Saturday, September 01, 2007

Giuliani on Healthcare

I missed this story on Giuliani, where he was speaking on health care reform in the US. I was shocked by some of his statements, the most profound of which I'll quote here. Note that when I say "profound," I mean it in the context of today's politics.

First:

To those who have followed the health care issue over the years and have learned to speak the language of health care reformers, Rudy Giuliani was saying everything wrong when he unveiled his reform plan this week.

He said that "Government cannot take care of you. You've got to take care of yourself."

He said the marketplace, not the government "nanny state," needs to do the work of fixing the nation's health care problems.

He said that "We've got to solve our health care problem with American principles, not the principles of socialism."

Then there's this beauty:

But just as important as details is Giuliani's frank language: "Americans believe in free-market solutions to the challenges we face, and I believe we can reduce costs, expand access to, and improve the quality of health care by increasing competition. America's health care system is being dragged down by decades of government-imposed mandates and wasteful, unaccountable bureaucracy."

It's not often that one hears a politician talking about getting government out of something, rather than getting government into it. Giuliani just jumped a bit in my opinion.

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