Judd Gregg: “I understand Senator Chambliss is on his way over. I will yield when he gets here. I want to respond briefly to what the…”

“I understand Senator Chambliss is on his way over. I will yield when he gets here. I want to respond briefly to what the Senator from Montana said. I have respect for the Senator. He is one of the Members who is always constructive in trying to move the process forward in a way that is usually very bipartisan. But I do believe on the issue of the Medicaid accounts, he is inconsistent with where we ended up. The Medicaid issue is really at the essence of this effort to reduce debt through this deficit reduction bill. Why is that? Well, because we know as we look into the outyears, the biggest problem we have as a Federal Government from the standpoint of fiscal policy is that we have these huge obligations. Yesterday I said it was $44 trillion. I am told by the staff that the Comptroller's office said it is $51 trillion of unfunded liability that the American people--especially our children and our children's children--are going to have to pay in order to support the retired population that is now called the baby boom generation. Of that $51 trillion--a trillion dollars is an impossible number to conceive, and $51 trillion is absolutely inconceivable. But of that number, the vast majority of it, up to $30 trillion, is health care costs in two accounts, Medicare and Medicaid. Why is that?…”