Political Quotes

“I am grateful to have the chance to follow my friend from Pennsylvania, who has shown such great leadership with respect to healthcare and particularly with respect to the nursing home population. I am delighted to join him to discuss what COVID is doing to the elder Americans who are in our nursing homes and long-term care facilities, because this illness has swept like a savage scythe through those facilities. In my small State of Rhode Island, 750 residents of long-term care facilities have died of COVID. We just crossed 1,000 deaths statewide, and 750 are at these facilities. If that doesn't attract the concern of this Senate, something is very wrong with this Senate. Across the country, the death toll in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, just as Senator Casey said, is 62,000 Americans. My dad served for 5 years in the Vietnam conflict. In the decades of the Vietnam conflict, we sustained over 58,000 American military casualties. That means the death toll in our nursing homes and long-term care facilities--just in COVID, just in these months--is greater than the death toll of our soldiers in Vietnam. And if that is not enough to attract the attention of the Senate, something is wrong with the Senate. In Rhode Island, there is a little nursing home--just by way of example--called Hallworth House. Hallworth House is a great little place. It has been operating for half a century. It opened in 1968. It has a five-star rating from CMS.…”