Political Quotes

“I want to highlight a couple of things about the State Children's Health Insurance Program legislation. All of America knows about it. We have been debating this for weeks, and we will continue. Obviously, there are differences of opinion about what to do about health care generally. I will focus on one argument that has been made against this, that somehow if the Federal Government continues the State Children's Health Insurance Program and adds funding--we had an overwhelming vote here in the Senate, and we will have that again today, a veto-proof endorsement of the program and the dollars to back it up by an increase in the cigarette tax--what has been debated back and forth is the coverage and who gets covered and who doesn't. People across America have heard a lot about 200 percent of poverty, 300 percent of poverty. These numbers get thrown around. Two hundred percent of poverty means a family of four is making $41,300. Most of the families covered by this program and that would continue to be covered or would be added to the coverage are in that range and below 200 percent of poverty.”