Americans keep telling me they hate government. I always tell them: "Man, I've got a country for you: Go to Afghanistan; they don't have one." So if you're of that ilk, yes, you can have your private paradise, but if you're comfortable with government, then go with government.

We are the only nation where paper is still the mainstay in the private insurance industry.

The issue of universal coverage is not a matter of economics. Little more than 1 percent of GDP assigned to health could cover all. It is a matter of soul.

We have a nation where the elite thinks it's OK to advocate a war and send the lower-income people to do the fighting. It's natural for such a people to think that the lower-income people should also have a worse health care experience. And the other countries are not there - I always say, not there yet. I tell the Germans and the Swiss, "You're not there yet, but if you're not very, very careful, if we Americans come over there and rearrange ... your health care system, you will be just like us."

Everybody should have health care, on the one hand. But on the other hand, if you ask Americans, "Are you willing to pay for it?," they say no. So I've never been able to understand this contradiction.

The ACA is an ugly patch on an ugly system - and I don't think it's worth mentioning in the context of price or quality transparency.

The bad things are that our financing of health care is really a moral morass. It is a moral morass in the sense that it signals to the doctors and hospitals that human beings have different values depending on their income status.