[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 92 (Thursday, June 20, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6683-H6684]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HEALTH CARE SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hastert] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HASTERT. I have to take a few minutes today to just talk to the 
House and its membership about an important issue coming before this 
body. It is called health care security.
  It is about people being able to move from job to job, whether they 
are in group health insurance in one job and moved to group health 
insurance in another job, or they move from group insurance to 
individual insurance. If you happen to have, or a member of your family 
has, a preexisting condition, say, a heart situation or some type of 
long-term illness, you will not be denied health care.
  Now, that legislation has passed this House and it has passed the 
Senate, and it is time to go to conference, the principals in the other 
body and the principals in this House, and talk about a way to fashion 
this bill so that it will gain the support of the President and the 
signature of the President, and will become law.
  The American people want health care security, they want portability. 
They also want availability in health care and they want affordability 
in health care. It is something that we have addressed in this piece of 
legislation. People who are self-employed, they may be truck drivers in 
my district or barbers or beauticians or farmers or real estate agents 
or insurance agents even. They would like to be given the same break 
that big business gets, the same break that if they go out and buy 
health care for themselves and their family, they can deduct the cost 
of that health care insurance from their income tax.
  If they are beyond just self-employed, if they are a small business, 
they would like to be able to offer health care insurance to their 
employees that is actually affordable.
  The bill that we have passed through the House and the bill that has 
passed through the Senate basically does that also. It changes how 
individual insurance is offered. The House provision has a provision 
for medical savings accounts. Medical savings accounts are something 
that many companies offer today; as a matter of fact, there are 17 
States across this Nation, including my home State of Illinois, that 
offer medical savings accounts so that people can choose the health 
care providers that they want.

                              {time}  1815

  They also have an opportunity to make their individual choices. They 
also have an opportunity to shop the market.
  Today in health care, if you have an insurance policy, we always say 
that there is a third party payer. When you go to the doctor's office 
and the doctor says, you need X, Y, or Z treatment, if you ask the 
doctor how much does that

[[Page H6684]]

treatment cost, he will say, do not worry about it. Your insurance will 
cover it.
  My colleagues, your insurance may cover it, but you never see the 
bill. You do not know how much you are being charged by the doctor, the 
hospital, the health care provider. We think the American public ought 
to be able to enter into that contract, if you will. We think that they 
ought to be able to deal not only with the provider, the doctor or the 
health care provider that has offered the service, we think that you 
can look them in the eye and ask the price and find out what kind of 
value you are getting for your insurance dollar.
  The way to do that is to let people choose medical savings accounts. 
A medical savings accounts, what happens, if the average cost of an 
insurance policy in this country, which it is, is $4,500, if you live 
in Keokuk, IA, it might be a little less than that. If you live in Long 
Island, NY, it might be a little bit more than that, but the average 
cost is $4,500. For about $2,200, you can get a $2,000 deductible 
health care policy, $2,000 deductible, what we call a catastrophic 
policy. The balance of that amount will go into a medical savings 
account.
  Now, a medical savings account is like what we would call an IRA or 
we could call it a medical IRA. In that situation your dollars go into 
your savings account. The first $2,000 or $2,100 or $2,200, depending 
on the policy that you buy, will be paid by you. You choose the doctor. 
You choose it, and if you do not spend it, you get to keep it. That is 
the deal that the American people want. They want health care security. 
They want health care affordability, and they want health care 
availability. It is time to not be blocked by the Senate. It is time 
that we go to conference and get this job done.

                          ____________________