Political Quotes

“This afternoon, the Congressional Health Care Caucus wants to talk a little bit about the future of the government's role in health care in this country. I recognize, for those of you studying your Constitution as of this very moment, you don't find the government's role for controlling health care in this country, but we will do our best to help you understand why we are where we are and perhaps where we are going with some of the Federal programs that are run by the Federal Government. Again, the Congressional Health Care Caucus, the Web site healthcaucus.org. This hour, I am grateful to the leadership of the Republican Party for the use of this hour. I and my cochair, Mr. G.T. Thompson from Pennsylvania, will be leading the discussion. We have had a lot of talk over the past 4 weeks about the future of Medicare in this country. Certainly, if you look at the three plans that are on the table right now--and I understand you may be scratching your head and saying, Wait a minute. I thought there was only one plan out there. I thought there was only the Republican plan. But the Medicare Trustees Report that was issued some 2, 2\1/2\ weeks ago, came forward and articulated how the Medicare trust fund would be exhausted in the year 2023 or 2024. This is a significant fact that right now this Congress and the White House are trying to ignore, but it can't be ignored, and that's why the responsible Republican budget passed in April would deal with this fact.…”