Political Quotes

“I will make two final points about Medicaid and then juxtapose Medicaid with another part of the bill. If you look at the bill--it is about 140, I guess, 142 pages--more than 60 pages deal with Medicaid. So this is principally a bill about Medicaid. There are some other issues, obviously, addressed on the exchanges and the fundamentals of healthcare. But it is mostly about Medicaid and tax cuts, unfortunately; and that is particularly objectionable to me that you have a small group of very wealthy people who are going to make out in ways we can't even imagine, like a big bonanza for the superrich. Now, let me just talk about the Medicaid part of it first, and then I will refer to a chart. I am holding in my hand the Congressional Budget Office report from today, which came out. It, of course, is a document produced by the Congressional Budget Office as well as the Joint Committee on Taxation so it is a joint effort. On the CBO--so-called CBO Congressional Budget Office report, recently--a couple weeks ago now--on page 17 of that document, there was an assessment made of the number of people who would lose Medicaid as a result of the House bill, and that number was 14 million Americans would lose Medicaid over the decade up until 2026. Well, unfortunately, as of 4 p.m. or something this afternoon--I guess about 4 p.m., 4:30--we got the Congressional Budget Office assessment of the Senate bill, the Senate bill that was unveiled last week.…”