[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 106 (Thursday, August 4, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          CLINTON-GEPHARDT BILL: MORE GOVERNMENT, LESS QUALITY

                                 ______


                            HON. RON PACKARD

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, August 4, 1994

  Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, the Clinton-Gephardt bill now before 
Congress represents everything that Americans dislike about 
Washington--a huge, intrusive, government, one-size fits all approach 
which limits choice, threatens quality, and increases cost.
  The Clinton-Gephardt bill sets up a huge bureaucracy with the power 
to regulate the entire health care system. This plan will force the 
American people to spend their health care dollars on 50,000 new 
bureaucrats responsible for making decisions about their health care.
  And what can the American people look forward to when this complex 
system of price controls is introduced--rationing. To see rationing at 
work, one must only look at another government-run experiment in health 
care, the local VA hospital. Even at the best VA facilities, patients 
who need special care like heart or orthopedic procedures must wait 60 
to 90 days to see a specialist and then months more for needed surgery 
or treatments.
  Routine care also suffers. Over half such patients, reports GAO, wait 
1 to 3 hours to be seen briefly by a doctor burdened with increasing 
numbers of patients and piles of Government forms. Little wonder that 
90 percent of the Nations 27 million veterans turn to private hospitals 
rather than the free VA facilities.
  Imagine what it would be like if all Americans had the choice of 
rationed care in a government-run system.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to institute health care reform which ensures 
the kind of quality and choice the American people deserve.

                          ____________________