Phil Roe

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1169, honoring the 125th anniversary of Rollins College. Rollins College, located in Winter Park, Florida, is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the State of Florida. Founded in 1885 by New England Congregationalists, Rollins College is a small liberal arts college that offers a personalized education. Rollins College educates students for global citizenship and responsible leadership, empowering graduates to pursue meaningful lives and productive careers. The college is guided by excellence, innovation, and community. Today, Rollins College serves almost 3,300 students and employs 700 faculty members and staff. The college awards over 800 degrees annually and has three divisions. Notable alumni include Nobel Prize winners and producers of award-winning Hollywood films. Rollins College has a national reputation for excellence in education. The college was ranked the number one Southern master's level university by U.S. News & World Report in 2010 and was named a ``best value'' private college by the Princeton Review. The college's students have received a number of awards for high levels of community service and their willingness to give back to the surrounding communities. Rollins College has made a lasting mark on the lives of its students and on the community throughout the past 125 years. I stand today to congratulate Rollins College, the students, alumni, faculty, and staff on the occasion of the college's 125th anniversary, and I ask my colleagues to support this resolution. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1372, Honoring the University of Georgia Graduate School on the occasion of its centennial. The University of Georgia organized its graduate practices into a collegiate program on June 10, 1910. The graduate education practices were organized under the guidance of Professor Willis Henry Bocock. Professor Bocock later became the first dean of the graduate school. In 1910 seven students enrolled in the graduate school. Today the school has grown to include more than 7,000 students and more than 350 fields of study. The graduate school has awarded more than 73,000 degrees since its founding 100 years ago. These students and alumni and the faculty that have guided these individuals have made significant contributions to the success and growth of the University of Georgia and, furthermore, the Nation. The University of Georgia, or UGA, was founded 125 years before the graduate school was organized. Located in Athens, Georgia, the University of Georgia is the oldest and largest of the State's institutions of higher education. The university serves almost 35,000 students and comprises 16,000 colleges and schools including the graduate school. The university aims ``to teach, to serve and to inquire into the things of nature.'' This motto has helped to position the university as a leader in higher education. The U.S. News and World Report ranked the university 21st among the top national public research universities in 2010. In addition, the university has claimed 37 national championships and is widely known for excellence in academics and athletics. The University of Georgia Graduate School has significantly contributed to the university's success and excellence in the last 100 years. I stand today to congratulate the University of Georgia Graduate School, the students, alumni, faculty and staff on the occasion of the school's centennial. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution. And, Mr. Speaker, as a University of Tennessee grad, I was doing really well with this until we get to the 37 national championships. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to a distinguished colleague from Georgia, Dr. Paul Broun.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I associate my remarks with the gentlelady. I think it was a historic occasion; you're absolutely right. Some would say more than 50 percent of the brain power, if women are left out. It's a historic time for them, and that was a big step for the Catholic Church in 1909. And so I agree with you, it did pave the way to the 19th amendment that occurred less than 10 years after that. So this is indeed a pleasure to be on this bill, and I thank you for that. I yield back the balance of my time

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. It is not going to matter about health care if we don't get our budget in order, if we don't get our deficits in order. And these budget deficits that you see out into the next 6 to 8 years that they predicted is without health care. And if it adds on top of that, I don't see how we can afford it, how we can go forward as a nation. And I am truly concerned about that for the people who are retired on fixed incomes, for young entrepreneurs. Look at what a business would do right now. Let's say a business looks up, and this ObamaCare plan, they can pay a fine that's $2,000 per employee and they can put them on the exchange--which is not even calculated into these numbers, this $1 trillion. There's a business in Tennessee--I won't say where--that's using--the government will again decide what's adequate health insurance coverage. Not you, not you as an individual. You won't go out as a family. The government will decide if your plan is adequate. And if it is not adequate, then you'll have to buy an adequate plan. Well, this particular company's plan wouldn't be considered adequate right now. It would cost them $40 million to comply with this. Or they could drop the folks in their business into the exchange, pay the $2,000 fine and have a net $40 million savings. So what are they going to do? They're going to drop those people into a plan. They will not pay the cost of the care. And it's going to amplify much faster. And that's why I said a moment ago that you're going to have people step up real soon and say, See, we told you that the private sector failed. No. Businesses are making a perfectly logical business decision.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I think until we do that, you are going to see, and you see this fiscal irresponsibility around the world. You've seen the Greece meltdown, and you've seen Spain is in trouble. Italy is in trouble. The EU is having problems even being held together now because of the spending and social programs that are going to have to be paid for. We're going down the same path. And I just asked myself today, how long can you continue to run enormous, 43 percent this year of our budget is deficit spending, how long can you continue to run almost half the dollars you spend are borrowed dollars until you can't do that any more and then a true crisis hits? But what I was going to bring up was I came here with high ideals and high thoughts about health care. I had spent my career doing that, and I said, you know, I think I can go to Washington and have something to offer in the debate. What really disappointed me is we have 10 doctors on the Republican side in the Doctors Caucus, and not one of us in a meaningful way was consulted about this health care bill. When I tell people that, they can't believe it.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. This is for a country with 300 million people in it. Also, 15 percent of the practicing physicians in America today are over 65, and you know what they're going to do when this ObamaCare plan hits. I've studied the Massachusetts plan in detail. It's a little different than what we did in Tennessee. What they did there was to impose the mandates like they have in this plan. The idea was to spread the costs over more people. Therefore, we were going to hold the costs down, and we'd have fewer people going to the emergency rooms. So what's going on in Massachusetts? This is the fourth year that they've had it. It was initiated in 2006, and it's like in Tennessee. You can't spend $8 billion and not help some people. You do. There is no question about that. No one is arguing that point. In Massachusetts, with the billions of dollars that have been spent, you are going to help some folks because they've included another 400,000-plus people. What the Governor is now doing is recommending that almost all of the private plans' premiums be capped. Why are they going up faster than they thought they would? Well, they've added more people to the rolls that they're not paying the costs of, and the idea was we were going to get people out to primary care doctors and that we were going to cut the number of people who would be going to the emergency rooms. Well, guess what? That didn't happen. Why? As the gentleman from Pennsylvania just pointed out, Mr. Thompson, who is going to see you? That is the problem with this whole plan. The fallacy is: Who is going to see these patients? Let me just make one final point.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. There is no question. In Tennessee, it's over $1 billion. The problem with it is that people from a patient standpoint don't understand that, if I've got a card, I've got health insurance coverage. Not necessarily. That's what happened with Senator Nelson in Nebraska. He exempted Nebraska. Then, of course, the final bill that was passed put everybody in, and the States were made whole for the first 3 or 4 years of this plan.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. That was the kickback. Exactly. Eventually what happens is that it will be an unfunded mandate for the States. They see it coming. They get it. We have a gubernatorial election right now in Tennessee, and it's a hot topic. Who is going to pay this unfunded mandate? We've dealt with it for so long. You're right. This was a fiscally conservative Democratic Governor who understood. He got it. He had to deal with it, and he asked them not to do that, not to pass this bill. He was very much against it.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I am smiling because this actually is kind of funny. What happened, the President last July said he would go over this line by line with any Congressman that would like to go over this bill. So I wrote the President the next day, and then was on Greta Van Susteren three or four times. We contacted the White House by email, by phone, by letter. I guess I was going to have to try a carrier pigeon and smoke signals. But we never did hear one word back. And the Physicians Caucus, with over 400 years experience, not one of us was consulted in a meaningful way. I practiced medicine, Congressman Akin, for 31 years in Johnson City, Tennessee, left my practice and got myself elected to Congress to become part of the debate. I was never included in any way whatsoever.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. No, that's not where we are going. A couple of things I want to go over I think that our seniors get, and all of us here understand this. One of the things as a physician that bothers me about it, and Dr. Gingrey was here a moment ago, our concern is the quality of care that our patients are going to get. When you take our senior citizens and you cut, the new CMS estimate is, $575 billion out of a Medicare plan--and remember, beginning next year, 2011, we begin to add the baby boomers at 3 million per year. So in the next 10 years we are going to add 35, 36 million more people to the Medicare plan with almost $600 billion less money. Let me tell you three things that will happen. One, you will have decreased access to your doctor. Two, you will have decreased quality of care because you can't get to your doctor. Number three, it's going to cost you more money. The seniors understand that. I understand that. And the American people understand that.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thirty-six million in the next 10 years.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Let me give you just one quick example. You talk about rationing of care. In the State of Tennessee this year, what we did to get control of our TennCare plan was cut the rolls by hundreds of thousands of people. And this year we are going to limit doctor access to 10 visits per year, unless something can be done in the budget, and a grand total of a hospital pay of $10,000. I don't care if you have a massive wreck and your bill is $100,000, the State will pay $10,000. And in rehabilitative services, as of July, right now, unless something changes before the end of the State legislature, there will be no rehabilitative services. If you have a knee replacement, you are just going to have to rehabilitate it on your own because the State cannot afford to pay for it. That is rationing of care going on right now with the government plan.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. And we just voted to massively expand this plan.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you. One of the things that we are trying to do here, and as I go back and think through the last 15 months, and remember when this debate first began: What is the problem that we are trying to fix? Well, the problem we are trying to fix was we had 40- plus million uninsured people in America, and that is untenable in this country. Number two, health care costs were going up faster than inflation. That was a problem. There is no question that the uninsured and rising health care costs had to be addressed. There are many ways you can address this. I brought to the table 17 years experience with a failed plan in Tennessee.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. No, I did not. One of the reasons was just the practical experience I had for over 16 years has shown that was not in the case. Back in the 1990s, we had a lot of uninsured people, and we asked for a Medicaid exemption and we got that in Tennessee to form a managed care plan. The idea was we were going to have various plans compete among each other to hold health care costs down. What actually happened was over about a 10-year period of time our costs tripled in this particular plan.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Over 10 years they tripled. What happened was a lot of people, and I will predict this right here on the House floor right now, what is going to happen nationally with this plan is exactly what happened with our plan. I have seen this picture before. What will happen is you will have people, and we already have a business in west Tennessee that is a large plan. And remember, the Federal Government is going to determine what is adequate health care coverage in this great scheme, not you the individual or you the company, what you can afford, but the Federal Government will decide what is adequate health care coverage. This particular business their coverage that they have now the Federal Government says no, this is not adequate coverage. And so it will cost this one business $40 million more. Now if they drop their coverage, their covered workers into the exchange and they pay the $2,000 fine per individual, it will save that company $40 million.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. The Federal exchange.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. It saves $40 million. It is a large company.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. That's correct.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Why wouldn't they do that. Exactly. That is exactly what happened in Tennessee. What happened in Tennessee is employers saw they could let their employees go to the TennCare plan, and 45 percent of the people who got on TennCare had private health insurance and those costs were shifted to the State of Tennessee. What happened, the little caveat that isn't ever talked about is that no Federal plan, including Medicare, pays the actual cost of the care. What you are talking about right there in Tennessee, the TennCare plan paid about 50 or 60 cents on the dollar. So guess what happened to private businesses, those costs got shifted and their premiums not only went up at the rate of inflation, but you got those added costs added to it. So that's where your $2,000 comes as cost shift that we're talking about.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. And then what's going to happen is going to be, in a few years--in our State, it took about 5 or 6 years for us to recognize that we had a big problem on our hands. What's going to happen is that then, us, the politicians, are going to step up and say, see, the private sector failed; we told you it was going to fail. This system that we have, Congressman Akin, is designed to fail, and it will.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. You got it.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Will the gentleman yield?