Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak today in opposition to the Cruz amendment, which would prohibit any funding in the continuing resolution from being used to carry out the goals of the Affordable Care Act. The broad scope of this amendment clearly indicates that anything anticipated under the Affordable Care Act would be subject to defunding, and that is a broad category of activities. In fact, we already have seen the Affordable Care Act produce demonstrable positive results in my State of Rhode Island, and those results could be eliminated or reversed. For example, because of the Affordable Care Act, there are protections in place today for children with preexisting conditions to ensure they are no longer denied coverage. There are over 15,000 children who have a preexisting condition who could have been dropped from insurance coverage prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. Their parents and other adults--approximately 200,000 Rhode Island adults also living with preexisting conditions--will gain protection from being dropped from coverage beginning in January. We began with children, and now we are expanding it to adults. If we don't do that, then we are going to have a whole category, a huge segment of my population who may lose access to insurance, and the inevitable result will be that they will go to expensive emergency rooms, and they will cost all of us more money.…”