Healthcare quotes of the day

Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation.--American College of Surgeons

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So when lefties [protest], it's called "community organizing." When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "AstroTurf." Give me a break.--John Stossel

Remember how Democrats and media made fun of Bush for talking about “evildoers?” But those were just terrorists, not people who, you know, opposed the Obama Administration’s agenda.--Glenn Reynolds

Polls indicate that the American people are not -- or a plurality of the American people are not with the president on health care reform. He's obviously trying to change that by campaigning. ... A majority of the American people are not with the president on health care reform, the bill that -- the legislation he's trying to get through Congress. How would you say it?--Jake Tapper, to Robert Gibbs, President Obama's press secretary

It's darkly amusing to hear progressives doing the "how dare they demagogue issues which aren't relevant to the bill" routine. Remember how you won the public relations war on the Patriot Act and Social Security Reform, guys? Remember back when "congressmen didn't read the Patriot Act" and "this is an unprecedented assault on our Bill of Rights" and "they'll take away your social security and give it to Wall Street" were by-words, and no one in the Democratic Party minded much if they weren't true so long as they served to win the debate? Well, it's not admirable coming from either side, but given that half your own legislators can't describe the issues that are and aren't covered by the current bill clearly, you can hardly be surprised when people float all sorts of things around so long as they work. Clarity and transparancy would be a good defense. How about a shorter bill with clear goals next time?--Darwin Catholic

It isn't the cost. It isn't the taxes. It isn't the redistribution. It isn't even the mandate, which is borderline plausible to me in the way that mandatory auto insurance is, and forced retirement savings might be: the moral hazard is huge, because your neighbors won't let you die. My objection is primarily, as I've said numerous times, that the government will destroy innovation. It will do this by deciding what constitutes an acceptable standard of care, and refusing to fund treatment above that. It will also start controlling prices.--Megan McArdle

From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health-care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse. --Charles Krauthammer

... I take Lipitor. The drug may extend my life. But this doesn't lower my health-care costs. Years of pill-taking increases costs. If the pill works, I may live long enough to get an even more expensive disease. And maybe I, like millions of others, take Lipitor unnecessarily because we would never have had heart attacks. We then spend more, not less, on health care.--John Stossel

One of the bewildering ironies of the health care debate is that President Obama claims to be attacking the status quo when he's actually embracing it. Ever since Congress created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, health politics has followed a simple logic: Expand benefits and talk about controlling costs. That's the status quo, and Obama faithfully adheres to it. While denouncing skyrocketing health spending, he would increase it by extending government health insurance to millions more Americans. Just why this approach is perennially popular is no secret. Health care is viewed as a "right." Promoting it seems "moral." Cost controls suggest dreaded "rationing." So there's a powerful bias toward expansion.--Robert Samuelson

... health care and insurance are overly protected and regulated businesses. We need to allow the same innovation, entry, and competition that has slashed costs elsewhere in our economy. For example, we need to remove regulations such as the ban on cross-state insurance. Think about it. What else aren't we allowed to purchase in another state? The bills being considered in Congress address the pre-existing condition problem by forcing insurers to take everybody at the same price. It won't work. Insurers will still avoid sick people and treat them poorly once they come. Regulators will then detail exactly how every disease must be treated. Healthy people will pay too much, so we will need a stern mandate to keep them insured. And this step further reduces competition. Private, competitive insurance markets are a superior way to solve the pre-existing-conditions problem, and the only hope to lower costs.--John Cochrane