Share This Page Slashdot Del.icio.us Google Digg Reddit Newsvine Furl Yahoo Facebook

Washington, Mar 17, 2011 -

Today Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, made opening remarks at the House Budget Committee Hearing on “Fulfilling the Mission of Health and Retirement Security.” Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery.

“I join Chairman Ryan in welcoming our witnesses today. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are essential to the health and retirement security of millions of Americans. The challenge before us is to make these vital programs sustainable over the long run given the spending growth trends. These trends, as we all know, are due to the aging of our population and the fact that per capita health care costs – both private and public – have grown faster than the economy.

“So I hope we can come together to ensure the long-term viability and integrity of these programs as we put our nation on a fiscally stable path.

“One year ago, many in this Congress began to tackle the challenge of rising per capita health costs by enacting the Affordable Care Act. That law begins to address what every health expert knows – that the rising cost of health care is not unique to Medicare and Medicaid. Those costs are endemic to the entire health care system. In fact, for 30 years, the per beneficiary spending in Medicare and Medicaid has grown at virtually the same rate as those for the overall health system – and over the last decade the Medicaid per beneficiary costs actually grew much more slowly than the rest of the health care system. By contrast, in the private market for individual coverage, premiums more than doubled between the years 2000 and 2008, as insurance industry profits quadrupled.

“The Affordable Care Act will begin to bring down the per capita costs of health care throughout the system – including in Medicare.  As the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has told this Committee, it will also reduce the federal deficit by $210 billion over 10 years and by more than $1 trillion over 20 years. It includes virtually every cost containment provision recommended by health care experts. Dr. Rivlin and Dr. Van de Water made those points in a January 26, 2011 letter to this Committee, where they joined others in warning that ‘repealing the Affordable Care Act would cause needless economic harm and would set back efforts to create a more disciplined and more effective health care system.’

“The health care reform law includes numerous Medicare reforms, including mechanisms to slow the growth of system costs, new tools to crack down on fraud, and the elimination of excessive taxpayer subsidies to managed care insurance companies. The response to these important reforms was a barrage of campaign attack ads, aimed at seniors, accusing Democrats of slashing Medicare.

“So Democrats welcome an honest debate about how we can strengthen and sustain Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. We recognize that a variety of measures are necessary to accomplish that objective. But we will vigorously oppose any effort to undermine the integrity of these programs. You don’t need to be a history buff to know that Republicans in earlier Congresses fought the establishment of Medicare and Social Security as ferociously as they are fighting the Affordable Care Act today. We will fight any budget plan that extends deficit-busting tax breaks for millionaires and at the same time rolls back critical Medicare and Medicaid health services and Social Security protections for seniors and the disabled in the name of deficit reduction.

“And that brings me to my last point, Mr Chairman. Any serious and comprehensive approach to reducing the deficits and the debt must ensure that we do not undermine our economic recovery and requires us to examine the full range of ideas proposed by the President’s Bipartisan Fiscal Commission as well as the Rivlin-Domenici Debt Reduction Task Force. So I hope that before the Budget Committee considers the 2012 budget, we will also have hearings on the major issue of tax reform and tax earmarks, as well the recommendations of both bipartisan groups regarding some of the wasteful and unnecessary spending in the Pentagon and some of the national security agencies. Otherwise, we will be sending the message that, despite the good work of the Bipartisan Commission and Bipartisan Policy Center, the only targets for deficit reduction are domestic discretionary programs – a very small sliver of the budget – that we have spent weeks debating on the floor and the health and retirement security programs we are focusing on today. I hope that is not the case.”