Political Quotes

“Well, I thank the gentleman for his question and all of the premises he adopts in prefacing his question. I don't want my silence to be presumed as agreeing to his premises, which I think are inaccurate. Having said that, first of all, of course, there has been extraordinary exposure of the health care bills, both in the House and Senate, to public discussion, public debate, public information. It has been online for over 4 months, 5 months now, and an extraordinary number of hearings held on it over the last 2 years. As the gentleman well knows, his party's candidate for President and my party's candidate for President, who is now President of the United States, both indicated that they thought health reform was necessary. So it received extensive debate by many other candidates as well during the course of the election. The gentleman is well aware because Members on his side have talked about it and Members on my side have talked about it, about the number of Americans who don't have insurance and the number of Americans who are being forced out because of cost and the number of small businesses that are being confronted with 10, 15, 25 percent premium increases. So the gentleman is well aware of the fact that health funding and health coverage is a challenge for our country and for our citizens.”