Political Quotes

“From our experience in the Virgin Islands, that is what you do not want to happen. People talk about: Who is on Medicaid? Who are these types of individuals? Why don't they get jobs? I mean, in the Virgin Islands, when we had our largest employer, Hovensa, an oil refinery, close, of course, then our unemployment rate went up. And these are families in need, families who need the support. With a cap on Medicaid, we were only able to have 55 percent of individuals who would qualify for Medicaid with that cap, with that ceiling that was in place from the Federal Government. It means that a tremendous amount of children, homeless individuals, people, families that are out of work for a period of time, are not covered. That, then, creates this huge burden on a hospital for those families to be taken care of, for individual care and individual need. Particularly in the African-American community, when you have things like diabetes, hypertension, all of these diseases which need constant monitoring and primary care physicians to take care of and to ensure that they do not become life-threatening, and come to a place where then they are coming to the hospital, it is in the millions of dollars that you are going to need support and care for the servicing of individuals with these diseases.…”