Political Quotes

“I was a small business owner with my wife for nearly 22 years and I served on a hospital board, and I support reforming the health care system. In fact, I have offered up legislation to do that and supported other bills, but the way that this process is being mismanaged and misrun today is not the way to do health care reform. There isn't the transparency the American people deserve and that is now being denied by those in charge. We are reading in the press that the Senate bill, with all of its barnacles on it, may pass this House without ever having a stand-up 'yes' or 'no' vote. That is outrageous. And what does that bill do and what do these bills do? They whack Medicare $500 billion. Thirty-eight thousand seniors in my district run the risk of losing the Medicare Advantage policies that they have. This is not the way to do health care reform. You should scrap the bill and start over on a bipartisan basis. I had two amendments to deal with rural health care issues adopted unanimously in the Energy and Commerce Committee, both of which, after the committee passed the bill out of the committee itself, were stripped out somewhere between the committee and the House floor, and the Democrats wouldn't even let me offer those amendments on the House floor again. Stop this process. Let's do it right.”