This would threaten not just the health of Americans but also the strength of the American economy. Health-care spending already accounts for 17 perc… - Ted Kennedy

Incremental measures won't suffice anymore. We need to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt and all others since have failed. The conditions now are better than ever. In Barack Obama, we have a president who's announced that he's determined to sign a bill into law this fall. And much of the business community, which has suffered the economic cost of inaction, is helping to shape change, not lobbying against it. I know this because I've spent the past year, along with my staff, negotiating with business leaders, hospital administrators, and doctors. As soon as I left the hospital last summer, I was on the phone, and I've kept at it. Since the inauguration, the administration has been deeply involved in the process. So have my Senate colleagues—in particular Max Baucus, the chair of the Finance Committee, and my friend and partner in this mission, Chris Dodd. Even those most ardently opposed to reform in the past have been willing to make constructive gestures now.

The CBO report specifically confirms that the long-term effect of the President's plan will be to reduce the Federal deficit. While there are differences between the OMB estimates and the CBO estimates, there is broad and welcome agreement by both budget agencies that the President's plan can be paid for by savings in the current system. The differences between the estimates are small, as the CBO analysis itself states. With further refinements in the cost data, the differences will be reduced. Only minor adjustments are needed in the program to assure that there is no increase in the deficit, even in the early years of the program. For example, one significant difference between the OMB and CBO is the CBO believes employers will be able to manipulate the system to achieve greater savings than they are entitled to. By improving the enforcement mechanisms in the bill, that gamesmanship can be reduced or eliminated. On the technical issue of budget treatment, CBO has been careful to describe the premium payments as receipts, not taxes. In asserting that these premiums should be part of the Federal budget, I believe that CBO is wrong. Premiums under the Health Security Act are paid to private insurance companies, not to the Federal Government. Never before has money not paid to the Government and not spent by the Government been included in the budget.

The debate surrounding the Impeachment Clause was significant. By first expanding and then narrowing the clause, the Framers clearly intended that the President could be removed from office for 'crimes' beyond treason and bribery, but that he could not be removed for inefficient administration or administration inconsistent with the dominant view in Congress. Impeachment was not to be the illegitimate twin of the English vote of 'No Confidence' under a parliamentary system of government. The doctrine of separation of powers was paramount. The President was to serve at the pleasure of the people, not the pleasure of the Congress, and certainly not at the pleasure of a willful partisan majority in the House of Representatives.