[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16264]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        RETIREE HEALTH BENEFITS

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I would just remind the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Watson) that this body passed its budget in March of 
this year. We are waiting for across the rotunda as usual.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the Medicare Modernization Act 
which we passed last year. I wanted to discuss the fact that employers 
have been dropping health care benefits for retirees for 2 decades. 
This is prior to our passing the Medicare bill. A Kaiser Foundation 
survey notes that the percentage of all large firms offering retiree 
health benefits has declined from 66 percent in 1988 to 34 percent in 
2002.
  Rather than worsening the situation, the Medicare Modernization Act 
works to stop the trend of employers dropping retiree coverage. We 
achieve this goal by providing incentives to employers to continue 
offering health care to their retired employees. Employers offering 
retirees coverage that at least equals the Medicare benefit will 
receive a tax-free direct subsidy.
  The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that substantially 
fewer employers will drop or reduce coverage under the Medicare 
conference report.

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