I’d like to thank Chairman Herger for holding this hearing today. Monitoring Medicare’s solvency is an important responsibility for this Committee, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss this topic with the Public Trustees today.
This year’s Medicare Trustees Report shows a Medicare program that has been significantly improved by enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Medicare beneficiaries are also enjoying important new benefits as a result of the law. Without the health reform law, insolvency would be projected in only five years - a full eight years less than the 2024 date reported by the Trustees.
It is also important to look at the Trustee’s Reports in historical context. Since we’ve been projecting Medicare solvency, those projections have varied widely. In 1970 and 1971, the program was expected to hit insolvency in only two years. At the end of the Clinton Administration in 2000, it had a robust 25 years of solvency. In fact, during the past 45 years, whether solvency projections have been two years or 25, we have never allowed Medicare to become insolvent. Why? Because Congress has always acted to make changes to the program to avoid that outcome. That’s our job and I think we’ve done it pretty well.
I would also note that no private health insurance company - and we know our Republican colleagues would prefer that Medicare be handed over to them - is measured with regard to their projected solvency over the next 75 years -- or even one year. They move quarter-by-quarter with the market.
My Republican colleagues will focus on the solvency date having slipped five years from last year’s post-reform projection of 2029. We know, however, that this slip is primarily due to our sluggish economic recovery, which directly affects Medicare’s financial standing. That said, I’m not sure why our Majority is focused on the issue of Medicare solvency at all. They’ve already voted to end Medicare. Their position is clear.
Republicans don’t believe it is the role of the federal government to guarantee health benefits to senior citizens and people with disabilities. They prefer to repeal the health reform law and end the delivery system reforms -- reforms that this Trustee’s Report highlights as showing real promise for controlling Medicare spending growth even more in the future. Republicans instead want to provide Medicare beneficiaries with a voucher to purchase more expensive private insurance that may or may not be affordable, or cover the benefits they need.
There’s no doubt that an underfunded voucher would save the government money. Medicare becomes a lot cheaper when you decimate the program.
The message to take from this year’s Trustee’s Report is that the Affordable Care Act significantly improved Medicare’s financial standing. But there is always more to be done, and we must work together to protect and improve Medicare - not end its guaranteed benefits for senior citizens today and tomorrow.
With that, I yield back to my friend from California and look forward to the testimony and discussion to follow. #
