Political Quotes

“I know that we can achieve, as far as I am concerned, the balanced budget that we talked about at the top of this hour if we continue making sure that we find the common ground, that we work overtime in making sure that the issues that we hold so dear, whether it be Medicare, Medicaid, environment, education; those are not just one party's issues or one branch of the Government's issues. They are everyone's issues, and we are working on them as well as anyone else is, and on Medicare I might say I think we have made some real progress. When the original debate started out on Medicare, we only learned this past April that in fact the President's trustees told us there was going to be a shortfall, Medicare would be out of business in 7 years. So I think we have done the bipartisan, correct thing in advancing legislation which will in fact make sure that Medicare is preserved, protected, and extended, but doing it; the way we take care of the problem I think is legislation that is going to eliminate the fraud, abuse and waste. I was amazed to find; I do not know if you were; that there is $30 billion a year now wasted in fraudulent, inflated claims and billing for services not rendered by providers.”