[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 146 (Tuesday, September 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9141-H9142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       MEDICARE AND MEDICAID CUTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues from New Jersey 
and Texas were in the well earlier pointing out the flaws of the yet-
to-be-released proposal by the Republicans to cut the Medicare Program 
in this country and to cut the Medicaid Program in this country. It is 
very important certainly that the senior citizens of this country, but 
also that their families, focus on what the Republicans are about to 
do.
  As my colleague from New Jersey just pointed out, these changes in 
Medicare were not created out of the concern for the Medicare Program 
or its solvency into the future or for the beneficiaries. These cuts in 
the Medicare Program were created for one purpose, and that is so that 
the Republicans can fund a $245 billion tax cut, the primary 
beneficiaries of which are the richest people in this country.
  Mr. Speaker, they do not have $245 billion to give away. We have a 
$260 billion deficit this year and we have a $4 trillion deficit in 
this country. We do not have that money to give away, but they want to 
give it away. So where have they gone to get the money? They have gone 
to the Medicare trust funds to get that money and that is why they have 
a $270 billion cut in Medicare and a $182 billion cut in Medicaid.
  Now, most people think that somehow they are insulated from those 
cuts in Medicaid, that this only deals with poor people, this only 
deals with people of the inner city, somebody that they are never going 
to be part of. The fact is that over 65 percent of all of the money in 
Medicaid goes for nursing home and long-term care for people who never 
thought in their lives they would be in those nursing homes or in long-
term care. Medicaid is what stands between not only the people in the 
nursing homes and bankruptcy; it stands between bankruptcy and their 
families, because there are very few, if any, middle income families in 
this country that can pay the full freight of taking care of the long-
term care needs of their parents, if necessary. That is why we have 
Medicaid.
  Now, to be eligible for Medicaid, you have to spend yourself down, 
get rid of all of your assets, and then we will take care of you, but 
under this proposal to cut $180 billion, we may find that situation 
dramatically changed because they will have to change the benefits 
dealing with long-term care. They will have to change the benefits 
dealing with home health care, the idea of having somebody come in 
instead of putting somebody in a nursing home, have somebody come in 
and help them throughout the day so that they can live in their own 
home, live with some dignity, be in the neighborhood that they are 
familiar with and be taken care of. Those are going to be cut.
  These are not charges made by me. These are points made in the 
National Journal that was delivered to Members of Congress. This is a 
nonpartisan policy magazine that discusses policy every week, and their 
point is in fact that the Medicaid cuts are going to have horrific 
impacts on the States.
  They go on to point out that much of the rhetoric about how these 
Medicaid cuts will not hurt because everybody can be put into managed 
care, and therefore they can say that Medicaid will not grow more than 
4 percent.
  Mr. Speaker, the State of Arizona has had everybody in their State in 
managed care for 13 years and the average increases are 7 percent. That 
means, under the Republicans' plan, it is twice the growth rate that 
the Republicans would allow. How do you make that up? You make that up 
by cutting services, because they have already squeezed all of the 
savings that they thought were possible by putting people into managed 
care.
  How did the State of California, when it cut Medicaid, how did it 
make it up? It started reducing payments to doctors. First they told 
the doctors, ``we will pay you 90 percent of what you get in the 
private marketplace;'' then, ``we will pay you 70 percent of what you 
get in the private marketplace'' and then pretty soon the doctors told 
them, ``Don't bother bringing Medicaid patients to us. We are not going 
to take care of these people because we cannot afford to do that.''
  That is the slippery slope that is started when you start creating a 
medical system based upon the needs to provide tax cuts as opposed to 
what is needed to reform and take care of the Medicare system and its 
recipients, and we have got to understand that the program that the 
Republicans are putting forth now, according to the Washington Times 
yesterday, according to the chairman of the Budget Committee, may have 
the gap of about $80 billion in it. They do not know where 

[[Page H9142]]
they are going to get 80 billion dollars' worth of cuts.

  So what do they want to do? They want to put the Medicare system on 
an automatic cut provision that in 3 years, if we are not advancing 
toward the balanced budget, if the cuts have not been realized in 
Medicare, then they would have an automatic $80 billion in Medicare, 
again, coming out of hospitals, coming out of doctors who pretty soon 
are going to decide, like they have with the Medicaid patients, that 
they do not want any, that they do not want any Medicare patients.
  Mr. Speaker that simply is an intolerable situation for the elderly 
in this country and for their families.
  Let us understand what Medicare and Medicaid have done. They have 
allowed families to stay together, to stay intact with confronting 
what, in some cases, are catastrophic medical costs for our elderly 
population. As generations mature and they look to their children to 
help out, there are very few children that can help out with hundreds 
of thousands of dollars in health care costs as their parents reach 70, 
80, 90 years of age.
  That is what is happening to the baby boomers. As the baby boomers 
try to figure out how to buy their homes for their families, how to 
educate their children, how to preserve a standard of living in this 
country, they are now confronted with their aging parents. I would look 
very carefully at this program to slash Medicare and Medicaid by almost 
$450 billion.

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