Political Quotes

“Thank you. I would like to also join my colleagues tonight in support of Representative Barletta's very important legislation to help clarify the fact that the volunteer firefighters should not be counted as full-time equivalents under the employer mandate under the health care law, more commonly known as ObamaCare. It has been very clear to me, after having meetings with many of my friends in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, where a number of firefighters from different fire companies came to speak to me on this issue, that the potential impact of this idea of counting volunteer firefighters as full-time equivalents will really have a very negative impact on public safety in that particular community, where volunteer firefighters really do provide the bulk of the fire service, as is the case in much of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and throughout the country. It is clear to me that the health care law is riddled with so many problems. We always knew that this employer mandate was going to be a problem where it says that if you have more than 50 employees you are going to have to provide health care benefits after the first 30 for those working more than 30 hours a week. I don't think anybody in their wildest imagination would have ever thought that a volunteer fire company would have been impacted by this. It raises a whole host of questions too: Well, are those volunteer firefighters part of the municipal workforce?…”