Pete Stark: “I wish I could say I was pleased to be here today to support this important legislation, but you can't say that about…”

“I wish I could say I was pleased to be here today to support this important legislation, but you can't say that about this bill the Republicans have brought us. Last July we sent to the Senate the CHAMP Act, a strong bill that preserved and improved both the Medicare and SCHIP program. The CHAMP Act extended health coverage to 10 million children nationwide. This bill doesn't even come close. This bill was designed by the Republicans to support their rich friends, the pharmaceutical industry, the for-profit insurance industry, and to destroy Medicare as millions of American seniors have known it, to harm children, and to cast blame at illegal immigrants and working single parents. It shows the Republicans in their truest form: Help the rich at the expense of the poor; to deny government services to anyone, and only help the profit industries who pay them so generously through their campaign contributions, which will be useless, because the public will realize that we don't need them anymore. The CHAMP Act provided Medicare benefits for all, and it increased protections for low-income beneficiaries.”