Where Is The Health Care Reform Bill?

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, Congress recessed on July 31 for the beginning of the August recess. On that day, H.R. 3200 passed out of the committees that had jurisdiction. That is the health care reform bill. It passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I serve, late on that Friday evening, the last day in July. And everybody in this House went home for the August recess.

During that period of time, I held town hall meetings, as did many of my colleagues. There were TEA parties. There were freedom rallies. The American public spoke out as they have not done in a very long time and much of their frustration centered around the bill H.R. 3200 that at that point in time had passed all of the committees of the House and was ready for action on the floor.

But the American public sent a message, a message that they don't like the runaway spending that Congress has been engaged in. They don't like many of the programs that they think are jeopardizing the future of their children and grandchildren in terms of the repayment responsibilities. But more than anything else, they sent the message that they do not want their health care tampered with and taken over by the United States Government.

Now, surprisingly, that message apparently has not been heard on the floor of this House.

Yesterday in the committee of primary jurisdiction that has H.R. 3200, the bill was, in effect, reopened for further amendments. Now, you would think that if the bill is going to be revisited that we would have heard not only from the American people but we would have heard from the President of the United States, who on September 9 spoke right here on the floor of the House. At the time he enunciated issues that he was in favor of. Republicans agreed with many of those things. But the question we had at the time was, where is the bill that embodies the things that you say you're in favor of? We did not see a bill then, and, unfortunately, we have not seen one since that time.

So yesterday in the committee of primary jurisdiction, you would think that we would have seen a bill that embraced the principles that the President said he was in favor of even though they were not embraced in the bill that was the only bill before this House when the President was actually speaking. You would think it would have embraced many of the issues that the American public said they were concerned about.

Republicans attempted to offer a bill that would have embraced those issues where there should be bipartisan support, but we were not allowed to have a vote.

There are many issues that are encompassed in this debate. One that I have supported for a very long time is that if we are going to use taxpayer money, we should verify the citizenship of individuals who are going to receive the benefits of that taxpayer money because unless that is verified, there is no validity to simply saying that we are not going to spend taxpayers' money for people who have violated our law and are coming into our country inappropriately.

So the question remains, Where are we on health care reform? The rumors now abound that Speaker Pelosi is about to introduce a bill that purports to address the issues she's concerned with. We haven't seen the bill. I would ask the question, Is that bill going to come before the committees of jurisdiction? Is there going to be a hearing on it? Are committees going to have the opportunity to amend it? Or is it going to go, as so many other things have gone in this body during these last few months, straight to the floor of this House with very little, if any, opportunity to have an input from the Representatives, who are the elected representatives of the people of this great country?

Those are the questions that still remain. They are still unanswered.

I would conclude, again, if there is something that we have gained from what we have heard from the President and, more particularly, what we have heard from the American public during the August recess, where is the bill that puts it in writing? We have yet to see it.

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