[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H5907-H5908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CHECK WITH THE SENIOR CITIZENS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, once upon a time, in 1989, there was a 
bill that had passed the United States Congress and was signed into law 
called the catastrophic health care bill, and it had bipartisan 
support, and all of the national organizations of senior citizens 
supported that legislation, and it was supposed to provide catastrophic 
coverage to senior citizens for health care.
  One problem, no one had really checked with rank and file senior 
citizens to find out if they wanted this legislation that caused them 
to have the highest effective tax rate of any Americans, to pay for 
benefits that they thought simply were not worth it. In other words, 
the senior citizens sat down with their calculators and figured out 
they were not interested in this legislation that had passed.
  This is a photo that appeared on the front page of the Chicago 
Tribune in August of 1989. Here we see some senior citizens who are 
clearly very angry, with signs surrounding an automobile in which was 
the chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means. These 
senior citizens were not exactly in a friendly mood and were telling 
this chairman in no uncertain terms that they wanted the repeal of the 
catastrophic health care bill.
  It was not very long afterwards that this sparked a rebellion of 
senior citizens across the country, and in a rare occurrence in this 
body the catastrophic health care bill was repealed.
  I think this should serve as a warning to all of my colleagues. Check 
with the senior citizens. You can sit here all day and all night and 
say the problem is that Medicare is outdated, that it is antiquated or 
you can say what the Chairman of the powerful House Committee on Ways 
and Means of today said, To those who say that the bill proposed by the 
Republicans would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is we 
certainly hope so. Seniors listen: We certainly hope so.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope the seniors are listening. Old fashioned Medicare 
is not very good, says the chairman, the Republican chairman of the 
House Committee on Ways and Means.

[[Page H5908]]

  You better check with those seniors, because what they tell us is 
they like Medicare. They want Medicare. The only thing wrong with 
Medicare is that it does not cover enough, like prescription drugs, but 
what they like about it is that it is a known benefit, it is a known 
premium, and it is there for them when they need it.
  Another word that is used all the time is choice. We are going to 
give senior citizens choices now. Well, I have to tell my colleagues, 
in all the years that I was the executive director of the Illinois 
State Council of Senior Citizens and in all the years that I was in the 
State legislature and now in Congress, never has a senior citizen come 
up to me and said, Congresswoman, what I want is a choice of HMOs, a 
choice of insurance companies, send me those brochures so I can pick, 
tell those insurance agents to get me on the phone so they can pitch 
their insurance company to me.
  Seniors want the kind of choice they get under Medicare, a choice of 
doctors, a choice of hospitals, a choice of specialists. That is the 
kind of choices that they want.
  In fact, the only choice under this Republican bill is the choice 
that HMOs and insurers get, not senior citizens, because private drug 
plans, HMOs, get to choose what premiums to charge. There is no uniform 
benefit of premium under Medicare.
  Private drug plans get to choose the copayments that they will 
charge. Private drug plans get to choose what pharmacies are in their 
network. They get to choose what drugs are covered. So if you want to 
give the HMOs and the insurance companies that kind of choice, then 
this bill is for you, but if you want to give senior citizens what they 
really want, then you are going to expand Medicare the way the 
Democrats have proposed, by giving them a prescription drug benefit 
under Medicare that they can count on, that they know what the premium 
is.
  This legislation that is passed in the House is going to do exactly 
what the chairman said. It is going to destroy Medicare. It will be the 
end of Medicare. That is what happens in 2010 with this bill. So if you 
do not want to be chased down the street, then all of us better say no 
to the Republican bill.

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