[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 80 (Wednesday, June 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       MORE ON HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Abercrombie). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mr. DeLAURO] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, tonight I join several of my colleagues to 
help make it clear to the Members of this House that we are at a 
critical crossroads in the health care reform effort. I am proud to 
stand here with my colleagues, but I want you to know that I am also 
very worried, and the American people are worried and they are scared.
  Frankly, I do not blame them. Their apprehension is completely 
understandable because those who do not want to truly change our 
system, to make sure that each and every American has health insurance, 
have seized on people's legitimate concerns and they have twisted what 
the President and others have proposed into frightening specters that 
bear no resemblance to the actual proposals.
  But this should not surprise us. After all, this follows a long 
pattern of similar tactics used by Republicans who stood in the way of 
progress and making change to improve the lives of the working men and 
women in this country.
  What we hear now from the opponents of health care reform echoes the 
voices that told Americans we should not enact Social Security because, 
``Never in the history of the world has any measure been brought here 
so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave 
workers, and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work 
for the people.''
  Sound familiar? That is an actual quote in 1935 from Representative 
John Tabor of New York.
  What we hear now reminds us of those who said during the debate to 
create Medicare, ``We cannot stand idly by now, as the Nation is urged 
to embark on an ill-conceived venture in Government medicine, the end 
of which no one can see, and from which the patient is certain to be 
the ultimate sufferer.''
  Sound familiar?
  My colleagues, I do not know about you, but I have yet to hear from a 
single constituent who believes he or she is suffering because we 
enacted Medicare, or feels enslaved by Social Security.
  What we hear now is all too reminiscent of the last debate we had 
about raising the minimum wage. Among the dire predictions made 5 years 
ago by a current Member of the Republican Party in this body, ``An 
increase of this magnitude in the minimum wage would destroy thousands 
of job opportunities for the young, the low-skilled, and the 
disadvantaged, it will adversely affect small businesses, result in 
higher inflation and interest rates and further increase the deficit.'' 
This statement simply flies in the face of our actual experience.

  Yet, despite this legacy of failed scare tactics and inaccurate 
predictions, here they go again. First they tried to tell us there was 
no problem. They said we have the best health care in the world. And we 
do have the best health care in the world. The problem is that they 
forgot to mention that people cannot afford it, that 1 in 7 Americans 
does not have health insurance. For those Americans, it does not matter 
how good our health care may be, because they cannot take advantage of 
it. And those who have jobs and health insurance are afraid they will 
lose it.
  But those men and women who had powerful stories to tell about how 
the system has failed them made their voices heard. They drowned out 
the chorus that said there was no problem. So, instead, the chorus 
changed its tune. Now they say all we need to do is tinker at the 
edges, change a few insurance practices or tax health care benefits to 
make Americans smarter health care consumers.
  I believe Americans are smart enough right now to know the system 
needs fundamental changes because too many of them are just a plant 
closing away from losing their health insurance.
  Therefore, I say to the Members of this House, let us not listen to 
those who would twist the facts, who mischaracterize what the President 
has proposed. It is time to listen to families all across this country 
who have shared their stories and their pain with us. It is time to 
respond to them, not to those with vested interests in the status quo.
  It is time to listen to the families who tell us they want universal 
coverage. The only way to ensure working families do not have to pick 
up the tab for the uninsured is to cover everybody. The only way to 
make sure that if Americans lose their job or change jobs they will not 
lose their health insurance is to cover everybody. The only way to make 
sure that people who really need care are not excluded because of a 
preexisting condition is to cover everybody. And the only way to keep 
American businesses healthy and competitive is to keep costs down and 
end cost-shifting, by getting everybody covered. Rather than retreating 
or surrendering at this critical juncture, we should take up the 
President's call to pass health care reform legislation with universal 
coverage and to work with him.
  So I call upon my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to end the 
partisan gamesmanship, work hard to overcome our differences, deliver 
guaranteed health insurance to the American people.
  Let us join forces, rise to the occasion, and enact a universal 
health insurance coverage bill. This is a tremendous opportunity that 
we have which, if we lose it, may not come back for decades.
  We owe it to the American public.

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