Sidney Blumenthal Quotes

I led the fight for the Clinton health care plan in 1994. We failed. I learned from that experience. What I learned is you can't pass a complicated government-run plan.

Foreign policy is like plumbing. You never notice it till it breaks and then all hell breaks loose.

It is to be regretted when internal considerations determine a counterproductive and irresponsible foreign policy.

Foreign policy can mean several things, not only foreign policy in the narrow sense. It can cover foreign policy, relations with the developing world, and enlargement as well.

America enjoys the best health care in the world, but the best is no good if folks can't afford it, access it and doctor's can't provide it.

I am hopeful for the American people that we can actually improve the outlook for bringing down costs in health care.

I always worked very hard against the unconstitutional individual mandate in health care. I didn't praise it.

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

I think the next president needs to lead on cultural issues and experience, particularly on foreign policy.

We need to take politics out of health care. Congress will cave to pretty much any special interest on the subject.

During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy.

I don't think it's government's job to find health care for people. I think it's the individual's job to find health care.

So I think that our foreign policy, the president's strong and principled leadership when it comes to the war against terror and foreign policy is going to be an asset.

We have come a long way in terms of foreign policy.

I think that we have a number of different health care challenges in our country, and certainly addressing the uninsured is one, and the second is making sure that those with health insurance actually get the care that they assume they'll have available to them if they get sick.

People have been talking about competition among insurers, and what they really need to be talking about is competition in the delivery of health care as well.

The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.

By dedicating so much concentration to the issue of security, bilateral matters pass to a secondary level.

In economic terms, health care is a highly successful industry - profitable, growing, and virtually recession-proof - but it's a massive burden on the rest of the economy.

I used to have a little saying I used when people said, 'What are your priorities?' I'd give them a bit of government alphabet soup. I'd say 'CTCPROW: Counterterrorism, counterproliferation, rest of the world.'

Enacting elements of the Affordable Care Act isn't backtracking on core principles, but rather understanding that new ways to help make health care affordable builds stronger businesses and saves struggling hospitals. And that is a very attractive offer.

There are legitimate, even powerful arguments, to be made against the Bush administration's foreign policy. But those arguments are complicated, hard to explain, and, in the end, not all that sensational.

I don't think the people are going to change their opinion on the health care plan because President Obama has now won the Nobel Peace Prize.

You can see a lot of politics on a lot of different channels. I'm not interested, really, in talking in some wonky conversation about politics, though. It's not my speed. I'm not interested in the ins and outs of health care.