[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              THE CLINTON PLAN--LABOR WITHOUT PAINKILLERS

                                 ______


                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 2, 1994

  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit into the Record a 
column which recently appeared in the Washington Times, written by 
syndicated columnist Mona Charen. It draws to your attention the 
importance of maintaining a proper perspective when considering a huge 
government overhaul of the health care system.

                      Health Care Hesitation * * *

       Recently, Senate Minority Leader Robert Dole, Kansas 
     Republican, paused in the middle of a speech to issue a 
     special thanks to the president and first lady for keeping 
     the issue of health-care reform at the ``front and center'' 
     of the nation's attention.
       That is exactly what is wrong with the Republican Party. 
     Sen. Malcolm Wallop, Wyoming Republican, captured the 
     ``Stockholm Syndrome'' afflicting Republicans perfectly when 
     he said that if the Democrats proposed legislation to burn 
     down the Library of Congress, the Republicans would respond 
     with a three-year phase-in.
       Republicans are afraid of the popularity of health-care 
     reform. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps even after they are 
     given all of the facts, the American people will choose the 
     Rube Goldberg, bureaucratic behemoth that the Clintons have 
     advanced.
       But the American people will certainly get no opportunity 
     to make a sensible choice if Republicans roll over, failing 
     to make any philosophical or practical arguments against 
     reform.
       If the Clinton proposal is a terrible idea, then it is 
     silly for the Republican leader to thank the administration 
     for proposing it. It's like Michael Fay thanking Singapore 
     for keeping the law-and-order issue ``front and center.''
       The leaders of the Republican Party have abdicated their 
     role on health care, leaving it to private citizens to 
     marshal that arguments. One such extraordinary individual is 
     Dr. Gonzalo M. Sanchez of Sioux Falls, S.D.
       Dr. Sanchez is a pilot, a hunter, a wildlife photographer, 
     the father of four had a neurosurgeon who loves his adopted 
     country and hates what the Clintons propose to do to it and 
     to his chosen vocation. And so, Dr. Sanchez published two 
     closely reasoned, fact-rich newspaper advertisements in the 
     Sioux Falls Argus Leader about health care in America.
       He took aim at the false premises on which the Clinton plan 
     is based. Costs are not (surprise!) spiraling out of control. 
     In 1990, according to Labor Department figures, health-care 
     costs increased by 9.6 percent. By 1993, the rate of increase 
     had dropped to 5.4 percent.
       But costs are high. Is it because doctors, nurses and 
     hospitals are greedy? Hardly. Costs are high because 
     government-funded programs like Medicare and Medicaid create 
     unlimited demand for medical services. Also, costs are high 
     because medical care has become ever more sophisticated and 
     effective. Patients, like heart-attack victims and premature 
     infants, who only a few years ago would have died, now live 
     and rack up health-care expenses.
       Costs are high because America's social pathologies--
     specifically urban violence and illegitimacy--create special 
     burdens for the health-care system. Illegitimate babies are 
     far more likely to be low birth weight and therefore at 
     greater risk for birth defects, illnesses and early death.
       And finally, costs are high because American culture 
     demands valiant efforts to preserve life, no matter what the 
     cost. This sets us apart from other countries, like Germany, 
     which does not fund life-prolonging treatment for the 
     terminally ill.
       What about the cost of imposing the Clintons' huge, 
     bureaucratic octopus? When Medicare was introduced in the 
     mid-1960s, Dr. Sanchez reminds us, President Johnson 
     projected that its cost would reach $8 billion by 1990. He 
     was off by $90 billion. The Clintons claim that their monster 
     would cost $700 billion. Expect that figure to be low as 
     well.
       That will mean higher taxes. Higher taxes will mean less 
     economic growth. Less economic growth will mean more poverty. 
     And more poverty will mean, you guessed it, fewer healthy 
     Americans.
       Why even talk of a massive overhaul of the best health 
     system in the world when all that needs fixing are some gaps 
     in insurance coverage? Because, argues Dr. Sanchez, the 
     Clintons are not really concerned about improving your health 
     care--their true aim is the vast enlargement of government 
     authority that health reform would mean.
       If they succeed, the most intimate decisions we make, like 
     when to get a mammogram or a TPA test to screen for prostate 
     cancer, will be dictated by interest groups politics. In 
     Canada, some women are being denied access to epidurals in 
     childbirth, partly to save money and partly because feminists 
     oppose them.
       Labor without painkillers seems a pretty good metaphor for 
     the Clinton health plan.

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