May 12, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 4905

Today, I would like to make a special

appeal to Congressman NORWOOD that

we lower our voices and make a sincere

effort to humanize our discussion. Instead of focusing on the overwhelming

but abstract statistics such as the

56,000 hard-working Americans who die

each year from job related causes, from

now on let us emphasize instead the individual workers with names and faces.

There are workers in Mr. NORWOOD’s

district like William McDaniel, who

without adequate restraining protection fell 80 feet off a television tower to

his death in Pendergrass, GA. Like

Paul Powell, who was crushed in the

unguarded drive shaft of a machine at

an Augusta, GA, plant. Like Earnest

Gosnell of Homer, GA, who was operating a timber log skidder that had no

safety belts when the machine overturned and crushed him. these fine

Americans were all residents of Mr.

NORWOOD’s district in Georgia.

What’s really alarming here is that

Mr. NORWOOD and so many other Republicans show no concern whatsoever

for these workers and the other 56,000

hard-working Americans who die each

year from work-related causes. It is

really disappointing and tragic that so

many Members of Congress like Mr.

NORWOOD, would rather launch a coldhearted and sweeping attack on a Federal agency than do everything possible to protect their own constituents.

It is the duty of every Member of

Congress to recognize and remember

that OSHA protects the lives of workers in every district.

Mr. Speaker, one of the great things

about the Vietnam War Memorial is

that the Vietnam War Memorial names

names of each individual soldier who

gave his life for his country. I do not

think we should ever again have monuments for unknown soldiers. Why have

celebrations of unknown soldiers when

you could name the names and have

the faces? It will make it less likely

than for those who make decisions

about war in the future to be careless

or casual when they are making those

decisions.

In the same way we ought to try and

humanize all the work we do here in

Congress. In the budget that has been

prepared by the Republicans, OSHA has

been drastically reduced. OSHA next

week will be under attack in the Economic and Educational Opportunities

Committee. An omnibus bill which will

deal with work-related protections will

be on the floor of the committee, and

OSHA will again be under attack.

OSHA saves lives. Stop and consider

that OSHA saves lives. Fifty-six thousand people every year die of accidents

on the job or work-related causes, diseases they contract on the job or accidents they have and later die in the

hospital away from the job. Six thousand die immediately in accidents on

the job, but 56,000 people a year is as

many people as died, almost as many

people that died, in the Vietnam war

over the whole 7-year period of the

Vietnam war.

b 1345

It is a very serious matter. Accidents

in the workplace, conditions in the

workplace, are very serious. Let us not

condemn our workers to unsafe conditions unnecessarily. OSHA protects

lives.

Medicaid protects lives too. In the

same budget that is going to reduce

OSHA, we have tremendous reductions

for Medicaid. I am not talking about

Medicare, because we can talk about

Medicare and the reductions there.

That also needs to be debated. But

Medicare will be protected. It will be

discussed at length on this floor.

Greater cuts have been made in Medicaid than have been made in Medicare,

and the Republican budget proposes to

get rid of Medicaid as an entitlement.

Medicaid is health care for poor people.

We are going to have a second-class

health care system sanctioned by the

Federal Government. One system for

those not in Medicaid, those who are in

Medicare and can afford Medicare and

can afford private insurance, and another system for the poor, that is financed by the Government, a secondclass system that will be left to the

States to run it. And there will be no

Federal entitlements. When the States

run out of money, if you are sick or ill,

you will not get any help.

Those are human beings out there

with faces. Those are people that we all

know. Somebody will know the workers who are killed in accidents or the

workers who die from job related

causes. Somebody knows somebody

who is going to die as a result of those

cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. Let us

not proceed with an across-the-board

cut in Medicaid of 18 percent, higher

than the cut in Medicare, across-theboard cut, and assume that human

beings are not going to die as a result.

Second-class health care is dangerous

health care. I once had a situation

where a hospital about to go broke in

my district told me that we are down

to such a level that we cannot afford to

really sterilize our towels properly. We

do not have the equipment.

I said to the administrator of that

hospital, if you cannot sterilize your

towels properly, it is time to close the

hospital. Let us not try to keep it open.

The provision of second-class health

care is dangerous and deadly. If we

treat people as numbers and do not

treat them as human beings, we run

the risk of destroying lives. Let us

lower our voices and look at the faces

again.

previous order of the House, the gentleThe SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

fwoman from New Jersey [Mrs. ROUKEMA] is recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mrs. ROUKEMA addressed the

House. Her remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

previous order of the House, the genThe SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

ftleman from Oregon [Mr. DEFAZIO] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. DEFAZIO addressed the House.

His remarks will appear hereafter in

the Extensions of Remarks.]

MEDICARE: CUT OR LOSE?

fThe SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. FOX

of Pennsylvania). Under a previous

order of the House, the gentleman from

Georgia [Mr. KINGSTON] is recognized

for 5 minutes.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the

distinguished majority leader probably

has a point when he was saying—excuse me, I mean the distinguished minority leader, force of habit—Mr. GEPHARDT, was giving a speech a few minutes ago saying that Medicare is going

to be cut. And I think to some degree

that you can argue that there is going

to be certainly a modification of Medicare, and you may want to say that

that is a cut. But I would say, what is

better, modifying Medicare or losing

Medicare? It will be broke under the

current Medicare system in 6 years. It

is not a matter of let us keep business

as usual and avoid changing Medicare.

We have got to do that.

You know, I wish that the critics,

and most of the critics right now are

coming from the minority side of the

aisle, would enter into the solution as

freely as they have entered into the

criticism of the Republican plan. If

they could enter the debate with facts

and substance, instead of just with tactics and strategy, it would be so helpful. We need the help of the leadership

and the wisdom of the Democrat Party.

We on the Republican side would be

shortchanging ourselves if we said we

had all the answers. And that is why

our Founding Fathers had a two party

system. We need the ideas from both

sides of the aisle in order to come up

with the solution.

The fact is, though, that the Clinton

cabinet is the one who said Medicare is

going to go broke in 6 years. The Clinton cabinet also has come out with statistics showing that baby boomers are

going to be retiring in the year 2002,

the Social Security trust fund runs out

of money in the year 2030, and these

are huge problems.

I yield to my friend from Michigan,

Mr. SMITH.

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. I thank the

gentleman very much for yielding. You

know, what is so very interesting is

that it was 2 years ago that the trustees of the Medicare trust fund came to

Congress and said, ‘‘This trust fund is

going broke, and it will be out of

money by the year 2000.’’ This time

they came back and said it might last

until 2002.

But the fact is, it is a political hot

potato. For the last 2 years, with the

existing majority in Congress and the

President, they did not want to deal

with it because they knew it left a target. They were politically vulnerable.

Republicans met and said, do we

want to save Medicare? If we do, are we