Nancy L. Johnson: “Mr. Speaker, to those who say the benefit in this bill is not rich enough, I would ask them to remember that Medicare…”

“Mr. Speaker, to those who say the benefit in this bill is not rich enough, I would ask them to remember that Medicare spending, despite the bipartisan Balanced Budget Act of 1997, is still growing at an unsustainable rate. As a share of our gross domestic product, Medicare has grown from 1.3 percent in 1980 to more than 2.2 percent today and will hit 5 percent by the year 2030. By 2075, Medicare will be just under 10 percent of our gross domestic product. 10 percent of GDP may not seem like much until you consider that over the last four decades Federal tax revenues have averaged between 18 and 19 percent of GDP. In other words, under current projections, unless the Federal tax burden is raised to new and potentially economically destructive levels, Medicare, together with Social Security and Medicaid, will quickly crowd out spending on other important initiatives, including defense, homeland security, education, transportation and others. These long-term trends will only be exacerbated by the addition of a prescription drug benefit which is not coupled with meaningful structural reform of the Medicare program.”