Nancy Pelosi: “I rise to respond to the question: ``I do not know where she is coming from; we have passed health benefits for these…”

“I rise to respond to the question: ``I do not know where she is coming from; we have passed health benefits for these workers over and over again.'' Where I am coming from is a meeting with James Dodrill, an unemployed worker whose health benefits expired last week at a time when his wife has been diagnosed with serious illness, James and his family, he and his wife and their three children. James's benefits ran out last week. Under the current law, James would have to spend over $7,000 a year to pay for his COBRA benefits. The legislation in our discharge petition would help pay for 75 percent of that and fund the States to pick up the other 25 percent, so that unemployed workers can continue their health benefits with real health care benefits and would expand the number of people who fall into that category and include some workers who were never eligible for COBRA to be included in Medicaid. It is a good discharge. I urge my colleagues to sign it. That is where I was coming from.”