Political Quotes

“We heard a debate here earlier, and while we're on Make It in America, this kind of moves us a little bit away, but they were saying earlier that in the health care reform, the Affordable Care Act, money was taken out of Medicare. Not true. Money was taken out of the pockets of the insurance industry who were given, back in the Bush era, an additional subsidy. It terminated a subsidy of $500 million that the insurance companies had to participate in Medicare. Why in the world we would subsidize the health insurance companies who this year are showing record profits, I don't know, but the Republicans perhaps want to keep that subsidy there for the health insurance companies just as they want to keep a subsidy there for Big Oil, rather than taking care of our seniors, shifting the subsidies to tomorrow's energy sources. These are policy choices. And the policy choice of the Democratic Party is to protect seniors, to make sure that Medicare is there today, tomorrow, and forevermore. Let me be very clear about this. If you want to have a fight on this floor, then you fight with us over Medicare. We will not tolerate the termination of Medicare, period. And we don't want to shift costs to seniors. We want to make sure that those companies that are profitable, the oil industry, pays its fair share and terminate the subsidies to them.”