[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 111 (Thursday, August 11, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT IN HEALTH CARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cardin] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. Speaker, I take this time to review one of the bills 
that was filed last night with the Committee on Rules as an alternative 
or substitute to the Majority Leader Gephardt's bill on health care 
reform. I know my colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. 
DeLauro] will be taking more time later this evening in a special order 
for 1 hour to review the various proposals, but I thought it was 
important that we at least bring out the fact that many of us have been 
looking to what substitutes will be filed so we can compare those bills 
to the bill that was filed by the majority leader, the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], to see whether any of these substitutes live 
up to any of the standards that I think the majority of this House and 
the majority of the American people want in health care reform.

                              {time}  1820

  First and foremost, we certainly appreciate our colleagues being 
willing to get involved in this debate. One of the substitutes that 
were filed is the so-called bipartisan bill that was filed by my 
colleague, Mr. Rowland, that I would like to talk a little bit about, 
because I think many of us were encouraged by bipartisan efforts.
  We want bipartisan efforts. We want Democrats and Republicans to work 
together on health care reform. But we also want to make sure at the 
end of the day that we have real health care reform, that the bill 
carries out our commitment to the American people to provide universal 
coverage and affordable health care.
  The so-called bipartisan bill, unfortunately, fails any reasonable 
test. If you look at what we need to do in health care reform, it fails 
in each and every one of the essential ingredients that we think is 
important in health care reform.
  Let me go through some of the standards that I hope my colleagues 
will look at in reviewing these alternative bills. First, universal 
coverage. Does the bill provide universal coverage? The Gephardt bill 
does, no mistake about it. We get universal coverage, 100 percent 
coverage.
  Some of my colleagues have been urging that 100 percent is not 
realistic. Let us go to 95 percent. Many of the people on the 
bipartisan effort said we will accept the 95 percent as the standard. 
Yet the bill brought out by Mr. Rowland by his own admission would 
accomplish maybe 90 percent by the year 2002. That is assuming we get 
full funding for the subsidies in the bill.
  Let me tell you, the prior bills that were filed by many of the 
people behind the bipartisan bill at least had the courage to have 
revenues in them. This bill does not. The Rowland bill does not. So we 
are led to believe that without revenues, the subsidies are going to be 
financed. Yet there is a provision in the bill that automatically 
reduces the subsidies if monies are not available.
  So I think it is reasonable to expect we are not going to have enough 
money to subsidize at 200 percent of the poverty level that Mr. Rowland 
put in his bill, so we will not even accomplish the goal he set out, 
the 90 percent, let alone 95 or 100 percent of the people covered by 
insurance. There is still going to be over 30 million people without 
health insurance. Quite frankly, I think we might find in 10 years we 
have made no progress in getting the uninsured covered.

  Why is that important? It continues cost shifting. It makes it 
impossible for us to really control any reasonable health care system 
for a more orderly way of organizing the system. It makes it difficult 
for doctors and health care providers to locate in poor neighborhoods 
and rural areas where a lot of people do not have insurance.
  We continue the cost shift for those who have insurance to those who 
do not. The people that really get stuck under the Rowland bill will 
the middle-income people. The poor will have subsidies, the wealthy can 
afford insurance, and the working person, middle-income person, is the 
person who has no benefits.
  Let me just give you a couple of concrete examples. A working couple, 
husband and wife, they would have to pay $4,600 to get health insurance 
under the Rowland bill, or 22 percent of their income. Under the 
Gephardt bill, that same couple would only have to pay $351 a year.
  Let's talk about a family, a husband, wife, and children. Under the 
Rowland bill that family may have to lay out of pocket $6,175 a year. I 
do not think that is reasonable to expect, that a working family can 
afford that. Yet under the Gephardt bill, they would be asked to pay a 
little over $1,000.
  How about those people who have insurance today, the working people 
who do have insurance? Under the Rowland bill they have a very good 
chance to see their premiums go up by a substantial amount, because you 
cannot do insurance reform unless you have universal coverage. The 
Rowland bill does not have universal coverage. It attempts to do 
insurance reform, and that is a formula for increasing the burden for 
working people who currently have insurance today.
  Another major goal of health care reform is cost containment. We all 
know that we cannot sustain the ever-increasing cost of health care. We 
must bring down the overall growth rate.
  The Rowland bill does absolutely nothing. I hope my colleagues will 
take the time to evaluate these bills, and I think if they do, they 
will find only the Gephardt bill accomplishes real health care reform.

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