2011 GOP debate at Dartmouth College, NH: on Health Care

Jon Huntsman: ObamaCare can't be waived without repealing the mandate

HUNTSMAN: It's disingenuous to just say that you can waive it all the way. The mandate will be in place. The IRS is already planning on 19,500 new employees to administer that mandate. That will stay, and that's the ruinous part of ObamaCare. Mitt, your plan is not going to do anything.

ROMNEY: I said I'd find a way to repeal it. Did you miss that?

HUNTSMAN: It doesn't repeal the mandate.

SANTORUM: Through reconciliation you can repeal the taxes, you can repeal the spending, and therefore the mandate has no teeth because there's no tax penalty if you don't enforce.

Michele Bachmann: Don't let a federal political board make medical decisions

BACHMANN: We have a big problem today when it comes to Medicare, because we know that nine years from now, the Medicare hospital Part B Trust Fund is going to be dead flat broke. So we've got to deal with this issue. I was in the White House with President Obama this summer. We asked him, "President Obama, what is your plan to save Medicare?" He said ObamaCare. I think that senior citizens across the country have no idea that President Obama plans for Medicare to collapse, and instead everyone will be pushed into ObamaCare. The way that ObamaCare runs, there's a board called IPAB. It's made up of 15 political appointees. These 15 political appointees will make all the major health care decisions for over 300 million Americans. I don't want 15 political appointees to make a health care decision for a beautiful, fragile, 85-year-old woman who should be making her own decision.

Mitt Romney: ObamaCare waivers on Day One; repeal bill on Day Two

ROMNEY: Rick, you're absolutely right. On day one, granting a waiver to all 50 states doesn't stop in its tracks entirely ObamaCare. That's why I also say we have to repeal ObamaCare, and I will do that on day two with a reconciliation bill, because, as you know, it was passed by reconciliation, 51 votes. We can get rid of it with 51 votes. We have to get rid of ObamaCare and return to the states the responsibility [for healthcare]. We all agree about repeal and replace. I put together a plan that says what I'm going to replace it with: to solve the problem of health care, to get it to work like a market.

Rick Perry: States innovate on healthcare; feds are one-size-fits-all

PERRY: In the state of Texas, from the standpoint of what we've done to make access of health care better, we passed the most sweeping tort reform in the nation in 2003. We also passed Healthy Texas, which expands the private sector insurance, and we've driven down the cost of insurance by 30%. But the real issue for us is Medicaid and how to get the flexibility on Medicaid so that the innovators can occur in the states. I can promise you whether it's Governor Jindal or myself or Susana Martinez over in New Mexico, that's where you'll find the real innovation in health care. The way to deliver health care more efficiently, more effectively is to block grant those dollars back to the state and keep this federal government that has this one-size-fits-all mentality from driving the thought process that we've seen that's destroyed health care in this country today.

Rick Perry: Block-grants to states allows real healthcare innovation

A: They haven't anywhere near given the states [enough flexibility]. I think what you should see is the block granting, not having to go to Washington, D.C. and ask them "Mother, may I?" every time you come up with a concept or an idea. Block granting back to the states, I'll guarantee you the governors and their innovators in their states will come up with ways to better deliver health care more efficiently, more effectively, more cost-efficiently. And that's what this country's looking for, is a president who understands that we have these 50 laboratories of innovation. Free up these states from Washington, D.C.'s one-size-fits-all.

Rick Santorum: Liberal states won't waive ObamaCare; we must repeal it