Political Quotes

“Again, I am an accountant. I have been in hundreds of budget meetings, and when you are presenting your budget to a budget committee, you are armed with the information and you are ready to answer questions. I was surprised that the Secretary was unable to answer the questions, and particularly when I mentioned the waivers, she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. It is her agency, her department that is actually granting those waivers. So that troubles me. So I appreciate the fact that the Senator has and we have sent a letter to Budget Chairman Conrad requesting, to be fair to Secretary Sebelius, to give her a chance to be fully prepared to come before us and to explain what is this $111 billion in additional requested funds for the exchanges. And I would like to really dig down and talk about this 1 million-person estimate and what is going to be the effect if the administration is wrong, if CBO has been wrong in the previous estimate and the McKenzie study is right and half the people very quickly after implementation get dropped from their employer coverage and put in the exchanges. What effect is that going to have on our budget? I would love to give and I think it is appropriate to give Secretary Sebelius the opportunity to come before our Budget Committee and have a fair exchange in terms of her explanation for those parts of her budget.”