Rick Santorum

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the Senator 3 minutes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANTORUM. Reserving the right to object----

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we would like to stack a couple of votes, and I see the Senator from Minnesota is here to debate his two amendments. We have one amendment I believe of the Senator from Minnesota we can agree to related to agriculture. The second one will require a vote. And then we still have outstanding the Bingaman amendment which may require a vote. How long will the Senator from Minnesota need on his first amendment on agriculture?

Mr. SANTORUM. And on the second amendment there will be 10 minutes equally divided? Ten minutes equally divided on the second amendment?

Mr. SANTORUM. Why not have the first vote at around 10 o'clock. I would ask unanimous consent that the Simon amendment vote be postponed until 10 o'clock.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Illinois is here. I would allow him to proceed with his amendment. Mr. SIMON addressed the Chair.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, we are still working on this amendment, I think, between the two leaders. And if we could set this amendment aside temporarily and allow--I believe the Senator from Illinois is somewhere on the floor and may be willing to bring up his amendment at this point, and we will see if we can work this out.

Mr. SANTORUM. There is time remaining on our side. We could allocate 2 minutes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, my understanding is the chairman of the Labor Committee, Senator Kassebaum, is still opposed to this amendment even in the modified form. It sets up a demonstration project with $240 million in four States. I know the Senator from Kansas believes that there is adequate money under AmeriCorps and other programs existing for these kinds of projects to occur. I do not believe the Senator will be able to make it here to debate that. But my understanding is that we object to the amendment. [[Page S 13632]]

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, the opposition on this side lies in the fact that right now we are in negotiations trying to deal with the problem of Medicaid and trying to come up with solutions that will provide services, health care services to the poor in our country and at the same time come within the reconciliation targets that are set. And we believe that if one of the options that is available to us, as has been discussed openly, is the idea of a block grant. A block grant would in fact give flexibility to the States to design their own program. And we would not be able in that situation to guarantee a transitional benefit. So, what we want to do is maintain the flexibility for us to deal with this issue in a way that the Senate can come together to try to provide these services, health care services for the poor in our society. And one of the options on the table that we do not obviously want to foreclose is the option of doing a block grant to States to have them provide services. In fact, what we have seen in States that have gotten waivers, which would, in a sense, be similar to a block grant, States like Tennessee where we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people covered--the Senator from Tennessee, who I do not know if he is around or on the floor, but Senator Frist was one of the principal architects of the Tenn care plan that provided this flexibility, this flexibility from the Federal level, but allowed Tennessee to redesign their Medicaid Program to cover more people. In fact, more people are covered under Medicaid now in Tennessee and at less cost. So we have seen State experiments that have worked in reducing health care costs and covering more people on Medicaid. And we do not want to foreclose that option for States to be able to do that in the future. And that is the reason we oppose the amendment.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. I think the Senator from Minnesota knows very well there are discussions with respect to Medicaid and those discussions should not be foreclosed by action taken by the Senate.

Mr. SANTORUM. I do not yield further.

Mr. SANTORUM. Yes.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, it is my understanding that we have not been able to reach an agreement on the Bingaman amendment, which would then require a rollcall vote. I do not see anybody else on our side looking for time. All I would suggest is, the Bingaman amendment deals with a subject we have dealt with in the Daschle-Dole compromise. The Daschle-Dole compromise provided $100 million for drug treatment over the next 2 years. It was a compromise between what Senator Cohen and Senator Bingaman had sought, which was $100 million per year. We came up with $100 million over the next 2 years. It was intended to be a compromise. As compromises are, we compromise, and hopefully when you compromise you do not go forward and offer the amendment that we compromised on. But, unfortunately, that has occurred in this case. It is going to cost $300 million more for this drug treatment. And I hope that, given the fact that this bill is far under the reconciliation target that we need to meet to balance the budget, this is another $300 million that we will have to take out of Medicaid or Medicare or somewhere else in the Finance Committee. And I think the Finance Committee has a hard enough burden as it is without adding more money for drug treatment for people, for people who are taken care of with $50 million a year for the first 2 years. Obviously, this is something that we can come back and visit in the future. But we are well over. And I hope that Senators will recognize that we have got some tough decisions to make in the future. This is going to make it much tougher. I yield back the remainder of my time. I ask unanimous consent that votes occur in the order in which they were debated, starting at 10 a.m.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. SANTORUM. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2505

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I think we now move to the next Wellstone amendment and the Senator should proceed.

Mr. SANTORUM

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, notwithstanding the consent of September 14, that a vote occur on the Dole modification following the debate, and following the disposition of the two leaders' amendments, one of which will be a Dole motion to strike the Bradley amendment, the underlying Dole amendment No. 2280, as amended, be deemed agreed to.

Mr. SANTORUM. There is no time limit at this point. We will be willing to enter into a time agreement, but there is no time limit.

Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Gramm amendment No. 2617 be moved ahead of the Gramm amendment 2615, as modified.