Single Payer Quotes & Sayings

According to a recent report drafted by thirty-nine physicians from the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and endorsed by some 2,500 medical doctors, a movement to "a single payer system would trim administration, reduce incentives to over-treat, lower drug prices, minimize wasteful investments in redundant facilities, and eliminate almost all marketing and investor profits. These measures would yield the substantial savings needed to fund universal care and new investments in currently under-funded services and public health activities - without any net increase in national health spending." In — Bernie Sanders

Humility sets us free to do what is really good, by showing us our illusions and withdrawing our will from what was only an apparent good. — Thomas Merton

GILDEROY LOCKHART T — J.K. Rowling

[I] vow[ed] to fight against socialized medicine ... On healthcare, I agree with the President that we need to get costs under control ... I can also say without hesitation, that the quality of healthcare in this county is second to none - and sacrificing quality to achieve these necessary reforms is not acceptable. A single payer, government run healthcare system is the worst possible way to achieve this goal. — Glenn Thompson

I happen to believe that we should move to a Medicare-for-all single-payer system, similar to what other countries around the world have. — Bernie Sanders

I do not support a single-payer system; I do support having something there, whether it's an option or not. And we can work with that, but we have to have something to leverage so we can get the insurance company to bring down their prices, and the only way to do that is to have an alternative there. — David Scott

John Conyers and I were the ones who wrote the bill that provides for Medicare for all. And, so, even though the single-payer plan is not what's before the Congress, to expand Medicare, so that people 55 and up would be - would have the chance to buy in, that's - that would be a step in the right direction, no question about it. — Barack Obama

I have too many credit cards. You know what happened? Someone stole one and I didn't notice. I noticed when I got that bill. Whoa! It was so much less! I'm letting him keep it. I'm saving money! — Rita Rudner

If you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing. — Charles Krauthammer

If the goal of health-care reform is to provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, the only honest approach is a single-payer approach. — Bernie Sanders

Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. — Bob Burg

The United States remains the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all of our people. And yet we are spending almost twice as much per capita. We have a massively dysfunctional health care system. And I do believe in a Medicare for all single-payer system, whether a small state like Vermont can lead the nation, which I certainly hope we will, or whether it's California or some other state. — Hillary Clinton

Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over. We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no longer be afraid. It's your turn to be afraid. — Harrison Ford

[I am] confident that Congress will pass the Kennedy-Hatch KidCare bill, a first step toward the single-payer socialized medicine system that the NEA [National Education Association] has endorsed for years. — Phyllis Schlafly

People are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial nations. — Studs Terkel

I am careful with the arguas (tomato caterpillars). Be careful with your mothers' hearts too, por favor.
THE PINATA-MAKER'S DAUGHTER — Eileen Granfors

Eugenics has always been the escape valve of single payer socialized medicine. Havelock Ellis was writing about them as one and the same prior to the fin-de-siecle. Culling out of control population growth and the economic drain of the incurably sick has always been a part of socialized medicine. — A.E. Samaan

In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care. — Dennis Kucinich

Progressive activists are angry that a Medicare-for-all single-payer approach was totally ignored during the health care debate. — Bernie Sanders

I've been to enough other countries in the world to know what happens when you have socialized single-payer health care. It works. People don't get sick as much. They don't lose their life savings with a catastrophic illness like cancer or AIDS. — Jello Biafra

I am sure that there are some single payer advocates who think the only thing worth fighting for is single payer. — Bernie Sanders

As a single-payer advocate, I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passed an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost-effective way. — Bernie Sanders

Single payer means something different to everyone. The way I define it is that health care is a right and not a privilege. — Peter Shumlin

I think that if you have a single payer system and an opt-out for people who want to pay more [for better service, etc.], I think it would be better - and I think we'll eventually get there. It wouldn't be better at the top - [our current system] is the best in the world at the top. But the waste in the present system is awesome and we do get some very perverse incentives. — Charlie Munger

We are the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right and yet we end up spending much more than they do, so I do believe that we have to move toward a Medicare for all, single-payer system. — Bernie Sanders

I suspect I'm the only politician in America who won an election in this last cycle with TV ads saying I was going to try to pass the first single-payer system in America. — Peter Shumlin

I have worked to expand the health care debate beyond the current for-profit system, to include a public option and an amendment to free the states to pursue single payer. — Dennis Kucinich

I'm a proponent of single-payer health-care, public education, protecting the environment - all the things Democrats rally around. — Cynthia Dill

If you demand the collective to pay for your medical expenses, then be prepared for the collective to demand to make your medical decisions for you. — A.E. Samaan

As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. — Donald Trump

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal health care plan — Barack Obama

I am not going to make promises I can't keep. I am not going to talk about big ideas like single-payer and then not level with people about how much it will cost. — Hillary Clinton

I think the purpose of government is for a population to accomplish its mutually agreed-upon goals without every citizen having to accomplish those goals for him- or herself. Some examples: we have a police force so we don't need to have vigilante mobs. We have a post office so we don't need to deliver our own mail across the entire nation. We have a fire department so we don't have to put out our own fires.
In return for the services we agree on, we pay a fee.
We just don't all agree on what the services and what the fees should be.
I personally think it's sad we don't all agree on single-payer health care. We agree on paying taxes to save a house from fire but not a body from cancer? Why do we care more about our property than about ourselves? — Robert Peate

It's President [Barack] Obama sounding the alarm, scaring the crap out of the American people. Saying if you don't raise the debt feeling, we're going to default. — Eric Bolling

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn't know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you."
He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt, for he knew he could never explain exactly why the idea came to him. "It's the painting of a dutiful daughter," he said eventually, looking at her cautiously to see her reaction. "You want to please. You are always aware of what the person looking at this picture will think of it. Because of that you've missed something important. Does that make sense?"
She thought, then nodded. "All right," she said grudgingly and with just a touch of despair in her voice. "You win."
Julien grunted. "Have another go, then. I shall come back and come back until you figure it out."
"And you'll know?"
"You'll know. I will merely get the benefit of it. — Iain Pears

Only farmers and the young, who live dependent upon change, understand what it is to know the continual flowering of life, however subtle. — Denise Chavez