Political Quotes

“in 1997, I voted ``yes'' to create the Children's Health Insurance Program. I was proud a Republican Congress put this plan into place, and I support reauthorization of this program, but I oppose this bill before us. Why? This bill contains big tax increases. What is interesting, when we want to make health insurance more affordable, they put a new $2 billion tax, they call it a per capita tax, on health insurance policies, causing them to be more expensive. Then there are some big Medicare cuts, in fact, almost $200 billion in Medicare cuts, probably the biggest cut in Medicare in the history of the program. They want to expand the program, but they want to pay for it on the backs of senior citizens by cutting Medicare. So you wonder who gets hurt when you cut Medicare to pay for the expansion of this program. If you just take the $7.6 billion in cuts to home health care, you think of that elderly woman that many of us have met. We have been in her home. She is an elderly woman with an easy chair by the window, by the television. She has a tray or table there. It is filled with pill bottles. She is homebound. She watches the world go by. And if she is lucky, she has a cat or a dog for a pet and a companion. But, for her, home health care is important, because not only is it contact with the outside world, but home health care allows her to live in her home in dignity even though she is homebound.”