113 STAT. 1994 CONCURRENT RESOLUTIONS—APR. 15, 1999 those individuals against the financially ruinous costs of a major illness. (2) Expenditures under the Medicare Program for hospital, physician, and other essential health care services that are provided to nearly 39,000,000 retired and disabled individuals will be $232,000,000,000 in fiscal year 2000. (3) During the nearly 35 years since the Medicare Program was established, the Nation's health care delivery and financing system has undergone major transformations. However, the Medicare Program has not kept pace with such transformations. (4) Former Congressional Budget Office Director Robert Reischauer has described the Medicare Program as it exists today as failing on the following four key dimensions (known as the "Four I's"): (A) The program is inefficient. (B) The program is inequitable. (C) The program is inadequate. (D) The program is insolvent. (5) The President's budget framework does not devote 15 percent of the budget surpluses to the Medicare Program. The Federal budget process does not provide a mechanism for setting aside current surpluses for future obligations. As a result, the notion of saving 15 percent of the surplus for the Medicare Program cannot practically be carried out. (6) The President's budget framework would transfer to the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund more than $900,000,000,000 over 15 years in new lOUs that must be redeemed later by raising taxes on American workers, cutting benefits, or borrowing more from the public, and these new lOUs would increase the gross debt of the Federal Government by the amounts transferred. (7) The Congressional Budget Office has stated that the transfers described in paragraph (6), which are strictly intragovernmental, have no effect on the unified budget surpluses or the on-budget surpluses and therefore have no effect on the debt held by the public. (8) The President's budget framework does not provide access to, or financing for, prescription drugs. (9) The Comptroller General of the United States has stated that the President's Medicare Proposal does not constitute reform of the program and "is likely to create a public misperception that something meaningful is being done to reform the Medicare Program". (10) The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 enacted changes to the Medicare Program which strengthen and extend the solvency of that program. (11) The Congressional Budget Office has stated that without the changes made to the Medicare Program by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the depletion of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund would now be imminent. (12) The President's budget proposes to cut Medicare Program spending by $19,400,000,000 over 10 years, primarily through reductions in payments to providers under that program. (13) The recommendations by Senator John Breaux and Representative William Thomas received the bipartisan support
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