[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 13432]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         VETERANS' HEALTH CARE

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. ROBIN HAYES

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 20, 2000

  Mr. HAYES. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to oppose 
this amendment. This amendment jeopardizes the appropriations authority 
granted to Congress by the Constitution and will set a precedent that 
the administration and the President will determine spending instead of 
the U.S. Congress. I ask my colleagues to consider the precedent that 
this amendment will set with respect to our authority in Congress to 
determine spending levels for our country. This amendment is not about 
tobacco companies, it's about protecting funds for veterans' health 
care and whether or not you believe in the rule of law. Don't take $20 
million from veterans' health care or any other agency to pay for a 
lawsuit that history and legal precedent say you will not win. That 
would be a tremendous disservice to our veterans and our taxpayers. In 
today's Washington Times, Professor Michael Krauss argued the very same 
thing. ``In 1997, Miss Reno herself testified before the Senate that 
the Federal Government had no legal basis to recover health care 
expenditures from tobacco companies.'' The Master Settlement Agreement 
between the states and the companies was supposed to remedy this 
situation. Mr. Krauss continues, the ``White House had failed to enact 
its desired 55-cent-per-pack federal cigarette, Miss Reno shamelessly 
filed the very same lawsuit she had explicitly admitted was 
groundless.''
  As Mr. Krauss continues to argue, ``the tobacco manufacturers never 
duped the Federal Government. Washington has known for decades that 
smoking is dangerous. Since 1964, every pack of cigarettes sold in the 
United States has carried a federally mandated warning of the health 
risks of smoking. So Washington has no direct fraud suit against Big 
Tobacco.'' In 1997 the Department of Veterans Affairs rejected former 
soldiers' allegations that they were sickened by cigarettes which were 
given to them by the government at no cost until 1974; a full ten years 
after Washington required health warnings. Krauss asserts that the 
Federal Government cannot assume the rights of individual smokers to 
sue for damages.
  In 1947, the United States Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Standard Oil, 
concluded that the Federal Government may not, unless it has expressed 
statutory to do so, sue third parties to recover health care costs. 
Following the ruling, Congress passed the Medical Care Recovery Act 
(MCRA), which allows the Government to recover the medical treatment 
costs given to individual military and federal employees injured by a 
third party's negligence. MARA, however, does not allow the recovery of 
general Medicare costs. Since its passage, not once has Washington made 
claims for costs incurred by Medicare.
  The Secondary Payer provisions added to MARA in 1980 and 1984 give 
the Federal Government authority to recover Medicare costs previously 
promised to be paid by insurance companies. However, as noted by 
Krauss, the Secondary Payer provision has never been interpreted to 
allow the Federal Government to sue alleged wrongdoers, only insurers 
are allowed. To make recoveries under the Secondary Payer provisions, 
the Government must be able to prove the sales of tobacco, alone, are 
responsible for wrongdoing. Considering that Washington has played an 
active part in regulating, subsidizing, promoting and profiting from 
tobacco products while completely aware of its health risks, such proof 
of autonomous wrongdoing is difficult to find. Krauss concludes his 
article, describing the federal tobacco lawsuit as a ``thinly veiled 
quest for billions in federal revenue,'' unobtainable through the U.S's 
constitutional taxing process.
  For my friends on the other side who bemoan any kind of reduction in 
government spending, it's almost amazing they are working to cut 
funding for veteran health care and for military families, just to 
advance the political agenda of the administration. I strongly urge my 
colleagues to vote against this amendment.

                          ____________________