[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 162 (Thursday, October 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H10314]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   MEDICARE NEEDS INTELLIGENT CHANGE

  (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I believe it was G.K. Chesterton who said, 
``I still believe in liberalism, but, oh, there was a time when I 
believed in liberals.''
  The liberals today are losing their mind over losing control over the 
people's health care. It is not so much how much we spend, it is who 
decides. The Republicans want to give that decision to the people who 
use the health care. Let them have the same choices that we have in 
health care. Do you want to opt out of the 1965 style Blue Cross 
program? Even Blue Cross does not provide that kind of health care 
delivery system anymore, but we have locked our seniors into a 30-year-
old system from which they cannot escape.
  Do we want seniors to have the choices that we have? High deductible 
medical savings accounts, a managed care system, to stay with their 
current health care system? The old 30-year-old program does not allow 
any choices and it gives us a health care system that is increasing in 
cost at three times the rate of inflation. We cannot sustain that, our 
seniors do not want to try to sustain that, we need to fix it.

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