[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 71 (Friday, June 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H4171-H4172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              ESSENTIAL HOSPITAL PRESERVATION ACT OF 2000

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce the introduction 
of the Essential Hospital Preservation Act of 2000. It is a bill 
designed to use Medicare to assist economically distressed hospitals in 
regions where the combination of managed care, Medicare, and commercial 
payments changes have threatened to destroy the entire health care 
delivery infrastructure.
  My proposal would give hospitals in regions of the country like 
northeastern and central Pennsylvania a minimum of a 5-year 10 percent 
increase in Medicare payments while they work through the development 
of long-range economic recovery programs.
  These payment increases will constitute no new Medicare spending, and 
will not affect other existing providers.
  Mr. Speaker, over the last 9 months I have met with chief executive 
officers, financial officers of institutions within my district and 
outside of my district in Pennsylvania, with the General Accounting 
Office, with the Payment Advisory Commission Medicare, with HCFA, with 
staff members of the committees of jurisdiction in the House. And when 
I studied and have analyzed the problems of the hospitals in my 
district, they are not unlike some of the problems in other districts 
of the country where similar phenomenon exist. That is where the 
hospitals rely on an overly elderly population in high concentration, 
and where the formula of Medicare as applied to those hospitals returns 
them an insufficient payment to meet their basic costs.
  One hospital in my congressional district loses $1,500 for every 
Medicare patient they serve. As one of the board of directors' members 
said, prudent business would mean that they should meet the patient at 
the door, hand him a check for $500 and send them on their way to 
another hospital in another area.
  If Medicare fails to pay its way because of the Medicare formula, or 
because of the failure of this government to recognize that there are 
disproportionate areas of the country that are distressed economic 
areas and that contain very large proportions of Medicare patients, 
then we have to have a system in effect to make sure that we do not 
lose the health care infrastructure system while we redress the 
Medicare problem as we will over the next several years.
  My bill effectively allows hospitals to gain an increase of Medicare 
payment on an emergency basis for 5 years, to a maximum of 10 percent. 
It requires the hospitals to reorganize the wherewithal and come up 
with an economic recovery program that the Secretary and HCFA will 
participate with so that the managed care system, the Medicare system, 
the emergency systems, the other high-cost systems could be put into 
play in a more efficient economic way, but we will not lose the 
efficiency of the structure itself.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all the Members of this Congress to join in 
reviewing this bill. Study the problems that are a crisis in many of 
the senior citizen areas of this country as a direct result of 
underpayment by Medicare, and to cooperate with myself, the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) and Senator Arlen Specter, who are the 
three of us trying to work together to come up with a methodology to 
save our hospitals. This is a start. This is one of the potential 
alternatives we have.
  Mr. Speaker, we do not have very much time. I urge my colleagues to 
address this issue and to understand that legislation must be passed 
this year and a remedy must be put in place or all our decisions to try 
and help Medicare, to provide prescription drugs, or do anything we 
want to do will come to naught if we fail to provide the basic 
essential care under the Medicare program that was intended some 35 
years ago today.
  So I urge my colleagues to study and join us in supporting the 
Essential Hospital Preservation Act of 2000.
  Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing the Essential Hospital 
Preservation Act of 2000, a bill designed to use Medicare to assist 
economically distressed hospitals in a region where the combination of 
managed care, Medicare, and commercial payment changes have threatened 
to destroy the entire health care delivery infrastructure.
  My proposal would give the hospitals in regions of the country like 
Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania a minimum of a five-year, 10 
percent increase in Medicare payments, while they work through the 
development of a long-range economic recovery program. These payment 
increases will constitute new Medicare spending and they will not come 
out of payment reductions to other providers.
  The extra payment will help the hospitals in a distressed region 
develop new, more economically viable services, right-size acute care 
beds and covert to needed nursing facility, rehabilitation, 
psychiatric, or long-term care hospital beds. It will also allow the 
hospitals in a region to cooperate in ensuring that the emergency room 
network survives and, indeed, is improved. It permits hospitals to work 
together to ensure that high cost services are coordinated and shared 
so as to deliver quality care at less cost. Most of all, my bill helps 
finance these long-term conversion plans through additional payments 
above and beyond the 10 percent five-year increase.
  Mr. Speaker, the hospitals in my region are in deep distress. Many of 
them are in economic difficulty. I believe other regions of 
Pennsylvania and the country are facing the same crisis. We simply 
cannot allow these hospitals to go out of existence. Simultaneously, we 
also know that the nature of hospitals and the need for acute care beds 
in changing dramatically. My bill would provide a

[[Page H4172]]

path by which essential hospitals can survive to serve their 
communities now and in the years to come.
  By enabling these economically distressed healthcare facilities with 
a short-term revenue enhancement and a long-term plan for success, 
hospitals like those in my district will receive aid for the next five 
years now and receive additional sums for successful completion of 
their economic recovery plan. For the last nine months, I have met with 
Chief Executive and Financial Officers of hospitals in my district, 
members of their Board of Directors, as well as representatives from 
the Health Care Financing Administration, the General Accounting 
Office, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and staff of the 
committees of jurisdiction in the House. These conversations have 
helped me to develop the legislation that I am introducing today.
  In the next few weeks, I look forward to working with Congressman Don 
Sherwood and Senator Arlen Specter to look at various alternatives like 
this proposal to save our hospitals. Additionally, I hope that other 
Members, hospital associations, and individual hospitals will feel free 
to recommend additions and improvements in these definitions and in the 
type of relief that can be provided.
  I also hope that this type of proposal can be enacted this year. The 
need is critically urgent for all of our hospitals in Northeastern and 
Central Pennsylvania. The crisis is painfully real. We must act 
immediately for the sake of all of our constituents.

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