[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 207 (Friday, December 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S19185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Let me first of all express my appreciation to the 
Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from West Virginia who just 
spoke about the advertisement that I also saw this morning with regard 
to Mrs. Clinton and her health care financing proposals as opposed to 
those of the leadership in the Congress of this session.
  To suggest that the President's proposal last year was in any way the 
same in terms of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid is truly absurd. In 
fact, I want to emphasize that one of the very significant things that 
the President's plan would have done is provide for the first time a 
national home- and community-based long-term care program, to help 
people stay in the community, and I think save the country a lot of 
money in both the Medicare and Medicaid budget.
  To suggest that somehow Mrs. Clinton's proposal was in any way, shape 
or form like what we are seeing today with the slash-and-burn approach 
to Medicaid and Medicare is, to me, very unfortunate and very 
distorting and, again, suggests that there is no limit in reference to 
the actual facts in these situations.
  I don't know how the American people are supposed to know who to 
believe. That is the comment I get most often now at home. ``Who do you 
believe?'' And when you are willing to put an ad on the television that 
suggests that a program that was proposed by the President last year is 
essentially the same as the Medicare and Medicaid cuts proposed today, 
I just get the feeling that people will not have any idea who is 
telling the truth in Washington. I think we all suffer because of that.

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