Week in political quotes: Health Care

LIN TV News

John Perry, Digital Media Political Producer

Updated: Mar 29, 2012 11:29 AM

(LIN) – The controversial 2010 health care reform bill finally got its day in the Supreme Court on Monday, and as expected, it generated quite a buzz from the political establishment.

"I criticized the Affordable Care Act and the very thing that I criticized is what's going to save my life.  Because President [Barack] Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, I get to keep my house, I won't go bankrupt, my kids are going to get to go to college and I am going to live."-- Spike Dolomite Ward, a cancer patient, in a statement in support of the health care reform bill outside of the Supreme Court.

"On issue after issue, ‘Obamacare’ shows not only insensitivity to faith but it shows outright hostility to the practice of faith in God throughout our country."--Ralph Reid, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, in a statement outside of the Supreme Court.

" I think it is true that if most questions in life are matters of degree...the young person who is uninsured is uniquely proximately very close to affecting the rates of insurance and the costs of providing medical care in a way that is not true in other industries. That's my concern in the case."--Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, emerging as a key swing vote in the health reform case.

"If the government can do this, what else can it not do?"--Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, on the individual mandate of the reform law.

"This is not about politics. It's about people."--Dr. Alice Chen, executive director of Doctors for America, a group supporting the law.

"We are calling on the court today: Declare this law unconstitutional."--Former 2012 presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., in a rally outside of the Supreme Court.

"There's one candidate who's uniquely disqualified to make the case. That's the reason I'm here and he's not."--2012 presidential candidate former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., referring to rival and fellow presidential candidate former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

"I'm not going to worry too much about what Rick is saying these days. I know that when you fall further and further behind you get a little more animated."--Romney, firing back at Santorum.

"Gov. Romney was so much involved in creating just about this exact law that his attacking it now is going to have virtually no credibility."--Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in a press conference.

"If I can't put food on the table for my children, how can I pay for health care coverage? What moron came up with that idea?"--Jan Gonzales, a health reform bill detractor. Gonzales has been without insurance for seven years.

"It just rolls off the tongue much easier than 'We love the Affordable Care Act.'"--Lori Lodes, a supporter of the health care law, who prefers use the term “Obamacare.”

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