Michael K. Simpson Quotes

Today, nearly 40 percent of a senior's healthcare spending is on pharmaceutical medications.

We say to seniors, we understand how important prescription drug coverage, so prescription drugs will be an ingrinable part of the Medicare plan.

We cannot rest until we make sure that our families can afford to live and raise their kids here, that our seniors can remain in their homes and afford their health and pharmaceutical costs.

Alabama seniors all across the Third Congressional District continue facing high drug costs.

We must take action now, by permitting re-importation, to ensure that health care and prescription drugs remain accessible and affordable for everyone.

It is time that we provide clarity for our seniors, informing them of the services available that will lower the costs of their prescription drugs and strengthen the overall integrity of the Medicare entitlement.

Prescription drugs today represent 60¢ on every dollar spent for health care. Ten years ago it was only 10¢.

As a doctor, my thing is, we need to have access to medications; we need to have reasonable prices for medications.

Medicare should be allowed to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices on prescriptions.

If we greatly expanded primary health care, lower the cost of prescription drugs, we take a giant step forward in lowering health care costs in America.

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.

The Prescription Drug Benefit we passed in Congress is already working to make prescription drugs available and affordable for all seniors who depend on them, through the drug card that became available last year.

First of all, pharmaceutical costs are the single fastest-growing part of our health care budget.

My 80-year-old mother will not buy her heart medicine because it cost more than she can pay with social security. She is America.

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

Making important medicine more available and affordable is a great thing for the country, and Netmeds is one the mainstays in the space. They have a long legacy in the pharma business, and they are making it easier for people to stay healthy.

I support negotiating authority to lower prescription drug prices.

There are no issues more personal than prescription drugs and the high prices Americans must pay to get the medicine they need.

Whether it's a mom worrying about affording insulin for her children or a cancer patient fearing bankruptcy due the price of his life-saving medications, the number one issue Kansans talk to me about is the cost of health care and prescription drugs.

[Several candidates talked of problems with the federal Medicare system, particularly concerns about whether it would cover prescription drug costs in the future.] We're asking senior citizens to make a choice between their health and their income, ... Medicare is probably the most difficult challenge we face in the next century, because it has a lot to do with other things besides money.

Every American has got to recognize, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because the pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry is out of control ripping us off.

When you have 25 percent of the city not being able to afford care, health becomes everyone's responsibility.... What is the moral responsibility of a hospital? Do you assure basic services for the many, or do you retain complex sophisticated services that tend to affect the relatively few?

The United States has the best health system in the world. Unfortunately this is true only for those who can afford it.

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?

No one was talking about price decreases, but that does happen in the industry to keep medicine affordable.