Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his advocacy on this issue. I know we are approaching a vote, so I will be brief in my comments. Not to repeat those of Senator Blumenthal, but he is exactly right--there are absolutely no questions about the qualifications of Dr. Vivek Murthy to do this job. In addition to his professional background and his teaching responsibilities, he also has a very impressive history of commitment to international public health--building two international organizations, one that empowers hundreds of youth in the United States and India to educate over 45,000 students on HIV prevention and another one which works in rural health partnerships in India training young women to be health educators and counselors for thousands of patients. That is a pretty impressive record, when you combine it with what Senator Blumenthal already laid out, for a still fairly young physician, someone who will bring an enormous amount of energy to this job at a moment we need it. Ebola is at the top of the list as to the reasons why we need a Surgeon General now, but we are in a remarkable period of contraction when it comes to health care spending increases. Health care costs grew by 3.6 percent in 2013, which is the slowest rate on record since the government started keeping track in 1960. Frankly, a sound, good, sensible public health policy has a lot do with our ability to continue curtailing the rate of health care spending increases. Why?…”