Ron Wyden
Men and women who have served in harm's way experience higher rates of divorce and suicide. Many battle the debilitating effects and stigma associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Americans are free to choose everything from what they eat, drive and watch on TV to the President of the United States. Yet, when it comes to allowing Americans to choose the health insurance that works best for them and their family, the freedom to choose suddenly becomes un-American.
I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say 'If you like what you have, you should be able to keep it.' But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise.
If you like the health insurance that you have you should be able to keep it, but if you don't like the health insurance you have, you should be able to choose something else.
I believe that whether you love your job or hate your job, get laid off or are just in-between jobs, you deserve health care that can never be taken away.
Under the Healthy Americans Act, you're in charge of your health care - not your employer. If you lose your job, change jobs or just can't find a job, your health insurance is guaranteed to stick with you.
Since 1994, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have considered it politically risky to offer a plan to fix America's broken health care system. The American public, though, has paid the price for this silence as health care costs skyrocketed, millions went uninsured, and millions more grappled with financial insecurity and hardship.
With a host of proposals on the table and a President examining new ideas for health reform, we have an obligation to give real reform our best shot.
When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry.Collection: Government
For those who believe executive branch officials will voluntarily interpret their surveillance authorities with restraint, I believe it is more likely that I will achieve my life-long dream of playing in the NBA.Collection: Dream
Trade wars arent started by countries appealing to respected, independent trade authorities. Rather, trade wars begin when one country decides to violate international trade rules to undercut another countrys industries.Collection: Country
You have an always-expanding, omnipresent surveillance state that's constantly chipping away at the liberties and freedoms of law-abiding Americans.Collection: Surveillance State
The president has the authority to end this dragnet surveillance immediatelyCollection: President
The ethics laws do not let us tap out the truth in Morse code.Collection: Law
Americans don't want to hear the answers are privileged and off limits or they can't be provided in public or it would be inappropriate for witnesses to tell us what they know. We are talking about an attack on our democratic institutions and stonewalling of any kind is unacceptable. General Jeff Sessions acknowledged that there is no legal basis for this stonewalling.Collection: Kind
Right at the heart of the Affordable Care Act is the ban on insurance companies discriminating against people with a pre-existing condition. And this part of the Affordable Care Act makes sure that health care is not just for the healthy and wealthy.Collection: Heart
The combination of the growth of these digital technologies, the ability of the government to conjure up these secret interpretations, plus a very unusual and novel court make for this ever-expanding surveillance state. We so treasure our freedoms; we will regret it if our generation doesn't use this unique time to reform the surveillance laws and make it clear that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive. We can do both.Collection: Regret
If we are going to have a health care program that works for all Americans, we are going to have to get beyond the blame game.Collection: Games
How can it be, in a country as strong and rich as this one, that tens of thousands of Americans who need legal representation are turned away every year because their government won't support the very program designed to help them?Collection: Country
Merging the ability to conduct surveillance that reveals every aspect of a person's life with the ability to conjure up the legal authority to execute that surveillance, and finally, removing any accountable judicial oversight, creates the opportunity for unprecedented influence over our system of government.Collection: Opportunity
Gasoline prices are soaring through the stratosphere, and the Federal Trade Commission, which is supposed to be standing up for the consumer, ought to stop playing footsie with the oil companies and take steps to protect the American people.Collection: Gasoline Prices
In order to do vigorous oversight, the leadership of the intelligence community has got to be straight with the American people and straight with the Congress. For there to be vigorous oversight, the intelligence community's got to be straight with the American people and the Congress and that has not been the case.Collection: Order
The government's collection authority, under the Patriot Act, is basically limitless. They can get the medical records and financial records, gun purchase records. And it also becomes part of another important issue that relates to the FISA court and the rest of the debate. It almost becomes a secret law, like there are two Patriot Acts. The one you read on the laptop essentially leads you to believe that there's some connection to terror .Collection: Believe
You essentially have a human-relations database on millions of Americans. The administration said, "Well we're not listening to calls, we don't collect content." As [Vice President] Joe Biden said when he was a United States senator, you don't need to listen to those calls. If you have who somebody called, when and where, and you learned, for example, somebody called a psychiatrist three times in the last few days and twice after midnight, you know a lot about that person that they may not want people to know about them, especially the government.Collection: Government
Part of what we're trying to do is lay out what really happened. For example, I've been trying to get across that the intelligence leadership did not just keep the country in the dark. They actively misled the country on key issues. When you have someone who heads the NSA saying we don't hold data at all on US citizens, that's one of the most misleading statements I believe that's ever been made about surveillance policy. And I think that now we're starting to get that message across.Collection: Country
I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say "If you like what you have, you should be able to keep it." But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise.Collection: Promise
When the Veterans Affairs Department implemented a program to provide home-based health care to veterans with multiple chronic conditions - many of the systems most expensive patients to treat - they received astounding results.Collection: Home