Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, you know, John, you are talking about the fundamental thing the President is trying to do, and that is to give people security, health security, that they know that if they get sick or they have an accident, they'll be taken care of. The fundamental weakness of our system forever has been that your health insurance has been tied to who you were employed by. When the economy's rolling along, and when the economy's going up, that's not too bad. It works pretty well. In fact, the difference between right now and what was going on in 1993-1994, as you remember when Mrs. Clinton tried to do this--everybody says, What's the difference between then and now? Then things were going up, and everybody thought, Well, this plan they're putting together is for somebody else. It's for them. They didn't know who ``them'' was, but it was somebody they didn't know. When you have a system that's tied to employment--people always thought that this health care business was about them. The difference today is, as you point out, middle class people who yesterday felt they were just about as secure as they could be--they had a job, they had health care, their kids were in college, blah, blah, blah--and bingo, they lose their job. We had a bank go down in Seattle, Washington Mutual Bank. There were 4,300 people that were affected. That's 4,300 families who found themselves instantly without a paycheck, without health care, and in many cases, all of their pension money was in an IRA of the company's stock. So they suddenly had no pension. They had no security whatsoever. No house, no health care, no food, no anything. It's impossible for that not to be stressful to people, and people then have stress-related diseases. There are plenty of stress-related diseases. We know them. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress disease. And any kind of emotional thing like that is going to take a toll on you physically. A lot of people are suffering today from emotional illnesses, secondary to the instability of their economic situation.

Mr. McDERMOTT. You're tough out of luck. If you go into the individual market, you'll pay even more. So if you're in a big group, you know, working for Ford Motor Company or for Delco Battery or something, that way you get the risk spread over everybody. But if they're just looking at you or me or the next guy, they're going to charge you a much higher premium for anything that you have, any kind of preexisting condition. So it's worse when you leave one of those groups. People stay in, and they scramble to try to make it. But every company in the country has been shifting more and more cost onto the individual. They used to pay in some companies 100 percent. Now they pay 60 percent, and 40 percent has to be paid by the employee. Their deductibles are going up, and the copays are going up. That's why the President has said we have to find a way to control costs. We can't let this go on.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, I think that is what is really troublesome about this debate, is that people on the other side who argue that there doesn't need to be change--you say to them, Well, what are you offering? They say, Well, let's give tax credits to people so they can buy their own health insurance. Now, let's just think about that for a minute. The average income in this country is about $45,000. So you're making a little less than $4,000 a month. You can easily spend $1,000 a month on a premium. So each month you've got to take $1,000 of your $4,000 out and go down and buy your health insurance. Now, the Republican solution to that is, Give them a tax credit. Let them wait a whole year to the end of the year, and then you give them back their money at the end of the year. Most people don't have that kind of ability to wait for 12 months to get their money back. Rich people can. I mean, they can wait for a tax credit someplace down the road. But ordinary people who are living from paycheck to paycheck to paycheck do not have the ability to spend a thousand dollars a month on a health care premium and wait 12 months to get credit for it on their income tax. So their proposals sound like they have something in mind. Yes, they have something in mind, but it simply won't work.

Mr. McDERMOTT. You know, there is sort of a political axiom that if you can make people afraid, you can get them to do exactly what you want them to do. In this case, they want people to say no, we don't want the government to take over our health care. Now the government pays for military health care. The government pays for veterans' health care. The government pays for seniors' health care in this country and poor people's health care in this country. And they want government to go away? Come on. Sixty cents out of every health care dollar in this country is coming from the government through all of those programs. And the people are saying that they don't want the government. I have had older folks come to me and say, I don't want the government to get into my Medicare. Folks, Medicare is a government program. They simply are scaring people to the point where they are not thinking clearly about what is going on in this country.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Absolutely not.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I congratulate the University of Washington women's softball team, but I also rise to honor every female athlete. Every time you compete, you remind us that all the sacrifice is worth it to make history and change history for generations to come. Congratulations to the women of the University of Washington softball team.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the University of Washington women's softball team for their winning of the 2009 Women's College World Series. I appreciate my colleague's kind words about our wonderful university, and it sounds like he might have wished to go there maybe. The road leading to the first NCAA National Softball Championship in the University of Washington was very difficult and at times seemingly out of reach. At least that's what the pundits thought. But they didn't know these outstanding softball players and the extraordinary role models that they are. The Husky team never stopped striving to be the best, and no obstacle was too difficult to overcome, including sweeping the best-of-three championship series from top-seeded and top-ranked University of Florida. The Huskies deserve to be recognized as a team and as individuals, so let me tell you their names: Alicia Blake, Ashley Charters, Jenna Clifton, Amanda Fleischman, Lauren Geer, Felicia Harris, Marnie Koziol, Danielle Lawrie, Alyson McWherter, Kimi Pohlman, Jennifer Salling, Taylor Smith, Bailey Stenson, Dani Stuart, Morgan Stuart, Ashley Tuiasosopo, Jessica Ventoza, Ashlyn Watson and Niki Williams. Baseball is a team sport. There are many outstanding players one could talk about, but it's won as team. And they were led by Coach Heather Tarr and Assistant Coaches Gina Carbonatto and Lance Glasoe, and they had a volunteer assistant by the name of J.T. D'Amico and a student assistant by the name of Dru Hester. Winning a national title is an achievement every college athlete and coach dreams about; yet sports is not just about athletic success, as important as that is. It's about dedication and hard work and teamwork, and it's about life, pursuing a dream and overcoming every obstacle to realize a dream. These young women had the chance to chase their dream, but that's because of the sacrifice of others. None of the athletes on the UW softball team were born when Patsy Mink stood in the well of this House and wrote and worked to pass Title IX in 1972, but they all enjoy the benefits of Patsy's vision. As a result of Title IX, women and girls have had greater opportunities to participate in sports. Title IX has enabled more women to receive athletic scholarships and greater opportunity for higher education. Many female athletes credit Title IX for giving them an opportunity to attend college through athletic scholarships and to participate in sports. In addition, because of Title IX, the salaries of coaches of women's teams have increased.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, across America, there are people who are hanging on by a thin, economic lifeline called unemployment insurance. Without the passage of this bill, that thread will break for over 1 million workers before the end of this year, plunging them and their families into an economic abyss and threatening to reverse the positive signs we are beginning to see in the economy. We can prevent that this afternoon by passing this bill. This legislation will provide an additional 13 weeks of extended benefits to individuals in hard-hit States, specifically those with a 3-month average unemployment rate at or above 8.5 percent. It's important to note that this legislation is fully offset and does not increase the deficit. At the beginning of this year, America felt the bare-knuckled brunt of what has already been called the Great Recession. Nearly three- quarters of a million jobs were lost in the month of January alone, and we met the crisis head on. The steps we took earlier this year helped us turn away from an economic catastrophe and toward recovery. Don't take my word for it. Former John McCain economic adviser Mark Zandi said, ``Without the stimulus, job losses would be measurably worse.'' But even as economic indicators show improvement, we know we cannot replace 7 million lost jobs overnight. Recovery will take time. There are still six unemployed workers for every available job, so extended unemployment compensation isn't a convenience; it's a necessity. Since I introduced this legislation 2 weeks ago, my office phones have been ringing nonstop with calls from Americans all across the country who have exhausted or soon will exhaust their benefits, asking, When is it going to pass? I heard it from paralegals who could not find a job because attorneys are competing against them for employment; from contractors who are still reeling from the collapse of the housing market; and from school teachers whose local school districts could not afford to keep them on the payroll. Without quick action, they will become unable to afford their mortgages or health coverage. Providing these Americans with a modest economic lifeline is not only the humane thing to do, but it's in the economic interest of the country. Every UI dollar generates $1.64 in positive impact in the economy. That supports existing jobs and our fragile housing market. In other words, UI, unemployment insurance, is a win for every American. I urge all Members to support this bipartisan, budget-neutral bill to extend unemployment benefits. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers. So if Mr. Davis wants to speak to end, and I will speak, we will be done.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin). (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the minority on the subcommittee for being supportive of bringing this bill out here. We did not go through some of the usual procedures. We brought it out straight to the floor. I think that their cooperation should be recognized because it is a reflection of the fact that everybody in this House cares about the American people. We all want people to have a job, and we want them to have some way to sustain themselves until this economy begins to open up again. One of the interesting things about this period in our economic history, as has been pointed out by some economists, there have been three real recessions. One was 1930, and in that recession, many workers never returned to the work they did before. Rather than going back to the farms, they moved to the cities, and that was a major shift in what was happening. In the 1980 recession, many workers were able to go back to the work that they had done before. The question that our country faces right now is: Will we be able to go back to what we had before, or will we create a new economy? And I think that this bill will give us a chance to get the industries, the new industries, the green industries and so forth, up and running so that we can return people to gainful employment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3548) to amend the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2008 to provide for the temporary availability of certain additional emergency unemployment compensation, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 1 minute to the majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 3548.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Dolph Chianchiano, Senior Vice President for Health Policy and Research for his 30 years of service to the National Kidney Foundation. As the co-chair of the Congressional Kidney Caucus, I have had the honor of working with the NKF and Dolph to educate my colleagues about the impact of kidney disease, and to shape policy and legislation to make the lives of patients better. Being from Seattle, where dialysis treatments were first used, I have seen the power of research and innovation in the treatment of kidney disease. People live longer, more productive lives with kidney failure, and we continue to learn more every day. Dolph Chianchiano has contributed to the understanding we now have about kidney disease in his role of administrator of NKF's research program, which has awarded nearly $80 million in grants in his tenure. He made the important decision to expand the program to include not only physician research, but other members of the renal health care team: nurses, dietitians and social workers. He has cultivated a cadre of researchers, providing early career grants to researchers that go on to devote a career to improve the lives of kidney patients. Many kidney professionals have remarked, ``I got my start through an NKF research grant.'' Dolph has also been a tireless advocate for more research funding at the federal level, helping to guide the research agenda of the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. In the past three decades, we have seen many advances, and hopefully more will come, as we improve the treatment for kidney disease. I have worked with the NKF for the 20 years I have been in Congress, and I look forward to many more years working with Dolph and the others associated with the Foundation. Congratulations on 30 years of service to kidney patients. I applaud you and wish you well.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, earlier today I introduced legislation--the Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act. The aim of this legislation is to reverse the growing trend of the misclassification of employees as independent contractors. Independent contractors serve a legitimate purpose in our workforce, our economy, and in many business models. These contractors are important to our economy and often provide the flexibility that many businesses need. Some employers, however, are using a loophole that exists in the Internal Revenue Code to treat workers that are actually employees as contractors in order to reduce their own tax liability and avoid federal and state labor law. When employees are misclassified as contractors, responsible companies lose business, workers lose rights and protections, and the federal and state governments lose out of billions of dollars in much-needed revenue. This legislation is similar to the measure I introduced last year, along with Representatives Richard Neal, and John Tierney. I am pleased we have joined together again this Congress to reintroduce this initiative. Our efforts to construct this bill were informed by information obtained through public hearings on this issue in the House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Education and Labor. The Taxpayer Responsibility, Accountability, and Consistency Act would close the tax loophole that allows employers to misclassify employees as contractors at will. It aims to put all employers on a level playing field, protect workers, and reduce the federal budget deficit. The intention of the bill is not to deny businesses the ability to use legitimate independent contractors; instead it is to ensure that laws that determine what an employee or independent contractor is are evenly applied. They are not today. I recognize that this issue is one that has vexed the Congress for some time and that forging the necessary degree of consensus to address this problem will be difficult. I intend for the legislation introduced today to serve as a basis for discussion and look forward to working with many stakeholders to perfect the bill and help push for its passage.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. It's very strange. And people who talk about believing in competition and believe in the marketplace, as Representative Schwartz says, there are places in this country where there is only one option; and if you have nobody to compete with, they control the prices. And for them to get the idea that it's socialistic to put somebody in there to compete is really saying they're afraid to compete. They know they can't win. They have failed over the last 18 years. They knocked out Mrs. Clinton's efforts in `93. They had an open field. The entire country was open to the private sector, and they cannot figure out how to cover 50 million people. So we come stepping in and say, we have a way. And they say, oh, no, no. If the people ever get wind of what you're doing, they will leave us. They're afraid that people will leave them because they have been in it for the profit and not in it for the benefit of the patients. And that's really why I think they're afraid.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, the plan that would be provided for every American who was in a health insurance plan, whether the private one they were in before or the one that they're in in the government option, would give them the protection for the basic things that everybody needs in a health care system. I have a story you reminded me of. One night I was going out of a hospital in Seattle and a telephone operator stopped me and said they want you up on the coronary care unit. So I went up there, and there was a guy putting on his clothes and said, I'm leaving the hospital. He had had a heart attack the day before. They wanted him to stay in the hospital. He said, Look, I have no health insurance. If I lie in this bed, it costs me $1,000 a day, and I can't afford it. And what if I die? I then leave my family with a big bill. So either way I'm caught. And when we put this program together, we give people the assurance that if you have a heart attack, or whatever, and you need hospitalization, you will being taken care of.

Mr. McDERMOTT. It's part of the scare tactics. If you watch television tonight when you go home, you will see commercials on there saying that the government is somehow going to get between--they did it in '93, '94. It was Harry and Louise. Harry and Louise were sitting at the kitchen table, and Harry says to Louise, You know that Mrs. Clinton, she is going to take away our health care. They're doing that same thing again now, making it appear that that's what's going to happen when no such thing is being planned. There is no question that the government is not going to be between you and your doctor and making a decision what needs to be done.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Well, because our bill, Charlie, has one thing in it; it says to insurance companies you can't cherry-pick the healthy patients you want to take care of and leave the sick ones to somebody else. What we say is if you're an insurance company, you've got to cover everybody; you've got to open the doors wide and let anybody come in. Insurance companies don't want that. What they want are healthy patients who pay a premium, for whom they have to pay out very little money, then they can give the rest to the stockholders. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, that's the free enterprise system. But they're afraid that if we have a government system that is there for the people's benefit and has a 3 percent overhead, whereas an average insurance company overhead is 14 percent--and they know the people are going to take the lower premium in the government plan, or they're afraid of that--so they say, you've got to put us on a level playing field. Well, you can't make profit off people's sickness and have a level playing field with a government plan.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I appreciate your giving me a chance to say something. I spoke a little earlier. But one thing I wanted to say. In Seattle they announced that on August 1 the premiums on insurance policies are going up 17 percent. Now, when people talk about fear and they have to fear the government and fear the government option, this is a real fear. This 17 percent increase in Seattle is going to hurt people badly. Some people are not going to be able to afford continuing their insurance, and that's why it's so important that the Progressive Caucus, led by you and by Ms. Woolsey, are out here making sure that people understand there is an option to these absolutely unacceptable increases in premiums. Nothing else has gone up 17 percent. Housing prices have dropped. Gasoline prices have dropped. But health insurance? Up 17 percent. The only way we are going to stop that is with a government option that makes competition. Thank you for the work that you are doing. And I again say thank you to the gentlewoman for letting me speak.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, health care reform may be the single most important issue Members will vote on during their entire legislative career. The issue affects every American. Health care affects our economy at home and our ability to compete internationally. For the first time in almost 20 years, we have a real opportunity to solve America's health care crisis, and the American people have spoken clearly and overwhelmingly that they want Congress to produce a solution that puts the American people's interests ahead of special interests. To say there is urgency in what we need to do is an understatement, and for the last several months, the three committees in the House have been working separately and collaboratively on health care legislation. Two of the committees, including the Ways and Means Committee where I serve, reported bills out of committee to the floor. And I want to explain why the Ways and Means Committee's bill is the best bill and is vital to the success of health care reform. Let's start with Medicare. For senior citizens, Medicare is health security. The program is so effectively managed that 97 cents of every dollar goes for patient care, and that means it's 97 percent efficient. In many private insurance company programs, 40 cents of every dollar simply goes for overhead, advertising, paper, not delivering health care. So the smart choice is to develop health care legislation based on a proven model, and that's what we did in the Ways and Means Committee. A new model with a strong public option based on the Medicare model, which has delivered quality health care to seniors and a very comfortable living to doctors and other medical professionals across this country, that's what we need today. Without a strong public option, health care reform is just a slogan. And without real cost control, health care reform is just another press release. America spends twice as much on health care as any other industrialized nation in the world, and runaway costs are bankrupting average Americans and consuming an even greater part of our gross domestic product than before. The situation is unsustainable. Now, we talk about the need to address preexisting conditions when it comes to health care, and we should. But runaway costs are a preexisting economic condition we must fix in the new legislation or we're setting ourselves up for failure. Recent changes to the legislation have scrapped the proven legislative effective and fair model we have in Medicare and substituted negotiated rates making the government negotiate with doctors. On the surface, it may look fair, but looks can be deceiving. The private sector has had decades of opportunities to make health care work, and the economic wreckage of that is everywhere to be seen. Now they want more. The legislation now would call for negotiations. Let me tell you what that means. So-called negotiated rates do not limit what can be charged or the rate of increase each year. A public option tied to Medicare is the only way to control the costs; otherwise, health care costs will keep going up and Americans will keep getting left out. While the rich can always take care of themselves--health care at any price--the middle class and the disadvantaged will remain one accident or illness away from financial ruin in the richest country in the world. That sounds like the status quo, right? We don't need any more of that. Under the chairmanship of Charlie Rangel, the Ways and Means Committee tackled these tough issues and produced health care reform legislation that's fair for providers and affordable for the American people. You have seen what happens when the private marketplace decides what's best for the American people: Wall Street, housing market. Remember, when they say the market will take care of itself, they mean just exactly that. And we need someone to take care of the American people. That's what the Ways and Means bill is all about. It comes down to this: Who do you trust? The private health insurance industry companies have had 18 years since Mrs. Clinton and the President tried to change it in 1993 and 1994, and there's nothing that's happened except raising the rates and more people losing their insurance. Or you can trust the people who design Medicare, which has given every citizen in this country, every senior citizen, real health security. The choice will be made in September. The American people will have a month to think about this, listen to their legislators, ask questions, read the bill. It's online. You can find it. There are plenty of ways to find out what's happening. But you have to tell your legislators, We want this bill from the Ways and Means Committee.