Bill Nelson

I think the answer is clearly yes.

May I be recognized to speak in morning business. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is in morning business. ____________________

I applaud the investment that is being made in the Army National Guard readiness centers.

I think, when we talk about performance, and I am sure you will agree, we need to talk not just the speed of getting things to market, but making sure they are safe when they get there.

I want to ask you two gentlemen, Dr. Maisel and Dr. Nexon, if you would comment on the tension between safety and the need to innovate new technologies.

I have never seen the degree of angst and upset that we have right now.

Has their matter been presented in some of the testimony here?

Is there earlier testimony on the record as to the increased cost as a result of these delays?

Do you think there are undue delays?

We ask Congress to allow medically-retired servicemembers and their families to maintain the Active Duty family TRICARE benefit for a transition period of 3 years following the date of medical retirement.

We are also grateful to Senator Bill Nelson his sponsorship of S. 260 to remove the SBP/DIC offset.

The Coalition supports S. 260, Senator Nelson's bill, to end the Dependency and Indemnity Compensation offset to the Survivor Benefit Plan.

We must completely eliminate the SBP/DIC offset.

Never in our history have so few borne so much of the burden of war for so long.

Obviously, we are in a tough fiscal environment, and obviously, there are many worthy pieces of legislation to be funded.

Interestingly, the cost is dropping. As the survivors increasingly diminish in number, the cost of this, actuarially projected, is dropping.

Even though you've announced your retirement from the Senate, that service that has been, as we say in the south, 'in your bones,' will continue.

There's a longstanding problem in our military survivor benefit system.

It's that inequity that I want to address and that I have addressed each year that I have been here.

I say in conclusion--and I thank the Senator for yielding--all you have to do is ask a senior citizen do they like their Medicare or would they prefer to have it done by an insurance company, and I think you will get a resounding answer.

And a further question to the Senator from Illinois: Would he characterize the proposal by the chairman in the House of Representatives on Medicare as not only cutting the payments to Medicare but the way Medicare is being delivered by…

Would the Senator believe the experience of the State of Florida: When they tried to put all Medicaid into insurance companies--otherwise known as HMOs, health maintenance organizations--those organizations pulled out of serving the poor…

Is it true that in the proposal from the chairman in the House of Representatives, he would take the Medicaid Program--which, generally, is a split, something like 55 percent Federal money, with 45 percent State money, for the health care…

The Senator has pointed out very accurately the analysis of this most recent proposal by the chairman in the House of Representatives. If I recall, did we not address cutting some $400 billion out of Medicare over the next decade in the…

In the Senator's opinion, why would the Republicans, particularly from the House of Representatives, want to cut Social Security, since the Social Security system has little, if any, effect upon us getting our arms around the deficit and…