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




         DEMOCRATS EMPLOYING SCARE TACTICS TO FRIGHTEN ELDERLY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about 
Medicare tactics that are taking place by our friends on the other side 
of the aisle and the administration. They are scaring senior citizens. 
As the Wall Street Journal editorial talks about, ``Scare the Elderly 
Tactics'' are going on right now, and I think it is wrong.
  It is sad that they are trying to scare the senior citizens of this 
country and to make them afraid they will lose Medicare. When the 
President talks about we want to destroy Medicare, that is scare 
tactics, and that is wrong to do to the seniors and the elderly of this 
country.
  Let me first of all talk about briefly what our proposal is on 
Medicare. First of all, we all know Medicare is going bankrupt and we 
have to do something to save Medicare. We all agree to that. My friends 
on this side of the aisle, the Democrats agree, the Republicans agree. 
We all want to keep Medicare. It is an important program. It is an 
essential program. We have to keep it alive and we have to save it for 
future generations. So we all agree to that.

  The way we save it, Mr. Speaker, is to slow the rate of growth. We 
will spend more money every year on Medicare per person. Our spending, 
and remember these numbers, our spending goes from $4,800 per person 
under Medicare to $6,700, 7 years from today, per person under 
Medicare. We will increase spending every year for the Medicare 
Program. Not quite as fast as some people on the other side of the 
aisle would like us to spend, but we can do it. It is happening in the 
private sector.

                              {time}  1915

  All we want to do is slow the rate of growth. The way we do this is 
by offering more choices. Why should we not allow choices to be 
offered? All Federal employees right now have a choice of plans. We get 
to choose. Why should not seniors be given the right to choose a plan? 
That is all we are talking about, slowing the rate of growth, saving 
the plan, and giving seniors the right to choose. And all the Members 
on the other side of the aisle want to do is say, that we are scaring 
seniors, we are going to destroy Medicare, we going to kill Medicare. 
That is wrong.
  Let us talk about the facts of what the President is doing. He said, 
oh, we do not want an increase in Medicare part B premiums. Oh, my 
golly, we do not want to do that. We cannot have an increase in 
Medicare part B premiums. The Medicare part B premiums today are 
$46.10. When President Bill Clinton was first elected it was $31.80. 
They have gone up $14.30 a month since his election. Do you know what 
happens? Next year is an election year. So he wants to have them go 
down.
  Medicare part B premiums have gone up for 29 out of the last 30 
years. But next year is an election year. So we are going to let them 
go down. And immediately after the election, his budget shows they go 
up 10.2 percent. In fact, for 6 years following next year's election, 
under the President's budget, they go up 89 percent.
  Why is he saying, ``We do not want to increase the premiums on part 
B, we want to let them go down,'' and then after the election, jump 
them? That is the type of scare tactics, the type of thing that should 
not be taking place in this debate.
  Seven years from today, the President's projections on Medicare part 
B premiums are $83 a month. Our projections are $87 a month, $4 a month 
difference. Let us get serious about this debate and get on with the 
real issues.
  In Florida, my home State, Members of the other party are experts on 
scaring seniors. Finally the Washington press corps is becoming a 
little aware of this. The Florida press corps is very aware of what 
Governor Chiles did in the last election. He specifically scared 
seniors to get elected last November. There is no dispute about the 
facts.
  Last November, his campaign and the Democratic Party spent $360,000 
phoning seniors during the last 2 weeks before the election saying 
there were some fictitious senior citizen organization and telling them 
that Jeb Bush and his running mate wanted to abolish Social Security 
and Medicare. Just scare tactics entirely.

  Why is he doing that? The national press corps, they got all fired up 
on Willie Horton a number of years ago. Now they will not even get 
fired up over what Lawton Chiles is doing in Florida, in an 
orchestrated plan to scare the senior citizens of this country. Speaker 
after speaker gets up saying we are going to kill Medicare; we are 
going to destroy medicare.
  It is a good program. We have to keep Medicare. We have to save 
Medicare. I know they want to save Medicare, too. But stop talking this 
rhetoric. We have to agree on what we want.
  The head of the Democratic Party of Kentucky quoted as saying, I 
think white-haired people are scared and that ultimately helps us.
  Come on. Here is a part of the Democratic strategy that someone 
happened to get a copy of. Some Democratic strategy. The quote in there 
is. The natural inclination for people is to think that the GOP wants 
to cut Medicare, not to make it more efficient but to hurt the elderly. 
We need to exploit this.
  Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary said, ``Eventually they 
would like to see the program just die and go away. You know, that is 
probably what they would like to see happen to seniors, too, if you 
think about it.''
  He apologized for it, but it is scare tactics. They should stop. Let 
us get down to serious things, the business of saving Medicare.

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