Patrick V. McNamara Quotes

There's no way we're going to have low cost health insurance in a world of high cost medicine.

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.

For many Americans, including many who are employed, going to the doctor when they fall ill or become injured may not be an option because of the absence of health insurance.

If we do nothing, as the Republicans suggest, we're going to see health care costs reach a point where small businesses can't afford it and families can't afford it. We're going to see people turned down from pre-existing conditions. We're going to find the Medicare doughnut hole - a gap in coverage that's going to hurt a lot of seniors.

No one should have to choose between medicine and other necessities. No one should have to use the emergency room every time a child gets sick. And no one should have to live in constant fear that a medical problem will become a financial crisis.

Almost every economist agrees that the American health care system is unsustainable. Medical care is so expensive that it is busting all of our budgets - government, business, and personal. Eventually, the medical price bubble will pop. What, then, are the alternatives?

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.

I will continue to support legislation that provides American families and Seniors affordable health care.

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

The average man with a need for an operation cannot afford a first class hospital …My medical pills run $400 to $500 a month and hell, I feel pretty good … Costs must be tempered..

Half of all personal bankruptcies in the United States are due to high medical expenses. Millions of Americans are living one illness away from financial disaster.

No American should ever have to spend his golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.

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.

Do you really want to pay for surgeon’s salaries by not having low-income people not be able to afford health insurance?

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.

I am of the view that the Affordable Care Act will be a transformative piece of legislation that can lower the cost of health care in the United States - perhaps our greatest fiscal obstacle - and help all Americans lead healthy and productive lives, free from worry that a single illness could mean ruin for an entire family.

No one should have to worry about whether they can afford the health care that one day might save their life.

I don't want to suggest that controlling pharmaceutical costs is the answer to what ails the U.S. health care system. It isn't.

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.

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.

All Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care.

Health care should be affordable for everyone.

Health care in America, despite all you hear, still offers us citizens one of the most efficient and highest quality systems in the world. But it's expensive, and it's only getting worse.

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.

Look, if you have somebody who doesn't have health insurance, who doesn't have a doctor or dentist, and in order to deal with their cold or flu or dental problem, they go to an emergency room - in general, that visit will cost ten times more than walking into a community health center.