[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 88 (Friday, June 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6255-S6257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEALTH CARE REFORM
Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, this past Monday while I was on the
Senate floor, I suggested that there should be a relevance between what
public policyholders say in the pursuit of seeking higher office and
what they do if they are fortunate enough to achieve that.
In particular, I was alluding to the promise that this administration
made to middle America that it would significantly lower the tax burden
on the American middle class, the vast majority of our American
citizens, but, in fact, by August of the first year in office, they had
totally reversed that
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promise and had, in fact, increased taxes at historical proportions,
resulting in most American working families today having a higher tax
burden, having less of their paychecks in their checking accounts than
at any time in American history.
But the administration made another promise that it did try to keep,
in all credit. They promised to revise the health care system in the
United States. Indeed, when they came before the American people, their
proposal was to totally federalize or take American medicine and have
the American Government take it over.
So what that meant was that the Federal Government would increase to
unprecedented proportions, that a new entitlement would be created that
would be larger than any entitlement in American history, including
Social Security, that 17 percent of the American economy would be taken
over by the Government, and for the first time, Mr. President, the
Government would control over half the American economy.
I can remember saying at the time, as a kid, I never believed that it
would be possible for me to be in the U.S. Senate debating whether or
not the Government should control over half the American economy. But,
indeed, that is what we were doing just 2 years ago.
It was a very elaborate system that controlled every aspect of
medicine. By the time the debate was over, Mr. President, the American
people had defeated President Clinton's health care proposals. By the
time the final cast was set, less than one-third of the American people
supported the idea. Over two-thirds opposed it, because they saw it for
what it was, a massive explosion in the growth of our Government, a
massive incursion into the personal affairs of every American citizen
and family and business and community, an enormous and explosive cost.
Mr. President, at the time we were debating this proposal, often
those of us, such as myself, were asked, ``Well, what would you do?''
We talked about targeted reform. We talked about making benefits more
portable so that they could move with the employee and we could put an
end to this job lock where a person who developed a medical problem
could not move from one job to another because they would not have been
able to keep their insurance.
We talked about making the insurance marketplace more friendly. We
talked about making it more possible for people to obtain insurance. We
talked about making it a guaranteed issue, all of these targeted
reforms that we thought would modestly change the marketplace and make
it easier for uninsured people to gain insurance.
Mr. President, this Senate and the House have both fulfilled that
promise. They have done exactly that. They have passed health reform
that eliminates job lock. It allows an ambitious worker to leave a job
and move to a better one without losing health coverage. It allows the
self-employed to deduct on their taxes 80 percent of their health
insurance premium. This is an egregious--an egregious--error in the
workplace. If you work for a large company, your health premiums are
deductible, they are tax deductible. If you work for yourself, they are
not. This corrects it. It allows the small business with 50 or fewer
employees or the self-employed to have tax-free medical savings
accounts.
We have been joined by Senator Gramm, the senior Senator from Texas,
who wants to speak on this subject. But let me just say that the
designers of massive Government control of the health system are
blocking this reform proposal through parliamentary means. They are
refusing to allow the conferees to be selected. It is because they do
not want the product of medical savings accounts, which allows the
worker or the citizen to create a savings account to help them manage
health costs, to lower health costs, to give them more freedom in the
health care system. They do not like that. So they have systematically
blocked these reforms that the Nation overwhelmingly supports.
I find it a bit unusual that the last vestige of those who want to
make the Government consume over half our economy, who want to run
every aspect of our personal lives by controlling medicine and every
doctor and every hospital, every cure that you may or may not want to
use, just cannot abide the idea of allowing citizens this product to
make choices on their own. I will come back to this subject in a bit.
We have been joined by the senior Senator from Texas. I yield up to 10
minutes to the Senator from Texas.
Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bond). The Senator from Texas.
Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me thank our dear colleague from
Georgia. I want to say a few words on another subject, but let me
address the subject at hand first. Let me say to our dear colleague
from Georgia, I do not think he ought to be surprised.
I believe that the final battle for the rights of man, the final
determination of whether freedom, both economic and political freedom,
will survive and prosper on this planet is not going to be determined
on the frozen tundra of Russia, it is not going to be determined by
debate in the Kremlin; it is going to be determined right here on the
floor of the United States Senate.
I try to make a distinction because I think Americans get confused
about what freedom is. Freedom is not just the right to get up and
criticize the Government. Freedom is not just the right to exercise
political choices. Freedom is the right to exercise economic choices.
Freedom is the right to buy the products you choose. Freedom is the
right to spend your own money which you have earned by the sweat of
your own brow. That is what we are talking about here today.
I think probably most people are totally confused about what this
debate is. Our Democratic colleagues are hoping they are. Because what
this debate is all about is freedom. There are some Members of the U.S.
Senate who are for it and there are some Members of the U.S. Senate
who, in its economic manifestation of the right of people to choose
what kind of health insurance they want, are against it.
Senator Kennedy and the Democrats are saying, in holding up the
conference on a health care bill that passed the Senate 100 to 0--100
to 0--he is saying that he is opposed to it because if we go to
conference with the House to work out our differences, medical savings
accounts could end up in the bill.
What are medical savings accounts? What we are talking about here is
simply the right of people to choose between buying a low-deductible
health insurance policy, which for a family of four costs about $4,200
a year, where the insurance company starts paying almost immediately if
somebody in your family gets sick. That is conventional health
insurance. It has one big problem, and that is, once you are sick, you
are spending somebody else's money. You have no incentive to be
conscientious. Costs are exploding.
Just imagine if you went to the grocery store, and you had a grocery
insurance policy. For everything you put in your basket, the grocery
insurance policy paid 95 percent of it. You would eat differently, and
so would your dog. But what would happen is, grocery insurance would
explode in cost. That is exactly what has happened in health insurance.
What we are trying to do is to let people, especially young people
who do not have much money, buy a new kind of health insurance policy
that would have a higher deductible. You could buy a Blue Cross-Blue
Shield policy, with a $3,000 deductible, for about $2,200 a year rather
than the $4,200 a year you are paying for by buying the comprehensive
low-deductible policy.
Why $2,000 less? Because a lot of that is, for all practical
purposes, prepaid medicine. What we are proposing is that people be
able to take that $2,000 they save and put it into a tax-free savings
account and use it to pay deductibles. But the magic, almost magical
power of it, is that if they do not use the money for medical purposes,
they get to keep it. So unless they get very sick, 92 percent of
American families would never spend beyond their medical savings
account in a year. So unless they get very sick, they have an incentive
to be cost conscious because they are spending their own money.
Here is the point. We are not trying to make people buy medical
savings accounts. There is nothing in our proposal that makes anybody
buy it. What we are trying to do is to let them do it. This is about
freedom.
Senator Kennedy and the Democrats claim, ``Oh, this program only
helps
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rich people.'' Have you ever noticed that everything Democrats are
against supposedly helps rich people? They did not want to cut taxes on
working families, a $500 tax credit per child, because they say that
helps rich people. If they want to raise taxes, of course, they claim
they are taxing only rich people.
In any case, do rich people care about this? What difference does it
make to rich people whether they buy a low-deductible or high
deductible policy? By definition, if you are rich, you have a lot of
money. It cannot make possibly any difference.
But let me tell you who it makes a difference to. I have a son who
just turned 23 years old. He is off my insurance policy. For the first
time in his life, he is trying to decide how he is going to get health
insurance and how he is going to buy it. He is as healthy as most 23-
year-old males and females are. Why not allow him to buy a high-
deductible policy and take the savings, put them into a medical savings
account and build up a nest egg to go to graduate school, or to try to
start a business, or to buy a home when he gets married?
When we debated this subject before, I had quotes from two so-called
rich people who use medical savings accounts. One of them was a united
mine worker, because the United Mine Workers Union has medical savings
accounts, but they do not get fair tax treatment on them. They have to
pay taxes on them. The other was a part-time bus driver. They were
arguing they ought to be treated fairly, and I agree with them and not
with the Senator from Massachusetts, who is objecting to letting us
appoint conferees and bring this bill up.
The second argument is, well, look, this helps young people and
healthy people. Who does not have health insurance? Basically, young
healthy people are not buying health insurance because, A, they do not
think they need it right now and, B, they cannot afford it. Why not
have a policy available that may not be used by everybody, but that
will be used by young people so that they can buy basic coverage. The
Democrats' solution is to guarantee that they can buy insurance in the
future once they get sick rather than now when they are young and
healthy, but at the cost of charging everybody else higher rates.
We need medical savings accounts, and this is about freedom. The
Democrats want the Clinton-type health care bill. That is what they
want. And they know medical savings accounts move us toward private
family decisions. They want Government decisions. That is what this
debate is about, and if you believe in freedom, you are with us.
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