[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12316-H12317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REPUBLICAN RECORD ON MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I do not often come down into this well in a 
harshly partisan manner because I do not think most of the issues 
facing the country are either Democrat or Republican, but tonight I 
really felt compelled to come down here as a Democrat in memory of a 
marvelous gentleman that many of us served with named Claude Pepper 
from the great State of Florida. I hope our dear man, Representative 
Pepper, is listening to us tonight because he was the man who knew the 
history of the Social Security and Medicare Programs better than any 
other Member that I ever had the privilege to serve with.
  I know what he would say if he were standing here tonight. He would 
look to the Republican side of the aisle and say: ``I served here when 
Social Security was first debated and passed. Let the record show there 
was not one Republican vote that stood on this floor in support of the 
Social Security Program.''

[[Page H 12317]]

  I was elected many years after Claude Pepper was elected, in 1982. In 
March of 1983, we had to restore the health of the Social Security 
Program. What happened in that election year of 1982 was, the American 
public saw that, with the election of large numbers of Republicans in 
1980, the Social Security Program was again threatened. Claude Pepper 
stood on this floor, and there was not a dry eye in the House when he 
finished. We passed a bill in March 1983 to restore, restore the health 
of the Social Security Program.
  So I find it somewhat ironic when I hear the crocodile tears from the 
other side of the aisle all of a sudden being real interested in trying 
to save Social Security and save Medicare, when the Republican Party 
has fundamentally never supported the two most popular programs that 
have been enacted in this century.
  Now, in fact, if it had been up to the Republican Party, we truly 
know those programs would not have happened. If we look back to the 
Medicare program, consider this: From 1952 to 1965, 13 years, the 
Republican Party used every delaying tactic possible not to allow a 
Medicare bill to get on this floor. It was bottled up in committee for 
over a decade and a half. When the bill finally emerged, 97 percent of 
Republicans voted against Medicare in 1960. In 1962, 86 percent voted 
against Medicare. Then in 1964, thank God for Lyndon Johnson, 85 
percent of them voted against Medicare.
  So tonight we have got the entire Government of the United States 
shut down. Seniors in my district are not being served. Seventy a day 
are being turned away, over 400 phone calls, 400 visitors, people we 
have not been able to serve in Toledo, Ohio today because of inaction 
by the Republican Party. Now we hear these very same people telling us, 
oh, they really want to save Medicare. They really want to save Social 
Security. Please, do not deny history.
  From the very beginning, what has the Republican Party stood for? It 
has stood for voluntary plans, voluntary plans with no guaranteed 
financing and no guaranteed benefits.
  So tonight we have watched people--I know their offices are being 
called because seniors all over this country know what is happending--
stand down on this floor and act as though they have had this change of 
heart. I do not think there is any change of heart at all. It is the 
same old struggle that we had from the time of Franklin Roosevelt. That 
is the struggle on whether you truly believe in the integrity of these 
programs, that these are a contract of trust between generations, or 
what are they trying to do?

  In the resolution that we are stuck on and we cannot move out of this 
Congress, they are trying to increase Medicare premiums. They are 
trying to change the program to what Speaker Gingrich calls a Medicare 
program that will wither on the vine by making the program a program 
that does not keep the integrity of the system, because it gives people 
so many choices to operate out and go into other plans that in fact you 
lose the insurance base, the universal insurance base of the current 
program.
  So I can just say that this Government shutdown is absolutely 
unnecessary. A thousand Federal workers in my district today were 
furloughed. As a result, three of our local Social Security offices are 
operating with a skeleton staff. Telephone calls are going unanswered 
today from in our district. Collectively, these offices could have 
served hundreds of people.
  I do not see why we have to wait around here until Friday. What is 
wrong with the Republican Party? It's the same thing that has been 
wrong with the Republican Party since the 1930's. They have never 
believed in the Social Security and Medicare Program for all of our 
people.

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