Al Gore Quotes

It is inevitable that we are going to have to ration health care in the United States.

We ration health care now. We just don’t ration very rationally.

We implicitly or explicitly ration health care no matter what we do.

Our system of private health insurance that fails to provide coverage to so many of our citizens also contributes to the double-digit health care inflation that is making America less competitive in the global economy.

Every country in the world is battling the rising cost of health care. No community anywhere has demonstrably lowered its health-care costs (not just slowed their rate of increase) by improving medical services. They've lowered costs only by cutting or rationing them.

The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80% of the total health care bill out there. There is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. The decision is not whether or not we will ration care. The decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.

One thing governors feel, Democrats and Republicans alike, is that we have a health care system that, if you're on Medicaid, you have unlimited access to health care, at unlimited levels, at no cost. No wonder it's running away.

In health care, the biggest imperative is: Fix those who cannot get insurance without changing the world for everyone else.

It is my passionate belief that we can all have better health care through rationing.

I believe a nation does not maximize its health care until it starts to ask the hard question: How can we prioritize our expenditures to buy the most health care for the most people? We should not apologize for rationing; we should promote it and advance it.

The Patients' Bill of Rights is necessary to guarantee that health care will be available for those who are paying for insurance. It's a part of the overall health care picture.

Economists specialize in pointing out unpleasant trade-offs - a skill that is on full display in the health care debate. We want patients to receive the best care available. We also want consumers to pay less. And we don't want to bankrupt the government or private insurers. Something must give.

Too many Americans who are uninsured or under-insured do not receive regular checkups because they can't afford coverage or their insurance doesn't cover enough of the costs. The lack of preventive care results in countless emergency room visits and health care disasters for families.

I received free health care.

But if you - if what - the reports are true, what they're saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that's going to increase our costs, we knew that.

Single payer means something different to everyone. The way I define it is that health care is a right and not a privilege.

What you see is when the government gets involved, you run out of money and health care gets rationed.

Yes, Democrats can prove that America pays more for health care than other countries; yes, they have won the dispute that private health insurance is needlessly expensive. But what they've lost is the argument that we are a society.

It is inexcusable that the richest country in the world does not take care of all of its people. We don't consider ourselves idealistic; we're thoughtfully trying to make a beautiful health care model.

I basically believe the medical insurance industry should be nonprofit, not profit-making. There is no way a health reform plan will work when it is implemented by an industry that seeks to return money to shareholders instead of using that money to provide health care.

Since 1994, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have considered it politically risky to offer a plan to fix America's broken health care system. The American public, though, has paid the price for this silence as health care costs skyrocketed, millions went uninsured, and millions more grappled with financial insecurity and hardship.

Millions of Americans who are not poor are health care poor.

Logic cannot support the premise that health care is a right. Health care is a service that is administered by another human being with the requisite skills and knowledge. To claim that healthcare as a "right" is to claim a right to the services of the health-care provider. In effect, this means you are claiming a "right" to a portion of that person's life – both a portion of the time already spent developing his skills, and a portion of the time spent practicing those skills on you.

We don't have a health care system. We have a health care maze.

We should get the insurance companies out of the health care system.