Christopher Shays: “It is really incredible to think that right now the trust fund has in the balance $112 billion. That will go down in…”

“It is really incredible to think that right now the trust fund has in the balance $112 billion. That will go down in 1998, the next year, to $92 billion. When you figure that loss on a daily basis, each day that passes the trust fund is losing $35 million. That is in the year we are in now. Next year it is going to lose $55 million each day. And the next year after that, in 1999, it is going to lose $78 million each and every day. This is according to the President's trustees of this fund, the people who have the fiduciary responsibility to protect it as we do. They have shared this information with us. They have told us the problem. It is up to us to come up with a solution. Then they have said in the year 2000, it will lose about $103 million a day, and it will be bankrupt in 2001, because it will be losing $134 million each and every day. We came up with a plan 2 years ago that we will continue to advocate and promote that did not increase the copayments for seniors, did not increase the deductible for seniors, it did not increase the premium for seniors. What it did do was allow seniors for the first time to choose to have a private medical plan.”