[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 120 (Wednesday, September 29, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H7822-H7823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     SUPPRESSING THE COST ESTIMATE

  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. Madam Speaker, November 17 a year or so ago, just 
three weeks before the Medicare bill was signed into law, President 
Bush said this law would cost $400 billion. That is what he told the 
American public. That is what he told the Congress. Five months 
earlier, his actuaries in the center for Medicare/Medicaid services, 
the Medicare bureau, estimated the President's Medicare bill would cost 
$534 billion.
  I am not saying that the President lied about this, but it is pretty 
clear the President's people knew this bill cost $134 billion more than 
it really did. Whether the President knew about it, whether his top 
aides told him, remains a question.
  Now, the White House says, though, the bill will cost $576 billion. 
It is bad enough that the President and Republicans in Congress 
advertised one thing to this Congress and to the American people and 
sold them on another. What is worse is the deliberate nature of this 
deception and tactics used to achieve it.

                              {time}  1945

  But let us go back and look at this whole Medicare bill and how we 
ended up where we did, starting from the time the drug industry and the 
insurance industry met in the Oval Office with President Bush and wrote 
the bill. Starting with then and following through all the way until 
Labor Day weekend, 3 weeks ago, where the President announced a 17 
percent, a record increase, 17.4 percent in Medicare premiums that 
seniors will be forced to pay.
  First the bill was written with President Bush and Vice President 
Cheney sitting down with the drug industry, sitting down with the 
insurance industry and writing a Medicare privatization bill. You know 
that it was written by the drug and insurance industry because the drug 
industry profits go up $180 billion under this bill, that is $180 
billion with a ``b,'' and you know the insurance industry was part of 
this because they benefit to the tune of billions of dollars in direct 
subsidies from seniors through increased premiums and taxpayers in 
increased dollar subsidies to the insurance industry.
  Now, we also know that the passage of this bill was perhaps the most 
sordid spectacle we have seen in this Chamber of the House of 
Representatives in decades. The debate started at midnight, the votes 
started at 3 o'clock in the morning after most of the press had gone 
home and after most Americans had turned their televisions off. 
Normally, a vote takes about 20 minutes, but this took 2 hours and 55 
minutes. There was arm-twisting on the House floor, when this bill was 
actually defeated, for the first 2 hours and 45 minutes. The bill was 
down 216 to 218. We also know that there was a Member of Congress from 
Michigan, Republican, who the next day told a radio station in Michigan 
that Republican leaders attempted to bribe him on the House floor with 
campaign money. We know

[[Page H7823]]

all of that. And we know that as a result of this bill, we end up with 
a 17 percent premium increase.
  So the vote was taken in the middle of the night when people were not 
paying attention, Members of Congress had their arms twisted and were 
made promises, with one Member of Congress reporting an attempted 
bribe, and we also know that come March, after this bill passed, that 
even though the drug benefit does not start until 2006, we find out 
that starting in March, the Federal Government and seniors whose 
premiums have gone up begin to pay a monthly payment to the Medicare 
HMOs.
  In March 2004, Medicare HMOs were paid $229 billion by taxpayers. In 
April of 2004, the Medicare HMOs were paid by taxpayers and Medicare 
beneficiaries through a premium increase of $229 billion. In May, June, 
July, August, and September, every single month, taxpayers and Medicare 
beneficiaries have paid HMOs $229 billion. Next month, November, 
December, and all of next year, the government and seniors will pay 
$229 billion to the Medicare HMOs, and the drug benefit does not start 
until 2006.
  There are 22 months of direct payments from seniors through an 
increased premium, and taxpayers, to the tune of billions of dollars, 
22 months of $229 billion a month payments to the insurance industry, 
insurance company HMOs, from seniors and taxpayers, even though the 
drug benefit does not start until 2006.
  Mr. Speaker, you can see the perfect circle here. You can see that 
the bill was written by the drug and insurance industry with the 
President and the Vice President and Republican leaders. The drug and 
insurance industry get huge subsidies, much bigger profits, direct 
subsidies, with seniors paying a 17.4 percent premium increase, and 
taxpayers paying billions of dollars in order to pay off the insurance 
industry and the drug industry. And the completed circle ends this way: 
with the President and Republican leaders of this Congress getting tens 
of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the drug and 
insurance industry.
  It is corrupt, it is shameful, and it is morally reprehensible.

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