, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs reported on Tuesday. Private consumption rose 0.2% from the fourth quarter, driven mainly by housing and health care as well as banking services and insurance, the agency said. Consumption spending on food and clothing fell, the secretariat t from Democrats, who charge it would "end Medicare as we know it." The Senate rejected it in a vote last week, but also unanimously struck down an alternative plan proposed by President Obama.  Democrats said they wanted to leave it off the table while Vice President Biden leads a bipartisan group of senators to come up with a new budget that would include cuts in spending that would satisfy lawmakers who don't want to increase the nation's borrowing limit without reducing government's size. "The one thing we can't do is nothing," McConnell said. "The president, to his credit, is at the table. ... We're going to negotiate the contours of the plan in these negotiations. I'm personally very comfortable with the way Paul Ryan would structure it in the out years, but we have a Democratic president. We're going to have to negotiate with him on the terms of changing Medicare so we can save Medicare." Appearing on the same program, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on Republicans to abandon the House Medicare plan, noting an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that says it would require seniors to shoulder an increasingly large share of their health care costs. Schumer said there are only three options -- doing nothing, the Ryan plan or a Democratic vision that preserves benefits and changes "delivery systems," but does "not let providersin places like Hong Kong and Singapore. Such outsourcing is illegal in Korea. "Such practices are part of the foreign banks' desire to manage their entire Asian portfolio," Kim said. "In cases of big investment banks, trading on a regional level can have a great impact on the domestic financial markets as such management can lead to sharp changes to the portfolios of the banks' local branches." The FSS plans to inspect 15 foreign banks operating in Korea every year to monitor their fund management from this year, citing the need to proactively manage potential market risks. "Foreign banking branches (in Korea) are considered to have a great effect in increasing the volatility of capital flows in and out of the market," the FSS said in a separate statement, adding such branches tend to take on short-term foreign currency borrowings to conduct derivatives or government bonds trading. Kim told reporters HSBC Holdings PLC and Credit Agricole S.A. have already been sanctioned for improper outsourcing of operations involving derivatives. He added that another European bank may be sanctioned fo