Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. The other nations, in fact, are free to import into this country without complying with the same requirements that our fishermen are at great disadvantage?

Mr. TAUZIN. Is there a law right now that requires that imported shrimp caught in other countries brought into America in competition with shrimp produced here in America has to abide by any of these regulations?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. I would like to compliment the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. TAUZIN. The reason there are no lawsuits filed is no mandatory provision in the law. I cannot file a lawsuit [[Page H 10227]] today to tell the agency it must do something the law said it did not have to do. The reason there is no lawsuit from one gear type to the other is because we do not have your amendment. With your amendment, I can guarantee there will be wars, litigation, many more lawsuits. If you do not believe it, talk to the folks who operate all the gear. They complain every day about their allotments. They think their type of fishing ought to be the best one, the one that gets the most allotment. There will be lawsuits every day in that case. You will be in lawsuits and your friends on the environmental side trying to stop the fisheries completely, and saying the agency should have had a habitat plan that locked it up. There will be lawsuits from every side of this issue, and I suggest to you that is the last thing that we need. We need more help and cooperation, less lawsuits.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, sir, the TED's are not a by-catch issue. The TED's are an endangered species issue, and that kind of confusion has caused more trouble on our debates on this bill than has helped. I want to straighten that out. This is not a TED's issue. This is not a TED's issue. This is a question of whether or not this feature of the law, which is discretionary, is going to become a mandatory feature in this area, and I urge you not to make it mandatory, because you will have gear wars and litigation unending in this area, where currently the administration and the agencies have the discretion to do the right thing when they need to do it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Let me try to answer, yes, indeed, there are many more gear types out there. But if you make this feature a mandatory portion of the law, every one of those new and inventive gear types will be suing to ensure they get a better allotment out of the fisheries plan than the other plan and suing on the basis that council did not follow the mandates of the law now in this area. Currently, the councils have discretion. They can do everything you want them to do in this amendment, and they can do it without all the lawsuits. What you are going to do is have a multiplicity of lawsuits. You will have gear wars going on, which we cannot afford. Give these councils the tools without mandating them into lawsuits is what the current law does, and I urge you not to change it.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thought the gentleman had a question.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Let me try to set the record straight. The current law has this language in the discretionary section. Current law is that the ability of the agency is discretionary in this area. The gentleman's amendment would change current law to make this requirement mandatory upon the agency in every fisheries plan. Now, why is that a bad idea? It is a bad idea for a number of reasons. We are in the throes today of an attempt to reform our Superfund laws because of the fact that when we originally wrote the Superfund laws, we created such a litigation problem that the law has wasted billions of dollars on litigation. Everyone sues, everyone complains, everyone challenges each other under that law. Please, let us not make that same mistake in this important act. The amendment offered by the gentleman putting this language into the mandatory section invites those kinds of lawsuits. By whom? Who is going to file a lawsuit if this language is put under the mandatory section? I will tell you who: competing gear types. If there are two kinds of fisheries out there, one which has an allocation that it does not think is fair, another which has an allocation it would like to get, you can bet there would be a lawsuit filed on this particular mandatory section, and the two gear types will be in litigation over this bill. But let me tell you of an even more important reason why this should not, this amendment, should not be adopted. Current law is working very well. Anyone who tries to say current law is not working well has simply not observed the facts. The facts are that the councils do have the authority today and use that authority where essentially important to restrict damaging gear types in their management plans. They have the authority and have used it to protect sensitive habitat areas such as nurseries and hatcheries from fishing types. They have that authority. They use it. For us to change the law to make it mandatory simply invites someone to test whether or not they have used their authority correctly or incorrectly in court every time a council moves. I live on the gulf coast, as do many of the members of our committee live near the coastal areas. We have an important fisheries--25 percent of all the commercial fish landings in America come off the coast of Louisiana. We have incredible nursing grounds. We understand that relationship. Our councils work, in fact, to restrict fishing and fishing gear types when, in fact, there is good evidence those fishing stocks are in any kind of difficulty. They use the discretionary features of this law quite well. We complain sometimes about the science they use, but the fact is that councils are working quite well. For those of you who want to change the law, and that is what this amendment does, for those of you who want to change this law to make this mandatory, will mean from now on every time our council makes a decision in Louisiana waters, you can bet there will be a lawsuit filed from some other fishermen in some other States. There is a great contest for some of these species. Red snapper, for example, is a very desirable species. It is one that is regulated by the councils. The Florida fishermen used to be in Louisiana waters in droves until the council took some actions to regulate the kind of fishing that occurred in the red snapper industry. You can bet that if there is a mandatory feature in this act, the moment the council moves to do anything in that fishery in Louisiana waters that does not please the Florida fishermen, there will be a lawsuit filed. If they do not do something that somebody else wants them to do under this mandatory section, there will be a lawsuit filed. There will be lawsuits like Superfund lawsuits coming out of our ears, and the bottom line is that this fisheries councils system will begin to do what our Superfund has done: waste money in courts, encourage gear fights and wars, encourage fights between States when right now we are trying to cooperate across State boundaries on the outer continental shelf and will, in fact, destroy what is currently a good and discretionary feature of the law that is working quite well. I urge Members not to change it.

Mr. TAUZIN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to compliment the gentleman from Massachusetts for doing such a great job of making sure the TED's regulations stopped at the Carolinas, since he has done such a great job of complimenting me.

Mr. TAUZIN. Think about it.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Again, you have put it so well. Here we are talking about a family that cannot even afford to buy their own health care they are at such a low income, struggling. Yet our law now requires them to subsidize, through their taxes, the health care premiums of the wealthy in America. That does not make sense when you talk about part B voluntary programs. You can make an argument, as we have all made the argument, that when it comes to part A, all of us who work in America owe our part A contributions to make sure that part A is solvent. That is maintained in this plan. But to say that working Americans, who cannot afford medical care insurance for their own doctors for their children, and who do not even have coverage for their family, who have to go, if you will, to Hill Burton coverage, or the good graces and charity of their physician for health care, to say to them we are going to ask you to pick up the part B premium for people earning $150,000 or more for next year is a little unfair. If ever there was an unfairness in a system, I think we have found it. We correct that unfairness in this bill. One of many features of this bill that I think Americans should look at instead of reading the fear tactics put out by the other side.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman. I think I know where the problem is. The problem is that, No. 1, the Democrats who do not like our plan would prefer to call us mean spirited and create all these fear tactics, and Republicans who are upset with the Democrats for not coming up with a plan would like to believe that the Democrats do not want to save Medicare. I do not think either of those arguments are true. I really do not. I think Medicare is sacred to all of us here. I think the other side should be given credit that they do not want Medicare to go bankrupt, but their solution will not sell anymore. Their solution is either raise taxes some more or borrow some more money. Do not try to control the cost or the waste, fraud, and abuse, just raise taxes some more or borrow some more money. I want to end, before I yield back to my friend from California on that note. I was raised to believe that it was the job of parents in America to try to leave some patrimony to their children, to try to leave them a base, a foundation upon which to build their future. I was raised to believe that. I think most of us in this country were raised to believe that. But the most awful crime occurring in our country today, if all the other [[Page H 10059]] crimes were lumped together, they are misdemeanors compared to this great felony. The greatest felony in America today is the fact we in America today, our generation, is now not simply living on our income, we are now living on the income of our children and our children's children yet to be born. We are living at such a deficit rate that our grandchildren and children will have to endure an 80 percent real tax rate on their earnings to pay for our debt. We are not leaving our kids any inheritance anymore; we are leaving them mortgages and we should be ashamed. If there is one felony we ought to end in this Congress, in this country, it is the notion that we can live off our children's income forever, that it does not come due one day, that somebody does not have to pay that bill one day. What we are trying to do this year is to say beginning through this year into the next 7 years we will put Medicare in solvency again, we will put the budget in balance, we will quit living off our children's income and we will do it in a way that protects our seniors and gives respect and due credit to the workers of America who are trying to fund this system and make it work. What a great challenge. What a great challenge. Is it worth some political heat? You bet you. You bet you. Is it worth getting a little political stain on you because you get hit and accused and abused through the process? Of course. Do I care whether or not anybody's politics is helped or hurt by this? Not a bit. What I care about and I hope you care about is at the end of this process we cure Medicare for America, we make it solvent again, we balance this budget in 7 years and we end this awful felony of living off our children and our grandchildren's income. Shame on us for letting that continue for one more year. Blessings upon us if we can do it in this 7-year period. It will take at least that long, but we ought to be about that business today. We ought to be about it as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans. We should be about it as parents who love our kids enough to leave them something better than a great debt they cannot pay.

Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman will allow me, he proposed saving $127 billion, but on the same baseline that our calculations are made, his number is really $192 billion. The President himself said we need to save at least $192 billion in spending, the bleeding that is occurring in the system, to save it from bankruptcy. Our number is $270 billion. His number is $192 billion. We are not that far apart. The President understands bankruptcy is about to happen in Medicare. We have to cut the waste, fraud, and abuse, the spending driving it into bankruptcy, as quickly as we can. It does not take Band-Aids, it takes real reform.

Mr. TAUZIN. The gentleman makes a great point that we need to emphasize. The Democratic Party finally came with some alternative. They finally said this week, here is what we would do. What they would do would be to cut the spending, the bleeding in the program, by only $90 billion. What that does is that just delays the bankruptcy. It is like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound and say all you have to do is pump.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to start this discussion by laying something on the table that I think ought to be a predicate to all the discussions we have, a precedent. The first thing I think we ought to put on the table for everyone to consider is that no Democrat, no Republican, has a greater claim to loving their parents and their grandparents than anyone else in this body. No one can credibly make an argument that because they are a member of one party or the other, they love their parents or grandparents more than a member of the other party. This is not about parties. We should love our parents and grandparents enough to make sure that the Medicare system is not only solvent for the next 7 years but is solvent for as long as we can possibly see into the future. It is that important. My mother is a cancer survivor twice, survived breast cancer surgery in 1961, survived lung cancer surgery in 1980. She is a miracle, a product of the miracles of medicine. I consider her my miracle mom. She is still around. She is celebrating her birthday this week at the Senior Olympics in Baton Rouge, in her two favorite categories, shot put and javelin, believe it or not. She is doing great. She is one of the incredible success stories of our Medicare program, of our health care system. No one in this body can dare lay claim to the notion that they love their parents or grandparents any more than any one of us in this body, regardless of party. That ought to be the first principle. The second principle ought to be that all of us recognize what the President said, that he and his trustees have said, that if we do not do something dramatic and immediate, the Medicare system will go bankrupt in 7 years. Now, I expect my mother to be around longer than 7 years. I do not want that bankruptcy to occur for her, not for your mother, not for anybody's mother or father or grandfather. The second principle that we all ought to agree on, regardless of our disputes, is that we cannot let that happen. We cannot let this system that has cared for my mother and yours go into bankruptcy in 7 years. The third principle I want to put on the table as we begin this discussion is that the President himself has recognized the need for an immediate and dramatic action to stem the bleeding of money from this system, the tripling of inflationary costs in health care, to Medicare, the waste, the fraud, the abuse in that system--they estimate 10 percent of the dollars we spend in Medicare is nothing but waste and fraud and abuse. The President has recognized we have to put an end to that. He has recommended $192 billion of reforms in that area. We have recommended $270 billion. The President said in 1993 that for the system to continue at three times the rate of inflation is intolerable. He said in 1993, the President, Bill Clinton said, ``I will recommend reducing the growth of spending in Medicare dramatically and in Medicaid. This will not be a cut. Don't let people tell you it is a cut. We simply have to reduce this incredible rate of spending to save the system.'' That was the President's words in 1993. We have some agreement there. We ought to have agreement in this body on those same three principles. One, we all equally love our parents and grandparents; two, we all ought to be committed to saving Medicare from bankruptcy; and, three, we can agree, from this body to the Senate to the White House, on a plan to rescue it.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman for his statements. I guess maybe the gentleman has put his finger on it. The last thing we ought to do is try to scare seniors today. They have enough to worry about. We all ought to be trying to calm these fears. We ought to be talking about our debate, of course, on how to resolve it; it ought to be a good debate. But we ought to all talk about those three principles I talk about. We love you enough to try to keep Medicare solvent, and we will do whatever it takes in working with the White House to come up with an eventual solution that saves it from bankruptcy. That ought to be the theme. These fear tactics ought to be put aside. We ought to work for the good of this country instead of for the good of somebody's politics today. I yield to my doctor friend from Florida.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank my friends from California and Florida for what I think is a very useful hour. Let me say it again: The Washington Post, what most people consider a very liberal editorial page, said it very clearly. But I want to caution, if you want to get educated on the Medicare proposal before the Congress, do not count on the newspapers or anybody else to educate yourself. Try to educate yourselves and be in touch with us. Write to us, call us, ask for information, as you always do, come to town hall meetings. We will continue to share that information here on the floor as freely as we can. Let me say again, our plan mandates no one to leave Medicare. They can stay in it if they like, and it will grow from $4,800 per recipient to $6,700 over 7 years. It is good reform that saves Medicare for a whole generation, not just for the next election, and that is important. It is a plan I think we ought to be debating, as the gentleman from California says, in a way that does not pit the White House against the Congress, or Democrats against Republicans, in this awful kind of political warfare. It is one where we all ought to recognize we all love our parents and grandparents, we love them enough to behave ourselves around here, instead of acting like children, and to come to some mature decisions about how to save this program and make it endure for the good of the seniors of America, while respecting the legitimate interests of taxpayers that want to make sure the wasteful spending in this system is curtailed as rapidly as possible. This is a great challenge for the country this year. I hope we are up to it. I hope seniors are calm and cool and deliberative as they look at these programs. If there is something wrong in what we are proposing, I hope they suggest changes that make sense that we can incorporate into it. The last thing we need is demonstrations and disruptions like we saw in the Committee on Commerce organized by lobbyists paid exclusively by Federal funds. The last thing we need are scare tactics. What we need is honest, truthful debate of the facts, and then coming to terms as Americans, not as party members, but as Americans, to save this incredibly important system for those we love so dearly, and who created the path upon which all of us have walked. I want to remind you of something. All of us owe so much to the seniors who came before us. All of us owe so much. They did not leave us with a big debt, they gave us a lot. We ought to not leave our children with a great debt, and we ought to honor and love our mothers and fathers enough to take care of them in their senior years [[Page H 10060]] with a program that does not go bankrupt because we did not have the political courage to debate it as mature adults. I again want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Kim] and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].

Mr. TAUZIN. It is important I think for us to answer some of those accusations right up front. First, are we forcing anybody out of Medicare? The answer is no. Our plan says if you want to stay under the traditional Medicare fee-for-service, you choose your own doctor, choose your own hospital, you continue as my mother has under the Medicare program, you can continue under the current Medicare program as long as you want to. I will say it again. You can stay in Medicare as long as you want to. Will there be increases in the benefits over the next 7 years in our plan if you stay in Medicare? The answer is yes. We will increase the benefits per beneficiary from about $4,800 a person on average to $6,700 a person on average over the next 7 years. So if you are like my mother, you like Medicare and want to stay there, you can and your benefits increase over the next 7 years by almost $2,000. So do not believe this awful fear tactic that we are somehow cutting the benefits to Medicare beneficiaries. Neither are we forcing anybody out of the Medicare system as they knew it. I will tell you the other good news. What about the case if a Medicare beneficiary decides to choose one of these new plans and then does not like it? Guess what, under our plan if you choose it and do not like it, you can go right back into Medicare. In the first 2 years you can do that on a 60, 90-day turnover. You can try a plan and go right back to Medicare. After that you sign up for 1 year at a time. You will get to do what Members of Congress get to do; you get to choose from among plans. Do you remember when Hillary Clinton was presenting her national health care plan and they argued on television that we ought to give Americans the same option people in Congress have to choose different plans? Well, guess what? Under our Medicare proposal, seniors can stay in Medicare like it is, if they like it, or they can choose another plan, exactly what Hillary was recommending for every American. Third, if you do not like the plan you choose, under our plan you can move back into Medicare any time you want to during the first 2 years and every year thereafter at election date when it is time for you to choose. Guess what else? Seniors are not going to have to use vouchers and go buy these plans. The truth is seniors are going to have a booklet sent out to them in plain English, same way we get one every year, that explains the options to you, that tells you what you can choose and what you can try, and then if you do not like that you can switch back to the Medicare the next year or during that first 2-year period. That is a pretty good deal. When I went to my mother last weekend and she asked me what we are doing in this thing and I explained it to her, I said Mom would you like to have some option. She said I like Medicare just like it is. I said you can stay there, but would you not like to know you have the same options that we have in the private sector, that Members of Congress have under our Blue Cross plan? Would you not like to know you can move from one plan to another if there is a plan better than the one you are in and that you can go back to Medicare if you do not like the one you choose? She said, well, that makes a lot of sense. I said, yes, it really does. If Americans hear what is really in the plan instead of what they are being told about it by those who simply wanted to create fear out there, if they hear what is really in the plan, most senior citizens say, wow, somebody is finally giving us a choice, somebody is finally giving us a chance to choose what others in our society can choose, better private plans if they are better for us, and if they are not we can stay in basic Medicare as we know it.

Mr. TAUZIN. That is correct.

Mr. TAUZIN. One out of four. Mr. Kim, you have put your finger on it again. Every time I go to a townhall meeting, I am always asked by someone in the audience the same question. Why do not you Members of Congress spend our money as carefully as you would spend your own? Why do you allow bureaucrats to waste 10 percent of the money that is needed for health care for the senior citizens of America? How do you put up with that? Why do you let it happen? Why do you not be more careful with our taxpayer dollars, as careful as you would be with your own dollars? The truth is it is harder when you are spending someone else's money to be as careful as when you are spending your own. You have to work a little harder. So guess what? In this bill we are putting in more antifraud, waste and abuse procedures; we are putting in more ability of Americans to help us root out the waste, fraud and abuse in this system than this system has ever seen. I want to tell people about what is in this bill that you will not hear from the other side. First, everybody knows about the IRS system. If there is somebody cheating on the IRS and you report them, you are entitled to a bonus. Do you know that? If someone is not paying their fair share so that the rest of us have to keep seeing increases in our taxes, any citizen can report an IRS violation and there is a bounty system under the IRS to reward those who report fraud and abuse in the IRS system. Well, guess what? The new bill will install the similar type system for every senior citizen who catches a bill coming to them, who catches a waste, fraud and abuse situation and reports it to HCFA. Let me be specific. [[Page H 10057]] How many seniors have told us that when we get that bill back, the Medicare bill back that is being submitted to the Government, and say, wait a minute, I do not remember having that service, I do not remember that test, I do not remember this being done? How many have told us that? If a senior suspects they are being charged for something that did not happen and the taxpayers are having to foot the bill, there is no real incentive now to report it because somebody else paid it. But now the seniors will have the same incentive that every taxpayer has to root out fraud and abuse and report it. There will be a reward for seniors who help us find fraud and abuse. Second, the bill doubles the penalties on people who defraud this system. Let me say it again. We double the penalties on people who defraud this system. We make it mandatory that any provider under this system that defrauds the seniors of this country and the taxpayers of this country is forbidden to provide services under the Medicare system for a minimum of 3 years. Mandatory. That is not in current law. We provide a doubling of the penalties and a mandatory 3 years you are out of the system if you dare defraud seniors any more. Fourth, we put together a coordinated antifraud and abuse system like we never had before. We give to the Secretary the power which the Justice Department now has to work with people who will turn states evidence and help us root out other fraud, waste and abuse cases. We cannot afford the billions of dollars that are going into this rat hole of waste, fraud and abuse any longer. So when you hear from the other side that this bill is somehow kind of lax on waste, fraud and abuse, just do not believe them. You know what CBO said. CBO scores our work. CBO does the objective analysis that is done on every bill that comes before this House. It tells us what a bill does financially. CBO said we will pick up at least $2 billion in extra collections from waste, fraud and abuse by some of the measures we put in. There is a potential to pick up a lot more. We think there could be as much as $50, $100 billion eventually picked up if we begin to root out the 10 percent of waste, fraud and abuse in this system. So we are going after it, Mr. Kim, finally. We are going after it not just for the taxpayers but for the seniors who want their program to be here after 7 years, who do not want it bankrupt and who want the dollars we spend, the precious dollars we spend to go to their health care and not to this awful system of waste, fraud, and abuse.

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the gentleman, and let me emphasize again what the gentleman added. The bill contains a hot line system for the first time. So citizens who find waste, fraud and abuse on their forms, they do not have to report it to somebody locally who may lose it; you can call directly to a hotline in D.C. We will also have a system whereby the Secretary puts out fraud abuse alerts, so if there is something going on they pick up in the marketplace out there, where fraudulent practice is occurring, they can notify seniors to watch out for this, there is something going on out there, help us root it out. In other words, we are beginning to build in this bill a partnership between the seniors who receive the services and who very often see the fraud and abuse firsthand and those who run the program and the taxpayers who are footing the bill. That kind of partnership means that we may end up with a much better, more solvent system. That is worth fighting for.