Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the reconciliation legislation the Senate will be considering later this week. Similar to many of my colleagues, I first read this legislation when it was hot filed in the House last week. One of my first thoughts was, what a difference 15 months makes. This week the Senate will debate legislation that will increase health care costs for working Americans and wipe out a successful bipartisan 45-year-old student loan program without a single committee hearing or even a markup. This bill is an attempt to fix what is perceived to be the problem with health reform legislation that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve of last year. These fixes are being considered because the American people overwhelmingly opposed that legislation. Unfortunately, this bill, the reconciliation bill, does nothing to fix the problem that prompted this opposition. Nothing in the bill we are going to be considering will prevent $\1/2\ trillion from being cut from the Medicare Program to create a brandnew entitlement program for the uninsured. If this bill is passed, millions of Medicare beneficiaries will lose the extra benefits they currently receive. In fact, this bill will actually make matters worse, cutting even more money than the provisions in the Senate bill. One out of every four Medicare beneficiaries is already enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, and every one of them will see their benefits reduced.…”