[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H9648]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    THE GINGRICH MEDICAID PLAN WILL PAY FOR TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, late last week the Committee on 
Commerce passed the Gingrich Medicaid plan. There were no hearings on 
this bill similar to the restricted small number of hearings, one 
hearing in fact, on Medicare. There were no hearings on the Gingrich 
Medicaid plan. The plan was given to us, the actual legislative 
language, was given to us less than 24 hours before the hearing. There 
was no public input, because no one anywhere from the country really 
knew much about the plan, and members of the committee on both sides, 
Republicans and Democrats, had little opportunity to read the bill and 
to become familiar with the details of the Gingrich Medicaid plan.
  Unfortunatelyd, though, Mr. Speaker, that Gingrich Medicaid plan cuts 
Medicaid money that goes for nursing homes for the middle class and all 
of our parents, many of our parents and grandparents. It is money for 
children in Health Hill Hospital in Cleveland, many poor kids, many 
middle-class kids, upper-class kids that have been injured in tragic 
accidents, with serious brain damage, whose families are saddled with 
$20,000 a month hospital bills. That is paid for with Medicaid. It is 
funding for poor children for prenatal care, for well baby care, for 
all the kinds of things that are important in our society.
  Nonetheless, that $180 billion cut in the Gingrich Medicaid plan is 
going to be used to pay for tax cuts for the rich. Equally as 
unfortunate, this bill and this Gingrich Medicaid plan in the committee 
on commerce, everything passed by a party line vote. They eliminated 
quality care standards in nursing homes on a party line vote, coming 
down from Gingrich's plan that was simply approved on a party line 
vote. They eliminated breast cancer services, mammograms and other 
breast cancer services, again on a party line vote. They eliminated 
prenatal care and well baby care and protection for children, again, 
those programs on a party line vote, all ratifying what the Gingrich 
Medicaid plan had written.
  There is an old Mark Twain line said many years ago, that when two 
people think alike all the time, one of them ain't doing much thinking. 
Unfortunately, that is what this Gingrich Medicaid plan is all about. 
It was a plan not written by the committee, not written with public 
input, not having any hearings held for the public to understand it, to 
learn about it, to talk about it, to persuade Members of Congress that 
this might be good or that might be bad. It was simply a piece of 
legisation handed down and voted on quickly.

  What is particularly of concern to a lot of us on that committee that 
oppose this $180 billion in cuts for Medicaid in order to pay for tax 
breaks for the wealthiest Americans is that these quality care 
standards for nursing homes were eliminated; where we can remember 10 
years ago, 20 years ago, reading in the paper almost every month some 
scandal in a nursing home, some number of patients were abused and 
restrained and medicated, and people that were about as defenseless as 
anybody in society, people that are typically very old in nursing homes 
and cannot take care of themselves, and the Federal Government enacted 
standards to make sure that those kinds of abuse do not take place in 
nursing homes.
  Now we are saying it is OK for the States, it is OK for local 
governments, it is OK for these nursing homes, to not live up any 
longer to these Federal standards.
  The same with breast cancer services. My part of America, northeast 
Ohio, has one of the highest breast cancer rates in the country. I am 
concerned when the Federal Government says, ``No longer is Medicaid 
going to cover breast cancer services, mammograms.'' First, that is 
inhumane, not to cover mammograms. Second, it is just stupid. The 
Republicans simply have failed Economics 101. If you do not detect 
breast cancer early, you are going to pay a lot more for a lumpectomy 
or a mastectomy, and the Government is going to end up paying for it. 
It is inhumane, and it is just bad economics not to move forward and 
continue to cover those breast cancer services.
  This money will be turned over to the States in the form of block 
grants, this money, again this shrinking number of dollars, in order to 
pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. This shrinking number of dollars 
will be grabbed up by as many interest groups in the States as 
possible. Nursing homes will have the first round, the first shot, at 
so many of these dollars as they shrink. And because nursing homes are 
better organized and better lobbyists and more effective and a stronger 
interest group on the State level than are groups that might advocate 
breast cancer services or groups that might advocate on behalf of 
nursing home patients, that money will likely go to those interest 
groups that fight for a wealthy group of people rather than people that 
really do represent those women that have breast cancer, represent 
those people that are victims of problems and care in nursing homes.
  Mr. Speaker, it simply does not make sense to make these cuts all to 
pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

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