Political Quotes

“I rise this evening to speak about the Republican effort in the Senate, by way of a budget resolution, which includes so-called reconciliation instructions to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, in this case, unfortunately, without any replacement for that legislation we passed a number of years ago. In a word, I think this is a plan for chaos--chaos certainly for insurance markets but more particularly chaos and damage done to middle-class families whose costs will go up. Of course, their coverage will be affected adversely. A repeal act without replacement would raise the price of prescription drugs for older Americans across our country, put insurance companies back in charge of health care, cost our economy millions of jobs, and devastate funding for rural hospitals and rural communities in Pennsylvania and across the country. I think, on a night like tonight, where we are just beginning a long debate about how to bring affordable care to Americans and how to continue that, we should reflect back on where things were before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Over 50 million Americans were uninsured in 2009--50 million people. People with any sort of medical condition were routinely denied health insurance or were charged exorbitant rates because of their health histories. Women in the United States were routinely charged more than men for their health insurance. This is not an exhaustive list.…”