Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for going through the schedule.

I know the gentleman joins me in extending our sincere condolences to our friend, my counterpart as the majority whip of the House, Jim Clyburn, on the loss of his wife, Emily. They were married for 58 years, and were a wonderful family.

I know she had been battling for awhile and she is in a better place, but for our friend, I know it is a tough time.

I got to know his daughter Mignon, who served on the FCC for a number of years during the Obama administration, and she definitely learned from her mom and dad, just a wonderful person.

So, I am sure my friend would join me to extend our sincere condolences and our heartfelt prayers to our friend Jim Clyburn and his whole family during this difficult time with the loss of his wife.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, our hearts will be with him during that ceremony and service, and we will all be there for him to lean on us during these next months. At times it is going to be difficult, but we appreciate the fact that he is going to continue to be with us, but probably be leaning on us even more.

A wonderful, wonderful family.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to shift gears and ask the gentleman about the USMCA trade deal. I know there have been some more negotiations with Ambassador Lighthizer, and just last week, he had sent a letter in response to some of the issues that were raised by the Speaker and her team that is working on USMCA. I know he worked in those weeks after the initial requests were made to try to see how each of those can be addressed, hopefully in a way that allows us to move forward with an actual vote on the House floor on USMCA.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to inquire if the gentleman has any timetable or update on where we are in those talks.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would just encourage those talks to move as quickly as they can, because as we share the interest of making sure that not only do we have better agreements, which this USMCA deal that was negotiated with Mexico and Canada does have better provisions for the United States, we need to make sure that there is proper enforcement, because if somebody doesn't follow through, then we need to make sure we can hold them accountable.

While I am confident that there are already enforcement provisions in the agreement, if they can be made stronger, I know Ambassador Lighthizer is working to find a way to do that, but also in a way that doesn't start the whole process over, where we don't have to open the entire agreement up and then Mexico, which has already ratified it, would have to go back. Canada stands waiting to move on it as well, but right now, we are the holdup.

There are a lot of jobs at stake, over 160,000 jobs. Our farmers are counting on this. So many other manufacturing sectors in our economy are counting on this.

So, hopefully, we can move quickly to work through these and then ultimately get it passed and move to the next countries that want to enter into agreements with the United States, and ultimately to confront China, to resolve the differences that we are having with China.

But I know the gentleman is working on his side. And, again, I would just encourage that we do that as quickly as possible and expedite it and then get it passed, but we will continue working on that.

Something else we would like to work on in a more bipartisan way is drug pricing.

The President has been very clear that he wants a bipartisan bill that is worked out here in Congress to lower drug prices. There have been many efforts made and, in fact, positive steps taken by the Energy and Commerce Committee to pass a package of bills out of committee unanimously to lower drug prices.

Unfortunately, the Speaker took a different turn and, yesterday, had a press conference and then ultimately filed a bill last night, H.R. 3, which was written in secret. Many Democrats don't even know what is in it.

But no Republicans were consulted and involved in the process, and it ended up becoming a very partisan bill, much to the socialist left, which wouldn't solve the problem and, more importantly, wouldn't get to the President's desk because it is not an effort that involved any bipartisan cooperation.

Again, I point out there was a package of bills that passed unanimously out of Energy and Commerce that would lower drug prices. Both parties agreed. Every single member on the Energy and Commerce Committee agreed. Unfortunately, that was shelved in lieu of this partisan approach.

I would hope that we take it more seriously than that and actually work together to get a bill that the President can sign to lower drug prices as quickly as possible. The approach that was taken yesterday does not answer this call, and I would hope we would do better.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of items to address there.

First, clearly, there is kind of a recoil that seems to happen by Mr. Hoyer and a number of others on the other side when the term ``socialism'' is used to identify the policies that are being--

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Mr. SCALISE. First of all, I haven't seen the ad the gentleman is referring to. But if he wants to start going through ads and he wants me to send him some ads where people on his side lie about positions that Members on our side have taken, I will be happy to give him a litany of false ads, misleading ads, then we can go back and forth on that.

But if he is trying to hide from the term ``socialism'' when he promotes socialist policies, we can have a debate about what socialism is. It is an ideology, it is not a word that is thrown around, and it involves government control of your life.

So when you move bills like the Green New Deal or when you see a Presidential candidate on your side running around saying he is going to go to people's houses and take their guns--that is a candidate for President of the United States on your side--those are socialist policies. If the gentleman doesn't want the term applied, then don't promote that ideology, don't embrace that ideology, reject the ideology. But he won't.

You want to try to play it both ways. You want to try to act like you are going to impeach the President, but say you are not going to impeach the President. You want to promote the Green New Deal, but you don't want to bring it to the floor, so your Members don't have to be exposed to the vote.

But, ultimately, as long as the gentleman is going to embrace and allow socialist ideas to come forward, people are going to call it for what it is. And if the gentleman doesn't agree with socialism, then just stop embracing the ideology and the actual policies.

So when the gentleman talks about a bill where the President said-- and he read it and I will read it again--let's get it done in a bipartisan way; the bill that was filed by Speaker Pelosi yesterday was not a bipartisan bill, it was a hyperpartisan bill. So we are talking about the House bill. The Senate bill is still a work in progress. And we all know how the Senate works. Maybe they produce a bill and maybe they don't, but it is not a final product.

The bill that was filed on your side, yesterday, is a bill that most of your own Members haven't even seen, because it was written in secret only from a very far left approach. When Speaker Pelosi, yesterday, was asked if she is willing to negotiate a bill that doesn't allow the government to negotiate prices, she said, ``no, absolutely, positively no,'' so she is not even willing to negotiate.

That is not bipartisan. That is not an approach that is going to get a bill signed into law to lower drug prices. You want to lower drug prices. We worked together.

By the way, Ranking Member Walden was not even consulted, but Ranking Member Walden worked with Chairman Pallone to bring bills out of Energy and Commerce, for example, to stop a process that currently is legal that allows drug companies, right before the patent expires, when the drug is about to become available for generics, companies, of course, go and make the generic drug. And, right now, the process of the FDA is for a period of time, usually a rolling 6 months, one company is given the exclusive rights to provide the generic for a period of time. Ultimately, other companies are allowed in. But for the first period of months and months, it could be years, only one company has the exclusive right to do the generic. And the drug companies are allowed to pay the generic company not to sell the product. So you only have the original drug. You don't have the generic available because the companies can pay the company not to make the generic.

We have a bill called No Pay for Delay. We make it illegal for the drug companies to pay the generics not to make generics. That will lower drug prices.

We also improve the process where you can get the drugs to the generic companies earlier so they can make the product. For the companies to actually make a generic, you have to have available the details of what is in the drug so you can make the generic. And, a lot of times, the companies don't give that information to the generic company, so it is harder to get generics, which are lower prices.

It is not the government coming in saying, if you think you know what a drug price should cost, or any product should cost, good luck out there in the marketplace. But if you want to stifle innovation, if you want to stifle the ability to actually go and invest and have companies come up with lifesaving drugs, it costs billions of dollars. If you want to lower drug prices, work with us to reform the FDA process so that it doesn't take 10 years and $5 billion to develop a drug.

There are real things that can be done in a bipartisan way to address that, and yet the gentleman's party won't do that. They want to sit in a room and come up with a bill that nobody else has seen, that no Republicans were allowed to be a part of, that is not going to become law. So there is a way to lower drug prices.

And, again, there was a package of bills passed out of Energy and Commerce, every single Member, Republican and Democrat, voted for it. That is the path right there to get something done and you shelved the bills. You threw poison pills on the bill, so they won't become law.

Why not work with people who have the expertise and come to an agreement? That bill could be signed by the President today. People could be paying lower prices for drugs today, but you won't bring that bill to the floor. Why not bring that package of bills to the floor?

If you want to come up with other ideas to lower drug prices in other ways, great, let's work on that, too. But, at a minimum, bring the bills that already came out of committee unanimously, that absolutely everybody agrees, Republican and Democrat, will lower drug prices, and you refuse to bring that bill to the floor, that package. Why not do that?

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman consider bringing that package of bills that was unanimous out of committee to lower drug prices? Every Republican and every Democrat agreed on the committee of jurisdiction that these things will lower drug prices, and we can't get a vote on that.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I hope the gentleman is not going to try to use the VA as the standard of care that every American should get. We saw the scandals at the VA, veterans dying waiting to get care.

We actually passed legislation this Congress that got signed into law last Congress to allow veterans to go to another hospital that can actually treat them if the VA is not doing the job. And I know a number of people in the gentleman's party oppose that, but our veterans appreciated it. While you might be able to get good care at some VA hospitals, there were--and the scandals, you have seen the ads, those aren't false ads--veterans literally dying waiting to get into VA hospitals, and the VA was telling us there was no secret list when, in fact, there were secret lists that were not allowing these veterans to get proper care.

So the VA CHOICE Act was passed specifically to address that problem and, ultimately, allow our veterans to be able to go to another hospital if the VA isn't properly taking care of them. Our veterans deserve the best care. If a VA hospital can't provide it, then someone else should, and, in fact, now other hospitals are. Our veterans have asked for that and now have that ability.

But if the gentleman wants to talk about bipartisanship, again, I go back to the bills that passed out of committee unanimously. When those bills came to the floor, they were changed to make them partisan. And if he thinks 5 Republicans out of 197 is bipartisan, I think he needs to go and look back at what, ultimately, is going to allow a bill to become law. To become law, it is going to have to have a lot more support than that, which means the games have to stop being played. The poison pills can't be put in a bill and then expect that to become law. You can pass it out of the House, and it will never become law.

So the ultimate goal, I would hope, would be for us to come together to get a bill to the President's desk. The bills that came out of committee unanimously could have absolutely gotten to the President's desk and would be lowering drug prices. Once you start adding things to them--maybe you get a few Republicans here and there--but ultimately you took an unanimous bill and made it a partisan bill and it is not going anywhere.

So there is a path, if you want to get it back on track, to get a bill to the President's desk. You can make statement, or you can make law, and I would hope we do both. I hope we actually work together to make something come together that not just can pass the House and barely get it across the finish line, but where we can get overwhelming support. The ability is there.

And those bills, by the way, took years to come together, just like the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that took a long time to put together when we were in the majority, but, ultimately, got to the desk of Barack Obama, and he signed it. It is great law. It is something that, ultimately, is going to help us cure major diseases, and we came together to get that done. It is law. It wasn't just a bill that we passed out of the House in a partisan way. We worked with Democrats and we got it done. It is on the books now.

So I would hope, if we are looking at models to use, that we look at the models of those bills that have actually made it all the way through the process where we worked with people on both sides and solved real problems. That should be the objective. Not to make a statement and just work with a few people here and there when you have a roadmap for something that can be overwhelmingly passed out of this House and then get to the President's desk.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I ask the gentleman: What was the question? I yield to the gentleman.

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Mr. SCALISE. Well, clearly, as the gentleman talks about the Grassley bill that is moving through the Senate, let them do their work. Let them find a way to come together with their 60-vote rule and produce a bipartisan bill. I encourage them to do that. They haven't yet, but I encourage them to do that.

When the gentleman talks about the ACA, let's be clear, because the vast majority of people on the gentleman's side now--especially in the Presidential campaign, the Democratic candidates for President--are not talking about the ACA anymore. They are talking about what is referred to as Medicare for All.

I will yield in a moment, but if the gentleman read the bill, Medicare for All, number one, it gets rid of the private insurance marketplace. Over 180 million people lose that healthcare. Then, if you look at Medicare Advantage, an incredibly popular and successful part of Medicare is gone. It goes away.

So 200 million people lose what they have now that they like, and everybody is placed in Medicare, which, as we all know, pays below- market rates. Most rural hospitals said they will close. If that bill passes, they can't even operate. They will close because they can't continue to run and make any kind of profit. They lose money, and they ultimately close down. They have said it.

People know, people understand, how the healthcare marketplace works. Know that if you get rid of the private insurance market, that is what is paying for Medicare and Medicaid today.

Medicare for All, which, again, is the catchphrase that is being used by every Presidential candidate on the gentleman's side, and maybe they all want to have their own version of it, is a far different place than even the ACA.

We can continue and will continue to have a debate about the best way to fix our broken healthcare system, and focus on lowering prices and protecting people with preexisting conditions, but in a way that you can actually let people choose their own plans and buy whatever they want from wherever they want it.

That is how people get all other products. Healthcare, for various reasons, doesn't work that way. But, clearly, on the drug-pricing side, there have been a lot of good ideas that came together that would be proven to lower drug prices.

If we want to get into the high cost, which I agree is a problem, let's look at the fundamental reasons why it costs billions of dollars, instead of maybe hundreds of millions of dollars, to create a new lifesaving drug.

There are reasons that the cost is so high to bring a drug to market. Thank goodness there are companies that are out there that are willing to invest billions of dollars. Sometimes they don't succeed, by the way, and they have to eat that cost. But if they do succeed in finding a new drug that will save lives, it typically costs billions of dollars and years and years of bureaucratic red tape and other processes that they have to go through to finally bring that drug to market.

That is where we should focus our energies, on compressing that process so it can happen quicker, addressing other problems within the way that a drug comes to market so that it doesn't cost billions of dollars, and we can have more lifesaving drugs at lower costs.

If we are going to ignore that side of the equation and say: Here, we are just going to set the price without addressing the fundamental problems that are leading to such high costs, then all that is going to happen is that nobody is going to make the investment to go find the next lifesaving drug.

You will never know what could have happened. We see every day there are amazing breakthroughs in medical technology, and we want to continue encouraging that.

Something like the 21st Century Cures Act actually achieves it. Again, we came together to put that bill into law to now allow for lifesaving drugs, especially in areas like cancer, Alzheimer's, and ALS. We are going to get real big breakthroughs. There are already some big breakthroughs because of that.

I yield to the gentleman.

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I know we will have more debates next week over the limited number of items coming to the floor. Hopefully, some of these other items can get addressed in a bipartisan way, but I know there are other battles ahead, and we will do our part to try to come together to address these problems.

If the gentleman has nothing else, then I yield back the balance of my time.

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