Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, we have 41 million Americans who do not have health insurance. As I said before, Congress has been talking about this for a decade. And while the underlying bill will not solve the entire problem, it will help in addressing the needs of the uninsured. As we heard before, some 60 percent either work for or have a dependent who works for a business, and so they have jobs. We are not talking about the poor here, because the poor get covered by Medicaid. We are talking about people who go to work every day, but they happen to work in an industry that maybe does not traditionally cover health insurance, or they work for a small employer who just cannot afford it because they are locked in a small State insurance pool. We know what the cost of health insurance and these increases do. It creates more uninsured. In the Wall Street Journal today, CALPERS, the country's largest health plan, is set to increase premiums on an average of 17 percent for the next year, a 17 percent increase from the largest health care plan in the country. It is time that we step up and take action. The underlying bill will in fact help small businesses create more coverage for more people.”