Political Quotes

“You know, we're beginning to hear from some of the nearly 54,000 Medicare beneficiaries that we have in our district because they have figured out that this is going to be financed on their back; and we have nearly 9,000 Medicare Advantage beneficiaries that are in our district. Our Congressional Budget Office estimates are telling us that this looks like it's going to end up costing us over $11 million in our district. Now, we know that we're going to see the tax on private insurance. We've heard from some of our individuals who are questioning why in the world are you putting a tax, you've got a tax on everything, why are you taxing our health insurance benefits? We're hearing from our tobacco farmers and our friends in the agriculture community that are quite upset about cigarette and cigar and tobacco taxes there. And as the gentleman from Georgia just said, this grand plan basically says, seniors, we need you to smoke more so that you can help pay for this plan to expand SCHIP to middle- and upper-income families. And being a mother, I can tell you that a 25-year-old probably is a little bit offended to be called a child, because 25-year-olds are adults.”