[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 26, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H7076-H7077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             MEDICARE AND MEDICAID WAS A GIANT LEAP FORWARD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, 57 years ago this week, President Lyndon 
B. Johnson signed into law the Medicare and Medicaid Act. By increasing 
healthcare access for elderly and low-income Americans, this act was a 
giant leap forward in building a more perfect Union.
  Today, nearly 64 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, and over 
83 million Americans receive assistance from Medicaid.
  We know that these programs are highly effective. Extensive research 
shows that Medicaid coverage is associated with a range of positive 
health outcomes. Medicare and Medicaid save lives. Medicare and 
Medicaid also have considerable economic benefits. Medicaid 
significantly helps reduce poverty and has been tied to economic 
mobility across generations and higher educational attainment, income, 
and taxes paid.
  Despite the benefits of Medicare and Medicaid, my Republican 
colleagues are trying to dismantle these programs.
  In 2018, a House Republican budget proposed slashing $537 billion 
from Medicare over a decade. Yet, while House Republicans try to gut 
Medicare and Medicaid, House Democrats are working to expand these 
programs to more Americans.

                              {time}  1215

  I am fighting particularly hard to improve Medicare and Medicaid in 
my district of the Virgin Islands of the United States and the other 
U.S. territories, which have long suffered from healthcare inequities.
  Before 2017, in the Virgin Islands, nearly 30 percent of residents 
didn't

[[Page H7077]]

have health insurance. This is a rate disproportionately higher than 
the national average of approximately 9 percent. As of 2021, 34,000 
individuals in the Virgin Islands, over a third of our population, 
relied on Medicaid and CHIP.
  However, the Virgin Islands has historically been denied the same 
Medicare and Medicaid benefits available to the States. Unlike the 
States, Federal Medicaid funding to the Virgin Islands is capped. 
Before the storms of 2017, the Federal Government covered just 55 
percent of Medicaid costs to the Virgin Islands, which is substantially 
lower than the 83 percent that would have been covered if the Virgin 
Islands were treated as a State.
  In addition, the Virgin Islands and U.S. territories are excluded 
from receiving low-income subsidies under the Medicare prescription 
drug benefit, and they are excluded from DSH, the Disproportionate 
Share Hospital program under both Medicaid and Medicare.
  Through recent legislation, I worked to temporarily increase the 
Federal share of Medicaid funding to the Virgin Islands from 55 percent 
to 83 percent and increase Federal Medicaid funding to the Virgin 
Islands by hundreds of millions of dollars. This has allowed 20,000 of 
our most vulnerable Virgin Islanders to retain access to healthcare.
  Unfortunately, these provisions are only temporary, and a permanent 
solution is needed to ensure the people of the Virgin Islands have 
access to affordable healthcare. That is why I introduced H.R. 3434 
with Representatives from the other territories.
  This bill would eliminate the unfair Medicaid funding limits for U.S. 
territories, increase Medicare reimbursements to hospitals in the U.S. 
territories, allow residents of the U.S. territories to be eligible for 
low-income subsidies under the Medicare prescription drug benefit, 
permit DSH payments to U.S. territories, and take other measures to 
improve access to health insurance.
  Madam Speaker, I am calling on the Senate to address the Medicaid 
issue for the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Marianas, and 
American Samoa to help almost hundreds of thousands of Americans. I am 
calling on the Senate to address this in any healthcare reconciliation 
bill with what was passed for the territories here in the House.
  When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare and Medicaid Act 
into law, he promised: ``No longer will older Americans be denied the 
healing miracle of modern medicine. . . . No longer will young families 
see their incomes, and their hopes, eaten away simply because they are 
carrying out their deep moral obligations to their parents and to their 
uncles and their aunts.''
  Unfortunately, this promise has yet to be fulfilled to residents of 
the Virgin Islands and the U.S. territories. As we mark 57 years of 
this legislation, let us commit to fully realizing this hope by 
expanding access to Medicare and Medicaid to all Americans.

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