[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 162 (Thursday, October 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H10467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          A BAD MEDICARE BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, there are some facts that are very clear 
now. Let me go over the situation. Under current law, Medicaid 
beneficiaries are guaranteed coverage for premiums and co-pays and 
deductibles. The House Republican bill repeals that law.
  The Democratic amendment in the House Committee on Commerce offered 
by my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], to 
restore this current guarantee was rejected by a vote of 24 to 18. 
Every member of the committee on the Republican side of the aisle voted 
against it.
  Under the Republican block grant, Federal payments are cut by 20 
percent over the next 7 years. No State is required to cover any 
elderly. There are no requirements to provide anything to the current 
Medicaid eligibles. Only 7 percent of State dollars have to be spent on 
low-income seniors.

                              {time}  1845

  This is simply not enough, and there is no guarantee.
  Now, the House has already found, regrettably, that no one here 
really understands the entirety of the bill. The Speaker in a rather 
powerful statement has been proven to be entirely in error. How many 
other Members who have talked about the wonders of this legislation we 
passed today or the legislation that we are going to pass to amend 
Medicaid are going to be wrong?
  The process under which this was conducted was intolerable. The bill 
was put in the committee, hearings were requested, none were given. The 
matter was considered without any hearings whatsoever, without 
testimony from any agency of the Federal Government, without hearing 
from any governor, from any citizen, or without hearing from any 
Federal agency as to how this would impact the people of the country.
  There is no understanding of what is in the bill, including whether 
or not the fraud provisions are in fact adequate, which in fact, by the 
way, they are not.
  The bill was passed out of committee without being read. On at least 
three separate occasions, different versions of the legislation were 
presented to the House or to the committee. Last night, the third or 
fourth version of the bill was presented to the House. It again was not 
read. The Committee on Rules had no opportunity really to understand 
what was presented to them.
  Today, we saw a discussion of the legislation in which there appeared 
to be great confusion and in point of fact there was, because no Member 
had had opportunity to know or understand what is in this bill.
  The process could have been abated by the ordinary way in which 
legislation is considered. Hearings could have been held. Proper 
markups could have been held. This matter was reported to the House by 
our committee with minimum consideration of the legislation, and 
similar activities took place in the Committee on Ways and Means.
  My colleagues on the Republican side will tell us how hearings were 
held on Medicare. Hearings are routinely held on Medicare and on 
Medicaid hereabouts in this body, but it must be observed that not 
one hearing was held on this bill. The only hearing which was held on 
this subject in connection with this particular process was to hold a 
hearing in the Committee on Ways and Means on a press release, hardly a 
matter which merits congressional consideration.

  The result is that the House has acted upon this legislation in great 
confusion. The Speaker has been led into the unfortunate position where 
I am sure unknowingly he misrepresented the facts as regards the 
content of the legislation on a point which is extremely important to 
the American people. That is, that 11 million widows will not have 
their Medicare payments paid on their behalf on Part B because of the 
way the law is going to work out when the consideration of this matter 
is at conclusion.
  I say this is a sad and intolerable event. I say it is an event which 
has been created by a deliberate determination on the part of the 
Republican leadership of this body to present this matter to the House 
without giving adequate opportunity for this body to be properly 
informed through the orderly and regular process of this body which go 
back to the earliest days of the Republic. I think that this is a 
shameful way to proceed on legislation. It results in intolerable 
surprises to the Members of this body, results in lack of proper 
information on how the legislation has been constructed or what will be 
its impact.
  I think we need only to look forward now to see what fresh new 
surprises are going to plague this body, are going to plague the senior 
citizens, are going to plague the administrators on a State and Federal 
level and are going to plague the people who would be beneficiaries 
under Medicare who today would enjoy benefits which are going to be 
taken away from them tomorrow. I think that the surprises are going to 
be substantial.
  It is regrettable that we have done this this way. It is to be hoped 
that we will at least learn from it, will not repeat this kind of 
abuse. But a greater hope is that we might take the time to scrutinize 
the evil that we have done today and set about trying to correct it.

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