MTP Transcript for Feb. 4, 2007

SEN. EDWARDS: Yeah. I think—I think the—we don’t know, and you have to make a judgment as you go along, and that’s what I would do as president.

MR. RUSSERT: You said this about President Bush in answer to this question:

“ ‘You don’t believe President Bush is a good man in difficult circumstances trying to do the right thing?’ [Edwards was] asked.

“ ‘I don’t believe it. I don’t,’ Edwards said.”  You don’t believe he’s a good man, or you don’t think he’s trying to do the right thing?

SEN. EDWARDS: The context in which that discussion took place was I was describing what I wanted to see and, I think, most of America wanted to see from their president when he spoke about Iraq a few weeks ago. And his policy is obviously enormously important. But beyond that, I think what Americans want in their president, particularly in these hard—we’re in very difficult, historic times. I think they want a president that they feel like they can trust and who’s being open and honest with them about how difficult circumstances are, what the possibilities are, and to feel like, even though it’s hard, even though it’s difficult, and even though the president may not be doing what they would do under the same circumstances, that he’s a good and decent human being that they believe is trying to do everything he can. I did not see that in George Bush’s speech. What I saw in George Bush’s speech was a continuation of trying to sell the American people about what’s happening in Iraq.

MR. RUSSERT: We’re going to take a quick break and come back and talk about health care and a whole lot more. More of our conversation with John Edwards. Decision 2008, Meet the Candidates, will continue after this.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Meet the Candidates 2008, presidential candidate John Edwards.

More of our conversation after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back. Senator Edwards, Friday you spoke to the Democratic National Committee about health care. I want to show that clip and come back and talk about it.

(Videotape, DNC Winter Meeting, Friday)

SEN. EDWARDS: Can we finally say we stand now and forever for every single man, woman and child in America having health care, universal health care? We will leave no one behind. We will not allow a single family or a single child in America to not have health care coverage and to not have the health care that they need and deserve.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Universal health care, noble goal, but that’s 47 million more men, women and children. How much would that cost and what kind of plan would you propose?

SEN. EDWARDS: It’d cost between 90 and 120 billion a year once it’s—once it’s fully implemented. I will, on this show and tomorrow, be laying out details of a universal health care plan. Basically, we start with the problem, which are—we want to get—make sure that the 47 million people who don’t have health care coverage are covered immediately. Second, we want to do—deal with the costs that middle class families, who may have health care coverage but are worried about paying for it, worried about keeping it. Premiums are up 90 percent, literally 90 percent just over the last few years. So I want to do something to bring costs down for others. And we want to create some efficiencies that allow competition. And, and then finally—here, here’s the bottom line. We want to make sure everybody’s covered, we want to help middle class families with the costs, we want—we want to try to create competition that doesn’t exist today. And I think the best, most effective way to do that I—which is what my plan will be as I lay it out tomorrow, is we take the 46 million, 47 million people who don’t have health care coverage, we expand Medicaid, we provide subsidies for people who don’t have coverage. We ask employers to play a bigger role, which means they either have to have coverage, or they have to buy into what we’re calling health markets. We’re going to create health markets all across the country which will help provide some of these efficiencies. One of the choices, by the way, available in these health markets is the government plan. So people who like the idea of a single-payer insurer health plan, that is actually one of the alternatives that people can choose. They’ll be allowed to choose. We expand SCHIP; we expand Medicaid. The bottom line is we’re asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country. Employers, those who are in the medical insurance business, employees, the American people—everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you be willing to raise taxes in order to help pay for this?

SEN. EDWARDS: Yes, we’ll have to raise taxes. The, the only way you can pay for a health care plan, from 90--that costs anywhere from $90 billion to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source. The revenue source for paying for the plan that I’m proposing is, is first we get rid of George Bush’s tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year. This plan, in and of itself, creates some efficiencies and helps to reduce the cost of health care globally in America. And then, finally, we need to do a much better job of collecting the taxes that are—that are already owed. And a very specific example of something we should do, we should have brokerage houses report the capital gains that, that people are incurring, because we’re losing billions and billions of dollars in tax revenue, and billions and billions of dollars from capital gains not being reported.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’d be willing to increase taxes to provide health care?

SEN. EDWARDS: Yes, absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: What about Social Security and Medicare? There’s 40 million people on Social Security and Medicare now. The next 15 years it’s going to go to 80 million. The chairmen of the Federal Reserve say, if we do nothing, you’ll have to raise taxes by a third and cut all the rest of government by 50 percent in order to meet those demands and expectations of the entitlement programs.

SEN. EDWARDS: Yes. Well, we have a huge challenge on this front. I think the starting place is Medicare, not Social Security, simply because Social Security is stronger, longer—significantly longer than Medicare. So let me, if I can, start with, with Medicare. You know, the, the—Medicare has very serious short-term, intense financial problems, and there—and there are things we can do that we’re not doing, which is—we ought to have much better chronic care management than we have today. We ought to be investing in a serious and systemic way in preventative care, which we’re not doing today. And we have significant fraud and abuse in the Medicare system. It’s—every study that’s been done demonstrates that. So I think there are things we can do to strengthen Medicare. And we ought to be using like, for example, in my universal health care plan, we create these health markets which require providers to, to compete against each other. We ought to be using the power of the federal government to negotiate better prices in Medicare. And it was a—it was a foolish thing, in the Medicare prescription drug law that was passed, which I voted against, to not allow the government to use its market power to negotiate better prices. And those are all things we can do that will help, help strengthen Medicare.

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