high as a kite. >> his poor dad took flak from that. >> i know. the kid -- he was fine. the dentist lost his license. that does it for "360." thanks for watching. larry king starts now. see you tomorrow might. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> larry: tonight, the debate over health care reform rages as thousands of americans stand in line for hours, even days seeking medical services they can't afford. there are more angry questions about why health care costs so much. and what washington should do about it. former dnc chairman howard dean squares off with former gop senate majority leader bill frist. they're both doctors and they have very different prescriptions for curing our ailing health care system. and then later, michael jackson's personal physician dr. conrad murray finally breaks his silence. why is he speaking out now?

>> i told the truth, and i have faith the truth will prevail. >> larry: what could this videotape message mean for the investigation and dr. murray's role possibly in it? all that and more next on "larry king live." well, everyone talks about the weather, no one does anything about it, that's an old mark twain statement. right now that weather is affecting our signal in vermont because of those weather storms up along the east coast. we'll check in with howard dean in a moment. joining us right away from nashville, bill frist, professor, former senate majority leader, heart transplant surgeon. a new book of his coming out in october, "a heart to serve: a passion to bring health, hope and healing" due in october. the health care debate as the so-called public option. sunday on cnn, hss secretary kathleen sebelius said it was

not essential. today she's totally behind it. now let's watch. >> here's the bottom line. absolutely nothing has changed. we continue to support the public options that will help lower costs, give american consumers more choice, and keep private insurers honest. if people have other ideas about how to accomplish these goals, we'll look at those too. but the public option is a very good way to do this. >> larry: senator frist, do you like the public option or not? >> larry, i don't think it's necessary. the public option, if you look at it very simply is a single-payer system that is nationalized. and i think what it does, it crowds out a lot of the innovation, a lot of the creativity, a lot of the change that we know is necessary to keep up with the biological systems that we have to treat

the health care preventions through wellness. >> larry: doesn't it force the other insurance companies to reduce cost when the government is one of their competitors? >> that's what the line is. if you pay the public plan or the national plan, single-payer plan would pay physicians less, would pay hospitals less by definition, and the real fear and i think it would happen because we saw it happen, actually through a very similar plan here in tennessee is that it causes the employer-sponsored insurance industry to diminish because all of those people on those more expensive plans get dumped on to a private plan. over a period of time, the public plan, that public plan over a period of time continues to grow and grow and grow. the private insurance diminishes, and it's in the private insurance market the innovation and the choice and then you end up with a single-payer national plan that people don't have the choice they would otherwise. >> larry: we also, -- obviously there's something wrong if 48 million people aren't insured.

if all other major civilized countries have some sort of national health insurance and we don't. do you think philosophically that we're entitled to health? >> i do. i think that the time has come in a nation that is as rich as ours that everybody's entitled to affordable access to some kind of health insurance policy. you said we have 48 million people uninsured, we have about 20 million people who are hard core uninsured today. and i think in the 21st century in the united states of america, now is the time to bring them into the insurance market, and focus on how to have those insurance markets work. have more competition, more transparency, more choice. you're right, we have huge health care problems today, but the real answer to me is not more public health, not more single-payer, not more national health, but more transparency where you can empower consumers to make choices for what is best for them. and then address the uninsured issue, the 20 million hard core. but you don't have to do what president obama has promised people in the past and that is

to give all 46 million people a very expensive health care plan like the president has or the united states senator has. >> larry: but you are not as some on the left are charging saying the republicans just don't want health care reform? >> no. listen. i was majority leader of the united states senate and under our leadership, under republican leadership and working with president bush, we passed about a $600 billion health care plan that gave affordable access to prescription drugs to 40 million seniors under medicare who didn't have it. so no, i am hard charging for reform, but i want to do it in a smarter way with smarter purchasing, more choice instead of having centralized bureaucratic control from the top. come back to the doctor. come back to the patient. >> larry: moments ago, senator, congressman barney frank of massachusetts wrapped up a town hall meeting on health care in dartmouth, massachusetts. watch this exchange. >> why do you continue to support the policy as obama has

expressly supported this policy? why are you supporting it? >> let me -- i will -- when you ask me that question, i'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. on what planet do you spend most of your time? you want me to answer the question? yes, as you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the nazis, my answer to you is as i said before, it is a tribute to the first amendment that this kind of vile contemptible nonsense is to freely -- trying to have a conversation with you would be

like trying to argue with a dining room table. i have no interest in doing it. >> larry: we are now connected with governor dean. you can see a lot of this occurring across the country and comparing the president to hitler and conceptions like that. how did it get to this, howard? >> look, i think this is very complicated. and do you want to talk about this or talk about health care? i'm happy to talk about this -- >> larry: i do, but health care has come under this kind of concept. >> this has nothing to do with health care, larry. bi health care. this is a group of very angry frustrated people, well-organized. this kind of anger politics has been going on for 30 years. look, we've had a huge shift in this country as a result of this past election. for the first time, more than -- more people under the age of 35 voted than over the age of 65, and there are a lot of people who are kind of feeling adrift, they're in a big recession they didn't cause and they're angry about that. this is a much bigger deal than health care, all this kind of mass anger. it didn't have a lot to do with health care. >> larry: have you been listening -- i know we had a bad connection or couldn't make a

connection because of the weather. >> i could hear everything. >> larry: all right. what are your comments on what he said? >> well, first of all, i always enjoy bill because he doesn't exaggerate, doesn't give the partyline so much as some of the other folks i get on the show. it's great to be on with you, again. i think that's true, the bill is a form of nationalized government-run health care. that's what medicare is. we have 50 million people in the medicare system, we have a veterans affair system which is very, very good. and so we already have nationalized care. there's already another group of people, of which senator frist was one, congress has a socialized health care. if you get -- go downstairs to the doctor, go to walter reid hospital, that's all government-run. the question is here, who is going to choose? my question is, why can't we given the successes of this national health care system, why can't we let more americans make their own choices? the truth is, not very many people will actually choose the public option. senator frist talked about the medicare part "d" which has been

very successful, only 6% choose the public option there, but to have the public option, if you can't get into insurance company. if they cut you off as unfortunately so many of them do if you get sick. if you move, if you lose your job, the public option is always there, another wonderful thing about medicare, they don't charge you any differently whether you're healthy or sick. those are the things -- >> larry: hold on. >> that's the way the health insurance should be -- >> larry: hold on, howard. let me let senator frist respond. we'll be back right away. i was in the grocery store when i had a heart attack. my daughter was with me. i took a bayer aspirin out of my purse and chewed it. my doctor said the bayer aspirin saved my life.

please talk to your doctor about aspirin and your heart. i'm going to be grandma for a long time.

>> larry: senator frist, is governor dean right? haven't a lot of these federal programs worked? >> well, larry, he said medicare. medicare, i think, overall has worked pretty well. i think it's a great program. and as a physician, obviously, i had thousands of patients who are in it. he didn't mention any in health service, though, which is probably one of the most miserable, undersupported, inadequately-managed programs and it's a federal health program. and medicaid which has about 35 million people. it is a federal government program that is a federal state program. and he didn't mention that where physicians are getting paid 20% less what they are in the private sector. in a state like tennessee, people flee from medicaid only about 40% of the physicians in the tennessee have stayed in the program because they are underpaid and the ones that do stay -- >> bill, i don't mean to interrupt. but in fairness, every child, essentially every child in vermont has health insurance because of medicaid. it changes from state to state. >> no, it's very good, and i don't think you would want

medicaid to be the program throughout the country today. >> what we did is we raised reimbursement rates. you're right about that. in order to make it work for us -- >> that's what happened in tennessee in 1994, we put a universal coverage program in called tin care and howard you're familiar with it. and we extended coverage, it worked great for about three years. but after about four or five years, the cost went exactly what you said, you had to start escalating it and it ended up eight years later costing three times, both per capita and at the state level in just about drove the state bankrupt. an experiment that people were taken off because it failed. and america doesn't want to have an experiment that failed in tennessee to be taken nationally and that's what -- >> we're not talking about that. bill, we're not talking about that. >> no, you're choosing -- >> larry: let him speak, governor, let him talk. i mean, senator, let him talk. go ahead, howard.

>> you clearly believe that the federal government is the answer and you use medicare, which is a good -- >> no -- >> i'm saying you don't mention in the health service, you don't mention medicaid. >> larry: let him respond. let him respond. >> i don't think government is necessarily the answer, i think the american people are the answer. i think if you put two choices out there, the private sector and the public sector, they'll reform health care as they see fit. if the program is no good, they won't use it, just as they haven't used it very much in part "d" in health care. if it's great, the insurance companies are going to have to start behaving themselves and not cutting people off and doing these terrible things they do to people. let the american people choose. i think the american people deserve to have this choice. >> larry: all right, gentlemen, i'm sorry, we have limited time. we're going to do a lot more with both of you. quick question for each. are we going to get a program passed, howard? >> yes, a public option will be included in the final program, up to the american people to choose whether they want it or not and the president will sign it in december. >> and i agree -- >> larry: senator, are we going to get a plan? >> we will have a plan passed in november, about $800 billion,

it'll insure about 20 million more people, it won't cover everybody, it'll have a public plan, not howard's type as a backup plan as a fall back option. cooperative type plan. >> larry: one quick question, senator, before we leave, we understand from our crack staff that you took advantage of the cash for clunkers program. we understand you traded a 1991 chevy suburban for a 2009 prius. true or false? >> in tennessee the prius is for a republican -- you don't see a lot of republicans driving a prius, but i'm going to get 50 miles to the gallon, my 18-year-old suburban's going to have that junk put in it that's going to kill it. so i'm very sad. but the taxpayer gave me $6,000 to do it so i'm out there driving my prius. >> as a good democrat i'm about to do the same but i'm going to get a ford escape because i like to buy american. >> larry: he got you there. howard dean and bill frist going at it. thank you both, very much. congressman jesse jackson jr. will be live from a town hall meeting in chicago next.

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>> larry: we go now to a taun hall meeting in chicago with congressman jesse jackson jr., democrat of illinois, just wrapped up that meeting. congressman, you said you were going into this meeting expecting the best, prepared for the worst. what did you get? >> a civilized crowd as is the people of the second congressional district on the south side of chicago. the thoughtful conversation about health care for all americans, there was broad-based support for the president's plan, broad-based support for president barack obama's public option. and they want the president of the united states to remain firm on the question of the public option as the only method to take private insurers and bring down costs and help save the system and provide options for the american people. >> larry: congressman, if it didn't have that option, would you vote against it in the house? >> 160 members of congress have already signed a letter indicating without a strong public option from their perspective, including my

signature, that this bill is a nonstarter. the idea that 47 million americans have no form of health insurance whatsoever and the idea that we would create a public option to help bring down costs is something that should be broadly accepted by the american people. it is a market-based plan. it is a market-based solution. it's not socialized medicine. look at it this way, larry. there's federal express, there's u.p.s., and there's dhl. the public option is a stamp. it's e-mail, and because of the e-mail system and because of the post office, it keeps dhl from charging $100 for an overnight letter or u.p.s. for charging $100 for an overnight letter. because of the public option, some of us don't have a problem buying a stamp rather than going that route. but without the public option, in terms of health care, we will continue the same system that leaves 47 million americans uncovered. >> larry: is the president working the house enough? is he working congress enough? >> well, what i think the

president has set out to do and i hope he will continue to do is build a more perfect union for all americans. and that's a very difficult concept. no one said the concept of building a more perfect union would be easy. all citizens should enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality. he needs to stay right there, there should be no difference between a homeless person and someone who is working or someone who is affluent or someone in between their jobs. everyone deserves a health care of equal high quality and hr-3200 is the first step in that direction. it will not be the end of this debate, but it is a significant step in the right direction. >> larry: and are we going to get a new law by the end of november? >> well, that's our hope. this has been a very difficult august for members of congress, and so i'm sure many of them will be coming back to washington having heard from their constituents in more ways than i'm sure many of them wanted to hear during the summer recess and i hope they'll bring some of those thoughtful moments and some of that thoughtful impact from their constituents back to ultimately a piece of legislation that will be broad, cover every american, and will

put some parts of this debate behind us once and for all. what i do know is a lot of political capital by the president, the administration, by the congress has been spent on this debate. and what we cannot do is have a bill that leaves congress that does not cover everyone. we should put this debate behind us once and for all. >> larry: thanks, jesse, we'll be calling on you again. congressman jesse jackson jr. at a town hall in chicago. three more doctors coming, congressman ron paul, he's a doctor, dr. paul song and dr. sanjay gupta write their prescriptions for health care next.

>> larry: since most of tonight is devoted to medicine, we want to remind you that friday night a major program, the full hour dealing with prostate cancer and among the guests will be colin powell and michael milken, friday night, one hour devoted to prostate cancer. three more doctors join us, congressman ron paul, republican of texas, medical doctor, by the way he was a flight surgeon in the u.s. air force and an obgyn in private practice. here in l.a., dr. paul song, he supports the president's health care initiative, believes there must be a public option. and in atlanta our own dr. sanjay gupta, cnn chief medical correspondent and a practicing neurosurgeon. how will this debate about public access and the like effect you? will public option effect you, sanjay? >> probably not and the

president's said people who have private insurance and people who have access to private insurance and premiums are not above a certain percentage overall of their income aren't going to be eligible for a public option. there's a lot of people who it won't affect and i think that's important. there was all of this talk about people flooding the public option. not everyone's going to qualify, myself, included. you, as well, larry. >> larry: dr. song, you favor it, do you not? >> yes. a lot of the conservatives like to quote, in 2001, had an essay that basically said that the third-payer system we have right now was the most cost ineffective system that was available. but since that time, the insurance companies continue to grow, their overall profits have increased by over 400%. and the premiums have raised by greater than 87% during that time. and i think the big concern is that if we don't have a public option, all you're doing is putting more money into this system that will basically go to the insurance companies without

any regulation for patients. >> larry: congressman paul, you agree something's wrong and you don't like public option, what do you like? >> well, i'd like to see a little bit more freedom. most of the time people do say there's problems and nobody's denying that. but, you know, the problem is that we've had managed care, we've had government manipulation of medical care for 40 years now. so we can hardly say it's the private sector that has caused the trouble. so i would like to see renewal of a spirit of freedom in this country where we can trust the market but not trust the government because the government doesn't deliver. they've had medicare. it's broke. they have veterans care, it's a lousy system. nobody likes that. people aren't taken care of. but what do we do? we have rejected the notion of the church hospital. we've wiped them out of the business. we have schreiner hospitals, 22

of them that gives free care to all children. they are having trouble because of the inflation, because of the cost. so i think our biggest failure in this debate is we have not analyzed where the problems came from rather than just saying let's go on with more government. >> larry: before i go back to dr. gupta, do you want to respond? >> yes, i have a lot of respect for dr. paul, but one of the things i think he's saying is incorrect. the idea that the va system and also medicare being failures or not being popular are absolutely false. the r.a.n. corporation, a conservative think tank, recently published a study that showed excellent satisfaction with the va system. the kaiser family foundation actually showed that medicare is actually run more efficiently with much more dollars going for actual patient care than the private sector. and the other thing i want to touch on is this idea of freedom. we have less freedom when you are told by an insurance company where to go, where to get your treatment, where -- what hospital you need to get seen at. some patients need to drive

extra distances because their insurance companies won't let them go to the hospital that's in their own neighborhood. if you had some type of single-payer system, patients would be free to go wherever they wanted. i would also add if you're really concerned about freedom, if you're an employee stuck in a job you don't like but you're there strictly because of the health benefits, if you had some sort of universal system, you could go and take a job anywhere you wanted. >> reporter: dr. paul, before we get to sanjay, what do you think of the co-op idea? >> well, if it's private, it's okay, but the government-mandated co-op won't work. the doctor misinterpreted what i said. because he didn't accept the fact that we've had managed government care. he says it's not doing well then you have to blame managed care, the tax code, tort law, how well people can sell insurance across the borders. in the inflationary problem. i did not say that medicare didn't work, i said it was broke. and you've got to admit that. and here we're putting another

program on the government system, the government's broke. we have $2 trillion worth of debt this year and you think we're going to add this new program and the country's bankrupt. >> larry: sanjay -- sanjay, where are you in this? >> well, no one's been controlling costs here. that's an irrefutable fact. you can't hold up any of these sectors and say, look, this is a good example of how to do this right. by the way, it's not just the united states, it's around the world where health care costs have outpaced inflation in just about every country in the world. so this is something that we're dealing with as a global society, larry. whether it's people are using technology more, using more prescription drugs, whether it's chronic disease, you know, we spent almost $150 billion on obesity-related diseases in this country alone. so, you know, health care is expensive, and i think that's really at the heart of a lot of this, how exactly you pay for

it, who's going to pay for it exactly. i think where this debate is centered. >> larry: let me get a break. still ahead, by the way, later on, michael jackson's doctor speaking out for the first time since his death, but our health care debate continues when we return.

>> larry: sanjay, can you briefly explain the co-op idea? >> a co-op is not government-run, although it may have some government seed money, it is a non-profit organization that, you know, typically is made up of people who are often members insured, meaning people that want to get health care insurance from a co-op, but also

members of the board of the co-op, so they can help determine premiums, they can help determine what sort of services are covered. the way that a co-op is successful, typically, is that it's based on scale. if you have hundreds of thousands of people involved in a co-op actually buying into it, you can negotiate prices well and be competitive with the private insurance industry. so, you know, for example, a house mom in tennessee watching right now and she's uninsured, she's trying to get herself and her kids insured, she might join a co-op and it might be cheaper than private insurance if they have a lot of people involved, if they don't, it's hard to compete. >> larry: dr. song, does that appeal to you? >> i think the problem with that in my study of this is unless you have at least 500,000 people that will form a network that it's going to be hard to do particularly in rural areas. and what you're seeing more and more in the past seven years is monopolies that have been formed by insurance companies that make it real hard for any type of negotiating power and premiums have gone up. so if you can't get 500,000 people together to really put

together a good economy of scale, i'm not sure how this will work in large parts of our society. >> larry: congressman paul, you're there in the house. where you think it's going? what are we going to get? >> a little incrementalism. i don't think obama's going to get what he wants, but we'll have more government and the cost will continue to go up and the quality of medical care will go down. they put $50 billion in the bill just for surveillance of every single medical transaction and they have the legislation to control that in washington. so there will be no medical transaction that isn't controlled electronically and known by the government for so-called monitoring. so it's going to cost $50 billion to try to find out where the waste and the fraud is, but the system is wasteful and fraudulent. >> larry: sanjay, you look puzzled. >> yeah, i was -- i'm not -- i guess i was a little confused as to what specifically congressman palm paul was talking about there. i'm not sure if he's talking about the health i.t. or what, or if he's saying that's a bad

idea. my understanding was that was to try and streamline a lot of the unbelievable paperwork. and you have primary care doctors who are seeing over 5,000 patients in their clinic. each one of those patients comes with insurance forms and all sorts of other forms. to try to streamline that in some way has been one sort of tactic to try to increase the number of primary care doctors. i was just a little confused what you were talking about. >> okay. let me tell you. the stimulus package gave the authority to the executive branch to set up a computer system to record every medical transaction in the country. now they put $50 billion of seed money in there for somebody to monitor everything the hospital does, everything the lab does, everything a doctor does, everything a pharmacy does. now that is not going to be efficient. that's going to cost a lot of money, very confusing, and it's going to distort the whole concept. but when the government's in charge and they want this one-payer system, this is socialized medicine. it doesn't work. it fails all the time. some people may get care for a

while, but eventually everybody's going to get equal care. but quality is going to go down. that's what it's all about. >> larry: but you're not -- we don't have the best care now, do we, dr. song? >> no, i would argue that no one agrees -- we can all agree the current system is absolutely broken. and as far as the track record of how government programs work, i think medicare has been in business for 45 years. my own father who was -- >> but they're broke. >> my own father is able to get access to care on a much more timely fashion than my own patients who are coming to me who have private insurance. >> larry: all right, tell you what, guys, we're going to have you all back, maybe tomorrow. because this needs a lot more attention than it's getting. and it's getting a lot. by the way, if you don't have insurance and need medical attention, a man helping to provide that care and we'll keep the panel for a little while too will join us next.

>> larry: our panel returned momentarily. many americans have been shocked, dismayed during the past week by the sight of thousands of their fellow citizens waiting hours overnight for medical services from a free clinic set up at the los angeles forum. the event is the work of remote area medical, a nonprofit foundation that's generally focused on bringing health care to rural america. joining us from the area is stan brock, the founder of the remote area medical, it's a non-profit volunteer airborne relief corps

known to millions he is as the co-host and associate producer of "wild kingdom." stan, how did this come about? what do you do? >> well, it's the whole idea was born when i lived down in the amazon, larry. and had a very bad accident with a wild horse, and when they were pulling me out from underneath the horse, they said the nearest doctor from here is 26 days on foot. it was about that time that i got the inspiration for trying to bring those doctors just a little bit closer. >> larry: and that led to this? so how does this work? what's behind you? >> well, you know, i formed this organization to provide care in the other situations around the world. but shortly after we started, i started getting requests to bring care to some of the areas in rural america. and that was many years ago. and it's just sort of grown from there, and now 64% of all of the work we do is here in the united

states and so we're sort of backing off from some of the places where we really need to be like in haiti and zimbabwe because of the pressure here from all of the millions of patients that need the care we give free of charge. >> larry: and what can congress learn from this? >> well, i think one of the things they need to learn from it is that the greatest impediment to what we do, larry, is that for some extraordinary reason i've never been able to understand, a fully qualified and licensed doctor, dentist, nurse, veterinarian in one state is not allowed to cross state lines to provide free care in another state. except in the state of tennessee where the law was changed in 1995 to allow it. so in tennessee, we get doctors coming from all over the country to help out. then we came to california, one of the other 49 states that does not allow it, and although we've seen many thousands of patients

here, we could have seen twice the number had we brought in forces from outside the state to help. >> larry: stan, we salute you. it's not our hero of the week time, but you are our hero of the week. thanks for joining us. what do you make of this idea, dr. song? >> well, i think it's a sad statement on our society that we need to set up these free clinics in major cities like los angeles and have lines out the door and people waiting for many, many hours. if you talk about a waiting line, there's a prime example of that. but i do think that there needs to be a partnership within the private sector and public volunteers to offer this. i don't think it can just be shared just by one aspect of our society. >> larry: what do you think, dr. paul, congressman paul? >> well, i disagree. i think it shows the greatness of america. if we had a free society and a prosperous society and no inflation, no wasteful wars that we spend trillions of dollars on, there'd be so much wealth in this country, there'd be

thousands of clinics like this, and like i said before, these church hospitals, there would be more schreiner hospitals. they wouldn't be closing down because of this government interference and inflation. we do have inflation, just because the cpi isn't going up, the money the government policies channels the money into medical care, that pushes prices up. that doesn't give you more quality care. >> larry: dr. gupta, what do you think of this? >> i've been to several places around the world, including haiti where r.a.n., remote area, medical works, it's amazing to see some of those same practices now here in the united states. i'm not sure i completely agree with congressman paul on one point, though, and that is that if you leave it to sort of the better -- the goodness of man to try and take care of these problems, i don't know that it has been taken care of. our private health insurance industry has not -- created a situation where you have things like this sort of needed, necessary. so i don't know, you know. it's somewhat hard to imagine

the same things i saw happening in haiti are happening right there. >> larry: i said it earlier, i'm going to bring you all back because we've just touched the surface. thank you so much. ron paul, paul song, sanjay gupta, doctors all. michael jackson's doctor speaks for the first time since his death. you'll see it next.

>> larry: conrad murray, the doctor under investigation in the death of michael jackson posted video on youtube today. it's the first public comment by murray since jackson's death june 25th. watch. >> i want to thank all of my patients and friends who have sent such kind e-mails, letters and messages to let me know of your support and prayers for me and my family. because of all that is going on, i'm afraid to return phone calls or use my e-mail. therefore, i recorded this video to let all of you know that i have been receiving your messages. i have not been able to thank

you personally, which as you know is not normal for me. your messages give me strength and courage and keep me going. they mean the world to me. please, don't worry. as long as i keep god in my heart and you in my life, i will be fine. i have done all i could do. i told the truth, and i have faith the truth will prevail. god bless you. and thank you. >> larry: we have a panel assembled to discuss all of this in los angeles here. jim moret, chief correspondent for "inside edition," also an attorney. judge janine piro. host of her own show. back here in l.a., mark geragos, defense attorney, by the way at times represented michael jackson. quickly, jim, before we go to a break and get into the meat of the discussion, what did you make of that?

>> i don't even understand the point of it. he didn't say anything. it's clearly a pr move. mark and i watched it backstage and we're both trying to figure out what he was trying to accomplish and i don't think he accomplished much. >> larry: judge piro, what do you think? >> well, you know, i think what he is doing is he's trying to paint himself as a god-fearing individual, the truth will prevail, the truth will set me free. but by the way, i can't answer your e-mails because anything i say can and will be used against me. you know, this is just a momentary thing to resolve his stress, his anxiety, this guy is going to face indictment in a matter of a few weeks, i'm sure. and at the end of the day, he's panicked. >> larry: mark? that was funny. what's your read, geragos? >> you know, i feel -- i do feel for him. you know, he's in the middle of this storm and i'm sure he can't understand at all what's going on around him. and he wants to reach out, he wants to thank people, and i'm sure his lawyers are telling him rightfully so you can't talk.

i'm with jim. jim accurately portrayed what we were doing in the greenroom. i don't understand the point of it, but i suppose he wants to thank people and i guess you send a christmas card. >> larry: i'll ask you about this in a minute since you're all so versed with the law. what was criminal about what he did? we'll continue to discuss or supposedly did. we'll discuss this video and details of the burial after the break. when she gives me that look. when at last we're alone. when we both decide. announcer: today, guys with erectile dysfunction can be ready with another dosing option from cialis. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment is right. so relax and take your time. tell your doctor about your medical condition and all medications and ask if you're healthy enough for sexual activity. don't take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. don't drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or

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( car door closes ) ooooch! hot seat! hot! hot! hot! time to check your air conditioning? come to meineke now and get a free ac system check. at meineke, you're always the driver. >> larry: we'll be right back with jim moret. judge jeanine and mark geragos. let's check in with anderson cooper, host "ac 360" at the top of the hour. >> larry, we're starting with breaking news on breaking the impasse on health care. a senior white house official telling cnn that the democrats are closer than ever to going it alone on health care reform.

we're going to have all of the angles and what that may mean for you and your coverage. the death investigation as you've been reporting, larry, his personal physician dr. con regard rad rad murray is talking. the upcoming presidential election in afghanistan and the taliban's intensifying eventing to disrupt the vote. multiple attacks today, multiple fatali fatalities. at the top of the hour, larry. >> larry: that's "ac 360," 10:00 eastern, 7:00 pacific. jim, what did he establish? >> he came off very detached. he never mentioned michael jackson. the fact his client, his patient, his friend died on his watch. we don't know if he gave him drugs, when he gave him drugs, why he didn't call 911 earlier. there are so many questions that were never answered. i think in that sense by coming off detached and making all of

that him, he hurts himself. >> larry: judge jeanine, is it illegal for a doctor to give a patient an illegal drug. >> propofol is not a controlled substance. it was never anticipated it would be a drug that might be abused. it's only supposed to be newsed in a hospital setting. it's supposed to be used by trained anecessary thist. if con regard murray was not responsible in his use of propofol and michael jackson died as a result of it, you have a recklessness, a gross disregard for human life. if it has been reported he went out to talk on the phone, then they've got him dead to right. that's why what you're seeing tonight on this video or on youtube is him trying to paint himself in a positive light. he's detached because i'm sure he's depressed and anxious and suffering from a great deal of panic and he's trying to, you know, do what he can.

there's very little that can be done now. >> larry: on the face of it, mark, does it look like a good das? >> no, i don't think it's either a good case for the prosecution or good case for the defense. i can understand how a prosecutor would file this case. you don't have to -- it's not that the drug is legal or illegal. the drug can be legal. if you administer it in a way that is so dangerous, that in and of itself can give rise to either an involuntary manslaughter and some cases a second degree murder. at the same time the defense has all kinds of issues they can raise. they can say a, b, or c they're going to tear apart michael and whatever michael's perceived usage of drugs are. look, there's no way you can say this is what caused his death. you're going to say you have problems with cause and effect. if that's the case, it's a real horse race. as far as the statement that the doctor puts up, he's been vilified every day and does look like maybe he's under the influence of propofol, diprivan

as he's giving this statement. you can understand why he is. he's been demonized himself. >> larry: is this a bad time for him to sit down on, say, "larry king live" and do an interview? >> over my dead body. >> i agree. >> did you hear larry's producer in your ear. >> the big problem -- on the show a week or two ago the chef who said the doctor normally came down at 9:00, 9:30 with oxygen tanks. we know he didn't call 911 until 12:22. what happened in the 15 minutes? was mike in distress then? >> larry: what do you want to get in here? >> whau you have a financial motive for this crime. though we have a doctor who took a hippocratic oath supposed to take care of people, we have a guy $800,000 in debt, supposed

to go to jail device this year and two years ago for child support. a guy whose motive is financial gain who's in the hole so deep they're sending him to jail left and right because of child support. there's a reason they can attribute to conrad murray saying this guy didn't care about anything about money. he did what he had to for the money. that's not good. >> that was exactly what -- three weeks ago. jeanine gave the opening statement. >> larry: we're going to have details. we have burial plans next. you might as well be. you see, their moisturizer sits on top of skin, almost as if you're wearing it. only new dove deep moisture has nutriummoisture, a breakthrough formula with natural moisturizers... that can nourish deep down. it's the most effective natural nourishment ever. new dove deep moisture with nutriummoisture. superior natural nourishment for your skin.

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>> larry: we finally have burial details and what are they, jim? >> before i answer that, i want to say after thinking about

this, conrad murray should come on your show and talk to you. great idea. >> you know why, because the producer just whispered that in his ear, it's the last time he's getting on this show. >> i just wanted to make it clear. michael jackson will be buried on his 51st birthday, august 29th at forest lawn. not the cemetery he's at now. 15 miles away. >> larry: there are two? >> two very close to each other. this mausoleum is private. the public cannot ready visit it. it's beautiful. it's got a recreation of michelangelo's painting on the ceiling. a stain glass replica of the last supper. >> larry: who chose it? >> the family chose it. >> larry: will it be a private funeral? >> private and close friends only. >> larry: how many helicopters and tabloids will be circling the field? >> i'm sure reporters from all over the country, if not the world, will be outside the gates waiting. >> larry: judge jeanine, why do

you think it took so ong to make this decision? >> you hit the nail on the head in the question, larry. they were trying to make the decision. i'm sure there was a lot of discussion about a more public place, a private place. at the end of the day the family came down on the side of making sure michael was buried in a private, quiet area the public doesn't have access to. you can understand that. so much of his life was public. the last few years were very torme tormented. i think they see this as aal gis as a peaceful -- >> larry: good idea, mark? >> i think so. better idea than merchandising it and selling the broadcast rights to the funeral. >> larry: california wouldn't change the law for neverland or he didn't want them to? >> i think what he did not do or what the family did not do is apply to the county. i think they probably could have gotten over the hurdle of the state fairly easily. the county would have been the problem. >> i think there was a division. some people in the family wanted

neverland. you were up there. it's beautiful. i think his mom, katherine -- >> larry: he never wanted to go back, right? >> never did. not after that trial. >> larry: is this thing ever going to end? >> it will but not for a while. there are too many questions. >> you've got the charges potentially that are out there, you've got the tour coming up, you've got memorabilia running around. custody issues, the film coming. >> larry: we're going to have the exclusive on that film. the people running it and putting it together are going to appear on this program to promote it. before we hand it off to anderson, a sad note. political commentator robert novak, longtime member of the cnn family lost a battle with brain cancer earlier today. 78 years old. take no prisoners debater. wife of 47 years geraldine told the associated press he