[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 28 (Monday, July 17, 2000)]
[Pages 1626-1627]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Proposed Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Legislation

July 12, 2000

    Thirty-five years ago this month, President Johnson enacted the 
Medicare program into law. The program has proven to be a remarkable 
success, providing basic health care services to tens of millions of 
older Americans and people with disabilities. Since its enactment, there 
has been a decrease of over 60 percent in elderly poverty and Americans 
over 65 now have the highest life expectancy of seniors anywhere in the 
world.
    I am particularly proud of my administration's stewardship of the 
Medicare program. When I came into office, Medicare was projected to 
become insolvent in 1999. Our success in keeping overall and health care 
inflation low, combating fraud, waste, and abuse, and making the 
Medicare program more competitive and efficient has resulted in the 
strongest Medicare Trust Fund solvency in a quarter century. We have 
extended the life of the Trust Fund to 2025 and Medicare premiums are 
nearly 20 percent lower today than projected in 1993. We have also 
modernized the program to cover preventive services and coverage for 
clinical trials.

    We need to build on our successful management of the Medicare 
program and prepare it for the inevitable health and demographic 
challenges it faces in the 21st century. No one would create a Medicare 
program today without a prescription drug benefit. With the announcement 
of the completion of the human genome and the revolutionary impact it 
will have on the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not 
all, human disease, the importance of pharmaceuticals as a clinical tool 
will only increase.

    That is why I have proposed a comprehensive plan that would take the 
Medicare Trust Fund off budget, extend the life of the Trust Fund to at 
least 2030, make the program more efficient, provide for increased 
health care provider payments, and modernize it to include a long 
overdue Medicare prescription drug benefit option. This benefit would be 
available and affordable to all beneficiaries, no matter where they live 
or how sick they are.

    I am pleased that there is growing momentum on Capitol Hill to 
provide a real Medicare prescription drug benefit, not a flawed 
insurance model. Because we have managed the program so efficiently, due 
to the leadership of the longest serving Secretary of Health and Human 
Services in history, Donna Shalala, we can use our success in reducing 
the cost of the program and reinvest the savings to help finance a 
meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit. I urge the Congress to 
work together in a bipartisan fashion to meet the challenges this 
program faces, and to ensure that it continues to provide the critically 
important insurance coverage for the 39 million seniors and people with 
disabilities the program serves.

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