[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H8101-H8102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  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 5 minutes.

[[Page H8102]]

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to devote my 5 minutes to the issue 
of Medicare, but I could not help but just briefly comment on the 
previous speaker whom I greatly admire. When I was home in my district 
in New Jersey this weekend, I was at a church service on Sunday. As I 
was coming out, a couple of people commented to me, one on Medicare 
which I will go into soon, but the other said something about the 
President. He said, ``You know, one thing I admire about the President 
is the fact that we are at peace. We are at peace throughout the 
world.'' I think that kind of says it all. I frankly think that 
President Clinton's foreign policy has been a major success. In fact, 
he has kept us out of many wars around the world and has brought peace 
to many parts of the world that were not at peace before. I think that 
says a lot about his foreign policy and its success.
  I just wanted to also comment on one of my previous colleague's 
statements, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Weller], when he berated 
the fact that President Clinton had vetoed the Republican Medicare 
legislation. All I can say is thank God that President Clinton was 
there and did veto that legislation. The Democrats basically in this 
Congress have prevented the Republican leadership from devastating 
Medicare. The Republican leadership has proposed major cuts in Medicare 
that would primarily pay for tax cuts for wealthy individuals and they 
have tried to change a program substantively so that essentially what 
would happen is that Medicare would disappear as we know it. Democrats 
prevented the Republican leadership last year from doubling Medicare 
Part B premiums and from any attempts to eliminate doctor choice which 
is very important to the average senior citizen. They prevented cutting 
Medicare premium assistance for low-income seniors, something that I 
actually tried to accomplish in the Committee on Commerce. A lot of 
people forget that the Republican leadership wanted to eliminate the 
current program where for low-income seniors Medicaid pays for Medicare 
part B premiums. We also stopped the Republicans from repealing Federal 
nursing home quality standards. Medicaid is a very important part of 
the overall program to provide quality health care for senior citizens 
as well. The Republican leadership tried to eliminate and gut Medicaid 
as well. They wanted to repeal Federal nursing home quality standards, 
they wanted to put homes and family farms of elderly couples at risk 
for nursing home care, and they wanted to force adult children to be 
financially responsible for their parents nursing home bills because 
two-thirds of Medicaid goes to pay for senior citizens who are in 
nursing homes. If that aid is eliminated or cut back significantly, we 
were going to see elderly relatives or also children having to pay for 
their parents or their grandparents in nursing homes.
  All of this I am mentioning today because now we see the Republicans 
trying to basically rewrite history and say that they were not trying 
to devastate and eliminate Medicare. Most significantly we have gotten 
some criticism on our side of the aisle because we constantly quote a 
statement by Speaker Gingrich. I just want to read that statement 
again. Speaker Gingrich said, and this was last year on October 26:

       We don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think 
     that that's politically smart and we don't think that's the 
     right way to go through a transition period. But we believe 
     it's going to wither on the vine because we think people 
     are voluntarily going to leave it.

  As many of my colleagues know, the AFL-CIO, the labor international 
organization, has been putting on ads where they have actual pictures, 
video, if you will, of Speaker Gingrich making this quote about 
Medicare. Now the Republicans are trying to take it off the air because 
they are afraid of the truth.
  Let me tell my colleagues, what could be more appropriate, what is 
more significant than the kind of cuts and the kind of changes in 
Medicare that the Republicans were trying to achieve? If those had been 
accomplished, if President Clinton and the Democrats had not stopped 
those major changes in Medicare, then indeed Medicare would have 
withered on the vine which is exactly what Speaker Gingrich says that 
he wants to do.
  For those who think that the Republicans have changed, they have not 
changed. In this session of Congress, I should say in this year, they 
have already proposed another budget that makes significant cuts and 
changes in Medicare. Their current plan, a little different maybe than 
last year, but still tries to do the same thing: It would eliminate 
doctor and hospital choice by forcing seniors into Medicare managed 
care plans, it would allow doctors to charge extra out-of-pocket costs 
to seniors who remain in Medicare fee-for-service, it would severely 
cut Medicare and Medicaid hospital funding, forcing many hospitals to 
close their doors on seniors, it would eliminate coverage guarantee for 
over 4 million elderly Americans who need nursing home care, that is 
the Medicaid aspect again, and would further erode Medicare solvency by 
creating wealthy healthy plans leaving many seniors with higher costs 
and less care.
  What the Republicans are doing once again is cutting the amount of 
money that is available for Medicare which ultimately will translate 
into less quality care and less services for senior citizens.

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