"I will try to be very brief."
"I am interested in improvement, not elimination."
"the sequester was designed to be stupid. It was designed to be unacceptable as an alternative, therefore forcing the Super Committee and the Congress to come to a more reasonable alternative."
"Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for having this hearing."
"cutting spending generally without dealing with the health care cost is like invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor."
"I, too, believe programs should work."
"the primary goal there is to reduce the deficit by about $2.1 trillion."
"I would argue we do not have a spending problem; we have a health care problem."
"I realize I am almost out of time, but my only disagreement with that would be if we only focus on the entitlement Medicare, then all we are going to do is shift the growing health care cost to somebo..."
"It seems to me that this has been a fascinating and important discussion, and there is an important issue here that you guys can help us with."
"If we cut all those other areas and do not do something about the overall health care expenditure, we are never going to solve this problem."