[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 22 (Thursday, March 3, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              ON EACH SIDE

                                 ______


                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 3, 1994

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues two editorials 
regarding health care reform which appeared in the Norfolk Daily News 
on February 23, 1994, and February 26, 1994. These are thoughtful 
commentaries as Congress considers the important issue of health care 
reform.

           [From the Norfolk (NE) Daily News, Feb. 23, 1994]

                              On Each Side

       Does anyone happen to remember who sat on both sides of 
     Hillary Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives Gallery 
     while President Clinton gave his recent State of the Union 
     message? Jack Faris, president of the National Federation of 
     Independent Business does.
       Mr. Faris knows all too well that Mrs. Clinton's invited 
     guests were Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, and Jack 
     Smith, chairman of General Motors. It was reported that the 
     invitations were intended as a gesture to heal organized 
     labor's wounds inflicted by the president's support of the 
     North American Free Trade Agreement.
       Mr. Faris sees it as a gesture of something entirely 
     different. To him, their presence was a sign of 
     discouragement and concern on behalf of small-business owners 
     throughout the nation.
       Why is that?
       ``General Motors, under the president's health care reform 
     act, will enjoy a huge windfall because its health payments 
     for retirees, who have gold-plated coverage under union-
     negotiated plans, will be paid for by--you guessed it--small 
     businesses and other taxpayers,'' Mr. Faris said recently. 
     ``Some estimates claim the book value of General Motors alone 
     will leap more than $28 billion when it sheds the health 
     insurance burden.''
       Even more irritating to small-business owners, according to 
     Mr. Faris, is that the government tax code still treats them 
     shibbily. ``While GM and other corporations can deduct 100 
     percent of their health costs, the self-employed, if Congress 
     is in a good mood, are allowed to write off only one-fourth 
     of their health bills,'' he said.
       We have to share his concern as to whether President 
     Clinton will ignore the economic contributions of small 
     business and instead cater too much to big business and big 
     labor.
       The seating arrangement at the State of the Union address 
     may have been only symbolic of the problem, but there's no 
     doubt that the concerns small-business owners have are real.

           [From the Norfolk (NE) Daily News, Feb. 26, 1994]

                          Big Bucks Committed

       Organized labor has now committed at least $10 million to 
     promote President Clinton's health-care plan. One union 
     official, Gerald Shea, head of the AFL-CIO health care team, 
     says it could eventually be double that.
       If lobbying and public relations efforts rather than logic 
     will rule, the unions could help carry the day with such a 
     commitment.
       Most union members are already covered by health plans that 
     have been negotiated between unions and employers. So the 
     Clinton plan is embraced because it offers an opportunity for 
     others to help foot the bills.
       Unions have important allies in this cause. They are the 
     employers who represent several major industries. The chance 
     to shift a portion of the health-care premiums from the 
     biggest employers to other Americans and to pick up more of 
     the payments for early retirees, creates an unusual alliance. 
     It consists of a few of the largest employers who see an 
     advantage in getting their own health care costs lowered, and 
     the unions which are focused not on small employers and 
     individual small business owners but on what is least costly 
     for that elite which they represent.
       President Clinton now indicates he is willing to compromise 
     on any features of his complicated plan, except that the 
     ultimate legislation must provide ``universal coverage.''
       So the union's millions are committed not so much to a 
     well-defined and fully understandable plan, but to whatever 
     Mr. Clinton and his principal health care advisers will 
     eventually agree to embrace.
       Union members ought to question such an open-ended 
     commitment.

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