[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 101 (Thursday, July 28, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
       SUGGESTED SCHEDULE FOR CONSIDERATION OF HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to spend a few 
minutes talking about the process that this House may find itself in as 
we begin the critical debate on health care.
  Last week the Democratic leadership disavowed the Clinton 
administration's health care plan, but they pledged to forge a new plan 
that was significantly different and would address many of the concerns 
that the American people had raised about the earlier versions.
  What I would like to point out is perhaps the process that we may be 
going through as we focus on developing a health care bill. What I have 
in front of me here is H.R. 3600, which is the health care bill that 
was brought to the full Committee on Education and Labor, and the 
process that we went through in the Committee on Education and Labor is 
that we had 29 days of total hearings, we had 11 days of subcommittee 
markup, we had 8 days of full committee markup.
  The markup time alone--that is, the opportunity to review the bill, 
propose amendments, debate amendments, and vote on amendments--took us 
over 2 months. In full committee, over 90 amendments were debated and 
51 were adopted, which means that, as good as the authors of this 
document, the 1,100 pages of material, thought that their original bill 
was, there was still significant opportunity to refine and improve that 
bill.
  As we now face the daunting task of looking at perhaps another new 
bill that may be 1,100, 1,200, 1,300 pages, we do not know how many 
because the bill is not in front of us, but I propose to this House 
that we, perhaps, adopt some minimum standards for considering this 
bill, to make sure that as the American people watch the process, they 
can be assured they have had full opportunity to see this bill, 
deliberate it, amend and debate it before final passage.
  What would a final schedule look like? We have heard some things, 
some people propose that we may see a bill in the next 3 to 5 days and 
before we go on recess, which would be another 2 weeks, we would vote 
on final passage of the bill.
  I would propose that that is not enough time to consider a bill that 
will affect 17 percent of our economy.
  What is a more realistic schedule? What is an expectation a proposal 
that I think we can lay before this House?
  Here is a proposal: That by August 1, all the bills, both Republican 
and Democratic alternatives be introduced with CBO full scoring and 
that the bills be fully printed and available for review and 
discussion; that on August 2 through 7, on the floor of this House, 
each one of the bills be walked through since we will not have the 
benefit of committee hearings, but that each author be permitted the 
opportunity to describe and to discuss and outline their bill. Then on 
August 8 we debate the rule, we debate an open rule that would allow 
for amendments to the bills as long as they are printed within 24 hours 
in the Congressional Record.
  By August 13, we finalize the rule and approve the rule.
  And then we go home for our recess, not for a vacation but for the 
opportunity to provide the American people to see, review, and provide 
feedback to us on this bill; use the recess to gain input on a new mark 
on new marks rather than to go back and report to them what we have 
done here in haste.
  We then come back here on September 8, the amendments are due to be 
printed in the Record, and on September 9 we begin debate on the health 
care bill. We wait, we debate for 5 to 10 days, we vote on the 
amendments. If we pass a bill, a conference committee occurs during the 
middle of September and October 5 we have final debate and finally vote 
on a health care package.
  A bill of this importance deserves that kind of opportunity to be 
heard in front of this Congress and in front of the American people.
  What else could we expect? Today I sent out a ``Dear Colleague'' that 
says John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence without 
reading it first. Will every member in this House agree to read the 
bill before we have a final vote? Will they agree to read 1,100 pages 
that reflect an outline of what is going to happen to health care 
before they vote on that kind of a package?

                              {time}  1830

  Third, as we move forward on health care, if we move out a mark 
similar which we had in Education and Labor, will they agree that 
before health care takes place in any State, that State will have a 
public referendum where the voters will choose to participate in the 
program or not?

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