[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 3 (Thursday, January 27, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: January 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition after 
discussing the matter with the managers of the bill and the offeror of 
the amendment, to speak relatively briefly on another subject. In the 
absence of morning business, it is not possible to address the subject 
today and, as a matter of fact, I had sought recognition to propose an 
amendment on collateral security with respect to Russia which would 
have given me the floor to speak briefly. So I seek to do so now to 
respond to charges from the White House that the chart which was 
prepared by my office and used by Senator Dole in his reply to the 
President's State of the Union speech, the charges from the White House 
that the chart is inaccurate.
  In today's Style section of the Washington Post, the charge is made 
that the chart is just flat out not true. I seek to respond to that, as 
I say, relatively briefly at this moment. This chart was prepared by my 
staff, led by Miss Sharon Helfant, in order to understand the 
President's health care proposal and precisely what it would mean if, 
as and when it is put into effect.
  The chart was prepared back in September after I read the preliminary 
statement issued by the President and was used by Senator Dole in his 
reply on Tuesday night. The Washington Post was rather complimentary 
about the chart saying: ``The chart, even more than Senator Dole, was 
the star of Tuesday night's official Republican response to the 
President's State of the Union Address.'' The Post further goes on to 
point out that even David Gergen conceded the fact that Dole made some 
points with the chart.
  Frankly, Mr. President, I am not concerned about points or debating 
scores or with partisanship when it comes to the question of the hard 
facts as to what the Clinton health care bill will mean in terms of a 
bureaucracy, but I think that it is important to deal with the hard 
facts and to reply very emphatically to the kinds of accusations which 
have come out of the White House in the course of the past day and a 
half where I think it is obvious from their responses that they have 
been stunned by the facts which are depicted by this chart.
  The Post this morning quotes senior adviser George Stephanopoulous as 
saying that the ``the point is, it's just flat out not true.''
  The fact is that every box on this chart has been referenced with a 
page number. Some boxes on the original chart were not so referenced 
with a page number because they appeared so many places in the text of 
the President's bill. So to decide at least one page where they 
appeared, that supplement has been added. But the chart which was 
presented Tuesday night is replete with citations and it is a matter of 
fact, it is not a matter of characterization or it is not a matter of 
interpretation or it is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of hard 
fact.
  Is this chart a part of a Republican conspiracy to embarrass the 
President? That is the accusation which has been made; that it is part 
of a Republican conspiracy to embarrass the President. The fact is that 
is not so.
  When I heard one of my colleagues on national television in mid-
September shortly after the preliminary outline was issued of the 
President's proposal--and it was before the bill--the proposal of some 
239 pages, and I heard one of my colleagues on national television, the 
inference was reasonably plain that my Senate colleague had not read 
the bill or read the outline, I decided I better do that. As the Chair 
knows, as all of our colleagues and most of America knows, we are 
questioned from time to time about such matters. When I read that 239-
page report, I was very surprised by the number of new boards and 
agencies and commissions which were created. So I asked my staff, Miss 
Sharon Helfant, to make me a list of all of the new agencies and boards 
and commissions.
  Instead of making a list, she decided to make a chart. I did not know 
quite how she had done it until I read this morning's Washington Post. 
They interviewed her. I had not known about it. I had not known about 
quite a few things about Sharon Helfant, such as the fact that she was 
a Democrat, not that I asked her for a litmus test. Or such as the fact 
that she voted for Bill Clinton. But I had not asked her about that 
either, thinking her right to vote was secret.
  I noted further from this morning's Post that she is one of Hillary 
Clinton's biggest admirers. So far as I am concerned, Mr. President, 
that is fine with me.
  I have offered my support--not a blank check--but my support to the 
President's objective of comprehensive health care for all Americans. 
When the President invited me to accompany him to Ambridge, PA, in 
November, I gladly accepted the invitation. I got some critical comment 
from some editorials in Pennsylvania about it. ``Lending aid and 
comfort to the enemy,'' they said. I did not regard it as lending aid 
and comfort to the enemy. I regarded it as trying to be helpful to the 
President of the United States where I could be. As I say, I do endorse 
the approach of comprehensive health care for all Americans, but I 
believe that it has to be carefully targeted.
  As I have analyzed the bill and the status of our health care --and 
it is a subject that I have worked on since I came to the Senate, now 
in my 14th year--through my work on the Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Health and Human Services. My view is that we need to target the 
specific areas where there are problems, such as we need to target the 
37 million Americans who are now not covered. We need to do that, in my 
judgment, in a way which does not disrupt the current health care 
system for the 86.1 percent of Americans who are covered. They are the 
beneficiaries of the greatest health care system in the world. I think 
that ought not to be changed, but we need to extend coverage to the 
uninsured.
  Another major problem which needs correction is the problem of 
portability, a fancy word for ``coverage when you change jobs.''
  Another problem that needs to be addressed is the escalating cost of 
health care. That is where I think we ought to target the efforts of 
the Congress. That would meet the objective of a comprehensive health 
care plan for all Americans and coverage for all Americans. I have been 
impressed in my talks with the President, my talks with First Lady 
Hillary Clinton about their flexibility in attaining that goal. I think 
that is the right approach. I think the matter ought to be bipartisan.
  I noted in this morning's press a quotation from Senator Nancy 
Kassebaum who is the senior Republican on the Labor Committee having 
jurisdiction over part of this health care package, where Senator 
Kassebaum said she does not anticipate a filibuster, and neither do 
I. I think we need to work the matter out in a bipartisan way.

  So that I was a little surprised when the President talked about the 
veto of a bill which may come from the Congress, a little surprised 
that such--what is the right word--I guess there is no right word 
besides ``threat''--that such a threat would come from the President 
where both Houses of Congress, the House and Senate, are controlled by 
the Democrats. I am doing some checking to see how many vetoes there 
have been by a President where his party controls both Houses of 
Congress.
  I learned, as I was about to say, in reading the Washington Post 
today that my staffer, Sharon Helfant, sat down at the dining room 
table with a straight edge, a pen, and some 10 pieces of paper taped 
together to put together a chart, and when she had put together the 
entire chart she found--and this is based upon the outline of September 
7, 1993--that the President's proposal created 77 new agencies, boards 
and commissions and gave new responsibilities to some 54 agencies, 
boards and commissions, for a total of 131.
  Then, when the bill was presented on October 27, Sharon Helfant and 
my staff went back to work and checked through the bill and found that 
there had been an increase, that there were 105 new agencies, boards 
and commissions, and new jobs for some 47 agencies, boards and 
commissions.
  When I read in the Washington Post the charges by a number of 
representatives of the Clinton administration out of the White House 
that this chart is flat out wrong, I have to object to that and object 
to it most strenuously. This is not a chart which is deceptive or 
dishonest or inaccurate, and I am prepared, although I will not do so 
with 152 citations, but I am prepared to go through this 1,342 page 
report--and I would ask the C-SPAN camera to focus on the bill, the 
Health Security Act it is labeled, and the chart, and to cite 
illustratively at page 88 of the bill the creation of the National 
Health Board at the top of the chart, an agency of enormous power, 
having virtually complete control over the $800 billion national health 
system spending in the country.
  I would point to page 93 of the report which cites the provision 
relating to the health alliances, or page 117 again of the bill 
relating to the corporate alliances, or page 286 of the bill which sets 
up one of the many advisory councils, this one on breakthrough drugs, 
or page 403 of the bill referring to a Federal advisory group, or page 
823 of the bill citing the National Quality Management Program.
  I could go on and on and on and on through the 1,342 pages and the 
creation of these tremendous numbers of agencies, boards and 
commissions.
  Mr. President, is this chart a negative effort to defeat health care 
reform in the United States? Is it a negative effort to defeat health 
care reform? Absolutely not. I said before the President came forward 
with his bill that I was for comprehensive health care for all 
Americans. In fact, I said that before the President came into office.
  I offered an amendment in this Chamber in July 1992 seeking a move by 
the Senate to take up the question during the Bush administration, and 
I urged President Bush to do the same thing. Last April I offered an 
amendment trying to move the Senate to consider health care, to act on 
the subject because no bill had been prepared by the administration. As 
we know, the date slipped and slipped and slipped and now we are in 
1994, and after hearing the schedule which has been proposed in the 
Senate Finance Committee for hearings which are scheduled to last until 
April and, knowing how hearings are slipped, may go on into the summer, 
the question exists as to whether we will have a health care bill this 
year at all.
  But this Senator has been very active in trying to bring health care 
legislation to the floor and to have comprehensive health care for all 
Americans.
  I noted in this morning's Pittsburgh Post Gazette one of the Senators 
from the other side of the aisle, from the Democratic side of the 
aisle, criticized my chart. I am not going to be critical of my 
criticizer on a statement released by his press secretary, but I do 
think the statement of the Senator's press secretary points up an 
important fact, and that is that the press secretary said that Arlen 
Specter's chart ``certainly doesn't resemble any health care plan that 
we're supporting.''
  I am interested to hear that because once that Senator understands 
the hard fact of life, that Arlen Specter's chart accurately depicts, 
accurately states President Clinton's health care bill, then perhaps 
that Senator will not support President Clinton's health care bill 
anymore. I think that is what has to be focused on by all of the 
American people. It may well be that President Clinton will not agree 
with George Stephanopoulos, President Clinton will not agree with 
Robert Shrum who said, as quoted in the Washington Post this morning:

       The chart is so complicated that as a visual device it 
     intentionally defeats its own purported purpose.

  I think Mr. Shrum may have been stung pretty hard to have said that--
defeats its own purported purpose it is so complicated.
  The chart is designed to tell the truth, and the truth is that the 
Clinton bill is extraordinarily complicated. On the so-called talking 
points, on an item spoken about by a number of the White House as they 
made their concerted, consecrated, directed attack on the chart, they 
say it looks like New York's subway system. I am not sure whether that 
is an insult to the highest order or perhaps a compliment to some 
extent. Maybe the point is if you got sick at night on New York's 
subway system without a chart or direction you would be in as bad shape 
as you would be an American if this bill is enacted.
  But this chart, Mr. President, is accurate, right down the line. What 
I would have expected had the White House wanted to attack the chart 
was to try to be a little bit factual. If the White House wants to say 
the chart is untrue, dishonest, deceptive, let them deal with the red 
box on employer premium collection technical assistance program at page 
167, or let them deal with the public health prevention programs at 
page 544. Or let them deal with the specifics which are set forth here 
in black and white with the footnotes and the citations.

  So in conclusion, Mr. President--the two most popular words in any 
speech--I believe that this chart has the potential for doing more on 
truth in advertising about the President's health bill than all the 
speeches that have been made in Congress or in the country up until the 
present time because Americans can see how far from the National Health 
Board it is to the bottom of this chart where they are. We do not have 
in the Senate a graph big enough to show it all. And when the President 
says in his State of the Union speech that the Government or the 
National Health Board will not come between the doctor and the patient, 
it is just not factually correct.
  It is my hope that beyond those who are quoted in the Post this 
morning that perhaps President Clinton himself or the First Lady, 
Hillary Clinton, herself will take a look at the chart. We will examine 
these facts. I do not know if the President or the First Lady--well, I 
will not say what I do not know about what they have done. But the 
reading of the bill--and it is not an easy bill to read--shows that 
this is the administrative center. And when you take a look at the 
Federal budget for health and human services in America that Senator 
Harkin, the chairman of this Appropriations Subcommittee, and I as 
ranking Republican, struggle with all the time, trying to allocate 
adequate funds, we certainly want to have those funds directed to 
health care and not with this kind of an administrative, bureaucratic 
maze.
  I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lieberman). The Senator from Massachusetts 
is recognized.

                          ____________________