[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 147 (Monday, December 4, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2115-E2116]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO LUISA VICTORIA IGLESIAS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, December 4, 2000

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, Ms. Luisa Victoria Iglesias, affectionately 
known as ``L.V.'', is retiring after 37 years with the Federal 
Government. Although the number of years is not in itself remarkable, 
the fact that she is retiring at age 88 years and 9 months is truly 
remarkable. And equally remarkable is the importance of the work that 
she has performed in her career in the Federal Government.
  Ms. Iglesias graduated from high school in Albany, NY in 1929 and 
from New York State Teachers College in Albany in 1933. In 1934 she 
became an English teacher at a high school in Guayama, Puerto Rico. 
While she was teaching, she continued her college studies by attending 
the University of Puerto Rico, receiving a certificate in social work 
in 1936.
  In 1938, Ms. Iglesias held the position of Delegate to the Bureau of 
Women and Children in Industry in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. She then moved 
to Caracas, Venezuela to become a Social Work Instructor, and shortly 
thereafter, she was promoted to Social Work Director in Maracaibo, 
Venezuela. Later, she returned to Puerto Rico to become a Medical 
Social Worker for the Crippled Children's Program in Santurce, Puerto 
Rico.
  In 1942, Ms. Iglesias returned to the United States to attend the 
University of Chicago, where she received a Master of Arts in Social 
Work in 1943. She then returned to Puerto Rico and was promoted to 
Medical Social Work Supervisor. In 1945, Ms. Iglesias became Chief of 
the Bureau Public Assistance. In 1958 she was promoted to the position 
of Chief of the Organization and Methods section in the Department of 
Health, Puerto Rico.
  During the years from 1952 through 1960, Ms. Iglesias continued to 
attend the University of Puerto Rico in the evening and attained 
another Masters degree in 1962. For several years during that time, she 
was a member of the Puerto Rico Social Work licensing board, and during 
the years 1957-58, she was a member of the Puerto Rico Parole Board.
  Ms. Iglesias' career with the Federal Government began in 1963 when 
she started working for the Social Rehabilitation Service (SRS) in the 
former Department of Health Education and Welfare (DHEW). She was hired 
as a Social Administration Advisor (also known as a Family Services 
Technician); she was later promoted to Social Work Program Specialist 
and then to Associate Policy Control Officer.
  Later, as the Policy Officer in the Office of the Associate 
Administrator for Policy Control and Coordination, SRS, Ms. Iglesias 
had final SRS approval authority on all Medicaid, welfare (aid to 
families with dependent children, AFDC), and social services 
regulations that were developed for the DHEW Secretary for publication 
in the Federal Register.
  When SRS was abolished in 1977 and HCFA was created, Ms. Iglesias was 
assigned to HCFA as a Policy Coordination Officer in the Office of the 
Administrator, Executive Secretariat. In 1978, Ms. Iglesias was 
reassigned to the position of Supervisory Regulations Analyst in the 
Bureau of Program Policy. In the last HCFA reorganization, she became a 
member of the Office of Communications and Operations Support.
  Mr. Speaker, listing the positions that Ms. Iglesias has held does 
not begin to describe the importance of the work that she has done. 
Long before the current effort to make Federal regulations more 
readable and understandable, Ms. Iglesias worked to achieve that end. 
Ms. Iglesias wrote the first regulations development manual in SRS--
``the Policy Coordination Manual.'' Beginning with her work in SRS, she 
became known for her mandate that regulations must be written in a 
clear and comprehensible manner. She insisted that regulations should 
not simply repeat statutory language, and instead, charged her 
coworkers with providing interpretative rules and regulations that a 
layman could read and understand. A former English teacher who speaks

[[Page E2116]]

Spanish fluently, Ms. Iglesias developed training materials and taught 
classes to ensure that staff develop clear, understandable regulations.
  After SRS was abolished and HCFA was established (combining the 
Medicaid and Medicare programs), Ms. Iglesias remained in the 
Washington Liaison Office of HCFA (HCFA's headquarters became 
Baltimore) and took on the task of rewriting Medicare regulations. 
Medicare regulations were then ``mixed'' with the Social Security 
regulations in Title 20 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). She 
worked with the CFR office to establish a separate title 42, Chapter IV 
of the Code of Federal Regulations and spent several years rewriting 
and recodifying the Medicare regulations in plain English.
  In HCFA, Ms. Iglesias continued her efforts to make regulations--now 
Medicare regulations--clear and understandable. In 1978, Ms. Iglesias 
found further support for her cause that regulations must be ``clear 
and readable'' in the Deputy General Counsel for Regulation Review in 
the Department of Health and Human Services. She quickly began further 
efforts to indoctrinate staff not merely to restate the language of the 
law in regulations, but to apply all of the principles of the English 
language in developing comprehensible Federal Medicaid, welfare, and 
social services regulations for publication in the Federal Register.
  As an example of her work, Ms. Iglesias has for years tried to 
simplify the definitions used in Medicare regulations by insisting that 
HCFA staff refrain from using multiple definitions of the same terms. 
Similarly, she has instructed HCFA staff that definitions of terms not 
be used to establish conditions or parameters in regulations. At that 
time, Ms. Iglesias exerted such energies that no one would have guessed 
that she was then in her early 70's. Because of her work, many people 
in HCFA refer to Ms. Iglesias as ``Ms. CFR.''
  Ms. Iglesias is known for her love of swimming each morning from June 
through October (which, in part, may contribute to her good health), 
her love of attending symphonies at the Kennedy Center, her love of 
cruising around the world, her love of solving crossword puzzles and 
playing scrabble, her ability to work hard and fast, and her 
expectation of others to do the same.
  Throughout the years, even after exerting such energies at work, Ms. 
Iglesias has kept up her extensive travels around the world. Even now, 
at her current age, she still takes at least one cruise each year, and 
sometimes two. She has visited such places as Spain, South America, 
Alaska, Russia, Greece, China, Africa, Iceland, Denmark, Scotland, 
England, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Europe, Japan, 
Canada, Indonesia, the Canary Islands, and Hawaii.
  Ms. Iglesias' immediate family includes two sons, Victor (who lives 
in Malaysia) and Carlos, two daughers-in-law, Alby and Linda, 2\1/2\-
year-old triplet grandsons and a granddaughter, as well as a great 
grandson, with whom she must keep pace. And I understand that if she 
follows the same family of legacy of longevity as her aunt of 111 years 
of age now residing in Puerto Rico, she will have plenty of time to do 
this in her retirement.
  Although they are happy for her, Ms. Iglesias' coworkers at the 
Health Care Financing Administration mourn their loss on her 
retirement. We can all be grateful for her efforts and her intense 
desire to make Medicare a better program by writing clear and 
understandable regulations. And I am sure that I join all Americans in 
wishing Ms. Iglesias much happiness and continued great cruising as she 
retires from the Health Care Financing Administration at age 88 after 
37 years of Federal Government service.

                          ____________________