Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendments to H.R. 976, Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007
Floor Speech
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, today is a defining moment for an insatiable appetite that the new Democrat majority has for spending, spending taxpayer dollars and going well beyond the mission statement of SCHIP. And that is what the day is all about. It is a defining moment with the new Democrat majority seeking a way to have single payer-funded health care for all America. And that is the road that we are defining and beginning again today.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this completely closed rule that fails to even provide the minority with a motion to recommit, and to the underlying legislation that the minority did not receive until 6:30 last night.
When I came to the floor in the beginning of August to oppose the previous version of this legislation, I explained my opposition to the way that it had been brought to the floor without a single legislative markup. And, unfortunately, again today that fact has not changed. In fact, neither Republican leadership nor Republican members on the House Energy and Commerce Committee had an opportunity to participate in the crafting of the 250-plus pages of legislative language this entire House was provided with just a little bit more than 12 hours ago.
Despite the terrible process surrounding this legislation from start to finish, I would like to once again thank the Democrat leadership for one thing: By cramming this bill through the House for a second time, they are giving every single Member of this body another opportunity to go on record regarding which vision they have for the future of our Nation's health care system that they truly support.
The first vision for our future is to slowly shift away as many Americans as is possible into a one-size-fits-all Washington bureaucrat-run program. And, if nothing else, I congratulate the Democrat leadership for their clarity, because that vision is embodied in H.R. 976.
Rather than taking the opportunity to cover the children who cannot obtain coverage through Medicaid or the private marketplace, this bill uses these children as pawns in their cynical attempt to make millions of Americans completely reliant upon the government for their health care needs.
H.R. 976 also increases government spending and dislocates the private marketplace, leaving taxpayers holding the bag for these increased costs. This bill generally raises the income threshold for eligibility and allows States to qualify anyone receiving these funds, including childless adults and people making over $80,000 a year, despite the fact that this diverts these much needed funds away from helping our Nation's most poorest children.
It would also allow illegal immigrants and aliens to receive these benefits by forcing States to accept nonsecure documents as proof of citizenship for purposes of receiving these funds. I find it both ironic and unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the party of Hillary Clinton and bureaucrat-run health care would float a proposal in which law-abiding citizens are made to show proof of insurance as a condition of employment, while this legislation would open the door for ineligible and illegal immigrants to receive federally funded benefits, no questions asked.
All of these problems exist on top of a current system which we know that some States already abuse. This bill grandfathers in New York's standard, which provides Federal assistance to those making four times the poverty level, and in New Jersey at 3 1/2 times, while allowing every other State to expand coverage to three times the current poverty level.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the crowd-out effect created by this big government bill that replaces private insurance with a government program will not provide coverage to more kids. By the CBO estimate, it simply will shift 2.4 million children out of private insurance and into a Federal program that hurts doctors and hospitals by forcing them to deal with government bureaucrats that short-change both patients and providers by undercompensating them for medical services.
If Democrats were serious about ensuring that every American had access to inexpensive and high-quality health care, we would be talking about a different vision today for our health care, one that tackles the system's real underlying problems and revolutionizes our health care system to provide us with better results. This other, Republican vision for improving health access to health insurance includes allowing families to have access to tax exemptions up to $15,000 a year for health care, not just those who work for large employers.
The Republican vision includes giving Americans the ability to purchase health insurance across State lines, because healthy insurance options should not be limited to the State you live in or your zip code. It also includes having Congress act to ensure that those who can't get insurance in the marketplace have access to coverage through high-risk pools and low-income tax credits.
Mr. Speaker, I am not here to oppose the idea of SCHIP. It was a Republican-controlled Congress that created SCHIP, and I support its original, true mission. But H.R. 976 is a camouflaged attempt at slowly siphoning Americans from insurance plans into a Washington, D.C., bureaucrat-run system.
Mr. Speaker, today we fail to address one of the most serious issues facing our Nation: how to make our health insurance system more affordable and accessible for all Americans. And by focusing on the wrong vision for our future, this bill does nothing to address either problem. It ignores the fact that our Nation has produced the greatest health care advantages in the world, many of which have come as a result of our competitive insurance market.
The American survival rate for leukemia is 50 percent; the European rate is just about 35 percent. For prostate cancer, the American survival rate is 81 percent; in France, it is 62 percent; in England, it is 44 percent.
Rather than trying to emulate Europe and its outdated socialized approach, we should be working on a vision to give every single American an opportunity to take part in our competitive insurance market. I encourage my colleagues to oppose this rule and the underlying legislation to drag America into a one-size-fits-all European model.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous question so that I may amend the rule to allow for consideration of H. Res. 479, a resolution that I call the ``Earmark Accountability Rule.'' It seems like we need a lot more accountability. We had to learn today that through a loophole that evidently we don't have to have all earmarks to be accounted for in the bills that come to this floor of the House of Representatives despite what we were told just a few months ago.
Last night in the ``Graveyard of Good Ideas,'' which is the Rules Committee, I made a motion that would have the Democrats enforce their own earmark proposal by allowing points of order regarding earmarks to be raised on this legislation. As expected, the vote failed along party lines with every Democrat member present voting to waive their own earmark rules for this bill. I am greatly disappointed in that outcome. So today I am giving the entire House, not just the nine Democrat members of the Rules Committee, whose word we are expected to take that this legislation contains no earmarks, an opportunity to correct that mistake.
This rules change would simply allow the House to debate openly and honestly about the validity and accuracy of earmarks contained in all bills, not just appropriations bills. If we defeat the previous question, we can address that problem today and restore this Congress' nonexistent credibility when it comes to the enforcement of its own rules.
I ask unanimous consent to have the text of this amendment and extraneous material appear in the Record just before the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, today, once again, we have a rule that is on the floor of the House of Representatives that is neither open nor I think passes the standard of accountability to the American people nor fairness that they spoke about. Last night, the Rules Committee and minority received this bill just 1 hour and 15 minutes before the Rules Committee was to meet. It involved no feedback from Republican Members, especially those who have jurisdiction over this from the Energy and Commerce Committee.
I am disappointed. I am disappointed that, once again, we have to come to the floor of the House of Representatives after asking a straightforward question last night to the chairman of the Rules Committee, ``Are there any earmarks in this legislation? We think we found three,'' only to come to the floor today and find out, oops, no, we got a loophole, had to find a loophole.
This is crass. It is really politics over policy. I know many people want the United States House of Representatives to be higher in the polls. We are at 11 percent right now. People scratch their head and wonder why. Well, with the way that this House is running, not living up to their word, even the word in committee among colleagues who have been with each other for 9 years that I have been on the Rules Committee where a person looked right at me and said, ``There is nothing in that bill,'' I think we can do better.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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The material previously referred to by Mr. Sessions is as follows:
Amendment to H. Res. 675 Offered by Mr. Sessions of Texas
At the end of the resolution, add the following:
That immediately upon the adoption of this resolution the House shall, without intervention of any point of order, consider the resolution (H. Res. 479) to amend the Rules of the House of Representatives to provide for enforcement of clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House of Representatives. The resolution shall be considered as read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on the resolution to final adoption without intervening motion or demand for division of the question except: (1) one hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules; and (2) one motion to recommit.
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(The information contained herein was provided by Democratic Minority on multiple occasions throughout the 109th Congress.)
The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means
This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote against the Democratic majority agenda and a vote to allow the opposition, at least for the moment, to offer an alternative plan. It is a vote about what the House should be debating.
Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of Representatives, (VI, 308-311) describes the vote on the previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or control the consideration of the subject before the House being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first recognition.''
Because the vote today may look bad for the Democratic majority they will say ``the vote on the previous question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an immediate vote on adopting the resolution ..... [and] has no substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the definition of the previous question used in the Floor Procedures Manual published by the Rules Committee in the 109th Congress, (page 56). Here's how the Rules Committee described the rule using information from Congressional Quarterly's ``American Congressional Dictionary'': ``If the previous question is defeated, control of debate shifts to the leading opposition member (usually the minority Floor Manager) who then manages an hour of debate and may offer a germane amendment to the pending business.''
Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who controls the time for debate thereon.''
Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only available tools for those who oppose the Democratic majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the opportunity to offer an alternative plan.
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