Political Quotes

“I enjoyed listening to the comments of my colleague from Utah about the Affordable Care Act, and I wanted to expand on that a little if I could. I know we are having a discussion right now about whether to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, and we are focused a lot on what the timeframe might be and what the replacement might be, which is appropriate, but we also have to remind ourselves as to how we got here. We got here because the Affordable Care Act has not met its promises and has let down the people of Ohio and people around the country. Millions of these families have already had a tough time experiencing really a middle-class squeeze of flat wages, even declining wages, on average, over the last decade or so, and now higher costs. That squeeze is accelerated by the cost of health care which has gone up dramatically. In my own State of Ohio, the Ohio Department of Insurance has reported a 91-percent increase in the individual market in Ohio in the last 6 years, an 80-percent increase for small businesses that are purchasing Affordable Care Act-compliant plans. This is since the Affordable Care Act went into effect. Think about that. There has been almost a doubling of health care premium costs. Who can afford that? People certainly can't afford that as their wages are flat or even declining.…”