John B. Breaux

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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 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.

I do not think it was so much a problem with the prison as it was with people who ran the prison. It is not the physical plant that caused the problem. It is the people who were running the prison. If we do demolish a prison, are we not…

Suppose you have somebody who may not do that. Is there any provision in the bill that says what will happen to the company that does not abide by the plan? I believe in trust but verify. If you don't do what you say you are going to do…