By REP. MAC COLLINS
3rd District U.S. Congress

I want to welcome President Clinton to the debate on Medicare reform.

Medicare reform has been a cornerstone of efforts of the Republican-led Congress. We have been, and will continue to be, totally committed to Medicare reform. We will not play politics with an issue as critical as the health of our seniors, as some have today insinuated. We will have honesty and integrity in the debate, and the record will be clear, as it has been in the past.

Here is the record:

ä In 1995, Congress passed the Medicare Preservation Act providing major Medicare reform. President Clinton vetoed the legislation.

ä Despite the president's strong opposition, Congress returned to the issue in the next Congress, passing the legislation in 1997 with sufficient support to discourage a veto. The enacted measure ensured the solvency of the Medicare system through 2010, provided significant new protections from fraud and abuse, created new health coverage options and new preventive benefits. The legislation also created a bipartisan Commission on Medicare Reform, to make recommendations for long-term Medicare reform.

ä In early 1999, President Clinton submitted his budget to Congress which proposed overall to cut Medicare by $11.9 billion over five years and $26.7 billion over ten years. In addition, he proposed to impose $194 million in new user fees on Medicare recipients. Congress rejected these proposed cuts.

ä The budget passed by Congress sets aside 100 percent of the payroll taxes for preserving the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare. The plan includes $208.7 billion for Medicare in FY 2000, increasing each year to $295.1 billion in FY 2005.

ä Currently, the House Ways and Means Committee is actively reviewing the recommendations of the bipartisan Commission on Medicare Reform and is drafting legislation to reflect conclusions of the panel.

The proposal offered this week by President Clinton would increase drug benefits under Medicare, financed by $72 billion in unidentified cost-cutting and $45.5 billion of the budget surplus. In all, Clinton has proposed devoting $794 billion of the surplus over the next 15 years to Medicare.

I believe all Americans want to ensure the solvency of Medicare and Social Security. Those who have paid taxes for these protections deserve to have those protections. I believe Americans also want to keep more of the income they earn, and not keep pouring it into the abyss of the Internal Revenue Service and federal government coffers. We must find the balance.

Sen. John Breaux, the Democratic chairman of the Medicare Commission, said structural changes and not surpluses are needed: “Throwing old money into this 1965 program is like putting more gas in an old car. It still runs like an old car.”

I fully agree with the chairman of the commission. We must develop fundamental changes to the system. Simply throwing more money at the problem will only make it worse.

Providing Medicare benefits is very, very expensive; and the money spent on Medicare comes from the pockets of taxpaying citizens. Our responsibility is to tax prudently, to spend that money wisely, and to provide a secure, efficient and effective system of health care upon which we can all rely in our senior years.

As a member of the Ways and Means Committee which will develop this legislation, I am totally committed to achieving this goal.

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