Dole Affirms Health System Needs Reform

The nation’s health care system may not be in a state of crisis but it does have “serious problems” that need reform, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said Friday.

“I think we’re making too much over whether this is a crisis or a serious problem,” the Kansas senator said. “We don’t want to get into a fight over whether there is a problem or a crisis.”

Dole recently joined a growing number of Republicans who have questioned President Clinton’s premise that the health care system is in crisis and needs sweeping reform.

But in an interview Friday with Kansas radio reporters, Dole said that he wants to shift the debate’s focus away from the refusal of Republicans and some Democrats in Congress to use the word “crisis” when describing the health care system.

Dole said that Republicans believe there are deep-rooted problems of access to health insurance and cost that must be addressed. “I think there’s a universal feeling that we have to reform health care,” Dole said.

He nevertheless criticized Clinton’s plan for prescribing “a massive overdose of government control,” adding that it would raise taxes and reduce the quality of care.

A prominent Democrat, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, said recently that there was no “health care crisis,” remarks that infuriated the Clinton Administration.

Since then, however, Moynihan has specified that he meant to say there was no health care crisis but there is a health insurance crisis.