John Garamendi

Forty-five thousand Americans die each year because they are uninsured. They lack health insurance. Forty-five thousand. That's about twice the number that are found in any of the arenas today as March Madness continues. Forty-five…

By the way, there are about a million and a half veterans out there that will be able to get medical insurance through the various programs that are created by this legislation. They presently are not in the Veterans Administration process…

I have the great privilege and honor of representing Travis Air Force Base and the more than 20,000 active service men and women on that base. Their mission is one of supplying the necessary equipment and armaments and food and other…

And you cited the specific code sections, and you also cited the fact that this will reduce the deficit of America over the next 10 years by some $300 billion.

The senior population spent the good part of the summer being totally scared, frightened, purposely so, with a pack of incorrect, or shall I just call them lies. Death panels, Medicare is going to be cut, other things were put out there to…

Twenty-three million jobs were created during that period of time. Excuse me. Do you remember the statistics for the Bush, George W. Bush years?

That is one of the wonderful things about life. You can come back and do it a second time. In this case we're looking at a situation where in the Clinton balanced budget plan, it led to the longest sustained economic growth in America's…

Qualified means that you are a citizen or you are legally in the country with the appropriate immigration papers.

One of the things that is not in the bill but is actually a fact is that in America about 45,000 people a year die because they lack health insurance. They don't have the opportunity to see a doctor on a regular basis, and they wind up in…

So for my Republican friends, this is the best deal they have to offer, the do nothing deal?

So what you're saying is this is the do nothing, the best case Republican scenario. But if they actually were able to pass a bill, they're going to take men and women that are 54 now, that in 10 years will be 65 going for Medicare, they're…

But before we go there, the statistics just came out from the Labor Department that the majority of workers in America are now women. If we keep women healthy, then the productivity of America is substantially increased. And in order to…

The day the President signs this bill, your discriminatory practices are over. You will not be able to discriminate against Americans because of their health status, their marital status, whether they are male or female. Those days are…

Because they are greedy, profit-driven, profit-before- people-oriented companies.

That current unnecessary bonus that's given to the insurance companies will be brought back and reinvested in the Medicare program so that the Medicare program's solvency will be extended into the future. So we're not taking that money…

Oh, that's so unfair to the insurance companies, that you would take away their bonus for doing nothing more than you can do in another system.

These are the worthless insurance policies that are sold across State lines today. They have a very low lifetime cap. You get a serious illness and you blow through that and you have no more health insurance from that company. Not only…

This program is a very good deal for seniors, wherever they happen to be, and for every other American. We're talking about seniors here, but for every other American they will get access to affordable, good quality health insurance…

And if you're a senior of low income and moderate income, some of your prescription drugs are reduced by 50 percent.

You're suggesting you go back and take your privatized Social Security savings? They're going to do away with Social Security, too. So they're going to do away with Medicare and Social Security, the two programs that provide security for…

How to deal with what will inevitably be the final days for all of us. We would want that to be in the interest of the individual and the individual's family. Right now, many doctors cannot do that.

Unless you happen to live until you are 65. When you are 65, you will automatically be eligible for a single-payer universal health care program called Medicare. People want to live long enough to get into that system. And at that White…

I am sorry, Congresswoman, but you are uninsurable. You cannot get a health care policy.

One of the things that was in both the Senate bill and the House bill was an effort to expand access to care, not just with an insurance policy, but also with facilities. There were major improvements and significant sums of money…

It would seem to be the fundamental compassion of a human being to make sure that their children and the community's children, indeed our Nation's children, have health care. And we should extend that well beyond to all of us. It is not in…