Quotes & Sayings About Medicaid

Even before ObamaCare, the government took care of the bottom 5 or 10 percent of the public who were on Medicaid. — Rand Paul

Governors of both political parties face a stark choice between unpopular tax increases and drastic cuts in Medicaid, education, public safety and other essential services. — Bill Delahunt

No one was elected to Congress because he or she promised to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. — James P. Hoffa

Tens of billions of dollars could be saved in Medicare and Medicaid alone by eliminate fraud and improving patient care. Not only would this save money, but it will save lives. — Tim Murphy

In a system where the cost of care is hidden by taxes levied on your income, property, and business activities, it is no wonder why so many Americans rely on Medicaid to pay their long term care. — Michael Burgess

The federal government would give money to the states. States would be able to negotiate at local rates. It's not Medicaid. People didn't want it to be Medicaid in Washington, either. — Maria Cantwell

Even now, hearing the debates about Medicaid, the suggestion that somehow we could save money by cutting Medicaid strikes a chord in me personally. It seems there are some other ways we can save money rather than making it harder for people like my aunt to get health care. — Josh Earnest

Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage? — Tim Pawlenty

No matter what federal program one selects - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the drug war, the income tax and the IRS, education, foreign interventions and wars - they are all a giant mess. — Jacob G. Hornberger

I think the Republican budget priorities are messed up. I salute for the way they're attacking some of the entitlement programs, but they are taking huge cuts, by pretending they're just block-granting it to the states, out of Medicaid, from the least fortunate. — David Brooks

Mark my words, there will be an intensive effort to privatize Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. — Bernie Sanders

If you got problems like unemployment, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and there's a guy that's always been there for you and for your family, then you say 'He's a nice guy. I don't know where he came from or how long he's been here, but Charlie Rangel's the man.' That's what I'm relying on. — Charles B. Rangel

I don't think the press has done a very good job dealing with government spending.The Defense Department with the $9,500 toilet seat, that's not the problem anymore. Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are the problem. That's us. That's our generation. There the press never says a word. — Dave Barry

Instead of talking about cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we must end the absurdity of corporations not paying a nickel in federal income taxes. — Bernie Sanders

In 2003, GlaxoSmithKline paid $88 million in civil fines for overcharging Medicaid for its anti-depressant Paxil. — Bernie Sanders

Under President Obama's new health care law, Medicaid will become a very different health coverage program than first envisioned. — Fred Upton

he later made the tobacco companies pay: over $200 billion to Mississippi and forty-five other states as compensation for Medicaid costs arising from tobacco-related illnesses. The case (immortalized in the film The Insider) made Scruggs a rich man. His fee in the tobacco class action is said to have been $1.4 billion, or $22,500 for every hour his law firm worked. — Niall Ferguson

Half of all women who are sexually active, but do not want to get pregnant, need publicly funded services to help them access public health programs like Medicaid and Title X, the national family planning program. — Louise Slaughter

I think every program needs to stand the sunshine of righteous scrutiny. Whether it's Social Security, whether it's Medicaid, whether it's Medicare. — Rick Perry

I support the Ryan budget plan. I think it's the right direction on the major points. I can't say I've read all of it, but on the major thrust of what he's doing, I support what he wants to do with Medicare, Medicaid. The only thing I would do, frankly, as I've said publicly many times, I think we should implement a lot of these things sooner than what he's suggesting. — Rick Santorum

The central question is whether Medicare and Medicaid should remain entitlement programs guaranteeing a certain amount of care, as Democrats believe, or become defined contribution programs in which federal spending is capped, as Republicans suggest. — Christina Romer

Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining help Americans get back on their feet when they are down and out and laid off through no fault of their own. — Hank Johnson

I'm very, very concerned ultimately, as Medicaid costs increase in my state and most states, it's going to reduce funding for state aid to our public schools, to our higher education institution or higher taxes on the middle class that President Obama said he didn't want to do. And that's exactly where he's headed. — Dave Heineman

Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program are the two most important safety net programs for children. — Irwin Redlener

We need a vibrant Medicaid program and strategies to expand affordable access to health care for all, especially for the specialty care services that community health centers do not provide. — Jan Schakowsky

You're entitled to Medicaid regardless of your income. Don't worry about your health care. — Max Baucus

It's not health care reform to dump more money into Medicaid. — Phil Bredesen

We all know there are problems with Obamacare, and Washington's implementation of it has been abysmal. But rejecting Medicaid won't fix any of those things. — Jay Nixon

What I was saying back then was that we have a lot of public health costs that taxpayers end up paying for through Medicaid, Medicare, through uncompensated care, because that was in the context of the push for health care reform and that we needed some way to try to defray those costs. — Hillary Clinton

Expanding Medicaid without fixing Medicaid is a terrible idea. — Bob McDonnell

Medicaid provides health care to our neediest citizens. While other states have had to cut Medicaid rolls and benefits already, Delaware has not. But the President's proposed budget would shift tens of millions of dollars of cost to the states, raising the real possibility of program cuts. — Ruth Ann Minner

The only candidate to really escape Trump's wrath has been Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, and that's because Cruz has spent the entire political season nuzzling Trump's ankles, praising the Donald like a lovesick cellmate. The Texas senator, whose rhetorical schtick is big doses of Tea Party crazy (his best line was that Obama wanted to bring "expanded Medicaid" to ISIS) — Matt Taibbi

I don't think anybody should be expanding Medicaid. I think it's a mistake to create new and more expensive entitlement programs when we can't afford the ones we've got today. We've got to stop this culture of government dependence. — Bobby Jindal

In fact, entitlement spending on programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security make up 54% of federal spending, and spending is projected to double within the next decade. Medicare is growing by 9% annually, and Medicaid by 8% annually. — Jim Ryun

When it comes to serious cuts to major programs like Medicaid, the American people are not calling for leadership but magic. They want cuts with no pain. — Juan Williams

I will seek to reverse the shift of benefits from Medicaid to Medicare and hold harmless our seniors and disabled. — Jeff Bingaman

The decision is 'trust fund' versus 'no more Medicaid' - and that shouldn't be a tough decision. — Haley Barbour

Most people don't realize that two-thirds of the federal budget is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Pentagon. The U.S. government is an insurance company with an Army. — Scott Pelley

The Federal role in overcoming barriers to needed health care should emphasize health care financing programs-such as Medicare and Medicaid. — Gerald R. Ford

The reason prescription drugs are so important at the state level is because they're eating up the Medicaid budget. — John Kitzhaber

When you talk about raising that debt limit, the only way that I would ever support raising the debt limit if we also talk about budgetary controls on the federal government, capping its spending, how do we deal with the Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid problems, because they cannot continue to run on auto-pilot. — Allen West

There is a lot of fiscal conservatives in the United States senate that didn't vote for that because we understand that national security spending is not the reason why we have a debt. Our debt is being driven by the way Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and, by the way, the interest on the debt is structured in the years to come. — Marco Rubio

Simply expanding Medicaid does not improve health care outcomes. In Louisiana, instead we're helping people getting better paying jobs so they can provide for their own health care. — Bobby Jindal

Originally created to serve the poorest and sickest among us, the Medicaid program has grown dramatically but still doesn't include the kind of flexibility that states need to provide better health care for the poor and disadvantaged. — Fred Upton

You defended your Medicaid expansion by invoking God. — Megyn Kelly

I could never allow [tax] cuts that devastate education for our children, that pollute our environment, that end the guarantee of health care for those who are served under Medicaid, that end our duty or violate our duty to our parents through Medicare. I just couldn't do that. As long as I'm president, I'll never let it happen. — William J. Clinton

At today's prices for medicines, doctors and hospitals-if the latter are available at any price-only millionaires can afford to be hurt or sick and pay for it. Very few people want socialized medicine in the U.S. But pressure for it is going to appear with the same hurricane force as the demand for pollution control if the medicine men and hospital operators don't take soon some Draconian measures ... At the present rate of doctor fees and hospital costs under Medicare and Medicaid plans [taxpayers] are shovelling in billions with nothing but escalation in sight. — Malcolm Forbes

One thing governors feel, Democrats and Republicans alike, is that we have a health care system that, if you're on Medicaid, you have unlimited access to health care, at unlimited levels, at no cost. No wonder it's running away. — Mike Huckabee

Healthcare costs are rising, and not just Medicare and Medicaid, but healthcare in general. — Gwen Moore

By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization. — Robert Kuttner

The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be to make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care. — Kent Conrad

We cannot afford to lose the Medicaid funding for low-income women. — Kay Bailey Hutchison

At a time of economic recession, the need for Medicaid and other safety net services is even greater. And we don't want to raise taxes on people who are having a tough time paying their bills. — James Douglas

What is Medicaid all about? It's staying true to the mission: to care for people historically left behind. — Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

In Florida, Medicaid is the fastest-growing part of our state budget - hands down. It is increasing at more than 3.5 times the rate of our general revenue. — Rick Scott

How we continue to fund Medicare and Medicaid into the future is a pressing issue of national concern. — James T. Walsh

The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?' — Mitt Romney

The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state. — George Gilder

With the socialization of the health care system through institutions such as Medicaid and Medicare and the regulation of the insurance industry (by restricting an insurer's right of refusal: to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable, and discriminate freely, according to actuarial methods, between different group risks) a monstrous machinery of wealth and income redistribution at the expense of responsible individuals and low-risk groups in favor of irresponsible actors and high-risk groups has been put in motion. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

I agree with the idea of cutting [budget], but it should all be coming out of entitlements for the affluent and not out of domestic discretionary, which is welfare, education, all the stuff the government does, parks, FBI, and it shouldn't be coming out of Medicaid. — David Brooks

Marriage equality - I think that it's a constitutionally guaranteed right. Let's end the drug wars. Let's balance the federal budget, and that means reforming the entitlements - Medicaid, Medicare. — Gary Johnson

A loose definition of the Tea Party might be fifteen million pissed-off white people sent chasing after Mexicans on Medicaid by the small handful of banks and investment companies who advertise on Fox and CNBC. — Matt Taibbi

Unfortunately, the (budget) does not ... help Congress reform such programs as Medicaid and Medicare, which both grow at average rate of around 8 percent each year through 2015 and will continue to eat up more of the total federal budget. — John Cornyn

As for my state of Mississippi, our governor, Phil Bryant, said the state could not afford the matching funds required to trigger the federal match for Medicaid expansion. We won't do it even though in 2014, the federal government would pay over $50 for every one dollar Mississippi chips in. — Ronnie Musgrove

There is a lot of waste in government-run programs generally, and a lot of waste and fraud and misuse of money in Medicare and Medicaid that can be saved. — Chuck Grassley

10. Medicaid patients who bitch about $1 copay, then go up front and buy cigarettes & beer. — Dennis Miller

The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less. — Ed Rendell

While the federal government is committed to paying 100% of the cost of new people in Medicaid, I cannot, in good conscience, deny the uninsured access to care. — Rick Scott

Secretary [Hillary ] Clinton is absolutely right, there are people, Koch brothers among others, who have a group called Concerned Veterans of America, funded by the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers, by the way, want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, every governmental program passed since the 1930s. Yes, there are people out there who want to privatize it. — Bernie Sanders

My plan to put Social Security in an ironclad lockbox has gotten a lot of attention recently, and I'm glad about that. But I'm afraid that it's overshadowing some vitally important proposals. For instance, I'll put Medicaid in a walk-in closet. I'll put the Community Reinvestment Act in a secured gym locker. I'll put NASA funding in a hermetically sealed Ziploc bag. — Al Gore

Planning is the essence of good management and when it comes to health care we must allow states to plan for future needs. We need to cement this federal commitment to Alaskans so the state has the assurance that money vital for providing Medicaid health care will not just dry up and disappear. — Lisa Murkowski

So often, generalizations don't apply to Catholic voters. Catholics are concerned about the war, the economy, about issues like abortion, issues pertaining to the budget and funding Medicaid and Medicare and what happens to the environment. — Bob Casey Jr.

A new report shows that medicare and Medicaid made more than $50 Billion in bad payments during fiscal year 2011. Under Obamacare, that'll become known as 'Tuesday.' — Fred Thompson

People in Medicaid ought to have access to the same insurance as the rest of the population. If they are segregated, it will be a poor plan for poor people. — John Goodman

With its Medicaid expansion, Obamacare may turn out to be the most equality-promoting policy enacted in a generation. — Timothy Noah

Conservatives are telling elected leaders that expansion of Medicaid comes at a moral - or more overtly, a political - price. At what price are they willing to go back on years of proclaiming 'socialized medicine' as the slippery slope to 'rationing of health care,' 'death panels' and other claims far too gruesome to mention in polite company? — Ronnie Musgrove

Florida is not going to implement Obamacare. We are not going to expand Medicaid, and we're not going to implement exchanges. — Rick Scott

We believe that if you put in place the mechanisms that allow for personal choice as far as Medicare is concerned, as well as the programs in Medicaid, that we can actually get to a better result and do what most Americans are learning how to do, which is to do more with less. — Eric Cantor

The automatic stabilizer is unemployment insurance, food stamps, additional coverage of Medicaid. — Franklin Raines

What are we Democrats fighting for? We are not fighting for salvation and going to heaven. But we are fighting for Medicaid, Medicare, health care, education, jobs, helping old folks. — Charles B. Rangel

In the course of his ongoing crusade for Medicaid expansion, Ohio governor John Kasich has suggested that Ronald Reagan, Saint Peter, and God Himself all would support his plan to accept Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. — Edwin Meese

Republicans drove us into debt with two wars and the Bush tax cuts. Now they want to pay for that debt with cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. This is not only immoral it is bad economics. Why do Republicans always have money for war but not for those in need? — Bernie Sanders

Well, there are about 10 million children that aren't covered by health insurance. About 3 million qualify for Medicaid but don't get it, so we're going to reach out and bring more of those kids into the Medicaid program. — Franklin Raines

I'm the guy that has written at great length about exactly how we should profoundly reform Social Security. If I were afraid of going after entitlements, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have put Medicaid reform in this budget, I wouldn't have called for the reductions in spending, which people will scream about, but I think are necessary. — Pat Toomey

If you like the post office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they're run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government. — Arthur Laffer

Until the 1930s, the Constitution served as a major constraint on federal economic interventionism. The government's powers were understood to be just as the framers intended: few and explicitly enumerated in our founding document and its amendments. Search the Constitution as long as you like, and you will find no specific authority conveyed for the government to spend money on global-warming research, urban mass transit, food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, or countless other items in the stimulus package and, even without it, in the regular federal budget. — Robert Higgs

I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman. Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the ... Medicaid bill. — Henry Hyde

In America the scale of medical embezzlement is extraordinary. According to Donald Berwick, the ex-boss of Medicare and Medicaid (the public health schemes for the old and poor), America lost between $82 billion and $272 billion in 2011 to medical fraud and abuse. — Anonymous

Our fiat currency is under increasing stress with our large and growing trade deficits. We have a federal deficit that is calculated in the trillions when we take into account the net present value of the future Social Security and Medicaid obligations we are creating today. — George Noory

Cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits are unacceptable, and they shouldn't be put on the table by Democrats for any reason. — Russ Feingold

I don't have a problem talking about Medicare or Medicaid or some other very important issue. — Jason Chaffetz

If we were to expand Medicaid, for every uninsured person we would cover, we'd kick more than one person out of private insurance or remove their opportunity to get private insurance. We're going to have too many people in the cart rather than pulling the cart. — Bobby Jindal

You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I'd do is get [female recipients] Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job. — Russell Pearce

Medicaid only allowed you three choices of
frames ... ugly, uglier, and fuckin rape prevention birth control! — Jeff Erno

Medicaid protects impoverished children, the frail elderly and people in crisis, .. Its limited resources will be further stretched serving hurricane victims. Proponents of Medicaid cuts either undervalue Medicaid assistance or underestimate American compassion. — Sherrod Brown

Government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare, and later with Medicaid, and government already distorts the marketplace. — Roy Blunt

Medicaid is a vital safety net for New York's poor and vulnerable, young and old alike. — James T. Walsh

Forty states have sued tobacco companies over the costs of health care for residents on Medicaid and public assistance. — Bill Dedman

This legislation provides Medicaid eligibility to evacuees and residents in (Federal Emergency Management Agency) designated disaster counties, .. It also helps pay private health insurance premiums for those at risk for losing their coverage. — Thad Cochran

Republican governors are more lunatic than they used to be - as attested by all the ones so eager to turn down free federal money to qualify more of their poor citizens for Medicaid under Obamacare. Meanwhile, some states have taken the money only to hoard it. — Rick Perlstein