To the extent that reimbursement is an issue, as you know, the ACA made a pretty significant investment in raising Medicaid rates for primary care physicians.

a U.S. Senator from the State of Connecticut

How important is it for underserved areas and Medicaid populations, in particular, to keep these Medicaid rates for primary care pegged at the Medicare number going forward?

You get a really good return on your investment in community health centers.

Clearly, that tells us that if you pay physicians in the Medicaid program and you pay practitioners in the Medicaid program close to what it actually costs them to do the work, they're going to start taking Medicaid clients, many of which…

I think we do hear regularly, obviously, reimbursement rates can help us drive change and really drive innovation in the healthcare delivery.

We owe it to ourselves and to everybody to exhaust the possible remedies that the diplomatic process might provide.

If this is ultimately just a geopolitical battle between the United States and Russia over Ukraine, we lose.

One of them clearly is to reestablish control over what he calls the 'near abroad.'

We are, obviously, watching these protests closely.

Thank you, Mr. President, and I thank the Senator from New York for bringing us all together this evening to talk about the really vital economic importance of the Northeast corridor to States such as Connecticut, New Jersey…

if Russia gets away with this extraterritorial incursion into Crimea without consequences and without serious, crippling consequences, then that sends a message to other countries that may be considering similar extraterritorial action.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Yesterday, the administration announced that 7.1 million people had signed up for private health care all across the country in exchanges that range from the national exchange down to the State-based…

Senator Chris Murphy has called for a nation-wide investigation.

George Holland was a pretty exceptional kid. When he was 14 years old, he went through something that I do not think any of us can even imagine what it is like to go through. His parents got into a heated argument. They were estranged at…

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). Without objection, it is so ordered. Gun Violence

The idea that we're spending, in this particular institution's case, $1.4 billion in taxpayer money all for the benefit of getting a 40 percent default rate and graduation rates, that are hovering under 10 percent at this institution is…

I thank Senator Whitehouse, who is an extraordinary leader on the issue of trying to control costs and improving quality. Senator Stabenow and Senator Boxer have been down here talking about the importance of the Affordable Care Act long…

Today, we sort of have an all or nothing approach when we're looking at these institutions as to whether they are worthwhile investments for the Federal tax dollars.

Yesterday, healthcare.gov saw about 1.2 million visits to the site. The call centers, which are busy enrolling people at a pace that is now exceeding 50,000 to 100,000 people a day, saw 390,000 phone calls. A new poll just came out…

But the institution, in this case, the equivalent of the house, deserves to have the same kind of rigorous analysis applied to it.

Senator Murray, Senator Sanders, myself and Senator Schatz have legislation that I hope will take a look at it in the context of HEA reauthorization that will give you and give the Department of Education some new tools with which to try…

We need to hold schools accountable for their students' outcomes.

For a lot of the underperforming schools in my State, the foundational issue is kids' behavior before you get to kids' learning.

In Bridgeport, CT, we had epidemic levels of school-based arrests... school-based arrests plummeted by 50 percent.