John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. And I suggest that you also read from a letter written by Blue Dog Democrats, conservative Democrats, to their leadership expressing concerns about provisions of the bill before it was released today, the so-called ``Tri-Committee Discussion Draft.'' So are you telling me that Blue Dog Democrats have read portions of the bill?

Mr. SHADEGG. I'm just stunned. I have here beside me a quote from the House majority leader which suggests that it is not appropriate in America for us to expect Members of Congress to read bills. As a matter of fact, the majority leader said, if every Member pledged not to vote for it--``it'' being this health care bill--if they hadn't read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes. He said last week, he laughed out loud--laughed out loud at the notion that Members might actually read a bill. I suppose if you had done what he did, which is on the cap-and-trade bill, introduced at 3:04 in the morning a 309-page amendment which made it impossible for a single Member to read the bill before it was voted on at 4 p.m. that afternoon or 5 p.m. that afternoon, then I guess you would have to say, gosh, we don't want Members to read bills. But as I understand it, you're reading this bill, and so are these Blue Dogs, reading the bill?

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentlelady will yield briefly, I just point out that for you to know all of those numbers shows that you are very much involved in the process of reading this bill. Your staff is involved in the process of reading the bill. I said facetiously to our colleague from Georgia yesterday that I was stunned that people were reading the bill. I just want to make the point I am really stunned that the majority leader made the comment that Members shouldn't be expected to read the bill. I know I won't vote for this bill until I have read it and been over it. I compliment the gentlelady's staff for poring through the bill, finding those statistics. I compliment the gentleman from Georgia for obviously reading portions of the bill and for his dedication. And everyone here, I think the American people expect us to read the bill. And I just wanted to make it clear that I was only being facetious when I expressed stun and shock that we might read a bill. I think it's my job to know what's in these bills. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. SHADEGG. I hope our colleagues on the other side will do the same.

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I'll try to be as brief as I can. I want to point out that the Democrats' bill was not the only bill introduced today. As many of my colleagues here note, we introduced the Improving Health Care for All Americans Act today. It's a bill that reforms health care, not top down government edict, government mandate. It reforms American health care bottom up. It controls costs by empowering Americans, and it has some key points. It says, if you like it, you can keep it. It provides coverage for every single American and choice for every single American. It provides new pooling mechanisms so that you could be in an insurance pool other than your employer's pool. It says that the Kiwanis International or the Rotary International or the Daughters of the American Revolution or your alumni association of your college or university could sponsor a plan. So you could pick many pools to get into. It also says we're going to cover preexisting conditions or people with chronic conditions at the same rates as everyone else, by cross- subsidization and high-risk pools. But I wanted to make, because I have some charts here, two quick points very quickly, and I'd invite anybody else who speaks in the limited time we have left to comment on these because I think they're so important. The President has said over and over and over again, if you like it, you can keep it. I think that's so important, because polls show roughly 83 percent of Americans, 83 percent of Americans, like the health care they have. So if the President stands forth and says, if you like it, you can keep it, ladies and gentlemen, I wish it were true. This is the language of the bill which was introduced today. It's been revised and renumbered. This came from the working draft, but the same language is in the bill. It says, by the end of the 5-year period following the introduction of the bill, group health insurance plans, every group health insurance plan must meet the minimum benefit requirements under section 121. Section 121 creates a new Federal entity called the Health Care Advisory Committee, which will rewrite the minimum benefits for every health care plan in America. That means every health care plan in America, under their bill, will change within 5 years. Some will change immediately. Everyone will change within 5 years.

Mr. SHADEGG. If you like it, like the headline says right here, if you like it, if you like your care, if you're one of those 83 percent of Americans, be prepared to lose it, because you're going to lose it under their bill, not just by competition from the public plan. Their bill says you'll lose it. In 5 years, every plan has to change. I will conclude very briefly on an issue that I know is near and dear to the gentleman who sponsored this special hour tonight, Special Order tonight, our friend Mr. Akin, who's a cancer survivor. The American people, I hope, will slow down this process. I hope they'll say, We want to see what's in this bill. But I hope they'll ask this question and understand this information. We are being told to switch to a system similar to what exists in Canada, Europe and England. Those are the parallels. But I would suggest to my colleagues and to every American, there are two things that scare every American. Those two things are cancers. For men, it's prostate cancer. For women, it's breast cancer. And these are hard facts. This chart shows you that the 5-year survival rate in the United States for prostate cancer is dramatically better than Canada. It is stunningly better than Europe, and it is shockingly better than in England. So, if you have prostate cancer in America, your chance of surviving after 5 years are dramatically better in the United States than in the system the Democrats are telling us we ought to adopt. But that's not enough, because every woman in America goes to bed each night worrying about breast cancer, and I would suggest every husband in America goes to bed worrying about breast cancer. And here are the facts. If you look at 5-year survival rates for breast cancer, once again, the United States, the system they want to throw out, you have a dramatically better, significantly better chance of surviving than Canada, even more dramatically better chance of surviving 5 years than if you lived in Europe, and even better than that, of surviving 5 years, than if you lived in England. Before we adopt a Canadian, a European, or a British system of health care, we better know that the survival rates for these cancers, the cancers that scare most Americans more than any other, are significantly worse in those countries than in the United States of America.

Mr. SHADEGG. I guess what the gentleman is saying is that, if the bill passes, we'd better hope the commissioner is as smart as Peter Orszag.

Mr. SHADEGG. The man is dead right.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. The quote by the majority leader is, ``If every Member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn't read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes.'' So he apparently thinks we shouldn't read the bill.

Mr. SHADEGG. Excuse me? Say what?

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. We have done a pretty good job of filleting what I think needs to be filleted.

Mr. SHADEGG. That actually is woody biomass, and there are certain rules of how it gets converted into energy in cap-and-trade.

Mr. SHADEGG. I would like to, for just a moment, get serious. I think we have done a good job here.

Mr. SHADEGG. I know. But I mean deadly serious about an alternative. We get accused of being the party of no, and I hate to repeat that charge. But if I were sitting at home tonight, I would watch this; and I would say, Well, all those Republicans are saying that that 1,100 pages doesn't make sense. And I have to compliment my colleague from Michigan. He has done a stupendous job of reading some of the absurdity in that bill. So you are home and saying, Well, you Republicans are just against everything. I want to point out that that is not the case because that bill--hold it up, Mr. Hoekstra, if you would--that bill is not the only health care bill that was introduced in this body today. Now I will admit that the other one that was introduced in this body today is stunningly shortened. It's a fraction of that number of pages. But several of the Members in this discussion tonight were cosponsors of the bill I introduced today called the Improving Health Care For All Americans Act. It's a simplified bill. It doesn't do a top-down command-and-control government edict, all the things that Mr. Hoekstra was reading. What it says is, we need bottom-up reform. We need to empower individual Americans. So let me just take a quick minute to walk through five major concepts in the Improving Health Care For All Americans Act, introduced by a group of Republicans today, and tell you how it's different than what the Democrats want to do. First, we pointed out that the President keeps saying, If you like it, you can keep it. But we have pointed out that the wording of their bill says, If you like it, you will lose it, because it says that in 5 years, every bill that exists today will be gone because it has to meet the standards written by a new commission. Well, our bill, the Republican bill, Improving Health Care For All Americans Act says, If you like it, you can keep it. Of the 83 percent of Americans who say they are happy with their health care right now, most of those people get their health care from their employers. Our bill says, If you have employer-provided health care and you like it, you--the patient, the employee--get to choose to keep it. And if they choose to keep it, they keep their current tax exclusion. Many Democrats want to take that tax exclusion away. However, we will not force you to give up your health care. We really mean, If you like it, you can keep it. That is what is in our bill. Second, every American under our bill gets choice, and every American gets coverage. How do we do that? The bill says, If you have employer-provided coverage and you like it, you keep it. But what about people that don't have employer-provided coverage? Our bill says, We are going to give you the right to use your tax dollars if you pay income taxes to buy a policy that you choose; and if you buy a policy of your choice and you spend $2,500 as an individual or $5,000 as a family, you get a dollar-for-dollar tax offset. So those people get to buy a policy they like, and they can keep it. What about the Americans that many people are concerned about, those who don't pay income taxes? Our bill gives them a tax stipend and says, Here, we're going to provide you the funds to go buy a plan of your choice. Now that covers every single American, everyone who has employer-provided coverage and likes it; everyone who doesn't have employer-provided coverage; everyone who has employer-provided coverage but doesn't like it; and everyone who can't afford to go out and buy it on their own, we cover every single American. But you know what, we didn't put one of them, not one of them into a government program. Now why didn't we do that? Well, the Democrats say, Let's let the rich people buy their own insurance and put the poor into government programs. That's what we're doing now with SCHIP and Medicaid. We say, Why not give those who can't afford their own coverage a cash stipend to buy a plan they like? Why shouldn't they have control over their lives and their health care and make it respond to them and their demands? So our bill does that. Now you say--and this happened in the last Presidential debate--Well, you're going to force everybody into the individual market and costs are much higher in the individual market. Dead wrong. Our bill provides new pooling mechanisms and group plan choices for every single American. This is a kind of a different concept. Right now everybody in America that wants to get into an insurance pool to pool their risk with other people, you know how many pools they can possibly join? One. Their employer's pool. That's the only pool you and I are offered. Every single one of us on the floor here is offered, as Congressmen, the chance to join our employer's pool. Can we join some other pool? No, we can't. This bill says, We're going to let many pools be formed. We're going to let social organizations, we're going to let civic organizations, we're going to let--for example, for me, the University of Arizona Alumni Association might form a pool and offer a plan. For someone who's a member of the Kiwanis International, we'll let the Kiwanis Clubs International form a pool. How about the Daughters of the American Revolution? Why shouldn't they be able to form a pool? We can have lots of different pools so that you and I can choose--I want to be in my employer's pool and have a low-cost plan; or I want to be in the Kiwanis International pool or the AARP pool or some other kind of pool where my risk is pooled with others. That's the third piece of our bill. And now the one that many Democrats are concerned about--and it is one of the ones where I think we agree with them--and that is pre- existing conditions and chronic conditions. Those price lots of people out of the ability to buy health care. Do Republicans care about that? Yes. Are we going to force you into something? Are we going to pass a mandate like the Democrats' mandate? No. What our bill says is that every single American with a pre-existing condition or a chronic condition whose health care costs get so high they either can't find a policy or can't afford the policy will be able to join a high-risk pool or a reinsurance plan, a reinsurance mechanism that holds down the cost of their health care to the cost of everyone else's even though they have a pre-existing. I mentioned this earlier. I have an older sister who is a breast cancer survivor--thank God she's a survivor--for over 20 years. For years, she was forced to keep her teaching job even if she wanted to change jobs because she had a preexisting condition. Her cancer was covered as long as she stayed with her employer, but if she left, her cancer wasn't covered. Under our bill, her cancer would have been covered even if she changed jobs. We can control costs in America by empowering patients and consumers. We can reform American health care from the bottom up, not command and control from the top down. I thank the gentleman for yielding

Mr. SHADEGG. The fifth point was empowering consumers by giving them the right to buy and control their own health care. That is, if you are an employee, if you have a plan offered by an employer, you can choose to keep it or choose to take the tax credit and buy another plan. And empowering everyone else that doesn't have an employer-provided plan, that empowering of you and I to take control of our health care back will let us shop for the best quality care at the lowest price, which we can't do right now. Right now it's a third-party system. Your employer picks your plan and your plan picks your doctor. The Democrats say that is a terrible, failed system. We should take the employer out and put the government in. How does that make it any better? What we say is empower individual Americans. Give them the ability to make their health care choices and, oh, by the way, they will then not only have power and control and can fire a plan that doesn't work for them, but they will also have a greater stake and an interest in their own health care.

Mr. SHADEGG. It's their idea of a Washington-centered plan. Their 1,100-page bill is all Washington-centered. It's got a commissioner. If it doesn't have a czar, it's got a powerful commissioner. Or our idea of a patient-centered plan.

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. SHADEGG. Not only do we know how to fix things, but we are the Party of Know in another way. I want--every one of us here tonight, every Republican in this Congress wants the American people to know--k-n-o-w--what's in this bill before we pass it. We are being told that we have to rush to pass this in less than 3 weeks. The first markup of this bill will occur, I believe, on Thursday. It will not conclude until the following Wednesday. We then have less than a week and a half from that until the August break. The Democrats apparently don't want Americans to know, k-n-o-w, what's in this bill. I think we are the party of know, k-n-o-w. I want the American people to know when you consider this as 20 percent of our economy--it's one in every six jobs--it's shocking that we would consider passing such a bill without knowing what's in it.

Mr. SHADEGG. He said what?

Mr. SHADEGG. He was planning on 9.5 percent unemployment?

Mr. SHADEGG. 3:09 in the morning.

Mr. SHADEGG. I just want to say, I compliment the gentleman, and he asked me to go get this information and I've gotten it. For any American who wants to read the bill as it exists tonight, which as my colleague from Michigan has just pointed out will change probably at 3:09 in the morning on the day we vote on it, you can go to the Energy and Commerce Committee Web site and download or read the bill yourself. To get there, you go to www.energycommerce_the word energy, E-N-E-R-G-Y, then with no space the word commerce, C-O-M-M-E-R- C-E--.house.gov. You will then see an icon that says Quality Affordable Health Care Act. If you click on that icon, you, yourself, can download those 1,100 pages and enjoy reading it the way my colleague from Michigan has enjoyed reading it and some of the bizarre things in it.

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman. And I just want to reiterate this point. Republicans are here for a cause. We believe in something. We believe in bringing down the cost of health care in America. The President has said those costs are unsustainable--and they are. Republicans are here for the cause. Our cause is to help families and businesses get a hold of their health care costs and bring them down. But here's how we want to do it. We want to do it through patient- centered health care. Patient-centered health care offers the best way to reduce health care costs. The old Washington, D.C.-centered, top- down approach that Democrats envision will empower bureaucrats in this city. And those bureaucrats will restrict cures, restrict treatments, and get between you and your doctor. The Washington-centered system will cost trillions more--and they admit it. That's the price tag on their bill. The President sees the problem, but he's got the solution wrong. They want a Washington-centered plan. We want a patient-centered reform. They want a Washington-centered experiment. We want simple, commonsense fixes. They want a closed health care system where Washington bureaucrats make the decisions. We want an open health care system where you and I, patients, people, average Americans get to make those decisions. We want bottom-up, empower Americans, patient-centered. They want top-down, bureaucrat-driven. The political artificial cost reductions they talk about won't happen. If we empower a big Washington-run monopoly, it won't work. I repeat what I said before. Since when did getting the government involved, since when did having the government take over something bring down costs? If you join us, if you believe that Americans should be empowered from the bottom up, not told what to do from the top down, then help us and don't let this plan pass. Help Republicans pass a plan, a simple plan that will help American families and American businesses.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to warn the American people that they are about to lose the health care they have, to warn the 83 percent of Americans who like the health care coverage they already have and to caution them that it is about to be taken away. It is about to be taken away, quite frankly, in an undemocratic process that will occur essentially in the dark of night. You see, as you have just heard from the last two speakers, democracy does not exist in this body today as it has in the past. I sit on the primary committee that should be writing this health care bill. I have not been allowed to participate in any way, shape, or form, not in any way, shape or form. The majority has written their bill all alone, behind closed doors, consulting only the majority. They can roll right over the minority, and they don't care. But that's wrong, that's dead wrong, and only the American people can stop it. Now, you heard me say, I rise to warn you that you are about to lose the health care you have. And you may have said to yourself, No, wait, Congressman, I've heard the President say again and again and again that if you like the care you have, you may keep it. I, too, have heard the President say those words, but they are not true. They are absolutely not true. You see, while we do not have a bill to read yet, we have a discussion draft. We will mark up a bill next week in all three committees with jurisdiction, but we don't have a bill yet. But we do have a discussion draft. That discussion draft makes the most sweeping changes to American health care--indeed, it is the most sweeping piece of legislation I have seen in my 15-year career in the Congress, and the most dramatic piece of legislation in decades. And yet, it will completely change health care in America, it will change one-sixth of our Nation's economy, and it will destroy the health care you have now. If you like what you have now, if you're one of those 83 percent of Americans who like their health care--maybe it's not perfect, its cost is going up too fast, you would like more control over it, but your employer has the control or the plan has the control; you would like to pick your doctor, but you can't; you would like a better system, but you still like what you have now? If you like it, be prepared to lose it because, under this bill, you will lose it. Every health care plan in America will change. The bill says that in almost those exact words. It says that they are creating a new health care bureaucracy to exist between you and your doctor. This chart shows that bureaucracy. You are the patient up here in the upper left-hand corner, your doctor is in the lower right-hand corner. Every single little box you see is a newly created agency, bureaucracy, program, plan, or bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor. But here's the one that counts in terms of changing the plan you have. They are creating a new, nicely named board. This nicely named board is called the American Health Care Benefits Advisory Committee. I love the word ``advisory''; it sounds like they're going to give you some advice. Wrong. This board will be a Federal board that will decide what is in every health care plan in America. If your employer has a plan today and it doesn't fit every dot and tittle of what the new Health Benefits Advisory Committee requires, it must change. And that means every plan in America will change. Now, they're being gracious; they will let the current plans stand for those who already have them for 5 years, but at the end of that 5 years every plan will change. If you like what you have, it will change. They are inserting all of these bureaucrats between you and your doctor, 48 new agencies. Here's the Health Choices Administration, one of the new agencies they're creating, the risk pooling mechanism, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the many government health care plans. Here is the Public Health Investment Fund, the QHBP Ombudsman, the Medicare Trust Fund--we already have that one--and on and on and on and on. And they're putting them between you and your doctor. If you like what you have, be prepared to lose it because that's the mandate of this bill. Now, what are some of the other mandates? Every employer in America must provide health care coverage for every full-time employee and every part-time employee. Every. You heard me say ``every'' employer in America, not every big employer, but in the House bill, every employer. If you employ yourself, you must insure yourself and create a plan that meets the demands of this new government agency. Now, they do have a small business exemption, but guess what? In the House bill, there is no definition of small business--it's left blank. I wonder why. I guess they don't want to tell us that they can define a small business as as little as one employee. It creates a new government health care plan. That government health care plan will compete with your plan. Very interesting. The President was asked on ABC television last week, Mr. President, you've said if Americans like the health care plan they have, they can keep it, and yet it appears you're going to take things away. What do you mean by that, Mr. President? And the President of the United States responded, The government will not, on its own and directly, abolish any plan. And the interviewer said, Well, but wait a minute, what if you write a new set of rules that makes it impossible for American employers to offer the plan they're currently offering? The President's response was, Well, that's not the government taking away your plan; that's your employer taking away your plan. If you believe that, then I've got some land in Florida to sell you. The American people need health care reform. We can give them better health care reform. We can give them choice and control over their own health care. We do not have to choose between the flawed current system and a government takeover of American health care. Americans, now is the time to engage. You don't have another minute to waste. Please get involved in this debate.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I commend the gentleman from Arizona for his comments about mandates, and I couldn't agree more. But I thought maybe it would be useful for the audience to illustrate the kind of poster child for mandates that the other side often recites and talks about, and that's mandatory auto insurance. The gentleman pointed out that individual mandates tend not to work, and, indeed, the individual mandates in the health care plan in Massachusetts are not working. People are refusing to go along with those. People are choosing to be fined instead of complying with the government mandate to buy health care. But as the gentleman knows, most of the States, as a matter of fact, 48 out of the 50 States, mandate auto insurance. I wonder if you and I could have a little discussion about how well mandatory auto insurance works, because that's the reason we're told, well, if mandatory auto insurance works, why not mandatory health insurance?