Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Congressman, representing the city of Houston, I think you represented one of the world's finest health care systems, research hospitals, teaching hospitals, hospitals that provide services all around the world, but particularly provide a wide range of services to people who are seniors and who are people without substantial means to pay for them. What kind of impact could a look-back provision like this, continually cutting payments, have on a world class hospital system of the type that you have there in Houston?

Mr. DOGGETT. That strikes me as such a critical point. As you say, during the Nixon years they said follow the money. It was a good trail, to follow the money back there during the Watergate era. It still is with this Republican Medicare plan, because the first plank of the Republican Medicare plan is pay more. But from looking at the press release that came out today, the pay more part is over in the part B premiums. As you were pointing out, I believe I have this correct, they will increase the part B premiums that every senior has to pay, but not one penny of those increased premiums will go into this Medicare trust fund that they said they were so concerned about after they read the trustees report saying the same thing the trustees had been saying for years when they did not care a flip about it.

Mr. DOGGETT. Let me ask you about that. When you say ``announcing a plan'' it is true that the press release this week is thicker than the press release from last week, but you are going to be going, I know, in a few minutes back to a hearing on one of the other Republican ideas of this session, which is to destroy, or abolish, one of the Cabinet offices that has been here for decades in the United States. You do not go to that hearing without having a piece of legislation to consider. In other words, instead of just going there, and scratching your head, and thinking about somebody's good idea, or some think tank that has come up with some theoretical approach to deal with the security of health care for 37 million people, you do not go there without a specific proposal; do you?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I do so so that, when I speak, I will understand the parameters of that. As long as the focus is on the powers of a special counsel rather than a particular inquiry before the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, it would not be out of order?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DOGGETT. But he can refer to the powers of the committee and the general subject of ethics?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Texas has just pointed out, the focus of my remarks from the outset is the priority of legislative business. If a rule is not an appropriate time to discuss the priority of legislative business, I know not when one could discuss the priority, and of course my reason for raising this issue of priority is that I made a parliamentary inquiry only about an hour ago to the Speaker to find out how is it possible to get before the House a resolution signed by 201 Members of this House asking for more complete and fair hearings on Medicare, and I was told there was no way to do that without the approval of Speaker Gingrich. So it seemed to me this was an appropriate way to discuss priorities because I would be denied, as has every other Member of this House, any other way of getting the issue before the House. So, Mr. Speaker, this is a discussion of priorities which I plan, in the brief minute I have remaining, to intermingle with the highway bill under consideration because the two are very related.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, may I be heard on the point of order?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, this proposed rule will set the priority for legislative business, and it is the wrong priority. This afternoon, after 9 months, we will have what a Republican aide to the Committee on Ways and Means has probably misdescribed as, I quote, the complete comprehensive details of the Republican pay-more, get-less Medicare plan. But the same aide says that the legislation just is not ready, it is not ready, and we are not ready for the legislation. So, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will have a meaningless, 1-day stacked committee hearing. point of order

Mr. DOGGETT. And I also?

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is a highway bill, and it is very appropriate that this highway bill should be considered at a time that we are to hear the first details of the Medicare plan because, my colleagues, that plan has been parked at the end of a dark alley. Most people have no idea what is in it, but now suddenly it is being removed from the dark alley, being backed out of that dead-end [[Page H 9264]] alley, and being rushed into the fast lane of the highway. It is like one of those giant 18-wheelers going 90 to nothing down the highway and let everybody else get out of the way. Mr. Speaker, in Texas we call it the bar ditch along the highway, and that is where American seniors are going to be left, in the bar ditch. They are going to feel that they have been hit by more than a highway, by a highway man, a bushwhacker, because they will have more than a flat tire along that bar ditch. They will have a flat wallet, and it is wrong. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans are proposing that America follow a highway to nowhere.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, it is September 20 and another day has passed, and not one Republican has been willing to come to the floor of this House and level with the American people by spelling out the details of how far they plan to reach into the pockets of American seniors and cut Medicare. I have come to the conclusion it is because most of them do not have the slightest idea. They just know they are on a mission for Newt to cut $270 billion out of Medicare, and they do not want the details to get in the way. Mr. Speaker, we are told that this afternoon they are going to finally spell out some of the details at some staff briefing, and then they will have a 1-day stacked hearing on it tomorrow, all that the American people will get to see in hearings on this plan. They spent 28 days on Whitewater. Why just have 1 day, unless it is to whitewash this bad Republican cut in Medicare? Mr. Speaker, I think as long as the Republicans are unwilling to have a [[Page H 9255]] genuine bipartisan discussion in hearings, as we have proposed with extended hearings, there is no reason for this House to meet. It ought to adjourn until the Republicans begin a real bipartisan discussion of how to reform Medicare.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. We cannot take up a full hearing.

Mr. DOGGETT. So, unless the Republican chairman of the committee, Mr. Solomon, and----

Mr. DOGGETT. Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. Unless Speaker Gingrich clears us having more than 1 day of hearing, it cannot occur. Is that the ruling of the Chair?

Mr. DOGGETT. If I understood it, I would not be asking the further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DOGGETT. So, further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. So a statement then on behalf of the Democrat leadership by the minority leader or by all members of the Democrat Caucus that they request that this unanimous-consent request for full and complete Medicare hearings occur, that would not be enough to get it entertained here on the floor.

Mr. DOGGETT. Further parliamentary inquiry then, Mr. Speaker. If the Democrat leadership comes to the floor of this House and announces its desire to have this resolution considered immediately, will the unanimous-consent request be accepted at that time?

Mr. DOGGETT. Further parliamentary inquiry, what procedure then would be appropriate for a Member, myself or a Member of our leadership, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, to present? What timing, what form would be appropriate to present a unanimous consent request so that we could have a full hearing on Medicare instead of just 1 day?

Mr. DOGGETT. The Democratic membership here is indicating for fair and open hearings.

Mr. DOGGETT. All Democratic Members have signed on to this resolution and the ranking member.

Mr. DOGGETT. Further parliamentary inquiry, the minority leadership has been consulted. Every Democrat has signed on to this proposal to allow us additional time to consider the details of this Medicare plan, and my inquiry would be then if the Democratic minority leadership has agreed to this, it is only the Republican leadership that wants to thwart a fair and open hearing?

Mr. DOGGETT. This is an announcement by Speaker Gingrich?

Mr. DOGGETT. Why would a unanimous-consent request to permit the immediate consideration of this resolution not be in order even if it has been referred to a committee. [[Page H 9251]]

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.