Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues on the floor to share concerns I have been hearing from people in my State about the latest healthcare repeal bill. Minnesotans and patient groups, such as AARP, oppose this bill because eliminating the Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act's help for millions of people means they would lose coverage, and it would increase their out-of-pocket costs. People in my State are concerned about this bill's impact on rural hospitals, especially--as are the rural hospitals--because it makes deep cuts to Medicaid, and the new block grant in the bill would end completely by 2027. I am very concerned that this bill would reverse the progress we are making in addressing the opioid epidemic by putting a cap on Medicaid, a program that has been critical for substance abuse treatment for people struggling with this addiction. A few months ago, I pointed out that we were on plan F in the Senate. Plans A and B were the two House versions of a repeal; plans C and D were the two Senate versions of the repeal; plan E was the repeal bill without a replacement plan; and then we were presented with plan F. That, of course, went down after the Senate Democrats were joined by three Republican Senators in voting it down. I actually thought we couldn't get lower than F, but apparently we can because now we are here. Many of the Minnesotans I have talked to don't like A, B, C, D, E, F, or the plan we are discussing that has been proposed.…”