Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have had the good fortune of being in both the House and the Senate during the period of passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act and now the debate over repeal, and I have heard consistently from my Republican colleagues two things. One is that they did not think the Affordable Care Act was the right approach to fixing the problems of America's healthcare system. There were 60-some odd times that the House or the Senate voted to repeal all or parts of the Affordable Care Act. The second thing I heard consistently over that period of time, dating from 2009, is that the Republicans were prepared to offer a replacement to the Affordable Care Act that would be better, that would be an improvement over the Affordable Care Act--indeed, over the status of the American healthcare system when the Affordable Care Act was passed. The ground has shifted mightily since then. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that, under the Republican plan either passed in the House or in the Senate, a humanitarian catastrophe will result in this country. Tens of millions of people would lose their healthcare. That is not what Republicans said their replacement would do. They said their replacement would be better than the Affordable Care Act. The CBO says that rates will go up immediately by 20 percent on almost everybody.…”