“In Britain, a government takeover of a bank last year helped to temporarily calm fears in the financial markets there. Nationalization may have a psychological impact as well, and Uncle Sam wrapping his arms around failing banks in this country might provide a big dose of confidence for the American consumer.”

“It is dispiriting to watch the cheerleaders of American exceptionalism pound their chests and insist that our citizens do not need the kind of system that virtually every other developed nation finds workable....As elected officials posture and temporize, families are bankrupted by health-care costs and forgo treatment they can’t afford. Statistical measures of the national health, from life expectancy to infant mortality, continue to be substandard. And because we have that system of checks and balances, in which movement usually happens slowly and sporadically, a great need for sweeping reform may be met with a jury-rigged bill neither sufficiently deep nor broad, which perhaps someday will give way to a better one, and then eventually a truly good one.”

“Why not just nationalize the banks?...People are angry. There’s so much taxpayer money going into the banks. Why shouldn’t the government — why shouldn’t you just fire the executives who wrecked these banks in the first place and tanked the world’s financial system in the process?”

“As a physician, you know, I felt like I understood the complexity of the problem. As an American citizen, I was rooting for the President to hit a home run. And frankly, at the end I was afraid that he whiffed on a lot of the things....We’re going to pay big time if we don’t get this [Obama’s health care plan]. I don’t think we’re going to be a great world power.”

“I don’t think that left to its own devices, capitalism moves along smoothly and everyone gets treated fairly in the process. Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody’s got to look over the shoulder of that child.”

“We’re the only industrialized democracy that doesn’t cover every citizen. That is immoral....To be a country this wealthy and be the only industrialized democracy that hasn’t figured out how to cover everyone.”

“I think there’s going to be an intense, partisan debate. But ultimately, David, there is just one fact I want to let everybody hear: We spend more than twice as much, per person, on health care in this country as the average of all other industrialized countries, yet we’re the only one that doesn’t have universal coverage. That’s a national shame and I think, ultimately, that’s what’s going to unite Democrats and Republicans.”