[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6900-H6905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MEDICARE CUTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. McDermott] is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to discuss the impact of
the proposed Republican Medicare and Medicaid cuts on American families
and the health delivery system as a whole.
The American people have heard a great deal of rhetoric from the
Republicans about how Medicare must be cut to save the trust fund.
The Republicans want you to believe that they are being forced to
make drastic cuts in your Medicare benefits because the system is about
to collapse. But the first thing I want to say to you tonight is that
the Republican Medicare cuts have nothing whatsoever to do with saving
the Medicare trust fund.
We can all agree that health care costs in general and Medicare costs
in particular must be contained to assure long-term security for our
Nation and its senior citizens.
In fact, if the Republicans were to be totally honest, they would
tell you that the real problem for Medicare comes in 2010 when the
first of the baby-boomers enter the program and Medicare enrollment
expands dramatically.
The Republican Medicare cut proposal does nothing to confront the
real Medicare solvency problem.
In the short run, we can and should stabilize the Medicare trust fund
and assure that we can keep our promises to the American people, but
this is nothing new. The stability of the Medicare trust fund has
always required attention.
In the mid-1970's, the Medicare trust fund was due to expire in 2
years. The same problem recurred in the early 1980's. A 7-year window
for the trust fund is about average.
We have always moved quickly and responsibly to keep the trust fund
solvent. Under a Republican majority, this will be very difficult, but
Democrats are committed to preserving Medicare without breaking our
commitment to senior citizens and their families.
In trying to understand these Medicare cuts ask yourself, Why are the
Republicans making such drastic and painful cuts? Can't you save
Medicare without hurting older Americans?
The answer is yes. But the Republicans need to cut $270 billion out
of Medicare so that they can pay for their tax cuts to the well-off and
balance the budget by an arbitrary date they picked from a campaign
booklet.
They need $270 billion from Medicare to pay for a $245 billion tax
cut. They are simply using Medicare as the bank to pay for tax cuts and
deficit reduction.
The Medicare trust fund problem is not making these cuts happen. You
do not need to take $270 billion out of Medicare--as Republicans
propose to do--to save the trust fund.
It is hard to fully understand the magnitude of the cuts proposed by
the Republican majority in this Congress. Republicans have proposed
cutting substantially more funds from Medicare in the next 7 years than
the program spends for its entire costs in 1 year.
Republicans want to limit the rate of growth for the program that
provides health insurance to the oldest and the sickest in our
population to a rate of growth per person that is almost one-half of
the rate of growth per person for the private insurance industry.
The private health insurance industry provides insurance primarily to
people that are younger and healthier than the Medicare population.
Yet, private premiums and payments still will be almost double the
funding provided for the health insurance for the Nation's elderly
under the Republican proposal.
I put this chart up here because the blue is for the expected
Medicare voucher, and this is the cost, the green is what it costs in
the private sector. Each year you can see that the private sector is
going up much faster than the voucher is, and that is what is written
into their proposal. Senior citizens' out-of-pocket expenses are
estimated to increase by at least $3,500 per person under the
Republican proposal. Each Medicare beneficiary will have less health
care and fewer benefits as the number of Medicare beneficiaries grow,
while the dollars shrink, all to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy and
a budget tied to Wall Street instead of Main Street.
Now, as people are thinking about this, they really have to think,
how will these cuts be achieved? The strongest possibility promoted by
the Republicans is to issue vouchers to senior citizens to buy
insurance. But the kicker is that the value of the voucher won't be
enough to pay for an adequate insurance policy. Senior citizens will
have to pay for the difference between the value of the voucher and the
cost of the insurance policy. By the year 2002, the cost of private
insurance is expected to be 18 percent more than the Medicare voucher
is worth.
That is really what this chart is all about. They start out easy on
people. They give them the amount of money that an actual insurance
policy would cost in 1995. The next year they give them a little less
than it would cost, and by the year 2002, you can see that the voucher
will be worth $6,500, and they estimate that the cost of an adequate
policy to cover what is necessary will be $7,600. Now, that is $1,200
that the senior citizen will have to come up with out of their own
pocket because Medicare itself will not cover the cost.
{time} 2145
The result will be that seniors will be forced into the most
restrictive HMO's. Contrary, and I say again, contrary to the
Republican rhetoric, the vouchers will not be used to give seniors more
choice. They will not have more choice because they will not have the
money to buy an adequate policy. They will have to buy the cheapest
policy possible and if it is adequate or inadequate, that does not make
any difference to the Republicans. All they want to do is save the
money and force a tax increase on senior citizens of $1,200 a year.
Underfunded vouchers will lead to a loss of choice. They will be used
to take away the free choice of provider, the ability to decide which
physician you want to see, which hospital you want to be in. You are
going to be in an HMO, a managed care operation that will tell you,
``This is the doctor you can see. This is the hospital you must go
to.''
In the present Medicare program, senior citizens have the maximum
choice. They can go to any doctor, any hospital they want. Under the
Republican plan, if seniors cannot afford the difference, if they
cannot come up with
[[Page H 6901]]
the difference between what the voucher gives them and what the actual
cost is, they will have to go without health care or they will buy an
inadequate policy.
Remember, when the Republicans are ratcheting down the value of the
Medicare voucher, they are doing nothing to control costs. They are
simply holding down the cost of the voucher each year, but they are not
doing anything anywhere in this Congress to control the overall costs.
So the costs will continue to go up at a much faster rate. The gap
between the voucher and the health insurance price will be even bigger
over time.
Just for a second, think about who Medicare beneficiaries really are.
They are senior citizens, over 65, and they are the disabled in this
country who need medical care. You do not get on Medicare as a disabled
person unless you have a chronic illness and need the care; you have
had kidney disease and have had the need for dialysis, you need care,
so if you are 45 years old and you are on a Medicare program for
dialysis, you are there because that is how we are paying for it in
this country.
An increasing number of people in this country are over 85 years old,
and the overwhelming majority of
people on Medicare have an income of under $25,000 a year. You are
thinking about somebody making $25,000 a year having to come up with an
additional $1,200 to buy an adequate policy. It is these people that
the Republicans want to throw into the water to swim alone with an
underfunded voucher through the private insurance market.
Young healthy workers, for heaven's sakes, have great difficulty
assessing their health insurance options even with the help of
employers and with personnel counselors in their businesses. Senior
citizens will have none of these advantages as they try to select the
policy that will give them the greatest protection, provided they can
pay for it and can overcome the subtle strategies of the health
insurance industry to direct the less healthy customers away from their
companies.
Imagine if your father is, let's say, going to be 90 years old. He
has had a heart attack, he has had a stroke, he has some skin cancer,
he has a few problems, and he goes out with his little voucher in his
hand looking for an insurance company that is going to want to take
him. How many insurance companies are going to run out and meet him in
the street and say, ``Come on in, sir, we want to sell you insurance''?
They do not want these senior citizens who have illnesses. They want
young, healthy people, so they are going to try and pick off the
healthy seniors and let the sick ones, the ones who have got chronic
illnesses--as you get old, that is kind of what happens to you--those
people are going to be excluded from the system.
If the Republicans have their way with these cuts in Medicare, they
will be moving from a system of guaranteed health insurance for the
elderly and disabled to a health insurance lottery for those who can
afford it. Whether this policy will be adequate for you or not is going
to be sort of luck. Guaranteed health coverage for senior citizens will
become a distant memory.
It is bad enough on senior citizens, but it is even worse when you
think about it because imagine the families, the children and the
grandchildren of these senior citizens. When they find out that Mother
or Father or Grandma and Grandpa have not got adequate care, what are
they going to do? They are going to say, ``Well, sorry, Ma, too bad''?
Of course not. They are going to have to reach into their pocket and
pay the difference for Mom and Dad. That is what is going to happen.
For 30 years in this country there are people my age, 58 years old,
and younger, who have never one time had to think about the health care
of their parents. With the Republican proposal, they are going to be
forced, we are going to be forced, me and everyone else younger than me
is going to be forced to think about how they pay the difference for
their mother and father or their grandparents in this system.
The Republicans really want to put that obligation back on the plates
of young families. For 30 years, families have not had to choose
between Grandma's medical bills and whether they could send a child to
community college. But if this Republican budget and cuts in Medicare
passes, American families will be forced to face that decision.
It is not just senior citizens and their families that will be
affected The entire health care system rests on Medicare. it is the
major source of funding in many respects in our system. Major community
providers, the hospitals, doctors, nurses and so forth will be severely
compromised.
In my district in Seattle, these hospitals get as much as 60 percent
of their revenue from Medicare and Medicaid. With cuts of the kind of
magnitude suggested here, they simply will not be able to maintain the
same level of services to any patient, not just to Medicare patients,
but because they lose the Medicare revenue, they are going to have to
drop the level of care that they can offer across the board.
Academic medical centers. We are very proud in this country, we have
the best medical research and the best medical education in the world.
We brag about it. But the fact is that the funding for medical schools
is from the Medicare program. Medicare assumes a disproportioned burden
of the cost of training new physicians and the burden of the higher
costs of academic health centers.
With cuts of this magnitude, academic health centers will not be able
to continue training the same number of highly competent physicians.
The ability of academic health centers to provide our most
sophisticated treatment and care will be greatly diminished. Many
hospitals will not survive.
I have a letter from the head of the Harbor View Hospital in Seattle,
and he closes by saying this:
Harbor View is the only Level One trauma center in the
State of Washington serving a 4-State area. The magnitude of
these cuts is so huge that it presents a doomsday scenario
for Harbor View.
They expect to lose $125 million a year out of this proposal.
So it is not just senior citizens. It is not just their families. It
is not just the medical schools. It is the very highly trained and very
highly sophisticated trauma centers in this country.
Many hospitals, particularly rural hospitals, will not survive this
kind of budget. Everyone's access to health care will be reduced,
particularly in the rural areas.
As hospitals try and make up the revenues lost through Medicare and
Medicaid cuts, the private insurance rates are going to skyrocket if
you do not have them adequately funded for the senior citizens who are
there.
The bill will be passed to a senior citizen who does not have the
money. They are only making $25,000. If they have not got the money, it
becomes a bad debt for the hospital. The only way the hospital can get
that bad debt taken care of is to put it over onto the people who are
buying private insurance. That is called cost-shifting. You shift from
people who cannot pay to the people who are paying. If you reduce
Medicare, private insurance rates in this country will go up.
Medicare cuts for tax cuts and balanced budget politics will rob the
middle class of much of the economic security as well as the health
care security. We need to protect the entire American family, old,
young, middle-aged, and the quality and stability of American health
care, by opposing the Medicare cuts that the Republicans are offering.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman
from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], for some comments that she has.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank and appreciate the very salient and focused
commentary of the gentleman from Washington [Mr. McDermott], and
reasoned explanation to the American people.
The reason why we have taken the time to study this issue, I think we
are all grappling with trying to clear away the smoke and mirrors and
focus on reality. Clearly I think that when we begin to
capture the numbers, we can reach out to the American people,
particularly the 18th Congressional District in Houston where I come
from, and really highlight $270 billion in cuts in Medicare, as the
gentleman has indicated.
Mr. Speaker, this is really sort of a surgical procedure that does
not leave the patient in better condition but eliminates their limbs. I
am just simply confused. If we are trying to protect seniors and talk
about a better
[[Page H 6902]]
health care system, and I would venture to say with your history that
that is something that we are all prepared to come to the table to talk
about, how we can get better health care for all of our citizens, we
would certainly be responsible if we decided to come to the table in a
bipartisan manner to deal with that issue.
This is not a health care issue as the Republicans have put it
forward. This is a cut issue simply to get some money to give some
folks a tax cut. It hurts my community, because basically there are a
large number of seniors in that district, a large number of seniors who
in fact depend upon their Medicare, as well as working-class families
who for the first time are gratified by the good health of their
parents, many in the African-American community that have been able to
maintain the high blood pressure, keep it under maintenance, other
kinds of illnesses that have plagued those in my population or in the
African-American population in particular.
Certainly this question goes beyond racial groups, but certain
illnesses that have now been able to be maintained because seniors have
had access to preventative health care now may shoot up. What you will
find out in a district like mine, and I cite mine particularly because
there are a number of individuals, poor individuals there, you will
find them now in the public hospital system, not there for maintenance
but there because they have had a stroke or they have had some other
catastrophic results of not being able to take care of themselves. Then
that working-class family, maybe the bus driver and the school teacher
or whatever combination, then will find mom or dad back home with them,
needing to be able to be covered by whatever extra dollars or pennies,
I might add, that that working family would have to be able to spend on
that elderly.
Let me cite for you just an example, spending a lot of time on this
issue, because I really want to
get the facts from those who are the beneficiaries right now, besides
my parents. We have a hospital that is one of the oldest community
hospitals in the State of Texas, Riverside General Hospital, and I took
the time to visit with their nurses and their doctors and their
patients.
I might add, those soldiers on the battlefield in these community
hospitals, anyone who thinks that they are getting a killing
financially, that they are making a real profit, even the physicians
that practice there or the nurses that work in those hospitals, they
have another think coming. They are dependent on Medicare, not just to
keep doors open but to serve that base of population, frankly, that I
would tell you would not go anywhere else. They do not know about going
to the sophisticated medical center in our variety of communities. They
know about that community-based hospital that gives that special care.
They gave me the facts that their doors would be shut. They were not
there trying to push survival as a hospital, ``My job is on the line.''
They were not really focusing on that. They were talking about the real
need of being able to reach these seniors, one, to help them with
preventative health care, but as well to be accessible to them where
they were not frightened to come into a hospital setting. A lot of our
seniors are individuals who say, ``I have been healthy all my life and
a hospital is not where I would want to be.''
{time} 2200
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. So Riverside Hospital would be impacted with a great
negative impact.
And then, I walked in my community just this last week on one of the
older sections in fourth ward and I met seniors there 80 and 86 years
old living at home by themselves. Those individuals have a great need
for Medicare, but they also are the same individuals that if those
premiums went up--I understand we may be looking at $110 and numbers
going beyond that--would be the ones choosing whether they have to eat
or needed to eat over medication, other health needs. These are the
seniors that would be relegated to the horrible stories of dog food or
cat food that we have heard.
These seniors are 80 and 86 years old. You made a very good point.
They are living longer. What are the Republicans telling us about
people living longer? I know they are not advocating anything that
would undermine this good news that we have our seniors living longer,
but yet, when we talk about this issue of slow growth, which, by the
way, someone asked me, what does that mean because that
certainly sounds like we are being really responsible? It means
eliminating people. It means that you are talking about a whole pool of
people the most sickly and the most needy possibly being eliminated.
So I am convinced that we are headed in a very treacherous direction
and I am a little bit incensed that we don't have the real facts, for
Medicare is being attacked, for it now is a fact of life. Our seniors
are living longer. And so when they argue that the system is crumbling
because we have had massive abuse and fraud, there is not a person that
I have chatted with that does not want us to clean up anything that
needs to be cleaned up, and as responsible legislators, I think we
should do that. But I think the real key is whether or not we are
looking to solve the problem or whether or not we are using smoke and
mirrors to frighten people to then make these major cuts and leave in
the lurch, if you will, the public hospital system, small community
hospitals, and again, not to keep their doors open for keeping them
open's sake, but because they serve populations that are in need.
And what we will do with the public hospital system is basically
break it because all those people will be headed in that direction, and
from that direction as well, the support of their family members will
be required for them in terms of their health care.
So I thank the gentleman for yielding and I would only ask as we
proceed with this that we do it in a manner that reflects responsibly
on our challenge that is to ensure good health care for our citizens,
for Americans, but as well, to not disrespect what seniors have done in
their work life, in their commitment to this country and the real need
that they have for good health care.
Mr. McDERMOTT. I want to thank my colleague. You have raised a very,
very important point that I did not emphasize enough because as a
physician, I sometimes forget it. The health care system in this
country has worked. The average age when they started Social Security
for a man at death was 59 in 1935. Today the average age is almost 80.
It is around 77, something like that. So we are talking about extending
people's life-span by some 20 years since that period of time, largely
because of programs like the Medicare program.
And the major thing you are talking abut I think that is so important
is the whole issue of prevention. What we had before, everybody gets
health care in this country. When you are sick, when you are really
sick, they call the ambulance and drag your body in and there you are
in the emergency room. Everybody gets health care at that point. But
that is at the wrong time in the most costly way possible.
What Medicare has made possible for seniors is to have preventive
care; that is, to monitor the blood pressure, to monitor the glaucoma,
to monitor all the things that have been problems in the past and wind
up in these serious debilitating episodes like strokes. We spend
millions of dollars on strokes that can be prevented with some blood
pressure medication that is monitored on a regular basis, and Medicare
has made that possible.
Now, what the Republicans are proposing is that each year seniors
would have to come up with more money out of their pocket to buy the
same health care that they now have under the Medicare program. The
voucher value would be less than the actual cost. In 1996, the average
cost to a senior citizen would be $67. You say, well that is not very
much, so what is the big deal? The next year it is $254. The next year,
$447.
What the Republicans are trying to do is slide this in in the first
year where it isn't going to cost them any more. They will get the same
thing for the voucher cost, but by the fourth or fifth year, you will
be up to $645, and by the year 2002, it will cost you almost $1,140 a
year per person more for the same health care benefit you have today
and it will all come out of your pocket.
[[Page H 6903]]
Now, if you think about people who, when you are working regularly
and you get a paycheck, you don't think about, well, you know, $67. I
mean, I probably could squeeze and make it. But when you are a senior
citizen living on a fixed income on a social security check, you are
talking about people who are going to have trouble simply making it,
much less coming up with this additional amount of money out of their
pocket. And I believe that what is happening here that people fail to
understand, and in these early years it looks pretty good, but the
further out you get, you can say, well, I won't be here in 7 years. But
some more and more people are going to be here and they are going to
catch the brunt of this.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. McDERMOTT. Yes.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. That chart is instructive because wouldn't you say
as a physician that what we begin to do is create a chilling effect for
those who have to make choices to begin now to not put medical
assistance, preventative medicine, making sure they are keeping up with
their health needs so that they can stay healthy? It begins to be on
the second tier of their needs or their ability to pay, then the third
tier, then the fourth, then just simply: I can't go to the doctor.
It is a chilling effect because they have to make real choices, and
you mentioned something else. Seniors, I love them because they
represent history and wisdom, but they also, I think, are somewhat
stubborn sometimes. They get a friendship with a physician because they
trust them and they have confidence in them. And this physician guides
them along to keep them healthy. All of a sudden, we deny them choice.
We make them second class, third class citizens.
They have gotten used to this physician who has been able to follow
their history, and we are telling those in the Medicare system that
that is not an option for them. It creates an amazing chilling effect,
I believe, for good health care. And when I was trying to make the
point on the hub hospital system, which we need to emphasize, all that
chilling effect winds up with the bulk of those individuals that have
not seen physicians now come by ambulance with a stroke in cardiac
arrest, with possible need for an amputation if they are diabetic,
whatever these ailments are, and this costs of course all communities,
all races of people you will find using the public hospital system
because they just haven't been able to go to the doctor and now they
are in an ambulance coming. I am frightened about that.
And lastly, I am frightened about us saying to those working class
families, in addition to the possibility of the responsibility for
their parents, scaring them in terms of what will happen to them as
they reach the age needing Medicare. Rather than addressing this issue
in a manner that responds to good health reform and provides for a
legacy or a future for these families today, we are again giving, I
think, falsehoods about what really needs to be done so that Mr. 35-
year-old or Miss 35-year-old will be
protected in the next 20 or 30 years.
It is not accurate that they need cuts of $270 billion in Medicare.
That is not helping Mr. and Mrs. 35-year-old. Let it be known that that
is helping the tax cuts of 1995 for individuals making over $200,000. I
want to help Mr. and Mrs. 35-year-old. That is the commitment that we
should make, and I want to help Mr. and Mrs. 65, 70, 80, 86, these
numbers of seniors that are now living to that age. That is how we
should bring those two together on a serious proposal of dealing with
Medicare and its longevity, not the $270 billion cuts that does not
help Medicare's longevity. It helps the current plan to give tax cuts.
Mr. McDERMOTT. I think you raise again that issue, and I think it
doesn't--we don't say it often enough. We are all in one family, and it
is easy sometimes for people who are younger to somehow think that this
is not affecting them, that what is going to happen, well, that is the
Medicare program, that is for old people, but the fact is that it has
been lifting the burden off the younger people and they are suddenly
going to wind up with it suddenly being dropped down on them without
them being aware, unless they begin paying attention.
That, I think, is our biggest job as Members of Congress is to
educate people about the fact that Medicare, although it has as its
clients the disabled and the senior citizen, it is also a part of the
economic security of the 35 year old. And sometimes young people sort
of miss that. They don't see the connection because in their lifetime
they have never had to do it.
I remember when I was much younger, my grandmother and grandfather
back in the 1950's did not have Medicare, and the way my father and the
uncles took care of it was every Sunday when they went to my
grandmother's house, they would slide a ten dollar bill under the
plate. My grandmother was too proud to ever ask for money but when she
picked up the dishes after lunch, she picked up 50 bucks around the
table.
That is how the subsidy was done in those days, and what this is
going to do is drive that same system back on every family to look at
their mother, their father, their grandparents and say, how are we
going to take care of them? We can't just walk away from them, and that
is, I think, why this is not just a senior citizen question, but it is
a family question.
And I think that you bring that well when you talk about that it isn't
just Mr. and Mrs. 65; it is also Mr. and Mrs. 35.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. You remind me, as I have reminded you to remind me,
of my grandmother as well and the good times at that time in the 1950's
was that she could do something with $50 or so that is left. I think if
we began to look realistically of what that will mean for this time and
this range of cost, we are realizing that that is not what will be
possible for these working families and these individuals in this 35
year range, and we will also need to point out for any accusations that
are made against this system that we do want to make work.
There is a lot of cost containment already going on in Medicare, and
many of the providers are aware that we must be judicious in how we
cost out the particular procedures or services. That is where we need
to focus, not to scare people with the fact that it is to be ended and
at the same time tell them that they need $270 billion in cuts.
And so your point is very well taken. We could have done that in
years past and managed and survived. I think now with catastrophic
illnesses and just the recognition of the cost, the legitimate cost of
providing care in a hospital, we realize that that would be so extreme
a burden. I have heard tell that there is a possibility of families
going bankrupt trying to take care of a loved one who has come upon
illnesses, and certainly if there was no coverage like Medicare for
that senior, what could be expected for families who are trying to make
ends meet and then be faced with the needs of their loved ones, of
which they would want to be able to support.
Mr. McDERMOTT. I hope that all the Members in the Congress let their
constituents know they have to let the Congress know no on vouchers for
Medicare. Vouchers in the Medicare system are guaranteed to be
inadequate. That is what it is all about. That is how they are saving
money, and people need to let their representatives know. I hope they
will all call them, write them letters, tell them that they want to
keep the kind of security that they presently have under the Medicare
program. Thank you very much for your help.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you.
{time} 2215
support house concurrent resolution 80, legislation calling for a
cessation of french nuclear testing in the south pacific
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Longley). The Chair recognizes the
gentleman from American Samoa [Mr. Faleomavaega] for up to 22 minutes.
Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker, just weeks ago, French President
Jacques Chirac announced that France will abandon its 1992 moratorium
on nuclear testing and explode eight more nuclear bombs in the South
Pacific beginning in September. Chirac said that the nuclear explosions
will have no ``ecological consequences,'' and described his decision as
``irrevocable.''
After detonating at least 187 nuclear bombs in the heart of the South
Pacific, France's intent to resume further nuclear poisoning of the
South Pacific
[[Page H 6904]]
environment has resulted in deep outrage and alarm in the countries of
the region, as well as with the world community.
I rise today to urge my colleagues to support legislation I
introduced recently, House Concurrent Resolution 80, which recognizes
the environmental concerns of the people of Oceania and calls upon the
government of France not to resume nuclear testing in French
Polynesia's Moruroa and Fangataufa Atolls.
In a broad showing of bipartisan support, 15 Members of Congress have
joined me as original cosponsors of House Concurrent Resolution 80--
including the ranking member of the House International Relations
Committee, the Honorable Lee Hamilton; the chairman and ranking member
of the Asia-Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, the Honorable Doug Bereuter,
and the Honorable Howard Berman; and the chairman and ranking member of
the International Operations and Human Rights Subcommittee, the
Honorable Chris Smith and the Honorable Tom Lantos.
I want to express my deepest appreciation to these gentlemen, as well
as to other distinguished senior members of the House International
Relations Committee--including the Honorable Jim Leach, the Honorable
Gary Ackerman, the Honorable Jay Kim and the Honorable Dana
Rohrabacher--for their strong support of this measure. I also want to
thank members from districts touching the Pacific that have joined us
as original cosponsors, including the Honorable Robert Underwood of
Guam, the Honorable Patsy Mink and Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii, the
Honorable Norman Mineta from California and the gentleman from Oregon,
the Honorable Peter DeFazio. The distinguished Member from
Massachusetts, the Honorable Edward Markey, must also be commended for
his leadership in the field of nuclear nonproliferation and
support of legislation opposing France's nuclear testing in the South
Pacific.
Mr. Speaker, like a wild boar on the ocean waves, or a ``bulldozer''
as described by his mentor, the late President Georges Pompidou, or a
mad aberration of 21st century thought, French President Chirac's so-
called decision and insistent denial of consequence is what novelist
Bernard Clavel called the Shame of France.
Mr. Speaker, we all know nuclear bombs have only one purpose. They
were created to destroy every living plant and animal, including
humans. The result is they annihilate everything. The people of France
know this. The government of France knows this. Mr. Chirac knows this.
We all know why France explodes its bombs in French Polynesia and not
in France. The leaders of France do not want to subject their homeland
to this danger, if they have a choice.
Historically, the people of the Pacific have had little choice.
Nuclear nations, including France and the United States, have
consistently deemed Pacific islanders and their way of life expendable.
For example, in 1954, on Bikini atoll the United States detonated the
``bravo shot,'' a 15-megaton thermonuclear bomb over a thousand times
more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
Marshall islanders residing on nearby Rongelap and Utirik atolls
justifiably believe they were used as ``guinea pigs'' and test subjects
for United States nuclear radiation experiments conducted during this
period.
After almost three decades of French nuclear testing in the South
Pacific, French Polynesia's Moruroa atoll has been described by
scientists as a ``Swiss cheese of fractured rock.'' Moruroa and its
sister French test site at Fangataufa are water-permeable coral atolls
on basalt, now contaminated in the worst way similar to the crisis at
the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Leakage of radioactive waste from the
underground test sites to the surrounding waters and air has been
predicted, and is inevitable. Epidemic-like outbreaks in surrounding
communities have already resulted, but symptoms including damage to the
nervous system, paralysis, impaired vision, birth abnormalities, and
increased cancer rates among Tahitians, in particular. It is no wonder
that the French Government has kept medical records at Moruroa a top
secret and has not even permitted long-term follow-up study of the
local indigenous or Tahitian workers who were subjected radioactive
contamination.
Yet, Chirac, like so many other leaders of nuclear nations, insists
that nuclear tests are harmless to the environment. As reported by the
National Resources Defense Council in the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, ``the five declared nuclear powers have acknowledged
conducting a total of 2,036 nuclear tests since 1945.'' of this total,
942 of the tests have been conducted within the continental United
States, 710 in Russia/Kazakhstan, and 306 atomic explosions conducted
by the United States, Great Britain, and France on Pacific islands and
atolls.
It is interesting to note that although France has detonated over 200
nuclear bombs in the past 35 years, not one of these bombs has been
exploded on, above, or beneath French soil. Mr. Speaker, in the truest
form of colonial agression, France, instead, has exploded almost all of
its nuclear bombs in its South Pacific colony, after being driven out
of Algeria, a former possession also used a nuclear testing dump.
France currently has the world's third largest stockpile of nuclear
bombs in the world. But Chirac told reporters on the eve of his first
presidential trip abroad that his decision to explode eight more
nuclear bombs in the South Pacific was crucial to ensure the
reliability and security of the coutry's nuclear weaponry. I made this
decision, Mr. Chirac states, ``because I considered it necessary in the
higher interest of our nation.''
Whatever happened to the higher interest of some 170 non-nuclear
nations?
I say to the military establishment of France and to the President of
France, if exploding eight more nuclear bombs is so crucial to ensure
the security of your country's weaponry, explode your eight nuclear
bombs under the Arc de Triomphe and along the rural and farm areas of
France, and see if the citizens of France will support you in the
higher interest of your nation.
Mr. Speaker, the peoples of the North and South Pacific want nothing
to do with nuclear weapons. They know firsthand the horrors of nuclear
testing and have agreed amongst themselves to keep their part of the
planet nuclear-free. Isn't it ironic that it is among these people that
France is about to explode 8 nuclear bombs--one nuclear bomb explosion
a month--with each detonation up to 10 times more powerful than the
nuclear bomb that was dropped on the city of Hiroshima 50 years ago?
Incidentally, this is not happening by the choice of the 28 million
men, women, and children of a European world power playing the role of
colonial master to the detriment of peaceful citizens on the other side
of the world.
When is enough, enough? Two hundred-plus nuclear explosions, with
almost all in South Pacific waters, apparently is not enough for
France. Mr. Chirac wants eight more. So what about the rest of the
world? I suspect that the military establishments of every nuclear
power want to perform more tests to ensure the reliability of their
nuclear arsenals. But the fact is, all of the nuclear powers, except
China, have given up this benefit and stopped testing programs in the
interest of making the world a safer place to live.
Government after government after government, in a firestorm of
international outrage, have spoken out in opposition to France's
resumption of nuclear testing. Demonstrations involving tens of
thousands of protestors have taken place in French Polynesia, and
around the globe. The United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, Austria,
the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Italy,
Switzerland, Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico,
Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and the 12 other island nations which
comprise the South Pacific forum have condemned France's decision to
resume nuclear testing, noting that it would be a major setback to
relations between France and the international community.
Two months ago, the United States, France, and the major nuclear
powers promised over 170 non-nuclear nations that the nuclear powers
would exercise utmost restraint with regard to nuclear testing and
would work toward a comprehensive test ban treaty. Despite
reservations, these commitments were
[[Page H 6905]]
accepted at face value by the non-nuclear nations, which make up the
vast majority of the countries of the world, and it was only with the
support of the non-nuclear nations that permanent extension of the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty was gained.
Weeks later, the French Government now sends the message that in the
name of national interest, it is more than willing to undermine the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and impede good faith negotiation of a
genuine comprehensive test ban treaty.
Not only does France send the message that world peace takes a back
seat to national security paranoia, but it now sends the message that,
as a nuclear nation, it shamelessly, shamelessly, Mr. Speaker, deems
expendable the welfare and the fragile marine environment of 28 million
men, women, and children living in the Pacific region.
Nuclear bomb explosions constitute the ultimate rape of a people. The
welfare of the South Pacific's 28 million people should not be the
sacrifice paid in the name of France's paranoia and hypocritical policy
concerning nuclear deterrence. For France to disregard its moral
responsibility to the non-nuclear nations and world community is the
eiptome of actions taken by a colonial master against its subjects, and
it is about the ugliest form of colonial aggression taken by France
against the indigenous people of Tahiti.
``It is regrettable that France has given in to out-dated
arguments,'' respected French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau said.
``Great wars are of the past. The struggle for peace is carried out
first and foremost through education and the restoration of morality.
Today's wisdom makes it necessary to outlaw atomic arms.''
Cousteau's sentiments were echoed by former French President Francois
Mitterand, who in condemning Chirac's testing decision, recently
stated, ``The time has come to put an end to the nuclear armaments
race.'' Cousteau and Mitterand's statements reflect how controversial
Chirac's nuclear policy is domestically in France. French public
opinion polls show an overwhelming 70 percent, Mr. Speaker, in
opposition to resumed nuclear testing.
Today, on trial of broken treaties and irrevocable decisions, with
the United States still in flux on nuclear testing while promising to
negotiate a comprehensive test ban treaty, the question now on the
table for non-nuclear nations is: ``Do we depend on nuclear nations to
restore morality through treaties and bans, or do we call on the good
people of France and the United States to hold their governments
accountable for violations of international disarmament agreements?''
``If men were angels,'' James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers,
``No government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men
over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the
Government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to
control itself.''
In light of Mr. Chirac's irrevocable decision, and in consideration
of opinion polls documenting Jacques Cousteau as the leading popular
figure in France, I would again urge Mr. Cousteau to lead the good
people of France in the fight to oblige its government to control
itself. As the world's preeminent guardian of the environment, his
place in history dictates that Mr. Cousteau play a greater and more
forceful role in preventing this travesty against the health and
welfare of the 28 million men, women and children who live in the
Pacific region.
Mr. Speaker, this planet has already been ravaged by more than 2,036
nuclear bomb explosions. It is time that we stop the madness. I would
urge most strongly that Paris reconsider its decision to resume nuclear
bomb explosions in the South Pacific and would urge the citizens of the
world community to take up the fight in holding nuclear nations
accountable for the violent rape and utter destruction of non-nuclear
nations, peoples, and the environment--until angels govern men.
To this end, Mr. Speaker, I would invite our colleagues to cosponsor
House Concurrent Resolution 80 and join us in sending a strong message
of support for the peoples of Oceania and in opposition to France's
resumption of nuclear testing in the South Pacific.
Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues and my fellow
Americans, a photo shot of a nuclear bomb explosion that was detonated
on the Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.
Mr. Speaker, the photo of the nuclear explosion--I must confess--is
a very pretty one--but very, very deadly. You see Mr. Speaker, modern
warfare is no longer something where there is honor to fight hand-to-
hand combat--at least combatants meet on the field of battle to fight.
You see Mr. Speaker, nuclear bomb explosions don't just kill human
beings--nuclear bomb explosions do not ask for permission to kill just
soldiers and sailors--Mr. Speaker, nuclear bomb explosions literally
vaporize human beings--you're not even going to have to find many
bodies even to give the deceased decent burials.
Mr. Speaker, this photo is an example of what nuclear explosions are
like when the Government of France will resume exploding eight more
nuclear bombs beginning in early September of this year.
Mr. Speaker, I am making this appeal to my colleagues in the House
and to all my fellow Americans who love to sail in the Pacific--who can
appreciate the concerns of some 28 million men, women, and children who
live in the Pacific--to write and call the officials of the French
Government that exploding eight nuclear bombs in the coming months is
bad policy, and President Chirac should wake up, and he should come to
his senses and stop this madness--stop this insane and inhuman practice
of exploding nuclear bombs not only against the fragile environment of
the Pacific Ocean but anywhere else in the world.
What a sad commentary on France's upcoming celebration of Bastille
Day on July 14--how absurd and stupid can President Chirac be, Mr.
Speaker, when 70 percent of the people of France are against nuclear
explosions--and yet the President of France has totally disregarded
this concern. Let's stop this madness, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record the following article from the
July 12, 1995 Washington Post:
[From the Washington Post, July 12, 1995]
Why Not Atom Tests in France?
France's unwise decision to resume nuclear testing was an
invitation to the kind of protests and denunciations being
generated by Greenpeace's skillful demonstration of political
theater. But even before Greenpeace set sail for the test
site, several Pacific countries had vehemently objected to
France's intention of carrying out the explosions at a
Pacific atoll. The most cutting comment came from Japan's
prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama. At a recent meeting in
Cannes the newly installed president of France, Jacques
Chirac, confidently explained to him that the tests will be
entirely safe. If they are so safe, Mr. Murayama replied, why
doesn't Mr. Chirac hold them in France?
The dangers of these tests to France are, in fact,
substantial. The chances of physical damage and the release
of radioactivity to the atmosphere are very low. But the
symbolism of a European country holding its tests on the
other side of the earth, in a vestige of its former colonial
empire, is proving immensely damaging to France's standing
among its friends in Asia.
France says that it needs to carry out the tests to ensure
the reliability of its nuclear weapons. Those weapons, like
most of the American nuclear armory, were developed to
counter a threat from a power that has collapsed. The great
threat now, to France and the rest of the world, is the
possibility of nuclear bombs in the hands of reckless and
aggressive governments elsewhere. North Korea, Iraq and Iran
head the list of possibilities. The tests will strengthen
France's international prestige, in the view of many French
politicians, by reminding others that it possesses these
weapons. But in less stable and non-democratic countries,
there are many dictators, juntas and nationalist fanatics who
similarly aspire to improve their countries' standing in the
world.
The international effort to discourage the spread of
nuclear weapons is a fragile enterprise, depending mainly on
trust and goodwill. But over the past half-century, the
effort has been remarkably and unexpectedly successful. It
depends on a bargain in which the nuclear powers agree to
move toward nuclear disarmament at some indefinite point in
the future, and in the meantime to avoid flaunting these
portentous weapons or to use them merely for displays of one-
upmanship. That's the understanding that France is now
undermining. The harassment by Greenpeace is the least of the
costs that these misguided tests will exact.
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