OVERVIEW:
PRESIDENT’S PLAN TO STRENGTHEN AND MODERNIZE MEDICARE
FOR THE 21st CENTURY
On June 29, 1999, President Clinton unveiled his plan to modernize and strengthen the Medicare program to prepare it for the health, demographic, and financing challenges it faces in the 21st century. This historic initiative would: (1) make Medicare more competitive and efficient; (2) modernize and reform Medicare's benefits, including the provision of a long-overdue prescription drug benefit and cost sharing protections for preventive benefits; and (3) make an unprecedented long-term financing commitment to the program that would extend the estimated life of the Medicare Trust Fund until at least 2027. The President called on the Congress to work with him to reach a bipartisan consensus on needed reforms this year.
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