Political Quotes

“I disagree with him, and I think several things that he said were incorrect and need to be clarified on the record. First, the notion that we are providing health insurance for illegal immigrants is wrong. Let me tell you why it is wrong. You go back almost 20 years, I believe, to the Reagan Presidency when we had a phenomena in the United States that needed to be addressed. People were showing up at the emergency rooms of hospitals and being turned away. Some of them were bleeding out in the driveways of hospitals across America. We changed the law under President Reagan, and we changed the law to say that you must admit people coming through the door who need emergency medical assistance--women who were in labor to deliver a child, people who were literally bleeding to death. Do I hear the Senator from Wyoming say that we should be turning those people away? I hope not. I don't think that is what he really believes. He understands, as I do, that there are compelling human situations where you provide assistance. And I thank our hospitals for doing that. But to say that we are trying to make sure that we manufacture some coverage for illegal aliens is to overlook the obvious. We don't want these hospitals turning away people who are literally in an extreme situation. I will defend that to the death.”