Richard Lamm Quotes

Health care has not so much slowed the ageing process as much as it has slowed the dying process.

The increasing elderly population, rising expectations about what should be available, and costs of medical advancement—these are problems all countries face ...

I had, in my legal practice, often encountered really shocking examples of the devastating impact of the costs of long-term medical care on meager incomes. And, just before I was elected, I had my own personal experience in paying very considerable bills for my mother's terminal illness.

Just 10 percent of the population—mainly the elderly—consumes about 80 percent of health care expenditures, primarily on expensive chronic illnesses and end-of-life costs. Historically, the longer lives that medical advances have given us have run exactly parallel to the increase in chronic illness and the explosion in costs. Can we afford to live longer—much less radically longer?

The baby boomer surge is forcing society to face decisions about costs - and particularly what is valuable. It's senseless for clinicians and governments to bear these choices alone; a sad effect of needless paternalism is that it places a false burden on responsible people.

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.

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.

I'm no health care expert, but you've got technology that constantly advances the ability to extend life and maybe improve lifestyle. That puts constant upward pressure on health care costs.

People use so much more health care when they live longer.

Emergency health care for illegal aliens along the southwestern border is already costing area hospitals $200 million a year, with perhaps another $100 million in extended care costs.

Medical need is an infinitely expandable concept. There is always one more marginal procedure that can be done. There is no end to the medical and surgical treatments that a technologically sophisticated and advanced society can give to aging bodies.

The dictates of economics, that "dismal science," limit the benefits of medical science

Too many of our senior citizens are being forced to choose between neglecting their illnesses or being impoverished by them.

General Motors spends more on health care than steel.

I don't believe medical discoveries are doing much to advance human life. As fast as we create ways to extend it we are inventing ways to shorten it.

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.

Health care does not worry me a great deal. I've been impressed by some wonderful old people.

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.

The government should not pick up every single bit of healthcare to where literally 60 percent of every dollar is just in your last 60 days of life. We should be more balanced than that and give people a chance to understand what the government should and should not pay for.

Besides, wouldn't it be wonderful if no one ever had to worry about the random cruelty of fatal illness or the woes of old age attacking them or their loved ones?

We must solve the problem in health care by curbing out-of-control costs that erode paychecks for working families and push quality coverage out of reach for millions of Americans.

Advances in science and medical research and public health policies have meant that life expectancy for Australians is one of the highest in the world.

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

When Medicare was created for senior citizens and America 's disabled in 1965, about half of a senior's health care spending was on doctors and the other half on hospitals.

If I could time travel into the future, my first port of call would be the point where medical technology is at its best because, like most people on this planet, I have this aversion to dying.