THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS
Oct. 22, 1999
Ways and Means Committee Approves Plan Strengthening Medicare for Seniors
In a late night session, the Ways and Means Committee approved a bipartisan plan to strengthen the Medicare program for current and future Medicare recipients.  The plan assists seniors to enroll in Medicare+ Choice plans that provide mammograms and prescription drugs. The bill approved by the Ways and Means Committee also takes steps to gives health care providers more flexibility under the program.
 
H.R. 3075, the Medicare Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999, passed the Committee on a roll call vote of 26-11.  During the markup, 15 Democrats voted in favor of an amendment offered by Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), which would have cut billions of dollars in the Medicare program. I voted against it.

Hospitals have been crying for help, mainly because the Administration went overboard in implementing needed Medicare reforms passed by Congress. Congress intended approximately $50 billion in savings through greater efficiency and elimination of waste.  The Clinton Administration went too far by squeezing approximately $70 billion out of the system.  This hurt hospitals and care givers.  This bill restores the balance we intended in the first Medicare reform bill.
 The 5-year, $15 billion bipartisan package will not use any Social Security surplus, and still provides over $800 million to strengthen rural hospitals and increase access to critical health care.  Medicare patients would no longer pay co-insurance for lab tests furnished by rural and critical access hospitals. Under the Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant Program, rural clinics would get help in obtaining computer software and staff training to adjust to changes in the new prospective payment system.

The plan adopts a new average 96 hour length of stay for patients in rural hospitals so that beneficiaries with more severe conditions can stay longer without being transferred to another hospital.  The plan gives rural hospitals more flexibility in hospital bed use, and allows recently closed hospitals to convert into critical access hospitals, which provide intensive outpatient medical care.

The plan offers 6.2 million beneficiaries Increased flexibility through Medicare+Choice (M+C). The bill includes nearly $2.5 billion to help seniors enroll in M+C plans that include benefits such as mammograms and prescription drugs.  It also offers  M+C beneficiaries an automatic open enrollment when a plan is ending its contract.

Medicare’s 38 million seniors and disabled can get care at home through a $1.3 billion initiative to give increased access to home health services.  It does this by delaying 15% payment reductions to home health agencies.

The bill also makes adjustments in payments for certain classes of patients and for innovative drugs and medical devices.  It boosts rehabilitation therapy for skilled nursing patients.  It also increases access for prostheses, wheelchairs, ambulance services and drugs.  and adjusting the payment system to account for medically-complex Medicare patients needing more intensive care.

It will also increase access to prostheses, wheelchairs, cancer fighting drugs, and ambulance services.

The plan will improve Medicare’s Graduate Medical Education (GME) program by freezing the Indirect Medical Education program for one year and adopting a more equitable funding structure for direct GME payments to teaching hospitals.  This may affect more than 98,000 future doctors.

Agreement Reached on Securing Social Security Trust Fund

It was good to see President Clinton is agreeing with the Republicans to protect Social Security funds from spending raids.  There has been a great deal of finger-pointing on this issue, but at the end of the day, all I am interested in is protecting those social security funds.  After all, that so-called Social Security “surplus” is not a surplus we can spend-- it is really positive cash flow.  All that money is really just being deposited in advance for social security payments in the future.  Washington has no right to spend it.

President Vetoes Foreign Aid Bill

Arguing that the United States is not giving enough money for foreign aid, the President vetoed the $12.7 billion foreign aid bill.  The Clinton-Gore Administration is also angry because the Senate rejected a treaty that would have banned any U.S. testing of our nuclear weapons, without providing any restrictions, or verification of nuclear testing by countries like Libya or North Korea.  The Clinton-Gore supporters also said the United States should pay hundreds of millions to the United Nations, without mentioning the hundreds of billions of dollars the United States has spent in fighting or providing military aid on behalf of the United Nations in dangerous regions from Kosovo to Kuwait. It seems to me that $12.7 billion is pretty generous.

Democrats and Republicans in House Decisively Reject Clinton-Gore Tax Request

At the same time the Clinton-Gore Administration was calling for more foreign aid, it was proposing a 55-cent per pack cigarette tax.  Economists estimate the tax hike would reduce cigarette sales and cause Georgia to lose over 4,000 jobs, and $27.5 million in excise taxes.  Studies show that because the poor are heavier smokers than the rich, the tax would fall on their shoulders.  This and some other Clinton-Gore tax hike proposals were crushed in the House by a bipartisan 419-0 vote.

Education Bill Provides More Title I Funding and More Local Control

The House voted to increase Title I funding by approximately 9 percent, for a total of $8.3 billion.  These funds are designed to help disadvantaged children.  Unfortunately, Title I has cost billions over the years, but has seemed to have little positive affect.  We restored more local control over the program, and worked to establish some accountability.  I am convinced that a big reason Federal education spending has been so ineffective is that nobody in Washington knows a child like his or her parents and teachers.

Visitors

Members of the district’s Chambers of Commerce flew in this week for visits with Sen. Paul Coverdell.  I had  an opportunity to brief them on tax and political issues, and answer some of their questions.

Children’s Tree House President-elect  Jim Thompson and Executive Director Wanda Torbert also visited. They are making progress in establishing an abused children center in Columbus, which will combine police, medical, child protective services and a shelter.  They told me the single-stop facility is less stressful for the child, because they go through only one interview instead of several.  Mr. Thompson, who works for United Cities Gas, and Mrs. Torbert are a real credit to Columbus.

Jeff Haas, manager of the Daimler Chrysler Parts Distribution Center in Atlanta, met with me to discuss the company and its Atlanta facility.