Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I must point out that my Republican colleagues say they want to address the opioid crisis, yet they are standing silent as the Trump administration actively tries to destroy the Affordable Care Act protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which, by the way, includes substance use disorders. If we aren't going to take available steps to expand access to addiction treatment, at least we should all agree that we shouldn't roll back protections that prevent insurance companies from discriminating against people with substance use disorders. Therefore, we should all be working to protect the Affordable Care Act from the Trump administration's effort to destroy the essential protections it provides. Again, I remind all of us that ONDCP is a very important entity and it has a job to do, and it must be properly funded. A lot of people, when they give statistics about opioids and drugs, Mr. Speaker, they find themselves speaking about the dead. Well, I am here to tell you that there are pipelines to death, and those are the people who are addicted now. Those are the ones who are thinking about it, about to start using those drugs. So we must address not only the deaths and the statistics, but we must address treatment that is effective and efficient. Mr.…”