Cynthia Lummis

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express what is my greatest hope and my greatest concern in 1 minute. My greatest concern is that, by using Medicare as a means to fund this new program, you will be taking more money away from rural areas that are already inadequately reimbursed by Medicare for their costs. For example, in Casper, Wyoming, the hospital is only reimbursed at 32 cents on the dollar for Medicare actual costs. We are underreimbursing now and having to subsidize Medicare. The government is not meeting its obligation to Medicare. My greatest hope is that Democrats will read the 40-plus Republican bills to reform health care and choose the best among them and bring those to the floor so we can discuss them and debate them. We have over 40 bills that you can use for great ideas to reform health care in a way that will make it available to all Americans.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Indeed. Furthermore, 33 States could see an over-30 percent increase in their Medicaid enrollment. Those kinds of increases, including my State of Wyoming, will hit States whose budgets are suffering now without these additional costs. In my State of Wyoming, our Governor has asked his State agencies to propose budgets that are 10 percent lower than the last budget, and that includes cutting Medicaid options.

Mrs. LUMMIS. The gentleman from Louisiana is correct. This is not just coming from States like mine in Wyoming. The Governor of Pennsylvania, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, has said, I think it's an unfunded mandate. We just don't have the wherewithal to absorb that without some new revenue source. Now, that would be a new revenue source in Pennsylvania in addition to the new revenue sources that the Federal Government imposes.

Mrs. LUMMIS. It does indeed. The gentleman from Louisiana is once again correct. The Governor of Tennessee, also a Democrat, has said he fears Congress is about to bestow the mother of all unfunded mandates. Unfunded mandates are orders from Washington that States will spend money that they don't have.

Mrs. LUMMIS. My own Wyoming medical center in Casper, Wyoming, gave me statistics that show that they are reimbursed 37 cents on the dollar for every Medicaid actual dollar that they pay out. That means that two-thirds, roughly, of the dollars that are paid to Medicare-receiving patients are paid by someone other than the Federal Government. We are already subsidizing the Federal Government. The Federal Government is already not meeting its obligation to serve Medicare patients.

Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. LUMMIS. You know, one of the most exasperating things about this whole health care debate in the last several months that's been unfolding is that the bills we've seen from the Democratic Party, from the majority party, will make matters worse than the status quo. But we don't have, as a minority party, the opportunity to show people how we can make matters better than the status quo. And I would yield to our leader this evening to discuss some of those 40 bills that members in the minority party have sponsored that would make matters better.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for holding this discussion about health care costs. What we do know about the bill, and the gentleman's chart shows some of the problems with it, Medicare cuts are going to be bearing a huge brunt of the expense of this new mandate. There are $350 billion worth of Federal tax hikes, but those that combined are not enough. The Senate Finance Committee's bill imposes a $33 billion unfunded Medicaid mandate on the States. Now, what that means, an unfunded mandate is when the Federal Government tells the States you will pay for part of this, and it will come out of your pocket.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. I want to compliment my fellow freshman members of the Democratic party who had an hour preceding this hour to discuss health care from a freshman perspective. A couple of issues came up. I was watching them from my office so I came over here to the floor to comment on some of the things that they had raised and to compliment them on their statements about health care. I want my Democratic colleagues to know that Republicans support health reform. We recognize that there are problems in our health care system, and that it needs reform. What we disagree about, and what we are here to debate and discuss, is how those changes should be implemented. It seems that my Democratic colleagues are more comfortable with government solutions and that my Republican colleagues are more comfortable with, by and large, private-sector solutions. I might comment specifically, if I could, on a couple of things that were brought up tonight. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko) said that he wanted stability for Medicare. And I want to say that I too want stability for Medicare. But we have not seen any bills yet that provide that stability. The only bills we've seen are bills that would create a new health care system run by the government on the backs of health care that would cost health care through Medicare dollars that are supposedly being wasted or abused. Well I can tell you that one of my hospitals in Wyoming has told me they are only reimbursed 37 cents on the dollar of their actual costs for all of their Medicare-provided health care. So in other words, government is being subsidized right now for the health care it provides to seniors. And it is not meeting its obligations to provide the actual costs of Medicare and reimbursing them to doctors and hospitals, especially in rural areas around this country. And I would love to work with the gentleman from New York to solve that. I want my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Polis) to know that I, too, want lower costs. But all of the bills we've seen carry costs. And they range from $800 billion and more, which is what we are hearing is the cost of the Senate Finance Committee bill, to the $1 trillion-plus range for earlier bills that were introduced in this House. So these bills that would lower costs come at a cost. It's just that those costs are going to come through surcharges, penalties and taxes that do not exist now. So those costs are just being shifted to someone else. To the Member from Ohio, Representative Kilroy, who brought up a very powerful personal story, and to Mr. Kagen of Wisconsin, the physician, who both addressed preexisting conditions, Members of the Republican Party also know that preexisting conditions are a huge problem in this country. That is why we supported high-risk pools. And the creation of a high-risk pool passed this Congress before I was here. It was while you were here. The proposal that I am cosponsoring, House bill 3400, would add additional moneys to those high-risk pools that come from cutting off the stimulus funds that have not yet been spent and using them to create additional funding for these high-risk pools to support funding for those with preexisting conditions. A wonderful idea was discussed during their debate. It was raised by Representative Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania. It was something new that I heard for the first time today. After 4 months of constant debate, this was something absolutely brand new, the notion of young people, through age 26, being able to stay on their parents' coverage, which is a particularly great idea during this economy where young people are leaving college and taking jobs if they can find them in this tough economy, that frequently don't have health insurance or do not have as good a health insurance as the policies that their parents had them on when they were minors. What a great idea. New things come up here every day. In other words, Republicans are willing to work with Democrats. We want health care reform. We would love to work with Democrats on these ideas. The problem is the leadership of the Republican Party has been asking since April for a meeting with the President and has not received a response. The problem is that we want commitments. When the President says, If you like your current health care plan you can keep it, we try amendments that say exactly that, and those amendments are killed. We want 72 hours to read the bills. And when those amendments are killed, we have no assurance that we will have 72 hours to read the bill. I want to compliment a television program called ``On the Record'' with Greta Van Susteren. She has been a tireless advocate for Members of Congress reading the bills. And among the things she asked the President is, would you sit down with Members of Congress and go line by line through the bill? And the President said yes. So, members of the Republican Party in Congress have written to the President and said, please, we would love to take you up on this. Let's go through this line by line so if you really believe we Republicans are misrepresenting the ideas that are embodied in House bill 3200, we can see where we disagree, and maybe we can find an agreement. And yet, those requests to go through the bill with the President line by line have not been responded to by the White House. So, in other words, I want to share the frustrations that we in the minority party have, and particularly that I, as a freshman member of the minority party, have. And I want to communicate with my majority party colleagues, my Democratic colleagues, that we want to reach out and have been reaching out to the Democratic Party, the majority party, trying to find a bipartisan bill, and yet I believe our overtures have not been reciprocated. And I want to once again extend my desire to do so. I would particularly like to work with my freshman colleagues who I respect and admire very much and rely on the expertise that we have come to gather as fledgling Members of this Congress. I note that the gentleman from Texas has now a chart on the board.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I thank the gentleman from Texas for a few moments in this discussion. We have a great country in that even when the law is absurd, we still obey the rule of law and spend our time working to change the law. A perfect example of that is a law, the Endangered Species Act, and its current application to a water situation in California where a small fish that is a nongame fish is preventing water from being used to irrigate and grow crops. Consequently, unemployment in the area where these crops are usually grown is dramatically higher than the rest of the Nation, dramatically higher. And people who normally are working there are in bread lines, the very same people who grow food in California for the rest of this Nation. Consequently, this winter, a lot of fruits and vegetables will be more expensive for those of us all over the United States because we have instead deferred to the rule of law in allowing this water to flow by these fields that are laying fallow and not producing food and not allowing workers to work. This situation gives us an opportunity to point out the absurd applications of certain laws and the need for there to be exceptions for certain laws. At the same time, we obey those laws regardless of the absurdity. So I compliment the gentleman for pointing out the importance and the history in this country of obeying the rule of law. When Russia became post-Soviet Russia and was trying to establish institutions, as Iraq is trying to do today--among the most important institutions that they are trying to establish are courts with honest judges, which is something that is very rare around the world, especially in Second and Third World countries. How blessed we are in America to have an honest judiciary and the rule of law. That is to the compliment of many fine Members of this body, but also to the gentleman who is leading this conversation tonight, also a former judge. And I am grateful for the time you have given me to discuss this.

Mrs. LUMMIS. Because of the conversation we have just had, I want to further remind people that there is a bill entitled Sunset All Czars, H.R. 3569, the primary sponsor, Representative Scalise, in addition to the Blackburn bill, which I also support. Before we adjourn this evening, I would like to bring up one more bill, and that is the audit of the Federal Reserve. It is the subject that also, I think, is consistent with our desire as a Congress to fulfill our obligations under the Constitution. The reason that this bill is so important to the people in the United States--and I preface my remarks by saying I supported Mr. Greenspan and I support Mr. Bernanke. I applaud them for all the efforts that they make on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I, nevertheless, support a bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It is based on personal experience. I was my State's treasurer. I was audited annually. The auditors came into my office in August, and they didn't leave until after Christmas. One-third of the year, every year, for the 8 years that I was State treasurer, I was being audited. It was for good reason; it was because I managed all of the money in the State of Wyoming. The auditor and the treasurer were the two people with whom the auditors who are contracted to audit the State spent the most time. It was appropriate. It was a pain in the neck to have the auditors in my office for 4 months every year taking time away from our regular duties. But, in fact, it protected me, as the State treasurer. Had any of the employees in the office been able to misdirect monies, it protected me. It protected their coworkers. It protected the taxpayers of the State knowing that their money was being appropriately audited, that there was someone looking over my shoulder, our shoulder, in the office of the State treasurer. It was good for me, it was good for my office, it was good for the State. It was good for the taxpayers whose money I was managing. The same is true with the Federal Reserve. This is not an attack on Ben Bernanke or his predecessors. This is good, sound money management.

Mrs. LUMMIS. And even those concepts should be at least posted for a 3-day reading now that they've been actually voted on. But as the gentleman has pointed out, who now is going to take those concepts and draft them into a bill? And will the bill be the exact embodiment of what the Senate passed in concept or will additional concepts be added? We won't know unless the 3-day reading rule and the posting rule on the Internet is implemented. Only if 72 hours are given to those people who can compare those concepts that were voted on to the actual legislative language that comes out of a drafting group will we know that the legislation reads the way that the concepts were designed to implement. And I yield back. Thank you.

Mrs. LUMMIS. And will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield? I wonder if you might indulge a departure into health care for just one moment.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thirty-seven cents.

Mrs. LUMMIS. I do, and I thank the gentleman from Missouri for allowing me to. I was sitting in my office in the Longworth Building listening to this discussion, and my fellow freshman colleague, the physician from Louisiana, was talking earlier about Medicare and the effects of $350 billion of waste, fraud and abuse coming out of Medicare to magically fund a big portion of the proposed health care bill that Ms. Pelosi and her colleagues have prepared for us.

Mrs. LUMMIS. They are losing roughly two-thirds of every dollar that they spend.

Mrs. LUMMIS. It is a stunning departure from rational thinking.

Mrs. LUMMIS. No.

Mrs. LUMMIS. No.

Mrs. LUMMIS. You know, there certainly isn't. And the most amazing thing to me about listening to that discussion is, when I was home for the August work period, I met with the physicians and administrators at Wyoming Medical Center in Casper, Wyoming. They told me that they are currently reimbursed at 37 cents on the dollar for their actual out-of- pocket costs of treating a Medicare patient.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. I rise today in support of House Resolution 696 and in recognition of the 50 years of achievement in service by Western Wyoming Community College. I further wish to thank the gentlelady from Hawaii and the gentleman from Pennsylvania for their support of this resolution. As the gentlelady from Hawaii pointed out, Western began in fall of 1959, serving only 40 students out of Rock Springs High School. Today, they have an award-winning campus on College Drive in Rock Springs as well as an extended campus in Green River, which collectively serve 4,000 credits and 2,000 community education students each semester. Western serves Sweetwater, Uinta, Carbon, Sublette, and Lincoln Counties, all in southwest Wyoming. It is a valued partner with industry, education and local business in its service area to provide transfer and technical education, workforce training, cultural and athletic activities, and community education courses. Like many educational institutions across the Nation, Western adheres to a set of altruistic guiding principles: Learning is our Purpose; Students are our Focus; Employees are our Most Important Resource; the Community is our Partner; Adapting to Change Defines our Future; and, Ethical Standards Guide our Actions. And it embodies these principles in its motto: ``A commitment to quality and success.'' Across our Nation, community colleges play a vital role in the higher education system. No State feels their significance more than the State of Wyoming. Wyoming is almost 100,000 square miles and is served by only one 4- year university. Western is the fifth of seven comprehensive community colleges that bridge this geographic span, making college affordable and accessible across the State of Wyoming. The seven community colleges across Wyoming allow some students to complete their education with technical training or a 2-year associates degree, while others transfer earned credit to continue and receive their bachelor degrees and beyond. Making the goals of many students even more accessible is the seamless transfer agreement between the University of Wyoming and the community colleges, allowing students to continue their education in Laramie without loss of credits in the move. So in recognition of the Western Mustangs, their 50th anniversary, and to community colleges across Wyoming and the Nation, I ask my colleagues to celebrate Western's achievements with me today. Western will be celebrating as a campus from this Saturday, September 26, through the following Sunday, October 4. Please help me in having the U.S. House of Representatives celebrate this achievement with them by passing House Resolution 696.

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States has said that if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. But that is simply not the case. I was in Wyoming over the weekend in my home district, and I talked to small business people who have health insurance, who have calculated what will happen if the Democrats' plan takes effect. And if it takes effect, they will be able to pay the 8 percent penalty in the bill and shift their employees onto the government plan and save money. It will cost them less money to take their private insurance, jettison it, take their employees off it, pay the 8 percent penalty, and put them on the government plan. The government plan will be less comprehensive, and their employees will suffer. Mr. Speaker, this is not health care reform. I ask you to join the Republicans with a plan that will address affordability, portability, and accessibility in a way that will not cost the taxpayers trillions of dollars.

Ms. LUMMIS

Ms. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 638, I was in a House Budget Committee hearing questioning Interior Secretary Salazar. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mrs. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 629, I was detained unavoidably. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.'' Part B Amendment No. 8 Offered by Mr. Flake