Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday the trustees of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds released their long-awaited annual report, and that report confirms our worst fears that the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund--which pays for the hospital bills of our Nation's elderly--will be bankrupt in nearly 4 years, in the year 2001. This is a year earlier than the trustees predicted in their last report. The report, which by law, Mr. President, was due April 1 but only received yesterday, 10 weeks late, indicates that the Medicare trust fund ran a deficit of $2.6 billion in 1995 and that the deficit will nearly quadruple to $9.2 billion this year. By the year 2001, the fund will have a deficit of $56 billion, and, having exhausted all accrued interest, it will be bankrupt. That is what we are looking at. The Trustees report provides a striking reminder that this crisis which the Medicare system faces did not disappear with the President's veto of the Balanced Budget Act of 1995--the one honest attempt to make structural reforms to the Medicare Program. To the contrary, this report shows us that Medicare is going broke at even a faster rate than previously predicted. What are we doing about it?”