Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman, and I would like to say a deep thank you because I think this is one of the key issues that we need to address as a country in order to have healthier citizens, have a healthier economy, and drive down the national debt. As you said so eloquently, the big driver for our national debt and deficits are the Medicare and Medicaid programs, issues dealing with health. Look at what is weighing down businesses right now. Small businesses especially, huge increases in health care, year in and year out--10, 15, 20, 30 percent. We've all had people come to our office and say, Hey, it went up 90 percent this year. How am I supposed to plan for capital investments? I want to buy a new machine, and on and on and on and on. Where we start is, the current health care system is not working. We spend $8,000 per capita in the United States versus $3,000 in developing countries, and we have worse outcomes. We have worse outcomes here. What we're talking about, what the CEO of Aetna is talking about, is how do we take this system and recognize and begin to appreciate in 2013 in America that if we put some money into prevention, if we pay doctors and nutritionists and dieticians on the front end, we're going to save a boatload of dollars on the back end. Seventy-five percent of health care costs go to chronic diseases that are mostly preventable.…”