Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, our Nation recently lost one of the great champions of the unemployment insurance system. Jerry Hildebrand was the Chief of Legislation for Unemployment Insurance at the Department of Labor, and he was intricately involved in every major UI reform over the past several decades. Most recently, Jerry had been instrumental in ensuring the delivery of extended unemployment benefits and in helping States navigate reforms to their unemployment systems with the help of UI Modernization Grants. His advice about the possible impact of policy before enactment and his skillful work on implementation after the passage of legislation will be sorely missed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's family, as well as to his colleagues at the Department of Labor. Jerry Hildebrand made our government work for the people, and that contribution will surely live on.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1339) expressing support for designation of May as National Foster Care Month and acknowledging the responsibility that Congress has to promote safety, well-being, improved outcomes, and permanency for the Nation's collective children.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the month of May marks National Foster Care Month, which provides us with an opportunity to recognize the unsung heroes, that is, the frontline workers and the foster parents who work tirelessly to improve the lives of our most vulnerable children, and to reaffirm Congress' commitment to foster care. We have a responsibility to work with State officials to ensure that they have the resources they need to care for these children and to help them move to a permanent home as quickly as possible. Today, there are 463,000 children in the foster care system. While the number of children placed in care has recently declined, far too many children must wait far too long to safely reunify with their parents or find a new family to call their own. Right now, the average length of stay for a child in foster care is nearly 16 months. That is a significant amount of time in the life of any child, much less those who have been maltreated or separated from their parents, their siblings, their friends, and their community. More than 120,000 children are currently waiting to find a new family to call their own through adoption. Children who are waiting to be adopted spend an average of nearly 2\1/2\ years in foster care as they await a new family. Sadly, nearly 30,000 children left foster care or emancipated from the system in fiscal year 2008 without finding a permanent home, leaving these young people on their own as they transition from foster care to adulthood. While we clearly have, still, lots of work to do, Congress made great progress in the last 2 years to improve the outcomes of vulnerable children in care. In 2008, Congress passed, with Jerry Weller on the Republican side and myself, bipartisan legislation called the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act. This bill provided additional services and support to children in foster care, promoting the connection of children in care with their relatives and communities, and providing additional support for caseworker training. It also allowed States to extend foster care services to older youth, up to the age of 21, so that these young people can receive critical support services as they transition to adulthood, as they age out, so to speak. And, as States began to grapple with fiscal restraints, severe fiscal restraints as a result of the recession, Congress stepped in to provide nearly $1 billion in targeted State relief for foster care programs as part of the Recovery Act. While progress has been made over the last few years to support our national foster care system, there is plenty of additional work that still needs to be done. More focus must be placed on providing additional Federal support for prevention services to at-risk children and their families. By providing more resources that are targeted at preventing the incidents of child maltreatment and safely serving children and families in their own homes, we can ultimately reduce the number of children who are placed in foster care. Foster kids, like all children, can and do grow up to make lasting positive impacts in their community and in the world. Many of you probably have read a recent article in The Washington Post that profiled Jelani Freeman, a foster child who completed a master's degree in history at American University, worked for 3 years in youth-related positions in the District, and graduated from Howard University Law School earlier this month. I urge my colleagues to pay tribute to these remarkable young men and women in May, and every month of the year, by joining me and my colleague, Representative John Linder, and President Obama in recognizing May 2010 as National Foster Care Month and supporting this bipartisan resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, today I rise to offer special recognition to the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA) as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of its Scholarship Fund for undergraduate students. For two decades, these scholarships have provided promise and support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered (LGBT) and Allied students with strong commitment to civil rights. In 1990, two teachers witnessed the challenges that confronted LGBT students as they pursued a college education, including discrimination from professors, harassment by other students, and unsupportive families. These teachers took matters into their own hands and created the GSBA Scholarship Fund, the first scholarship fund for LGBT students in the United States. That year, the GSBA gave two scholarships of $1,500 each. Since then, the Fund has grown significantly, and now grants a total of $135,000 in scholarships each year, with the individual scholarships ranging in size from $3,000 to $10,000. One thing that makes the Scholarship Fund so special is the diversity of the students it supports. GSBA scholars come from every corner of Washington State, from cities and from rural communities. They are people of color, male, female, and transgender. But no matter where they come from, these talented students have the drive and the passion to achieve great things in their lives. Indeed, former GSBA scholars have gone on to become doctors, social workers, teachers and public servants. And these scholars have continued to fight for social justice and equality for all, regardless of the careers they chose. This 20th anniversary marks a particularly special milestone for the GSBA Scholarship Fund--the awarding of its one millionth dollar to support the education of LGBT and Allied students. The unfailing dedication of time, money, and talent by GSBA leadership, members, and volunteers have made this achievement possible. I extend my thanks and best wishes to the GSBA and its outstanding scholars on their twenty years of changing lives and creating hope.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, over this past weekend our Nation lost one of the great champions of the unemployment insurance system. Jerry Hildebrand was the Chief of Legislation for Unemployment Insurance at the Department of Labor, and he was intricately involved in every major UI reform over the past several decades. Most recently, Jerry had been instrumental in ensuring the delivery of extended unemployment benefits and in helping States navigate reforms to their unemployment systems with the help of UI Modernization Grants. His advice about the possible impact of policy before enactment and his skillful work on implementation after the passage of legislation will be sorely missed. He took his daughter to college this weekend, and then dropped dead. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jerry's family, as well as to his colleagues at the Department of Labor. Jerry Hildebrand made our government work for the people, and that contribution will surely live on.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my longtime friend and respected colleague, Iwao Matsuda. Matsuda-san is arriving in Washington today for a meeting of the United States-Japan Legislative Exchange Program, a project he founded to encourage meaningful dialogue between our two countries. He has a long and honorable history of service to Japan as an elected official, first in the House of Representatives and later in the House of Councilors in the Diet. Matsuda-san has always been interested in resolving tensions and improving the relationship between the United States and Japan, and it was this drive that led to the creation and continuing success of the Legislative Exchange Program. Members of the Diet and the Congress have grown to understand the importance of the United States-Japan Legislative Exchange Program. The two delegations have had the privilege of getting to know each other, and if there is ever a problem, we know who to call to find out more about it. These personal connections are vital to creating understanding between our legislatures and our nations. But I would like to point out another facet of Matsuda-san's contribution. Not only has he helped us to know each other and to create personal relationships, but his work has transcended his own personal relationships and left us all with an enduring legacy. I honor my friend Matsuda-san's life and work, and I wish him a peaceful retirement. My colleagues and I will never forget his kind hospitality, both in official and personal settings, and I look forward to continuing our friendship in the years to come.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise today, on the occasion of the honoring of Stephen Wadsworth's lifetime achievement by one of Seattle's historic organizations and keeper of the arts, the Rainier Club. The people of the State of Washington hold up as a national inspiration the work of Stephen Wadsworth, stage director and writer. Associated with Seattle Opera for more than 25 years, Stephen Wadsworth is a renowned director whose work has included acclaimed productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Nederlandse Opera, and Edinburgh Festival, and in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Santa Fe. He made his Seattle Opera debut with Jancek's Jenufa and has returned for Gluck's Iphigenia in Tauris (a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera) and Orphee et Eurydice; Handel's Xerxes; and Wagner's Lohengrin, Fliegende Hollander, and Ring. Highlights of his operatic work include the Seattle Orphee (1988), on which he collaborated with Mark Morris. Of that production, The New Yorker magazine wrote ``Inspired productions touch the heart of a listener's being, reveal music's power to sound every string of a psyche; make the theater what it should be, a place of, at once, ecstasy, entertainment, and moral and political enlightenment. The Seattle Orphee was such a production. It made the absurd extravagances of opera, all that it costs in public and private money and personal, hardworking devotion, seem worthwhile.'' Wadsworth has staged much-traveled productions of plays by Shakespeare, Moliere, Marivaux, Goldoni, Shaw, Wilde, and Coward. Wadsworth wrote the opera A Quiet Place with Leonard Bernstein, and directed the world premieres of Daron Aric Hagen's Shining Brow and Peter Lieberson's Ashoka's Dream, as well as new plays by Beth Henley and Anna Deavere Smith. He has translated a number of works for the stage, including works by Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart. The French government named Stephen Wadsworth a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work on Moliere and Marivaux. He is the Head of Dramatic Studies at the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and the James S. Marcus Faculty Fellow and Director of Opera Studies at the Juilliard School, where he has launched the first intensive acting program for opera singers. Stephen Wadsworth's influence is international and broad in scope, but it is our honor that his presence is local to Washington State's 7th Congressional District. His work has brought a rich luminosity to the Seattle arts community for many years, and I am privileged now to note his profound contribution to our cultural life.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of 2010 World Malaria Day, an issue of great importance to me. I witnessed the widespread devastation malaria can cause both times I lived in Africa, first in Ghana with a program called Operation Crossroads and then when I worked in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as a Foreign Service Medical Officer. While the disease affects people in every corner of the globe, it is particularly destructive to sub-Saharan Africa. There are 250 million malaria cases worldwide and nearly one million deaths are caused by malaria every year, ninety percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa. About 3.3 billion people--about one- half of the world's population--are at risk of contracting the disease. It is important to recognize the damage that this disease afflicts on the generation of the future: seventy percent of the deaths caused by malaria happen to children under the age of five, and one in every five childhood deaths in Africa is due to malaria. Though the statistics are staggering, it is important to recognize the progress that we've made in treating the disease. We are farther along than ever in developing a successful vaccine to combat malaria and more and more people have access to anti-malarial drugs. And because of an increased focus on outreach, people are being educated about the importance of taking preventive steps like utilizing netting to prevent mosquito bites which spread the disease. Yet with all of the progress, we must continue to press forward with attempts to develop new tools and technologies to combat the spread of malaria. With the work and dedication of many nongovernmental organizations, including PATH, a nongovernmental organization located in my district that is leading the way in developing global health technology, I am confident that we will have made even greater progress when we observe World Malaria Day next year.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the critical medical work that was recently performed in Gujarat, India by Dr. Aseem Shukla and Dr. Richard Grady. Dr. Shukla is a pediatric urologist, Director of Pediatric Urology at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital and is the co-founder of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). Dr. Grady is a pediatric urologist and a world- renowned expert in pediatric bladder reconstruction at Seattle Children's Hospital. Joining Dr. Shukla and Dr. Grady in India were Dr. Anjana Kundu, a Pediatric Anesthesiologist from Seattle Children's Hospital and Dr. Kenneth Smith, a Chief Resident in Urology at the University of Minnesota. I am especially proud of the fact that both Dr. Grady and Dr. Kundu are my constituents and that the Seattle Children's Hospital is in my district. Dr. Shukla and Dr. Grady assembled their team of physicians and medical staff in the city of Ahmedabad and conducted 20 major reconstructive surgeries on children over an eight-day period, with each surgery lasting over twelve hours in duration. These children had serious urinary tract and genital abnormalities, which are the third most common congenital abnormality in the developing world. These abnormalities leave these children and young adults shunned and at the risk of further severe medical conditions. By performing these surgeries, these physicians have not only saved lives, they have transformed them. While Dr. Shukla has been traveling to India twice a year for several years, with a commitment to build the much needed specialty of pediatric urology there with the support of the Hindu American Foundation. This latest medical mission could not have happened without the generous support of International Volunteers in Urology, a non- profit education and membership organization founded in 1995 by Dr. Catherine R. deVries. IVUmed's primary mission is to make quality urological care available to people around the world. The organization does so by organizing workshops where both physicians and nurses are trained and teams perform clinical evaluations, lectures, patient consultations and dozens of hands-on surgeries within a one to two-week period. In this way, IVUmed has provided treatment to thousands of men, women and children in nearly 30 countries in the areas of women's health, urology and tropical diseases. IVUmed is unique because it is the only global nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching urology in developing countries. Their motto is ``Teach One--Reach Many.'' Many physicians in developing nations do not have the resources to travel and acquire the necessary training to improve their skills. By training local medical professionals who then train residents and other doctors, IVUmed transforms urologic care for entire regions in the developing world on a permanent basis. The organization has an over 6,000 volunteers and supporters around the world. In addition to treating thousands of patients, providing medical and surgical education to hundreds of physicians and nurses, IVUmed has also donated over half a million dollars worth of supplies and equipment to doctors around the world. I would also like to recognize the numerous Indian physicians who contributed to the success of this medical mission: Dr. Balagopal Nair and Dr. Mohan Abraham with the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Center; Dr. P.K. Dave, Dr. Rakesh Joshi and Dr. Sudhir Chandna of the B.J. Medical College in Ahmedabad; Dr. Mahesh Desai with the Muljibhai Patel Urological Hospital; and Dr. D.K. Gupta and Minu Bajpai with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Hindu philosophy teaches that Seva, or Service, if carried out selflessly, is the highest devotion. The compassion shown by this team of American and Indian physicians exemplifies this spirit. Their dedication in bettering the lives of so many children should serve as an insipration to us all. As a physician and the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, I would like to commend the joint efforts of the talented physicians and individuals who made this medical mission such a success.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. We will be back here on June 1 going through this same charade all over again. We will hear about the terrible budget deficits. But the people who are unemployed and can't buy food to put it on the table, they're not listening to you people. The benefits under this bill will be retroactive, so unemployed workers who were cut off during the last 2 weeks will receive compensation. That is the least we can do for those who have lost their job through no fault of their own. Six weeks from now, as I say, we will be back to continue this again. We will be pushing for a much longer extension of Federal unemployment programs to ensure that jobless Americans are not continually held hostage every month to the Republicans and their hypocrisy. I was recently reading an article about a man who was laid off. He had an MBA. He played by the rules, made a good living, but it was taking him many months to find work. He said, For someone that is unemployed right now, you need to turn off the news. It will affect the positive attitude you need to have. You've got to be positive, because it's not easy.''

Mr. McDERMOTT. Americans can't stomach this Republican hypocrisy anymore. And I sincerely hope that when the unemployed go to vote in this election, they remember the attitude of the Republicans toward them when they were in need, because maybe then the Republicans will get the message.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Texas, I couldn't have asked for a better setup man for a straight man because, I dare say, there are many Members at one time or another who had something to say hypocritical either on the floor or on the campaign trail. But I don't ever recall the blatant hypocrisy behind the cornerstone of an argument to deny benefits to hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, that is, until the recent debate about extending unemployment benefits. The Senate Republicans, and now my House Republican colleagues, have cut off unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of jobless Americans for the last 2 weeks because they say they're upset about the budget deficit. Isn't that something. They claim we can't afford to help the unemployed unless the cost of these benefits is offset, even though Congress has routinely considered such benefits to be emergency spending which doesn't require offsets. Maybe my mind is failing, I don't know, but I don't remember these concerns coming up from our Republican colleagues when there was discussion about the $1 trillion cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, not a penny of which was offset. President Bush never asked for any sacrifice from the American people. He said, We can just go out and fight a war and it will be paid for sometime when I'm not here. I also don't recall any Republicans expressing concern about the nearly $2 billion spent on two successive tax cuts that went mainly to the wealthy. That is why you will have to forgive me if I seem a little frustrated that Republicans have miraculously discovered fiscal responsibility. I don't know. They must have turned over a rock somewhere. When they're talking about unemployment benefits, they suddenly worry about paying for it. A measly $18 billion. President Bush put us $3 trillion in debt, and now they're worrying about $18 billion. They were happy to help their President turn the biggest surplus in our Nation's history into the biggest deficit in our Nation's history, but now when it comes to help the unemployed workers and their families, Senate Republicans say we just can't afford to do it. So they delayed and obstructed the bill for weeks until the Senate finally cleared the Republican filibuster earlier this evening. We're here tonight to pass that bill to provide an extension through May for a number of programs that are expiring at the end of the month, including Federal unemployment insurance. We're going to take another one of these votes in June.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from California asked where the jobs are. Well, this 1-year extension of the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund will produce more than 160,000 subsidized job placements in clerical, health care, maintenance, human service, and customer service jobs in 35 States; and many of them are already up and running. Even Haley Barbour down in Mississippi thinks it's a good idea. My office has received a tremendous increase in calls from out-of- work Americans who are reaching the end of their UI benefits. The long- term unemployed need help transitioning back into the changing job market, and they also need jobs right now. Proven programs like the Emergency Contingency Fund are already creating jobs at a lower cost than virtually any other program. If States are uncertain of the fund's extension, they will begin ramping down their subsidized employment programs beginning next month. It is critical that we pass this extension immediately. We have already received strong bipartisan support from the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the National Association of Counties, all of them urging the Congress to extend this program. Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said, ``Given the state of the labor market, it is hard to imagine how any sensible person could oppose extending this emergency fund. If they are to be more than the party of `no,' Republicans need to rally around the Democrats who have shown such reserved pragmatism.'' I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. As the dust settles, Mr. Speaker, on the Capitol today, I read and article called ``Waterloo,'' by President George W. Bush's speech writer, David Frum. I think it sums up nicely what we've just witnessed, and I wanted to share some excerpts with you. He began, Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s. It's hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they'll compensate for today's expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections, but, first, it's a good bet that conservatives are overly optimistic about November--by then, the economy will have improved and immediate goodies in the health care bill will be reaching key voting blocs. Second, So what? Legislative majorities come and go. The health care bill is forever. Now comes the hard lesson: A huge part of the blame for today's disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans themselves. At the beginning of this process, he says, we made a strategic decision. Unlike, say, Democrats in 2001, when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all he marbles. This would be Obama's Waterloo, just like it was for Clinton in 1994. The hard-liners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected by 53 percent of the vote, not Clinton's 42 percent; the liberal bloc within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-1994; and, of course, the Democrats also remember their history and also remember the consequences of the failure of 1994. This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended up with none. No illusions, please. This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994-style landslide in November, how many votes could they muster to reopen the doughnut hole and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a preexisting condition? How many votes to banish 25-year-olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there, would President Obama sign such a repeal? We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, he says, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. They were leaders who knew better, would have liked to deal, but they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that dealmaking was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother or, to be more exact, with someone whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder your grandmother? I've been on a soapbox for months, he says, now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes, it mobilizes supporters, but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for Representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio. They have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say, but what is equally true, is that he also wanted Republicans to fail. If Republicans were to succeed--if they governed successfully in office and negotiated attractive compromises out of office--Rush's listeners would get less angry. If they're less angry, they listen to the radio less and hear fewer adds about Sleep Number beds. So today's defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on radio and television. For them, it's a mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it's Waterloo--ours. This is a very good self-reflective view of what happened yesterday.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, there are times in history that action is demanded. In 1935, we needed Social Security and unemployment insurance. The Democrats answered. In 1965, we needed health care for senior citizens. The Democrats answered. In 2010, the country needs health care reform, and the Democrats will answer tonight. It was never in doubt. Business wanted a change, the medical profession wanted a change, and labor wanted a change. And the Republicans brought an economic collapse to make it clear to everybody that we all are in danger if we don't change the health care system in this country. For me and many of my colleagues, passing a national health care reform bill is the culmination of a long process. In the late 1950s and early '60s, when I was going to medical school in Chicago, Canada's Tommy Douglas was beginning a national health care plan in the province of Saskatchewan. As I came to the end of my medical training, doctors began to strike in Canada because they didn't want to practice medicine under any system that was not totally free enterprise in nature. But as a new physician at the time, it seemed to me that the benefits of extending health coverage to everyone in Canada far outweighed the benefits of a free enterprise system. Between 1963 and 1970, while I got my training in adult and child psychiatry and served 2 years in the United States Navy, I had the opportunity to observe the American healthcare ``nonsystem'' firsthand. Every day, I watched as people fell through the cracks. When I entered politics in the Washington state legislature, I knew that it was my obligation to do all that I could to bring about a national system that would provide coverage for everyone. And during my campaign for governor in 1972, I made my first speech declaring my support for a single-payer system similar to Canada. Each year that I served in the state legislature, I faced the institutional resistance to the creation of a more orderly system. Yet people complained they couldn't get care. Hospitals complained about uncompensated care. People complained about cost shifting of the expenses of the uninsured onto the policies paid for by the insured. In the early 1980s, I began trying to establish an uncompensated care fund that would be paid into by all hospitals and the receipts would be given to those hospitals that took care of those in the community who had no health insurance. But hospitals resisted. I did a study to find out how many people in the state of Washington either were not covered by a government program or didn't have insurance through their employment. Unsurprisingly, we found that it was a huge number. So in 1983, I began the process of trying to do in Washington State what Tommy Douglas had done a few hundred miles away in the province of Saskatchewan. As I tried to get universal coverage in the state of Washington, I ran into numerous obstacles. The medical establishment was more interested in capital investments than they were in ensuring that medical coverage was available to everyone in Washington. Large businesses were reluctant to accept any responsibility beyond what they were already doing for their employees. Any mandate was out of the question because under a technical loophole, big employers are exempt from many regulations that deal with insurance. So instead, I ended up authoring the Washington State Basic Health Plan, which is a subsidized health insurance program to help lower-income families afford coverage. But I wasn't able to get universal coverage. This experience taught me that it was going to be incredibly difficult to create a health care plan in one state that could be replicated across the country as had been done in Canada. I wrote the plan originally when the governor of the state of Washington was a Republican, so it didn't get anywhere until Democrat Booth Gardner was elected governor of Washington in 1984. The process was so frustrating and the final legislation so modest that I decided I'd go back to medicine. I went to work for the State Department in Africa, where I saw the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic in 1987. One day my brother called me when I was in Africa and told me there was a seat open in Congress. He suggested that I return to the U.S. to run for the seat and work on getting universal health care. The dream was not dead, it has just been dormant. So I returned, ran for Congress and was elected in 1988. I made the decision to get on the Ways and Means Committee because I thought that was where I could be most effective in getting a national plan established. I was appointed to the committee in 1991 and began working with 95 other members who were dedicated to a single player plan. In 1993 President and Mrs. Clinton came to Washington to enact a national health plan, but we were unsuccessful. The years between 1994 and 2006 were a painful period as we watched Republicans try to dismantle the only national health care program we have, Medicare. We breathed a great sigh of relief at the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, who stated that he wanted to enact a national health plan. The President was determined not to repeat the errors of the Clinton administration, and the process of writing the bill has been long and tortuous. Over the course of many months, we've watched this bill wind through three committees in the House and two committees in the Senate, which brought us to where we are today. I still believe that a single-payer model is the most effective to achieve both cost control and universal coverage. But 40 years of experience prevent me from being ideological about the solution to the problems of universal coverage. Rather than establishing a single-payer system, Congress has designed a less desirable model that would more tightly regulate private insurance companies much in the same way that we do with utility companies. Members of Congress have opted for a model that provides for insurance regulation at the national level, rather than the state level as it is today. It has much in common with the French system which provides universal coverage to the French people at half the cost of what we spend here in the United States. Their system provides a quality of care that is considered the best in the world according to the World Health Organization. I know that this bill is far from perfect and will require continued efforts to adjust and improve it in the years to come. But today we began. As the Chinese adage says, ``every journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step.'' Today we have taken that step.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell the story of an 11- year-old boy from Washington State who visited Congress last week to lobby for health care reform. His name is Marcellas Owens, and he had lost his uninsured mother to pulmonary hypertension which could have been treated. He shared his story with Senator Patty Murray and then presented to an audience of 100 people at a hearing, telling them that he thought ``health care should be for everyone.'' He was an articulate and bright young man, and his story exemplifies why we desperately need health reform. So in one of the clearest signs of Republican desperation, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin took to the airwaves to tear Marcellas apart. Mr. Limbaugh came up with the most unconscionable line, telling his listeners, I would say this to Marcellas Owens, ``Well, your mother would have died anyway because ObamaCare doesn't kick in until 2014.'' FOXNews' Michelle Malkin came in a close second with a column entitled ``Desperate Dems Cling to Human Kiddie Shield.'' Perhaps the only accurate word in Ms. Malkin's piece was ``desperation,'' but she used it to describe the wrong party. In all my years of public service, I can't remember the last time I saw such a cheap and disgraceful campaign. Republican determination to derail reform at any cost is reprehensible, and I cannot find words to describe how shameful I think it is to direct vitriol at an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother. On my way to work this morning, I saw a group of tea baggers, and I'm really happy that they will be in Washington to witness Congress pass this historic health care bill tomorrow. When I got to the office, I did a little research on my own and found the Web site of a tea bagger group called the 9/12 project, which includes a page which they call ``the nine principles.'' Number 7 reads, ``I work hard for what I have, and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.'' That reminds me of another gem Glenn Beck said on his show last week, when he had started criticizing a new poverty measure that would help us understand what it really means to be poor in this country. He said that if it were implemented, he would be considered poor. Glenn Beck reportedly made $23 million last year, which means that in one workday, he earns the equivalent of what four families earn in poverty over a whole year. ``Government cannot force me to be charitable.'' I have always been a little confused about what would motivate someone to get up in the morning to attack an 11-year-old boy who lost his mom or compel someone to drive 500 miles to protest reforms that would help millions of Americans. But I'm finally beginning to understand the mentality behind the tea party crowd and its spokespeople Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They are simply selfish, greedy, and indifferent, and they don't seem to care about helping anyone in need. I should note that when Marcellas heard what these three said about him, he graciously responded by saying, ``My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion, but that doesn't mean they are right.'' When an 11-year-old outshines and outclasses your party's three top mouthpieces, it might be time to look for some replacements. When I vote for health care reform tomorrow, I will dedicate it to Marcellas Owens and the memory of his mom. And if I had to write my seventh principle, I think I would use one of the my favorites quotes from the book of James in the Bible. ``Suppose a brother or a sister is in rags with not enough food for the day, and one of you says, `Good luck to you, keep yourselves warm and have plenty to eat,' but does nothing to supply their bodily needs. What is the good of that? So with faith; if it does not lead to action, it is in itself a lifeless thing.'' That is what we are doing here. We are making the first step to return to the concept of the common good that we will take care of each other.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it is deja vu all over again. On December 2, 1993, William Kristol wrote the Republican playbook. He said, ``The Clinton health care proposal is a serious political threat to the Republican Party. Republicans must therefore clearly understand the political strategy implicit in the Clinton plan and adopt an aggressive and uncompromising counterstrategy designed to delegitimize the proposal and defeat its partisan purpose.'' He went on to say, ``The long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse, much worse. It would relegitimize middle class dependence for security on government spending and regulation that will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of the middle class interests, and it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.'' Nothing has changed. The Republicans refuse to deal with the problems of America and provide health security. They sat for 16 years since that date and did nothing. The time has come to pass the health care bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, after hearing the hysterics of my Republican colleagues over the last several days, I was reminded of the adage I've heard about the legal profession. It said that if you have the facts, pound on the facts. If you have the law, pound on the law. But if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound on the table. I give my Republican colleagues credit for doing a remarkable job of pounding on the table for the last few months. I've heard my colleagues saying outlandish things about how we're doing violence to the Constitution and sticking our fingernails in the eyes of the American public. But it's all an elaborate distraction from what the real debate is about. What we're talking about is what happens when you don't have health insurance. I heard a story last week that I think gets to the heart of what we're doing and why we're doing it. It's about a family of five, including a newborn child, that's going through a rough patch. When the baby was born, the mother's employer didn't offer her maternity leave, so she was unable to earn an income. When the father's entire drywall crew was laid off because there was simply no work, the family lost their income, aside from the unemployment benefits her husband received. All five of them had to move into a relative's living room. And when stress and strain caused the mother to stop producing breast milk, she had to buy formula that she couldn't afford. So she applied to get some supplemental food benefits under the WIC program, which comes only once a month. When those benefits ran out, she went to the office for more help, and they said there was none. Without additional support, she was forced to dilute the formula with water, causing the baby to become malnourished. As a result of malnourishment, the baby developed something called starvation diarrhea, a very serious and very painful illness. When the baby's parents took her to the hospital, her diarrhea had become so severe that she was treated in the same way as people with severe burns. She stayed in the hospital for 10 days. Remember, this is a family with parents who worked, whose baby was born healthy, who had health insurance. They simply fell victim to this economy. I read another article recently about an insurance company called Fortis, one of the largest in the country. Fortis designed a computer program that would automatically flag any policyholder with HIV-AIDS and trigger an automatic fraud investigation. Knowing the treatment was expensive, the executives were looking for anything they could use to revoke health insurance policies for people with HIV. Then, when nothing turned up, they would essentially invent a reason. Now I know everyone in this room has at least 20 stories like this. And after hearing just one of them, I can't understand how anyone with a conscience can stand in the way of reform for one second. I've sat in this Chamber and listened to hours of foolishness and nonsense about what this bill will allegedly do. Despite being deafened by a year's worth of Republicans banging on the table, I'm thrilled we're going to get a chance to vote on a health care reform bill that will help millions of Americans. Eighty years from now, like the 80 years ago when Social Security passed, 80 years into the future people will look back at this as the bill that helped them take a sick child to the doctor. They'll look back and be shocked that there was a time when insurance companies were allowed to deny health coverage--even to children--just because they were sick, because they had a preexisting condition. And they'll be appalled that anyone would refuse to vote for this bill for no other reason than political grandstanding or trying to gain political advantage in the next election. When we hit 216 votes on Sunday, I'm going to be proud that we will be helping millions of Americans right now and here in this day but also generations that are yet to come. A country is judged by how it handles the people who are least able to care for themselves. And when you're sick and you don't have health insurance and your country says, We don't care--go to the emergency room, that's your health care. Stand in an 8-hour line, that's your health care. We're going to change that on Sunday.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Ultimately, we have to go out and face this. And when we pass this health care bill, you are free to campaign against a bill that gives health coverage to 30 million Americans and that closes the doughnut hole. If you want, you can go home and argue with the seniors and say, I didn't want a bill that closed the doughnut hole. That was a stupid bill. I voted against it. What you are free to do after this bill passes is to go home and argue against the things that are in the bill. The people back home have no understanding what ``deeming'' is. It's inside baseball in this place. You wait, when you go and try, on the campaign trail, to sell the idea that you were against doing anything for 30 million people.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I would suggest that the gentleman has tried to create an issue, but it won't last. Nobody remembers any of the debate before Social Security. Nobody remembers any of the debate before Medicare. Of course, there were people saying all kinds of things out here. But when the bill is in, the people will take the benefits and be grateful for the Congress that acted on their behalf. I urge everyone to vote for this bill. The unemployed should not suffer again because of Senate filibusters.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleagues. I think they wanted the 20 minutes to talk about the health care bill. They didn't really want to talk about this piece of legislation that's out here in front of us. This bill is here because the Republicans in the Senate continue to use the filibuster to stop any orderly process over there of dealing with the problems of this country. And I don't know whether it's ignorance or amnesia, but ``deeming'' is a process that comes out of something that some of the senior Members know about, maybe the junior Members don't know about. This is called the Jefferson's Manual, and it provides the rules for the House, and it's where ``deeming'' comes from and all of the rest of the things that happen in the House. In fact, just to remind you, Speaker Hastert, Speaker Gingrich used deeming on 202 occasions. Now, this is no big surprise. This is no surprise that fell out of the sky. And no, I won't yield. I think I've listened to you talk about deeming enough. I want to talk about deeming for a second. Deeming is rules of the House, and the reason you're doing that is so that we can get something done because people in the Senate are requiring, through the filibuster, that 60 votes be in the way of anything that happens. Now, if you insist on that when 50 votes is a majority, then you're going to get things like using arcane rules in this thousand-page rule book. And we will use it just like Speaker Gingrich used it, just like Speaker Hastert used it, to get around obstructionists. And now I would yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.