On the Spot (CNSNews.com) - Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told Cybercast News Service on Tuesday that they would support raising taxes to pay the $36.3 trillion needed to pay for promised Medicare benefits over the next 75 years.
Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), however, told Cybercast News Service that he thinks the level of health care provided to Americans through Medicare can be improved without raising taxes.
“We are going to have to pay for it, and there is no question that raising taxes is certainly one way,” Rockefeller said. “There is no way, if we continue on the current path, that we can pay for these services – and to prove that, they (Medicare services) are falling off rapidly on all fronts.”
Rockefeller continued by calling the Bush tax cuts an “obscenity” that benefits only the rich.
Bond, however, opposes a tax increase to pay for the projected shortfall in revenue to cover the people promised Medicare coverage, as detailed in the 2008 Medicare Trustees Report.
“I think we can provide better service without raising taxes,” he told Cybercast News Service.
Bond added that he thinks the Medicare program needs major renovation. “I think we need to reform the Medicare system,” he said. “It has worked well, but it will not work when we don’t have 16 people supporting each recipient. We need to make major changes.”
According to the “2008 Annual Report of The Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds,” the federal government will need to find $36.3 trillion in current dollars above and beyond what is already budgeted for Medicare to pay for promised benefits for current and future senior citizens over the next 75 years.
That cost amounts to $320,000 for every American household, according to Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Boxer told Cybercast News Service she thinks much of the cost can be handled by reforms within the current system but she is not opposed to tax hikes for the wealthy to raise revenue.
“I think people who can afford to pay a little more into it should,” she said. “I think it’s fine. I think somebody like myself – if I were to go onto Medicare, and I don’t think I will – could afford to pay a little more.”
Boxer also said that reform is also necessary. “I think we can deal with the cost,” she said. “We have to do more prevention and more public health. That will bring down the cost. There is a lot of waste in the system, a tremendous amount of waste, so I really think there are ways to cut a lot of the costs out.”
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) also had several suggestions on how to lower Medicare costs but said he is unsure whether these changes will be able to cover the entire $36 trillion debt.
“Before we raise taxes, there are two things we are already doing that I think will make a difference,” he said. “One is recovering overpayments. The second thing is that there is an enormous mark-up in medical equipment – wheel chairs and oxygen systems, for example. It’s costing Medicare a fortune. I don’t know if we could pay for Medicare that way, but it would be a good down payment.”