Reform Rx - 40 Reasons to "Go It Alone"

Richard Shelby
"…first step in destroying the best health care system the world has ever known."

Jeff Sessions
“We are spending money like it is going out of style. We have no right to reconfigure the entire U.S. health care system”

Lisa Murkowski
"The fact of the matter is that in order to pay for a trillion dollar-plus bill, or even if they can get it down to just $900 billion, it's going to come from us,"

John McCain
”We're for it but we also don't want to have a government takeover of the health care system, which is the foot in the door which would be led to, and second of all, we don't want any employer mandates”.

Jon Kyl
“The American people will not stand for rationed health care.. We believe that a one size fits all approach is the wrong approach."

Mel Martinez (Resigning)
"Every American ought to be insured, that ought to be done in the private sector, with private insurance, with government help."
or
Charlie Crist (Governor who appointed Mel Martinez’s replacement)
"What's going on in Washington is nuts. The prosperity we enjoy as a country is not because of government. It's because of free enterprise, and entrepreneurship and hard work."
or
George LeMieux (Appointed to the Senate to replace Mel Martinez)
"Obviously health care is going to be the big issue when the Senate comes back in session. The governor has reminded me that this country is almost $12 trillion in debt. And set to go another $1.6 trillion a year for the next 10 years. I want to focus on what government spends its money on and how we can do it more efficiently."

Saxby Chambliss
"If you heard me on the campaign trail or if you've been to any of my town hall meetings in the past, you've probably heard me say that I do not support a universal health care system in this country. I don't think the government should be running a health care system from a general standpoint."

Johnny Isakson
“You won’t have a total single-payer health plan the first year. It’s just a matter of time until (the competition) evaporates.”

Mike Crapo (Written)
“In reality, in many countries with universal health care, you often receive access to a waiting list with a cost of much higher taxes.”

Jim Risch
“We're at a real turning point in America regarding healthcare. I have real reservations about where we're going."

Richard Lugar
"This is not an appropriate time for our government to adopt a comprehensive, whole-scale change in the health care system of the country."

Chuck Grassley
"We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Sam Brownback
"You don't need to remake the whole system. And if you do you're going to scare a whole bunch of people. And you're going to move us to a European- style system that most people in this country don't want."

Pat Roberts
“I want to put up two signs: First, ‘Do No Harm,’ and second, ‘Whoa,’”

Mitch McConnell
“the last thing we want to do is destroy the quality of health care over the issue of the uninsured.”

Jim Bunning (News concentration on not running for re-election; no quote available)
Retiring Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning received two standing ovations at a speech in which he called the Democratic plan for a single-payer, government-run health-care system a disaster.

David Vitter
"I’ve been doing everything I can to stop this bill dead in it’s (sic) tracks. Will you help me keep up the fight against government-run health care with a quick and secure donation to my campaign?"

Olympia Snowe
"Let's get off timetables and timeframes, because they certainly don't work and they haven't worked."

Susan Collins
"I am however opposed to the bill that the House has produced, which not only wasn't bipartisan, but is enormously expensive."

Thad Cochran
“We are not a one-party ruled country. Nobody is endowed with the powers of a king in this country. If this health care bill does not pass the test of democracy, it will not go into effect.”

Roger Wicker
“We can make changes on an incremental basis. But, if we have a wholesale surrender to a British or Canadian style system, we may never be able to turn back the clock.”

Kit Bond
"I support reform that lowers health care costs, increases access and improves quality, but I cannot embrace a budget-busting government takeover of health care that forces millions off of the health care they currently have and empowers bureaucracy instead of patients and doctors."

Mike Johanns (Written)
“Almost seven out of ten Nebraskans who have private insurance they like should plan on losing it and getting dumped onto the government plan if this passes. And even though you have coverage, keeping doctors and hospitals open in our communities will be a struggle when the profit margins turn negative.”

John Ensign (Written)
“My vision for health care is just that; reforming the system, not creating a new government-run program that will end up hurting millions of Americans and their choice in health insurance.”

Judd Gregg
"The way it gets an advantage over the private system is it controls prices, and it puts a bureaucrat between you and your doctor, and it basically leads, inevitably, to a system like they have in England."

Richard Burr
"We're leaving to an elected official the ability at any point now, five years from now ten years from now, to write the rules on mandates in a way the private sector couldn't compete with the government option, that's just not a smart thing for the congress to do. It's ok if you want to have a government option but you've got to leave the private sector private."

George Voinovich
“Americans are paying attention, and are asking how in the world can this government of ours - with the financial difficulties we have - continue to spend and borrow, taking on new health care responsibilities at a time when we can't handle the responsibilities we already have.”

Jim Inhofe
“We can stall it. And that’s going to be a huge gain for those of us who want to turn this thing over in the 2010 election.”

Tom Coburn
You know, this debate isn’t about health care. Health care’s the symptom. The debate is an uncontrolled federal government that’s going to run--50 percent of everything we’re spending this year we’re borrowing from the next generation.

Lindsey Graham
"The reason you're not going to have a government run health care pass the Senate is because it would be devastating for this country,"

Jim DeMint
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

John Thune
"You have to believe the government can do a better job of running health care. I don't."

Lamar Alexander
"And the second thing we thought we ought to point out the damage that a government-run program would do.... And I think we've been very successful with that.... I hope we've slowed down these unwise ideas that have come out. We haven't been as successful as I'd like us to be, so we're going to keep trying."

Bob Corker
“The Federal government is trying to off-load a big part of the burden to the states. Governor (Phil) Bredesen calls it the mother of all unfunded mandates. And a huge surtax would be put on small businesses and that is a third concern. The greatest health care system in the world today exists in America.”

Kay Bailey Hutchison
“Any reforms must reduce costs and increase access - this will not be accomplished through a government takeover of our health care system."

John Cornyn
"…while 'there’s a lot of middle ground where we can meet, I don’t see how we can make much headway' unless the public insurance option is off the table entirely."

Orrin Hatch
“…they want to have some sort of a version of an employer mandate. It's a job-killing part -- approach to the bill. If they do that, then guess who gets hurt the worst? It'll be the -- it'll be the low-income workers. They'll either lose their jobs or be cut in pay or the business will go overseas. I mean, let's be honest about it. It's going to kill jobs.”

Robert Foster Bennett
“Right now, nearly 1.8 million Britons are waiting for hospital or outpatient treatments at any given time. Let's realize that the American voter will never stand for the kind of rationing by delay that seems to have crept into every other government-run health care system."

Mike Enzi (Written)
“For millions of Americans, the government-run plan would turn into a bureaucratic nightmare, with the efficiency and customer service of the Department of Motor Vehicles or the IRS. Washington bureaucrats would literally decide whether patients would live or die by rationing newer, more expensive therapies.”

John Barrasso
"A government plan though isn’t competition. A government is never a competitor, it is a predator."