and as families u.s.a. reports, 47 million actually understates the problem. because during the course of this year, nearly 90 million americans will at one point or another go without health insurance. we look around at dark and tumultuous economic times, yet looking beyond the immediate economic perils that we face, a $35 trillion unfunded liability for medicare, not' penny -- not a penny set against it, is bearing down on us. as the president told the a.m.a. earlier this week, if we fail to act, federal spending on medicaid and medicare will grow over the coming decades by an amount almost equal to the amount our government currently spends on our nation's defense. in fact, it will event ually grow larger than -- eventually grow larger than what our government spends on anything else today. it's a scenario that will swamp our federal and state budgets and impose a vicious choice of either unprecedented tax hikes, overwhelming deficits, or drastic cuts in our federal and state budgets. mr. president, question only avoid that vicious choice by reforming the h