Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleagues for bringing down this resolution. Long-term care is very, very important, as are the physicians involved in taking care of our seniors. The primary payer of long-term care is Medicaid. And regarding the Democratic health care bill, what happened to Illinois is that the mandated increase in Medicaid forces a $2 billion additional cost in the State of Illinois, another unfunded mandate in a State that is already $11 billion in debt. And I think my colleague from California would understand that because of the indebtedness in the State of California. We are both, our States are both, in serious problems. The Medicare cost cuts in this bill, in the Democratic health care bill, is $463 billion for Medicare, which means that doctors are going to stop providing and giving access. My colleague talked about the AMA. We have physicians here on the Republican side who are members of the AMA who are adamantly opposed to the health care bill. The third thing is that in this economy we cannot afford a $569 billion tax increase to pay for this. Caterpillar today just announced that this health care bill will add another $100 million of cost to their service. Now how are we going to increase jobs in the economy by increasing taxes that much?”