The Best of Notable Quotables; December 19, 1994
Table of Contents:
- The Best of Notable Quotables; December 19, 1994
- Sore Losers Award
- Honey, I shrunk the Democratic Party
- Oliver Stone
- I Still Hate Reagan
- Apolitical Observers
- Media Hero
- Flatliner Award
- Rodney Dangerfield
- Politics of Meaninglessness
- Clinton Enemies
- You're No Anita Hill
- No Money Down
- Good Morning Morons
- Damn Conservatives
- Iron Curtain Award
- Which Way Is It?
- Dumbest Quote of the Year
- 1994 Award Judges
Flatliner Award (for Brain-Dead Health Reporting)
“Everyone
is applauding, I think, in the health care community, the emphasis on
universal access, because they know that unless they’re going to let
some people just die in the streets, it makes sense to get medical care
early, when it’s going to be more effective and less costly....the
insurance companies are the focal point for the dynamics of denial that
are part of our present for-profit system.”
– ABC medical editor Dr. Tim Johnson, January 26 World News Tonight.
Runners-up:
“Bryant, a
Democrat can get insurance reform. It will take a Republican President
to get universal coverage to prove that it’s not a Neanderthal party ten
years from now.”
– NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert on
Today, September 7.
“The Clinton plan proposes totally free
coverage, no co-payment for preventive measures....The single-payer
plan, and the House Education and Labor Committee would add free
family-planning services and contraceptives for poor women.”
– ABC
reporter Ann Compton, May 26 Good Morning America.
“Most of the
riders saw themselves as missionaries spreading the word about how the
current health care system had failed them. Some were Republican, others
Democrat; some were against abortion, others supported abortion rights.
Most said they were not political. Their main focus was on assuring
that every American be covered by health insurance. In their view, the
Health Security Express was a nonpartisan effort to persuade Congress to
pass legislation that provides universal coverage.”
– Washington Post
Health section Editor Abigail Trafford on the Health Care Express,
August 9.
Reporter Tom Pettit: “Of all of the states, Hawaii has
the most coverage, the closest thing to universal coverage, which the
President has made the centerpiece of his health plan. Since 1974,
twenty years ago, Hawaii has required employers to insure their workers
and the state to cover the unemployed.”
Governor John Waihee III: “We cover actually about 97, 98 percent of our population.”
Pettit: “That is why Hawaii is a paradise, I guess.”
– NBC Nightly News story, January 29.