Political Quotes

“I am in favor of Medicare revision and all of the things that the previous speaker said. The problem with the Republican bill is they are trying make an insurance product out of a benefit, and one cannot do that. Insurance is a pooling of risk. When all of the claimants are beneficiaries, there is no pooling or spreading of risk. Therefore, it has to be a benefit. Put another way, if everyone's house burned down, we would not be able to purchase fire insurance in the private marketplace, simply because they would not be able to offer it. This is particularly true in the rural areas. Short of importing people into the rural areas, we do not have HMOs. We do not have satellite dishes because we think it is cool, we have satellite dishes because there is no cable TV in rural areas. There are no HMOs in the rural areas. Therefore, we have to have a defined benefit under Medicare if we truly believe in delivering a prescription drug benefit to the senior citizens, all of them, in this country.”