If the government controls your health care, the government controls you. Obamacare was never about health care. It was about government power, dependency, and control.
The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be to make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care.
Because what happens is, as the economy suffers, tax revenues go down. But unlike businesses, where at least your variable costs go down, in government your variable costs go up: unemployment insurance, workmen's compensation, health care benefits, welfare, you name it.
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.
I'm against big bureaucracy in Washington making health care decisions. I just have an aversion to bureaucrats. But it's not just government bureaucrats. I don't like HMO bureaucrats and insurance company bureaucrats either.
And I believe that if we can care about whether or not our neighbor has a good job or access to affordable health care for their children, and we move to implement the policies that can improve these situations, we will unleash vast amounts of human potential and recapture the American spirit.
We should make it so that young people pay their fair share for health care, and nothing more. And instead of Washington telling us what to buy, let's get back to letting every American choose the plan that's best for them and their family.
I welcome the President and working with him to try to get some of that medical malpractice reform so we can get the cost of health care to come down.
The high price of health care in this country is a serious issue that demands serious attention. Putting limits on damages have little or no effect on skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates.
What you see is when the government gets involved, you run out of money and health care gets rationed.
Make no mistake, a 'yes' vote on the Democrats' health care bill is a vote for taxpayer-funded abortions.
The health care industry can play a great role in this by being aware of the fact that these children form perhaps the most neglected group of people in the country, largely because it is hard to find them.
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter, it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.
Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.
Don't spend more than you take in. Control your debt. Empower the private sector. We have 50 states out there that are laboratories of democracy. Why are we not empowering the states to find solutions to our problems, particularly health care, as opposed to looking to a one-size-fits-all solution from Washington, D.C.? That puzzles even me.
Small businesses pay 18 percent more than big businesses for health care, the same health care, just because they're small and they have too small a pool of risk.
Illegal immigration costs taxpayers $45 billion a year in health care, education, and incarceration expenses.
If you stand at an election and put a manifesto in front of people saying you're going to improve health care, you have to stick by that.
Why do we have 47 million people without health care? Because America has become about 'me'. What's happened to 'we' as a people? I believe in that and that resonates to most people.
In order to lead a country or a company, you've got to get everybody on the same page and you've got to be able to have a vision of where you're going. America can't have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations - can't have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It's got to have a vision.
Most of the State of the Union will not be about Iraq. Most of the State of the Union will be about improving America's economy and providing greater access to health care for millions of American people, including senior citizens.
I am actually one of those who took President Obama at his word when he first ran - that he would get us out of ill-advised wars, that he would do something about health care costs, and that he would protect civil liberties. Like many Americans, I was disappointed.
I'm not saying we don't need health care reform. We do need health care reform.
Col. Shaffer is prohibited by his lawyer from talking. He's at great risk. They want to take away his pay and his health care benefits so they can hold it over his head and not allow him to talk while he's under suspension. This is not America.
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.
The essence of a government health care system - for people who have never lived under it and don't know - is waiting, waiting, waiting. You wait for everything. You wait for years for operations that are routine in America.
I'm up here in Cleveland tonight and there are a lot of folks who are concerned about it. Twenty-five percent of the people up here get their health care through religious organizations and so that religious freedom issue is very important to them.
I mean, the fight for a health care bill to cover all Americans and leave none behind is attacked as being a race appeal, which is not true, but then it's put out in the media as true.
Ultimately, health care fails the most basic test. It's not organized around the needs of the patient.
As the wealthiest nation on Earth, we have made a commitment to provide health care for those over 65. In order to pay for this, each of us should contribute the same, flat percentage of our earned income.
There is a self interest in voting for a society where there is health care for all, where there's a mental health service for all, where there is education service for all.
We have a disease care system, not a health care system.
To create exponential growth in health care, we need to put tremendous resources and focus behind the best human minds working in this field.
If we are to ensure that health care remains affordable and widely available for future generations, we need to rethink radically how we provide and manage it.
Let's make health care a meritocracy. Access to the best care goes to people who did what they could to avoid becoming ill.
Some of the best health care services are free or cost very little and are even available to millionaires but hardly anyone knows they exist.
