Prior to passage of Obamacare Americans spoke out against the individual mandate they didn't want to change the health care they had they didn't want a 3 000-page bill that empowered 15 Washington bureaucrats to decide the future of the doctor-patient relationship.

One of the jewels in the crown of Labour's time in office was the rescue of the National Health Service. As the Commonwealth Fund the London School of Economics and the Nuffield Foundation have all shown health reforms as well as additional investment were essential to improved outcomes especially for poorer patients.

Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.

When the Veterans Affairs Department implemented a program to provide home-based health care to veterans with multiple chronic conditions - many of the system's most expensive patients to treat - they received astounding results.

We are spending most of our time in American health care fixing the mistakes that either we in the profession are causing or our patients are without recognizing it causing to themselves.

Competition makes things come out right. Well what does that mean in health care? More hospitals so they compete with each other. More doctors compete with each other. More pharmaceutical companies. We set up war. Wait a minute let's talk about the patient. The patient doesn't need a war.

We should be concerned not only about the health of individual patients but also the health of our entire society.

The good physician treats the disease the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

People spending more of their own money on routine health care would make the system more competitive and transparent and restore the confidence between the patients and the doctors without government rationing.

A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce anymore than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient sit up on the table.

There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

The test of good manners is to be patient with the bad ones.

A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

A true friend freely advises justly assists readily adventures boldly takes all patiently defends courageously and continues a friend unchangeably.

Every therapeutic cure and still more any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance.

Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another.

I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient.

There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick.

I am about to get involved with the biggest cancer hospital in Norway. They are building a fitness center to work with patients. I will be a consultant.

In the investigation of a neurotic style of life we must always suspect an opponent and note who suffers most because of the patient's condition. Usually this is a member of the family.

The doubt of an earnest thoughtful patient and laborious mind is worthy of respect. In such doubt may be found indeed more faith than in half the creeds.

I have seen doctors in good faith leave patients on steroids for years thinking they are doing right. A friend of mine was on steroids for so long she has severe osteoporosis.