MSNBC "Interview With Senator Bernie Sanders" - Transcript

Interview

Copyright ©2009 by Federal News Service, Inc., Ste. 500, 1000 Vermont Ave, Washington, DC 20005 USA. Federal News Service is a private firm not affiliated with the federal government. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold or retransmitted without the written authority of Federal News Service, Inc. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as a part of that person's official duties. For information on subscribing to the FNS Internet Service at www.fednews.com, please email Carina Nyberg at cnyberg@fednews.com or call 1-202-216-2706.

MS. BREWER: Let me bring in Senator Bernie Sanders. He is the independent Senator from Vermont and joins us via Skype.

Senator, good to talk to you today. I know that you're moving forward on this belief that Americans have a right to health care. In that case, does it also include a responsibility for health care, a responsibility for healthy living?

SEN. SANDERS: Absolutely. There's no question we can make huge progress in disease prevention, in tackling obesity, in tackling smoking, in tackling diet. There's a lot of work to be done in that area that I think will not only make us a healthier society, but also save substantial amounts of money in health care costs.

MS. BREWER: We've talked about places where people are forced into medical insurance, places like Massachusetts. Do you anticipate the kind of overhaul that would not only say to people, "There's a mandate; you must have health insurance the way you have to have car insurance if you drive a car;" but also, "You must be living a health lifestyle?"

SEN. SANDERS: Well, I don't know that you force people to live a healthy lifestyle; we all could do better. I think what we can say -- that, as a society, we have not done a particularly good job in encouraging people to be healthy. For example, you turn on the TV on a Saturday morning, and what you're seeing is these large companies are advertising sugar-based cereals to our kids. The food that we eat is not particularly good. I think we could do a lot better than that. I think we could do a lot better in terms of quality control and understand why, in certain parts of this country, people are getting quality health care for a lot less cost than other parts of the country where people are paying a lot better for worse outcomes.

But in terms of the public plan, here's the bottom line. What recent polls suggest is that the overwhelming majority of the American people want a public option similar to Medicare. People do not by and large trust private health insurance companies because they know that the function of a private health insurance company is not to provide quality health care, it's to make as much money as is possible.

MS. BREWER: All right. So --

SEN. SANDERS: Now, if I believe that -- yeah.

MS. BREWER: -- so this public option, which has become the focus of so much debate today, I want to play what your colleague, Senator Judd Gregg, also of New England, said on MSNBC earlier today.

SEN. JUDD GREGG (R-NH): (From videotape.) You don't need a public option at all. In fact, a public option is simply a stocking horse for a single-payer plan, a system like they have in Canada or England where the government basically manages all of health care and you end up with rationing and delays. And as Senator McConnell said, you end up with a bureaucrat between you and your doctor.

MS. BREWER: Are we going to end up with rationing, Senator Sanders?

SEN. SANDERS: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Two things. I mean, in a short sentence, Judd was wrong in about four different areas. First of all, in Canada, they provide universal health care to every man, woman and child and spend about 50 percent, almost half of what we spend. And the people in Canada are quite satisfied with what they have, and they don't -- and they don't have the government dictating care, it is done by physicians.

In this country, by the way, HMOs, in many instances, and private insurance companies do dictate care. But what Judd is really saying is that, on a level playing field, he doesn't want to see Medicare compete against the private health insurance companies. You know why? Because the administrative costs in Medicare are substantially less than in the private insurance companies, and the public plan will in fact win out because people will want to join the public plan. And I think if people want to join the public plan, they should be allowed to do that.

MS. BREWER: It's interesting that you say that about administrative costs because one of the things that -- when you talk to doctors they complain about the most -- one of the things that they blame for driving up the costs of health care is medical malpractice insurance and, they say, sue-happy patients. So if you're going to reform health care and overhaul the system, does that also include tort reform?

SEN. SANDERS: Well, I think it may, but that's actually a small part of the problem. The real part of the problem is we have 1,300 private insurance companies with thousands of plans, and each one of those plans requires an enormous amount of administration. In the last 30 years, we have seen a -- 25 times more people have gone into health care bureaucracy to bill us to tell us that we're not covered when we thought they were covered that have become physicians. So you're seeing an incredible bureaucracy in health care administration, and we can save hundreds of billions of dollars if we move aggressively against that.

MS. BREWER: Senator Sanders, I appreciate your time. I'm glad that Skype worked through the whole interview, and look forward to talking to you agains soon, sir. Thanks.

SEN. SANDERS: Thank you very much.

Source