Political Quotes

“It was just announced this week that health insurance costs in Rhode Island are going to go up by as much as 22 percent next year, costing working people thousands of dollars more per year to pay for their health insurance. This is money that people don't have. Most people in my State, most people in this country are just barely getting by. They can't afford to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance. It is not just in Rhode Island that it is happening. It is all across the country. State after State is announcing next year's insurance rates with double digit increases. We know why this is happening. It is happening because Republicans and the Trump administration just cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, and now they are also trying to let the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire. When you do that, when you take trillions of dollars out of the healthcare system, you are not just taking away health insurance coverage from millions of Americans, you are also taking revenue away from hospitals, community health centers, and doctors' practices. The only way that those healthcare providers can stay in business is to raise prices on everybody else, and that is exactly what is happening. We told our Republican colleagues that this is what would happen when they passed that trillion dollar cut to Medicaid. We told them that health insurance costs were going to go up for everybody else in the country, but they didn't want to hear it.”