[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 138 (Thursday, September 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             REPUBLICANS' MEDICARE PLAN DOES NOT MAKE SENSE

  (Mr. BROWN of Ohio asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Last month, Mr. Speaker, I listened to Ohioans in 
the 13th Congressional District in a town meeting in Newton Falls, at 
county fairs in Medina County, Portage County, at a supermarket in 
Sheffield Lake. People could not believe the Republicans' plan to cut 
$270 million in Medicare and at the same time turn around and give tax 
breaks to the wealthiest Americans of the same amount. I say to my 
colleagues, if you make $300,000 a year, you save $20,000 a year of 
your taxes under the Republican plan, while, as a Medicare beneficiary, 
it will cost you $1,000 a year. If you are paying right now as a 
Medicare beneficiary a premium of about $46 a month, under the 
Republican plan you will pay somewhere in the vicinity of $110 a month.
  Mr. Speaker, that extra $60 or $70 may not sound like much per month 
to a Member of Congress. But if my colleagues are making $10,000 or 
$12,000 a year, and they are retired, on Social Security, paying that 
extra several hundred dollars, $700 or $800 a year, for medical care is 
an absolute back breaker, and it does not make sense, Mr. Speaker, to 
make Medicare beneficiaries pay a thousand dollars more a year, all so 
they can give tax breaks to the wealthy.
  Mr. Speaker, it does not make sense.

                          ____________________