Political Quotes

“in responding to what Senator Cantwell just said about the Congressional Budget Office, it indeed has been frustrating and bedeviling to run up against their inability to project these savings in a way that would allow us to--what we call in Washington--score them and get budget credit for them. But even though they have that difficulty, there are some very serious organizations that project that very significant savings of the kind I have mentioned--the $1 trillion savings--are possible. Some years ago the President's own Council of Economic Advisers estimated that we could do savings of $700 billion without affecting the quality of care in any way for the worse. The National Institute of Medicine has made several regular projections. The most recent one is $750 billion a year. The Institute of Medicine is pretty serious folks, and they are entitled to respect when they say we can have those kinds of savings. RAND Corporation--a lot of people know a lot about it--is a very expert organization. They have done two things. They looked at what we can save in health care, and then they looked at what we can save in health care plus an additional bit for dealing with waste and fraud. They gave ranges for the two. The midpoint of the range for savings is about $730 billion. If we add their suggestions on waste and fraud, the midpoint of their range goes to about $910 billion a year.…”