[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 25955-25960]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  ISSUES OF CONCERN TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NOT ADDRESSED BY THE 106TH 
                                CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pitts). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, earlier this evening I was concerned 
because I think the impression was being given by the Republican 
leadership and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that if we 
stayed here the next few days, that we were going to be able to 
accomplish something.
  I think that was a false impression, because we all know that the 
other body has already gone home and passed a continuing resolution 
that brings the other body back I think on November 13 or 14. So as 
much as my House colleagues and the Republican leadership here in the 
House may feel that they are accomplishing something by being here for 
the next few days prior to the election, the bottom line is that they 
cannot accomplish anything because the other body, the Senate, is 
simply not here.
  So it is hard for me to understand why my colleagues on the 
Republican side are being critical because some Members of either party 
do not happen to be here, because we all know that absolutely nothing 
can be accomplished.
  I have listened to the debate back and forth in the last hour or two, 
and I know that what we are trying to do, what my Republican colleagues 
were trying to do, certainly, was to suggest that there have been great 
accomplishments made in this Congress.
  I have been very critical of the fact, particularly with regard to 
health care, that the issues that the American people really care 
about, the ones that affect their lives, whether it be Medicare 
prescription drugs, because they do not have access to prescription 
drugs or because they are not affordable, or the issue of HMO abuse and 
the need for reform of the HMO system, these types of issues have not 
been addressed.
  Also, there is the issue of trying to deal with the uninsured. We 
have now 42 million Americans who do not have health insurance. That 
needs to be addressed. It is not being addressed.
  Reference was made to the fact that the Democrats have been trying to 
pass a labor-health appropriations bill that would provide additional 
funding for local education, give money back to the school districts 
around the country so they can hire more teachers and reduce class 
size, give money back so they can modernize their schools, renovate 
school buildings that are falling apart, or build new schools where 
there is overcrowding.
  That has been a major issue in one of these appropriation bills that 
is still outstanding, yet it has not been addressed by the Republican 
leadership.
  There are so many issues like that. The larger issue of what we are 
going to do about social security and Medicare is important, because we 
know that in another 20 or 30 years the money is going to start to run 
out, and the question is whether or not we are going to have some kind 
of long-term plan to do that, to deal with that.
  These are the issues that my constituents talk about when I go home. 
They are concerned about quality education, they are concerned about 
health care, they are concerned about retirement security with regard 
to social security. These issues have not been addressed.
  There is absolutely no way those issues are going to be addressed in 
the next few days prior to the election, so to suggest somehow that 
they could be I think is just basically a hoax, if you will, on the 
American people. There is no basis to it whatsoever.
  Several times my colleagues, myself and others, have made reference 
particularly to an editorial that was in the New York Times just this 
past Wednesday, November 1. I thought that pretty much summed it up. I 
am not going to read the whole editorial, but it is entitled ``An 
Ineffectual Congress.''
  It says: ``The 106th Congress, with little to show for its 2 years of 
existence, has all but vanished from public discourse.'' What they mean 
by that is that nobody is really paying attention to what we do 
anymore. It is no wonder that certain numbers of our colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle have gone home prior to the election, because they 
know that there is nothing to be done here.
  The editorial continues. It says: ``Nobody, least of all the 
presidential candidates, are talking about this particular Congress, 
and the reason is plain. On almost every matter of importance, gun 
control, Patients' Bill of Rights, energy deregulation, social 
security, Congress has done little or nothing, failing to produce a 
record worthy of either celebration or condemnation.''
  I suppose it is the ultimate ridicule when the New York Times tells 
them that they have done neither anything good nor bad, they have done 
nothing at all.
  ``Nor has the Congress been able to complete even the most basic 
business, the appropriation bills that keep the government functioning. 
Three have been vetoed. Absent a burst of statesmanship in the next few 
days, it is possible that Congress will have to come back after 
election day to complete work on the Federal budget.''
  The bottom line is, once the other body, the Senate, went home, that 
is a fait accompli. That is going to happen. There is absolutely no way 
that anything happens here. It is going to happen on November 13, in 
what we call a lame duck session. There is no way to avoid that anymore 
because the other body has left.
  The editorial goes on to say: ``But if Congress has done a lousy job 
for the public at large, it is doing a fabulous job of feathering its 
own nest and rewarding commercial interests and favored constituencies 
with last-minute legislative surprises that neither the public nor most 
Members of Congress have digested.''
  What we have been saying, a lot of the Democrats have been saying, 
the problem with the Republican leadership is not only have they not 
done the people's business to get the appropriations and budget 
through, not only have they not addressed the major issues, such as 
health care, but they are doing nothing. If they do anything, it is 
something that favors the special interests.
  It is very sad. I have seen this happen with almost every major 
issue. If we talk about prescription drugs, I made the point earlier 
this evening, when we were having some dialogue during the 1-minute 
speeches, that this body never passed, the Republicans never passed, 
the Medicare prescription drug bill.
  Mr. Speaker, my point is that what we have seen with the Republican 
leadership is that whatever they do is essentially favoring special 
interests.
  When I was talking earlier this evening during the 1-minutes, one of 
my colleagues on the Republican side, I think the gentleman from 
California who is on the Committee on Ways and Means, he said, well, we 
passed a Medicare prescription drug bill. Well, it is not true, we did 
not pass a bill. The Republicans did not bring up a bill that would 
actually put a prescription benefit under Medicare.
  What they did was passed a system which I call a voucher, where they 
essentially give some money to seniors and say, go out and try to find 
an HMO or some kind of insurance company that will cover your 
prescription drugs.
  The bottom line is that the seniors cannot do that because it is 
outside of Medicare. There is not an insurance company that is going to 
give them that kind of policy for the amount of money that the 
Republicans are offering. They may end up in an HMO. We know about all 
the problems we have

[[Page 25956]]

had with HMOs that have dropped seniors.
  So they have not passed a Medicare prescription drug bill, a benefit 
under Medicare. The reason is because the pharmaceutical companies do 
not want that to happen. They do not want to have a benefit under 
Medicare. They want to see what they can do somehow to avoid Medicare 
covering prescription drugs.
  So there are so many examples like this with the special interests. I 
see some of my colleagues are here, Mr. Speaker. I yield to the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner).
  Mr. TANNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for 
yielding to me. He is right about the prescription drug issue.
  Let me just say this: The prescription drug issue cannot be resolved 
through an insurance-based model. I am in the insurance business at 
home, and was before I came here. Insurance is based on a spreading of 
risk.
  To use an example, if an insurance company insures 100 homes against 
fire, the odds are only two of them or one of them are going to burn 
that year, so they use the premiums paid for the other 98 or 99 to pay 
the one that burned.
  The problem with the Republican model is that they want to use the 
HMO model for a prescription drug benefit, and it will not work because 
every policyholder will also be a claimant, and there is no way that 
works under an insurance model.
  The reason Medicare came into being was because senior citizens who 
are sick and old could not get insurance, health insurance, for any 
price in the private marketplace, and with good reason, they are old 
and sick. I will be old and sick some day, if I am not already. That 
will not work.
  What we have to have if we are going to have a meaningful program is 
we have to have a Medicare derivative that is a part of Medicare to say 
to seniors, this is your prescription drug benefit, no matter where you 
live or what you do. Now, I want to thank the gentleman for having this 
special order tonight to let us have a chance to discuss this.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman said, 
because in fact, and I think the same person who represented the health 
insurance industry who addressed the Committee on Commerce that I am on 
went to the gentleman's Committee on Ways and Means hearing when the 
Republican prescription drug proposal came up, and he said, I forget 
his name, I think Kahn is his name, he said exactly that. He said the 
reason that this Republican proposal will not work is because the 
prescription drugs are a benefit, they are not something that is a 
risk, so everybody wants it. Everybody is going to sign up.
  Everybody needs the prescription drugs, and no insurance company is 
going to insure something that everybody is going to take advantage of.
  Mr. TANNER. No insurance company can survive when every policyholder 
is also a claimant. That is not hard to understand.
  Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. That is why they said they would not do it.
  In fact, they had the example we mentioned several times here on the 
floor where I think it was back in March of this year the State of 
Nevada passed on a State level a plan or proposal that was very similar 
to the Republican model that the gentleman mentioned, and for something 
like 6 months they could not get any insurance company to come in and 
even propose to sell the insurance.
  I was told a couple of weeks ago they finally got one company that 
says that they might be able to do it, but I have to see over the next 
few weeks whether that happens or not. But for 6 months they could not 
find anybody to even consider it, for exactly the same reason, that it 
is a benefit that everybody is going to take advantage of.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), who 
has been on our Health Care Task Force. He is one of the co-chairs for 
the whole 2 years, and has talked a lot about this.
  Mr. BERRY. I thank my colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Speaker, and I 
thank him also for his leadership and the leadership of our other 
colleagues who have joined us here this evening, the distinguished 
gentlemen from Texas and Tennessee.
  Mr. Speaker, we have heard much rhetoric, election-year rhetoric this 
evening, and for the last few weeks especially. There is plenty of 
effort to say, let us blame someone.
  I have only been here almost 4 years, and it has been interesting to 
listen to this rhetoric, and interestingly enough, it is always the 
Democrats that cause the problem. Even when we were not in the White 
House, it was the Democrats. When we are not in charge of the Congress, 
it is the Democrats. It does not make any difference, even when we are 
not in the majority and when we are not in the White House, we still 
cause the problem. I find that a bit interesting.
  The fact is, the question about how much is enough is answered by the 
majority party. That is the Republicans. Just a few weeks ago they 
raised the budget limits, the budget caps, one more time. I did not 
vote for it, I do not think anyone in this room voted for it, but they 
raised it. They are in the majority. That is their job.
  As they asked that question, I also wonder, how much is enough, when 
they tried to give $11.5 to the insurance companies last week that 
there is absolutely no justification for. How much is enough? Maybe we 
should give these insurance companies, they think maybe $20 billion. 
How much is enough? That is enough money to provide a real nice 
prescription drug benefit for our seniors for a year.
  They tried to give $15 billion to the bond arbitrage folks that do 
that job, instead of letting it go to the schools, like we had 
intended. How much is enough? How much money do we just give away when 
there is absolutely no indication that there is a need for that money?
  So I wonder myself how much is enough. I think we have had enough. I 
think it is time for this Congress to face up to its obligations. I can 
tell the gentleman this for absolute certainty: In the district that I 
am fortunate to represent, and I was there this morning, I met with 
more senior citizens that still do not have a prescription drug benefit 
with their Medicare policy. They are still paying three times as much 
for their medicine as any other country in the world, and it is not 
right. It is not fair. It does not make any difference whether it is 
the Democrats or Republicans. It does not make any difference about how 
much is enough.

                              {time}  2115

  We know that that is not fair. It is not right, and it is time we do 
something with it about it. This Congress is not here tonight dealing 
with that like they should be. We are listening to all of these silly 
questions. We are listening to this rhetoric, and it is time that this 
Congress dealt with that. Our Republican colleagues just a few minutes 
ago they said we passed a prescription drug benefit; that is just 
simply not true. They did not pass one. They voted on one in this 
House. They did not make it into law. They never intended to.
  They did not help those seniors I just talked about. They still have 
the problem. We still have seniors in the district that I represent 
that do not know whether or not tonight they are going to have 
something to eat because they had to buy their medicines. That is not 
right. It is not right for our colleagues across the aisle to try to 
cloud the issue.
  We had their Presidential candidate a few weeks ago in a debate. He 
loved to use the word fuzzy numbers. He kept talking about fuzzy 
numbers. Well, there is nothing fuzzy about a senior citizen that does 
not have the money to buy the medicine and buy their food. There is 
nothing fuzzy about that. There is nothing cute about it. There is 
nothing funny about it, and it is a shame that the Republicans have 
chosen to just ignore this issue, let it go on and on and hope it will 
go away somewhere.
  We have real people that feel real pain, and it is not right. These 
are the people that worked hard, played by the

[[Page 25957]]

rules, and we had assured them we were going to give them health care 
and Social Security when they retire and things will be all right if 
you do this. It is not right to let that continue to happen.
  Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleagues another thing for certain, we 
do not have a patients' bill of rights. They have done the same thing. 
We have people in the district that I represent tonight that do not 
know whether or not the insurance is going to pay for their health care 
or not, because some clerk said we can make more money for the company 
if we do not pay for it. The doctor and the patient still cannot make 
that decision, and it is not right.
  It is time that we do something about it. My distinguished friend and 
colleague, the gentleman from West Texas (Mr. Stenholm), mentioned 
earlier this evening the one thing we absolutely cannot do is allow 
this Congress to end until we deal with the Medicare reimbursement 
schedules for our hospitals, nursing homes and our home health care 
providers and some of our other Medicare providers.
  We are about to tear and destroy the very fabric of rural health care 
in this country if we do not do something about this, and we should do 
it in the morning. We should come back to this floor and take care of 
that problem. It is not right. I know for certain that those things 
have not been dealt with appropriately by this Congress.
  It does not make any difference whether it is Republicans or 
Democrats. We have real people feeling real pain and doing without the 
necessities of life and the richest country that has ever been in the 
history of the world and we have people over here asking silly 
questions like how much is enough.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to mention briefly what 
happened with the HMOs, this bill that was mentioned that came up last 
week.
  In New Jersey, and I think nationwide, we know that only 15 percent 
of the seniors are in an HMO, only 15 percent of the Medicare 
recipients are in an HMO. In my district, and I am sure in many of my 
colleagues, I guess it was July 1 or just prior thereto, a lot of the 
seniors who were signed up for the HMOs got a notice saying that by the 
end of the year they were going to be dropped.
  They were very upset and they called my office and they wrote to me. 
A lot of them did not even know that they could go back to the 
traditional Medicare, which they can, but as my colleagues know, that 
traditional Medicare does not have a prescription drug benefit. So they 
were very upset with the fact that they were being dropped.
  I, in response to that, actually introduced a bill that would give a 
higher reimbursement rate to the HMOs, but I also realized that just 
giving them more money was not going to be good enough, that we had to 
put some kind of accountability in there. And as my colleagues know, I 
have talked about and we have actually voted on it, although the 
Republicans voted against it, the idea that they would have to stay in 
the system, in the Medicare system, for 3 years if they have a higher 
reimbursement rate, and they could not reduce their benefits, they 
could not, you know, for example, decide they were not going to observe 
prescription drugs. Of course, Republicans opposed that.
  What basically the Republican leadership did with this bill is to say 
we are going to give you all this extra money. The gentleman mentioned 
$11 billion, and that is about 40-some percent of the total that is 
going in this bill back to providers, between the hospitals, the 
nursing homes, the home health agencies, the HMOs. The HMOs get over 40 
percent, yet they only represent 15 percent of the seniors.
  They are dropping almost a million seniors now since they got 
involved in the Medicare program. It is just crazy. How do you do that? 
How do you do that? The answer is very simple, and that is because the 
HMOs are aligned with the Republican leadership, and they are opposing 
the HMO reform. They are opposing the Medicare prescription drug, and 
they basically take the money that they get and they use it to lobby 
and to work against candidates who support Medicare prescription drug 
benefit and HMO reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I mean it is just so obvious how this special interest 
money is operating here. They just want to give more money to the HMO. 
I do not know how they get away with it. Hopefully they will not get 
away with it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) for yielding, and I want to pick up on the gentleman's 
comments and the comments of the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) a 
moment ago in which he talked about his concern about us leaving town 
without dealing with the Medicare/Medicaid givebacks. That bothers me.
  It bothers a lot of my constituents who are worried that this finger-
pointing game that we are in and this impasse that we are in is going 
to end, that we are going to end up this year without dealing with 
their problem, and we are not.
  I wished it were possible for to us do it tomorrow morning, but my 
purpose in being here for the third time today is to begin hopefully to 
stop the finger-pointing and begin to acknowledge the fact that we are 
not going to accomplish anything more of substance this year until the 
election, not this year, until the election. We say we are going to be 
working.
  I am chuckling now and, I guess, permit me one little finger-pointing 
of my own, Mr. Speaker, tonight. There has been a lot of rhetoric that 
we are here to work, but the only person I see from the other side of 
the aisle that is here right now is the Speaker, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts). And I apologize for keeping the gentleman, 
and I apologize for keeping these staff here tonight if we are 
convincing that we are doing work to resolve this problem, because we 
are not.
  The Senate has gone home. I am afraid that we are going to come here 
in the morning and we are going to start the finger-pointing all over 
again, and that is not going to resolve anything. The facts are this 
Congress has thus far failed in doing our work, and we have failed in 
dealing with our hospitals and our nursing homes. We have failed to 
resolve that. And as we heard the previous discourse, but when we had 
our friends from the other side here, and they were so kind to yield to 
us, we could find that there was a lot of room and agreement, but the 
leadership of the House and the White House, et cetera, have not been 
able to resolve it. That is what I am worried about.
  I would hope that anyone that is concerned about us going home 
December the 31 without resolving the health care or the Medicare/
Medicaid giveback, the BBA fix, that you would breathe easier, because 
we will not finish this year's work without dealing with that problem 
for sure. Perhaps, we can deal with some of the others.
  I would hope we can deal with the pharmaceutical question. I would 
hope we can deal with the patients' bill of rights. I would hope that 
we can do a lot of other things, but if we have to prioritize, this is 
one that is of a high priority.
  It is important, I think, for us to stop the finger-pointing. I think 
that is clear, and the people are going to separate that one come 
November the 7th. No matter how you color it, there has been a failure 
of leadership in the Congress of doing our work, and as I said a moment 
ago, I get a little bit testy when I hear it blamed on the minority.
  As I said before, I have been here in the majority for 16 years, and 
I caught a lot of blame, because when we Democrats had control of the 
House, we were not perfect. But I get a little bit ticked now when I 
continue to get the blame for not getting our work done. For my friends 
on the other side of the aisle to continue to come in and to blame the 
President, because he made us increase spending to $645 billion, I 
remember so many times in which I have said when I was here with the 
Reagan administration and the Bush administration and, before that, the 
Carter Administration, Presidents do not spend money.
  There is no possible way for a President to spend money that the 
Congress does not first appropriate. Now, it

[[Page 25958]]

often depends on who is in charge and who is pointing the fingers who 
you were going to blame, but it matters not whether it was a Republican 
President or a Democratic President, you are still not going to spend 
money that the Congress does not first appropriate.
  If you have a difference between the administration and the Congress, 
because they are in different parties, if you are going to beat the 
President, which it seems there has been a dedication, at least on some 
in the leadership on the other side of the aisle that they have got to 
beat the President, the only way you beat the President is by getting a 
two thirds vote. That is what the Constitution provides.
  I have said over and over if you want to beat the President, you have 
to got to reach out to the other side.
  My frustration on the one area that I am the most extremely concerned 
about is in the area of the balanced budget givebacks, if we should not 
accomplish our work, I will have 10 hospitals to 12 hospitals in my 
district close within the next 6 months. If we are not able to resolve 
that question, that is what will happen.
  But what my friends in this body, particularly on the majority side, 
do not seem to understand, the same leader that was responsible for the 
most part for writing the Balanced Budget Agreement in 1997 that has 
caused the problem for Medicare and Medicaid is the same leader that 
has given us his version of how we fix it and said take it or leave it 
and we will not negotiate that any further.
  Now, we have a bill, as my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone), has stated, we have a bill that has been reintroduced in 
which we will deal with some specifics. I think it is extremely 
important that we give a full hospital prospective payment system 
update for 2 years, not just for 1 year. Because we have so many of our 
hospitals today that are dealing with so much uncertainty. They are 
already in the red. They are facing difficulty of borrowing money, and 
all it seems that the majority wants to say is we are going to give you 
one more year and then we are going to start cutting you again.
  How are you going to deal with that?
  Our bill improves the formula for rural disproportionate share 
hospitals, a higher level of reimbursement for rural hospitals that 
serve low-income individuals of which, unfortunately, rural America is 
not sharing in the economic boom that the rest of America is sharing 
in, and, therefore, we on this side believe that that should be 
acknowledged. The majority has said, thanks but no thanks; this is all 
we can do.
  We provide for a 10 percent bonus for rural health agencies to 
compensate for the high cost of travel. The majority has said thanks 
but no thanks. We provide for a 2-year delay in the 15 percent cuts in 
payments for home health agencies. Again, the majority has said thanks 
but no thanks.
  Interestingly, this might sound like that we are wanting to spend 
more money, but our bill actually spends less over 5-year and 10-year 
periods than the majority proposal does.
  You would never believe that when you listen to the majority in here, 
and particularly the gentleman from California, who so eloquently talks 
about his version of it. I do not pretend for a moment that I am 
smarter than they are, but I do respectfully ask from time to time to 
at least consider the views of some on this side of the aisle and allow 
us to have some input.
  The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry), the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) have spent hours looking at the pharmaceutical 
benefit question. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) has 
looked at the education question over and over and over again. He has 
some different ideas.
  What is wrong with allowing the minority to have some input? If you 
do, you might be surprised. You might be surprised and find out that if 
the President disagrees, then there might be 290 that would disagree 
with the President, but I do not think that that would happen.
  Again, this ``how much is enough?'' I do not remember how many times 
we have to answer the question. We still bring out the silly chart. 
When you are in the majority, you run this place, or at least you try 
to. You set the cap at $645 billion, which is $12 billion more than I 
think it ought to be, and $8 billion more than the President thought it 
ought to be. And no matter how many times you say how much is enough, 
you are not going to change that fact.
  Let me just say enough is enough. We have to find a way to wind this 
down. There is nothing else going to happen of a positive nature, other 
than perhaps we will pass the National Park bill tomorrow morning. From 
what I understand, we are going to spend some more money, you might 
have to increase the budget caps again, not with my vote.
  We might do that tomorrow on the budget. I do not know. I hope I am 
wrong what I have been hearing about that. We ought not to have been 
here today. We ought not to have been here yesterday. Here again, the 
finger-pointing. I hope tomorrow that we can get through this without 
any more finger-pointing.
  Let us let all the finger pointing stop tonight. I was reminded a 
long time ago, when you are pointing a finger, there are three pointing 
back at you.

                              {time}  2130

  There are three pointing back at me tonight.
  But I, again, will make this request, in case there is going to be a 
temptation of the other side to point the finger again in the morning 
regarding where the President is tonight and where the Minority Leader 
is tonight, where they are tomorrow. Were there any meetings to work 
out the differences yesterday? Were there any meetings last Friday, 
last Saturday, last Sunday, last Monday, last Tuesday up to 1 o'clock 
and even yesterday?
  Were there any meetings requested by the other side of the aisle to 
my side of the aisle in which we said, thanks, but no thanks, we do not 
wish to negotiate? If there are, I would like for somebody to come in 
and correct me, and I will eat the humble pie. But I think the facts 
are there had not been.
  It is all a rhetorical game. It is all political rhetoric that is 
designed to benefit somebody by November 7. Well, it does not solve 
many problems. What we should have been doing last Friday since we were 
here working and every time we say this, work, work, work, well, there 
is four of us here working tonight.
  But we are immaterial at this point in time, because the Senate has 
gone home. The House, all 435 of us, could be here working, and nothing 
would come of it. So hopefully tonight will be the last time until 
November 8 that we start the finger pointing.
  But I hope when we come back November 8 or 9 or whenever we come back 
in the lame duck session, that we will come back with a different 
attitude, whoever wins the majority. I hope there will be enough of us 
to say enough is enough, not on the spending level, but enough is 
enough with the finger pointing.
  I certainly hope, and I assure those out there in each of our 50 
States that are worried about whether we are going to get our Nation's 
business done by December 31, ``you ain't seen nothing yet'' as far as 
disruptions if we find we are unable to work out a satisfactory 
compromise that will deal with our nursing homes and our hospitals and 
our reimbursement rate. That one is a must.
  I say this very respectfully and with a lot of assurance, there will 
be bipartisan agreement to that. This will not be a partisan issue 
after November 7. There are enough folks, Mr. Speaker, on the other 
side of the aisle that absolutely agree.
  Our problem tonight is a leadership problem. It has been a strategy, 
and we will see next week whose strategy has worked and whose has not. 
But I hope tomorrow, and to those that say it has got to be bipartisan, 
let the record clearly show, if it takes a Democrat to say it is time 
for us to go home and come back in a lame duck session, Mr. Speaker, I 
am saying it right now. Nothing additional of a positive nature can be 
accomplished past tomorrow.

[[Page 25959]]


  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just have to reiterate the same thing. I 
mean, the bottom line is that we are having these discussions about 
what should be or what legislation we would like to see pass, but there 
is absolutely no way that any of it can because the other body has 
left.
  So probably the best thing to leave everyone with tonight is the 
notion and the understanding that all these suggestions about working 
or continuing the session over the next few days just do not make any 
sense because there is no way to get anything done as long as the other 
body has left.
  I just wanted to say a couple of things now. The gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Stenholm) brought up this whole issue of the balanced budget 
amendment givebacks or however we are describing it, the problem, with 
the balanced budget agreement, that we still have a problem with our 
hospitals, our nursing homes, because the reimbursement level is not 
high enough, and the effort that we have been trying to work on a 
bipartisan basis, theoretically, to try to work that out and give some 
more money back.
  It is interesting because we have been critical of the Republican 
proposal that was voted on last week because it basically gave most of 
the money or the lion's share of the money to the HMOs without any 
accountability and did not give enough money to the hospitals, the 
nursing homes, the home health cares, the basic providers of health 
care services.
  But the bill that the gentleman from Texas talked about, the 
Democratic alternative, actually the one that we brought up as an 
alternative to this Republican bill, actually, when I look at it, most 
of it was actually adopted in my committee in the Committee on Commerce 
on a bipartisan basis.
  I do not know exactly what happened to it after it left the Committee 
on Commerce because we had a unanimous vote with both Democrats and 
Republicans to do exactly what the gentleman is proposing, which would 
have helped the hospitals and nursing homes. Somehow, by the time it 
got from the committee to the floor, it changed dramatically to what we 
have now.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. 
I thank the gentleman for making that point. That is a good question. 
What did happen? When we have a unanimous vote in the Committee on 
Commerce, what happened in the Committee on Ways and Means?
  What is it that causes the leadership now to say what we did in the 
Committee on Commerce is no good, but what was done in the Committee on 
Ways and Means, not in a bipartisan way, but in a pure partisan way, is 
the only way to go, and we have to take it or leave it. I do not 
understand that.
  That is not what this body, this House of Representatives, this body 
that has for so long prided itself on doing the people's business, on 
having committees that actually function, and having committees that 
will listen to the minority, and if I minority has a good idea, accept 
it.
  I happen to serve on the Committee on Agriculture. I am the minority 
on the Committee on Agriculture. Under the leadership of the gentleman 
from Texas (Chairman Combest), we do not have that problem. We have 
always had a give-and-take. We do not have any problems. When you see 
Committee on Agriculture bills come to the floor, very seldom do you 
have differences from the Committee. Very seldom do we get unanimous 
agreement in this House, but the process worked.
  The process in the Committee on Ways and Means is not working. 
Because the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) who was here a moment 
ago is on the Committee on Ways and Means, but he is on the minority. 
When you stop allowing the minority to have their views heard and voted 
upon and then it voted down, then you bring it to the floor, and if you 
get disagreement here, then you had better hope that you have got the 
President with you because, if not, nothing is going to happen. But 
something broke down, and that is what is causing the fussing today.
  But I suspect that, if we had a unanimous agreement in the Committee 
on Commerce, that when we come back after November 7, that cooler heads 
will prevail, and that if by chance, their bill, our bill, it would not 
surprise me if we are going to have bipartisan support for it when it 
comes back. Those that say no, we are only going to do it our way or 
the highway, perhaps they will be on the highway.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I think the only thing I can conclude is 
that the major difference, of course, is that, by the time the bill 
came to the floor, it was weighted heavily in favor of the HMOs. Of 
course I conclude that that is because the majority, the Republican 
leadership wanted to give a lot more money to the HMOs. I think that is 
really what happened.
  I just wanted to make a few points. I do not want to belabor it too 
much, because I do not know how much more time we have or how much my 
colleagues want to speak. But I would say that the three issues that I 
sort of highlighted and that the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) 
have highlighted also over the last 2 years, when we talk about health 
care, HMO reform, prescription drug benefit under Medicare and trying 
to help the 40 million plus uninsured all relate to this bill that we 
have been talking about tonight.
  What the Democrats try to do and what we did on a bipartisan basis in 
the Committee on Commerce with the bill actually helped in each of 
those areas in some ways because probably the biggest initiative to try 
to deal with the uninsured was the kids health care initiative that we 
passed on a bipartisan basis a couple years ago.
  In this bill that we were trying to bring to the floor last week as 
an alternative to the Republicans with their HMOs, we actually expanded 
the kids health care program to do more outreach and to sign up more 
kids so that we would actually reduce the ranks of the uninsured.
  In addition, in this bill, we talk about HMO reform. In the bill, 
there was an appeals process for people under Medicare who had been 
denied an operation or length of stay in the hospital a particular 
procedure by the HMO, that they could take an appeal where they were 
granted rights very similar to the Patients' Bill of Rights that passed 
in this House on a bipartisan basis.
  But of course the Republican leadership has stymied. So in that bill, 
which, again, they rejected, we actually would try to make a little bit 
of a step towards HMO reform as well.
  Then, finally, the whole issue of prescription drugs was addressed to 
some extent because, right now, the main way that people get 
prescription drugs under Medicare is if they are able to sign up for an 
HMO. What we did in our bill was to say that, if the HMOs are going to 
get more money, they had to stay in the program for 3 years, and they 
could not reduce their benefits, which is primarily prescription drugs.
  So with this bill that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) was 
talking about, this Democratic, really, bipartisan alternative that the 
Republican leadership rejected, we were in some small way addressing 
each of these major health care issues that the gentleman from Texas, 
the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) and I have been talking about 
and trying to address.
  So granted there is not any time left before the election, but when 
we come back for the lame duck session, if we could manage to get this 
alternative with regard to the givebacks, the higher Medicare 
reimbursement rate passed, we would make a small step towards dealing 
with some of these health care issues, in my opinion.
  It is very unfortunate that the Republican leadership rejected this 
and just went ahead with this bill that really does nothing but help 
the HMOs without any accountability.
  I mean, it is one of the reasons that I am so upset with the fact 
that they rejected this and they refused to negotiate, and essentially 
nothing is happening. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

[[Page 25960]]


  Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, well, I think the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Pallone) makes a strong point and also the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Stenholm).
  The fact remains that we have not gotten the job done for the 
American people on health care. One of the proudest moments that I have 
there in this House was the day that we passed, in a bipartisan way, a 
strong bipartisan way, a meaningful, effective Patients' Bill of 
Rights.
  Republicans and Democrats worked together to get the job done. We 
have proven over and over again in this body that, when we work 
together, good things happen. Very seldom does a really meaningful 
piece of legislation ever go through this House that is not bipartisan. 
Yet, we continue this partisan bickering. The American people do not 
care about this. They want us to get the job done, and it is time for 
us to do that.
  I would hope that, when we do come back, whether it be this year or 
in the 107th Congress, that we will, in a bipartisan way, address these 
things that are so desperately needed in this country, like a Patients' 
Bill of Rights, and do it in a bipartisan way.
  I have never on issues pertaining to health care and the budget had 
any effort whatsoever made from the other side to even listen to our 
ideas, much less accept them, work together and try to work out a 
solution. I think it would be a wonderful thing if we would do that in 
a bipartisan way and solve some of these problems.
  We have got to solve the problem of our reimbursements for our 
hospitals, nursing homes, home health care providers. We know that.
  The distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) has said 
earlier we cannot allow our rural hospitals to be destroyed because we 
did not deal with this problem. We have got to have prescription 
medicine for our seniors, and in a meaningful way, not in some clever 
gimmick that someone has thought up. We can do this in a bipartisan 
way.
  I hope we come back after this time that we have spent here adjourns, 
and we go home, that we come back with a new resolve to get the job 
done in a bipartisan way.

                              {time}  2145

  Certainly I think, to answer that question once again, how much is 
enough, certainly this is enough, and it is time for us to stop this, 
get the job done, get our work done, do what the American people sent 
us here to do, and not continue this partisan bickering that we get 
blamed for and justifiably so. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey 
for his leadership.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank my colleagues. I think that we have made 
the point well this evening that we really want to get the work done 
and we want to accomplish things for the average American. Our only 
frustration tonight has been that we know that the Senate is out and 
there is no time to do this between now and election day. So let us 
just hope that tomorrow as the gentleman from Texas said that we stop 
the partisan bickering and basically recognize the fact that the time 
has run out and the only way we are going to accomplish this is when we 
come back after the election.

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