2007 GOP debate at St. Anselm College, sponsored by CNN & WMUR: on Health Care
Duncan Hunter:
States locking up insurance industry adds to high Rx prices
Q: What should we be doing to bring down the price of prescription drugs? A: We need to be able to buy our health care insurance across state lines. Right now the same single policy that can be purchased in Long Beach for $73 costs $334 in New Jersey.
The states lock up the insurance industry. They won’t let Americans buy across state lines just like they do everything else. If we’re able to do that, we’re going to bring down the cost of health insurance.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Duncan Hunter:
Free enterprise invents drugs; Third World can’t do that
80% of the new drugs and new inventions that save our lives are made in the US because we have free enterprise, where people can go out, invest, and maybe they drill three dry holes, then maybe they hit the jackpot and they produce something
that will save people. They then recover their money in the US. But Third World countries like Mexico could never provide the amount of money that it takes to make those inventions. Otherwise, they would.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Mitt Romney:
MA program relies on personal responsibility & the market
Q: [The Massachusetts] program mandates individual health insurance coverage. Some conservatives say this is simply big government--is it? A: As governor, I talked to people, and they say, “If I lose my job, I’m worried I’ll lose my insurance, and my
insurance premiums are getting higher and higher.” And we said: We got to find a way to get everybody insured. And the last thing we want is to have the government take over health care, because anything they take over gets worse. We said:
We need to find a way to get everybody in our state insured with private insurance. [We found] a way to get them insured without raising taxes, without a government takeover. It relies on personal responsibility. Every Democrat up there’s talking about a
form of socialized medicine, government takeover, massive tax increase. I’m the guy who actually tackled this issue. We get all of our citizens insured. We have to stand up and say the market works. Personal responsibility works.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Mitt Romney:
FactCheck: Romney plan virtually identical to Obama plan
Romney tried to distance his state’s universal health insurance plan from the proposals of the Democratic presidential candidates. Romney said, “Every Democrat up there’s talking about a form of socialized medicine, government takeover, massive tax
increase. I’m the guy who actually tackled this issue. We get all of our citizens insured. We get people that were uninsured with private health insurance. We have to stand up and say the market works. Personal responsibility works.”There are two
problems with Romney’s characterization: One, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich is the only Democratic candidate to propose a single-payer, wholly government-funded health care plan. And two, Romney’s Massachusetts universal insurance system bears a striking
resemblance to the health care proposals of the Democratic front-runners. For example, the Obama and Romney plans are virtually identical. But in our view, the term “government takeover” could only be applied to Rep. Kucinich’s proposal.
Source: FactCheck on 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Rudy Giuliani:
Switch from employer decisions to individual choices
I would change the whole model that we have for health insurance in this country. The problem with our health insurance is it’s government- and employer-dominated. People don’t make individual choices. It’s your health; you should own your health
insurance. We need 100 million Americans making different decisions that will bring down the cost of health insurance; it will bring down the cost of prescription medicines. Free-market principles are the only things that reduce cost and improve quality.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Rudy Giuliani:
$15,000 family tax deduction for your own health insurance
We should be giving you a major tax deduction--$15,000 for a family--so you can buy your own health insurance. Then we should have a health savings account in which you can put some money aside to pay for your ordinary medical expenses.
Health insurance should become like homeowners insurance or like car insurance: You don’t cover everything in your homeowners policy. But that is covered in many of the insurance policies because they’re government dominated & they’re employer dominated.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Tommy Thompson:
Transform health care into wellness & prevention system
We spend $2 trillion on health care; that’s 16% of the gross national product. 93% of the cost of health care goes into waiting until after you become sick.
Only 7% of the money is used to keep you well in the first place. We got to completely transform the health care system, make it a wellness system, and make it a prevention system.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Tommy Thompson:
Educate public about chronic illnesses, to avoid them
- We got to completely transform the health care system, make it a wellness system, and make it a prevention system.
- We have 125 million Americans that have one or more chronic illnesses. In order to change this we have to educate the
American people about tobacco, about diabetes, about cardiovascular and about obesity. You do that, you’ll be able to change health care.
- 25% of Americans use 2/3 of the cost of health care.
If you manage those diseases, you can reduce that down to 50% and save lots of money.
- information technology--electronic medical records, a patient bill of rights, and be able to have
ePrescribing, and if you do that, you’re going to be able to save billions of dollars. If you just go paperless, you will save 10% of the cost of health care.
Source: 2007 GOP debate at Saint Anselm College
Jun 3, 2007
Page last updated: Nov 30, 2018