[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 82 (Thursday, June 6, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5936-S5937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, the whole Nation is waking to yet 
another trustees' report that should paint a very bright, vivid red 
light to every American. We have gone past the yellow light. I would 
like to share with the Senate just a few facts that have recently been 
published by the Coalition To Save Medicare.
  Fact: Medicare's hospital fund will be broke in less than 5 years.
  Fact: Because Medicare reform was not enacted last year, $133 billion 
more in savings is needed to meet the trustees' own minimum 
requirements.
  In other words, when the President of the United States vetoed the 
attempt to keep Medicare solvent, to make it solvent for almost 20 
years, to improve the options that seniors would have, to increase the 
investment in it 70 to 80 percent, the net effect is in 1 year we have 
made the job of solving and saving Medicare $133 billion more 
difficult.
  Fact: Each day, Medicare is spending $25 million more than it takes 
in.
  Fact: Without reform, a working American's annual payroll taxes will 
have to increase between $1,880 and $3,185 immediately to assure the 
long-term health of Medicare.
  Fact: Maintaining the current system as it is for the long term 
without reform or tax increases will require immediately increasing the 
annual hospital deductible a senior pays to between $5,380 and $6,540.
  Fact: Without reform, a working American's annual payroll taxes must

[[Page S5937]]

immediately increase to between $1,229 and $1,564 just to ensure that 
Medicare survives 25 years.
  Mr. President, as I have told Georgians and Americans all across the 
country, the era of passing these problems on to another generation is 
over. It is absolutely over. Within a decade, Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, Federal retirement and the interest only on our 
debt will consume 100 percent of the U.S. Treasury. It does not take a 
rocket scientist or a brilliant economist from one of our major 
universities to understand that that will wreak havoc on every family 
and every business. It will destabilize the world's greatest democracy.
  This problem is going to get worked out. We are either going to take 
charge of it and lead our way out of it or we are going to stumble into 
it, and world markets and the economy will come crashing down on our 
heads.
  I am reading from the Washington Times, Wednesday, June 5, 1996. It 
opens by saying:

       The Clinton administration today is expected to confirm 
     that Medicare will go bankrupt by 2001, but prospects for 
     resolving the problem this year look dim.

  So, as we approach this train wreck, we continue to turn away from it 
and we run the risk of destabilizing the lives of millions of 
Americans. But the more important thing that I read in this article is 
the following. It reads, ``Democrats said they are not that concerned 
that Medicare will go broke,'' that is interesting, ``because Congress 
has always acted at the last minute to avert a disaster.''
  The last minute part is correct. But the averting of a disaster is 
not. We have been moving with each succeeding year towards an ultimate 
disaster which has been called to our attention, once again, by the 
trustees. It says:

       ``I think Congress would default on Treasury bonds first,'' 
     said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat.

  It is interesting. Mr. Stark is the ranking member on the 
subcommittee on Ways and Means that deals with entitlements. This is a 
most interesting statement that he makes on this dilemma. He says:

       Mr. Stark acknowledged the $90 billion Democratic plan does 
     not go far enough to reform the system, even in the near-
     term, and does not even begin to address what all sides say 
     is a massive insolvency problem in 2010, when the Baby Boom 
     generation starts to retire.

  He goes on to say, and this is the key:

       To fix the longer-term problem, Mr. Stark said, Democrats 
     probably would resort either to a government takeover of the 
     hospital and health-insurance payment system or raising 
     payroll taxes.

  I hope everybody across our land has a chance to hear that solution. 
This is the solution he is offering up that produced the 104th 
Congress. This was the idea that the administration and the President 
and the First Lady took all across the country and said, look, the way 
to solve this problem is to have the Government take over medicine, 
have the Government take over another 17 percent of the American 
economy. And Americans said, ``No way.'' They were so offended by this 
idea that they turned the majority of the Congress over.
  But the idea has not left, and I believe that this statement by 
Representative Stark means that we are going to enter into, through the 
issue of Medicare, the whole question of our plan to modernize it, to 
create new options, to keep it in the private sector, to make it 
competitive, versus their plan, which is the old standard status quo, 
let the Government take it over and increase the economic burden on the 
American family and the American worker.
  Mr. President, an average family in the State of Georgia today makes 
$45,000 a year. By the time the Federal Government gets through going 
through their checking account, and the State government, and FICA for 
Social Security and Medicare, and their cost of regulatory reform, and 
their share of the higher interest rates because of the national debt, 
they end up with 49 percent of their wages to run their families' 
business. The suggestion that Mr. Stark is coming forward with is: That 
is not enough. Let us take another 10 or 20 percent out of their 
checking accounts.
  What America needs is for Washington to return these resources to the 
checking accounts of the average American family and to reject the 
administration and Mr. Stark's everlasting plea for more government and 
bigger government and more taxes and higher taxes.
  I think Mr. Stark, knowingly or unknowingly, wittingly or 
unwittingly, has drawn an enormous benchmark for us to debate over the 
balance of this year and the balance of this Congress as we talk about 
Medicare and talk about life in the American family and community in 
this great United States of America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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