Steven LaTourette

Mr. LaTOURETTE

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I want to thank the minority leader for giving us the leadership hour on our side this evening. I will be joined by a number of Members. Already joining me on the floor, Mr. McCotter from Michigan and Mr. Tiberi from the great State of Ohio. Before we begin with our subject matter, when this group gathered a little while ago we, in an attempt to bring some levity, which there is not very much of here to the situation, we used probably in my mind one of the greatest games ever invented, the game of Operation. You go home and they say, Wow, boy, that was a good one. I was particularly proud of the ``You got to be kidney'' in talking about some of the provisions in the health care bill under consideration at the time. But I got a letter after we did that special order from the lawyers at Hasbro, saying basically I was violating their copyright, and so on forth and so on. Apparently some of those lawyers were absent the day they taught constitutional law, because not only the speech and debate clause in the Constitution, but also the fair use doctrine sort of made that not accurate. Having said that, I don't want to further inflame the lawyers at this New York law firm, and so we are not going to talk about this, nor am I going to use this chart this evening. Mr. Speaker, what we are going to talk about, however, is March Madness. It is now upon us. People all across the country saw the President of the United States, because he is a big basketball fan and he likes to play basketball, pick his brackets. I think that if I read the news reports right, he picked Kansas to win it all. And I think last year, if I remember right, President Obama nailed the winner. He picked it and off he went. I think a lot of people who had brackets took a bath on Georgetown yesterday, but other than that, most other people's brackets are in shape. But I thought we would use the theme of March Madness and what has gone on here on Capitol Hill, and sort of talk about some of the match- ups that have happened. We are a little further along than the NCAA tournament, so we start and we are down to the Sweet 16. I thought we would talk about the relationship of what is going on. Let me turn first to the gentleman from Michigan. Pick a game and let's talk about it.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. She is indeed a wily veteran. Does my colleague from Ohio agree that the Speaker beat the minority leader?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Okay. I would simply add not only did she beat the minority leader, she humiliated the minority leader in that there is not--well, there is one proposal by Republicans in this health care bill we are going to vote on on Sunday. But that is it. Out of 2,700 pages, the most they could do is squeeze in one Republican provision. And that was actually by Senator Grassley of Iowa, who indicated that primary care physicians should get paid a little bit more for taking care of people.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank you so much. So we declare the Speaker of the House the winner of round one. I just want to mention that these regionals are taking place in some interesting locations. They are interesting because of other things that are included in the bill that we will talk about. Mr. Broun of Georgia, when he was here, talked about the Louisiana purchase and Gator aid. We'll get into that in a minute. But, Tiberi, pick a game, and let's talk about it.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I appreciate that. I would just say to the gentleman, the reason we don't have all of those venues is we can't make a chart big enough.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. For all the sweetheart deals that are included in it. You know, the great thing is each one of them now has sort of a nickname that is becoming a household word in America. So I bet most people, Mr. Speaker, have heard of the Cornhusker kickback, most have heard of the Louisiana purchase. But we're going to attempt to coin some new ones for the new ones because they really are coming up fast and furious. So a billion dollars is going to the drug companies in New Jersey. So I think we should call that the New Jersey needle exchange. And today there was news--and I think that the senator involved has since asked that it be withdrawn--but all banks in the country are going to be removed from student lending except one in North Dakota. So I think we call that the Bismarck bank job. But we were already done with this by the time the news broke. I will yield to the gentleman.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. That is correct.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Well, and we're going to give that game to the people. And you know, Mr. Speaker, you may not remember what the Cornhusker kickback was. Well, basically, people who don't have insurance are going to have the ability throughout the many States to apply for insurance through the State Medicaid program. And sort of one of the dirty little secrets of this bill is, how do you reduce costs by including 30 million more people into a program? Of course you don't. It's going to cost more money. In our State of Ohio, Mr. Tiberi's and mine, the estimate is $656 million to take this uninsured population and cover them. And I would just say that the President indicates that we agree on 80 percent of it. I agree that the uninsured should have access to health coverage, but it comes with a price. And I think what doesn't get acknowledged is the price. So the Cornhusker kickback involved a senator from Nebraska basically saying that it's going to cost his people in Nebraska more money to take the uninsured and put them in the Medicaid program--like every other State in the Union--but he didn't want his people to pay it. Well, and so at the end of the day, the reason that the people rose up and the reason that the people, I think, prevailed in it, it's not fair. How is that fair that people in Michigan and Ohio and every other State of the Union are going to participate in this plan. I mean, if you like the plan to cover more people but Nebraska isn't going to have to pay a dime? And that is why I think the people prevailed. And today or Sunday when we vote on whatever we're going to vote on, the Cornhusker kickback has been defeated by the people.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. And apparently they're still being made. There was a newspaper article the other day where the Speaker is quoted as saying, The store is now closed. And that meant no more special deals, I think. But that came as a surprise to some of us. One, I didn't know that the store was open, and two, I didn't think I knew there was a store. But apparently there was a store, and it was open, but now the Speaker has closed it. I suppose unless they don't have the votes necessary to pass the bill on Sunday then perhaps they'll reopen for Sunday hours and violate the blue laws of the State and let people shop.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I'm going to take one over here from the Florida venue. I will start at the top. You have MoveOn.org against the Blue Dogs. MoveOn.org is, of course, the liberal organization funded by George Soros and others that has really become sort of the main grassroots motivator for the liberal left. The Blue Dogs are conservative Democrats--if there is such a thing--primarily from border States with the southern States, and they have been giving the Speaker and her team fits all year long on cap- and-trade--cap-and-tax as we called it--and a variety of other things. So they're tough to bring along. In this particular matchup, I think the MoveOn.org had like a 7- footer and came in and basically began threatening primary elections against any Blue Dog who wouldn't come to heel and support this bill even though it may not be what the people from their districts want them to do. So unless either of you have an objection, I'm going to give this game to MoveOn.org.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. All right. Mr. McCotter, it's up to you. Pick a game.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, you can't see this chart, but I just have ``Rahm'' here, I couldn't fit ``Emanuel'' in the box. But this refers to the distinguished chief of staff for the President of the United States, Rahm Emanuel, who, of course, was an honorable Member of this House serving a district near Chicago, Illinois, until he was tapped by the President to serve as the chief of staff. And Eric Massa was a Representative--and I say ``was'' because he has resigned-- from the State of New York. And there was a pretty well-publicized dust-up between the two. And why don't you tell us who won.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Do you agree with that?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Give that to Mr. Emanuel. Mr. Tiberi, you're up. Pick a game.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. All right. Over in the Louisiana area because of the Louisiana purchase. And again, just in case, Mr. Speaker, you've forgotten what the Louisiana purchase was, like Nebraska--even though it didn't get the same attention as Nebraska--like Nebraska, the Senator from Louisiana didn't want her people to have to pay increased costs that are going to be occasioned by this bill. So I think a number like $300 million is slated to go to Louisiana. But go ahead. Let us talk about Mr. Waxman, who is, of course, the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. And ``taxes'' is pretty self-explanatory.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. How old are they now?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. What about what's built up in a pension? We all have thrift savings accounts as Federal employees. We take a portion of our pretax dollars, put them in there. And until the last couple of years they were doing okay, but they would build up X amount of interest during the course of the years.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. So I hear you're saying we're going to give the game to Waxman?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I think you're right. I would just add the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Tiberi, has talked about increased cost. And a lot of people are saying it's not going to cost anything; it's going to reduce the deficit. Just today a company that is pretty well known around the world--and certainly known in the President's home State of Illinois--Caterpillar Incorporated, said that the health care legislation being considered by the U.S. House and voted on Sunday will increase the company's health care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone. In a letter Thursday to the Speaker and the Republican leader, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on its shareholders, employees, and retirees. If they're right, and you're a retiree from Caterpillar, based upon what you were just saying, Mr. Tiberi, it's sort of a double whammy. One is that their health care benefits are going to be taxed potentially; two, their health care benefits may cost them more in terms of premiums or copays that they receive as a retiree. And three, if they have retired and put their money in the bank and are drawing interest, that interest is now subject to taxation. And I forgot to ask you. What's the rate of taxation on interest in a bank account that a senior citizen is earning under this proposal?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. It's kind of like being in a hole and trying to get out and digging the hole deeper. That is the analogy I would use. I'm going to pick off an easy one where I don't think we're going to have any disagreements. Just like over in the House we had the distinguished Speaker and the distinguished minority leader. Same situation over in the Senate. You've got Senate Majority Leader Reid of Nevada and Mitch McConnell, who is the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky. And there was this big health care powwow down at Blair House a few weeks ago. It was on TV 6 hours. I watched most of it, and I thought it was great. I thought the President did a wonderful job. And the President said, This thing should be bipartisan. There are things we agree on. We should work it out. Well, the AP, the Associated Press, moved a story, I apologize, I don't have it right here at my fingertips but--here it is. The Associated Press moved a story and basically the story talked about what the President said at that pow-wow and what the Congress, the Democrats in Congress, have given him. It's kind of illuminating. The President said he would give Federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate increases. I don't know about you guys, but when I go back to my district, I hear from human resources people in every company that no longer are their health care costs going up 5, 6, 7 percent; it's double-digits. And if they're lucky, it's only in the tens and the teens. But in some instances it's more. So I think that some people were sort of excited about the idea that, in fact, there would be some oversight over these increases, but that's missing in the bill. There were several Republican ideas, and this goes to Senator McConnell, that the President said he wanted to include in the bill. There was also a--one of them was a plan, I remember watching this from Senator Coburn of Oklahoma--to say one of the ways that you root out waste, fraud and abuse is to send patients, people pretending to be patients, and so people that are scamming either the system that is set up in the bill or the Medicaid or the Medicare system, they go to jail. And I think that is entirely appropriate. But none of those were adopted. And the special deals, we have talked a little bit about Louisiana, Florida and the Cornhuskers, the President said he would eliminate all of the special deals that we have talked about and we are going to continue to talk about. As we stand here tonight, the only deals that have been eliminated are the Cornhusker kickback, which actually, you know, it hasn't been eliminated in that it is still in the Senate bill. And so maybe the gentleman can talk to us about this strange procedure we are going through, because my understanding is there is going to be two votes, but never a vote on the Senate bill which contains the Cornhusker kickback and some of the other things. So, Mr. McCotter, you're sort of the parliamentarian around here in waiting. Why don't you talk to us a little bit about the process?

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman. And basically, again, Mr. Speaker, I know you know, but we are being told there is going to be two votes, one on Sunday and then maybe one on Monday. The Sunday vote will be on a rule. It's not even going to be on a bill; it's going to be on a House resolution, which is a rule, that's going to authorize the vote that takes place, we think, on Monday; but included in there is something called the self-executing clause, and so it will self- execute passage of the Senate health care bill, which does, to my point, does include still the Cornhusker kickback and also the issue in Florida. And we talked about Gator aid, but we never talked about what Gator aid was. And so the Medicare program which, of course, provides health care for millions and millions of seniors, has a program in it called Medicare Advantage. And it's optional. You don't have to sign up for it, but you can if you want to. I have about 14,000 people that live in my district that are in Medicare Advantage, and it has high satisfaction numbers. There are some people who don't like it, and there are some people who criticize it. So the Senate bill, which was going to be deemed without a vote--and that really caught me by surprise. I got up, I think it was Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday morning, and one of the headlines above the fold in the Washington Post, Mrs. Pelosi, of course who is the distinguished Speaker of the House, may seek to pass health care bill without a vote. I said, holy mackerel, I thought I had missed something while I had been asleep, sort of the Rip Van Winkle thing. But, no, that is exactly where they are headed. But the Florida deal was--again, Mr. Speaker, you know that there are a lot of retired people in Florida because the weather is warm and so forth and so on, and in order to ameliorate a problem that a Senator from Florida had, every State in the Union, all 49 States, plus the District of Columbia, that have people on Medicare Advantage can no longer be on Medicare Advantage. It's wiped out--except the 800,000 Floridians who happen to be on and enjoy Medicare Advantage. Now, again, just like the Cornhusker kickback where Nebraska and Louisiana don't have to pay, why is it fair that--again even if you love this bill, the underlying policy--why is it fair that in one State if you like Medicare Advantage you get to stay on it and in 49 other States you don't? So currently the way they have designed this is that the House, the Senate bill will be deemed on Sunday under this self- executing rule, and then they have promised a bill with a series of fixes. Now the big problem with the series of fixes is, when the Senate bill is deemed on Sunday, the President can sign it right away. It becomes the law of the land if he signs it with the Cornhusker kickback, with the Louisiana purchase and with the Gator aid. Now we have heard, and I think to be fair to our friends in the majority, the draft of their fixes bill would remove those two, two out of 12 of the deals that the President said would be gone. But it still has to go over to the other body. It still has to pass. And then through a process known as reconciliation, they have indicated that they don't think that their rules will permit them to pass it as it leaves here, that it's going to be modified again, which means it has to come back here. At the time, the Democratic Party had a 60-vote majority over in the United States Senate. They couldn't get 60 people on their own team to row in the same direction without giving away these sweetheart deals. I would be nervous if I was voting on Sunday on the promise, like Wimpy from Pop-eye, I will glady pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. I would be nervous. And I don't think it is a done deal. We are going to give that game to Harry Reid.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I agree wholeheartedly with the gentleman. It makes it a tricky business. Because I had mentioned the President of the United States a couple of times, you will note that I don't have President Obama in the Sweet 16, because I will tell you as I went through this Associated Press story and I have watched his negotiations on this bill, when he says we agree on 80 percent of it and we should work this out in a bipartisan way, I believe him. I really believe that he would not have written this bill the way that it is currently being written. And I don't think he would say that the process has been okay. As a matter of fact, the aforementioned AP story comes down to--it reports that it came down to President Obama making promises that Congress didn't keep. That I think is the appropriate distinction here. I don't think that when the President made the promises to include these four or five Republican ideas he was not telling the truth. I think he was serious. I think he wanted them in the bill. But when the bill got written, they are not in here.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I would say it's a pretty well known axiom in sports, at least in football, the home team relies on the 12th man. And in this particular instance, the issue was whether or not taxpayer funds would be utilized in the purchasing of these sort of cooperative health care things that people could sign up for and that those plans could provide abortion services. And so Mr. Stupak is a very devout, pro-life Representative, and obviously NARAL is not. They are on the side of pro-choice we call it. And so when it came--when the House bill--and the reason we are not doing the House bill is when the House bill came up a little while ago, Mr. Stupak and 12, which would be the 12th man, Members of the Democratic Party said they are not going to vote for this unless you fix it. And they gave an amendment vote, and we had a vote over here in the House, and that satisfied Mr. Stupak for the moment, defeating NARAL. In my opinion, I agree with you, we will go to Mr. Tiberi in a minute, but now they find themselves in the same position, why there is so much angst here on Capitol Hill over the last few days is because they have to get to this magic number of 216, and at least at the moment some of these people who thought that there were not going to be taxpayer funds used to purchase insurance to provide abortion believe that it does. And so, Tiberi, we are going to give this game to Stupak if that's all right with you.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. We're almost down to the Great Eight.

Mr. LaTOURETTE. I appreciate the gentleman's observation.