[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 11, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6122-H6123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         AMERICAN WORKERS NEED PORTABILITY IN HEALTH INSURANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized 
during morning business for 4 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, today is a very sad day from the point of 
view of the Nation's health insurance needs, and I say that because 
later on this morning there will be a motion to go to conference on the 
health care insurance reform bill, the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill as it is 
known, and will also be dealing with a budget that has come back from a 
conference between the House and the Senate which makes major 
negative--has a major negative impact on the Medicare and Medicaid 
Program. And it really did not have to be this way, but unfortunately 
the Republican leadership keeps insisting on raiding Medicare and 
Medicaid primarily to pay tax breaks for wealthy Americans and also 
insists on putting in what I call, and the President has called, I 
think, the poison pill into the Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform 
legislation of medical savings accounts.
  If I could just take a minute, Mr. Speaker, to explain why I think 
that there are some very bad developments that are occurring today 
primarily because of the Republican leadership's insistence on catering 
to special interests. The Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform bill was 
basically put forward by the two Senators on a bipartisan basis because 
they recognized that increasingly it is difficult for many people to 
get health insurance in this country. People who were working, people 
who are out there who are employed have a difficult time getting health 
insurance or transferring their health insurance if they lose their 
jobs or they go to a new job. And so on a bipartisan basis the 
Senators, Senator Kennedy and Senator Kassebaum, said that they would 
like to make some changes, relatively minor changes, but still 
significant for a lot of people in this country, that would allow 
people, when they lose a job or change jobs, to take their health 
insurance with them, this so-called portability concept, and also that 
people who have preexisting conditions, who have had handicaps, who 
have operations or whatever, who oftentimes find it difficult to buy 
health insurance would not be shortchanged, would still be able to buy 
health insurance because preexisting conditions, health conditions, 
could not be a basis, in many cases, for denying them coverage.
  Well, we were all very much in favor of that. But here comes the 
Republican leadership, specifically Speaker Gingrich, that want to 
attach to that very good legislation what they call medical savings 
accounts, which I call nothing more than a way for the healthy and the 
wealthy in this country to take advantage of health insurance at the 
expense of everyone else. What medical savings accounts do is basically 
allow people to opt for catastrophic coverage, and they pay out of 
pocket for the coverage for other daily expenses that are not part of 
that catastrophic umbrella policy.
  The problem with it is that it breaks the health insurance pool. The 
reason why health insurance stays at a certain level and the price does 
not go up even more is because everyone is in the insurance pool. But 
if we take the healthy and wealthy out of the pool and we give them a 
catastrophic umbrella policy, then the people that are left in the 
insurance pool end up paying more because they are poorer and less 
healthy. And that is what the medical savings accounts seek to do. They 
are healthy, wealthy savings accounts essentially, and we know that the 
consequence of them is that the average costs of health insurance will 
go up for those people who are employed and in the work force.

                              {time}  0930

  So I once again say today, we must put a stop to this Republican 
policy. Essentially it is an effort to act for special interests. There 
is the Golden Rule Insurance Co. that has contributed a lot to the 
Republican Party over the years that has been advocating these special 
type of accounts for the healthy and the wealthy and until we put a 
stop to it we are not going to see the basic health insurance reforms 
that are important as part of the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill. We also have 
the budget coming up today which once again makes deep cuts in Medicare 
and Medicaid to pay primarily for tax breaks for wealthy Americans. On 
Medicare what we are seeing is cuts of about $168 billion and also 
major restructuring of

[[Page H6123]]

Medicare that will result in doctors being allowed for the first time 
to overcharge the seniors. Seniors right now are capped.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shaw). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.

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