Heidi Alexander: “I have been in and out of public life a long time, and I have never had anything affect me in a personal way like the…”

“I have been in and out of public life a long time, and I have never had anything affect me in a personal way like the health care debate. I got up this morning in West Millers Cove in Blount County and drove to the Knoxville airport, and almost every single person with whom I talked on the way into the airplane had something to say to me about the health care debate. When I get on the plane, here comes another fellow right down the aisle, hands me a note, and says: Thanks for all your hard work. None of them are for the health care bill passed last night. They are all deeply concerned and deeply worried about it, and they see it as I see it. They see it as a historic mistake. Unlike the Social Security bill, the Medicare bill, the Medicaid bill, the civil rights bills of 1957 and 1964 and 1968 and later, all those bills passed with significant bipartisan support. But the bill last night was a completely partisan act. The only thing bipartisan about it is the opposition to it. I think it is important that we continue to say why that is true. The fundamental mistake is that the bill basically expands a health care delivery system that we all know is too expensive at a time of enormous concern about the national debt.”