Michael Bennet

I am glad there are more than a quarter of a million Coloradans who now have health insurance who did not have it before this law was passed.

Obviously the real question is whether they are sustainable over time.

I want to return today to the subject of immigration. Today marks the 285th day since the immigration bill passed right here in the Senate with almost 70 votes, and 285 days later we are still waiting for the House of Representatives to…

I come to the floor today to talk about jobs and about one sector in particular that has created tremendous economic growth in Colorado and across the United States, and that is wind energy and the jobs it has brought to our State. During…

Title II of the HEA can be an effective vehicle for this goal.

We would accelerate the benefits for our children if we do that, and if we don't, we won't, because we'll be here a decade from now having this same conversation.

It's almost 2 million. I think 1.7 million teachers we have to replace.

We're actually driving them apart, which actually happens to be the case in a whole bunch of areas.

Let's rest there for a minute. That's a very, very important point to me, because I've seen the same thing that you've seen.

We should be asking ourselves, both in terms of the ESEA reauthorization and the Higher Ed reauthorization--which, in my mind, shouldn't be two separate things, but there's nothing we can do about that.

The idea that any teacher is prepared to be an effective teacher when she walks out of any school of higher education, I think, is crazy.

Can I come back, Dr. Koerner, to something you mentioned earlier, because I think it was such an incredibly important point.

If you have a school where people have universal agreement that they're there to teach the kids, but also to perfect their craft as teachers, you have a fighting chance.

A lot of the way we've designed accreditation, the way we've designed the budget, and all this other stuff imagines that that's still the world that we're living in.

To me, the fact that we're going to have to replace almost 2 million teachers in the next decade is at least of national interest.

In this school, we learn from our mistakes.

We don't talk about this enough in the Senate, and your leadership gives us the opportunity to be able to talk about what really is, on a daily basis, one of the most important things that's facing our country.

What can we do in terms of how we think about our budgets, both K-12 and higher ed acts?

The best professional development she had ever had in her life was being a mentor to somebody else in the classroom.

Senator Bennet has a great bill called the GREAT Act that would push us in that direction as well.

I want to thank you, and, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you, because your leadership in including this really has made a material difference.

I believe there should be an avenue for patients to inform the FDA of their opinions about what might be considered for breakthrough.

I also was pleased to see the implementation of a bill that I worked on with Senators Burr and Hatch that created a breakthrough therapy designation for drugs that have shown dramatic results early in the approval process.

I think as we see the FDA exercising its muscles around this one part of the pipeline, my hope is that... we're going to be able to see it across the FDA.

I visited a number of Colorado patients who are receiving breakthrough therapies, and I can tell you firsthand that it has truly made a lifesaving difference for many who tell me that their dream is only to live a normal life.