Medicaid Quotes
Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court's two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed ("penalty” means tax, "further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, "established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.
Antonin Scalia
Chris Wallace: You talk a lot about the Constitution. You say Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all unconstitutional.
Ron Paul: Technically, they are. ... There's no authority [in the Constitution]. Article I, Section 8 doesn't say I can set up an insurance program for people. What part of the Constitution are you getting it from? The liberals are the ones who use this General Welfare Clause. ... That is such an extreme liberal viewpoint that has been mistaught in our schools for so long and that's what we have to reverse - that very notion that you're presenting.
Chris Wallace: Congressman, it's not just a liberal view. It was the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Ron Paul: And the Constitution and the courts said slavery was legal, too, and we had to reverse that.
Ron Paul
Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it. Get rid of the fraud. Get rid of the waste and abuse, but save it. People have been paying it for years. And now many of these candidates want to cut it. You save it by making the United States, by making us rich again, by taking back all of the money that's being lost.
Donald Trump
By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.
Robert Kuttner
The real issue here, if you look at the Koch Brothers' agenda, is: look at what many of the extreme right-wing people believe. Obamacare is just the tip of the iceberg. These people want to abolish the concept of the minimum wage, they want to privatize the Veteran's Administration, they want to privatize Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, massive cuts in Medicaid, wipe out the EPA, you don't have an Environmental Protection Agency anymore, Department of Energy gone, Department of Education gone. That is the agenda. And many people don't understand that the Koch Brothers have poured hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into the tea party and two other kinds of ancillary organizations to push this agenda.
Bernie Sanders
The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?'
Mitt Romney
And in fact, at every moment of economic change throughout our history, this country has taken bold action to adapt to new circumstances and to make sure everyone gets a fair shot. We set up worker protections, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid to protect ourselves from the harshest adversity. We gave our citizens schools and colleges, infrastructure and the Internet -- tools they needed to go as far as their effort and their dreams will take them. That's what middle-class economics is -- the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the same set of rules. We don't just want everyone to share in America's success, we want everyone to contribute to our success.
Barack Obama
Medicaid is a study in contradiction. Thanks to it, America's neediest get health care paid for by taxpayers. Often they get better health care than taxpayers can afford for themselves. The program is both 'free' and break-the-bank expensive. It lets poor people look rich and rich people look poor, and it rewards lawyers and druggists with real wealth. Medicaid works so well it's going broke.
Joe Barton
I'm very, very concerned ultimately, as Medicaid costs increase in my state and most states, it's going to reduce funding for state aid to our public schools, to our higher education institution or higher taxes on the middle class that President Obama said he didn't want to do. And that's exactly where he's headed.
Dave Heineman
