Political Quotes

“The Senator raises a good point. I am mindful of our time limit. I am going to take a minute or two to wrap up. I do think Senator Alexander and Senator Hoeven both raised very good points. I look at the health care law and I often think, whoever wrote this law, who were they talking to? They certainly were not talking to our small- and medium-sized businesses across this country. Why? Because just as Senator Alexander points out, there is going to be a point where that business owner, large or small, and in each and every spot in between, will look at the penalty of $2,000 per employee and say it is vastly cheaper for them to drop coverage and pay the penalty. In fact, we figured out what that savings would be for a large retailer in the United States. It was over $1 billion a year. Does anybody believe for a moment that they are not going to do what is right by their shareholders and pay that penalty and save $1 billion a year by dropping health care coverage? Once that dam breaks, the dam breaks. Then do you remember that promise so often made--47 times? The President said, ``If you like your plan, you are going to be able to keep it.'' Well, people are not going to be able to keep it. They will lose their plans. They certainly were not talking to Governors when they wrote this bill. Any Governor would tell us that Medicaid is a broken system. It is literally bankrupting State budgets under current circumstances.…”