Congressman Bill Thomas is a Republican from Bakersfield, California; he chairs the House of Ways and Means Committee. Before appointment as chair, Thomas served on the committe?s health subcommittee, where he was instrumental in the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. He also wrote the Medicare Preservation Act. In 1988 Thomas was appointed administrative chairman of the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare. The title of his lecture is "The Politics of Trade."