[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 87 (Monday, June 27, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H5222]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     HEALTH CARE FOR RURAL AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, my arrival in Congress, it really 
was about what do I do to make certain that folks in Kansas, people 
across rural America have a quality of life, that they have the 
opportunity to put food on the family's table, that they have enough 
money to save for their retirement and for their kids' college 
education. But even perhaps more important than that, the goal for me 
as a policymaker has been what can we do to see that the communities 
that make up my State are around for a while longer.
  Rural America faces many challenges; and among those challenges is an 
often declining economy, and an economy related to agriculture. But one 
of the things that became clear to me early on in my time in Congress 
is access to health care matters. If we care about the future of our 
communities, we need to make certain that our citizens, the people who 
live there, can access a physician, can have access to a hospital, that 
the hospital doors remain open, that there is home health care and 
nursing home care.
  So for much of my time in Congress, I have worked on issues related 
to the availability of health care. I have been an active member and 
chaired the Rural Health Care Coalition. And I commend my colleagues 
who are actively engaged in a group of Republican and Democrat Members 
of this body who work time and time again to see that good things 
happen in the delivery of health care in rural America. The goal there 
has to be to make certain that we are reimbursed, that our providers, 
our hospitals and physicians and nurses and other health care 
providers, are reimbursed through Medicare in particular in a way that 
makes it possible for financially those health care providers to 
continue to provide the service and that we need to continue to make 
efforts to reduce the paperwork and bureaucratic burden that increase 
the cost of providing services, especially in communities where senior 
citizens comprise a significant component of the population.
  Many of the hospitals in the First Congressional District of Kansas, 
60, 70, 80, and sometimes even 90 percent of the patients admitted to a 
hospital seen by our physicians are over the age of 65; and, therefore, 
Medicare is responsible for payment at least in part of the hospital or 
physician bill.
  During my time in Congress despite this continual focus on access to 
health care, one other thing has become clear to me. There is an 
overriding issue that should consume us all. I rise tonight to try to 
bring to my colleagues' attention the necessity of beginning to address 
the ever-rising cost of health care.
  I am in the middle of 69 townhall meetings. I represent 69 counties 
in Kansas, and every year I conduct a townhall meeting in each of those 
counties. I remember the townhall meeting in Hoxie, Kansas. During that 
townhall meeting, the first question was from a teacher who said, Last 
year my premiums for my health insurance to the school district that I 
paid out of my pocket were $450. This year it is $700. What are you 
going to do about it?
  The next question was from the farm implement dealer who said, We are 
trying to stay afloat here. It has been a difficult year. Drought on 
the high plains. You know how difficult the agriculture economy is. We 
are trying to keep our employees insured. We raised our co-payments. We 
raised our deductibles and our insurance premiums still went up 49 
percent. And there was the question, What are you going to do about it?
  The third question came from a lady who said, My brother has cancer. 
He has been in Texas in an experimental treatment program, and he has 
now returned home to Kansas and his treatment costs are $40,000 a year. 
My mom and dad and other brothers and sisters, we are all trying to 
figure out how do we as a family come up with $40,000 a year to take 
care, to perhaps save my brother's life. Again, the implied question, 
What are you going to do about it?
  So from that townhall meeting several years ago, it has been a 
growing desire on my part to move the House of Representatives, the 
Senate, the policymakers, the administration toward addressing the 
issue of health care costs. I think there are things we can do. It is 
more than just decrying the problem.
  We clearly need more access to primary care physicians. Too much 
health care is delivered through the emergency room. I commend the Bush 
administration for their focus on community clinics. That is an 
important component of making certain that people who could not 
otherwise afford health care are not showing up at the emergency room, 
but could access a primary care physician or a nurse practitioner 
through our community clinics.
  We need to focus more on wellness and prevention. I think perhaps the 
biggest bang for our buck in reducing health care costs is to encourage 
and to educate citizens of our country about nutrition, about life-
style, about habits, about exercise.
  Clearly our information technology system has to be overhauled. We 
have tremendous technology in the delivery of health care, but not in 
the way that we keep records and provide for their payment. IT needs to 
be overhauled for better and easier data retrieval. We clearly need to 
make certain that our reimbursements for our hospitals under Medicare 
and Medicaid are adequate to cover the costs, otherwise there is simply 
a cost-shifting onto those who have insurance.
  I have been supportive of health savings accounts and opportunities 
for small businesses to pool their purchasing power to access health 
care for their patients.
  I heard earlier about prescription drugs. We need to continue to work 
as a body, as a Congress and as policymakers in our Nation's capital to 
reduce the ever-escalating costs of health care.

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