Bob Kerrey: “the fact is that Medicare spending will continue to skyrocket due to an aging population, even in the miraculous event…”

“the fact is that Medicare spending will continue to skyrocket due to an aging population, even in the miraculous event that Federal health care costs were held to the rate of inflation--highly unlikely. Any time anybody gets close to looking at that, I note with some disappointment, some considerable disappointment the President saying no Medicare reductions can be used for deficit reduction. But any time you get close to making changes that would keep Medicare, the Federal costs going at the rate of inflation, we get providers coming in--the distinguished occupant of the chair, I am sure, has heard his cohorts talk about what happens when we reduce reimbursements under Medicare. We get hospitals coming in here. We get all sorts of people coming in here telling us about the terrible things that happen. Even if it miraculously occurred that the growth of the Federal program stayed at the rate of inflation, it would still be a substantial increase in the program merely because, as I said, of the tremendous demographic change. The Kerrey-Danforth proposal tries to fairly and evenly control the growth of entitlement programs. We allow Medicare beneficiaries to buy into risk-adjusted pools. We try to apportion the increase, the wedge that we see coming, between adjustments in what is paid to providers, adjustments in what the beneficiaries themselves pay in, and we say the general fund can pick up approximately a third of it, as well.…”