[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12714]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FLETCHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak on a very 
important issue: health care. It is an issue that we will be discussing 
as we begin to look at the markup of some bills this week and I think 
it is very important as we address these bills that we do so and try to 
get the politics as much out of it as we possibly can.
  Mr. Speaker, when we talk to people across the United States, the 
number one problem that we have now is the number of uninsured: 43.4 
million people are uninsured at this time. That number will rise to 
about 60 million over the next 10 or 15 years. So I think it is 
imperative, Mr. Speaker, that as we pass legislation, as we look at 
health care legislation, that we realize that the number one problem we 
have is the number of uninsured. That number of uninsured is driven by 
costs. That is a direct correlation as increasing costs of health 
insurance drives up the number of uninsured.
  Mr. Speaker, we could make sure that we pass some patient protection 
that does a whole lot of things, but if it raises the cost 
substantially we are going to have some of our people and some of our 
patients that are going to see the physician too late after the cancer 
has already spread. They are going to see the physician too late or go 
to the emergency room too late after the heart attack has already 
occurred when it could have been prevented. They are also going to go 
too late when the stroke has occurred when they could have had 
treatment for blood pressure. This is what is going to happen if we 
drive up the cost of insurance and we continue to drive up the cost of 
the number of the uninsured.
  Not only is cost a factor, but it is morally the right thing to do. 
We need to make sure that we try to cover more individuals in this 
country, that we provide more provisions to make sure that there is 
more health coverage and not less.
  A number two concern I hear from people and patients is the fact that 
they are concerned about making sure that they get the kind of 
treatment that they need, that they and their physician make that 
decision, and it is not insurance companies or lawyers or judges that 
are making the decisions, and to make sure that those decisions are 
made by providers.
  Another major concern is that they want to make sure that they can 
choose a physician that they trust, one that they have established a 
relationship with, that they have the kind of choice of choosing those 
physicians, and that is very important to them.
  This next week, Mr. Speaker, or this week, actually, we will begin to 
hear the debate on this bill that talks about external review, ensuring 
that there is a grievance process if care is denied, that they can go 
to objective, independent authorities in the area that they are 
concerned about to make sure that physicians make those decisions; that 
if they need emergency room care, they can be assured that if it is a 
layperson's definition of emergency, they can get that care paid for 
when they get there; making sure that there are no gag rules to prevent 
physicians from talking about all of the treatment options that are 
necessary; making sure that they have the kind of information so that 
they can have the benefit of informed choice so that they can compare 
one insurance plan with the next, making sure that they know exactly 
what the grievance processes are, all of the things that the insurance 
company covers.
  Another thing we are going to be looking at is associated health 
plans. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) has introduced this, and 
this will allow for small companies, which about 60 percent of the 
small companies now are not able to afford, or very small companies are 
not able to provide insurance because of cost, the number one factor. 
Yet, this bill should hopefully reduce the cost to those companies by 
about 10 to 12 percent. For each 1 percent that we increase health 
care, we lose about 300,000 to 400,000 people off of health insurance, 
strictly because of the cost.
  Lastly, we are going to be looking at a commission that will 
establish some guidelines to help again to take the politics out of 
health care reform. We say when we get to do things, I get disappointed 
in many folks that try to come and demagogue on this issue and are not 
truly concerned about the patients that we are talking about.
  One of the things I would like to introduce and will introduce, and I 
hope that we are able to pass, is what is called a point of service. 
This is a provision where one can choose the physician that one has 
established a relationship with, and that trust, and I think it is very 
important that we do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight, as we 
begin to debate this issue which is very important to the American 
people. I hope we can take the politics out and the demagoguery, making 
sure that we do not raise the cost of insurance, that we can have 
patients get the access to the care that they need, and not only that, 
but we allow them to choose the physician that they have trust in.

                          ____________________