Transcripts For HLN 20091105 : vimarsana.com

they offer scholarships for the best pupil. he continues, what i don t see is similar numbers of american-backed schools. it break misheart that we don t invest in schools as much as medieval extremists. end of his speech. then he goes on to say, for roughly the same cost as stationing 40,000 troops in afghanistan for one year, we can educate the great majority of the 75 million children worldwide who are not getting even a primary education. such a vast global education, he says, would reduce poverty, cut birth rate, improve america s image in the world, promote stability, and chip away at extremism. madam speaker, i hope that president obama will keep this in mind as he reviews his options on afghanistan and makes his decision in the coming weeks. america simply cannot afford to rely on our military s power alone because that strategy plays right into the hands of the extremists. our heavy military footprint is beating the insurgency is feeding the insurgentcy in afghanistan not weakening it. we can stop violent extremism in its tracks and we can keep our troops safer and build a more peaceful world for our children and our grandchildren. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. mr. moran of kansas. madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from washington rise? i ask unanimous consent to claim mr. moran s time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. without objection. madam speaker, the democrat health bill is not about lowering costs or making health care more affordable, it s about government control and higher spending. it s about a government takeover of our health care system. so it follows that it s about the federal government deciding how, whether where, and when you get your health care. at its most basic, the bill creates a government-run health insurance system that will end private health insurance options. in doing so, it will force americans to purchase coverage only from a government-controlled program. the federal government with their will therefore decide which health care plans are acceptable. a federal commissioner would decide which health care benefits are offered and how much is to be charged for those benefits. the proposed medicare cuts would eliminate options for seniors and place recipients under a medicare without choices. choices like the current medicare advantage program. in page after page of this massive bill, federal health programs are expanded, while private health care is restricted. in section after section, personal health care choices dwindle and federal control over decisions that should be made by you and your doctor increase. one of the most striking examples, madam speaker, begins on page 481. the democrat bill arbitraryly bars doctors from opening new doctor-owned hospitals, including the 124 hospitals that are currently under construction and it severely restricts the 165 doctor-owned hospitals like one in my district, from expanding their services. the hospital in my district is a top-rated hospital that serves a rural, underserved area. it was founded in 1940 by three doctors, now is owned with bi150 doctors, each with an equal share. the medical center employees 1,500 people and serves a quarter million people in an area the size of the state of maryland. it streets 150,000 patients a year, half of whom are medicare and medicaid recipients. democrats, though, have decided that doctors cannot own hospitals regardless of the quality of care or degree of need. under the democrat bill, doctor-owned hospitals would face unprecedented reporting requirements, punishing new restrictions, and strict limitations on their ability to expand. in fact with the exception of a small handful of facilities selected by democrat leaders, hospitals that are owned by doctors are barred from growing, barred from adding even a single hospital bed ever. madam speaker, something is very, very wrong when this congress is blocking access to health care, banning new hospitals, and blocking the top quality facilities because they are simply doctor-owned. but now the position of democrats in charge of writing health policy in this house is very, very clear. they want to allow all doctor-owned hospitals, period. madam speaker, we are headed down a very dangerous road when the federal government is getting in the business of deciding who can and who cannot own a hospital. but i am convinced this is only a start. a democrat ways and means subcommittee chairman was quoted this week as saying, and i quote, get your toe in, get your knee in, get your shoulder in and pretty soon you re in the room, end quote. this is a blunt admission that if democrats succeed with this government takeover those in washington, d.c. already will already have bigger plans to seize even more control of every american s health care. madam speaker, i don t think that s where america wants to go. there is a better solution and it doesn t involve penalizing hospitals, raising taxes, or cutting medicare. the plan i support focuses on lowering costs by expanding health care choices and tools to help families save, making it easier for small businesses to afford and offer health care and ending lawsuit abuse and, madam speaker, more importantly, protecting the doctor-patient relationship from government intrusion. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back his time. mr. mcdermott of washington. the gentleman is recognized recognized for five minutes without objection. mr. mcdermott: madam speaker, we ve been waiting for 10 months for the republican health care plan. all we hear is the party of no. no, no, no. go slow. don t do anything. that s all we ve heard. but finally they came out with a plan. i thought we ought to take it seriously and read it so i did. sadly, the proposal from my republican colleagues was not worth the wait. c.b.o. agrees. the congressional budget office indicated that the republican bill will not will not significantly decrease the ranks of the uninsured. instead, under the republican proposal, the ranks of the uninsured will decrease by only three million people, leaving 52 million people without coverage. contrast that with the democratic proposal which covers 96% of all americans. the republican proposal would not address the ability of insurance companies to exclude individuals based upon pre-existing conditions. according to the republican leadership, they purposely failed to address this issue because it s suppose because it supposedly cost too much. the democratic proposal would prohibit insurers from excluding individuals from purchasing health insurance based on pre-existing conditions by 2013. . most agree that insurers will set up shops in states with the fewest consumer protections, contrast that with the democratic proposal which will allow insurance companies to sell across state lines so long as the states involved have set up interstate compacts. participating states would insure consumer protections would be followed and monitored at all times. the republicans got this one pretty close to right. they will allow depepped events to remain on their parents s insurance until age 26 and democratic proposal has them on until 27. the republican proposal will cut the deficit by $68 billion. sounds great, right? contrast this with the democratic proposal, which will cut the deficit by $104 billion over the next 10 years. for the republicans who sound off about fiscal responsibility all the time, the democratic proposal is clearly the more responsible for deficit reduction. the republican plan purports to end junk lawsuits. however, the focus is solely on capping certain damages for pain and suffering. this is an old approach and will help insurance companies flaunt consumer protection flaws. the democratic proposal on the other hand would ensure providers are accountable for providing quality care by developing payment policies as a central tenet of reimbursement. the c.b.o. found that the republican plan would have virtually no effect on reducing premiums in the large group market in which most americans are involved, where most people purchase their health insurance. contrast this with the democratic proposal that seeks to increase transparency with regard to insurance premium increases and decrease the amount that insurers can dedicate to profits. the democratic proposal ends the antitrust exemption for insurers, which causes significant number of lack of competition in the insurance marketplace whereby one or two insurers provide virtually all the coverage in some markets. this is focused insurance reform rather than business as usual, which the republicans seek to promote. the republican plan was introduced to the world on november 4, 2009 after being slapped together because they realized that something was going to happen out here and they had no alternative to saying no. it has all the failures i described relative to the democratic proposal. contrast this with what has been a deliberative, thoughtful process that has created a bill that has been reported out of three committees and enacting the most far-reaching consequential health reform in a century. the american people have been waiting for 100 years. they got the republican proposal a day or so ago and it is totally inadequate in all respects. the democratic proposal is simply better and will provide universal coverage. and i hope that the republicans will see the wisdom of voting for it this saturday. the speaker pro tempore: mr. jones of north carolina. mr. roe of tennessee. mr. roe: i rise today to pay tribute to danny roy price who passed away at the age of 69. he was my dedicated volunteer and trusted staff member and my friend. he dedicated his life to the lord and service to others. there are countless stories of danny s service. he served in the u.s. army and had a strong connection to every man and woman who served our country. his wife spoke of the day he helped a veteran. when danny informed that their benefits were approved, he began to tear up. and danny returned home he told her the story and he began to weep. i m proud to have a person like him serving east tennessee. he was named statesman of the year by the tennessee house of representatives. it was a fitting tribute to danny. his incredible attitude and passion, i saw on display time and time again during my campaign throughout 2008 as we traveled throughout the district. everywhere he went he was a a statesman. everyone whose life that he touched. he never wanted credit, only wanted a sense of satisfaction knowing the job he had done had been done right. on the last day i shared with danny, we had a full day of meetings in tennessee with a variety of doctors and local businessmen and women. it wasn t out of the ordinary. we finished and danny saidd up we had a gait day and it was a good day. to danny, it wasn t getting the personal accolades but traveling up and down the district and learning about the people. danny s pastor at hope community church talked of danny s service to his lord jesus christ. danny wanted others to experience the relationship he had with his lord. and then he would make sure the people were welcomed into the service first by himself and then by the pastor. when regular members hadn t attended, he would call them and make sure they were all right and invite them back. the church has over 500 members after starting just five years ago. danny is survived by his wife carol and children jennifer and brept, granddaughter, brothers, and his sister yudey. i extend my condolences and hope they can find comfort in the knowledge that danny was an extraordinary individual. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. mr. bishop of new york. mr. goodlatte of virginia. mr. goodlatte: i ask permission to address the house for five minutes. i rise in opposition to the health care reform bill offered by speaker pc13 health care reform bill offered by speaker pelosi and the democratic leadership which will be voted on at the end of this week. in support of the commonsense practical alternative offered by congressman john boehner, the republican leader in the house. madam speaker, this legislation offered by speaker pelosi is over 2,000 pages long, contains about 400,000 words and to give you an idea of the magnitude of this government takeover of the government medical takeover. when you see the word shall in legislation, you should read a mandate, a requirement that the government is requiring somebody to do something to c6 c13 mandate, a requirement that the government is requiring somebody to do something to comply with what people here in washington know best, not in terms of what people know is best for themselves. this legislation contains that word 3,425 times. it is truly a remarkable, complex government takeover. in the original bill offered earlier this year, which was 1,000 pages long, there was the creation of 5 new federal government agencies and programs. in the new improved revised version, there are 111 federal government agencies and programs contained in this legislation, which will cost the american taxpayers and our senior citizens more than 1.1 trillion. and that s the official government estimate. there are many health care experts who say that the implementation of this legislation will cost far, far more. as an example, many have pointed to the projected costs of medicare when it was enacted in 1965. it was projected it would cost $10 billion, $12 billion, 25 years later. by the 1980 s, medicare was costing the american taxpayers more than $100 billion. today, it costs more than $400 billion per year. and the speaker s proposal says, well, let s take out of that $400 billion and take $40 billion or 10% of that and divert it to other new government programs. well, madam speaker, the problem with that is that the medicare program today is faced with enormous challenges. the projected unfunded liability for medicare over the lifetime of the average american today is more than 17 $17 trillion and here at a time when starting next year, senior citizens will increase in their numbers dramatically because the baby boomers, those born in the years after world war ii and up until the 1960 s, will be retiring and reaching eligibility age for medicare and year after year after year the number of medicare-eligible senior citizens will increase dramatically. and at the same time that will be occurring, this congress is suggesting that it will be ok to take $400 billion out of the medicare program to spend on an entirely new health care program that s projected to cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years and i suggest will cost far more than that. medicare is going to be jeopardized by this legislation and senior citizens across this country are aware of that. they certainly were aware of it in virginia this year, my home state, when they turned out on tuesday in very large numbers to send a message to washington that this health care proposal and other dramatic government take joferse of sectors of our economy is unacceptable and resulted in a sweep in the elections across virginia and in the only two states in the country where there were governors races up this year, new jersey and virginia, democratic governors were replaced by republican governors. people are looking to washington. now there s a story in today s new york times that democrats entitled democrats use election to push agenda in congress. well, good luck with that, because i can tell you that the people who turned out with the polls in virginia were not asking for this agenda to be pushed forward as a result of what they have been seeing in washington, d.c. they want commonsense, bipartisan reforms of health care. health care is in need of reform. it costs too much and not enough americans receive it. the republican alternative provides for that and the democratic alternative does not. the speaker pro tempore: mr. defazio of oregon. mr. duncan of tennessee. mr. duncan: i request permission to address the house for five minutes and revise and extend my remarks. mr. duncan: i went and had breakfast at the pentagon with secretary of defense, robert gates. i have great respect for secretary gates. the purpose of the breakfast was to discuss the situation in afghanistan. when i got this invitation, i wondered if i should go since i have been very much opposed to our war there. however, i decided the only fair thing to do was to listen to what he had to say. what we are doing in afghanistan is a horrendous waste that we cannot afford. i believe that afghanistan is no realistic threat to us unless our war there continues to anger so many people around the world. george c. wilson wrote recently that america s military mission to pacify the villages in afghanistan will look like mission impossible, especially if our bombings keep killing afghan civilians and infuriating the ones who survive. general petraeus said afghanistan has been known as the graveyard of empiers. members of both parties were, quote fretting openly about a lack of progress in the conflict. as much as americans love our troops, we need to realize that the defense department is not just a military organization. it is the world s largest bureaucracy. every bureaucracy always wants to expand its mission and exaggerates its challenges so it can get more money and personnel of the the taliban have almost no money and a top anti-terrorism official said recently that al qaeda is having, quote, difficulty in maintaining credibility. national defense is the most legitimate function of our federal government, however that doesn t mean that congress should approve the pentagon s every request or never criticize its waste. many of h much of what we are doing in afghanistan is of a civic, governmental, liking building schools. but the defense department should not be the department of foreign aid, a very large version of the peace corps. they promised a dramatic effort in afghanistan, including agricultural specialists and educateors, engineers and lawyers, why when we are $12 trillion in debt that we are spending billions in afghanistan doing everything for them? we are spending money we do not have on a very unnecessary war and jeopardizing our own future in the process. many people think that all conservatives support this war. well, i believe there are many millions of conservatives who do not and want to bring our troops home the sooner the better. this goes against traditional conservativism. i worked as a bag boy making $1.10 an hour. i spent my first pay check, $19 as a contribution to the barry goldwater campaign and still one of the most conservative members of congress, but this war has required huge deficit spending, almost half a trillion in war and war-related costs for afghanistan. fiscal conservatives should be most upset. this war has spent mega billions in foreign aid because half of what we have done is of a civic or charitable nature. conservatives have been the biggest opponents. we went into iraq and afghanistan under u.n. resolutions, yet conservatives have been the biggest critics of the u.n. conservatives vk the biggest proponents of big government because it is too big. we should not now support what is world government just because it is being run by our military. i am a veteran and very pro-military but for national defense, not international defense. i know that the leaders of afghanistan wants us to keep spending hundreds of billions there, but we cannot afford it. we cannot afford it economically and it is not worth one more american life. i know that when leaders of the defense department and the state department and national security council all get together in their meetings that all the pressures are on getting involved and staying involved in just about every military, political or ethnic dispute all around the world. i know they want to be considered as great world statesmen. but eight years is not only enough, but far too long. it is time to come home. it is time to start putting our own people and our own country first once again. i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yield back. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? to address the house for five minutes and i ask unanimous consent. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. diaz-balart: i had the privilege a few days ago to speak by telephone with one of the great heros of the fight for democracy and human rights in cuba. jorge luis garcia pes reantones. he s in the city of laceta, in cuba. his house is surrounded by thugs of the dictatorship. he is continuously harassed. often detained. spent 17 years as a political prisoner and was recently released. and yet he continues his fight. peacefully. nonviolently. against the totalitarian system in cuba. in that island that has been forgotten by the world, and yet its people continue to exist to suffer. under the yolk of a under the yoke of a brutal, totalitarian, nightmarish regime. led by a dictator who is infirm now. he is sick. by virtue of that he has turned over some titles, titles of power to his brother. yet he retains, fidel castro, retains absolute personal power. total. total power in that totalitarian fief dom. and his fiefdom. his brother receives visitors, heads of state, has some titles of power, but be not mistaken, madam speaker, total power remains in the hands of fidel castro, who, for example, is the one who orders that heroes like my friend be detained or released that heroes such as oscar or hernando arroyo, others like hector maceda or rafael ibarra, and countless others, be detained in the gulag because those heroes support the ability for the cuban people to have the rights that for example the american people have. or many, many other three freeh peoples throughout the world have. he told me, when i spoke to him on the phone, about the fact that his wife s brother, his wife is edith pes reaguilera, she s also a freedom fighter, her brother is in the gulag, being tortured and is being denied access, visits by his family. in other words, she cannot visit her brother, who is in horrible physical condition. he s we don t know how gravely ill, but we know he s very ill, and he s being denied access. his family cannot visit him. so i told him i would come to this floor and use the great privilege given to me by my constituents to tell the world about the brutality that mario perez aguilera that political prisoner, and the many others, that they are facing day in and day out and the added inhumanity of not being able to be seen by their family members. the island that the world ignores. and what s most tragic is that it s 90 miles from our shores and for over 50 years, it s been in the grasp of a demented despot, who orders such actions as the ones that i have discussed this evening. so i will continue to denounce the brutality, the inhumanity, and i will also continue to remind the world that despite that brutality, cuba will soon be free. to be continued. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. ms. foxx of north carolina. the gentlewoman is recognized for five minutes. ms. foxx: thank you, madam speaker. there was a wonderful gathering in washington today of thousands of people from all over the country, many of those people held up signs that said, abortion is not health care. the american public is more intelligent than those in charge in this house. pro-life members here in the house are continuing to stand up and speak out for the unborn and we will until we defeat this bill or stop federal funds from being used for abortions through this bill. pro-life members have offered amendments to the majority s original health care plan, h.r. 3200, permanently exclude federal funding of abortion. all of these amendments were rejected by the majority. minority whip cantor s amendment to stop health care from funding abortion was rejected in the ways and means committee on july 16, 2009. representative souder s amendment to stop abortion funding was rejected by the majority in the education and labor committee on july 17, 2009. democrat representative bart stupak and republican representative joe pitts offered another amendment to stop abortion funding in energy and commerce and the majority rejected it on july 30, 2009. the reasons given by the majority for rejecking these amendments was that they were not needed as there was no abortion funding in the bill. now the contrast of that is the republican substitute which will be offered as a permanent government-wide hyde amendment, meaning unequivocally no federal funds can be used for abortion anywhere in any bill that passes. yet despite the claims from the majority that abortion funding was not in the bill, the energy and commerce committee voted on july 31, 2009 to include the capps amendment to explicitly include abortion funding in the health care bill. recently, speaker pelosi unveiled h.r. 3962, her 2,000-page, $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care this bill also includes the capps amendment that will increase the number of elective abortions and gut the well-established government policy that prevents federal funds from being used to pay for elective abortions known as the hyde amendment. before the hyde amendment was passed in the 197 in 1976 in the 1976 medicaid-funded plan, almost 300,000 abortions were performed. in contrast, the republican substitute, again, has a permanent government-wide hyde amendment, meaning unequivocally, no federal funds for abortion anywhere. section 222 of h.r. 3962 permits federal funds to be used for abortion in the government insurance plan. section 4a refers to elective abortion procedures that are otherwise prohibited from receiving federal funds in other government programs due to current hyde amendment policies but cannot be prohibited in the government-run insurance plan. supporters of the bill says only private funds will be used to fund abortion in the government-run plan, this is not true. the bill places individual premium paymenters in government-run public insurance plan into a federal treasury account that may be used to pay for abortions. the bill also federally subsidizes private insurance plans that cover abortion and the government-run exchange. let there be no doubt that pelosi s plan explicitly authorizes the government-run public insurance plan to pay for elective abortions and subsidizes private plans on the government-run exchange that cover elective abortion. despite assurance from the majority that something would be done to correct this, the manager s amendment for h.r. 3962 does not contain any language regarding abortion funding. the proposal outlined by representative brad els worth of indiana yesterday falls short of addressing these thsh these issues. in his plan, the government-run public insurance plan would cover abortion but but would have to contract with private contractors to carry out the administrative functions related to paying for elected abortions. rather than reducing the number of abortion the majority seems content with creating legislation to lead to the largest expansion of abortion since roe v. wade. pro-life members on this on both sides of the aisle want the opportunity to vote on the stupak-pitts amendment to apply the hyde amendment and exclude the abortion funding in pelosi s plan. the american people understand this. we should not be using our funding to kill innocent human life. thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from texas rise? to address the house for five minutes, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. thank you, madam speaker. you know, an extraordinary thing happened today, right out here down the hill. there were tens of thousands of people that came out on very short notice they came out and these were not the super wealthy. these weren t the wall street folks that if you ll check give four to one to democrats over republicans. these people didn t care about party at all. they were concerned about the america that they knew. an america where people were given a chance to succeed and a chance to fail. because people far more wise than i am have noted over the years, any government that can take away your chance to fail has taken away your chance to succeed. so people came out on very short notice, these were working people, you could see these were not people of low pressure. these were people of leisure. these were people who had jobs. but they felt this was something so critical they had to come make their voices heard. you could see them around offices all over the capitol. all over the capitol hill area. it was immensely moving. and the way the people all said the pledge to the flag at the start and honored the prayer as it was said to start the proceedings and i don t know that i ve ever heard a group sing the national anthem with such fervor as a group. it was immensely touching. because the people were up here to let their voices be heard. and to let people know that the