are and so i would simply like to take a minute to describe the amendments i think are being offered by each member and i can't do anything about people who aren't here this or any other act may be used to enforce any federal health insurance coverage mandate that pertains to small businesses and was not in effect as of july fifteenth two thousand  as the chairman said at the opening of this discussion and i quote we expect to pass some type of health care reform legislation later this year for many in this room this is an exciting moment that we didn't give it the necessary deliberation this amendment would protect small businesses from the play or pay employer mandate that we at least some of us might come down in the majority health reform bill the amendment would restrict of the funding the labor health and human services bill for the implementation of any new health insurance regulations on small businesses that were in acted after july fifteenth two thousand and nine many of us fear that  draft are coming out of the various committees in both the house and the senate we don't have a final bill obviously many of us fear that this is the last possible time to impose new taxes and more regulations on small businesses in our country and throughout our that they can least afford according to the national association of manufacturers sixty eight percent of manufacturers  subchapter s corporations with an average income of five hundred seventy thousand dollars well above the three hundred fifty thousand dollars base that the majority has set the level for the as most of my colleagues know we already have insurance mandates in this country forty eight states and the district of columbia mandate that all drivers purchase some form of automobile insurance the compliance rate is about eighty five percent which is pretty good except for the health care plan that the majority is proposing the goal is ninety seven percent so my colleague if with a federal mandate on health insurance to the level of ninety seven percent and unfortunately i think many of us are concerned that this is an example that has not been thought through while the authorizing committees admittedly are marking up this bill one i think math until six o'clock this morning i think it's important for the appropriations committee to send a strong signal that we do not want to fund a mandate that the new national federation of independent business is the leading voice for small business estimates could cost one point six million jobs including over one million in the small business sector alone these mandates would affect millions of businesses reaching down into the pockets of small business owners operators and investors with a buy employee now the plan that we understand the majority is considering starts with whacking employers all the way down to the two hundred fifty thousand dollars payroll level there are over one million small businesses in this country between five and nine employees with an average payroll of two hundred and one thousand dollars there are almost half a million small businesses in the country between ten and fourteen employees with an average annual payroll of three hundred seventy four thousand dollars the bottom line is this there are millions upon millions and millions upon millions of small businesses and every district in the country and every district that we represent here on this committee that are concerned that they could be adversely affected by this mandate coming from washington d c now i looked outside of my district we've got some of the finest food in america in south alabama but i went to one of my favorite restaurants outside of the district captain anderson my friend congressman boyd knows it well it's one of the best restaurants in america hap anderson is in panama city it's a tradition they've got one hundred seventy seven employees and there are fifty thousand small businesses just like captain whether it's a restaurant whether it's a funeral home whether it's a dry cleaner whether it's a pharmacy there are thousands of small businesses just like captain anderson's in panama city florida that have an average payroll of around six and a half thank you very much mr chairman many of my colleagues probably have no idea that in the distant past i actually made an honest living in the private sector that is to say i spent much of my time for thirty years selling life and health insurance to people and in that process made a serious effort to figure out ways and means of making certain that health care was available in a reasonable way to people who needed it needed it and then make sure that there was a maximum level of competition in the marketplace without that marketplace being dominated by salesmen who wanted to essentially talk about what they were doing on the front page and do very little in their contracts there is a role for government in all of this but clearly is not the role for government to become the provider of health care my amendment says that none of the funds on this or any other act can be used by the secretary of health and human services to plan for or establish a new government run health care plan in many respects this amendment will highlight the differences between those of us who believe that government is the answer to our problems and those of us who think a better solution lies with the american people themselves it should come as no surprise that i fall into the latter category while i believe we need to do something to contain skyrocketing health care costs i do not think more government intervention is the answer we currently have a government run health care system called medicare that is hemorrhaging money do we really expect the notion that another government run health insurance program will do any better particularly when it relies on an increased taxes and economically destructive employer mandate for its financing actuar predicts that if congress does not act the medicare trust fund will go to bankruptcy by twenty one thousand i predict that that if this bill passes the american taxpayer compacts payer might go bankrupt far sooner far sooner than that furthermore i do not believe that it is the role of government to compete with the private sector proponents of the health care reform bill introduced by mr dingell and others will claim they are simply offering more choice the reality is that they are producing a bill that is a job killer and one that will by its very nature crowd out many quality health insurance plans that are run by the private sector that will impose health insurance mandates on small businesses as my colleague mr boehner has suggested the very engine of our economic growth it will also use the vast resources of the feller federal government is permitted to borrow from future generations and foreign governments to upset the playing field tilting health insurance decisions away from patients and doctors and toward federal bureaucrats in fact it is likely in the not too distant future that bill will turn health insurance in america into a single payer plan that is run by the united states government frankly i don't think any of us want to become another france but we sure could be on that path where none of us knows even if a final product socialized medicine will be produced or what that final product will look like some might argue that this bill is no place for an amendment trying to influence that i respectfully disagree for a host of reasons first among them i doubt members of either party will have an opportunity to vote on the floor to eliminate any government run health insurance plan that is in the current bill as introduced second i have heard that the chairman has said that if he  did and i agree wholeheartedly with that if he did say that the health insurance reform bill will be written in conference that is all the more reason to have this today in the sunlight of a full committee market nobody knows what legislation will come out of the backroom of the conference committee deal and so that is all the more reason for those of us who are greatly concerned about a government run health insurance plan to try to stop it now i don't think members of either party would disagree when i say that this health care reform legislation is likely to be the most sweeping and impactful legislation that has been considered in a generation if the house passes health care reform legislation before the august recess it will mean that members will have had less than two weeks to evaluate the lasting consequences of more than a thousand pages of legislative language or the most historic changes and the way american government deals with health care challenges by way of the private sector if there is no surprise for amendment as was the case in the baseball cap and tax some people call it the cap and tax energy legislation the current timeframe would still be a far cry from ensuring that the american people are comfortable with legislation that will fundamentally impact their allies and the lives of their aging parents and the lives of their children chairman we cannot afford a massive government run health insurance plan that will destroy our economy and plunged into deeper debt at the same time that we are struggling to recover from a sinking economy i urge my colleagues to reject a public health insurance plan and send a signal to the president and the leadership of both parties and most chambers of congress that we must achieve health insurance reform that does not cost jobs and things got further into  insurance program would they have the same amount of regulations to comply with as a private health insurance program right now there's a tremendous amount of paperwork demanded by private insurance private health insurance companies because of government regulation when they wave regulations for the public sector the public funded one and forced the private health insurance company to have those regulations that cost more not a level playing field  insurance of course is for profit they have stockholders to answer to that's what makes this country work that's how we became the number one economy in the world by being a for profit country so right now i've heard the complaint that well no medicare costs are only three percent to administer government regulations they will probably buy a public funded health insurance you know the thing that really puzzles me is that when we do have a public portion of our health care system involved like medicare they always reading the bill they found a provision there that outlaws private insurance coverage you'll find it in this paragraph it says the individual except as provided in this paragraph the individual help insure offering such group coverage at work and end up on a government run health insurance program and the bill this legislation that's being drafted that's already been made public will essentially drive the private sector out and drive everybody into government cover is pretty fundamental for us all to know that one of most important bills of perhaps our lifetime here relates to this subject area and it will in many ways make or break the work of the appropriations committee simply because if we find ourselves on this pa hway a huge piece of our future current and future preparations will be directly related to trying to finance a government option and indeed we have problems in the health care system in this country but there's not any question that our public wants the coverage that they have they absolutely want to make certain they control the relationship between themselves and their doctor and then above and beyond that and very fundamental if we move down a pathway that has the american government take over a system and dominated no longer will we have an opportunity for the flexibility in the current system that is the american health care system a lot of people think that this game plan that that the majority is talking about is going to take us to free health care there's going to be health premium made by every american to receive health care if they don't lie on the side of social welfare programs and indeed it's not going to be a free game it's going to be a game of public assistance without people having the option to choose their own doctor if it goes down the path we expect if you are against public health care planning and in favor of private sector reform then i ask  rodriguez no mr rogers nine convictions protecting union members and their fun that's what this does however the committee report has language in it that concerns me and i'm going to to the language in the committee report on page thirty four it says the committee is also concerned about apparent fabrications and mis reporting of data according to a two thousand and seven report from the center for american progress  frequently double or triple counted criminal enforcement in their database by exaggerating the level of criminal activity in this area and misrepresenting the effectiveness of all that's what the report language says it is rather astonishing when a simple call would have been placed the department of labor president obama's labor department this week verified that the indictment and conviction statistics compiled by the office of labor management standards over the past twenty years is accurate i think what we need to do is remove this inflammatory language quite frankly that criticizes those who have done hard work over the last eight years in the past administration and in this in this department and even worse it's just a nine percent cut in funding for two thousand to what this amendment would do is remove offensive language that is inaccurate and not true from the report and increase the funding back to the nine level we're not asking to other things increases the budget for that portion of the labor department which has already been treated quite generously over the past two years from two thousand and one to two thousand and seven budget increased by the the community based absent education program that has strong support across the country from students and parents alike there has been significant member support for this alleged for this  program funding and education i would hope that they would understand what the significance of zero this program out at this particular time would do and i would ask for my colleagues democrats and the highest per capita infant mortality in the country it is a generational problem of having children and the younger you are the more infant testing one two testing one t o and i certainly appreciate the emotional appeal that they both offered but abstinence only programs have failed america's young people and in their emotional appeal not to hold and that mr want neither of them offered a single shred of scientific evidence as to the success of the programs in their emotional appeals there's clear evidence that federally funded abstinence only until marriage programs are not effective in stopping or even delaying teen sex or failing to teens how to prevent pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections including h b n eight no study in a professional peer reviewed journal has found these programs to be for all the effective scientific evidence simply does not support an abstinence only until marriage approach by providing misinformation and withholding accurate information that young people need to make informed choices abstinence only until marriage programs and young people life saving information thirteen states evaluated their own title five abstinence only until marriage programs with results ranging from finding programs ineffective to finding them to even be harmful furthermore in early november two thousand and seven the national campaign to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy released a report that found strong evidence that abstinence only until marriage programs do not have any positive impact on sexual behavior leading medical and professional groups opposed abstinence only programs including the national academy of sciences institute the american medical association the american academy of pediatrics the society of adolescent medicine and the american psychological association these organizations and many others do not support abstinence only until marriage programs but instead support a comprehensive approach to educating young people about sex the absence only program has proven to be a waste of taxpayer dollars and i urge impact on the number of partners and no impact on reported rates of pregnancies are sexually transmitted infections the fact is that here in the united states we have one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections among any votes for this bill if it's important to understand that we tried every way possible to reach accommodation on a whole range of social issues we have maintained every single prohibition on abortion in this bill even though many members of the disagree with a number of those provisions i think we've tried to be as reasonable as possible i don't think we've got much of a response from the other side  insurance twenty million dollars allocated to technology over payment prevention and the reason that i have an interest in that is my state of georgia last year paid out fifty eight million dollars in over payments to people if you think about that taking that fifty million dollars that could have paid over eighteen thousand claimants unemployment insurance for twelve months but instead it went to people who were not eligible for many because they had already working already had jobs ten years ago the state of washington eight hundred thousand dollars on technology to prevent over payments and as a result they've saved about eighty million dollars over ten year period of time i believe georgia could save about ten million just in nine other states could have the same impact nationally this year it's estimated we're going to pay a billion dollars in unemployment insurance to people who are working about that a minute that's why i'm saying this is really non controversial we're just saying that of the money that we are paying to the states and remember that fourteen states right now are insolvent in their own and the insurance pools and so they go to the federal government automatically they've drawn down about seven point four billion dollars and hopefully because of the formula we get this money back because the states have to collect it but the overpayment right right now nationally is about and we're just asking that improper payments fraud and abuse in the department of labor and health and human services and administration which is a fifty percent increase over two thousand and nine the problem with this amendment is kennedy ms kilpatrick is kilpatrick now mr kingston mr kingston i mr kirk this relates some my colleagues said the chairman some time ago reminded me in public in this meeting that a five really wanted to control the calendar that i need about forty more votes in the conference and i took that to heart there's no doubt that he's correct in connection with that but i know that that he knows and i feel strongly that it's too bad that we have to be here on a friday evening doing this bill at this point in time i mean somebody once said that mussolini made the trains run on time but on the other hand muesli sometimes created and violated the processes that make common sense in terms of you know even his own scheduling and indeed i would hope that our committee together on both side aisle gets back to regular order as soon as possible and that's kind of the thrust of this of this amendment i want to begin by saying to my colleagues mr chairman it's an unfortunate circumstance that i have to offer this amendment today but i believe it may be the only way to have members voices heard on substantive issues that should have already been considered this year on the nine appropriations bills that have been considered by the house under closed rules we all know that members on both sides of the aisle have been shut out and unable to offer their amendments during for consideration these members both republicans and democrats were trying to follow the rules of the game they filed their amendments with the rules committee many of them testified on their amendments many of them offered similar amounts on prior appropriations bills yet this year they have been shut out due to a restrictive set of close rules our former chairman mr natur prided himself in taking our bills to the floor without rules letting members participate in an open for and in free way and as a result of it his work is long remembered as the best among the appropriations season my m m and combines thirteen amendments that were filed with the rules committee on one or more of the nine f y appropriations bills considered so far i could have belabored the point and offered individual amendments for all thirteen amendments but but in the interest of time i have gone through and selected a few items that i think warrants special attention and wrap them up into one amendment many of the items many of the items in my m m have been offered numerous times on the house floor under the traditional open rule process in past years some of the items in my amendment were excepting by voice vote by the chairman during consideration and prior bills some of them were overwhelmingly passed by the house some of the items in my m m have been contained in appropriations act x for many years the chairman and the democratic leadership promised regular order and this year's appropriations process that we have devolved to a circumstance that i believe threatens the very future of this committee things that the house would normally have had a chance to contemplate are now being swept under the rug our position will be to our position our position will be undermined when we conference with the senate if members on both sides of the aisle are not allowed to offer substantive amendments this amendment attempts to get this broken process back on track by placing these funding limitations on agencies this congress will be able to affect the implementation of important laws regulations executive orders and polic allergy and infectious diseases is important and supports the very important research by transferring five hundred million dollars back into that fund from lower priority program and that was the research in funding included in the conference agreement to be used to mandate coverage reimbursement or other policies for any public or private payer the funding in the conference agreement shall be used to conduct is the other thing and i see i knew it serrano said it already and now i would tell you i would tell you that i think it would be a good program but for a couple of things we already have three programs to do the same thing in this particular instance this was authorized in funding everywhere this year at five hundred seventy one point nine million dollars there was one hundred twenty million dollars in the recovery act so just in this calendar year you've got seven hundred million dollars in the in the program but it is in that we have also and the stimulus package also has a really robust the corporation for community and national service and located in there is the p program which is a great program senior companions great program grandparent program great program and all of them are training programs to teach senior citizens people fifty five and older how to volunteer no i would i would suggest to you directed it is the o m b website and under the program assessment or senior community service employment program their rating is not performing and under what this rating means it federal probation of using federal tax dollars for needle exchange programs the present law prohibits federal tax dollars for that purpose the bill is written without amendment including the o that amendment would allow federal funding for needle exchanges my intent in this amendment is state governments local governments county governments private entities believe that this is a vital health care issue should continue to have the right to spend their private or local state money for needle exchange programs but at the same time we show respect to those people in other parts of the country perhaps many in my  district that believe on good faith that perhaps it stands in a rural community the wrong message using federal tax dollars to fund a needle exchange program their community i think this is one of those emotional personal health care and in some cases say there are a lot of porton education and health care needs met in this bill so every dollar that would be spent on a new program of federal funding is a dollar coming out of other high priority programs that we chose and the fund in this bill  i respect the fact their members will be passionately in support of federal funding for needle exchanges i'm not here to have that argument with you i respect that position and ask that allowed us all to respect each other can be opposition to this amendment is based on scientific research that tells us that needle exchange programs are a valuable prevention tool that does not by expert bodies including government agencies under both democratic and republican administrations which concluded the needle exchange program helped reduce the spread of aids and other infectious diseases without encouraging or increasing drug  use these bodies include the national commission on aids the institute of medicine the national institute of health and including the national institute of drug abuse the centers for disease control and prevention united states surgeon general the american medical association the american public health association the american society of addiction medicine the international federation of red cross and red crescent societies the national alliance of state and territorial aids director world health organization joint program on activity of selling zero has been transferred over to someone who is sick who is an addict who's an addicted junkie if you will and we are associat means by which we're trying to help them get better a needle exchange program with the emotion associated with the criminal activity of drug selling syringe exchange programs are ineffective way to both enhanced public safety and public health no one twenty percent of people living with hiv aids are injection drug users without syringe exchange programs this number would be higher in fact as with that in two thousand and eight the centers for disease control and prevention concluded that incidence of hiv aids among drug users had  decreased by eighty percent in the u s over a twenty year period in part to syringe exchange programs now the chairman indicated all of the science has been supportive and many of the associations have been supportive but let's be clear who this also affect mr calvert mr calvert mr carter mr carter mr chandler mr chandler mr call mr crenshaw mr crenshaw