

Published December 23, 2009






The senators also spoke at a news conference just hours before the Senate was to take up a procedural vote before a final passage vote Thursday.

"I think it's a potential game changer," Sessions said.

"The seniors have been had and our kids our gonna get the bill," Gregg said. "We're talking here about double-counting, spending the same money twice in order to create a massive new entitlement that has nothing to do with seniors."

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed the CBO letter dealt explicitly with Medicare, not the overall short and long term budgetary impact of the legislation. But the spokesman did not address the accusation of double counting.



Sessions reached his calculations after speaking to CBO Director Doug Elmendorf.

In his letter to Sessions, Elmendorf wrote that government counts money two ways, either through trust fund accounting, in which money is borrowed from future Medicare payments to pay for existing Medicare programs but is like a revolving line of credit, or unified budget accounting, in which the trust fund money is borrowed from Medicare but then spent on other health care programs that don't generate money to be be paid back into Medicare later.



Sessions said the cuts to Medicare can extend the government program or create money for a new entitlement program -- but not both.

"Either you've weakened the Medicare substantially or you're going to have no money to spend on the new program that's being created," he said. "You cannot spend this money twice."

The news comes as Democrats push the Senate health care bill past the last of three procedural votes Wednesday afternoon. Final passage of the bill is set for Thursday morning, Christmas eve, making the 25th consecutive day of Senate debate on health care.

Once passed, the bill would have to be merged with a House version before President Obama could sign it into law.

Feeling confident about the prospect of passage, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, listed benefits to be seen within the first six months after passage, including getting coverage for children diagnosed with pre-existing conditions, tax credits for small businesses looking to purchase health insurance, no co-pays for preventive services, free check-ups for seniors and reduced prices for prescription drugs through Medicare.


Click here to read the letter Sen. Sessions cites from CBO Director Doug Elmendorf.