[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 25, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7554-H7555]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MEDICARE PRESERVATION TASK FORCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Bass] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BASS. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about the Medicare 
Program in this country and the need to preserve, protect, and 
strengthen this vital program, and I would like to respond briefly if I 
could to some comments I have heard the past couple minutes about how 
this issue is something that was contrived by the Republicans in order 
to cut taxes and somehow provide benefits to the rich and to the 
corporate world.
  I would remind those of you on the other side of the aisle that the 
Medicare problem is not a Republican problem or a Democrat problem 
because the President has weighed in on this issue and recommended that 
we do something to preserve this and protect this program, and he 
thinks that we should reduce the growth of Medicare somewhere in the 
vicinity of $100 billion.
  The Republicans want to preserve and protect this program for 
generations to come and are in the process of coming up with proposals 
to reduce the future costs
 of Medicare by roughly $250 billion.

  The issue, my friends, is not whether we save Medicare, but it is how 
we do it, and this is a program and a problem that should be addressed 
in a bipartisan fashion, not with each side squabbling against the 
other and resorting to bickering.
  The reason I say that is that yesterday morning, the Medicare 
Preservation Task Force had a public hearing in Nashua, which is the 
largest city in my district, and I am proud to say that we have on my 
Medicare Preservation Task Force a list of very distinguished leaders 
in New Hampshire in the Medicare and Medicaid State government and so 
forth, in those professions.
  Let me name a couple. Judy Lupien, who is a social services director 
for the Grafton County Nursing Home; Joe Marcille, the president and 
chief executive officer of Blue Cross-Blue Shield; Forrest McKerley and 
Dwight Sowerby, who run major nursing homes in the State; Fred Shaw, a 
lawyer and doctor in Concord; Kathy Sgambati, who is the assistant 
commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human 
Services; Reed Morris, who is a resident, a senior citizen at the 
Pleasant View Retirement Community; Ginny Blackmer, who is a clinical 
nurse specialist; and Susan Young, executive director of the Home 
Health Care Association in New Hampshire; and Kristine Thyng, a senior 
at St. 

[[Page H 7555]]
Anselm's college; Marie Kirn, executive director of the New Hampshire 
Hospice Association.
  This is a group that is dedicated to saving our Medicare Program, and 
they are not interested in political rhetoric. They want results, and 
that is what the 104th Congress is going to provide.
  We heard from three panels: a panel representing doctors and hospital 
administrators, a hospital representing the State of New Hampshire 
which has to provide many Medicare and Medicaid services, and last, a 
panel consisting of seniors, representatives of the AARP and other 
groups, the United Seniors Association.
  This is not an issue that we can afford to bicker about on a partisan 
basis because, as the President's own trustees' appointments to the 
Medicare trust fund state,

       The Medicare program is clearly unsustainable in its 
     present form and we strongly recommend that the crisis 
     presented by the financial condition of the Medicare trust 
     funds be urgently addressed on a comprehensive basis, 
     including a review of the program's financing methods, 
     benefit provisions, and delivery mechanisms.

  That is precisely what my Medicare Preservation Task Force is in the 
process of addressing, and we heard testimony yesterday from three 
distinguished panels. We allowed the public half an hour to address the 
panel with their concerns. In August, we will be putting together a 
report of recommendations which we will be presenting to the House Ways 
and Means Committee in September.
  This is the way the 104th Congress should go about solving the 
Medicare crisis that will confront this country, because there is not 
one person in this body that wants to see 33 million senior citizens 
lose their benefits in the 21st century.
  I am proud of the Medicare Preservation Task Force. I am proud of the 
104th Congress for what it has done to bring this problem to the fore 
and deal with these tough difficult issues. Let us get together and 
solve this Medicare crisis now and stop the partisan bickering.
  On this 30th anniversary of Medicare, let us look to the next 30 
years for a program that can be self-sustaining and provide the needed 
benefits to our seniors that they deserve.


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