A barn burner

Transcript (0.00 / 0)

....A recent study by the Business Roundtable, that's, that's made up of all these big companies out there, they, they don't, they're nonpartisan, but it's not like they're just dyed, dyed in the wool liberal Democrats, let's put it that way, these are company CEOs. They, they commissioned a study and said the reforms could reduce premiums by as much as three thousand dollars per employee. [audience: "Wow."] That's, that's their study, not mine.

Then the Congressional Budget Office said that the government would save a trillion dollars, reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars.  So think about it, you're saving money, employers are saving money, the federal government is saving money. Not according to me, but according to these studies that were done by independent analysts.

So here's the bottom line, St. Charles. There's no government takeover, unless you consider reining in insurance companies a government takeover. And I think that's the right thing to do. [applause, cheers] There's no, there's no cutting of Medicare benefits. There's just cutting out fraud and waste in Medicare to make it stronger. [applause, cheers]

What we're proposing is a common sense approach to protecting you from insurance company abuses and saving you money. That's the proposal, and it is paid for. And I believe that Congress owes the American people a final up or down vote on health care reform. [applause, cheers] The time for talk is over, it, it's time to vote. [applause]  It's time to vote. Tired of talking about it. [applause]

Now, of course, folks in Washington, they like to talk.  And so Washington is doing right now what Washington does.  They're speculating, breathlessly, day or night, every columnist, every pundit, every talking head.  Is this proposal going to help the Republicans or is this proposal going to help the Democrats? What's going to happen to the President's poll numbers if the vote doesn't go forward?  If it does go forward? What will it mean for November?  What will it mean for twenty twelve? How's the politics going to play?

I heard the Republican Leader of the Senate, the other day, he's warning Democrats, you better be careful about voting for this, it could hurt you.  I don't know how sincere the Republican Leader is about the best interests of Democrats. [laughter] He's been very generous with advice. [laughter]

You know what, here's the bottom line, St. Charles. I don't know how the politics play. I don't know. This is a hard issue. It's a complicated issue. There is a lot of information floating around out there. A lot of it's inaccurate. The opponents have spent millions, millions of dollars fighting it. And people during recessionary times, they're anxious and sort of thinking, gosh, can we really afford to change things right now? Maybe we should just kind of stick with the status quo, even though we know it's not working for us. [audience: "No."]

So I don't know how the politics plays. But here's what I do know, the American people will be more secure with this reform. Our country will be stronger because of this reform. [applause] Don't know about the politics. But I know it is the right thing to do [cheers], and that's why I'm fighting so hard to get it done. [applause, cheers]

We've seen years, decades, where Washington just puts off dealing with our toughest challenges, because it's too hard, because we don't know how the politics works. And, and, and the will and the capacity to act, to do serious things in this country, starts just getting sucked away.  Just gets sacked by partisanship and political gamesmanship and debates about who's up and who's down, and how does this play politically, instead of asking what's right and what's wrong. We've seen terrible consequences, not just these last two years of turmoil, but a decade of struggle for middle class families. [voice: "right." applause]

We can't accept the status quo. We can't accept the same old, same old. I won't accept it. Claire McCaskill won't accept it. [cheers] Not when it comes to how we manage taxpayer dollars. [applause] That, not when it comes to how our health care system works. Not when it comes to meeting the difficult challenges that we face.

That's why Claire and I are fighting to stop waste and abuse in our government. That's why Claire and I are fighting to pass these health insurance reforms.  [applause, cheers] Now is the time. [cheers] Now is the moment. [applause] Now is the time for us to leave for the next generation and generations to come a stronger and more prosperous country. We are not backing down. We are not quitting, St. Charles. And we are going to get this done.  [applause, cheers]]

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. [applause, cheers]

543,895 votes

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by: Michael Bersin @ Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 14:47:47 PM UTC