Elissa Slotkin Quotes

As I travel around Idaho and visit with seniors, I hear almost universal concern about the rising cost of health care, particularly the cost of prescription drugs.

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.

If medicine was practiced in 1965 the way it's practiced today, there's no question that prescriptions would have been included in Medicare.

Cost is the spectre haunting health reform. For many decades, the great flaw in the American health-care system was its unconscionable gaps in coverage.

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

I turned 65 last year, and each year I get more and more interested in human health. For most people it happens around age 50, but I've always been a slow learner. It's critical in terms of the cost of health care.

I know the exploding cost of health care is at the root of our long-term fiscal challenges.

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

At a time when the cost of health care is skyrocketing, the potential economic impact of mind/body medicine is considerable.

What Americans want is more affordable health care.

One of the problems fundamental to health care in the United States is access and cost.

Not a single Mainer should be rationing their medication or avoiding a trip to the doctor because they aren't sure what it will end up costing.

When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications.

Many of us are alarmed at the skyrocketing cost of medical care, including patients, who are the consumers. However, medical malpractice is not the reason for these increasing costs.

Making sure that health care is affordable for every American. I think that is very, very important.

Soaring prescription drug costs have placed a tremendous strain on family budgets. They have also imposed a heavy burden on employers - both public and private - who are struggling to provide affordable health insurance coverage to their workers.

The drug plans our seniors choose will define their health care options for years to come. If they do not make a decision and wait until the May 15 deadline passes, they will face penalties and higher prices for the drugs that they need.

America's health care system provides some of the finest doctors and more access to vital medications than any country in the world. And yet, our system has been faltering for many years with the increased cost of health care.

The rising cost of prescription drugs has sparked a prairie fire that is spreading across our nation.

It's very expensive to treat chronic diseases.

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

Anyone who has had even a mild illness knows that the cost of drugs is alarmingly high, and year by year becomes more of a burden, especially to the lower-income families. Modern drugs, like other advances in medicine and surgery, have meant that many more people are alive and well today than would have been a decade ago. Certainly, we must be prepared to pay whatever is necessary for the production and advancement of these life-saving drugs and techniques. I was shocked, however, by the revelations … that price-fixing and monopolistic practices have raised the cost of drugs far above what is reasonable or necessary.

The new triad of medicine: a doctor, a patient and an accountant.

When someone has to go to the hospital because they don't have insurance - and by the way, I think the insurance companies should be out of the mix altogether - but when someone needs health care, and they don't have the ability to pay for it, in our communities, we end up paying for it one way or the other.

If you're sick, you should be able to see a doctor. And if you're seen, you should be able to afford the bill and your medicine without going broke. There is absolutely nothing radical about this.