Martin Hoke: “the Democrats clearly have not understood that, in fact, in reality, we did abolish baseline budgeting, and so they are…”

“the Democrats clearly have not understood that, in fact, in reality, we did abolish baseline budgeting, and so they are using the same language that they used before, but I think it is very helpful to actually take apart their argument, facet by facet, piece by piece, because it starts with a $270 billion cut, which is completely false. That is simply untrue. We are going from $4,800 per beneficiary per year in 1995 to $6,700 per beneficiary per year in 2002. How that can possibly be a cut under anybody's rubric, under anybody's language, other than for the purpose of trying to manipulate public opinion or trying to score political points, or simply to prevaricate and falsify the record, is beyond me. You start with that, you start with a $270 billion cut which is not a cut, that is incorrect, and I think then we also have to talk about where is the responsibility? Why do we have any responsibility to deal with Medicare? If the program, if it is so great and it is working perfectly, why should we touch it? What are we trying to do? I think we ought to talk about that, maybe.”