Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. In Vermont, we faced the challenge that we face in this Nation: We want to have access to health care, and we want it to be affordable. When we had legislation, the Democrats were pushing access. The Republican Governor was concerned about cost. We sat down and realized we're both right. If Democrats want to achieve the goal of access to health care for everybody, we have to control cost. Our Republican Governor was right. We worked to do that. This Congress has failed to do that. Health care costs are rising beyond our ability to pay. Whether it's the taxpayer, whether it's the business that's paying the premiums, whether it's an individual who is self-pay, you cannot have health care costs rising at 6.5 percent a year, as they have for the past 10 years, higher than the rate of inflation, profits, or the economic growth. It can't be sustained. IPAB is a tool to help us control health care costs. We have to do that for our taxpayers, for our employers and for our citizens. {time} 1610 It's advisory. These 15 people who have experience in economics and in medicine will look at data, will look at information. What's there to fear in their doing that? They'll make recommendations to Congress. Congress will retain the right to have the final say as to whether these recommendations will work or not or if we want to substitute something else. That makes sense.…”