i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
mr. speaker , i rise today in strong support of h. res. 379 and the underlying bill , h.r. 525 , the small business health fairness act of 2005 . 
my good friend , the gentleman from new jersey , just spoke about some mandates regarding ob care and , of course , there are mandates that have been passed in the several states , all 50 , in fact , that are very compassionate sounding . 
the gentleman from new jersey is right . 
many of us have , as former members of state legislatures , voted for mandates . 
i am one of them . 
in fact , in the state of georgia , there was a mandate , because of managed care intrusion and the requirement that everybody go through a gatekeeper and not to a specialist , that women in the state of georgia , if any health insurance policy was written , they would have direct access to their ob-gyn . 
certainly , as an ob-gyn specialist , i liked that mandate . 
in fact , i think i voted for that one . 
but shortly after that along came the dermatologists and they wanted direct access to everybody who had an itch , to have to be able to go , demand to be seen by a specialist , a dermatologist , rather than their family practitioner . 
i want to tell you about a couple of other mandates in the state of georgia . 
there was one to require that every woman would have the right to have a blood test to be screened for ovarian cancer . 
it is called cea-125 . 
any cancer specialist would tell you that that screening test for ovarian cancer is absolutely worthless . 
a better mandate would have been to say that anybody over age 30 , any woman , could have an ultrasound done every 6 months to look at the ovaries , but that would be astronomically expensive . 
another mandate in the state of georgia says that every baby born in a hospital in the state of georgia has to be screened for sickle cell anemia , even when they are a part of an ethnic group where the percentage of sickle cell anemia is zero . 
nada . 
these mandates just go and on , and you have got them in all 50 states . 
clearly , we need to do something about that because they are driving up the cost of health care . 
we need to give people the opportunity to join their other employees in trade associations . 
this is a good bill . 
it will reduce the rolls of the uninsured by 8 million people . 
i commend it to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle . 
i urge you to support this rule and pass the sam johnson legislation . 
it is a good bill . 
it will get people the protection they need and provide health care for so many who do not have it . 
