Jeff Merkley

Jeff Merkley
Jeffrey Alan "Jeff" Merkleyis the junior United States Senator from Oregon. A member of the Democratic Party, Merkley was a five-term member of the Oregon House of Representatives representing House District 47, located in eastern Multnomah County within the Portland city limits. He also served as Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth24 October 1956
CountryUnited States of America
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Too many Americans who are uninsured or under-insured do not receive regular checkups because they can't afford coverage or their insurance doesn't cover enough of the costs. The lack of preventive care results in countless emergency room visits and health care disasters for families.
access affordable health hear provides reform
Over and over again, I hear from Oregonians that we need real health care reform that provides every American with access to quality, affordable care.
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I won't stop fighting to make life better for working Americans and give those who are just trying to find a decent job the opportunity to do so.
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I grew up in Southern Oregon. My father was a sawmill worker and a logger, and his job put food on the table.
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We have a duty to ensure that patients don't have to worry whether they'll be dropped from their coverage if they get sick. Small business owners shouldn't have to break the bank to provide coverage to their employees. And families should not be forced into bankruptcy because of a medical crisis.
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It's time to level the playing field for small business owners and give them the same health care choices that large corporations have. Because they don't have as many employees, they have little ability to negotiate lower rates.
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When you use the word 'filibuster,' most of us in America - and I count myself among them - envision it as the ability to hold the floor on rare occasions to speak at length and make your point emphatically and even delay progress by taking hours.
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A budget should be judged by whether it creates a foundation for the success of American working families striving to buy a house, or to send their kids to college, or to save a little for retirement and, if they're lucky, a vacation.
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We can have the best health insurance options in the world, and people still won't get needed care if we don't increase our supply of primary care physicians and nurses.
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What matters most to me is doing what I was elected to do: help make life better for Oregonians and making America work for working Americans again.
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My way of viewing the talking filibuster was as a way of doing unanimous consent with your feet. You object by going down and talking.
thug police corruption
There's an enormous amount of corruption, and as one American adviser put it to me, "The police in Afghanistan are thugs. We equip them, we train them, and now they are equipped and trained thugs."
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What [Bernie] Sanders has done is he's focused the nation on the fact that these things are not inevitable. They are the result of policies. We can do better to create an economy that works well for working Americans.
track challenges needs
Americans have powerfully sensed that we're off track. There is a structural challenge in our economy that needs to be addressed.