Political Quotes

“First, I wish to begin by recognizing the extraordinary leadership of majority leader Harry Reid, Chairman Baucus, Chairman Dodd, and Chairman Harkin to get us to this point. Commonsense and cost-effective health care reform is now the law of the land. The question before the Senate now is whether we will make some important improvements to that reform or whether we will respond to the wishes of the insurance industry and others who want to preserve a broken status quo of higher premiums and dwindling coverage for middle-class families. Yesterday, President Obama signed into law a health insurance reform bill that will cut the deficit by $143 billion over the next 10 years, ensure that health insurance companies actually provide Americans with the coverage that they pay for, and preserve Medicare for our senior citizens. That is no small achievement, and it would be a tragedy if the other side of the aisle persists in its effort to defeat health care reform by seeking to delay and up-end the package of improvements in the bill that we are now debating. It sometimes gets lost in the heated rhetoric of the other side, but under the status quo, the healthy are faced with ever-increasing costs and the ill are denied care, dropped from coverage, and prevented from purchasing coverage. The new health insurance reforms will provide relief for every American.…”