Jay Rockefeller

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I thought this would be a good time to remind my colleagues of the unfinished business that is still waiting to get done. As we head toward the Fourth of July and another recess, we also need to remember that the days to take action in Congress are running out. It is not only late June, we also have very few days of legislative session left. Will this be the Congress remembered only for what it did not get done? Will this be the Congress that spent all of its time and millions of taxpayers' dollars only on camera-filled hearing rooms to learn about the White House Travel Office and to turn every pebble over on Whitewater? Instead, this should be a Congress capable of doing something about the day-to-day struggles of hard-working Americans. But to produce, we need some basic steps taken. The calendar needs to be pulled out, votes scheduled, final agreements reached, and work completed. I think of three actions that will help millions of Americans, including West Virginians. No. 1, it is time to wrap up the Kennedy-Kassebaum health insurance bill. Members from the other side of the aisle are determined to include something called medical savings accounts. I might add that I hear absolutely no clamor for MSA's from constituents, beyond employers that are thinking about using this device as a substitute for the health insurance they now subsidize for employees. But the key point is that the heart of Kennedy-Kassebaum involves changes that will make sure insurance is there for people when they really need it. When they need coverage for the very illness or condition that is now labeled a pre-existing condition. When they need coverage, but have to change jobs and now find their insurance canceled. These are the changes that affect millions of Americans, and many, many West Virginians. This is the work we need to get done before this session of Congress runs out. No. 2, this Congress still has the time to enact welfare reform. This is an area begging for reason and common sense. No one is going to get exactly their way on something as complicated and contentious as changing the welfare system. But it is not hard to figure out what Americans expect from us. They want to know that welfare is not a haven for avoiding work, responsibility, and the rules that most hard-working citizens play by. The Democratic leader has just laid out another detailed plan, known as Work First Two, that reflects exactly what we need to do on welfare reform. It is a tough, no-nonsense plan to require adults to work or prepare for work. It does not make a point of punishing innocent children, who have done nothing wrong. It is time to move away from politics, rigid positions, and posturing on welfare reform. The President has proven he will not sign a bill just because of its label. We should not waste any more time on legislation that belongs to one faction or simply rubber-stamps what some Governors have asked for. We need to work out our differences, and produce the bill that will turn welfare into a last-resort--for the sake of poor families and the hard-working taxpayers who want reform. Finally, I find it shameful that this Congress has still not been able to enact an increase in the minimum wage. And I want to elaborate some on this subject, because it is so important to the people of my State. A few weeks ago, the Washington Post ran an article telling us that the CEOs of major companies got a 23-percent raise in their compensation in 1995. According to the consulting firm of Pearl Myers & Partners, the average salary of a CEO was $991,300 with the remaining in stock options and bonuses. Twenty years ago, the top CEO earned about 40 times as much as the typical worker. Today, that same CEO earns 190 times as much. We know from study after study, town meeting after town meeting back home, that wages for most other Americans are stagnant and that most workers have every reason to feel insecure about their income, their jobs, and their health insurance. The people who work 8 hours every day, making products and providing needed services, deserve a living wage. They should not be left behind. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to polarize the country into the haves and have-nots, and that is downright un-American. As others have already said, whatever economic tide that is rising seems to be lifting a lot of yachts, and not much that carries the rest of Americans. Working families today are making less than they did 20 years ago. Look at what has happened to a single worker over those 20 years. He or she has watched the collapse of communism, voted in four Presidential elections, seen computers become a part of every day life, and watched the stock market rise over 5,000 points. For the worker relying on the minimum wage, his or her most recent paycheck is worth less than the first one in purchasing power. And some wonder why hard-working American families feel left out of the American dream? The stagnation of wages over the past 20 years is obvious to parents struggling to pay their bills. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues who still do not support a minimum wage increase to listen to this: When adjusted for inflation, the current Federal minimum wage of $4.25 an hour is worth 27 percent less to workers and their families than that amount in 1979. Measured in 1979 dollars, the minimum wage is only worth $3.10 an hour. A minimum wage worker earns $8,840 a year. This is not a living wage, in fact, it is barely a sustainable wage. Even with an expanded earned income tax credit, earning $4.25 an hour does not lift a family out of poverty. No matter what the opponents say, minimum wage earners are not a collection of teen-age burger-flippers. Sixty-nine percent of all minimum wage earners are adults over the age of 21. Women make up 60 percent of all minimum wage workers and are usually a single parent trying to keep their families together. These workers are playing by the rules, paying rent, utility bills, health care premiums, food and clothing for their families. They are working long and hard hours, and they do not want to slip into welfare and dependency. They deserve our admiration, our respect, and they deserve a raise. In my home State of West Virginia, over 100,000 workers would get a raise if we pass the Democratic amendment to raise minimum wage to $5.15. Almost 24 percent of West Virginia's work force would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage--about one out of four workers. Let me share the story of just one woman in West Virginia. When her husband was injured in the mines and denied disability coverage, she went to work to support her family. The only job she could find was a minimum wage job at a lumber yard located miles away from her home. The work was hard, and after 9 months she broke her ankle on the job. Her family income last year was only $8,500. While on workers compensation, the section where she worked at the lumber yard closed and her job was eliminated. Now, both of her teenage sons are working to help support the family. Imagine trying to support a family of four on such a small income. But this woman just wants another job as soon as her physician allows her to go back to work. This West Virginian deserves a raise--and if we raise the minimum wage to $5.15, and her family gets their full earned income tax credit, they will be lifted out of poverty. It is a sad day in America when we do not help a West Virginia family that works hard to raise their children above the poverty line. We in Congress have the ability to bring badly needed relief to this family and about 12 million workers in America. We should come together in a spirit of decency and common sense, restore some glimmer of hope for these families, and raise the Federal minimum wage. The minimum wage has not been raised for 4 years, but the prices of everything else, from rent to food has gone up each and every year. Raising the minimum wage is essential to help families and reinforce the fundamental American values of hard work and self-sufficiency. And we all know that solely raising the minimum wage is not the silver bullet that will erase the gross inequity between the haves and have nots. Nor, will this act alone restore the economic vitality of working Americans that deserve so much more from the society they contribute to. But it is a simple, important, obvious step in the right direction to reward and encourage work. It tells hard-working American families that we value their right to a decent life. Mr. President, it is long past the time when the U.S. Senate should get the chance to vote for an increase that is shamefully overdue. I conclude by reminding everyone listening how little time there is left to get anything done that is relevant, meaningful, and helpful to hard-working Americans. But there is still the time to take three basic, important steps that deal directly with what weighs on the minds and shoulders of families in West Virginia, in Mississippi, from California to North Carolina. The bipartisan Kennedy-Kassebaum bill--a bill with the most basic health insurance reforms should get settled and enacted, now, this week, immediately. Welfare reform, drawing on plans from both sides of the aisle, should get worked out, put into final legislative form, and sent to the President in a form that he can sign in good conscience--in a form that will make welfare dependency something to avoid and work something expected. An increase in the minimum wage, the most basic and decent step we can take for millions of Americans who are doing everything possible to work, avoid welfare, and be productive citizens. If my colleagues want to continue endless hearings on what fascinates them about 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so be it. But just a little time, some modest leadership, and some amount of attention to the calendar must go into producing something for the people who are waiting for action that makes a difference in their lives. Mr. LEAHY addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, a very special advisor brought to my attention an article that I ask to place in the Record. My counsellor on matters of foreign policy is not only the highly distinguished former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senator from Illinois, Senator Charles Percy, he also is my one and only father-in-law. I continue to be indebted to him for both his sage advice and the familial bond we share. Recently, former Senator Percy shared the following article that appeared on June 14, 1996 in The Christian Science Monitor. Authored by former Vice-President Walter Mondale, who serves as the current U.S. Ambassador to Japan, it commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program. I want to draw the attention of my colleagues and other readers to this fine essay on the value of this unique international exchange program. With the Fulbright Program's emphasis on excellence in scholarship and studies, this effort creates and nurtures relations between America's bright, curious, and energetic citizens and their counterparts in other countries. It breaks through the barriers that otherwise cause ignorance, prejudice, misunderstandings, and the dangers of war and other violence. There is simply no substitute for the opportunity of individuals around the world to learn from one another. The Fulbright Program is not a luxury for America. It is a necessary part of an effective foreign policy for the world's economic leader and superpower. As we celebrate its anniversary, this article reminds us that its future will be the course for Americans to continue promoting peace and the ties that benefit our own country along with the rest of the world. The article follows: [From the Christian Science Monitor] The Grand Vision of the Fulbright Program (By Walter Mondale) Since becoming ambassador to Japan three years ago, I have directly experienced the enormous benefits of people-to- people exchange. It is a process I now consider one of the vital tools of American international policy. My experience in Japan has elevated me from just a believer in international exchange to a true believer. The Fulbright Program, which turns 50 this year, is the flagship of scholarly exchange programs. Its universal renown attests to its extraordinary long-term impact on international relations. Congress established the program in 1946 ``to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.'' My friend J. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas, a strong-willed senator of rare vision, introduced the legislation two weeks after the nuclear age blasted its imprint on history at Hiroshima. At the time he called it ``a modest program with an immodest aim.'' Over the past several years, we have taken special note of many 50th anniversaries, often in a spirit of somber commemoration: the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Iwo Jima, the Battle of Okinawa, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first half of the 20th century was battered by two world wars, and as the curtain rose on the second half, a war-weary US went to battle once again in Asia while the world drew itself into two armed camps. Appalled by war's tragic human cost, Bill Fulbright's ``immodest aim'' was no less than ``the humanizing of international relations . . . to the point that men can learn to live in peace--eventually even to cooperate in constructive activities rather than compete in a mindless contest of mutual destruction. . . .'' During this 50th- anniversary year of Fulbright's program, as we celebrate the global reach of his vision, we properly hail his ``immodest'' achievement. In its early years in Japan, the program focuses on bringing outstanding students of the postwar generation of young Japanese to experience US social institutions and democracy. The results are found everywhere: United Nations Undersecretary-General Yasushi Akashi was a Fulbrighter. So were seven current members of the Diet, the presidents of two of Japan's largest banks, and more than 5,000 others who have carried their experience of American life back to Japanese colleges, government offices, businesses, and civic organizations. The US and Japan reap great benefits from our harmonious bilateral relations, and we share a common stake in global security and stability. Our relationship is solid. But our societies are so profoundly different in so many basic areas that it requires great effort for us to understand each other. As in so many endeavors, those who acquire the tools early achieve the most success. The history professor from Kysuhu University who as a young scholar spent a year in Columbus, Ohio, teaches his students with deeper insights than one who has not had that experience. The recent New York University graduate living for a year with a family near Osaka will return to New York to pursue a law career that will take a much different direction than had she never experienced Japan. Such seemingly commonplace events, multiplied many times over, bring extraordinary benefits to our relations. The Fulbright Program is enormously popular in Japan. When Senator Fulbright died last year, hundreds of former Fulbrighters gathered for an elegant memorial service, and virtually every newspaper ran an appreciative story lauding the educational and cultural benefits bestowed on so many Japanese. In recent years, the proportion of American Fulbrighters relative to that of Japanese has grown considerably; so has the Japanese financial contribution. The Japanese government now funds the bi-national program at approximately twice the level of the US. And Japanese alumni continue to make a generous annual donation, which is devoted to bringing recent US college graduates to Japan. There are many ways to study abroad but the Fulbright Program stands alone. Practically everyone in Japan knows about it, and what it has meant to this country. Its marvelous reputation has been earned not simply by the scholastic achievements of its outstanding participants, but also because Fulbrighters see themselves as students, lecturers, or researchers abroad who are part of a noble, larger purpose. Fulbright once said, ``Man's struggle to be rational about himself, about his relationship to his own society and the other peoples and nations involves a constant search for understanding among all peoples and cultures--a search that can only be effective when learning is pursued on a worldwide basis.'' Some say that the cold war's end has drained the urgency from international exchanges. It's simply not so. The need to educate citizens who have international experience and who can communicate and establish relationships across borders is more compelling than ever. In the US, we have entered what US Information Agency director Joseph Duffey calls ``an era of frugal diplomacy.'' Our government must consider with care the cost-effectiveness of what it does. Judged by that standard, there are few programs that serve our long-term international-relations goals as fully and effectively--yet as inexpensively--as the Fulbright Program. As Americans with a stake in our relations with the rest of the world, and particularly with Japan, we will be well served if our political leaders continue their support of Bill Fulbright's vision. (Former Vice President Walter Mondale is the US ambassador to Japan.)

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this is a proud moment for me and the citizens of the State as we celebrate the 133d birthday of our beautiful home. On June 20, 1863, West Virginia gained its independence from Virginia in the midst of the Civil War. Since that time when the Nation's brotherhood was severed, West Virginia became the 35th State to enter the Union and has remained a strong and vital part of this country. Known as the Mountain State, West Virginia is proud of its existence. Its beauty is evident as its rolling hills cover the land and its rivers and lakes surround the valleys. It is a place full of distinct culture and crafts. From the northern panhandle to the eastern panhandle extending down to the border of Kentucky, West Virginia offers some of the Nation's finest workers, industries, and businesses. We continue to welcome new corporate members to our West Virginia family, including most recently Toyota. Each year more visitors come from all over to go skiing, hiking, whitewater rafting, and do many other activities that are first rate in West Virginia. No matter what the season, West Virginia is a beautiful place to live and visit, loved throughout the world. I could continue forever about what this fine State has to offer and contribute to its people, its visitors, and this country. For the past 133 years, West Virginians have been loyal to the Union and to the State because they are proud of who they are and what they have become. Let us all come together to celebrate this fine day and this wonderful State we call West Virginia.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, first of all, I will not be able to finish, but I will do the best I can. I want to acknowledge the very serious implications of the Medicare trustees' report released yesterday. The Medicare part A trust fund, the part that pays the hospital bills of beneficiaries, is likely to be insolvent by 2001, a year earlier than predicted last year. This is a very serious issue. I take it as such, and it must be addressed. So the news is bad, Mr. President. Unfortunately, contrary to assertions made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, this is not a new problem, and unlike the Republicans, this is not a problem Democrats just discovered. The Republicans chose to ignore 20 previous trustees' reports that warned of future trust fund problems. But when they needed to come up with the money to pay for tax breaks, they decided to manufacture an impending crisis. Just 3 years ago, as the Senator from Massachusetts and I were discussing, the trustees projected the hospital trust fund was going to run out of money in 1999, which is 3 years hence. Democrats took immediate measures, and I know because I was responsible for putting some of those together, to add 3 more years of solvency by very carefully reducing Medicare spending by about $59 billion. And, Mr. President, Democrats have produced our own Medicare proposals that would postpone the date of trust insolvency for at least another decade. That is called 10 years. That is quite a lot of time. The CBO has certified that the President's Medicare plan would extend trust fund solvency until the year 2005. Here we are dealing with 9 or 10 years. The big difference between Democrats and Republicans is that we have only proposed those reductions in spending that are necessary to achieve 10 more years of solvency. That is our only purpose. That is our only policy purpose. The Republicans continue to propose drastic Medicare cuts so that they can pay, again, for what has become a cliche--but a cliche is something that is said so often it is true--tax breaks for the wealthy. Mr. President, over the past decade, Congress has, and usually in a very bipartisan manner, taken repeated steps to rein in the costs of the Medicare Program. We do not have a bad record on this. We reformed the hospital payment system in 1983. We reformed the physician payment system in 1989. Senator Durenberger, a Republican from Minnesota, was instrumental in that. We did this together, Democrats and Republicans, with minor controversy, to shore up the hospital trust fund. That was the policy purpose, and to make the Medicare Program a prudent purchaser of health care services. Unfortunately, the bipartisanship to address the problems of Medicare ended--and ended completely--in 1993 when the Republicans refused to participate in what was an entirely serious effort to reduce the Federal deficit. Democrats were forced, therefore, to act alone. Because of the Democratic efforts, and without, as the Senator from Massachusetts said, a single Republican vote. This is really extraordinary when you think about it; there are usually a few people who will help on this--there was not a single one, not a single one. The deficit has fallen now for 4 straight years as a result of that action in 1993. That had not happened since either Harry Truman was President or the Civil War. I am not sure which, and there is a big difference. But, anyway, 4 years of budget deficit reduction has not happened in a long, long time. Bipartisanship also failed to materialize last year when the Democrats refused to engage in an exercise to carry out Speaker Gingrich's Contract With America, that handed out tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. Mr. President, there are billions of dollars in common Medicare savings that we could agree on tomorrow to strengthen the trust fund. But compromise is not something that many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and particularly on the other side of the Capitol, have learned to do to this point. Last year, the public overwhelmingly rejected the massive health care cuts proposed by the Republicans. Instead, though, of coming up with a new plan, or even new numbers, the Republicans have not changed much at all. They say their plan is more moderate, but it is not. The total Medicare savings in their new plan are lower, but they are lower only because their new budget covers 6 years, not 7. That tends to make a difference. If you look at the year-by-year Medicare cuts in this year's Republican budget, you can see that the cuts are nearly identical to--identical to or larger--than the cuts in the vetoed budget reconciliation bill from last year. Kevin Phillips, a Republican political analyst, who Republicans do not like to hear quoted, said just a few weeks ago that the ``new'' Republican budget ``is no more than a routine expression''--this is interesting--``a routine expression of core GOP fiscal policy: never to ask the top 1 percent of Americans to sacrifice if Medicaid, Medicare, or education funds for ordinary people can be targeted instead.'' The Republican budget resolution goes way too far in trying to reduce Medicare spending. The cuts are much more than is needed to extend short-term solvency for another decade. The Republicans know that. The Republican budget would hold Medicare to a much tougher standard on its health care costs than current projections for even private health insurance. That is an important point. Private health insurance is expected to grow by 7.1 percent on a per person basis over the next 7 years. The Republican plan caps Medicare per person spending at 4.8 percent over the next 7 years, even though Medicare generally serves an older and a sicker population. And Medicare, as a program, is even covering more people, while private health insurance is covering fewer and fewer Americans, as employers pull back from what I would consider their responsibility. So these very tight budget caps that the Republican plan would impose on Medicare spending will seriously harm the quality of care that seniors currently receive, or will significantly increase their out-of- pocket expenses, or will do both. Last year Dr. June O'Neill, the Republican-appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that seniors would in fact have to pay more, pay more to keep the same level of quality that they have today under the Republican plan. She is their appointee. That is what she said. I asked her how much more? She said she did not know. I sent her a letter soon after the specifics of the Republican plan were finally unveiled by the Finance Committee. That was not only signed by myself, but also by the minority leader, asking her again, how much more would seniors have to pay under the Republican proposal? I never got a response. I am a U.S. Senator. I assume that after a while somebody in that position would eventually get a response. I did not. I still do not know exactly how much more seniors would have to pay. All I know is that they will have to pay a lot more. Mr. President, in West Virginia, which I represent, the average senior's income is $10,700 a year. We talk of seniors making $25,000, $17,000, $18,000. In West Virginia the average is $10,700 a year. They are already spending 21 percent of their income on health care. They do not have a margin. They do not have room for more. People always assume that somehow the Democrats are just being silly and soft because they assume that seniors can pay more. Some seniors should pay more, and high-income seniors probably should. That should be worked out as a package, dealing with the whole Medicare Program, in exactly the kind of Medicare commission that Senator Dole proposes and which I support. Mr. President, for my constituents in West Virginia, ``more'' is a very scary word. Last year I talked about Geno Maynard, Sue Lemaster, and John and Betty Shumate. Geno Maynard is 78 years old and lives in Kenova, WV; Sue Lemaster, is a 83 year old who lives in Follansbee; and John and Betty Shumate are Medicare beneficiaries who live in Beckley. They're 4 of the 330,000 West Virginians who depend on the Medicare Program for health care, and they all told me that they were worried. They quite flatly told me, they do not have any more money to spend on health care. It's a big worry for millions of other seniors all over America. On average, seniors already spend 21 percent of their incomes on health care expenses. Mr. President, it is a year later and I still cannot tell my constituents how much more they would have to pay under the Republican plan. I can only say that according to reliable health experts and the Republican-appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, they are going to have to pay more for their health care. Mr. President, in addition to tight budget caps, the Republican plan also assumes enactment of some very dangerous programmatic changes. For example, Mr. President, the Republican plan assumes elimination of current law balance billing protections for senior citizens. Medicare currently prohibits health care providers from price gouging. Health care providers are banned from charging Medicare patients more than 15 percent above what Medicare pays them. This is an incredibly important financial protection that we enacted in 1989--on a bipartisan basis--as a part of physician payment reform. Prior to enactment of balance billing protections, seniors spent over $2 billion a year on out-of- pocket balance billing charges. Last year, I offered an amendment during the Finance Committee's mark-up of the Republican Medicare bill that would make sure beneficiaries would continue to have the same financial protections that they have under current Medicare law. My amendment was defeated on a strict party line vote. This is just one more example of how the Republican plan will insidiously destroy the Medicare Program. Mr. President, there are plenty of other examples. To name just one more: A Medicare medical savings account proposal that actually costs the Medicare Program $4 billion a year; and will further weaken the Medicare trust fund. The New York Times reported that according to ``many experts'' MSA's would lead to the ``balkanization of healthy and sick.'' Let us not forget that the Medicare Program is an incredible success when it comes to access. Seniors are the only group of Americans who enjoy universal coverage. If Medicare is cut by unprecedented amounts of money to pay for anything but Medicare, the consequences will be disastrous for health care providers and beneficiaries. Mr. President, the bigger problem that we all continue to skirt around is the long-term solvency of the Medicare trust fund. When the baby boomers begin to retire in 2011, the Medicare Program will be severely, severely strained. I proposed a Greenspan-like commission last year to try to take this debate out of the political arena. The American Hospital Association also thinks a commission is necessary to force action to improve the short-term and long-term solvency of the trust fund. Hospitals have plenty of reason to worry. Not only are their bills paid from the part A trust fund, but the American Hospital Association estimates that the new Republican budget cuts hospital payments 20 percent more than last year's Republican budget. As a result of these larger hits to hospitals, ``hospitals are likely to experience actual reductions in payment rates,'' not just reductions in the rate of Medicare revenue growth. The Prospective Payment Review Commission [ProPAC]--a nonpartisan commission that advises Congress on hospital payment issues--has issued a stern warning about the severe negative effect massive Medicare reductions will have on hospitals. In my own State, over 50 percent of all our senior citizens live in rural areas. How far are they going to have to travel to get basic hospital care if their local, rural hospital is forced to shut its doors? Mr. President, the solvency of the Medicare trust fund is too important of an issue to be left to politics-as-usual. Thirty-seven million Americans rely on the Medicare Program to pay for their health care services. The Republicans' suggestion that the Democrats are uninterested in doing what is necessary to put Medicare on sound financial footing is preposterous. It was Republicans in Congress who voted against Medicare's creation in 1965--and it is now Republicans in this Congress who pose a real threat to Medicare's future. They will keep on saying they are saving Medicare, but raiding Medicare is no way to rescue it.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Presiding Officer. Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I simply ask the Senator from Massachusetts, when he was referring to the 1993 Budget Reconciliation Act--where I think we reduced Medicare expenditures because that had to be done, but we did it consistent with beneficiary purposes--the Senator brought up the point that we did not get a single Republican vote. It was a stunning moment. I will never forget it. I was sitting right over there. We had to get every single Democrat to let that effort to improve Medicare survive. I do not understand that. I do not understand the inconsistency of that. If they are for trying to do something about Medicare now, why, 3 years ago, was there a total lack of interest, with no mention of Medicare trust fund health at that time?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, I do, and I am also confounded, frankly, by the sense of its stupidity. It is not just obscene, it is stupid. The American people have rejected the idea of tax cuts for the wealthy. That was rejected, and then they come right back again for the same thing. Maybe there has been more emphasis in the House than here, but nevertheless, there is this tremendous desire for tax cuts for the wealthy. They have to have those tax cuts, and the Medicare beneficiaries just take second place. I was stunned when I heard the Senator say, ``this is the anniversary of the invasion of Normandy and for those people, let them fall where they might.''

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I thank the Presiding Officer. I want to continue some of the thoughts of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, who has incredible knowledge of this history, over 30 years in the development and nondevelopment of health care policy. Might I ask the Presiding Officer how much time I have in order to speak?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Department of Veterans Affairs Voluntary Service [VAVS]. Its half-century of caring for veterans and their families in communities across the country has generated more than 440 million hours of service and introduced millions of citizens to the fulfillment and satisfaction of volunteering. VAVS was born in the burgeoning, postwar VA medical system as VA hospital administrators sought a way to organize the spontaneous volunteer movements that developed in communities near military and VA hospitals. From the start, VA officials recognized this volunteer movement as a natural adjunct to the quality of health care provided veterans. In April 1946, under the leadership of General Omar Bradley, then head of VA, representatives of eight national veterans and service organizations met in Washington, DC, to form a national advisory committee. The result of the meeting was a plan through which both community organizations and individuals could participate in volunteering and help manage those volunteer programs locally and nationally through advisory committees. That plan was approved May 17, 1946, the birth date of the VA Voluntary Service. Today, there are 60 major veteran, civic, and service organizations participating on the National Advisory Committee, with more than 350 other national and community organizations supporting VAVS. Still based in the VA health care system, VA volunteers have expanded with that system into every area of patient care and support, and have followed the VA mission into community settings such as hospice programs, foster care, hospital-based home care, veterans outreach centers, homeless veterans programs, and special events for the disabled. In addition, community volunteers work increasingly with VA's other service delivery venues such as benefits offices and national cemeteries. VAVS volunteers have been particularly active in supporting community programs aimed at reaching and serving the homeless. These 1-to-3 day events offer a variety of services to the homeless, and VA resources focus on assisting veterans, who make up at least one-third of the homeless male population in a typical community. Volunteers have also become an integral part of the system of national and local showcase events aimed at introducing persons with disabilities back to mainstream activities. These include the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games--the largest wheelchair athletic meet in the world-- the National Disabled Veterans Golden Age Games, and the National Disabled Veterans Creative Arts Festival. Corporate volunteers play a strong role in these events and have become elemental to their success. Growing participation from the corporate sector is setting the pace for the future of VAVS, along with a strong and growing youth volunteer program that is introducing teenagers and college students to careers as well as to community service. The focus remains as it was in those early post-World War II years, responding to each community's desire to put its veterans first. That's why last year, volunteers contributed a total of 14,021,586 hours of service through VAVS programs, 12,649,676 of which came from 93,821 regularly scheduled volunteers. Numbers do not tell the real story, however. There is no way to calculate a community's caring and sharing with some of its most important citizens. For 50 years, VAVS has been there to channel that caring in a productive, meaningful way.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, in responding, first of all, I say to my friend from Michigan, this is a resolution of the Congress as opposed to hard law. This is, I think, something by which the Senator is trying to express his views. Just a few moments ago I went through the policy aspects of why this had all happened. As the Senator from Michigan indicated, before 1980 it was divided between part A and part B, and then I described the conditions at that time. I described what the Congress did after that to improve Medicare's home health care benefit--remove the 100-day limit and the 3-day hospitalization requirement, and, as a result, financing of all home health care services were shipped into part A. Then I said, even though part A was never intended to pay for long-term home health care benefits, and then I went on to say that the President's proposal restores the financing of the home health care benefit back to the Congress' original intent. So much for the policy. I think, frankly, that it is all right to talk about the politics of this issue. Mr. President, we did not hear anything about this issue last year. I guess that is because back then the Republicans were proposing it. In fact, every single House Republican who voted for last year's Republican budget voted in favor of a very similar transfer of funding for home health care. I am talking about the politics because I am trying to question the underlying meaning of this resolution. So the Republicans now say that the home health care financing shift is a shell game. But they have played the game themselves. I have been talking about the House. The Senate Republicans also voted in favor of shifting money between part B and part A to improve the solvency of the hospital trust fund. In fact, during markup in the Finance Committee, Senator Nickles offered an amendment which the Republicans adopted that deposited part B money into part A trust funds to improve the solvency of the part A trust fund. The only policy behind Senator Nickles' proposal was to provide political cover, if I may say so, in that they were trying to hide that they were using Medicare money to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, but the public, as I indicated, saw through that aspect of it. Mr. President, last year, the Republicans said that they wanted the President to submit a budget that was certified by the CBO as being in balance after 7 years. The President has done that. In addition, Dr. June O'Neill, as I said a moment ago, has certified that the President's plan extends solvency of the trust fund to the year 2005. So there is no difference. It achieves the same level of solvency but without the drastic hospital cuts that the Republicans are proposing. I believe the President's policy has merit. So did the Republicans last year. I urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, I want to say one sentence and then yield the remainder of my time. The Senate GOP resolution and the Clinton budget both achieve the same short-term solvency. Dr. June O'Neill has certified that the Hospital trust fund will be solvent until the year 2005 under the President's plan. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. I say to my friend that is approximately 22 minutes from now. Medicare is a pretty important subject. There may be people who want to speak. On the other hand, part of the deal around here is that if you want to say something you have to be here. Can I assume that maybe by 8:30 or 9 o'clock we could vote?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, might I ask a question of the distinguished Senator from Michigan? If this amendment which is about trying to restore $50 billion to Medicare, is it the intention of the majority that we will discuss but not vote or that we will vote tonight?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. There were many more insurance plans than Blue Cross-Blue Shield involved at that time. I just ask the Senator to contemplate the difference between the 25 to 29--and yes, there might be 30 on the one hand--as compared to the one that the Senator as president and chairman of the corporation which he ran picked out on behalf of his employees.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Will the Senator yield for a closing thought?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. That the Senator and this Senator and all those who work for the Federal Government have, in fact, between 25 and 29 different plans that they can choose from every single year. I have watched my daughter go through this process of spreading out the different programs, sitting on the floor cross-legged, and just looking at all of these 29 different programs spread out before her, 29 different options of health care which she gets to choose from. With Blue Cross-Blue Shield, through that arrangement, she pays them, she can pick her doctor, she can pick her service. She can reject one thing from one year to another. But the choice is hers. The point I would like to loudly insert in this debate is that the Senator in mandating for his employees what they will have. And, indeed, it occurs to me that that is a mandate. That is an entirely different situation from Federal employees, or those in the alliances that were contemplated in the Clinton health care plan. Through their joint purchasing power, they could have in fact a great variety of programs that would be spread before them. In fact, the Federal intervention that came in was from something called a Federal Quality Board which was made up of medical experts who would certify that any health plans that were being offered to the public through alliances or otherwise would have to be certified as being qualified and of high quality. One of the great complaints one hears across the land today in America from physicians, hospitals and persons conversant in health care public policy is that the word ``quality'' is rapidly disappearing from the discussion, if not the practice of medicine.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. If I could continue my point, I say to the Senator.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. If I might then just go back for a moment to the thoroughly savaged Clinton health care plan on the floor this evening, which, as I indicated is now a part of history. One of the things that the Senator is now able to do, if he in fact takes the trouble to do this, under the so-called Government health insurance program, which I would submit is hardly Government, because, for example, I have a Blue Cross-Blue Shield card, and the last I heard Blue Cross-Blue Shield was a private insurance company----

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Whether certain services were offered in that program or not.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. That is a very powerful statement. What that basically says is that the employees were denied any choice as to whether or not, for example, their doctor happened to be included in that program or not.

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. The Senator--and I apologize to my colleagues because we are no longer debating this amendment, which is about restoring $50 billion in Republican cuts to Medicare. That is what will be, hopefully, voted up later. But when the Senator said, ``I ran a company, and I decided what my employees were going to get. I made the decision''----

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. If the Senator will yield?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Would the Senator yield?

Mr. ROCKEFELLER. This amendment is about restoring $50 billion that was cut by the Republicans from Medicare. That is what my amendment is about. That is kind of what I would like our discussion to be about.