John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Absolutely.

Mr. SHADEGG. Every father and every mother and every sister and every brother of a soldier of this Nation needs to be scared because this undercuts our troops. This damages their morale. This undercuts their ability to do their job. This is a betrayal of America's fighting women and America's fighting men, and we need to stand up and we need to speak out and we need to say it's wrong. And it's not just unsafe for the people of New York. It's not just unsafe for the people of Illinois. It's not just unsafe for the people of Texas or Arizona. It is unsafe for every soldier we have engaged in combat. It is a betrayal of them in the name of political correctness.

Mr. SHADEGG. I would doubt it has ever happened.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think the gentleman brings up a great point of history, and I want to add to it. Do you know that in World War II, enemy combatants caught in the United States, and there were some who came into the United States, came ashore or came to our coasts in submarines, then came ashore, could not, under international law, be held in American civilian prisons. The reason for that is they are not, as of that point in time, they're not criminals, and they have not been convicted, and therefore cannot be punished as prisoners in American jails or prisons are being punished. And so we had to create camps where you could hold prisoners of war. As it turned out, we didn't adjudicate most of them. We released them upon the end of combat. In this case we are actually doing the opposite. We are not just saying that they're not enemy combatants engaged in acts of war and treating them separately and treating them as our colleague from Texas, Mr. Gohmert, points out, through military tribunals. We're mixing them into the American criminal justice system, a system designed to preserve and protect the rights of the American people. It's insane. And the consequences will mean that, by extension, we have to go into the battlefield with evidence testing and with defense counsels and, as my colleague from Texas pointed out, the notion that we have to read them their rights. This is lunacy and a betrayal of our military.

Mr. SHADEGG. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding. I think it's important to note that from the outset there have been some in this body who have tried to stop this moment from occurring. I introduced legislation as soon as I heard that the President intended to bring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States and to close Guantanamo Bay. I introduced legislation back last February to prohibit the President from bringing a single person who had ever been detained at Guantanamo Bay here to the United States. Mine was one of many bills introduced by Republican Members of Congress to try to stop this very point.

Mr. SHADEGG. Our minority leader, Mr. Boehner, introduced a bill identical or very similar to mine. There have been other pieces of legislation. I just want to make it clear that I think that this is a grave error on so many fronts it's hard to explain. And it's worth maybe trying to lay out some of those points for anybody who'd just listen. Number one, I think the gentleman made a good point of this earlier. If you bring terrorists to the United States, there is, first and foremost, the danger that by merely being physically present in the United States, they will acquire rights that they do not have in Guantanamo Bay, that they do not have in Iraq, or that they did not have in Afghanistan.

Mr. SHADEGG. And why are we changing it? For some sense of political correctness, because we doubt ourselves, because we doubt that we were attacked, because we doubt the sincerity of the insane comments you've just read from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed about his intention to kill us, about his bragging, I believe, of beheading Daniel Pearl himself? Those are shocking things. But that's just like the first of many reasons why this is a terrible policy. The gentleman did, I think, an excellent job earlier, that maybe the average American doesn't think about. But think of the risk that you are imposing upon not just the sworn police officers who will transport the combatants brought here, and the jailers that will jail them and the judges that will preside and the clerks that will be in the room or the bailiffs, but think of every single one of their family members, not just their children, their wives; what about their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, their aunts, all of whom now become targets of terrorism, because if I were a terrorist outside of United States and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was going on trial in New York, I'd say, why don't I find the judge's cousin? Why don't I find the bailiff's sister? Why don't I find the jailer's brother? And I'll capture them and hold them for ransom until Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is released. We are placing literally, a countless number of Americans, guards, bailiffs, clerks, judges, jury members, and all their families at risk to afford to avowed terrorists who say the insane hatred things that you just read? We are putting all of them at risk to afford to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the rights that our Constitution reserves to Americans accused of, Americans simply accused of criminal acts in America? These were not criminal acts in America. This was an act of war. As our colleague from Texas pointed out earlier, he made no mistake. When Osama bin Laden declared war against the United States, it was not, ``I plan to go rob the United States.'' It was not, ``I plan to go kidnap Americans in the United States and hold them for ransom.'' It was, ``I am declaring war against the United States.'' And here we sit compliant in this process because we want to be politically correct; we want to be perceived as fair. What did we establish that was unfair about Guantanamo? Soldiers there have been given copies of the Koran. They've been given prayer mats. They are allowed time of prayer. We have spent $50 million or more in building and improving that facility. This is the first time in the course of the history of this Nation that we have doubted ourselves so much as to say we can't deal with enemy combatants who launch a war against us as we have dealt with them throughout history; throughout World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. The tradition, the standards, the equity, the justice of the American military tribunal process has been established. And now, for the sake of political correctness, because somebody is unhappy, maybe somebody who is not a friend of the United States, maybe somebody who is not an ally of the United States, maybe somebody who wants to destroy this Nation, says, ``We don't like your system,'' so we are going to put them into the American criminal justice system? It makes no sense. If he had been born here, if he had been a domestic terrorist who had begun his activities here, maybe that could be debated, but that is not the case. Not born here, not a U.S. citizen, not here when the crimes were committed, plotted from overseas as an act of war under the command of Osama bin Laden--a man who had already declared war on the United States--and both of them part of an entity, al Qaeda, an entity that, as an institution, declared war against the United States We have to stand our ground. This is the time, America, to say enough is enough. We are not going to expose America's citizens--all of those judges, all of those clerks, all of those bailiffs, all of those jailers, all of those police officers who have to transport somebody. And it's easy for them to say, ``We are tough.'' I saw the mayor of New York say, ``We are tough. We can do it.'' Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it is your daughter that is kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it is some clerk, some innocent clerk of the court whose daughter or son is kidnapped or the judge's wife or the jailer's little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok.

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman will yield on that point, I guess in order to figure out how long you'd have to close the subways and how long you'd have to close the bridges and how many bomb threats will be called in during the course of the trial, you'd have to begin by saying, well, how long will the trial last? And that is a pretty interesting question. In America, if we have a true criminal trial in a multiple murder case, those can last weeks, months, years. I don't know what the longest criminal trial in American history is, but I guarantee you, it is a lot more than a month or two. And then when you add appeals, I presume Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as Eric Holder envisions and as Barack Obama envisions, is going to get to have appeals. Maybe he'll get to have interlocutory appeals of rulings by the judge which could deny him his now, I guess, constitutionally guaranteed rights, the rights we cherish as citizens of the United States which we've now decided to extend to an avowed terrorist. I want to suggest that our colleague from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) was correct yesterday morning on Face the Nation when he pointed out that this could turn into a legal circus that goes on for not days, not weeks, not months, but years when you count Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and all of the others that I guess Eric Holder wants to bring here one after another and try in the courts of the United States as if they were criminals. I am plagued by a question as I stand here. I cannot cite to you--and I challenge someone to let us know--what it is about the criminal-- about the military tribunal process that is not adequate. Did Attorney General Holder announce that there was some flaw in the military tribunal process that could not be remedied? Did the American Civil Liberties Union, have they come forward and said there is a flaw in the tribunal process, because I didn't hear it. It was good enough for prisoners of war during World War I. It was good enough for prisoners of war during World War II. It was good enough, I presume, for prisoners of war in Korea and Vietnam. How is it now that it's not good enough? Why are we doing this? Does the gentleman know?

Mr. SHADEGG. Are those nations changing their military tribunal processes?

Mr. SHADEGG. I think he liked the Bible, if I know Sam Johnson.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think the gentleman says it right. I appreciate the opportunity to be here on the floor and chat with him. I happen to be from Arizona. I happen to be from the home State of John McCain. I happen to believe that there is, in fact, a duty to treat war criminals within the bounds of international law. I believe that they should not be beaten, they should not be tortured. I believe they should be afforded those standards that are accorded to those accused of war crimes through history. I personally believe they can be held without trial as long as the war goes on, and I believe this war is going on. We, as a Nation, can be in denial as long as we want. We can cleanse from our vernacular every term that the administration finds offensive. Janet Napolitano can say we are no longer going to call it a war on terror. We are no longer going to deal with radical Islam or Islamists or jihadists. We are going to pretend that all goes away. In my life experience, you cannot pretend and, by pretending, change reality. There are those who hate us. There are those around the world who hate us. There are those like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose works you just read, who despise us and who desire to kill us. If we do not deal with them fairly, but also according to law, then we've betrayed the tradition of this Nation. Never ever, in the history of this Nation, have we taken war criminals, people who have committed acts of terrorism under the auspices of an organization--here, al Qaeda--led by a leader--here, Osama bin Laden--that has declared war formally and in writing against the United States and said somebody acting on behalf of that organization, having as an organization declared war against the United States, having engaged then in acts of war, shall be tried in American criminal courts designed to deal with criminals who commit common crimes against other citizens of this Nation. This is a betrayal of our soldiers, and it puts our Nation and puts our soldiers at grave risk. I believe Attorney General Holder will rue the day they made this decision and rue the day when someone is captured or killed in New York or held hostage as a result of this irresponsible conduct. And even if that doesn't happen, it, alone, is a betrayal of the system we have followed since the founding of this Nation where those accused of war crimes are tried in military tribunals.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is Maddie. Maddie believes in freedom. Maddie likes America because we have freedom here, and Maddie believes in patient-choice health care. She asked to come here today to say that she doesn't want the government to take over health care. She wants to be able to keep her plan. You see, Maddie knows that if this bill passes, it says that her mom's health care goes away and won't be around in 5 years. As a matter of fact, the bill says, if the bill passes, then no more health care for her mom because it has to change. Maddie wants patient choice. Maddie doesn't want her mom's premiums to go up. She doesn't want her mom's taxes to go up by $730 billion, do you, Maddie? That's too much money. She doesn't want a health care bill that will cost $1.5 trillion. She wants America's health insurance companies to have to compete with each other. She believes in choice, but most of all, Maddie says, Don't tax me to pay for health care that you guys want. If you want health care, pay for it yourselves, because it's not fair to pass your health care bills on to me and my grandchildren. Thank you, Maddie. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding and I appreciate that compliment. It is kind of exciting to know that more and more people here in America are discussing the idea of selling or making available insurance across State lines, because that would be competition, real competition, and would drive down the cost of health insurance for all Americans. Indeed, we have a study that shows that literally millions of additional Americans could afford health insurance without the expenditure of a dime of public money if you allowed policies to be sold across State lines. Unfortunately, the current Congress doesn't seem to be interested in that idea, and we were not able to get it through when the Republicans were in power. But maybe that idea's time is coming. I do note that the White House and the President have both talked about the lack of competition in the individual market. Indeed, in this very Chamber the President talked about how, I believe he said in Mississippi, 75 percent of the policies are sold by only five companies, and I think he said in Alabama, 95 percent of the health insurance policies, and I think that had to have been in the individual market, though the President didn't say it, are sold by just five companies. That kind of narrow competition does not bring down costs, and, as the gentleman indicated, allowing the sale of health insurance across State lines would do that. My bill actually doesn't allow the sale of health insurance across State lines. What it says is, you can file a policy in one State, have it qualify with the laws of that State, then file it and sell it in all 49 other States. It means you could bring a policy to the market in all 50 States for a fraction of what it costs today, but it also means that you could pick a State with a modest level of so-called mandates or benefit mandates, perhaps a State that didn't mandate for a hair prosthesis or a State that didn't mandate aroma therapy or a State that didn't mandate some other esoteric type of treatment. And, of course, every mandate adds to the cost of the policy. So I thank the gentleman for referring to that. I appreciate the charts he has put up in front of the people. I really want to get a dialogue going about the shocking, and I mean shocking things that have developed on health care just in the last four or five days. And let me just mention those three or four items briefly, and then maybe we can get a dialogue going and talk back and forth about them. First, we had the CBO score of the Baucus bill. Wow. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Democrats in the Senate were high- fiving each other. Oh, my gosh. They had a score of only $829 billion. I wonder if the gentleman realizes that the CBO scored that bill counting 10 years of revenue from the taxes but only 7 years of expenditures? Under the Baucus bill, taxes start in 2010; expenditures for the program costs don't begin till 2013. So when CBO scored, it scored it for 10 years, beginning in 2010, ending in 2020. They counted 10 years of revenues, 7 years of outlay. I went home to my wife and said, even the Shadegg family budget would look good, even the Shadegg family budget would look good if we could count 10 years of my salary and her salary or our income and only 7 years of our family outlays. That's scandal number one. They get better. Scandal number two, we discovered that Harry Reid, Harry Reid, majority leader of the United States Senate, found out that under this bill, because the cost of Medicaid is going to be increased dramatically, the size of the Medicaid program's going to be increased dramatically, that the burden paid by the individual States would go up quite significantly, including on Nevada. As it turns out, Harry Reid's up for reelection this year and he says, whoa, whoa, whoa. As your Senate leader, I can't be hurting the State of Nevada. So he got an exemption. Interestingly, not an exemption for all 50 States. No exemption, for example, for Iowa where the gentleman's from. No exemption for the State of Arizona where I'm from. He got an exemption for Nevada and three other States--Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan--under which the Federal Government will pay the State's share of Medicaid, if this bill passes, for the next 5 years. Just a little perk for a powerful United States Senator like Harry Reid. You know, it occurs to me, and I'll go through these other scandals very quickly, but what we're really getting here is we're not just getting single-payer care. We're getting full-on Russian gulag, Soviet- style gulag health care, because under these plans it won't matter so much that you live in America. It will matter whether you live in the State that's represented by a powerful Senator or perhaps a powerful Congressman, because we just learned Harry Reid has just protected the people of Nevada and three other States from having to pay their share of the Medicaid expenses. But wait, as they say in the advertising world, there is more, because, as you know, the funding mechanism in the Baucus bill says we're going to impose a surcharge, a surcharge on very expensive gold- plated health care plans. Got to tax those expensive health care plans. Well, Chuck Schumer, little Chuckie Schumer of New York, United States Senator, said, wait, that surcharge might apply to my constituents in New York. I can't have that. So Senator Schumer, in the give-and-take of politics in America, if we're going to have political health care, by gosh we're going to have really political health care. He said, no, no, no. We'll allow that surcharge, which is a 40 percent tax on policies that cost over 21,000. We'll allow that to be the law in Kentucky or in Arizona or in Iowa, where the gentleman's from, but no, no, no, not in New York. In New York, we won't let the surcharge kick in until the policy costs $24,000. And in Massachusetts, it won't kick in until the policy costs $25,000. So, if you're lucky enough to live in the State where you have a powerful Senator, like Chuck Schumer, you can get it so that your luxury tax won't kick in until your policy costs $24,000 or $25,000, unlike the poor sap who lives in Arizona or Iowa or Kentucky where the luxury tax kicks in at $21,000. Ladies and gentlemen of America, you want political health care? You want politicians in charge of health care? By gosh, you're going to get it, because that is politics American style. It is as corrupt as it can get, where politicians like Harry Reid, powerful, can protect their State, Chuck Schumer, powerful, can protect their constituents. But as they say in the marketing business, but wait, there is more, because our famous United States Senator from New Jersey, Senator Bob Menendez, that wasn't good enough for him. Bob Menendez represents a State where there's a lot of health care, a lot of health care drug companies that manufacture pharmaceuticals. Senator Menendez, they wanted his vote. He negotiated a deal. He got a $1 billion tax credit into this bill, into the Baucus bill, for investments in drug research and development. By all means, let's protect New Jersey because Bob Menendez's vote is needed. But wait. There is more, because in the political world of political health care, if we're going to politicize health care, if we're going to give the politicians control of our health care from border to border, coast to shining coast, or sea to shining sea, by gosh, that isn't enough. So Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and John Kerry of Massachusetts said, you know, this health care could be really expensive and we have lots of union workers in our States, in Michigan and in Massachusetts. Debbie Stabenow, John Kerry, they've got just a small little piece in the bill, you know, we're going to play a little politics with health care, why not play a little politics. They got--they make Bob Menendez look like a piker. They got 5 billion, count them, $5 billion into the bill to defray the cost of medical care for union workers. Now, if you happen to be a right-to-work State like Arizona where we don't have many union workers, well, that's just too bad. You don't get the benefit of that $5 billion. But if you're a union worker, Debbie Stabenow and John Kerry are making sure that those poor saps in Iowa that aren't union members and those poor saps in Arizona who aren't union members get to chip in an extra $5 billion for the union members in Michigan and Massachusetts. Not to be outdone, Mark Udall of Colorado, he comes in and says, well, this may be round one where we negotiate amongst the members of the committee that the bill's going through right now, but trust me, if Harry Reid has gotten a provision in there saying that Nevada doesn't have to pay the State share of Medicaid, by God, I, Mark Udall, am going to fight for the same provision for my State of Colorado. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Don't believe me. This, all of what I've just recited for you, comes from the Wall Street Journal, an article called States of Personal Privilege by Kimberly Strassel. It appeared in last Friday's Wall Street Journal. You can Google it. You can pick up the phone and call Kim Strassel. You can ask her about Soviet-style gulag health care in America, where powerful politicians protect their constituents. But if we're going to have socialized medicine, if we're going to have government-run--the Hillary Clinton was an overnight takeover of health care by the government. The current version, ObamaCare, is a gradual takeover. Trust me, the minute you take power away from the people and give it to Washington politicians, you get real sweet deals. Powerful Harry Reid protects Nevada. Powerful Chuck Schumer protects New York. Powerful Bob Menendez protects New Jersey. Powerful Debbie Stabenow and John Kerry protect Michigan and Massachusetts, and at least Mark Udall, kind of a pup in all of this, little bit young, not seasoned and powerful yet, he's going to try to protect the people of Colorado. Political health care, here we come. What you pay for health care in America once this bill is law won't depend so much on the bill as on whether or not you've got a powerful United States Senator or a poor sap United States Senator who can't pull the levers of power and get done what you want. And I guess I'm just interested in what the gentleman from Iowa thinks about these lovely little scandals that are going on. And oh, by the way, these are the politics they're playing while there's sunshine. Imagine when this bill gets kind of behind the smoke screen rooms and the President's new health care czar is implementing the policies that make that chart possible. And I'd be interested in the gentleman's reaction.

Mr. SHADEGG. Hey, the audacity of power. Harry Reid can do it because he's Harry Reid. And if that's too bad for the people of 46 other States because they get to subsidize the people who live in Harry Reid's State, I guess Harry Reid's answer is, That's just too bad.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think maybe your suspicion is correct. But I can tell you this much: If you and I started a small business and we decided we'd do a stock offering and we presented a portfolio to our potential investors and said, Here's a picture of what our company is going to look at financially, and we included 10 years of projected revenue, but only 7 years of what we thought would be our expenses, you know where we'd go? We'd go to prison. We'd go to prison if we did that. But not Max Baucus. He can score 10 years of revenue against 7 years of expenditure, and they're all high-fiving each other. I said in my press release it makes the Enron accounting look reasonable and prudent when you score something like that. I've got to tell you, I don't know a business in America that wouldn't look pretty darn good if you scored--if you counted only 7 years of expenditures against 10 years of income. But that's what Mr. Baucus did. And the American people--and only in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac, only here in this crazy city called Washington where what the government says is reality--notwithstanding its tea leaf reading--only here could you have a score that counted 10 years of revenue against 7 years of expenditures taken seriously. But by God, Max Baucus is being taken seriously in that club they call the United States Senate across the way.

Mr. SHADEGG. You just made an interesting point. I tell you, I have been here over 14 years, and when they started talking about the Baucus bill moving forward and it was getting close to being adopted and they were offering amendments to it, naive me, I work in the House where we actually have legislative language, I called my health care staff one day--I was in Arizona and they were out here-- I called them from Arizona and I said, Hey, get me a copy of the Baucus bill. And they said, Well, um, uh, Congressman, um, uh, we can't get you the Baucus bill. We can only get you the chairman's mark. And here on the House side the chairman's mark is a copy of the bill. I said, Fine. Get me the chairman's mark. I want to see what the bill says. My staff said, Well, one little slight problem, Congressman. Over there in the Senate they do it different. The chairman's mark in the Senate, Mr. Baucus' chairman's mark is just a conceptual document. It's stunning. But, oh, by the way, we talk about scoring 10 years of revenue and 7 years of expenses, the kind of Disneyland-on-the-Potomac world we live in says, for example, in that bill that we're going to save somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 billion from Medicare. Now, I heard the President stand in front of this room and say, By God, there will be no cuts to Medicare. But interestingly, they get I think about $170 billion of those cuts by saying they're going to cut the money that is provided to doctors and hospitals and labs. Now, that's kind of interesting. We're going to cut how much money we give to doctors, hospitals, and labs under Medicare. As the gentleman from Iowa knows, we have been supposed to have done that every year since, I think, 1995 or 1996. We have never once actually done it. But in this bill, here in Disneyland-on-the-Potomac, they're counting as real savings--although we've never cut those reimbursements between 1995 and today--somehow, tomorrow, when this bill is put into effect and tomorrow for the scoring of the bill as only $829 billion, we're actually going to put those cuts into effect. They've never happened in the past, but suddenly they're saying they will happen in the future.

Mr. SHADEGG. The gentleman isn't truly suggesting that we're not going to--having talked about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse for maybe the last 50-100 years--that we're not actually going to do it under this bill? Well, of course we are. Mr. Baucus says we are. The House Democrats say we are. Well, if they say we're going to cut waste, fraud, and abuse, by all means we'll cut waste, fraud, and abuse; and we'll produce all of those savings that they need to pay for this bill.

Mr. SHADEGG. So they shift those costs to private care, but under this bill--of course they're going to wipe out private care--where are they going to shift the costs then?

Mr. SHADEGG. I'm glad the gentleman brought that up. I view this as a Paul Revere moment. The reality is America needs to know this legislation, without one word of tort reform, this bill, this massive government takeover of health care, with the corruption I have just listed, Harry Reid protecting Nevada, Chuck Schumer protecting New York, Bob Menendez protecting New Jersey, Deborah Stabenow and John Kerry protecting Michigan and Massachusetts, with all that political corruption coming into the health care system, it will pass without a word, not a word of tort reform, unless the American people speak out. Announcement by the Chair

Mr. SHADEGG. I certainly don't think anything has been personal. They have been just factual about policies pursued. I simply want to say that the gentleman is absolutely right about the desperate and crying need for tort reform in this legislation. The gentleman used various statistics about the cost of defensive medicine or lawsuit abuse. Now I will tell the gentleman that in my discussions with individuals in Arizona, I have been told that, indeed by insurance brokers, it's their belief that as much as 35 percent, as much as 35 percent of all health care bills in America can be traced back to the tort system, that meaning the cost of malpractice insurance for doctors, a very, very high number, climbing higher every year, and the cost of defensive medicine. It is really important for people to understand what we mean when we talk about the cost of defensive medicine and what it really means for their health care. What it means is that your doctor is often compelled, indeed, probably every day, compelled to order tests or procedures or evaluations that he or she doesn't necessarily think you need, but if that doctor doesn't order them and gets second-guessed by a trial lawyer later, it could mean financial ruin for them. I had a medical doctor come in to visit me yesterday afternoon. Even though it was Columbus Day, I scheduled some office hours. I happened to meet with him at 5:30 last night. He practices in Scottsdale, Arizona. He said that time after time after time after time, he will get a chart where they have ordered that certain procedures be conducted, for example an expensive CAT scan, when he thought an x-ray would do, and he must order what he has been told to order and spend the money, or there's the risk that the lawyer will come along later and sue him. Interestingly, I often tell a story about growing up in Phoenix and being involved in a Boy Scout troop. One of the other young men in the Boy Scout troop, his father was a medical doctor. His father, the medical doctor, he explained to me years later, knew just about all of his patients personally. And if they called on a Tuesday night at quarter to 12 or on a Saturday afternoon at 2:30, he would take their call, because he knew those patients, and those patients came to him out of choice. They didn't come because their employer picked the plan, or some plan hired the doctor. They had an indemnity insurance plan, and they came to that doctor because they chose that doctor. But also if they called on a Tuesday night at quarter to 12 or a Saturday afternoon at 2:30 and said they had a problem, that doctor, his father, would often call in a prescription to try to help them with their problem. What has happened to that aspect of health care in America today with the current tort system we have? It's gone. Your doctor won't even think about calling for a prescription for you based on a conversation over the phone because he or she, your doctor, knows if that turns out not to be the right answer, his or her socks will be sued off, to use a phrase, by some waiting trial lawyer. But is there a word of tort reform to limit that cost in this bill, where it's 8 percent or 10 percent or 35 percent? Not one word in this legislation. We're going to throw the entire baby out with the bath water, completely throw away the health care Americans have come to trust and rely on out the window and replace it with a new government- run system because, after all, everybody knows the bureaucrats and the politicians in Washington have all the answers, and we're not going to put a word in there about tort reform. In my committee, in the Commerce Committee, we offered amendments to put in a little bit of tort reform, rejected. In the Education and Labor Committee where the bill was considered, there was an amendment offered to limit damages or to put in some tort reform, rejected. In the Ways and Means Committee, an amendment was offered, rejected. The current team is not about to allow tort reform to occur in this legislation. And so we will throw out the current health care system in America in the next few weeks. We will replace it with a whole new system, disrupt everybody's plan, and we won't even have gone after one of the biggest cost drivers, excessive lawsuits.

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman would yield?

Mr. SHADEGG. I made the point earlier about this bill being the imposition of politics or special power and privileges imposed on health care in America. And I guess there was some question of whether or not it was appropriate to criticize the politicization of this legislation, the so-called Baucus bill. I held up the article from which I drew those examples, and I just want to read them so that everybody will understand it's not a personal attack by me. These are just, as they say, the facts, like Sergeant Joe Friday used to say on ``Dragnet.'' Kim Strassel points out, first of all, a central feature of the Baucus bill is the vast expansion of State Medicaid programs--I am quoting from the article. ``The provision has angered Governors, since the Federal Government will cover only part of the expansion and stick fiscally strapped States with an additional $37 billion in costs.'' It then goes on to explain, that troubled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, she says, ``who is worried about losing his seat next year, worked out a deal by which the Federal Government will pay all of''--and I am reading in quotes the article--``his home State's additional Medicaid expenses for the next 5 years. Under the majority leader's very special formula, only three other States--Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan--qualify for this perk.'' So there is the first example of political health care, or of politically driven health care, special perks and privileges for four States. It then goes on to say, ``Mr. Baucus's legislation would tax high- value insurance plans--a 40-percent tax on plans that cost more than $21,000 a year.'' The article proceeds, ``Senator Chuck Schumer didn't want a lot of angry overtaxed New Yorkers on his hands,'' and I am quoting, ``so he and other similarly situated Democrats carved out a deal''--not my word, the article's word--``a deal by which the threshold for this tax will be higher in their States. If you live in Kentucky,'' says the article, ``you get taxed at $21,000. If you live in Massachusetts, you don't get taxed until $25,000.'' There again, another special little perk, politicians protecting their own inserted into the bill--not my words, but the article. ``And Senator Bob Menendez, of the Garden State, seems concerned that his home-State employers are going to struggle to both pay their Federal liabilities and to continue to grow and innovate. Thus, Mr. Menendez's quiet deal for $1 billion tax credits for companies investing in R&D.'' And last, she talks about Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow and Massachusetts Senator John Kerry including ``$5 billion in the bill for a reinsurance program to defray the medical costs of union members.'' All of those are the comments I made about the special political deals inserted in this bill. Don't believe me? Just Google the Wall Street Journal and Kim Strassel. I want to thank the gentleman, by the way. I also mentioned that the Senator from Colorado said, ``If Colorado has a fair claim on being treated the same way Nevada has been, of course we're going to ask for that kind of treatment.'' So there you go, politics and health care in America. Health care won't be driven by care or by medical evidence. It will be driven by the most powerful Senator on the block.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 746, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 747, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 748, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''