Date: 2013-03-19
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to respond to a few of the comments from the chairman with respect to Medicare and health care costs. As we indicated earlier. weve seen a dramatic slowing in the per capita interest in health care cost. Thats a good thing. Thats. in part. we believe. a result of changes in the Affordable Care Act and. as a result of that. the socalled Independent Advisory Board that our colleagues misleadingly refer to as a bunch of bureaucrats wont even have any job to do for at least 10 years. probably longer. Now. if health care costs per capita start rising more quickly. then their taskand this is a group of health experts and otherstheir task is to propose a way to reduce those health care costs. and theyre specifically instructed not to have a negative impact on beneficiaries. And by the way. it specifically says. if Congress has a better way to do it. go for it. Thats what the law says. We think that thats a better approach than handing everything over to insurance companies. And the Republican plan to give seniors a voucher. premium supportI dont care what you call it. its bad news because seniors will be getting this thing. but the value of that thing doesnt keep up with the rising health care costs. Now. the chairman mentioned prescription drug part D. It came in under projected cost. One reason was you had more generic drugs on the entire market. not just the Medicare market. But the other. major reason was. guess what? There were 25 percent fewer people enrolled in part D. So you had fewer participants and so. obviously. it costs less. Twentyfive percent. Now. its simply wrong to say that the Republican voucher plan for Medicare is like part D prescription drug. or like the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. which weve heard about many times before. because the difference is. and it goes to the core of this issue. both those plans. part D and the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan. have provisions that ensure that the premium that is provided by the government. or Medicare. keeps up on a percentage basis with rising health care costs. Thats why its called premium support. and thats why the Republican plan is not premium support because it does not keep up with rising health care costs. if theyre going to claim the savings it makes. And heres a chart that illustrates this. This is current Medicare. Seniors are putting in a certain amount. and theyre guaranteed a certain percentage of support from Medicare. Heres the plan for Federal employees and Members of Congress: Members of Congress and Federal employees put in around 25 percent and the program picks up the other 75 percent. And as costs go up. the Federal Government still picks up 75 percent. Heres what happens with a voucher program where the value of what you get doesnt keep up with the percentage rise in health care costs. You. the beneficiary. the senior. pay more and more. And thats the only way it can work if youre at the same time going to show that congressional budget chart that shows all that spending out into the future. The only way you can bring that down under the plan is to cap the value of premiums. And thats not premium support. thats a voucher. And thats the end of the Medicare guarantee. I now yield 2 minutes to a great new member of the Budget Committee. the gentleman from Rhode Island