Chellie Pingree

Ms. PINGREE of Maine

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Well, thank you so much for being here. I know our hour is getting close to ending, and I appreciate your characterizing our thinking as uncluttered. I have to say sometimes at night, even the freshmen start to clutter up a little bit. But I know, Representative Dahlkemper, you've done a lot of work around this wellness initiative, and that's something that I hear about really across the board from people who think that's a great way to hold down costs in health care. Many of the businesses in my State that have adopted wellness programs have really seen cost reductions, and I know you can speak to this.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you for your thoughts. We are lucky to be joined freshly off the podium by our colleague from Pennsylvania, Representative Dahlkemper, who I know has been working very hard on this issue in a variety of ways.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you for adding your thoughts. Certainly those are themes that we hear about a lot. One is this important point that every single day in this Congress there are people working on one or another aspect of this bill, trying to put together all of the good ideas, trying to make sure that we come to some form of consensus over the variety of opinions. But your mention of the issue of young people who don't have coverage is a story that we all hear about often, and many of us who had our own children in their twenties have known that tragic moment when they turn 23 or they end college and they are no longer covered by your plan. And, as you said, in today's job market, many young people don't have coverage or work for a company that doesn't find themselves in a position to cover them. So it is increasingly an important issue, and one I think the people are trying so hard to work on. Also this issue that others have already brought up tonight, I am also a small business owner, and the cost of coverage--I heard a statistic in the State of Maine that the average cost of covering your employees is about equal to the profit you make in your small business. And that is lucky for some small businesses, if they can even make as much profit as they are paying out every year in employee coverage. As you mentioned, it is important to make sure you cover your employees. Many companies can't afford it, and often you lose employees to somewhere else where they can go to get that coverage. So you might have a great worker, and you may lose them if you don't find a way to keep them covered, which is getting near to impossible with the rising cost of insurance, as we have talked about many times. And I often think about my own State. We're 38th in per capita income. The economy is struggling. Our unemployment rate is right up there with a lot of other States in this country, and we're just hoping that we can start to bring it down. But the fact is, if we could pass universal access to health care coverage, it would be the single biggest change to my State's economy and I certainly think this country's economy.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I am pleased to be here on the floor tonight with a gathering of my freshman colleagues. We thought we would spend our hour talking about the very important issue of health care. As everyone knows and as everyone sees in the newspapers pretty much every day, that is the topic on the mind of Congress and, certainly, on the mind of America. I know, for me, it's the issue I hear most about back in my district when I'm having a town hall meeting or am meeting with constituency groups--doctors, nurses, practitioners of any kind-- to talk about their concerns about health care. It's the number one thing people bring up to me. Certainly today, being from the State of Maine, the Finance Committee in the Senate--which isn't the House, but it's also going to eventually coordinate it with us--was voting out their bill. My colleague from Maine, Senator Olympia Snowe, voted in favor of the health care bill, making herself the first Republican to vote affirmatively on some of the proposals that we have before us. While she and I may differ on some of the policy issues, we all represent the State of Maine, and she spoke today about the great urgency of passing a piece of health care legislation. That is certainly of great concern to us, so I am glad we have an hour to talk a little bit about it. There is such a range of issues to talk about. I know I want to mention a little bit about some of the concerns about insurance companies and the importance, at least for me, of voting for a plan that has a very robust public option. Before I turn it over to one of my colleagues, I just want to tell a couple of quick stories about the issues that we have been facing in the State of Maine. Like a lot of States, we have a very small number of insurance companies. Many States find that 70, 80, sometimes more than 90 percent of their market is all taken up by one insurance company. I'm sure Representative Tonko from New York has some stories to talk about this as well and just about the issues that we have about why we need more competition in the market. Interestingly, in Maine, our Attorney General has just entered into a very fascinating case with Anthem Insurance Company. Anthem is one of the few companies that does business in the State of Maine, and they recently asked for a rate increase. I think they asked for 18 percent. The State granted them 11 percent. They turned right around and sued the State of Maine, and said, You know, if you're not going to give us what we need, we're going to have to sue you on this. I'm just looking here through my papers. I have some interesting information about just how much profit this particular company is making, and I will come across it in a minute here. What really struck me as profound is that many of my constituents' stories--as I mentioned, I run into constituents in the grocery store, everywhere I go, and certainly people have been contacting our office about the challenges of health care reform. Many of our constituents' stories are about the dealings that they have with their insurance companies. As somebody said to me recently, you know, insurance is great until you need it, and then 9 times out of 10, you find out that your company isn't there when you need it. Now I want to tell a couple of stories about what I've heard from my constituents. Representative Tonko, perhaps you'll want to weigh in on this conversation. Then we can go back and forth a little bit about what we're hearing.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Will the gentleman yield? I just want to weigh in with a couple of thoughts about that. You're going through the litany of why we think it's so important to reform the insurance market, and so many of the things that you talk about are, again, the very things that I hear about from people. The issue I heard someone say the other day was ``job loss.'' Job lock. You know, people will say to me, I am ready to start my own business, but I don't dare leave my job because I can't go without the safety net, and I certainly couldn't afford to pay for these health care costs at this moment in time. I want to read you a little bit that I heard from a constituent recently, someone from York County, which is the southern part of my district, who told the story that very much echoes what you were just talking about. He was self-employed. He had a business he'd been doing for 10 years. His wife worked for a small nonprofit, and the nonprofit wasn't able to afford her health care coverage, so they did what a lot of people do, I find. They went to Anthem, which is the insurance company that we've been talking a lot about in my State, and their family of three--they have a 2-year-old daughter now--got an insurance policy that cost them $400 a month, but it also had a $15,000 deductible. Now, I hear about so many people who have this $15,000 in their deductible. It's really just kind of insurance for keeping your home. As you mentioned, it will keep you from going to bankruptcy court. So their $15,000 deductible actually amounted to a $30,000 deductible for their family. Basically, they just hoped that nothing would ever happen, because they didn't have the cash to pay the $15,000 or $30,000 in medical bills that they'd have to pay to get up to their deductible. He told a story about how, when his daughter was born--their newborn baby--there were some complications, so they thought, well, at least we've got this insurance because, as we know, infant bills in the hospital can go very high if you have to be in the neonatal unit or anything else. Well, it turned out that his wife and daughter both had some medical issues, and they had gotten a specific rider when they'd gotten the health care plan, but it turned out that it only covered their daughter and not his wife. By the time they brought their baby home, they were $15,000 in the hole because of issues that had come up with his wife during childbirth, so they had to take money out of their 401(k), and they had to borrow money on their credit card. They are just hoping that nothing else happens because they'd have to still pay another $15,000 in their deductible. Well, that's a great example of people who think they have health care coverage. They thought they got a special rider to make sure that pregnancy, childbirth--everything--was covered. It turned out it really wasn't there when they needed it. I don't know about you, but I hear about so many different people who go to look at their insurance policies and realize that there are all kinds of hidden issues or their insurance companies just say, ``Sorry. We don't cover you.'' That's just something we have to stop.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. That is why we are here tonight really to be able to engage in this robust public debate.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. I think first and foremost to be talking about the real issues. We are also joined tonight by another freshman colleague, Representative Jared Polis from Boulder, Colorado.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I am pleased to see that we are joined by our colleague from Wisconsin, Representative and doctor, if I am correct, Steve Kagen.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. It's wonderful to have both your experience as a physician and also your experience in the House in moving forward on these issues. I know you have been working very hard. I just want to mention that we are also joined here tonight by Mary Jo Kilroy from Ohio, who is another new member of the House. Being from Ohio, I know you must have a lot of constituents who are worried about economic issues and jobs and making sure that they have that all- important insurance coverage and are able to keep their jobs to have it.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I want to give a few minutes to my colleague from Colorado, but in making this transition I just want to say when we stand around and talk about the possibilities when people share their individual stories like Representative Kilroy has here, I get very excited thinking about the prospects here. You mentioned it earlier. Sometimes we are bombarded from the other side and the talk show hosts and everyone else who just try to use scare tactics, build up fear in our constituents and seniors and others. But I get excited when I think about, wow, we could really reform the system. We could do something around access to health care that people have been talking about doing for decades, and this could be the Congress that really starts making those steps forward. I think that is why we are all standing here tonight and working so hard on this, because we see the possibilities here of really changing people's lives and ending some of these ridiculous stories that we have been hearing.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you so much, Congressman Murphy. Thank you for gathering us here at this late hour and also for taking on the leadership role in this extremely important issue. I am very proud to be here with you and my other colleagues tonight who are taking the time to talk about how important this is. And I would like to add a few words that can't come close to expressing what people have done in letters and stories that have already been told, but I do want to add a few words from my own perspective. In 1993, as we have talked about today, Congress passed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law that mandates the discharge of openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual servicemembers. Under this law, as we all know and have been talking about, at least one individual a day on average is fired because they are gay or lesbian. Since 1994, that amounts to 13,000 servicemembers who have been discharged under the authority of this discriminatory act. I am a freshman, as you mentioned, and I know this bill was passed in a different time, but as a freshman, coming in here with different eyes, as a new Member, nothing seems fair or reasonable about this policy. And as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, it is clear to me that this policy does nothing to keep our country safe. And it does nothing to move our country forward in protecting the very rights that the brave men and women of the military are fighting to protect. In fact, I believe this policy has the opposite effect. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been responsible for the dismissal of highly qualified soldiers, as we said, almost 13,000 soldiers, that our country desperately needs at a time when we are engaged in two active conflicts overseas. We have talked a lot about this report which has just been recently released. And As Colonel Om Prakash recently said, as others have said in the Joint Force Quarterly, Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been costly both in personnel and treasure, and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve. We talk a lot about the numbers, about our need for trained members, like experienced Arabic translators, which we know this damages. Tonight we have heard thousands of stories of the men and women who willingly serve our country and, oh, by the way, happen to be gay. I heard a story recently of a soldier whose partner died while he was serving in Iraq. Because he was gay and because his partner was a male, he couldn't openly grieve or talk, just as you mentioned, to his commanding officer or to any other troops. I heard about a young woman who wanted to follow in her father's footsteps but because she was openly gay, a lesbian, she could not serve in the military, and it was her life goal. I, like many of my colleagues, have visited in Iraq and Afghanistan and I have seen the chaos and the confusion, the danger that our soldiers take on every day in which many of them serve. In my State, like many other States, I attend the ceremonies where we send them off, where we welcome soldiers home, and I look at them, young and old, men and women. And I, like many others, attend the funerals when those soldiers don't come home, and I have hugged the parents of military members who don't come home and know the grief that they feel. But of all of those soldiers, whether you see them in Iraq and Afghanistan, you see them as they are going off, I just see young men and women, older men and women in the Guard who are willing to serve our country. I don't see anyone who is gay or straight. I see, as one of my colleagues said, Americans, people who are willing to serve. I stand here today in support of every single one of our soldiers, no matter what their sex, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. They deserve our respect and deep gratitude and support, and every single one of them deserves the honor just as they are to serve our country. Thank you so much for taking on this issue and being here tonight.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. We have a lot of colleagues who are strong voices for reform; and most of us, every time we go to the supermarket, go to somebody's birthday party, the first thing our friends and neighbors and constituents say to us, We need to get the health care bill passed. What is standing in the way? There is so much hard work going on here in dealing with many of the complicated details. This is a major overhaul of the health care system. I commend my colleagues in Congress who are putting in a tremendous number of hours to get this right, and it is not easy to figure out and how to make it affordable for Americans. The stories that you talked about earlier are exactly what we hear everywhere we go. What we are trying to do now is put the finishing touches on a bill that will get us to that place. I want to go back to the point you made about wellness. I have visited with a lot of the businesses in my district, many of which are self-insured. Those businesses are big enough to take on the challenges of health care themselves, and I am so impressed with the number of companies that are self-insured and say that wellness needs to be a critical component. What they have found as a business decision, the more you can emphasize wellness, good nutrition, smoking cessation, regular check-ups, some have fitness trainers on site, things we wouldn't consider as an early component, but they have realized that the more you can do to keep people healthy, to make sure that their workers and their families get tests, stay out of the hospitals, that is where we can cut significant costs. That is one of the challenges that people are spending a tremendous number of hours trying to sort out. What does that mean to lower cost? How do you make sure that we don't do unnecessary testing, and that we pay our practitioners for keeping people well, not for hospital admissions and just the times we get sick. It is a major change that we are talking about here, and there has been a lot of thoughtful dialogue and debate, not the crazy talk that is out on some of the cable news shows, but serious dialogue about how to do this right, how to get real competition in with the insurance companies, how to help our small businesses to increase the number of people who are covered. I have to say that in spite of the difficulties in making major change and crafting a big piece of legislation, I get excited when I think about it. I think about what would it be like to end this year and go back home to our constituents and say, We did it. We took a major step forward. We will no longer be the only Western nation that doesn't have civilized health care insurance, that hasn't worked to bring down costs. That it is affordable. It would be wonderful to say that to people. I have to leave the floor, but I want to say in closing about my own district, we have talked a lot about the economic issues. When we talk about individual constituents, there is a part of me that believes this is a moral issue. It is a patriotic issue. It is a way of making sure that we understand that in America, we are all in this together. If my small business fails because I struggle under the cost of health insurance, or one of your constituents goes into personal bankruptcy because of cancer or another illness that wasn't covered, that is not the kind of America that I want to live in. That is not the kind of place we want to be. We want to do this because it is right for our economy, but also because we believe it is right for America.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you for allowing me to join you.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely. You're right. I come from the State of Maine. And like many State legislatures, when I was in the legislature and after I was there, the State implemented a lot of reforms around health care. They've done a tremendous amount to attempt to cover more citizens, to bring down the price of prescription drugs, to deal with the challenges of the insurance markets. But the fact is, even though that is a State that has done all it can, a State can't do it by itself. It can't do it one State at a time. What I hear from my constituents when I go back is, Please, do something about the health care system, and don't delay. Do it now. Get it done this year. You talked about small businesses. Small businesses in my State and big businesses alike are really struggling under the cost of health care. It's a significant economic issue. It truly is. If we don't do something about the rising costs of health care, we're more uncompetitive as a Nation. More small businesses are finding that they're having to cut back on the coverage for their families or take away coverage completely. It's a huge economic issue in our State. You know, one other factor we sometimes don't talk about around the economic issues is the number of people who might leave their job to start a business. I talk to a lot of constituents who say to me, You know, I would like to start up my own business. I have got an idea. I even might employ a couple of people, but I wouldn't dare leave my job because I don't think I could be without a safety net. So you have older workers who might choose to retire, you know, go on to their next stage of their lives, but they don't want to leave that health care insurance that they currently have. Or people who have good ideas, who want to go do something, and they say, I just can't do it without the safety net of health care insurance. I don't dare be out there.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. You know, it's interesting to come from a State where we have done a lot of insurance reforms and a variety of reforms. What I find is because we've been talking about it for such a long period of time in our State and because the State has moved forward on a variety of things, I find that the constituents in my district are very literate and very articulate about this. Wherever I go, they've got to give me a piece of their mind about the insurance company, and most of them have had some kind of an encounter. We often talk about the number of people that are happy with their plan, but I've also heard people say, you know, you're happy with your insurance plan sometimes until you have to go and use it. And I am amazed at how many times I meet with people who say, I thought it was going to be there for me. I didn't realize there was going to be a cap on it. An awful lot of people in my district are self-employed or they do a variety of different jobs. We have a tremendous number of fishermen. People work at woodcutting, a variety of different things, and they have $5,000 and $10,000 deductibles. Well, that sounds pretty good when you first sign up, but the fact is you still pay a very high premium and you've got to pay that first $10,000. You do an injury to your knee or you do a variety of other things or one of your kids gets sick, before you know it, you've got to pay that first $10,000 and you're still paying enormous premiums, and what have you got in the end? It sounds like kind of a way to get around the situation, but most people say to me in the end, you know, This idea of just catastrophic coverage, it really didn't work for me, or, The insurance company wasn't really there when I needed it. I just want to go back to that point. A number of people who I talk to say--it's a tough economy. Maine is 38th in per capita income, so my district doesn't necessarily look just like yours. A lot of people are really struggling to put it together. A lot of people are seniors or nearing retirement age. But because it's a hardworking constituency, they'll say, you know, We do pretty well at making ends meet. I go fishing. I paint houses. I cut some Christmas trees. My wife sells crafts. We've got this little business or we want a tourist motel. We can almost put it all together and have a pretty good income. The thing we can't afford is that $12,000 or $13,000 a year for insurance. And my daughter's diabetic or my husband's got a condition; we can't go without it. And I just want to go back to that point that the number of people who work hard and say, I could earn a pretty good living, but what I can't afford is health care insurance. When I look at my State, the struggling economy, the job loss--our unemployment numbers just went up, and we're all looking for the big extension today of unemployment insurance. But the fact is the single biggest thing we can do to revive the economy in my State is to have universal coverage for health care. And I don't care whom I talk to. If they're on the left or the right or they own a business or they work for a big company, that's the one thing we all agree on: If there were affordable health care, we could get by. One other fact I just want to put out there, and we're talking about a variety of things today, is sometimes people will say to us, well, you know, I don't want to have this kind of government health care. I don't want to have to pay for everybody else. Well, if you're paying the cost of health care insurance today, at least $1,000 of your $12,000 to $13,000 premium is in the cost shift of all the people who aren't covered or who don't have adequate coverage. I mean, thank goodness people get coverage when they get sick and they get to the hospital. But the fact is our hospitals are struggling under the weight. Our practitioners are having to cover a lot of people who just don't have it when they need it or the insurance wasn't there when they thought they did. So you're already paying at least $1,000 a year in a tax, in a cost shift that's going somewhere else. Why not make this a sensible system where everybody has early care and intervention and we emphasize wellness? It would make a huge difference in the economy.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you, Mr. Chair. H.R. 3221 makes a remarkable investment in higher education at a time when our country needs it the most. But during these tough economic times, students need to be able to access an affordable education. In my home State of Maine, we have one of the highest high school graduation rates in the country but one of the lowest rates for entry into college. Far too often, qualified, hardworking students in my State don't go to college because their families just can't afford it. President Obama set a goal that by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Investment in our community colleges is essential to achieving this goal in Maine and across the country. Community colleges are a critical resource for new and returning students who want to further their education and enhance their job skills. They provide a wide variety of innovative educational programs at affordable rates, and American families recognize the value of community colleges. In my State and many others, there are waiting lists because the community colleges can't handle the demand. That is why we must ensure that these schools have the funding they need to construct new facilities as well as the ability to renovate and repair existing facilities to create safe, energy-efficient, effective learning environments. The need is high. The American Association of Community Colleges estimates that it would take roughly $100 billion to fully fund the construction and renovation of community colleges across the country. This far exceeds the $2.5 billion that we have set aside under this bill. Unfortunately, when this bill was originally drafted, it included a provision to prohibit any community college that received Recovery Act funding from receiving grants for construction or repair. That's why I'm offering this critically important amendment. The intent of the recovery package was to provide a temporary injection of money into our economy and to create jobs and support our States, schools and local communities who were struggling during an economic downturn. States were encouraged to use this money for facility improvements and modernization. In Maine, every community college except one accepted this funding. They had no way of knowing that using these funds would interfere with their ability to access additional support. These schools should not be penalized for accepting this help. It is also important to note that this amendment would also permit Historically Black Colleges and Universities to receive assistance under this bill, even if they also received assistance under the Higher Education Act of 1965. These institutions play an important role in our educational system and should not be excluded from the benefits provided by this bill. As President Obama declared, It's time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. This amendment and the underlying bill will help do just that. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chair, I rise again to support the amendment and to talk about the importance of community college modernization, about the ability for our community colleges to rebuild and restructure these important institutions. In this time of such dire economic need, I find that so many of my constituents are contacting me and saying, You know, at this moment in time, I plan to go back to college and get an education; I want to do everything I can to make sure that as the economy improves, I am ready and prepared with the skills for this new century. People want to have green jobs. They want to be prepared for the new technology. They want an education. And as young people grow up in my State--particularly my State, 38th in per capita income--many, many families struggling in this economy, the one thing we hear over and over again is that those young people in our State who graduate from high school at such high rates want to go on to college, they want to make sure they can get a college education. But over and over I hear from young people, You know, we couldn't afford it; I had to take a year off. And we hear from the community colleges, We can't expand fast enough; we can't make sure that we have the space available for the young people who want to attend college in our State. In this time of dire economic need, when our State is turning to the Federal Government and saying, Do what you can to help us with education, I can't imagine any reason not to support our community colleges, not to make sure that they are able to take advantage of every possible opportunity for educational funding. I come from a State that has really struggled to balance the budget, like so many other States across the country. Our State has made cuts everywhere they could to local education, places that we never wanted to go in the State Government to make those cuts. And you know what I hear all the time from my State legislators, from my former colleagues in the State legislature? They say, Please make sure that the Federal Government puts all the money it can into education, particularly higher education. That's what this amendment does. It makes sure that no community college is penalized for taking advantage earlier. It makes sure that every community college is available to be there for our young people. I continue to support this amendment. I think it's so important in my State and so many other States. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In addition to making landmark investments in higher education and student financial aid, H.R. 3221 provides over $4 billion in funding for K-12 public schools. This funding is critical to ensure that students grow up and learn in healthy, safe environments that maximize their chances to receive a quality education and graduate from high school. This is particularly challenging for areas that are facing extraordinary economic hardship. Public schools in these areas need additional attention and support to make sure these students have every opportunity to succeed. H.R. 3221 currently sets aside $200 million in reserve funding for K- 12 schools that are located in areas suffering from a natural disaster or severe economic distress. However, it does not recognize areas affected by the closure of a military base due to Base Realignment and Closure, the BRAC process, as eligible for this emergency educational funding. A base closure, such as the closure of the Brunswick Naval Air Station in my district, is a devastating event in a community. Schools in these communities need special attention, because unlike areas hit by economic recession, the closure of a base means the overnight disruption of the local economy. With a dramatic loss of taxpayers and Federal Impact Aid funding, which disappears 1 year after the students leave, BRAC communities are left without a dependable source of funding for critical school repairs. In Brunswick, Maine, in my district, the closure of the once vibrant Brunswick Naval Air Station will result in an estimated 7,000 total jobs lost, a reduction in 10 percent of the public school population, and millions of dollars in lost economic activity, including $1 million in school funding that will be lost. And my district is not alone. The closure of the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, will result in over 7,000 military and civilian jobs lost from that area. In fact, the 2005 BRAC resulted in the closure of major Army, Navy and Air Force bases in States across the country, including Maine, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas. Mr. Chair, schools in communities affected by these closures would all be eligible to benefit from much-needed funding under this amendment. We need to help communities like Brunswick recover from the loss of a military base, and we need to give them the resources they need to maintain a high-quality school system. These investments in education are critical to putting these communities on a path to economic growth and redevelopment. The need for emergency educational funding in areas affected by the base closures is clear. My amendment helps public schools in BRAC communities recover from the devastating impact of losing hundreds of students and millions of dollars in taxpayer support. I urge you to support the schools, teachers and students in BRAC communities by voting ``yes'' on this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller).

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you for your thoughts. I just want to, once again, urge my colleagues to support this amendment, the schools and the teachers in those communities that are affected by the BRAC. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Absolutely.

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Well, thank you so much for letting me say a few words here and thank you for convening us all here on the floor to counter some of what we hear on the other side, as you mentioned, that this would be the worst thing we could ever do and what is wrong with this. I'm glad to be here for a while to talk about what is right about this. You mentioned that I have been working on this for a little while. I often tell people I may be a freshman in Congress--and I truly am one of the freshmen and proud to be here--but I've been working on this since I was first elected to the State legislature in 1992, which was also a year we all thought we were running on health care and when we promised the American public we were going to do something about this. And what I would say is most significant about talking about the issue now when I'm back in the district--and I, like most of my colleagues, have held forums of doctors and businesspeople and individuals who have health care, individuals who can't afford their health care, everyone across the spectrum. What is different is, when I first ran in 1992, I would sit down with a group of the doctors in my home county, Knox County, and they would say, Keep your hands off medicine. Don't want socialized medicine. Leave this alone. And when I meet with the doctors today, they say, How soon are you going to fix this system? They tell me, We can't work anymore. We can't provide our patients with the care that they need. This will be surprising, but they took a poll of the doctors in Maine--and, look, we're not a completely liberal State. We've got two Republican United States Senators. But our doctors said, with a 50 percent margin, that they wanted single-payer health care now. Now, we're not voting on single-payer today. We are working on a bill that is an excellent bill. But that just shows you how far the medical profession has come. Doctors, nurses, alternative providers, they're all saying that. Certainly, my Chambers of Commerce, when I sit down with them, it's same thing. They don't say to me anymore, Keep your hand off medicine. They say, How soon are you going to do this? We can't afford to cover the cost of our employees. And they want to. They know that it's better to have your employees covered. These aren't people trying to run away from the bill. These are people who are saying, with the costs going up, with a limited number of providers, We cannot not afford to be in the system any more. Recent figures in Maine show, if you have health care insurance--and you all may have mentioned this before I came into the room--but if you have health insurance today, $1,200 of your payments are going to a cost shift to cover everybody else. When people say to me, Don't tax me to cover health care, you're already paying a tax if you have health care coverage. One other thing I want to say and then get back into the dialogue. My good friend from New York mentioned the challenges of being a State legislator. Certainly States today, as we all know, are struggling under the weight of trying to cover the uninsured, the charity care in hospitals. I am fortunate to have a daughter who is the Speaker of the House in the State of Maine. I can guarantee you, as they made budget cut after budget cut after budget cut, every time she could pick up the phone and call me, she would say, Mom, when are you guys in Washington sending the money back to our State because we can't afford this anymore? And I am one of those who have valiantly tried health care reform. We have many of the insurance reforms that we are talking about in this bill, but frankly, they don't go far enough. You can't count on the insurance companies just to do it out of the goodness of their hearts. We've tried it all in our State. States are struggling under the weight of this. We need a Federal plan, just like the bill we're working on today. It's an excellent piece of legislation. It's a very good start, and I am very excited to be here with all my colleagues tonight.