Mark Dayton: “I join with my Senator from New Jersey. He persuaded me to be reasonable. This is the reasonable alternative proposal…”

“I join with my Senator from New Jersey. He persuaded me to be reasonable. This is the reasonable alternative proposal, July 1 of 2004. I have great respect for the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the Senator from Iowa. I sense his difficulty because I don't believe the senior citizens of anywhere else in America will be any different from the senior citizens of Minnesota who will be, I believe, absolutely beside themselves to learn this program they have waited years for Congress to enact will be enacted but it will not be ready for 22 years. I suggest perhaps one of the reasons is that this is not a system that can be easily put in place or administered. The chairman is trying to accommodate, if I understand his remarks correctly, the administration, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. They said this program as designed cannot be put together and administered and operational until January 1, 2006. I suggest that is pretty strong evidence that is not a very good system for delivery of these services.”