Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), who is the ranking member of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this bill is an important and positive step towards expanding and improving mental health care services in this country, but it is only a first step. If we are serious about strengthening our national mental health care system, we must expand access and dedicate more resources. Comprehensive legislation should include dedicating robust resources to ensure access to community-based prevention, treatment, and recovery services in every community across the country. It must provide additional tools to strengthen mental health parity enforcement. Democrats will stay focused on continuing to expand and improve the continuum care for mental health care services. That said, I do want my colleagues, and I urge my colleagues, to support this bipartisan legislation, and let us also work together to get the Senate to pass their bipartisan bill, and they need to go to conference or somehow get a bill that would pass both Houses and get to the President. I do pledge to my colleagues on the Republican side that we need to do that between now and the end of year. I wanted to take a moment to thank the Democratic committee staff who worked so hard on this bill--most of them are on the floor--Tiffany Guarascio, Waverly Gordon to my right, Rachel Pryor, Arielle Woronoff, Una Lee, and, finally, our fellow, Kyle Fischer. Again, I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time until we get to closing remarks.

Mr. PALLONE. I continue to reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Does the gentleman have a number of additional speakers?

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, could I inquire again about the time remaining on each side, and ask whether Mr. Murphy, how many additional speakers he has?

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), the chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson), the Democratic sponsor of the bill.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green), the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in support of H.R. 2646, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. Today's mental health system can hardly be described as a system at all. While some States are undertaking promising improvements, the system is fragmented, overwhelmed, and underresourced. Far too many people with mental illnesses can't get the treatment they need to live long, healthy, and productive lives, so I am pleased that this bill takes an important step toward improving mental health care in this country. The bill under consideration today, Mr. Speaker, is a significant improvement over the original version introduced a year ago. It is no secret that many of us had substantial concerns with some of the provisions in the original text of the bill, and I am sure that my fellow Members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce remember the extensive debate we had on this bill during our subcommittee markup last November. Since that time, we have found common ground. We removed many provisions that would have done more harm than good, in my opinion, and replaced them with policies that strengthen the bill. I am proud that H.R. 2646 now includes several policies championed by Democrats. The bill requires that States provide the full range of early and periodic screening, diagnostic, and treatment--EPSDT--services to children in the Medicaid program who receive inpatient psychiatric care at so-called institutions of mental disease. It creates a new assertive community treatment grant program and a peer professional workforce grant program. The legislation also creates new grant programs to address adult suicide, expands access to community crisis response services, and creates and disseminates model HIPAA training programs. A great deal of work went into crafting this agreement, and I want to thank my Republican colleagues for continuing to meet with us throughout this process so that we could bring a bipartisan product to the floor. That said, the bill before us today is not transformative reform nor is it a panacea to the many problems now facing our mental health system. I encourage my colleagues to see this legislation as a necessary step rather than a solution, and I want to be very clear on this point. If we are truly serious about fixing our broken mental health system, we have to expand access and make sustained investment, and that means we must work to encourage all States to expand Medicaid and provide more Federal resources to support the growth of community- based prevention, treatment, and recovery services. This legislation is not comprehensive. It by no means contains enough funding to make the mental health system whole. I hope that, in the near future, we can work together again on additional legislation to increase treatment options and further strengthen mental health parity enforcement. I once again want to thank my colleagues who stood with me throughout this long process, fiercely voicing their concerns and advocating for major improvements to the bill. I want to thank Chairman Upton for his leadership, and the bill's sponsors, Representatives Tim Murphy and Eddie Bernice Johnson, for championing this issue for so many years. I urge my colleagues to support this important bipartisan bill, and I look forward to the Senate's action on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I cannot support a delay in the expansion of the competitive bidding program. Competitive bidding for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies (DMEPOS) has saved the Medicare program billions of dollars. And lowering costs for the Medicare program means lower copayments for Medicare beneficiaries. Over the years, it has been widely documented by the HHS Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office that Medicare payments for DMEPOS far exceeded reasonable costs. This is why Congress passed legislation requiring competitive bidding for DMEPOS incrementally. Since 2011, CMS has closely monitored all beneficiaries in the competitive bidding areas, and there have been no access concerns. Health outcomes are steady compared to before Medicare began the competitive bidding program. CMS will continue to monitor health outcomes, and until we see any concerns, I do not believe we should stop the progress in saving money for both beneficiaries and the Medicare program. That said, the Medicaid policies in this legislation were passed by the House in March of this year, 406-0, after consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The first policy, the Medicaid DOC Act, is an initiative first introduced by Reps. Collins and Tonko and would require states that participate in fee-for-service Medicaid to publish electronic provider directories. It's important for patients to know what providers participate in the Medicaid program. States are required to provide electronic directories in managed care, but the same requirement does not exist across the full Medicaid program. The Committee worked throughout the legislative process to streamline this policy with current federal provider directory regulations in Medicaid managed care. The legislation details the minimum items that must be included in a provider directory, but also allows states to go beyond these standards. The second policy is an initiative first introduced by Reps. Bucshon, Welch, and Butterfield and would provide CMS with critical tools to keep patients safe, protect taxpayer dollars, and protect the integrity of the Medicaid program. The ACA included a provision that prohibited disqualified providers from Medicare or one state Medicaid program from simply crossing state lines and receiving payments in another state Medicaid program. Unfortunately, as drafted, the law has been hard to implement, because states don't have a consistent or standardized way of knowing when a specific provider has been terminated by Medicare or another state. States are not currently required to report this information, and if it is reported, it is in many differing formats, limiting the data's usability. This provision would require all states to report information on fraudulent providers to the Secretary for inclusion in a currently existing termination database that is accessible to all states. The legislation also requires the Secretary to develop uniform criteria for states to use when submitting information. I supported both of these commonsense policies in the past, and I continue to support them today.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

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

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to address some of the points that the gentleman from Georgia made. First of all, 85 percent of the program goes toward wireless service; mobile phones. So when the gentleman says that we are eliminating wireless and that it doesn't matter because we will go back to land lines, that is just simply not the case. That is what the gentlewoman from California just explained. I am concerned that what I am really hearing from the gentleman from Georgia is the notion that somehow, if there are more than two lines at a given address, it is fraud. I just want to eliminate that notion because I think that criticism misses the point. There is an exception in the Lifeline program that can permit more than one line per household. This exception is a critical feature that allows people without a long-term home address to take advantage of the program. These are the very people Lifeline was designed to help. The system allows those living in a homeless shelter, without a stable address, to have access to a phone. It even allows veterans in a group home to access the Internet. So it is not fraud to allow these people access to phones because they happen to have the same address. While this particular feature of the program may not be the cause of harm that has been alleged, Democrats are serious about eliminating the waste, fraud, and abuse from the Lifeline program. We stand ready to work with Republicans to make the program better. When we had a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the points we were making was, just cutting the program doesn't eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. You understand, this bill simply says we are going to cut the funds. It doesn't say how that is going to eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse. I will tell you there never was a markup. It just came to the floor. We did have a hearing. There was no markup. So this is not regular order. But the bottom line is, we said over and over again, as Democrats: work with us to eliminate the fraud and abuse. The Obama administration has always done that. This doesn't do that. This just cuts the program and goes back to what my two colleagues from California were saying: you now have all these people who are poor and working people, who don't have enough money to pay for these phones. They just don't have the phone anymore, and so they don't have access to a mobile phone in order to make those critical calls for some of the purposes that were mentioned. As I said, during the Obama administration, the FCC has already reduced expenditures by nearly a billion dollars. In fact, the FCC recently took additional substantial steps to prevent potential abuses of the program. The FCC very recently created an independent, third- party National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier. So there is a singular, disinterested referee making Lifeline eligibility decisions. So an effort is being made--a serious effort--that has already saved a lot of money to try to improve this program. But, again, the bill before us does nothing to target waste, fraud, or abuse. It just cuts off truly deserving low-income Americans from a program that can help them improve their lives. So for that reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill. In closing, I don't want to keep repeating the same thing, but I think it is pretty clear where I and my colleagues on this side of the aisle stand. This bill would cut off millions of low-income persons from having wireless service and access to the Internet. If enacted, it would prohibit commercial wireless providers from receiving money from the Universal Service Fund Lifeline program, and that program subsidizes phones for low-income Americans. Without this program, millions of Americans will be left stranded, without any phones. The bill is being brought to the floor under suspension of the rules, even though no committee has actually held a markup on the bill. I urge Members to vote ``no,'' to protect low-income Americans' Lifeline wireless phone service. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5525. A few weeks ago when Speaker Ryan presented his anti-poverty plan, many of us were skeptical and argued that his proposals would not actually help the poor. The Ryan plan was simply a rebranding of failed policies that congressional Republicans have been pushing for years. Unfortunately, we are quickly finding out that our fears were justified, Mr. Speaker. Today, Speaker Ryan and the Republican majority are bringing a bill to the floor that would eliminate the successful Lifeline program that provides millions of low-income Americans access to basic communication services. It would leave people with no way to search for job postings, no way to schedule interviews, and no way to get a call back from a potential employer. This goes far beyond jobs, Mr. Speaker. Cell phones are a necessity in modern, everyday life. Low-income Americans rely more heavily on mobile phones and mobile Internet service than the overall population. Children from low-income homes use Lifeline to help do their homework. Seniors use it to manage their health care and call their family and loved ones. Victims of domestic violence use it to find the help and support they need, and victims of assaults use their Lifeline phones to call 911 in an emergency, which makes me question how exactly this bill fits into Speaker Ryan's anti-poverty agenda. The legislation is so extreme when you consider that congressional Republicans are looking to gut a Lifeline program created in the Reagan administration and expanded to include wireless service in the Bush administration. At least 9.8 million Americans depend on the Lifeline program to stay connected using mobile phones, and this bill would leave these people stranded. Some claim that the program is fraught with government waste. I heard that from the gentleman from Georgia. But these claims ignore the fact that the Obama administration has eliminated nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse. This bill will do absolutely nothing to help taxpayers. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that this bill would essentially create a $1.2 billion tax. Specifically, the bill directs the FCC to continue collecting funds from the American people that had been used for the Lifeline program, but not pay any benefits out. Rather than cut taxes, this bill essentially creates a new one. When it comes down to it, congressional Republicans already know there are significant problems with this bill. They don't want it to pass. That is the only way to explain why they came up with this cynical procedural move to ignore regular order and set up the bill to fail. They are bringing it up under a suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority. They think that the American people will not hold them accountable for their bad policies if they let Democrats kill the bill. Worse, this maneuver comes from a committee that normally obsesses with process for the agencies in our jurisdiction. It seems those concerns apply only to others. Well, I think more highly of our constituents. I think they see through these kinds of ploys. The American people know that if Republicans are really serious about battling poverty and shrinking the size of Lifeline, they would work with us to create more jobs for those who are unemployed or underemployed. The best way to lower the costs of the Lifeline program is to lift people up and not to take away their connection to a better life. We should not be spending our time on bills like this. We could be looking at ways to take guns from terrorists instead of taking phones from Americans who are looking for jobs. We could be working together to increase the minimum wage and repair our crumbling infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, this bill abandons our most vulnerable, and I urge all of my colleagues to oppose it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize the continued struggle for LGBT equality as we celebrate National LGBT Pride Month this month. I am, and will continue to be, an ally of the LGBT community in its fight for a more equal and just future. LGBT rights are human rights and our diversity of identities and experiences makes us a stronger and more dynamic nation. I remember just 20 years ago standing in the House chamber voicing my strong opposition to and voting against the Defense of Marriage Act. A lot has changed since that vote, and marriage equality is now the law of the land. Despite that progress, LGBT individuals are still marginalized and discriminated against every day. And so our fight for equality continues. A couple weeks ago, I visited Highland Park, in my district, the 6th District of New Jersey, where the Board of Education unanimously voted for a policy ensuring transgender rights. The new policy--one of the strongest and most inclusive policies in the country--protects transgender students' privacy and allows all students to access school bathrooms, locker rooms, and programs based on their affirmed gender. I am proud to represent such an inclusive and accepting community. So as we in Congress work to pass critical legislation--such as the Equality Act, which would include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in much of our civil rights legislation-- to promote a more equal society, I will continue to recognize the voices and people in the towns and cities I represent, who fight hard every day to build more open and accepting neighborhoods and communities. I stand with the LGBT community in New Jersey--and across the country--in celebrating diversity and equality and in reaffirming the commitment to secure a future free of irrational fear, prejudice, and discrimination.