Gingrich first backed the concept in 1993, "I am for people, individuals - exactly like automobile insurance - individuals having health insurance and being required to have health insurance.
I am here for my mother and all the Americans who are forced to spend time arguing with health insurance companies instead of focusing on getting well. I am here for the millions of lives that will be touched and in some cases, saved, by health insurance reform. I am here for the small businesses who are forced to choose between health care and hiring. I am here for the seniors who are unable to afford the prescriptions they need.
For people who have health insurance, we can provide health insurance reforms that make the insurance they have more secure. And we can do that mostly by using money that every expert agrees is being wasted and is currently in the existing health care system.
We have health insurance companies playing a major role in the provision of healthcare, both to the employed whose employers provide health insurance, and to those who are working but on their own are not able to afford it and their employers either don't provide it, or don't provide it at an affordable price. We are still struggling. We've made a lot of progress. Ten million Americans now have insurance who didn't have it before the Affordable Care Act, and that is a great step forward.
The result was, of course, that today, tragically, more than 40 million Americans don't have health insurance, and for many, not having health insurance means they don't have access to good health care.
We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state, and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
I'm interested in getting John Kerry elected President. And then I'm interested in doing whatever I can to see that Democrats retain Democratic values. And the thing I'm most interested in is health insurance for everybody. We're the only country in the industrialized world that doesn't have that, and we need that.
We now know that Mr. Obama lied to the American people with his pledge 'If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance.'
Health insurance costs in the United States are on an unsustainable path. I've heard from hundreds of Montanans who are paying thousands of dollars every year for their health insurance coverage and thousands more for deductibles before their insurance provides any benefit.
Desperation is the secret to my steady employment. I am not interested in downtime. I really like to keep working all the time and I always feel like I'm in the mail room of life; working up.
As a physician and a U.S. senator, I have warned since the very beginning about many troubling aspects of Mr. Obama's unprecedented health-insurance mandate. Not only does he believe he can order you to buy insurance, the president also incorrectly equates health insurance coverage with medical care.
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.
People always ask, 'Was it fun? Was it fun working on a movie?' I don't know if that's the operative word. It is challenging and interesting and all those other things, but fun isn't always.
In America, the average playwright makes less than a receptionist in a non-profit theatre. We don't have decent health insurance - or any health insurance at all.
If you have health insurance, then you don't have to do anything. If you've got health insurance through your employer, you can keep your health insurance, keep your choice of doctor, keep your plan.
I'd like to see the health care professionals making decisions, not some bureaucrat in Indianapolis working for an insurance company.