Phil Gingrey: “I want to talk about policy and process. This is a situation where in the process the voices on both sides of the aisle…”

“I want to talk about policy and process. This is a situation where in the process the voices on both sides of the aisle have literally been shut down by bringing forward one of the most important pieces of legislation, I think, that I have had to discuss in the 4 rac{1}{2} years that I have been a Member of this Congress. To say to the 11 position Members, almost equally divided between the Democrats and the Republicans, that we don't want to hear your voice, we don't want to hear some amendments that you might want to proffer because you have spent maybe 30 years, in my case maybe 25 years, 250 years in the aggregate of these 11 physicians' practicing medicine, no one being able to bring meaningful amendments to this issue. The other side has talked many times about the Republican former majority running up this massive debt and borrowing money from the Chinese. I am going to tell you something. This might be a time, Mr. Speaker, where the new majority should borrow this $75 billion massive expansion of the SCHIP program from the Chinese rather than getting the money off the backs of our Medicare recipients under Medicare Advantage, 8 million of whom choose that option, and many of those are the lowest income; and also encouraging 22 million people to become addicted to smoking so they could raise this revenue.”