Political Quotes

“Madam President, it was fascinating to watch the headlines change over the course of the day after the CBO report on the status of the implementation of health care was released. At first, the headlines flashed that the CBO report said the health care reform law was going to cost 2\1/2\ million jobs, and Republicans ran to the cable networks to trumpet that number. In fact, many mainstream newspapers actually ran initial headlines suggesting the same. But then, as people actually started to read the CBO report, they discovered the truth. They discovered the fact that the CBO report actually says the economy is going to grow because of the health care law. And to the extent there are reductions in the hours people work, it is going to be because individuals are now no longer required to work simply because they need to get health care. They can now make decisions about what they want to do with their life, the kind of work they want to do and the amount of time they want to devote to it, not simply because they are job-locked due to health care insecurity. So I wanted to come to the floor today, as some of my colleagues have, to set the record straight on what the implementation of the health care law really means for the economy and to specifically focus on this issue of what it means to individuals who for decades have been forced to make decisions about their labor connected only to the kind of job that would provide for health care for them and their families.…”