[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 15, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 15, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         OFF AND RUNNING: A HEALTH RACE WITHOUT A WINNING HORSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, the great health care derby of 1994 is 
officially underway. This week the Ways and Means Subcommittee on 
Health will begin formal consideration of the so-called Stark bill, 
which media handicappers list as an unexpected early leader in the race 
to health reform. The frontrunner is not the much-ballyhooed one-time 
favorite known as Clinton health, But a no-name, dark horse bill which 
appeared from nowhere and is now judged to lead the pack.

                              {time}  1050

  In fact, Mr. speaker, so new to the field is the proposal being 
offered by the gentleman from California [Mr. Stark] that Members who 
are considering the bill are not even sure how much it is going to cost 
unless they read the New York Times this morning, and I am not even 
sure the New York Times has the answer. I certainly do not. Most of the 
rest of us have not had a chance to see this bill, an opportunity to 
read the language. Is this the right way to start what is going to be 
the most consequential domestic policy debated in our time?
  Mr. Speaker, health care reform involves nearly $1 out of every $7 
spent in our economy, as we all know and comprehensive reform will 
literally affect each and every American in their daily lives. We ought 
to know what are doing. Yet despite more than year of planning, control 
of the Presidency, and a lock on both Houses of Congress--the 
Democratic Party is in such disarray over health reform that it has 
begun the legislative process by trotting out a completely new dark 
horse that we do not know anything about. after reading the betting 
sheets on the Clinton plan recently, maybe this dark-horse strategy 
does make some sense, and I want to quote here now from an article 
taken this weekend by Donald Lambro out of one of the Washington papers 
on the 14th, and I quote:

       The Washington Post's Jodie Allen asks: ``Does anyone 
     seriously believe this will work? Are the president and his 
     wife, who declined to entrust the education of their child to 
     their local government, really willing to let it take over 
     the major role in deciding their health care options? Are 
     you?''

  Mr. Speaker, I think the answer is clear. The Clinton thoroughbred 
has turned out to be a loser, and Americans by and large are rejecting 
it the more they know about it. Those who know a thing or two about 
health policy are running from the Clinton plan faster than the White 
House can crank out its press releases and spin-controlled media 
events, which go on as we speak, with prominent committee chairman 
suggesting that employer mandates, global budgets, and mandatory 
alliances are all but dead--there really is not much left of the 
President's bill to ride. It is time to put the fantastical wishes and 
bloated reality of the Clinton plan out of their misery once and for 
all. But rather then depend on another unknown, Government-dominated 
bill like that proposed by our colleague, the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Stark], it is time for the Congress to make the wise bet on reform 
ideas that have proven reliable and worthy of support in the past. For 
instance, we all know the value of simple insurance reforms that would 
end pre-existing condition exclusions and give Americans access to 
group-rated insurance guaranteed to be renewable and portable between 
jobs.

  That is something we need, and we want, and we all know it. Let us 
attack costs and increase the accountability of those in the system by 
reforming our malpractice laws and cracking down on fraud and abuse in 
a meaningful way, not in the light touch that the Clinton plan put on 
it, and let us give individuals the power and incentive to seek out 
quality and preventive care by adopting medical savings accounts and 
taking advantage of individual deductions for health insurance costs. 
We can do this today--without all the posturing and rhetoric that has 
bogged down the reform process so far. Bills adopting these commonsense 
reforms have gained consensus support in both Houses and most even 
passed the Democratic Senate in the last Congress. It makes sense. 
These reforms would bring immediate relief to the majority of people 
who are without adequate coverage and who are waiting for us to act.
  I do not think we should stake our future on a unknown, dark horse 
now when we have no better choices. We cannot afford to get so caught 
up in the politics of this issue that we end up losing the race for 
real and lasting reforms in order to bring home a winner, we need a 
health bill that builds on what works--and that has a broad-base of 
support, and we need those things.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to look again at H.R. 3080 and also 
at H.R. 3955, two bills which responsibly address the obvious problems 
with our system with carefully measured solutions. They provide 
workable answers for the cost crisis dominating our system--and they 
make access to affordable insurance possible without huge new taxes or 
bureaucracies. Those are good things. Let us get this race for reform 
off to a good start, and I think we want to start with a horse that we 
know is going to finish, not one we do not know about.
  A lot has been said recently in the rhetoric about Whitewater, that 
Republicans are not doing their share. Well, let me tell my colleagues 
that two of the best bills out there, the Rowland-Bilirakis bill and 
the Cooper-Grandy bill that have been much discussed, and the Michel-
Lott bill, all have significant Republican participation, so it is not 
fair, and it is not true to say that the Republicans are not positive 
contributors to the process of health care reform.

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