[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 117 (Thursday, August 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          HEALTH SECURITY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Iowa.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa [Mr. Grassley], is 
recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment that 
is pending. But we are not hearing anything from the other side of the 
aisle about the pending amendment because I think it is very difficult 
for people on the other side of the aisle, or even anybody on this side 
of the aisle, to defend secrecy in Government. So you are hearing 
debates on everything else other than the Mack amendment from the other 
side of the aisle.
  But since they have raised some issues unrelated to the pending 
amendment, I would like to take just a little bit of my time to respond 
to some of those points that have been made, because we have spent a 
lot of time this afternoon on other subjects of health care. That has 
been the point of departure expressed on the other side of the aisle, 
because in talking about other issues, they can avoid the issue of 
whether or not we ought to have secrecy in Government, which this 
legislation provides for.
  It is kind of like a graduate seminar on how to reshuffle one-seventh 
of the gross national product. The other side of the aisle--those who 
have great faith that Government always does well, always does good--do 
not really want us to focus on the fact that a 1,400-page bill would do 
that.
  So instead they want to talk about the health care that Members of 
Congress have. They do not even want to talk about it factually, as 
they should. I think that is demonstrated by the points that my good 
friend from Alaska, Senator Stevens, made a couple hours ago.
  They are making a point about having health care like we in Congress 
have. But what the American people are sending from the grassroots is a 
very clear message, that they are very scared of what Congress is going 
to do to their, our people's, our constituents' health care plans, when 
Congress acts.
  There is a message coming up from the grassroots, that if you in 
Washington have a problem like people who are uninsured, then take care 
of that problem. But do not screw up our health care plans.
  The 1,400 page bill before us will screw up a lot of the good health 
care plans that Americans have already.
  I would like to refer to the cafeteria plan of the employees of the 
Pella Corp., Pella, IA, a Dutch community that every spring has a 
famous festival of the tulips. This Pella Corp. manufactures 
outstanding Pella windows, windows for homes, windows generally, an 
outstanding product, a very good company, I believe a very profitable 
company, with a very good plan of health care for their employees, a 
cafeteria plan that can be tailored to the needs of each individual 
employee.
  This 1,400 page bill that we have before us will do away with 
cafeteria plans in America, so that those employees at Pella who are so 
satisfied with their programs will have to go into some plan that 
cannot be tailored to individual family needs.
  What does this bill do with the plans for the self-insured? Remember 
this, that there are 22 million employees in America covered by self-
insured plans and for all of those who are working at a place with less 
than 500 employees, the legislation before us does away with the health 
coverage of those people.
  Twenty-two million Americans if this was over 1,000 employees would 
be deprived of this option. And so you talk about the health care, on 
the other side of the aisle, that we have in the Congress of the United 
States because you want to avoid what this 1,400 page bill does to the 
health care plans of a lot of American workers.
  What these American workers are sending in their message to Congress 
is that they just want to be left alone. That is a plea that we ought 
to hear as we try to take care of the problems of those who are not 
insured. We ought to be able to do it in a way that we do not foul up 
other people's health plans.
  Now, to the issue before us, the issue of secrecy, the people who 
back this bill want this National Health Board to be able to meet in 
secrecy. They have great faith in Government. So, consequently, they 
have greater faith if that Government can act in secret.
  The New York Times had this to say about the First Lady's task force 
when it was meeting in secret. The New York Times reported: ``It is 
easier to find out who is in charge of military intelligence for the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff than to find out who is designing cost controls 
for President's Clinton's health care plan.''
  This spirit of secrecy has permeated the deliberations of the 
executive branch, their plan presented to Congress last fall, and it 
has found its way into a supposedly whole new approach in the Clinton-
Mitchell bill.
  To exempt, then, the deliberations of these boards from the FACA now 
in spite of the plain meaning of this statute, the proponents of this 
legislation do not want to conduct the business of these policymaking 
boards in the sunshine. The position of the authors of this legislation 
is very disappointing, particularly because they represent the party of 
a President who rode into Washington on a horse called ``Change.'' Some 
of the arguments that are put forward in support of secrecy by the 
national board or even by the lawyers who are trying to defend the 
secrecy of the First Lady's task force stretch credulity.
  You might be able to argue, on the one hand, as the Justice 
Department did, that Mrs. Clinton's position as First Lady was a very 
unique status and might exempt her from the Federal Advisory Committee 
Act, the act that the national board is exempted from here. But it 
seems quite a different thing to say that actual determination of the 
national board ought to be exempted.
  Obviously, complying with the Federal Advisory Committee Act is not 
as efficient or as pleasant for the executive branch as meeting in 
secret and cooking up a health care plan or making policy decisions on 
whatever we pass in the basement of some Government bureaucracy, kind 
of a shadow Government-type approach to policymaking.
  Our Government, does not always make efficiency the highest value.
  The court chided the administration for seeking ``the judicial 
rewriting of an inconvenient statute.'' Judge Lamberth regretted, as I 
do, that one of the first actions taken by a new President is in direct 
violation of a statute enacted by Congress.
  But the decision was not a complete victory on behalf of open 
government. Because in addition to the task force itself, 300 to 400 
experts have formed working groups to devise a health care plan. Their 
identity, according to the New York Times, is treated as a White House 
secret, and they have been told not to discuss their work. In fact, few 
have been identified and their status in the Government is murky at 
best.
  The court held that the Federal Advisory Committee Act is 
unconstitutional as applied to these cluster groups. It found that 
requiring openings at the meetings of these groups would violate the 
President's power under article II, section 3 to make legislative 
recommendations to Congress.
  But it is within these cluster groups that the detailed work of 
devising a national health care system is being done. These cluster 
group meetings are closed to the public. The specific issues being 
addressed by particular cluster groups are not even fully known to the 
public. These cluster groups compose the health care task force, and as 
such should be subject to the same laws as the task force itself. It is 
simply fiction to suggest that the cluster groups are somehow distinct 
from the task force itself.
  The President stated before the court decision that opening task 
force deliberations:

       Would be like opening the White House at every staff 
     meeting we have. We can't do that.

  Unfortunately, this statement misses the point of the statute. 
Opening task force working group meetings to the public is not at all 
like opening White House staff meetings. The President has every right 
to keep private the meetings of his staff at which policy is developed. 
His staff also can certainly meet privately with individuals. But the 
formal cluster groups include many individuals from the private sector 
whose identities have not been publicly announced. Who are these 
people? What interests do they represent? What interests are gaining 
access to the making of very important public policy unbeknownst to the 
public?
  Reports indicate that many of the outside advisors are academics. The 
assumption, I suppose, is that they are neutral experts without 
interests to advance and protect, or without ideological axes to grind. 
Unfortunately, that is not the way the world works. The fact that they 
might be academics certainly does not provide sufficient assurances 
that they are without real-world commitments. If the President is not 
going to have his own advisers develop health care policy, then the 
public has every right to know who is developing it.
  Could I have 5 additional minutes, please? If you do not have it, I 
can understand.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I do not have it. I have six more people coming, and I 
have less than an hour and a half.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I ask my colleagues to adopt the Mack amendment because 
we ought to be doing everything in the sunshine. If we do, the mold 
will not grow there.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. I like that for the closing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Mississippi.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Oregon for yielding me some time and for the outstanding job he is 
doing as one of the managers of the bill, along with, of course, the 
distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee.
  Mr. President, earlier I tried to make a point of order to inquire 
about what we were debating. We have talked baseball, crime, health 
care, just about everything has been discussed on the other side of the 
aisle but the issue and the amendment before us.
  The issue is secrecy. I just wanted to remind the Members what the 
amendment that is actually pending here, because it would be very 
difficult to figure it out if you were actually listening to the debate 
as we go back and forth.
  But I think it is very appropriate that it has been offered by the 
Senator from Florida--the Sunshine State. This is a sunshine amendment. 
Let us let the Sun shine in. Let us find out exactly what these boards 
and commissions are going to be doing if, in fact, they are created, 
which I certainly hope they will not be.
  I think we have found with this amendment another bullet in the 
Lethal Weapon 3, which is what we have called the latest rendition of 
the Clinton-Mitchell bill. The bullet here is secrecy. And it is not 
just an accident.
  We heard yesterday on the $10,000 penalty, ``Oh, gee, surprise. We 
really did not know that was in there.''
  We all knew it was there, though, the truth be known.
  And now, we have another surprise, another bullet.
  Secrecy? Oh, you mean this bill? This monstrous bill allows for 
boards and commissions that will determine the future health of the 
American people to be determined in secret? How could that be?
  Well, let us talk about that. And that is what this amendment is all 
about.
  On the other side of the aisle, you cannot say that ``This is once 
again something we did not know was in there, so we will accept your 
amendment. We embrace it. We love it to death. No, we did not want 
secrecy.''
  It is in here repeatedly and it is a very fundamental point that is 
involved. This amendment would require that all boards, commissions, 
and advisory committees established under the Clinton-Mitchell bill 
operate in sunshine. The Clinton bill exempts the National Health 
Benefits Board in section 1216 of the bill. It also exempts the 
National Health Care Cost and Coverage Commission in section 10005, and 
the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research in section 3202(c) from 
Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Government and Sunshine Act.
  Under these acts, it says that a Federal board, panel, and committee 
must meet in public. Let the public know the agenda, permit interested 
persons to attend and testify, make records of what happened, keep 
detailed minutes; basically just to keep it open and let everybody see 
what is going on within their government. These are Federal employees.
  So that is what the amendment would do. It would strike out the 
secrecy in this bill and say they must all be public hearings.
  Now, I think the reason why we are in trouble here is because this 
whole process began in secret. We had the task force put together by 
the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, and Ira Magaziner a year and a half or 
so ago. They met in secret. Then we found that those recommendations 
were sent to Congress. And eventually the bill that is before us, the 
Clinton-Mitchell bill, was compiled in secret. The Finance Committee 
had a meeting in the public. They had debate, they had votes on into 
the night, and something came out, an outline came out. And then there 
was a bill developed behind that.
  But this one was something that has been merged together, again in 
some meetings back here in the back corridors. So, again, secrecy was 
involved.
  Now we are saying, let us air it out, let us find out what is in the 
bill. But the bill, as a matter of fact, has in it the requirement that 
these boards and commissions could or would also meet in secrecy. I do 
not think the American people want that with their health care.
  Next month, the Clinton administration must go to trial. The First 
Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and her health care aide, Ira Magaziner 
will have to testify about the so-called health care task force that 
created the original Clinton health plan.
  Three groups, including the Association of American Physicians and 
Surgeons Inc., sued the Clinton task force in February 1993, saying 
that the task force violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This 
act says that if a task force is not made up totally of Federal 
employees, then the panel must meet in public.
  Mr. President, the secret Clinton health care task force worked in 
secret. The inner workings of this task force were kept away from the 
American people. You would think that an issue which affects all 
Americans would be discussed openly, and decisions made by a health 
care task force would have public input.
  The First Lady and Mr. Magaziner, though, refused to open their 
meetings to the public--they refused to tell the American people what 
they were doing. Mr. Magaziner testified under oath in March 1993 that 
only Federal employees were on the secret task force--so the Federal 
Advisory Committee Act didn't apply to them.
  Now the Clinton administration has changed its tune. Mr. Lloyd 
Cutler, the White House counsel, says today that the White House will 
release all documents related to the task force--in 3 weeks. How 
convenient. Let's wait until we're done here on Capitol Hill, then 
spill the beans. Thank you, Mr. Cutler.
  When lawyers for the groups who brought suit found about 357 people 
on the task force who were not Federal employees, the First Lady and 
Mr. Magaziner say now the task force had nothing to do with President 
Clinton or his health plan. The way Mr. Magaziner put it, all those 500 
to 1,000 people were in the Old Executive Building chatting about 
health care over tea and cookies on Government expense.
  Why on January 25 of this year, during his State of the Union 
Address, did the President thank the task force and his wife for work 
on health care? Why did Mr. Magaziner, in a letter to the court, say 
that the task force's goal was to ``prepare comprehensive health care 
reform legislation.'' Let's be honest here--the Clinton-Magaziner 
secret task force was charged by the President to create a plan for the 
gargantuan Government takeover of health care, the remnants of which--
the Clinton-Mitchell bill--we are considering today.
  If the administration loses next month, the White House will have to 
repay the almost $20 million spent on the task force, mostly made up of 
special interest representatives.
  The reason why we have the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the 
Government in the Sunshine Act is to stop things like what happened 
with the secret health care task force. The Clinton-Magaziner task 
force was mostly made up of people who had an interest in heavily-
regulated, Government-directed health care. Representatives from two 
managed care proponents--the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Robert 
Wood Johnson Foundation were on the panel. Legislation dealing with 
one-seventh of the economy and all Americans should not be made in the 
dark by special interests.
  It's comical that the excuse the First Lady and Mr. Magaziner used 
for the task force's secrecy was that they didn't want ``special 
interests'' to pressure the task force participants. There was no 
pressure, alright--the special interests were the task force 
representatives.
  So we have an administration that came to town and said there would 
be no more business as usual. They were right--they now do their 
business in the dark, away from the American people. We have an 
administration that said it wanted to get rid of special interest 
influence. We see, though, that the Clintons have turned the White 
House into a Romper Room for special interests.
  The Clinton-Mitchell bill continues to hold up this veil of secrecy. 
The bill exempts several bureaucracies it created from the Federal 
Advisory Committee Act, including the National Health Board, which sets 
the standards benefits package; the National Health Care Cost and 
Coverage Commission; and the Agency for Health Care Policy and 
Research. Clinton-Mitchell also exempts certain panels it creates from 
the Government in the Sunshine Act.
  The Mack-Coats amendment, which should be passed, makes all of these 
bodies open to the public. These bodies would have to meet in public, 
publish notices of meetings in the Federal Register, allow interested 
people to attend the meetings, and keep minutes of proceedings.
  The Mack-Coats amendment makes sense to me. The boards that would 
tell Americans what health benefits are ``medically appropriate,'' the 
commissions that would put heavy mandates on businesses, the panels 
that would determine the direction of a Clinton-Mitchell health care 
system--shouldn't all of these bodies be open to the American people?
  This amendment would stop callous social engineers like Mr. 
Magaziner, who care nothing for ordinary Americans. The arrogance of 
power can only be curtailed by letting the American people participate 
in debates. How many Magaziners would, without this amendment, try to 
foist harmful policies on this country through Clinton-Mitchell's 
boards, commissions and panels? I urge my colleagues to support Mack-
Coats--vote to stop Mr. Magaziner from meeting again. Vote for the 
American people's right to know.

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