those are some the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are joined by congressman henry what -- henry waxman, democrat from california. he came out with a new book entitled "the waxman report -- "the waxman report: how congress really works." how does congress really work? guest: i wanted to point out that government can make decisions that are so beneficial to millions of americans. and there is a lot of cynicism about congress and government,

and i think there is a lot of reason for it, but people should realize that what they don't hear about are the things that going on behind the scenes often on a bipartisan basis to work out legislation that will make a real difference. we hear about the scandals, about the ineptitude, and in fact, we have been fed a whole long line about how government can't do anything right but i have worked on bills that have made a huge difference, like nutrition labeling, which gives people the ability to know what nutrients they are getting when they buy different food products and enables and empowers them to follow a diet of their own choosing for their own health. that was a huge fight, and now we take for granted that we have that information. or smoking warnings or no smoking on the airplanes. when that was passed, it passed in the house by nearly one or two votes, i think 45 on the

record because once it passed some decided to switch the four or five on the recon. we were told smokers would go crazy. no smoking flights for two hours or less and we did it for two years with the expectation it may not work and there would be chaos. and there have been other bills like the clean air act, very controversial, but now taken for granted. the most successful environmental laws we have never passed. the bills can be what we intended and sometimes better than we intended and they can in effect -- millions of people. host: if you want to call in -- how did you pick -- you wrote about eight separate pieces of legislation. you just mentioned a couple.

why specifically these bills? guest: these were bills that i offered and sold through into law. and they were bills that have done a tremendous amount of good. for example, we adopted the ryan white law dealing with hiv aids. i was chairman of the subcommittee on health and the environment, and in the early 1980's we first heard about some disease. we did not have the name of aids. it was affecting gay men in new york, los angeles, and no one knew what was going on but the centers for disease control told us it was multiplying geometrically. so, we had a pretty good idea from the beginning that an epidemic was going to hit us. a lot of people said, well, it's a man, and maybe they deserve it. there was very low interest and the disease until -- i tell the story in the book, until rock

hudson turned out to have aids. i remember getting invited to a sunday news show and they said we want you on unless rock hudson doesn't have aids, then we did not want to be bothered. it took a lot of time in a hysterical moment. a very difficult ranking republican named -- he was very homophobic and tried to make the dealing with this disease a social issue, beating back against homosexuality rather than recognizing it was a public health issue and we need to deal with the problem from that perspective. it took a while before we finally passed the ryan white act, but it is the main legislation to deal with the he did -- with the epidemic. it provides drugs for people, strategies for stopping the spread of aids, and it is an important piece of legislation. host: what are some of your

lessons of how good laws are made? guest: good laws are made, offered by people you don't expect. i had a call from a constituent, a young man who said to my staff person, i have to read syndromes. it is a rare disease, i use a drug that helps me, but it is not available in the united states. i went overseas and brought it and they are seizing it from me at the border. do something about it. that led us to a whole inquiry about people with rare diseases who could not give drugs meant for them even if they were available, let alone research on more drugs, because the drug companies looked at it as very level -- very little profit potential. they did not have a big group of people. after a series of hearings and trying to figure out what to do, he said let's give encouragement to orphan drugs

for orphan diseases. it has been a tremendously successful law. it has meant the difference between life and death for a lot of people who suffer from diseases and the drug companies realized that it is profitable, or at least profitable enough for them to focus attention, research, and the development of these products. host: apply what you say to major pieces of legislation that you have a major role in -- health-care and energy reform. guest: i think we have to recognize when we hear some of these exaggerated claims of what the consequences of bills will do, we have to put it in perspective. the energy bill, we hear a lot of people saying how expensive it would be, but we were told the same thing we were trying to deal with sulfur emissions from the midwest, poisoning the forest and the strains, and industry said if you put limits

on sulfur emissions, it will cost so many billions of dollars we would have to go out of business. what we did is put in a cap and trade system, we said figure out the most cost-effective way of making the reduction but making them nevertheless, and the reality was it was the 10th of the cost that we were being told during those hearings. and i heard that over and over with the clean air act, although industry said it would cost exorbitant amounts of money to produce cars that polluted less and it turned out they were able to do it in advance of the schedule and at a fraction of the cost. so when we work on issues like the energy bill now, you have to keep in perspective that some of the cries of the special interests are exaggerated. i think 10 years and that if we pass the energy bill which has the goal of trying to make us more independent as a nation from foreign oil, certainly affects our national security,

produces more jobs because of the technology that is the way to be developed, and it reduces the carbon emissions that can cause global warming and serious consequences that scientists ellis may have been because of that, i think 10 years from now people will say, what was the fight all about, what was the big deal. same thing about health care. we haven't unsustainable surge which it did we pay more for health care in this country -- we have and unsustainable situation in health care. people are insured and still cannot afford health care. and the system is increasing the cost so rapidly that it is bankrupting the federal budget because we pay for the medicare and medicaid programs. so, president obama stated we need to reform this system. hold down the cost and make affordable, high-quality health insurance coverage available to all americans. and we will do that and some day in the not too distant future

people will say, what is that fight all about. in many other countries where they have health insurance coverage for all of their people, they take it for granted and they couldn't imagine being without it. host: let us hear from our callers. the first call is from david from the democratic line from va. caller: hello. what a pleasure. i'm one of your biggest fans. i listened to your hearings, particularly when you were grilling that lady from gsa. let me say on that only you are a great american cannot many men in congress like you and john conyers who can really speak to issues in a clear voice. my question, congressman, is that i think the democratic platform for the new century is obviously health care. we have to reduce the cost of energy -- grain jobs and education. i'm wondering if you can clearly for all of the

republican listeners, you are one of the very few men who can do this very well, please explain how health care, energy, and education is the right formula to bring this economy around and position america much better for the future. thank you, congressman. guest: a lot of people are saying why are we doing this -- these big things when we are faced with historical recession, maybe depression, in the economy. shouldn't we wait? and what president obama has said -- and i agree completely -- this is the time we need legislation in both of those areas. people are losing their jobs and record numbers. as they lose their jobs, they lose their health care coverage. so, while we have 46 million uninsured, we are probably closer to 50 million. it is a real problem when we have our health care tied to employment, and a lot of people work hard and don't get health care available to them because their employers cannot afford

it. if they lose their jobs, they lose their insurance as well. this is a time where we say, look, we can't afford the system. we have to hold down costs. it's hard to hold down cost when at a hospital some people show up in the emergency room without insurance and they have to be taken care of, you have to shift those costs for the hospital to stay in business to those that do have insurance, whether public or private. it just means they are paying more. if we had everybody covered, it would hold down costs because we would not go through all of the contortions. if we had a system where people can choose between competing plans, either a private insurance plan or a public insurance plan, a choice, choice and competition is good. it read boys' -- reduces more defense -- inefficiencies. then we need to reform the way health care is practiced. it is not effected to pay for every test that every doctor

wants to impose, because a lot of that is unnecessary and wasteful spending. host: on independent line, atlanta. caller: good morning. i have axillar something i would like to say and then i have a question. -- actually, something like this appeared first i would like to say that a lot of people listen to "washington journal" by radio, they may not notice or realize, and also people that call, watching the show from the beginning, they may not know that the hostess on today, turning is susan davis and jack to worse for "the wall street journal." -- and she actually works for "the wall street journal." my question for senator waxman -- i am the biggest fan, not the other guy. guest: i like this competition. caller: i wanted to ask you about the country of origin

labeling for the food. i wanted to know where it stands, and is it in effect and can we expect to go in and find out where the food is coming from? i would take my answer offline. thank you. guest: i think consumers want to have information and they ought to know the ingredients and nutrition information about the foods and also need to know where that product is coming from. it may or may not be relevant, but if people want to know, they are entitled to it. we are working on a bill right now on food safety, and the champion is congressman john dingell, and he has been pushing for legislation to give the food and drug administration -- which has a lot of the area of food safety -- not the meat side, but everything else. the fda has been hampered by a lack of resources. they don't have full authority

to do the things we expect them to do. and they haven't had the leadership they needed. so, the new leadership at fda, this food safety bill will give a lot more money to fda to do the job of inspecting and making sure that the food is safe and making sure that they can involve the food producers to check and make sure there is no salmonella or harmful substances in the food. i think it is going to be a plus, and labeling is worthwhile because i think clinton -- consumers are entitled to know. i believe in the concepts of right to know. consumers are to get information. host: new york, chris on the republican line. are you there? caller: can you hear me? i had two issues with your energy and commerce. first, have you checked out --

the general motors family company where their cars, all of them get between 50 up to 60 miles a gallon? what is the bill going to get us off of oil? guest: of the legislation is trying to get us off of oil in a number of areas. the largest uses of oil is for motor vehicles. we have strong incentives to produce cars that will use less, if not, no will. we're trying to produce electric cars, hybrid cars and all the of innovation that will come out if that is clear that is the direction we will take. the president, with the auto industry, agreed to tighter emissions standards. they are based on fuel efficiency of the automobiles, and the whole country is now covered by what california had, which is always ahead of the rest of the country. it is good. i believe we need to go further

than that. we are going to be giving strong incentives and loan guarantees -- to produce the next generations of motor vehicles. the second area where oil becomes a factor is some of the utilities are oil burning. oil and coal, when they are used as fuel, produce a lot of carbon veered in the area of coal, we recognize that it is here in the united states, we don't import it, and we wanted able to use it. it is a cheap source of electricity. but we've got to develop a way to use coal so the carbon is taken out and it becomes the ninth for the environment. we are investing billions of dollars to come as that goal. what we did in the bill with the utilities is that we will give them the allocations, the

permits to permit that they will need, so they will hold -- harmless from increases. but they still have to achieve the reductions. they can look for all set. a lot of farm industries produce offsets. they produce the carbon, and that is what we need to do, but they can continue to use coal for quite a while as long as we are reducing carbon emissions over all. we are accomplishing the environmental goals. and in the meantime we are trying to make coal viable as a source of energy. it is better to use coal than to have to bring in oil. it is better to burn less oil in our vehicles as well as electricity. it would even be better to produce more wheat in the united states, but that is still -- produce more oil in the united states because -- but that will still be not enough. we are clearly on a pattern of

being -- having to import that oil from a lot of countries that -- to say it they don't have our interest in mind is an understatement. a lot are hostile to the united states. host: on the democratic line, dennis from bethpage. caller: good morning, mr. waxman. i have watched c-span for 30 years now and this medium gives me a chance to actually speak to you, whereas if i called your office i would actually just have to leave a message. i waited 30 days, so i hope i want it cut off after just a minute. first, i want to talk to you about health care. i have a petition where, if people go to google and type in change.org, prescription drug benefit, you will see a petition there for people to sign, that

they demand a revamping of medicare part -- well, a new prescription program that we demand. we want a prescription drug benefit that covers 80% of all medications. and i want you to pass this on to nancy pelosi and the progressive caucus. we want a prescription drug benefit that covers 80% under part b and let the premium and the deductibles under part b cover this benefit. why do our the way and disabled people have to pay two sets of premiums and deductibles just for a lousy medicare part d benefit when it should have gone into part b in the first place? and without any coverage gap, without any means test, and

remove the means test from medicare part b that the republicans put in and the late sign of penalty -- i call them the gopranos, it is a crime family as far as i'm concerned. they should have not put this late sign up penalty into force seniors and disabled people to have to sign up for that. they should remove that -- i never signed up for medicare part d and i am disgusted with the gopranos who blocked for the last 30 years. one more thing, if people go to google and type in change.org, single payer, that will give the insurance companies a chance to sell life insurance and auto insurance and put them out of the business of selling health

insurance. they should be put out of business. we should nationalize the insurance companies and not the doctors. caller: i agree wholeheartedly with your statement about pharmaceuticals. i have been trying to get pharmaceutical coverage under medicare for the long this time. in fact, one of the reasons for my book is called "the waxman report" is we read -- produced a lot of reports when the republicans were in power and a lot of the reports were about the high cost of prescription drugs. this buildup from the bottom. people were angry having to pay so much for the drugs. we did reports and members of congress found the exact same thing. seniors were paying the highest price for their pharmaceuticals. if you compare those prices to what people paid in other countries, we were paying twice as much for our drugs.

this eagerness to do something about the problem gave the republicans a political idea. they've decided to do a prescription drug benefit but to reward the drug companies and to reward the insurance companies by making people have to buy an insurance policy. we never had insurance policies for drugs before. they said you can buy an insurance policy. most of the time when you have medicare, you don't buy a special policy for your doctor or another policy for your hospital care. you have it as a benefit under medicare. you may buy a supplemental policy for your medicare coverage to help pay for the out of pocket costs. but there was no separate insurance policy you had to buy. they created one for the pharmaceutical area. it cleared away for a lot of the insurance company to make money and the drug companies had windfall profits. let me give you an example.

under medicaid, the health care program for the poor, some of those people are also on medicare -- seniors who are poor. if they were on medicaid, that program insisted the drug companies get a discount to reflect the low price they are giving others. you give the best price to others come and get back for the government payment under medicare -- medicaid. we got a discount for that population. what did that republican bill do? they took the population that was medicaid and medicare and switched them to medicare, it increased the amount of money to pay for the same drugs for the same people. it amounted i think to at least a couple of billion dollars windfall for the drug companies. no explanation for it. just a windfall. these insurance companies get rebates from different drug producers -- they don't pass the

rebates on for the customers. then when you pay a certain amount for your pharmaceutical coverage, if you have a high amount of drug cost you are in with the doughnut hole -- you have to pay all of the cost of the drugs until you get to a certain level and then you get the federal government to help. that is all in the course of the year. a very inefficient way to cover pharmaceutical coverage. it should have been and medicare benefits and people should have had it covered under the medicare program itself and it would have been reflected in your copiague -- copays and premium and we could negotiate the price. millions of people covered by medicare and you are buying drugs for the population -- you would think there would be a buyers' discount as opposed to you or i by a drug. if millions of people were buying the drugs the government could negotiate a lower price. instead, that republican bill prohibited the government from

negotiating prices. that meant the only ones negotiating prices would mean insurance companies which did not have a strong enough incentive to hold down the cost and the drug companies, the made a bundle -- the idea of was to pay for drug costs, not just make the drug company's richer. host: on independent line, ray from texas. caller: three questions real quick. number one, we've got oil everywhere and we are not going to drill? number two, how many of the people being covered under this health care plan, the 47 million that you all claim, are uncovered, how many are illegal , signs it, don't really want insurance because they don't think they need it, and the third question, who was the idiot that hired --

guest: as to the drilling, there is no prohibition against drilling. we have a prohibition against drilling offshore the united states, and that provision expired and present bush refused to continue it. so, the oil companies want to block the coast, they are free to do so. i think there is a problem doing that, because they are beautiful resources and they should not have oil tanks and oil rigs spoiling the natural resource of the ocean. but put it into perspective. we as a country used 25% of the world's whale. we now produce eight%. -- we now produce eight%. if we drill more, maybe we can get to 10%. it seems to me the sensible thing is to use less oil, and we

have to figure out ways to do that. we need more domestic production, but moe@@@@ charge exorbitant amount. so the people for the most part who are not insured are working

people. now, a lot of those people are no longer working and those people had insurance and then along working. they lost their insurance. you talk about 46 million or 50 million. a lot of people have insurance that does not cover their needs when they get sick. so we have a problem for the uninsured, and we have a bigger problem with health care costs continuing to go up and up, which means when we are paying for medicare and medicaid under government expenditures, we are going into deep deficits to do it. so, we've got to bring the system together and hold down those costs. you asked about a speed reader -- there is a procedure -- there are a lot of procedures in the house, things that are relatively unknown. but one procedural way for an opponent of legislation to stall it would be to insist that the bill be read. i think it dates back to a time when this country, when some of

the congressman did not know how to read so each member has an absolute right to have a bill read to him or her. and because of that absolute right, any member can insist the bill be read by a clerk. well, we had a bill in the energy area -- we had a bill last year to try to provide child health insurance to the states, and it had such strong bipartisan support and was finally passed this year and signed by president obama. last year when president bush was in charge, he said he would veto the bill. why would he be to the bill? two reasons -- one, why should we provide health care coverage for kids, they could also go to an emergency room in the hospital. that doesn't make sense, because that is the most of the other argument he made was to me so astounding, he said why should taxpayers have to subsidize children was parents can afford

to buy them a private health insurance policy. think about that for a minute. what if somebody made an argument, why should taxpayers have to subsidize the public education of a child whose parents can afford to send them to a private school. it is really quite amazing. as if we as a society don't have an interest in children getting an education or we as a society don't have an interest in children getting health care when they need it. well, we got that child health bill passed, but when we tried to get it passed in committee of the republican leader of that committee insisted the bill be read, and it took so long to read the bill that we finally said, we can't complete the work in the committee and so we went right to the house floor without the committee acted. we feared that will happen on the average bill because of any member can insist on their reading. and we knew it would take a long time to read this bill. so we hired a speed reader.

the speed reader said he could do 100 pages in an hour, and to read and 900 page bill would take nine hours. i did not think that is a very good use of congressional time. i told the republican leader, let's not go through that and offer amendments and debate the amendments and to get into the policy and not just try to delay. he agreed. he did not have to read the bill but we hired a speed reader just in case. we were both furious, joe barton and i incurious, joe barton and i, how he would do. we asked him to read part of an amendment, because not only can you require a bill to be read but every amendments. some of the amendments can be 900 pages, 1000 pages. so we said, we will not make a revolt amendment but let us start off to see how well does. this guy was terrific. he read faster and clearer than

anybody i had ever seen before. that is a skill that i wish i had. i wish i could throw my voice so people did not know it was i who was talking but, we did try him out for a while and we were pleased with the job. i was even more pleased that we did not have to require him to read the bill. thank you for your question and i hope i responded. host: we have a health care from the twitter page -- why don't you pass a bill for less expensive prescriptions? guest: i think we should require that the government negotiate better prices with the pharmaceutical companies. and then, as a result, both the government and the consumer will pay less for those drugs. and i think we ought to have less prices charged by the drug companies to the consumers who often individuals or businesses,

and the best way to get lower drug prices is to have generic drugs competing. that is the result of a bill that orrin hatch and i offered in the 1980's. to provide for generic drugs. generic drugs are the same drug as of the brand-name drug except when the patent is over they can compete. and when you have competition, it lowers the price. now trying to get an approval process for these biotech drugs. we did not even know about the biotech drugs and the 1980's. but some of these are so expensive -- they can be $100,000, to enter thousand dollars, $500,000 a year. remember -- could you imagine if you do not have insurance coverage. it could mean the difference between life and death. if we get competition -- it would not be the exact same as the biotech but the fda can assure us it is just as safe and effective as the original drug. and i think it would help bring

down prices. that is the best way to hold down prices. negotiate good prices for a large group of population and get competitive drug so that you can say, i will go to your competitor and pay a lower price and that will guarantee both will lower the price in order to keep the business. host: into california democrat henry waxman. i next call from judy on the republican line from columbus, ohio. caller: good morning. a pleasure to talk to you. i am really pretty nervous. i don't get a chance to talk to anyone as powerful as you are. i have a question about this monstrous captain trade bill. -- capt. trade bill. i hope you will tell me this is not in the bill -- if i want to sell my home or anybody in my country wants to sell their home, they will have to have it inspected and brought to a certain energy code before it can be put on the market, and

even if i start that process and they decide that they want to change the code, that i will not able to sell it until i pass that code. i want to know if these are facts or not. guest: these are not facts. and i would agree that they would be very burdensome and intrusive. what we have done is give tax credits for people who want to make their homes more energy efficient. if you want to, we help you do it. we also have a rating for new homes that are built so that there is a rating of how efficient is -- it is. we don't require it, but if you want to buy a new house that is more energy efficient, it would have a rating to that effect. just like some of your appliances have some kind of goldstar of some sort that tells

you how deficient that product is. people are interested to know when they buy something new, it is more efficient. but we don't require people to buy more efficient washers or driers, but we do require new or appliances to meet a tighter standard so that if you go out and buy that you would reduce the amount of energy that goes into it. but no one is going to tell you you can't sell your home, that you have to do something to make it more energy efficient. that is just not part of the legislation we adopted. host: the next call is from miami, alex on the democratic line. caller: thank you for having me. congressman waxman. i just wanted to comment on the health care option. i know a lot of republicans complain, you know, they are afraid that there is going to be

no choice and that people will not have the option and they will be forced into this government-sponsored plan, which i don't think is really the case. there is going to be competition in the market, which is natural in economics. i personally see nothing wrong with it and i commend you and the democratic party for actually doing something about health care. it has been an long time coming. i have a question -- you mentioned generics earlier. how long does it take for these medicines to actually be able to come on the market? and that is about it. thank you. guest: out for a traditional medication -- for a traditional medication, they have a patent for 20 years. they get additional time for the period. to get approved, because they can't market the drug until the approved so they get some of the time restored. if it is a new breakthrough drug they can get as much as five

years -- the exclusivity, and not until all the time is over and the generic drug go to the fda for approval. and abbreviate process -- just have to show there is same as another drug -- they can't go to the market. we save billions and billions of dollars with generic drugs. people would rather get generic drugs because it would save the money. benefit managers are encouraging people and pharmacists and coverage people to use generic drugs. it is a good deal for the consumers. and the brand name companies have their marketplace because they have been out there with a monopoly for quite some time. that is traditional medication. but these biotech drugs have no competition. they have a monopoly now. if they don't face generic competition at all. that is what the legislative fight is all about in that area.

we suggested that they have five years as well of exclusivity after the patent is up and the time is restored for the fda approval process. at first they said, you can't make a generic, it is impossible. then it finally came around and said, yes, you can make a generic but we should get 14 years after all the time -- an additional 14 years of exclusivity, which means a monopoly. and we've got a monopoly -- you can charge the highest price, whenever the market will bear. if that is the only drug that can keep you alive, you have to figure out a way to pay that monopoly rights, if you can. we want generic competition for biotech drugs. it is not going to be the same because they have to get through a process to determine that the generic version of the biotech drug was just as good.

it is not just going to be the same drug but it will be just as good because oftentimes these biotech drugs were dealing with the process itself and the process has to be duplicated but then you have to establish with the fda scientific established approval that it is just as safe and effective. but it may not be substitut able -- like traditional, small- molecule you -- molecule drugs. it is a big fight going on now and billions of dollars are at stake. you talk about people being frightened about change. i have found that people are often frightened about changes, especially when interest groups come in and tell them to be frightened. they hear the cry is of groups that like the status quo and they get are worried about what change will bring.

in this book that i hope many of the viewers of this program will want to buy and read, "the waxman report: how congress really works, " we talked about some of the fights we had. they are not much different than the fights we are having now, where there was a lot of controversy and a lot of people objected to the changes. but once the changes were adopted and we looked back at it, it is as if, what was that i know about? why should we not even take for granted that we can get different labeling information on the products we buy? people cannot understand, why was it ever a controversy about stopping smoking on airlines. as a mentioned earlier, it was a big struggle to adopt a bill by literally two or three votes on the house floor to experiment with no smoking on airline flights of two hours or less. we tried it for two years to see if it would work. but a lot of people said, it

won't work. that change is too@@@@@ @

will look back and say, isn't that a peculiar time in history and i am glad we are not there anymore. host: lewis on independent line from raleigh. caller: how is it going? i just wanted to start out by saying it is all polished -- politicians do is try to please people to get reelected without doing the right thing. my question is, how can a congressman from a state who is in a fiscal crisis advocate increasing federal spending and our federal debt? guest: first of all, i would disagree with your premise that all politicians are refusing to the right thing because they are facing reelection. in our case, and how come every two years. there are some who are afraid of their -- in our case, in the house, every two years. there are some who are afraid of the shadow. but at the most members of congress wants to do the right thing. they want to pass laws that will

help their constituents. they may disagree on how to do it, but i think most people want to do the same thing. republicans want everybody to be insured, as the democrats. we have a different approach as to how to accomplish that goal. i hope that the end of the day we will be together. we may not be. but oftentimes what you don't see when you hear about the scandals of politicians is that oftentimes these politicians are talking to each other and trying to work things out and often to work things out, but it is not a news story. when a bill is worked out any compromise is reached, unless it is a big fight, democrats versus republicans, it usually does not get attention, especially when you have some bodies low-fare to cover. -- somebody's love affair to cover. asking how i could be for an increase in taxes. i think and california what we need more than anywhere else and just as anyone else is jobs. we will not get jobs by staying still feared we are going to get

jobs by trying to go into the future and deal with the concerns that we have for our children in directing a planet that will not be polluted by carbon and offers a tremendous opportunity to produce millions of new jobs, billions of new investments in energy efficient technologies. it is the kind of thing that you have to recognize, you just can't stay where you are, you've got to move forward. and we want to accomplish three things. tell me what it is worth doing -- being less dependent on oil from saudi arabia and venezuela and producing it market that makes iran rich enough to produce nuclear weapons. we want to reduce more jobs by transforming the economy and giving incentives to the new technologies and jobs. and ideas that not even new -- that would not have been done

unless you provide economic incentives. thirdly, reduce the carbon emissions that are doing harm to our planet. our scientists are telling us, there is an overwhelming consensus about global warming, it has causes, because of man- made pollution and it has consequences that are dire in some ways and very serious if you just want to minimize it, but very, very some -- serious. those are the goals we are trying to achieve and i am proud to be working in those areas as a californian and an american. host: another question from the twitter page -- ask mr. waxman if he doubts electric rates will double. guest: electric rates will not double. we worked very carefully to make sure that in the electricity sector, we will provide the allocations to the utilities so that they don't have to pay for them and therefore they will not be able to pass on those costs to the consumer. and they will have to produce

the reductions in carbon, but a lot of those reductions can be done fairly cheaply by buying offsets. a lot of the offsets in the agricultural industry -- the agricultural industry is looking forward to because a lot of these offsets are in the farms and how they produce more efficient ways that will reduce carbon that can become a market for those who have to make sure that they are achieving the carbon reductions. host: our next call from the republican line, somerset, pa.. caller: good morning, mr. waxman and c-span. i first want to congratulate c- span on this fantastic program. probably the best program on tv, " washington journal." i listen to it every morning. despite what your earlier callers said and criticized, i think they should be very thankful they live in a country where we can discuss these

issues objectively and have on a minute guests like mr. waxman. guest: i agree. caller: -- host: i think we may have lost him. gillian from maryland. caller: i hope i can get my comments and my question. it appears to me, even with the fights between the drug companies, they had that fight over -- let me go over to the next thing. no, the vitamins. the people who used vitamins, they wanted to outlaw that and said that they were not good for people. the fda had not checked the beard that is not be here nor there. what really bothers me is how doctors were of the

pharmaceuticals are advertising their drugs, whether they are good or not, via the television. what did you need the drugs or not, many people are gullible and will go and get those drugs. i know of a personal friend who tried the drug out on the side effects were worse than the medication. i'm wondering, is not going to continue where they are going to able to advertise -- is that going to continue, where they are able to advertise over the airways and make money that route and stop other people from doing different things like going overseas or to canada? guest: if it were up to me, i would not allow those advertisements. after all, a drug can only be purchased when it is prescribed by the doctors. let them and form the doctors of the virtues, which they spend even more money trying to do -- let them in form the doctors. but if you see the public seeing all of these happy people using

the pharmaceutical products, it is increasing their market because the lot of doctors don't want to say no when the patients ask for the drugs. but sometimes people use drugs they should use -- should got -- should news, and they suffer from the consequences. there was a situation where the drugs were heavily advertised as soon as they were approved, and sometimes draws as soon as they are approved, we don't know the full consequences of large numbers of people using the drug. so, i suggested, if the fda has suspicion that a drug, if widely used, may cause problems, and they are going to be monitoring that post-approval period, they ought to be the to restrict the advertisements. -- be able to restrict the advertisements. i guess the reality is the prevailing view is that the first amendment allows drug advertising to consumers. i don't believe that. i believe commercial speech is different than political speech.

i have a different point of view. but i'm in the minority. but i thought certainly when a new drug is being approved, for three months or six months, there can be a restriction on the amount of advertising. there was a drug that was promoted so heavily and turned out to be so harmful and people were using a in massive numbers before we realize the harm it did. well, when i proposed that, i had the drug companies against me, i had the newspapers and magazines, because they want the advertisers, the broadcasters, nobody wanted to entertain the idea of any limitation on spending money to get consumers to buy drugs, even if there is a possibility it could harm the consumers. we will continue to push that at some future time. right now it doesn't look like the best time. but if it were up to me, i would not have all of these ads to make it look you are really happy to be using a drug.

in fact, last week i had a medical problem. i still don't know what it was. i was hospitalized. when i came into the hospital, i was barely awake. somebody said, why is your knee jerking? i was making a joke and i said i have restless leg syndrome. i'm not sure if there is such a thing called restless leg syndrome -- i will hear from people. i thought restless leg syndrome with a disease created by a drug company to sell a drug for a disease they created, and i was making a joke. when i got out of the hospital and they looked at my record they said, he claims to have restless leg syndrome. i did not know if there is such a thing or not. i don't have it. but a lot of people start thinking they are having medical problems because they are seeing too many of these commercials. i don't think that is doing the public a lot of good.

certainly making the drug company's richer. host: stop on the independent line from va. caller: representative waxman, good morning. as someone who does have restless leg syndrome -- [laughter] it does exist, absolutely. it is a terrible thing. i achieve that through a back injury. guest: iic. caller: anyhow, you were talking about medicare and medicaid and a prescription drug plan and wanting to push heavily the generics. well, on the medications i take, there are two that are brand names that are very expensive and i appreciate taxpayers taking care of me. but i have already had to switch insurance companies a couple of times because they stopped covering them because they are so expensive.

aikens -- anyhow, it is very, very important that you understand that there are differences between brand-name and generic with certain circumstances. you missed answering a question as to come roaring people in this country with insurance. with illegal immigrants. now, i understand, you know, that is a tough issue and everything. but it is important to a lot of people to understand what is going to happen in that circumstance. you know, part of the immigration bill is for them to be able to bring family members -- you can extrapolate that -- guest: sorry, i didn't answer that question. i do want to talk about what my thinking is on that subject. some of what we are going to do in this legislation is to

subsidize low-income people so they can buy insurance, otherwise it would not be affordable. if you are below poverty, you are eligible for medicaid. but we are not going to make subsidies for undocumented aliens. there is no support in congress to do that. a lot of people feel that they are here illegally, and therefore they should not be subsidized. but there are people who are here illegally moved to have insurance that they pay for, and they will continue to buy private insurance. they don't check to see if you are legal or not if you are buying a product. so we will not subsidize anybody, not let them go on medicaid. we do allow people, even if they are here illegally or undocumented aliens, it there is an auto accident or an emergency, to go to the hospital. we will allow any human being to go to the hospital. that is one of the reasons why i think we need to continue the

extra payment to the public hospitals and hospitals that are called the disproportionate share hospitals, that take a disproportionate share of uninsured people, that they get an extra subsidy not to have to pass on the full cost to people who do have insurance. and that is the way people who are illegal get health care. but they have to be genuinely in need of emergency care. not just show up in an emergency room and just have some medical care given to them. there has to be a genuine emergency. but we will not be subsidizing insurance, nor making people eligible for insurance under medicaid if they are here illegally and undocumented. host: congressman henry waxman, the book is "the waxman report: how congress really works." thank you for joining us. guest: i hope you will read this and get a different insight and