she couldn't hardly hear. people treated her like she was if i can use the word retarded, because she was short, because she didn't hear. she didn't always know that you were talking to her. she got herself on a plane. and she went to iowa in two degree weather. to complain with people that she didn't know since he was religious she had to find jew that is she could spend the sabbath with. :

because mid disaster, i agree who this administration of course there's always two sides

to things. it is the law of unintended consequences for the history. barack obama single-handedly has taken the conservative movement and republican party out of one of the deepest holes that were ever dug for it and put it on top within a year and that's magic. i don't know, i often think about what would sarah be thinking now. sarah was a very thoughtful, she was not ever a radical the way i was. and part of the passage in the book that i didn't quote about her writing -- i was concerned about her writing to criminals just because i write to somebody in his jail doesn't mean i would trust them with my purse so she was a realist and of course not

only is politics -- when people have these political disagreements it's like that story with the blind man and the elephant. everybody has a piece of information but now our media world has become so fragmented people only talk to themselves. conservatives have an edge here because they are forced to listened to the liberals allowed and some sense liberals are getting that dose because of cable tv and the internet. but in large part, people -- it takes a long time for things to get through. so if you are tapped into the conservative internet and your community is conservative you will quickly see what's happening with obama.

if you're not, you won't, and unfortunately i didn't have that pleasure of having the talks with sarah siddons obama's e election and there's a lot of people out there with the buyer's remorse as we know. >> we have time for one last question. >> david, you mentioned the depression of despair that you experienced after the murder of a friend. my question is the former communist of the 50's, people like frank am i your and who as i as a young man knew well seemed while eccentric never having that reaction, yet those in your era left were very much beyond the persian. he basically went through a lifetime of heavy drug usage and alcoholism and died at a very young age and his time roughly coincided with the 60's.

to what do you attribute your leaving not resulting in tremendous alcoholism and drug abuse? >> maybe he was doing drugs in the -- i was a very serious marxist. that's one of the reasons just as a contrast when bill errors was elected vice president of sts in his acceptance speech he bolstered he hadn't read a book in a year. that was part of his speech. i had read all four books of the capitol, so i would just differ in that sense. i took the idea is very seriously and worked through them and i've written a book about that, the politics of bad faith but also in radical son i describe house since i had --

since i took the idea seriously read the books and try to put them together with reality it didn't compute. reality just didn't compute so i guess that would be my answer. thank you. [applause] david horowitz former editor of ramparts magazine is currently the president of the center for study of popular culture and the editor of front page magazine. he's also the author of radicals on the politics of bad faith and art of political war. to find out more, visit frontpagemagazine.com. up next reporter documentary film correspondent and author

t.r. reid joins booktv for the three hour "in depth" interview. >> host: t.r. reid, you've written about computers, health care, international relations, ski resorts, the roman empire. how do you choose your topics? >> well, partly guess what i write for money. dr. johnson said no man but a blockhead wrote for money because it's hard work so i do try to look for topics that will sell. i don't always succeed. some of the books are flat, but i try to find a topic that looks complicated can be penetrated with some work and then i try to explain it in an engaging and understandable way. it's hard work but that's what i try to do, find some people say i will never figure that out like a calculator can add two plus two and i try to explain to

people, that's what i'm looking for. >> host: what book has flopped >> guest: let's see which of my books has flopped? i wrote this book called the chip, it's about the two americans that invented the microchip and basically they changed the daily life of the world. they are thomas edison and alexander graham bell and they were living in america when i wrote this book and no one ever heard of them and i thought here it was everybody would want to know that we america gave this great creation to the world and was to americans, one from on yellow one from kansas. nothing. the book got good reviews. it made a bunch of the best ten books of the year and it didn't sell a whip. i felt i was going to get rich on this book, nothing. good reviews and the book came out around 1985 for 66 >> host: 1986. >> guest: and my wife and i

kept saying to each other it was a decent book but i was and it's time. there was before most people had a computer so they were not into microchips and here's what happened. in 2000i was living in one blonden and my editor called me up from random house and says this is amazing. that book is selling like mad, it's 14 years later now and we are really going to get going on this book. it's basically the same book but all of a sudden people were interested what happened. well, one of the two inventors in the microchip won the nobel prize in physics in 2000 and americans were interested and there was my book sitting there so here's what happened. i went to stockholm with jack and his family and he's just a wonderful, wonderful man and he got the nobel prize in physics and if you get the nobel prize in physics the only requirement is to have to attend a fancy dinner with the king and have to

give a lecture, nobel prize lecture and jackie gave his lecture and some physicist in stockholm introduced him and said this is the man who gave us the calculator, the computer, the internet, the digital tv, the cell phone, the ipod because he invented the basic tool for all of that and jack, what a wonderful guy, he said yeah i sure that a lot but like read the whole digital world. i just invented one little part of it. it was all the other engineers who made a work. he said whenever i hear that it reminds me of the time there was a before and a rabbit sitting beneath boulder dam and the rabbit looks up at the massive structure and says to the dever did you build that thing and the b versus no but it's based on an idea i had once. and that was jack kilby. any way at that point i rewrote the book.

we brought out the book again in 2001 sadly reporting of the death of one of the two inventors and at the end of the last chapter of the book, jack goes to stockholm and gets the nobel prize and still nobody in america knows who he is, so that book it's now selling pretty well in the second version but still i wouldn't say that it achieved its goal which was to remind americans it was a guy from kansas and from iowa who invented the microchip and changed the world. i was on a talk show talking about that book, this is how you sell books, and a very funny guy was the host and he was kind of ragging on me and he says come on why would you write a book about the invention of the microchip? nobody knows who invented the microchip and i said that's why i wrote the book. he said nobody's ever heard of these guys. then he said i tell you what if anybody can call for show in the

next hour and tell me who invented the microchip i will buy him dinner for two with a kind of smirk on his face and ten seconds later the phone rings and a caller calls up and very polite ten or 11-years-old, very polite says i know who invented the microchip, it was robert noyce and jack sinclair. he got it right so what he had to buy this to dinner and you know what? it was my son who called the show. [laughter] at least he knew so that was a great moment for me. so i would say i worked hard on that book. it's a good book. i'm proud of it but in terms of achieving the goal which was to let americans know balk kilby, bob luis,, i'm sorry, invented the microchip and changed the world it never succeeded. >> host: and he went on to

found what company? >> guest: intel. he sounded in tel and made hundreds of millions of dollars. he was an early investor in apple and just a very, very smart engineer and businessman. jack never made a ton of money off of the microchip but you know what? i don't think that ever matter. jack was an engineer. he defined the engineer's job as identifying an important problem and solving it and he did. jack came up with the idea that made the current digital age possible and i think jack always knew she had taken on a very important idea and had come up with a good solution and there was more important to him than money. >> host: whole revolutionary was the calculated in the 70's? >> guest: there were desktop calculators at best time. this is kind of ringing in my year. there were desktop calculators of the time they were bigger than the computer is today.

they were big and had an arm like a slot machine and you type in the numbers. to have any device, a computer that took hold in your hand, that was an amazing breakthrough. i think the most important application, first application of the microchip, the microchip on till the microchip came along there were computers in the world that they were so big they filled an entire building. the one there was a big computer in philadelphia whenever they turned on the power of the lights dim all over the city because it consumed so much power it was just huge and expensive. you couldn't perceive more than ten or 12 of those in in the entire world and jack reduced the size of the computer to you could have a computer that size in your watch today with no problem whatsoever, that power. so that was the revolutionary

breakthrough. they made possible the digital age and the first important application, jack and bob invented the microchip and 58 and 59 and will wind behold 1961 along comes jack kennedy, john f. kennedy who says i want to send a rocket to the moon by the end of this decade and you couldn't do that because you couldn't fit those computers into the nose cone of a rocket but with the microchip suddenly you could conceive of a computer powerful enough and small enough to steer a rocket to the moon so that was the first important application and that whole mission would have been impossible without the invention of the microchip. >> host: where did the phrase t.r. reid to the united states of europe come from? >> guest: winston churchill's famous lee said in 1946

churchill was then the next prime minister of britain. he led the country and of the defeat of the nazis in world war ii and three weeks later lost the national election. he was now the post -- x prime minister of britain and he was a big thinker and he was looking at europe and he could see the iron curtain had fallen across europe. the nations of europe were spending more money on the army's been on rebuilding the shattered economies and shattered cities and to concede that europe had already gone to the war three times since 1870 and you could see they were going to do it again the same countries were going to get into another war and churchill said and several other visionaries but he was one of several visionaries to say we've got to stop this. we can't go on and he said we need to build a new europe and the model must be the shining republic across the great sea,

that's how churchill talked and he meant the united states, he liked our country and churchill famously said you know, people in new hampshire don't always agree with people in texas but they don't go to war over it every 30 years so we need to build a kind of america and europe. what we need is united states of europe and that became today's european union with one currency and they have a parliament and president, they have a lot of the walls of the national state. >> host: in your subtitle is the new superpower in in the end of american supremacy. you wrote this in 2004. does that hold true today? >> guest: i think the supremacy of the american dollar, the almighty dollar is coming to an end. i.t. to conceive the dollar losing its clout in the global markets and one reason is there

is now a competitor to the dollar and that is the european bureau has been a very successful currency. in my book, "the united states of europe," i have a lot of fun quote in brilliant american experts who say that it will never work. europeans will never give up their francs and marks and adopt one currency but the zero worked. the day the euro cannot in january, 2002, you could buy one for 89 cents that today would cost $1.35 to buy one geithner. it's been the strongest currency in the world so in some ways europe is the biggest single market in the world without any question much vastly bigger than china. they buy 11 or 12 times as much as china does so yes in many ways it has this united europe has achieved some level of

commercial supremacy in the world and the europeans make the rules now because it is such an import and market the europeans make the rules that govern the global commerce. i point out in the book you go down to the liquor store and any american city and buy a bottle of bourbon and that is a quintessential american product kentucky bourbon and it is a 72-cent a liter bottle. do you think americans clamored to buy bourbon in centiliters? that didn't happen. it was the europeans who said we want the marking on every bottle of every product and because they have the market clout of this united europe we have to do that. the same comiskey be peanut butter tells how many millo leaders in the jar. do you think americans care about that? europeans do. >> host: what is the importance of may 9th and what is the generation e.? >> guest: main lines is the sort of fourth of july of the

united states of europe. it's the day the europeans celebrate the treaty of rome that brought together the first six countries into a sort of common government and it has since grown to 27 countries and about 500 million people, and so the europeans are looking for ways to remind people in germany and finland and portugal and ireland they all belong to one place and again they looked over at the united states and they see that we all gather on the fourth of july and shoot off fireworks and eat hot dogs and listen to politicians giving long speeches and so on may 9th the europeans celebrate your up all over the place and they eat hot dogs and have fireworks and concerts' and stuff like that.

obviously it doesn't have the cultural power of the fourth of july but it is their version and it's a toolhouse for bringing all of them together into a single union. >> host: and generation eat? >> guest: it i think is in my book about europe and my argument was europeans say under 35 or 40 these young europeans are the most united. they are the ones who have the strongest feelings they are europeans rather than fins or estonians or poles or spaniards if you follow me. if you go up to somebody 72 and say where are you from she will say i'm from france or italy but if you go up to somebody 22 they will say i'm a european who lives in italy. that was the argument. i think there is a lot of validity to that.

i done think it is as true as i stated in the book if i were to fix that book by a guy would downplay the generation he because it turns out these number citizens of the united europe still feel there estonians or fans or dutch and the kind of proof was when they had their referenda a few years ago on a treaty and a european constitution the rule was it had to pass -- had to be approved by a free country and it sailed in france and the netherlands, two of the original six countries that form the united europe's that was kind surprising that there really surprising thing for me, the guy that wrote about generation each is that the younger french and dutch people voted against the constitution more than older people did so to do think is it fair to say i was wrong about generation e.? i think if yes that's probably

fair. i was wrong. >> host: to look up of u.s. relations through the eyes of some brits who are the large burgers? >> guest: that is a typical american family. they used to appear on a sunny morning tv show in britain called the big breakfast. it was their version of good morning america or something, and it would have news and would have entertainment, it is a lot like our morning show except they had skits in which these two very fat people, they were in kind of michelin man fat suits because that is their image of america we are all overweight holding on to guns. they lived in a trailer somewhere in it sounds like texas. he always had a stetson hat on his head and of course they were

always wearing american flag t-shirts over their huge, fact chests. this is the version they like to think of as america. and the large burgers of course are unemployed. on the wall of the tree where they had two pictures. one was george w. bush because for all of europe he was kind of the the epitome of all of the problems with america they could see and the other person they had was the picture of the woman who sued mcdonald's and $1 million because the coffee was too hot which they also think is classically american that we are always looking for a way to sue somebody and get rich so they were kind of this comic epitome of all the things you're up loves to hate about america. >> host: in confucius' lives next door you talk about the asian century and the asian miracle. what do you mean by that?

>> guest: well, the asian miracle obviously had been an economic term, the asian miracle was the emergence of these poor east asian nations to become global economic powers and the paradigm case as i say in the book was japan. japan was an incredibly poor country after world war ii japan was one of the poorest in the world, and no resources, no coal or oil, no steel, nothing, no uranium, the old even have enough land to grow their food and yet the japanese created through hard work the second richest economy in the world. they have a high year per capita income than we do on the small island nation with no resources so that's considered japan post war miracle and it's replicated in other countries also went

from being a really poor countries, media rating 100 to 150th in the world in per capita income and today those countries reached the top ten or 15 in per-capita income. that's called the asian economic miracle. we now see it very large in china. china is having its own economic miracle becoming an export power. in my book, confucius lives next door i wrote about a different miracle in asia, east asia which is the social miracle and here's what that is. the east asian countries, japan, south korea, taiwan, etc. have about one of 100 the murder rate of the united states, they have won 200 the rate of rape. they don't have a lot of robbery or mugging. you can leave your bike on the street and it doesn't get stolen. they don't even have graffiti. these are safe places to live. they have about 1% of the babies

born to single mothers, the number is about 42% in america. very few divorce. in terms of the sort of basic social statistics they are successful so i wrote about the asian social miracle and how do you do this, how to get a country with one one-hundredth the murder rate of the united states and guess what they don't do it through police. all these countries have 120 if as many police and one 50th as many jail cells so they don't do it that way. so that is why i wrote a book about the asian social miracle and guess what the title gives it all away. it's called confucius' lives next door and my argument is because they inculcate the basic social values so well socially the country's work pretty well. >> host: welcome to "in depth." this is booktv's monthly series with one author looking at his or her body of work and this

month it is t.r. reid pub the author of six books in english and three in japanese. he has been a longtime "washington post" reporter. he's lived all over the world. he's covered many topics. we will put the numbers up in case you would like to participate in the conversation. (202)737-0001 for those in the east and central time zones. 737-0002 a few live in the mountain or pacific time zone and mr. "too big to reid is rune mountain time zone. you can also e-mail booktv at back c-span's dak orval or cindy tweet, twitter.com/book tv and we will try to get to as many as possible. here are mr. reid's book confucius' lives next door we talked about a little bit. the united states of europe we also talked about, congressional odyssey, the sob of a senate

bill and this fascinating is about waterway fees and the skin from a series in "the washington post" mr. reid wrote back in the late 70's and early 80's. this is the chip by "in t.r. re, the most recent the healing of america global quest for better, cheaper and there are health care and my personal favorites skied japan the guide to the ski resorts in japan. to look at the healing of america, mr. reid, what is the bismarck model? >> guest: what's going on in the healing of america is a true to figure out why it is that all of the other industrialized democracies, countries like us, managed to provide health care coverage for everybody and spend half as much as we do in the process. how do they do that? when i went around the world to fight this out it turns out they are not all socialized medicine. some countries do have big government providing the care and paid the bills.

but a lot of industrialized democracies cover everybody with private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance and the paradigm case would be germany where the national health care system was created 1883 by otto bismarck the first chancellor of germany, and he created this model of health care that's used in a lot of countries that all i in my book called the bismarck model. here's what happens in the bismarck model. you go to the private doctors, private hospitals and to pay your medical bills you have a private entrance company and you split the cost of insurance between the employer and employee. if you lose your job then government picks up the slack of the employ year and pays that share of the premium. some 150 million americans were on the bismarck's model of health insurance and the reason i emphasize that it's used a lot of country, germany, switzerland, the netherlands,

belgium, france to a degree, japan and it covers everybody but it's absolutely not socialized medicine. the bismarck margolis private in fact i argue in that book the healing of america that some countries are less socialize in the u.s.. in germany and switzerland they don't have medicare. they don't have government insurance for seniors like we do. people stay with the private insurer cradle to grave in the bismarck model but that's just one of the models of health care i felt around the world by emphasizing the book because it is not socialized medicine. it's the private sector covering everybody. >> host: from the healing of america five, an american myths about health care systems abroad. it's all socialized medicine out there. the ration care with waiting lists and limited choice. they are wasteful systems run by bloated bureaucracies. health insurance companies have to be cruel. those systems are to foreign to work in the usa.

anything you would like to add to that? >> guest: i think those are all myths. that is what we've been told about health care overseas and as i said it's not true. there is a german troops and all of that. have you heard of these stories about the long waiting times in canada? they are true. they have long waiting times for elective care and to some degree britain. but many countries, germany, japan, france have shorter waiting times than the u.s. for all medical procedures and they still cover everybody and they still spend less. they limit choice. no, sir. in france, germany, japan, they don't have anything like this in the network and out of network or reauthorization that we have to read you can go to any doctor come in a hospital, in a chiropractor, and he will commit any lab in the entire country and insurance has to pay the bill usually within two or three days. so a lot of them of the stuff

we've heard about health health care is terrible overseas isn't true. >> host: we have an e-mail, "in t.r. reid. how has the international comparison been almost completely absent from the political debate over health care reform? >> guest: i wrote a whole book on this topic. what is the answer to that? why don't people realize that the germans have dealt with the same problems we have? they cover everybody. they spend a lot less and they did in the private sector as i say less socialist system that we have. why aren't we looking at that? it is devious. i point out country is that fairly recently changed their system to get universal coverage and they looked around the world. the taiwanese looked to set up health care systems around the world, same thing i did my book tie one chose the canadian model

health care but didn't have to. why aren't we looking? i would like to know the answer to that and i think the answer to that would be looked, health care in america is a $2.5 trillion industry, 1 dollar out of every six we spend we spend on health care and that means there are a lot of corporations that are huge winners doing great out of the current system and they are going to resist any change and i think if americans were aware that other countries manage to cover everybody with less waiting and spend less they might want to change our system to be more like those in the kind of industrial interests of making money off of our current system don't want people to make that change. >> host: dr. abigail free viewed shelia of america in 2009 and wrote a chronic shoulder problem offered the opportunity for an unusually well controlled experiment. mr. reid decided to stick to

shoulder around the world. one shoulder ten countries at a big victory is a gimmick but what saved the book from slumping into a sack of anecdotes like michael more's 2007 documentary is a steal back bone of health policy analysis that manages to trap complicated concepts into the crystal in prose and to follow that up with an e-mail from denver, roel, a graduate student at the diversity of, robert denver can you give a brief overview of problems with health care access you have experienced throughout your travels and what are the major things we can learn from other countries? >> guest: thank you for reading that review. and author you work for ever of these books. i worked for years on this book and throwing out there and you just hope some review were will get it and understand it and this book has gotten really good reviews but that review i got in "the new york times" that was

marvelous. that woman really understood my book and she understood that it was an optimistic book because i say we could fix our system. we could cover everybody at reasonable costs with great results if we were to learn the lessons from other countries, so i'm glad you read that. it's a nice memory for me to open "the new york times" and find somebody who understood what i was trying to do. but experiences we have had overseas, i have had pretty overall good health care and other countries. but i will tell you something we found in britain which i think is a good idea, in britain they have in national health service that's free. dorsett to go to the doctor, the tree to, you pay nothing. there's no co-payment come no deductible you pay taxes and taxes are high but it nets out because you're not paying health insurance premiums people paid less, they pay half as much per capita for health care in

britain. they have a rule the same doctor that treats you in the free national health service can also treat you for pay in the same office on a different day and that gives the doctor incentive to say if i see you on the nhs it will take three weeks. i have a long waiting list and this happened in our family. a number of my family had a knee problem, went to the orthopod and the doctor said it will take me several weeks to see you but if you are willing to pay privately, come to the office on saturday morning and we will take care of it. so i think that is a bad idea. most countries make doctors choose. you can either be in the public system or you can build privately. but britain let's them to both and i always thought that was a mistake. i wouldn't repeat that mistake in america. but i have to say generally overall i liked the british system of health care. we have had good care. we generally most of the time didn't have to wait any longer

than we would in the u.s. and its free. there are no bills and there's no bill you don't have a three month fight with the insurance company over who is going to pay the bill. i have to say as a father, husband a patient i like the british system. >> host: e-mail from heather to read this demographic, jan 80 relative to the u.s. and other western developed countries make it easier for them to establish a universal health care health insurance? i'm not referring to just racial or ethnic demographics but political and economic religious and other differences that exist in the u.s. at a greater level than other countries? >> guest: it's a good question. i don't buy that. i don't think population diversity makes it any harder to provide universal health care. i can't see why it would. i don't buy that. anyway, some of the countries that i looked at in my book are more diverse than we might

think. i will give you an example the netherlands to cover everybody at reasonable cost using private insurance. the netherlands is about 16 million people, and a million of them don't speak dutch. a million came the last ten or 12 years and they are mainly north african muslims. they are not christians, they are not dutch speakers and yet they are covered by the system, the system covers everybody. so i see the question. it's a legitimate question. i don't racially and ethnically and economically diverse populations can cover everybody. >> host: just to kind of reading of the questionable but there are political problems with the muslim population or ethnic populations in europe now is that correct? you're right about that in the "the united states of europe." >> guest: absolutely.

all of the countries of europe have a nationalist party, people like tom tancredo the former congressman from here in colorado. all of the countries have political movement saying put up a sense, keep them out, they are taking our jobs, we don't want them. i don't think -- i don't think those parties have won an election in any country except there was one in the netherlands timber one for about six months. but these parties are there and the coming enough people particularly into this new wealthy european union trying to get jobs and make money has become a source of tension in a lot of european countries it's always been a source of tension for japan. just as it is in the united states. i think the striking thing is when it comes to health care even the illegal immigration is a serious issue in those countries it has nothing to do with health care. if you live in that country and

get sick they treat you. now it may be that once you get of the hospital the justice minister is going to try to keep you out and send you back home. but as long as you, are there they figure everybody should have access to the health care system. but you're right. immigration is a hot political issue in a lot of european countries. >> host: new york city is the first call for t.r. reid. stand please go ahead with your question. >> caller: you've written about u.s. europe and asia and talked about what you call the social merkel. they have lower problems like crime. does this apply just as much to europe as the united states and what does the european social model [inaudible] >> guest: that is a good question. is there a european social model? yes as a matter of fact, there is. and its -- involves a with a

stronger reliance on government than we have to provide kind of basic elements of human life and most european countries certainly everybody is covered by health care system, they are not all free to get some of them are but they are much cheaper than others and the cover everybody and most european countries education i free. kindergarten through college most european countries provide pretty generous retirement pensions provided by the government, things like that so europe, too, the european social model i would say is more communitarian the in the u.s. and i wrote about that in the united states of europe and argue that it works pretty well. it is expensive and in tax terms but europeans put up with higher tax rates. the sales tax is 25% of everything that you buy because they feel they are getting something back from it in this

kind of communitarian sex of comfortable benefits pouring out from government including health care. so, yes i think that is a very good point that i wrote about the asian social model but europe also has its own social model and in terms of crime most european countries have lower rates of violent crime in the united states. some of them have high rates of robbery car theft. most have highly rates of illegitimate birth of children born to single mothers in the united states, but to some degree that number is a phony number because what's happening in europe now is they don't go to church that much anymore. people don't have stick to traditional religion there for these young couples living together and live together and have children but never take the step of getting married.

there are lots of couples that we might consider a good, you know, faithful couple that are just not married and therefore when the child was born to that couple there's a dad in the home and everything but its rated as statistically is born to a single mother because the parents were not married. but that is really striking america is what 32, 33% of children born to single mothers and many european countries are at 50% today. so the social statistics don't look as good as those in east asia but there's explanations for this. >> host: including crown prince of norway -- >> guest: with his partner, yeah, living with his partner. they just many of them are faithful, loving couples who will stay together for a long time or forever but they just didn't take the step of getting married and therefore when you

do these statistics we with the kind of standard statistical model it turns out a lot more babies are born to single mothers but in many cases there's a dad in the home and they are living like a married couple. >> host: mark in the tampa florida, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. as an et meijer of confucius myself i find the differences in crime statistics to be remarkable. my question is how can america better introduce or increase the value of the purchase? >> guest: that's a great question. i became a huge admirer of confucius. he's just one of the greatest teachers in history of ethics and decent, but. i eat rate him with christ and thomas jefferson and john stewart in to your teaching how to run the government and live with each other. socrates, christ confucius, they are all in the category, great

cuban teachers. the striking thing about the confucian teaching is that some of them may be exotic to americans but a lot of them are not. a lot of them -- all of the rules confucius taught his followers are very familiar and 500 b.c., and 500 b.c. confucius was asked by one of his students can you give me a sort of basic rule so that i always know i'm dealing with other people fairly in any situation? and confucius's rule is to not impose on others you would not have them imposed on you and in china this is called the golden rule. there is nothing exotic or strange about that. one time a student asked confucius for he said you've been teaching for years about ethical conduct and how to deal with other people, but could you reduce it down to one word and she's such a nice guy instead of getting mad about it he says if

i had to i guess i would use, i would pick the word compassion. i would pick the word empathy for thinking about what the other person's state is like. that's totally -- that's christian, that western, that is totally our value so why argue in this book that many of the values in this confusion societies, the cultural values are largely the same and the difference is they have inculcated these values better than we have. they constantly remind people they put confucius's teaching walz the subway station in, they are there for ever and they put signs over the highway let's drive in a friendly manner to take, what -- they like stuff like that. they are constantly teaching. the teacher in the schools, they teach in the companies, so my argument has been let's do with the confusion countries do and first settle with our basic cultural values are and i think we know those and be what's

remind each other what they are. >> host: frank gib need reviewed come officious lives next door and 99. this is part of the review. mr. reid is well aware that japan's tight society is subject to criticism and at the end of his book he concedes the widespread corruption underlining so many confucian societies the diversity that makes overall judgments tricky and racial homogeneity that might play a great role in enforcing confucian harmony. >> guest: frank is a great student of east asia and he also gave that book a good review. that's another good reviewer. authors tend to remember the good reviews. i think i can remember every bad review i ever got, but he is right. at the end of the book confucius' lives next door where i make this argument there are

cultural explanations for why the asians have these good social statistics i have a chapter in that book called what's wrong with the thesis of this book and i go through all the problems because it's not as simple as i laid out for you in a minute or two and there are difficulties with these and i think that he's right, anybody that's lived in japan knows they don't murder each other and steal cars from each other and stuff like that. they don't put graffiti on the wall but some of their politicians did businessmen are as corrupt as any thing you will ever see in the west. some of them are on that date so how do i explain that in this context of the confucian social society and in the end of that book i say i can't. i don't know why they are so corrupt so she's right and i did put that in there. the thesis is a little too simplistic so i wrote a chapter what's wrong with the thesis of the book.

>> host: from confucius lives next door the u.s. depicted an asian media is a country where every third person you pass on the street is either unemployed, on drugs, packing a loaded pistol planning a scale or looking for a lawyer to beat the rap for killing his wife's teenage lesbian lover. our family grew increasingly angry at this depiction of a dirty dangerous dishonest america partly because we found it hard to avoid anywhere in asia. >> guest: that's true and as we were talking about earlier, the europeans also like to dump on our country and i think part of that -- i always felt part of that was jealousy. we are big and rich and successful it the most innovative country of the world. certainly we are the strongest military country in the world, and it's kind of inevitable others are going to resent that

and one way they do it is they look for the problems in our society and magnify them. i used to say in asia and a year up the only reason you know about these problems and american societies because we fight about them. we talked about them. we are open and trying to fix them ourselves and that's how they know it's an open society and therefore you can find the words of our society and they love writing about them and partly because the problems are there and partly because i think there is some resentment of how successful our country has been in the world even in countries we have helped there's a kind of resentment of the fact they had to accept help from the united states. >> host: vince and franklin tennessee you are on the air with speed. >> caller: thank you to c-span. it's always great. i want to make three quick observations and have mr. reid response. first the homicide rate among

blacks and hispanics, at about 84% of homicides and whites at a homicide rate on par with europe so there's a lot of cultural aspects to that. second on the terms of per-capita income if you look at the number of hours americans have to work to provide the necessities and luxuries' and why if it is less hours than anywhere in the world, so per capita income may say something but when you look at how long the americans have to actually work for goods and services it is far less than the rest of the world. finally, i would ask mr. reid what do you think is the greater value, economic freedom or political freedom? and i will wait for the responses. >> guest: thank you. i want to live in a politically free country where i can say and think what i'm want to.

that is the highest measure of freedom in any society. it's got to be there but i would argue to you that economic freedom and political freedom go to get there, that is free markets kind of inevitably lead to free political institutions. if people see they have a choice of city hall people making their laws i think they go together and so there is very acutely when i was covering east asia what happened is south korea i think is a fabulous example of this. south korea was a military dictatorship, an ally of the united states we always shored up the military dictators and in 1987, south korea was becoming a rich country and people poured out in the streets by the millions and demanded free elections and it wasn't just

left-wing students. these were brokers and three piece suits and doctors and their white coats and they got it. the military dictator had to step down and a day elective a president who had been a general but as a matter of fact he ran as a civilian. they gave him a five-year term and i always thought the great moment and the history of democracy in south korea was in 1992. i was over their covering it. the president knows first term as an elected leader in did he had been a general, he had been part of these military dictatorships and he said i'm done, goodbye. have another election and elect another president. it became a space society but i think it was their economic success with free markets that led them to demand free government principles and if you think about that model we've got to wonder what's going to happen

in china. china created this hugely successful basically free-market capitalist economy but it's still fascist dictatorial communist state imposing rules on the people and you've got to wonder how long people put up with that. but i would -- given the choice between the two, i would prefer political freedom but i think political freedom leads to economic freedom. the concept that americans work negative four our income than other countries i don't think that's true. americans are among the hardest working people on earth. i think the japanese, taiwanese and chinese work longer than we do but all of the european countries work less and france everybody takes six weeks of vacation and most of europe they take five weeks vacation and they really take them. it's not like america you build it up for 30 years in the bank.

people really take vacation and get their lifestyle is not exactly like ours. their houses are not as big but as they have a very comfortable middle class life style working vastly fewer hours than we do so the argument that we work less to get the same stuff i don't buy that in fact if you go to europe people always ask why do you work so hard, why do you americans work so hard and no wonder the rate of heart attack and cardiovascular disease is so hard your under total stress working all the time. that is what they say so i don't accept the suggestion that we need as much money by working less. we make more money than other countries but we also work harder. >> host: this is booktv's "in depth." author speed. the next call comes from bellingham washington. william, hi. >> caller: my question is do you believe that the examplef the united states of europe fits

into the united states of south america, united states of asia etc., and then from that point and on into the world government the country is becoming states and then counties within the state's based on our form of government. i personally believe those will bring world peace and bring about equality in the trade, environmental control and living standard throughout the world. >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: the europeans totally agree with you. they think this new model, the european union, united states of europe is the model for the modern world for the countries to live together despite their differences and not go to war. that's the reason they created the european union so they didn't get into another world war. they already had two of them in one century and it worked. the countries of europe are not

going to go to war with each other. they are united and interconnected and so the europeans feel they've created a model for other parts of the world. the middle east is the one they always talk about i was in -- i once went to a seminar at oxford university about exporting the european union model and they were talking -- they like the term the united states of europe. that resonates to those people and they wanted to have the united states of america and i don't just mean a were country and north america but canada to chile they wanted to have a single american union and they were actually talking about we would accept an american wide currency called the peso. can you american defeat to imagine americans giving up dollars to spend pesos? i don't think it's likely to happen that the europeans really liked this idea that in other parts of the world particularly

in other parts of the world with a lot of tension and history of warfare the european union model could work and whenever you say about it it's definitely worked in europe. they have now gone 70 years without war and they are not going to have a war on the mainland of europe anymore. >> host: in the united states of europe t.r. reid spends a lot of time talking about january 1st, 2002, the conversion of the euro triet here is a week from john crisp. how stable can this be 13 people it covers country like germany and greece? >> guest: jack, that's a very good question. so, when you create a currency union that is when different countries were state's share a single currency, there is something called credible currency union, that is are the countries closer together in a government terms and economic terms that you can have a single

currency, and this question is being challenged right now in europe. the argument greece never should have been admitted to the euro in the first place because it never met the basic test europe set for a healthy economy to be. but the answer to that is there are huge differences come a huge economic differences between oregon and elegant and there are many times when alabama or arkansas has a tama, 11, 12% commission for example 12% of insurance rate and other states have a five or six per cent of employment rate i'm sorry, michigan is 12% unemployment, colorado is about seven and other states are five and yet we all use the dollar and kind of absorber the changes and this is the problems facing greece, portugal and some extent spain creates the same kind of challenge for the euro.

my bet is the euro is going to survive and the reason it's going to survive is the rich countries of europe, germany, france, etc., belgium, they want to see europe thrive, the euro flight because they have done very well, so i think they are going to take the steps necessary to keep the union of alive. "the healing of america" you go over how miserable we do have it here in this country for how long we've had it. and we've come up to the point where -- you know, even in this crisis, you know, fiscally and healthcare wise, the government still can't come to a plan that's obviously the best -- the universal system. we shouldn't be arguing, you know, what is there. in these bills right now. we should be arguing which type of system should we be going through morally fiscally it is the best system right now.

even when the majority of americans support it, we still can't get our government to do it. so do you think this story -- when we look back in the history books we're going to see that this story is about -- and you came up just short in your first answer today in the email. will this story be about really the corruption in government that prevented this from happening, the obvious even in a crisis situation, even when the majority of americans support it? will the story be about the corruption in the american government, you know, the type of corruption that, you know, we only apportion to third world dictatorships? >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: look, i'm convinced -- i'm 100% convinced we're going to get to universal coverage. to me the goal of a healthcare system should be universal coverage at reasonable cost. i know we could get there. come on. all the other countries have done it, as i say, all the time. if france can do this, the united states of america can do it. i know we could. and i think we will. i think the american people

eventually will demand that we cover everybody. i argue in my new book, "the healing of america" -- i argue that if americans knew how cruel our system was, we'd fix it. i don't think americans want to live in a country where 20 to 25,000 of our neighbors die every year of treatable diseases because they can't afford to see a doctor. and this happens in the richest country in the world. the national academy of sciences did the big study on this. i think it's very clear. nobody disputes these data. do you think americans want to live in a country where 800,000 of us go bankrupt every year, lose everything we've ever saved just because we happen to get sick or got hit by a car or something? it doesn't happen in other countries. nobody in britain goes bankrupt for medical bills. france, zero. germany, zer. belgium, zero. japan, zer. -- zero. it doesn't have to be. and i think if americans knew if we were the only rich country allowing this kind of cruelty and whim to dictate our daily

lives, we'd fix it. i think we would. so i'm totally confident that we will demand and get to universal coverage at reasonable cost. i don't think we're going to do it this year. but i think americans eventually will do it. and one of the reasons i wrote the book was to say, hey, it's not as hard as you may think. a lot of other countries have gotten there. and we could too if we were willing to open our eyes and take some lessons from other countries. >> host: okay. we've gotten about 20 eil >> host: we have about 20 e-mails in the last 10 minutes asking for your assessment of the current health care debate and the current bill and president obama's involvement. >> guest: of bill that is pending now in the 11 page statement is better than what we have got now. it would outlaw some of the most reprehensible practices of the american insurance industry and get more people covered which is what the

people native they would stop these practices. and it does have some level of control it does not go far enough five bystanders but i do think it should be universal coverage at reasonable cost and covers a lot more people. in 2019 it would still leave 20 million americans without coverage and it does not have enough to get to a reasonable level but definitely better than what we have got now. in that regard it is a desirable bill. i have ben predict the -- pretty critical i don't think they have done a good job of selling their bill and if you look at american attitudes since last july every month the percentage of people supporting obamacare or the obama democrat bill in washington has gone down it is now the minority of people. most people are against it. i don't think they have done

a good job pointing out what could have been done but the current bill is definitely better than what we have got it just does not get s far enough. people ask me this all the time i think it is likely we will get to universal coverage in america state-by-state and in my book i talk about some countries were universal coverage started on a recent -- regional basis and adopted it and i think that could happen in america. if we did just louis brandeis said the state should be the laboratories for policies for experimentation. and 546 or eight states try to find ways to cover everybody and two were three make it work than the rest of this can coffee. that is probably the model we will get to to get to

smirk -- universal coverage because we have learned this year the interest making big money off of our current system are too strong or are so strong it can prevent comprehensive change in washington. >> host: is the healing of america you're best seller? why did you dedicated to president dwight eisenhower? >> guest: thank you for asking that. it has sold like crazy provide just picked up a copy summer yesterday. this is the tenth printing. that is a lot of books for it coming out five months ago. we have done very, very well and it has made all of a nice best-seller list. a lot of my books half lot. i have talked to a lot of people understand the point*

that providing universal health care coverage is a moral obligation for rich societies and we could do it. that feels really good and it is nice to have the bookselling so well and have people read it and talk about it but not my best seller. here is my best selling book i ever wrote. of courses every american can see this is the famous book right hear the 4 million of success. it has hundreds of thousands of copies also a best seller in china and has nothing to do with me. yes i am a co-author of this book and it says right here i am the author can you see that? the back flap that is me.

the author. [laughter] but the reason this book has been so successful is the illustrator who is a famous famous in japan that writes the graphic novels and is very famous and this is his most famous character, one of the most famous in japan and is fictional but the chief at a big electronics company and i feel that the graphic novels, the comic books about the corporate executive i always thought were a fantastic window into japanese life and corporate life and japanese society so i read this every week. it is a weekly serial. i started writing about it for "the washington post" and about what a great

section it is. so the author came to me and said let's do a book together which is this book "seiko hoteishiki" part ii. if you are smart enough to write a book you will sell a lot of books and japan. that was my secret. now is still sells every year. this book right hear the formula of success was my formula of success my best selling book. but in english, "the healing of america" has been my best seller, is selling like crazy prepare everybody who bought it and those who have not buy it, let me just say that same patrick's day is coming up that is a great gift kind of thing. the book has done really, really well but not yet my personal best seller that

would have to be "seiko hoteishiki." >> host: is it as difficult to publish in japan? >> guest: of royalty rate is a little lower. in america i get 15% and in japan the royalty rate was lower but they publish much faster. in america u-turn in the manuscript and it will take 11 months before it is on the shelf but in japan it is out and about three months. you can do it faster. >> host: why is that? >> guest: i have done quite well. they are e efficient people. [laughter] i don't know. once they put their mind to do something they do a good job and they do it fast. that is the explanation. >> host: arlington virginia you have been patient. please go ahead.

>> caller: i have been very impressed. you have the first book and i have read about general patton and rolled 42. and you mentioned book sales. the only books i sold or the 23 copies that i bought i said one to "the washington post." >> host: was it self published? >> caller: yes. >> host: what is your question? >> caller: bringing up the european euro, what are the ramifications? wouldn't they need a central government? if we have 50 states that each state has its own separate government but the government of dc is

considered the central government. what are we supposed to do? >> host: they do. what type of situation? >> guest: how can you make a currency work when it is used by 16 countries each with their own independent national government? that is what the euro will test of it is a real currency union. one way they dealt with this is they have a central bank like we have the federal reserve. they have the european central bank that sets the reserve for all countries. so for some extent they have a common government that a currency needs but they are being tested they have a currency crisis right now in europe that will test whether they have a genuine currency union over there. but i just want to point* out the euro has dropped from about $1.50 now would

only cost about $1.30 to buy when euro. but when it started in 2002 and only cost $0.89 so it is still a much stronger currency the and rss and that is why i think it will survive the current strain and go back. >> host: you talk in the brass about brussels and the fact the euro court system can overrule individual countries do you foresee a day when her brussels becomes the washington d.c. of europe? >> guest: yes. over time i think the central government will get stronger. it will probably not go as fast as you think you read my book united states of europe because it may be a little too optimistic for what would happen but i think that would definitely happen. when we were living in

britain, one night a news flash came out that the european court of human rights, it in the netherlands had ordered the british army against some of sexual saw was a violation of human rights not to let homosexuals join the army. if some foreign court tried to order our army to do anything we would go crazy but the next morning the head of the british military said we will accept gays. we will do it. as long as people are willing to except the authority asserted by those european institutions, they all have authority and they have done pretty well. there are some areas they don't get clout but in my book i write about the huge areas of daily life better now governed by brussels and

every country. talk about the metric murder that was a greengrocer and he was jailed because he sold bananas by the pound and the european law you can only sell fruit by the kilo not by the pound. remember this in the book? the european union has also issued a decree on the maximum curve of a banana in past to be a fairly straight piece of fruit. so they have that kind of power. they have that kind of clout and as long as people except the authority and go with that i think that government will get stronger. >> host: and good afternoon. you are on with t.r. reid. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is that i have read about the declining natural populations of european countries and in

particular it seems to be acute in russia. 1 million russians disappear and birthrate is declining and the only european country that has a sustainable birthrate is muslim albania. and my question to you is to any of the political leaders of france, germany, finland, no rway, do they take these declines and a natural birth rates seriously? you mentioned 1 million to -- 1 million immigrants coming into holland that don't speak dutch. and in your view does the political leadership in europe regard these declining natural birth rates as a potential serious problem? >> yes. this is considered to be a public issue in every country purport of think it

is bad many countries in europe still have a sustainable birthrate that increases the population and britain is over two per women. i think italy has the lowest second lowest in the world and many have a declining birth rates. governments are worried. you need young workers particularly in the tax have the or welfare have the system you need young workers to pay the taxes to support the welfare base. they are coming up with various ways to do a. through encouragement, look this movie star had her fourth child why don't you? the french offer economic incentives, the money, four people to have more children and it appears to have worked. the birthrate has been increasing at a significant rate prepare the japanese

are trying that because they are below sustainable level of birth. all of the countries are worried about that i don't think this situation is quite as bad as you said that a lot of the newborn year point* -- european babies born in the 21st century are being born two immigrant mothers. that is fine. so what? that is what is happening in the united states. as long as you send those kids to the school in your country and teach them to be french or spaniards warner regions, they will come out fine. but it is an issue in many are struggling with ways to increase the birth rate. >> host: san francisco you're on but eric. >> caller: good afternoon t.r. reid i love your book "the healing of america" this is the best one.

>> guest: you are great. thinks it. >> caller: of like the part where you talk about the european health care system that our pride better nonprofit and hello based they were then americans have a for-profit private health care system. why do you think most americans don't realize the private health care system is primarily in business to make a profit for their stockholders? >> guest: that is a good question. you are talking about the insurance side of things because a lot of european countries and japan and canada have private doctors and private hospitals. the providers of care often are allowed to make a profit. japan has more proof -- for-profit hospitals and united states but it is the payments side that all the other countries have decided have to be nonprofit because they think

there is a basic conflict between paying for people's health care in paying monthly or quarterly dividend because if you are and health insurance company and you have to pay a dividend to your investors every quarter than you invent schemes not to pay the bills. that is how you come up with a pre-existing condition. if you make the claim they cannot pay said dividend to their investors and did go with of lifetime cutoffs for your and the hospital sick with cancer and they say sorry we will never pay another penny? they do that to maximize profit. the other countries have decided that is a fundamental conflict sell insurance companies are not allowed to make a profit on selling the basic package of health coverage. that has worked fine for of

course, they have squabble that first but they put up with it and they are doing okay. i think americans realize full well our health insurance companies make a very, very good profits basically when they deny your claim the reason they did it was to enhance profit and raise the price of their stock. that is why they are denying claims. and customers tend to those of their health insurance company because you just get a bunch of letters in the mail saying no but wall street loves them because of the very practices that make us hate to them. the other countries have decided that cannot work and they have taken the profit out of health insurance and people say to me people that have read my book say how does that work? how could insurance be nonprofit? health insurance was nonprofit for the first 50 years of the product existed.

blue cross and blue shield was started as a nonprofit to help people pay medical bills and only in the late '70s or '80s the big giants started to buy at the nonprofit blue cross blue shield shifting to profit that is when they started the business we will only pay so much per year and the insurance companies to enhance their profit they have a horrible system called a rescission. but what happens if you sign up for health insurance they send you a letter, they say congratulations you are covered by wellpoint insurance company. you pay your premiums are reminded you get hit by a truck or breast cancer than they say sorry you are not covered. that is called decision and they do it to tens of thousands of americans every year.

no other country would allow that to happen but i don't think they would try it in other countries the mission is to pay the medical bills and that is a fundamental distinction between the united states and other countries and one of the major reasons our health care system is not working. >> host: and talking about "the healing of america" i will read the book and then i will donate it to the local library we need to see beyond partisan politics. the next call is from buffalo new york. >> caller: thank you for a terrific discussion. dior's and asian nations have the same problem with illicit drug use particularly here when and cocaine that we have here in the united states? and to what extent is that a contributing factor to societal problems?

>> guest: that is a very good question. the european countries all have problems with drugs and they have dealt with the problem in a different way. for the most part they have a lot of drugs coming in from africa and east asia coming right into the european countries but for the most part they don't treat these as criminal problems but as a health issue. they basically decriminalize drug use. if you have a drug problem or a drug addict to they take you to a hospital or treatment center to get you off of its in a medical setting rather than present threat of a country that really pioneered this we all know about the netherlands were you can literally go into a coffee shop and buy marijuana. but that country that

pioneered the overall decriminalization of drugs was portugal. we went to there. it is a great country and i did a story about how this worked. the justice minister of portugal said here is the problem. we would jail the people for takeout -- cocaine use than in prison they would switch to hear when. it is hard to keep drugs out of the presence of a decriminalized and made it a medical issue but it is a very good point*. other countries have drug abuse problems and they cause social problems for all countries but the country's that have fewer problems are east asia and japan has a minimal problem but of course, it is an island nation and south korea has lower problems i do not know enough about china. but they have been stricter and have a stronger thumb on things. i don't know. it is a good point* for

european countries have worried about drug problems. they have problems similar to ours and just responded differently to the issue. >> host: west hollywood please go ahead with your question. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. speaking of obamacare and this is so interesting i have recorded your program, that it is complete legislating decency and it is not reform but my question revolves around this may be in your book and we have been listening as careful as i could and i don't understand why no one has brought up universal health care in relation to the gross national product her by no studies have been done by corporations and

companies involving employees and productivity and how it has increased showing concern for the employee support. but just the social morale and minimizing anxiety anxiety, enhanced security and how the social morale increases productivity. >> host: any response mr. reid? >> guest: i am with you all the way. if you cover everybody there are all sorts of economic benefits to a nation that provides universal health care coverage. the guy that figure this out initially is the one that created bismarck the first chancellor of germany was a conservative that we would call a republican a low tax pro-business kind of government guy but he creates a national health

care system and some of the members of his party said where you doing? he said we need a healthy work force if we will be a productive society with the industrial revolution we need a healthy work force. if we will be the dominant military power we need young people to serve in the military they have important economic reasons to keep people's health and good shape. and of course, i think my book demonstrates without any question there is no doubt universal health care coverage saves money. can i say that again? universal coverage is cheaper and and you spend less per capita if you cover everybody. want to prove? go to any of the 10 nations that i want to. they spend about half as much and generally in many

cases they have better health statistics than we do. they have better results for less money because they cover everybody. and is not a coincidence that countries with universal coverage have less per capita. but members of congress have read my book and they call me up which is quite nice but they don't seem to get the point* if you want to cut the cost of health care cover everybody. it would work here. i completely agree in terms of productivity and overall cost, we would be much better off economically with universal coverage. plus there is a huge competitive disadvantage for american manufacturers we're in a globally competitive market three at our manufacturers pay vastly more for health care to keep the workers of the than any of our competitors.

if we covered everybody we would cut costs. how come nobody and congress gets this? i have briefed congressional committees i went to a briefing in florida and briefed members of congress and they listened politely and say it is so interesting but you can tell they don't believe it. it is true. universal coverage reduces cost. >> host: one email one of the criticisms of the u.s. state democratic model is the approach to describe with generous benefits come a free education cradle to grave services with high taxes inhibits the of entrepreneurial spirit, some of the cultural landmarks of american society. is there any validity to this criticism? >> guest: it would make sense to me that high taxes and on the present government would limit

innovation, but as a matter of fact i am not sure if has borne out in practice. for example, do you have a cellphone? that is an american invention a great device but one of our great industrial champions motorola used to be the world's biggest seller of cellphones program market that american loans and guess what? is a finnish european company called nokia came along now has twice the market sheriff any american company. they own but that market because they were innovative and productive. of our biggest exporter in the united states is going the maker of huge jet planes but it has been outsold the last six years by a european company called airbus. you could make a case that the high taxes and this kind

of government presence ligaments innovation but just ask boeing if they're having trouble competing against the lazy socialist in europe. yes. they have been household i was played out it was the third biggest auto company mercedes that bought chrysler the third biggest auto american company. they bought us. i absolutely see a messenger of the oppressive government and the high taxes must be a terrible burden but it is not. even in the drug industry a study recently from the american journal of health affairs looking at major blockbuster drugs and where they came from and more of them came from europe and japan than the united states.

we are a very innovative country but those countries are doing well and of course, the drug industry greatest achievement ever, viagra was invented in britain. >> host: as a side note t.r. reid mention the cellphone being invented in america if you are interested in meeting the owner go to our communicator site recently be interviewed marty cooper the inventor of the cellphone working for motorola at the time. ogden utah york on with t.r. reid go-ahead. >> caller: hello. wanting to talk about health care. all of the laws that congress makes need to apply to all of the people not just a few. the second comment i thought the congress represented the people not the party. >> host: what does that

mean? >> caller: we have a bicker about the republican and democrat and say it is non-partisan. my foot to. i don't disagree we have different points of view but they represent the public and when they represent the party they're not representing all the fuss but only a few of us. >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: i don't buy that. people have to align with political parties and they have tens of millions of followers in people join political parties because they basically share of the sonoco mindset with the representatives from the party. i don't think long and two of party guests and the way of serving the people use a they should pass laws that apply to everybody. i would urge that if health care that has been the case in other countries. we were asked earlier what is the biggest difference between the u.s. and other

countries? the other wealthy democracies i have 24 my book, all of them first made the moral commitment to cover everybody. they said we are a rich country we want everybody in our country to have health care when they need it. nobody should die for lack of a doctor or going bankrupt because of medical bills. they first made the commitment. then you can design a system that will cover everybody because all of the other countries have done so. the argument is because we never have the conversation or the moral judgment to cover everybody, our debate is distracted like insurance company reimbursement rates or the procedure of the scale going to doctors. we are distracted and lose sight of the real goal which ought to be in my view universal health care

coverage at a reasonable cost. if we focused on that like other countries did, we can do it. we are americans. >> host: we have an hour and a half left of our guest t.r. reid in denver. why do you live there? >> guest: i have a very good fortune 38 years ago to marry a colorado and she is a very loyal native. we have lived around the world and after every country she said let's go home. we are home. this is a controversial statement in my family but i am a colorado in. i chose to come here as an adult i should get more points than somebody that happen to be born here. i love our beautiful state. we love skiing, hiking skiing, hiking, fishing, hik ing, the friendly feel of people in our wide-open western states agreed to

snow. i am delighted and so lucky i married a colorado and we now live about 4 miles from her home in golden and i hope that is enough. >> host: we will take a short break. we visited t.r. reid in his home and his office and he talks a little about that. that is three or four minutes and then we will be back. but first ponder this e-mail be thought. since you have lived around the world this is something for you to think about. >> i have read your books and see you on tv used to enjoy your pieces on npr. the composite best person most athletic nicest smile the year books invented in high school? please tell us your composite country filling in the same blank. best health care?

bus transportation? conservation? educational system? care of old folks, bestfoods calmat and any other best that you can think of. something for you to think about and we will be back with t.r. reid in just a few minutes. >> is living room area is actually my office and for many years this was the rocky mountain bureau for "the washington post." they cannot afford those anymore but i was it and this was the location in denver. like every office i have never had we have this wall of our kids which i have had everywhere. we got these from the colorado state fair 20 years ago when the kids were pretty little. this old the door is my desk on a couple of file cabinets.

over here is where i keep my records. here is what i do whenever i start a new book bye-bye a new file cabinet it is empty. then there is one folder and here is the file cabinet for "the healing of america." it is just jammed i cannot get it all in. that is what comes when you write a book. you gather lots and lots of the information's of anybody who complains my book is too long it could happen much longer. this is where i write my book and it is hard work. i try really hard to write them in a chatty and friendly way and throw in jokes and plans but it turns out to be very hard to make a booklet easy. it is hard work and when we lived in japan although we had a pretty big house by japanese standards but the

smallest house we had never lived in i had to do my riding in one corner of the room where everything happens. my kids on the slaving over a couple of books there and came to realize how hard work it is. why was reading this book i made it of film about the ancient hindu form of medicine and been india. he only has for that is a relative number of small arms for a hindu god. i put him up there in the hope he would push me to get done with my book "the healing of america." over here is a banner i got a national health service rally. by the of the 108 yes. you cannot see this but that is a very funny charge about how screwed up and messed up

the american health care system is. it is ridiculous. we have too many books we have moved all around the world and we all the books and for a while i was throwing away books or giving away books. they do not all fit but then i went to visit a friend of mine who lives in a beautiful house in princeton new jersey and have this in every room of his house was books and shell so i stopped giving away books i will show them all from no one is what i will do. i like warren nine bridges. my mom was germans so i grew up with a little bit of german then i got into latin and greek. that is that here. they turn life and i got into chinese and japanese and this will the may issue but as a matter of fact, knowing what 10 held

me to learn completely different languages. but it is such a well structured language it helps you to learn anything. here are all of the japanese books of mine. here is my leisure reading. [laughter] i am trying to read this great japanese epic written 1,080 per group very hard read nobody in japan can read it. i am reading a translation done for japanese middle school and high-school and i still have to look up every word. i am reading the book and when i get stuck to have a very good translation that i have to dig through. here i have the actual original text just in case i want to know how it was really written before it was

simplified for japanese teenagers. then here is the magic to a. this is the electronic dictionary that has five books japanese english and coming this japanese japanese japanese in japanese history encyclopedia and a dictionary of 5,000 chinese characters. i would have many more books if that was not for this fabulous dictionary. you can write it here and it will look it up. i found that right herand instead of having to look it up the normal way which is very complicated you just write the two characters and there they are. it is a great tool. it will change my life for the better.

♪ ♪.

>> host: we are back live with t.r. reid in denver near his home.

this is booktv "in-depth." mr. reed we left off with the e-mail from tennessee it about the best composite countries from all the places you have lived. health care? >> guest: for health care i think any country that commits to cover everybody meets my test for best and the important message of my book is if the goal is universal coverage are reasonable cause there are a lot of routes to that destinations of our family lived in japan and britain were quite different systems

and britain everything is paid for by the government and worked fine but in japan doctors and hospitals and insurance is private and that worked but the important thing that in a country that covers everybody, most of the rich countries to back. i have to put them all on that scale. >> host: bus transportation? >> guest: the best manse trans i have seen is japan with netherlands' a close second. the japanese are big carmakers and they love cars they have more cars per capita than we do. [laughter] but it is a crowded country. they don't use their cars much and do most by a mass transit and use the card for the weekend trip up to the hills. the japanese have a problem that people in the morning everybody in tokyo or the big cities walks to the train or to the subway to

take the train to work. lot of people by their bike. outside the train stations or sub voice stations, there will be a to 10,000 bicycles and they totally cover the sidewalk you cannot get around. it is a big issue in the japan bicycle contagion. there are too many. they are pretty innovative so here's what they invented. at the subway station, there is a very narrow skyscraper just like a toaster on its side for a grave very narrow building you could not even walk in the door and it has a little slick and you push a button and the slot opens and a metal arm comes out and grabs the front wheel of your bicycle and yanks away then it goes up nine stories and a store your bicycle somewhere. after work you come out and punch in your number and in

about 12 seconds, out comes the metal or with your bicycle. they found a way to do with the contagion so people can still buy the bike to mass transit. the netherlands is such a good integrated system. you get off the plane and amsterdam and there is a train to anywhere in the year up. you just walk down the hallway. i think transportation, of france and germany have the great high-speed trains but japan is the best. >> host: conservation? >> guest: of natural resources? i would guess to the united states because we have these very strong requirements if you cut down 1 acres of trees you have to plant that. other countries do not have that. i am sure we have more protected wilderness area than any country and certainly the best national

parks. >> host: educational system? >> guest: we have such a great democratic educational system in which everybody is entitled to as good of an education as we can give them. it is pretty good. the japanese system is famous for training kids particularly in science and engineering prepared japan and china have the incredibly complicated routine system with thousands of two from letters of chinese characters. and japan is 99% literacy and even china is over 80% with the very complicated system. they are doing something right about teaching literacy and a very complicated reading system. >> host: old folks and the arts? >> guest: yes.

the confucian countries really revere the elderly. they basically have been obligation on the family to care for older people in the family. life is pretty good for seniors in the confucian countries. but i think the united states has the good job of taking care of our seniors. we don't provide health care to repay but we do have medicare. we don't provide pensions but for everybody that is for but they do get social security so the west has also done a good job of respecting and caring for the elderly. >> host: of the arts? >> guest: the u.s. is the most vibrant art scene in the world with literature literature, visual art, the movie and tv, music, it is hard to imagine a country

that can match us. if you go to any other country, everybody is walking down the street with the newest model of nike's on their feet and a couple of starbucks and of ipod playing beyonce are black guide peace. to me, the u.s.'s the trendsetter for popular are to and just 298 billions of people around the world will watch the oscars and i can tell you from having lived in europe as soon as americans with all the oscars european newspapers will complain they ignored us. those rats. >> host: friendliest people and bestfoods? >> guest: friendless people is definitely in the united states and one of the striking things about living overseas one of the reasons i talked to -- i thought our

family to make sure a better mayor can. you have a better appreciation for the things we do right and take in everybody from all over the world. everybody pretty much has the same chance to succeed. but i think the casual friendliness of americans is unparalleled. we have made very good friends in other countries the japanese and the brits really work at friendship once they figure out there will be your friend they call you up and ask you out but the way you can meet somebody next to you at the ball game or chatting in the elevator, the casual warmth, the expectation that we are equal people and we can get along to me is the early american. the friendliest is americans. >> host: food? >> guest: we have got it

all. the best in the world? that is tough. america has everything. it is hard to beat a stake and a baked potato. and a hunk of homemade apple pie is hard to beat too anywhere in the world but if i have had great food everywhere can i have one more candidate? i think the best scenery i would rate in nepal it is an amazing country at the southern border they have a spectacular rainforest. the northern border is mount everest and in between is this incredibly steep country with these rice fields. we used to see that in japan were you cut a niche into the hillside to plant your rice burger you may see 10

or 12 or maybe 15 or 18 in extreme cases but in nepal you lose count. they have 1308 caris is up the side of the hell going of the side of the hell it is a spectacular rugged country than the katmandu valley the central valley of nepal is incredibly beautiful and to the north i think six of the world 12 highest mountains. for sheer like one big national park that would vote nepal. >> host: back to your calls wisconsin. please go ahead. >> caller: i am here. i just want to ask you what you think the essence of the political divide it is in the country? not just with health care but practically everything? it seems to me that i don't have an answer but i'm

wondering what your answer would be. >> it is about blame and judgment and class and race warfare. >> guest: yes. think we're absolutely our country is divided. we had a guy run for president promising to try to overcome the divide and it is a big reason he won people saw we needed obama as that kind of leader. the he has not been able to do it yet. why are we sell divided? in the first place you should always be suspicious of somebody who comes up with the overarching theory of everything. there is that explained everything that are wrong but i have one in a way. what i have been seeing in the polling that shows up in everybody's polls is the sense of pessimism among americans. this is expressed the you

think united states is in decline? the most recent polls i have seen this year, 6465% of the american people think we're in declined. will live be better for your kids and for you? sixty-five% say no. in other words, they think other countries will do better and we will do worse in this century down the past. i don't buy back. i think my kids will do better than i have done. but if you believe that and things are getting worse and we are in decline and you were scared of losing what you have got i think people grab and hold on as hard as they can to what they have got in you are scared of working together and of big change. i think the fundamental pessimism which that country also had in 1979 and 1980, the same kind of feeling is a reason for

intense political division. if we get our confidence back and things start to click for america i think we will come together politically. the plot is to pack and it covers everything and therefore have to be wrong but that is what i have been thinking recently. >> host: there's a rumor you thinking of running for political office? >> guest: asperger i have been working on health care and as i said earlier, it may well be the way we get universal health care is by state-by-state i live in a terrific state of the state of colorado a pretty well governed stay and maybe colorado could be a leader getting to universal health care and my local state representative in this scenic confine sens se a denver was the leading person in our state legislature on health care reform and really knew that

issue then a medal of our term she announced she would retire. so there was a vacancy of her seat and some people working on health care reform knew that i lived in that district and said why don't you do this and you could get colorado to be a leader? i grabbed at that and jumped up the chance. i did not win. but the thing that makes this a little easier to bear was the guy that beats me was better. i can admit that he had been working for the party for years so he was a good loyalists which i have not been and has turned out to be a very good state representative. he has been good. it helps some battle if you run and lose if the other guy is better. and he was a better state representative then i would

have been. i tried and i've lost. probably a good thing because i have been so busy selling of book i would not have had time to be a deason state representitive. decided to start that did they have as heavily entrenched for-profit insurance industry as here, and if they did, did they fight it like the ones that are fighting it here? or was it a totally different situation? or any of the other countries that you know about in if europe that have the plan that covers everyone? >> guest: yeah, that's a good question, al, and it is relevant. no, britain got to universal health care, well, they passed the bill in 1946, they started the national health service in 1948. the doctors fought it, but they didn't have an entrenched for-profit insurance industry. the place that i think is relevant p to the united states

is switzerland. switzerland is a country like us, it's a fiery democracy with feisty parties. there's a lot of money floating around their politics, like here, and they have big drug companies and big international insurance companies. i talk about this, i describe this at some length in my book. and the swiss insurance companies started taking lessons from wellpoint and unitedhealth and these other for-profit insurance companies in the united states. they figured out, as our insurance companies have figured out, is if you want to make a profit, then don't ever cover anybody who's been sick because they might make a claim. they followed us in doing the pre-existing condition thing. the swiss insurance companies, like the american companies, started hiring large numbers of underwriters whose job is to stamp no, you know, to deny a claim because it's cheaper for them to send you a form letter

saying denied than to actually pay your claim. and the swiss health insurance industry by the mid '90s looked a lot like ours. there were lots of denials, and people were unhappy. 5% of the people in switzerland couldn't get insurance at all because they had a pre-existing condition. and the swiss decided that this was unacceptable. they said, in a rich society everybody -- not 95%, but everybody -- should have health coverage. so they had a national referendum. it was led by a young woman named ruth dreifuss who was the health minister, and she said, doggone it, we're a rich country, we're all in this together, we're all citizens of the same country, let's give everybody health care. and the insurance industry which thought they were going to lose on the deal fought it like crazy. huge investment. the drug companies fought it like crazy. and ruth dreifuss and others like her took on this huge drug company and insurance company money and won.

they passed a national referendum that said the insurance companies have to sell their product to everybody. they took the profit out of health insurance, so basic health insurance is a nonprofit endeavor now in switzerland, and today -- they did it in '94, the swiss love the system. they're so proud of it. they would never go back. and that health minister who led the fight, ruth dreifuss, went on to become the first female president of the swiss fed case. so i offer that in my book as a model. yeah, you can take on entrenched interests and big money in health care if you make the right argument. and her argument was, we think everybody who's sick should have access to a doctor. and that is the case in all the other rich countries. it's only in america that we let tens of thousands of our neighbors die every year of treatable diseases because they can't see a doctor. we meet one on the first page of my book.

we meet a 32-year-old college graduate who got sick, so the insurance companies wouldn't sell her coverage anymore, and she died of a treatable disease because she couldn't afford the drugs and doctors she needed in the richest country in the world. that was starting to happen in switzerland, and the swiss changed it even though the insurance companies fought 'em like crazy. so this is another reason why i'm so confident in my book. i know we could change our system despite the money p floating around our politics if we had a leader to tell us to do the right thing. >> host: do other countries have problems with earmarks as we do here in the u.s.? this is from paul. >> guest: oh. well, other countries certainly have powerful members of the parliament taking national money and pumping it into their districts, yeah, that definitely happens. they don't call it earmarks, but i'd give you a good example, you know, in japan if you're, any town of any importance in japan

nowadays has a bullet train. this is really important that you have the high-speed bullet train come to your town. and we used to live, many years ago peggy and i lived on the southern island of japan, and it's far from the big cities on the main island. so it took a long time to get the bullet train down there, but there was a very powerful member of the japanese dyad from the southernmost, it's kind of like miami, the southernmost town. so he got a bullet train built from midway, but the middle part of the island still didn't because they had a weak parliamentarian. so they had this national train system with a big gap in it because one powerful congressman got his city the service, but the other guy wasn't as powerful. so, yeah, every country i've ever lived in or watched members of congress try to snatch tax money and pour it into their districts. this is a totally common

democratic phenomenon. .. book as the text and then

there's this big stack of used books. oh, that ticks me off. i don't make a penny when they buy those books used. the bookstore makes all the dough. i don't make a dime. may i say college students out there, when you buy the required text, buy the latest edition and then the author will get a little something out of it. >> host: and i can't imagine no one would want to know about the saga of the waterway user fee bill. from 1980. >> guest: well, i did pick a fairly mundane piece of legislation for my bill becomes a law course book. but as a matter of fact, it's a really fascinating story among other things. that bill was sponsored by the lowest ranking member of the minority party in the senate at the time it was pete dominici of new mexico. and the u.s. senate, they are so

hung up on rank and hierarchy and stature that they rate each of them by seniority and rank. and dominici was ranked 100uth -- 100th out of 100th. and on the last day of congress it was passed into law. so it really became a fabulous story. even though it is about waterway user charges. and people have said to me many times, man, you were so lucky that you chose such an interesting bill to focus on. and my answer to that, no, i didn't pick an interesting bill but all of them are interesting. if you look closely enough, if you know all the lobbying and all the manipulating and all the political trickery going on around them and the money pouring in to pass them or defeat them, they're all interesting. it doesn't matter what the is,

"congressional odyssey" turned out to be a pretty good story. i worked on it for a couple years. i finally hit on "congressional odyssey" because the bill had as many twists and turns as ulysses tried to get home from the trojan wars. it took him 10 years. i had been chatting with -- was it my dad or my father-in-law about the title for this book and i finally hit on "congressional odyssey" and i called up my father-in-law and i said i'm going to call it "congressional odyssey" and he couldn't hear and i said congressional honesty. that will be a short book. >> host: jennifer from hartford, connecticut, you're on air with t.r. reid.

>> caller: i would support for you if you ran for office because you're a straight shooter and again, what you're talking about. but i do have a comment or question. last night on fox, glenn beck said that education for our children is not their right but a privilege. now, thomas jefferson, one of our founding fathers, and a signer of the constitution, started america public school systems because he believed a good education was the right of every child poor or rich, which leads me to my question. i understand that in europe students get their education for free. including medical students. here in the united states, a young intern starts out with a huge debt, somewhere over $200,000. there's a real shortage of doctors here in the united states. and i believe many good students don't go to medical school because they can't afford -- >> host: what's your question? what's your question? >> caller: could you please address this issue of, you know, free -- >> host: medical education.

thank you. mr. reid? >> guest: yeah. i don't agree with glenn beck on that. i think in a wealthy society, everybody should have a right to a free public education. it's good for all of us. i mean, it clearly -- this is not some whimsical give-away that we hand to children because we're nice guys. it's good for our society to have an educated population. we need it. it's essential. i don't see this as a give-away. in any case i feel exactly the same way about healthcare. i think a rich society ought to keep people healthy. you're more productive. you save money. you just get a lot of social benefits out of covering everybody, and economic benefits. but, yes, it's true in most european countries, higher education right through medical school is free. in europe -- i mean, in britain, i'm sorry, in britain you have to pay but the maximum they charge you is 3,000 pounds a year or $4500 a year.

so they have just made that decision that there's value for society in providing this education for free. and as you say, they then have doctors who graduate with no debt and perhaps are more willing to take on a job as a pediatrician or a general internist or a family practitioner, which societies need more of. our docs great with $180,000 worth of debt and it becomes very attractive to be a radiologist or a dermatologist and, you know, get the big bucks even though society may need family doctors and general practitioners more. that's such an easy problem for us to fix. it would be such a snap for us to make medical care -- medical school free for any doc who's willing to do primary care. we should -- we should have done it 10 years ago. it would be way, way under half of 1% of what we spend on

healthcare and we'd get a lot more family care general practitioners or doctors. we'd reduce the stress on our young doctors. we'd get a lot of value out of this. and some states are starting to do it. some states are starting to forgive the debt of young doctors who go into a general practice situation particularly in a rural society. but, no, we should definitely make medical school free for any doc who's willing to be a general practitioner. it would be so cheap. it wouldn't cost us is thing. >> host: aaron wants to know, what is the favorite of your many books and what was the best review you ever got? >> guest: thank you. my favorite book, i suppose, my favorite book was "the chip", it was a flop but it was -- you know, introduced -- it was about the invention of the microchip.

it was very hard for me to figure out how a microchip works. i did a lot of work and i think i explained it pretty clearly. i will say for my current book, "the healing of america", this book, i put a lot of work in that one, too. and the striking thing is -- you know, i'm a reporter and i try to explain things to people. i like that book because, a, i think it is absolutely essential that our society get to universal coverage at a reasonable cost and it tells how to get it. and b, people thank me for writing the book. this hasn't happened in my other books. but people come up to me and say thank you for your work. i mean, people just walk up to me on the street, thank you for your work. that hasn't happened before because i think people realize there might be some benefit to our society. how often do you get to benefit your society so i like that. yeah, i really like this book

and it's done very well and i get to do three hours on c-span because of this boo can. so i got to like hauling hauling. -- "the healing of america". i know the best review i got. every author knows that. it was that book, peter, "ski japan!". >> host: yes, sir. >> guest: this is an english language guide to ski resorts in japan. it was a lot of fun writing that book. i mean, i put in every joke i know about genuine. -- japan. my family researched it. we went to ski resorts all over japan. they have a lot of them. and i think the time i wrote that book they had 720 ski reports and was only counting the ones indoors. they had a whole bunch of indoor ski reports. -- resorts. my kids went to those. i had a lot of fun writing that book. here's what happened -- we wrote it because japan was about to host the winter likes in nagano in 1998 if you remember.

and the publisher thought there would be a market for an english-language guidebook to ski areas in japan. it was the first one -- i'm the only guy who has done this in english. and so here's what happens. so the book came out and there are five or six english-language newspapers in japan. they're written partly for expats living in tokyo and japanese people who speak english and want to speak english. the book editor gets this book, "ski japan!" and he figures he's got to review it, right? so he needs somebody who can read english and who is a skier to review the book. so he assigned it to me. he assigned it to me. i got to review my own book. and, you know, i've gotten enough bum reviews in my life, i really took advantage of this. so just think of every cliche you can imagine. i put them in there. if you can only read one book this year, it must be "ski

japan!", right? and it deserves to sit on your book shelf next to "war and peace," right. you name it. i put it in there. >> host: and they printed it? >> guest: they printed it. we have it at home. it was the best review i ever got. why can't some other -- although i will say this. it was a great review. that guy really understood my book. but i have to say very close was that book review of "the healing of america" that you read from in the "new york times." there was a doctor who really, a, understood what i was trying to do in this book, and, b, liked it. that's closer.sor but, no, i think it deserves to be on the shelf next to "war and peace" is probably the best line i ever got. >> host: and we forgot to find out why you dedicated "the healing of america" to dwight eisenhower? >> guest: yeah. well, in "the healing of america", i make the argument -- let's be blunt about it that other rich countries do a better

job of providing healthcare to their citizens than the united states does. and i have learned -- and if you remember earlier we said -- i wrote that book "confucius lives next door" it's about how asian countries have lower crime rates than we do. "in the united states of europe" how they came together and built this kind of market superpower. in all these books i'm saying to americans there's things we could learn overseas. there's things other countries do better than we do. we have a great powerful innovative country. but there are things we could do better by learning from overseas. and here's what i've learned the hard way, peter, if you write a book saying other countries have lower crime rates than the united states and you go particularly on conservative talk radio, people say, you hate america. you hate our country. i used to get that a lot. you know, you hate your country.

hey, i served in the u.s. army voluntarily. i don't hate our country. i love our country. and how dare you say that any country does anything better than the united states of america. and so i knew that was going to happen for this book. in this book i come right out and say the kerr countries cover everybody, better results, less spending, that's better. i knew i would get nailed for it. here's my defense mechanism, i dedicated the book to dwight d. eisenhower. and the reason is -- ike, is the supreme allied commander to europe and he comes home and is elected president and takes over the white house in 1953. and the biggest domestic issue facing our country then was interstate transit. we had a series of two-lane highways built by the states. some were dirt roads. if you tried to drive across the united states some of the roads were mud. and ike said we got to do this.

and the various highway departments and planners came up with this plan for a network of two-lane highways running from farms to markets across the country. and it went through the main street of every city in america. not what we have today. and ike said, wait a minute, wait a minute, i've seen something better. because he had been supreme allied commander in europe. and in germany he had seen these highways the nazis built. they were four-lane divided highways with curving on-ramps and off-ramps and no stop signs, and no red lights. every 100 miles they put a gas station along the highway. these were the autobahns but they were expressways. and he had seen them. and ike says in his memoir, general dwight d. eisenhower says in his memoir, i saw the two-lane highway plans put forth by our states but i had seen four-lane ribbons of highway

crisscrossing a nation and i saw the value of that and i took the german plan and imposed it on america. that's the interstate highway system. in fact, did you notice the official name is the dwight d. eisenhower interstate highway system. today, i think it's 45,000 miles of highway and 14,000 interchanges and 0 stoplights, you know, and we love the interstates. they are an intergal part of united states. he borrowed the ideas from nazis and nobody seems to care. this was my defense mechanism. when people say how dare you claim people say other countries have better healthcare, ike and i, it's comparative analysis. that's why i did it. >> host: portland, oregon, jeremy, you're on with t.r. reid. thanks for holding. >> caller: thank you. let's see. make sure -- actually i have two questions i'll try to be succinct and get to the point. my first question, as the

countries as you've identified have more efficient, reasonable, rational public either. hybrid public/private healthcare or mostly public healthcare systems how many of those ones, if you know, had to transition from a system that's more similar to ours that has all these entrenched private interests hmos and insurance companies? and how do they do it? and if not, is that maybe -- what role does that play in making it so difficult for the obama administration right now -- >> host: got it, jeremy. thanks. mr. reid? >> guest: yeah. how many countries had to transit from a rotten spotty erratic expensive healthcare system like ours to get to universal coverage? that's a terrific question. i do go through this in the book. let's see. canada did, britain did. france did. taiwan did.

the netherlands did. a lot of countries have made that transition because they made the moral commitment to cover everybody. i mean, germany -- i won't count 'cause they started in 1883. but a lot of countries have done it. did it in the 20th century. and i describe this at some length how these different countries got there. and i'll tell you the pattern. it's not universal but a very common pattern. the most common pattern is, some leader came along and said to the people of the country, hey, we need to provide healthcare for everybody in our country who's sick. everybody in our country, all our neighbors should have access to a doctor when they need it. and people bought that argument. but they only bought it because a leader came along and as i was talking earlier about what happened in switzerland, in many cases, the entrenched interests fought it like crazy. and canada the doctors went on

strike. the doctors went on strike to protest universal coverage 'cause they thought it would get in the way of their practice. in many countries the insurance industry and the drug industry put up big money to fight this idea. but a leader, a leader came along and said to the people, doggone it, let's do the right thing. let's make the moral commitment to cover everybody. it's striking how often that is the pattern. if you read my book you'll see this pattern over and over in these different countries. so the answer is, yes, a country can transit from a private for-profit spotty insurance system like we have to universal coverage. well, and if you want an example right here at v3"nhome, in 1965 had an hew secretary, wilbert cohen and a president lyndon johnson who got this crazy idea that all american seniors should have health insurance.

and they decided the way to do it was with a canadian model through medicare where you get your insurance to government but go to private doctors and the insurance companies the doctors and the american medical association fought like crazy. it was socialism. it was outrageous. how dare we! and now, of course, nobody would give up medicare. if you told the seniors to drop medicare and go to private insurance, they'd rebel. you can overcome entrenched interests if a leader convinces people that this is the right thing to do. i saw it -- in my book, you'll see it in many different countries. >> host: scooter computer tweets in, t.r. reid says students don't buy my textbooks used then says it would be a snap for the u.s. to provide free medical schooling. fail! >> guest: i don't buy that at all. we can buy the textbooks for these kids, too, if they need it. if they're going to be primary care doctors.

in fact, i would strongly recommend that medical schools teach a health policy course to all their -- all their doctors before they graduate. and, you know, look, here's a perfect text for that book and the medical schools should provide it but they shouldn't provide it used. no they should provide a used edition. >> host: next with frank from beverly, new jersey. please, go ahead, frank. >> caller: great show. mr. reid, i have some issues about what you were saying and some comments you were making. >> guest: sure, sure. >> caller: about getting things for free, okay? >> guest: yeah. >> caller: in this country we have created a bunch of people that think they should get everything for free. and there's a major problem with this because our country -- our politicians and our government has created this monster by wanting to take care of everything we do in our lives and all our aspects. the problem here with healthcare has a lot to do with i'm going

to go out on the limb and say there's possibly 20 to 30,000 illegal immigrants that don't pay anything for our system and that puts a huge strain on our medical process in this country and on the hospitals and all that. whatever happened to old-fashioned earning. why does everybody have to get everything for free? >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: it's an comment question. -- excellent question. not everything is free. free healthcare is not free. somebody pays for it. really the question is what's the mechanism for paying it. how can we distribute this cost fairly? and i think this gets to -- i'm going to tell you about a concept that economists use called the distributive ethic, that is what's the fair way or the smart way to distribute different goods in society.

for example, there's a distributive ethic for votes in our country. everybody gets one. bill gates gets one vote. and the guy who washes the bumper on bill gates limousine gets one vote. very different in life and wealth but they both get one vote. that's our ethic for votes. and voting isn't free. i mean, some government has to set up a voting booth and buy the machinery and get the counters and test -- it's not free but we pay for it through taxes 'cause we've decided that's the right way to distribute the way to vote. we don't charge people 5 bucks even though that's what it may cost to count their vote. we have a different distributive, for example, foriates. -- for yachts. if you have the money and buy it throughoc# your own work or thh inheriting money or whatever, you get one and if you don't have the money you don't get one and we think that's a fair way to distribute yachts. so really your question is, which things should society make

a social good, should society decide to pay for even though it costs money. education -- public education is not free. somebody pays for it. you pay for it in your taxes. i pay for it. and that's fine. because we have made a social commitment to provide education that will make our country better over the long run. and i'd say ditto for most countries have decided ditto for 3ñ-e ú ú ú ú ú ú ú ú ú ú ú e

rich countries havefsq all deci that healthcare, too, should be distributed like the other rights that people have. and the united states has never made that determination. now, here's the striking economic fact which i mentioned before. if you do cover everybody, if you make that commitment, you save money. universal coverage costs less per capita than the kind of spotty system we have in america. definitely not free.

somebody has to pay for it. and really the question is, is the community wide, social wide way we're going to pay for it. if we say you're rich or your employer is rich you get good healthcare and if not, tough. and no other country has made the decision that way. >> host: joan, beverly hills, california, you're on with author t.r. reid on book tv. >> caller: yes. wonderful interviewer and host. i was wondering going back to your book, "confucius lives next door," and you're speaking of the emergence of the poor eastern asian nations, have you ever run across demings who oversaw the rebuilding of tokyo, japan, after the building after world war ii? >> host: why do you ask? joan, why do you ask that question?

>> caller: he's an american evidently could have left an imprint with the emerging countries. >> host: all right. t.r. reid? >> guest: no, you're absolutely right. deming was an american. he was a quality control expert. and there's a chapter about him in my book, "the chip". he's in the "the chip". he's also in "confucius lives next door" because he did teach east asian countries how to get the kind of quality control that they're famous for. deming -- and i met mr. deming and reported on him i think when i was writing my microchip book and i also put him in my confucius book. he was an american. and he thought up these mechanisms for building in quality from the very beginning. and his question -- the question deming always asked was, would you rather burn the toast and

scrape it or would you rather make the toast right the first time? the answer's pretty obvious. and in order to make toast right you've got to build in good toast-making procedures into every step of the way. this is what deming was preaching in the '60s, '50s and '60s. and he got very little audience in the united states. in the '50s and '60s we were the dominant manufacturing force in the world. we didn't need any advice on quality, right. the people who really listened to him were the east asians and particularly the japanese. and deming went over there and instructed the japanese on quality control and they listened. they listened. in fact, today, to this day, the kind of pulitzer prize of manufacturing in japan -- they give a prize every year at some guy who's good at high quality manufacturing. it's called the deming.

-- deming prize named after our american guy and deming told me when i met him he always had a better audience in japan and the rest of asia than in the united states because we felt we didn't need him. and, of course, one of the reasons the japanese have been so successful on the world economic stage is because they have this earned reputation for high quality manufacturer. but they learned it from an american. thank you for asking me. yeah, he's in two books. >> host: lee from l.a. stands for what does the t.r. stand for and why do you use initials rather than your name and what do your friends call you. >> guest: t.r. is thomas roy reid and i'm thomas roadway reid iii and i was thomas reid for quite a while. peggy and i were living in japan as newlyweds and i was kind of freelancing for american magazines.

and i lobbed in a couple of stories -- i think to playboy, anyway, that kind of magazine with my dad's name -- my by-line by thomas r. reid on it and my dad says why are you putting our name in those dirty mags? and so then here's what i did. i wrote a piece for tv guide. there's nothing wrong with tv guide, you know, it's a perfectly legitimate magazine. and i wrote a piece about what japanese tv is like for tv guide. it's pretty good television. and they had at the time -- they had this jay leno show, the tonight show in just that. -- japan. it was called "11 pm" and they had a jay leno, you know, figure and the band leader -- you know, the sidekick kind of figure on this japanese show was this naked woman and she was sitting naked on this black leather couch, this is so bizarre, and whenever they went for a

commercial break they would flash to this naked woman for about 2 seconds and she would sit there and say in english, she said, hurry on down to my house, baby, ain't nobody home but me. why did she say that? why was she naked. totally weird. and i threw this in my piece for tv guide because it was so bizarre. and tv guide's editors read this story about japanese tv and, of course, they take that one line out and make it the lead line of the story and then they&fz commission this picture of this incredibly buxom like japanese women are not sitting on their couch and it said by thomas r. reid. it was in tv guide, a pretty popular magazine. so my dad calls me up and says, don't put my name on those filthy articles anymore. i was innocent. and so i changed it to t.r. reid. and i've been t.r. reid ever since.

many of my fellow records call me t.r. and many call me thomas. >> host: where did your parents go up and what did they do. >> guest: my dad was thomas r. reid ii and he was a business second a mccormick at the spice company and then at ford motor company and since he worked at ford i grew up in detroit. my mom was a european. and her naturalization papers says czechoslovakia, but she was actually born in 1912. and i think at that time her part of czechoslovakia was in the austrian hungarian. we don't know much about my mom. she was a mystery figure. a darling woman with a german accent.

and she used to say to me, you idiot, you have no brain she would say to me. i've always found germans a little scary. and i grew up in michigan just west of detroit. >> host: claudette in lewiston, idaho please go ahead with your question. >> caller: thank you very much for your commentary here. i'm learning a lot. your statement you made you would prefer state-by-state healthcare, i think what us folks in the grassroots, if you want to call it that, we don't want more government control. so would the state-by-state insurance benefit us? could we do that? not that we don't want everyone to have healthcare. we just don't want the government more involved in our lives. and one more statement, you served in the navy and thank you for that, i think i get real concerned with especially the

europeans saying how bad we are and everything. but when you think all of the men and women that we had buried in their land that we went over and gave their lives for, i get kind of upset about that. thank you. >> host: t.r. reid? >> guest: yeah, i'm totally with you. and i mention this in my europe book. hey, we liberated them. we helped them defeat the nazis and how come they invent the laudbergers and that's a good point. i wouldn't say i prefer a state-by-state approach to universal coverage. i'd be delighted if we did it on a national basis as many countries have done. i just don't think it's likely to happen. i think there's too much money being made in the current system. and that money really is reflected in political power in congress. i think we're more likely to get there state-by-state because -- one reason, not the only reason

but the big insurance companies have less political clout in state legislatures than they do in a national legislature in washington.wúj it's fine for me how we get there. i don't care whether it's state-by-state or nationally. i just think state-by-state is more likely. and as for more government control, you know, if you look at my new book, "the healing of america", as you will see, many countries provide universal coverage with private docs, private insurance. and some countries do have government-run healthcare and that's absolutely true. but a lot of countries do it in the private sector. and as i think i said earlier on the show, i argue in my book that some countries are less socialized than the u.s. in, for example, germany and switzerland, they don't have a medicare. they don't have government-run health insurance for seniors. people stay with the private insurer cradle to grave. i don't think that covering

everybody necessarily means more government control. we could do it in the private sector. it does require government regulation of insurers just like we regulate airlines. we used to regulate banks. i don't know that we do that so well anymore. we would to have regulate the insurance companies and ban some of their reprehensible practices. but we could definitely cover everybody in the private sector. i don't think there's any question about that. you read my book and you'll see that we could definitely do it. it doesn't have to be big government. it could be. government would work, too. but if you don't want more government involvement but you want everybody covered, then you want to look at the models that i saw in switzerland, germany, netherlands, belgium, japan, places like that where they do it all in the private sector. >> host: you wrote to us that when i set out to write

>> host: what are you writing? and why -- >> guest: my next book i think -- i think my next book is going to be "what happens when the other -- when rich countries like japan, china and the saudis stop buying our treasury bonds" as i think most listeners know. our federal government is spending hundreds of billions or a trillion dollars more than every year than we take in, in taxes. and to finance that, to bring in the money we spend, we borrow money from other rich countries.

we sell them treasury bonds but when they buy a bond they're lending us the money. we have to pay it back in 5, 10 or 30 years. and even though our deficits are huge and seem to be getting bigger, these countries continue lending us the money. but a lot of economists have started warning that they won't anymore. that they're going to decide the united states is not a safe bet. and stop lending us money. and the premier of china, the president of china hu-jintao said this is not a good investment anymore. if they don't finance our deficit, we're in huge trouble. the dollar will go to zero. so i'm thinking of writing a book about what's going to

happen and how the u.s. would respond if that happened.gca and that's why i'm reading fred burkeson's book the united states is a debtor nation and international finance because i don't know much about this. it's interesting that you ask me that 'cause see, here the deals. a lot of,r

and we're pretty addicted to deficit financing now. i think it would be very hard for the united states to build a life without this money. so anyway, i'm thinking of doing. and that's why i'm reading that fairly esoteric set of books to learn about this. >> host: why do you agree back to "in cold blood"? >> guest: "in cold blood," the reason is -- i mean, truman capote had a terrific story there. but the way he tells it, the way he structures it. first you meet the victims and you spend a long time in this community in kansas and get to know the victims and their family and everything. and then next you meet the two perpetrators. and you spend time with them and their families and their life. it's just -- and then the crime happens. very dramatically done and then we start to meet the detectives and the police who are going to, you know, crack this crime.

and then you meet the jailers and then you meet -- it's just just carefully structured. i mean, you know, if you look at any book, you could start anywhere. and you could finish anywhere. but i think he figured out exactly the right way to tell that story and that's what i do. i really -- i don't like to start a book until i know the end. and i've said this to my own kids. if you're going to write something, know what the last line is going to be before you write the first line because you do better that way. i have taught writing courses at colleges or journalism courses. and here's my rule. are you ready? you want to hear a very complicated rule? when you write anything, whether it's an article or a book, nonfiction, you should start at the beginning and work to the end by way of the middle. did you hear that? start at the beginning, work through the middle and get to the end. does this seem obvious? yeah. but as a matter of fact, every day of my life i read an article

where the guy didn't find the beginning, you know, you're reading in about two pages and all of a sudden, boom, there's the beginning of his article and then you read along and you reach the end but the author didn't know it. and she goes on for four more pages after she should have ended it. are you seeing what i'm saying. if you outline it and if you structure it right, then you'll start at the beginning. you'll write through the middle and get to the end and the reader doesn't even notice. the reader just thinks that's normal but it takes work and truman capote really did that. in that book, i mentioned by the great, great, great john mcphee a great nonfiction writer, "in coming in the country." it's a book in alaska. someone tells him a story. it's a great, great story but he lays out the story. and at the same time he's telling you the story, he's telling you how he found the story. and he just intertwines the two

of them. as a writer you know it's not an accident. as a matter of fact, what john mcphee would do is, he would write paragraphs and stick them on a 3x5 card and stick them on a board and move them around until he got the right order. the reason i read these is to get the notion of structure, of organizing, of outlining and i will say to anybody watching this who wants to write anything in nonfiction, read those books and think about how he structured it. why did she start there? why did she finish here? why was this in the middle if you follow me? that's a requirement of good writing. and that's why i read those books 'cause those people really put the work into organizing. and if i do it right people call me up or say, well, you know, i thought this was going to be complicated. but really it was a pretty -- it was pretty easy. you know, it's hard -- it's hard work to make complicated stuff easy.

and you have to organize and truman capote and john mcphee are brilliant at it so that's why i read them. >> host: about 15 minutes left with our guest, t.r. reid in denver. ron, atlanta, georgia, you're on the air? ron? >> caller: this is ron. i will try to make it quick. i read both your books. let's see "confucius lives next door" and the "united states of europe". >> guest: thank you. >> host: >> caller: there's a comment or a question or two that i would like to ask of you, mr. reid. in our healthcare for the last year or two or three, there's been a lot of about the term tort of reform and also malpractice. do the europeans and the japanese -- do they have as many problems as we do with malpractice? . >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: yeah, it's an excellent question.

yes, as a matter of fact all countries have a problem with patients who are injured by hospitals or doctors. and sometimes, you know, it's an injury that stays with you for life. and there needs to be some method of compensating those patients. and sometimes you have to discipline the doctor or the hospital. but no country does it through the tort system. we're the only one who does that. all the other countries have decided that's an inefficient and inexact way to take a complicated medical case and turn it over to a jury of laymen and hope for the best. the other countries just don't do that in that way. in my new book, "the healing of america" i describe how other countries do it. but no country does it through the malpractice system. another pretty interesting distinction as i said iometimes if a patient is injured by a doctor, that that person requires lifetime medical

assistance, you know, if you're badly injured, and in america, lifetime medical assistance is incredibly expensive. that's why we have these multimillion dollar judgments against doctors. if you're injured in britain and you need lifetime medical assistance, it's free. it would have been free if you weren't injured. do you see what i mean? so the judgments in these other countries are significantly smaller but the other thing is they don't do it through the tort system. they have other mechanisms to assess blame and to compensate injured patients. >> host: jeanine, laguna woods, california. >> caller: hi. mr. reid. i have two of your books, your "confucius lives next door" book and your healthcare book you talked about today. would you please address a knotty problem specifically about the compensation to physicians. i have an example i can give you. but one thing that i know about is that many, many people emigrate to our country in order to practice medicine because of

what we offer them here in terms of research and compensation. the second thing i do know is that in france, maybe this country isn't a very good example from what you've talked about but the average compensation for a physician in france is $40,000. so i would like you to address this more specifically about compensating our wonderful physicians. we have met many in our lives. thank you. >> host: thank you. >> guest: yeah, it's a good point. there's no question that american doctors make more than doctors in any other developed country. that's absolutely clear. and all the other doctors know it. when i went to see them, if i was doing this in kansas or michigan i'd make four times as much but they wouldn't make four times as much but you're right french doctors make considerably smaller incomes than americans do. on the other hand, as we've said already they graduate from medical school with no debt. they don't have that burden. and their malpractice premiums are zero or very small because

they don't have the medical malpractice problem that american doctors have. yeah, in all the other industrialized democracies, the administrative costs of running a medical practice, you know, billing and paperwork and all that stuff are vastly lower because we have the most inefficient system in the world. all the other countries have made it much more efficient. so it's cheaper to be a doctor in other countries so they need less income because their overhead is lower. still, they make less money than american doctors do. and they all know that. and this is not the only reason. it's one reason why american healthcare costs more because we pay or providers more. i don't think it's the biggest reason. but it is one reason. and if we, as i said, if we took the step of making medical education cheap or free, and if

we fixed our malpractice system so doctors didn't have these huge premiums, then we could presumably pay our doctors somewhat less as well. i think if we're going to find the money to cover everybody, which i feel we ought to do, some people are obviously going to lose. we don't have enough money unless the insurance companies are going to make less money in a rational system. some of the big for-profit hospital chains are going to make less money and some doctors -- some specialist doctors making a million a year are going to make less. i think in return the primary care docs, family doctors, pediatricians, et cetera, would make more. but a fix to our system will probably require that our highest paid specialists make less. >> host: laconia, new hampshire, marcy, you're on with t.r. reid. >> caller: yes, thank you. hi, mr. reid. >> guest: hi. >> caller: i think you're doing a wonderful job today. >> guest: thank you.

>> caller: and you're so articulate and worldly, i was just wondering if you would tell us about your faith and why you believe the way you do and if you've ever been tempted to convert to something else. thanks. >> host: mr. reid? >> guest: my faith. my faith. yeah, i'm tempted. i'm roman catholic. and it's been an important part of my life. i think my catholic faith got strongest when we lived in asia because it was just a tie back to the western world. and it's been an important part of my life but recently i've been frustrated with the hierarchy of the american catholic bishops. and so i'm actually on a kind of journey of faith. i've been looking at other -- at other denominations. i've gone to many -- several different churches in recent months looking around because i'm kind of fed up with the

american catholic hierarchy and i've gotten in this healthcare thing and it bothers me, the american bishops have opposed efforts to increase healthcare coverage. that doesn't seem right to me. i think catholics ought to support increasing coverage. our bishops say they're opposed to healthcare reform because they're opposed to abortion. but that's an illogical position. the fact is universaal coverage -- this is important. universal healthcare coverage reduces the number of abortions. it reduces the number of abortions. in fact, if you look -- in my book at all the countries, rich countries that provide universal coverage, they have lower rates of abortion than the united states. now, why would that be? well, cardinal basil hume explained it.

in britain abortion is legal and it's free. it's free like all medical procedures but they have a lower rate of abortion than the united states does. why? well, if you think about it, if that -- the cardinal said if that frightened unemployed unmarried 19-year-old knows that she and her baby are going to have access to good healthcare, without breaking the bank, she's more likely to carry that baby to term. that seems so obvious to me. universal coverage reduces the number of abortions and, therefore, it just bugs me that the catholic hierarchy in the united states opposes expanding coverage and says it's because they're worried about abortions. this is like saying i don't want to fix the broken furnace because i'm afraid of pneumonia. hey, fix the furnace and you'll have less pneumonia. cover more people and you'll have more abortions. it's obvious. it's clear. you can see it all over the world. anyway, that's the long answer to your question, sorry.