Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise with my colleagues, and I am thrilled to be here with them, to save our health care and to try to convince our colleagues that a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would be health care malpractice, and because health care is one-sixth of the American economy, it would be economic malpractice as well. What I thought I would do basically is just tell two stories. I am going to tell a Virginia story from before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and I am going to tell a Virginia story since the passage of the act. I was first elected to statewide office in 2001, and I became the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. Shortly after, I started to attend, on a fairly regular basis, a most amazing annual event. It is called the Remote Area Medical clinic in Wise County, VA. It is in the heart of Appalachia, in a community on the border of Kentucky where my wife's family is from. This was an annual medical clinic that was set up by some Catholic nuns who were driving a van around trying to offer medical care to people who didn't have it, and they decided they would recruit volunteers. They would set up at a dusty county fairground, the Virginia-Kentucky fairground in Wise, VA, and open the doors on Saturday to people who didn't have health care. It had been going for many years when I first went as Lieutenant Governor. I had heard so much about it, and I was anxious to go see it. Here is what I saw when I first went there.…”