Political Quotes

“It has been suggested that the government could have an appropriate role in healthcare by maybe using advanceable, refundable credits to prevent any lapse in coverage. One of the problems we have right now is that people can wait until they have something terrible happen to them, and they can sign up for insurance on the way to the hospital--you can't pay when you are in the ambulance, and you can't pay when you are getting treatment, and you can't pay when you are getting rehab--and when they are done, they drop out of it. It is hard for an insurance company to figure in the cost of something they are not going to get paid for at all. There have been a number of suggestions. I don't know whether they are any good. I could throw them out. One of them is that if you don't keep continuous coverage, you should have to pick up your own expenses for the first 6 months. That would encourage people to have continuous coverage. It is just one possible suggestion. There is a role for government within this setting, and that is requiring some transparency within the system, encouraging the development of new healthcare competition, prevention of collusion between healthcare companies, and having prices posted. I remember a hearing we had once--”