Political Quotes

“It has been a most interesting day here in Washington, D.C., this last week in which we have seen the battle royal over the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. I want to really speak about the Affordable Care Act, what it has managed to do for Americans. Much of the conversation over these last several days has been on the other side of it: how it could be repealed and how, somehow, that would be good for Americans. But the Congressional Budget Office has made it clear that the bill that passed the House of Representatives some time ago, about a month and a half ago, was bad news for Americans. Some 18 million people would lose their health insurance in very short order within a year or so, and some 24 million would lose their health insurance over the next 5 to 7 years. That is a terrible situation. When you take a look at what has happened in the recent period since 2014 when the Affordable Care Act was actually in full force, we have found many millions of Americans with insurance. In my own State of California, we now have over 5 million Californians with insurance that they previously did not have. About 1.5 million of those Californians are in the exchange--the California exchange, which we call Covered California--and another 3.5 million are covered in the expanded Medicaid program. That is good news. It is also good news that people who previously were unable to take care of their medical issues found coverage.…”