[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 179 (Monday, November 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H12158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE BALANCED BUDGET PLAN, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID

  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. Mr. Speaker, I was very proud today when President 
Clinton indicated that he would not support, and he would, in fact, 
veto the continuing resolution because of the increase in the Medicare 
part B premium.
  I think that the public needs to know, and it needs to be reflected 
more and more amongst ourselves in the House, that essentially this 
continuing resolution takes away the provision in the current law 
which, as of January 1, would decrease the amount or the percentage 
that senior citizens have to pay for their Medicare part B premium, and 
what the continuing resolution proposes is that the percentage be kept 
as it is now, which would essentially force an increase in part B 
premiums as much as, say, $10 over the next year per month for those 
senior citizens. That includes almost all senior citizens who take 
advantage and pay to have themselves covered under Medicare part B, 
which pays for physician care.
  It is amazing to me, Mr. Speaker, that at a time when we spent almost 
a month or 2 months or even more trying to deal with the whole budget 
and come up with the reconciliation and also deal with Medicare, that 
the Republican leadership continues to insist on increasing Medicare 
premiums before the time when they ever put together the budget or even 
have a conference with the budget reconciliation conferees.
  I would very much right now like to be at a meeting with the rest of 
the conferees, with the Democrats and the Republicans, dealing with 
this budget, dealing with Medicare, dealing with Medicaid. But, so far, 
all of the meetings have been in secret, just with the Republicans.
  I was appointed a conferee for the budget reconciliation a few weeks 
ago. But we still have not met, because all of the negotiations are 
taking place on the Republican side without any input or any 
opportunity for Democrats.
  In fact today, in the Washington Post there was an article that said, 
``Balanced budget plan near complete, Congress may consider massive 
reconciliation measure on Wednesday.'' Well, today is Monday. We have 
not even had a meeting of the reconciliation conferees that was 
originally called for tonight, but then it was cancelled at the last 
minute. Now we are told it is tomorrow.

  But in the meantime, obviously the Republicans have met in secret and 
have already decided how they are going to increase the cost to seniors 
for Medicare, cut their Medicare benefits, and provide tax cuts 
primarily for wealthy Americans.
  There are two very important issues in this budget conference that 
affect Medicare that I think need to be addressed. In the Senate, 
unlike the House, nursing home standards were kept intact. In the 
Senate, unlike the House, the safety net for children, for disabled 
persons, for pregnant women was kept intact so that there is a 
guarantee, there continues to be an entitlement in the Senate version 
of this budget bill that pregnant women, the disabled, and children 
will get Medicaid and will have health care coverage. But not in the 
House version.
  This is a very important issue, whether or not we are going to 
continue to have nursing home standards, whether or not we are going to 
continue to have Medicaid benefits for these disadvantaged groups, and 
yet there is no meeting of the conferees. Everything is done in secret 
with the Republican leadership.
  Today, there was an article in the New York Times that pointed out 
that it is very likely, under the Republican leadership bill, that 
there will become a shortage of nursing home beds for the elderly in 
the next few years because with the significant amount of money being 
reduced for Medicaid, there simply will not be any incentive to even 
have Medicaid beds in nursing homes.
  Similarly, we are told the Medicaid safety net for children could be 
imperiled with the Republican leadership bill because basically the 
States will not have the money to provide Medicaid coverage for 
children.
  So I would really like to be a part of this conference where we 
discuss what is going to happen to the future of our children in terms 
of their health care coverage, to the future of our nursing homes, 
whether there will be quality nursing homes, whether there will be 
enough beds for our citizens in the future.
  We do not have that opportunity.
  Mr. KLECZKA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KLECZKA. If I understand correctly, you indicated that the 
massive bill changing Medicare as we know it is currently being worked 
on by a group of legislators. Then why, in your estimation, would the 
Republicans want to put the increase in Medicare premiums for our 
seniors in this continuing bill to keep the Government running past 
midnight tonight? Why would they pull that section out and put in the 
simple bill to keep the Government running? What is the rationale 
there?

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. PALLONE. My understanding is they are so determined that this 
increase take effect on January 1, that they do not want to negotiate 
it, they do not want to discuss it, they just want to make sure it is 
included in the continuing resolution so it takes effect with those 
increases on January 1.

                          ____________________