Quotes About Healthcare

moribund patients, conducting autopsies on them all and EEGs on some.

I am very abnormal... But it wasn't very long ago that I wasn't so abnormal. I was very normal and headed for a lifetime of paying medical bills as proof of my normalcy.

In mid-May, the House of Representatives approved the full amount of money that the Veterans Administration said was needed for next year - plus an additional $1 billion increase for veterans' health care.

The need for this clinic is clear to me, to the veterans who are currently forced to travel hours to receive care, and even to the Veterans Administration that itself identified creation of a clinic in this part of our state as a priority to be completed by 2006.

Old age is having the name of a chiropractor in your wallet. It's cutting out coupons for the zeal of discounted small items and the practice of fine motor skills.

I have an aunt who married so late in life that Medicare picked up 80 percent of the honeymoon.

Primum non nocere. First do no harm.

Competition makes things come out right. Well, what does that mean in health care? More hospitals so they compete with each other. More doctors compete with each other. More pharmaceutical companies. We set up war. Wait a minute, let's talk about the patient. The patient doesn't need a war.

Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must - must - redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition re-distributional.

We have really good data that show when you take patients and you really inform them about their choices, patients make more frugal choices. They pick more efficient choices than the health care system does.

Individuals with kidney disease who are able to obtain treatment early experience a higher quality of life and are able to maintain more of their day-to-day activities, including keeping their jobs.

Under Medicare right now, I get paid to put a pacemaker in you, but I don't get paid to counsel you about end-of-life care.

Today about 95% of the prescription drugs sold are Maintenance drugs-drugs that treat only the symptoms of a disease, and that you are expected to take for the rest of your life.

Early diagnosis is so important because the earlier a mental illness can be detected, diagnosed and treatment can begin, the better off that person can be for the rest of his or her life.

If you look at the human condition today, not everyone is well fed, has access to good medical care, or the physical basics that provide for a healthy and a happy life.

Life to me is just so precious. I fail to see the wrong in keeping someone alive who's still got quality of life even if it's only for a few months.

Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are. A dollar spent on a childhood vaccination not only helps save a life, but greatly reduces spending on future healthcare.

I wished to God the doctor had handed me a pamphlet that said, 'Hey, sorry about the autism, but here's a step-by-step list on what to do next.' But doctors don't do that. They say 'sorry' and move you along.

The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.

Today, influenza kills fewer than 0.1 percent of those who catch it. Nearly everyone recovers. In the 1918 pandemic most still recovered, but the death rate was twenty-five times greater. So many died in the U.S. that the average life expectancy in 1918 fell from fifty-one to thirty-nine years.

Despite education and knowledge and experience, when you are the patient--suffering, confused, and despairing--it is very, very hard to take matters into your own hands. I was not a George Griffin, able to stand alone and challenge the prevailing assumptions. I needed an external voice, strong and determined, to guide me.

or she would choose the treatment option that the experts saw as "best," in this case taking the medication. But in the Dartmouth study, this was not what happened. When given clearer information, the patients weighed the risks and benefits

The freedom of patient speech is necessary if the doctor is to get clues about the medical enigma before him. If the patient is inhibited, or cut off prematurely, or constrained into one path of discussion, then the doctor may not be told something vital. Observers have noted that, on average, physicians interrupt patients within eighteen seconds of when they begin telling their story.

I had learned that every patient has the right to hope, despite long odds, and it was my role to help nurture that hope.