David Thomas: “The one line you continue to refer to is the transfer of funds from the endangered HI trust fund, which is scheduled to…”

“The one line you continue to refer to is the transfer of funds from the endangered HI trust fund, which is scheduled to go bankrupt in a short number of years. That is why we have the Medicare Commission, to protect those funds. What I have continued to refer to is the requirement and in fact the argument that is made by the military coalition, that these military retirees are going to give up their Medigap insurance to get into the program. Because certainly they are not going to pay out of pocket their own private dollars for a Medigap program, when in fact the taxpayers are going to pay 75 cents out of every dollar to put them into the FEHBP program. So you have the HI trust fund paying for the Medicare, and 75 cents out of every dollar of taxpayers money, the employer, to the retired military being paid in the FEHBP. They are giving up their private sector dollars, the Medigap dollars, to get this. But it is a demonstration program. It is only for three years. Why could you not write into the program a protection for these military retirees? It is not the one line you are talking about, which is the HI trust fund. It is the guarantee that you do not lose any more than the insurance that you had when you went into the program. That is one of the fundamental flaws of this amendment.”