[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6898-H6899]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORE ON MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, we have got 5 minutes remaining. I would like 
to pursue what you were just talking about, Mr. Baker.
  I think you are absolutely right. It seems to me, here is what we 
have got to realize, is that there is a genuine problem here. It is 
very easy, with any of these problems in Congress, to subject them to 
demagoguery, to subject them to hyperbole, to subject them to political 
talk that is essentially designed to sway people in a way that will 
give the speaker a political advantage.
  The question that you have to ask yourself, as a Member of Congress, 
that I have to ask myself and that, frankly, the public has got to 
figure out for themselves is, they have got to cut through the politics 
of it and decide, is there or is there not a problem? And the truth is 
that there is a problem. It was not identified yesterday. It was not 
just identified in April 1995. It has been identified in the previous 
trustees reports of the past several years that Medicare is going 
broke.
  Mr. BAKER of California. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, 
that must mean that it is the previous two administrations' trustees 
have told us that is we do nothing, then that line that Mr. Kingston 
from Georgia is showing us will take effect. This is Medicare part A. 
This is hospitalization. This is nothing that we can fool with, if we 
want Medicare to be preserved, strengthened and protected for future 
generations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, this is the 
report of the Clinton, the Democrat Clinton trustees that came out in 
April.

[[Page H 6899]]

  Mr. HOKE. April 3, 1995.
  Mr. BAKER of California. Previous administrations also have made the 
same conclusion, that we have about a $140 billion trust fund that will 
be exhausted because we are now for the first year spending more than 
we are taking in.
  The seniors in my district, who are relatively affluent, want more 
for their children than they do for themselves. And they want this 
system to continue. So they are not greedy and they are not selfish. 
They know there is a problem, but they want
 us to do something. I wonder if we have the guts and political will to 
do something.

  Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not the intent of this Congress, this Republican 
majority, to increase spending on a per person basis on Medicare from a 
$4,800, approximate----
  Mr. HOKE. Reclaiming my time, what I have heard on television and I 
have seen it in some news reports is that the Republicans are slashing 
spending on Medicare.
  Mr. KINGSTON. But, in fact, is it not true that the committees are 
talking about going from about $4,800 per person to $6,400 per person? 
Those are round numbers. Is that not an increase over the next seven 
years?
  Mr. HOKE. I just happen to have a chart that shows exactly what we 
are going to do here. We are going to go from $4,816 per person per 
beneficiary per year up to $6,734 per beneficiary per year. That takes 
into account all of the new additions to the Medicare population, 
Medicare ranks.
  I think maybe even more interesting is another chart that shows you 
that we are going to go on a per beneficiary per month basis from about 
$401 in 1995 to $561 per month per beneficiary in 2002. We are going up 
from $178 billion in 1995 to $274 billion in 2002.
  Obviously, our challenge as a nation, our challenge as a Congress is 
to give solutions and reforms that will make it possible for us to 
serve the Medicare population using this number of dollars.
  But it is crystal clear that what we are doing is from where we are 
today at $178 billion, which is covering that population, we are 
increasing up to $274 billion in 2002. I think that that is a pretty 
important fact that the public deserves to know.
  Mr. KINGSTON. As Mr. Fox of Pennsylvania said earlier tonight, we are 
looking at ways to slow the growth, the expense of Medicare to the 
senior citizens. Medicare inflation right now is about 11 percent. 
Regular medical inflation is lower than that. Regular inflation, I 
think, is about 4 percent. So we are trying to reduce that level of 
cost increase.
  Mr. HOKE. What you are saying is completely correct. The health care 
component of inflation in the private sector right now is about 4.4 
percent. But in fact there are other models in the private sector of 
specific companies or industries that have been able to flatten their 
health care costs completely, no increase whatsoever, while giving as 
much as greater choice and service to the people that they are 
covering.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. HOKE. We ought to be looking at those kinds of models to in fact 
improve Medicare for the senior citizens of America.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the thing that I am curious about is this 
administration made such a big play on health care reform, it is 
interesting that they are absent to the Medicare, except to criticize.
  Mr. BAKER of California. Well, let me summarize, because we have run 
out of time, if the gentleman from Ohio will yield one more second, and 
that is we have established now, there is a problem, because two 
generations of trustees, Republican and Democrat, have told us we start 
going broke this year and we will finish going broke in Medicare part A 
by 2002. It is not a Democratic problem, it is not a Republican 
problem, it is a congressional problem and we have to act.
  Mr. HOKE. It is an American problem.
  

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