I think the whole debate politically about ending Medicare as we know it, I think we want to change Medicare.

We want to keep Medicare. I think we want to improve the delivery system.

My opinion is that in order to ever reach an agreement between the two parties, Congress is going to have to combine the best of what government can do with the best of what the private sector can do and put the two together.

The great challenge today I would just suggest to both my Democratic colleagues and my Republican friends and colleagues... is how do both political parties bridge the gap between the different political philosophies and produce health…

My answer would be yes, but you don't have to take my word for it.

Let me suggest it is a program that is more popular today than the Congress that wrote it.

I remember when I was in Congress when I wanted to stop something from happening, I used to offer an amendment to do a study, or maybe to do a demonstration program, hoping it never got completed.

The fundraising and the traveling, things she's done for the party, I mean, she's a real rock star on the fundraising circuit.

I think it's hers to lose. I think it's the consensus among Democrats that I've talked to that she's clearly in the lead, is clearly the person that they have to beat.

the program, over the years, has been one of the more successful partnerships between the government--not in direct subsidies, but merely in allowing companies to go to the private sector to use private capital which the Federal Government…

the amount that we have in so many of our programs is just incredible in comparison to this one.