[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 172 (Thursday, November 2, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16592-S16593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE RECONCILIATION BILL

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, let me just join with the 
Senator from Massachusetts, and I am sure the Senator from Arkansas. We 
are ready for the debate. We have some amendments with some 
instructions to conferees. I do not really understand what the majority 
party is afraid of. I think we ought to have the debate now.
  The more I analyze what happened with this reconciliation bill, the 
more I begin to think about the importance of reform and making this a 
political process that is responsive to people in the country. I do not 
mean just the people who are the heavy hitters and the players and the 
big givers.
  It is pretty amazing. The pharmaceutical companies come out great, 
the doctors come out great--though I want to make it clear there are 
many doctors in my State, I am very proud to say, who do not go along 
at all with these draconian cuts in health care. They know the pain it 
is going to inflict across a broad segment of our population in 
Minnesota.
  But at the same time as we have some special interests that come out 
of this just doing great, we have a whole lot of people that get hurt. 
I just want to focus on one other part of this amendment, the language 
that will read that provisions providing greater or lesser Medicaid 
spending in States based upon the votes needed for the passage of 
legislation rather than the needs of the people of those States, that, 
in fact, this will be eliminated.
  I, again, refer to the dark of the night, back-room deal sometime 
between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Friday evening, where there was wheeling 
and dealing and Senators in Republican caucus did something like 
leverage votes for money for States, some kind of process like that. 
Because all of a sudden we saw a dramatic change in the formula of this 
amendment. My State of Minnesota wound up with $520 million less 
between now and 2002 for medical assistance recipients.
  In my State of Minnesota, and in every State across the land, when we 
talk about medical assistance we are talking about senior citizens. 
Two-thirds of the senior citizens in nursing homes in Minnesota rely on 
medical assistance. And I would far prefer we get serious about real 
health care reform, and having had a dad with Parkinson's and a mother 
who struggled with that as well, I am all for home-based care. I want 
people to be able to live at home in as near normal circumstances as 
possible, with dignity. But sometimes, for people, it happens. It 
happened with my parents, and we did everything we could to keep them 
in their homes, and we did for many 

[[Page S 16593]]

years. The nursing home at the end of their lives became a home away 
from home. For God's sake, who makes up those cuts?
  In my State of Minnesota we are talking about 300,000 children; 
300,000 children. Medical assistance is an important safety net to make 
sure that children receive some health care. As a former teacher, I 
want to make it clear to my colleagues: students--young students, 
children--do not do well in school when they go to school not having 
had adequate health care. If a child has an abscessed tooth because 
that child cannot afford dental care, that child is not likely to do 
well in his or her elementary school class.
  For people with disabilities, this is an unbelievably important 
issue. It is a life or death issue. Because, for families who want to 
keep their children at home as opposed to institutionalization, the 
medical assistance payments are critically important. And, for adults 
who want to get up in the morning and be able to go to work and own 
their own small business, they need medical assistance for a personal 
attendant. That is a life with dignity. That is what medical assistance 
means to those people. So when we are talking about a formula and we 
are talking about statistics and we are talking about what happened to 
the State of Minnesota in the dark of night, Friday evening, we are 
talking about people's lives.
  What this part of the amendment is going to say, when we give our 
instructions to conferees, is that we should undo, reverse those 
provisions which provided medical assistance spending to States based 
upon the votes needed for the passage of the legislation rather than 
the needs of the people in those States. I would like to debate that 
today, I say to my colleague from Arkansas. I am ready for that debate. 
I am ready for people to tell me who made that decision between 6 p.m. 
and 9 p.m. What committee met in public? Who voted? Who is held 
accountable?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I have 30 more 
seconds.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. What was the justification? I would like to hear a 
careful policy justification. But, Mr. President, I will not. Because 
there is none.
  I know the pain this inflicts on citizens in my State and I intend to 
fight this all the way until we change this formula. And above and 
beyond that, I intend to be a part of an effort in this Senate to make 
sure that we do deficit reduction but we do it on the basis of a 
standard of fairness, not on the basis of responding to the people who 
give the money and who have the clout and have their way and are not 
asked to tighten their belts. But it is the children, the elderly, 
people with disabilities, the working families, the people who live in 
the communities.
  We are going to change that one way or another. We are going to 
change that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.

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