Political Quotes

“A key part of the historic health care reforms that this Congress has now passed is the way that it empowers people to rise from poverty and reduce their reliance on government for providing their health care. Medicaid provides health care as an entitlement to the very poorest Americans. For a family of four, the Federal poverty line is about $22,000. For an individual, it's just under $11,000. So your earnings have to be below that to qualify for Medicaid. Now one thing that our health care reform package does is it increases that dollar amount to 130 percent of poverty, but the other thing it does is it provides a way out of poverty, a way to earn more money without losing your health care. Currently, many people who hover just around the poverty line can't accept a raise, can't take a second job. If they take a raise of 10 cents an hour from $8.50 to $8.60, if they work 50 or 60 hours a week instead of 40, they lose their eligibility. Their income puts them slightly above the poverty line. And what they lose in health care benefits is far more than the money that they earn if they earn an additional $500 or $800, which could make all the difference in their lives. With health care reform, we're replacing that with a sliding scale.”