Martin Hoke: “I just happen to have a chart that shows exactly what we are going to do here. We are going to go from $4,816 per person…”

“I just happen to have a chart that shows exactly what we are going to do here. We are going to go from $4,816 per person per beneficiary per year up to $6,734 per beneficiary per year. That takes into account all of the new additions to the Medicare population, Medicare ranks. I think maybe even more interesting is another chart that shows you that we are going to go on a per beneficiary per month basis from about $401 in 1995 to $561 per month per beneficiary in 2002. We are going up from $178 billion in 1995 to $274 billion in 2002. Obviously, our challenge as a nation, our challenge as a Congress is to give solutions and reforms that will make it possible for us to serve the Medicare population using this number of dollars. But it is crystal clear that what we are doing is from where we are today at $178 billion, which is covering that population, we are increasing up to $274 billion in 2002. I think that that is a pretty important fact that the public deserves to know.”