Chenoweth Sees Medicare Compromise

Rep. Helen Chenoweth held a news conference outside a Boise senior citizen center on Tuesday to emphasize that she wants to slow the growth in Medicare, not cut its benefits.

She called labor-financed commercials attacking her for cutting Medicare to finance tax breaks for the wealthy “propaganda. That simply is not true,” she said outside the Boise Senior Center.

Chenoweth said Republican plans for Medicare would allow an increase from the current cost of $5,200 in benefits paid per person annually to $7,000 by 2002. She said President Clinton’s plan would allow the increase to reach $7,200, so they are not far apart and a compromise is possible.

Without congressional action, she said, there is a fear that the Medicare system will go broke, with the cost reaching $8,100 per person by 2002.

“I’m surprised the ads are still running,” she said. “They are quite disingenuous.”

But she added: “I don’t think they have damaged me.”