END ISSUE – @ QUOTES OF THE YEAR: THE YEAR IN REVIEW AS THEY SAID IT
"What we are seeing around the country, frankly, is the
Wal-Mart-
ization of health care ... by large corporations that do not
have
ties to local communities."
-- Vermont state Sen. Cheryl Rivers, on a proposal to allow
the
state's first for-profit HMO, 1/5.
"Now my dream is, I would like to see every American have
health insurance."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1/19.
"The patient who comes in with chest pain but leaves with
'general symptoms' may be out of luck when it comes to
getting his bill paid."
-- American College of Emergency Physicians Pres. Dr. Gregory
Henry, on how insurers reimburse for ER visits, 1/30.
"Frankly, if some nurses want to be physicians, they should
apply
to medical school rather than to the Georgia General
Assembly."
-- Georgia Medical Association spokesperson Priscilla Daves, on
a
proposal to give advanced practice nurses the authority
to prescribe medications, 2/1.
"If we cannot follow the other advanced economies of the
world
and ensure that everybody has health insurance, at least we
ought
... to ensure that everybody has access to health insurance."
-- Pres. Clinton, lobbying for the Kassebaum-Kennedy health
insurance reform bill, 2/7.
"The tobacco companies have been looking for a new Marlboro
Man,
and they have found him. He already had his hat; he already
had
his boots and his name is Governor Daniel Kirkwood Fordice."
-- Mississippi Atty. Gen. Mike Moore, on Fordice's attempt to
block the state's Medicaid lawsuit against 13 tobacco companies,
2/20.
"If Columbia is the McDonald's of the hospital business, OrNda
is
more like Wendy's."
-- BOSTON GLOBE, on OrNda's entry into the Massachusetts
hospital market, 3/1.
"I've seen CEOs of insurance companies up here ... and most
of
them have got smiles on their faces. And it scares me."
-- Kentucky state Rep. Larry Clark, on an industry-favorable
bill
designed to overhaul the state's 1994 health reform law,
3/5.
"The No. 1 thing is that this Republican Congress actually
delivers health care reform. The Republican Congress will
take
great pride in that."
-- A House GOP aide, on Republicans' commitment to enacting
health insurance reforms, 3/8.
"It's not that Columbia takes actions to avoid uninsured
patients; it just buys hospitals where they're not likely
to walk in the door."
-- Johns Hopkins' Gerard Anderson, on hospital-chain giant
Columbia/HCA's purchasing strategy, 3/11.
"This is the equivalent of a medical arms race, where
hospitals
are all trying to build bigger and bigger battleships
with better guns."
-- Boston University School of Public Health Professor Alan
Sager, on a recent wave of hospital mergers, 3/12.
"I can only describe them as the Dr. Kevorkians of
health reform."
-- Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, on Democrats'
opposition
to MSAs and other controversial riders contained in the House
GOP
health reform plan, 4/1.
"People are not sides of beef to be graded by
the insurance companies."
-- KENTUCKY state Rep. Steve Nunn, on his support for
prohibiting
insurers from considering policyholders' health histories
when
setting premiums, 4/2.
"It is far easier to assist patients in killing themselves
than
it is to care for them at life's end."
-- Tracy Miller, former head of the New York State Task Force
on
Life and Law, warning of the danger of legalizing physician
assisted suicide in an era of cost-controlled medicine, 4/3.
"This reminds me of a modern-day Jesse James. They don't carry
a
gun -- just an adding machine."
-- Mississippi State Rep. Raymond Comans, voicing his
concerns
about HMOs and a proposed Medicaid managed care program,
4/16.
"In a courageous but foolhardy way, Republicans touched the
third
rail. This is the Democrats' strongest card."
-- Conservative political strategist William Kristol, on the
role
of Medicare reform in the 1996 elections, 4/23.
"We hope this is the straw that breaks Joe Camel's back."
-- Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, on his
plans
to file suit against the tobacco industry to recoup the
Medicaid
costs of treating smoking-related illnesses, 5/2.
"When have you seen a new regulatory structure that saved
money and enhanced quality?"
-- Association of Connecticut HMOs' Keith Stover, on a
managed
care regulatory bill now before the state Legislature, 5/3.
"It's often said that politics is the art of compromise. If
that's so, this proposal is a Picasso."
-- New York Public Interest Research Group's Blair Horner, on
an
HMO regulatory bill unveiled by New York Gov. George Pataki,
5/9.
"[W]hen the pediatricians and the mothers are on one side and
the
insurance companies are on the other side, that's a
no-brainer."
-- WALL STREET JOURNAL's Al Hunt, summing up the political
pressures
behind maternity-stay legislation endorsed by Pres. Clinton,
5/13.
"The government and the American people should tell the
tobacco
barons to roll up their deal and smoke it."
-- A SYRACUSE HERALD-JOURNAL editorial responding to Philip
Morris' proposal to curb some cigarette advertising in
exchange
for the FDA's agreement not to regulate tobacco, 5/24.
"I'm afraid if I leave it might not happen."
-- Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, on the prospects for
passage
of the Kassebaum-Kennedy health insurance reform bill, 6/7.
"At least the doctors have some sense that health care is not
the
same as widget and beer manufacturing."
-- Medical ethicist Arthur Caplan, on the establishment of a
physician-run HMO in Florida, 6/13.
"We're getting tired of seeing ourselves on 'PrimeTime Live.'"
-- Florida Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay, on a federal and state
collaborative effort to crack down on the widely publicized
cases
of health care fraud in the state, 7/1.
"It's like (merging) Coke and Pepsi."
-- Presbyterian Hospital CEO Dr. William Speck, on the merger
of Presbyterian and New York hospitals, 7/25.
"I overestimated the extent to which a person elected with a
minority of the votes ... could achieve in a sweeping
overhaul of the
health care system when no previous president had
been able to do it for decades and decades."
-- President Clinton, 7/30.
"The public has never learned to expect more than what their
friends and neighbors have told them about how nice a doctor
is."
-- Jackson Hole Group founder Paul Ellwood on a new attempt
to
provide consumers with information on managed care plans, 8/26.
"HMOs cannot assure us that physicians will, in every
instance,
put their patients' interests first."
-- Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, on the need to
alter
managed care's current path, 9/16.
"This is the mother of all motherhood issues."
-- Health Insurance Association of America's Richard Coorsh,
on
Congressional approval of maternity-stay legislation, 9/25.
"We are going to do it step-by-step instead of trying to do
it
all at one time so everyone can see that the government is
not
trying to take over health care."
-- President Clinton, on his current plans for health reform,
9/30.
"It's an issue that has brought the president back from
the land of the living dead and breathed life into
congressional Democrats."
-- Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Robert Reischauer, on
Medicare reform, 10/3.
"I've had the best health care in government hospitals."
-- Bob Dole, during the 10/6 presidential debate, 10/7.
"We may be in the midst of the most radical medical change in
our
field since the first arrival of drugs for (tuberculosis)
in the 1950's."
-- California physician Peter Ruane,
on the use of protease inhibitors in fighting AIDS, 10/11.
"We've had an automobile accident on health reform, and
nobody
will ever be the same again."
-- Harvard professor of health politics Robert Blendon,
10/31.
"Three words explain Bill Clinton's doing well in Florida,
beyond
his extensive campaigning: Medicare, Medicare, Medicare."
-- PBS' Mark Shields, 11/6.
"There is a shocking disconnection between what people know
about
it and what is actually happening in the health
insurance system today."
-- Stephen Isaacs, health policy analyst, on a survey that
found
55% of respondents confused by the term "managed care,"
11/11.
"The wolf will have been driven away from the hospital
insurance
trust fund's door; insolvency won't be looming. And, members
of
Congress will remember how radioactive Medicare was as they
prepare for the 1998 Congressional elections."
-- Robert Reischauer, on Clinton's two-tier Medicare plan,
11/14.
"Patients can't become smart consumers of health care as they
would ... shop for a can of tuna -- they are dependent on a
doctor's advice, and health care is not a standard product
coming off the shelf."
-- NEJM editor emeritus Dr. Arnold Relman, on managed care,
11/20.
"The managed care industry has become the flak-catcher for
all
the things that Clinton would have been the flak-catcher
for."
-- Princeton health economist Uwe Reinhardt, on the changing
health care system, 11/26.
"Each looks forward to working on health policy in 1997 with
all
the eagerness of a suspect awaiting an interrogation."
-- Princeton's Paul Starr, on the prospect of compromise
between
Republicans and Democrats in the coming year, 12/3.
"This could be the next evolutionary stage of health plans. It
could be the model that follows the HMO."
-- HealthPartners CEO George Halvorson, on his group's new
Ultimate Choice plan, 12/6.
"No cocaine cartel, gambling empire or white collar scheme
has
even approached the damage allegedly done to the state as
alleged
in the plaintiff's case."
-- Judge Harold Cohen, on his decision to allow RICO charges
in
Florida's lawsuit against the tobacco industry, 12/16.
"We still don't have a national system of health care. To
have
the right to die before you have the right to treatment seems
a
little bit backward."
-- University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics' Dr.
Arthur
Caplan, on medically assisted suicide, 12/17.
"If there's anybody who's less loved than the federal
government,
it's the insurance industry."
-- Alliance for Health Reform's Ed Howard,
on AAHP's "Patients First" initiative, 12/18.
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