Bob Kerrey: “Our amendment, on which we have worked over a number of months, makes 1994 rescissions and also reduces and eliminates a…”

“Our amendment, on which we have worked over a number of months, makes 1994 rescissions and also reduces and eliminates a number of wasteful Federal programs for a 5-year deficit reduction of $43 billion. I first must say that I was very tempted to vote for the amendment offered by my colleague from Nebraska. It was a very well designed, tough package. And my colleague made many points that needed to be made--most particularly about the difficult of proposing cuts compared to the relative ease of proposing spending increases. But I did not in the end vote for that amendment because I do not feel that this is the place or the time to start tinkering with health care reform. Whether one supports the Clinton plan, the Chafee plan, the Cooper plan, or some other plan I think most would agree that real comprehensive health care reform is needed. When we stand poised to finally take on that challenge, I would hate to see us cripple our efforts by making marginal changes that would remove $30 billion in cost savings from the package--making the effective cost of any reform package $30 billion higher.”