Political Quotes

“If I can reclaim time for a moment, the thing that is ironic is that, as we have said, in the history of the Congress, certainly in the last 35-year history of Medicare, it is only the one bill the gentleman and I helped to author that has passed in the House. Now, there has been plenty of talk for 35 years from politicians on the stump running for this House and the Senate and the presidency. They have all talked about this issue. But when it came to sitting down, as we did, and saying how would we actually write this; what would the words be that we would choose to put in the bill; what would the provisions look like; how would we pay for it; how would it be flexible; how would we be able to make it affordable to the lower-income and still be affordable to the taxpayers; how does it reach into the middle class; how would we take care of the catastrophic end of things; how do we make sure it is appropriate for the disabled population as well; how do we make sure that by offering this we do not create a disincentive for employers to continue to provide the benefit; how would we do that, we grappled with all of those questions, as the gentleman knows, and we had to make decisions. We put those decisions into a document and we said, now, can we get 218 votes out of 435 Members of the House to pass it.”