Political Quotes

“Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and Dr. Victor Fuchs, physicians and distinguished scholars, have recently written a particularly important article that I wish to bring to the attention of the Senate. These two gentlemen have a long and impressive track record on the issue of reforming our Nation's broken health system, and their recent article in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA), ``Who Really Pays for Health Care? The Myth of Shared Responsibility,'' is one that every Senator should reflect on. Drs. Emanuel and Fuchs assert in their article that when millions of Americans say that financing health care is a ``shared responsibility'' between ``employers, government, and individuals'' they are incorrect. The authors say there is actually no such thing as ``shared responsibility''--health costs in America come out of the hides of individuals and households. Emanuel-Fuchs point out, for example, that money employers spend on health care for their workers would otherwise go to workers' salaries and that Government cannot secure funds at all without reaching into our wallets for tax payments or money we lend to them.”