[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 23]
[House]
[Page 32002]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  HOUSE CONTINUES LATE-NIGHT VOTING TRADITION IN PASSING MEDICARE BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Boozman). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is the people's House, 
conducting the public's business openly, or at least it used to be the 
people's House. At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut 
veterans benefits by three votes. At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, 
House Republicans slashed education and health benefits by five votes. 
At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No 
Millionaire Behind tax cut bill by a handful of votes. At 2:33 a.m. on 
a Friday in June, the House GOP passed a Medicare privatization and 
prescription drug bill by one vote. At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, 
the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote. And then after returning 
from summer recess at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House 
voted $87 billion for Iraq. Always in the middle of the night, always 
after the press had passed their deadlines, always after the American 
people had turned off the news and gone to bed.
  With that track record, Mr. Speaker, we should not be terribly 
surprised that when the House passed legislation privatizing Medicare 
and forcing the most sweeping changes to Medicare in its 38-year 
history, we should not be terribly surprised that this Republican House 
of Representatives passed that bill at 5:55 in the early morning, 
Saturday morning, hours. The Republican leadership delivered this 
1,100-page Medicare bill to House Members on Friday morning at 1:46 
a.m. We voted on it 25 hours later.
  But I do not really blame my Republican colleagues. If I had produced 
this bill, I would not want to give people much time to look at it 
either. When Republican leaders sit down behind closed doors with the 
insurance industry and with the drug industry and write a bill to 
privatize Medicare, of course they do not want the public to know much 
about it.
  This bill is not a prescription drug bill. We could have agreed 
bipartisanly to deliver a $400 billion drug benefit to our Nation's 
seniors. This bill is a Medicare privatization bill, written by the 
drug industry, written by the insurance industry, for the drug industry 
and for the insurance industry. This bill forces seniors to join an HMO 
or pay more for the coverage they have now. And we know how HMOs have 
treated seniors in county after county after county in this country. 
This bill creates a $20 billion, that is with a B, $20 billion slush 
fund for HMOs and stacks the deck so resolutely against the core 
Medicare program that privatization is inevitable. This bill 
jeopardizes employer-sponsored retiree coverage for the 12 million-plus 
seniors who have this coverage. Several million seniors who now have 
prescription drug coverage as retirees are going to lose that coverage 
when their employers drop it. That is a certainty.
  This bill leaves such huge coverage gaps in coverage that the average 
senior will run out of drug benefits by August each year, but will be 
required to pay premiums through December. So they will not get a 
benefit in July, but they will pay the $35, $45, $50, $60 premium. They 
will not get a benefit in August, but they will be paying the $35, $45, 
$50, $60 premium. They will not get a benefit in September, but they 
will pay the premium. They will not get the benefit in October, but 
they will pay the premium. That is what the Republican privatization 
Medicare bill is all about, written by the drug companies for the drug 
companies, written by the insurance industry for the insurance 
industry.
  Mr. Speaker, most of these damaging provisions do not go into effect 
until after the 2004 elections, but this is the people's House. We 
should conduct our business openly. We should be honest with people 
whom we serve. We should throw the drug companies and insurance 
companies out of our offices so they are not writing this privatization 
legislation. The American people deserve better.

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