Political Quotes

“All right. Thank you, Senator Blunt. Mr. President, I have to say this has been a wonderful partnership and a wonderful journey now for, gosh, almost 10 years, I think, since we originally started talking about the idea that we should be funding healthcare above the neck the same as healthcare below the neck as part of the healthcare system. And that is your ``stop and start'' grants, when we have community health centers that are so wonderful for physical health. And so we have done that. I do want to, before going into the substance, give a shout-out, though--because we are not the only ones who have been working for almost 10 years--to our wonderful staff: Alex Graf, on my staff, who has been working on this legislation for 8 of those years, and Caitlin Wilson, on your staff, who was amazing, and I understand recently stolen by Senator Cornyn. And so she has continued her work. But so many people have worked with us that we are very grateful to, including the main authors and the folks who have put this bill together, like Senator Cornyn, who has been such a strong supporter of what has become an evidence-based quality initiative. We don't have to make something up. When folks say, ``What do you want to do about mental health care or addiction care,'' we actually have a proven model now. And also to Kyrsten Sinema and to Chris Murphy and Senator Tillis--so many people have been supportive of this as well.…”