[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 12 (Wednesday, February 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         HEALTH CARE IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hinchey). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Doolittle] is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama 
[Mr. Bachus].
  (Mr. BAUCUS of Alabama asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.]


                      hold rtc oversight hearings

  Mr. BACHUS of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, the American people criticize 
this body, Congress, for two things. They criticize us for passing laws 
and then exempting ourselves from them, and they should. They also 
criticize us for living above the law and ignoring those very laws that 
this body passes which do apply to us, but which we choose to ignore.
  Mr. Speaker, one of those laws which we passed and which most 
definitely applies to us and which we are ignoring is title V of 
FIRREA. FIRREA was passed by this body on August 9, 1989. That law, 
which this body passed, requires the Committee on Banking, Finance and 
Urban Affairs to hold semiannual oversight hearings into the operation 
of the RTC, right there on page 388. We are in violation of that law. 
We are presently ignoring that law.
  Mr. Speaker, on January 25, all 19 of my Republican colleagues on the 
Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs wrote to the chairman 
of the committee, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gonzalez], asking him 
to hold these hearings as required by law.
  Yesterday, Jonathan Fiechter, the Acting Director of the OTS, 
appeared before a subcommittee of the Committee on Banking, Finance and 
Urban Affairs, and expressed the Treasury Department's willingness to 
go forward with these hearings. But he personally reminded me in the 
hearing that by law, those hearings must be called by the chairman of 
the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, the gentleman from 
Texas [Mr. Gonzalez].
  Today, once again, all the Republican members of the Committee on 
Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs have joined me in a letter to the 
chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Gonzalez]. I 
have here that letter. We urge the gentleman to hold these hearings as 
required by law. We plead with him to stop ignoring that law and to 
hold these RTC oversight hearings. We remind him in that letter what 
Mr. Fiechter said, that it is not up to the Treasury Department, it is 
up to the chairman of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban 
Affairs.
  Mr. Speaker, we are waiting for a response from Chairman Gonzalez. 
The American people, who want us to abide by the laws we pass, they are 
waiting, and they are watching.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Gonzalez].
  (Mr. GONZALEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks and include extraneous material.)


                     abuses at the federal reserve

  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, almost 1 year to date, as part of the 
administration's plan to reinvent government, President Clinton 
instructed Federal Government agencies to cut their work force by 5 
percent or about 100,000 full time job equivalents. The Federal Reserve 
continues to completely disregard the President's instructions and 
keeps wasting taxpayers' money.
  True, the money the Federal Reserve spends is not congressionally 
authorized but the Fed certainly has its hands deep in taxpayers' 
pockets and it should not be exempt from careful oversight. The Federal 
Reserve has access to any amount of money it wants printed from the 
Government printing presses. With this money it has bought itself over 
$300 billion in Government securities. Every dollar it does not spend 
from the interest it earns on these securities goes back to the 
Treasury to reduce the deficit. I will say this, it has never averaged 
more than one-half of one percent. So extravagance at the Fed hurts 
every one of us.
  The Federal Reserve System, including the Board of Governors and all 
12 of the Reserve Banks, employs 730 economists, statisticians, and 
other researchers. This is one of the largest groups of researchers in 
the world and their research focuses on money and banking. I would 
think this is a highly capable group that can handle the research needs 
of the central bank.
  But this vast establishment is not enough for the Fed. Since January 
1991 the Fed has spent almost $3 million for 290 outside economic 
consultants.
  Almost all of these outside consultants already have other jobs at 
universities, think tanks, and other academic institutions, generally 
in the area of money and banking. The Federal Reserve pays many of 
these researchers substantial sums with 47 of these outside consultants 
receiving over $20,000 in the 36-month period the Banking Committee 
studied.
  The American Economic Association reports that 1,020 members list 
their primary area as being ``domestic monetary and financial theory, 
and institutions.'' The Federal Reserve is coincidentally paying 1,020 
people to work in this and related areas. In other words, it would be 
fair to say that the Fed is paying more than half the economists in 
these areas. Amazing--does DOD hire half of all the mathematicians? 
Does Interior hire half the tree surgeons or NIH hire half the brain 
surgeons? Not on your life.
  Why does the Federal Reserve spend this kind of money on outside 
economic consultants when it has such a huge research staff of its own? 
Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman says that the Fed is, in fact, ``buying 
up its most likely critics.''
  The Federal Reserve holds expensive conferences, paying speakers to 
come from around the country. For example, the Atlanta Federal Reserve 
Bank, finding its costly Atlanta facilities not fancy enough, has 
scheduled a 3-day conference on derivatives in Coconut Grove, FL, at an 
expensive luxury hotel for the end of this month. The program I 
received shows the conference adjourns for the afternoon at 1:30 p.m. 
on the second day and reconvenes at 9 a.m. the next morning. The 
purpose of the early adjournment is to allow time to examine and 
explore the local golf course terrain, according to one prominent 
economist who was invited to attend and was advised to be sure to bring 
his golf clubs.
  That kind of camaraderie and benevolence from the Federal Reserve 
Bank of Atlanta will produce many friends among experts in financial 
derivatives--the very area that the Banking Committee is considering 
legislation. All of this beneficence--to academic and influential 
business people alike--is the most genteel and effective lobbying tool 
around. The Fed uses it freely--just like any other corporate titan. 
Only the Fed wants us to think it is the independent, nonpolitical, 
central bank.
  This may all look like small potatoes to individuals with good jobs. 
But to American taxpayers who are paying their bills and to the 2.3 
million civilian government employees who fear that many of them will 
be shown the door in the name of efficiency and eliminating waste, the 
Federal Reserve is throwing a little Miami Beach sand in their faces. 
What elected--or even appointed--officials outside the Fed, would 
defend the pointless extravagance that the Fed daily gives itself?
  I have ordered my staff to investigate these expenditures for outside 
consultants and conferences, and to find out exactly who is getting 
these funds and benefits, and what they have done to earn them.
  Meanwhile, I ask my colleagues to support my bill, H.R. 28, the 
Federal Reserve System Accountability Act of 1993, which for the first 
time, would provide for complete audits of Federal Reserve activities 
that would clearly illuminate these kinds of expenditures. If we are 
serious about eliminating waste in Government I think it is long past 
time to sell this message to the Nation's chief inflation fighter which 
constantly preaches the virtues of sacrifice and pain in its ill-
conceived plan for a monetary choke-hold.
  I include the following items for the Record.

 Program of Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank Conference at Grand Bay Hotel 
                   in Miami, Florida Later This Month


                           Financial Markets

       A Conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of 
     Atlanta at the Grand Bay Hotel in Miami, Florida on February 
     25 and 26, 1994.
       REGISTRATION FEE: $450
       {time}  Yes. I wish to register:
       {time}  My check is enclosed.
       {time}  My check will follow.
       {time}  I am unavailable to attend, but I wish to recommend 
     the below-named person for your consideration.
       Name: ____. Phone No: ____.
       Title: ____. Organization: ____.
       Address: ____.
       City: ____. State: ____. Zip Code: ____.
       Make check payable to: Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 
     Mail payment and registration form by November 19, 1993 to: 
     Ms. Jess Palazzolo, Public Affairs Department, Federal 
     Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 104 Marietta Street, N.W., Atlanta, 
     Georgia 30303-2713. NOTE: Registration fee covers dinner on 
     Thursday, February 24, and full conference participation on 
     Friday and Saturday, February 25 and 26, including all meal 
     functions. For travel and lodging information, call Ms. 
     Palazzolo at 404/521-8747.
       Financial Markets Conference, February 24, 25 and 26, 1994, 
     Grand Bay Hotel, Coconut Grove, Florida.


                          PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

       Wednesday, February 23: 7:00--8:00 p.m. Pre-conference 
     reception--at hotel.
       Thursday, February 24: 8:00--9:00 a.m. Registration and 
     continental breakfast.
       9:00--12:30 p.m. Academic papers presented (2).
       (1) Presenter: Robert Shiller, Yale University--``Aggregate 
     Income Risks and Hedging Mechanisms.'' Discussant: invitation 
     outstanding.
       (2) Presenter: John Hull, University of Toronto--``Pricing 
     Credit Risk in Interest Rate Swaps.'' Discussant: Robert 
     Whaley, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
       12:30--1:30 p.m. Luncheon--no speaker.
       1:30--5:00 p.m. Academic papers presented (2).
       (1) Presenter: Robert Engle, University of California at 
     San Diego--``Applications of ARCH and GARCH Models to Options 
     Pricing Models.'' Discussant: David Bates, University of 
     Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
       (2) Presenter: Bernard Dumas, Hautes Etudes Commerciales, 
     School of Management, Jouy-en-Josas, France; Guest Lecturer 
     at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina--``Realignment, 
     Risk, and Currency Option Pricing in Target Zones.'' 
     Discussant: Clifford Ball, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 
     Tennessee.
       5:00 p.m. Meeting adjourned.
       6:30 p.m. Reception--in hotel.
       7:00 p.m. Dinner--in hotel, with spouses.
       Friday, February 25: 8:00-8:30 a.m. Continental breakfast.
       8:30-10:00 a.m. Session I: Market Structure and Volatility 
     (panel of 4 with moderator).
       (1) Sanford J. Grossman, University of Pennsylvania, 
     Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
       (2) Stephen Ross, Principal, Roll and Ross Asset Management 
     Corporation, and Sterling Professor of Economics and Finance, 
     Yale University.
       (3) John Sandner, Chairman, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 
     Chicago, Illinois.
       (4) Joanne Hill, Vice President-Equity Derivatives, Goldman 
     Sachs & Co., New York, New York.
       10:00-10:30 a.m. Break.
       10:30-12:00 noon. Session II: Foreign Exchange Risk and 
     Hedging (panel of 4, with moderator).
       (1) William A. Allen, Head of Foreign Exchange, Bank of 
     England, London.
       (2) Mark Garman, President, Financial Engineering, Inc., 
     and Professor of Finance, University of California, Berkeley.
       (3) Kenneth Rogoff, Princeton University, Princeton, New 
     Jersey.
       (4) Jean Zwahlen, Member of the Governing Board, Swiss 
     National Bank, Zurich.
       12:00 noon. Luncheon. Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Board of 
     Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D.C.
       1:30 p.m. Adjourn for the afternoon.
       7:00 p.m. Reception out (with spouses)--leave from hotel.
       Saturday, February 26: 9:00-9:30 a.m. Continental 
     breakfast.
       9:30-10:45 a.m. Session III: Swaps (panel of 4 with 
     moderator).
       (1) Sheila Bair, Acting Chairperson, Commodity Futures 
     Trading Commission, Washington, D.C.
       (2) Maurice R. Greenberg, Chief Executive Officer, American 
     International Group Inc., New York, New York.
       (3) William J. McDonough, President and Chief Executive 
     Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
       (4) Invitation outstanding.
       10:45-11:00 a.m. Break.
       11:00-12:00 noon. Academic respondent:
       (5) Clifford W. Smith, Jr., Clarey Professor of Finance, 
     William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, 
     University of Rochester, Rochester, New York.
       Open discussion follows.
       12:00 noon. Buffet luncheon--no speaker.
       1:30 p.m. Mr. Forrestal--Summary of conference and 
     adjournment.

                              {time}  1820

  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia 
[Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, with the debate going on about health 
care, there are so many different alternatives and there is so much 
rhetoric going on that I have tried to focus comments on questions that 
are asked me on a regular basis, when I am in the district.
  Over the break, I had probably seven health care town meetings and 
then a number of other town meetings were people asked a number of 
questions. And I have just compiled them and documented the answers so 
that when people say, well, the President is saying so and so and you 
are saying so and so, to remove the suspicion of partisan politics, 
basically what I have done is document each answer so that people know 
that when I am saying something, it is not just Jack Kingston speaking 
but comes right out of the bill.
  With that in mind, if you want to talk about the health care plan, 
that is one of the things that I thought we should really focus on 
tonight.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I would like to ask the gentleman, we hear many who 
criticize this health care plan as basically socialized medicine. Let 
me just ask the gentleman's opinion. Is the Clinton health care plan 
socialized medicine?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I think that the best way to answer that is to 
describe the duties of the National Health Care Board.
  The National Health Care Board would be appointed by the President. 
Basically, they would run health care in the United States.
  Included in their powers would be the right to set standards for 
doctors and health care providers, the right to prohibit health care 
providers from performing certain procedures not deemed necessary, the 
power to write, develop, and approve language for insurance policies. 
They would have cost-containment authority. They would gather 
information and evaluate it. They would control costs. They would set 
community rates. They would have oversight on drug prices. They would 
have the power to set health care budgets in the form of insurance 
premium caps.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. You said two things out of this list that really jump 
out at me. One is the ability to control costs. You mean there are 
going to be price controls?
  Mr KINGSTON. Absolutely. And historically, as we look at socialized 
medicine in other countries, price control, government artificial price 
controls are always a component of it. And it always leads to the next 
step, which is rationing.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. That brings me to the next item you mentioned, which 
was caps on premiums, insurance premiums.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Yes. The way the insurance premium caps would be is, I 
guess there is an assumption in there on the part of the administration 
that insurance companies are overcharging, price gauging. And now the 
administration is making the insurance companies out to be the sole 
problems with health care, which I think we could all agree that 
certainly they are in it. They are part of it. They should have some 
changes that would be part of the solution. And yet, at the same time, 
there are 1,100 different industry groups involved in health care 
delivery. We cannot just single out one group as the major problem.
  But when you limit the premiums that are paid and limit the costs or 
allocate the costs, what happens, the next step is rationing.
  I will give you a scenario on this. If a doctor right now is charging 
say $20,000 for a kidney transplant, and I do not have any idea if 
$20,000 is a fair number or not, and the National Health Care Board, 
through the State-run alliance, has said, we are only going to pay 
$15,000 for a kidney transplant, then what happens?
  The network, to answer to the alliance, to answer to the National 
Health Care Board, will say, we are only going to pay $15,000 for a 
kidney transplant. Therefore, the people who get the kidney transplant 
are the ones who recover the fastest. If you are in and out of the 
hospital within a few days, we can make the $15,000 go, but if you are 
an older person and it might take a week to recover, then the costs are 
going to be over the allocated budget. And therefore, you do have a 
rationing situation. That is what has happened in England, in Germany, 
in Canada, and every other country that has socialized medicine.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, I interrupted the gentleman, but I appreciate 
the elaboration on those two points.
  What other features does this plan have that smack of socialized 
medicine?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think the idea, what we are saying, that one premium 
will fit all. So if you are 21 years old and you wake up in the morning 
and eat bean sprouts and jog marathons all day, your premium is going 
to be the same as somebody who is 55 years old and who has less worries 
about health care in terms that they just will not take care of 
themselves.
  They might smoke, drink, and eat excessively and never exercise. Yet 
the two will pay the same premium. That is a Government artificial 
price control, because you really--all the Government can do is cap 
these prices. But someone is going to get overcharged. So in this case, 
if you are 21 years old, you are going to be overcharged to underwrite 
the 55-year old who is not taking care of himself.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I appreciated the gentleman elaborating on that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I want to say another thing about this National Health 
Care Board. Along with running health care in the United States, in the 
process of doing that, they have usurped the States' power, because the 
McCarran-Ferguson Act says that States will run health care and, to the 
degree that they are running it, the Federal Government will stay out 
of it. This plan repeals the McCarran-Ferguson Act and, because of 
that, your State legislature will no longer be in a position to have 
health care reform ideas, because they will be basically a paper tiger. 
All the power will be with these unelected bureaucrats on the National 
Health Care Board.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. How much do you anticipate this new bureaucracy will 
cost?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the estimated cost, of course, you know how 
things are in Washington, if you ask on Monday, you get a Monday price, 
and Tuesday you get a Tuesday price. We have the price stability of a 
commodities trader. Some $400 billion is what is projected. And 
incidentally, the National Health Care Board would be about $2 billion 
alone.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. The President claims that this is a simple plan. I 
would just say to the gentleman that I have got the bill. It looks like 
we have in this bill 1,364 pages. I have read this. Some of this is the 
most convoluted material I have ever read in my life. I have to read it 
three or four times to understand what they are really saying, because 
they say it and then they modify it and then there are parts of 
exclusion and further modification. And it seems anything but simple.
  Let me just ask the gentleman, from your study of the material, what 
do you think he means when he says that this is a simplified plan, this 
1,300-plus page plan?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I guess to try to think the way the 
administration's idea of concept of simplification is that when you go 
as a consumer to your alliance, you will only have one place to shop 
your health care. That will in the alliance. The alliance will only 
offer you three plans: A fee-for-service plan, the standard plan, and a 
health maintenance type organization plan. And those are your three 
choices. So, yes, it is more simplified for the individual consumer in 
terms of purchasing, but in exchange for that simplification you have 
given up thousands of options that are out there on the free market 
today.
  Again, you will be mandated to buy your health care through the 
Government-sponsored alliance.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. It reminds me of that 1986 Tax Reform and 
Simplification Act, which was a very large bill similar to this. And 
you do not hear any body talking about how simple the Tax Code is 
today. I just have the feeling that the exact same thing is going to 
happen with this socialized medicine plan. It is not going to be all 
that simple at all, and it will result in many changes.
  Let me ask you this, a lot of people think they like socialized 
medicine. They point to Canada and Great Britain and Germany, maybe 
Sweden. What is the experience on that?

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am going to answer the gentleman's 
question, but first I am going to get back to his other point. When he 
is talking right now, it is February. People back home, hard-working 
wage earners, are filling out their tax forms. I can promise the 
Members that probably about 80 percent of them are having to go to a 
professional accountant to have their tax returns done, and yet in 
1984, as the gentleman said, that was called tax simplification. Here 
we are with a simplified health care plan, which is three times the 
size of that tax simplification bill.
  Folks are doing their taxes right now, and they should be. It is on 
their minds. Just think in terms of if we think our taxes are simple, 
think about how simplified our health care is going to be. Health care 
in other countries right now, according to a recent Associated Press 
story, the French health care plan is $9.8 billion in the hole. The 
Canadian plan, daily, people come to America for nonemergency routine 
type operations. In 1986 the doctors went on strike there.
  I was reading in just December that hospitals were given a month to 
cut $200 million in their budget in Ontario, and that employees are 
being forced to have 12 days of unpaid leave. Their systems have all 
kinds of problems. In some of my health care town meetings, I had 
people stand up from England and Canada and Germany and other places 
and just go on for 5 minutes on how they came to America to get away 
from that kind of thing, and here they are right back again faced with 
it.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Not only do I understand that they came to get away, 
we need to look into what happened in December, because some very 
unusual things in Canada happened. They ran out of money and they 
basically pretty much shut down the health care system for a few days. 
As I understand it, and I am asking for verification of this, but I 
understand that basically people were told, ``Unless you are super 
sick, you have a child with a temperature of over 105, don't come 
around for the next few days.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is right.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. That is what happens when we have a socialized type of 
system.
  Ironically, many of these countries, including, I think, Canada, are 
looking at the United States' system for ways to suggest to them how 
they might improve their own, and yet our leader is looking to the 
socialistic system, looking for ways to ``improve our system.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. It does not make any sense. Let us take the scenario in 
Canada in 1986 when their doctors went on strike. Think what would 
happen if our specialists went on strike today, and all of a sudden you 
cannot get some certain procedure or cataract surgery or something like 
that, because there are only a limited number of professionals, maybe--
I don't know how many--in the entire country, but certainly less than 
10,000, and they all get together. They have the ability to get 
together, because they have the specialization, which is needed, for a 
powerful union, a powerful organization. They have the skills. They 
have the money to form a network. They could make all kinds of demands 
under this system which they cannot make right now under the free 
market system.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the gentleman this, if I may. 
Do we have to go to socialized medicine in order to address some of the 
legitimate complaints about our present health care delivery system, or 
is there a way to fix the parts of it that are less desirable, and yet 
retain the advantages of a competitive, free enterprise based system?

  Mr. KINGSTON. I believe there absolutely is. I think the first step 
on that, though, is to analyze the 37 million uninsured, and then 
realize upon that analysis that 70 percent of the 37 million will get 
their health care replaced within a year. That is a revolving number, 
they are people in between jobs, college students who have not got 
their permanent career path going. I am not ignoring that, but the fact 
is that 70 percent of them will be insured within the year.
  Look at the 30 percent, the chronic uninsured. That is where we need 
to attack our problem, the people who have multiple sclerosis, muscular 
dystrophy, the folks who are minimum wage workers, $5-an-hour 
employees, that is who we should focus on. Let us correct that problem 
before we go and throw the baby out with the bath water that the 
Clinton plan does.
  The gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is here, and I cannot 
recognize him, but I think the gentleman can.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I shall do so. I just want to observe that of this so-
called 37 million who are uninsured, less than 4 percent are uninsured 
for more than 2 years. By the way, this is, generally speaking, a very 
health group, because only 2 percent of the uninsured claim to be in 
poor health, and less than 3 percent report being denied private health 
insurance. For the most part, these are people who really do not want 
to be forced to pay for health insurance, and however foolish we think 
this gamble might be, they do not think it is foolish. They do not want 
to be forced to pay, like the Clinton plan will make them pay, and 
subsidize less healthy individuals.
  I just thought it would be important to cite those statistics, 
because we are not talking about millions and millions of people who 
are sick and cannot get health insurance. We are not talking about any 
more than 4 percent of that 37 million who do not have health insurance 
for more than 4 years.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan].
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to say I commend both the gentleman from Georgia 
[Mr. Kingston] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Doolittle] for 
taking this special order out, and taking time to discuss an issue of 
such concern to so many people.
  I think that one of the greatest concerns I have, though, was 
mentioned a couple of months ago in Time magazine in an article that 
said, ``Prognosis: Lost Jobs.'' That article said that there is an 
internal working paper that the administration has that says if the 
administration goes forward with this health care plan, that it could 
cost as many as 1 million jobs lost over the next 5 years.
  There are some studies that show an even higher number of lost jobs 
than that. The National Restaurant Association has a study that shows a 
potential for 3.1 million jobs lost. the National Federation of 
Independent Businesses has a study which predicts a total of 1.6 
million lost jobs.
  I will tell the Members this. I know that the stock market is at an 
all-time high and that times are good for some people, but I also know 
this. I have been in this office for a little over 5 years. During the 
first 3 years or so that I held this office, the usual thing that 
people would come see me about were things like Social Security, 
Medicare, V.A., passports, things like that.

  Over the last couple of years, I would say half of the people who 
come to see me come to see me about helping get jobs. They want Federal 
jobs, State jobs, local jobs, and there are many small businesses that 
are barely hanging on out there. The health care plan, the way it is 
planned now, will be a real blow to them.
  I do not think we should be passing any legislation in this Congress 
that could cost 1 million jobs lost, that the administration itself--
and I know Laura Tyson, the Chairperson of the Council of Economic 
Advisers--said no, it was too high, it would be more like 600,000, but 
that is still far too many.
  It is easy to say things like 1 million jobs lost, but if you are a 
man or woman who loses his or her job, it is not such an easy thing, 
and in fact, it is a terrible thing.
  A few months ago a minister in Tennessee spoke to me. He told me that 
he had gone to Russia with a group of Baptists. He told me that while 
they were there they toured the hospital. He said to me, ``Congressman, 
I would not take my dog to that hospital.''
  The truth is that in this country, the animals in this country have 
better medical care than the people do in many countries around the 
rest of the world. Sure, we have problems and we need changes. The cost 
is far too great, but the costs of medical care in this country have 
been driven up primarily because of too much governmental interference 
in the medical system and not too little.
  I do not want to take up too much of the Members' time, but I do want 
to mention this: Last week the Washington Post had a series on 
Medicaid. One of the most liberal Members of the other body was quoted 
as saying about Medicaid that it is a horrible system, a vile system, 
and it should be abolished.
  Then they quoted a scholar from the Brookings Institution, who 
jokingly said Medicaid was a success story of the American political 
system. He said, ``We create a system that is so horrible that we then 
are forced to go to total reform.''
  The people who wrote, the well-intentioned, well-meaning people, who 
wrote the original Medicaid law, I am sure thought they had written the 
best law that probably ever hit the books of this country. I know that 
is what is going to happen with this law. The people are well-meaning 
and well-intentioned, but they are going to write a law that is going 
to slowly cause the greatest medical system in the world to 
deteriorate.
  The wealthy people and the leaders of foreign countries come here 
when they get seriously ill, so while we have problems and we need 
changes, we need to make sure that we do not throw the baby out with 
the bath water, as was said just a minute ago. We need to make sure 
that the changes we make truly will help bring down medical costs in 
this country, so we do not ruin what is a wonderful system.
  I am so concerned about some of these things, and I want to thank 
each of the Members for participating and bringing some of these things 
to the attention of the American people. I will stay here for a few 
minutes and listen to what else you have to say.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think one of the things 
that he mentions now in terms of those who are uninsured and in terms 
of the working poor, there are solutions out there for them and the 
chronic uninsured, and all those solutions are in the so-called Michel 
plan, which basically challenges this universal access concept to 
universal affordability.

                              {time}  1840

  What we really need in health care is it to be affordable regardless 
of your income bracket. And what the Michel plan does, and the reason I 
have cosponsored it is because it does give small, unincorporated 
businesses the full 100 percent tax deduction that large corporations 
get now. It gives them the right to form purchasing groups on a 
voluntary basis, which basically gives them the economies of scale that 
large businesses get now. And it has other things that will make the 
market more price-sensitive.
  For example, the Medisave account which has been a tremendous success 
in Singapore. I am always a little leery when people just say well, let 
us just do what they are doing in some other country, because there are 
always a number of conditions or different things that we have to take 
into account. But there is the track record, and there is reason to 
take a serious look at the Medisave account.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I would like to jump in and say that under the Clinton 
socialistic medicine plan it mandates universal health insurance 
coverage. The Cooper socialistic medicine plan, I guess I will call it, 
and they call it Clinton lite because it just takes longer to get 
there, but their goal is universal health care insurance. I challenge 
the very assumptions of those plans. Universal health coverage would be 
a disaster for the taxpayers of this country. If you remember the long 
lines that formed when the Government passed out the free cheese, that 
is an illustration of what is going to happen with universal health 
care coverage. When this becomes free you are going to have massive 
increases in utilization, and we are going to completely blow apart the 
forecasts made by the administration. Even the Congressional Budget 
Office representing the Democrat-controlled Congress came out today in 
today's Washington Post and said that the Clinton administration is 
vastly underestimating the cost of its own plan, that indeed it will 
increase the Federal deficit by $74 billion in the first 6 years. It is 
not going to improve the deficit picture; it is going to get much 
worse, and this is from the Congressional Budget Office.
  I just think we need to make that point. We do not seek, we do not 
desire universal health care coverage. This will be the financial ruin 
of this country, and we have to challenge I think some of the very 
basic assumptions of the President's plan. And I would just remind 
everyone that the whole premise of this plan with all of this massive 
and minute governmental intervention, and control, and limitations, and 
rationing, and price controls, the whole premise of this is that we are 
going to make health care more affordable. When did the Government ever 
take over anything and make it more affordable or render a better type 
of service? There is no example of that in our history.
  Mr. KINGSTON. But there are examples of exactly what the gentleman is 
talking about and exactly what the nonpartisan CBO is talking about 
when they say this is going to add $74 billion to the deficit. And that 
was the example that in 1965 when Medicare came about the 
administration at the time underestimated it by 70 percent. The first 5 
years it cost 70 percent more than they projected, and the projection 
was not a conservative one.
  Mr. DUNCAN. If the gentleman will yield, not only did they 
underestimate the cost for the first 5 years, but Government actuaries 
at the time, in 1965, estimated that 25 years down the road Medicare 
would cost $12 billion, and instead it cost over nine times that much. 
And I think that is why so many people are skeptical of some of these 
initial cost estimates.
  President Clinton estimated or his administration estimated that his 
plan would cost $700 billion over the first 5 years. But within a few 
days Newsweek had a cover which said ``Clinton's Trillion Dollar 
Cure,'' and many people think even those estimates are low. I have 
heard it said if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it 
is free, and I think there surely is some truth in that.
  Speaking about Newsweek, I want to add also that they ran one 
sentence from the President's plan, and this one sentence I want 
Members to listen to for a minute. It says

       ``(B) Family.--In the case of an individual enrolled under 
     a health plan under a family class of enrollment (as defined 
     in section 1011(c)(2)(A)), the family out-of-pocket limit on 
     cost sharing in the cost sharing schedule offered by the plan 
     represents the amount of expenses that members of the 
     individual's family, in the aggregate, may be required to 
     incur under the plan in a year because of general deductible, 
     separate deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance before the 
     plan may no longer impose any cost sharing with respect to 
     items or services covered by the comprehensive benefit 
     package * * *.

  Now remember, this is just one sentence, and I am still in that one 
sentence--

       ``By the comprehensive benefit packages that are provided 
     to any member of the individual's family, except as provided 
     in subsections (d)(2)(D) and (e)(2)(D) of section 1115.''
  That ran in Newsweek under the title ``Splitting Headaches Better Be 
Covered.'' This plan is so complicated, so convoluted that nobody can 
understand it, 1,342 pages of the most bureaucratic gobbley-gook that I 
have ever seen. I was a lawyer and a judge before I came to Congress, 
and I do not understand what is in there. I noticed that a CBS national 
news report about 3 weeks ago said that the professor from Stanford 
University who came up with the original managed care concept, the man 
who the Clinton administration gives much of the credit to for this 
plan, said that the administration should take pages 1 through 1,342 
and delete everything and start over.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask an open question. Were either of you on the 
health care task force? Who was? Who wrote this plan, because we have 
been unable to obtain a list of who was on the task force?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. This is the task force chaired by the First Lady?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Yes. And the one that was meeting in secret until there 
was the lawsuit to end that. Were there private practitioners on it, 
for example?
  Mr. DUNCAN. The Wall Street Journal ran a list finally of all 500 
members. There were 499 Democrats and there was one Republican that 
somehow got in there, an aide to Congresswoman Nancy Johnson. I do not 
know how that particular aide got in there. But I have heard it said 
that this plan was devised in the most partisan, secretive way of any 
plan or any legislation that has ever been seen in this city, and that 
is really saying something.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well it really is.


               request to yield portion of special order

  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time 
remains in our special order?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hinchey). The gentleman from California 
has 23 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that following 
the conclusion of our special order, if any time remains within the 
original 60 minutes, that the balance of it be transferred to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Torkildsen].
  The Speaker pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts has his own 
time scheduled.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the Speaker.
  We did commit to the gentleman from Massachusetts that he would have 
some time, so I think maybe we ought to try and wrap this up in the 
next 5 minutes or so and let the gentleman from Massachusetts claim his 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I have one story that I thought was a good 
example of some of the thoughts that the American public has and some 
of the apprehension. Under this system, and this came out in one of my 
health care town meetings, but I was telling the story about here you 
know you have the President, and you have this seven-member nonelected 
bureaucracy called the National Health Care Board which will be running 
health care policy in America, and underneath them you have the series 
of State-run monopolies called alliances, which are health care 
brokers. And then they will offer to you health care through these 
networks and no forth.

                              {time}  1850

  The gentleman had mentioned, you know, what if you are not happy. You 
know, sometimes you get complaints about the VA hospitals. Some are 
good. Some are not so good. But wherever you are, that is your 
hospital. You do not have debate. You don't have a choice, you know, of 
which five VA hospitals do you go to. You have to go to the one in your 
geographical area.
  The same thing is true of these alliances. You have to go to the 
alliance that you live in.
  Ask yourself this: Are Members of Congress, is the President of the 
United States, is the Vice President of the United States, are the 
Cabinet Members going to go to the downtown Washington, DC, alliance 
and stand in line and sit in the lobby with the rest of the residents 
of this city to get health care? I do not think that they will. I said 
that to somebody, and one of the comments was, ``Well, maybe the 
President of the United States is entitled to the best of the best of 
health care. After all, he is the President of the greatest Nation the 
history of the world has ever seen. Maybe he should be exempt.'' A guy 
stood up in the back of the room and said, ``Well, Mr. Congressman, I 
tell you what, my mama is entitled to the best of the best. If the 
President wants to get a little exemption from his alliance, then I 
think my mama should, too.'' I think that tells it all.

  The American people do not want the Government coming in and setting 
up a system that is going to be a two-tier system. The Congress does 
not even come under this system, under one of the proposals, until 
1998, 1 year after everybody else in the country has to come under it.
  So I think that this is a system that should be shelved. This is a 
proposal that should be shelved. We should adopt the Michel plan.
  Many of the components of the Michel plan are contained in the 
Clinton plan, only the Michel plan is $17 billion, the Clinton plan is 
$400 billion, without the bureaucracy.
  Mr. DUNCAN. If the gentleman will yield further, I would just sum up 
by saying this: I think one of the most important points to make 
tonight is the national media is acting like there are only two plans 
out there, the President's plan and Congressman Cooper's plan.
  The gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cooper] is from my home State, and 
I have great respect for him, but Senator Gramm described his plan as 
socialism with a smile. It is so similar to the President's plan that 
there really is very little difference.
  In fact, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cooper] said the 
President's plan will add big bucks to the deficit and greatly increase 
costs to the consumer. He later said in the Tennessee press that his 
plan was a first cousin to the President's plan, and he thought they 
would have a family reunion at the White House.
  There are other better plans out there. You mentioned the medical 
savings plan, the medical IRA's, and that certainly would do the most 
to give people the most, the medical consumer the most control over 
their medical dollars and would do more to bring down the cost of 
medical care than any plan out there.
  Frankly, it had over 200 cosponsors in the last Congress, more than 
any other plan has been able to achieve.
  Syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts, one of our most respected 
economists, said this in a column recently:

       President Clinton's health plan will fail, because it will 
     drive up demand but not supply. The result will be price 
     increases or rationing. Price increases, combined with the 
     expanded coverage Mr. Clinton wants, can mean an explosive 
     increase in health care expenditures. Rationing can mean a 
     deterioration in the quality and timeliness of cure or 
     denying treatment in cases where the patient's prospects are 
     not good or the cost exceeds the value of the person's life.

  He goes on to say what will make us worse off is rationing schemes 
such as Mrs. Clinton's that deny the patient choice and the medical 
provider incentive. Government has never improved anything it has 
touched, and the more deeply it gets involved in our medical services, 
the worse they are going to get.
  If we go to an even more Government-dominated, Government-controlled 
medical system than we now have, within a few short years it will lead 
to shortages, waiting periods, a declining quality of medical care. 
People in rural areas will have to go further and further distances to 
get certain types of treatment, and it will lead ultimately to a black 
market of medical care. It will lead to many things that the people do 
not want, they do not deserve to get, and, frankly, if we want to do 
something to make health care more affordable in this country, we will 
get the Federal Government less involved in medical care instead of 
more.
  I thank the gentleman for letting me participate in this special 
order with you tonight.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee and the gentleman 
from Georgia for their excellent presentations.
  Just observing, in 2 weeks when we reconvene, we will have another 
hour to discuss further aspects. I feel like we have really scratched 
the surface. There are so many points to make about health care and the 
Clinton socialized medicine plan versus the free enterprise-based plans 
that are out there.
  We will have another opportunity to discuss this.

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