[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 157 (Wednesday, October 11, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H9862]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Kim] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I hope all my California people right now are 
watching me an listening to me today, especially senior citizens, 
because I would like to talk about Medicare.
  I am deeply concerned about all this rhetoric that is going on, 
frightening senior citizens by twisted information and disinformation. 
I would like to get the facts straight tonight.
  I was an engineer all my life. I have been dealing with the facts, 
numbers. I used to get straight A's in all the math and physics. 
Tonight I am going to talk about facts again and perhaps dealing with 
the simple numbers.
  All this rhetoric that is going on, saying that we give millions and 
millions of dollars tax credit to rich people at the expense of senior 
citizens by cutting Medicare spending. Let me get this straight. Give a 
tax credit to rich people? Let me get a little chart here.
  The tax cut we are talking about is $500 tax credit to the child 
support, $2,000 for child adoption. That is what we are talking about. 
The tax credit is coming from a non-Medicare spending cut, roughly $622 
billion, the money is coming from this fund. Not the Medicare money, 
not the Medicare trust fund.

  By doing this, we can save $377 billion for deficit credit. By giving 
a tax credit to child support, we can stimulate the economy, thus 
create more jobs and more revenue to Government.
  Besides, Congress passed an amendment to the Medicare bill to 
prohibit transferring any money from Medicare to other funds. It is 
illegal to transfer money from Medicare to other general funds. It 
cannot be done. So how can they say that we are giving all the million-
dollar credit to rich taxpayers at the expense of a Medicare cut? That 
is absolutely false. It is not true.
  The second argument is that we are cutting too fast too much. That is 
another rhetoric that I cannot accept. Let us talk about that quickly. 
Too fast. What do you mean by too fast? Because according to the 
Medicare trust fund report, Medicare will be bankrupt in 7 years. We 
have got to save it.
  Oh, yes, we have a plan, a counterplan to extend it out to 10 years, 
same general plan. But if Medicare is bankrupt in 7 years, how can you 
save it in 10 years? Let me show a little chart to show what we are 
doing.
  We are talking about cutting too fast too much. Here it is.

                              {time}  1915

  Right now, the Medicare part A has been financed by payroll taxes. 
You pay half; your employer contributes the other half.
  Is it fair to you that we have to raise the taxes so you can 
subsidize the existing Medicare plan? Of course not.
  Let us take a look at the part B. This is what you are paying. The 
beneficiary only pays 31 percent. Other taxpayers are subsidizing by 68 
percent. In other words, beneficiaries only pay one-third, and other 
taxpayers have to subsidize by two-thirds. It used to be half and half. 
It keeps going up. If you do nothing, within 7 years the beneficiary 
will only pay 18 percent; the other taxpayers have to subsidize by 82 
percent. Is it fair, asking other taxpayers to pay almost 90 percent of 
the Medicare plan? Of course not.
  All we are trying to do is maintain this relationship, one-third paid 
by the senior citizens, two-thirds paid by the other, younger 
taxpayers. We feel that is fair. We would like to maintain that same 
proportion, same 31, one-third, and two-thirds relationship.

  They call that a cut. Is it really a cut, trying to maintain the same 
ratio of one-third, two-thirds? Is it really cutting too much to try to 
maintain the same ratio?
  Right now, the Medicare price has gone up out of control. Part B last 
year alone has gone up 12 percent while the private plan only has gone 
up 1.5 percent. The price is out of control.
  There is so much waste and fraud going on in the Medicare system. 
That is why we try to correct it, try to save the Medicare from 
bankruptcy. It is fair to everybody, fair to the younger generation as 
well.
  Again, I would like to readdress again to my Democrat colleagues who 
argue $270 billion Medicare savings is too much. They believe that $90 
billion is enough to save the system. Let me tell you, their plan would 
leave Medicare with a $300 billion deficit just at the time the first 
wave of baby boomers reach retirement. This is going to be chaotic when 
the baby boomers decide to retire.
  This Democrat plan will not work. We have got to do something now. Of 
course, it is better not to do anything and let it bankrupt it. But 
they are not going to get a quick decision.
  I think that solving the Medicare problem is difficult now. But 
imagine when the baby boomers hit, it is going to be really chaotic.
  Again, we are not cutting Medicare to provide a tax cut for the rich. 
We are not cutting too much too fast. Instead we are trying to save the 
Medicare from bankruptcy to preserve fairness for the working families.

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