Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the motion to commit by my friend from the State of Washington. Let me tell you why. We have a problem that most all of you have in your States, which is opioids. This opioid addiction that goes on is affecting everybody--not just Democrats, not just Republicans. I don't care whether you are poor or rich or whether you are conservative or liberal--it has no base at all; it is a silent killer. For the first time, under the Affordable Care Act, we are able to get some treatment. We have not been able to do that before. The only treatment people have gotten before--when a parent comes to you and says: I just have to hope my child--if my child gets arrested, they can go into drug court, and maybe they can get some care, some treatment. For the first time, through Medicaid, we can give treatment for opioid addiction. We never had this chance before, never had this opportunity. It is really lifesaving for these people. It gets them back into the workforce, too, and they can clean up their lives. They really want this done. We are talking about 33,000 Americans who lost their lives in 2015. In any other scenario, that would be an epidemic or a pandemic. Here we go. We still don't have any adequate treatment centers. We have no way that we can go forward and fight this illness. We sit here and talk about it. Now we are talking about, well, we know 16 million people are going to be thrown off. We know that.…”