Political Quotes

“I hope my colleagues understand that there are those here who are very willing to talk about how we can improve our healthcare system, but we are not going to make poor Americans the scapegoat of our healthcare challenges. A gentleman named Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, I think, said it best. He said: You or someone you love is going to need Medicaid. You may not need the nursing home care . . . but you may rely on community-based services, like home care, that will allow you to stay in your home and out of a nursing facility. Medicaid is the lifeline that covers many of the benefits that Medicare does not provide. Now why did I read that? Why did I pick a guy who is the head of a Medicare organization? Because he knows what his individual organization participants need in a healthcare delivery system. Everybody knows--everybody knows the people of America are living longer and as they age they need more healthcare. To our colleagues who want to reduce those costs, we are ready to come and talk about how we are going to reduce those costs. I have talked about how I authored a community-based ``rebalancing'' program--the kind of rebalancing that helped our State save more than $2 billion.…”