Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the House is not in order. Mr. Speaker, we listened very patiently to the minority leader. I believe the gentleman deserves to be heard.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the seniors of Texas will receive $1.9 billion in Medicaid savings under this bill; and 55 percent of them will have subsidized premium coverage. That is not bird droppings. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas). (Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, how dare any of the Members suggest they love their mothers and fathers more than we love our mothers and fathers. How dare they suggest that we dislike our grandparents and would feed them bitter pills, and get them. How dare they make that suggestion. My mother is alive because of Medicare. Medicare saved her life not once but three times. We are here to fight for Medicare and to improve it tonight, Republicans and Democrats alike. They have a different plan than us, but we all love our mothers and fathers. We all love our grandparents. How dare they suggest otherwise. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton). (Mr. UPTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. That claim is disingenuous. Section 1902 allows the States to waive that means test. There is an additional section, 1115 waivers are also allowed for the States, and they can waive that means test any time they want to. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee of Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am saying all seniors are going to get helped, but the poorest will get totally free insurance coverage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher), a new member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, would the Chair again advise us how much time remains on each side?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to let my friend know that the great State of Illinois will get a great fair share of this bill, about $2 billion in Medicaid savings, and about half a million of his senior citizens will get totally free premiums for their Medicare premium drug insurance coverage. That is a pretty good deal, pretty fair. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Michigan will get one and one-tenth billion dollars in this plan of Medicaid savings, and nearly 40 percent of their seniors will get subsidized premiums for their Medicare prescription drug coverage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) from our committee.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise the great citizen of Maine that their citizens, their seniors, 40 percent of them will get subsidized and mostly fully subsidized premium coverage under this bill. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Bryant), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, Floridians, seniors under Medicare, over 1 million will have free premiums under this bill, and the State of Florida will receive $3.1 billion in Medicaid savings. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), distinguished vice chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, not only will 43 percent of the seniors in California get subsidized premiums under this bill, but the State of California safety net hospitals receive over $63 million new dollars of help to provide health care. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill that has been described as so terrible will give to the State of New York $4.5 billion of Medicaid savings. It will cover 51 percent of New York seniors with subsidized premiums paid for by the government and will provide safety net hospitals in New York with nearly 90 million new dollars. What a terrible bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I will yield myself 15 seconds to indicate again that our information is the States have the power to exercise the waivers under this bill. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4954. I first want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and all the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce who spent over 30 hours of markup in producing this bill. I particularly want to thank my colleagues on the other side for the spirited but I think agreeably friendly debate we had that stretched over 3 days and ended up on Thursday when we started at 9:30 and completed at 8:30 the next morning. This is a complex piece of legislation. I have heard people describe it on the other side as a hollow bill that contains no benefits. Let me make it clear, this is a bill that spends 350 billion of American taxpayer dollars that will create a valuable new entitlement for Medicare beneficiaries, that will finally provide them with prescription drug coverage, and it will do so in a comprehensive way, ensuring that the benefit will work within a stronger Medicare system for decades to come. I do not speak just for myself. Let me quote a letter from the AARP. The letter from the AARP says our members and virtually all older Americans need this coverage now. They are tired of excuses. They are tired of politics. They want us to pass this benefit bill now. Here is what they said about our bill. ``We are pleased that your bill makes the voluntary prescription drug benefit permanent and maintains the entitlement nature of the Medicare program.'' They went on further to say, ``The bill contains other favorable components as well.'' They talk about the coverage of the first $2,000 in the bill and particularly the financial assistance for low-income beneficiaries with drug costs under $2,000 as being vitally important. They also mention, and I quote, we appreciate your efforts to contain drug costs because a Medicare drug benefit bill alone without effective cost controls will be difficult to sustain. They understand we cannot bankrupt Medicare. We have got to make this system work within our budget. But they went on to say, ``You can improve this. We don't like this home health copay.'' It is now gone. Our committee voted it out, and it is not in the bill. They asked us to do what we could to close the gap, the $4,500 gap that existed between the first $2,000 of coverage and the catastrophic coverage. We found $18 billion by forcing the pharmaceutical companies to negotiate discounts below the so-called best price, $18 billion from pharmaceutical companies, and we lowered that loss from $4,500 of out- of-pocket expenses down to $3,700. We paid $800 more of drug cost in the bill now, exactly what AARP asked us to do. Finally, they said, it is important, because our research indicates that Americans are looking for stability and dependability, to ensure that private sector entities will be willing to offer coverage. We have a letter, too, from the Health Insurance Association of America and this is what their letter says: ``The improvements contained in the proposal should make the benefit more attractive to beneficiaries. Consequently, there is now a much better chance our members will offer the benefit.'' We have a comprehensive plan, a permanent plan, a voluntary entitlement within Medicare that is within budget, that insurance companies say they will be able to work under it and provide plans and what CBO says as high as 97 percent of the seniors in America will find drug coverage and participate in. This is a great bill. Seniors want it now. They are tired of politics. Let us pass it tonight. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, Ohio, under our bill, will earn $1.8 billion in Medicaid savings, and 38 percent of their seniors will get free premiums under our bill. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I note that New Jersey is going to receive $1.5 billion in Medicaid savings directly from this bill, and 40 percent of their seniors will receive subsidized coverage of their insurance premium. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the State of California will get $5.1 billion in Medicaid savings under this bill, and 1.5 million California seniors, including redheads, will get free premium insurance coverage. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am pleased to let my dear friend, the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Meek), know that the poor seniors in her State, over 1 million of them, will get free insurance drug coverage under this bill. That is 42 percent of her seniors and the State will get $3.1 billion of Medicaid assistance.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida for 15 seconds only.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, ``H.R. 4560 will clarify Congress's position on the 700MHz band width. In lieu of Committee action, the following points should be noted for the record.'' Section 6 ensures that the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) policies that are designed to clear channels 52-69 do not result result in an increased level of interference to ``in core'' channels 2-51, by permitting the operation of an analog facility on a channel assigned for digital transmissions was not designed to accommodate analog operations, and in most instances, relocating analog facilities on ``in core'' digital channels increases interference to surrounding analog and digital stations in both the URF and VHF band, to the detriment of those station viewers. Indeed, the increased levels of interference has the ability to deprive television viewing households of the signals they depend upon for news, entertainment, and sports programming. Sub-section 6(a) specifically prohibits the FCC from granting waivers to its spacing requirements (as required by section 73.610 of the Commission's rules (and the table contained therein) (47 CFR 73.610)) and its interference rules (as required by sections 73.622 and 73.623 of such rules (47 CFR 73.622, 73.623),) for stations assigned to channels 52-69, that seek to operate an analog facility on a digitally assigned ``in-core'' channel (channel 2-51), if such waiver will result in any degradation in or loss of service, or an increased level of interference, to any television household, except as the Commission's rules would otherwise expressly permit, exclusive of any waivers previously granted. Pursuant to sub-section 6(b), television stations assigned to channels 63, 64, 68 and 69, that are seeking to clear these channels in order to make such frequencies available for public safety purposes by moving their facilities into the core (channels 2-51) will be governed by the FCC's interference rules and policies, including the waiver process. Subsection 6(b) should not be construed as relieving stations from the obligation to meet the FCC's traditional waiver requirements.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up prescription drug and other Medicare-related legislation this week. The foundation for our markup is H.R. 4954, the Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act of 2002, introduced by my colleagues, Representatives Johnson and Bilirakis on June 18, 2002. To ensure an orderly process in my Committee, I made the decision to divide H.R. 4954 into a number of Committee Prints for our markup. In doing so, however, I of course want the Committee's good work to be reflected through full-fledged Committee reports on the various titles. Accordingly, I have already introduced two bills (H.R. 4961 and H.R. 4962), and will continue to introduce free-standing bills that are the exact text of the prints we have marked up and ordered reported. Taken together, these bills will represent my Committee's position on the vital Medicare legislation we are considering. During House floor debate on the prescription drug legislation, which should take place next week, I will provide the House with a complete guide to the legislative history of the Energy and Commerce Committee's work in this area.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for his courtesies this evening and hope he will excuse my interrupting him.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill just passed.