[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1769-1771]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  SENIORS NEED MEDICARE NOT MAYBE CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight like so many Americans in 
anticipation of what the President may say to this Congress tomorrow. 
These are difficult times for this country. We face extraordinary 
challenges abroad in grappling with the war on terrorism and also with 
the proposed invasion of Iraq, and we face daunting challenges here at 
home. Our economy is not doing well. There is no question that the jobs 
have been declining. We have fewer jobs in this country than we had 2 
years ago. In many parts of this country people are suffering. Many 
States across this country are finding that their budgets are 
completely out of whack. They are struggling both with rising expenses, 
particularly with Medicaid, as the economy suffers and declining 
revenues, declining revenues from the Federal Government and also 
declining revenues at home in their own State funds.
  So in this context this is an appropriate time to talk about what the 
President may say tomorrow night and also to give a sense of what we 
believe as Democrats are some of the issues that lie ahead.
  I am going to begin tonight by discussing the topic of health care. 
There have been a number of articles in the press anticipating what the 
President may say about Medicare. In particular, those articles suggest 
that tomorrow night the President will unveil a Medicare reform 
proposal and that that proposal will basically seek to privatize more 
of Medicare; that is, it will seek to put more of the people in this 
country who are now getting traditional fee-for-service Medicare into 
the hands of insurance companies, and those insurance companies would 
take over the provision of health insurance from Medicare.
  Now, one of the things that is very clear is that when Medicare gets 
turned over to insurance companies, as it has in so many States with 
what is called Medicare+Choice, that the world changes; and some of 
those changes, a number of those changes, are not to the advantage of 
seniors. Let me give you a few examples from the program called 
Medicare+Choice, which we have had in this country now since the 1997 
act.
  What has happened in those cases where insurance, private insurance 
companies have taken over Medicare and provided insurance is that every 
year the benefits can change. That is, every year the insurance company 
can decide, for example, that though we were providing prescription 
drug coverage before this year, we are going to have a lower cap, or we 
will have a higher copay, and the other part of that is every year the 
premiums can change.
  In many places in this country when Medicare+Choice first began, 
prescription drugs were free. There was no added cost for prescription 
drugs; but over the years that is changed.
  Now, the other third component that changes is that if a company is 
not making enough money, if an insurance company is not making enough 
money on Medicare+Choice, on a managed care plan for seniors, then what 
happens is the company can simply pull up and leave the particular 
area. In fact, in most counties in this country there is no opportunity 
for private insurance to cover people on Medicare, to be the primary 
coverage. There always are Medigap policies that many seniors take 
advantage of, but those policies provide very few benefits for their 
costs, so most seniors do not sign up for them.
  So now the President is saying what seniors need in this country is 
more of this private insurance under Medicare. Well, let us think about 
that. If you have private insurance under Medicare, taking over 
Medicare for many seniors across this country, here is what happens: 
Any given year the premiums for that policy can change. The benefits 
for that policy can change. In short, maybe you get coverage one year, 
and maybe you do not. Maybe some States get covered, and maybe they do 
not. Maybe the premiums, almost certainly the premiums change every 
year. The bottom line is maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe you get coverage, 
maybe you do not. Maybe in some States, maybe not in others. Maybe in 
some years, maybe not in others.
  The President is trying to turn Medicare into ``maybe care'' and 
seniors need to say, ``Maybe not.'' In fact, definitely not. Because if 
the President is able to turn Medicare into ``maybe care,'' then our 
seniors are faced with a kind of uncertainty, instability, 
unpredictability that they have do not have when they sign up, when 
they get ordinary Medicare.
  But the President will propose that this is reform, this is something 
that would be good for all Americans. I suggest we need to take a 
different look at what he proposes.
  There is also one other topic I want to address before turning it 
over to my distinguished friend from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), and that 
is the proposal that you can read about in the papers today, some of 
them, that the President is likely to propose in the near future that 
small businesses be able to join national association health plans.
  Now, a lot of small business organizations are saying, this is a good 
deal, this is what we need to do. And who can blame them, because I do 
not know a small business in my home State of Maine that is not 
desperate about the rapidly rising cost of health insurance. In fact, 
in my home State of Maine, health insurance costs tend to go up

[[Page 1770]]

about 30 to 50 percent for small businesses in each of the last 3 
years, and we have to do something about it.
  But the President, from what we hear, is likely to roll out a plan 
for association health plans. These plans would bypass State 
regulation, so a lot of the protections that are built into your State 
laws to protect consumers against insurance companies that are always 
trying to skim off the healthy people and not take the people who are 
not as healthy, a lot of the State regulatory apparatus would be gone, 
and consumers would be left at risk.
  But here is the important point: The important point is that there 
are now about 41 million people in this country who do not have health 
insurance, and the Congressional Budget Office has estimated under the 
President's proposed plan that maybe 4.6 million people would sign up 
for these association health plans, and as I said, who can blame them? 
But 4.3 million of those folks already have health insurance. In other 
words, here is another plan to be rolled out by the administration and 
by the Republicans in Congress, and it will cover about 300,000 of the 
41 million Americans who do not have health insurance today, and they 
will call that progress, but it is not.

                              {time}  2000

  In short, we have to look at the health care proposals that we expect 
to be contained in the President's speech tomorrow night; and so far, 
from what we have heard, they are a bad deal for America's seniors and 
a bad deal for America's small businessmen.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague helping shape 
the context for the important discussions that we will be having in the 
course of the week.
  This is a very important time of the year. This is the time where the 
President of the United States has an opportunity to give his or her 
vision for our country. It is a unique opportunity. It is a time, 
particularly at the beginning of a new Congress, when we are coming 
together with fresh optimism and enthusiasm. People are just off the 
campaign trail. Hopefully, for a while, we can concentrate on the 
people's business.
  There have been times when the President of the United States has 
come before this Chamber rallying the American people. I was one, Mr. 
Speaker, who was very impressed in the aftermath of September 11 with 
the challenge that was faced by our then new President, President Bush, 
how he came forward at a time of great tension and anxiety in this 
country, having been subjected to an unprecedented attack on our shore, 
and I thought that he rose to the occasion. I thought his message was 
direct, was forthright; and I noted in this Chamber that men and women 
in both parties came forward, making it clear that we were united in 
terms of dealing with our responsibility to the American people, 
working together.
  I contrast what happened immediately in the aftermath of September 11 
with what happened in last year's State of the Union and thinking about 
what has happened in the year since then.
  We had an unfortunate notion dealing with the ``axis of evil,'' where 
we had an unfortunate, some would say reckless, rhetorical flourish 
that has sort of lumped together three of the most vexing problems we 
have in the foreign policy arena with North Korea, Iraq and Iran; and 
unfortunately, in the course of the last year, we have seen increasing 
problems because of an inability on the part of the administration to 
distinguish and have a clear and thoughtful approach to all three of 
those problems.
  We have had a situation dealing with the issue of international 
terror, which is and remains the greatest threat to American security; 
and frankly, I think all of us in our heart of hearts has to admit 
that, as a result of the last year, America is no safer as it relates 
to terrorism, and in fact, there are questions and ambiguity. We have 
this great amorphous security agency, and we really have not addressed 
vexing problems between a lack of coordination between the CIA and the 
FBI. Now we have got a third entity with more questions than answers.
  There was not a call in the last State of the Union asking Americans 
to step forward. There was not a sense of shared sacrifice and urgency. 
In the course of the last year, we have been dealing, frankly, with 
sort of misdirected economic policies, and we will be talking about 
those this evening.
  I see our colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), 
from the Committee on Ways and Means who I think has something to say 
about it. We have the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), who has some 
significant information to share about the impact as it has to deal 
with poor people. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) can 
deal with impacts on children.
  We will be dealing with the economy here in the course of our 
discussion this evening, but I think it important to note that we have 
got the economy, we have not addressed it; and in fact, the proposals 
that have been slowly leaked out and trial balloons that have been 
floated on some of the President's speeches do not give me any cause 
for comfort as I look at the problem of a State like Oregon, which has 
the highest unemployment rate in the country.
  Nothing that has been proposed to this point is going to do anything 
to put these people back to work. It is not going to deal with 
investments in infrastructure and cleaning up the environment that 
could make a huge difference tomorrow, and there is not anything that 
speaks to the concerns and the problems of the vast majority of working 
Americans. We are going to be getting into that later this evening.
  Last but not least, I hope to return to a brief conversation about 
the environment. Certainly, we have seen dramatic events around the 
world that present the problems we have to global climate change in 
terms of the economic devastation and that assault on human health in 
terms of what is happening to the environment; and sadly, sadly, this 
is an area that not only have we not had a series of positive 
initiatives that could make the world healthier, safer and more 
economically secure, but sadly, in the course of the last year, we have 
seen a series of below-the-radar assaults on the environment by this 
administration, which are going to have profound effects for years to 
come.
  I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in yielding to me, and I look 
forward to participating with him and our other colleagues in the 
course of the evening, painting the context for what the American 
public needs, deserves, anticipates, and contrasting that with what it 
appears the administration is going to do and certainly what it has 
done.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. In 
fact, in just a moment after a couple more comments on my part, I would 
like to ask the gentleman to come down in the well and take my place 
and control the remaining time, but I did want to add a couple of 
things.
  It is astonishing, when we think back about what happened in the 
1990s, to see the agenda that the President will roll out tomorrow. 
What we learned from the 1990s was if we maintain our fiscal 
discipline, if the Federal Government works to get rid of deficits, to 
come roughly into balance, that is our best bet for the future. We have 
lost that interest. The President and the Republicans in this Congress 
have lost any interest in maintaining a balanced budget and getting rid 
of the deficits. In fact, there is an exactly opposite trend here.
  We learned in the 1990s, we maintain the balance and we invest in 
people. We make sure we are contributing to their health care, that we 
are investing in job training, we are making sure people have the 
skills for the 21st century, common phrase. We do not hear it anymore 
because what is happening now is we are not investing. We have stopped 
increasing support for education. It is being flat funded like other 
domestic priorities, and it does not matter what the area is. In almost 
every area, we are basically cutting back on investing in people.

[[Page 1771]]

  At the same time, we are going back to an era of huge, huge deficits, 
and why? Well, partly because we have had to make an investment in 
defense and in homeland security, but primarily because, in fact, we 
are having tax cut after tax cut after tax cut directed to the 
wealthiest people in the country. That is not what investing in people 
means. That is not strengthening our workforce. That is not going to 
strengthen our economy in the long run.
  Basically, tax cuts for the wealthy in the long run simply widen the 
gap between the very wealthy and everyone else, do not allow us to 
invest in the future of the way we did during the 1990s with the 
economic results that we saw in the 1990s and we can see what is 
happening.
  The President will come here tomorrow night, and he will propose a 
$674 billion tax cut, again weighted mostly to the wealthy; and I 
predict almost I think to a certainty that he will also say we have to 
make the tax cuts that were passed last year permanent, and I guarantee 
that he will not tell this body and he will not tell the people of this 
country that that in itself, making those tax cuts permanent, will cost 
an additional $600 billion dollar loss of revenue.
  We are going to be so deep in deficits for so long that our children 
and grandchildren will pay the price, and it is hard to understand the 
morality of borrowing from our kids, borrowing from our grandchildren, 
forcing them to pay interest on the national debt for decades and 
decades to come simply in order to satisfy a current desire for tax 
cuts.
  I think it is wrong, and at this time I would like to yield to the 
gentleman from Oregon, and Mr. Speaker, ask leave that he control the 
remainder of the time.

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