[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                              HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from Wyoming [Mr. 
Thomas] is recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. THOMAS of Wyoming. Madam Speaker, I rise to talk, as other have, 
about health care. Clearly that is the issue before us, and clearly it 
is an issue that deserves consideration.
  I am concerned that what began as a legitimate discussion of how do 
we improve health care to families in this country has become now a 
debate as to how we fill a political imperative to do something before 
November so everyone can wave the flag and say, ``Look, look what we've 
done.''
  We should, however, use the momentum that has been developed. We 
should use the momentum to ensure that there are changes in the health 
care system in this country.
  I will be holding a town meeting, another town meeting in Rock 
Springs, WY, next week to talk with Wyoming families about how we can 
best provide a service that fits in a rural State. And services must be 
unique, services must be flexible, services must be different.
  Two weeks ago I was in Pinedale, WY. Pinedale, WY, has one general 
practitioner. It is 100 miles to Jackson on the one hand and to Rock 
Springs on the other to a hospital. You know what folks said there. 
They said, ``don't mess around with our health care.'' You might have 
thought they wanted all of these kinds of things to be brought there 
but no, they want to continue to have the choice of doing the things 
that they want to do.
  I have worked in health care in Wyoming now for something like 4 
years, and I have to tell you that flexibility, that access, doing 
something about price is indeed the things that are most interesting to 
families in Wyoming.
  There are a number of health care plans out there. Families are 
beginning to understand that there are options in doing something. We 
began with sort of a notion that there was either President Clinton's 
plan or nothing. Not true. Not true.

                              {time}  1110

  And fortunately there are alternatives, alternatives that will make 
fundamental change in health care without uprooting the very essence of 
the best health care system that we have in the world.
  Frankly, I am not willing to put at risk my constituents for the 
implanting of a totally new untested kind of program that affects one-
seventh of the entire economy and put it into place on a national level 
without having some experience in States. States are the best 
laboratory for doing that.
  People in Wyoming value their personal physicians and, as you can 
imagine, sometimes it is tough, sometimes they are small towns where 
there are only a limited number of health care providers. But they want 
that choice.
  One of the paradoxes, one of the interesting things has to do with 
prescription drug pricing. All of us, I think, want the drug store and 
the pharmacist right there on Main Street so that we can go there to 
get our needs filled immediately. We also want the advice of a 
pharmacist and a druggist.
  At the same time we move toward HMO's and the kind of organization 
where almost all prescription needs are filled by mail. So we go to the 
pharmacist on Main Street and say, ``Give us some advice, will you, 
please, and please have something of everything for us on a short-term 
basis, but we are going to send somewhere else and get the product.'' 
These two things have some conflicts. We need to do something about 
level pricing so that we can keep the pharmacist on Main Street to do 
that.
  We need to make fundamental changes. We need to make changes, but we 
have to decide basically whether we want more government involved in 
health care or whether we want to continue to strengthen and perfect 
the private delivery system. I choose the private delivery system.
  If we are going to use insurance as the funding mechanism, we have to 
make some changes, fundamental changes that you cannot be denied 
because of preexisting conditions, that it is portable so you can take 
it with you, we can do those things; we can do them; that you are not 
canceled because of utilization. We can do something about tort reform 
that has to do with the cost of defensive medicine. Those are doable 
kinds of things.
  I am encouraged, frankly. I am encouraged that finally the Congress 
is beginning to say, ``Look, if we can make substantial improvements, 
if we can go from 85 percent coverage to 91 percent coverage, that that 
is movement in the bright direction.'' We do not have to insist, as 
President Clinton does, that we either move all the way in one giant 
step or not at all.
  I thought it was interesting Senator Moynihan said that it is 
incremental, that life is incremental, that things we do here are 
incremental. We do them as we can do them, and we do them as they are 
proven. We do them as they are proven to be beneficial.
  I think we need fundamental change in health care. I think we can 
have fundamental change in health care. We can have it in this Congress 
if we will do those things that will have some bipartisan support and 
that we can believe and pass and do.

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