Senator's Column by Mike Johanns

August 3, 2009 Medicare and Medicaid Should Not Pay For Health Care Reform Dear Nebraskans, The Senate is wrapping up its final days before adjourning until Labor Day. Even though no health care legislation has come to the floor in the Senate or the House of Representatives, health care remains a hot topic. Both houses have proposals working through the committee process, which have struggled in committee because they are significantly flawed. I, as well as my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, have many concerns as to how our current government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, will be funded given the provisions in these bills. As the weeks go on, creating a government-run health care system seems more and more foolish. Legislation in the House of Representatives outlines about $500 billion worth of cuts to Medicare. This money would be taken out of Medicare and used to help fund the new government-run health care system. Medicare is already projected to be bankrupt by 2017, and it baffles me that some of my colleagues are actually proposing to take money out of it while simultaneously expanding the federal government's health care obligations. With so many elderly Americans relying heavily on Medicare, this proposal makes no sense. I have similar concerns regarding Medicaid. Both the Senate and the House bills propose to significantly expand Medicaid. The National Governors Association (NGA), estimates this expansion will impose on states an unfunded mandate of nearly $130 billion annually. When I was Governor, we worked hard to ensure Medicaid reached as many eligible people as possible while carefully fitting it into a balanced budget. This provision threatens to completely upend Nebraska's budget. NGA projects this unfunded mandate will cost Nebraska $186 million annually. This money will have to be raised by either cutting other programs or raising taxes. Tough decisions about funding education and other important priorities get even harder within this new financial landscape. In light of all this, I introduced a resolution that puts Senators on record for or against protecting Medicare funding and protecting state budgets from this enormous unfunded mandate. It says any savings found within Medicare should be inserted back into the program to help its financial viability. Just last week, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee reported that if these savings were applied toward Medicare's unfunded obligations, it would keep the program afloat an extra two years, and would reduce the accumulated Medicare shortfall by $7.3 trillion over the next 75 years. My resolution would also ensure that creating a new, government-run system would not burden states with unfunded mandates in order to expand Medicaid. States like Nebraska, which strive to achieve a balanced budget year in and year out, simply cannot afford such costs. Medicaid is already causing financial chest pains in Washington. A Medicaid expansion would put state budgets into full blown cardiac arrest. Washington can do better. We owe it to you-the people we serve-to do better. I look forward to hearing more of your ideas and concerns as I travel throughout Nebraska for the next few weeks.