A Quote by Arthur Laffer

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

Quote Topics

Care Department Done Government Health Health Care Just Like Medicaid Medicare Motor Motor Vehicles Office Post Post Office Run See Think Till Vehicles Wait Well

Quote Author

Arthur Laffer
American - Economist
Born: August 14, 1940

I think if you look at Medicare and Medicaid, the premise was that government needs to provide some assistance to people who aren't able to take care of themselves. I think we all share that goal, Republicans and Democrats. I don't think anybody's gonna go back now and say, Let's abolish, or reduce, Medicare and Medicaid. But as we confront the challenges and the responsibilities of our time - from here on - how do we serve more people or different people who are in need of financial assistance? Just forever having the government expand to address all of that seems unwise.

Tim Pawlenty

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

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 federal government's done a very good job about tying goodies to our compliance with federal programs, whether it's the Department of Education, whether it's Obamacare with its generous Medicare and Medicaid dollars and the like.

Matthew Whitaker

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

Anyone who's ever filed a tax return or visited the Department of Motor Vehicles understands that government does two things well: spend our money and waste our time.

Edwin Feulner

The most popular health care plan in the country is Medicare. It delivers the best care at the lowest cost - it's better than any other part of our health care system. But most people can only get it when they're over 65. I don't think you should have to wait that long.

Chris Murphy

I think it's important, especially in health care, to take this step by step, whether it's the replacement of the Affordable Care Act, how we make Medicaid work better, how we save Medicare for the long term.

Kevin Brady

The bad things the U.S. health care system are that our financing of health care is really a moral morass in the sense that it signals to the doctors that human beings have different values depending on their income status. For example, in New Jersey, the Medicaid program pays a pediatrician $30 to see a poor child on Medicaid. But the same legislators, through their commercial insurance, pay the same pediatrician $100 to $120 to see their child. How do physicians react to it? If you phone around practices in Princeton, Plainsboro, Hamilton - none of them would see Medicaid kids.

Uwe Reinhardt

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

I leave Medicare alone. I create a new system for everyone under 65 where they get health care as a right. It's a basic plan. We roll Medicaid into that, but then we allow people to have choices and get private insurance to supplement that basic government plan.

John Delaney

Replacing your family's current health care with government-run health care is not the answer. In fact, it'll make health care much more expensive.

Charles Boustany

Liberals are wrong to think that opposition to health reform is a rejection of big government. If health reform consisted of extending Medicare to everyone, people would be delighted. There are millions of 64-year-olds out there who can hardly wait to be 65.

Marcia Angell

What do we have for veterans? Government-run health care. I understand that. Congressmen and senators... they get five choices of government-run health care. Why should a congressman and senator get anything more than a regular citizen does? Why are they privileged and the rest of us aren't?

Jesse Ventura

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.