Political Quotes

“several days ago in debate in this Chamber, I talked about how the employees of small businesses might lose their health care coverage if the provisions of McCain-Kennedy went into effect unamended. The junior Senator from North Carolina indicated that I was interested only in protecting the businesses. Unfortunately, he misconstrued my arguments because we are concerned about patients. We hope the employees of small businesses will continue to get the benefit of health insurance coverage by their employers. I spoke about employees, however, because if this bill is not significantly amended, there are not going to be patients covered by this bill; they are going to be thrown out of health care coverage. We are concerned about patients. It is not only small businesses that should be worried about this bill, but employees of small businesses should also be worried about this bill. This amendment I offer today provides additional protection to patients. It provides protection to patients from trial lawyers, so we will find out whether my colleagues are more interested in taking care of patients or ensuring that the rights to sue by trial lawyers are unabated. There are a lot of words in the McCain-Kennedy bill, but there are also some heavy-duty new lawsuits that are authorized. The Federal claim of action really begins on page 140.…”