Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, many of us were surprised on July 2 when the administration unilaterally suspended the employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act. Since there were going to be no reporting requirements under the employer mandate, how were people going to be judged as eligible for benefits under the Affordable Care Act? Well, we would simply take their word for it. ``Self-attestation'' became the watchword and buzzword in the administration. Last Thursday, again, people were surprised that the Department of Health and Human Services' Inspector General's Office is going to lose 20 percent of its staff between now and 2015. Well, wait a minute. We are going to a system of self-reporting, self-attestation, but we are cutting the staff of the office who is going to see that the funds are properly spent. Oh, by the way, all the while, we are going to be increasing the funding for the so-called navigators, people who are going to sign people up for the Affordable Care Act under their own self-attestation. It seems like we are going in the wrong direction here. We do need to keep an eye on these funds. They could go out the door inappropriately. We owe it to the taxpayer to be more vigilant. ____________________”