Chris Murphy: “I think every Member in this House, Republican or Democrat, can tell the same story about what this does for their…”

“I think every Member in this House, Republican or Democrat, can tell the same story about what this does for their district, and it is particularly acute in Pennsylvania. But let us hammer home what we are talking about. Mr. Ryan said it very eloquently, we are not just talking about writing a check. You are, Mr. Ryan. We are talking about making choices, we are not talking about solving these problems by putting money into health care, putting more money in education. We are talking about where to make choices on the budget, on who to help and who to take from, who to help and who to take. Let's start with the health care budget for a moment. Let's start with the premise that we need to rein in the health care budget. It is spiraling at a cost well above inflation, it is one of the biggest cost drivers in our budgets, in State budgets, families' budgets and small businesses' budgets. But here is the choice that you have. You can either raise the costs for beneficiaries for seniors and for people within the children with within that SCHIP program. You can cut people out of the system, you can take kids off the rolls or seniors off the rolls, or, you can choose to ratchet down some of the profits that you are handing to the drug companies, or you can choose to roll back some of the massive overpayments that we have given to the HMOs, the health maintenance organizations, in the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act.”