[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H7158]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                WE WANT TO MAKE MEDICARE A BETTER SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Watts] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, we are debating here on the floor 
of the House or we are having discussion going on concerning Medicare, 
and I have got a couple of charts here that I want to share.
  I want to read, my colleagues, a quote. Today Medicaid and Medicare 
are going up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it 
go up at two times the rate of inflation, not three times the rate of 
inflation. But this quote says the person that made this statement said 
that we are proposing to let it go up at two times the rate of 
inflation rather than three times the rate of inflation. That is not a 
Medicare or Medicaid cut. So, when you hear all this business about 
cuts, let me caution you that that is not what is going on. We are 
going to have increases in Medicare and Medicaid and a reduction in the 
rate of growth.
  President Clinton, 1993.
  I find that it is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that when we talk about 
Medicare and Medicaid it seems as though when Republicans talk about 
Medicaid and Medicare and we are slowing down the rate of growth, it 
seems that that is a cut. However, when the President talk about 
slowing down the growth in Medicare or Medicaid, then that seems to be 
an increase.
  I want to share with you a chart here from 1995 through the year 2002 
and just wanted to illustrate what the dollar figures are concerning 
the Medicare spending and the plan that is before America. In 1995, we 
will spend $178.2 billion. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is per beneficiary, 
per month, about $401. In 1996, we will spend 191 billion; 1997, 201.8 
billion; 1998, 213.8 billion; 19999, 226.3 billion; the year 2000, 
238.9 billion; the year 2001, 255.4 billion; and in the year 2002, 
274.1 billion.
  Now the per beneficiary/per month, dollar amount goes from $401 a 
month in the year 1995 to the year 2002, going to $561 a month per 
beneficiary, and I ask the American people, ``Where is the cut?''
  Mr. Speaker, the Medicare Board of Trustees, and three of these 
trustees are--six total--three of these trustees were appointed by the 
President of the United States, his current administration, and those 
six trustees signed off on the annual report of the Medicare Board of 
Trustees report that said that by the year 1996 that Medicare would be 
broken, by the year 2002 Medicare would be bankrupt, if we do not deal 
with it.
  Now that report was consistent in 1994, and it is consistent in 1995. 
That was the conclusion that, if we do not do something about Medicare, 
that it would be bankrupt by the year 2002.
  So, in the President's plan he refused to deal with Medicare. The 
Republicans we are choosing to deal with it so we can save Medicare for 
our children, for our children's children, for future generations. We 
know that there are people today that depend on Medicare, and, if we 
let this go unnoticed and do not choose to deal with this, we will have 
many, many people in this country, especially the senior citizens, that 
will be crippled tremendously if we do nothing about this.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to stand here and to commend 
the gentleman for bringing to the attention of the American people the 
statistics that you have offered here this evening. We have been 
struggling for a long time, and you are helping us now, struggling to 
get the message across to people to be, contrary to the propaganda that 
we have heard about the cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and the 
gentleman has gone a long way in dispelling the doubts that are out in 
the American public. I wanted to commend him for that.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. There is a hundred billion dollars in the 
Medicare system that was spend in the year 1994, and 44 billion of that 
was fraud. We want to cut the fraud. We want to made Medicare a better 
system. We want to preserve it for our children, our children's 
children, for the future of America.


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