Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Hyde amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, in 1789, the Founding Fathers wrote a Constitution designed to create a stable government. They established a democracy of the people--not a parliamentary democracy--because they did not want a government that would change whenever the executive fell into disfavor with the majority party. The Founding Fathers wanted a government of laws, not people, so they made only one option available to change the chief executive outside of an election by the people-- impeachment. Impeachment was prescribed only in unique and extraordinary circumstances. The impeachment process was vaguely outlined in the Constitution and the established criteria are very few. Article II, Section 4 says that the President, ``Shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'' Impeachment does not require criminal acts. In fact, the House Report on the Constitutional Grounds of Presidential Impeachment states, ``the emphasis has been on the significant effects of the conduct--undermining the integrity of the office, disregard of constitutional duties and oath of office, arrogation of power, abuse of the governmental process, adverse impact on the system of government.'' The bar was set high so that impeachment would be neither casual nor easy for fear that we would undermine the stability of the office. Alexander Hamilton summed up the dangers of impeachment by saying, ``there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.'' Hamilton's warning seems prophetic today. Aside from its partisan nature, the situation before us is quite unusual. It is the first time an Independent Counsel has presented findings to the Congress for determination of the need for an impeachment process. Secondly, the House of Representatives undermined the process when they ignored the precedents which have been followed in the evaluation and released large volumes of testimony and documents collected in the grand jury process to not only the Congress but to the world at large. This has allowed the full membership of the House of Representatives and the public to come to conclusions before the process of impeachment has begun. The polls would suggest that the public does not favor removing the President from office but it is less clear what they feel is an adequate sanction. Today, the members of the House will be confronted with the question of whether or not an impeachment inquiry should begin. I will vote against an inquiry for the following reason: The evidence presented to the Congress by Mr. Starr does not support the charge of an impeachable offense. When all is said and done, the President made some false statements under oath about a sexual relationship and lied to many people about that relationship. While I in no way condone the President's behavior, I have concluded that it requires no further investigation and does not support impeachment. The framers of the Constitution did not anticipate litigation against a president in a sexual harassment case or investigation by an independent counsel. The framers limited impeachment to the kinds of improprieties--treason, bribery, and the like--that threatened the nation for the benefit of the individual. We have no such case before us. His actions, while totally unacceptable, do not rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor. The President's actions do not threaten our ability to act decisively in the world of politics for the benefit of all Americans, sadly, the House of Representative's actions do. [From the National Law Journal, Oct. 5, 1998] Top Profs: Not Enough To Impeach NLJ `jury' of 12 con-law experts weighs evidence (By Harvey Berkman) ON A `JURY' OF 12 constitutional law professors, all but two told The National Law Journal that, from a constitutional standpoint, President Clinton should not be impeached for the things Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr claims he did. Some of the scholars call the question a close one, but most suggest that it is not; they warn that impeaching William Jefferson Clinton for the sin he admits or the crimes he denies would flout the Founding Fathers' intentions. ``On the charges as we now have them, assuming there is no additional report [from Mr. Starr], impeaching the president would probably be unconstitutional,'' asserts Cass R. Sunstein, co-author of a treatise on constitutional law, who teaches at the University of Chicago Law School. The first reason for this conclusion is that the one charge indisputably encompassed by the concept of impeachment--abuse of power--stands on the weakest argument and evidence. ``The allegations that invoking privileges and otherwise using the judicial system to shield information . . . is an abuse of power that should lead to impeachment and removal from office is not only frivolous, but also dangerous,'' says Laurence H. Tribe, of Harvard Law School. The second reason is that the Starr allegation for which the evidence is disturbingly strong--perjury--stems directly from acts the Founders would have considered personal, not governmental, and so is not the sort of issue they intended to allow Congress to cite to remove a president from office.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell). (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield two minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sawyer). (Mr. SAWYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I have served 15 years in the State legislature and 10 years in the United States Congress, and this is a sad day because it is the most amateurish, inept legislative effort I have ever seen to try and pass a tough piece of legislation. There is no question that the Republicans have poisoned the fast track debate with partisan politics that will do honor to Ken Starr. If the Republicans were serious about promoting America's global leadership and stabilizing the global economy, they would have replenished the International Monetary Fund months ago. Instead, the future of America's commitment to the IMF remains unclear to this day and so does the future of the international economy. It would be easy for me to vote no today, to reject this vote for what it is, a political game to be debated on a day of pure partisanship. However, I feel strongly that collectively we have to rise above the partisan games of the majority and do the right thing for our Nation's economy. This Congress simply should not play games with an issue that is difficult enough to pass without petty politics. So I will rise above the Speaker's games and support the promotion of the American export economy, but I am deeply disheartened that this bill will fail today because the Republicans have allowed political avarice to damage support for what must be a bipartisan issue. You have made the future passage of this bill infinitely more difficult by bringing it out this way and ramming it. You know you have not got the votes. I learned in the State legislature 25 years ago, if you do not have the votes, do not come to the floor with it, because you will never get it passed if you keep doing that kind of thing. This is a bad day for the United States economy. You should not do this kind of thing without consulting and building the broad base that trade should have in this country. This is not a partisan issue. It is not Republican. It is not Democrat. You have to work together when you are dealing in the international arena. I sat at the table at the State dinner in Brazilia and had Brazilians say to me, boy, we are glad you have not passed fast track because we want your President weak. Now, that is not what we want, whether that President is a Democrat or a Republican. I voted for every piece of free trade legislation. We have to, if we are going to be a strong country.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner). (Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I thank the gentleman for bringing this issue to the floor tonight. I think the reason I was willing to come down here and talk about this is that tomorrow and the next day the American public is going to be treated to a con game that you might see at a county fair, the pea and the three walnut shells, they move it around, you are not quite sure where it is. I would like to talk about what actually is happening. There will be two bills that will be brought to the floor. One of them will be the so-called protection of Social Security bill, and the other one will be a tax bill. Now, it is my belief, and I think the figures show, that we do not have the money to give a tax break unless we use money that comes from Social Security. Now, I put this chart up here. This is the column for the next five years. You can see that the projected, and, remember, this is projected on the basis of the way our economy is going. Now, if you think the economy for the next five years is going to continue to go up and no problems, this is what it looks like, because that is the projection that comes out of the Congressional Budget Office that there will be a surplus over the next five years all told of $657 billion. A lot of money. Now, that is all the extra money that is raised from Social Security. Understand that Social Security, when you pay your FICA taxes, we pay in each year more money than we actually pay out in benefits to old people. So we are building a surplus for the time when we get to the baby boomers in 2010. Next year we will collect $657 billion more Social Security money than we need to pay our debts. That is the check to your mother, your father, my mom is 89, my father is 93, they get their check. We are going to have $657 billion over the next five years more than we actually need to pay those checks. What are we going to do with it? That is what the debate is about. Now, part of it, $137 billion, has to go to reduce the deficit. We are still borrowing all over the world, and the only way to get rid of that is to pay that off, to pay off that $137 billion in deficit. That leaves $520 billion of Social Security money not spent. Now, tomorrow we will hear people come out here and say, ``Well, we'll save 90 percent of it and we'll use just 10 percent of it for a little tiny tax break.'' Let me show you what happens over the next five years. Over the next five years, we collect more than $1 trillion, $1.27 trillion more in the Social Security fund than we need to pay. So you say, ``Gee, that's a lot of money. We ought to be able to give some of that back.'' Remember, it is for the Social Security of people who are going to get to 65 in 2010, the baby boomers. Now, at that point, in that second five-year period, we would put $859 billion of it, that is how much that actually goes into Social Security and we would have a surplus of $168 billion. If you add those two, the next 10 years together, we are going to raise $1.5 trillion more than we need for Social Security. But we owe $1.516, that is $1.5 trillion--I have to get my trillions right--we have to put that much in Social Security, and the actual surplus is $31 billion at the end of 10 years. Now, I defy anybody to believe that you can project where we are going to be in the year 2008 and know that we are going to have $31 billion. What we are going to hear tomorrow is people saying, ``Well, look, we've got all this surplus, let's spend some of it now and we know it will come in, we don't have to worry.'' This is exactly the kind of thinking that the Republicans beat up on the Democrats ever since I came to Congress. They said, ``You're balancing the budget by borrowing from Social Security and putting it into the budget. You are not being honest. You are borrowing from Social Security and you are balancing the budget, you're not raising taxes, you're just hiding from people the fact that you're spending more than you're taking in and you're stealing out of Social Security to pay for it.'' They yelled at us for 10 years. Now suddenly we have some extra money, and it is like they forgot what they have been saying around here for 10 years that I have been here, and they say: Well, we have some extra money; let us give it back. The problem with that is that it is based on assumptions that the economy is going to keep going. Now you all have seen what happened in the stock market. Nobody can look at the stock market over the last month or so and say to yourself I can project what it is going to be like 10 years from now. I come from Seattle, and one-third of our economy is based on international trade in this country. Seattle is very heavily dependent on that, so I know what is going on in the port of Seattle, which is the second largest port on the west coast. That port has an increase of 34 percent imports, and the exports have dropped by 32 percent. So what is happening from all over Asia is that boats come in loaded with stuff and go back empty because the Asians are not buying from us. All those little businesses in Seattle that were exporting chemicals, and they were doing all kinds of business, they are dying on the vine all over the place right now, and the same number of ships are coming in and out, but it is only one-way trade. People wonder why the farmers got problems in this country. I live in a place in Seattle where I can see the elevators right down on the waterfront. We have got the deepest water port on the whole west coast. They come in there, and they used to put out 40 boats a month. This last 2 months they put out 2 boats. That means we are not exporting grain from Minnesota and North Dakota and South Dakota and Nebraska and Kansas. All these farmers are out there wondering why is the price of wheat the lowest it has been in God knows how many years. It is because there is no market. And the Congressional Budget Office is making these predictions without taking into account what is actually happening in Asia. We will not get another revenue estimate until July 1, next year. Now my view, to believe that we are going to have this kind of money, takes a lot of belief. You have got to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to actually believe that this is a realistic view for the next 10 years. But the Republicans want to give money back and say we are not going to take care of what we owe Social Security. We have borrowed from the Social Security $520 billion. In the next 5 years we are going to keep borrowing, and if we do not put it in there, we are simply not going to have a Social Security system for our kids. My son, who is 30 years old, said to me, Dad, I really do not think there is going to be Social Security when I get to be 65. If we do tomorrow what is planned by the Republicans, there will not be. Mr. Speaker, the President was absolutely right when he said it right here in this room, right at that podium. He said we are going to save Social Security first. Then, after that is done, after the security of our children is taken care of, then we can talk about tax breaks. Now you will also hear some interesting things. I want to show just what this really looks like, another way for you to look at it. Again here is the amount of money that we are going to have. We are going to have about $650 billion, and 137 billion of it is going to go to pay for taxes. That is the current law and the democratic plan. We will pay off the budget deficit first in the next 5 years. Then we have $520 billion to go into the trust fund in anticipation of 2010 when the baby boomers hit the system. The Republican plan tomorrow says, well, I mean we do not have to save all of this. Why do we not just give away $90 billion in a tax break? This is their 90-10 business. They will say we are saving 90 percent of it and we are only spending 10 percent of it, so what is the harm? Well, if I were sitting out there 30, 35, 40 years old and wondering about whether I could count on Social Security when I was 65, I would say: No, put it in the reserve and do not spend it. Now the Democrats will offer a bill tomorrow that says we want to take this surplus and put it in the Federal Reserve so that the Congress cannot spend it, the New York bank and the Federal Reserve system, and it can only be spent if we are going to default on some of our debts on our securities. Otherwise it stays there to deal with the future of Social Security. Now one of the things you will hear out here tomorrow that will also be confusing is people will say, well, Democrats are not for tax breaks, Democrats just want a lot of money, and they want to spend it all the time. That is not true. Many Democrats voted for tax cuts last year. Why? Because they were paid for. They were not using the Social Security surplus. The first thing that will happen tomorrow, and for people watching this it is going to be difficult to really understand; when we pass the rule, we will pass a rule on the floor here on how this whole process is going to be argued out here, but buried in that rule are provisions that overlook all the rules of balancing the budget that was so important last year. This year they come out on the floor, and right here they are going to waive those rules; say, oh, those are from last year, they are not for this year, because they will create a deficit by giving a tax break, and they are simply waiving all the balanced budget stuff that they are going to go around in this campaign and say we balanced the budget. If they do this, they will have done it by ripping up the rule book and saying that was for last year, now we can just spend whatever we want and we do not have to account for it. They will also say Democrats have offered some of these. I offered on the Committee on Ways and Means the tax plan. I offered the family, the part of the tax plan that gives the marriage tax penalty, wipes some of it out. I offered it twice in 1997. The entire Republican Caucus on the Committee on Ways and Means voted no. They did not want to do it last year. They were giving money to people at the top of the income scale. They did not want to do anything about people at the bottom. So I offered this marriage tax penalty last year. On two occasions it was turned down. I also offered that you could deduct the money that you spent to buy your own health insurance if you were a self-employed person. Small businessman or woman buys their own health insurance; they cannot deduct it. The Boeing Corporation in my city or Microsoft or Weyerhauser or any of the big companies, they deduct it all. But if you are a small business person, you cannot deduct it all, and I said that is not fair; why do we not let the small businessman do that? So I offered that last year, but it was paid for. This proposal that you will see tomorrow is not paid for unless you are willing to use money raised through the Social Security tax. Now the reason we set that tax up, you go back to 1935. Franklin Delano Roosevelt wanted us all to begin preparing for our old age, and he set up these accounts. You know, your number is a 9 digit number, and you have been putting money into that account in expectation that some day you will get to be 65 and draw it out. And we have been operating on that basis now for about 60 years, and many people say that we are going to have a big problem in 2010 because of the baby boomers, a whole bunch of people born immediately after the Second World War come onto Social Security, and we have to save now so that we are ready to pay their benefits in 2010. You can wait. You can say, well, let us not worry about that, that is tomorrow; you know, who knows what will happen? We know how many people there are and how many people that are going to have to have benefits in 2010. Now some people say the Social Security system is broken, that it is hopeless, it is all done. It is not. That is a myth that some Members would like to say because they want to change this from a government- guaranteed system to give everybody their own individual account. Sounds like a good idea until you look at the stock market over the last month. When you look at that, you say to yourself what if I had put my money in the stock market to retire on and I made the wrong choice? Tonight I was watching television, and they have a stock fund in the market that last night they had a whole bunch of the big bankers got together and came up with something like $400 million to save one of those mutual funds that everybody is running to put their money in. Now, if we take away the government guarantee, we leave a lot of people in real trouble. In this country today there are 5 million widows living on $8,000 a year. They are counting on this; $8,000 a year is not high living. That is just making it. And if we do not take care of this, we are going to have to reduce the benefits in 2010. If we take care of it, we can continue the benefits going out as they have for the last 60 years. But that is why it is important that we start saving now. People call me a liberal, but I am very conservative about looking down the road and seeing an enormous problem and knowing that we have to start saving for it now. If we do not, it will be our children who will get the short end of the deal, and for people of my generation and the people who are on this floor to not think about your kids is criminal in my view because what you are saying to them is you work all your life paying for my Social Security, and then when you get there, there is nothing there. That is not the way we ought to do it, and we ought to save the money. The President, as I said before, was absolutely right, and I think the gentleman's bringing this to the floor is giving us a opportunity to discuss this and lets people understand what is he going to happen tomorrow. They are going to hear a lot of flimflam. Tomorrow they will pass a bill saying we are saving 90 percent of Social Security, and the next day they will say: and we are giving you a tax break. And they are never going to tell you that that tax break came out of the Social Security. They are going to try every way possible to say that there is no problem. But you cannot have a $90 billion tax break tomorrow without taking it from Social Security, and my view is we ought to think to the future. So, we will raise these same issues again tomorrow, but I think that it is crucial that people begin to think long term. Sometimes in the Congress we think like one election to the next election, and that is what is going on tomorrow. They are thinking about November 3; can I give people a tax break so on November 3 they will think I am a great person and vote for me? Some of us are going to vote no, not because we do not want to give tax breaks, but because it is not fair and it is not right and we have to think long term. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about it.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker--today, I introduce legislation to rename the Court House in Spokane, Washington to ``The Thomas S. Foley United States Court House'' in honor of former Speaker Thomas Foley. Speaker Foley has dedicated his life to public service, including almost thirty years serving in this body. He served the fifth district of Washington and rose to become the first Speaker from Washington State. In addition to his long and distinguished congressional service, Speaker Foley has effectively served the public in other capacities. He began his career as the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney from Spokane County, and then moved to become the Assistant State Attorney General of Washington. Before winning his first congressional election in 1965, he served as Special Counsel to the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in the United States Senate. After leaving Congress, Speaker Foley has continued to serve the public in one of the nation's most distinguished Foreign Service posts as American Ambassador to Tokyo. There he has played a crucial role in representing American interests in the world's second largest economy. Naming the Court House in Spokane after Speaker Foley would be an appropriate way to thank him for the years of honorable public service he has dedicated to the State of Washington and the nation. Mr. Speaker, I urge quick passage of this bill that gives Tom Foley the honor that he so justly deserves.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the entire Washington State Delegation today introduced legislation that would allow our state to participate in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The legislation we crafted represents the culmination of more than a year's worth of effort to ensure Congressional action on this issue. I ask that you exercise your leadership of the Congressional majority to expedite the passage of this measure in a non-controversial manner. To illustrate the vigor of our Delegation's commitment to advancing this issue, I have attached for your information the text of the following letter which the entire Washington Delegation today sent to The Honorable Donna Shalala, Representative Tom Bliley, and Senator William Roth: We are writing to share with you legislation we introduced today that addresses an issue of critical importance to Washington State and its ability to participate in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Washington State has a strong record of ensuring that its low-income kids have access to affordable health care. In 1994, Washington raised its child Medicaid eligibility threshold to 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The SCHIP program was developed with this objective in mind by expanding Medicaid funding to states that extend eligibility to provide quality health care to additional children. During the negotiations of the 1997 Balanced Budget Act (BBA), Congress and the Administration recognized that certain states were already undertaking Medicaid expansions up to or above 200 percent of FPL, and that they should be allowed to use the new SCHIP funds. Unfortunately, this provision was limited to those states that enacted expansions on or after March 31, 1997 and disallowed Washington from accessing the $230 million in SCHIP funds it had been allocated through 2002. As a result, Washington State cannot use its SCHIP allotment to cover the 90,000 children currently eligible, but not covered for health care at or below 200 percent of FPL. Exacerbating this inequity is the fact that many states have begun accessing their SCHIP allotments to cover kids at poverty levels far below Washington's current or past eligibility levels. Correcting this technicality is the top priority for our delegation as we near the end of the 105th Congress and we plan to push for legislative action in the next few weeks to pass this non- controversial measure. This bipartisan, bicameral initiative represents a thoughtful, carefully-crafted response to the unintended consequences of SCHIP and brings much-needed assistance to children currently at-risk. Rather than simply changing the effective date included in the BBA, our initiative includes strong maintenance of effort language as well as incentives for our state to find those 90,000 uninsured kids because we feel strongly that they receive the health coverage for which they are eligible. We respectfully request that you join our efforts to move it through the legislative process. We look forward to working with you during the remaining days of this Congress to ensure that Washington's SCHIP funds are used to increase the health of our children, not wasted due to an unintended technical oversight. Thank you for your cooperation in this effort and please do not hesitate to contact us if we can provide you with additional information. Sincerely, Slade Gorton, U.S. Senator; Jim McDermott, Member of Congress; George Nethercutt, Member of Congress; Patty Murray, U.S. Senator; Jack Metcalf, Member of Congress; Norm Dicks, Member of Congress; Rick White, Member of Congress; Linda Smith, Member of Congress; Adam Smith, Member of Congress; Jennifer Dunn, Member of Congress; Doc Hastings, Member of Congress.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, when I came to this House 10 years ago, the Republicans spent a lot of time telling us that we used the Social Security money to balance the budget. They said, ``You're masking the deficit by moving that money over and using it to balance the budget.'' Under President Clinton's leadership, we have brought the budget back into balance and there appears to be some surplus on the horizon. What do the Republicans want to do now? They want to take that money, not pay back Social Security but give it away in tax relief. Now, when the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means tomorrow rolls out this three walnuts game that you see at the county fair, where is the pea, the American people are going to watch their Social Security moved around so fast in two different bills, it will be designed to confuse them. They will put out a bill that says we want to put lots of money into balancing the Social Security, and then we just want this little teeny bit out here for a tax cut. The first money that we have in surplus should go to pay for Social Security.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I will vote no on this, not because I do not want it released, but because I believe that the process is unfair from the very outset. In this morning's paper, before the vote, already the report is out. Now, we saw 2 days ago the pomp and circumstance, a great truck rolled up here that came from the special prosecutor and was handed to the leadership of this House. There are only two places that leak could have come from, the first page of the Washington Post. I mean, give me some other explanation. Secondly, it is unbelievable that after 6 years of investigation, the President of the United States cannot be given 1 hour by the Committee on Rules last night to review this before it goes public. Now, we did not do that to any Member of the House in the Ethics Committee. Every Member saw the report before it went public. We did not do that to Mr. Nixon. My colleagues heard the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) talk about what went on 24 years ago with the President of the United States. This day feels to me like we are taking a step down the road to becoming a political lynch mob. We are in so much hurry to get this done so it can be in the Saturday, Sunday news cycle and have our mint juleps at 5 o'clock, we are going to find a rope, find a tree, and ask a bunch of questions later. It will be too late for fairness. We can go back and get another rule, a fair rule that would give the opportunity to the President and, secondly, to protect those people that even Mr. Starr says needs to be protected, for heaven's sake. He did not recommend we rush out here and do this at 100 miles an hour. I think that this House is acting way too fast for any kind of fairness. Everyone here knows the public is going to get this. I urge my colleagues to vote no. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article on page 1 of today's Washington Post by Susan Schmidt and Peter Baker. Alleged Deceit Is Outlined (By Susan Schmidt and Peter Baker) Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report to the House contends there are 11 possible grounds for impeachment of President Clinton, including allegations that he lied under oath, tampered with witnesses, obstructed justice and abused power to hide his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, according to sources informed about some of its contents. The report, delivered to the Capitol on Wednesday and scheduled to be made public today, asserts that Clinton committed perjury during his January deposition in the Paula Jones lawsuit when he denied having sex with Lewinsky and then again during his grand jury testimony last month when he acknowledged a physical relationship wile insisting his previous statements were ``legally accurate,'' the sources said. The report, they said, recounts in sometimes lurid detail about a dozen sexual encounters with the former White House intern and outlines evidence of deceit by the president, including lying to aides, knowing they would then give false testimony to Starr's grand jury. The retrieval of presidential gifts from Lewinsky to avoid a subpoena and job assistance provided to her by Clinton associates are portrayed as elements of obstruction of justice, according to the sources. Invoking Watergate-era language, Starr also makes the argument that Clinton abused the power of his high office, in part by waging court fights to impede the grand jury investigation, actions that might not be criminal but could be interpreted by Congress as impeachable offenses. Details of the first president impeachment report in 24 years began to emerge yesterday while an edgy Washington awaited its formal release. As Clinton continued his contrition campaign by apologizing privately to Senate Democrats and Cabinet officers, a high-level presidential delegation to Capitol Hill failed to gain access to Starr's evidence before it becomes public. Congressional Democrats likewise lost a bid for a 48-hour delay of its release and Republican House leaders scheduled a floor vote for this morning on procedures allowing the report to be posted on the Internet by the afternoon. The White House was left in the awkward position yesterday of trying to respond to a report it has not examined. Unable to discuss its specific elements, Clinton's personal attorney, David E. Kendall, dismissed the report as a one- sided presentation of events. ``The referral by the prosecutors is simply a collection of their contentions, claims and allegations and we look forward for the chance to rebut them,'' Kendall told reporters. Others in the Clinton camp were left uncertain how they would fight back once it is released. ``People are just bracing for tomorrow and trying to line people up to at least hold [on] until Kendall and the others have a chance to respond,'' said a White House advisers. Despite White House complaints of unfairness, Republican congressional leaders made clear they would proceed with their extraordinary plan of releasing a report that they themselves will not have read before it becomes public. ``The report is made to the Congress of the United States and it is the responsibility of the Congress in as even- handed a basis as possible to make it available to all interested parties . . . at the same time,'' said House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.). Although it remained under lock and key in a House office building, both sides assume the report will dramatically alter the political dynamics of the eight-month Lewinsky saga. Until now, Clinton has survived politically, aided by a strong economy and resilient poll numbers, but the White House fears that unseemly revelations about the president's sex life could prove especially damaging. Partial descriptions emerging yesterday indicated that the report will include graphic accounts of Clinton's sexual activities with Lewinsky, detailing about a dozen encounters in the private study off the Oval Office as well as instances when they engaged in explicit telephone sex. On one occasion, according to sources Lewinsky told prosecutors that she and Clinton used a cigar as a prop in a sex act. In another episode likely to capture attention on Capitol Hill, sources said Lewinsky asserted that she participated in a sex act with Clinton while he was on the telephone talking with a member of Congress. While the sexual aspects seem likely to be the most sensational parts of the impeachment report, they are intended to rebut Clinton's argument that he did not consider their activities to be ``sexual relations'' as defined by Jones's lawyers during their deposition. But seemingly wary of having his investigation be seen strictly as a sex case, Starr emphasized the larger issues of alleged criminal behavior and abuse of power, according to the sources. By stressing the use of the office of president, Starr appears to be trying to counter Clinton defenders who argue that the whole investigation arose out of private behavior in a private lawsuit that was eventually thrown out and had nothing to do with his conduct of the nation's business. Even as Starr was sending the report to Congress on Wednesday, he also notified U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who is overseeing the grand jury investigating the Lewinsky matter, and U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, the Little Rock judge who presided over the Jones sexual harassment case and ultimately dismissed the lawsuit. Wright said in a footnote to a ruling last week that she is considering whether the president should be held in contempt for his misleading testimony in the Jones case. All told, Starr delivered two 18-box sets of evidence to the House, including raw grand jury transcripts, Linda R. Tripp's secret tapes of conversations with Lewinsky and Lewinsky's Feb. 1 proffer describing what her testimony would be if given immunity from prosecution, a deal that was not arranged until six months later. Under the plan approved by the House Rules Committee last night, only the main report would be made public today, while the rest is reviewed by the Judiciary Committee between now and Sept. 28 to determine what is appropriate for release and what should remain secret. The main report to be posted on four congressional Web sites today begins with an introduction that explains the relevance of Clinton's actions to the Jones lawsuit and the seriousness of the allegations. It then moves on to a narrative describing the history of the affair that began as Lewinsky, then 22 and an unpaid White House intern, became involved with the president in November 1995 during the federal government shutdown, and how the two tried to conceal it when the Jones lawyers sought their testimony. The final section outlines what Starr contends are possible grounds for impeachment. Lawyers on all sides expect the report to fill in gaps in the story line that has emerged in fragments over the last eight months. Among other things likely to become public, according to sources, are a hard-edged exchange between prosecutors and Clinton during his grand jury appearance as they debated the meaning of sex and the heretofore largely unknown details of testimony by key witness Betty Currie, the president's personal secretary, as the investigation wore on. The perjury allegations stem from Clinton's description of his relationship with Lewinsky when interviewed under oath on Jan 17. Clinton denied having an affair with her, denied having ``sexual relations'' with her as defined by Jones's lawyers and maintained he did not recall ever being alone with her anywhere in the White House. During the same session, he also allowed his lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, to introduce Lewinsky's own Jan. 7 sworn affidavit denying a sexual relationship and Clinton did not correct Bennett when he told Judge Wright that the statement made clear ``there is absolutely no sex of any kind, in any manner, shape or form, with President Clinton.'' Sevent months later to the day--after Lewinsky recanted and more than 75 other witnesses appeared before the grand jury-- Clinton sat down with Starr and other prosecutors in the White House and changed his story. During this Aug. 17 session transmitted live to the grand jury at the courthouse, Clinton acknowledged having a physical relationship with Lewinsky but said he did not believe the definition of ``sexual relations'' included their activities, arguing that oral sex was not covered. After that session and his subsequent televised statement that his previous testimony was ``legally accurate'' if not fully forthcoming, an upset Lewinsky met for two hours privately with Starr's prosecutors and gave them a deposition describing in detail their various sexual activities, including intimate fondling that would be covered by the Jones definition. The obstruction-of-justice allegations arise in part from Currie's retrieval of gifts from Lewinsky that had been subpoenaed on the Jones case and from job help provided by Currie, Clinton confidant Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and other presidential associates. A source familiar with Lewinsky's testimony said yesterday that Clinton gave her a total of 20 gifts, most of them relatively modest items such as a T-shirt and a book of poetry. Concerned about the subpoena, Lewinsky testified that she discussed it with Clinton and that Currie shortly afterward called her and came by her Watergate apartment to pick up the gifts, a sequence of events suggesting the president may have instructed his secretary to get them. But Clinton denied doing so and Currie told the grand jury that she believed Lewinsky called her about the gifts. A few new details emerged about Clinton's role in Lewinsky's search for a new job beginning last summer. Clinton tried directly to find work for Lewinsky in summer 1997, asking aide Marsha Scott to find a way to move her back from the Pentagon to the White House, long before she was subpoenaed in the Jones case. But Starr presents that in the context of the Jones suit anyway, given that it occurred after the Supreme Court permitted the case to go forward in May 1997 and even as Jones's lawyers were seeking out women sexually linked to the president. Jordan, a prominent Washington lawyer who arranged job interviews in New York for Lewinsky at Currie's request, is described in the report as an unwitting participant essentially used by Clinton in his larger effort to placate Lewinsky and thereby influence her Jones case testimony. The president's defenders have rejected any illegal purpose in connection with the gifts or the jobs, saying there was no evidence of a direct link to Lewinsky's testimony and accusing Starr of twisting innocent actions involving two people who were close. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the report, however, may be Starr's claim that Clinton abused his office. The argument harkens back to the articles of impeachment drafted against President Richard M. Nixon, who was accused of misusing his power to cover up the Watergate burglary, among other things. Under this interpretation, Clinton exploited the authority and resources of the White House by asserting what Starr considered frivolous claims of legal privilege to prevent his aides from appearing before the grand jury and by allowing the Secret Service to mount its own doomed court fight to keep its officers from testifying. But Clinton advisers have ridiculed the contention, saying Starr essentially is trying to criminalize the president's attempts to assert his rights in the course of an investigation. While the administration lost battles over attorney-client and executive privileges, Judge Johnson determined that they were properly asserted even though prosecutors' need for evidence overcame the need for confidentiality.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation that would fix an inequity in the current reimbursement rates for low-income Native Americans who receive health care through the Indian Health Service (IHS). Under current law, a 100 percent Federal medical assistance percentage (FMAP) applies for the cost of services provided to Medicaid beneficiaries by a hospital, clinic, or other IHS facility, as long as they are run by the IHS, tribe, or tribal organization. While IHS facilities (usually in rural areas) are eligible to receive the 100 percent FMAP, similar services provided through IHS programs (usually in urban areas) receive only 50-80 percent reimbursement depending on the service. My legislation would fix this inequity by raising the IHS program FMAP to 100 percent as well. Equalizing the FMAP for health care received through IHS programs is especially important given that roughly half of the nation's Native Americans now live in urban areas. Furthermore, many urban IHS programs are run through Federally Qualified Health Centers whose state funding have been threatened by repeal of the Boren Amendment. Passing this legislation would benefit IHS programs in over 35 cities throughout the country and would have little impact on the federal budget. Informal estimates illustrate that equalizing the FMAP for IHS programs would cost $17 million over the next 5 years. I urge my colleagues to join me in support of the Indian Health Equity Act.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, here we are back at the same old stand. Women, if the Republican Congress has anything to say about it, will not have the right to choose. They found a place where they could pick on people who did not even have a representative who could vote, and so they have taken it away. Now, anybody, as the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Furse) says, who has been through this knows what a difficult choice it is. It is even more difficult for a physician taking care of a patient who realizes that they cannot recommend the thing that ought to happen. Now, can these women go to New York State and get an abortion? Well, if they have the money, they can. Can they go to Illinois; can they go to Indiana; can they go anywhere else? Yes, but they have to travel, 300, 400, 500, 600 miles away from their home, away from their physician, to have it done in some place all by themselves. Why? Simply because the Republicans want to take it out on women. They want to make them have babies. And then we watch this Congress operate with welfare reform. We do not want to feed them. We do not want to take care of them. Poor women who say ``I am not prepared to have a baby'' or ``I am sick'' or ``It is going to cause a problem for me and my other children'' or whatever, they have to have a baby or they have to travel somewhere. Why? Simply because we say they cannot make their own decisions about their own existence. We, the Congress of the United States, from our far distant place will make the decision for them. Now, California would not tolerate this. There would be an absolute uproar in this House. Or New York State, or anywhere. Texas, Florida, any of the States in these United States would not tolerate this, but we have this helpless bunch that do not have representation on this floor and we pick on them. That is wrong. We ought to adopt this amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I think that the gentleman from California indicated the mean-spiritedness of this bill, but the last speaker from California really laid out the Republicans' plan for going home with a message to the American people, and it is mean-spirited all the way down the line. The amendments that are laid out are directed at specific groups to come out here and have a one last bash before we go home. In my view, that is not the way we should be treating the capital of the United States. If you really consider, are worried about this city and what has gone on here, these amendments all ought to be rejected. We ought to let the city deal with the problems. Now, I will say some more things as we get to this needle exchange question, but if you look at that issue and ask yourself when the leading cause of death among African-American women in this country between the ages of 15 and 45 is AIDS, and then you do not want to use every possible means to protect people, including needle exchange, which has been successful in Seattle and San Francisco and a variety of other cities in this country, you simply are being mean-spirited to the people of this city. You do not care about the women of this city.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as Congress moves forward on consideration of fiscal year 1999 foreign operations appropriations, it is worth noting a few of the many successes CARE, one of the world's largest international relief and development organizations, has had in helping the world's poor. Many of CARE's programs are supported by private donations and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Day-long walks for water forced families in Mozambique to set priorities for water use. Drinking and cooking ranked ahead of washing hands and taking baths. CARE worked with communities to identify health problems related to water and sanitation needs. As a result CARE's Community Water and Sanitation Project was designed to dig wells and install water pumps close to where people lived. Now mothers and children can walk to the nearest pump in minutes and health has improved because of the availability of clean water. Six years ago, the region had 138 functioning water stations with more than 1,800 people using each. Five years later, the region had 372 water stations, each serving approximately 840 people. As of November 1997, 97 percent of the pumps installed were functioning satisfactorily. In Ecuador, CARE's SUBIR Project is working with Chachi Indians living in and around the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve and the Yasuni National Park. For years, the country's timber companies have harvested lumber from these protected areas, stripping the land of all vegetation, leaving behind unusable, depleted soil and harming wildlife habitat. Further, the Chachi Indians have gained little or no income from the trees that populate their land. CARE's work is helping preserve the environment and increase the incomes of the indigenous people of the Reserve and National Park. They include working with the Government of Ecuador to obtain land titles to 35,000 hectares for the Chachi, teaching sustainable forest management and negotiating fair lumber prices with the timber companies. The value organizations like CARE cannot be emphasized enough. Their efforts play an integral role in development assistance worldwide. These programs show how public-private partnerships between the U.S. Government, host country governments, private U.S. citizens and businesses can help others build a better future.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation that addresses the issue of prompt payment, that is, ensuring health plans reimburse providers in a timely manner. Although there have been numerous horror stories of health plans withholding reimbursement from providers the issue of prompt claim payment has not been addressed during the managed care reform debate. My view is that the prolonged delay of claim payments by health plans interferes with the doctor-patient relationship. By delaying reimbursements to doctors, health plans are turning care- givers into bill collectors--forcing them to hound both the insurance company and the patient for reimbursements which, in most cases, should already have been paid by the plan. Unnecessary reimbursement delays by health plans create unnecessary rifts between the patient and the provider--causing confusion with patients about their health insurance plan at a time when they are most vulnerable and possibly even distrust by the patient in the quality of their provider. The attached article from the August 2, 1998 Washington Post elaborates with specific, real life examples of the above mentioned issues. Medicare, Medicare+Choice, & Medicaid already have statutory language requiring prompt payment by its contractors. Yet, when President Clinton extended managed care protections to federal employee health plans, he did not include the prompt payment language in his executive order. Because of federal inaction, some states have taken the lead in this area. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, New York, and New Jersey have stat laws requiring prompt payment. Similar bills have been introduced in Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Most of the state laws appear stricter than the Medicare+Choice model I propose. For example, in addition to establishing clean claim payment guidelines, Texas requires strict time lines for plans when notifying a provider that a claim is being investigated. The plan must explain in writing why they reject a claim, and make payments in 5 business days after notifying claimants that their claim will be paid. New York, home of the infamous Oxford Health Plan, has by far the strongest penalties for plans that fail to comply with their prompt payment laws. New York plans can be subject to fines of up to $500 per day for each claim not paid within 345 days. Rather than draft comprehensive legislation this year that includes stronger guidelines than are currently in place at the federal level, I chose to introduce legislation that simply applies the existing Medicare+Choice prompt payment regulations to all health plans-- regulations that Congress overwhelmingly supported last year. If enacted, my legislation requires health plans to pay 95% of the clean claims within 30 days of receipt. If health plans do not comply with these guidelines, the bill requires plans to pay interest on clean claims that are not paid within 30 days. The legislation also requires that all other claims must be approved or denied within 60 calendar days from the date of the request. Congress can begin to address this important issue and alleviate much of the stress health plans are causing both patients and providers by passing prompt payment legislation. I urge my colleagues to join me in taking action on this issue this year. [From the Washington Post, August 2, 1998] Health Care's Painful Claims--Problems With Insurers Plague Many Patients (By David S. Hilzenrath) Olney resident Tammy L. Rhoades's health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of the National Capital Area, left her on the hook for $384 of anesthesiology charges because the doctor who administered pain relief while she was in labor wasn't a ``preferred provider.'' Baltimore resident William F. Cooke's insurer refused to pay $1,404 for respiratory therapy he received after being diagnosed with lung disease. Cooke said he checked with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland before he started treatment. But the company rejected the bills, saying his policy's stated coverage of ``physical therapy'' didn't mean ``respiratory therapy.'' David Trebach of Alexandria received notice in June that a doctor's office would obtain a court summons and ``an immediate judgment against you and your property'' if he didn't pay hundreds of dollars of bills dating back as far as June 1997. Despite Trebach's persistent pleas, Kaiser Permanente had failed to pay. Eventually, each of the insurers gave in to protests and paid the bulk of the charges, which erased the customers' debts, but not their resentment. For a growing number of consumers, it has become a familiar test: exasperating rounds of letters, phone calls and time spent on hold; empty corporate assurances, mysterious delays and bewildering rebuffs--all in the course of getting a health insurance company to pay what they contend it should have paid in the first place. ``There is general misery in all dealings,'' Maryland Insurance Commissioner Steven B. Larsen said. Though some insurance companies, such as Kaiser Permanente, acknowledged lapses in service, others, such as CareFirst Inc., say they pay the vast majority of claims without a hitch. Conflicts between health insurers and patients are hardly a new phenomenon, but the upheaval in the nation's health care system in recent years has raised the level of frustration. The managed care revolution, which promised to simplify billing for consumers, instead has spawned bureaucratic rules and procedures so complex that they have confounded even the latest computer systems--not to mention human beings. Problems with ``billing or payment of claims or premiums'' tied as the top health insurance complaint of Californians surveyed last fall by a state health policy task force. Fourteen percent said those relatively pedestrian issues were their biggest health insurance problem, eclipsing such hotly debated issues as delays in obtaining needed care or difficulty getting referrals to specialists. Some rapidly growing health plans have overreached, adding members much faster than they have added workers. Others have thrown their customer service into chaos, at least temporarily, by merging with companies that use different systems, consolidating far-flung offices, laying off experienced employees in one part of the country and hiring novices to replace them somewhere else--all in the name of efficiency. ``Most plans today are having serious servicing issues-- issues of turnaround time, accuracy, being able to respond to consumers,'' said Richard Sinni of Watson Wyatt Worldwide, which audits health plan performance for employers. ``I think they've gotten worse across the board.'' Many doctors, hospitals and patients accuse insurers of dragging out payments as part of a deliberate strategy to wear them down or continue earning interest on their money as long as possible. Insurers deny that the delays are intentional. They attribute them to a variety of factors, including their own administrative errors, patients' ignorance about their benefits and necessary enforcement of sometimes unpopular standards. This much is clear: The industry's heightened focus on the bottom line means bills these days are subject to stricter scrutiny and challenge. ``We do not apologize aggressive approach to . . . utilization review on behalf of our members,'' William L. Jews, chief executive of CareFirst, said in a news release last week. CareFirst, parent of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies serving Maryland and the District, has a duty to make sure customers' health dare dollars are spent responsibly, executives said. The insurer is also caught between conflicting expectations--those of the people who receive the care and those of the employers who subsidize it, officials said. ``The employers . . . ask Blue Cross to be stricter or harder or harsher on payments,'' said John Moseman, a vice president of the Maryland company. Often, doctors and patients create their own headaches by filling out forms incorrectly or ignoring the rules. One woman had about $9,000 of maternity charges rejected last year because she didn't get the required ``precertification'' for the birth of her child, said Dora Crouse, whose job is to troubleshoot claims problems for clients of JEMM Group Insurance Inc., a Silver Spring insurance broker. When JEMM intervened, the woman's preferred provider organization agreed to pay the bills. In contrast, no one blames Bonnie Emmert of Grant Junction, Colo., for her woes, but it took several months and the involvement of state regulators to resolve them. While undergoing chemotherapy and radiation this year for breast cancer, Emmert said she spent much of her time listening to the music on her insurer's customer service line, faxing and mailing multiple copies of the same paperwork, and fending off demands by her hospital and doctors for payment of charges dating back as far as December. A nurse by profession, Emmert said she has been living off savings while sidelined by her illness. Provident American Life and Health Insurance Co., based in Norristown, Pa., was investigating Emmert's medical history to determine if her cancer was a preexisting condition and therefore excluded from coverage. Emmert, 45, who bought her Provider policy last August and had surgery in December, said she found the company's doubts hard to understand. ``I had cancer in August and I waited till December to do anything about it?'' she asked, rhetorically. ``Yeah, right.'' The bills came due just in time to get caught in the confusion when Provident moved its claims processing operations from Minnesota and Pennsylvania to Florida in late January. ``The data transfer did not go smoothly,'' said Jimmy Potts, Provident's vice president for market conduct and compliance. The move ``created a delay that is frankly unacceptable to the company, but under the circumstances was unavoidable.'' Following the move, Provident was so overwhelmed with inquiries about delayed payments that callers were left on hold for as much as an hour and a half at a time, Potts said. The company agreed to pay thousands of dollars for Emmert's care on July 8 after the Colorado Division of Insurance showed that she had been insured before she bought coverage from Provident. That made any question of a preexisting condition moot, Potts said. ``We recognize it's a frustrating time for her,`` Potts said. ``But it also has been an incredibly frustrating time for those of us within the insurance company.'' William Cooke's sentiments in his dispute with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland went beyond frustration. In a complaint to the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA), the Baltimore retail manager accused the company of ``predatory'' behavior. Blue Cross defended its decision not to pay for Cooke's respiratory therapy in an August 1997 letter to the MIA, noting that Cooke's policy explicitly excluded ``admissions or any period of stay in a facility'' for various services. The relevance of that was hard to fathom, because Cooke said he received the therapy on an outpatient basis. Months later, Blue Cross continued to argue that, while Cooke's policy covered ``physical therapy,'' the treatment he received didn't fit the definition. The MIA disagreed. In March, it wrote that the company's posture ``may violate general quality of care standards.'' Even then Blue Cross held its ground, so in April the MIA issued an ultimatum: Failure to pay would result in a formal order against the company ``and administrative penalties.'' Finally, in late June--more than a year and half after the disputed treatment ended--Blue Cross paid $1,303.25. In the case of Rhoades and her out-of-network anesthesiologist, the insurer reversed itself without argument. ``We would agree with Mrs. Rhoades's position that she could not at the time of the delivery as the question . . . `Are you [a preferred provider] or are you not?'' Moseman said. Though the nation's angst over medical claims is hard to measure, signs of it abound: Fast-growing Oxford Health Plans Inc. of Norwalk, Conn., developed what it envisioned as a state-of-the-art computer system--and then watched it malfunction on a grand scale. Doctors, hospitals and regulators complained about a mountain of unpaid medical bills. To make amends, the company had advanced $203 million to health care providers as of Dec. 31 as it attempted to plow through the backlog. After Aetna Inc. merged with U.S. Healthcare, the amount of time it took to company to process medical claims doubled last year, according to one analyst. The company says performance has since rebounded. What had been 44 claims-processing centers across the country were consolidated at about 25 locations, and the number of employees handling claims was reduced by more than one-fifth. Employees with 15 years of experience were replaced by people with less than a year's experience, said R. Max Gould, Aetna U.S. Healthcare's head of customer service. In a series of audits of Colorado health insurers, the state Division of Insurance has cited widespread problems related to payment of claims, among other shortcomings. The regulatory agency this year assessed fines against PacifiCare of Colorado Inc., HMO Colorado Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado and Gem Insurance Co. Gem, which tripled enrollment in three years and accumulated a backlog of 106,000 unpaid claims, said in June that its low prices ``led to . . . poor customer service.'' When Prudential moved processing of many Washington area claims to Jacksonville, Fla., in the spring of 1997 ``initially there was some conversion disruption,'' Prudential spokeswoman Peggy Frank Lyle said. The company was compressing 40 claims-processing sites and 28 member-services sites nationwide into four. It's ``very difficult when you have that many new people to train,'' Lyle said. In April, Maryland's hospitals filed a coordinated complaint with the state insurance commissioner alleging health plans were systematically denying payment for medically necessary care after the care had been delivered. United Healthcare, though not singled out for criticism, showed the highest level of denied claims, according to Maryland Hospital Association data. The percentage of hospital days for which it initially refused payment rose to 14.6 percent in 1997--more than one in seven--from 4.4 percent in 1996, the association reported. ``When we find the care is not appropriate, we deny [payment for] the hospital day,'' United Healthcare Vice President Sharon Pavlos said. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States Inc., also know as Kaiser Permanente, in June paid $117,000 to settle an array of potential violations cited by the Virginia Bureau of Insurance. For example, more than one-fifth of the time, a review found, Kaiser failed to add interest to late claim payments as required by law. Kaiser said its problems got much worse last year, after the period covered by the review. The February 1997 takeover of Humana Group Health Inc., ``crashed our little system'' said Bernard J. Tyson, president of Kaiser's Central East Division. ``We don't have . . . the right infrastructure and information systems to manage now a big piece of our business.'' The company plans to complete a major upgrade next spring. In the meantime, it fired the outside contractor that had been handling its claims and switched to a better internal system, officials said. ``Clean'' claims, which are claims that don't raise questions, were being processed in an average of 26.7 days during June, compared with about 50 days at one point last year. Trebach's most severely delayed bills ``fell in some black hole,'' spokeswoman Darlene Frank said. For Trebach, a social worker in the Fairfax County public schools, a final indignity was the doctors' warning that a ``warrant in debt'' might be ``delivered to your home by a Sheriff.'' ``This would be so frightening for my children,'' said Trebach's wife, Loretta DiGennaro. Consumers ignore payment demands at their peril, as a clerk in a Washington electrical supply business recently discovered. Long after his insurer had rejected a series of 1995 and 1996 hospitals bills--so much later that the insurer can't document the reason--the hospital turned them over to a collection agency, according to Crouse at the JEMM insurance brokerage. Now, under a court order, the clerk's wages are being garnisheed to pay the debt.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring your attention to the 1998 United States Singles and Pairs Lawn Bowls Championship, sponsored by The American Lawn Bowling Association and The American Women's Lawn Bowls Association (ALBA/AWLBA), which will be held in Seattle, Washington, August 17-August 21, 1998. The sport of lawn bowls, also known as bowling on the green, has been played throughout Europe in various forms since it was introduced by soldiers of the Roman empire. Similar to the games of bocce ball and curling, it was one of the first sports introduced to the New World. Records show that Williamsburg, Virginia had a bowling green as early as 1632, and that another green was built in 1670 at what is now Bowling Green, Virginia. The American Lawn Bowls Association, one of the oldest national sports federations in our country, was founded in 1915, and since 1918 has consistently sponsored a national championship. During the 1930's, the Works Progress Administration built greens at a number of public parks across the country, and the sport experienced a small boom. It declined after World War II, but began to rebound in the mid-1970's, and has gained considerable popularity in California and in areas of Florida, particularly around St. Petersburg. Although lawn bowls has been thought of as a pastime primarily enjoyed by senior citizens, the game is beginning to attract more young players as a competitive sport and leisure activity. Over eight thousand people, some over 70 years old, are affiliated with ALBA/ AWLBA, and compete in numerous lawn bowl clubs in every region of the country. ALBA/AWLBA is committed to promoting the benefits associated with the sport in hopes of expanding participation in lawn bowling. Studies have shown that for a variety of reasons, Americans young and old, are becoming more sedentary. Many health problems can be avoided by the inclusion of a regular regimen of exercise. The inclusion of a physical activity such as the game of lawn bowls, is essential for the maintenance of good health and mental spirits. In my district, the 7th Congressional District of Washington, the Jefferson Park Lawn Bowls Club is a leader in the national effort to involve youth in lawn bowling. According to Susan Parker, 1998 U.S. Championship Committee Co-Chair, the Jefferson Park Lawn Bowls Club is working to introduce lawn bowling as a lifetime physical activity to Metropolitan King County young people through schools, the Seattle Parks Department, and such youth organizations as Big Sisters and Boy Scouts. Pacific Northwest clubs also are enlisting senior citizen and retiree organizations in this intergenerational effort to promote lawn bowling. I hope all my colleagues will join me in commending the efforts of ALBA/AWLBA to encourage a healthy lifestyle through sports such as lawn bowling. Mr. Speaker, I am confident all my colleagues join me in extending best wishes for a successful 1998 U.S. lawn bowling championship tournament in Seattle.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to the Hilleary amendment. While I recognize the urgency of housing for our Nation's veterans, robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the way to go. The Hilleary amendment would take away $21 million earmarked for the Housing Opportunity Act from the 1999 budget. This is a bill that, as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) said, we started a long time ago. And I think we ought to acknowledge the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gonzalez), who really was the man who was in charge of the committee when we were on it; and when we told him about this idea he said, it sounds like a good idea. While supporters of this bill will argue that we are not cutting HOPWA per se but rather freezing it at the 1998 levels, I would argue that an increase is what is actually needed to provide adequate housing for people living with AIDS, many of whom are veterans. As my colleagues have heard, what the gentleman fails to recognize is the dramatic increase in the number of veterans with AIDS. There are 100,000 to 150,000 people in this country who are veterans who have HIV. 17,000 of them are taken care of in the VA system, and roughly 30 percent of the homeless in the United States are veterans. Now, with the advent of new drug therapies, new hope is offered to people with HIV. However, these therapies are not available to everyone, especially the homeless. Strict regimens and a proper diet are mandatory for these drug therapies to work, and people with inadequate housing are not good candidates for such therapy. This was one of the suggestions of the Reagan Commission on AIDS. There were five suggestions, and one of them was HOPWA. The reason they suggested it is because when one has AIDS, one has a weakened system, and if one does not have anyplace to live, one winds up in a shelter. Now, if one goes into a shelter and one sleeps in a big room with 200 or 300 people and one has no defense system, one picks up every disease in the world, so one then gets sick and winds up back in the hospital. And every big city hospital in this country has had the experience of getting somebody with AIDS up and stabilized and ready to go out but knowing if they put them out of the hospital they will be back in in worse shape. That is what this program is really all about. We are not talking about people who have not served their country. HOPWA really is a link between housing and health care. And if one looks at the numbers, one would say, well, AIDS is declining in this country; but, actually, the HIV infection rate in selected groups continues to rise. Tragically, that epidemic is increasing among the low-income communities where homelessness is a reality or it is one paycheck away. HOPWA helps fund a variety of AIDS services throughout Washington State, not just in the district where I come from, but from the Sean Humphrey House in Bellingham in the district of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf); Three Cedars in Tacoma; the Tamarak House in Yakima, which is in the district of the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings); and the Bailey Boushay House in my district. HOPWA is used by housing authorities in Spokane, Tacoma and Seattle. So it is distributed across our State; it is not just in the big cities. Mr. Chairman, I have always been an advocate for the Nation's veterans, and it is critical that we ensure adequate health care and housing for them. However, cutting the one is the wrong way to get the other. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote against the Hilleary amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as the public listens to this debate, I am sure they will wind up confused, so I want to give 10 reasons why my colleagues should vote against the Hastert proposal and for the Ganske- Dingell bill. I borrowed these from the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) who is a Republican and a doctor. I am a Democrat and a doctor, and we agree. He says, the substitute provides, that means the Democratic substitute, patients with access to clinical trials. The Hastert bill does not. The substitute allows doctors to override drug formularies when medically necessary. The Hastert does not. The substitute provides for ongoing access to specialists for chronic conditions. The Hastert bill does not. The Ganske-Dingell substitute prevents plans from giving doctors financial incentives to deny care. The Hastert bill does not. The substitute has hospital-stay protection for mastectomy patients. The Hastert bill does not. The substitute provides choice of doctors within the plan. The Hastert bill does not. The substitute has a provision guaranteeing continuity of care when providers leave the network. The Hastert bill does not. The Ganske-Dingell plan requires plans to collect quality data and maintain a quality improvement program. The Hastert bill does not. In addition, the Hastert bill allows the plan to decide what is medically necessary. If one has chest pain and one feels like one should go to an emergency room, one cannot decide whether that is medically necessary, one's plan will tell you if it was medically necessary. Maybe after you get to the hospital, they will say, well, it is just indigestion, so it is not medically necessary to go to an emergency room. There are more reasons than I can get in in 10 minutes. This cynical process requires a ``no'' vote on Hastert and a ``yes'' vote on Ganske- Dingell.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, this amendment will strike an unwise legislative rider intended to halt the National Environmental Protection Act's planning process by terminating the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Plan. In 1993, the then Speaker of the House Tom Foley, reacting to a legislative gridlock that had been developed in this whole process, and the Clinton administration together sought to develop a ``scientifically sound and ecosystem-based strategy for east side forests.'' Those are forests in the eastern two-thirds of the State of Washington, and Oregon and Idaho and Montana. The Forest Service and the BLM jointly established the Interior Columbia Basin project, which includes 72 million acres of public lands in eastern Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of 4 other States. The intent of the project is to provide long-term management direction for 35 national forests, 17 Bureau of Land Management districts, ultimately amending 74 land management plans in a coordinated plan. The Interior Columbia project builds upon the science of the Northwest Forest Plan, the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem in California and other regionwide efforts. What we have learned from those experiences is that individualized land management plans have failed to address systemwide problems like the protection of endangered salmon and other species. Currently, the Federal agencies in the Interior Columbia Basin are operating under short-term directives to address anadromous fisheries and other issues. The risk of terminating the overall plan as proposed by this rider is that resource activities on these lands will shut down under a cloud of litigation as was the case of the west side forests in Washington and Oregon. In May 1997, the BLM and the Forest Service released two draft EISs for public comment. One EIS applied to eastern Washington and Oregon, the other to the Upper Columbia Basin for Idaho and other States. Public comment on these drafts have been extensive. Frankly, I do not think that the draft-preferred alternative in these plans goes far enough in protecting old growth, roadless and riparian areas. The science, for example, clearly supports concentrating active management in the more degraded road areas rather than the roadless regions. The science, moreover, shows that many areas and many resources in the project area are in serious trouble and will get worse under current management plans. So while I do not endorse the preferred alternative in the draft plans, I strongly endorse the process. It will be a serious mistake to terminate this project now as the sponsors of this rider propose. Let me conclude by quoting from an analysis of the rider prepared by the Department of Interior--quote: The effect of the House rider would be to terminate the project, wasting 5 years' worth of scientific inquiry, taxpayers' resources and project staff time. Limitations on the use of funds as called for in the action would, by implication, make it illegal to publish the decision documents in which 5 years' worth of planning and community involvement were intended to culminate. Enactment into law of this provision would guarantee a continuing legal stalemate in the project area, with the outcome being the substitution of endless court battles for the sound management of natural resources. Both the Departments of Agriculture and Interior strongly oppose this rider and OMB has issued a veto threat if this rider is included in the bill. I urge Members to support sound management of natural resources by voting against this amendment. I urge Members to support this amendment which strikes section 333. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC, June 24, 1998. Hon. Bob Livingston, Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: The purpose of this letter is to provide the Administration's views on the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, FY 1999, as approved by the House Subcommittee. As the Committee develops its version of the bill, your consideration of the Administration's views would be appreciated. The Administration appreciates efforts by the Subcommittee to accommodate certain of the President's priorities within the 302(b) allocation such as funding for national park operations. However, the allocation is simply insufficient to make the necessary investments in programs funded by this bill. As a result, a variety of critical programs are underfunded, as discussed below, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is terminated. The only way to achieve the appropriate investment level is to offset discretionary spending by using savings in other areas. The President's FY 1999 Budget proposes levels of discretionary spending for FY 1999 that conform to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement by making savings in mandatory and other programs available to help finance this spending. In the recently enacted Transportation Equity Act, Congress-- on a broad, bipartisan basis--took similar action in approving funding for surface transportation programs together with mandatory offsets. The Administration urges the Congress to consider such mandatory proposals for other priority discretionary programs. In addition, the Administration urges the Committee to pass a clean bill that does not attempt to roll back environmental protections and circumvent the proper process by attaching riders to appropriation bills. The Subcommittee failure to fund the NEA, its underfunding of other priority programs, and its inclusion of damaging riders, such as the provisions concerning the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project and the road easement in Alaska's Chugach National Forest, would lead the President's senior advisers to recommend a veto if the bill were presented to the President in its current form. Below is a discussion of our specific concerns with the Subcommittee. We look forward to working with you to resolve these concerns as the bill moves forward. National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities The Administration strongly objects to the Subcommittee's elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as well as to the Subcommittee's reduction in funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities ($26 million below the President's request) and the Institute for Museum and Library Service ($3 million below the President's request). The elimination of the NEA would result in the loss of important cultural, educational, and artistic programs for communities across America. Departments of the Interior and Agriculture Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). The Subcommittee has included a rider that would terminate this high priority interagency effort ICBEMP is an ecosystem planning project that will cover 72 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. The environmental impact statement and the record of decision are scheduled to be finalized by mid-1999. The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service are now working under short-term directives to address anadromous fisheries (PACFISH), native fisheries (INFISH), and mature forests in Oregon and Washington (Eastside Screens). The Project will replace these interim directions with a coordinated, long-term management strategy that will foster both conservation and resource use and development. Replacing current interim measures with a long-term plan will provide necessary long-term protections for aquatic species. The shared environmental planning goals of the region can be effectively translated into individual forest and land management plans only through a coordinated process such as the ICBEMP, and this process provides more certainty to those who make their livelihoods from the Federal lands and live in the region. Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Administration strongly objects to the Subcommittee's deep cuts in land acquisition funding to protect our national parks, forests, refuges, and public lands. The Subcommittee has reduced by almost half the $270 million requested, with Everglades land acquisition funds cut by 75 percent. This drastic reduction in funding, in combination with the Subcommittee's silence on the promised congressional release of the $362 million appropriated in FY 1998 for Federal priority land acquisitions, would prevent the Administration from making significant land acquisitions such as Cumberland Island National Seashore in Georgia, West Eugene Wetland in Oregon, Channel Islands National Park in California, the Appalachian Trail, and the Valles Caldera in New Mexico. Clean Water Initiative. The Subcommittee has failed to provide the majority of the requested $128 million increase for Interior and the Forest Service to implement the Clean Water Action Plan. These reductions would prevent the initiation of watershed improvement and planning projects on public lands, including the remediation of abandoned hardrock mines, a serious source of water pollution in the West. The reductions would also curtail plans to increase research, assessment, and monitoring activities designed to help us understand the sources, transport and fates of non-point contaminants.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I find this is a very interesting debate because it is characterized as sort of people from somewhere else jumping in. This plan was put in place by the former Speaker of the House because he recognized all the problems we had had on the west side. On the west side we had every forest shut down for long periods of time. Not a stick of wood was cut anywhere. So he said to himself, let us not repeat the mistakes of the west side. Let us develop a coordinated plan from the outset between all the forests and all the Bureau of Land Management and get this thing done in a way that will actually work. What I am hearing from my colleagues here in defending this rider is they do not want to have any of the plan. They do not want to have it implemented by the Bureau of Land Management. They want to turn it back into one fight after another in the courts. If you have 74 land management plans, that means you have got district by district inside those forests. If one ranger wants to do it one way in one district and another ranger wants to do it in the next district differently, who is going to coordinate that? Not according to my colleagues. They do not want it coordinated. They simply want to let everybody have the book and look in it and say, ``Well, that looks pretty good for our area. I think we will do that.'' But who coordinates that? My colleagues know that will not work. So what my colleagues are willing to do tonight is roll the dice. They are willing to say let us throw away 5 years of trying to coordinate this thing, and we will go back and take our chances and cross our fingers that we do not get 74 lawsuits. When my colleagues tell me that the environmentalists do not like this plan, I agree. They do not. I am not here defending the plan. I am defending the process. They do not like this because they do not think it got far enough. Now, if we read that and we listen to the environmentalists talk about it, they are saying this plan does not go far enough. What does that imply if it does not get put in place? They are going to go to court. If my colleagues do not think there is a judge someplace in the Northwest who is going to look at this and say, ``Well, here is what the National Environmental Policy Act says, and here is what you are doing. They do not match, so we are closing down the forest till we get a new plan.'' We all know, everybody in the Northwest knows that we are right on the edge of having salmon as an endangered species. The salmon spawning in every single river in the Northwest is in danger. We are going to have a coordinated plan for salmon restoration. If you think it is going to be done by one county commissioner in one county and another county commissioner in another county, it simply will not work because the streams run through more than one county.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, in January, when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) first estimated that the budget surpluses for the next decade might total $650 billion, many of us asked the Medicare Actuary how long that amount of money--if dedicated to the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund--would keep the Trust Fund solvent. The answer was 2020. CBO is now estimating that the next decade's surplus will be almost $1 trillion higher. I again asked the Office of the Chief Actuary how long that amount--if saved for Medicare and not given away on tax cuts--would fund the Hospital Trust Fund. The answer is past 2030. \1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ I asked the Office of the Chief Actuary what an additional trillion dollars in budget surpluses would save. They replied that $1.65 trillion dedicated for Part A would save the Trust Fund to 2033. The CBO's latest estimate of surplus between 1998 and 2008 is $1.548 trillion. Surpluses are expected for another year or two after 2008 before the Baby Boomers start retiring. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The year 2030 is as far as the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare seeks or dares to plan for the future of Medicare. The year 2030 is well into the retirement of the Baby Boom generation and is a point at which the percentage of retirees in our society stabilizes. Without making any other changes, without any restructuring of the program, without any more provider cuts, without shifting costs to beneficiaries, without raising taxes, we can keep Medicare Part A solvent just by not giving away today's temporary surpluses. This does not mean to suggest that the Commission should not recommend any changes to the medicare program that makes the program work better for beneficiaries or that ensures greater cost predictability and containment. By making prudent savings on the provider side and saving the surpluses, we could actually improve Medicare and its package of benefits, or we could use some of these resources to also extend the life of the Social Security. The important point is that by just not dribbling away our present surpluses, we can make our future Social Security and Medicare problems much more solvable. As Congress debates possible ways in which to spend today's budget surpluses, it is important that the Commission recognizes and publicizes this very important message: Saving today's budget surpluses will make it infinitely easier to solve the coming Medicare crisis caused by the retirement of baby-boomers. There is, in fact, no crisis if we saved today's temporary surpluses to solve the future's certain Medicare deficits.