[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 159 (Friday, October 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10052-H10053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PROVIDING CHOICES IN HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, when I was a kid growing up, one 
of my favorite TV shows was Dragnet. There was a fellow on that show, 
Officer Friday, and one of his expressions that I liked, if he was 
getting a lot of extraneous information he would just say just ``The 
facts, ma'am. We need the facts.''
  I would like to get into a little bit of the facts surrounding the 
so-called arrest of these innocent senior citizens at the Committee on 
Commerce meeting yesterday. When I heard about this, I was indeed 
myself concerned, and I asked some of the members of the Committee on 
Commerce what went on, and the Committee on Commerce hearing was 
disrupted by a group of seniors who just happened to be a group of 
seniors affiliated with a group called the National Council of Senior 
Citizens, which is a very liberal left wing organization which this 
previous Democratic-led Congress had been giving about $75 million a 
year to for the express purpose of lobbying the Congress to spend more 
and more and more money.
  Yes, you the taxpayers were having your tax dollars given to an 
organization that was devoting its efforts full time to lobbying the 
Government to engage in more deficit spending. This group, this 
innocent group of seniors, who came in were quietly and politely asked 
to leave, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, not 
five times, but six times they were asked to leave the Committee on 
Commerce meeting because they were interrupting the hearing.
  Finally, it became quite apparent to all those there that the purpose 
of those people being in that room who were working with this liberal 
left wing organization, the purpose was to make sure that they got 
arrested so that they could get some photographs, so that those 
photographs could be used in newspapers, in magazines, and in this 
body. This is a staged event.
  Mr. Speaker, I have been talking to the senior citizens in my 
district and they understand that we have a problem. Indeed, the nature 
of the problem was established credibly by three Democrats working in 
the White House, Robert Rubin, Robert Reich, and Donna Shalala, who 
said the fund is projected to be exhausted. What did we do, Mr. 
Speaker? When we got this information, we sat down with AARP. No, we 
did not talk to the National Council of Senior Citizens, because their 
only answer is to raise taxes and increase spending and borrow more 
money. We talked to responsible groups. We talked to the senior 
citizens. We talked to the hospital providers and we talked to the 
physician providers as well.
  We have come up with a plan that I think is reasonable and credible. 
It provides choices for senior citizens. If a senior likes the plan 
that they are in right now and likes their physician, they can select 
traditional Medicare and they can stay in it. If they want to opt for 
some different options, we have a new program called Medicare Plus, 
which will allow senior citizens to select a variety of different 
options. Those include if they are getting near retirement and they 
like the coverage that they have with their current employer, if that 
employer's insurance provider has a senior option, they can actually 
select to stay with that company if they want to.
  If they want to, they can select a vehicle called a Medical Savings 
Account, which allows them to really control their dollars and 
determine exactly how it is going to be spent. There is another option 
in there for the establishment of provider-sponsored networks. Why is 
that in there? It is in there for this reason. Managed care has been 
shown to be, in many ways, a better way to deliver care that is of 
very, very good quality, and it is also a way to help control 
escalating and spiraling costs in the managed care environment. There 
are many communities that do not have managed care vehicles available 
to the people in those communities.
  We have allowed hospitals and physicians to form networks together. 
They are called provider-sponsored networks, so that they can offer 
managed care vehicles, managed care systems for the seniors in those 
communities.
  Now, in the process of doing that, we did have to repeal a lot of 
provisions in previous law that prohibited physicians from getting 
together. We have to repeal those provisions or they cannot get 
together.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we clearly received a definite message that our 
plan was credible and it was workable. The Washington Post, of all 
publications, a publication that has a long tradition, a long record of 
supporting Democrats and attacking Republicans in this city, came out 
with an editorial where they said the Democrats campaign, the MediScare 
campaign, they called it crummy stuff, demagoguery big time, they 
called it scare talk, expostulation, they said it was irresponsible.
  What did the Washington Post, the traditional voice for liberal 
Democratic policies, say about our plan? 

[[Page H 10053]]
Congressional Republicans have confounded skeptics. It is credible, it 
is gutsy, and I think it is a good plan. I think it is good for 
seniors. I think it is good for America, and I think it will help us to 
balance the needs of seniors with needs to be responsible with our tax 
dollars and all Americans should support this plan.

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