Chuck Grassley: “I yield myself 4 minutes of the time remaining. Senator Conrad's amendment is very bad medicine for our seniors, in…”

“I yield myself 4 minutes of the time remaining. Senator Conrad's amendment is very bad medicine for our seniors, in terms of this fuzzying up the issue. If we allow this to happen, we are going to perpetuate the hoax that Medicare is running a surplus so that we can postpone urgently needed improvements in Medicare. The Senator's amendment also leads Americans into believing we can't provide tax relief for hard-working families and at the same time protect Medicare and Social Security. The Senator is just plain wrong because over the next 10 years we will be spending $3.8 trillion just on Medicare. That is more than two times the size of any proposed tax cut. To say that we on this side of the aisle are shortchanging seniors is ludicrous. In fact, the Senator's amendment would shortchange Medicare patients by splitting Medicare in half and leaving Part B of the program, including prescription drugs, unprotected. In 1993, Congress voted to tax up to 85 percent of Social Security benefits and transfer those taxes into the Part A trust fund. In 1997, Congress voted to transfer the cost of home health out of Part A trust fund into Part B. Had these two actions not occurred, there would be no surplus in Part A. Medicare Part B will run a deficit of more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years, completely offsetting the $400 billion surplus in Part A.…”