Robert Kuttner Quotes

I don't have a problem talking about Medicare or Medicaid or some other very important issue.

In a system where the cost of care is hidden by taxes levied on your income, property, and business activities, it is no wonder why so many Americans rely on Medicaid to pay their long term care.

In my very first term there was an issue that brought us [George Mitchell, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd] together in a very deep, emotional, and personal level.It was called 'spousal impoverishment' and it meant that for one person [to go into] a nursing home, the family [ ], could go near bankruptcy, and then they'd end up with a lien on the family farm or the home. And so I wanted to change that.

I don't want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

Medicaid is a vital safety net for New York's poor and vulnerable, young and old alike.

The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.

The Medicaid system currently steers people toward nursing home care. Far more people can be covered in community-based care programs for significantly less.

Most Americans have some experience with nursing homes or other long term care settings, and nearly half have had a family member or close friend in a home in the past three years.

Fiscal prudence does not prevent government from providing shelter for the homeless, work for the idle, care for the elderly and infirm, and hope for the destitute.

[Advocating health care reform:] We've got to remove the incentive for people on welfare to stay on welfare because that's the only way they'll get health care.

We're moving more and more toward user fees, but the people who use social service programs obviously don't have the ability to pay for them.

Poor young children and the elderly must be fed at public expense.

I think Medicaid harms people.

There is no mercy in a system that makes health care a luxury. There is no mercy in a country that turns their back on those most in need of protection: the elderly, the poor, the sick, and the suffering.

Medicaid is a deeply flawed program.

I think satire is a luxury of literate middle-class people. People who are well fed and relatively secure in their beds can laugh at their troubles. They can enjoy sitcoms. For those who aren't quite so lucky, well, the irony might be lost on them.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.

Government can't deliver a free lunch to the country as a whole. It can, however, determine who pays for lunch. And last week the Senate handed the bill to the wrong party... the poor and middle class.

We are committing ourselves to basic protections of our people... We will not permit banks to repossess the homes of working class and middle class people. That's the end of that, it is not negotiable.

The church, the state, and the poor, are 3 daughters which we should maintain, but not portion off.

The fundamental fact in the lives of the poor in most parts of America is that the wages of common labor are far below the benefits of AFDC, Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, public defenders, leisure time and all the other goods and services of the welfare state.

Between 1965 (the beginning of LBJ's "Great Society") and 1994, welfare spending has cost the taxpayers $5.4 trillion in constant 1993 dollars. The War on Poverty has cost us 70 % more than the total price tag for defeating both Germany and Japan in World War II, after adjusting for inflation. Many believe that Welfare has destroyed millions of families and cost a huge portion of our national wealth in the process.

If there is to be no loss whatever of dignity or self-respect in getting and staying on relief, then there can be no gain in dignity or self-respect in makings some sacrifices to keep off.

Someone has said the best nursing home is the U.S. Senate.

For the workers and their families, being able to bring home a living wage helps their families and, by extension, helps our economy. Seventy percent of our economy is consumer-based. We know that when lower- and middle-class families have money and disposable income, they spend it. That puts money back into the economy. It's a win-win for everybody: Not just for the individual, not just production at a specific company (like Nissan), but for the greater good.