[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 161 (Wednesday, October 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15273-S15275]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CUTS IN MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to join my 
colleagues in exposing to the light of day the real lasting affects of 
the deep, reckless cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that are being rushed 
through this Congress. I want to focus specifically on the massive 
proposed scaling back of Medicaid and how it completely ignores the 
values of average, middle-income families today.
  Let me focus for a minute on one of the hidden surprises in the 
Medicaid block grant proposal--one that is going to devastate the so-
called sandwich generation--my generation. The sandwich generation is 
those of us who are raising our kids at home, and who are also 
responsible for the health and safety of our aging parents.
  Today, under current Medicaid laws that have been in effect since 
1965, adult children are not held legally or financially liable for 
their parents' 

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health care. If the parents' health deteriorates and they enter a 
nursing home, Medicaid helps with the costs if they personally meet 
financial requirements.
  Republicans, however, today are proposing to repeal this protection, 
which will allow States to go after the life savings of adult children 
before Medicaid kicks in for their parents. In fact, if this law is 
repealed, working families in 29 States will immediately be subject to 
State laws requiring them to bear astronomical long-term care costs now 
covered by Medicaid.
  What does this mean in pocketbook terms? Caring for an elder in a 
nursing home costs an average of $36,000 to $40,000 a year. By the way, 
the cost of caring for a medically fragile child on a ventilator can 
easily cost as much as $86,000 a year, or more.
  This could be catastrophic to the average family budget. It is 
prejudicial, and it is unfair. Let us not forget, these are families 
already under stress trying to put food on the table, paying for their 
childrens' education, and trying to save for their own retirement.
  Some of these 29 States whose laws will go into effect if Medicaid is 
rolled back have general duty-to-support laws. These laws assume that 
since parents take care of children, children must later take care of 
the costs of their parents. Other States require reimbursement of 
nursing home and goods and services, similar to child support laws. 
Some States will actually impose criminal penalties for adults who do 
not contribute to the cost of their parent or family member in a 
nursing home.
  This means that working families will have to make new choices. They 
will have to choose between allowing their mom to be cared for in a 
facility where she will have access to medical attention and 
assistance, or quitting a job to take care of her at home.
  They will have to choose between paying for one family member's 
medical costs, or for the cost of another family member's education. Or 
paying for groceries. Or saving for retirement.
  Working families should not be forced to make such untenable choices. 
No one wants to make choices between the future of their own children, 
and the health of their parents. They should not have to.
  So why are these cuts being suggested? We have no crisis, financial 
or otherwise, that could merit these draconian measures. Any money that 
may be needed to continue our commitment to Medicare is not an issue 
with Medicaid. Under the guise of saving money, this cut will actually 
pit our citizens against one another.
  There are 36 million financially strapped Americans on Medicaid: 4 
million elderly Americans, 6 million disabled Americans, 8 million 
American women, and most important, 18 million American children.
  Under the Republican proposal, over the next 7 years nearly one in 
every four Medicaid recipients will lose their coverage. Who will 
suffer when our State governments run out of money?
  Who will be turned down for benefits? An elderly woman waiting for 
vital nursing assistance? A disabled adult needing new sterile suction 
tubes for a ventilator? A medically fragile child whose body needs an 
essential mineral or amino acid to process food?
  I can tell you this; I would not want to be the one making that 
choice.
  This is real. It is going to be felt by real families, with real 
problems in my State and across this Nation.
  I got a letter recently from a mother who is scared about how this 
assault on Medicaid might affect her son Patrick, who is a 45-year-old 
man with infantile autism, which among other things, means that he has 
no verbal language. During Patrick's early life, no insurance company 
would cover the costs of his treatment or therapy, so it was no 
surprise that by age 16 he had deteriorated to the point where he was 
also afflicted with epileptic seizures.

  When Patrick's parents finally learned, on their own, that their son 
qualified for Medicaid coupons when he was 22, Patrick's life changed. 
He could receive treatment at any doctor, dentist, or pharmacy he 
needed to see, even though his parents sometimes had to remind people 
who tried to refuse the coupons that the medical schools they had 
attended had received Medicaid funding.
  Today, Patrick lives freely in the community, in his mother's words 
``only because of the federally mandated program, Medicaid.'' 
Republicans in Congress would make Patrick and his family compete at 
the State level against pregnant mothers, severely mentally ill 
teenagers, elderly stroke victims in nursing homes, and medically 
fragile infants. All to be able to provide a tax break no one wants, to 
people who do not need it.
  This is nothing more than the legislative pursuit of political dogma, 
without regard for the consequences to real people.
  The core principals in these proposals are all wrong. This is not the 
America I grew up in, the country I believe cares about all of its 
citizens, no matter who they are or where they come from, or how much 
they are worth in financial terms.
  Let is look at the real problem. If this Congress is serious, it will 
focus on the $89 billion financial hole in Medicare, and will find a 
way to make these programs work better for families. We cannot just 
toss people on the street and hope things turn out OK.
  We hear so much about family values today. Well, I agree: it is time 
to start valuing our families. It is time to recognize that many many 
families are struggling today. Their real needs are family wage jobs 
and economic security; a good education for their kids and health care 
that is affordable.
  These draconian cuts, so hastily thrown together, will only increase 
economic insecurity of American families. I hope this Congress will 
have the integrity and the intelligence to stop these unnecessary cuts 
now, before it is too late.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments by Senator 
Murray from the State of Washington. She says it well and says it with 
feeling. I suppose some would say that we are hopelessly old-fashioned 
when we think that there are certain virtues in our country, the virtue 
of helping someone who needs help, extending a hand to those who are 
down and out, caring about kids. There are certain virtues that are 
important, that ought to be at the front of the agenda, at the top of 
the list.
  I come from a town of about 300 people, and if you were to devise 
some sort of fiscal policy or budget for my hometown and say, look, I 
have an idea for this town, and here is my idea. Our town has 300 
people in it. What I am going to do is I am going to make a stop at 
some of the poorest homes in our town, where people do not have much, 
and I am going to ask them to tighten their belts and take away a 
little of what they have. I am going to stop at the homes where people 
are trying to send their kids to college and say: You know what I want 
to do for you? I want to make it more expensive to send your kids to 
school.
  I want to stop at the middle-income working families' homes, who have 
parents in nursing homes, whose assets are exhausted and gone and say: 
We are going to make a deal for you. You are going to have to pay more 
to have your parents in nursing homes.
  I am going to stop at a home where a low-income single mother has a 
child in Head Start and say, ``By the way, your little Timmy, age 4, 
his name comes up on our list of 55,000 kids that we cannot afford to 
have in the Head Start Program.''
  Then in our travels around this small town of 300 people, we will 
say, well, we have been to all the neighborhoods and told those folks 
what they have to sacrifice. We will stop by the wealthiest families in 
town and give them the good news.
  Know what the good news is we will say to the wealthiest folks in 
town? ``We will give you a big tax cut.'' Do you know why? ``Because 
you are successful, you are investors and you deserve it.''
  Now, it is true we will not even bother to tell you we have been 
driving around town all day telling the poorer folks and the middle-
income families how much they have to give, but we are delighted to 
stop at your house because we will give you a big tax cut. We think so 
much of you, we think so much of what you do we want you to have more.
  I am saying that sense of priorities does not make sense to me. It is 
out of step. This is all about priorities and choices.
  Frankly, I wish it were not partisan. For 10 months we have heard 
people 

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stand on the floor saying we are the ones that do not care about a 
balanced budget. Nonsense. We are the ones that do not care about 
putting this country's fiscal house in order. Rubbish. For 2 days, an 
hour a day we have heard people stand up and say we are the ones that 
could not have a plan. Baloney.
  Of course, we have a plan. We do not have a plan like this. We have a 
plan that balanced the budget and does it the right way with the right 
priorities.
  Here is a letter dated today by the head of the Congressional Budget 
Office, and it is ``Chapter 2 in Budget Fraud'': This says, from the 
head of the Budget Office, June O'Neill, Director, ``The CBO projects 
that the enactment of the reconciliation legislation submitted to the 
Budget Committee would produce a small budget surplus in the year 
2002.''
  Oh, really? A small budget surplus? Well, what it will produce is 
$110 billion deficit. This is budget fraud. I have sent a letter to the 
Director of the CBO just now, and I am hoping to get an answer either 
today or in the morning that says, by the way, if you construct a 
letter like this following the law and not misusing Social Security 
funds, what is the deficit in 2002?
  The answer, if the Director of the Congressional Budget Office gives 
me an honest answer, is that the deficit in the year 2002 with this set 
of plans or these priorities will be $110 billion deficit in the year 
2002.
  Now, we want to see some honesty in budgeting. I yield to the Senator 
from South Dakota, the minority leader, who has come to the floor and 
wants to make a presentation on these priorities.

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