{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://richmond.house.gov/press-release/cedric-richmond-debates-medicare-expansion-louisiana-state-legislature", "Cedric Richmond Debates Medicaid Expansion at the Louisiana State Legislature", "2014-04-29", "2014", "2014-04", "Democrat", "House", "LA", "Cedric Richmond", "R000588", "richmond.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Baton Rouge -- Congressman Richmond discussed the benefits of Medicaid Expansion during a visit to a Health and Welfare committee hearing in the Louisiana State Legislature. The Congressman highlighted the large scale job creation and the thousands that would benefit from healthcare expansion in Louisiana. The following are some excerpts from his testimony.\n\u201cWell right now we are talking about creating 15,600 jobs and that\u2019s just the economic part of it,\u201d said Rep. Richmond (LA-02). \u201cWe are a state with too many needs and people who are hurting too bad and we\u2019ve always been above [partisan politics] and for that I miss the Louisiana legislature because we always did put people first. The problem that I have, especially in DC but it\u2019s starting to trickle down other places is that we don\u2019t want this to succeed; that is a problem for me.\u201d\n\u201cThe fact, that people are saying they oppose the Affordable Care Act, they oppose Obamacare. Well that\u2019s fine that they oppose it but we should at least be rooting for it to be a success because if it\u2019s a success we are changing people\u2019s lives, we are making people better, we are keeping people alive. If it\u2019s a success it means that this country is moving in the right direction.\u201d\n\u201cSo the question becomes whether we want the people of Louisiana to be able to decide whether they want to avail themselves of the benefits of Medicaid expansion and if you look at the numbers, if you look at all of those things and the fact that the Federal Government will pick up the costs for the first 3 years and will continue to do the lion\u2019s share of it, the question becomes do we try? I don\u2019t quote Aristotle or Einstein and all these brilliant people, because I don\u2019t claim to be brilliant. I quote my grandmother because to me she was smart and she said smart things. She would say things like \u2018nothing beats a failure but a try.\u2019 So the question is whether we should try for the people of Louisiana.\u201d\n\u201cSo instead of always saying no because this is not a political issue or shouldn\u2019t be, tell us what you can accept, tell us what you would like it to look like because we want to help you help Louisiana and to my knowledge that overture has still gone unanswered. So the problem or the caution that I have is another grandmother saying, \u2018that when two elephants fight only the grass suffers\u2019.\u00a0 Here we have a fight between the President of the United States and the Governor and who\u2019s suffering but the 240,000 people in Louisiana who don\u2019t have healthcare.\u201d\nTo watch a video of the hearing in its entirety click here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://richmond.house.gov/press-release/cedric-richmond-debates-medicare-expansion-louisiana-state-legislature"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7054698653519154, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}