[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]

 
                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from Connecticut 
[Mr. Shays] is recognized for 20 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first respond to some 
comments made on the floor of the House tonight regarding health care, 
and to say that I have a great deal of gratitude to our President for 
calling on Congress to deal with the issue of health care, to lead us 
toward a universal care, but I am troubled by a lot of the comments 
that some of my colleagues have shared and maybe feel deep in their 
heart about the partisan nature of this debate, and the fact that we 
must act immediately, or within the next few weeks.
  Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress, I have spent 4 years working on 
this issue. The more I know, the more I realize I do not know certain 
issues and areas. We are talking about 15 percent of our overall 
budget. We are talking about something that is a matter of clearly life 
and death. We are talking about ethical decisions. We are talking about 
jobs of countless millions of people. We are talking about reorienting 
our economy, potentially, in a way that could be very destructive.
  Mr. Speaker, I happen to believe we have the best health care in the 
world, admittedly, for those who have it. That is for most Americans. I 
realize some Americans do not have quality health care, and we need to 
address it.
  However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to focus in on what I think most 
of us on both sides of the aisle agree on. We agree on dealing with the 
issue of preexisting conditions; the fact that we, as Members of 
Congress, are not denied coverage because of a preexisting condition. 
No American should be, provided they are part of a system and are 
faithful to that system.
  Mr. Speaker, we agree that we need to cut the paperwork and 
administrative costs, the red tape. This is bipartisan. We know that we 
need to be able to deduct health care costs in our income tax payments. 
We also know that individuals and small purchasers of health care 
should have the same ability to purchase health care as a large 
purchaser, which will involve some kind of community rating by age or 
geographic area. We agree on these things, and we also know that there 
needs to be major malpractice and tort reform.
  Mr. Speaker, some of us believe that one significant way to control 
health care costs is through some form of copayment where those with 
higher incomes pay more on the copayment, that people have to have a 
stake in health care.
  Mr. Speaker, where we have our disagreements I think are in these 
areas, for the most part, with no criticism, but just a recognition 
that I think we come from two different directions, and it is going to 
be hard to meld these two issues. Most Republicans tend to want to see 
a market model in our health care system where we try to have a market-
competitive model. I think a good number of Democrats feel that will 
not work. They want the Government-regulated model, which Republicans 
do not feel will work very well.
  Mr. Speaker, on those two very basic issues we have our 
disagreements. I am not sure if it is possible to meld them so we end 
up with some kind of bill, because they go in two very basic different 
directions. Mr. Speaker, it may be possible, but for instance, as a 
Member of Congress, I want universal care, but I want the market model. 
I am not going to give in to a strong Government-regulated model. I do 
not want to hurt what we have.
  Mr. Speaker, my point, I guess, in making these comments is that 
there are going to be some very sincere differences between Republicans 
and Democrats. It is such a gigantic issue, and I hope that the Members 
in our Chamber who feel deeply about this issue are encouraging the 
bipartisan nature of it in finding a solution. It should not pass by 
218 votes, with 217 going the other way. It cannot work that way. We 
cannot change our economy so significantly.
  Mr. Speaker, I just believe that the bottom line to all this is that 
with good faith, we may come to where we can agree. Let us move forward 
on where we can agree, the areas that I mentioned, and then another day 
we are going to, in my judgment, have to sort out the market and 
Government-regulated model.

                              {time}  1910

  I just want to say, I am one Member on this side of the aisle and I 
think there are a number who believe in universal coverage but I think 
it has to be phased in, and I totally reject, however, bills that want 
to have universal coverage and expand programs. We cannot afford it. We 
simply cannot afford to have universal coverage and then tell the 
elderly that they are going to get prescription care, that they are 
going to get home care, that we are going to be able to afford that, 
and universal coverage for those who do not have any care directly.
  My concern is that there are some bills moving forward that promise 
to do both, when every Member up here practically knows we cannot do 
both. We are going to have to pick and choose. I believe in expanded 
mental health coverage. I believe mental health has a lot to do with 
physical health. But I am not sure that we have the ability to help 
fund that right away if we also want universal coverage.
  I also just want to make comment to the fact that today the Committee 
on House Administration moved forward with the Congressional 
Accountability Act of which there are 250 sponsors of this legislation, 
Republicans and Democrats, and bless their hearts, over 100 Members of 
our 113 delegation of freshmen members, Republican and Democrat, who 
have sponsored this bill. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking 
member, the Speaker and the leadership on my side and their willingness 
to work together to get Congress to come under the same laws that 
people in the private sector have to abide by and the executive branch. 
We are moving forward with this legislation. If the good will that 
existed in the Committee on House Administration can be seen in the 
Committee on Rules and on the floor of the House and ultimately on the 
Senate, I do not believe that the American people will long be able to 
say, ``Well, why is it, Congressman, that I have to live by laws that 
you do not have to live by?'' That day has to end. I think the best way 
is for it to end on a bipartisan basis. The fact is we have to abide by 
the laws everyone else lives by and also we just need to recognize that 
that is just a basic tenet of a democratic system where Congress cannot 
be above the law. It is also a fact that we will write better laws if 
we have to live and experience the laws that everyone else has to.
  I am today very grateful to the leadership on both sides of the aisle 
and to the Committee on House Administration and directly to my 
colleague in this effort, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Swett], 
and to the freshmen and the other members who have cosigned this bill 
and have wanted it to move forward.
  Now I get into the main piece that I wanted to talk about today for 
the period of time that I have available, and I want to talk in terms 
of process and not personalities but to express a deep concern I have, 
that Congress needs to clean its own house, that we have got to restore 
our integrity, and if we are not willing to do it, who will?
  The first allegations of wrongdoing in our post office were made over 
3 years ago and they involved allegedly powerful Members of Congress. 
The first allegations were made at that time and there has not been any 
real action. The Committee on House Administration has evidently 
conducted an investigation and that has been used as an excuse not to 
move forward with the full body really looking into this issue.
  There was an ongoing criminal investigation of particular Members of 
our body and people who worked here, and used as an excuse that there 
was a criminal investigation and that we should not focus in on any 
Member before this Chamber.
  There is now an indictment and a pending court case. So the argument 
is that we should not get into this issue. Then there are arguments 
that say Congress should not be preoccupied by scandals and all this is 
a partisan bashing.
  Mr. Speaker, I just have to express my deep concern that we have got 
to move forward. If we are not willing to move forward and tell the 
truth and not willing to clean our own house, Congress will deserve to 
be criticized and despised by the people that we represent.
  When allegations involving one of the most powerful men in Washington 
are made, no one seems to be eager to confront the issue and to insist 
we get to the bottom of the matter. I believe that we are setting a 
dangerous precedent and practice by refusing to investigate powerful 
leaders. We send the explicit message to our constituents and our 
colleagues that it is acceptable to break the law or not to play by the 
rules if the person accused of wrongdoing is powerful enough. We send a 
message that as lawmakers we can be intimidated if the person accused 
of wrongdoing is powerful enough. We send a message that as lawmakers 
we can be intimidated and also we send the message that Congress, the 
greatest deliberative body in the world, does not put a premium on 
setting and maintaining the standards of ethical behavior if the person 
accused of wrongdoing is powerful enough.

  This is not the message in my judgment that Congress should be 
sending. If Congress does not investigate whether its own rules have 
been ignored, who will?
  With that in mind, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Klug] and I 
wrote a letter on June 22 to ask that we be allowed to meet with the 
House Ethics Committee to discuss an indictment against a Member of our 
House, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rostenkowski], that was made 
public, and that letter was dated June 22 and never responded to by the 
House Ethics Committee. Because of the lack of response, I filed a 
formal complaint in a letter of June 30 outlining my concerns based on 
the indictment of the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rostenkowski]. I 
filed a formal complaint. I just want to register that this complaint, 
dated June 30, has not been responded to by the House Ethics Committee. 
The process that we have to deal with complaints like this must be 
addressed. It seemed to me that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Klug] 
and I were deserving of a response to our letter to meet with the 
Ethics Committee, and it seems to me that clearly once a complaint has 
been filed, it has now been almost a month since I filed the complaint 
against the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Rostenkowski], and to date I 
have heard nothing in regard to that complaint.
  What I find particularly ironic is that the gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. Rostenkowski] has made the point before the court that this is a 
matter of House rules and that we need to address this issue through 
the House Ethics Committee. In other words, his own lawyers in the 
court are making that argument.
  One of the arguments that is being presented to not move forward on 
this issue is the fact that we would, in fact, interfere with a 
criminal investigation and now an ongoing court case. But I would like 
to make reference to the fact that as a member of the HUD 
investigation, the House Subcommittee on Employment, Housing and 
Aviation of the Committee on Government Operations, we conducted an 
investigation of HUD that lasted over a year. During the course of our 
investigation, we uncovered so much wrongdoing on the part, 
regretfully, of Republicans under Samuel Pierce's administration that 
we felt impelled to ask that an independent counsel be appointed. We 
asked that this independent counsel be appointed, and he has, Mr. Arlen 
Adams.
  We did not stop our investigation. We continued to move forward. But 
we moved in concert with the independent counsel. The end result is 
that we passed major reform legislation, H.R. 1 of HUD, and we then let 
our work go forward with the prosecutor when we had concluded our 
investigation, passed our legislation for reform, passed our reports 
about the wrongdoing we had found and gave it to Mr. Arlen Adams, the 
independent counsel. He has subsequently had 14 convictions following 
trials or guilty pleas. And he was recovered more than $2 million of 
fines. The excuse that has been used to not move forward has been that 
we do not want to end up with what we ended up with in Iran-Contra. But 
there is a big difference. The big difference was that an individual 
was given immunity, Oliver North, and he used that immunity and 
expanded on his testimony. Then when he was prosecuted, the court said 
he had been given immunity.
  Mr. Speaker, there is no reason to give immunity. And as Arlen Adams 
has said to me directly when I asked him, I said, ``Did our committee 
help or hurt you?''
  He said, ``Of course your committee helped, so long as you did not 
give immunity.'' We were tempted to give immunity to one individual, 
and he asked us not to, and he told us why.

                              {time}  1920

  He said that individual, Deborah Gore Dean, needed to be prosecuted, 
so no immunity was given to her. We did not find out certain things we 
would have liked to, but we continued, and the fact is we have had a 
tremendous success.
  I would end my comments by pointing out that today the gentleman from 
Wisconsin, Mr. Scott Klug, and I have written to Mr. Bowsher who is 
basically the Comptroller General of the U.S. Government, asking the 
GAO to do an investigation of our office supply store to see if in fact 
the allegations that Mr. Rostenkowski has made that he is one of many 
who have done these things, to see one, if that is true, and then if in 
fact it is true to establish that the GAO make recommendations for any 
other wrongdoing that they may find involving any other Member.
  The bottom line is that this should not be an excuse, that other 
Members have done something in the supply store. The bottom line is if 
other Members have done this, they too should be prosecuted. Bottom 
line, the Ethics Committee should follow through on the complaint that 
I offered, should give me the courtesy of a response and move forward. 
There is simply, absolutely no excuse for inaction in this way.

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