Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Sure.

Mr. McDERMOTT. There's another piece. I have got to say I am excited because I was just down at the White House and the President just signed SCHIP. He gave a wonderful speech before he signed the bill, and said, This is just a start. We are going to take some more steps. It's exciting to have somebody leading. And a part of what he has asked us to do in this economic recovery bill is begin the IT buildup that we need in our health care system. When you go to a doctor, and I practiced medicine for 20 years, so I wrote all my stuff out. And if you went to see a doctor somewhere else across the country, there's no way that doctor would know what I had done for you or what I might have prescribed for you, or anything else. But if we have an electronic system that is protected so privacy is protected--I mean you have got to protect people's privacy. But if you get sick in Minneapolis--or St. Paul, I guess more like it--and you then come to Seattle, the doctor who sees you in Seattle doesn't know anything, because if you don't remember what the medications are or what the x-rays showed or anything else, there's no way he is going to know it. But with the money that is invested in this economic recovery package for medical technology, for IT work, intellectual properties, you are making it possible for a doctor in Seattle to sit down at his computer with the numbers that Mr. Ellison would give him and find out what went on with him when he was treated in St. Paul.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I listened to fiscal conservatives rail against this bill, and I think about an article I read in this morning's Washington Post. Over in Arlington, which is just across the river, they have a clinic where people go who don't have health insurance and hope that their number is drawn from a lottery so that they can get to see a doctor. Our health care system is in serious problems, from the seniors all the way down to the young people in this country. Now, this bill says to the States, here's some additional money for you to expand coverage to your youngsters. Through no fault of their own, they're born into a home where there is no way to pay for health care. And we are giving the States, in this time of economic collapse brought on by the fiscal conservatives in this body, who said that we could spend and spend and spend, and never have to meet the day of reckoning, the people who are now going to suffer from that will be women and children. Children have nobody to speak for them but us. And for us to put that money out there and give them the opportunity to have health care is humane in the very strongest sense of that word. How anybody could vote against this, I have no idea, after you've wasted a trillion dollars on a war in Iraq, and have the real estate industry totally out of control, and then you say to the children, you can't see a doctor. What kind of body is this if we don't take care of children? I yield the remaining 3 minutes of my time to Mr. Waxman.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, every day and every corner of this Nation, and every sector of this economy, the casualties keep mounting. Seventy-five thousand people lost their jobs yesterday, at Alcoa, Boeing, Caterpillar, Home Depot, Intel, Microsoft, Pfizer, Sprint, Texas Instruments and many small businesses. Over 11 million Americans have already lost their jobs, the highest level in 25 years, and every major economist says it's going to get worse before it gets better. Behind every number is a personal story of an American family struggling to cope with and survive this economic crisis. Behind every story is an American who deserves our help, who has earned our help on the job and has every right to expect Congress to act with all deliberate speed. We must not let them down. Helping these Americans while they look for work is not only the right thing to do for them, it is the only thing we can do in our economy. Unemployment insurance is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, because jobless Americans have little choice but to spend the money that's given them. Every unemployment insurance dollar spent returns an economic impact of $1.64. That's the kind of significant return on investment that will help America restart its economic engine. This recovery engine responds to rising unemployment with a historic level of assistance. It provides $27 billion for a program of extended benefits. For the first time ever, this legislation provides financial incentives for States to modernize their unemployment insurance programs and increase access to benefits. For the first time ever, this legislation provides a Federal supplement to increase unemployment benefits by an extra $100 a month for the next year, and, again for the first time, we will provide assistance to unemployed workers who are trying to afford health care coverage. The primary goal of this legislation is to create jobs, but we must also help the unemployed as those jobs are being created, and this measure does just that. By voting for this bill, we are standing up for the American people and standing alongside the American people right where we belong. I urge support for this critically important legislation.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support for SCHIP reauthorization legislation, and I want to thank Speaker Pelosi for her leadership in bringing this bill to the floor as the first bill. H.R. 2 clearly says that change has arrived for our country and our children. Instead of a veto pen that was used last year by the outgoing President to deny health care to children, our new President will sign this legislation and in so doing to begin a new chapter in America's commitment to its children and our future. H.R. 2 is a real down payment on our efforts to get universal access to affordable health care for all Americans. It builds on a successful model that has expanded access to millions of children nationwide. Health care should be a right, not a privilege for the rich in America. This legislation affirms the commitment of the new Congress to serve all the people, not merely those with means who can pay any price for health care while the Nation pays a steep price for not covering its children. H.R. 2 represents an additional 4 million children who will get health care. It's time to act, now. H.R. 2 means an additional 4 million children will have access to health care. It will provide access to preventive health care and this alone means America will raise healthier children who will grow to become healthier and more productive adults. The American people have spoken. They want a more compassionate response to our Nation's problems. Today, we are voting with our heads and hearts to do just that. This is not about ideology or party. It is about providing health care to children. H.R. 2 represents real change. l am proud to represent a State that took the lead on expanded access for children. In 1994, 3 years before the enactment of the original SCHIP, Washington State expanded access to children up to 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. This was a huge commitment and clearly my State took the lead. As a result we have fewer children uninsured. We have a healthier population and more integrated primary care. It's a commitment that worked for all of us in the State. H.R. 2 recognizes Washington State's efforts and includes language that will allow the State to access a more than $30 million to maintain this commitment. H.R. 2 rewards States like Washington who knew early on that providing quality affordable health care to children was a sound and humane investment. H.R. 2 will also allow Washington State to expand our successful program to cover more uninsured children in working families. The bill provides greater flexibility and will allow the State to meet the needs of our low income working families. I am also grateful that this legislation includes important access for legal immigrant children who are currently denied coverage-- children who are born in the U.S. and are legal U.S. citizens. In Washington State we have provided coverage for these children. But the State is doing this alone without the full partnership of the Federal Government. H.R. 2 corrects this error and will allow Washington State to maintain coverage for more than 3,000 children. Madam Speaker, we need to do the right thing. Providing universal coverage for children is an objective that we should all support. This legislation takes us one step closer to meeting this goal. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McDERMOTT. It has been a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Weller. I know I am not supposed to speak to another Member on the floor, but I just did anyway. I would ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to let Mr. Emanuel say 30 seconds.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the time I have left?

Mr. McDERMOTT. I don't have any either, so if you're ready to close, go ahead.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to say it has been a pleasure to work with Jerry Weller. On a committee like this where you have contentious issues, he has been a great supporter as we have worked on child welfare issues and on foster children issues and unemployment issues, and it has been a real pleasure. I hope I get a ranking member to replace you that is half as good as you were. I think that this bill that is out here may be in my view a little bit late. I wanted to put an amendment on the bailout bill that included the stimulus package, because I really think that we should be doing more for people on Main Street. I think the people at home are angry in many respects because they think we don't understand the pain of what the average citizen in this country is feeling, and they feel like we are giving help to some people that perhaps don't deserve it or don't need it or whatever, and we are ignoring the people who really needed it. The acceptance by the leadership of putting this bill up here at the end, I am pleased by that. I only hope that the Senate is listening because, Madam Speaker, some of those people are going to go home to States that we just saw mapped that are red. That means they have more than 6 percent unemployed. We have 19 States in this country where there is more than 6 percent unemployment. For people to go out and run for reelection and say I didn't have time to stay and pass an unemployment bill wouldn't seem to me like a good campaign strategy. So I hope that this will become legislation that passes this House, the other House, and is ultimately signed by the President. The people who lose their jobs in this country are real people. They are people who go to work every day, and one day they come in, like those who had a meeting in Seattle yesterday where they told the 4,300 people who are working at Washington Mutual that they will find out whether they have their job on the 1st of December. They are going to get their Christmas present by decision of the folks who bought Washington Mutual as to whether they are employed or not. No fault of theirs. Those are real people for whom this bill is a little bit of help to get them over, hopefully, a chasm so that they can reach the other side and get another job. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this bill. It is a piece of legislation that I am sure the Senate is going to want to deal with.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, could we know the time that is available?

Mr. McDERMOTT. I have no additional speakers.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his dedication to this issue and pushing it at all the meetings so we finally got it on the floor one last time. For the last 2 weeks we have been talking about Wall Street, but it is time to turn our attention to Main Street, to all the decent, hardworking people who play by the rules but lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Our economy has lost jobs for the last 9 months in a row, including 10 million Americans now unemployed and unable to find work. Today we got the figures and found out last month the economy lost 159,000 jobs. That is the biggest 1-month job loss in more than 5 years. In my home State of Washington, the unemployment rate has increased by nearly 30 percent over just the last 5 months. Today we face a simple choice: Are we going to help these workers who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, or are we going to sit on the sideline and watch them suffer? This bill says we can and we must help. The legislation provides another 7 weeks of extended unemployment benefits in every State, plus an additional 13 weeks in high unemployment States who have more than 6 percent. This assistance will not cost a penny, because it really comes from the unemployment trust funds that we have already collected. Our economy has lost 760,000 jobs this year, nearly 1 million more workers have joined the ranks of unemployment since Congress provided the last extension of unemployment benefits in June, and the number of States with high unemployment has doubled. If we don't act today, nearly 800,000 Americans will exhaust their benefits in the next few weeks. Even if you don't care about how these people feed their families, at least consider how much the economy will deteriorate if they stop buying goods and services. I strongly urge a ``yes'' vote to extend unemployment benefits for people who are suffering in this country. I reserve my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

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

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, does the gentleman have other speakers?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, 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. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday morning, the morning after the Senate passed a very different bailout bill, two things happened: The filings for new unemployment benefits hit a 7-year high, and a number of telephones melted in my congressional office as my constituents called in their opinions. By the thousands, the people in the Seventh Congressional District are absolutely enraged by what the Senate put over here. Senate Republicans blocked Senate Democrats from legislation that delivers for Main Street. Senate Republicans demanded the pot be sweetened, but they left out the millions of Americans who can't find a job and are running out of benefits. And they left out a lot of other Americans, too. With economic times getting rougher by the day, Senate Republicans have no problem telling the American people you've got to go it alone. Last week, the House passed on a strong bipartisan vote a stimulus package that would help Main Street, but Senate Republicans said no. They were willing to help Wall Street, but looked the other way for Main Street. One caller said they were stunned that the Senate included a call for the Securities and Exchange Commission to alter a fundamental way assets are valued. It's called mark-to-market accounting, and let me quote an NPR report. The Council of Institutional Investors and the CFA Institute oppose a suspension of mark-to-market--also known as ``fair value''--accounting because, in their opinion, the rule offers investors transparency. In other words, suspending the rule is letting the fox into the henhouse. The other day I voted in favor of the House bailout bill because I trusted Democratic leaders who worked tirelessly to represent Main Street. I still do, but Senate Republicans changed all that. When Republicans force a bill that ignores the plight of regular Americans but includes so-called sweeteners, that is not worthy of support. When Republicans force a bill that slips in more earmark spending, that's not worthy of support. When Republicans force a bill through that includes an accounting gimmick, that is not worthy of support. The Senate dug an enormous ditch alongside Main Street, and they want the House to drive into it. That is exactly what the President has driven this economy into over the last 7 years. When Senate Republicans set the agenda, that's just another way of saying they are following the orders of the President who long ago lost all the trust of the American people. That is not how we are going to restore the trust with the American people. And that is why I voted against the Senate Republican bailout. There is no question that we need a rescue plan, but the Senate has just made matters worse, and that is pretty hard to do in this economy. Government has a role to play in calming the markets and addressing the economic crisis, but the more we learn, the more convinced I am the latest Senate plan is taking us in the wrong direction. There are two models that have worked and which would serve as the foundation blocks that we can build upon in a short period of time to produce a plan that Americans could trust and believe in. During the Depression, President Roosevelt developed a Home Loan Housing Corporation that stabilized the housing market and helped homeowners work through the foreclosures. More recently, in the 1990s, Sweden stepped in and assumed temporary control of the financial system, cleaned up the mess, and then got out. There are models available that we can use to quickly produce a solution that the American people will actually believe in because they will understand it and it will be transparent. The amendment from the Senate was to make it more un-transparent. There is a credit crisis in the United States to be sure, but there is no question today that there is also a trust crisis in America, every bit as damaging and debilitating. We cannot solve the first crisis before we address the second. Since the current administration precipitated this, we should be focused on rebuilding a new foundation for a new administration to restore the faith and trust of the American people as we work to restore the trust and credit of our financial system. Since the current administration precipitated this, we should be focused on building a foundation for a new administration to restore the faith and trust of the American people as we work to restore the trust and credit of our financial system.