JOINT RESOLUTIONS

reconsider and amend the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, to spread to
relieve the elderly from provisions of this tax burden by more evenly spreading the cost
of catastrophic health insurance among all Medicare insured taxpayers, and to
control the costs of prescription drugs.

WHEREAS, The cost of insurance under the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of
1988 is too much for older Americans to bear alono; and

WHEREAS, The 100th Congress of the United States has enacted the Medicare
Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, which provides covered individuals with additional health
care; and

WHEREAS, In addition to a $4 monthly premium increase to be paid by each covered
individual, the Act has an unusual and unique procedure for revenue enhancement designated
as a "supplemental premium"; and

WHEREAS, This "supplemental premium" is in effect a surtax, which is based upon and
is added to the initial tax obligation of persons receiving Medicare benefits or eligible for
Medicare benefits; and

WHEREAS, Those who must pay the surtax will have to pay the highest rate of personal
income tax, rising from 15% in 1989 to 28% in 1993, with a maximum upper limit of an
additional $2,100 per couple; and

WHEREAS, The surtax is directed primarily at those persons who are at or above
retirement age (veterans, pensioners, and retirees) whether or not they are actually covered by
Medicare or are receiving Medicare benefits; and

WHEREAS, The method of financing the cost of the new Act violates the long
established Social Security principle that all who are likely to benefit from the system
should contribute to the costs of the system; and

WHEREAS, That This method of financing is an inappropriate burden to place on
people living on fixed incomes, especially in view of the disproportionate growth in the
costs of health care; and

WHEREAS, Because persons with higher incomes are taxed on a proportionately smaller
amount of their total incomes, the ceiling placed on the yearly surtax also hurts persons in the
low to middle income groups of the elderly; and

WHEREAS, The new Act does not offer senior citizens the protection they want
most long-term nonskilled care in the home or in residential facilities; and

WHEREAS, The costs to the insured are open-ended since the Act authorizes the
Secretary of Health and Human Services to change premiums and copayments; and

WHEREAS, The costs to the insured penalize those who planned for their
retirement and saved enough to still have a federal income tax obligation; and

WHEREAS, It is a gross abridgment of personal freedom since the Act mandates
payment by those eligible for services even if they neither seek nor need them;

WHEREAS, The costs of prescription drugs have been increasing at an annual rate
faster than other health care costs, and the federal government does not have a method to
control these costs, especially the costs of manufacturing drugs; now, therefore, be it

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