Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Cantwell for raising the issue about the impact of this decision that the Congress will make with regard to a particular healthcare bill and then also, particularly, the Medicaid consequences. I was just looking at what is a 2-page report that was just produced today and that I was just handed from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It is State specific. In this case, looking at the data from Pennsylvania--I will not go through all of the data on Medicaid--just imagine that three different groups of Americans have benefited tremendously from the Medicaid Program every day. That is why what is happening in the House is of great concern to us. We have in Pennsylvania, for example--just in the number of Pennsylvanians who have a disability--722,000 Pennsylvanians with disabilities who rely upon Medical Assistance for their medical care. Medical Assistance is our State program that is in partnership with Medicaid. There are 261,000 Pennsylvania seniors who get their healthcare through Medicaid. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who happen to be over the age of 65 or who happen to have a disability of one kind or another are totally reliant, on most days, on Medicaid. The third group, of course, is the children, and 33 percent of all of the births in Pennsylvania are births that are paid for through Medicaid.…”