"By now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics,"
President Obama, during his State of the Union address, Jan. 27, 2010
"I don't see [failure] as a possibility. We will have something."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
"Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much. In the past year, more than 3 million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren. … Most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government."
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in the Republican response to Obama's State of the Union address
"The president says people would like his plan if only they understood it. But the American people do understand it, and they don't like it. The latest CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken last week found 69 percent of Americans want Congress to either draft a new bill or drop the issue altogether."
Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on free-market ideas in the health sector
"I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It's interesting; he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour."
Chris Matthews, the host of "Hardball" on MSNBC
"Offering the choice of a public plan helps us achieve the goals of health reform — covering everyone and controlling costs. A Congressional Budget Office analysis of an early proposal concluded that premiums for the public option would average 10 percent lower than premiums for typical private coverage. The CBO also estimated that one-third of Americans who qualify for help with their health insurance premiums would enroll in this cost-effective choice."
Karen Davenport, director of health policy at the Center for American Progress; Davenport served on the White House Health Care Reform Task Force in 1993
"A public plan will push costs to the private plans and ultimately make them uncompetitive."
Gail Wilensky, a senior fellow at Project HOPE
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