[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3885-S3886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, about a year ago the President appointed 
trustees for the Medicare fund to study Medicare, to project its 
problems, its solvency, and everything like that. A year ago, six 
trustees of the Medicare fund--and these are four people in the 
President's Cabinet and two citizens, one Republican and one Democrat, 
so altogether there would be five Democrats and one Republican--
unanimously said that the Medicare program would be bankrupt in the 
year 2002. They also said that Congress should take immediate action to 
keep the long-term viability of Medicare. They asked the Republican 
Congress to take action to do that. We did that.
  The Balanced Budget Act of 1995 is this 1,800-page bill, which took 
13 committees over an 8-month period of time to put together, the first 
Balanced Budget Act passed by Congress in a quarter of a century, to 
balance the budget in 7 years. Part of this document is not only doing 
what President Clinton's trustees of the Medicare system asked us to 
do, to save it from bankruptcy, but we also gave senior citizens of 
America a choice that if they did not want to have traditional 
Medicare, we would pay for other forms of health care delivery. We 
would take their money and pay for it, so that they could have 
something if they wanted something different than Medicare. That is all 
in this document.
  In November of last year, we presented the President of the United 
States not only the balanced budget, but also provisions to save 
Medicare, to strengthen Medicare, and to give people on Medicare, for 
the first time in 30 years, a choice of their medical care.
  The President vetoed it. The President vetoed those Medicare reforms. 
He wanted people to believe that we were cutting Medicare. He was on 
television every day on these paid ads saying that ``Republicans are 
cutting Medicare.'' Under the Balanced Budget Act, Medicare would have 
grown at 7 percent every year. What we are spending on Medicare per 
beneficiary is $4,900 this year, and in 7 years we would have been 
spending $6,700 per Medicare recipient. Maybe it is even closer to 
$7,000 per Medicare recipient. So, obviously, we were not cutting 
anything. We were saving Medicare from bankruptcy. We were extending 
the life of it for another 9 or 10 years.
  Well, the President vetoed it. One person is standing in the way of 
doing what his trustees said should be done, what the people want done, 
and what the Congress did. The President of the United States vetoed 
the first balanced budget act passed in a quarter of a century, 
balancing the budget in 7 years, and saving Medicare, as his trustees 
said. Well, the President kind of ignored what his trustees said.

[[Page S3886]]

  But, more importantly, even before last year was out, we were finding 
out that Medicare was coming up short of expectations of what the 
income and outgo of it was, to a point of where it was going to be 
broke before the year 2002.
  Senator Pete Domenici says that it is going to be May of the year 
2001, just 6 years from now. Roland King, former chief actuary of the 
Health Care Financing Administration, says that it will run out in late 
2000--that is 4 years from now--or early 2001, 5 years from now. There 
is a Richard S. Foster, who succeeded Mr. King as chief actuary, who 
said that the top officials at the Department of Health and Human 
Services would not give him permission to talk about this issue. What I 
am referring to here, Mr. President, is the New York Times article of 
today that is headlined ``New Medicare Trust Fund Data Shows Unusually 
Large Shortfalls.'' The subheadline is: ``Program is Solvent, But Gap 
Shows Weakening.''
  What has happened in the 12 months since the last report? Instead of 
Medicare starting to spend out more than the income in 1996, it 
actually started to happen in 1995, and it is happening at a much 
faster rate than we anticipated. So, Medicare will be broke not in 7 
years, not in 6 years, but maybe in 5 years.
  What is kind of special about this article is this. Normally this 
report would be out in April every year by the trustees. It is not out 
yet, I imagine because it is an election year. This is bad news for 
this administration, which was told 12 months ago that Medicare was 
going to be bankrupt in the year 2002, and they vetoed the only bill 
presented to extend the life of it. Not only that, but the situation is 
worse than the report said it was 12 months ago.
  It says here that Chris Jennings, a special assistant to President 
Clinton for health policy, said today that the new numbers were not 
surprising: ``They indicate the need to move forward to balance the 
budget and enact some changes in Medicare that will strengthen the 
trust fund. Republicans and Democrats should work together to address 
the problem.''
  Get that--``Republicans and Democrats should work together to address 
the problem.'' Immediately after Labor Day last year, constantly 
Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich were inviting the White House to sit 
down and reach some sort of an agreement with us, a long time before we 
ever put this together and finally passed it. But, no, they did not 
want to sit down and talk about it. Yet, we are being admonished by the 
White House that ``Republicans and Democrats should work together to 
address the problem.''
  A letter to Congress last week from Treasury Secretary Robert E. 
Rubin suggested that Congress and the administration resume discussions 
to reach an agreement on Medicare and the budget. Well, we do not have 
that report. They say it might come out in June or July.
  Do you know what they are blaming for the delay? The fact that we had 
snow in January. We have snow every January in the Midwest, and it does 
not slow down the deadlines that we have to get reports out. But the 
longer this report can languish in the bureaucracy downtown, as long as 
some faceless bureaucrat can keep it under control, then it is less out 
there for public consideration and for the shots that it is going to 
take because of that.
  Mr. President, I hope that the administration will forget the fact 
that we had snow in January, because what is news about that? This 
report that is supposed to be issued in April, that was issued in April 
of last year, would be issued, and I will bet we will see the same 
Presidential appointees to the trustees tell us that Congress should do 
something about it. Well, if you ever wonder as part of the cynical 
public about Washington, DC whether Congress will ever balance the 
budget, it is right here in these 1,800 pages. We passed that last 
year. The President vetoed it. It saved Medicare from bankruptcy. We 
would not have to be dealing with this issue. Instead of Senator 
Domenici saying that we will run out of money in May of the year 2001, 
we would be saving that deadline for another decade down the road.
  I hope, Mr. President, that the President of the United States will 
come forth with his report. The longer you wait to make public bad 
news, the worse it is for the people that are giving the bad news.
  It would seem to me that the right thing to do is to simply state 
what the facts are, and the fact is that the situation with Medicare is 
much worse. It could be bankrupt in 5 more years--at the most, 6 
years--and the situation is deteriorating considerably because this 
administration vetoed the bill that we passed last year to save 
Medicare.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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