[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 169 (Monday, October 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H11425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page H 11425]]


                     MORE ON THE MOTION TO INSTRUCT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I just wanted to take this opportunity to 
talk a little bit more about the motion to instruct the conferees on 
the budget reconciliation bill which we voted on just a few moments 
ago, actually.
  I felt very strongly, I had a chance to talk a little bit about it, 
but I just wanted to elaborate a little more. I felt very strongly 
during the debate today on this motion that the motion really got to 
the heart of the issue on Medicare, the cuts in Medicare, the cuts in 
Medicaid, and the cuts essentially to our health care system in general 
and how this Republican budget has essentially targeted, if you will, 
Medicare and Medicaid in order to primarily pay for tax cuts for 
wealthy Americans.
  The motion to instruct the conferees pays attention to that and 
essentially says that the conferees should try to do whatever they can 
to minimize both tax cuts for the wealthy and tax increases on low- and 
middle-income working families in order to preserve and protect the 
health and income security of senior citizens and to avoid increasing 
the number of Americans lacking access to health care.
  From the very beginning of this debate on the budget, on the one side 
concern about Medicare and Medicaid, on the other side the issue of 
where tax cuts are going to go and how those two are going to 
interplay, from the very beginning I thought it was possible and the 
point needed to be made that there was a relationship, a direct 
relationship between the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and the tax cuts 
that were going to be implemented for wealthy Americans. In fact, if 
you eliminate a lot of the tax cuts for the wealthy Americans or for 
those of us who happen to have higher incomes, if you eliminate those 
tax cuts or you cut back on those tax cuts, you could add more money 
into Medicare and Medicaid and not have the situation where both of 
those health care programs for seniors as well as for low-income people 
are seriously threatened by this Congress and by this budget bill.
  The other thing that is in this motion to instruct that I thought was 
so important is that it pointed out that there are a lot of people who 
simply will not have any health care coverage if these cuts in Medicare 
and Medicaid go through. Let me explain why I feel very strongly about 
that.

  First of all, right now Medicaid, which is the health care program 
for low-income people in this country, is basically an entitlement. In 
other words, if your income falls below a certain amount, you are 
entitled to Medicaid, to health care coverage. Well, no longer under 
this Republican budget bill is Medicaid an entitlement. In fact, it is 
left up to the States with money that they get in a block grant from 
the Federal Government to decide who they are going to cover in various 
categories for low-income people. So it is very possible that a lot of 
low-income people, seniors, children, disabled people, will simply not 
have health care coverage at all if the States decide not to provide 
it.
  Now, on the Senate side, on the Senate side they decided to continue 
the entitlement for pregnant women, children, and for disabled persons. 
So one of the points that the motion to instruct makes is that we 
should agree with the Senate version to at least guarantee health care 
coverage for low-income people who fall into those three categories.
  There are also a lot of people on Medicare. There are also a lot of 
senior citizens on Medicare who may not get health care coverage under 
this bill because you have to remember that part B of Medicare, which 
pays for your doctor bills, is not a guarantee. Right now if you are a 
low-income senior, part B of your Medicare is paid for by the Federal 
Government. But this bill has eliminated that guarantee. So if you are 
a low-income senior who is eligible for Medicaid, you no longer have 
the guarantee of part B, and you have to pay for it out of your pocket 
possibly unless the States decide to pay it for you.
  Again, a large group, in this case low-income seniors, may not have 
health care in terms of having physician care.
  These are the problems that we face unless in this conference an 
effort is made to try to cut back on this tax cut for wealthy Americans 
and put more money back into the Medicare Program and back into the 
Medicaid Program.
  The other issue that came up, and I think it is a very important 
issue again, is on the pensions. In the Senate bill there is no change 
with regard to pension funds. But in the House-passed bill we have this 
provision that basically allows corporations to raid pension funds of 
their employees and use it for almost any purpose that they want, 
perhaps for a hostile takeover. Again, the Senate has seen that that 
language is not the way to go. Our motion to instruct, which did not 
pass today, urges that the conferees go along with the Senate bill to 
guarantee some protection for workers and for their pensions.
  I think that is safe to say that some of these provisions where there 
has been disagreement between the House and the Senate, particularly 
when it comes to providing Medicaid-guaranteed coverage for a lot of 
low-income people, providing the protection for workers and their 
pensions and also with regard to nursing homes, right now the House-
passed bill does not provide any guarantees that nursing homes are 
going to be up to standard, because the standards are essentially 
eliminated.
  We hope that we will see the conferees adopt the better Senate 
language.

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