[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 147 (Wednesday, September 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H9250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



[[Page H 9250]]


                       WHO SAYS IT IS NOT A CUT?

  (Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong 
objection to the proposed Medicare cuts and in objection to the 
propaganda we are hearing from the Republicans on their plan. It is not 
a cut. It is simple mathematics.
  The elderly served by Medicare are growing, the population served. 
Thus, increases in funding are needed to provide services for more 
people. If you cut from the rate of growth, you either have to push 
people out or you provide them less services for what they are paying. 
It is all too simple.
  Yet the majority would have us believe the reductions in Medicare are 
not cuts. Are we going back to the days when seniors had to choose 
between health care or food on their tables? Let us be honest about it. 
By cutting a program with a growing population, the result will mean 
more rationing. Health care will be rationed to those who cannot afford 
to pay more out of their pocket and will be asked to pay more and more 
of their fixed incomes or greatly lower their standard of living for 
seniors.
  Ask yourselves these questions: Do you want poor seniors to pay more 
for less service, choose between health care or food? Do you want your 
elderly relatives to have surgery in a hospital, pushed to the brink of 
bankruptcy from cuts in Medicare? Or do you want a surgeon whose 
training has been reduced because of cuts in Medicare?


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