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[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5380]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                MEDICAID

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with the people who 
are listening this morning an experience which I had in my district 
yesterday which I hope that all of you will reflect on because it is 
the outgrowth of a vote last week on the floor of this House of 
Representatives which could have an impact on every family in the 
United States.
  What happened last week is that this House of Representatives passed 
a budget resolution. That is a spending plan for the next year. In 
fact, in this case it was a spending plan for the next 7 years. Those 
who supported that budget resolution, I was not among those, suggested 
that we could reach a balanced budget by the year 2002 if we have 
certain cuts in spending. And they proposed those cuts as part of the 
package.
  The reason that I opposed that plan as presented by Speaker Gingrich 
and his Republican allies was the fact that it included a substantial 
tax cut, primarily
 to the wealthiest people in this country. In order to pay for that tax 
cut, it cut many of these spending programs more deeply. In fact, the 
programs that are hit the hardest are the health care programs, 
Medicare and Medicaid.

  What the Republicans have done is to create a piggy bank with cuts in 
Medicare and Medicaid to pay for their tax cut package. And that is the 
part that I find objectionable. This is not a solely partisan view, 
although most Democrats share my point of view. In fact, in the Senate, 
the Republican leaders there have many misgivings as well as to whether 
we should be enacting a tax cut in the wake of our need to bring our 
budget into balance.
  But the reason I come to the floor this morning is to reflect on the 
impact of cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. As I look about the gallery 
here, I see people of varying ages, from youngsters on school trips to 
those who are clearly retired, perhaps here on a holiday or vacation to 
witness this House of Representatives and its proceedings. The irony is 
that each person here has an interest in this issue because it affects 
every single one of us.
  Let me explain. Right now the Medicaid Program in America is 
generally viewed as a welfare program. It is not a welfare program. It 
is a health care program. A third of the recipients under the Medicaid 
Program are, in fact, poor people receiving health care through it. but 
another third are disabled people, folks who because of mental or 
physical disability qualify for this Medicaid to pay their medical 
bills. And the final third represent people, our parents, grandparents 
who are in nursing homes and other facilities who do not have the 
resources left in their savings accounts to take care of themselves.
  So when you say we are going to cut Medicaid, you are not just 
hitting so-called welfare low-income families; you are also hitting the 
elderly and the disabled.
  As I went and visited nursing homes in my district yesterday, it was 
an eye opener to talk about what it will mean if the Republicans 
prevail and cut $188 billion out of Medicaid. It means less money 
coming from the Federal Government through these families into nursing 
home care.
  What will be the ultimate result of that? Well, I can tell you, it is 
not very promising; what is involved here, unfortunately, is that a lot 
of people in nursing homes today literally, literally survive because 
of Medicaid payments. If those payments are cut, it raises a serious 
question about what happens to these people.
  I guess even equally important for the younger folks in the audience 
here, the responsibility is then their family's. If the Government does 
not make an adequate payment to the nursing home, who then is going to 
pay the bill for the parent or grandparent there who needs a helping 
hand?
  This, I think, is a serious personal concern for all of us. Right now 
Medicaid pays one-half of all nursing home care in the United States. 
If we take that and put it in perspective, when we cut back in 
Medicaid, we are putting a real burden on an industry that is labor 
intensive, and frankly we want to do a very good qualify job. If they 
cut back in the quality of service, every single one of us is concerned 
that that elderly person who needs help the most will be put in a 
perilous situation.
  So that is why I opposed the Republican budget resolution. Let me say 
in a spirit at this time of bipartisanship, there are some things I 
think we can do that came out of a meeting yesterday. For one thing, we 
have to encourage more people to buy what is known as long-term care 
insurance. When you are my age or younger, you do not think about 
whether you are ever going to be in a nursing home, but frankly we have 
all got to be thinking about the possibility that that could happen 
some day and we may need insurance coverage to protect us.
  We have got to encourage more American families to build this into 
their health insurance portfolio, not just the insurance for hospitals 
and doctors but also for long-term care. I will be working on 
legislation to try to encourage families to do that, to perhaps provide 
a tax deduction to provide for long-term care insurance as a solution 
to part of this problem.

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