Michael Bennet

Let me ask you what your thoughts would be about a universal Child Tax Credit of some sort that might provide a monthly benefit to families in our country.

I applaud your proposal to expand that refundability and reduce that threshold.

I think that the expanded Child Tax Credit is maybe a slightly more moderate version of the same idea.

You may not approve plans that don't include what we call the patient protections or patient protection guardrails.

We're dealing with 6 percent of the people that are insured when we're focused on that.

I would like to ask the committee to do would be to fund Federal reinsurance for at least the next 2 years.

I think one of the biggest benefits of reinsurance programs over high-risk pools is that they are less expensive.

I would also share the view, as a couple of you suggested that one source of great unhappiness that I hear about from people is that when they buy their insurance, and then when it is time for them to use their insurance, they are denied…

Is it your understanding that the 1332 Waiver, as is it written now, would allow a State, if it wanted to, to apply to have a public option in their State?

There is another piece that Senator Grassley and I have been working on that I think would be wonderful to add to CHIP...

I want to take a moment--because my questions on the cost of prescription drugs were ably asked and answered by Senator Wyden's question...

We urge you in the strongest terms to renew funding for this important program through 2022 at the currently established levels that enable Colorado to implement a successful program.

And to add to that, let me say words that have not been said in the Senate before. My questions have been asked.

There is no other market in America where you cannot know what something costs.

They realize they are having to make choices about their lives and their small businesses that no one else in the industrialized world is having to make because our system is fundamentally broken.

What we really need to grapple with--all these Governors have talked about it--is the fact that we are spending twice what any other industrialized country in the world is spending on health care and we are getting worse results…

I would close just by saying to our chairman we have the lowest unemployment rate in the United States of America, and that is our story and we are sticking to it.

There is not anybody I know who epitomizes bipartisanship more than our Governor, John Hickenlooper, my old boss.

Before I begin, now that we have returned from the August break, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey. I know the thoughts of everyone in this Chamber are with the thousands of Americans who are…

It is really important for Americans not to be forced to buy lousy insurance.

I am forced to buy something that, at the end of the day, I really cannot use to access healthcare.

The question is, how do we solve that problem? How do we introduce more competition into these rural areas than we have to drive the price down?

My hope, more than a plea, is that once we get this piece of work done that we will continue to work in a bipartisan way to try to deal with the root causes.

When I hear from people in my State whether they support the Affordable Care Act or whether they oppose the Affordable Care Act, they are deeply dissatisfied with the way their lives intersect with America's healthcare system.

It is long overdue that we begin to approach this in a bipartisan way.