Political Quotes

“I say to the Chair, when I was here at 6 o'clock and was cut off by the Chair and was taken off my feet and lost my ability to speak for reasons that are only known to the Chair, I was prepared to make my 5-minute remarks, and the other Members were prepared to do the same. I want to say that, just as a matter of comity and as a matter of our all getting along, this is an important debate, and if the effort were to try to figure out a way to stymie the debate and to silence some of us, I just want to remind you that it's not going to work and that we're going to find a way to make this debate happen even if it's late into the evening. But I just want to continue on a point that the gentleman from New Jersey made, and I want us to understand a little bit about the basic tenets of how Medicare works. Many Members on the other side of the aisle came to the floor today and talked about Medicare as being a one-size-fits-all plan. Medicare works because of its flexibility. My father is a member of an HMO. He chose that option. People can go to individual pay-per-service doctors. Now, there is no disputing that health care--all health care--is on a rising arc that is unsustainable. That's why the Republican strategy of doing nothing and drilling its head into the sand for years was no longer sustainable, and that's why we Democrats, without a single Republican vote, had to do something about it. The arc of cost is strangling our economy.…”