[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 138 (Tuesday, October 6, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11531-S11533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO FRED KRAL

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I want to take a minute to talk about an 
individual in my State whom I only met for about 10 minutes, but who 
had a profound impact on my view of this situation. He is a man by the 
name of Fred Kral. He is a person who led, in many ways, I suppose, an 
ordinary life, but I think became sort of an extraordinary

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figure. He recently died at the age of 72.
  Mr. Kral lived in Niantic, CT, for the last 48 years. He served in 
World War II. After the war, he attended the Rhode Island School of 
Design. He later went to the University of Connecticut. He earned a 
degree in agricultural engineering.
  He worked at Electric Boat Company, a builder of submarines, for 38 
years and retired in 1989 as manager of materials for the Kessel Ring 
site in Ballston Spa, NY.
  He was a member of the Masons. He was also a member of the East Lyme 
Water and Sewer Commission. An avid golfer and a track letterman back 
in college, he was a founding and life member of the Niantic 
Sportsman's Club where he served in various offices.
  Most important, Mr. Kral was a loving husband and parent, survived by 
his wife, his son Frederick, his three daughters Joyce, Freda, and 
Heidi, his sister Betty Lavelle, and his 11 grandchildren.
  Fred Kral was a fine man. A lot of people would say Fred Kral was an 
average guy, an average American. In many respects he was, but this 
average man also was a very passionate man, a man who always fought for 
what he believed.
  Earlier this month, Fred Kral and an estimated 6,000 other seniors in 
eastern Connecticut were notified through the mail that two Medicare 
HMOs were discontinuing service in their communities, effectively 
canceling these seniors' health care plans as of January 1, 1999.
  Three Saturdays ago, Mr. President, I organized a forum at the Rose 
City Senior Center in Norwich where more than 400 people gathered to 
discussed these insurance companies' actions and what steps might be 
taken to preserve their health care.
  At that meeting, Fred Kral spoke eloquently--eloquently--not only on 
behalf of himself and his wife who, 2 weeks earlier, had a stroke, but 
on behalf of all the seniors in eastern Connecticut who were worried 
about their health care and what was going to happen to them when these 
HMOs left.
  Fred Kral expressed anger and disappointment with his HMO's decision. 
He specifically voiced his concern for his wife, who recently suffered 
a stroke, and his fears he might be rejected when he tried to join 
another plan. He wondered how he could be dropped from the same health 
care plan that he and his wife were enticed to join only 2 years ago.
  He also said he would be willing to pay higher premiums to keep his 
health care if that was the only choice. But at the time he wasn't 
given that option. He and thousands of others were simply told they 
were being dropped by the same plan that had actively recruited them 
just 2 years earlier. He summed up the debate best when he said, ``It's 
a moral issue.''
  As he returned to his seat from speaking, Fred Kral suffered cardiac 
arrest. After efforts to revive him at the scene, he was rushed back to 
his hospital in Norwich and died shortly before noon on that day.
  This is a tragic incident and an unfortunate way for this honorable 
man to die. But it is no accident that Fred Kral was at that meeting 
delivering his speech from the front row of that audience that day. As 
I said earlier, he was a passionate man about everything he did. He was 
particularly passionate about this issue. His daughter told me that he 
was up at 2:30 in the morning the day of the meeting preparing 
questions.
  Of the hundreds of people attending the forum, Fred Kral had 
approached me before the event and struck up a conversation. He told me 
he came to that forum to have his opinions heard. I told him I would 
recognize him when the forum began.
  I want my colleagues to know about Fred Kral. I want them to know 
that this debate is not about nameless, faceless beneficiaries. It is 
about individuals like Fred Kral. He was not a member of some consumer 
advocacy group, he was just a normal citizen who cared very deeply 
about health care and HMOs because no other issue had a more direct 
impact on his life and his family.
  There are a lot of people out in this country who feel the same way 
about this issue as Fred Kral did. Just look at my own State. In a 
small community in this small State, there were 400 people who cared 
enough about this issue to spend their Saturday morning at a health 
care forum. I guarantee each and every one of my colleagues that there 
are persons in their home States who have similar worries about their 
health care, and they want Congress to do something about it.
  Before any of my colleagues say that the health care system in this 
country doesn't need changing, I urge them, again, to think about Fred 
Kral of Niantic, CT. Here is a man who lived nearly half a century in 
the same small town. He served our Nation in World War II. He spent 38 
years working to strengthen our national infrastructure, our defense 
infrastructure. He supported and raised a family, and in his retirement 
he enjoyed a good round of golf every now and then--in many ways he was 
your average, solid citizen that we so often talk about. But despite 
playing by the rules his whole life, he got a letter in the mail from 
his HMO telling him that they no longer wished to take care of him, 
just weeks after his wife had suffered a stroke.
  I say to you, my colleagues here, any health care system that allows 
something like this to happen to someone such as Fred Kral, and 12,000 
other Connecticut citizens, is in need of serious examination and 
review. Therefore, Mr. President, in the small amount of time we have 
left in this legislative session, I would hope that we in this Congress 
would do what is right and have a full and open debate on the issues of 
Medicare HMOs. Four hundred thousand people in the last 2 or 3 weeks 
who have been dumped by their HMOs deserve better than just silence on 
this issue.
  I know the hours are waning. I know there is other business to do. 
But I cannot think of anything that could be more important than 
helping thousands and thousands of older Americans who, while we are 
out of session, may find themselves losing affordable health care 
coverage because their HMO has decided some communities aren t quite as 
profitable as they thought they d be.
  We must act in the next few days. To be out of session for October 
and November and December and January while we know there are thousands 
of people who are worried about whether or not they are going to have 
HMO coverage, I think is terribly, terribly wrong.
  In closing, Mr. President, Fred Kral's death is certainly a tragedy. 
It is a tragedy for his family and for the people who knew him and 
loved him, but it did not come in vain. In southeastern Connecticut, 
the insurance companies are reconsidering their decision. They 
announced the Monday following the forum that they will try to come up 
with some solutions. I hope they do. I am not confident they are going 
to be terribly comprehensive, but obviously they were mortified, as 
they should have been, about what occurred.
  So my hope is, Mr. President, that we might be able to at least pass 
an emergency piece of legislation that would place for the next 6 
months a moratorium on HMOs leaving these areas to give us time to work 
with the Health Care Financing Administration to try and renegotiate 
some of the contracts and prevent these companies from just packing up 
and leaving. So in the midst of dealing with all these other lofty 
bills we have before us, a simple moratorium. I wish that we would get 
into a full-blown debate of HMOs, but I do fear it is not going to 
happen. I hoped we would be able to adopt a Patient Protection Act this 
Congress to allow patients and doctors to decide what medical 
procedures are necessary and to allow patients to choose their doctors. 
But for now, I am asking that we consider a simple moratorium on 
Medicare HMOs leaving the market to give us all time to consider more 
comprehensive solutions. This is the very least, I think, we can do.
  So, Mr. President, later today I will introduce the moratorium bill 
and make it retroactive to protect the seniors who have been so 
adversely affected. I urge our colleagues and the leadership to 
consider this bill and to adopt it before this 105th Congress adjourns 
sine die.
  Mr. President, I see no other colleague here on the floor, so I 
suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

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  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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