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2000 for the United States Commission on Inter-
national Religious Freedom to carry out its duties;
and
(2) the House Committee on Appropriations is
strongly urged to appropriate such amount for the
Commission.
SEC. 11. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON PROVIDING ADDITIONAL
DOLLARS TO THE CLASSROOM.
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds that—
(1) strengthening America’s public schools
while respecting State and local control is critically
important to the future of our children and our Na-
tion;
(2) education is a local responsibility, a State
priority, and a national concern;
(3) working with the Nation’s governors, par-
ents, teachers, and principals must take place in
order to strengthen public schools and foster edu-
cational excellence;
(4) the consolidation of various Federal edu-
cation programs will benefit our Nation’s children,
parents, and teachers by sending more dollars di-
rectly to the classroom; and
(5) our Nation’s children deserve an educational
system that will provide opportunities to excel.
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(b) SENSE OF THE HOUSE.—It is the sense of the
House that—
(1) the House should enact legislation that
would consolidate thirty-one Federal K–12 education
programs; and
(2) the Department of Education, the States,
and local educational agencies should work together
to ensure that not less than 95 percent of all funds
appropriated for the purpose of carrying out elemen-
tary and secondary education programs administered
by the Department of Education is spent for our
children in their classrooms.
SEC. 12. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ASSET-BUILDING FOR
THE WORKING POOR.
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that—
(1) 33 percent of all American households have
no or negative financial assets and 60 percent of Af-
rican-American households have no or negative fi-
nancial assets;
(2) 46.9 percent of all children in America live
in households with no financial assets, including 40
percent of caucasian children and 75 percent of Afri-
can-American children;
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(3) in order to provide low-income families with
more tools for empowerment, incentives which en-
courage asset-building should be established;
(4) across the Nation numerous small public,
private, and public-private asset-building initiatives
(including individual development account programs)
are demonstrating success at empowering low-in-
come workers;
(5) the Government currently provides middle
and upper income Americans with hundreds of bil-
lions of dollars in tax incentives for building assets;
and
(6) the Government should utilize tax laws or
other measures to provide low-income Americans
with incentives to work and build assets in order to
escape poverty permanently.
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
gress that any changes in tax law should include provi-
sions which encourage low-income workers and their fami-
lies to save for buying their first home, starting a business,
obtaining an education, or taking other measures to pre-
pare for the future.
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SEC. 13. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO HEALTH IN-
SURANCE AND PRESERVING HOME HEALTH
SERVICES 
FOR 
ALL 
MEDICARE 
BENE-
FICIARIES.
(a) ACCESS TO HEALTH INSURANCE.—
(1) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that—
(A) 43.4 million Americans are currently
without health insurance, and that this number
is expected to rise to nearly 60 million people
in the next 10 years;
(B) the cost of health insurance continues
to rise, a key factor in increasing the number
of uninsured; and
(C) there is a consensus that working
Americans and their families and children will
suffer from reduced access to health insurance.
(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS ON IMPROVING AC-
CESS
TO HEALTH CARE INSURANCE.—It is the
sense of Congress that access to affordable health
care coverage for all Americans is a priority of the
106th Congress.
(b) PRESERVING HOME HEALTH SERVICE FOR ALL
MEDICARE BENEFICIARIES.—
(1) FINDINGS.—Congress finds that—
(A) the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 re-
formed medicare home health care spending by
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instructing the Health Care Financing Adminis-
tration to implement a prospective payment sys-
tem and instituted an interim payment system
to achieve savings;
(B) the Omnibus Consolidated and Emer-
gency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999,
reformed the interim payment system to in-
crease reimbursements to low-cost providers,
added $900 million in funding, and delayed the
automatic 15 percent payment reduction for
one year, to October 1, 2000; and
(C) patients whose care is more extensive
and expensive than the typical medicare patient
do not receive supplemental payments in the in-
terim payment system but will receive special
protection in the home health care prospective
payment system.
(2) SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCESS TO HOME
HEALTH CARE.—It is the sense of Congress that—
(A) Congress recognizes the importance of
home health care for seniors and disabled citi-
zens;
(B) Congress and the Administration
should work together to maintain quality care
for patients whose care is more extensive and
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expensive than the typical medicare patient, in-
cluding the sickest and frailest medicare bene-
ficiaries, while home health care agencies oper-
ate in the interim payment system; and
(C) Congress and the Administration
should work together to avoid the implementa-
tion of the 15 percent reduction in the interim
payment system and ensure timely implementa-
tion of the prospective payment system.
SEC. 14. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON MEDICARE PAYMENT.
(a) FINDINGS.—The House finds that—
(1) a goal of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997
was to expand options for medicare beneficiaries
under the new Medicare+Choice program;
(2) Medicare+Choice was intended to make
these choices available to all medicare beneficiaries;
and unfortunately, during the first two years of the
Medicare+Choice program the blended payment was
not implemented, stifling health care options and
continuing regional disparity among many counties
across the United States; and
(3) the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 also es-
tablished the National Bipartisan Commission on
the Future of Medicare to develop legislative rec-