[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 116 (Wednesday, August 17, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           HEALTH CARE REFORM

                                 ______


                            HON. RON PACKARD

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, August 17, 1994

  Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, like those old-time snake oil salesmen, 
President Clinton and the liberal leadership hawk the Clinton-Gephardt 
bill as a health care system cure all. But just like snake oil, their 
remedy for reform is a sham.
  They claim that the Clinton-Gephardt bill is a cost-containment 
measure. But if you look at the ingredients, you find the same old 
prescription the liberals in Congress always Dole out: More government 
bureaucracy mixed in with higher taxes.
  If the American public is forced to swallow this brew, the side 
effects could be deadly: health care rationing and reduced quality. 
This is hardly, what the American people want from health care reform.
  The proposal calls for a national health cost commission to monitor 
the growth of health care expenditures. A group of unelected 
bureaucrats would decide what care they feel is appropriate for 
Americans. Mr. Speaker, I always thought that was the doctor's job.
  The cost of global budgets and price controls would fall squarely on 
middle-class patients. Meeting the Clinton-Gephardt global budget goals 
would require a 24 percent reduction in available health care resources 
by the year 2000--effectively rationing one quarter of our health care 
system.
  This will reduce quality and access to care. Doctors and hospitals 
would no longer provide the best, most advanced, most sophisticated 
care. Instead, patients can look forward to long lines and delays, if 
they can get health care at all.
  Mr. Speaker, what the American people need is not more feel-good 
tonic, but real medicine. They need health care reform that will work. 
I urge my colleagues to read the Dole plan and the Michel plan. They 
contain real cost-containment measures which will not threaten the 
quantity and quality of our health care resources.

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