[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 112 (Friday, August 1, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2015, BALANCED BUDGET ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. DAVID E. SKAGGS

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 30, 1997

  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I am voting for this bill because I believe 
it addresses many of the priorities and concerns of the American 
people. It sets us on a course toward a balanced budget while meeting 
the important needs of children, working families, and legal 
immigrants.
  The bill provides $24 billion to make sure that the most vulnerable 
among us, poor and uninsured children, have access to health care. This 
is perhaps its best feature. Using revenue from an additional tobacco 
tax, the bill enables States to provide Medicaid benefits for up to 5 
million children who are currently uninsured.
  The House-Senate conference report also undoes some of the harmful 
and unnecessarily harsh provisions contained in the welfare reform law. 
It restores disability and Medicaid for legal immigrants and extends 
food stamp eligibility for people making the transition from welfare to 
work. This bill also provides minimum benefits for refugees and 
asylees.
  These provisions help mend holes in the safety net through which 
children, legal immigrants, and working poor were likely to slip.
  This bill charts a path toward a balanced budget. Make no mistake, 
though--it assumes great spending discipline on the part of future 
Congresses in order to meet this goal. That discipline will be 
difficult--perhaps impossible--to sustain, and it would have made more 
sense to set a course that relies less on back-loaded cuts in later 
years.
  If this conference report is more responsible, both fiscally and 
socially, than the original House bill, it also contains serious flaws. 
Most important, Medicare provisions fail to address the structural 
problems that threaten this program in the long term.
  Cutting payments to hospital and providers is palliative, not 
curative. Very likely, many of these cuts will be paid for through 
increased premiums on private insurance and other steps to pass costs 
on to other health-care consumers.
  Two provisions, the Medicare savings accounts and the private fee-
for-service plans, will likely skim healthier and the wealthier 
beneficiaries from the Medicare-risk pool. They will leave the program 
with higher costs but fewer dollars at the very time demand is ready to 
explode.
  In addition to problematic cuts in Medicare, cuts in Medicaid 
unfairly single out those hospitals now serving the indigent. This will 
have a serious impact on Colorado hospitals in particular.
  In short, if the conference report has much to recommend, it also 
leaves much undone and much that needs to be improved. And yet, on 
balance, Mr. Speaker, I believe the merits of this bill outweigh its 
failures and flaws.
  I voted against this bill when it was first considered by the House; 
I am voting for the conference report. The conference report 
substantially improves the earlier bill and remedies most of the 
defects in last year's welfare reform law. It sets a course toward a 
balanced budget without putting the well being of citizens at risk. It 
deserves support.

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