[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H4134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      MEDICARE HOSPITAL TRUST FUND

  (Mr. RIGGS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Speaker, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office 
has released new data showing Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund 
is going bankrupt a lot faster than the President's trustees estimated.
  But the President and congressional Democrats have not put forth any 
new or serious ideas in light of this alarming new information. In 
fact, the Washington Post said yesterday,

       The new numbers appear to lend support to Republican 
     charges that the medicare hospital trust fund is 
     deteriorating faster than had been realized and that steps 
     must be taken quickly to arrest the decline. Last year the 
     medicare trust fund lost $35.7 million and this year in the 
     first 6 months of this year alone, it has lost $4 billion.

  Mr. Speaker, Medicare's problems are much more serious than the 
President and congressional Democrats are willing to admit. They want 
to play politics with this issue. It is time to turn off the medicare 
radio and TV ads, stop the medigoguery and join with us a plan that 
preserves Medicare from bankruptcy while increasing spending and 
increasing health care choices for every single Medicare beneficiary.

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