Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I want to pause from our analysis of the specific terms of the bill that was unveiled today to ask the question: What is the value that is really at stake in healthcare policy in the United States? When we were debating on the House side, I heard a colleague get up on the floor and say something to the effect of: Under ObamaCare, under the Affordable Care Act, healthy people are having to pay insurance to take care of sick people. It took a second for that to register with me. Then I turned to the person I was sitting next to and said: Yes, that is what insurance is. The whole point of insurance is that all of us pay money in, knowing that people get sick in the course of life. We hope that we are not going to be one of them. We hope we won't get injured. We hope we won't get sick or ill or come down with a terrible disease, God forbid, but we know it can happen, so we all pay in. When it does happen to some people, that is what insurance is for. So the value there is one of solidarity among everybody together. In the richest country on Earth, at its richest moment in our history, there is another value at stake here, which is the value of justice. Forgive me, but I want to speak personally for a moment here, because I have what we call a preexisting condition. So this issue of preexisting condition coverage is important to me and my family. I understand it is important for tens of millions of families across the country.…”