Pete Domenici: “I thank the Senator. So one option is to take it out and lose $230 million which the budget process has not found…”

“I thank the Senator. So one option is to take it out and lose $230 million which the budget process has not found anywhere, and Senator McCain and his supporters are not finding anywhere. So it is essentially breaking the budget by $230 million, which means when the time has all expired, I will make a point of order that it violates the Budget Act and the Senators can vote up or down do they want to violate the Budget Act or not. If they do, we would lose $230 million, and that is their call collectively, and we need 60 votes to do it. One should ask, if the McCain amendment succeeds, where are we? The interesting thing is if the McCain amendment passes, we are right back to where we were before with the Federal subsidy program in place. We haven't reduced it significantly--a little bit, but we are still in there subsidizing just as we have been with a little bit less money. What we really ought to do is decide how we are going to change this. If we are putting too much money into the education of doctors at every level including specialists, we ought to put less in, and that is what we do not have the intestinal fortitude to do.”