[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 52 (Thursday, March 29, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2231-S2232]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HOUSE BUDGET PROPOSAL

  Mr. BAUCUS. President Kennedy said that ``to govern is to choose.''
  When you put away the charts and graphs, budgets are about choices. 
These choices impact our children's schools, business owners' bottom 
lines, and families' paychecks. And they affect how we care for our 
wounded veterans when they return home from fighting for us.
  The House has chosen to pass the House Budget Committee chairman's 
budget.
  Just as it did last year, this budget makes a stark choice. It shows 
where the House's priorities are.

[[Page S2232]]

  Under the House plan, millionaires would receive an average tax cut 
of at least $150,000. Meanwhile, seniors would eventually have to pay 
nearly $6,000 more for their health care. That is a big increase when 
the average senior has a fixed income of only $25,000 a year.
  Most Americans would agree that this doesn't pass the smell test.
  We know we need to reduce our deficit.
  But asking seniors to pay an additional quarter of their income for 
their health care while giving millionaires a six-figure tax break just 
isn't fair. It is certainly not balanced. And it is the wrong choice.
  The House plan would also end the Medicare Program seniors know 
today. It would eliminate guaranteed benefits. It would charge seniors 
more for their prescriptions. It would make them pay for the screenings 
and doctor visits they get free now.
  The millions hurt by this plan include former members of our Armed 
Forces who served for more than 20 years or were injured while on duty. 
This budget leaves these military retirees-- and other seniors--high 
and dry.
  It takes a lot of courage to serve a full career in the military. But 
there is nothing courageous about cutting care for our military 
retirees. I will stand up for our military and our seniors and make 
sure they have the health care they need.
  The House budget also increases the eligibility age for Medicare from 
65 to 67 years old. That means seniors would be forced to work later in 
life, just to keep their health care.
  And the House budget replaces Medicare with a voucher program.
  Seniors would have to use these fixed-price vouchers to purchase 
private insurance or Medicare. But this voucher wouldn't cover seniors' 
health care needs.
  Seniors would be forced to make up the difference by spending 
thousands of dollars out of their own pockets.
  To make matters worse, under the House plan, seniors would be paying 
more and getting less.
  Private insurance companies would get to dictate what care seniors 
can get--and what they can't. Private companies could say a senior 
can't have hospice or nursing home care or they could limit hospital 
stays or prescription drug coverage.
  The House plan would end the guaranteed benefits that Medicare 
protects today.
  I won't let this happen. I won't let others break our promise to 
America's seniors. I won't let anyone dismantle Medicare.
  Besides ending the Medicare seniors rely on today, the House budget 
does not solve our country's deficit problem. It just makes seniors and 
middle-class families pay more than their fair share.
  Fortunately, this is not the only option we have to reduce our 
country's debt. We have another choice--the path we took with health 
reform.
  We know our long-term deficits are in part due to health care costs. 
For the past several decades, these costs have been growing faster than 
inflation. This makes Medicare more expensive for the government.
  That is why health reform focused on lowering overall health care 
costs.
  This lowers premiums for seniors enrolled in Medicare today. And it 
helps keep the program strong for generations to come.
  If we hadn't passed health reform, the deficit would be more than $1 
trillion higher over the next two decades.
  If we hadn't passed the affordable care act, health care spending 
would have doubled. We passed health reform to bend the cost curve and 
slow this cost growth.
  Last week marked the second anniversary of the health care reform 
law. We are already seeing results. According to CBO, over the next 10 
years, per-person Medicare costs will decrease by four percentage 
points compared to the past thirty years.
  How did we make this progress?
  We know that when doctors and hospitals don't talk to each other, 
patients receive the same tests twice and other duplicative services. 
Health reform improves coordination by giving providers incentives to 
work together.
  We know that expensive diseases can be better managed if they are 
caught early. Health reform provides free preventive care to catch and 
treat costly chronic conditions.
  We know criminals try to rip off taxpayers. Health reform provides 
law enforcement new tools to protect Medicare and Medicaid from fraud 
and recoup taxpayer dollars.
  We know that some of the best ideas to lower costs don't come out of 
Washington. They come from our communities. Health reform leverages 
these good ideas by partnering with the private sector.
  This is the path we need to continue down. We need to ensure these 
tools are successful and work to improve them. We need to build on 
these reforms to keep saving consumers' and taxpayers' money.
  As we look to solving our country's largest problems, we need to 
remember our priorities.
  We need to focus on fairness. We need to remember that the choices we 
make matter.
  The choices we made in the affordable care act are making our health 
care system more efficient. These choices are lowering costs for 
everyone.
  The House plan chooses to ignore rising health care costs. It simply 
shifts risks and costs onto the backs of America's seniors.
  That is a plan that is not right for seniors. It is not right for our 
health care system. And it is not right for our future. The American 
people know which choice we should make.

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