Political Quotes

“They did not agree with our view of the legislation. Yes, that is quite true. But the time has come where I have tried to point out the 43 million people who have to go out into the regular indemnity insurance market, for instance, which is, by the way, under state jurisdiction, are really anti-selected. Forty-three million cannot get health care. We have to do something about it. If we do not do something about it, I would suggest that the private market is going to get a real black mark and somebody is going to talk about let us go back to the Clinton plan or something like that, when we do have the ability to be able to do something about it. I wish you folks well in the next session of Congress. I shall be rooting for the team. I hope you get the same team together. And the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hastert), I cannot say enough for him, because he sat there meeting after meeting after meeting. You know how many hours we worked, how many days we worked on this. And we had a great work product. Unfortunately, the day that I think that that was passed, another event of terrible magnitude here occurred, a shooting and murder of two fine policemen, and then, after that, the President had his troubles, and I think the news media never even looked at this legislation very much as a result of this. But it will pass eventually. It has to pass, because it is good legislation. I thank the gentlemen for their time.”