Political Quotes

“let me begin by thanking Senator Marshall of Kansas for his very hard work on the bill that we have introduced today after being on the floor with me this afternoon to briefly discuss it. And I also want to thank his staff and my staff for putting in an enormous amount of time on this bill over the last several months. Most Americans understand that our healthcare system is broken. We are spending nearly $13,000 a year per capita on healthcare. That is an astronomical sum of money, almost twice as much as most other countries. And yet despite all of that spending, some 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. And there are estimates out there, believe it or not, that some 60,000 Americans die each year because they do not receive the healthcare they need when they need it. And our life expectancy as a nation is actually in decline, despite all of that spending. Frankly, as broken as our general healthcare system is, our primary healthcare system is in even worse shape. As everyone knows, I don't think there is any debate on this, we face a major shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists. And those shortages will only grow as a result of the COVID burnout that many providers experience and the aging of our healthcare workforce. According to the most recent estimates that I have seen, over the next decade, our country faces a shortage of over 120,000 doctors, including a huge number of primary care physicians.…”