[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 121 (Tuesday, July 25, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H7685-H7686]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


THE STATUS OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE AS REVEALED IN THEIR ANNUAL 
                                REPORTS

  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, I thank the Members who are showing their 
appreciation tonight.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to share with you and our viewing public tonight 
on C-SPAN a little booklet, called The Status of Social Security and 
Medicare Programs: A Summary of the 1995 Annual Reports.
  I want to tell you about this because I want to urge you, if you are 
a senior citizen, if you are some day going to be a senior citizen or 
hope to be a senior citizen, or if you are just a citizen of the United 
States, this is essentially an annual report on Social Security and 
Medicare.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the debate on Medicare has become so 
utterly politicized that it is difficult for the public and for average 
Americans to cut through the political rhetoric and the demagoguery and 
the posturing that is going on to be able to find out what the truth is 
and what the facts are; and I commend this to you, to read it.
  It is only 14 pages. It is short, it is clear, and it lays out very 
clearly exactly what the facts are. It is written by the Medicare 
trustees and the Social Security trustees and it includes 3 members of 
the President's Cabinet.
  It is not a Democratic piece, it is not a Republican piece; it is a 
nonpartisan piece. It is very well written and lays out clearly what 
the programs are. It is informative in that it does not just talk about 
recommendations and problems and all of that, but it also tells you 
exactly what the tax bases are, how much money is raised, where the 
money goes, how much is in the trust funds of each one, how long we can 
expect them to last, and if there are problems that ought to be 
addressed.
  I want to read just a couple of quotes from this, because I think it 
is very instructive. Again, call your Representative: the switchboard 
at the Capitol here is area code 202; the switchboard people do not 
like it when I do this, but it is very important that you do this.


                             point of order

  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Louisiana will state his 
point of order.
  Mr. FIELDS of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, is it proper for the Member to 
address the C-SPAN audience? Should not the Member address the Speaker 
of the House?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio is reminded to 
address his remarks to the Speaker.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I want to remind you, so that perhaps you 
could remind the public, that the switchboard number here at the 
Capitol is 202-224-3121; each citizen might call their Representative 
and ask for the summary of these annual reports.
  I will say, and I am not suggesting that the gentleman from the other 
side of the aisle who made this point of order is a part of this, but I 
have got to tell you, the Democrats do not want you to read this 
report. They are trying to keep this report secret. They do not want 
you to see what is in this report.
  Let me read a couple of things. It says,

       The Board of Trustees are pleased to present the summary of 
     the 1995 annual reports of the Social Security and Medicare 
     Trust Funds. In particular, we encourage current and future 
     beneficiaries to consider what these reports mean for them as 
     individual citizens. Based on the trustees' best estimates, 
     the reports show,

  And I am going to cut to the part about Medicare,

       . . . the Medicare Trust Fund which pays in-patient 
     hospital expenses will be able to pay benefits for only 7 
     years and it is severely out of
      financial balance in the long range.

  Then it has a lot of stuff on the summary of the reports and explains 
the analysis and how they go through this.
  I am just going to go to the back where it has a message from the 
trustees. It says,

       This is the fifth set of trust fund reports on which we 
     have reported as Public Trustees.
       During the past 5 years there has been a trend of 
     deterioration in the long-range financial condition of the 
     Social Security and Medicare programs and an acceleration in 
     the projected dates of exhaustion in the related trust funds.

  Then they go on to say the most critical issue relates to the 
Medicare program.
  Both the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Supplementary Medical 
Insurance Trust Fund show alarming financial results.

       The Medicare program is clearly unsustainable in its 
     present form. We had hoped for several years that 
     comprehensive health care reform would include meaningful 
     Medicare reforms. However, with the results of the last 
     Congress, it is now clear that Medicare reforms need to be 
     addressed urgently as a distinct legislative initiative.

  The number is 202-224-3121. Mr. Speaker, I am asking that you advise 
the public that they can request this summary from their Representative 
and get a copy of it, because we have got to get out of the partisan 
rhetoric 

[[Page H 7686]]
of this if we are going to get a conclusion.
  I see that the gentlewoman from Washington wanted to make a comment.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I wanted to ask you a question, how I got 
the number, but you happened to say how I got the number. If they want 
to call our offices, though, and find out or if I want to tell someone, 
is it better to use that number or our own office number?
  Mr. HOKE. If they have the office number, it is better to use the 
office number.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. If not, what number?
  Mr. HOKE. It's 202-224-3121.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Thank you. Listening to you, what really 
excites me about this is that we are not to the end; in fact, we are 
just at the beginning. I look at all that has been coming up, and the 
proposals are clearly that there are ways to fix this system and there 
are ways to make it better.
  Mr. HOKE. I see that my time has expired. Maybe we could talk about 
that in the next special order.

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