Joseph Pitts

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from New York (Ms. Buerkle).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger), another member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, today I'm happy to yield 2 minutes to another distinguished member of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished Member from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Grimm).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished Member from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

Mr. PITTS. No. We are prepared to close.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, in March, to mark the 2-year anniversary of the signing of ObamaCare, I invited local doctors, business owners, and elected officials to talk about how the law will change the practice of health care on every level. We heard from Dr. Gerald Rothacker about the law's failure to reform medical liability and how young doctors don't even realize they're practicing defensive medicine, ordering unnecessary tests, and driving up costs. We heard from Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania's secretary for the Department of Public Welfare, about how the law will cause State spending to explode in the coming years. While Medicaid consumes 30 percent of the State budget now, if the law is fully implemented, it will consume over 60 percent. Pennsylvania won't be a State government. It will be a health plan that paves roads and funds schools on the side. We also heard from Kirby Sensenig, the owner of a local roofing company. He spoke about the difficult choice he will have to make in coming years about whether to keep providing insurance for his workers, or to pay the penalty and cast them into the health care exchanges. We all know how much health care reform was needed. We've all heard the stories about individuals denied care that they desperately needed. We've heard about the families who struggled to pay the bills when a child got sick. We all know someone who went without insurance because of the high cost of premiums. But this law did not fix what was broken. It didn't deliver the reform the American people really wanted. The savings, both for the government and for families, are an illusion. Don't pat yourselves on the back for gaming the CBO. There won't be a single dime saved by the law. Indeed, government spending will explode because of the law. ObamaCare's new entitlement program and massive Medicaid expansion is estimated to cost taxpayers $1.8 trillion over the next decade. Things aren't much better for families under ObamaCare. In 2011 alone, the annual premium for an employer-sponsored family plan soared past $15,000. That's a sharp 9 percent increase from 2010. Twenty new taxes impose additional costs on everything from flexible spending accounts to pacemakers. That's 20 new taxes in ObamaCare not yet implemented. It will be taxing medical devices, drug manufacturers, and insurers. It drives up the cost of care. It is a farce to think that government subsidies will balance out the increased costs imposed by all the new taxes and regulations. Finally, the reach of the Federal Government has extended even to the conscience of religious charities and educational institutions. When the government takes over health care, it takes over basic decisions of morality that should be left up to individuals. It's far past time we ended the destruction of our health care system by a poorly designed and administered law. Full repeal is the only way to get to real reform. I urge support for the bill.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson).

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, it is an honor today to have Greg Lafferty, senior pastor of my home church, Willowdale Chapel, open us in prayer today. Greg studied at Wheaton College and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained at Saddleback Church in Mission Viejo, California, where he served as a teaching pastor under Rick Warren. Under Greg, the church has grown dramatically. In his time as our pastor, he has made our church much more active in our community and engaged around the world. One example is the work with Hope International, touching lives in the Congo through microenterprise development. The efforts of the church have been multiplied and improved in many ways under Greg's leadership. He has helped our church show the love of Christ in our community in new ways and around the world. Greg has been married to his wife, Deane, for 28 years. She joins us in the balcony. They have three children together: Kelsey, Krista, and Ryan. It is a great honor to have Greg and Deane and have Greg open our Chamber today with the opening prayer.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I stand to strongly support this legislation. This bipartisan agreement represents over 18 months of work from the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee, and I'm especially proud and appreciative of the hard work of Ryan Long and Clay Alspach for their diligent and tireless efforts in helping to make this bill possible. The FDA Safety and Innovation Act is critical to saving lives, improving regulatory operations, and sustaining a vital and dynamic American industry. American companies are the leading developers of new medical devices and drugs to save and sustain life. To ensure that products are both safe and effective, we've tasked the Food and Drug Administration with reviewing products before they make their way into the market, and this is a critical responsibility. The device and drug industries are dynamic and innovative. Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars and years of research and work to develop products. The review stage is a critical time for any company. Inconsistent reviews mean that the true cost of developing new products is hidden, making it difficult to properly prepare. When our Health Subcommittee began considering this legislation last year, we heard from a number of individuals about the increasing difficulty of working through the review process. American patients were waiting almost 4 years longer for new devices that had already been approved in Europe. And despite the slower U.S. review process, the safety outcomes were comparable. The FDA Safety and Innovation Act contains important reforms to the Medical Device User Fee Act and will hold the FDA accountable and keep reviews on schedule. There are many reforms in this bill. Finally, we include language to help patients and doctors and hospitals deal with drug shortages. Mr. Speaker, I'm proud of the work we've done. I'm proud that we have such a bipartisan effort. I'd like to especially thank Ranking Member Frank Pallone and his staff for patiently working with us, for Mr. Dingell, Mr. Waxman. We've accomplished much with this legislation, and it will help save lives, create jobs--two goals that we can all agree on. Thanks to our chairman, Mr. Upton.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Madam Speaker, last week, I received an extremely disturbing report about China's one-child policy from China's central Shaanxi province. Feng Jianmei was 7 months pregnant and home alone when she was abducted by government family planning officials. She was taken to a hospital and bound while her child was administered a powerful poison. After she gave birth to her dead child, without the aid of painkillers, the baby was then left beside her on the hospital bed, as shown in this picture. Her husband is a common worker, who has no recourse for the crime that has been perpetrated on his wife and child. Family planning officials in Shaanxi took this gruesome step in order to meet their quotas under China's brutal one-child policy. This is further evidence that government officials routinely take extreme measures to enforce China's barbaric one-child policy. It's a human rights issue. It's far past time that the Chinese government stop this terrible repression and end the destruction of lives. I call on Secretary Clinton to condemn this policy in the strongest terms.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I want to praise my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, for introducing an amendment to the farm bill to phase out the Federal sugar program. Though the Senate narrowly voted to table the amendment, it demonstrated that there is substantial bipartisan support to reform a program that hurts American job creators and consumers. Today's Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ``A Tale of Two Conservatives'' also praises Senator Toomey and calls out the Republicans who voted against this free-market amendment. By some estimates, the Federal sugar program artificially doubles the price of sugar in the United States. While we protect sugar growers and processors, sugar users and consumers are at a severe disadvantage. American jobs have been lost as foreign competitors benefit from reduced prices for raw sugar. The Department of Commerce estimates that sugar-using industries lost 112,000 jobs from 1997 to 2009. Here in the House, I'm working with Danny Davis on a bipartisan amendment to the farm bill. I hope that when the Chamber considers reforming the farm bill, Democrats and Republicans can come together to protect jobs and stop the government from playing favorites.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, the American people have lost more than $15 billion to cronyism. Pennsylvanians alone have lost $1.4 billion. Right now, in southern Nevada, there is an expensive hole in the ground where there should be a nuclear waste repository. We should be storing dangerous nuclear waste at a single secure and geologically sound location. Instead, much of it sits aboveground at dozens of sites scattered across the United States. When President Obama appointed Harry Reid's aide, Gregory Jaczko, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, he shut down Yucca Mountain against the express wishes of Congress. Jaczko even tried to stop the application process, defying a court order to continue certifying the safety of the facility. Yesterday, this House overwhelmingly voted to give the NRC an additional $10 million to do its job. No more excuses. Do the work so that we know whether Yucca Mountain is safe.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Madam Speaker, according to the Social Security trustees, the Social Security Disability program is expected to exhaust its trust fund in just 4 years. If the fund is exhausted and if nothing is done, only around 80 percent of the benefits will be paid out. Over 11 million Americans could be impacted. Again, we have another government entitlement program headed towards bankruptcy. This is a program that costs as much as the annual budgets of the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Commerce, Labor, Interior, and Justice combined. I know how important this program is to many of my own constituents. With regard to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the disability program, tens of millions of people rely on these programs, but they are not structurally sound. Doing nothing is not the answer, and taking funds from the general revenue does nothing to provide the long-term stability that we need. We need real innovative reform that fixes our problems, that saves and strengthens these programs without piling up debt. If we don't act to save and strengthen these programs, our creditors will make the decisions for us down the road. We need to address these problems in a bipartisan manner. One party can't do it alone.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, in today's Wall Street Journal, Dr. Steven Greer relates his disastrous experience trying to review grants for a program created by ObamaCare. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will hand out more than $10 billion in the coming decade. Dr. Greer was one of the chairmen overseeing panels of outside experts who were supposed to review grants for projects to train new types of health care workers. The team had only 2 weeks to review applications that ran more than 100 pages. Among other things, work was lost to poor computer systems, leading some panelists to quit in disgust. Dr. Greer himself quit after his complaints went unanswered. Despite the problems, the money went out the door--$1.9 million to a George Washington University project that only saves $1.7 million, $4.5 million to a San Antonio project that only saves $5 million, and $5.8 million for the University of Chicago to create 80 jobs. All this poorly supervised spending while we rack up more than $1 trillion in debt every year. More evidence that our debt problem is a spending problem.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, today, the House of Representatives will consider the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, a bill to ban the practice of sex-selection abortions. If you talk to most expectant couples, you'll hear a common refrain: we don't care whether it's a boy or a girl; we just want a healthy baby. In fact, even with advanced ultrasound technology, many parents choose to wait until birth to discover the sex of their child. Unfortunately, there are exceptions. Some couples will do anything to choose the sex of their child. In the majority of these cases, boys are favored and girls are aborted. I know most Americans think this is something that happens overseas in places like China and India. However, a Columbia University study found evidence that sex selection at the prenatal level is happening right here in the United States. Just yesterday, the group Live Action released undercover video of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin, Texas, counseling a woman on how to choose the sex of her child. We shouldn't wait any longer to ban this barbaric and socially unhealthy practice. It's time to pass the bill.

Mr. PITTS

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who showed great leadership in the development of this legislation, in the negotiations, and has been a very integral part, the vice-chair of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), a member of the Health Subcommittee, really the author of the sections on generic drug user fees and biosimilars in the bill.

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the subcommittee chairman of O&I, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, the Food and Drug Administration Reform Act of 2012 is a product of nearly a year and a half of work in the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee. H.R. 5651 is the result of bipartisan negotiations. The bill passed out of the Health Subcommittee by a unanimous voice vote and passed out of the full committee 46 0. I would especially like to thank Clay Alspach, Ryan Long, and Paul Edattel and the other staffers for their dedication and hard work in making this bill possible. I know they've put in a lot of hours; and because of that work, we have brought this bill to the floor in a timely manner. The FDA Reform Act is critical to saving lives and sustaining a dynamic American industry. American companies are the leading developers of new medical devices and drugs to save and sustain life. To ensure that products are both safe and effective, we've tasked the Food and Drug Administration with reviewing products before they make their way into the market. This is a big job. The device and drug industries are dynamic and innovative. Companies spend tens of millions of dollars and years of work to develop products. The review stage is a critical time for any company. Inconsistent reviews mean that the true cost of developing a new product is hidden, making it difficult to properly prepare. When we began considering this legislation last year, we heard from a number of individuals involved in the medical device industry about the increasing difficulty of working through the review process. American patients were waiting almost 4 years longer for new devices that had already been approved in Europe, and despite the slow review process, the safety outcomes were comparable. The FDA Reform Act contains critical reforms to the Medical Device User Fee Act which will hold the FDA accountable and keep the reviews on schedule. Under the fourth version of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the median time of approval was 9 months. With the reauthorization, we set the goal of reducing the review time to 8 months. Currently, generic drugs have an average approval time of 32 months. Included in this legislation is a new user- fee program that should be able to gradually reduce review times to 10 months for most products. A separate user-fee program for biosimilars has the goal of 10-month approval times for most products. Finally, we also include language to help patients, doctors, and hospitals to deal with drug shortages. Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the work we have done here. I would like especially to thank full committee Chairman Upton as well as Health Subcommittee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, full committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman, and their staffs for patiently working with us on the FDA Reform Act. This is legislation to help save lives and create jobs, which are two goals that we can all agree on. It is a bipartisan effort, and I urge all Members to support the legislation.

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