Political Quotes

“It isn't just the CEO of Aetna. As I was pointing out earlier, a number of studies, whether they be done by Reuters, whether they be done by Dr. Blumenthal and a number of groups focused on this issue, they all arrive at the same conclusion: the system is inefficient in its form, and how do you improve that system. We're at a fork in the road here, as Dr. Blumenthal from the Commonwealth Fund points out. Health care policy, we either are going to end up in a situation, as the poster points out, where we cut payments, reduce benefits, and restrict eligibility for public programs, or we re-engineer health care and improve the health care costs, improve the outcomes for patients. As Mark Bertolini from Aetna says, the answer lies not in cutting people's benefits but in improving their care. This is the juncture that we're at. It would seem to me that, especially in this body, that we now have an opportunity. We all agree that the national debt is a problem. We know that health care is the primary domestic driver of that debt. We have an opportunity to change that. We have a structure, the framework of which, as I said in my opening remarks, was provided by the Heritage Foundation and was pioneered by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts as Governor, and done successfully. Let's expand on that opportunity, only make it better. Make it better because we know the great virtue of public health and all it has meant for the wellness of this country.…”