[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 25, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: January 25, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
CRIME IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Washington], is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. WASHINGTON. Mr. Speaker, as I ponder the President's possible
remarks later this evening on the State of the Union, I thought it was
important to discuss some things that address what I believe will be
the principal subject of the President's remarks.
I am happy that several of my colleagues who preceded me on the
microphone today have seen fit to address some of these issues. It
seems to me, and what I read in the paper suggests, that the President
will deal principally with the issue of crime in America, the reform of
our health care system and welfare reform.
I wonder if we in the Congress have the collective courage, the
strength and the statesmanship to rededicate ourselves to true reform.
For true reform is what is necessary.
Some of the problems that principally beset us are crime, health care
and welfare reform. These are problems that concern all Americans. Any
poll that is taken indicates that these are the principal issues,
concerns and worries in the hearts and in the minds of the American
people.
As the gentleman from Texas, who immediately preceded me to the
microphone, indicated, it depends on how you look at the statistics as
to what they show you.
The statistics recently released by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation show that America's crime rate for the last 2 years
actually declined by 5 percent. The last 2 years was the only period in
the last 50 years in which the Congress of the United States did not
pass a crime bill. So one could say that during the 2-year period when
Congress did not pass a crime bill was the only time in the last 50
years when the crime rate went down.
So if we really want the crime rate to go down, we need to stop the
Congress from passing crime bills, because most of what they are used
for is re-election of Members of Congress. Most of what the crime bills
are used for is the re-election of the Members of Congress.
They make wonderful commercials. They look good on your resume. They
are wonderful for television, where you can show yourself slamming the
bars on some prison, but you fail to tell the citizens out there who
are going to vote for you how much you are costing them.
Some of my friends are in favor of the ``lock them up and throw the
key away'' approach. Some of my friends are in favor of assisting the
States by building regional prisons. But if my friend, who immediately
preceded me to the microphone, would have his way, the gentleman from
Texas [Mr. Chapman], we would require the States to impose upon their
court system the requirement that 85 percent of a sentence be served.
We are not going to pay for it. The States are going to have to pay
for it. And in these days when most of us are speaking about unfunded
mandates, here is another mandate.
Now, we really do need to do something about crime. But the States
can do much more about crime than the Federal Government, and I do not
think they need our help. What we like to help them do is to run over
each other getting to a microphone so we can tell the citizens how much
we have done to protect them, how much we have done about crime, so
that we can get re-elected.
{time} 1520
Statistics of whether crime has decreased mean absolutely nothing. As
I say, in the last 2 years crime has decreased by 5 percent, according
to FBI statistics, but I don't know any people who are comforted by
that because they are still afraid to walk the streets in the daytime
and at night. Now they are afraid to go to the shopping malls. They are
afraid to ride on the public transportation systems. They are afraid to
send their children to school. Yet they are being told by the FBI that
the crime statistics have gone down in the last 2 years by 5 percent.
I do not know any people anywhere in America who are not afraid or
have an all-permeating fear of drive-by shootings and random violence,
and children being caught in the crossfire of automatic and
semiautomatic weapons. The increase in the sale of burglar alarms and
personal defense devices will tell us that people are afraid.
People want something done about crime, but they are tired of paying
to have something done about crime that does not do anything about
crime. They have been paying out of the nose, they have been paying out
of the pocket, they have been paying out of the ears, been paying out
of everywhere that they can pay for the last 50 years of Congress to
come up and engage in an exercise in futility, because we are not
solving the problem.
If every violent criminal in America today were locked up and put in
prison, we would be safe for a little while. However, because we do not
do anything about the people who are 17 and 16 and 15 and 14 and 13, if
we locked up everybody that was over 17 who committed a violent crime
for the rest of their life, and we do nothing more than what we are
doing now for the people who are 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 16 and
17, in 2 years or 3 years or 4 years we will be right back where we
started, except we will have a whole lot more prisons built.
Mr. Speaker, these prisons are not cheap. The average cost to build
one cell in which two or three or four persons may be housed is
$100,000. It costs us $100,000 each time we build another maximum
security cell in which we can lock up these violent criminals. A lot of
them need to be locked up. That is not the point of my discussion here
today.
In addition to that $100,000 to build this house in which we can
house up to four of these individuals, we pay the princely sum of
$25,000 per year for every year they are locked up for the rest of
their lives. So if we take somebody who is 20, who is going to die when
he is 70, we are going to spend 50 years at $25,000 keeping that person
locked up in prison. They do not even have to pay for their own keep.
We want to do something about crime. We are afraid. There is at least
a perception that crime has gone out of control. Crime is hemorrhaging
our country to the tune of $470 billion per year. We must have a
response. The present response is not working.
The other body has passed a crime bill in which they were able to
find $22 billion to pay for prisons when just last year, in the same
year when they found $22 billion to pay for prisons, they could not
find $10 billion to pay for Head Start, Healthy Start, and summer jobs
for some of the same people who are now incarcerated in prison.
Since June 1993, the chairman, the gentleman from Michigan, John
Conyers; the gentleman from Virginia, Robert Scott; the gentleman from
North Carolina, Mel Watt; the gentleman from California, Xavier
Becerra; the gentleman from California, Don Edwards; and I, along with
many other Members of various interest groups and caucuses,
organizations and groups, have been crafting and drafting a realistic,
humanistic, doable approach to the problem of crime in America.
In the past these crime bills have usually been simply ways of
increasing various ways to execute people, limiting the constitutional
rights of individuals who are charged with crimes, establishing
mandatory minimum sentences that Federal judges say impose upon them a
duty to act as a robot, rather than as an individual, and building more
prisons.
We have been good at all of those things. In the last 50 years we
have built a lot more prisons, we have established a lot more mandatory
minimum sentences for people to serve, we have abridged or suspended
the constitutional rights of people who have engaged in criminal
activity, and we have found new ways and better ways of executing other
human beings.
Mr. Speaker, crime, of course, in these 50 years has not decreased as
a result of these various pieces of legislation, because as I noted,
the only 2-year period in the last 50 years when we have not had a
crime bill was the only 2-year period in the last 50 years when crime
has actually gone down.
What then is the purpose of the Congress passing all of these crime
bills, the citizens want to know. Crime has not decreased as a result
of the passage of this legislation, nor will it ever be totally
eradicated as a result of legislation.
I think it is time for a radically different approach to ensure that
our constitutional rights are protected, to reduce recidivism in our
Nation's prisons, to ensure that our Nation's schools are safe and our
neighborhoods are safe, and to save a generation of mostly poor people
who wallow in an endless cycle of despair, hopelessness, and pessimism.
As the Members may know, Members of the House of Representatives and
of the other body will take up the complex issue of crime this year.
Several bills are currently on the table for consideration, most
notably the Senate version of H.R. 3355, the House version of the same
bill, and H.R. 3315, the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Reform
Act of 1993.
Anticrime policies of the past 40 years have been a series of quick,
cheap fixes. New prisons were built, mandatory minimums were imposed,
constitutional protections have been eroded, in the name of public
safety. Meanwhile, our economic and social programs that could have
quickly brought crime down have been largely ignored. We have not
created new educational opportunities for our people. We have not
created new jobs for our people, and as a result, we have increased and
included more affordable prison space for our people.
Although this bill, 3355, was introduced as the Criminal Justice
Reform Act, our goal today is to enter into a scientific analysis of
the solution to crime in America. How should we spend whatever money we
are going to spend on crime in America? What are we going to get for
the $22 billion that the other body wants to spend? What alternatives
exist to spending $22 billion, and at the end of the spending of the
$22 billion have more people incarcerated, and more people needing to
be incarcerated?
Right now 25 percent of all African-Americans in this country are
under the auspices of the criminal justice system. Twenty-five percent,
one in four, black males between the age of 17 and 35 are either in
prison or on probation or on parole, having been to prison. That is an
alarming statistic. We must look at the alternatives, because it is
clear that what we have been trying for the last 50 years has not been
of benefit to any of our communities.
We are afraid of each other. We do not face each other on the
sidewalk and on the trains. We will not look at each other on the
Metro, because we do not know who is the next criminal who is going to
take out an AK-47 or an Uzi and start shooting people that he does not
know, just because he has a gun.
In the true spirit of cooperation and comity, we are willing and
sincerely desire to work with all other Members of the House of
Representatives and of the other body, groups and individuals, to make
into fruition the most effective piece of legislation for the reduction
of crime.
It recognizes if we lock all the people who are currently committing
crime up, but we do not go to the neighborhoods where we can almost
point, we cannot name the child by name, but we can name the
neighborhoods from which they will come. We can name the streets upon
which they will be raised. We can name the schools that they are going
to drop out of, We can name them almost by name. They are 4, 5, and 6
years old now. Ten years from now they will be 14, 15, and 16 years
old.
If society does not intervene in their lives in a meaningful way in
the next 10 years, they will go to prison. If society has its way, or
some of society's members in this Congress have their way, they will
stay in prison, perhaps for the rest of their lives.
{time} 1530
And the subject of my discussion is not whether they should go to
prison or whether they should stay in prison for the rest of their
lives. It is whether we should have to pay for it, whether we should
have to pay $100,000 to build a cell that will house up to four people,
and then $25,000 per year in today's costs, Lord knows what it is going
to be with the inflation rate in future years for the next 50 years to
lock somebody up in prison when we could have prevented it. We can
spend one-tenth of that amount per year for 10 years. We can spend 1
year's cost of incarcerating an individual at $25,000 a year and spend
$2,500 a year on these children when they are 4, 5, and 6 years old,
and avoid the necessity of spending $25,000 per year on them when they
get 14, 15 and 16 years old.
That to me, Mr. Speaker, makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of
sense to recognize that we are going to have to get at the root causes
of what produces people who turn out to be criminals in our society.
We know a lot of the reasons already. That is not to coddle them or
excuse away their conduct. They have been engaged in antisocial
behavior. Every child who grows up poor does not turn out to be a
criminal. Most of them do not. We seem to have enough social
scientists, enough behavioral scientists, and enough people like that
to be able to go in and look and say 10 children grew up on this street
in the 1960's. They were all born in this neighborhood. They were all
about the same age. They played together on the playground. They went
to the same elementary school together. Why is it that two of them
turned to a life of crime and have committed offense, after offense,
after offense? And why is it that two of them are now locked up in
prison for the rest of their lives? Why is it that 1 out of 10 turn out
to be a successful doctor contributing to the community? Why is it that
another turns out to be a nurse or a nurse practitioner, or a janitor
or a mechanic, or a person who makes a contribution to our society in
one way or another? And it does not matter what they are doing. They
are not commiting crimes. They are teaching other people, they are
leading other people by example, they have become productive members of
their community.
We ought to be able to find the difference between the ones that go
to prison and the ones who do not, and we need to know what those
differences are, because we need to start spending our money wisely,
and we need to start spending our money carefully, because the days are
gone when the U.S. Government was a bottomless pit into which it could
stick its hands to pull out money to pay for all of these programs. The
days are gone when we are going to be able to throw money at the
problem, no matter what we think the solution is, no matter whether we
think the solution is going to work. Those days are gone. The taxpayers
are watching the expenditures of their dollars carefully. It seems to
me that we ought to give them a dollar's worth of thought for a
dollar's worth of their money, and no thought has gone into these crime
bills that are being circulated around here. There is nothing in there
for the American who wants to worry about not only being safe today,
but being safe tomorrow.
These politicians would have you think that if we locked up all of
the violent criminals then you can take the burglar bars off your
house, and you can go in the Safeway or the convenient store late at
night and not be worried about walking in in the middle of a robbery,
or you can park at the ballgame and not worry about whether your car is
going to be there when you get back, or you can get on the subway and
not be worried about being the victim of a random AK-47 shooting, or
you can stand on the street corner and talk to your friends and
neighbors and not worry about being the victim of a drive-by shooting.
But you know better. You know when this $22 billion is spent the
Congress will be back after $22 billion more after that, and then
another $50 billion more, and then $100 billion more. There is no end
to how much they would make you pay to solve crime in America.
But ask yourselves, Mr. and Mrs. America, of the $2.6 trillion you
spent on crime in the last 40 years, what have you gotten for your
money? You have elected a lot of politicians who have made a lot of 30-
second commercials where they get up with the red, white, and blue flag
behind them and tell you how, by God, how tough they are on these
criminals, and they want to lock them up and throw the key away with
your money. They want to lock them up all right, with your money.
What will they use for a commercial if they lock them all up and
there are no more criminals? They will have something else to run on.
They cannot run on communism anymore, because we do not have that bug-
a-boo. Crime is the thing that they use to strike fear in your heart so
that they can get reelected. Make them think, make them come to the
table. Next time they have a townhall meeting and get up and tell you
how they are going so much for you about solving crime, just ask them,
``Mr. Congressman, Mr. Congressman, if we spend this $22 billion on
crime, can you assure me, Mr. Congressman, that crime is going to go
down in America? Can you assure me, can you promise me, do you hold out
any hope that that chart that keeps going up like this when we spend
this $22 billion that you are going to make us spend will drop just an
iota, just go down 1 percent, or one-tenth of 1 percent? Mr.
Congressman, will there be less murders in America next year when we
pass these new laws that you are telling us about? When we lock all of
these people up in prison, Congressman, will that mean that my car will
not get stolen, that I will not get carjacked, I will not be the victim
of a drive-by shooting, Congressman?'' And the honest answer is no.
This is not going to do any good, because we are spending a lot of the
money on the back end of the factory that turns these young people out
on our streets. We are not putting any money in on the front end.
We know that 97 percent of the people in prison are high school
dropouts. Hello. Ninety-seven percent of the people who end up in
prison are high school dropouts.
Now all high school dropouts do not end up in prison, but a
disproportionately high number, as opposed to college graduates, or
high school graduates, or trade school graduates end up in prison. Now
it does not take a rocket scientist, which I am not, to figure out that
there is some connection between lack of education and prison when 97
percent of the people who are in prison quit school at the seventh or
eighth grade.
It seem to me that if we could find a way just to go back to the
sixth grade and keep youngsters in the seventh grade, the eighth grade,
and the ninth grade, we would be cutting down on the number of people
we have to spend $25,000 a year apiece on to go to prison.
There is an alternative that needs to be made a part of the
discussion, and it is the crime bill about which I spoke earlier. What
does this crime bill do that other bills do not do?
First, it does away with mandatory minimum sentences for crimes. This
would allow for more discretion in the hands of our judges and juries
to determine what is the proper sentence for the crime that was
committed. Every person who commits the same crime should not receive
the same sentence. We ought to be able, a judge ought to be able to
look into an individual's background and say this person has not ever
committed a crime before, or this person has good family support, or
this person has gotten a GED and college credits while they are in
prison. The recidivism rate for people who get a college education or
at least 2 years of college training while they are in prison, the rate
at which they go back to prison is one-tenth that for people who do not
get any training while they are in prison. The rate of those
individuals who receive drug counseling while they are in prison is
half of what it is for people who do not receive any drug counseling
when they are in prison.
The bill that I am talking about also strengthens the habeas corpus
guidelines for prisoners so that a person gets one fair shot, one good
trial, and if they are convicted, then we give them a fair trial before
we hang them. It has no new death penalties in it, because death
penalties do not do any thing but stop that individual. It is a
legalized way for the State to engage in murder of its citizens.
It allows for one demand drug treatment for all prisoners. The crisis
of drugs in our communities needs to be dealt with as a health care
crisis because that is what it is. It is not a criminal justice
problem, it is a health care problem. If someone needs treatment for a
disease, we should be able to provide that treatment whether they are
in prison or out of prison.
The bill also allows for after-release counseling and guidance for
ex-offenders. This provision will help those who have paid their debt
to society to become better incorporated into the mainstream of
society.
It puts more police officers on the streets. It bans 21 types of
assault weapons. It imposes a tax on ammunition.
{time} 1540
It requires higher standards in order to become a gun dealer, rather
than paying Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms a $25 fee and becoming
magically a gun dealer.
It allows for the victims of crime to be recompensed for their losses
and strengthens provisions for crimes against women.
It is the goal of this bill that, through hard work and working with
other Members and in comity and conversation with Members of this body,
both Republican and Democrat, and a combination of legislative efforts,
community spirit, and individual courage and responsibility, we can
significantly decrease the incidence of crime in our homes, in our
neighborhoods, in our schools, in our communities, and in our wonderful
country.
In the end no one solution will work, no one bill is going to be a
magic panacea to solving the problem of crime in America. There are no
cheap, easy solutions nor quick solutions available on the horizon. But
the tremendous costs of crime in our community, as stated earlier
estimated by Business Week magazine to be more than $470 billion each
year, demands that we not give up.
Our country's great wealth surely can be harnessed in an effective
way to provide the remedies that would allow people to walk the streets
without fear. We need to seriously consider alternatives that prevent
individuals from becoming criminals in the first place rather than to
spend all of our money punishing them once they become criminals. There
is no way to end that pipeline.
There are more people in this country who are 2 years old than there
were 15 years ago; there are more people who are 3 years old; there are
more people who are 4 years old. If we do not attend to assuring that
we provide the means by which we prevent these individuals from
becoming criminals 10 years from now, then we are looking in the wrong
place for a solution to the wrong problem.
Mr. Speaker, I think that the President will also address the
question of health care in America this evening when he addresses our
Nation in this State of the Union Address.
Health care reform is perhaps the biggest political issue of our
time.
Most of the public response to the idea of health-care reform is
reminiscent to the way most of us feel about our doctors when they
begin spouting those doctor words that they know, that jargon that only
doctors learn when they go to medical school. We trust they know what
they are talking about, and at the end of the day that they do no harm.
What is needed in order to solve the health-care dilemma that we have
in our country where 37 million of our people have no form of health
care whatsoever is a wide-open, far-ranging public debate about the
deeper issues of health care than just the superficial issues that we
are talking about. We need to discuss our attitudes towards life and
death. We need to discuss the goals of medicine in our country. We need
to discuss the meaning of health. We need to discuss the concept of
suffering versus the concept of survival. We need to discuss who shall
live and who shall die, and who shall decide who shall live and who
shall die in our country.
We must discuss these issues. But they have been currently supplanted
by the rather narrow quibble over policy. The parodox of our current
situation does require that we discuss policy.
However, unless we address such basic existential and fundamental
questions as those I have raised a moment ago, we stand little chance
of solving our Nation's health-care crisis. Because 25 years ago, Mr.
Speaker, 7.6 percent of our gross domestic product was devoted to
health, 6.8 percent to education, 9.7 percent to defense. Today defense
and education consume approximately 6 percent each, and health
expenditures have climbed to 14 percent and will reach 18 percent by
the year 2000.
Most of the policymakers here in Washington have been focusing on the
deficiencies and failures of modern medicine. They claim it is either
greedy pharmaceutical companies or greedy insurance companies or
unnecessary procedures or bureaucratic inefficiency and paperwork or
expensive technologies and so forth. These discussions have taken
control of the debate, and these ideas seemingly have taken over the
Clinton administration's debate over health care.
The administration seems to see the solutions to our health-care
crisis in terms of improving the efficiency of the system without
looking at the underpinnings that identify their approach including
managed care, and those are the buzzwords for their program, such as
managed care, HMO's and managed competition.
Implicit in these recommendations is the assumption that the
elimination of waste will obviate the need for rationing health care.
Most Americans know that we already ration health care. We do it on the
basis of wealth. We do it on the basis of geography. We do it on the
basis of circumstances beyond the control of the individual, for if a
person is wealthy, then they have as much health care as they can
afford in this country. If a person is poor, all too often it is
necessary for them to sleep on the floors of our public and charity
hospitals for days on end before they receive the rationing that we
call our health-care system, health-care delivery in our system.
Our groups that are opposed to the President's plan who feel the
government should take the predominant role in the health care of its
people argue on behalf of a different approach. People ask how nations
such as England and Canada can provide health care comparable to ours
for much less money.
First of all, England and Canada use the single-payer payment system;
that is, the government pays for everyone's health care directly, and
this system is an option, though highly efficient, that has been met
with tremendous opposition in this country.
Mr. Speaker, medical costs will bankrupt this country if we continue
on the current trajectory. There are no data to demonstrate that
improved management techniques will solve the problem.
Managed care and managed competition save money in the short run,
although examples of other managed care, managed industry, do not
inspire much confidence. The utilities are an example of a managed
industry, and the airlines are another example of a managed industry.
Our recent history will teach us that we should not place all of our
confidence in a managed industry purely for that purpose.
But the bulk of the savings achieved by the health maintenance
organizations has been achieved by cutting back on expensive,
unprofitable facilities such as burn centers, trauma-care centers,
neonatal intensive care units, and emergency rooms and the like. HMO's
conduct what amounts to a hidden form of health-care rationing,
confident in the knowledge that the cities, counties, and charitable
organizations and the university hospitals are still around to pick up
the slack where they do not treat burns and neonatal intensive-care
patients in emergency rooms.
As the managers of HMO's know only too well, the surest way to
contain health-care spending is to limit access to health care and to
rethink our ever expanding concept of health.
If we must have allocation, the process should require open
discussion such as what we are doing here today and what we will be
doing in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
When we are rationing life itself, the decision must be subjected to
public scrutiny and debate. The first step is to set limits on health
care according to the principles of equity and justice for all of our
people. We can no longer leave to the marketplace decisions about
access to medical care.
We do not want kidneys to be sold to the highest bidder. Yet we
tolerate something close to that right now; when it is necessary,
although disgraceful, for a patient to have to advertise for a liver on
Oprah, while the governor of Pennsylvania rushes to the head of the
line to receive a new heart and liver transplant, something is wrong
with the way we ration health care in our country. I do not begrudge
the Governor of Pennsylvania the opportunity for a heart and liver
transplant. It saved his life. But there were other people on the list
for heart transplants and liver transplants long before it became
necessary medically or even known medically that the Governor would
need such a procedure.
Mr. Speaker, access then to our scarce health-care resources must be
organized along some equitable lines. I do not suggest that these are
easy decisions. They are never easy decisions. They force us to face
our own mortality and demand that we look beyond our own sympathies and
interests to look to see what is in the greater good of our country.
The ethical dilemmas do not end with access to scarce service or
technology. Now come the trickier questions of deciding if and when
that access should end.
Most Americans spend the bulk of their health-care resources in the
last 3 years of their lives; most of the money that Americans spend on
health care is spent in the last 3 years of their lives. How then do we
make those choices?
I believe that some of the goals of any fair and just health-care
system are the universal access to health care for all people, the
quality of assurance in the health-care delivery system, health
promotion and disease prevention, education and training of a diverse
body of health-care providers, and cost containment. I have arrived at
these goals as a result of several townhall meetings in my district as
well as interfacing with constituents who are both lay people and
physicians alike, and they tell me, together with my independent
research, that these are worthwhile goals, and more importantly,
obtainable goals.
Under the Health Security Act as proposed by the President, most
people, and I underline the word ``most,'' would obtain health-care
insurance through one of two entities, either a local health alliance
or a corporate alliance where available. Exceptions would be made for
current medical care recipients, military personnel, veterans, and
Native Americans, who would continue to be covered under their existing
programs.
Undocumented immigrants would not be covered under any program, Mr.
Speaker, and I think that is a shame. We would run the risk of not
providing health care for undocumented workers by exposing ourselves to
the risk of harm of diseases that they will catch and transmit for lack
of medical resources being made available to them. When I was growing
up, that was called penny-wise and pound-foolish.
But let me get back to the President's plan.
Two basic types of plans would exist: a low-cost-sharing HMO-type
plan, and a high-cost combination called preferred-provider style.
Employers would pay 80 percent of the premiums for full-time workers
and the worker would pay the remaining 20 percent. Employers would pay
a smaller percentage for the cost of part-time workers, depending on
how many hours per week they actually work. Most low-income workers and
the unemployed have their share of insurance premiums at least
partially subsidized by the Government.
Deductibles and copayments would vary depending upon the type of plan
selected by the beneficiaries. HMO's would typically have a $10
copayment for doctors fees and a $5 copay for prescription drugs. Fee-
for-service plans would have a 20 percent copayment for doctors fees
and hospital visits as well. Fee-for-service plans would have a $200-
per-person and a $400-per-family deductible.
Combination plans would have a low copayment if you are treated by a
preferred-provider doctor or hospital and a higher copayment if you are
treated by a provider outside of the preferred network. All of the
plans would cap out-of-pocket expenses at $1,500 per person and $3,000
per family per year regardless of deductibles or copayments.
Another approach to solving our health care problem in this country
is called the single-payer approach. The single-payer system of health
care guarantees universal access to comprehensive, quality health care
at a price that Americans can afford. Under a single-payer plan, health
care costs for all Americans would be paid by a single public entity,
like social security or Medicare.
The current network of 1,500 different insurance companies, each with
its own rules, each with its own set of claims forms, each with its own
level of services, would be replaced by a single agency that would pay
all health care costs, all of the health care services for individuals.
The Government agency would not run the health care facility, the
delivery facilities, but would simply replace our current inefficient
system of paying for the health care that is being delivered to our
citizens. The present mix of private and public doctors, other medical
professionals and health care facilities would remain. The singe-payer
system would merely streamline the bill-paying process and eliminate
the complex and repetitive billing and duplicative system which we now
have which costs consumers billions of dollars per year paying the
hospital and doctor bills alone.
The single-payer system would curb health care costs through a global
budget and a budget discipline unattainable when you have 1,500
companies paying the bills.
The single-payer system would be progressively financed through a
combination of corporate and personal taxes. These taxes would replace
the premium the people who have insurance now are paying in most cases,
would end up being less money than they are paying in premiums, and
would replace the out-of-pocket expenses that they now pay and claim
back on our income tax return for individual as well as corporate
health care costs, and overall, as I said earlier, the costs would go
down. All health care revenues would be placed in a national health
trust fund that could be used only for health care expenditures. The
specific tax rate and fees would vary under the different single-payer
proposals.
If a single-payer system were in place, individuals would be issued a
national ``health security card,'' which would be similar to a social
security card that they now have. Individuals could go to the health
care provider of their choice and receive treatment simply by
presenting the card. Covered services would include all medically
necessary procedures, as well as prescription drugs and long-term care.
Under most single-payer plans, there is no copayment or deductible. The
single-payer pays either directly at an annually negotiated payment
structure or through negotiated annual budgets. Health care providers
would be guaranteed payment, and they would no longer have to alter the
treatment to fit the insurance status of their patients.
The single-payer plan would be administered at the State level
according to Federal standards, with the participation of consumers,
businesses, and health care providers. By allowing for State
administration, the health care system could be adjusted to reflect
local conditions and needs.
Going back to the beginning, Mr. Speaker, I said that I would support
a health care system that would allow for universal access, have cost
containment, that would include quality assurance in the delivery of
health care services, that would promote disease prevention, that would
promote health and wellness rather than illness, and which allows for a
choice of doctors. The only plan that provides for all of these is the
single-payer plan. That is why I am a proud cosponsor and supporter of
the single-payer plan which is introduced as House Resolution 1200.
A recent news report stated that over 600,000 Americans were going to
Canada to get their health care. I believe that is a ringing
endorsement of the single-payer approach to health care. It is
impossible, however, to reform our health care system without reforming
our welfare system.
The President this evening, Mr. Speaker, is expected to propose a
welfare reform package which the House would consider sometime this
session. Both the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on
Education and Labor are expected to hold hearings on the
administration's plan once it is submitted to Congress.
During the campaign, the candidate, William J. Clinton, said he would
``end welfare as we know it by placing a time limit on the enrollment
in aid to families with dependent children,'' which is called AFDC,
which now serves 1 in 7 of our Nation's children. Almost 1 in 7 of all
our children are receiving aid to families with dependent children
benefits.
In a companion pledge, candidate Clinton said he would end poverty of
children with full-time working parents by changing the Tax Code. Among
other things, the reform of welfare, according to the President, would
accomplish several things. It would limit AFDC payments to 2 years and
within that time would empower the parents, mostly mothers, with
schooling, training, and child care needed to break the cycle of
dependency.
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I wish the President godspeed and success in that endeavor. However I
remind him that the same Congress that must pass the limitations upon
welfare mothers receiving benefits and providing schooling and training
for welfare mothers and child care has failed, just last year, to
provide day care funding, to provide benefits for young teenagers so
that they will have jobs in the summer of 1993. I wish the President
well.
A welfare reform program must provide community service work for
those who can work but are without private jobs after their AFDC ends.
It must provide an earned income tax credit to make up the difference
between full-time earnings of a family with children and the family's
poverty level income threshold. We need to decide what it takes for a
family to get by on, and if a member of the family is working and they
are not coming up to the minimum that we said that they ought to have
to get by on; say $20,000, the Government should provide the rest,
should require that individual to receive additional training and
schooling, get a GED and take college credits, and, otherwise, prepare
themselves for jobs. But we are going to have to find some jobs, Mr.
Speaker, that are available.
We are preparing people right now for jobs that do not exist in this
country. Most of our lower paying, low wage jobs are going to other
countries. The President says he wants to start a national deadbeat
data bank and use that and other means of enforcing child support
against deadbeat parents, and I commend him for that.
I applaud the efforts of the President within the budget
reconciliation bill to improve the status of working families in this
country. The children's initiative within the Budget Act, which
included the earned income tax credit, expansion of the Food Stamp
Program, increased funding for family preservation and childhood
immunization were real, definitive first steps toward a real investment
in human needs.
Currently, Mr. Speaker, it is politically popular, however, to bash
people on welfare. Welfare comes in many forms. A subsidy is welfare.
When we pay a cotton farmer not to plant, Mr. Speaker, we are giving
him or her welfare. When we pay for the bailout of the savings and loan
debacle in this country, we are providing welfare, not only for the
directors and investors of the savings and loan associations that went
under, but we are providing welfare for the people who put their hard-
earned money into these savings and loans and lost it through the
unscrupulous acts of the boards of directors.
Welfare comes in many forms. It is not just for poor people. When we
bailed out Chrysler Corporation 7 years ago, Mr. Speaker, that was
welfare. But it is popular to bash welfare and put the face of the
single, head-of-household mother on there as if she is the reason that
there is a drain on the system.
Several of my colleagues have gone to the step of introducing, or
will introduce, bills that abolish AFDC, JOBS, the Food Stamps Program,
and Job Training Partnership Act, and many other job training programs,
put strict time limits on how long they can receive welfare in an era
when 15 percent of our poor people are unemployed. It makes a lot of
sense to take away their hope.
In order to address human needs, Mr. Speaker, welfare reform must
reduce the need for welfare. The reform of the Aid to Families With
Dependent Children Program cannot succeed in the absence of a broader
antipoverty strategy. Families are often forced to rely on welfare.
I know a lot of people that had good jobs 3 years ago when they ran
out of unemployment compensation because the Congress would not pass
additional unemployment benefits. Some of these same Members who want
to take away the welfare are the ones who would not provide
unemployment benefits for these people who were out of a job. Welfare,
in a majority of cases, is not a willing choice, and, where it is a
willing choice, we ought to work to take it away, but the antipoverty
program must include child support benefits of all children, improve
unemployment insurance, universal access to health care, increased
minimum wage, and a refundable child care credit.
We just invest in education and training opportunities for welfare
recipients. Federal funding for the job Opportunities and Basic Skills
Program, or any successor programs, should be increased to expand
education and training services that give participants the skills to a
decent paying, steady, stable job.
We must allow people to work for wages, not for welfare. Public
sector employment created for people leaving the AFDC system must
provide pay and benefits equal to other workers doing the same job
without displacing current workers. The AFDC system should allow
working parents to receive benefits and not be penalized for their own
work effort. A safety net must be provided for those who wish to leave
the AFDC system. Curtailing access to welfare without reducing the need
for income support would only increase poverty and hurt needy families
while increasing crime in our country.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the welfare system must treat people with
dignity. Family cap provisions or a limit on the number of children one
can have, restrictions on migration and other measure that seek to
punish certain behaviors hurt needy families and do nothing to help
them escape from poverty. A reformed welfare system should emphasize
incentives over penalties.
Mr. Speaker, we in the Congress need a powerful sense of
determination to banish the ugly blemishes of crime, of a lack of
adequate health care and of poverty scarring the image of America. We
can, of course, try to temporize, negotiate, small, inadequate changes
and prolong the timetable of justice in the hope that the narcotic of
delay will dull the pain of progress. We can try, but we will certainly
fail. The shape of our Nation and the world will not permit the past
luxury of gradualism and procrastination any longer.
Solutions to the complex conundrums of crime, health care, and
welfare will not be easy. This does not signify that they are
impossible. Recognizing these complexities as challenges rather than as
obstacles, Mr. Speaker, we will make real progress if we freely admit
that there is no magic. We will make progress if we accept the fact
that 14 years of deficit spending, ignorance to human needs and
politically sexy, so-called solutions cannot be canceled out in 14
minutes or 14 days, or 14 months of atonement. Neither can we allow the
guilty to tailor their atonement in such a manner as to visit another
14 years of deliberate hurt upon the victims.
The debate about crime, health care, and welfare is at its least
common denominator a struggle for opportunities. In asking for
something the low and middle class are not seeking charity. The low and
middle class do not want to languish on welfare rolls any more than the
next person. The low and middle class, and the poor in this country, do
not want to be given a job that they do not deserve. Neither, however,
do they want to be told there is no place they can be trained to handle
these jobs that will be created in the future.
With equal opportunity must come the practical, realistic aid which
will equip people to seize these opportunities. Giving a pair of shoes
to a person who has not learned to walk is not just cruel, it is
criminal.
With real crime, real health care, and real welfare reform, Mr.
Speaker, we can begin to find the answers to neutralizing the years of
neglect and hopelessness. Whole generations have been left behind as a
majority of the population has advanced. Those lost generations have
never learned basic social skills at a functional level, the skills of
reading and writing and arithmetic, and applying for a job and
exercising the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote. That
is why they are walking around not caring about our society. They think
they are not a part of it, Mr. Speaker.
Moreover, urban and suburban and rural poverty has not only stilled
lives, it has created emotional disturbances, many of which manifest
themselves in antisocial actions in the streets of Houston, TX, and
Washington, DC, every day. The most tragic victims are the children of
those parents who struggle and fail to provide not just food, clothing
and shelter, but a stable environment for our children.
I, too, sing America. The America I sing has stood solidly behind the
commitment to the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. The America that I sing is reinforced by a substantial
investment in the financial and human capital needed to make her great.
The America that I love, like many other of my colleagues and my
family, recognize that we have paid a price for public service, some
monetarily, but all of us with regard to the time that we in our
families invest. We must remember the price because, when we do, Mr.
Speaker, we as a Congress have the courage to dive on the grenade to
live up to the challenge for our people and not just another
commercial.
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We must do the job that is necessary for all of our people.
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