Bryan lambastes house on reforms

Thursday, Dec. 4, 1997 | 10:57 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., suggests that members of the House got cold feet when they refused to pass reforms to head off a possible bankruptcy of Medicare.

Right now the budget for Medicare is $220 billion and that will escalate to $400 billion in 10 years. It's the fastest growing program in the government, he told the Carson City Chamber of Commerce Wednesday.

And there must be changes. One made by the Senate this session, would have the wealthy who are enrolled in Medicare, pay a higher premium for Part B, the program that reimburses the doctors.

At present everybody pays a voluntary premium for this service but the general taxpayer still ends up footing 75 percent of the bill. The Senate, he said passed a bill to phase out this subsidy to couples who earn more than $75,000.

The bill received bipartisan support in the Senate and passed 70-30. But he said both Republican and Democratic leaders in the House got queasy about the political consequences and sidetracked the legislation.

Nobody is going to lose their benefits, he said but the system must be changed to put it on a solid financial footing.

Unless there are reforms, Bryan said by the year 2011 every federal dollar will be going to pay off the national debt or for entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, military pensions and other similar programs.

"There will be nothing for defense or highways or other programs," he said.

These changes don't include taking away Social Security benefits but they mean a change in the funding system for entitlement programs, he said.

Bryan said the national economy seems to be surging with more jobs created in the United States than in the rest of the industrialized nations combined.

The greatest long-term threat to the economy is finding people who have enough education to fill the new high technology jobs. Because of this shortage, Bryan said a large number of immigrants have been allowed into the United States to fill the gap in search for qualified people.