FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 23, 1996

STATEMENT OF JOE LOCKHART
NATIONAL PRESS SECRETARY

Attempting to ignite his campaign, yet again, Bob Dole has added negative attacks on the President's health care efforts to his arsenal. But Bob Dole's negative attacks can't hide his do-nothing record.

As Senate Majority Leader of the first Republican Congress in 40 years, Bob Dole did not pass any significant health care reform legislation. Upon leaving the Senate this year, Bob Dole remarked that "I'm not going to stay until Wednesday" (one extra day before his retirement) to pass the Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform bill that made it possible for 25 million Americans to have better health care coverage. President Clinton was only able to get the health care reform bill passed once Bob Dole left the Senate. And if President Clinton had not blocked the 1995 Dole/Gingrich budget, Medicaid would have been cut $163 billion and Medicare would have been cut by $270 billion -- the largest cuts in history.

When it comes to health care, Bob Dole's claims to be America's defender are as credible as his campaign promise to cut taxes a whopping $550 billion and still balance the budget.

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