Joaquin Castro: “Thank you, Congressman. A few things that you pointed out that I think are especially noteworthy. The first is that…”

“Thank you, Congressman. A few things that you pointed out that I think are especially noteworthy. The first is that there is no perfect bill that we pass here. And especially, the larger the bill is, the more you are going to have to come back and change it and tweak it. That is what you have seen with the Affordable Care Act. So there is no surprise that we are going to have to have some changes to it. Quite frankly, there have been some changes in deadlines. There have been some other changes. Americans rightly ask, Well, why is the President or the administration doing that? Well, it is very simple. Last year, for example, Congress passed the least amount of legislation of any year on record. The President is taking action to improve the law because the Congress will not or cannot. Somebody has got to be doing something here in Washington. Unfortunately, in the House of Representatives, we have hit a standstill. So the administration is making sure and listening to Americans and making the changes that are necessary. No bill is ever going to be perfect. Social Security was deeply criticized when it was enacted. For several years, Medicare was deeply criticized when it was enacted. So this is no surprise. Americans in previous generations have seen this before, have lived through this before, and this program has been a successful one. It will be even more successful as we go forward, and we will continue to talk a bit about some of the benefits to millions of Americans.…”