[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11661-H11662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO DYING ON THE VINE

  (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I just must respond to the comments made by 
the gentleman before me because they are simply not true.
  What the Speaker has said in a speech last week was he would like for 
the Health Care Financing Administration to wither on the vine. So 
would I. So would everyone.
  As we take Medicare into more private markets with managed care 
opportunities and private insurance opportunities, we hope that the 
Health 

[[Page H 11662]]

Care Financing Administration, which has strangled health care with 
regulatory burdens, does indeed die on the vine.
  Let me also point out that in 1965 when Medicare was passed, nearly 
half of the Republicans then in this House voted in favor of it. That 
should be pointed out again. Nearly half of the Republicans supported 
it. Over half support it now. Nearly all of us want to fix it, preserve 
it, protect it. But allowing erroneous statements to be made simply is 
not helping the process.
  HCFA, the Health Care Financing Administration, should wither on the 
vine. Medicare will be better for it.

  Mr. Speaker, the text of the speech by Speaker Gingrich follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 27, 1995]

                      Gingrich Says Halt Monopoly

       Text of House Speaker Newt Gingrich's remarks before a 
     conference of Blue Cross and Blue Shield on Tuesday.
       Now let me talk a little bit about Medicare. Let me start 
     at the vision level so you understand how radically different 
     we are and why it's so hard for the press corps to cover us. 
     Medicare is the 1964 Blue Cross plan codified into law by 
     Lyndon B. Johnson, and it is about what you'd--I mean, if you 
     all went out in the marketplace tomorrow morning and said, 
     ``Hi, I've got a 1964 Blue Cross plan,'' I'll let you decide 
     how competitive you'd be. But I don't think very.
       So what we're trying to do, first of all, is say, OK, here 
     is a government monopoly plan. We're designing a free-market 
     plan. Now, they're very different models. You know, we tell 
     Boris Yeltsin, ``Get rid of centralized command 
     bureaucracies. Go to the marketplace.'' OK, what do you think 
     the Health Care Financing Administration is? It's a 
     centralized command bureaucracy. It's everything we're 
     telling Boris Yeltsin to get rid of. Now we don't get rid of 
     it in Round 1 because we don't think that that's politically 
     smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a 
     transition. But we believe it's going to wither on the vine 
     because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it--
     voluntarily. Notice the difference, again, from the Clinton 
     plan. No one under our plan is coerced into doing anything.

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