[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 177 (Thursday, November 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16849-S16851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PART B MEDICARE PREMIUMS

  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, in just a very short period of time, we will address 
the continuing resolution, and I want to bring the attention of our 
colleagues to a provision in there which I find objectionable and will 
either personally offer an amendment or will join with others to 
address what I consider to be an unacceptable inclusion in the 
proposal, and that is dealing with the part B Medicare premium.
  We have had a debate on the issues of Medicare during earlier 
consideration, about the unjustified, I believe, cuts in the Medicare 
system that are being advanced by our Republican colleagues in order to 
justify the tax breaks for wealthy individuals. And now as a result of 
the actions that we have taken, we are seeing put into play the first 
of the results of the actions that have been taken by the Senate and 
the House. It is being added to this continuing resolution.
  I hope that the President will veto the proposal. I join with him in 
rejecting the attempt to try and blackmail the President of the United 
States on this continuing resolution into accepting this particular 
provision, and I would like to outline to the Senate the reasons why I 
find it so objectionable.
  The amendment would strike from the continuing resolution the 
provision increasing the part B premium by $136 next year, compared to 
the level provided under the current Medicare law. This proposal is a 
part of the overall Republican assault on Medicare, does not deserve to 
be enacted into law and it certainly does not belong on a continuing 
resolution.
  If the Republican program becomes law, it will devastate senior 
citizens, working families and children in every community in America. 
It extends an open hand to powerful special interests and gives the 
back of the hand to hard-working Americans. It makes a mockery of the 
family values the Republican majority pretends to represent.
  The Republican assault on Medicare is a frontal attack on the 
Nation's elderly. Medicare is part of Social Security. It is a contract 
between the Government and the people that says, ``put into a trust 
fund during your working years and we will guarantee good health care 
in your retirement years.'' It is wrong for the Republicans to break 
that contract, and it is wrong for Republicans to propose deep cuts in 
Medicare in excess of anything needed to protect the trust fund, and it 
is doubly wrong for the Republicans to propose those deep cuts in 
Medicare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.
  The cuts in Medicare are too harsh and too extreme: $280 billion over 
the next 7 years, premiums will double, deductibles will double, senior 
citizens will be squeezed hard to give up their own doctors and HMO's.
  The fundamental unfairness of this proposal is plain: Senior 
citizens' median income is only $17,750; 40 percent have incomes of 
less than $10,000, and because of the gaps in Medicare, senior citizens 
already pay too much for the health care they need. Yet, the out-of-
pocket costs that seniors must pay for premiums and deductibles will 
rise by $71 billion over the next 7 years--$71 billion rise over the 
next 7 years--an average of almost $4,000 for elderly couples.
  The Medicare trustees have stated clearly that $89 billion is all 
that is needed to protect the trust fund for a decade, not $280 
billion.
  The Democratic alternative provides that amount and will not raise 
premiums an additional dime, will not raise deductibles a dime. It will 
give senior citizens real choices, not force them to give up their own 
doctor.
  The Republican Medicare plan also deserves to be rejected because of 
the lavish giveaways to special interest groups. In the House and 
Senate proposals, insurance companies got what they wanted--the 
opportunity to get their hands on Medicare and obtain billions of 
dollars in profit; the American Medical Association got what it 
wanted--no reduction in fees to doctors and limits on malpractice 
awards. The list goes on and on. Clinical labs no longer have to meet 
Federal standards to guarantee the accuracy of tests. Federal standards 
to prevent the abuse of patients in nursing homes will be eliminated. 
Pharmaceutical firms will be given the right to charge higher prices 
for their drugs.
  Because of this unjust Republican plan, millions of elderly Americans 
will be forced to go without the health care they need. Millions more 
will have to choose between food on the table or adequate heat in the 
winter, paying the rent or paying for medical care.
  Senior citizens have earned their Medicare benefits. They pay for 
them and they deserve them. It is bad enough that the Republicans have 
proposed this unjust plan, and it is worse that they have taken the 
single largest cost increase for senior citizens, the increase in the 
Medicare part B premium, and attached it to the continuing resolution.
  Cuts in payments to doctors are not included in the continuing 
resolution. Cuts in payments to hospitals are not included in the 
continuing resolution. The only Medicare cut that is in this bill is a 
proposal to impose a new tax on the elderly and disabled.
  The Republican strategy is clear: Try to rush through your 
unacceptable proposals because you know they cannot stand the light of 
day; try to blackmail the President into signing them, with the threat 
of shutting down the Government if he does not go along.
  The part B premium increase is particularly objectionable because it 
breaks the national compact with senior citizens over Social Security. 
Every American should know about it, and every senior citizen should 
object to it. Medicare is part of Social Security. The Medicare premium 
is deducted directly from a senior citizens' Social Security check. 
Every increase in the Medicare premium is a reduction in Social 
Security benefits.
  The Republican plan proposes an increase in the part B premium and a 
reduction in Social Security, which is unprecedented in size. Premiums 
are already scheduled to go up, under current law, from $553 a year 
today, to $730 by the year 2002. Under the Republican plan, according 
to the Congressional Budget Office, the premium will go up much higher, 
to $1,068 a year.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair reminds the Senator that the time 
for the period of morning business has expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 5 
more minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, under the Republican plan, as I say, and 
under the existing law, by 2002, it will be $730. It will go up under 
this proposal to $1,068 a year. As a result, over the life of the 
Republican plan, all senior citizens will have a minimum of $1,240 more 
deducted from their Social Security checks. Every elderly couple will 
pay $2,400 more.
  The impact of this program is devastating for moderate and low-income 
seniors. It is instructive to compare the premium increase next year to 
the portion of the Republican plan tucked into the continuing 
resolution to the Social Security cost-of-living increase that 
maintains the purchasing power of the Social Security check.
  One-quarter of all seniors have Social Security benefits of $5,364, 
which is indicated here on the chart. The COLA for a senior at this 
benefit level will be $139 next year. The average senior citizen has a 
Social Security benefit of $7,874 a year. The COLA for someone at this 
benefit is $205.
  But under the Republican plan, the premium, next year, will be $126 
higher than under the current law. The average-income seniors will be 
robbed of almost two-thirds of their COLA. Low-income seniors will be 
robbed of a whopping 90 percent of their COLA. That is, with the 
increase of $136, which would 

[[Page S 16850]]
be the increase in the premium, they would receive the $139, which 
leaves them $3 and, essentially, the increase in the premiums of part B 
that is included in the continuing resolution will take 98 percent out 
of the Social Security checks of American seniors that are receiving 
the $5,364.
  So the idea that this is somehow separated from Social Security is 
wrong. For those individuals who try to give assurances to our senior 
citizens that the increase in the Medicare is leaving Social Security 
alone is absolutely and fundamentally wrong. If you were receiving the 
average, which is $7,874 a year, your COLA increase would be $205. With 
the subtraction of $136, again, which is the increased Republican 
premium, you would have $69 left. In other words, there is a 66 percent 
cut in your COLA--a real cut in your quality of life--which is there to 
address the challenges that seniors face with the increased cost of 
living. If you are receiving the $10,043 per year, which is the top 
percentile of the seniors, you get an average of $261. They will have 
$125 left, and it is taking half of all of their increase--their 
protections under Social Security.
  So the Republicans' attack on Medicare will make life harder, sicker, 
and shorter for millions of elderly Americans, who built this country 
and made it great. They deserve better from Congress. This cruel and 
unjust Republican plan to turn the Medicare trust fund into a slush 
fund for tax breaks for the wealthy deserves to be defeated.
  Mr. President, I think we have outlined what I consider to be the 
most objectionable features of the add-ons that have been included in 
the continuing resolution. There are other provisions which I find 
objectionable. But every senior ought to know what is happening to 
their Medicare next year under the Republican proposal--an alleged 
continuing resolution, to ensure that the existing basic structure of 
our system of Government and our support for existing programs, so many 
of which our seniors depend upon, the extension of that--the 
Republicans have added on the increases in the part B premiums, which 
is going to, if enacted, have an absolutely devastating impact not just 
on the Medicare, but on the Social Security system.
  This demonstrates how this kind of proposal of the Republicans, under 
the continuing resolution, which historically has never been used for a 
sleight of hand maneuver--which this is--to try and jam this 
unjustified, unwarranted and, I find, dangerous proposal to the health 
and well-being of our seniors, and certainly to their security, through 
the Senate on a Thursday afternoon prior to the Veterans Day weekend is 
completely unacceptable. It is wrong and unfair. When you look at why 
this is being done--not to preserve the basic integrity of the Medicare 
system, but we are adding these kinds of burdens on the seniors of our 
country in order to have tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals. 
This is not necessary. This is not right. It is wrong to take out of 
the pockets of our seniors this kind of protection, which the COLA 
provides, in order to provide tax breaks for wealthy individuals and 
the corporations of this country.
  We know this sleight-of-hand effort by the Republicans to do this, 
they feel they have to do it in order to comply with the other 
provisions of their budget. It is unjustified and unwise.
  The President has identified this as an unacceptable provision. The 
American people ought to understand the attempts to tinker with Social 
Security. This effectively reaches the basic issue of Social Security; 
that is, whether the cost of living, which reflects the increased cost 
of food and medicines and heat and shelter for our senior citizens, 
will effectively be emasculated.
  It is particularly unfair to the neediest people on Social Security. 
Those that are in the lowest level of Social Security effectively are 
having all of their COLA wiped out. It is wrong and unfair. It is 
unjustified.
  It is a prime reason why this sleight-of-hand maneuver by our 
Republican friends should be rejected by the President. He was right to 
identify it, and I hope it will be vetoed.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed in 
morning business for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kyl). Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. I wish to respond to the Senator from Massachusetts.
  I find it a bit disingenuous that Members of the other party would 
come to this floor and state that it is robbing senior citizens, 
inappropriately treating senior citizens, for us as Republicans to be 
putting forward proposals which essentially assure the solvency of the 
Medicare trust fund, the purpose of which is to supply health insurance 
for our senior citizens, when no proposal--no proposal--has come from 
the other side of the aisle or from the President.
  Furthermore, to state that allowing the percentage of premium that is 
paid by seniors to drop from 31.5 percent, which it is today and which 
it has been for a while, back to 25 percent is an action of good will 
or a gesture of kindness or gratitude or appropriateness that we should 
pursue as a nation on behalf of our senior citizens, is to ignore who 
pays the difference.
  Under the present law for the part B premium, seniors' children, 
their grandchildren who are working--most seniors have children and 
grandchildren who are working--support 69 percent, approximately, of 
the cost of their seniors' health insurance. So if you happen to be a 
working American today and you have parents who are on Medicare, or an 
uncle or grandfather who is on Medicare, or just a friend who is a 
senior citizen who is on Medicare, you are paying as a working American 
69 percent of the cost of that individual's health insurance.
  We have, as a society, said that is reasonable, that is fair. We, the 
working generation, are willing to do that. I am happy to do it. My 
taxes go to support that.
  If we reduce that percentage from 31.5 percent--which seniors pay; so 
they pay a third of the cost, and working Americans, their children, 
and grandchildren, are paying two-thirds of the cost--if we reduce that 
to 25 percent, which is the proposal of the President or the course 
which the President wishes to pursue and which the Senator from 
Massachusetts has so aggressively spoken here in behalf of, then what 
you are doing is you are essentially raising the taxes of working 
Americans of the children and the grandchildren of those seniors by an 
incredible amount of dollars--hundreds of millions of dollars. You are 
increasing the taxes on working Americans and increasing the 
obligation, the subsidy of working Americans, which goes to support 
seniors.
  Now, I think the split of two-thirds/one-third--actually it is more 
than that--70 percent, approximately, 69 percent/30 percent is a pretty 
good effort made by working Americans, children of seniors and 
grandchildren of seniors to support the senior citizen population in 
this country.
  I think most seniors would understand and recognize that the fact 
they are asked to pay 30 percent of the cost of their health insurance 
is a reasonable request. To reduce that to 25 percent is to skew the 
process to mean that their children and their grandchildren, who are 
trying to raise their families in these sometimes difficult economic 
times, who are trying to help their children go to school, who are 
trying to, maybe, buy their first home, maybe just make ends meet, to 
say we are going to raise the taxes on those people in order to further 
dramatically skew the process and subsidize the senior citizen 
population at an even higher level for their part B premium seems to me 
to be the height of pandering to one interest at the expense of another 
interest. Intergenerational pandering is what it amounts to, or extra-
generational pandering.
  The fact is, the differential between or the difference, the support 
that is now being paid by children and grandchildren of seniors, 
working children and grandchildren of seniors, of 69 percent of the 
cost of that seniors' health care insurance is a fair amount. To 
increase the tax on working Americans by another 6\1/2\ percent, which 
is what is being suggested in this proposal, is not fair.
  Then there is the other issue here. We have heard a large amount of 
crocodile tears from the other side of the aisle about how the 
Republicans are helping the wealthy at the expense of the poor in our 
tax cuts. Of course, you might note--which is never noted by the other 
side of the aisle--that the President raised taxes by about $240 
billion and said it was too much of a 

[[Page S 16851]]
tax increase just a few weeks ago. He raised taxes by $240 billion when 
he said he would not increase taxes during the first term in office, 
over a 5-year-period, and we are cutting taxes by $240 billion 
approximately over a 7-year period.
  We are basically at a wash. We are getting back to the point that the 
President appears to want to be at now when he said he raised taxes, 
too. We are trying to correct that, getting taxes back to where they 
were when he came to office.
  Independent of that we hear--the crocodile tears about it being 
horrible what is being done here to the poor and moderate income 
Americans by the Republican tax cut, and helping the wealthy--first, it 
is factually inaccurate. The tax cut that we are proposing, 70 percent 
of it flows to people, families with incomes under $75,000, and 90 
percent of it flows to people with incomes under $100,000, and people 
with incomes up to $70,000 are not wealthy in this society.
  More significantly, something that is conveniently ignored by the 
other side in the area of Medicare legislation and which the President 
appears ready to veto is the fact we are saying to the wealthy 
Americans who are seniors, ``Hey, you have to stop being subsidized by 
your working children and grandchildren.'' We do not think it is right 
that a working child and grandchild who is trying to raise a family 
should have to pay 69 percent of the cost of the insurance of the 
fellow who just retired from IBM last year and is making hundreds of 
thousands of dollars maybe--tens of thousands, anyway--in pension 
benefits.
  It is not fair that a person who is working 40, 50, 60 hours a week 
trying to make ends meet on a computer assembly line in New Hampshire 
or at a farm in the Midwest or at some other activity--garage or a 
restaurant--that an individual, family, a husband and wife, working 
their hearts out trying to make ends meet should have to subsidize the 
top 100 people who retired from General Motors or Ford last year, whose 
incomes on pensions exceed the earnings of the people who are paying 
the taxes to subsidize their health benefits. It is just not right.

  So, in the Republican plan, we say if you have more than $50,000 of 
individual income or as a husband and wife you have more than $75,000 
of income, you have to start paying a higher percentage of the cost of 
your part B premium. Instead of being subsidized at 69 percent by the 
working Americans in this country, you are going to have to start to 
pay more. And if your income exceeds $100,000 as an individual or 
$150,000 as a husband and wife, then you have to pay the full cost of 
your part B premium. That is good policy. That is exactly what we 
should be doing. We should be making this more fair.
  So, let us have a little integrity in the process here as we debate 
this issue. Let us note that, when the President says he wants to 
reduce the amount of the premium that seniors are paying, when he wants 
that 31 percent to go down to 25 percent, that is a tax increase on the 
people who pick up the difference, the people who pick up the cost for 
that tax cut to seniors. It is a tax increase on working children and 
grandchildren. Mr. President, 70 percent today, or 69 percent, of 
senior's premiums today are already subsidized and we have accepted 
that as a fair number. But to go to 75 percent, as the President wants, 
means you are going to raise the taxes on working Americans, the 
children and grandchildren of those seniors, by at least 6.5 percent, 
under the President's proposal. That is not right and it is not fair.
  Let us remember also that wealthy Americans today are subsidized by 
working Americans who cannot afford it. It is time to change that and 
that is what the Republican proposal does.
  As we continue this debate I think a little forthrightness on the 
facts would help the process.
  I yield.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to 
proceed for 5 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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