Political Quotes

“Senator Welch, first of all, I appreciate your acknowledging that we do want to work together. I would hope that you would acknowledge that we are working together to try to find solutions. This notion that the fact that we haven't had a hearing--it is because we haven't gotten to the point where we have legislation before us to have that hearing on. But I just would like to make two points. No. 1, once again, open the government. No. 2, even if we agreed to your request today, all of those people you talk about who are going to get hit with premium increases are going to get hit with premium increases because this temporary COVID premium enhancement support was never intended to be and never was the foundation of what is driving--or did deal with the foundation of what is driving premium increases. Everybody in America is going to get hit with a massive premium increase, and it is not going to be changed if we give an extension for that 4 percent that goes to this enhancement. It could be like maybe a tiny bit different in some ways and in some places, but I doubt it would make a dollar's difference in most cases. Let's get the government open, and let's continue real negotiations to solve this problem. We mutually have talked. We mutually know that there are things we can work on to get this solved.”