“But here you have people in Part D signing up beginning on Nov. 15th for a program that starts Jan. 1 -- with some people even signing up Dec. 31st. And you expect them to get a prescription by January 2nd? It just won't work.”
“The census numbers tell us what we've known for years -- that soaring health care inflation is making health insurance unaffordable, so more folks go uninsured, and those who can afford it find their policies cover less and less. The data shows a continued deterioration in the use of employer-provided health insurance and increased reliance on Medicaid and public programs. If it had not been for more people moving into public programs, the number of uninsured would have increased another 2.3 million, the statistics show.”
“Consumers are smart enough to know that they don't 'drive' health care when it comes to treating a premature baby, cancer in a spouse or a child's broken bones.”
“Tax deductions do little or nothing for those people who are uninsured and devastated by high health care costs. Most uninsured are in the zero or 10 percent tax bracket, so tax deductions do little or nothing for them.”
“This is another wake-up call to get a handle on runaway medical inflation. We're approaching $1,000 for the average stay in a hospital. This is hurting people and really overloading our economy.”
“Consumers are smart enough to know that they don't 'drive' health care when it comes to treating a premature baby, cancer in a spouse or a child's broken bones. Families need help with the high costs of these essential health services; they don't need talk about being better shoppers.”
“Buried (in the method by which hospitals set fees) is this array of cross-subsidies that lets our health-care system train young doctors, conduct research and care for the uninsured.”
