[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 68 (Thursday, May 26, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 26, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
    SIMPLICITY AND CHOICE--THE WATCHWORDS OF TRUE HEALTH CARE REFORM

                                 ______


                          HON. JOHN D. DINGELL

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 1994

  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues the following 
article dated February 5, 1994, which I read in the Detroit Free Press. 
This editorial cuts through the obfuscation that opponents of true 
health care reform have used to stir fear and suspicion among the 
public toward the President's Health Security Act and toward a single-
payer system. The only two proposals which, not ironically, will 
provide universal coverage and therefore the only two proposals which 
will bring genuine reform to a system in crisis.

           Crisis or Not, Our System Badly Needs Major Reform

       General Motors Corp. spends more on health care for its 
     employees and retirees that on steel to build its cars, which 
     explains a lot about why the automaker is trying so hard to 
     ratchet down its cost of retiree coverage.
       GM is not alone. The percentage of U.S. employers that pay 
     for full medical coverage has dropped steeply. Cutbacks in 
     health benefits were a major issue in more than half of all 
     strikes in recent years. Eight out of 10 new businesses don't 
     offer any health benefits. Americans do have the best medical 
     care in the world, as foes of the Clinton health care plan 
     keep insisting--but only if they or their employers can 
     afford it.
       Opponents of the Clinton plan are trying to hijack the 
     debate and turn it into a semantic argument about whether or 
     not there's a health care ``crisis'' in this country. Look at 
     it this way: Health care gobbles up 14 percent of the gross 
     national product--$1 out of every $7 earned and spent. A fat 
     slice of every dollar you spend on groceries, clothing, cars, 
     appliances goes to pay somebody's health care bills.
       So we spend nearly $1 trillion a year on health care, and 
     tens of millions of Americans still have inadequate coverage 
     or none at all. Millions more workers and retirees fall 
     asleep every night praying: ``Please, God, don't let them cut 
     my health care benefits.'' If that's not a crisis, it's a 
     heck of a problem, and President Bill Clinton is right to 
     want to do something about it.
       We share some of the concerns of the Business Roundtable 
     and others about the Clinton plan. The proposed purchasing 
     alliances have the potential to become bureaucratic behemoths 
     run by insurance companies, with neither the compassion nor 
     the simplicity Mr. Clinton promised. States should not be 
     discouraged from pursuing flexible, home-grown reforms in 
     cost control and delivery of care. And the president's cost 
     projections still seem rosy.
       We continue to believe that a single-payer plan, along the 
     lines of the Canadian system, has virtues that make it worth 
     fighting for, including a hefty savings from wiping out 
     bureaucracy and paperwork. The president has wisely indicated 
     he's willing to deal on almost everything but universal 
     coverage. He'll have a first-class fight on his hands just to 
     hold on to that cherished target.
       He might as well go all the way and press for a single-
     payer plan. There's a small but expandable core of support in 
     Congress for such a system. And it comes closer to meeting 
     Mr. Clinton's important objectives of simplicity and choice 
     than anything else we've seen yet.

                          ____________________