Political Quotes

On the recordDecember 10, 2019
when the Trump administration comes to an end, it is going to leave behind a host of sad and, I would consider, shameful legacies, and right near the top of the list will be the shocking number of children who have lost healthcare coverage under this administration. I am sure folks can't really see the specific numbers here, but this trend line is what is important, taking figures from the Census Department--people who are not political; they are not Democrats or Republicans. What this chart, based on census data shows, is that, for year after year after year, we saw the number of uninsured kids in America go down. That is something I think was important for our country. It said a lot about our values, and it certainly said a lot about our healthcare system. Sure, we are going to spend more than $3.5 trillion on healthcare. If you were to divide that up into 320 million Americans, you can send every family of four a check for $40,000. So we are spending enough on healthcare, but we are not spending it in the right places. In particular, I wanted to come to the floor--and I am glad to see my friend, the Presiding Officer, who has worked with me on a variety of healthcare issues; we have some areas we are going to be talking about in the days ahead. To me, one of the areas of healthcare, until recently, we could all take pride in was this chart, which nobody could really see, but it showed this trend line in which the number of uninsured kids was going down.…
Said by
Ron Wyden
Democratic · Oregon
Source
govinfo.gov
Dec 10, 2019

Share

More from Ron Wyden

Aug 19, 2026

Congress has a responsibility to ensure that the personal health information of the tens of millions of people who rely on Medicaid is protected and that HHS and CMS comply with federal court orders.

wyden.senate.gov
Aug 7, 2026

I’m heading home this weekend to meet with Oregonians fearing in real time for their lives and livelihoods because of wildfires threatening communities and spreading smoke statewide.

wyden.senate.gov
Aug 11, 2026

The last thing you should have to worry about if your house burns down in a wildfire or washes away in a flood is being hit with a massive tax bill.

padilla.senate.gov

Other voices in this conversation