Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.

Healthcare should be a human right and not a commodity for sale.

I see the insurance issue, the coverage of people for healthcare in our country as a huge moral issue. The richest country in the world to have 47 million people without health insurance is ridiculous.

I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

Economic issues are a subset of social justice. Social justice is unimaginable without economic justice. Isn't that obvious?

I don't think healthcare's a right. The only right you have is the ability to go out on an even playing field and work, and then purchase health insurance, or whatever it is.

Government has got to work for all of us and not just for a few billionaires..

We’ve taken care not to penalize the wealthy but we have to redistribute some income …It is through reform that we can obtain fairness in the modern world…A reformed welfare state is the only way to obtain social justice.

Here we have in New York Mr. Aster with an income of millions derived from real estate, … and we have along side of him a poor man receiving $1000 a year. What is the discrimination of the law in that case? It is altogether against the poor man—Everything that he consumes we tax, and yet we are afraid to tax the income of Mr. Astor. Is there any justice to it? Why, sir, the income tax is the only one that tends to equalize the burdens between rich and poor.

Unless you’re at the very top, you need a more equitable economy.

The battle to right the wrongs of income inequality is not – and cannot be – just a union issue. It is an issue for every American, union or non-union, white or of color, young or senior, straight or gay, income inequality is a battle for the very heart and soul of the nation.

In a good society, those in the middle and at the bottom ought to benefit significantly from economic growth. When the country prospers, everybody should prosper.

We always keep saying, 'We're the best, we're the best.' Other countries offer healthcare for their people. We don't, so how are we the best there? We've got poverty all over the place, and it's the haves and the have-nots, so how are we the best there?

Every American has a right to food, housing, and health care - and we can afford to provide it if billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.

I'm in business to make money. However, I'm a mayor who fought for a living wage. And I believe healthcare should be a right.

I don't subscribe to the view that people who are better off don't want to live in a more equal society.

I believe that every family - it doesn't make a difference who you are or where you come from - deserves to have quality healthcare. It is a universal right. It's not the exclusive privilege of the elite and the wealthy.

It is my aspiration that health finally will be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for.

We will stand up for what is right, for what is fair and what is just. Health care is a right and not a privilege.

The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.

As long as there's anybody that's poor or middle class, there will not be satisfaction that there are rich people. Not 'til we get rid of all the rich can we say we have finished the job.

Well, it all began with Democracy. Before we had the vote all the power was in the hands of rich people. If you had money you could get health care, education, look after yourself when you were old, and what democracy did was to give the poor the vote and it moved power from the marketplace to the polling station, from the wallet...to the ballot.

Health is a human right, not a privilege to be purchased.

Medical care for the entire country seems to me a basic right. If every other country in the West can do it, why can't we?