guard against making muddled parallelisms between justified actions by Israel and terrorist tactics that are designed only to inflame and destroy and undermine, I might say, the Prime Minister of Palestine from accomplishing the objectives articulated at Aqaba. As this resolution states, we must reject the concept of a cycle of violence as the gentleman from California has so powerfully said, because it implies a moral equivalence between terrorist and victim where no such parallelism exists. The state of Israel like every other nation on Earth has the right of self-defense and this resolution expresses American solidarity with Israel as it acts to maintain and secure its independence as a free and sovereign nation. Mr. Speaker, we must continue to work to bring peace to this savaged region of the globe and achieve justice for Israel as well as justice for the Palestinian people, so many of whom have toiled under despots who only preach death and destruction. I urge my colleagues to adopt this resolution.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Helsinki Commission for yielding me this time. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this very important resolution. This is about anti-Semitism. But more broadly than that, it is about hate. It is about the human inclination from time to time to hate others who are different, to discriminate against others who are different, who have a different color of skin, who have a different religion, who have a different national origin. More human violence perhaps has been perpetrated in the name of those distinctions and prejudices and hate than any other. It is important that we regularly and strongly and without equivocation speak out against those who would perpetrate and spread hate in our world, in our country, in our communities. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I thank my good friend, the gentleman from California, for their leadership on this issue. It is an appropriate statement for us to make as the representatives of a free and tolerant people.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to talk about the Obey amendment which will be offered shortly. The Obey amendment puts before the Congress of the United States, before our Republican colleagues and before our Democrat colleagues, the question of what options do we want to pursue. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) has said that the most important objective is keeping our homeland secure, keeping America and Americans safe. The Obey amendment says do you care more about giving tax cuts to those at the very upper ranks of taxpayers, or do you care about keeping ports, airports, bridges and roads secure? It is a very simple question. It is a question, though, all of us must answer; and we must answer them with the responsibility to the American public that we have uppermost in our minds. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues, I urge this House to allow the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) to offer this amendment and to support this amendment and to say to America, we are prepared to protect you.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's assertion of what we have done in the past and that he hopes we can continue to do that. The intelligence authorization, when does the gentleman believe that that would be coming up? I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his representation. Let me, reclaiming my time, make another observation. In times past, the defense bill being, for instance, the authorization bill which we passed very quickly a few weeks ago, we had spent 6 days, 7 days on that piece of legislation. This legislation is going to have an extraordinary impact on millions of Americans, and we would hope that there would be sufficient time to debate the bill and, again, substitutes and amendments, so that we could fully air its ramifications to those millions of people, and to Medicare itself. Obviously, there are different points of view on how to get to where we all want to get, or at least most of us want to get. I think there is a substantial difference on whether or not we want to see a program in a viable, ongoing, healthy Medicare, or whether or not Medicare is eliminated or shrunk very substantially and the private sector is in charge of whether or not to offer such benefits. That is a significant policy difference between us, I think; and it needs to be debated. So not only would I urge that we be given the amendments and substitutes that we seek, but also the time to develop those amendments and positions on those amendments, as it is appropriate for the American public to understand the perspectives of the parties and of the individuals offering amendments.

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I take this time for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the House.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to yield to the majority leader for the purposes of informing us of the proposed schedule for next week.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for providing us with that information. The leader points out that the Medicare prescription drug bill will be on the floor. First I would like to know, Mr. Leader, if you know which day of the week or days of the week can we expect to see the Medicare prescription drug bill on the floor?

Mr. HOYER. It would be the intention of the leader to have this bill finished prior to the end of next week?

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Leader, obviously this will be one of the most important bills that we consider during this session of the Congress of the United States, and I would ask if it is the gentleman's intention and the leadership on your side's intention to provide a rule which will allow the minority to offer such amendments as it deems to be appropriate, to offer a substitute that it deems to be appropriate, and to provide sufficient time to debate those amendments? I yield further to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, we appreciate the fact that the gentleman will be, I am not sure I heard you, you will be giving us a substitute or you will consider giving us a substitute. I am not sure I understood.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I saw a grimace, and I thought I would give time for communication between the people who know what is going on like our staff here and the gentleman and myself.

Mr. HOYER. That is correct.

Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is accurate on that. As you know, in the Senate bill, we increased from 10 to 15 percent the credit that would be available to them. That was dropped, as you know, in the conference.

Mr. HOYER. Well, the bill passed, I think we disagree on some of the information, Mr. Leader, that you have just said. I do not think you are accurate on some of that information, but be that as it may.

Mr. HOYER. I will tell you, Mr. Leader, very seriously that these 6\1/2\ million families, these 12 million children will, frankly, not understand that the perfect of what you just spoke was the enemy of the extraordinarily good, which is included in the Senate bill. And I will tell the gentleman further, during the Senate bill, unlike the bill that we passed in the House, the men and women in combat who fall within the income constraints which were covered in the Senate bill were not covered in the House bill. And while we certainly agree with you on helping all of the military who qualify, we certainly believe that the folks in combat whose combat pay is now counted against them for qualifications under this bill, would be helped by the Senate bill. So I think we could help the men and women in combat first. And I will tell you also, Mr. Leader, we are prepared to offer unanimous consent for a companion know bill as we pass the Senate bill to fix the problem or address the problem of which you have spoken with reference to the military. But we ought not to, Mr. Leader, with all due sincerity, if we are excited, if we believe this is an important thing to do, if you wanted to make it permanent, you could have done so, of course, you did not make it permanent. You did it 5 more years than we did it. We were in the constraints of the Senate bill. We would like to make it permanent as well. However, what we would not like to do is have July come and there be no relief for these families which is going to happen if the perfect, if the objective of doing everything defeats us in doing something.

Mr. HOYER. That is correct.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information. I also thank him for his excitement and because he is so excited about passing this, I want to tell him, and I say this very seriously on behalf of our leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and myself, we are prepared to give you unanimous consent to take the Senate bill from the desk, put it on the floor and pass it by unanimous consent. We were excited about it, too. But much more than being excited about it, we think it is an essential act of fairness to assist some of the neediest working tax-paying families in America who were left on the cutting room floor when it came out of conference. And if you share, as I think you do, or at least you express that excitement and enthusiasm for accomplishing that objective, we may not be able to accomplish everything. But we can accomplish some things. And we ought not to have everything fail or some things fail because we could not do everything. And I say very sincerely to the leader, on our side, we are prepared to give unanimous consent on Monday night, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday or Saturday or as long as we want to stay here next week for the purposes of passing that, so those families who were included but cut out in the conference would be included and would participate in the advantages under the tax bill that has already been signed by the President.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Leader, I hope we are not going to give people the impression that a body that passed a bill 94 to 2 would not agree to us passing their bill because, frankly, I do not think that is the case. I understand what you are saying, and I understand that they have been told you are not going to take the Senate bill; and, therefore, they need to go to conference. So they are bowing to practicality. What I am saying is we ought to bow to needs and to practicality and pass the bill. And I am saying to you that we can give you and will give you unanimous consent to do exactly that so that these folks can get that which they will not get, and that is, the additional payment which was provided for in the conference but not reported out of the conference, and, therefore, we are going to leave 200,000 armed services personnel not advantaged as others were in the bill. We are going to leave 6\1/2\ million families with 12 million children not advantaged, as was the intent of the Senate, and I think most of the House.

Mr. HOYER. The House bill has not been taken up, Mr. Leader. It is very nice to say and, reclaiming my time, that it is in the House bill. It is permanent in the House bill. We do a lot of things in the House bill. On our side, we did not believe the House bill was going to be taken up, and we said that, which is why we said we ought to take up the Senate bill and pass it and do something, even though we were not doing everything, and we still maintain that position. And as I am reminded, and I would remind the leader, this House voted to instruct the conferees to take the Senate bill. So we are simply giving unanimous consent to do what the House has already voted on that same day last Thursday to do, and that is, pass the Senate bill. That is what we instructed the conferees to do. So it is not as if we are asking for something that the House has not voted on to do and to accelerate the passage of this legislation so we can help these families.

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. HOYER. Okay. Fine. The MSA bill. When does the gentleman expect that? We are trying to get sort of the flow of bills so we can be prepared. The Medicare bill we assume is going to come late Wednesday and Thursday, and then these other bills will come earlier. The MSA bill, when does the gentleman think that will come?