[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 122 (Wednesday, July 26, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7794-H7795]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               GOP MEDICARE PLANS THREATEN WOMEN'S HEALTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Illinois [Mrs. Collins] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. COLLINS. Mr. Speaker, in keeping with the Republican's back-to-
the-future approach to legislating, the GOP Medicare-gutting plan will 
do nothing less than turn the table of progress on women's health in 
the United States and jeopardize the lives of millions of elderly women 
in order to foolishly subsidize massive tax cuts for corporate fat cats 
and rich folks. Sounds a lot like a return to the tired old, worn out, 
smoke-and-mirrors, trickle down, voodoo economics of a former time--and 
we all know how well that wreaked havoc on our Federal budget.
  What in the world makes our Republican colleagues believe that a $270 
billion cut to the Medicare program is good medicine for our Nation's 
seniors, particularly our elderly women. Today one-quarter of all women 
over age 65 live at or near the poverty line. With the GOP cuts 
estimated to increase out-of-pocket health care expenses $3,500 
annually by the year 2002, these women will be forced to choose between 
essential health care services and daily food and shelter.
  These Gingrich cuts will also disproportionately affect minority 
women who have lower retirement income, little health care coverage 
beyond Medicare, and greater risk of acute and chronic illness than 
white women, and are twice as likely to end up in poverty than their 
white counterparts.
  Is this the contract the Newt Republicans have with their mothers and 
grandmothers--a promise to gut, slash, and burn the vital health care 
support that these women have come to trust and rely upon in their 
golden years? Unfortunately, it is.
  Important preventive services, such as biannual mammograms for women 
over 65 are endangered under the Gingrich Republican budget axe, 
despite the fact that older women are six times more likely than 
younger women to develop breast cancer and eventually die from this 
tragic disease. Additionally, home health care beneficiaries, two-
thirds of whom are women, stand to pay a new sick tax with a proposed 
20-percent increase in copayments for home care services.
  The facts seem pretty clear to me. American women, who live longer 
than men, contract disabling diseases such as arthritis and 
osteoporosis to a greater extent than men, and are far less likely than 
men to have sufficient retirement income or other economic means, will 
be devastated by the Republican's cruel, short-sighted, and needless 
attack on Medicare as a means to get tax breaks to the privileged few. 
Why the GOP is pushing such an agenda remains a frightening mystery to 
me and my constituents.

[[Page H7795]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 5 minutes.

  [Mr. OWENS addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in 
the Extensions of Remarks.]


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