Don Nickles

In the proposal, in the amendment that we have pending, the fines that are brand specific go up to $5 billion. They are also indexed for inflation. That is a pretty big penalty. Then there is a $2.2 billion look-back that applies…

I will be happy to tell my colleague from Arizona that he makes a good point but he is absolutely wrong. What the industry agreed to, according to the settlement, is that they would pay $80 million per point of noncompliance, up to a total…

Just for the Senators' information, now the Senate just had a vote on limiting legal fees. That probably is not the only vote that we are going to have on that issue. And the Senator managing the bill, I compliment him for doing a very…

The question to my colleague from Washington is: How much does your proposal cost, and are these going to be Federal teachers? Are they going to be paid for entirely by the Federal Government or partly by the State government? What is the…

Just a couple of comments. My colleague said that the President's Commission on Quality endorses these proposals, but they specifically did not endorse legislation. There is a big difference. Do we want to encourage the private sector to…

No, not on my time. I only have a minute left. So I just make the comment that people can talk about these goals. I will agree with the goals. But when you try to mandate them by legislation, saying that we know better, that we are going…

these are not insurers. They are providers of care saying that more regulation will do just the opposite--it will increase costs. Experts are saying the Kennedy proposal will increase costs and therefore increase the uninsured and add a…

I am concerned it will increase costs, I am concerned it will increase regulation, and because it will increase costs, the number of uninsured will rise. Estimates were made on that bill that it would increase costs 23 percent. That is a…

once again, our domestic oil and gas producers are facing devastating losses due to a significant drop in oil prices. This crisis creates a dangerous situation for the industry and for our national security. Unfortunately, the policies and…

we need to wean ourselves and get off of this addiction to this and take that money and allow people to put it in their own account. That to me is a challenge. We shouldn't be sitting back and saying, ``Oh, we balance the budget. Aren't we…

I hope we will have overwhelming bipartisan support for it, and hopefully everyone can understand what we are talking about doing. We are talking about saving Social Security. The President during his State of the Union speech says we want…

Not just yet. I will make a final comment, because this is of interest. Yesterday and today, we have spent several hours debating $16 million. I am trying to save for taxpayers, and basically save it for Medicare, that $16 million that…

I mentioned yesterday that HCFA, the Health Care Finance Administration, has over 4,000 employees. That is a lot. Now, the Health and Human Services Department has 58,500 employees. Now, if they need to move a few employees around, they…

let me make a couple of quick comments. The initial request that came from HCFA for the $16 million supplemental did not include anything dealing with mental parity; not a word, not a letter, nothing. It didn't include it. The GAO report…

I will be happy to answer the Senator's question. The regulations I was waving around a moment ago--this thing--came out on December 16, 3 months ago. I doubt that all the States have had time to review these regulations. Maybe some of…

today I am prompted to speak by both a tragic reality, and also what I would think is a promising hope. The tragic reality is that literally millions of religious believers around the world live gripped by the incessant, terrifying…

Do we have the request in writing? The staff informs me that we do. I have not seen that. I would appreciate a copy of that. It is a heck of a deal. Here we are on Wednesday, and this request came in on Tuesday to give us another $1.8…

you have to use offsets; $600 million in 1999, we have a total amount of spending on domestic discretionary side. I have the 1997 figure of $288--it is more than that in 1999. I might mention, between 1997 and 1998, it went from $274 to…

It would mean that it would have to come within the total amount of money that we have on domestic discretionary spending caps. It would be in that amount, several hundred billion.

He said this GAO report mentioned there was widespread abuse and so on, and I take issue with that. The GAO report says this, and I will just quote: HHS regulatory role under this law is not yet known. Some implementation challenges may…

Let me just complete my response. I think I will answer my colleague's statement. The Senator from Minnesota says if we do not fund this money we are jeopardizing mental parity enforcement, and he is absolutely wrong-- absolutely wrong. I…

I beg to differ with my colleague. The original legislation set up said: States, do these things. We told the States to do them, and 45 States have done them. This is a temporary -- temporary -- encouragement to get the States to have…

To respond to my colleague, this year, 1997, we have domestic discretionary caps at $288 billion. What we will have to do is fund it within that amount. To answer you specifically, if you wanted to stay on your HUD baseline--you have a…

I am getting too many fights going at the same time. I have a nice engagement with Senator Kennedy on a HCFA add-on that was put into the budget, which we will be voting on later. And $1.6 billion is on the floor now. That is enough. I am…

Is this an emergency? I don't think so. I have been informed that the administration requested this $1.6 billion yesterday. Wait, these disasters have happened for the last several months. They requested this yesterday. Gravy train. The…