Health Care Reform Quotes

I support health care reform in this country, but the current bills we have before us are too big, too costly, and the people who send me to Washington to be their voice are opposed to them and this process. ~ Mike Ross

Well, first let me say that I think health care reform is important. It has to be a priority. And our system is broken. The Finance Committee bill is the best effort yet, due in large measure to the efforts of my colleague, Olympia Snowe, but it's not there yet. It falls short. ~ Susan Collins

People mistakenly assume that if I'm against government involvement in health care, I must favor an alternative where profits drive decisions and businesses take center stage.

The opposite of government isn't business. The opposite of government is voluntary.
[Health Care Without (much) Government, medium.com] ~ Russ Roberts

Believe me," Dr. Tamalet summed up, "if you wanted that operation in France, you could get it"

Which is, of course, the boon and the bane of France's health care system. It offers a maximum of free choice among skillful doctors and well-equipped hospitals, with little or not waiting, at bargain-basement prices [in out-of-pocket terms to the consumer]. It's a system that enables the French to live longer and healthier lives, with zero risk of financial loss due to illness. But somebody has to pay for all that high-quality, ready-when-you-need-it care--and the patients, so far, have not been willing to do so. As a result, the major health insurance funds are all operating at a deficit, and the costs of the health care system are increasing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. That's why the doctors keep striking and the sickness funds keep negotiating and the government keeps going back to the drawing board, with a new 'major health care reform' every few years. So far, the saving grace for France's system has been the high level of efficiency, as exemplified by the 'carte vitale,' that keeps administrative costs low--much lower than in the United States. ~ T.R. Reid

Proximity to power has an unsurprising ability to mutate a politician's spinal cord into bright yellow jelly. ~ Tariq Ali

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. ~ Jeff Merkley

So was it a political mistake for Obama to put so many eggs in the health-care-reform basket? Well, a negative decision from the Supreme Court will certainly make it appear so. ~ Eric Alterman

The words, 'penalty,' 'restrict' and 'violate' appeared more times in President Clinton's health care reform bill than in his crime bill. ~ Steve Forbes

We will have health care reform in America. ~ Dick Durbin

If, in fact, the GOP doesn't like any form of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured? ... When they show up in the emergency room, just shoot 'em! Kill them! ... Do we have enough body bags? I don't know. ~ Montel Williams

The truth is that health-care reform will always be a nuisance, with version 2.0 followed by next year's 2.1. As long as it boosts productivity, it's worth it. ~ Jim Cooper

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times. ~ Lawrence W. Reed

New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news!

Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face.

It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it.

Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing somethi ~ Bill Maher

This [health care reform] cannot pass. What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. ~ Michele Bachmann

Democrats cannot win elections without capturing the votes of independent-minded swing voters. And that is where writing off the Tea Party as a bunch of racist kooks becomes self-destructive. The Tea Party outrage over health-care reform, deficit spending and entitlements run amok is no fringe concern. ~ Juan Williams

The U.S. government has been preoccupied with health care 'reform,' but this refers to improving access and insurance coverage and has little or nothing to do with innovation. ~ Eric Topol

Health care is a far more serious, immediate and destructive problem than social security ... The upfront investment needed to fund system wide [health care] reform ... would be far offset by the savings. ~ Henry Simmons

I always am a firm believer in you compensate people for their job, and so I did give them bonuses. We accomplished a lot in Congress, we passed health care reform. There were threats against their lives; they had a tough two years. They'd forgone any cost-of-living increase or any bonus before. ~ John Salazar

The pressure to reduce health care costs is aimed only at the treatment of real diseases. There is no pressure to reduce the costs of treating fictitious diseases. On the contrary, there is pressure to define ever more types of undesirable behaviors as mental disorders or addictions and to spend ever more tax dollars on developing new psychiatric diagnoses and facilities for storing and treating the victims of such diseases, whose members now include alcoholics, drug abusers, smokers, overeaters, self-starvers, gamblers, etc. ~ Thomas Szasz

A lot of people say, 'Why do health-care reform when the deficits are so big?' But that is when we've got to do it. ~ Mike Ross

Health care reform, the marquee legislative accomplishment of the Obama administration's first term, was passed before we entered the world of divided government. ~ Eliot Spitzer

Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation; it was designed for deficit reduction. ~ Kent Conrad

And there is no getting away from the fact - and this is a key point of discontent among many who are upset with the health care reform bill is it didn't go far enough. They say why isn't it in place now? Why don't I see some benefits now? All I see is the potential for losing insurance coverage, for premiums going up. That's hurting Obama. ~ Juan Williams

Nurses are on the front lines of our care. And they need to be at the foundation of health care reform. Let's get health care done - and done right - by ensuring the amount of nurses we need to provide quality care for all. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

One such troubling provision is a tax increase to pay for the $635 billion included in the budget for health care 'reserve funds.' Health care reform is desperately needed in America, but I'm concerned that $635 billion will be a down payment on socialized medicine, causing the impersonal rationing of health care and destroying the doctor-patient relationship. ~ Paul Broun

Both referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as 'Obamacare.' That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States, it is meant as a disparaging reference to the President of the United States. ~ Debbie Wasserman Schultz

After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land. ~ Barack Obama

It's not health care reform to dump more money into Medicaid. ~ Phil Bredesen

Take Hispanic voters. They favor Democrats because they like the party's programs, from health care reform to government spending on education. It's not because the Republicans don't have a big enough Office of Hispanic Outreach. ~ Gail Collins

Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios, and the long legislative battles over health care reform, financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible. ~ Dee Dee Myers

Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President's economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation - innovation begins in the classroom - clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. ~ Nancy Pelosi

The health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last night clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and infringes on each state's sovereignty. ~ Bill McCollum

We've got to have major health care reform because that is the 800-pound gorilla. That is the thing that can swamp the boat fiscally for the United States. ~ Kent Conrad

Liberal that I am, I support health-care reform on its merits alone. My liberal blood boils, for example, when I read that half of the personal bankruptcies in this country are brought on, in part, by medical expenses. ~ Thomas Frank

Let's run the experiment. ~ Chris Hayes

The reason Gov. Romney passed Romneycare as governor of Massachusetts in 2006 was because many Republicans viewed health care reform, mandates and all, as a way to inoculate against Democratic charges that Republicans didn't care about people who lacked health insurance. ~ Ari Fleischer

The thing they're trying to stop is 30-million people getting health insurance. That's the substance. ~ Chris Hayes

When you stop and look at so much of the kind of activism that has been triggered, the Tea Party and the like, as a result of Obama's efforts - TARP, the stimulus package, and now the health care reform - there is a lot of sense this government is changing. ~ Juan Williams

Whatever we do, it is definitely time that we reboot the health care reform attempt. It's time to completely start over. ~ Jaime Herrera Beutler

The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician. ~ Abraham Verghese

If we're able to stop Obama on [health care reform], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him and we will show that we can, along with the American people, begin to push those freedom solutions that work in every area of our society. ~ Jim DeMint

In terms of Medicare, I'm in favor of sitting down and having a serious discussion about the likely impact of the Affordable Care Act, health-care reform, on the cost issue and changing the fee-for-service structure. ~ Sander Levin

I believe in health care reform. ~ Joe Manchin

The epic struggle to pass health care reform was at once a shameless betrayal of the public trust of historic proportions and proof that a nation that perceives itself as being divided into red and blue should start paying attention to a third color that rules the day in Washington - a sort of puke-colored politics that puts together deals like this one and succeeds largely through its mastery of the capital city's bureaucracy. ~ Matt Taibbi

One of the best aspects of health care reform is it starts to emphasize prevention. ~ Anne Wojcicki

The national debate on health-care reform wildly misses the mark, with Democrats and Republicans alike arguing about who's going to pay rather than about what would actually make people healthy. ~ T. Colin Campbell

The myopic obsession of the Tea Party with destroying health care reform and wounding the president has led Republicans astray. ~ Hank Johnson

What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs. ~ Hillary Clinton

If the goal of health-care reform is to provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, the only honest approach is a single-payer approach. ~ Bernie Sanders

Many of us believe that we need health care reform. That being said - Americans felt like they weren't being listened to. There were a lot of people across the political spectrum who said we don't want a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan. ~ Timothy Griffin

True health care reform cannot happen in Washington. It has to happen in our kitchens, in our homes, in our communities. All health care is personal. ~ Mehmet Oz

President Obama hosted lawmakers Thursday saying he wanted bipartisan input on health care reform. Nobody's mind was changed. At the summit's end he threatened to go with the nuclear option, showing he's tougher on Republicans than he is on Iran. ~ Argus Hamilton

We could have saved Wall Street without putting our future in jeopardy. I predicted that there would be all-around consequences - in the long run as well as in the short run. People are now saying we can't afford health care reform because we spent all the money on the banks. So, in effect, we're saying that it's better that we give rich bankers a couple of trillion than giving ordinary Americans access to health care. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

I'm one of those that have said, one of my key principles is I will not support a health care reform bill that is not deficit-neutral, period. ~ Mike Ross

As Congress focuses on comprehensive health care reform, one thing needs to be clear: We cannot fix health care if we do not address America's nursing shortage. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

President Obama, through health care reform, strengthened Medicare. How did he do that? Well, he found savings by cutting subsidies to insurance companies, ensuring we were rooting out waste and fraud, and he used those savings to put it back into Medicare. ~ Stephanie Cutter

Health is a human necessity; health is a human right ~ James Lenhart

We are the ones who work every day with people who are suffering because they don't have health care. We cannot turn our backs on them, so for us, health care reform is a faith-based response to human need. ~ Simone Campbell

Got good news and bad news for you, Mr. President. The good news is that Chief Justice John Roberts just saved your legacy and, perhaps, your presidency by writing for the Supreme Court majority to rule health care reform constitutional. ~ Ron Fournier

Every time I hear a Republican talking about health care reform, they say the American people don't want it. They say it so much that I think they're beginning to try to convince themselves that it's true. ~ John Yarmuth

Opponents of health care reform would take away consumer protections - siding with the insurance industry instead of the middle class. We can't afford that. ~ Sander Levin

Obama is capable - as evidenced by his first-term success with health care reform. But mandate-building requires humility, a trait not easily associated with him. ~ Ron Fournier

American Medical Association [AMA] was strongly opposed to any scheme for group practice and to health insurance ... because they are un-American. ~ Morris Fishbein

I say we put a choice card in every veteran's hands to say, 'You choose.' You control your health care. If you want to go to the VA, which most veterans like, go to the VA. But if you want to go outside of the system, here's your choice card. You go outside of the system. ~ David Jolly

Wash, wash, wash. Tone, tone, tone. Strip the oil, then add an oil-free moisturizer to replace the oil. This is how we've been taught to care for our skin. It seems a little crazy when you see it in print, right? Take all that oil out and add chemicals to replace it. Nuts! ~ Yancy Lael

General Motors spends more on health care than steel. ~ Kathleen Sebelius

The health care is going to be less money, and we're going to have much better health care. ~ Donald Trump

Security is still the most important issue facing Washington state residents and millions of Americans - the security of having a job, of access to affordable health care, of a quality education, and of protecting our homeland and defending our nation. ~ Patty Murray

In the case of maternal health care, you look at, well naturally, it's the mother who's the customer, who makes the decisions. But in truth, the mother in many areas, in certain parts of India, the mother has very little decision-making power at all. The real decision-maker is the mother-in-law. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz

Fresh drinking water is an issue of primary importance, since it is indispensable for human life and for supporting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Sources of fresh water are necessary for health care, agriculture and industry. Water supplies used to be relatively constant, but now in many places demand exceeds the sustainable ~ Anonymous

Got to build that business base and then you can fund all the things people want: education, health care, strong law enforcement, roads, bridges, infrastructure - all those things flow from that economic base. ~ John Hoeven

The idealized capitalist system first and foremost emphasizes "freedom from" external restrictions on one's ability to rise in society's ranks. At least in theory, people are given equal opportunity to succeed or fail based on their own merits. But a world without restrictions is a competitive one, and people who are more talented, harder working, or simply luckier will have an advantage. As a result, a wide variety of goods and services will exist, but not everyone will have access to the full range of choice available; some people may even be unable to afford basic necessities such as food, housing, and health care.
The idealized communist/socialist system, by contrast, aims for equality of outcomes rather than of opportunities, guaranteeing all its members the "freedom to" obtain an adequate standard of living. The rub is that the additional resources given to those in need have to come from somewhere, or more specifically someone, which means reducing others' "freedom from" and having the state commandeer their property and dictate their economic activities. ~ Sheena Iyengar

According to a recent report drafted by thirty-nine physicians from the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and endorsed by some 2,500 medical doctors, a movement to "a single payer system would trim administration, reduce incentives to over-treat, lower drug prices, minimize wasteful investments in redundant facilities, and eliminate almost all marketing and investor profits. These measures would yield the substantial savings needed to fund universal care and new investments in currently under-funded services and public health activities - without any net increase in national health spending." In ~ Bernie Sanders

So part of you wanted to be kissing him and another part of you felt the intense worry that comes with being intimate with someone."
"Right, but I wasn't worried about intimacy. I was worried about microbial exchange."
"Well, your worry expressed itself as being about microbial exchange."
I just groaned at the therapy bullshit. She asked me if I'd taken my Ativan. I told her I hadn't brought it to Davis's house. And then she asked me if I was taking the Lexapro every day, and I was, like, not every day. The conversation devolved into her telling me that medication only works if you take it, and that I had to treat my health problem with consistency and care, and me trying to explain that there is something intensely weird and upsetting about the notion that you can only become yourself by ingesting a medication that changes your self. ~ John Green

The "health, education, and welfare" section of government is another boondoggle. First we manufacture indigent and superfluous people by legal monopolies in land, money and idea patents, erecting tariff barriers to protect monopolies from foreign competition, and taxing laborers to subsidize rich farmers and privileged manufacturers. Then we create "social workers, " etc., to care for them and thereby establish a self-aggravating and permanent institutionalized phenomenon ... ~ Laurance Labadie

I do think prayer is powerful and it is not to be diminished. Some of us who are struggling to put food on the table and are wondering where the next paycheck is coming from or have dangerous health situations and they don't have access to appropriate care do pray - do pray for yourselves and for others. ~ Ashley Judd

A central notion in the Affordable Care Act was we had an inefficient system with a lot of waste that didn't also deliver the kind of quality that was needed that often put health care providers in a box where they wanted to do better for their patients, but financial incentives were skewed the other way, we don't need to reinvent the wheel
you're already figuring out what works to reduce infections in hospitals or help patients with complicated needs. ~ Barack Obama

Take care of your health. Don't look for one quick fix to cure all your ailments. Take the time every day to help your mind, body, and soul heal. It is extremely important for your daily happiness to know that you are supporting your health instead of hurting it. ~ Avina Celeste

no disease suffered by a live man can be known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to medicine -- not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best years of their lives on that business. But above all that thought was kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really useful [...] Their usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible because they were given in small doses) but they were useful, necessary, and indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and those who loved her -- and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homoeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Modern allopathic medicine is the only major science stuck in the pre-Einstein era. ~ Charlotte Gerson

I do believe that in the future, not by dismantling what we have here - I helped write that bill - but by moving forward, rallying the American people, I do believe we should have health care for all. ~ Bernie Sanders

At the end of World War II, we had wage and price controls. Under wartime inflationary conditions, many employers found it difficult to recruit employees. To get around the limitations of wage control, many began to offer health care as a fringe benefit to attract workers. As a new benefit, it took some years for the Internal Revenue Service to get around to requiring the cost of the medical care to be included in the reported taxable income of the employees. By the time it did, workers had come to regard nontaxable medical care provided by the employer as a right - or should I say entitlement? They raised such a big political fuss that Congress legislated nontaxable status for employer-provided medical care. ~ Milton Friedman

We all want more information available when making health care decisions for ourselves and our families. ~ Dan Lipinski

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan ~ Barack Obama

In addition, I'll be attending women's health expos and medical conferences with the goal to promote dialogue between women and their health-care providers. ~ Karen Duffy

Describing the USA health care system as mediocre is being generous. ~ Steven Magee

I know a lot of people in Washington would say, well, you know, indigent people can't manage their health savings account. They're too stupid. But they're not too stupid. Somebody has a diabetic foot ulcer, they learn very quickly not to go the emergency room where it costs five times more to take care of it. They go to the clinic. ~ Benjamin Carson

Siemens' health care IT assets provide additional scale, R&D, an impressive client base, and knowledgeable and experienced associates who will help Cerner achieve our plans for the next decade. ~ Neal Patterson

As a single-payer advocate, I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passed an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost-effective way. ~ Bernie Sanders

Like health care, education is something worth spending on and worth investing in, but we're spending more and getting less. ~ Tom Golisano

Magic Johnson links his HIV and treatment to health care as though ObamaCare would provide the same level of care that a mega rich celebrity would get. Is he going to dump his coverage? Is he going to dump it and sign up for ObamaCare? ~ Greg Gutfeld

All I'm asking for is the law that's been on the books for the last 33 years, no public funding for abortion. We are both saying the same thing, pro-life, pro-choice. Let's find the language that works for both of us so we can pass health care. ~ Bart Stupak

For the past two years, President Obama has promised our children the moon, stars, rainbows, unicorns and universal health care for all. But the White House Santa's cradle-to-grave entitlement mandates are a spectacularly predictable bust. ~ Michelle Malkin

It is not difficult for an unwise mother quite unintentionally to centre the heterosexual feelings of a young son upon herself, and it is true that, if this is done, the evil consequences pointed out by Freud will probably ensue. This is, however, much less likely to occur if the mother's sexual life is satisfying to her, for in that case she will not look to her child for a type of emotional satisfaction which ought to be sought only from adults. The parental impulse in its purity is an impulse to care for the young, not to demand affection from them, and if a woman is happy in her sexual life she will abstain spontaneously from all improper demands for emotional response from her child. ~ Bertrand Russell

We immigrants can sometimes sound a little hysterical about this because we come from places that have tried this and we know where it leads. Anybody who's lived in countries with socialized health care knows that it becomes the dominant political issue. ~ Mark Steyn

We don't know what our health care costs are going to be. We don't know what our tax rates are going to be. We don't know what our interest rates are going to be. We don't know what our energy costs are going to be. All these uncertainties are being driven by the Government's agenda. What we really need to do is get Government to step back. ~ Jim Renacci

While Free Choice Vouchers didn't fulfill my vision of a health care system in which every American would be empowered to hire and fire their insurance company, they were a foothold for choice and competition and a safety valve for Americans whose employers are already forcing them to bear more and more of their family's health insurance costs. ~ Ron Wyden