[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 131 (Monday, August 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11726-S11727]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, last week during debate on the defense 
authorization bill, I came to the floor to point out that someone on 
the Armed Services Committee had written into the bill a special little 
deal that no one had asked for. It was $60 million to buy blimps. Yes, 
blimps. Airbags. Airships. I asked the question, Who wrote this in? Who 
wants to buy blimps? Who decides that the Hindenburg is important for 
America's defense?
  I did not find out who did it, but there were no hearings, no 
disclosure--they just wrote in $60 million to buy blimps. Now I 
discover that hot airbags are not limited necessarily to the Defense 
Department authorization bill.
  I have listened this morning to a substantial amount of discussion 
about Medicare. I will tell you, some of it really surprises me.
  Let me talk first about the issue of Medicare going broke. We were 
treated this morning to a half dozen folks who say: ``Did you know that 
Medicare is going to go bankrupt in 7 years? We Republicans called the 
Medicare trustees up to the Capitol for a special meeting because we 
were so concerned about their report.'' And the President is not 
concerned, they say. He does not care. ``But we are concerned, so we 
called the trustees up here to the Capitol and had a visit, because we 
Republicans care.'' I will bet you that I am safe in saying this is the 
only meeting of trustees the other side has ever had in this Capitol.
  Well, here is a list of the trustees' reports for the last 15 years. 
Every single year since 1979, save two--in fact, 23 out of 25 years--
the boards of trustees have sent a report to this Capitol and this 
Senate telling us when the Medicare system is going to run out of 
money.
  In 1982, while Ronald Reagan was President, the trustees sent a 
report up to the Capitol that said in 1987 Medicare is going to be 
insolvent. In 1986, they sent up a report that said in 1996 it is going 
to be broke. The list goes on. That is in 23 out of 25 years.
  Why have the Republicans invented this as a crisis when 23 out of 25 
reports have described the time when Medicare is going to become 
insolvent? Every time this happens, Congress makes adjustments to make 
sure that Medicare will not go broke.
  Why have the Republicans decided to invent this as a crisis? It is 
because the Republicans, under the guise of a budget they say will be 
balanced, also wanted to put up the center tent pole in this giant tent 
called the Contract With America. What is that center pole? It is a tax 
cut for their wealthy friends--a $245 billion tax cut, 80 percent of 
which will go to those taxpayers with incomes over $100,000 a year.
  Now, how do you pay for a tax cut? How do you pay for a tax cut if 
you are up to your neck in debt and have all kinds of budget problems? 
You take a look at another big part of the Federal budget and say, let 
us cut that in order to make room for our tax cut. Ergo, they have 
proposed $270 billion in cuts to Medicare in order to accommodate a 
similar sized proposal to cut taxes, the bulk of which goes to the 
wealthiest Americans.
  Those are the facts. There is no one in this body who does not want 
to make sure that Medicare exists for the long term. So to those who 
came out here this morning with a hot iron and ironing board trying to 
iron out the President on this issue because, somehow, the Democrats do 
not believe in Medicare, I say, just look at the record. The first time 
Medicare was on the floor of the Senate was in August 1960, and 97 
percent of the Republicans voted against it. Democrats helped create 
Medicare, and I am proud of it. When we enacted Medicare, less than 
half of America's elderly had health insurance coverage. Now 97 percent 
do. I am proud of that.
  Are there some problems with Medicare? Yes, there are. America is 
graying and getting older. Each month, over 200,000 more Americans 
become eligible for Medicare because they reach retirement age. That 
puts a strain on the system. So we have to continue to make adjustments 
to make Medicare solvent.
  For people to come to this floor and suggest that somehow the 
Democrats are the problem and the Republicans are going to save 
Medicare, I am sorry, but this is just at odds with the facts. The fact 
is that Democrats helped create Medicare.
  There is an old saying that ``the lion and the lamb might lay down 
together, but the lamb ain't going to get much sleep.'' I would 
observe, after what I heard this morning, that the Republicans and 
Medicare might lay down together as well, but I do not think Medicare 
is going to get much sleep either. The fact is, we must make Medicare 
solvent for the long-term, and we will. But we must not ever decide to 
go to the health care portion of the Federal budget and try to find 
massive Medicare savings that will result in higher Medicare costs for 
older Americans and reduced access to health care for senior citizens, 
in order to accommodate a big tax cut mostly for the wealthy.
  Now, I know that those who are out here spinning this morning like a 
ball of yarn were accusing the other side of 

[[Page S 11727]]
spinning on Medicare. Well, you do not have to spin at all to simply 
open the budget proposals and find out who gets what. The budget 
proposals are simple. The budget plan provides for a very significant 
tax cut, going largely to the most affluent Americans, and it provides 
for by far the largest cut in Medicare expenditures in the history of 
this program.
  We have had speakers say the cuts in Medicare are simply a cut in the 
rate of growth. If you have more and more seniors becoming eligible for 
Medicare, then the size of the program increases. If health care--not 
only for Medicare recipients but for all Americans--increases in price 
every year, and it does, then that increases the cost of the program.
  Now, if you have those two facts--more elderly being covered by 
Medicare and higher health care prices--and you say we are not going to 
pay, we are going to cut way back, what that means is that those senior 
citizens who rely on Medicare will pay higher prices and get less care. 
I do not think there is any question about that.
  They talk about experts. Most of the experts look at the numbers and 
say, ``Yes, it is true we will spend more on Medicare, but we will 
still not meet the needs of older Americans because there is a graying 
of America'' and because health care costs are going to continue to 
increase.
  The fact is that what the Federal Government will spend is not going 
to meet the needs and the result will be that the elderly will receive 
less health care and pay more for it. That is just a fact.
  Now, my own view of Medicare is, I suppose, fashioned at least in 
part by where I grew up. I grew up in a town of 300 people. There are a 
lot of elderly folks in my hometown. I saw a lot of folks when I was a 
teenager who reached the end of their lives and did not have anything--
no money, no assets--who worried, who lived in desperate fear that they 
would get ill and would not have the ability to afford health care.
  I saw that, as did most other people. It is nice to know that today, 
at least, most of those people do not live in that kind of fear because 
Medicare helps them. Medicare helps provide for them.
  I had a woman in my home county, whom I told the Senate about some 
while ago, who showed up at a town meeting, stood up and said, ``I have 
new knees, a new hip, and I had cataract surgery. I am 75 years old and 
feel like a million bucks.'' What a remarkable thing. Fifty years ago 
she would not have had new knees and a new hip, and she would have been 
in a wheelchair. If she came to the meeting, she would not have been 
able to see me.
  With the breathtaking achievements in medical care, plus the program 
called Medicare, this woman has a good life. At age 75, she tells us 
she feels like a million dollars.
  I am enormously proud of what we have done. I think what is important 
as we talk about reform these days is that we not start to take apart 
the things that make this country good. I am perfectly willing to sit 
down with anybody in this Chamber and say, ``All right, we will decide 
to work on this particular issue. We will make sure that Medicare is 
solvent for the long term.''
  We have done that before. We will always do that. We will always make 
adjustments to make Medicare financially sound. Mr. President, 23 of 25 
trustees' reports in the last 25 years have described a date by which 
insolvency would occur, and we made adjustments and stretched that out.
  I am willing to do that. But I am unwilling, under any conditions, to 
join hands with those who say, ``Let's make room for a big tax cut.'' 
Yes, we are up to our neck in debt. We want to build Star Wars. Yes, we 
want to go out and buy blimps, but then make room for a big tax cut. 
How do we pay for that?
  There is an easy way: Take it out of Medicare and Medicaid over here 
and invent something that you want to foist upon the American people as 
new--a trustees' report that says Medicare will be insolvent.
  If this truly was new, then I suppose I could understand their angst. 
But the fact is, they have had 25 trustees' reports in 25 years and 23 
of those have said Medicare is going to have an insolvent period. Yet 
they have never had a meeting of the trustees until this year, when 
they began to spin their ball of yarn about saving Medicare.
  If the folks who want to give a tax cut to the rich believe older 
Americans will swallow the minnow that they are the ones who will save 
Medicare, after they have proposed big Medicare cuts in order to 
accommodate their tax cut for the wealthy, well, then, excuse me, but I 
guess I am somehow naive about the art of spending.
  Perhaps they are much better, much more clever, much more artful than 
I ever believed possible at spinning a tale of complete, total, 
fiction.
  It is time just to strip all of this aside and just strip the budget 
and all the other questions aside and ask ourselves in the sober light 
of day, as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans, but as 
Americans--what works in this country and what does not work.
  What should we save and what should we get rid of? What should we 
fight for and what should we decide to scrap? If we do that, we will 
all conclude, it seems to me, not that we will try to follow the string 
of some constituency out there, but that we will aggressively put our 
nose to the grindstone here and work to reduce the Federal budget 
deficit.
  We will aggressively decide to ask the American people, yes, to pay 
the current taxes in order to reduce the Federal budget deficit. Pay 
the taxes that now exist in the current tax law, and we will 
aggressively will protect those things that make this country a better 
country, and make life in this country better for all Americans, 
especially those Americans who have gone before us in the work force, 
who have built this country, who survived the Depression, who fought 
the wars, who beat back the oppression of Hitler's nazism.
  To those folks in this country who helped build and make this a great 
country, we are now saying to them, well, we are sorry, you will have 
to pay a little more for your health care. We will threaten Medicare 
because we want to give wealthy people a tax break. There is nothing 
wrong with being wealthy, but I am saying those priorities are out of 
whack.
  I finish with one more point. I think the opportunity to do well, be 
successful, and make money is a terrific thing in this country. I wish 
everybody could achieve those things. But in my hometown, one person 
decides that he will commit his life to making as much money as he can 
and does so and is enormously successful as a business person. And 
there is another couple living on the other end of the street. He 
decides he will be a minister in a small rural church. Of course he 
does not get paid very much. So his wife teaches piano lessons to make 
ends meet, and they reach age 65 or 70. They have worked very hard 
their entire lives, but they do not have anything. No assets, no 
pension, no retirement system, no income.
  I just ask the question, did they contribute less to their community? 
Did they contribute less, ministering in a rural church, giving piano 
lessons, helping children? Did they contribute less than the people who 
decided to, in every way every day, make as much money as they could?
  No, both contributed to this country. That is why the things that 
make life better to people who contribute in that way, such as the 
Medicare Program, are important.
  That is why we fight for them and why I am proud to say it is my 
party that created this program. I think it will be our party, by 
reaching out and joining hands with others, who will make sure this 
program is around for the long-term in this country's future. I yield 
the floor.
  Mr. REID. Would the Chair inform the Senator when he has 3 minutes 
remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). The Senator will be notified.

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