Political Quotes

“I rise this afternoon to supplement some remarks I made on the floor last evening about the Affordable Care Act. Last night, I talked about my own experience as a young staff member in the U.S. Senate 43 years ago when, because I had an insurance policy provided by my employer--that policy had preventive care as part of the policy, just as Affordable Care Act policies do today--I had a routine physical checkup. It was the first I had in a number of years, which caught malignant melanoma, a particularly virulent form of cancer. Because it was caught early and because I was treated, here I am today. As I mentioned last night, it has always haunted me that someone who didn't have insurance, a young man or a young woman somewhere in the country who was in exactly my situation, because they didn't have insurance, they didn't have preventive care, didn't get the checkup, the disease wasn't caught, and they are gone. I find it very hard to justify that, to understand that. It doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem ethical. It doesn't seem moral. Today I wanted to also bring to the attention of the Senate some stories from today about the effect of the Affordable Care Act in Maine, where we have over 80,000 people enrolled, many of whom had never been able to have insurance before. A young woman, Whitney, who graduated from college in 2013, said: I graduated . . .…”