Political Quotes

“That is true. The point made earlier about the goal of the legislation bending the cost curve down--it didn't do it, it doesn't do it, and it cannot do it. That created the problem we all face now. How can we have access to affordable health care if we are not reducing the cost of health care? The end result, in my view, is that Americans will have less options for their own plans. As employers, they will provide either less options or no options for their employees. So the idea that people are going to get to keep what they have, that begins to disappear. If they are a senior citizen and Medicare has been their primary provider, we go back to the idea that we didn't bend the cost curve. So in order to make health care affordable--when the legislation fails to do that, we find other gimmicks to do that. One of the things this bill creates is IPAB, an independent agency that will make decisions about what is covered by people's health care plans. The goal will not be to have better quality health care; the goal of the IPAB will be to reduce expenditures. As the promise was made that people get to keep what they have, it becomes totally different than what they have experienced in their health care plans--either in their own private health care insurance or as a beneficiary of Medicare.…”