[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5924-H5925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          MEDICARE TRUST FUND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, you know the one thing, or one of the things, 
that a representative democracy cannot tolerate is the poison of 
disinformation and deceit and demagoguery. And it is a solitary, 
singular and extraordinarily disturbing time when it is necessary to, 
or one is certainly moved to feel the necessity to correct the record 
at every single turn just so that the poison of disinformation, the 
poison of deceit, the poison of hypocrisy and the poison of lies will 
not completely undermine the vary fabric of our ability to represent 
ourselves in a representative democracy.
  So what I would like to talk about this evening is the Medicare trust 
fund and particularly this chart because what this is this is the 
Federal hospital insurance trust fund report, for it represents the 
report for 1995 and then for 1996.
  In 1995 the trustees, the President's trustees; these are not, they 
are not supposed to be, partisan trustees, they are nonpartisan, or 
they really should not have a partisan impact. But if they were going 
to be considered partisan, I suppose you would have to consider them to 
be Democratic representatives because they were all appointed by the 
President. But I do not consider them to be partisan; I do not think 
that is correct. I think that in fact they were

[[Page H5925]]

appointed by the President, they are members of his Cabinet, and they 
are there trying to do the very best that they can for the American 
people.

                              {time}  2300

  What they do is, they are required by law to come up with an analysis 
of the trust funds. What they said in 1995 is they believed that we 
would have a balance of zero, that is what this line represents, Mr. 
Speaker, a balance of zero in the Medicare Trust Fund in about the year 
2002. Do Members see how that matches up there? What this shows is the 
trust fund balance at the end of each fiscal year.
  But the new report that was just published, and by the way, I do not 
know why it was only published yesterday, that we are just seeing it 
the first week of June. It is supposed to be published in April. But in 
any event, it finally came out in June. What it shows is that it goes 
to zero, the trust fund balance at the end of the fiscal year goes to 
zero in about the year 2000. So the President's trustees here, they are 
not saying, oh, it is not as bad as we thought, they are saying it is 
worse, it is worse. It is a lot worse. We are spending a lot more money 
than we thought we were spending.
  What exactly was it that the President wished for in his reforms? His 
reforms would have increased Medicare spending at about 7.2 percent per 
year, and our reforms, that is, the House's reforms, the Senate's 
reforms, the congressional reforms, would have increased them at about 
7.0 percent per year.
  How either one of those could possibly be described as a deep cut I 
do not understand. I do not understand. When are we increasing at 7.0 
percent or 7.2 percent, how on earth can that be described as a deep 
cut? I do not know. I do not know.
  But, Mr. Speaker, what I do know is that if we do not fix the 
problem, if we as representatives of the people of the United States, 
who are supposed to be acting responsibly, not with partisan purposes 
to be acting responsibly, not with partisan purposes first, not because 
we are trying to get elected or reelected, not because we are trying to 
retain power or because we are trying to retake power but because we 
are trying to do what is right by the American people, if we do not fix 
this problem it will not go broke in 2002, as the President's trustees 
suggested or stated in their report of 1995, it will go broke in the 
year 2000. And if we do not do anything, I suppose if Members believe 
in trend lines, then it would be reasonable to assume that next year's 
report will show that it is going to be broke in 1998, which will be 12 
months from then.
  Rome is burning here, Mr. Speaker. We need to fix this.

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