Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from New Mexico. I want to go to the same report. I think it clarifies his point and the question he just asked me. Again, as he mentioned, 1.3 million Nevadans are going to be affected by this 40-percent excise tax. Three-quarters of a million New Mexicans are going to be affected by this excise tax. So I have hard time believing that most of them are wealthy enough to have to pay and for their employers to have to pay this kind of tax. Let's go back to the Kaiser Family Foundation--a report that you quoted from. I have a number of statistics. I think it will better clarify. There is a quote in here that I want to emphasize that answers the point and the question you brought out. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, employees who have job-based insurance have witnessed their out-of-pocket expenses climb from $900 in 2010 to $1,300 in 2015. That is an average. That is on average a 50-percent increase in their health care costs in the last 5 years. Employees working for small businesses now have deductibles over $1,800 on average. Kaiser also noted that the deductibles have risen nearly seven times faster than workers' earnings since 2010. If you are the average middle-class family, with an average income, can you imagine your deductibles rising seven times faster than your earnings have since 2010? Here is the quote from Kaiser's president, Drew Altman, that really answers your question: It's quite a revolution.…”