Frank Pallone: “I was very aggravated, if you will, last night when I listened to some of our Republican colleagues suggest that, oh…”

“I was very aggravated, if you will, last night when I listened to some of our Republican colleagues suggest that, oh, there is nothing really to this, you know, the President can just sit down and split the difference on some of the numbers in terms of Medicare and Medicaid with the Republicans and everything will be fine, and he can sign the bill and all the Government employees can go back to work. These are profound differences. Just briefly, on the Medicaid issue, which I consider really probably the most important issue, they are talking, the Republican leadership, essentially, with this budget, is talking about destroying Medicaid as we know it. The whole basis of Medicaid is that if you are below a certain income and need health insurance, that you are guaranteed the health insurance and that you are guaranteed a certain package of health insurance that provides for health care, that is necessary for a lot of low-income people.”