[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 77 (Friday, June 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                     A BIPARTISAN HEALTH CARE BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Byrne). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Madam Speaker, I want to talk today about passing a 
bipartisan health bill. House Republicans are committed to trying to 
help pass a bipartisan health bill this year. We believe it is possible 
to write a bill on a bipartisan basis, possibly starting with the 
Rowland-Bilirakis bill, which has 35 Republicans and 35 Democrats 
cosponsoring it, certainly building on that and developing a bill which 
is market oriented, which has insurance reform, which has group 
insurance for small business, which has malpractice reform, which has a 
number of steps that most Americans agree with.
  Madam Speaker, we began working on the House Republican side in July 
1991, when Congressman Michel, our leader, founded the House Republican 
Task Force on Health. That was back when President Bush was still 
President. We have been working now for virtually 3 years on how to 
write a health reform bill.
  Madam Speaker, we have offered to the Democratic leadership to work 
on a bipartisan health reform bill. I was very disappointed to see the 
article in the New York Times today, ``GOP in the House trying to block 
health care bill,'' because I think that article is just plain 
factually wrong. The article begins, which I might say was the key part 
of this, that ``House Republicans are trying to keep health care 
legislation from reaching the House floor in a form that could pass.'' 
That paragraph is just plain factually wrong.
  What we are trying to do, Madam Speaker, is to write on a bipartisan 
basis a health reform bill that world strengthen the American people's 
access to health insurance, that would keep their control over their 
doctor and their hospital and their choice, that would not kill 
millions of jobs, that would not crush small business, that would not 
raise taxes, that would not have big bureaucracy and big regulation, 
and that would not centralize power in Washington.
  Madam Speaker, it is true, we are opposed to the Clinton health plan. 
We believe the Clinton health plan is big Government, big bureaucracy, 
big taxation. We believe the Clinton health plan takes control over 
your health care away from you and gives it to the Washington 
bureaucracy. I want to say up front we are opposed to the Clinton 
health plan. We believe that the bill currently in the Committee on 
Ways and Means by the Democratic leadership is essentially a new 
version of the Clinton health plan.
  Now, Madam Speaker, it is a sad time, but the Committee on Ways and 
Means Democrats have been playing very clever games. There are members 
of the Ways and Means Democrats who cannot vote for a tobacco tax 
increase because they are from a State which grows tobacco, such as 
Virginia. There are members of the Ways and Means Democrats who cannot 
really vote to kill jobs and small business with mandates because they 
are from places like Omaha, NE, and Michigan, so what they have done 
is, they have created a fiction, an excuse. They have said,

       The House Republicans are forcing us to vote for these 
     things. We are really not for them, but the House Republicans 
     are forcing us to do it.

  If you are going to be a Clinton clone and you are going to do what 
Clinton wants, then I think you should stand up and be honest with your 
district. I am prepared to go to any district in the country and debate 
the merits of crushing small business and killing jobs. I am prepared 
to go to any district in the country and debate whether or not you need 
a tax increase to pay for a health system that is already too expensive 
and ought to become less expensive.

  However, far more important, Madam Speaker, than the debate over 
specific issues, or the effort by the Clinton clones to avoid being 
responsible for their votes by blaming House Republicans for scaring 
them into doing it, far more important is this message to the American 
people: House Republicans are reaching out to any individual Democrat 
with the courage to work with us on a bipartisan basis to write a 
market-oriented group insurance for small business, relieve hospitals 
from antitrust so they can buy expensive equipment intelligently, have 
malpractice reform to lower cost, offer tax fairness to individuals 
self-employed and to the unemployed and to family farms.
  We believe that with medical savings accounts and with other good 
ideas, that we can work with individual Democrats to put together a 
bipartisan package. We applaud those Democrats who have had the 
courage, for example, in the Rowland-Bilirakis bill, 35 of them, to 
cosponsor a bipartisan bill.
  We also want to reach out to the Democratic leadership. I have 
personally on four occasions told the Democratic majority leader that 
we would like to work with them to write a bipartisan bill. What we 
cannot do is, we cannot help pass the Clinton big Government, big 
bureaucracy, big tax increase, anti-jobs, anti-small business, anti-
individual control over their own health bill.
  Madam Speaker, I think sometimes when the Democratic leadership gets 
frustrated and when it gets excited and it says ``Republicans don't 
want to pass anything,'' that is because they define the Clinton plan 
as the only thing.
  The fact is in the most recent Gallop Poll over 50 percent of the 
American people now reject the Clinton health plan, because over 50 
percent of the American people do not want Washington to run their 
hospital, to control their doctor, to decide on their medicine, to take 
control away from them over their own life.
  Madam Speaker, I just wanted to come to the floor today at the end of 
the week to say when we come back on Monday I hope there can be some 
bipartisanship from the Democratic leadership. I hope the President 
will be willing to engage in bipartisanship and I hope they will quit 
trying to pass a big Government plan and work with us.

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