[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6487-H6488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 minutes.

  [Mr. WELDON of Florida addressed the House. His remarks will appear 
hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

[[Page H6488]]



                            FIXING MEDICARE

  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, the Medicare trustees have just issued their 
annual report and the news in that report is not good. Medicare is now 
losing money for the first time ever. We are actually taking in less 
than we are spending. It is going to be completely broke by 2001, 
according to the trustees, unless prompt, effective, and decisive 
action is taken to control costs.
  I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, to understand that the trustees 
are not a partisan group. They include three members of the Clinton 
Cabinet. Last year those trustees projected that Medicare would not run 
out of money until 2002. This year they are saying that under the 
middle scenario, because the way that they do their projections, they 
have to come up with three different scenarios, best case, worst case, 
and middle case. They are saying that under the middle scenario, it is 
going to run out of money in 2001 and that under the worst scenario it 
could be 1999 when the trust fund runs out of money.
  So as bad as the news is, what the American people need to know is 
that regardless of who wins in November, Medicare's financial crisis is 
going to be solved, because letting Medicare go bankrupt is simply not 
an option. It is not an option for the responsible legislators of this 
Congress and it is not an option that exists for the President or 
anybody who is elected to be President.
  Both Congress and the White House have offered plans that limit the 
rate of growth in Medicare spending by strikingly similar amounts. The 
White House would increase spending 7.2 percent annually. Congress 
would increase spending 7.0 percent annually. To put this in 
perspective, bear in mind that right now the annual growth rate in 
private sector health care spending is less than 3 percent annually.
  What I have just said will no doubt, Mr. Speaker, come as a great 
surprise to those who already have suffered from overexposure to the 
semihysterical, patently, false, and politically motivated mantra of 
cuts, cuts, cuts. President Clinton himself put it well when he said, 
``When you hear all this business about cuts, let me caution you that 
that is not what is going on. We are going to have increases in 
Medicare.''
  While the sides are essentially in agreement with respect to how much 
to restrict the rate of growth in Medicare, or how much to let it 
grow--7.0 percent, 7.2 percent--in fact there are very significant 
differences as to how to do that.
  The President and those who believe that Washington knows best are 
committed to a top-down, bureaucratic solution that would increase the 
Government's role in the health care of our seniors. It is essentially 
identical to the plan that Mrs. Clinton was the chief architect of in 
1994 and which we defeated in this House in 1994. That is, a plan that 
depends almost exclusively on forcing senior citizens into managed 
care. That is the President's notion of the way to get control of the 
Medicare crisis. But the far better solution is to modernize Medicare 
and give seniors the same kinds of options, including medical savings 
accounts, that are now available in some of the very best private 
sector plans while preserving their right to stay with traditional 
Medicare if that is what they choose.
  In addition, we must mount the first ever attack on waste and fraud 
and the waste and fraud that has helped bring Medicare to the very 
brink of bankruptcy. I remember when Bob Reischauer was still the 
director of CBO, he testified before the Budget Committee that I serve 
on. He stated very clearly that somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of 
the money that is spent on Medicare goes down the drain in waste and 
fraud. Think about that--20 percent of $180 billion is $36 billion 
hard-earned taxpayer dollars thrown away.
  Unfortunately, some folks, including politicians, Washington special-
interest groups, even the President himself, have indulged their 
partisan ambitions by intentionally trying to scare seniors into 
believing that Congress might like their Medicare benefits away from 
them. Helping to spread that poison are the big labor bosses in 
Washington who have spent literally millions of dollars confiscated 
from their own rank-and-file membership on advertisements pursuing that 
same big lie. Yet when you cut through all the political grandstanding, 
one thing becomes crystal clear. The longer a Medicare solution is put 
off, the harder and more unplatatable the choices become. We need all 
sides working together now, not as Republicans and as Democrats but as 
Americans, to solve this problem.
  So the next time that you hear someone attack Congress for killing 
Medicare, ask them to show you their plan to save it. The chances are 
they will not have one. That is because they are thinking more about 
the next election than they are about the next generation.

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