[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 108 (Monday, September 13, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H7038]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES ON MEDICARE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the President spent some time 
recently taking, and I concede this, well-deserved credit for last 
year's Medicare bill, for foisting last year's 678-page, $534 billion 
Medicare law on seniors and the rest of the American public. The fact 
that he is proud of this law, a law that hands HMOs $12 billion in 
bonus payments, HMO insurance companies get $12 billion in bonus 
payments while raising seniors' premiums by 17 percent, a record 
amount, raises a larger issue: How have seniors fared under the last 
3\1/2\ years of the Bush administration? It is not a difficult question 
to answer. The facts speak for themselves.
  We remember several months ago the President actively lobbied for the 
Medicare overhaul that would treat seniors without drug coverage like 
second-class citizens, forcing them out of traditional Medicare and 
into private insurance company HMOs.
  Members will remember that vote. It took place in the middle of the 
night. It was a 3-hour vote, the longest in congressional history. 
There was more campaign payoff money on that vote from insurance 
companies and drug companies to Republican Members of the Congress. We 
all remember that. The President put his weight behind that new 
Medicare law that lines the pockets of HMOs to the tune of $12 billion, 
that lines the pockets of drug companies to the tune of $182 billion, 
and explicitly blocks seniors from access to competitively priced 
prescription drugs. The insurance companies, as I said, got a payment 
of $12 billion. The drug companies' profits went up $182 billion and 
Republican leadership and the President did very well in this campaign 
year with contributions from the drug companies and the insurance 
companies. They could certainly afford it after legislation that will 
create and bring to them those huge profits.
  After that, the President spends millions of dollars of our money, of 
taxpayer money, of dollars that could have gone to a prescription drug 
plan, could have gone to seniors to reduce the cost of seniors' drugs, 
but the President spends millions of dollars of our money on ads 
touting the new Medicare bill with the slogan ``same Medicare, better 
benefits,'' even though the President and his advisers knew his 
handiwork would be directly responsible for the largest premium 
increase in Medicare history, 17 percent, the largest premium increase 
in Medicare's 38-year history, not to mention deductibles that will for 
the first time that seniors have to pay increase year after year after 
year.
  Do not believe anyone that tells you the Bush administration is not 
responsible, in spite of the ads the President is running, is not 
responsible for the 17 percent premium increase just because he says 
premiums are calculated by a formula. Yes, they are calculated by a 
formula written in the bill that the drug and insurance companies wrote 
that the President pushed through. That is like pouring gasoline on a 
campfire, then blaming someone else when the forest burns down.
  The President's Medicare law, inflated by a $12 billion HMO slush 
fund and an outright prohibition on bulk rate prices, bringing the 
price down, swelled the overall cost of Medicare which in turn 
increased the premium that seniors pay. America's seniors know it. You 
and I know it. Everyone in this Chamber knows that is why premiums went 
up, because of the deal the President made with the drug companies and 
the insurance companies.
  In his budget proposal this year, the President recommends cutting 
$60 billion from the Medicaid program, $60 billion, even though 
Medicaid covers 70 percent of the nursing home care provided in this 
country. Without Medicaid, two-thirds of America's seniors in nursing 
homes would have to find some other source of care. For many of those 
seniors, there is no other source of care. For others, families have to 
patch together the care any way they can, even if it means they become 
impoverished.
  Medicaid provides health care, nursing home care and home health care 
to nearly 5 million seniors living below the poverty line, 149,000 
people in my State of Ohio alone. The recession and massive job losses 
have left States struggling to finance their full financial obligations 
to Medicaid. If the Federal Government does not do its part, the 
Medicaid program is in jeopardy. The Bush administration is simply not 
doing its part because of its budget cuts to Medicaid and because of 
the tax cuts which have gone overwhelmingly to the 1 percent wealthiest 
Americans.
  The President's hand-picked Social Security Commission came up with a 
privatized plan to drain $1.8 trillion from the Social Security Trust 
Fund over the next 5 years. Privatizing Social Security, privatizing 
Medicare, cutting Medicaid is no benefit to seniors. It is the wrong 
direction for our country.

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