Date: 2007-09-25
Speaker: TIM MURPHY (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Pennsylvania

Mr. Speaker. within the past hour. the House voted to pass a bill on the Childrens Health Insurance Program. a laudable program that all Members agree is important to help children with their health care needs. Unfortunately. the debate was filled with much rhetoric. and it is important that we cut through all that rhetoric to understand that despite comments made. neither Republicans nor Democrats nor the White House nor anyone else dislikes children. We all wanrt them to have the best health care they can get. and we will continue to work to make sure that happens. But as that bill was voted on on this floor with a threat of the White House to veto it. feeling it was not an appropriate bill. it appears that there may be enough votes to sustain that veto. During the coming days or weeks as the Senate also looks at this bill and as it goes to the White House. Congress has a couple of choices. First of all. Congress may take this as an opportunity to gain political points. spending untold hundreds of. thousands of dollars on campaign ads attacking each other. perhaps saying that each side doesnt care about children. perhaps trying to sway votes so that the veto is not sustained. accusing people of horrendous things which are not true. Or Congress can do what the American people expect us to do. and use this as an opportunity to make. things even better. Now. I believe there were a lot of good things in that bill. and I think all Members agree that there are important aspects about childrens health insurance we need to support. But shouldnt we also use this as an opportunity to make things better? There are elements in this bill that looked at some things to help with prevention. obesity. case management. health information technology. things that I have been talking about in this Chamber for the last 4 years as important things to help us save money. But let me review a few of these and say what we need to do and what we should be doing as Members of Congress to use .this bill that will help several million children with their health care as a vehicle to find real change with health care. Instead of us continuing to come to this Chamber and debate how we are going to finance health care. we should be talking about how to fix health care. The problem with health care is not just that the costs are too high and people cant afford them. The concern is that there is so much waste in our health care dollars that people cannot afford it. perhaps as much as $400 billion a year wasted on our health care system. If we are able to reduce that waste in health care. we can make. health care more affordable. and we wouldnt have to be dealing with how do we find the money to fund childrens health insurance or.adult health insurance. By fixing the system. we could change that. For example. health careacquired infections this year will account for something like $50 billion in waste. This chart next to me indicates that just as of this evening. as of this evening there has been at least this many cases who have picked up infections in America. almost 1.5 million cases here. while some indications are that it may be much more than that. There have been some 66.000 deaths so far this year. one every 5 minutes. and so far spending. some $36 billion in health careacquired infections which are preventable through hand washing. sterilized equipment. using clean procedures. Health information technology. if we stop talking about it and work with hospitals to invoke it. can save $162 billion in reducing errors. If we do more with case management. we could reduce the big bulk of dollars spent on people who have chronic illnesses such as heart disease and other problems. If we worked to reduce maternal smoking. we can reduce premature births. problems with low birth weights. asthma. respiratory distress symptoms. and so many other problems that infants experience. if we work to reduce maternal smoking. Now. we have a choice here. We can continue to argue as a House over who has the better plan. the Republicans or Democrats plan. or we can really get together over these next several days and say we need to fix our broken health care system. not continue to finance it. We need a health care system that is focused on patients and not politics. We need a health care system that is focused on patient safety and patient quality and where patients can choose their doctors and hospitals. I hope this is not a time that Americans will continue to see politicians beat their chest and say "my plan is better". "no. my plan is better." I know if every few minutes a child or an adult is dying from an infection they picked up in a hospital. if we know the chronic illnesses they face continue to be so difficult to manage. and it is odd to me that Medicare and Medicaid will spend thousands of dollars to amputate the foot of someone who has severe diabetes. but wont spend $5 to have some nurse call that person and check up on them with care management. something is wrong and something is broken with that system. If we really and truly care about children. as I believe we do. if we really and truly care about the health care of Americans. as I believe we all do. shouldnt we be focusing our time instead on how to fix the system and use the compassion in our hearts to roll up our sleeves and work together and stop this continued fighting for the sake of political points. I believe that is what America wants. I believe that is what America needs. and I believe that is what they sent us here to take care of.