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I believe our health care system is in drastic need of innovative, patient-centered reforms that encourage competition and increase consumer choice, not the bloated bureaucracy, tax increases, rationing, and mandates in the president's government takeover.

What we're really trying to do is level out the health care system. It has gotten so one-sided as more and more people have been put into managed care; in fact, about 70 percent of the patients in the country.

Part of me thinks that innovation, real innovation in health care delivery, needs to happen from the bottom to the top.

That's one of the ironies of our time: Right when we're on the edge of serious improvements in health care, we're also cooking the planet.

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coordination.

In our own state, we came up with, I think, what was a very novel approach to closing the gap on the uninsured. To harmonize medical records - which was a major step in getting costs out of the system.

By training and keeping doctors in underserved areas, we're working toward a goal of increasing access to quality health care for more of our communities.

I also rise today in strong support of forward movement on the implementation of health information technology, which has the potential to save the United States billions of dollars in health care costs each year.

We're trying to take a leadership role in solving the nation's health-care crisis. We want everybody in this country to have health insurance.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.