Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
July 9, 2008

SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES MEDICARE


MRS. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I wish to say that we have had a very dramatic moment here on the floor of the Senate, and I think there wasn't a person in the room or the gallery who wasn't thrilled to see Senator Kennedy back and looking so good, to do what he always does, and that is have the commitment and go the extra mile to keep that commitment.

I wanted to say, though, that I don't think this was the Senate's finest hour. I want us to all remember that in the Senate we have had a long tradition of bringing up legislation, having amendments, and then voting on legislation. That was not the case in the bill that was before us today. There was an attempt to pass a bill that had no ability for amendments--not one.

I voted for the bill. It is not the way I would have written it, but I thought the risk was so great that the doctor fix in Medicare might actually lapse and the upheaval for our senior citizens and voters would be a risk too great to take. But it didn't have to be that way. It did not have to be a shutout of Republicans in order to ram something through, when 100 percent of us wanted to fix the doctors; when 100 percent of us had an agreement on 90 percent of the bill that was before us. But there were legitimate differences.

Although I chose to make sure there would not be a cut in service to our seniors and our veterans, I don't think we had to do it that way. Any of my colleagues who didn't vote that way were voting conscience, and it was a tough vote for them as well.

They had no input. Several of us who voted ``yes'' believed we could have changed the bill for the better, or at least if we had the opportunity for an amendment we would have known that we had our say and the majority would have ruled, and the result would have been the same.

I do not think this is the way we want to continue proceeding in the Senate, and though it was a great victory for the Democrats, and it was certainly something that is going to save a cataclysmic event, I hope that going forward we will not allow this kind of tension to be in this body because it is not necessary. This is not the House. The House does operate that way. I do not want that to happen in the Senate.

It is my plea to the majority leader that he is the leader of the Senate, not just the leader of the Democrats. I hope going forward he will give us the opportunity for bipartisan solutions. That is something I think all of us would feel better about.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.


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