Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for that speech. There he is so much on point. I do not think we can add anything. I thank the gentleman for coming and joining us. It really makes the point about the need for public education. I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman. I know that one of the biggest concerns with regard to guns now is guns in the schools, so it relates back to our concern about keeping the schools safe, as well. There are many things that the Republican leadership has failed to address. I think the gentleman brings up one of them. The main thing that I think we are trying to say tonight, and maybe I can conclude with this, is that even though there are only a few days, perhaps, left in this Congress, there is enough time to provide funding for the school modernization, and also for the 100,000 teachers to reduce class size. The effect of that is to basically create schools that are better, more disciplined, with a safer environment, a smarter environment. We are just saying, as Democrats, that we do not want to go home until this is addressed. No one can tell us that there is not the opportunity, because as the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) said, the Republican leadership could pass this legislation and get this budget and appropriation bill signed into law with the money for the school modernization program, with the funds for the 100,000 extra teachers. They cannot tell us that there is not time left to do that. If that is all we accomplish in the next few days, we will have accomplished a great deal. Even though we have had this 2 years of a do-nothing failed Congress, at least we have something that we can go back to our constituents and say, look, we accomplished this. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) said, it really is our future that we care about. Everyone here tonight is expressing the concern for children and for kids and for the future of this country, and the equal opportunity that we so cherish. I just want to thank everyone again for being here this evening.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman. He is here almost every night relaying a message, and it is often on education. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend the hour this evening with some of my Democratic colleagues basically reiterating what we have been saying the last few days or the last few weeks; and that is that, because of the Republican leadership's inattention, if you will, to the budget and to the needs of the American people, and because of their unwillingness to reach out and deal with some of the most pressing issues that the public is really crying out for this Congress to address, we are now faced here with another day and another continuing resolution because there is no budget because the Republican leadership has not passed a budget and is basically trying to get out of town, have this Congress adjourn, without addressing some of the major concerns that we as Democrats feel should have been addressed and still could be addressed if the Republican leadership would only take them up. I just mention a few like HMO reform, education initiatives, the need to address concerns about Social Security. I just wanted to point out that, due to excessive partisanship, we have seen the Republican leadership waste time on a very extremist agenda in this Congress and not deal with the issues that really should be dealt with. I just wanted to mention two tonight before I introduce and yield time to some of my colleagues. One is this raid on the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for tax breaks, if you will, primarily for the wealthy, and the second is school vouchers. What we saw just a few weeks ago was really the most alarming of the extremist proposals passed by the Republican Congress, and that was H.R. 4579, the GOP tax break bill. This raided the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for an $80 billion election year tax break. The House Republicans passed their tax, their tax cut bill on September 26 by a vote of 229 to 195, and they said they were using the surplus for tax cuts. But what the Republicans failed to point out was that, without the Social Security Trust Fund, there was no surplus. Indeed, 98 percent of the surplus from fiscal year 1999 through fiscal year 2008 comes from the surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund. That is virtually all the surplus reflects, anticipated buildup in the Social Security Trust Fund to pay future Social Security benefits. To spend this Social Security surplus on tax cuts is to endanger the future benefits of Social Security recipients, our senior citizens and future senior citizens. Democrats have proposed saving Social Security first, preserving every penny of the surplus until the Social Security Trust Fund is strengthened through the 21st Century. But the Republicans did not want to deal with that. They did not want to deal with Social Security. They did not care about Social Security. They just wanted to get some quick tax breaks, again primarily for the wealthy. The second thing I wanted to mention tonight, and I know that most of my colleagues are going to talk about, the Democrats education initiative, the school modernization program, the proposal to add 100,000 teachers to bring class size down. These are really the two issues that we insist must be addressed before this Congress adjourns. But what I wanted to point out very briefly is that, not only did the Republican leadership not address these important education initiatives, but they spent a tremendous amount of time this last year trying to take away money from public schools and give it to private schools in the form of vouchers. I consider this one of the most extreme parts of the GOP agenda, this anti-public education agenda they have been pursuing over the last 2 years. Even the conservative Washington Times acknowledges, and I just want to quote, ``that the ground breaking school voucher provision is the first step in a larger Republican effort to shift Federal aid away from public schools while making it easier for parents to send their children to private schools. School vouchers use scarce taxpayer dollars to subsidize attendance of private and religious schools rather than improving the public schools.'' I am going to use a quote from one of my colleagues, a Republican, the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) because some of the Republicans on the other side share the Democratic view on this, although the leadership was clearly against us. The gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) said, and I quote, ``ultimately these school vouchers will result in gutting the public school system. Because vouchers will be sending more and more of our scarce financial resources out of the public system and into the private system.'' Mr. Speaker, this is just the beginning of what the far right wants to do to destroy public education. They wanted to eliminate the Department of Education, and they want to take money from the public schools and give it to the private schools. Just an example of a couple of expressions that have been made by some of the far right proponents, if you will, who are advocates of this. This is a quote from Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian coalition. He says, ``the public education movement has always been an antiChristian movement.'' Can you imagine suggesting that somehow public schools are antiChristian? Another quote from Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and I quote, ``I hope to live to see the day when we will not have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again, and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be.'' Now I do not mean to take away from people who want to send they're children to religious schools. I think it is great. I have no problem with it whatsoever. But do not make the public school system somehow the devil, if you will, in something that should be destroyed. That is what I am fearful is happening here. So I wanted to point out tonight that it is not just a question of the fact that the Republican leadership will not take up our education initiatives but that they have an entirely different agenda. They basically want to destroy the public school system. I do not think there is anything less than that they have in mind. That is not true of all of my colleagues on the other side, but I think true of those who are in charge. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), who has been so supportive of this effort with regard to the Democrats education initiatives.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 1754, the Health Professions Education Act. This legislation provides badly needed resources to a range of health professional educators and I am very pleased that the concerns voiced by every Democrat on the Commerce Committee's Health and Environment Subcommittee were addressed. The Health Professions Education Partnerships Act has three main objectives. The first is to assure that health professions are generating primary care providers. The second is to ensure there is diversity in the health professions workforce. And the third is to provide adequate services to medically under-served areas. All of these are extremely important objectives for very obvious reasons, and I would urge all of my colleagues to support this bill so it can be sent to the president as soon as possible for his signature. It is important to patients and health educators all across this country and my home state, including the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which has facilities in my district. Importantly, as I mentioned earlier, the bill before us today addresses the concerns that every Democratic member of the Health and Environment Subcommittee had with the version of this legislation passed by the other body. That version expanded the definition of Advance Practice Nurses in a manner that could have jeopardized the resources available to train nurse practitioners who provide primary care. It also would have discounted the importance of the extensive education and training that nurse practitioners receive in preparation for their careers, a step I believe would have been unfair and ill- advised. Democrats on the Health and Environment Subcommittee communicated their concerns to Chairman Bilirakis about the definition in the Senate passed version of the bill. Accordingly, the version we are considering today changed the language of the bill to include an appropriate definition of Advanced Nurse Practitioners, and I commend the Chairman for working with us to change the language. I would also like to commend the Chairman for working with us to address our concerns about the new manner in which funding will be distributed to the various health professions programs, an issue we also raised in our letter. The other body's version of this bill block granted funding for health professions education programs. The proposed block granting gave rise to the same concern we had with the definition of Advance Nurse Practitioners--namely, that the change might lead to a lack of resources for the training of primary care practitioners. To the Chairman's credit, the bill before us today includes a transition rule, which allows for a change from line items to a data driven methodology for health resources that matches the needs of the workforce. Importantly, the bill includes a ``hold harmless'' provision for Advance Nurse Practitioners. This ``hold harmless'' will ensure adequate resources will be available for training primary care nurses in the years to come, and I appreciate the Chairman's willingness to work with us to get this in the bill. Again, this is a very important piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker. It is widely supported by Members of Congress in both chambers, and by the health professions groups who fall under its jurisdiction. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that even though it is the 11th hour in these budget negotiations, the Republican leadership has still not agreed to the Democrat school modernization program. Let me say how important that program is. In almost every school district around this country there is a need for modernization of schools, whether that means rewiring for computers or it means having to build a school addition or just repairing a roof. And we know that many of the school districts around the country simply do not have the money or they cannot get bond, they cannot bond at a good interest rate to be able to do those kind of modernization programs. Why are the Republicans insisting that this not be included in the final budget agreement? We have been here now for almost 2 years and they still insist that this education initiative is not necessary. Let me tell my colleagues, it is necessary. Democrats will stay here as long as it takes to make sure that this is included in the budget before we go home, because we know that it is needed. Education is the future of this country, and kids are not going to be able to learn how to read or function properly if the school buildings are not up to snuff.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the Special Order time of the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, once again today the House was forced to pass a continuing resolution because of the fact that the Republican leadership has not gotten the job done this year in terms of the budget and a number of other issues that we as Democrats feel should be raised or should have been raised, certainly, over the last 2 years, and should have had full debate, but certainly should be addressed in some fashion before we adjourn. Most important on that list is the education initiative. This is the initiative that President Clinton announced in his State of the Union address last year when he talked about the need on the local level to provide money for school modernization. The fact of the matter is that across this country there are schools, and in fact, almost every school district has the need to upgrade their school buildings, either because they have to build additional buildings, or because of upgrades necessary just for simple things like computers or new high technology that require new wiring in the school building. Every school district around the country could benefit in some way from the initiative that President Clinton announced whereby tax credits, in essence, will be given to the local school districts so they would find it easier to bond to upgrade and modernize their schools. In addition to that, the President's initiative to hire 100,000 additional teachers in order to reduce class size in the formative years from grades 1 through 3 is another initiative that the Republicans, the Republican leadership, has ignored, has refused to bring to the floor of the House, has really refused to even consider in committee, at hearings, or at markups. We know, in fact a number of research studies have come out, important ones over the last year, that have indicated very strongly that if we take children at a young age, even younger than grade one, even in preschool, and give them a lot of attention, and manage to have teachers devote the time, if you will, on a regular basis through diminished class sizes, that the result will bear fruit; that we will have smarter children and we will also have a safer atmosphere, because with a smaller class size it is a lot easier, I would say, to manage the children and manage the school. What we are doing here is trying to, in many ways, model this program to reduce class size and hire 100,000 additional teachers very much on the President's COPS grant program that was passed a few years ago, and that has resulted in many additional policemen being hired in communities around the country, and has actually brought the crime rate down in most of these jurisdictions. All we are really saying, Mr. Speaker, is that the time has come now, and I know that I do not have to keep repeating over and over again that the Republican leadership basically wasted a lot of time this year refusing to address education, refusing to address HMO reform, refusing to address the need to deal with social security, because we know that the money is not all going to be there in a few years unless we do something. So we are not going to be able to address all of these issues in the last few days, but at least let us take the opportunity to do something to invest in education, because when I go back to my district, and I was there over the weekend again, back in New Jersey, a lot of the people, a lot of the constituents that I speak to, and certainly educators, say to me that if we do not start a Federal partnership, if the Federal Government does not start to play an increased role in education, then the funding is not going to be there and the opportunities are not going to be there for young Americans in the future. This is our future. This is what is so important for our country. I just wanted to say, in addition to that, that I have been very disappointed with the fact that we are about to end this session and have not addressed the major health care issue of the day. That is the need for HMO reform. Some of us last week on the House side, some of the Democrats on the House side, marched over to the Senate on the day when the Senate minority leader, Mr. Daschle, tried to bring up the Patients' Bill of Rights. He brought it up and there was a vote. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity. The opportunity to bring it up was defeated on the floor. But I think it is a shame, because we know, and I am sure every one of us knows, that when we go around the country and when we talk to our constituents, probably the number one issue that they are concerned about is the need for reform of managed care. So many people have not had operations or procedures that they think are necessary; have been told that they have to leave the hospital sooner than their physician tells them that they should. The fact of the matter is that all the Democrats are really asking for in the Patients' Bill of Rights legislation is a commonsense approach. That should be heeded. That should be heeded by the House Republican leadership.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. My fear is that in the same way, and I do not know when it was, I think it was in the seventies or maybe eighties before any of us were here in Congress, that the Congress actually passed a law raising the payroll tax on Social Security to make sure that there were enough benefits. That is my fear. In other words, what is going to happen here is if this money from this trust fund keeps getting siphoned off for these tax breaks or whatever it happens to be, then 10 or 20 years from now, the next Congress or future Congresses will be faced with actually having to raise taxes in order to pay for the benefits. What we are doing now, or what the Republicans are doing now, is taking that money away, or they are not succeeding, but they are trying to take it away for tax breaks, and they are going to make future generations possibly pay more taxes to make sure that money is there. That is the possibility we could have down the road. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. PALLONE. Hopefully, we can get something done before we adjourn.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentlewoman. I regret to say that HMO reform is dead, and that there is no opportunity here to really deal with the Social Security issue anymore, because they have run the clock. But at least over the next few days if we can get the budget to include these two education initiatives, the modernization of the schools and the 100,000 additional teachers, then at least we can say that we have accomplished something before this do-nothing Congress goes home. We are just going to be out there every day saying that. We are not leaving. We are not leaving this place until we get some response from the other side of the aisle on these two issues. Again, I started off today by saying that when I was back in New Jersey in my district and I was at an event, this is what the people were talking about. I had a lot of educators there, I had a lot of elected officials on the local level, and as the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) was saying, they were saying they need to modernize their schools, and they cannot do it. They cannot get the bonding. The cost of the interest rate on the bonding is so excessive that they either cannot do it, or the taxpayers are upset because of the amount of money that is involved. We need to address these issues. I know the gentlewoman has the dozen education initiatives that they failed to do. I wish the gentlewoman would go over that. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. PALLONE. Again, the biggest concern I have is that so much time was wasted on this debate. The Republicans basically knew this was going nowhere, so what happens? We are back here again today. They have not accomplished anything in terms of trying to achieve any of these goals relative to education, HMOs, or Social Security. The issue is how to deal with Social Security in the long run and try to shore up Social Security for the future. Instead, they waste all this time again, forcing us into a situation where we are going to be back in session here tomorrow. There is no budget, there is so little time, and basically they are saying, look, do not worry about it. Go home. A do-nothing Congress is fine with us. We take pride in it. It is just very upsetting. I think the only thing we can do is keep doing what we are doing now, keep demanding something be done. Mainly, I think the education initiative is something we can try to achieve over the next few years. I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I know we only have about 10 or 15 minutes left, but if we could just spend a little time talking about the Social Security issue and what the Republicans tried to do a few weeks ago with regard to these tax breaks for the wealthy versus Social Security, because this was very disturbing to me. We passed the Balanced Budget Act last year. For the first time in a long time, this year there was a bit of a surplus in the budget. However, when we look at the budget, we realize very clearly that that surplus is totally the result of money that has been set aside in the Social Security trust fund, because at some time down the road that trust fund money is going to be needed to pay out benefits to senior citizens. We know that at some point, even more money is going to have to be available than what is set aside in the trust fund years down the road. But they had the audacity a few weeks ago to suggest and to actually pass on the House floor a bill that would take money from the surplus for tax breaks, a lot of which, from what I can see, would just help wealthy corporations. But regardless of who it helps, they would be taking this money out of the Social Security Trust Fund. They actually had to change the House rules or get around the House rules because the money was coming directly from the Social Security Trust Fund. When I talk to the senior citizens in my district, I do not even have to explain this to them. They know it right off the bat. They understand. They become very upset, because if we start skimming this trust fund, we are going to aggravate the problem that we already have in not having enough money to pay out benefits in the future. Then what is going to happen is the pressure is going to be on to reduce benefits, either by raising the age or eliminating the COLA or somehow changing the Social Security program. That gets back to what the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) was saying again; this Republican leadership does not care about Social Security anyway, so that probably fits into their scheme. I am thankful at least, in this case, that the Senate did not take up this terrible bill. It just goes again to show the kinds of things we have had to deal with and the kinds of things we have wasted our time with in this Republican Congress.

Mr. PALLONE. If you remember, we had many of the Members of the Texas delegation, and these are not ideological liberals by any means, Democrats, many of them of conservative ideology, who had the experience in Texas where Texas passed a Patient Protection Act, and it was very similar to what we want at the Federal level. The results are already in and show that the cost is practically nothing. I think it was like 34 cents a month or something like that. One of the reasons that the cost was so minimal, and this was brought out by one of our task force hearings where we had someone testify from some of the Texas organizations that were involved, was because it led to prevention. In other words, it was sort of like what Congresswoman Woolsey was saying: Once the HMOs have this sort of floor that they have to provide these basic protections, they are very careful to make sure that the level of health care that is provided is of good quality, and you have preventative measures taking place so that you do not get lawsuits, you do not get all these problems that result from the current system, because they know they are being watched, and it actually cuts the costs down considerably.

Mr. PALLONE. If I could just take my time back a second, you remember that we have our Democratic Health Care Task Force, but the Republicans had set one up also, and they had come forward at some point in the summer, early in the summer, with a patient protection bill that was very similar to the Patients' Bill of Rights. Some of the people on there had actually endorsed the concept of our Patients' Bill of rights. But when Speaker Gingrich got a copy of that thing, he immediately said, ``No way. We are not going ahead with this.'' He obviously showed it to the insurance industry and they said, ``No way, this is much too protective of the interests of the patients,'' and he told them literally, ``Go back to the drawing board.'' They went back, two or three more weeks, and they came out with this awful bill that they eventually brought up in one day.

Mr. PALLONE. I just want to mention one more example. We laugh, but it is not funny; but it is ridiculous when you think about it. I talked about the gag rule before where they do not allow or many of the HMOs do not allow the physicians to talk about procedures that are not covered by the insurance plan. In the GOP bill, a health plan would still be allowed to restrict communications between doctors and patients, because their bill only prohibits gagging doctors who contract directly with the HMO plan. What they do not tell you is that most doctors subcontract with health plans and their bill does not prohibit plans from gagging doctors who subcontract with plans. So here again we have got all these little quirks in their legislation, little exceptions and things that turn out to be big exceptions that still impact the majority of the people. There are similar things with the financial incentives, where most insurance companies can still create financial incentives for doctors who do not provide care. So, again, I have not stressed this too much, because I would have at least appreciated if the Senate would bring up any managed care reform bill and let us debate the issue the way we have tonight in this special order. But we did not even get that. So there is almost no point in talking about what should or should not be in the bill, because they will not let us bring the bill up. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. PALLONE. The gentlewoman points out, makes a very good point I should say, with regard to the HMO reform, and that is that, as we know, back in August, there was so much heat, if you will, on the Republicans to deal with the issue of managed care reform, so many constituents who were clamoring that they take up the issue that they finally did just on one day with a very brief debate on the House floor allow the issue to come up. But what they did as a result of that was to pass a bill that was actually worse than the status quo. I have not been dwelling that much on that, although I think we should talk about it a little bit because when it went over to the Senate, they would not even take that sham bill up. So we are faced in a situation now where they will not even bring it up again because they think that, you know, circumstances have changed and the public is not paying as much attention to that, which I think is garbage. There is no question that the public is still very much concerned about it. But if we can just take a minute to elaborate a little more on this sham bill that they brought up, and I think you pointed out this issue of medical necessity which is really the heart of this debate because when we say that a person is not getting care, it is usually because they are not allowed to have a certain operation or they are told they cannot stay in the hospital more than 2 days for a certain procedure, and so the decision about what is medically necessary in that case, just to have the operation or to stay the extra few days, is essentially made by the insurance company. What the Democratic or bipartisan, if you will, Patients' Bill of Rights says is that medical necessity will be based on generally accepted principles of professional medical practice. So it goes back to what the physicians and the physician groups say is necessary, as opposed to what the insurance companies say. They do not change that in their bill. They simply say it is up to the insurance company to decide what is medically necessary. This kind of trickery goes on for just about everything in their bill. Emergency room care is another example. You can theoretically go to any emergency room under the Republican bill, but there is no guarantee that the insurance company is going to pay for it. We use this example of severe pain, because under the Democratic bill, we use a lay person's standard, a prudent layperson. Obviously the prudent or typical citizen, if you will, if they get severe pain in their chest, figures they had better go to the emergency room because they may be having a heart attack. Under the Republican bill there is no guarantee that severe pain is a basis for your getting emergency room care. You could go to the emergency room with what you think is a heart attack because you have severe pain, and, if it turns out you do not have a heart attack, they do not pay the emergency room.

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentlewoman and yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentlewoman. Let me talk a little bit more about health care, if I can, and then maybe we could also bring up this whole debate over Social Security, if you would like, because I think that is another one of the major points that I feel needs to be addressed and that the Republicans have gone on off on a totally different course. I was so glad when you mentioned about the President's health care plan a few years ago, because, if we remember, at the time the President brought up his proposal for universal health care, it was a different proposal. It was not a single payer system, it was a different approach. But, nonetheless, he was responding to the fact that so many Americans, and more Americans every day, did not have health insurance. Many of the issues that we have brought up are sort of aspects of that. We talk about managed care reform, we talk about portability, we talk about preexisting conditions, about people being denied care. But, most important, the President was addressing the fact that more and more Americans do not have health insurance. What we have found since the President's plan was defeated by the special interest lobbyists and their multimillion dollar campaign was the number of people that have no health insurance has gone up. There was a report that came out just a few weeks ago that had an all-time high, it was over 40 million Americans, 42 or 43 million Americans have no health insurance. So we know the concern he had then was a legitimate concern, and, in fact, the situation is getting much worse. Now, we have tried sort of dragging and kicking to get this Republican Congress over the last few years to address some of these concerns. We did manage to get a kids health initiative passed last year. But what we found, in fact, we had a hearing just a couple of weeks ago in the Committee on Commerce on the kids health initiative, because that initiative came out of the Committee on Commerce and was also another focus of our Democratic Health Care Task Force, is that although we were now on the way to ensuring about 5 million more young children, that the number of uninsured children is rising at a much more dramatic rate than it was when we were trying to address this kids health initiative. So as fast as we are with this new program trying to ensure more kids, the number of children uninsured is growing even larger. The main reason for that is because so many people who are working, and we are not talking about people who are on welfare or eligible for Medicaid, we are talking about families that are working, who cannot get health insurance for their kids because more and more employers are not providing for health insurance, are not given the opportunity for health insurance on the job. I have always felt what we needed to do was somehow encourage more employers to provide health insurance. I do not know how you do that, whether it is a mandate or through some tax incentives or whatever, but the HMO reform, as important as it is, only helps those who already have insurance. The numbers who do not have insurance continues to grow. This Republican Congress, it just ignores this whole health insurance debate, and essentially, as Ms. DeLauro said, is basically just in the pockets of the insurance industry, and they do not want any of these reforms to take place. They just do not want to hear it, every aspect of this health insurance debate. We are at the end of this session. We are not going to be able to address most of these things. But we cannot let them go home, we cannot let them go home without addressing some of these concerns, whether it is HMO reform or the education initiatives or some of the other concerns that we have brought up here. As I said before, with all the things I think should have been done in this Congress, if I was able to say that I only stayed here a few more days and was at least able to get the school modernization program passed, I would be happy and say okay, ``let's go home.'' But, right now, they are not willing to address any of these things, and we just have to keep pointing it out over and over again.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman, and I wanted to point out tonight, if we could just spend a little time on the issue of HMO reform, because all three of us went over to the Senate; I believe it was a couple days ago now when the democratic majority leader Mr. Daschle tried for the last time, and he has tried many times, to bring up the issue of HMO reform or the Democratic, really bipartisan, proposal that we call the Patients Bill of Rights. And many of us in the House, the three of us included, went over to the Senate and basically stood in the back of the room to show our support for the effort to bring up HMO reform, and, as you know, it was a defeated. We had a couple of Republicans that joined all the Democrats, but not enough because we do not have the majority to bring it up and to discuss it. Again, we were only asking that the Senate take up the issue on the floor. The issue of whether they passed something, the Patients' Bill of Rights or any kind of managed care reform, never came up. Again, we are just asking that they consider these things as part of the debate, and that was denied, and that unfortunately probably means the death knell of that issue in the Congress for this year. What I wanted to point out very emphatically, if I could, is that what the Democrats and some Republicans, this is not just a Democratic issue, but it is something opposed by the Republican leadership; what the Democrats are asking for are very simple common sense protections. Most people, when I discuss this with them, unless they have had a problem with their HMO, you know, because maybe they have been healthy and have not had to deal with this, they think that these things are already there. They are surprised to learn that these protections do not already exist, and just to give you an idea, I just listed some of the main ones here that we would like to have provided for all patients, all Americans, is guaranteed access to needed health care specialists; if you need a specialist, that you should be able to get one; access to emergency room services. Many people go to the emergency room and are either turned away or find out later that their health insurance will not cover the emergency room care. Continuity of care protections, access to timely internal and external appeal; if the HMO or insurance company denies you a particular procedure, then you should be able to appeal that and have it overturned. Limits on financial incentives to doctors. Unfortunately, and many people are surprised to learn, that doctors in many managed care organizations are actually encouraged and given extra money if they limit the number of people that are provided care, assuring doctors and patients can openly discuss treatment options. Can you imagine? I do not think there is anybody probably who thinks that there is anything out there that would deny doctors and patients the right to openly discuss treatment options. We live in a free society, we value the first amendment, and yet many of the HMOs tell their physicians that they cannot talk about treatment options that are not covered by the health insurance. It is called the gag rule, which is un-American. Assuring that women have direct access to OB/GYN; I know that Congresswoman DeLauro has been very much involved with that and some of the other issues that women have been denied by their insurance companies, various types of care, and lastly an enforcement mechanism that insures recourse for patients who are maimed or die because of health plan actions. Many people do not know that if their HMO denies them a particular type of care and they are seriously insured or die from it, that they cannot sue the HMO. Well, they should be able to. We are just pointing these things out because we think that every American should be guaranteed these basic protections. But if we do not enact them into law, if we just proceed with this do-nothing Congress that says that the government does not have to do anything, you know laissez-faire, or whatever the term is, then we have a situation where these insurance companies simply deny care, decide what is medically necessary, and you have no recourse, and that is what we are trying to prevent. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman again.

Mr. PALLONE. I want to introduce the gentlewoman from California, but I just wanted to follow up on one of the things that the gentlewoman from Connecticut said. I am glad that she brought up this issue of Mr. DeLay, his remarks that he made when the government had been shut down by the Republicans and he regretted the fact that it was not shut down longer. There is a basic difference of philosophy here, or ideology, and, that is, that this Republican leadership does not believe in the government essentially, and they believe that it is better if the government does nothing. I have had many Republicans on the other side of the aisle the last couple of days say, ``Well, it doesn't matter if we're labeled as the do-nothing Congress because a do-nothing Congress is better.'' Many of them actually believe that. They do not look at the concerns that we have for the health and the safety and the protection of the average American as something that is actually positive. Remember that the issues that we feel that they should be raising, managed care reform, as far as many of them are concerned, there is no need for managed care reform because they do not have a problem with the insurance industry basically running roughshod over the American people and not providing medically necessary procedures and operations and length of stay in the hospital that a person needs to provide for adequate health care. As far as education issues, I think the gentlewoman is right when she says that for many of them they would just as soon not have public education. So when we talk about modernizing school or class size, that is not their concern. They want more students to go to private schools. They are not concerned about public education. When we talk about Social Security, we have heard some of these same leaders say that Social Security was a bad thing from the beginning, so they are not concerned about whether or not we bring up efforts to try to shore up Social Security. She mentioned teen smoking. The same thing. Let the tobacco interests sell whatever they want to whomever. That is laissez faire. They believe that. They are not going to have us play some role in trying to protect young people or teenagers from smoking. And on down the line. Minimum wage. They do not want to raise the minimum wage. We have had to fight that so many times. Every time it has been raised here, it has been a battle by the Democrats to try to raise minimum wage. As far as they are concerned, there is no need to deal with that. For them to talk about how they really care about these issues, they do not care about these issues, they want to go home and they are proud of the fact, many of them, not all, but many of them that this is a do-nothing Congress. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. PALLONE. That was Speaker Newt Gingrich's quote.

Mr. PALLONE. ``And let Medicare wither on the vine.''

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start out this evening by pointing out that the problem that I as a Democrat and I think most of the Democrats have with what has been happening here the last 2 years is not necessarily that we are not willing to debate with the Republicans on these issues because in many ways I think that what happened today in the discussion that we have had today on both sides of the aisle has been rather interesting. The problem is that on most of the Democratic initiatives which I think are the initiatives that the average citizen is concerned about, we have not had the opportunity to bring them up. We have talked as Democrats about how we want to bring up before the Congress adjourns education concerns, money to modernize our schools, to hire additional teachers, 100,000 new teachers. We are going to talk this evening in the next hour quite a bit about HMO reform. We have talked about the need to address Social Security because we know that eventually down the road there is not going to be enough money in the Social Security trust fund. But what we have found is that the Republican leadership does not allow these things to come up. They do not even allow, and the very debate that we have had tonight in the context of these special orders is not a debate that we are allowed to have on legislative issues because the legislation that deals with these education or HMO, health care concerns or Social Security concerns, we do not get an opportunity to deal with it. The Republicans control the House. The Republicans decide what comes to the floor. And they have basically stalled and not allowed most of these concerns that the American public has to even be considered. That is why we are here tonight on Sunday to debate this, why we are demanding that these issues be addressed before we go home, and all we keep hearing from the other side of the aisle is that they want to get out of here quickly, they think they have completed their business. Well, they have not completed their business. We would like to point that out. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut who started the special orders earlier this afternoon and who has been our leader on so many of these issues.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. If the gentlewoman will yield, I would just say that again, one of the things that really has been bothering me about this Republican Congress is that, you know, they will pay lip service to education, but they wasted so much time trying to take money away from public education by instituting voucher programs that basically take public dollars and give it to private schools, and we had to go on for weeks and months fighting those proposals. If they had just not wasted that time, we would not be in the situation we are in today. You know some of our colleagues have said, well, you know, it is time to go home, we got to get out of here quickly. They wasted so much time trying to attack the public school system. We heard talk again about abolishing the Department of Education. You know, again, how can we have any kind of standards or have any kind of supervision of what goes on out there if we do not have a Department of Education? So, you know, I honestly believe that in many ways what the Republican leadership has been trying to do here is to basically break down or even destroy in some ways public education. I mean, if they are going to spend all their time and say we are going to take these dollars from public education and give it to private schools, we are never going to get to the initiatives that we are talking about. That is why I get very annoyed when I hear them say, well, we care about education because we know that their whole history for the last 2 years and even for the 4 years that they have been in the majority is to try to break down the system and not allow dollars to go to public education.