Bill Clinton: “Let me say one thing. You said you wanted Medicare to be around another 32 years. Another point I should have made that…”

“Let me say one thing. You said you wanted Medicare to be around another 32 years. Another point I should have made that I didn't about taking the Trust Fund out 27 years, you think how much health care has changed in the last 27 years. The likelihood is it will change even more in the next 27 than it has changed in the last 27. And we may be caring for ourselves at home for things that we now think of as terminal hospital stays. They may become normal things where you give yourself medication; you give yourself your own shots; you do all the stuff that we now think of that would be unimaginable. I think if we can get it out that far, the whole way health care is delivered will change so dramatically that the people who come along after me and the Congress and in the White House will have opportunities to structure this in a different way that will be even more satisfying to the people as well as being better for their health. But that's why, to go back to what you said, I want us to do this prescription drug thing. I think it is critically important. But we also have to remember that we've got to stabilize the Trust Fund. We've got to take it out. It ought to be more than 25 years. When you look ahead, you know it's going to be there. Thank you. [The conversation continued.]”