First of all, pharmaceutical costs are the single fastest-growing part of our health care budget.

- John Kitzhaber

The reason prescription drugs are so important at the state level is because they're eating up the Medicaid budget.

- John Kitzhaber

I don't want to suggest that controlling pharmaceutical costs is the answer to what ails the U.S. health care system. It isn't.

- John Kitzhaber

States, virtually all of them, have a constitutional requirement to operate on a balanced budget.

- John Kitzhaber