[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 104 (Tuesday, August 2, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
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]

 
        MEANINGFUL HEALTH CARE REFORM, NOT POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Deutsch). 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 4 
minutes.
  Mr. THOMAS of Wyoming. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the Congress to 
undertake to adopt a health care plan based on good policy, not based 
simply on political expediency, not based on political theater, not 
based on the fact that the Clinton care has basically been rejected, 
and now we just have a couple of weeks to do something and, therefore, 
we have to do whatever is expedient politically. Instead we ought to be 
doing those kinds of things that have general agreement that will move 
our health delivery system toward a more complete one by doing the 
things that we know we can do.
  There are fundamental changes that need to be made in the health care 
system. We need to take advantage of this opportunity to do it. I 
admire very much the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton have brought the 
health care debate to a very high level, and it has been going on for 
some time, and I think we have had a pretty thorough discussion of 
alternatives for health care, all the way from single payer, Canadian 
kinds through the government-run Clinton care program, through 
extensive changes in universal care and the private sector to doing 
some fundamental things of reforming insurance to tax reform.
  We have had a pretty good discussion of that. We have not come to a 
conclusion other than the fact that at least in my State of Wyoming 
there has been very little support for the idea of taking one-seventh 
of the American economy that has to do with health care and converting 
it to a Government delivery kind of health care program.
  Having had that kind of reaction, it seems to me that we need to do 
the things that we fundamentally can agree to do here, and there are a 
number of principles that ought to be considered, it seems to me. One 
of them is we ought to accept the fact that Government is too big and 
spends too much. If we incorporate the kind of single payer plan, the 
kind of Clinton care program we will have the largest entitlement 
program this country has ever seen brought to us with 2 weeks of 
debate. Certainly that is a policy that we should not accept.
  Second, we ought to do no harm. I think many have not recognized that 
much of the governmental program that is talked about is financed by 
reductions in spending in Medicare and Medicaid, $140 million over a 
period of time for Medicare. I think this is a policy that we should 
not accept.
  We should also understand the impacts that this kind of change would 
have on business. These are some of the principles.
  If we believe in those kinds of things, then there are a number of 
things that we can indeed so. We can keep the delivery system in the 
private sector. We can make fundamental changes, we can make changes in 
insurance so people are not canceled because of utilization, so they 
are not denied because of previous experiences, that is portable, we 
can be that, and that is the system to finance. I think it should be 
those kinds of changes that we should make.
  We can make changes in liability, tort reform, a change that has been 
needed for a very long time. If our hope and our aspiration is to 
control the cost, the growth, tort reform is an essential element in 
that. We can do something about administrative costs. We have been 
studying that now for 3 years. We can do it. Electronic billing, many 
things we can do. We can preserve the security of medical records. 
These are things we can do.
  I come from a rural State. We can do a number of things there. We can 
change the definition of hospital so that something less than a full 
hospital can be reimbursed from Medicare and Medicaid for a stabilizing 
facility or an emergency facility in small towns where you cannot have 
a hospital.
  We can do something with telemedicine in rural areas so 
that we can have the expertise of specialists in small towns like 
Basin, WY.
  So I suggest to my colleagues that we do those things we can do, we 
make some fundamental changes and stay out of the area of political 
expediency when it comes to health care.

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