Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, nobody is going to deny that there is a problem with medical malpractice. The issue is whether the State of Tennessee can adopt a law to solve its own problem the way the State of California has done, the way the other States have acted. Let the States operate in this area which has been traditionally reserved for them. Washington does not have all the answers. Imposing one system on the whole country is not the way to go. I would like to at this point yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, you might ask why we're having this debate. Well, the Republicans have never wanted to solve the Americans' problem with health care access and cost; and the Congress passed, with the President's help, a bill that gave access to many millions of people and put in place some mechanisms to control costs. The Republicans have tried to repeal it again and again, Mr. Chairman; and they know next Wednesday it's going to be in the Supreme Court. So today is press release time, and they have a formula for press releases in this House. The Members are going home to their districts, so they select a straw man and they put him up here. The straw man in this case is the IPAB. Then they scare seniors. They say: this IPAB is going to take away your health care.…”