Michael Bloomberg Quotes

Every city and town in America would be bankrupt if they kept their books the way private-sector companies keep their books - because of the obligation cities and towns have taken upon themselves to provide health care for their retirees.

The biggest pressure towards bankruptcy is health expenses … an unexpected health problem is the biggest driver.

Almost half of the bankruptcies in the United States are connected to an illness in the family, whether people had health insurance or not. Middle-class Americans, who had the misfortune of either experiencing a medical emergency themselves or watching a family member suffer, were then forced to face the daunting task of pulling themselves out of debt. Bankruptcy law has allowed them to start over. It has given hope

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.

American families, families back home in Minnesota, know only too well that out-of-pocket expenses for health care have been rising at an astonishing rate.

General Motors spends more on health care than steel.

Medical debts are the number-one cause of bankruptcy in America.

Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage?

I'm going to announce in the very near future, I'm going to lead by example and start paying 20 percent of my health insurance.

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.

When I went to law school, which I put myself through for $100,000 dollars of debt, I didn't expect anybody to pay for my health insurance, which I had none of. No health insurance.

The majority of Americans receive health insurance coverage through their employers, but with rising health care costs, many small businesses can no longer afford to provide coverage for their employees.

In this most powerful nation in the world, lack of access to health care should not force local and state governments, companies and workers into bankruptcy, while causing unnecessary illness and hospitalization.

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.

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.

It is time that we take control and find a way to curtail the explosive costs of health care. Small businesses deserve a chance to channel these funds toward other needs, such as expanding and creating more jobs for the economy.

Health care costs are eating the Defense Department alive.

No employer is going to hire robustly until they know what the health care cost is going to be.

I have young kids. The fiscal burden that will be imposed on them is going to depend primarily on whether we tackle this looming problem in our health care system - with rising costs that don't seem, by the way, to be necessarily associated with higher quality. That is the key burden that they will face.

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.

We can all agree that no American should lose their life savings or their home because of illness or injury and that the rising cost of health care severely burdens individuals, families and businesses.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

At least Obama was half-way honest about how much he was going to spend on health care. He had it at $600 billion. And the real number... is $1.2 trillion.

Five thousand people every day lose their home because of a medical bankruptcy. Most of them had insurance.

The high price of health care in this country is a serious issue that demands serious attention. Putting limits on damages have little or no effect on skyrocketing malpractice insurance rates.