[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H8108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          WHICH STATEMENT OF THE SPEAKER'S ARE WE TO BELIEVE?

  (Mr. KLINK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, let me just refer again, since we have had 
some dispute as to who is being truthful and who is misrepresenting the 
truth, the exact quote from Speaker Gingrich, who said:

       We don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think 
     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.

  My colleagues on the Republican side would now say that he was 
referring to the Health Care Finance Administration. Who is going to 
voluntarily leave the Health Care Finance Administration except maybe a 
handful of disgruntled bureaucratic employees who do not want to work 
there any more?
  When they talk about leaving it, the it is Medicare. We are talking 
about fee-for-service Medicare, indeed.
  The Speaker himself, quoted in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution 3 
days after this quote was in the Washington Post, said that he was in 
fact referring to fee-for-service Medicare which he believed seniors 
would leave if they will have managed care.
  We have to wonder which statement of the Speaker's we are to believe.

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