Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as we conclude the hour in the next 10 or 15 minutes, let me start my remarks by thanking my colleagues who joined us tonight. I thank Senator Whitehouse, who has worked with us on this legislation from the very beginning, on introduction, and so many who are cosponsors on the legislation--Senator Hassan from New Hampshire and Senator Shaheen, the senior Senator from New Hampshire. I thank her for being here and for her comments about this legislation. I also thank Senator Blumenthal. I wanted to start just for a few minutes before we conclude with this chart. This is a chart depicting a map of the United States that is dated June 27 from the New York Times. The summary reads: ``In at least 24 states, a majority of deaths are linked to nursing homes.'' Of course, I mentioned at the outset the deaths, as of a few hours ago, of more than 54,000 people, when you add up the residents and the workers, comprising 40 percent of the deaths nationwide. You can see when you break it down by State, my home State of Pennsylvania is at 68 percent--a majority of the deaths--linked to nursing homes. States just to the south, where there is Virginia at 61, Maryland at 61, Ohio at 57, but even further south, North Carolina is at 57. Then you go out into the middle of the country, and in North Dakota, 64 percent of the deaths were linked to nursing homes; Minnesota, 77 percent. There are not many that are below 30 percent-- only a few.…”