[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3772-3773]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       MAKING MEDICARE RUN BETTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I have a good friend that bought a 
brand-new Mustang, and he loves that car wonderfully; but every once in 
a while parts of it will break, and he has to fix it. He tries to 
improve it every once in a while, not with changing its looks or its 
purpose. But without servicing that automobile, today it would be 
simply a rusting hulk. Its glory days evaporated. In fact, quite 
frankly, it would not run.
  That car was built the same year Congress established Medicare. And 
with Medicare as well, if we did no servicing, if we did not slightly 
fix those few things that are broken, Medicare today would not run. We 
are not changing its looks or its purpose. Indeed, people today who are 
satisfied with Medicare as it is may keep the program as it is. In 
fact, incentives were put in the bill that we passed on Medicare to 
ensure just that. But we

[[Page 3773]]

actually did try to improve the program in its prescription drug 
component to meet the needs of the most vulnerable of our senior 
citizens.
  Let us face it, if you are over 65 today, it is almost impossible to 
buy a private health care policy dealing simply with prescription 
drugs. The most vulnerable segment of our seniors whose income is being 
dangerously compromised by prescription drug needs has grown over the 
past decade by 600 percent. In fact, every year almost a 60 percent 
increase of those personal economies are being endangered simply by 
prescription drug needs.
  This Congress serviced the program for that portion that was not 
working to make it run better, and they did so free of government price 
controls, free of government mandates, free of government rationing at 
the same time. Let us face it, in the 1960s our effort in health care 
was basically reactive. We were paying for hospital costs.
  Today, health care is preventative. Efforts use prescription drug to 
keep people out of hospitals, hopefully decreasing the overall health 
care spending that we have. Our medical needs will change. Our desires 
will also change, and we need to change to meet those particular needs 
in the government programs.
  Sometimes you can tell something about an individual by the company 
he or she keeps. Those who complain the loudest about changes made to 
Medicare usually are the status, those who like mandates, the one-size-
fits-all government-knows-best approach to the world. Those who are the 
most supportive are those who truly believe that choice is good and 
options ennoble the spirit of America.
  There are areas of health care today where the price and the cost is 
actually decreasing, but always in areas where choice is maximum and 
options are there, and no third party is limiting those options. As 
part of our health care change in Medicare, we have provided for health 
savings accounts, allowing for individuals to put pretax dollars into 
an account that would grow with tax-free interest that would belong 
with them, would go with them from job to job. Afterwards, when the 
needs were greatest, there would be an element of money that was there 
so that truly Americans could finally individualize their needs, make 
their own priorities without being filtered through a third party, and 
invite into the American system the opportunity for options that are no 
longer there in the health care field.
  We are not finished with Medicare. It was not the final bill. As our 
lives change, our life experiences and expectations change; and the 
government needs to meet to change also, to meet those changing needs. 
What this bill did is provide an opportunity to fix an area that needed 
servicing, not to change the program but to simply make that program 
better.
  We move to have more opportunities to have greater flexibility in the 
system. It is part of a long struggle that will continue on, a struggle 
to make medical care cheaper in the future, a struggle that will try 
and make it so that we can work to make modern market-based medicine a 
reality for all Americans. That is the option that was given to us. We 
did not change its looks or its purpose. We simply did some servicing 
to make it run better.

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