John Rother Quotes (20 Quotes)

We do have overall growth. But it's not translating into family income. The haves are getting richer and ordinary people are seeing their wage gains go to rising health-care costs.

What we find is that these price increases are pretty much across the board -- it doesn't seem to make much difference what category of drug is involved or what manufacturer. Obviously, those people that are chronically ill, and particularly those who suffer from more than one chronic illness, they are getting hit pretty hard.

I remember quite distinctly her coming to me quite agitated, emotionally distressed, and at that point confided to me that she had indeed been beaten by her husband and that she had decided to leave the marriage.

We really need to think about four pillars for retirement. ... The first pillar is Social Security. The second is individual pensions or savings. The third is health insurance, very important. And the fourth, surprisingly, is the continued ability to earn, because many people are going to need to find some way of bringing in earnings after they pass normal retirement age, and we think that that should be more and more emphasized in terms of getting ready for that possibility.

State and federal policymakers should seize the rare opportunity afforded by positive demographic, socioeconomic, and health trends to make essential changes in the nation's long term care programs.

Even if we're extraordinarily successful ... at keeping the per capita costs limited, there has to be some way to finance care for that many people.

Drug prices are going up faster than inflation and we need to do more to keep them affordable.

If only 20 percent or even 30 percent of seniors sign up, that is every negative for the future of the program because the people most likely to sign up are the people with high drug expenses, and you don't have insurance if you don't spread the risk among people who are healthy.

Every dollar in health care that we spend is somebody's income and they typically resist efforts to lower that. Ultimately, this is a question of political will.

That was a real surprise. Generic drug prices have been kept down substantially compared to previous years. I'm not sure I can explain that, but it's certainly good news for consumers and more reason than ever to switch to a generic drug if you have that option.

I think the industry is more concerned about shareholders than they are about the patients who take the pills.

What we are seeing is a steady series of price increases for drugs. Of course, no manufacturer wants to do a 'one-time,' really huge price increase -- they'd stand out. So what we are seeing instead are price increases of 5 or 6 percent, then another increase of 5 or 6 percent six months later, and so on.

This was a program enacted as part of a very high-profile, partisan controversy, ... And the other thing is, the benefit is not what people had hoped to see.

Beyond that, the group in the bottom 25 percent, people with family incomes under 19,000, are generally in trouble, ... They do not have savings, do not have pensions, they're not prepared to retire.

The report, while being good news for many, also points out that if the issues of the growing and aging population's future long term care needs, are not addressed today, the choices will be limited to the wealthy and highly educated. Access to choices for the population at large will be restricted to those who can afford alternatives to nursing homes such as assisted living or home and community based services. Any changes must extend the benefits of improved health and increased choice to those who have been left out thus far.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I think we can see a path to a bipartisan bill.

the middle 50 percent we can hope they'll be OK if things go right.

Assisted living is becoming so popular that everyone's kind of changing the sign on their door, no matter what they provide. We thought it was important to create a clear standard ... so that hopefully the label of assisted living won't be used in a way to mislead people.

Brand name drugs have become substantially less affordable for consumers at the same time they are becoming ever more essential to good medical care.

What happened was the debate got polarized very early and the opportunity to find the middle ground was missed.