[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 161 (Wednesday, October 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10300-H10301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE FACTS OF THE REPUBLICAN MEDICARE PROPOSAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is, Mr. 
Speaker, despite the comments you may have heard tonight from others on 
the House floor, Republicans do care, care so much for seniors, that 
we, in fact, passed on the House floor earlier this year rescinding of 
the 1993 tax on Social Security. We now have legislation we have 
adopted here in the House which will allow seniors under 70 to make 
more funds than the $11,280 they have been capped at without having 
deductions from their Social Security.
  Now let us look at perspective when it comes to Medicare discussion 
about how we got to this point. It was the President's trustees working 
with others who came out with a report in April which said that 
Medicare, if nothing happens with the program, will go bankrupt by the 
year 2002. You may say, well, how did we get to this point with health 
care going up 4 percent a year and Medicare going up about 10 or 11 
percent a year? How did we get to that point? Well, the facts are we 
got to this point because we have $30 billion a year in fraud, abuse, 
and waste. We also have 12 percent of the costs of Medicare just going 
to paperwork.
  So you say to yourselves, What's the solution? The solution is we 
cannot do nothing. We have to make sure the system is solvent and we 
have access to quality health care for our seniors. So what we have to 
consider is a program which would give seniors choice, continue their 
fee for services, if that is what they would like; the managed-care 
option, if they would like to have that, which would include such items 
as pharmaceuticals or dentures, eyeglasses, hearing aids. Also we have 
the possibility of the Medisave account whereby each subscriber now 
would get $4,800 toward their health care costs. If they do not use it 
all, keep the funds they do not use or roll it over until the following 
year.

                              {time}  2330

  One of the biggest problems has been the fraud, abuse, and waste. 
Under legislation which has been introduced by the gentleman from New 
Mexico [Mr. Schiff] and the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays], the 
penalties for fraud, abuse, and waste will be increased.

[[Page H 10301]]

  For the first time in the history of the Congress, we have had crime 
of health care fraud as an offense of the Federal Government, a 10-year 
maximum jail sentence. The provisions of the bill would in fact define 
the crime of illegal remuneration with respect to health care benefit 
programs. It would define the crime of willful obstruction of criminal 
investigations of health care offenses and would, for the first time, 
make sure that we get a coordinated effort of the Federal Government in 
stopping the fraud, abuse and waste.
  If we can attack that particular problem, we will find that Medicare 
will be strong, it will be solvent, and it will be here for generations 
to come.

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