Jack Kingston: “it has been almost 4 months now that the trustees of the Medicare plan, the Clinton trustees, have come out with a…”

“it has been almost 4 months now that the trustees of the Medicare plan, the Clinton trustees, have come out with a report saying that Medicare is going broke in the year 2002. About 2 months ago President Clinton said: We cannot leave the system the way it is . . . when you think about what the baby boomers require . . . that's going to require significant long-term structural adjustment. We'll have to look at what we can do there. But the main thing we can't do--we can't have this thing go broke in the meanwhile. I think, certainly, this is a very significant thing for all of us to realize, that Congress must, No. 1, fix Medicare. No. 2, we have got to do it in a fair way. It cannot be done on the back of one group over another one. No. 3, we have to save the system by strengthening it and preserving it. The proposal that we have in our budget is to increase spending per recipient from $4,800 today to $6,700 in the year 2002. We are also probably going to have options on Medisave accounts, a choice of doctor, managed care plans, and so forth. I think the most important thing for right now is for us to acknowledge that Medicare is going broke. It is a bipartisan problem. We welcome the ideas of all the Democrats, Republicans, and senior citizens throughout our great country.”