Daniel Moynihan: “I rise to state that the Senate is about to take the first vote of this Congress on the issue of health care reform…”

“I rise to state that the Senate is about to take the first vote of this Congress on the issue of health care reform, because if the amendment of my friend from Mississippi should be adopted, we will be instructed to take some $20 billion in entitlement cuts and put them into effect in this coming budget round. Those are precisely the sums and the areas in the budget--primarily Medicare--which, under the President's proposal and under any number of similar proposals, we mean to use to finance health care reform, bringing about universal coverage for the population and a measure of cost containment which is totally indispensable. The costs of Medicare and Medicaid are growing in the same manner, somewhat faster but in the same manner, as that of health care generally. The Congressional Budget Office projects that private health care spending will grow on average at 7.8 percent a year. That doubles in about 7 years. That is the rate at which it compounds, I think. In the budget outlook sent us earlier this year by the Congressional Budget Office, we see Medicare doubling by the year 2004--more than doubling, somewhat more than doubling. We see Medicaid going up by 150 percent-- going up 1 times. The general projection is that the cost of health in our country, which now takes up 14 percent of the gross domestic product, of our wealth, what we generate as wealth, will go to 20 percent in 10 years' time at the rate we are heading.”