Dale Bumpers: “this is a very difficult, a very difficult undertaking for me for a number of reasons. No. 1, my profound and…”

“this is a very difficult, a very difficult undertaking for me for a number of reasons. No. 1, my profound and unrestrained respect for the two Senators from Alaska who obviously feel very strongly about the issue. It gives me no pleasure to be on the other side. I sit as ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee where Senator Murkowski is chairman. I have been on Appropriations for 22 years where Senator Stevens is chairman. They are no different from any other Senators of the U.S. Senate who, when they have a problem, have no hesitancy about doing everything they can to solve it for their people. That is what we are all here for, to serve our people. So it is with considerable regret that I find myself feeling compelled, however, to oppose the amendment and the bill. Let me say, also, that lack of health care is not just peculiar to Alaska. I grew up in a community of 851 souls where we sometimes had one doctor but most of the time we had none. My mother and father moved from a mountaintop farm into this little community of 851 people because my brother, who died before I was born--and who obviously, being firstborn, was the apple of my mother's eye--but we moved because he died for lack of any medical care. That was a long time ago. But my mother told me many times that she told my father, ``We are moving off this mountaintop.…”