Charlie Norwood

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3391, The Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Amendments. As you may know, I am a cosponsor of this legislation. This bill is designed to ensure that 85 percent of the funds in the Federal Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund are allocated to the States via cooperative agreements. While I am fully supportive of this legislation, I do want to clarify one point in order to prevent any potential confusion down the road. My constituents have been concerned that the prohibition on the use of Federal funds in State financial assistance programs is not misinterpreted. Under existing law, use of Federal funds for the purpose of providing financial assistance to tank owners and operators is not a specifically authorized use of the fund. This is an area that Washington has thankfully stayed out of, leaving the issue of what type of financial assistance programs to design to the States. I wish to emphasize that the prohibition is simply designed to maintain the historic balance of State and Federal concerns, and there is no suggestion, either express or implied, that States should not set up financial assistance programs. Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill, and I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 3391.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3387, a bill to rename the Southern Piedmont Conservation Research Center in Watkinsville, GA as the J. Phil Campbell, Senior Natural Resource Conservation Center. J. Phil Campbell, Senior lived on this Earth for 66 years, but in that time, he gave more to the men and women of this country that can be measured. His contributions to agriculture, not only in the Southeast, but throughout the Nation, are well known and widely recognized. Mr. Linder and I introduced this legislation to, in a small way, give Mr. Campbell the recognition he most certain deserves. James Philander Campbell was born in Dallas, GA, just northeast of Atlanta, on March 2, 1878. He grew up on a farm and, at the age of 17, began teaching school. At a young age, J. Phil Campbell, Senior fought for and helped to secure legislation providing for teaching agriculture in rural Georgia schools. In 1907, he spent 6 months traveling throughout the State advocating for the creation of district agriculture schools and a State college of agriculture. All of this was done before he turned 30 years of age. Between 1908 and 1910, J. Phil Campbell, Senior served as the first farmer extension supervisor to the Southeast region. This was done before passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1915, which created a Federal extension service. In 1910, he began a career as the Georgia State agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He also served on the Georgia State University's College of Agriculture staff. During his tenure, he organized nearly 13,000 Georgia children in ``corn'' and ``canning clubs.'' He also helped organize 5,000 Georgia farmers into farming demonstration work. These efforts were done under the supervision of Dr. Seaman Knapp of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During this time, he also served as the Director of Extension Work in Agriculture and Home Economics. In 1933, he took a leave of absence to assist the Federal Agriculture Adjustment Administration in their cotton belt crop replenishment division. After 1935, he was elevated to a Federal position in the Roosevelt administration as assistant chief of the Soil Conservation Service in the USDA. He served in that capacity until he died in December of 1994. In addition to his clear record of accomplishment in the area of education, J. Phil Campbell, Senior was also extremely interested in agricultural research and maintained close ties with Georgia's agriculture experiment stations. He was integral in the creation of the Southern Piedmont Conservation Research Center. He chose its siting in Watkinsville, just outside of Athens and the University of Georgia. When funding for the center was threatened in its first year, Phil Campbell fought to keep the center open and secure its line of funding. It exists to this day on Experimental Station Road in Watkinsville. I introduced H.R. 3387 as a small token of recognition and gratitude for Mr. Campbell's contributions to agriculture and the communities and Nation he loved. Fortunately, Mr. Campbell's contributions to agriculture are not being recognized after his death only. In the mid- 1930's, Dean Paul Chapman, the first dean of the University of Georgia's College of agriculture, stated, ``J. Phil Campbell and I were pioneers in promoting professional agricultural work and in the establishing of agencies to carry on such work. With little professional training ourselves, we were plowing new ground to create such training.'' Later, in a ceremony honoring Mr. Campbell after he departed for Washington, Dean Chapman stated that no one had as many friends in Georgia as did J. Phil Campbell. Mr. Campbell was also recognized in the ``Who's Who in America'' collection in the 1940's. Clearly, given his contributions to agriculture in the State of Georgia and throughout he Nation, Mr. Campbell had more friends than he could have ever known. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to offer this legislation. In a letter from the USDA, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman stated that, while the USDA generally discourages the naming of its laboratories after any one individual, given the Department's admiration and appreciation of, ``the great service Mr. Campbell has rendered to agriculture and the Nation, the USDA has no objection to the enactment of H.R. 3387.'' We have also received assurances from the CBO that enactment of H.R. 3387 will result in no significant cost to the Federal Government and does not include any inter-governmental or private sector mandates. Given this, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join with me to recognize Mr. Campbell's many contributions and support this legislation. With that, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I detect, as we go into this debate, some frustration on the other side of the aisle from those who would have federalized health care in this country just 2 years ago or socialized medicine. But, Mr. Speaker, I am going to rise today in support of this rule and this conference report. While this version of H.R. 3103 does not include many of the provisions I think that are necessary to really increase access to health care, this bill is the best bill we could get in this Congress with this President. During this debate, I have been amazed at how political the right thing to do can become. Rather than doing what we need to do, some Members of this Congress delayed consideration of this bill for months. I assume they were afraid to cede power from the Federal Government to the people. This is unfortunate. Mr. Speaker, I am going to continue to fight for what is right. We need tort reform, expanded access to medical savings accounts, small employer pooling and other options meant to provide access to lower cost health care. This bill does make health care more available and affordable for millions of Americans without a government take over of health care. I am absolutely amazed at what my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone said. He said that the Democrats need to take credit. Well, they could have had credit just 4 years ago if they had allowed Mr. Rowland and the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis, to produce their bill and bring it out on this floor. But they kept that from coming out and these 40 million Americans could have had this advantage 3 or 4 years ago, had they not been so interested in socializing medicine. My friend, the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, says that all 40 million people, not one of them will be helped by this bill. Yet my friend, Mr. Pallone, says yes, 25 million of the 40 million will be helped by this bill because he knows this bill will pick up small business owners. It will take care of preexisting conditions and many other people will get insurance.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman. I rise to express my support for the gentleman from Iowa's amendment. This amendment would prevent the U.S. Patent Office from issuing patents to health care providers for medical procedures they create. The fact that I must speak on such an issue greatly disturbs me. As a health care provider, I have always understood that my job was to help patients. It is not to make myself rich. It is not to make myself famous. My job is to improve the health and well-being of those people who place their trust in my hands. When I became a dentist, I vowed to act in my patients' best interest. It is the moral and ethical duty of every health care provider to be a patient advocate. Patenting medical procedures, which essentially forces other health providers to compensate the original provider for their procedure, is a twisted way to practice medicine. Congress has a moral duty to ensure that we do not allow the Federal Government to place its stamp of approval on this essentially selfish act. In addition to the ethical implications of medical procedure patents, there is also the matter of increased costs. Unlike the Clinton administration, which took its one shot at improving the health care of Americans by nationalizing the health care system, this Congress has made significant and substantive efforts to make health care more accessible and more affordable. Allowing health providers to patent procedures they develop to help their patients will not only create perverse incentives in the health care market, it will also drive up the cost of health care. If we do not pass this amendment, we will be condemning patients and their employers to escalating health care costs. We may also be forcing providers into using less advanced procedures because they want to avoid the additional costs of using the patented procedure. The health provider community must not allow itself to succumb to those corrupt forces that have overtaken the health payer industry. Once the provider turns his back on the patient, there will be no one to ensure that the patients interests are protected. The health provider community must never forget the great privilege it has to improve their patient's physical condition. The United States cannot afford to be on the trailing edge of this issue. already, over 80 countries ban medical procedure patents. These countries include Britain, France, and Israel, as well as countries like South Africa, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia. For the sake of patients in this country, this Congress must take a stand and protect patients from opportunistic health providers and rising health care costs. I urge my colleagues to support the Ganske amendment.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske] for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I suppose if I were an experienced legislator this would seem complex, but since I am just a dentist who has practiced for the last 30 years, it seems sort of simple. What we are basically asking this body to do, and I urge Members to do this with every bone in my body, is pass this amendment for the American people. What we have here is a simple problem that simply needs to be corrected. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. All of my adult life I have been taught that as a health care provider, I should be very willing to share any knowledge I have on behalf of the patient. I know not to do that is not just unethical but it is immoral. What we are trying to do is to correct a problem in this country before it gets out of proportion and harms the very people who are providing care because there will be so much confusion, but most importantly because it harms the patient.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today to speak on the future of our Nation--and that future is our children, and whether they will have the same opportunity to live the American dream that all the members of this House have enjoyed in our lifetimes. Since the 104th Congress was sworn into office a year and a half ago, we have debated the issue of how best to provide for our children's education. That is good. We need discourse and hotly contested ideas from both side of the aisle if we are to forge a bipartisan, hopefully even a nonpartisan plan for ensuring that every American has the education necessary to not just survive, but to succeed in a global economy. But, Mr. Speaker, we cannot have that needed discourse while the debate is fraught with distortions and political rhetoric, and that is where we find ourselves today. So I would like to begin by reviewing exactly what educational reforms have been passed by this House over the last 18 months. Under the Balanced Budget Act, total student loan volume was scheduled to grow from last year's $24 to $36 billion in 2002. That's a 50-percent growth in spending. The school lunch program was approved for a 36-percent increase over the same period, with the States allowed to run their lunchrooms without Federal interference for the first time in decades. The maximum annual Pell grant amount for low-income college students was raised to the highest level in history at $2,400 per student. The House approved sweeping, and long-needed reforms in the way interest is calculated on some of the loans. Under the proposed changes, no student would have paid any interest on their loans while they were still in school. But graduate students would have been required to pay back the interest that accrued on their loans while they were getting their graduate degrees, after they graduated and got jobs. At present, working-class Americans are forced to subsidize that accrued interest for doctors, lawyers, and Ph.D. recipients. It is just not right for someone earning minimum wage to be paying the loan cost for someone earning six-figures. The budget we passed last year would have put an end to the practice, and saved our children $10 billion they would not have had to pay back with interest. The demagogs in Congress call this cutting. As to the Direct Loan Program, the budget would have brought that to a halt. Since the very inception of Federal student aid, loans have successfully been processed through private lenders. It is amazing that while the Federal Government is doing everything possible to downsize and privatize, and the President himself tells us that the era of big Government is over in his State of the Union Address, the Clinton administration continues to launch new big government programs, seeking to federalize what is now in the private sector. The education plan that passed this House last year would have made the same student loans available from the same sources as they have been for the past 30 years. For those who love to cry out against mean-spirited Republican cuts, I'm proud to say that although there was absolutely not one nickle of cuts in overall spending, there were, indeed cuts in areas that badly needed cutting. The Head Start Program was slated for a true 4-percent reduction in funding, which is well warranted, according to Head Start Founder Edward Zeigler, who I quote: If 30 percent of the programs closed down, there would be no great loss * * * Until the program has reached a certain level of quality, they shouldn't put one more kid in it. Indeed, over the last 6 years, Head Start enrollment has grown by 39 percent, while spending has increased 186 percent. That kind of out-of- control spending has to stop, and the plan we passed would have brought it to a screeching halt. There were also real cuts in spending for the U.S. Department of Education, which would have taken an 11 percent reduction in funding. Since it was created in 1979, the Department of Education has spent $342 billion without any evidence the money has improved education in any way. Even the liberal Washington Post wrote in a December editorial: ``America's schools are not noticeably better because a Department of Education was created.'' Why hasn't the Department of Education helped improve our children's education? Because of simple economics--you cannot take money from taxpayers across the country, send it to Washington, DC, then send it back to the States, and not lose most of the original money in the process. According to the Congressional Research Service, of every dollar we send to the Department of Education here in Washington, only 23 cents ever finds it's way back to our local schools. That's not efficient, and that's not how to compete in a global economy. Now, there is one program that is eliminated entirely under the balanced budget plan--Goals 2000. That program has skyrocketed in cost from $87 to $372 million in just 1 year. It duplicates other Federal efforts, creates a multitude of new bureaucracies, but has no real impact on day-to-day learning. And the attempts of the program to revise American history to reflect the new politically correct themes of the far-left have been so inflammatory they were voted down in the Senate by a 99-to-1 vote. So the new plan contained not one penny for Goals 2000. The defenders of the failed status-quo in education have tried to convince the American people that Republicans would undermine education by holding down the massive spending increases that the Clinton administration had planned. But maybe they should instead answer the question of why we should spend more taxpayer money when our Federal dollars have failed to achieve positive results, year after year after year. This plan to bring our educational efforts into line with our ability to fund them, and with the level of achievement of our programs, now sits in limbo, vetoed by the President. But the educational reforms in the Balanced Budget Act are not the only efforts undertaken by this Congress to improve the way our children learn. A major battle in the effort took place just this spring here in Washington, and most of the Nation missed it. It was the latest round in the fight over who has the ultimate authority over a child's education and future--the parent or the Federal Government. This House provided funds for Washington's public schools to offer a small pilot school choice program, that would allow about 2 percent of all Washington, DC, school children to attend better schools, and then only if local school board members choose to use the plan. For those students locked into attendance at the worst public schools in the District, vouchers would be provided to pay for transportation to alternate public schools, or for transportation and tuition at private schools. The program, similar to one in Milwaukee and nearly two dozen other communities, was designed to give poor parents the same power and freedom of education that rich parents have. It would have improved public schools by making them compete for students, and most importantly, by giving students the opportunity for a better quality education. Unfortunately, there are those here inside-the-beltway who are adamantly opposed to fairness and equality of opportunity. After stalling the D.C. budget for months over this single issue, liberal Senate Democrats under pressure from President Bill Clinton voted to filibuster the bill, which prevented it from even coming to the floor for a vote. The White House announced it would have vetoed the entire bill over this tiny pilot project, even though the District's local political leaders begged for passage. The White House, liberal Senate Democrats, and the NEA won, and Washington's schoolchildren lost. Why the extraordinary fight over a program that could at most impact only 2 percent of students in a single school district? Because the National Education Association decided to make this a litmus test. Their chief lobbyist told the Washington Post on February 28 that ``It is much bigger than D.C.'' And when Washington's NEA office says ``jump,'' the Washington bureaucracy says ``how high?'' The reason, as U.S. News and World Report recently explained, is that--and I quote: The NEA has wedded itself to the Democratic Party . . . teacher unions have used their resources to fight reform--and their resources are vast. The union's palatial Washington, D.C. headquarters, renovated in 1991 at a cost of $52 million, is a testament to its power in national politics. The union handed out $8.9 million to congressional candidates between 1989 and 1995, only a fraction of it to Republicans. And the Clinton White House is banking on the NEA playing a big role in this year's presidential campaign. According to the Education Policy Institute, NEA and its related educational PAC's spend $40 million a year on the national level lobbying for their agenda, 98 percent of which goes to Democrats. And with a total budget of $1.2 billion a year, the amount of overall political impact this special interest exerts on our children's education is beyond measure. What these objections are really over is not the education of children. It is over the billions spent every year on Federal allocations for education programs at dozens of Federal agencies. And billions ultimately find their way, directly and indirectly, into the coffers of the NEA and their members. The greatest fear of the NEA is that granting freedom to families to choose where their child is educated will cut off the flow of those funds, and their ability to control the educational agenda of the Nation. As long as the liberal trend towards federalization of our local schools continue, the NEA's feast on largesse at the Federal trough will continue. Any increase in parental or local control of those funds stands diametrically opposed to their goal of dominating the educational industry. However, a clarification of how this debate is currently framed is badly needed. Those on both sides of the issue of school choice often make the same mistake. It is not an issue of public versus private education. It is a question of how to provide the best education possible for every child in this country. As we face the educational challenges facing us in an era of global competition, we can no longer afford the illusion that we have competing school systems. We have one educational system in America, and it includes public, private, and home schooling, and we have to maintain the openmindedness to rethink our approach on a child-by-child level. For most of our Nation's children, public education provides a quality learning experience with a multitude of resources often not found in smaller private schools or a home schooling environment. Those children will likely, and should, continue in their current schools even if vouchers are available. But for many disadvantaged youth trapped in inner-city schools overrun with drugs and violence, the ability to have a choice would, with absolute certainty, greatly improve their ability to learn. And for children with special needs or talents, the ability to choose both public and private alternate schools, or home schooling, would allow them to progress far beyond the level of our ``one-size-fits- all'' current policy. All this is representative of just how distorted the debate over education has become. Instead of focusing on improving our children's learning levels, success is measured by programs and dollars spent, and by squashing reforms that threaten the monopoly held by powerful special interest groups. It's a debate that I hope changes this year. Mr. Speaker, we need to shift the focus of Federal education policy back to parents, communities, and States--in that order. We need to encourage reform efforts like school choice. And most importantly, we hope that when our efforts are done, children will begin to learn again in even the poorest and most disadvantaged school districts. Meanwhile, both the President and the Vice President continue to send their children to private schools instead of the District of Columbia public school system, in spite of denying that same choice for thousands of poor children in the same city. But Mr. Speaker, we need to be willing to look beyond the issue of just school choice, and into what our States and communities can accomplish if we return real educational freedom to this land. For the last 30 years, we have seen our educational system decline, to a point that many Americans are losing hope that their children will have a future. But if we are just willing to cast aside the political blinders, we will find that we have an unlimited opportunity to bring real improvement to our Nation's schools. For the last year the House Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee has been trying to determine just how much, and where, the Federal government has been spending on education. What we have discovered is beyond belief. Last year, 39 separate agencies of the Federal Government were allocated over $120 billion for at least 763 education programs. And the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service told us they believe there are probably several hundred more programs that they have yet to find. And what are some of the things that we are spending this educational money on today? $3 million for the Intergovernmental Climate Program. $1 billion for the Labor Department's Job Corps Training Programs. $204 million for Clinton's Americorps volunteer program that is costing us nearly $30,000 a year per volunteer. Another $42 million for Volunteers in Service in America. $71 million for the Foster Grandparent Program. $10 million for the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program--which is an oxymoron if one ever existed. $48 million for the National Center of Education Statistics. $8 million for the National Education Dissemination System. $311 million for bilingual and immigrant education. $86 million for Educational Research and Development. $1 million for the Institute of International Public Policy. $16 million for National AIDS Education and Training Centers. $180 million for Family Planning Services. $18 million for overseas schools and colleges. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Now, to be sure, there are some very worthwhile expenditures included in the totals, such as funding for our Nation's military academies, along with research grants to colleges and universities from which we derive direct benefits in many areas of our lives. But imagine what we could do to improve our children's education if we returned this fortune to our local schools. If my home State of Georgia's share is calculated on the same percentage as the formula agreed on for Medicaid funding by the Nation's 50 governors, including Georgia's Democratic Governor Zell Miller for my friends on the other side of the aisle, this comes to an astounding $3.16 billion a year in education money for Georgia. And I believe my colleagues from both parties will find the following amazing scenario would ring true for their States as well as Georgia. Bill Alred, statistical analyst for the Georgia Department of Education in Atlanta, says Georgia school systems spend a grand total of $5.3 billion on grades Pre-K through 12 in fiscal year 1994, the last year for which full statistics are available. If we kept the money at home instead of sending it to Washington, we could cover nearly 60 percent of the total cost of elementary and secondary education in Georgia. Even more astounding is the impact the Federal spending could have on our Georgia colleges and universities. Roger Mosshard, assistant vice chancellor of budgets with the Georgia State Board of Regents, says Georgia's university system took in around $2.5 billion last year from all sources, including tuition fees; payments for room and books; Federal, State, and private grants; and direct funding. If we kept the Federal spending at home, Georgia could fund its entire university system with over $500 million to spare, and I think that many of you would find the same true in your State. That would mean free college for every child who can pass the courses, not just as undergraduates, but through the doctoral level including medical and law school. And not just tuition, but dormitories and meals, rooms, books, lab fees, research, field trips, everything. And this absolutely revolutionary, quantum leap forward, could be funded with what we are already spending. Now take a long hard look at that list of where that money goes now. Comparing the options, which do you think will help our children best prepare for a global, high technology economy in the 21st century? I implore my friends on both sides of the aisle to stand up against the special interests, face the future with courage and an open mind instead of fear, and join the fight to bring our schools out of the failed ways of the past, and into a future that is limited only by our ability to see it. Mr. Speaker, it's time to make education be about our children again--instead of just about supporting bureaucracy.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, my compliments to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Kildee] for this excellent corrections day bill. Since I have no further requests for time, I will also yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, today we are considering H.R. 3049, which simply corrects a board of trustees appointment problem for the Institute of American Indian Arts. This legislation was introduced in a bipartisan manner by our colleagues Mr. Goodling and Mr. Kildee at the request of the Institute. This simple fix will help maintain the continuity of the Institute's board of trustees, and will help the Institute to continue to fulfill its mission of educating those who wish to preserve our native American arts and culture. The Institute of American Indian Arts is a federally created institution of higher education. Its primary purposes are to provide scholarly study of and instruction in Indian art and culture, and to establish programs which culminate in the awarding of degrees in the various fields of Indian art and culture. The Institute is authorized under title XV of the Higher Education Amendments of 1986, and policy for the Institute is set by a board of trustees which includes 13 voting members appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Unfortunately, the board appointment process has proven to be overly cumbersome and this has resulted in a number of board members serving additional terms, sometimes beyond the time they wished to serve, in order to insure that the board could maintain a quorum. The legislation we are considering today would simply amend section 1505 of the Higher Education Amendments of 1986 to allow the board to recommend successors for the board members whose terms are expiring and who do not wish to serve additional terms. The President would have the prerogative to act on these recommendations, or to appoint another qualified individual of his choosing subject to confirmation by the other body. However, should the President fail to act within 2 months of the expiration of the sitting member's term, and should that member not wish to serve an additional term, then the individual recommended for appointment by the Board would be automatically seated. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is bipartisan and revenue neutral. It does not limit the options of the President in making appointments to the board, but merely streamlines the appointment process for this one institute. This is a small step in our efforts to make Government more responsive and less burdensome for those it is intended to serve. But it will make a real difference for those at the Institute, who are preparing the next generation and preserving an important part of our heritage. This is commonsense legislation, and I urge its passage. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada [Mrs. Vucanovich].

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me and my colleague from Missouri, Mr. Clay, to bring to the floor a small yet important bill. H.R. 3055 corrects a situation going on here in Washington that has a big effect on five historically black colleges and universities, including two major Georgia colleges that supply health care professionals to nearly every county in my district. Because of a technicality in the Higher Education Act of 1965, both Morehouse School of Medicine and Clark-Atlanta University could stand to lose their ability to compete for Federal education grants. Under that 1965 Act, grant eligibility is limited to two 5-year grants. These schools have received their two 5-year grants. This was originally done to make sure a small number of schools didn't monopolize the few grants that were available, but over the years that situation has proven not to be an issue. At present, the other 11 schools covered by the Act have said that they have no objection to Morehouse and Clark, as well as the other three schools, continuing to compete, yet this unnecessary rule still is on the books, which means both colleges will be shut out of the process starting next year unless we act now. H.R. 3055 will correct this situation. Here's why this is so important--the five schools who will lose grant eligibility under this rule provide more than half of the entire country's African-American physicians, pharmacists, and dentists, and three-quarters of all African-American veterinarians. For the most part, these health-care professionals practice in poor urban and rural areas, where they serve a large number of poor Americans regardless of their race. It would be inexcusable to allow these colleges' ability to put qualified health-care providers in the field to be compromised because of a rule that should no longer apply. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3055 contains no new spending, and does not increase the Federal deficit. H.R. 3055 contains no new Federal mandates. But what H.R. 3055 does contain is a small measure of help for those who would provide medical help to many in rural and poor areas. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 3055. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. If the gentleman would yield, Congressman Jones, you have been hearing a lot, I know, from your constituents back home, and I have been hearing a lot from some of your constituents, too, because I practiced dentistry for 25 years, and I think they know and realize that I can understand what the problem is. Concordia is a managed care company. There are no health care providers there. They are managed care entrepreneurs, and as a Department of Defense put out bids to see who would manage the dental care for all of the Nation's retirees and so forth, Concordia bid on it. Now Delta dental plans had been running the same type of contract for something like 8 years; my understanding is all, if not most, of the dentists in Jacksonville were signed up with this particular managed care company, and it is a discounted fee, and everybody seemed to be pretty happy in that area with Delta dental plan, and I will have to tell you this thing with Concordia is not just in North Carolina, but it is nationwide. This is a $1.7 billion contract. Now that interests entrepreneurs. That is a lot of money. Yet Concordia, by most measures, would be considered a very small company, and they were interested in this contract for a couple of reasons: No. 1, if they get it, then that would put them into a position to go nationwide, and in the long run we are talking about lots and lots of money. Concordia came to the dentists in Jacksonville, NC, I think there were about 40 in a town of about 75,000 people, all of whom or most all of whom are connected with the military, either retired, one way or the other. These 40 dentists were already treating the people from LeJeune and in the area of North Carolina. They came to these guys and said, ``We won the bid. We would like for you to come work for us.'' They said, ``We have been doing this for a long time with Delta Dental. What do you have?'' Concordia said, ``We want you to sort of do the same thing, but we are going to have to cut your fees by 20 percent, 20 to 25 percent.'' The problem with that that Concordia should have known is that most dentists practice with an overhead of about 70 cents. Another way to say that, for every dollar that comes in, the dentist gets to keep 30 cents of that dollar. Then he pays 15 cents of that to the Federal Government. Concordia comes in and says, ``We are going to take 25 cents out of that dollar,'' which means there is no way they could do that. They cannot make a living, they cannot stay in practice. It particularly affects a smaller town like this, because all of their patients are wrapped up and already involved in this. Concordia put this to the dentists and the dentists, as I understand it, simply said, ``Sorry, we can't do this. We can't make a living. We can't offer any kind of quality of care. We cannot do it.'' So none of them have signed up. I do not know if Concordia underbid Delta Dental to get the contract so they could grow nationwide. I do not know what they did in terms of their bid. But they have gone to the providers of health care and said, ``We can't pay you enough for you to make a living,'' and the providers of health care in North Carolina said, ``Sorry, we can't be involved in that.'' Then comes the pressure. Your constituents are getting pressure from a big insurance company that is hired by the Department of Defense. That is how then we get involved. Mr. Speaker, it is not just the Jacksonville dentists. They are not alone in the rejection of this Concordia managed care company. The previous contractor, Delta Dental, had a provider network across the Nation of 113,000 dentists. Only 33,000 of that 113,000 agreed to sign up with Concordia. The Jacksonville dentists shared the opinion of the other 80,000 dentists across the country that will not sign up with Concordia because it is purely unacceptable. You cannot practice that way.

Mr. NORWOOD. If the gentleman will continue to yield further, Mr. Speaker, one of the questions I think we have to ask ourselves is how did Concordia wrestle away this $1.7 billion contract from a managed care plan that had been in business for the last 8 years? Did they bid less? Did they bid so low that they cannot pay the providers enough to sign up, so they can at least make a living? I am not sure. We need to understand these problems. Concordia assures us that patients are satisfied with their program. That is what they said at the hearings. Health affairs has no formal plan for determining patient satisfaction or assessing contractor compliance. That is very, very important. who is going to oversee this? The only method being used at this point is to perform periodic spot checks using the participating provider list, using trend analysis, or to evaluate complaints by beneficiaries. I want to remind Members, this is a $1.7 billion contract. I will tell the Members something I do not understand at all. Prior to having TriCare, the health care of our military, the dental care of our military was left up to the commanders at local military hospitals. Why does Health Affairs not allow local dental commanders and regional dental service support area commanders to have oversight authority over Concordia? I do not understand that. Once CHAMPUS selects a contractor, Mr. Speaker, the contractor is responsible only to CHAMPUS and DOD Health Affairs. Currently dental commanders do not have the official oversight authority over Concordia. That is not true in the medical side of the house, where the medical commanders, they are called lead agents, they have oversight authority over TriCare contractors, and they are responsible for ensuring that the contractor is complying with the terms of the contract. Who is responsible here to be sure that your constituents in Jacksonville, NC, have a good deal?

Mr. NORWOOD. No. And, more importantly, maybe I do not believe it has been, but neither has GAO or the Congressional Budget Office. I talked about that when we first started. In their hearings before us, they had made more than a few comments about the fact that they were not sure we had this together enough yet, and what we are doing is we are making sure now, because we have rushed into this and perhaps did not take the best contract. We have got our military retirees, our active duty dependents that do not have access to care. Their care is going up. I cannot speak to the quality, but one has got to question it when you start reducing the dollars in it. We have got these, and then we have got other citizens, small business people who have a small office. They are being attacked by this giant insurance company saying, You better come to work for me because I put out a $1.7 billion bid and I can't fix teeth. I've got to have dentists to do that. You guys come to work for me, or we're going to spread your name around town as being unselfish or unwilling to cooperate. That is hard to take for a small business, and that is what a little dental office is. They are being picked on by this giant conglomerate of insurance companies, where they are trying to force them to come to work and not be able to make a living. Then they have done worse than that. We will get into that in just a minute, too.

Mr. NORWOOD. That is right.

Mr. NORWOOD. Some of your constituents who are dentists have been writing me and I am going to take just a minute, Mr. Jones. I want to read two paragraphs, but it says so much. This is a 10-page letter that lays out lots of the problems. Just two paragraphs. He says: You may correctly assume that I have much better things to do with my time than to argue with and complain about a government contractor that is not performing as specified. My full attention should be given to my patients and their families, my staff, my practice and my family and friends. The amount of effort I have given to this issue never should have been necessary but I will do whatever it takes to protect my patients and my practice and to make sure everyone gets a fair deal. I do not believe that the United States government is getting what it contracted for, optimum dental health for military families through a fee-for-service dental plan. Indications are that we are entering into an ordeal with Concordia where only Concordia is benefitting. I will jump off the letter for a minute to remind you that they are going to get their 25 percent of that $1.7 billion. I bet it works for the company. He goes on to say: Because of situations like this, those of us in the trenches work ourselves to the bone and then have to scramble to meet our overhead. Consider the fact that some of my regular monthly expenses are around, say, $50,000 for payroll, without the provider, close to $19,000 for mortgages of office, $5,000 for utilities, $12,000 for dental and office supplies, and because of a massive need of supplies, I have not taken a salary since last September. I have virtually exhausted my savings and may shortly be forced to sell or borrow against assets. Surely this was not the intent of the Department of Defense. I know this is also happening to numerous other colleagues in the Jacksonville area.

Mr. NORWOOD. Delta Dental had 113,000 dentists in their network nationwide. Concordia has said, ``Well, we can do it with 40,000.'' That means less access. They have only been able to sign up 33,000. Eighty thousand not willing to sign up and work for nothing. I want to present to the Speaker some corrections that I think that DOD Health Affairs really has to bring out and deal with, because this is just the beginning. They have not even awarded the contracts all across the country yet. This is just the beginning. So if I could, Mr. Jones, I would like to list a few things for the record because we are going to bring it back to them in other ways as time goes on. First of all, DOD must establish a full-time oversight board to monitor complaints of the Concordia contract, which are numerous. They must authorize local dental commanders and regional dental service support area commanders. That means the colonels and the majors and the captains and so forth that are working in the different armed services clinics around the world, we need to let them exercise some oversight over this Concordia program. In the same manner, by the way, as the TriCare lead agents and medical facility treatment commanders have over TriCare contractors. Third, we need to establish a methodology for measuring the effectiveness of the Concordia program to provide access, choice, and quality of care, not just how much cheaper is it. Establish an effective means to receive comprehensive input from beneficiaries on patient satisfaction. In other words, how do the patients feel about this. That is who this is all about and that is who this is for. We need to issue a, quote, cure notice to Concordia, require correction of contractual deficiencies within a specified time. And after an appropriate transition period, give them some time to get it right, if Concordia does not live up to its contractual agreements, Health Affairs should issue a cancellation by default order and allow another more capable contractor to assume the program. Those are things we are going to have to deal with if, No. 1, we are going to deal with the patients and your constituents, and, No. 2, the providers of health care.

Mr. NORWOOD. If the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] would yield further, as we are headed toward conclusion, I want to point out another thing that has happened in this contract that drives me crazy. It is one of the reasons why the American people lose faith in their Government. It is one of the things that I think make people dislike a strong Federal Government. We have talked about this great big insurance company spreading bad information around this small community of 70,000 people about the providers because the providers won't come to work for them for nothing. Then we are talking about this large company that then says to the providers, the dental care providers, ``Well, if you don't come to work for us, we're going to close you, we're going to build this big office in town and import people from out of town to take care of it.'' But the icing on the cake to me is now Concordia, this big insurance company, has called in the Federal Government, has called in the Federal Trade Commission, and it said, ``Come get 'em, they're bad guys, they've actually been talking about what this costs.'' Now, it is perfectly legal for Concordia to set the price of the cost of dental care across the Nation. But if two dentists in Jacksonville, NC, sit down to talk about what this does to their practice and how it affects them, we get the Federal Trade Commission lawyers running in at the behest of Concordia. All they got to do is make an allegation. It does not--you are guilty. If they make an allegation to the Federal Trade Commission, you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. What does that do to people? Well, it is like the IRS running in. The first thing you know is no matter who wins, I lose. There is no way to win that, because you get involved in a lawsuit to defend yourself against the Federal Trade Commission. What does it do? It costs you a ton of money to defend yourself. It costs time. You spend hours and hours and hours answering all the questions that you must answer because the Federal Trade Commission has come rushing in. No matter there is no point to it. If they are called, they are glad to run in. I presume that maybe they do not have anything else to do, but they are going to go down there and they are going to pick on these guys in Jacksonville, NC. And this is a managed care company using the Federal Government as a big club to make people, small family businesses, come to work for them at absolutely no way to make a living. I do not know what we should do about this, but I have been involved in this thing once before in my life. Some years ago when I was President of the Georgia Dental Association, the dentists of Pennsylvania told Blue Cross and Blue Shield, no, thanks, we are not coming to work for you because you will not pay us enough. By the way, that is the parent company of Concordia. Now, this happened. I was involved in this. They said we are not coming to work for you because you will not pay us enough to make a living. So what do the Blues do? They run straight down here to Washington, get the Federal Trade Commission in on it. The Federal Trade Commission, the entire Pennsylvania Dental Association. By the way, all of the North Carolina Dental Association is being sued now by the Federal Trade Commission. This goes on for months and months and months. We raised money around the country to help this one little dental association defend itself against the Federal Trade Commission. They got all through and found nothing was wrong, and it cost $2 million. These are not rich people that you can just go throw around $2 million. This is not Ford Motor Co. These are small family businesses, very small businesses, and we cannot continue to allow the Federal Government to be used as a club to beat on your folks in your district.

Mr. NORWOOD. If the gentleman would yield, I will conclude by saying this, Mr. Jones: I think the people in your district are very fortunate to have you up here. In many cases there is no other advocate for those people. You have military retirees, you have dependents of active duty military people, who are not winning under this program. In fact, they are losing. You are up here defending them. Who else will? I mean, we do not have any oversight from the DOD. I am glad you are. We have your constituents who provide dental care in your district, my colleagues. You know, who is going to help them? They have got a large manage care company coming after them with all the resources in the world. Now they have the Federal Government coming after them through the Federal Trade Commission. Who is going to be on their side in this? Well, they are your constituents, but they are my colleagues, and I am not going to ever let this go until we give them some protection down there from that big heavy arm of the Federal Government.

Mr. NORWOOD. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is totally right. When we do not pay enough to let people make a living, then we may be assured access will be affected, and so will quality of care. Those are the three things that the Department of Defense says it is interested in. I hope that they have not gone out and accepted a bid just based on who is cheapest. There is more to it than that. They say so, too. They say access of care is very important, and they say quality of care is very important, but they want it for less money, and the problem in this particular area is they want it for so much less people cannot make a living, so nobody will join the program. Therefore, there are no providers. Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the gentleman from North Carolina, we are talking about a $1.7 billion, with a B, billion, contract to provide dental care to military families. With this contract in billions of taxpayers' dollars, Concordia, which is a small, regional, managed care company, is going to transform itself into a major national player in the emerging dental care managed care industry. The potential for rapid corporate growth and huge future profits for Concordia is staggering. The question remains: What will the American taxpayer and our military beneficiaries receive in exchange for a very lucrative contract?

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, we have been assured that everything is wonderful, that everybody is doing exactly what they need to do, that patients will have all the access to care that they possibly want, and that there are really no problems. You know, I want to just point out a little small inconsistency in that. DOD says that the Concordia dental network is adequate, meaning there are enough dentists to provide the care that the patients need. Since the size of this network determines access, which you mentioned and I mentioned, which is so important, that beneficiaries have to dental care, how did the DOD determine what constituted an adequate network? The previous dental provider was Delta Dental. When they were first granted the contract from DOD, CHAMPUS determined that their existing national network, they had 90,000 dentists, and CHAMPUS said, ``That is too small.'' They required Delta Dental to go out and hire more people to work. Concordia stated that their goal for an adequate network was only 40,000 dentists. To date, they have really been able to only sign up 33,000 from the Delta Dental network plan of 113,000. Yet, Concordia claims, ``That is small enough to take care of all the patients.'' I am saying that somebody needs to oversee Concordia.

Mr. NORWOOD. I thank my friend from North Carolina, and I am honored to share this time with you. Mr. Speaker, we are grateful for the opportunity to bring to you a very complex subject, and I hope that we can bring this down to a point where the people understand what we are talking about in terms of a national problem and by bringing it to you on a very local level. Now, I want to say up front I have the highest praise for the Department of Defense medical care system. In my district, the Eisenhower Army Medical Center is an outstanding example of how the Department of Defense provides the highest quality medical care to its military beneficiaries. However, with the military drawdown, this has forced many of our military families and our retirees out of the military hospitals and clinics. Under the new DOD medical management care system, now called TriCare that you referred to earlier, many of these beneficiaries are treated by civilian medical and dental care providers through the use of managed care contractors. Now, the intent, I believe, of the Department of Defense is to use these contracts to be sure that our military retirees and our active- duty dependents have access to care, and quality of care, but at the same time manage the health care costs; in other words, try to bring that cost down. Now, if this is done well and properly, I believe these managed care contracts can successfully augment the outstanding care that is now being provided in our military hospitals and dental clinics all over the country; in fact, the world. But if this is done poorly, the effects on the military beneficiaries could be devastating, and I think we are going to see some of that as we go through this today. These medical and dental contracts are worth billions of dollars to civilian managed health care companies. The financial advantage to these companies in securing a DOD contract is clearly very obvious, and we must insure that the value of the services that they provide is equally as obvious to our military beneficiaries as well as to the American taxpayers, and at this time the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office are not convinced that the TriCare program can do what it is supposed to do in its current form. Serious, serious questions have been raised in congressional hearings about questionable procurement procedures, uncertain budgetary projection, unresolved compliance violations by contractors. Last August, just last August, the GAO stated that the members of the DOD source selection evaluation board, and I will quote, ``have little or no experience with private sector managed care plans and thus have difficulty distinguishing among offenders who can perform effectively in the private sector and those who are less effective insuring quality care and controlling costs.'' Now, that is what the GAO said. At a congressional hearing last month that Congressman Jones and I were both able to attend, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for health affairs was unable to list any substantial improvements in the way medical and dental managed care contracts are procured since that last GAO report. The GAO revealed unresolved concerns about the abilities of DOD to evaluate the effectiveness of TriCare programs and to measure the performance of the TriCare contractors. Now, this is going to be very important, I say to the gentleman, Congressman Jones, as we get into our story here to show how this is actually happening. An earlier Congressional Budget Office estimate suggested that TriCare will increase DOD's cost of health care delivery, says it will increase the cost of health care delivery despite the statutory requirement that TriCare not raise Government costs. In addition, CBO projects that DOD will not be able to meet its congressional mandate of offering beneficiaries a more uniform and stable benefit nationwide. Now, we are going to lead into all that when we talk about one little tiny town in this country. Despite these findings, an article in the December 27, 1995, Washington Post noted that the Foundation Health Corp., which is a TriCare contractor that manages 5 of the 12 TriCare regions now, pays its chairman and CEO an annual salary of $6.1 million. This is the highest paid or compensated health care executive in the United States. Within a few days of this, after last month's TriCare hearing, articles appeared in each of the Army, Navy, and Air Force Times which described access problems with the new contractor of the TriCare family member dental plan. Now, that is about to get into where we are going. This program provides comprehensive dental benefits to dependents of active-duty personnel and has historically been one of the Defense Department's most popular and successful health care programs. The problems reported in these articles certainly raise questions about whether DOD's confidence in the process it claims to have made in the area of procurement reforms is truly justified. These reports strongly suggest that the very problems GAO found with TriCare medical procurements may now extend as well to the dental contracts. Now, we want to try to discuss this afternoon a case where our fears about TriCare are real, happening to real Americans, and I am talking about a TriCare dental contract in Mr. Jones' district where patients, meaning military dependents and retirees as well as the dental providers, are living a pure nightmare. I would ask my colleagues if he wishes to tell us a little bit about what is happening in Jacksonville, NC.

Mr. NORWOOD

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Health Care Coverage Availability and Affordability Act. In this time of economic insecurity and increasing pressure on America's working-class families, this bill is a common sense approach to health care access that also makes health care more affordable. In 1993, the Clinton administration and the liberals in Congress lined up behind the big government socialized medicine plan. This plan was an utter failure, not because the American people did not want security in their health coverage but because it was the wrong approach, though our Committee on Commerce in the 103d Congress had the right approach with the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Bilirakis] and Dr. Rowland of Georgia. H.R. 3103 takes the right approach in dealing with their anxiety, ensuring that people who change or lose their jobs will have access to health care, regardless of preexisting conditions. This is important and deals with the same issues as the Kassebaum bill. However, while this is a good starting point, it just does not go far enough. Providing portability is important but on its own, it fails to deal with the forces that drive health care costs higher. Mr. Speaker, it is nonsense to tell the American people that we will increase their access to health care without making health care more affordable. If we do nothing to bring down the cost of health care, we have the same old problem. We will be told that some provisions were included in this bill to kill health care reform. That is bull. Increasing access and reducing health care costs are two sides of the same coin. This bill attempts to remove the influence of the trial lawyers in medicine by reforming the medical liability system. It gives young people, a large portion of whom do not have coverage, more health care choices. We must pass H.R. 3103.