Jim Inhofe: “I would suggest to you, Mr. President, that one thing that Bob Dole was opposed to was a single payer Government-run…”

“I would suggest to you, Mr. President, that one thing that Bob Dole was opposed to was a single payer Government-run system which the President had advocated earlier in his administration. In other words, socializing medicine, taking about 12 percent of the economy of this country and putting it in the hands of Government because they can do it so much better than the private sector can do it. That is what Senator Dole was opposed to. He was not opposed to some of the reforms that were found in the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill. There were a couple of reforms that he wanted that ended up being in the bill. In fact, the President said that if the MSA's, medical savings accounts, were added to the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, at one point he said he would veto it. Many of those on the other side of the aisle said that if the MSA's are in, it would be vetoed. Why were people concerned about the MSA's? They were concerned about them because those people who would want to have a socialized approach to health care delivery in this country know that once we have MSA's, we will never go back to that system.”