[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 17, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1340]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        MEDICARE COMMISSION FINISHES WORK WITHOUT RECOMMENDATION

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Medicare Commission 
finished its work but did not come out with a recommendation. It did 
not come out with a recommendation because the thrust of the commission 
was to privatize; that is, to get rid of Medicare as we have known it 
and move it into the private sector. Now, the people pushing that idea 
are the very people in this House who have opposed the Patients' Bill 
of Rights.
  If we are going to take all the senior citizens in this country, and 
the disabled, 39 million people, and throw them into the private 
sector, and will not give them the protections of a Patients' Bill of 
Rights, there is no justice in that kind of system.
  The Commission rightly rejected it. The Commission refused to 
consider the President's addition of 15 percent of the surplus. The 
Commission refused to consider the President's proposal regarding 
people between the ages of 55 and 65. This House now has to come to 
grips with it.

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