On the recordSeptember 30, 2013
I thank the Presiding Officer. Mr. Elmendorf, by the next morning, gave us a letter. It laid out and contained this language. He said: The key point is that savings to the HI trust fund-- That is the Medicare trust fund. --of $500 billion over 10 years, the savings from the HI trust fund by cutting providers and increase Medicare taxes under PPACA-- That is the Affordable Care Act. --would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. You can't simultaneously say you are using this money to support Medicare by making Medicare more sustainable and then spend the money on a new program because then it is not going to be available to strengthen Medicare. That double-counting is not even taken into account in the $6.2 trillion figure derived from the GAO study. I would conclude by saying the unfunded liabilities in this law are huge. They are a direct threat to the future of the United States financially. At this point in history, we need to be saving Medicare, we need to be saving Social Security, and we need to be saving Medicaid. We don't need to be starting another program without sufficient funds to pay for it. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
