NYCO transcribed a speech that Dean gave to doctors in December. As a friend of mine used to say, if this guy were president, his face would end up on a coin.

Alas.

The reason I started off with that is because this is not just a systems problem. It’s the system that has overtaken the human beings in the system - and the human beings are us, and the human beings are our patients. It’s not just a matter of fixing this, or having a tax to do that, or putting in a different system of this; or having a single-payer, or not a single-payer. It’s a fundamental disconnect among human beings, and this is not exclusive to medicine.

[...] So what’s happening in America, which you experience as a disconnect between patients and the physicians and the caregivers, is happening to everybody in America. We’re becoming cogs in a big corporate machine, aided by a president who thinks in that way, and doesn’t understand that human beings are what makes America, and that is the biggest problem.

[...] Part of the influence that being a physician has had on me as a politician is that I am a tremendous advocate for prevention and every program you can think of. I actually view a balanced budget as prevention.