[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 25454]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 A CONTINUATION OF HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to my 
colleagues in their discussion on rural health care.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to say that in this Medicare bill that 
the House voted on recently, we had put more money into rural health 
care than at any time in the existence of Medicare. For the first time, 
we dramatically increased the floor for rural health payments to a 
degree that the President never proposed, never anticipated, and, 
frankly, this house has never proposed in the past either.
  My colleague from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) did propose in the 
Committee on Commerce to raise those thresholds to very high levels so 
the rural areas will be able to provide the quality health care that 
those people deserve, and that should be the standard of care 
throughout the Nation.
  I am proud of what this bill did, and I am disappointed that my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not recognizing that this 
is a unique bill in its generosity to rural areas. That is why the 
rural providers all support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to quote the American Hospitals 
Association on this, and the reason why I keep getting back to the 
American Hospitals Association on this bill is that these are the folks 
whose members have to pay the bills and have to make ends meet on 
Medicare.
  One of the things I heard over and over again from our hospitals on 
behalf of our seniors and directly from seniors is we need Medicare 
relief, and this is what this bill does. The American Hospitals 
Association says we are urging Members to vote in favor of this 
legislation and have recommended that the President not veto this 
legislation. I am just so concerned that the President is putting 
politics over people. This is legislation that does seek a solution to 
solve a problem, and it is not perfect.
  I do not think we can have a perfect piece of legislation in a 
legislative body consisting of 435 people and 100 Senators, but it is a 
step in the right direction.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I would point out under 
current laws these plans would get a 2 percent increase. All we are 
doing in this bill is a 3 percent increase. This is not big stuff as it 
goes down here. This is not worth vetoing.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for yielding 
to me, because I appreciate the responsiveness of the committee to a 
lot of the requests that we made with respect to rural areas, because 
this is a very difficult, very complex issue. It is a quality-of-life 
issue for people in rural America. We have long distances.
  I appreciate very much the inclusion of the telehealth provisions in 
this, because allowing technology to help us better meet the health 
care needs in rural areas is really, I think, the wave of the future. 
One of the reasons we have had such difficulty with Medicare+Choice is 
for the reasons that the gentlewoman mentioned and, that is, that 
making sure that we more fully fund this blend, that we allow some sort 
of floor there that enables programs, Medicare+Choice programs, to 
better succeed in rural areas has been a real challenge.
  I agree. I mean, everybody would probably write a more perfect 
version of it; but I do believe, as I look at this bill and the efforts 
that were made on behalf of the Committee on Ways and Means and the 
Committee on Commerce on trying to fashion something, it is responsive 
to it. It is sensitive to the needs of rural areas, and that is why I 
think, as the gentlewoman mentioned, a lot of these groups, including 
rural health care providers, have endorsed and supported this 
legislation.
  Granted, not everyone is probably going to come on board. The 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) obviously is not in support of this, 
but I think when we look at the organizations, the positions they have 
taken, the groups they represent, this is an effort, a very strong 
effort to try and address a lot of the shortcomings in providing health 
care to rural areas to our senior populations. I thank my colleagues 
for their work on that.
  Again, I would be very disappointed if the President were to veto 
this, because I think it would be a real loss for rural areas in this 
country, who under this bill would benefit in some significant way.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. I understood all the Democrats on the Committee on 
Commerce voted for this; am I correct?
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. The Committee on Commerce was a 
unanimous vote, but I believe it was a voice vote. On the Ways and 
Means subcommittee, which was the committee that has governed Medicare 
year after year after year after year, gets into all the complicated 
reimbursement issues. Improving managed care choice reimbursements by 4 
percent was voted for unanimously by Republicans and Democrats.
  In addition, we accepted an amendment by a Democrat member of the 
subcommittee to even improve the reimbursements above that to bring 
plans into the market, again, when they had not been there before; and 
again that would help the rural areas.

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