Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise tonight to talk about healthcare, which is an issue that obviously commands a lot of attention, but lately, frankly, not enough attention here in the Senate. I will focus, in particular, on one report that we are issuing today that will talk about one aspect of some of the problems we are having in our healthcare system right now that a lot of Americans might not be aware of. They probably will be more aware when they hear more about the report that I have. I think we should start from the basic premise that we have made tremendous progress in the last number of years in access to healthcare, in healthcare coverage. We know, for example, that between the years 2010, the year that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed, and the end of 2016--so, basically, just a matter of 6 years--something on the order of 20-plus million Americans gained health insurance coverage. We went from roughly the number of uninsured in the country being a little more than 47 million in 2010 to a little more than 27 million in 2016. Over the course of just 6 to 7 years, 20 million fewer people were uninsured. That is a great measure of progress on an issue where most people said there was no way you could get 20 million more people insured. Very few Americans thought that was possible until it actually happened.…”