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President Provides First Details of Medicare Plan
CWA delegates gave a rousing welcome to President William Jefferson Clinton, who used the CWA convention to provide the first public details of his plan to keep Medicare solvent while ensuring that it also keeps up with the advances of technology and modernization.
In greeting the President, CWA President Morton Bahr praised the administration's determination to "put people over profits" and recounted the ways the Clinton-Gore administration has stood up for working families.
Clinton outlined his prescription for sound Medicare reform, which includes a voluntary prescription drug benefit for seniors, an end to co-payments and deductibles for preventive services, extending cost containment measures and bringing about more competition without sacrificing quality. Nearly 15 million Medicare beneficiaries lack any prescription drug benefits, the President pointed out, and many are losing their coverage or now pay very high premiums for modest coverage.
Clinton praised CWA as a model for securing health care and its benefits, controlling health care costs and maintaining quality of care. "What you have done for your retired members, we as a nation must now do for all our senior citizens," he said.
Medicare must have more resources to ensure its solvency, Clinton said, pointing out that his plan would devote at least 15 percent of the federal budget surplus over the next 15 years to Medicare. "The right choice is to devote most of the surplus to saving Social Security and Medicare," he stressed.
Clinton repeated his call to Republican leaders in Congress to "sit down at the table like responsible family members and figure out how much it would cost us to meet our current obligations" - such as education, defense, Social Security and Medicare - "not just for the baby-boomer generation but for their children and grandchildren . . . then we could figure out how much is left over for the tax cut."
"We must be faithful to the promises and covenants made to the American people in 1992," the President said.
"If we've learned anything in the past six years, it ought to be that the policies that help the least of us help all of us. If we have helped strengthen America's families and workplaces and communities, we are all better off," President Clinton declared.
In greeting the President, CWA President Morton Bahr praised the administration's determination to "put people over profits" and recounted the ways the Clinton-Gore administration has stood up for working families.
Clinton outlined his prescription for sound Medicare reform, which includes a voluntary prescription drug benefit for seniors, an end to co-payments and deductibles for preventive services, extending cost containment measures and bringing about more competition without sacrificing quality. Nearly 15 million Medicare beneficiaries lack any prescription drug benefits, the President pointed out, and many are losing their coverage or now pay very high premiums for modest coverage.
Clinton praised CWA as a model for securing health care and its benefits, controlling health care costs and maintaining quality of care. "What you have done for your retired members, we as a nation must now do for all our senior citizens," he said.
Medicare must have more resources to ensure its solvency, Clinton said, pointing out that his plan would devote at least 15 percent of the federal budget surplus over the next 15 years to Medicare. "The right choice is to devote most of the surplus to saving Social Security and Medicare," he stressed.
Clinton repeated his call to Republican leaders in Congress to "sit down at the table like responsible family members and figure out how much it would cost us to meet our current obligations" - such as education, defense, Social Security and Medicare - "not just for the baby-boomer generation but for their children and grandchildren . . . then we could figure out how much is left over for the tax cut."
"We must be faithful to the promises and covenants made to the American people in 1992," the President said.
"If we've learned anything in the past six years, it ought to be that the policies that help the least of us help all of us. If we have helped strengthen America's families and workplaces and communities, we are all better off," President Clinton declared.