[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 40 (Thursday, March 21, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2661-H2662]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  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. Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about the 
Medicare program, because we are about to receive the 1996 report from 
the board of trustees of the Medicare program. It was just a year ago 
that we received the 1995 report, in April 1995, stating that Medicare 
was going bankrupt. The report from the board of trustees stated that 
it was going to be running out of money this year and all the reserves 
of the Medicare program would be totally exhausted in 7 more years. And 
the trustees of the Medicare program are basically appointees of the 
Clinton administration, the Secretary of HHS, Donna Shalala, Secretary 
of Treasury, Mr. Rubin, the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Reich and others. 
This is a bipartisan report.
  The fact is Medicare is going bankrupt. And what I want to talk about 
today is what has happened since the last report, as we are about to 
receive the 1996 report.
  From my area in Florida, I have a very large number of seniors. In 
fact I have more seniors in my congressional district than any other 
congressional district in the United States. It is very important for 
all the seniors in my district. It is important to me personally. I 
have an 87-year-old mother who is on Medicare. But it is also important 
for all the people in my district because of the jobs and the impact on 
the economy.
  Sarasota Memorial Hospital is the second largest employer in Sarasota 
County in Florida. So it is a jobs issue that is important, to take 
care of the seniors in my district, and it is something that we need to 
fight for and save. It is not a political issue. Medicare is too 
important an issue to be played with as politics.
  Well, what did Congress do during the past year about the Medicare 
program? First of all, we listened. I sent letters out and asked for 
advice from my constituents and received over 1,000 responses. Members 
in Congress held over 1,000 town hall meetings all over the United 
States asking for input and advice, what they should do about the 
Medicare program. We listened, and we listened well, and got ideas. We 
came up with a plan.
  Two things we found out: One is, Medicare is in crisis; and the other 
item we learned is, it is full of waste, fraud and abuse. Those are the 
two things that kept getting repeated time and time again. We have a 
major problem with the Medicare program. We understand that. We need to 
do something about it. And it is the waste, fraud and abuse. So what 
did Congress do?

[[Page H2662]]

  Congress passed the Medicare Preservation Act last year, and the 
Medicare Preservation Act had a tough waste, fraud and abuse program. 
It had stiff penalties for anybody that participated in fraud in the 
program. And it provided rewards for those that discovered fraud in the 
program.
  I remember at one of my town meetings a mobile home park in Palmetto, 
FL, a lady standing up, saying about the illustration of fraud. She was 
admitted to the hospital and got a bill later for her own autopsy. That 
is the crazy things that were happening.
  What we are offering were incentives. She could report this, and she 
would have a reward for finding out that problem and reporting it and 
getting a reward from the Medicare program.
  So we focused on a waste, fraud and abuse program within the Medicare 
program. Our program saved Medicare from going bankrupt. But it 
continued to spend more money every year. In fact, right now the 
Medicare program spends $4,800 for every man and woman in the Medicare 
program. Over 7 years we were going to increase that to $7,100 per 
person in Medicare. That is a $2,300 increase over 7 years, more money 
every year. There are no cuts being proposed in Medicare. And it was a 
good program, giving seniors more choices.

  So we did not just talk about Medicare. We acted.
  The House passed a bill. The Senate passed a bill, and we jointly 
sent a plan to save the Medicare program to the President.
  What happened? Well, sadly the President decided to play politics 
with it. He played politics by vetoing the Medicare plan that we 
proposed. He did not come up with any solutions or ideas. All he did 
was take political advantage saying, let us scare those seniors and 
scare them of Republicans. And that is too bad, because Medicare is too 
important to scare seniors over. It is too important to play politics 
with it.
  Bill Clinton vetoed that plan. When he vetoed it, he knew secret 
information at that time that Medicare was in worse shape than the 
trustees reported last April. Because on February 5 of this year, in a 
New York Times article, we find out that Medicare is going bankrupt 
much faster than 7 years. It is in worse financial shape than we were 
told by the trustees in April of 1995. And when Bill Clinton vetoed 
that bill in December, he vetoed a plan that was in serious financial 
trouble. And yet he still has not offered any solution.
  We need to face the Medicare problem. We have a good plan, and Bill 
Clinton needs to stop playing politics and give use the solution to 
Medicare, too.

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