[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 18783]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



        ESSENTIAL AND CRITICAL HOSPITAL PRESERVATION ACT OF 2000

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. PAUL E. KANJORSKI

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 20, 2000

  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce the introduction 
of the Essential and Critical Hospital Preservation Act of 2000.
  This bill improves previous legislation I have introduced in the 
106th Congress by targeting relief to similar regions of the country 
like Northeastern Pennsylvania. Hospitals in these regions have a 
disproportionate number of elderly patients and have, therefore, been 
more greatly affected by the drastic cuts made in Medicare from the 
Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Furthermore, in these regions, the formula 
for Medicare as applied to those hospitals returns them an insufficient 
payment to meet their basic costs.
  This bill is designed to assist economically distressed hospitals in 
regions where the combination of managed care, Medicare, and commercial 
payments changes have threatened to destroy the entire health care 
delivery infrastructure. It applies only to hospitals which have more 
than 40 percent of its patients on Medicare and receive the rural 
reimbursement rate despite being located in a Metropolitan Statistical 
Area.
  Mr. Speaker, the hospitals in my region of Pennsylvania are in deep 
distress. Many of them are in severe economic difficulty. My proposal 
would give hospitals in regions of the country like Northeastern 
Pennsylvania a minimum of a 5-year, 10-percent increase in Medicare 
payments while they work through the development of long-range economic 
recovery programs. It also requires the hospitals to devise a 
coordinated economic recovery program with the assistance of the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  Mr. Speaker, in a time when the future of Medicare is under strict 
scrutiny, we must today continue to provide the basic essential care 
under the Medicare program that are intended some 35 years ago. I urge 
all Members of Congress to review this critical legislation in the 
remainder of the 106th Congress and work to enact it into law.

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