Political Quotes

“This began, for me, during the period of the Finance Committee hearings on the health care legislation submitted to us by the administration in 1993. At one hearing, a professor, Charles Fahey, of Fordham University, speaking for the Catholic Health Association, said: What we are witnessing in the country is the commodification of medicine. And down the table, the head of the UCLA hospital said: Can I give you an example? In Southern California, we now have a spot market for bone marrow transplants. This thought stayed with me, that market forces were beginning to shape decisions in health matters as they had not done before. It was particularly poignant that the first institutions that would have trouble in this new situation would be the medical schools and the teaching hospitals, which, as economists say, are public goods. Everybody benefits from public goods so no one has an incentive to pay for it--and we are seeing this all over the country in a short 6 years.”