Date: 1995-10-12
Speaker: GREG GANSKE (republican)
Chamber: H

from the Des Moines Register. said. I guarantee you .that these reductions will be bad for quality health care. Not just for our senior citizens. but also for working families. If Medicare and Medicaid cuts are too deep. hospitals and doctors will shy away from serving theelderly and poor or will try to push costs to the nonelderly. which could further increase the number of uninsured. or the quality of the whole health care system could decline. Now. that is a Member of this body. who is a Republican and who is also a doctor. Then from the New York Times. the American College of Surgeons. the American College of Surgeons said today that the Republican proposals would reduce Medicare -payments for all surgical services by 10 to 12 percent next year. Cynthia Brown. manager of the Colleges Washington office. said these cuts would heavily penalize surgeons. Maybe that is who they might be listening to. just the persons on the moneymaking end. I have high regard for any physician that is attempting to practice good medicine. But I do not believe that even the physicians want to make it uncomfortable for our seniors and rob them of quality care just for a paycheck. Now. according to a poll that was done by Lou Harris & Associates this month. 86 percent of wealthy Americans oppose Medicare cuts to pay for the tax breaks. Americans across the board overwhelmingly oppose using Medicare as a cash cow to pay for the Republican plan to offer tax breaks to the very wealthy. A recently released Harris poll suggests that the opposition is even stronger among the wealthiest Americans. When the question was asked "Do you favor or oppose cutting the future costs of Medicare to pay for a tax break." 86 percent of Americans with income of $50.000 or more said they did not favor doing this. while only 83 percent of all Americans said they opposed the plan to cut services for our children and our senior citizens for a tax break for the wealthy. While the tax break for the wealthy is being given attention. the tax break for the working poor has been taken away. It seems to me that we are not listening. Perhaps there are persons inside listening only to selective voices. but they are not listening to the majority of Americans. and this is a body that is of. by. and for the people. So who are we hearing these quotes from? Selected persons that are making statements we all agree with. or from those persons that simply want to make a plea for the health of their future. and they get arrested? They are proposing medical savings accounts. Well. we are talking about 80 percent of these people that have worked all of their working days paying into Social Security with the promise and the contract that when they retire and reach their days on a fixed income. they would have available to them a fund that they have paid ilito for health care. While Medicaid was essentially passed as a program for our children. almost 70 percent of those dollars are being paid for longterm care for our seniors. And why is that? It is because our seniors do not have the money now. They are very stretched with what is being offered. and we are about to swipe that away from them. Who are we listening to? Are we the only persons listening to the people of this Nation? I am hearing desperate voices. Why are the Republicans not listening? Because the polls are not made up by us. it is an independent poll. And I hear the question. we want to save our childrens future. Well. if we want to save our childrens future. they must have a healthy present. If we do not provide for our children just the basic health care. they will not have a good future. They are being cheated out of the dollars even set aside for them now. because most of it by necessity is going for the care of our senior citizens. I want to know who. who are the Republicans listening to. They are not listening to America.