[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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