Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to talk about the President's proposed budget as it relates to Medicaid and the fact that it is just a war on Medicaid; that is, it continues the wrongheaded ideas that have been proposed in the House bill on healthcare reform and takes that and continues to make cuts to Medicaid that are unsustainable for our healthcare system. The President's budget would impose a block grant or per capita cap on States in 2020 in exchange for so-called flexibility. I haven't met one State administrator of healthcare in our State who says they need more flexibility. They have a lot of flexibility on Medicaid currently, but they know this is just a budget cap and a budget cut. The budget would result in $610 billion in cuts to States, in addition to what would happen if they were successful in passing the House bill in the Senate. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put it, the Trump budget cuts Medicaid ``considerably more deeply than the House bill's per capita cap proposal would do.'' No doubt what the budget is proposing from the President today and what our House colleagues have proposed on healthcare means more damage for healthcare and more damage for Medicaid. Let's be more specific. Medicaid for healthcare is about children. It is about seniors. It is about the disabled. It is about working families. It is about young people. Medicaid covers half of the births and the majority of long-term care stays.…”