[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 15, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H794-H796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wasn't planning on coming to the floor 
this evening; but when I heard my Republican colleagues' Special Order 
that was just completed, I couldn't help but come down because I think 
I have to correct the record on many of the statements that they made 
this evening about Medicare and their efforts with regard to Medicare.
  First of all, I have to point out that when Medicare was first 
adopted in the House and in the Senate back in the sixties when 
President Johnson was in office, the Republicans overwhelmingly opposed 
it. They were opposed to Medicare. They voted against it. It would 
never have passed if it was for their votes. It only passed as a 
Democratic initiative. And over the years, Democrats have been the ones 
to protect Medicare.
  Republicans have consistently opposed Medicare, tried to repeal it, 
tried to privatize it, voucherize it. And basically as a Republican 
Speaker once said--I was here at the time when Newt Gingrich became the 
Speaker back in the mid-nineties--he said that we want Medicare to 
wither on the vine. And that's basically what the Republican leadership 
has been doing consistently

[[Page H795]]

in the 20-something years that I have been in Congress.
  Certainly, if you look at the budget that was adopted by the 
Republicans last year, it does exactly that. The Republican budget 
would end the Medicare guarantee, replacing it with a voucher in 2022. 
And what that essentially means is that right now and under the 
Medicare program, when you get to be 65, you immediately become 
eligible for Medicare, which is a government program; and you are 
guaranteed that you have your health insurance through the government, 
through Medicare.
  But if you establish a voucher, which is what the Republicans tried 
to do in their budget last year--fortunately, they didn't succeed--they 
would simply give you a voucher or a set amount of money for you to go 
out into the private sector and try to buy health insurance for that 
amount. And of course the amount that would be available wouldn't keep 
up with inflation. So even if you were able to buy health insurance 
when you were over 65 as a senior--which many people would not be able 
to--eventually you would not be able to; and you would simply have to 
pay more and more money out of pocket in order to buy the health 
insurance. In fact, we estimate that the Republican budget would double 
out-of-pocket costs by 2022 and cost an additional $6,000 for each 
senior, and out-of-pocket costs would triple by 2030.
  So what I want my constituents and everyone to understand is, the 
reason that Democrats started Medicare in the sixties under President 
Johnson was because people over 65 were not able to get health 
insurance privately. They weren't able to go out and buy health 
insurance because, basically, insurers didn't want to cover seniors. 
They had too many disabilities, too many times that they had to go to 
the hospital or see the doctor. So it was impossible to get health 
insurance if you were over 65.
  And I would maintain that if you let the Republicans move forward 
with their voucher proposal, which they still talk about constantly--
the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan, keeps talking about 
it--the same thing would happen again. Seniors simply wouldn't be able 
to buy health insurance with a voucher or without one. The cost of it 
would get so prohibitive. And the consequence is that Medicare would 
disappear, both as a guaranteed health insurance plan for seniors, and 
many seniors would simply not have health insurance at all.
  The other thing that my colleagues tried to suggest tonight is that 
Medicare was going broke. They tried to convince you that Medicare is 
going broke. But if you believe that, then that sets the stage for the 
fact that you should either get rid of Medicare or voucherize Medicare 
because the notion is that somehow the government isn't going to 
continue with the program or can't afford the program; and, therefore, 
we need to change it drastically. I would maintain that's simply not 
true.

                              {time}  2000

  Actually, right now there are 40 million seniors and 8 million people 
with disabilities below age 65 who have Medicare. Medicare is 
efficient, per capita spending at nearly half the per capita increase 
for comparable benefits provided by private insurers. And the fact of 
the matter is that the Medicare trust fund could certainly use some 
more money, but the way to deal with that is essentially to solve the 
economic crisis. In other words, as more people are employed, as 
unemployment goes down and the economy grows and more people pay into 
the Medicare trust fund, the Medicare trust fund would be just fine. 
The same thing goes for Social Security.
  The problem with the trust funds, whether it be Medicare or Social 
Security, is that in a slow economy, in a recession, less and less 
people who are working pay into the trust funds. So the answer is not 
to get rid of the trust funds and not allow people to have a pension, 
which Social Security provides, or allow people to have Medicare and 
health insurance when they're over 65, but, rather, to grow the 
economy, reduce the unemployment, have more people pay into the trust 
funds, and they become financially solvent for a long time in the 
future. And that's what the Democrats have proposed.
  Our answer to the Medicare program is to try to put more money into 
the trust fund, grow the economy, and keep Medicare as a Federal 
guarantee, as a Federal program that's guaranteed to all seniors.
  Now, I also heard my Republican colleagues tonight talk about how the 
Affordable Care Act, that's the health care reform--some people call it 
ObamaCare--the health care reform, the Affordable Care Act, that 
somehow that was going to destroy Medicare. Nothing could be further 
from the truth.
  The reality is that the Affordable Care Act strengthens Medicare. The 
only cuts in the Affordable Care Act are to providers. There are no 
cuts to beneficiaries. In fact, programs for beneficiaries and benefits 
for senior citizens are actually expanded under the Affordable Care 
Act, and many seniors have already seen that.
  First of all, the hallmark of the Affordable Care Act, the health 
care reform, is prevention. And so what the Affordable Care Act says is 
that if you have some kind of health care, whether it's a mammogram or 
some kind of diagnostic test, you don't pay a copay. All prevention 
methods under the Affordable Care Act are provided without a copay. 
That's mammogram, testing for prostate cancer, any kind of diagnostic 
test or any kind of prevention program. And the reason for that is 
because we don't want people to go to the hospital. We don't want 
people to get sick. We want them to be diagnosed at an early stage. And 
so we know that if people have to pay a copay, a lot of times they 
won't have the test done. So that's number one.
  The other major benefit expansion under the Affordable Care Act or 
the health care reform is with regard to part D and prescription drug 
benefits. Many seniors know that when the Republicans passed Medicare 
part D, they left a huge, what we call, hole or doughnut hole so that 
when you pay out of pocket up to a certain amount, in other words, when 
you incur Medicare expenses up to a certain amount in the course of the 
year, it was $2,000, now $2,500, whatever the figure is, then 
everything that you incur beyond that is not covered, and then you have 
to go to a catastrophic level, something above $5,000, to get your 
coverage again.
  So many senior citizens, when they start the year, are getting their 
prescription drugs, but by August, September, or October, sometimes 
even earlier, they reached that threshold or doughnut hole and their 
Medicare prescription drugs were not covered under the original 
Medicare part D proposal.
  So what the Democrats did in the Affordable Care Act, what the 
President did in the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, if you will, 
was to gradually fill in that doughnut hole over the life of the 
program. So the first year, there was a $250 rebate, and then 
prescription drugs in the doughnut hole were discounted 50 percent. And 
gradually, over the next few years, that doughnut hole will disappear 
so your prescription drugs will be completely covered and you won't 
have the doughnut hole.
  Again, these are benefit expansions under the Affordable Care Act. So 
when the suggestion is made by the Republicans that somehow the 
Affordable Care Act is going to hurt or destroy Medicare, nothing could 
be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that the 
Affordable Care Act strengthens Medicare, strengthens the benefit, 
expands benefits, whether it be for prescription drugs or diagnostic 
testing or prevention. It also provides a free wellness test every year 
where there is no copay. It actually pays money back into the trust 
fund.
  So the life of the Medicare program, if you go along with what the 
Democrats are proposing, whether it is their proposals to improve the 
economy, grow the economy, would actually shore up the Medicare 
program, contrary to what some of my colleagues said here tonight.
  You know, they mentioned different organizations. There was a group 
of doctors, they mentioned AARP. Most of the organizations, and I 
didn't listen to the whole hour, but most of the organizations that 
they mentioned, the American Medical Society, specialty doctor groups, 
the AARP, these are the groups that supported the Affordable Care Act, 
that supported the health

[[Page H796]]

care reform, because they knew that it was strengthening Medicare and 
making Medicare more viable for the future and expanding benefits for 
seniors and the disabled that are covered by Medicare.
  This is part of the historic nature of the Democrats and Medicare. We 
started Medicare. We strengthened Medicare. We have done everything we 
can to make Medicare more secure as a guaranteed Federal program. 
Republicans opposed Medicare from the beginning, continue to try to 
either repeal it, or, in the words of Speaker Gingrich, make it wither 
on the vine. And now in the latest proposal, the Republican budget here 
in the House of Representatives, my very Republican colleagues that 
spoke tonight all voted for the Republican budget that would 
essentially get rid of Medicare, make it into a voucher, not provide 
the Federal guarantee, and make it so the seniors were essentially 
thrown out with a voucher or a certain amount of money and had to go 
out and buy private health insurance, which they'll never find.
  So I had to come to the floor tonight, Mr. Speaker, and really tell 
the truth about the parties and where they stand on Medicare. The fact 
of the matter is that the Democrats started the Medicare program and 
continue to make it viable.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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