“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.”
“I usually find that those who are loudest in protesting against medical help by the federal government are those who do not need help.”
“I have had some bitter disappointments as president, but the one that has troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat opposition to a national compulsory health insurance program.”
“We must seize the moment of freedom’s triumph abroad to make America not just a rich society but a good society. The richest country in the world cannot tolerate the fact that we have the highest per capita health care costs in the world and yet 38 million of our people are unable to get adequate medical care because they cannot afford it.”
President Richard M. Nixon
“People can go to the state that they want to live in. States have all kinds of different policies and there are disparities among states for many things: driving restrictions, alcohol, whatever. We’re putting choices back in the hands of the states. That’s what Jeffersonian democracy provides for.”
Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC)
“We are giving people actual freedom.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
“The only people who have to worry about rising costs under Republicans’ health bill are the very tiny segment of the country that waits until they’re sick to buy insurance.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR)
“You can’t compare the rest of the world to us. They do not have the big diverse populations that we have. They do not have the inner-city populations that we have.”
Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL)
“My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, you know, they are doing the things to keep their bodies healthy.”
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)
(Refused to comment on his yes vote.)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)
“Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)
“A friend of mine was in Scotland recently. He got very, very sick. They took him by ambulance and he was there four days. He was really in trouble, and when they released him and he said, ‘Where do I pay?’ And they said, ‘There’s no charge.’ Not only that, he said it was like great doctors, great care. I mean we could have a great system like that in this country.”
“We’re going to have insurance for everyone.”
“There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us. People can expect to have great health care.”
President Donald J. Trump
And in other Republican news…
Minnesota’s state Republican chair apologized Monday to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) for a post on the 7th Congressional District Republican Party’s Facebook page calling the congressman “Minnesota’s Head Muslim Goat Humper.”
