Phil Roe

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Well, I appreciate that. There's no question in our area we've had four different small businesses, including Johnson City, Tennessee, where I was mayor before I came here, that have actually flattened their premium increases by doing exactly what Congressman Murphy was talking about. You change the incentives. BAE Corporation, Holston Munitions, they make C-4 and plastic explosives and so forth, and that company has 700 or 800 employees. They have not had a premium increase in 5 years in that company. How'd they do that? Well, they changed the incentives. If you were hypertensive and obese and smoked, it would cost you more for your insurance. If you got on their plan, their wellness program, and you stopped smoking, you exercised, and you lost weight, they would reward you financially. And guess what? They have kept their premiums down. Free Will Baptist Ministries, a small 150-person group has done exactly the same thing. I've had a health savings account, and let me explain that to people out there who are scared away with this. In our practice, we have almost 300 employees who get insurance through our company, through our business, our medical practice, and 84 percent of them have a health savings account. What that is is this: You manage the first dollars. The first dollars may be $3,000. Mine was $5,000. So I paid the first dollar for any health care, but it made me a great consumer. It also incentivized me to stay healthy, exercise, eat right. If you don't spend that money, guess what happens? You get to keep it, roll it over into next year like an IRA, and you can spend that on your health care the next year. And if you're healthy over a number of years, then you're able to keep this money and buy long-term care with it or whatever you want to spend it on health care-wise. If anything over $5,000, I had a catastrophic policy, so if I had a cancer or a car accident or some severe illness, it covered 100 percent. So basically what I was doing was I'm the insurance company. I'm managing my own care and my own dollars. It works extremely well. Under this plan, it does not work. And before I stop, I wanted to pass along something that I found very fascinating in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, they've done a great job of trying to cover their citizens there. They have about 97 percent covered, but they're running into the same issue that we did in Tennessee. From 2006 until now, State spending on health care is up 70 percent. And in that State, you cannot be denied coverage and you have a mandate to buy insurance as an individual. So you have to purchase this insurance. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, from 2008 until 2009, found this out, that 40 percent of their new enrollees were enrolled for less than 5 months, and during that 5-month period of time, they averaged spending $2,400 a month on those folks. For the folks like the rest of us that just go out and pay our premiums, it was $350 a month. So what these people were doing is they were waiting till they got sick, then they bought the health insurance, and when they got well, they dropped it. So they paid the fee or the tax. Look, people will do what's in their own best interest. They're smart, and they'll figure out what to do. So I don't know how you make people or force people to do it. Guess what happened in Massachusetts? The rest of us, the rest of the folks up there who got insurance subsidized those people greatly. So I think you have to put the onus back on, and we have several plans out there that can do that, that incentivize people to look after their own health care. I mean, some very simple things to do. Tort reform. Very simple. You can save billions of dollars. Take away State lines. Allow co-ops or association health plans to be formed. Subsidize State high-risk pools. So if a patient of mine who came in and said, Dr. Roe, I was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago and I'm uninsurable, make sure that patient, that woman can get affordable health insurance. Those are simple things we can do that everybody in this Chamber ought to be able to agree on.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Yes.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Yes. And I spoke to a neurosurgeon just yesterday who is over $100,000 a year just in Tennessee. What happened in our State was the following: since the inception of that company, since the mid-seventies until now, that's 35 years, over half the premium dollars we've paid have gone to attorneys, less than 40 cents have gone to the injured party, and 10 cents go back for reserves and running the company. What we have in America is a terrible system to actually pay for injured parties. If we have injured someone in a medical malpractice event, we have no good way except through the legal system, in which most of the money goes to the attorneys, both defense and plaintiff attorneys. We can't actually pay for the injured party. That is what's wrong. And I would suggest that the attorneys have to come and help us get a system that better helps the injured party, to compensate them. If we hurt someone, let's compensate that person. Right now in our State we have a terrible system to do that.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you. Let me just give you a little historical trip. These crises, legal crises have occurred throughout various States in the Union, and it occurred in Tennessee in the mid seventies. All the companies who provided malpractice insurance left the State. So the doctors got together and formed a mutual insurance company, State Volunteer Mutual Insurance Company, where what we don't pay out in premiums--I mean in charges and costs. We keep and it comes back as lower. When I got my first malpractice premium in the seventies, it was $4,000 a year. The young physician who replaced me was $74,000.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. When I go in, and I had a procedure done on myself a couple of years ago. I take this card right here, which is my health savings account, and it's a debit card. And that day they get paid. I said, I want your best price. I want the lowest price you can give me right here when I pay you because you get your money, no insurance company involved, no anything. I'm paying today cash out of my health savings account.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Well, there's no question that the American people are the greatest shoppers in the world. I mean, how many of us haven't driven over five lanes of interstate to get gas 2 cents a gallon cheaper. I mean, we've all done that. Admit it. We are good shoppers and consumers, and health care ought to be the same way.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Dr. Cassidy, you know this, that if I had a patient that was a pregnant diabetic and she came to me, I can tell her what to do, but unless she's empowered to take care of her own blood sugar calculations, she's not going to have a successful outcome. So we absolutely have to engage our patients in solving these problems. There's no doubt about it.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Look, just to get some more time, if you look at this, there is no way on this Earth, and I said when I came here I was worried, very worried, about our children and grandchildren, my grandchildren, how they were going to do in this system. I am now very worried about our seniors, because I am afraid when you decrease the amount of resources, the amount of dollars, and add more people and cut the costs, cut the amount of money you are going to pay to providers, you will decrease access and you will decrease quality. It has to happen. Or, thirdly, our seniors are going to pay a whole lot more money for their health care, which they cannot afford. In our area where I live in the First District of Tennessee, it is not an affluent area; it is a mountainous area of the State, and so many patients that I saw every year, a lot of widows that I saw lived on a fixed income, a small Social Security check, $500, $600, $700 a month and maybe a $100-a-month pension. They cannot afford any more for their health care right now. There are millions of Americans, our seniors, who no longer can go out into the workforce. They can't hold a job at Wal-Mart as a greeter or at McDonald's or whatever. They are just physically not able. What are we going to do for those folks?

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. We have done--there are two plans out there that have had beautiful experiments in the States. That's Tennessee and Massachusetts. What happened in Tennessee, in the early 1990s, we had managed care come along and the health care costs were escalating. We have a lot of uninsured Tennesseans. It was a noble goal to try to cover as many Tennesseans as we could. So we started a plan with eight different managed care plans to compete for business. What happened between 1993 and 2004, budget years, 10 budget years, 11 budget cycles, is that the cost on spending, on Medicaid, which is TennCare, our exemption from the Medicaid system, went from 2.5 or $2.6 billion a year to $8.5 billion a year, over triple in cost. Now, what do we get for that? Well, we got more people covered; and we found in this public option that 45 percent of the people who had the public option dropped private health insurance and went on the government plan. Well, that was fine for the person who got the care at that time. But what happened, to make your point, is that the Medicaid system in our State pays less than 60 percent of the cost of actually providing the care. Medicare pays somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the costs, the uninsured somewhere in between, and the rest of it has shifted to private health insurance companies. I can tell you exactly what happened in our State is that they almost broke the State. The Governor, who is a Democrat and who is doing a fine job, as is the legislature that's Republican, are working together to try to solve this problem. How did they do it? How did they ration care? What they did was they cut 200,000 people from the rolls because the State could not afford it. What also is going to happen is our governor, and I have a letter from the governor right here, is extremely worried about the Bachus plan, and he has already scored that because he knows the next governor is going to have to deal with it. What he is looking at is at least $735 million over 5 years. And if this were to happen, if the State were to sue Medicaid, which Washington State and California have done, to freeze the rates so that you couldn't lower the Medicare and Medicaid rates, that could be as much as $1 billion more for the State in an unfunded mandate. Right now our State has no way to pay for it. We just don't have it in Tennessee. And to show you we don't, the governor and the legislature have had to cut off enrollment in the SCHIP plan, in our State it is called Cover Kids, because we don't have the money for even our matching part right now.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Well, I think the mantra that you hear is we want affordable, accessible, quality health care. Just to speak to what Dr. Boozman was saying there briefly, if you look at the next 10 years, and you take 400, $500 billion out of the Medicare system, and you add 3 to 3\1/2\ million people to the Medicare system, each year, and then in the Baucus bill after year 2 you cut providers by 24 percent, you do the math. I mean, how can you provide more quality care to 30 million people with $500 billion less money? You do the math, it's impossible.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, as a doctor, I see the health care reform debate a little differently than many of my colleagues. When people talk about cost savings and different health care plans, they are really talking about access to care for my patients. There is an immediate and long-term problem for patients' access under the Democrats' plan. In the near term, 20 percent of our seniors will see reduced benefits. It's not credible to say that we are not cutting Medicare benefits when, in fact, we are. These so-called reforms seem incredibly short-sighted to me in light of the fact that they will decrease access to care. Over the longer term, H.R. 3200 will force further cutbacks in care as cost savings fail to materialize. Why am I so confident of this outcome? Because I heard the same promises, the same predictions to my patients under TennCare, our State's Medicaid experiment that failed spectacularly. Care was rationed and enrollment for the program was closed, and that hurt our patients. We simply cannot allow these cutbacks to harm patient care. I urge all Members to go back to their districts and talk to their doctors and patients. I think they will hear a different story and remedy for our health care system than the one the Democrats are trying to prescribe.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, October is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and great organizations such as CHIPS Family Violence Center in Erwin, Tennessee are educating the community on the dynamics of domestic violence. This exceptional organization has an important mission to provide shelter and service to victims of domestic violence and their children, ultimately, enabling them to begin and maintain a life free of violence. This month, CHIPS Family Violence Center in Erwin is holding their third annual candle light service. This event will not only educate the community, it will also honor victims and bring attention to their struggle. Madam Speaker, the help, opportunity and encouragement provided by CHIPS Family Violence Center is helping families throughout Tennessee. I want to thank the shelter, the volunteers and our law enforcement for working together towards a safer and healthier community each day.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I rise today in support of H.R. 1035, a bill that amends the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Act. The Morris K. Udall Foundation was created by Congress in 1992 to honor Mr. Udall's 30 years of public service. The Foundation was created to help educate new generations to protect the environment. The Foundation works to increase the awareness of our Nation's natural resources, foster a greater recognition and understanding of the role of the environment and the development of our Nation, and through the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, provide for mediation and other services to resolve environmental disputes involving Federal agencies. The Foundation operates several educational programs. The Morris K. Udall scholarship program awards approximately 80 merit-based scholarships of about $5,000 each year. It also supports about 12 Native Americans or Alaskan natives every summer for a 10-week bipartisan congressional internship program. Finally, the foundation supports two fellows every year in a doctoral program whose research focuses on environmental policy. As we noted when this passed the House this summer, the legislation before us honors Stewart L. Udall's service to the Nation by adding his name to the foundation, making it the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation. Mr. Udall served in Congress and the administration, and then continued his work for the environment in the private sector. I would like to point out that there is one difference between this bill and the version passed by the House in July. The other body removed the authorization level of ``such sums,'' thereby leaving the authorization of these programs at $40 million, which is current law. Finally, I would like to note this bill is being amended by the House to include the Travel Promotion Act, which creates a corporation to promote travel in the United States. My colleague from Missouri, Mr. Blunt, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, will speak to these provisions. But let me just say that I'm glad that we are acting to promote tourism in this economic downturn. Attractions like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited park in America, Dollywood, Jonesboro, the oldest town in Tennessee, and Sycamore Shoals historic site in my district stand to benefit greatly from increased tourism. The Senate amendment to the underlying Udall scholarship bill makes this legislation better. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate the Smoky Mountain Children's Home for their long heritage as residential care center and an adoption placement agency. I was honored to nominate the Smoky Mountain Children's Home for the 2009 Angels in AdoptionTM program. The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, which orchestrates the Angels in AdoptionTM program, presented an award to The Smoky Mountain Children's Home along with more than 190 Angels from across the Nation. Madam Speaker, the Smoky Mountain Children's Home's philosophy comes from a basic faith based belief that every child deserves a family. I am thankful for the important work that is being done at the Smoky Mountain Children's Home. They are working each day toward one of the most noble causes imaginable--to improve the life of a child by bringing him or her together with a loving family. I am grateful for programs such as Angels in AdoptionTM who recognize the good work done by great organizations like the Smoky Mountain Children's Home.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. A job well done, the University of Washington women's softball team, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I might consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 517, congratulating the University of Washington women's softball team for winning the 2009 Women's College World Series. The University of Washington is a public research university founded in 1861. It is one of the oldest State-supported institutions of higher education on the west coast. UW is located in Seattle, Washington, and the university has two additional branch campuses in Tacoma and Bothell, Washington. The university offers over 250 degrees within 150 departments, programs across 18 colleges and schools and employs over 4,100 full-time equivalent faculty members. UW operates and manages two major medical centers, UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical Center. The university receives more Federal research funding than any other public university in the country, and the second most Federal research funding of all the universities in the country. The University of Washington's long history of excellence is reflected in its academic and athletic rankings and accomplishments. The university is considered a ``public ivy,'' and the U.S. News and World Report ranked UW 41st out of 130 tier 1 national universities. The university has 20 graduate programs ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News and World Report. And in 2008, the school placed 16th in the world's top universities, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities. University of Washington's excellence and success extend to their athletics, as well as their academics. UW is a NCAA Division I-A school, and recent national championships include the softball team, the men's rowing team, NCAA Division I women's cross-country team, and the women's volleyball team. This year, led by National Player of the Year Danielle Lawrie, a member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic team, Washington's women's softball team advanced to the NCAA finals for the third time in school history. The number three Huskies rallied from two runs down in the top of the first inning to sweep top-ranked Florida in the best-of-three NCAA championship series. Washington ended the championship with a 3-2 victory against the University of Florida. I'm honored today to congratulate and recognize the University of Washington's women's softball team for their victory as national champions in the 2009 Women's College World Series. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I rise in support of House Resolution 90, a resolution supporting the goals and ideals of National Campus Safety Month. I would like to thank my colleague, Representative Sestak, for introducing this important resolution recognizing the importance of safety on college campuses and the efforts of outside organizations to dedicate September to promoting greater public awareness of campus safety issues. Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have seen how important it is to pay attention to our students' safety on campus. Sadly, college campuses are faced with the same crimes that plague many of our country's cities. Whether it be situations involving one individual, like the tragic murder of Annie Le at Yale University, or situations that involve the whole campus, like what occurred several years ago at Virginia Tech, colleges should continue to take steps to make sure the campus community is aware of activities on campus. A more informed population is often a safer population. To that end, Congress took several steps in the Higher Education Opportunity Act last year to encourage institutions to update their campus security plans and ensure that they have steps in place to deal with all different types of emergencies. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is especially timely this week as millions of students have left their homes and begun their fall semesters at colleges around the country. And I am pleased to support this resolution and urge my colleagues to do the same. And just as a sidebar--this didn't occur on a college campus--but one of the most distressing things that I have seen in my recent memory was the death of this young honor student in Chicago. And I think this just goes to safety on all campuses. I pray for that family and for that city with this terrible tragedy. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I yield back the balance of my time. I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for this resolution.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 487, a resolution to recognize the 100th anniversary of The State News, the campus newspaper at Michigan State University. The State News was actually founded as the Holcad in 1909 when Michigan State University was still Michigan Agricultural College. It became the Michigan State News in 1925 when the college was renamed Michigan State University. In 1971, the paper separated from the university to become an independent, nonprofit organization. Since that time, the paper has received many awards. It has won the Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker award, an award that is considered the Pulitzer Prize of college journalism, 16 times. It has been ranked as one of the Nation's best daily college newspapers by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated College Press. And it was ranked number 11 on a list of the best college newspapers in the country by the Princeton Review in 2008. The paper has a number of noted alumni, including Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jim Mitzelfeld and Jerry ter Horst, President Gerald Ford's press secretary. I would like to commend The State News on the occasion of its 100th anniversary and congratulate all of the students and former students that have dedicated their time to making this paper great. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 769, a resolution recognizing the benefits of service-learning as a strategy to effectively engage youth in the classroom and community and expressing support for the goals of the Learn and Serve Challenge. The National Learn and Serve Challenge is an annual event that takes place from October 5 to 11 and highlights the importance of engaging young people in community service. Through service-learning, students conduct community service projects which teachers then use to teach academic lessons in the classroom. The challenge encourages young people to participate in special events and community outreach projects. It also encourages young people to develop and launch their own service-learning activities. These projects also help students see the real-life relevance of what they are learning in the classroom and apply their new knowledge in a practical manner. I recognize the value of engaging youth in service in the community, and I honor the goals of the National Learn and Serve Challenge. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and also, Mr. Speaker, I think that young people learn to give back to their community and leave their community a little bit better than they found it through this project. I yield the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3221. What we are doing here today is using our country's financial crisis as an excuse to eliminate an industry that has proven to be more popular and at least as well run, if not more so, than its government counterpart. I might add that my son just used this program for his own education. A unified Democratic majority of the House, Senate and White House created the Direct Loan Program in 1993. Back then, many Republicans were skeptical that the Democrats' intention was to simply ``introduce competition and keep private lenders honest.'' In what is literally their first opportunity since then with a unified majority, they are proving Republicans' suspicions correct. The comparisons to our health care debate are obvious and too strong to ignore. In the debate we are having on health care, our friends on the other side of the aisle are making the case that we need the government and private industry to compete to provide consumers the best choice. So it's astonishing that we're considering a bill that eliminates the Federal Family Education Loan program, which consumers are choosing by a nearly 3-1 margin over its government-run Direct Loan Program alternative. So much for competition. What's worse is this legislation may increase the deficit even more. If we use CBO's generous assumptions, this bill will save $13 billion over the first 5 years, but only $7 billion over the next 10 years. That means in the second 5 years of the bill's scope, the bill will actually cost taxpayers $6 billion in new funding. This does not even begin to address what happens in the second 10 years when the spending doesn't have to be offset. It's just so disingenuous to pass more debt on to future generations while calling our actions ``fiscally responsible.'' That's only if the assumptions are correct. The CBO has estimated that, if the default rates run higher than their estimates, this bill could cost taxpayers $33 billion more in 10 years. The spending would be less troubling if it weren't mandatory spending, which means it goes on autopilot and is never reviewed by Congress for effectiveness, and it never has to comply with annual budgets. The most disappointing aspect of this whole debate is that there is an obvious bipartisan alternative that achieved 388 votes in the last Congress. The Ensuring Continued Access to Student Loan Act, which ensures that private lenders can make it through a tough credit crisis, should be what we're considering today instead of this partisan approach. Since passing in the last Congress, we should all be commending Chairman Miller and members of the committee who were here last year for a job well done. Instead, the Democrats are, once again, trying to have the government take over private industry, which is providing a service the American people like. Here is the bottom line in this debate: if you like multibillion dollar programs that have zero oversight from Congress and are on autopilot, vote for this bill. If you like to increase unemployment, you should vote for this bill. If you believe Washington bureaucrats will improve their performance and will find ways to become more efficient by eliminating their competition, you should definitely support this bill. If you feel like we should be seeking common, bipartisan ground on the future of our children's education, please join me in voting ``no'' on this program and in voting ``yes'' on the Kline amendment.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and congratulate the Higher Education Initiative by the City of Kingsport. The Higher Education Initiative worked to revitalize the economy in Kingsport by improving the overall education level of its labor force. Madam Speaker, I am not the only one praising Kingsport for their initiative. Kingsport has been awarded the 2009 Innovations in American Government Awards by The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for its higher education initiatives. To win this prestigious award, Kingsport had to compete against 600 other federal, state and local governments. The Kingsport Center for Higher Education consists of five institutions: Carson-Newman College, King College, Lincoln Memorial University, Northeast State Community College, and the University of Tennessee. This unique partnership allows the Center to offer courses and programs ranging from associate to doctoral degrees. Just recently, I moved my district congressional office to this impressive facility. As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I support this great initiative and I thank Kingsport for their dedication to their local economy and their commitment to education. Since Kingsport has taken the initiative towards promoting higher education nearly a decade ago, there has been a 23 percent increase in high school graduates, a 27.5 percent increase in those with Associate Degrees and a 19.2 increase in those with Bachelor's Degrees. Education adds value and improves quality of life. I commend the City of Kingsport for their hard work and dedication that has truly made the city a better place.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Let me just tell you the folks out there, and we're going spend about the last half of this hour talking about the positive solutions and what we do agree on. But when I first came to D.C. and I heard of this public option I said, I've heard this before. And in Tennessee, in the early nineties we had managed care that was going to control the cost. We got a waiver from HHS and formed a program called TennCare, where we had about 8 different managed care organizations competing for your business. Now we have one. In the 1993-1994 year, the State of Tennessee spent combined Federal, State revenue, $2.5 billion. Eleven years later, 10 to 11 years later, that had gone to over $8.5 billion. It had tripled and took up almost a third of the State's entire budget. We were complaining about 17 percent now. This took up almost a third and almost every new dollar that the State took in.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Will the gentleman yield?