[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 18, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1282]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1500
            STOP PLAYING POLITICS WITH SENIORS' HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Lucille Harris lives in the First 
District of Georgia. She is 69 years old. For the past 3 years she has 
been somewhat worried about her health care, affectionately known as 
Medicare, because she knows that in April of 1995 the Medicare trustees 
said Medicare is going bankrupt and that Congress needed to act to 
preserve and protect it. We tried for many years to protect it and 
preserve it; but, unfortunately, politics got in the way.
  Then, last year, we finally came up with a bipartisan solution which 
the House passed, the Senate passed and the President signed into law. 
We did do some good Medicare reform. We gave our seniors a choice of 
plans. We cut fraud and abuse. We increased spending from $5,000 to 
$7,000 per person.
  In addition to that, we said that States are required to cover people 
who have fallen through the cracks; to come up with something for 
people who were not Medicare-eligible, like the 51-year-old man from 
Vermont that I talked to last night; people who cannot get coverage 
through the standard health care market. The bill required that States 
come up with plans, each State, to protect these people.
  The second thing that it did along that line is it said that we would 
set up a bipartisan Medicare committee; and the bipartisan committee, 
which is chaired by a Clinton-appointed Democrat Senator, would address 
the long-term solvency needs of Medicare as more and more baby boomers 
retire and use this coverage. We decided it was more important to 
protect Medicare for the next generation, not just the next election.
  So, Mr. Speaker, having made this great and difficult bipartisan 
progress, why is it that the President has now ignored that legislation 
and his own commission? Why is he willing to risk Medicare because of 
election year politics? Why is it that if it is profitable to lower 
Medicare eligibility and it does not cost the system, why is it the 
private sector is not already providing that coverage?
  Mr. Speaker, I am afraid the President is again playing politics with 
our seniors' very important health care plan. We need to protect and to 
preserve it. We do not need to play politics with it. Medicare deserves 
bipartisan support. People like Mrs. Harris and millions and millions 
of Americans, perhaps one's mother or father or grandparents, they 
deserve better.
  Mr. President, do not monkey around with our seniors' health care. 
Let us continue to work on a bipartisan basis to protect Medicare. Let 
us see what the bipartisan commission with the President's chairman has 
to say before we go changing the plan and incurring unnecessary risks 
to our seniors' health care plan.

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