Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House on the impact of this budget in the health area, particularly when it comes to Medicaid and Medicare. Mr. Chairman, I want to point out to the previous speaker and others who these Medicare recipients are. They are not rich people. Over three-fourths of them have incomes less than $25,000. They are people who are dependent on their Social Security checks. Thirty percent of older Americans rely on Social Security for some 80 percent of their incomes. A majority of older Americans rely on Social Security for at least half of their income. If this Republican budget is adopted, the typical Medicare beneficiary is going to see almost 50 percent of their Social Security cost-of-living increases eaten up by increased Medicare cost sharing and premiums by the year 2002. Two million Americans who are on the Medicare Program would lose their whole cost of living increase under Social Security simply to pay their additional Medicare costs as a result of this budget. Are my Republican colleagues going to say to their constituents, that is not really a cut in their Social Security check? Are they going to argue then that even though the cost of living has gone up and their Social Security check has not, that they are not worse off? There is something else about the Medicare beneficiaries that our Republican colleagues seem to forget. They are people who need a lot of health care. That is particularly true the older they get. When they get old and when they get sick, insurance companies do not seem to want them. The fastest growing group of Medicare beneficiaries are people over 85 years of age, the disabled, and people with end stage renal disease. No wonder Medicare expenditures are growing. It costs money to be sick. They also seem to forget that people on Medicare pay a lot for their health care right now. The average elderly household pays 12 percent of its income for health care right now, and that is over 3 times as much as younger families pay. They pay Medicare premiums and deductibles, Medigap premiums. They pay for prescription drugs which are not covered under Medicare, and they spend about $2,750 out of pocket right now. Yet this budget will require them to pay more. A Medicare beneficiary will have to pay nearly $1,000 dollars more out of pocket for their Medicare services in 2002 and over the life of this budget. Medicare beneficiaries are going to help balance the budget by coughing up some $3,500 in extra dollars to pay for their Medicare services. This budget is very bad news for these people. I urge its rejection.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans say they want to save the Medicare Program, and they promised not to cut Social Security. What they are doing is using the Medicare trust fund to bankroll tax cuts for the wealthy. Make no mistake about it, cuts in Medicare amount to cuts in Social Security. The typical Medicare beneficiary will spend 40 percent to 50 percent of the cost of living increases in Social Security for increases in the Medicare costs they will incur. Cuts in Medicare amount to cuts in Social Security. Social Security accounts for half or more of the annual incomes for a majority of elderly. More than 30 percent of older Americans rely on Social Security for 80 percent or more of their income. The typical Medicare beneficiary by 2002 will see 40 to 50 percent of their Social Security COLA eaten up by increases in Medicare cost-sharing and premium. They are not keeping their promises. Numbers do not lie. Listen to these numbers when you see these relatively well-off young Republican Members of the House tell us that seniors are going to be better off.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, this issue that we have before us is not a new one. The Competitiveness Council under Vice President Quayle tried to define, redefine, wetlands in very much the same way that H.R. 961 does, and at that time Governor Wilson from the State of California did a very smart thing. He asked State officials to assess the impact of this new definition on California. He wrote, because he was so alarmed, on December 13, 1991, to President Bush to protest the wetlands definition of the Competitiveness Council, essentially the same definition in this bill. And he said, ``This would cause irreparable damage to the State's natural resource base.'' He found that definition we are considering today would eliminate half of California's wetlands. In southern California, the State biologists found the coastal wetlands would be reduced by 75 percent. Half of San Francisco's bay tidal marshes, which are essential habitats for numerous fish species, would also lose protection. He asked that we have a National Academy of Sciences study, and that report is now before us, and now this study is being ignored. For years we have heard opponents of environmental protection in this body talk about the need for sound science. When we passed H.R. 9 earlier this year, legislation that rolls back 25 years of environmental protection, we were told that we were acting in the name of sound science. When we debated a whole host of bills, opponents of environmental protection gave impassioned and eloquent lectures on the need for sound science. In my remarks in the Record I am going to quote back some of the statements made by our colleagues. Apparently many Members want sound science only if it matches their political views. What we have today is a new political correctness that has captured this House. The National Academy of Sciences, our Nation's premier scientific organization, has completed a rigorous and comprehensive analysis and concluded that H.R. 961 does not reflect good science. The bill's sponsors react to this news not by amending their bill and accepting the Gilchrest amendment but by denouncing the National Academy of Sciences. The message is clear. This Congress will accept sound science only if the science fits its political agenda. I think that is wrong, and that is why I am going to vote for the Gilchrest amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, this debate has nothing to do with the saving of the Medicare part A trust fund. The Republicans are looking for huge cuts in Medicare, $283 billion over 7 years, far beyond any amount that is going to be needed reasonably to extend the solvency of the part A trust fund. What is really going on here is that the Republicans' pollsters have told them if they are going to come out and cut Medicare to this extent the American people will not stand for it, so instead they have developed this ruse about the Medicare trust fund. It is very much like what went on in Vietnam. We burn down a village in order to save people. They want to burn I must say this is hypocritical. This trustee group that looks at the part A side is not the proper organization to give us the proposals for the massive cuts the Republicans are urging upon us. And we are being told that they can do it in 30 days, which is impossible. And third, they are being told to come up with proposals for these kinds of reductions in Medicare far beyond what is needed to save the trust fund. But they cannot look at the whole health care system. They cannot look at the impact of these massive cuts, not just on the elderly, but on average working Americans who are going to lose their health insurance as well. Mr. Speaker, I urge defeat of this proposal. I urge defeat of the budget that calls for these Medicare cuts, and I urge defeat of all of those who are going to go to the polls next year saying they saved Medicare by cutting it and gutting it.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. H.R. 961 is a dangerous piece of legislation for my district, which includes the beautiful Santa Monica Bay. For years the people of Los Angeles have worked to clean the bay and make it safe for swimmers, divers, and the thousands of people who eat local seafood. The city of Los Angeles, however, deserves very little credit for this. City bureaucrats have dragged their feet and done everything they could to avoid tougher controls. But our community was so committed that it overruled the bureaucrats and twice voted by overwhelming margins to stop the Los Angeles sewage system from dumping poorly treated sewage into the bay. As a result, we have spent over $2 billion to bring full secondary treatment to the Hyperion treatment plant. Let me repeat that, because it is important to understand our situation. We have already spent $2 billion to stop dangerous pollution. To complete the project, we need to spend $85 million more. Well, under this bill, we will never spend that $85 million, and we will never be able to clean up the bay. H.R. 961 would overturn our local decision and relieve the sewage system from meeting its obligation under the Clean Water Act to treat sewage. This is a bizarre situation. This Congress is going to overturn a local decision made by Los Angeles voters, and in the process throw $2 billion down the drain and condemn the Santa Monica Bay to a constant flow of sewage. Let us avoid this lunacy and vote for the Pallone amendment. Let me point out the anomaly here. Unless we have EPA insisting that the decisions be made to protect the Santa Monica Bay, the publicly owned sewage system will not be upgraded to accomplish that result. They have dragged their feet. The local decisionmakers, the people, will be frustrated. We need the strength of the Environmental Protection Agency to be sure that the people's will is carried out. The gentlewoman from California [Ms. Harman] has indicated in her statements the points made by the assistant administrator of the EPA, where he has said in the letter to her that the bill would alter fundamentally the current processes and standards by which EPA assures that communities achieve cost-effective commonsense sewage treatment solutions. The decision that will be made in fact if this bill is not amended by the Pallone amendment would be to undermine decisions based upon sound science. It would undermine the process of the Santa Monica Bay restoration project, which has involved so many people over many years in developing comprehensive approaches to water pollution control and infrastructure investments. The key point is not to let government bureaucrats in Los Angeles decide to ignore what the people in the area want, which is secondary treatment so that we can protect Santa Monica Bay. I urge that we adopt the Pallone amendment, so that it would permit the existing law that has been pursued in making that work to succeed, and that we not let the present bill, which is being proposed today, undermine what is so important for the Santa Monica Bay and all around this country, to protect the public and to overturn the last 20 years of effort to clean up polluted waters. I urge support for the Pallone amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, they are the ones who have dragged their feet contrary to the will of the people who have had to vote twice to say they wanted this.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me the gentleman makes a very good case for San Diego and he ought to get his waiver under existing law. But the point I want to make to the gentleman, it is not in any way denigrating your case, but in our situation, the local people want the secondary treatment and the bureaucrats that are dragging their feet are local bureaucrats. So let us understand, bureaucrats are not only at the Federal level that frustrates actions that the people want.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Diego situation and the Los Angeles-Santa Monica Bay situation. Under existing law, San Diego can get a waiver, and I think you are making an excellent case for that waiver. But if this bill becomes law, places like Santa Monica Bay, which should not be excused from secondary treatment, would be disadvantaged. You are taken care of, but the bill, without the Pallone amendment, disadvantages Los Angeles and other communities around this country where good science would indicate that we ought to have the secondary treatment.

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

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the level of Medicare and Medicaid cuts would gut health care for the elderly and the poor leading to rationing of health care to those people to whom we promised health security: $400 billion over 7 years; that is a breathtaking amount. That will mean cuts in Medicaid for the frail, elderly, and nursing homes, leaving them to languish there without care, if they are lucky enough to get into a nursing home at all. Community, at-home-nursing services will be cut, denying them that assistance as well. Hundreds of hospitals and clinics will be forced to close because they will not be able to afford care to the newly under-insured as well as all the uninsured of which there are 42 million in this country, a problem the Republicans even refuse to acknowledge exists. Doctors will turn Medicare patients away as their payment levels to them start resembling those for Medicaid, and greater costs will be borne for the elderly who live on fixed incomes, Mr. Speaker, this budget is cruel, it's cynical, and it's mean.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, do I get to close on the debate?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell]. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman for his leadership in this area, and particularly for saying to the audience that may be watching this debate, we are arguing in good faith over some policy differences. I do find it startling to think that people would come in and question others' motives. Questioning people's motives just seems to me so out of place in a debate where we are trying to make the best decisions we can. We look at the insurance market today, the non-Medicare insurance market, and it is not just in anticipation of problems that may happen but most likely will not, we look at the insurance market today and it just makes more sense for an insurance company to try to offer the lowest possible price to those people that are the healthiest, and they do not really want to insure people who are going to be the sickest, because the sickest are going to cost them more money. Rather than spread the cost out across the broad population, we see a segmentation of the market and lowest prices for the healthiest. I fear that we see that reality now in regular insurance practices, that in the MediGap policies, we are going to find the same thing, the lowest price for healthier people, and then they get older and sicker, a higher price. That is why we have offered the substitute. I would like to have the gentleman's thoughts on it.

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

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Wyden]. (Mr. WYDEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) gentleman from California very interesting because many of us who support the Waxman amendment are strong supporters of 21st century Medicare that uses managed care to a much greater extent. In fact, in my community, we have one of the highest concentrations in the country of managed care participation. We have seen the future, and we know it can work. But the fact is that as part of that future, we should incorporate two principles that the Waxman amendment addresses. First and foremost, the Waxman amendment will protect the hundreds of thousands of older people in this country from rate shock. I have listened to my colleagues talk, for example, about how consumers are satisfied with Medicare slack. Of course they are, because many of them have had this product for maybe 18 months or so, under attained age pricing, and they have not seen the big rate hikes that are going to hit them down the road. Under the Waxman proposal, there is a floor of protection for older people from those rate hikes. I would urge my colleagues in the strongest way, the seniors of America do not know what is coming in the days ahead in terms of these rate hikes. The Waxman amendment offers some real protection. Second, with respect to choice, and again in our area, managed care works because there is real choice, the Waxman amendment offers more choices. Frankly, a lot of us think that is especially important now. We have got the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee saying that there are going to be 400 billion dollars' worth of cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. That will inevitably take choice from the senior citizens. The Waxman amendment again gives to older people more choices, more protection to deal with what we think is going to come in the days ahead from the other side. Finally, I would say that I have worked very closely with the gentlewoman from Connecticut often. She is a sincere and dedicated leader in the health policy field. I wish to make Medicare select work. I support managed care. My community has been a leader nationwide in this area. We can make managed care work better if we adopt the Waxman amendment so seniors across this country do not get clobbered with rate hikes that they do not expect and that we give them more real choice.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment in order to improve this legislation before us. The argument on the floor before us today is not whether we ought to have Medicare select policies or not. A number of States are already marketing these policies. It has been used on an experimental basis in those States. All of us agree that we ought to expand that to other States as well. However, our amendment would make three changes in the underlying bill. First of all, while we extend Medicare select programs to all 50 States, we would do it for a 5-year period so we can take a look, again, at that period of time to see whether this program is working the way we envision it. Second, we would in this amendment say that the Medicare select policies would not permit attained age rating that lets insurers raise rates on elderly people as they age. This is a deceptive practice that is increasingly employed to mislead consumers and make meaningful comparison between various insurance options possible. Third, the substitute allows people in restricted networks, like Medicare select plans, where they only have a panel to choose from of their health care providers, allows them to leave the Medicare select and go to a choice of provider that they may wish to have Medicare and this gap policy pay. These provisions do nothing to disturb the underlying bill. However, they are important consumer protections for the elderly, they create a level playing field for insurers, and they stabilize the market. Mr. Chairman, let me elaborate on these points. The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson], who is the original author of the bill before us, has argued that people have choices now, and we should not have any guarantee in the bill that they will have choices in the future. My concern is we do not know what the future will bring, except we have some idea of what is going on now in the competitive marketplace dealing with health insurance. As there is competition, there is competition for insurance companies to try to offer the lowest-priced plan to induce people to sign up. However, if they do not have a community rating, if they do not keep that low price for everybody except for the newcomers in their plan, as people get older, what we call attain an older age, and are therefore more likely to get sick, insurance companies can turn around and say ``You signed up a number of years ago at a certain level, but now we are going to double or triple your premiums.'' That, Members could imagine, would be a terrible thing for an elderly person who has a Medigap policy for which they now think they have security, to suddenly find that there rates have gone up so dramatically. Sometimes, however, people do not like these preferred provider organizations where they have only a certain list of physicians and health care providers to choose from. They may think it is okay when they are younger, let us say 65, but if they have some experiences later on with a specific illness where they need the expertise of someone who is not on that panel, they may want to choose to leave. I believe a fundamental value in health insurance for this country ought to be that we give people the right to choose what insurance they will have. We have offered in this substitute a guarantee that when people sign up in these Medicare select policies, that they will have a right to choose to join another Medigap plan. When people turn 65, they can sign up in any MediGap plan available. What they do not realize is if they sign on to Medicare select, unless we have this substitute adopted, in the future they may not be able to leave and go to another what is called fee-for-service or choice-of-provider plan. They will be faced with either being in the Medicare select or having to go outside of that list and then pay out of their own pockets, not only for their insurance, but they would have to pay for the costs of the doctor who is not on that panel. Let us keep in mind, we are dealing with Medicare select. It is only a very small issue in the scheme of the Medicare issues that we have already faced and are going to face in this Congress, but what we do in this instance may well become a benchmark for what we are going to do in the future. There is a lot of talk that the Republicans would like to take the Medicare program and, rather than let people have choices of doctors and other health care providers, to put them in managed care. Managed care is a reasonable option but it ought to be an option at the choice of the beneficiary, not something which they are forced into whether they like it or not. In fact, if it is only a good option when people have the ability in a free market to walk away and leave and join another alternative plan. But if they only have one choice, you can be sure that when they are captive in that one choice, that they are not going to be as important a customer, since they are a captive customer of the Medicare select plans. Members will hear in this debate about how well these Medicare select plans are doing. I do not deny they are doing well. The consumers generally seem happy in most States. Our fear is what the marketplace will look like not right now but in a couple of years. Let us put in this substitute which gives us a 5-year period in which to watch, to see how it is working; second, protect people from this sort of bait-and-switch of signing up and then finding your rates are going to double and triple because there is no protection against insurance companies raising your rates as you get older; and third, a guarantee that when you sign up in a Medicare select system, that that Medicare select system will give you an option which almost all of them do now, to choose another system, a fee-for-service system that will give you unlimited choice. This is an important consumer protection amendment. It is consistent with the idea of having Medicare select policies. I do not think anybody is arguing against the idea of Medicare select although some people may. But most Members would argue let us allow this Medicare select way of handling MediGap insurance, a supplemental insurance to Medicare, in the most consumer-oriented manner. I urge support for the substitute amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, if I might on our side conclude the debate, I would say this is an important consumer protection effort. As we go down the road of Medicare select, going from 15 States to 50, I worry about what it is going to mean for consumers who may well be taken advantage of by insurance companies that will be able to raise their rates after they get older and, more likely, sick. I agree that it would be viable for us to do this for all Medigap policies, and I hope at some point we will be able to reach all Medigap policies. But this is what is before us now and it would be improper under the rules and nongermane to offer an amendment to all Medigap policies. But when we come to the closed panel and the fact that consumers will want a choice beyond that, this is the appropriate place and I think it is appropriate to do what Democrats and Republicans recommended out of the Committee on Commerce, and to put that 5-year sunset in place. This amendment is supported by the Consumers Union, which has played a very active role in advising people about the dangers for consumers, that consumers can be taken advantage of. And it says in this amendment, according to the Consumers Union, the statement which I would like to put in the Record, many seniors will face reduced choice, they will be priced out of the Medigap market, or they will find that they have no choice but to remain in a select policy with limited choice of providers. That is our fear. We think Medicare select policies can survive and function well and we want to encourage them, but we want consumer protections built in. I urge support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to delete the names of the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar], the gentleman from California [Mr. Bono], and the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros- Lehtinen] as cosponsors of the bill, H.R. 42, the Ryan White Reauthorization Act of 1995.

Mr. WAXMAN

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

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Stark] for that clarification. I must say I am absolutely astounded by the comments of the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] a minute or two ago on the House floor. He seems to ignore the whole history of this proposal and then mischaracterizes what is at issue today. The Medicare Program pays for the beneficiaries to go to the doctors and the hospitals of their choice and pays most of those costs, but there are costs that have to be incurred by the elderly. For that people go out and buy MediGap supplemental insurance policies. There are a lot of anticonsumer practices in the sale of these policies, so in 1990 the Congress said the insurance commissioner should set up a uniform benefit package for MediGap so people can compare one policy to another. People were being sold MediGap policies to cover things that were already covered under Medicare. They were paying for coverage that they already had. The consumers were being ripped off. So these policies were established, 10 different packages. At the same time the Congress moved to allow people to go into HMO's and have their coverage through a health maintenance organization. Medicare select came out as a sort of different kind of policy, not an HMO, but not a complete choice of doctors and hospitals for the Medicare beneficiary. The Medicare select said that, if a senior would sign up, they could go to the doctors on the panel. If they went outside the panel, they had to pay for it. Their MediGap policy would only cover the doctors on the panel, to supplement the Medicare payments to them. It is like a preferred provider organization, and it was established as an experiment because it was the only MediGap policy being sold that did not give the consumer the free choice of doctors and other health providers. Many consumers have found this very appealing. It has been an experiment in a number of States, and that experiment is up. But before the experiment is up, we have not had the analysis yet of how well it has done, but from those of us who have followed it, like in my own State of California, I think it has been a choice for consumers that has been well worth while. The bill before us would make it available in all 50 States. In my opinion that may be premature, but I have no serious problem with allowing Medicare select policies in 50 States. But there are two problems that we should address. One is if someone goes into a Medicare select panel, and they do not like the doctors, and they do not feel they are being treated well in this kind of hybrid MediGap policy. They should be permitted to leave and go to another MediGap coverage policy that would give them the choice of doctors. One of the amendments that was offered in the Committee on Commerce by a Republican Member, a doctor, the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske]--he offered, and I supported, many of our Members supported, the ability of people, if they did not like their Medicare select policy, to be able to have a choice of another MediGap policy. They might not have this choice, they might not have it because they passed up the opportunity for another policy if they signed up on Medicare select. So we wanted to say, if Medicare select were going to be made available in all 50 States, they ought to make sure the consumers have a choice to opt out. That is a very important consumer protection. One would think from what the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] had to say it was not even an issue, but that is what we are talking about in this rule because that amendment would not even be permitted to be offered as a separate amendment on the House floor when this bill is presented. A second issue: If people are in a MediGap policy, they could have a fairly low rate when they start, but there is nothing to restrict the insurance companies as they get older and sicker from moving up the rate of that MediGap policy cost. That seems to be a real troublesome area, where consumers can be taken advantage of. And if they are priced out of their ability to buy that Medigap policy, because they have attained a higher age and therefore can have a higher premium imposed upon them, the consumers may be priced out to have an amendment on that issue. The Committee on Rules offered a rule that we are now considering that will not even give us that opportunity to offer those amendments. We have to tie them all together in a substitute amendment, but not be able to offer these two distinct amendments. That is what our objection to this rule is all about. It is not that we do not want to have Medicare Select policies. It is that we do not want them marked in a way where the consumers can be disadvantaged. Now, the rule is an unfair rule and it has been hastily put together. The bill was marked up in our committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, Monday evening, and we offered those two separate amendments that we are not going to be permitted to offer. The rule now before us not only would not allow these two amendments to be offered, it waives the usual 3-day layover period and it would permit the bill to be brought up even though a committee report with dissenting views has not been filed, as far as I know, by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I think that we ought to have an opportunity to debate these issues when the bill comes up. Some of us will support the bill, to allow Medicare Select as an option. But they should not have Medicare Select as an option that freezes people into a panel of doctors which may not be satisfactory to them and not allow them then to get another Medigap policy. So I would urge opposition to this resolution, to allow us the opportunity to argue these separate issues, to protect the elderly consumers in this country from unscrupulous insurance practices when they go out to get their Medigap policy. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, as an undergraduate and law school graduate of UCLA, and as the Representative of the congressional district that includes the UCLA campus, I rise to congratulate the Bruins on a great victory on Monday night. Coach John Wooden once said this to his players: ``Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.'' The 1995 Bruins lived that advice in the championship game. They did not let the injury to Tyus Edney, who had played so brilliantly throughout the tournament, keep them from their goal. Instead, they focused on what they could do, and the O'Bannon brothers, Cameron Dollars Toby Bailey, and the other Bruins raised their game. I congratulate them and Coach Jim Harrick for their inspirational play. I also want to take a moment to express appreciation to Coach Nolan Richardson and his Arkansas players. They are great champions and displayed tremendous determination and skill to reach the final game. I hope Corliss Williamson and Scotty Thurman will return for their senior years so that the Nation can be treated to a championship rematch next year.