journalists at the missouri school of journalism. but mr. cheney and dr. reiner, followed by a brief q&a, we invite you to purchase a book you have in our defense so. each of the books have been pre-signed -- is a pre-signed plates you get a signed copy. they won't be a book signing tonight. as long as he is served at the highest levels of business and government, vice president dick cheney -- has been on of the world's most prominent heart patients. now for the first time ever, cheney together with his longtime cardiologist, jonathan reiner and the shares the very most tory of his 35 year battle with heart disease from his first heart attack in 1972 the heart transplant he was deep in 2012. the book has been described as

riveting on them are both both doctor and patient. like no u.s. politician has before him, cheney opens up about his health struggles, sharing harrowing, never told stories about the challenges he faced during the perilous time in our nations is three. dr. reiner provides his dad on cheney's games and gives readers a glimpse into the sun education is a doctor in the history of our understanding of the human heart. the book cart stands as an optimist at book that will give you hope to millions of americans affected by heart disease. babies and gentlemen, please join me in dick cheney and dr. reiner. [applause] >> welcome, gentlemen. as joe said, you have written a fascinating book. the message you chose is a

little unusual. each right part of every chapter. mr. vice president can you describe your personal experiment. you get your best dr. cheney's cardiologist and mouse at the hiss to read a change and innovation cardiac care. that formula worked so well in both, i thought we would use it or the interview this evening. mr. vice president, your heart health history is amazing. i'm looking to well tonight and after they learn everything you've been through, they'll be even more amazed. you've had five heart attacks, numerous cap limitations, quadruple bypass surgery, the implantation of stents, a different relator and the heart pound m. in 20 months ago, you received a heart transplant. through it all, you held some of the most high-powered jobs and that was some of the most

stressful situations imaginable. so going back to your first heart attack, which happened to you at the age of 37 during your first campaign for congress, what are the lessons he learned from your experience be like to share with others? >> well, it is sort of what the book is about in the sense of what we do is to try to use my case to talk about those developments, most of which have been when i had the first heart attack. so it a hope -- a message of hope and optimism and innovative capabilities of american medicine. the treatment i got in 1978 wasn't much difference then what dwight eisenhower did when he had a major heart attack. i guess to mention lessons in a couple of things can provide a

purse of standpoint. one is the first campaign i asked my doctor, a man named rick davis, does this mean i have to give up the campaign? he smiled and said hard work never killed anybody. that's not exactly approved in conventional ways done. but he also said that stress comes from spending your life doing something you don't want. but he said he feel up to it, something you want to do, do it. i said i think about that. that was an important month then. i also very early on realized never hesitate. if you think you might be having a heart attack, if you don't get an emergency coming your school. a lot of people put it off

saying maybe it's indigestion earll chicken next week. when i had the first heart attack, all he could feel his two fingers on my left hand. the only reason i checked into the hot at all that night was my first cousin that had a bad heart attack a few weeks e4. but the lesson i took away from that what they got into the hot though and sat down on the examining table and passed out. when in doubt, check it out. if you don't, you're a fool. i think that saved my life on more than one occasion. i had a series of small attacks over a period of three years. i never had what i would call a major attack in the damaged ultimately was significant. finally, the lesson of the book is really about modern american medicine. obamacare and everything else. it's not a political book.

the fact of the matter is we have the best health care system in the world. maybe people can say they like to fix it. do not underestimate the enormous talent and creativity encourages john says in those people who've given us the kind of says them that saved my life. not only that, but allow me to go forward bystanders, even though i was 35 years. >> thank you good that it's perfectly to the question i want to ask dr. reiner, which is is your right in the book that for many years, the new developments in cardiac care seemed to arrive just in the nick of time to help mr. cheney. cheney talk about with his advances were? >> i told the vice president at the beginning of this project that is like your treading down a road very early in the morning.

and there's very little traffic on the road. the lights ahead of you stretch out red. but just as he reached the light it turns green. struck me that it's really perfect metaphor for the vice president's medical hiss every. you know, seemingly every time he had a medical event that might turn his life, the next of his career are satisfied, madison had any before it. when you look at the vice president's life, the vice president didn't just survive these events. seemingly every time he had an event coming he took on a job of increasing response ability. he hit his first heart attack in 1978 became an member of congress viewed in 1984% of leadership in the republican party. another heart attack in the late 80s the vice president

neustadt advanced than to not just survive, but to thrive. less of a medical memoir and morbid folk that offered people with heart disease hope. in part to understand where it comes from, but also what we can do. i had a phone call last week from a patient haven't seen in 10 years. this is the best call from anyone i've had about the book. i've known this man for a long time. he moved out of town and he called it bad, john, you read your book. he had multiple heart attacks. different relator, and he thanked us for writing the book

has it helped him understand where he was and what could be done and they gave them hope. i was really our goal for the project. >> ray. we are going to go through the very genetic story that you tell. mr. vice president, from 1998, when you have bypass surgery until 2000, you experience no heart related crises of any kind. in 2000, george w. bush asked to vet the vice presidential candidate and then he offered you the job. what were your concerns as related to your house and how did you address them? [inaudible] in addition to the quadruple bypass, the other thing is magical in terms of my case or december of 1988 was the war on drugs. that's when i went on.

between those two things, when i was nominated to be secretary of defense, had to answer your question on my and from the service committee. dr. john's predecessor from gw, who originally referred me to john, was able to write to the armed services committee that we dealt with my cholesterol problem and also the blockage of the arteries and so forth from those procedures. all of the significant responsibilities and so forth if that's true for the next five years. when we got to keep as income in the first time i was approached, i said no way. i had a great job, but at 25 years of public life. i thought about running as president myself in the early 90s and decided not to do that. that is going to go out and enjoy business.

vice president was in a job i aspire to. my career was over. >> and obvious you going to restrain the for being too definitive about. i didn't want to be based is the name. so i said no. he came and asked me to find a nutty, which i did. i figured out eventually a never acted and knew what i wanted and eventually got it. i am glad to be asked and was proud to serve. it was a great experience from my perspective and the opportunity to be vice president of the united states. but hope to enter into it. i tested on having, what to set the coming of the solution to my problem, said i'm going to vet myself to you. you need to know my situation. front and center that was a health. i said look, i have a twinge in

the middle of the vice presidential debate. i'm not a theory. i'm headed to the nearest emergency room to get it checked out. i made it clear that was a potential problem. he needed to satisfy and of. that in turn led to consultation , then advising president bush. they talk to each other. the governor talks to dr. cooley and concluded there no reason i couldn't stay. i did make it through the eight years. >> dr. reiner, you actually figured out that he was going to become vice president -- the best president nominee before it was announced. how did that happen and what were your thoughts?

you have been his chief cardiologist for only two years. >> i met the vice president initially when i was a fellow. alan ross had been the vice presidents for many years. i met the vice president when i was still a trainee. when alan ross retired, in late june of 2000, the vice president called our office and wanted an appointment to see me. but wanted a stress test. you know, the vice presidential sweepstakes is have a say in about a quadrennial quadrennial obsession in this town. at the time, i think the smart money was on tom ridge. i went to talk to vice president internist and asked him, is cheney okay? yes, he's great.

he went to stress test? he says really? [inaudible] >> what if the political reporters needed to be talking to you? >> i don't believe in coincidences. asking for a stress test is otherwise feeling well at that time in the political history of this country said they stood out. the vice president had his dress test and returned about a week later and just calmly said, looks like i'm going to be asked to run for vice president. it's one of those moments where you have to suppress what is happening inside your head and ask comments they really? you're the third person today that said that to me. but he happens to be right. .. >> fast-forward to the election, the famous elections that seem to go on forever while the votes were being counted.

on november 22, you began experiencing some difficulty following your own rule you said i need to go check this out. that turned out to be your third heart attack. it was the fourth by then. a couple of other things happened in the intervening couple of and you made a decision in march. tell us about that decision, and what you did and why you did it. >> sure. well, i was concerned -- the genesis was i asked daveed aington, my chief legal adviser and counsel, i asked david to review all of the statutes and constitution and any provision that i needed to know about in order to get ready to become president, and do a transition. that was my main job to be ready

in case something happened to the president, and i wanted to make certain i knew absolutely every single possibility. i'd worked forked when he took over. it was strange territory for me. when david pointed out that while the 25th amendment makes it possible to replace a president who is incapacitated. still alive but maybed a a stroke, like woodrow wilson in his second term -- the vice president convenes the cabinet by a majority vote, the cab not and -- cabinet and the vice president can set aside the president temporarily and the vice president becomes the acting president. there's no provision if something happens to the vice president. and we were concerned that, for example, if i were to eave a stroke or serious heart attack, i'm still alive but unable to fiction, that creates problems. at it almost impossible to execute the 25th amendment

because the vice-president is not capable of convening the cabinet and making that decision if something should happen to the president when you're in that stake. then you have a very, very weak president that moves to the top office, and there's no way to remove an incapacitated vice president. 27th amendment provides a way to replace him. with david i wrote a letter of resignation, the same form that any president or vice president, constitutional officer, would write to resign the post, and it's addressed to the secretary of state. the same letter nixon sent when he resigned the presidency. i hereby resign the vice-presidency, and the date effective, and then gave it to david, and told him to hang on to it, and if the need ever arose, if it ever reached a point where i was no longer able to function as vice president, then i wanted him to present that to the president, and the

president then would have the ability -- all he had to do is submit it to the secretary of state and the office is vacant: he would make the choice, nobody else would. i told the president what we had done. they were the only two knowledgeable about that. david didn't keep until the office. he was worried something could happen and might not be able to get back into the white house so he kept the letter at home, and one night his house caught fire. and i don't think we put this in the book. >> no, it isn't. >> but he got his wife and kids out, and then he went back in, got the family papers and my letter of resignation. but we never had to execute it. but i thought it was something i needed to do, and we write about that in the book. >> dr. reiner, you all of a sudden found yourself working with something called the white house medical unit. and i found this to be one of

the more fascinating things that you really went into. first of all, very unusual for mr. cheney, as vice president to continue to see you as a cardiologist. so can you talk about that arrangement and also how you worked with the white house medical unit? what they do. >> sure. i actually think that's one of the lessons in the book. there's a lot of value in continuity of care. regardless of how one feels about the current issues with the affordable care act. there's tremendous value in having a physician follow you for many years, and with the vice president more than 35 years of heart disease, he has had only two cardiologists take care of him. a very important longitudal relationship. but the white house has a

fulltime -- now quite large -- in fact i was over there today -- group of doctors and nurses and physicians assistants, whose primary mission is to take care of the president and the vice president and their families. and it's grown in size and it takes on more than just sort of urgent care kind of family doctor role, which -- we talk about in the book in the aftermath of 9/11, the white house medical unit was very concerned about bioterrorrism and a lot of concern for the safety of the president and vice president from not just natural hazards but manmade weaponized pathogens. so there are a group of fabulous, fulltime military docs, with the president and vice president 24/7, and my

great friend and colleague, colonel lou hoffman, with the vice president fulltime, a medical doc for eight years. i don't know how many hundreds of thousands of miles lou traveled with you. >> over a million. >> in the course of eight years. a tremendous personal sacrifice, away from home for so much time. but there's a group of tremendously dedicated, incredibly dedicated people who look after the president and vice president, and they do a tremendous job, and i wanted to talk in the book about them because they're really the unsung heroes. i say in the book if we gave out an mvp award it would go to lou hoffman. >> there also was a time you mentioned concerns about terrorism. there was a time when you were replacing the -- i call it a defibrillator. there's a fancier name for it --

you were replacing the vice vice president's defebruary brill -- defibrillator but you had a security concern. >> we talk about the development of the technology, implantable technology to prevent what would otherwise be a fatal hearth rhythm. these are implantable defibrillators, and we talk how these devices were developed. the innovator was a holocaust survivor, and developed this device that saved the vice president's life a few years ago. but when we replaced his original device, the new device came along with a feature that i really wanted, the ability -- an early warning system for heart failure, and going forward i wanted the ability to understand -- the vice president was in jackson and called me and said he was a little short of breath, i wanted to determine if it was heart failure or a cold. this device that hat

breathtaking capability, but also came with the ability, which wasn't customizable, to basically talk to the device, interrogate the device wirelessly. and it just seemed in the threat environment of the last decade, that might not be smart. i didn't know if it was possible to hack into the device, but the fact that the device had wireless capability gave me enough pause to ask the company -- my colleague, cindy tracy, asked the company to disable the feature and we got approval from the fda to do that. a year ago, on a sudden night, mrs. cheney e-mails me and said, my god, did you see homeland tonight? they just hacked into the vice president's defibrillator and killed him. so, i didn't get any royalty on that. but i should have.

>> for those -- it highlights the unusual environment that this patient lived in, and a lot of the folks who provide -- really the dozens of people who provide care to the vice president has had to react to. he wasn't just a complicated patient. he was a complicated patient live thing the most complicated environment in the most complicated time of most of our lives. so it was interesting. >> one additional thought. john never gives himself enough credit. he had -- because of the continuity over time of doctors, john shortly after -- well in early summer of '01, diedded d.c. -- dvded -- decided it was a candidate for the defibrillator, and eight years later as i'm backing my jeep out of the garage in '09 --

>> you already left the white house. private citizen. >> private citizen, and secret service is still with me. they're no long longer there. went into sudden cardiac arrest. lockout, and i came back, and had a big knot on my head where i hit the steering wheel and the jeep was on a rock at the end of the driveway, but john's foresight in having me do that eight years before, absolutely saved my life. 16 seconds from the time my heart went into defib until i was back, and the device had measured the situation, executed a preprogrammed shock to my heart, and i was back literally in just 16 seconds i was unconscious. that was one of the most crucial decisions in terms of saving my life. a very important one. >> right. you talked about 2009 and even beginning in 2007, dr. reiner,

you were noticing decline in the vice president's health or his status, i guess. you said, now we were beginning to see a not so subtle decline in his cardiovascular status. it was becoming abundantly clear that dick cheney had heart problems. >> the president was becoming more short of breath-some we were watching the natural history of over 30 years of heart disease. heart disease involving the arteries that give blood to the heart muscle. and the vice president had been so well-compensated for so many years and had been asymptomatic, leading this vigorous, incredibly hectic life, in a really amazingly stressful environment. but about a year from the end of

the vice president's term in office, i noticed he was more short of breath and starting to develop the early signs of heart faile, which is part of the natural history of this disease. it was subtle. and the vice president could still function, put in a full day of work and could still exercise, but it was becoming clear that we were going to enter a new phase of the disease. >> so, you left the white house in 2009. you told us about the indent in the driveway, and then by 2010, things deteriorated further, and i guess, dr. reiner, describe what the state was then and then i'll ask the vice president how you were feeling about it. >> well, there were a series of

events. in the last days of the administration, the vice president actually hurt his back, and really had incapacitating back injury, which ultimately required back surgery in the summer of 2010, and a few months after that the vice president had a bout of congestive heart failure, and then a month or two after that -- 2009, had the device went off, and then there were a series of events that followed that, and there's an indelicate term i described in the book, which i called circling the -- in medicine we have ways of describing things which sometimes seem cold, but the -- you get a whirlpool forming of accelerating torrent of events, and the vice president was starting to have them.

developed atrial fibrillation which was not tolerated well. rapid irregular heartbeats, which required blood thinners. the blood thinners caused serious, life-threatening bleeding. but the blood thinners were necessary to prevent stroke. so, you can see that one event led to another event. like a series of dominoes clicking into each one. and that led to end-stage heart disease, and now the spreading, in late spring of early summer of 2010, when the vice president essentially was dying of congestive heart failure. >> and how were you approaching things at that point? what tide you think -- what did you think? >> i was -- the period of the 17 months after i left the white house, until i reached end-stage heart failure, we hit a real crisis, and as jon said, it was one thing after another that was

complex set of developments through the spring, and when i got down to the point -- this would have been probably the first week in july of 2010 -- i remember going to the hospital, down to gw, 4th of july, and i had bleeding problems. i had arterial nose bleeds, involving bleeding internal in the leg that was painful. went down and then went back home again. i remember the fireworks going off. trying to get out river road or the park after the fireworks display, which is impossible under normal circumstances. but i believed i'd reached the end of my days. i'd had a fantastic life. great family. and done everything i could conceivably thing of doing, and i'd known for many years that -- and assumed for many years

eventually i would die of heart failure. it happened to my dad. then happened to my mother's father, and i'd reached the point where i was 69 years old, and i was at peace. as i contemplated the end of my days, it was not nearly as difficult for me as it was for my family. so it was a time that i'd come to grips with the fact that my time was up, we'd run out of technology there weren't anymore green lights i had focused on or thought much about, and so that's the shape i was in, when we went into the hospital on the 6th of july, expecting to try oner who thing, which was this ventricular device. >> what was the next possible green light you had? >> so, the natural history of

heart disease is the heart function deteriorates to the point the heart can no longer compensate and organs can no longer function, and until recently, the next thing that would happen is the person would die, and in the spring of 2010, -- >> spring? >> spring of 2010 -- >> we're now in july. >> a month or two before that, the vice president's daughter, liz, called me. she said -- was very sad to hear this -- she said my dad is dying. and is there more that -- is it true there's nothing that can be done? and i said, no, there is more. we can put a ventricular assist device in the vice president. we can even transplant him. liz said, he not a too old for that? i said he's not too old for

that. that began this process of moving the vice president towards mechanical assists. now in 2013, instead of watching the inexorable decline of a patient, we can support the function of the heart with a wonderful, elegant technology with one moving part, that spins 10,000 revolutions per minute, and can take over for essentially a dead main pumping chamber of the heart, the left ventricular assist twice. that's what we offered the vice president. and although the vice president appeared to be somebody who was at the end of his days, what we thought all these problems had a single cost, which was a -- single cause, which was a bad heart, and if we could make the heart better, the problems, breathing, arrhythmia, would go away. so we set out to fix that, and

our colleagues across the river at andover fairfax hospital, wonderful display of surgical skill and dedication, per perseverance, implanted the device on -- on the night of july 6th. the vice president that night was -- it was probably hours from death. >> so, you had -- did you think about not doing this or you -- as soon as you heard about this, you were willing to do this? >> it wasn't really a close call. >> yeah. >> i had not thought about transplant, and partly it was -- i just didn't -- just never occurred do me it was a possibility and there weren't vary many hearts and so forth.

so i never spent a lot of time focusing on it. then jon set up a meeting with a team and brought in a real honest to goodness working lvat, and to brief me on the operation. so, when it was time, we were going to operate on thursday night, keep me in the hospital for two days and try to rebuild my strength. but my numbers were collapsing so fast, the docs came in. my family was there and basically said, look, we got to go now. i said, let's do it. so we did. it was the toughest surgery by far. and 20 some units of blood, and i came out from it, i was so weak when i went in, i was very sick puppy. i had five weaknesses icu prior to than on a respirator, and 35 weeks afterwards, i contracted pneumonia.

so it was a rough patch. but it worked. and once i came out from under the anesthetic, i was -- i lost 40 pounds, i was in control of bodily functions. i could breathe, and i had to practice that every day. but i was alive. and with the prospect if i could get to the transplant that gave me a whole new lease on life. >> okay, let's move ahead, then to when you -- i believe it was march 23rd, 2012, you both received calls. tell what your experience was. >> well, i won't be able to forget the date because that was my dad's 90th birthday. and my wife, cherise, and i were going to take our children the next day to canada for a ski trip. and the phone rang just is a was

getting into bed and it mays colleague. when i looked at the phone, before i even pressed the green button on the phone, i saw the caller i.d., knew what it was. no other reason for him to call me at that time, midnight. and i just picked up known and without even saying, hello, i just said, really? and he said, and -- and the head of heart failure at fairfax said, jon, we have a heart, and it is perfect. and i had known some -- in some ways ex-ever since i met the vice president, that one day i might be getting a phone call like that. but it was a very dramatic moment. i called the vice president. he had already gotten the news from one of the nurse practitioners over at fairfax, and i called the vice president, and i said, you know, sir, this

is going to be a great day. and i realized that i was probably trying to reassure myself. the vice president was in incredible spirits, and it was a very emotional evening for me. >> you describe the surgery, and when you came out of this, you described the heart refilling with blood and starting to beat again, and when you woke up, tell us what you felt then. >> well, i can remember jon was at the bedside, as well as adam spear, the surgeon at andover fairfax, and they told me everything had gone very well, the transplant was smooth, looked like a good heart, and it -- once it was hooked up to the blood supply and given a

touch electrically, like with a pacemaker, it had taken off and everything was perfect. and i -- at that point my immediate reaction was one of joy. and at the same time, as you go through this, you're very much aware, and always emphasize as i do tonight, i wouldn't be here without the donor. people often ask about the contact with the donor's family, and it's not really encouraged. especially early on, partly because my sense of almost being reborn. i -- i was dying and then i have an extension of my life for who knows how long, and the donor's family has been through a terrible tragedy. they lost someone and there's an enormous mismatch emotionally in terms of where you are at a particular time. but it was the easiest surgery i

had, and have been in the times, same scar. the only thing i have left to show for having had 35 years of heart disease is i have a scar that they went into three times in open-heart procedures. the hold heart is gone-extents are again, defibril raters are gone, everything that was part of 30 years of coronary disease, have a new heart. the arteries in it are absolutely clean from the standpoint of blockages, and was back in a year afterwards and do a catheterization. i haven't had arteries that good until i was much younger. as jon said it was the center of my illness and once i got a new heart, all the other problems i'd been living with for so long went away. nothing short of a miracle. >> in 2010 you were unable to

fish or hunt. two of your favorite activities. keen even walk upstairs. what's your activity like today? what's life like for you today? we can see you look very well. >> well, we spent a good part of the year in wyoming in jacksonhole. i got a ford 350 diesel that a haul a trail with that haul mist granddaughter's horse because she is a barrel racer. this year i shot pheasant in montana -- bass in montana and on the eastern shore for goose season. i fish one day a week on the snake all summer long. from physical limitations, i don't think there are any. i work out on an incumbent

bicycle every day. i have a bad knee but that was because of playing football in high school. jon told me this whole procedure, this whole operation, everything we're going through, will have been a success when you tell me you're more worried about your knee than your heart, and we're there. >> dr. reiner, some people suggested that mr. cheney got special treatment because he ills a v.i.p. is that true? >> obviously not. every innovation, every drug, every device, every surgery that the vice president received is commercially available, technology -- there were no experimental therapies offered to the vice president. but the vice president was unusual patient. he was vice president of the united states. and so although we delivered, i think, state-of-the-art, complex

medical care to a complex patient, the most complex patient in my career, actually, what was different was how we had to deliver it. we talk about it in the book. how we had to tailor the care of somebody who has very singular security requirements, who required a very efficient care. you can't -- i can't impose on the vice president, gee, come in tomorrow and then maybe later in the week, and then next week. we tried to create an efficient model of care. we talked about how we do that in the book. so, the wail we delivered the care is unusual. the care he got is standard state-of-the-art cardiovascular care, 2500 years in the making. but, sure, when you have to find a place for the military aide carrying a nuclear football,

that's not usual care. and so at gw, where almost all of the vice president's care has been nor last three decades, well know how to do that. so we configured this standard care to an unstandard patient, and i admit that. absolutely. >> you do say in the book sometimes celebrities can get worse care. the famous celebrity syndrome. than better care. so, there can be a downside. >> we tried not to do that. very early on. in fact, the early morning when the vice president was admitted with a small heart attack during the recount, i told him that i didn't want to negatively bias his care by not doing what i would normally do for just the average joe came in with those symptoms.

and i think throughout the course of his care with me and with us and my many colleagues at gw, we tried very hard to do that. early on when we were thinking about the defibrillator, in 2001, one of my colleagues said, why look for trouble? and that's the kind of thinking that we really wanted to avoid. so v.i.p. care usually doesn't mean good care. usually means the cop verse of -- the converse of that. we tried to provide usual care in an unusual way. >> thank you. mr. vice president, you wrote in the the book about how important your family was to your recovery, and you also wrote about how in your political campaigns, they were always a family affair. so i'm sure it's very painful right now for you to be

experiencing the rift between your daughters, and i wonder if tonight you have anything you want to add to the statement that you and your wife made a few weeks ago about that situation. >> no. i knew you were going to ask, barbara. it is obviously a difficult thing for a family to deal with, but lynn and i put out a statement a few days ago, a week or two ago, and we -- were surprised when there was an attack launched against liz on facebook, and wished it hadn't happened, and do believe we have lived through the situation and dealt with it for many years, and it's always been dealt with within the context of the family, and frankly, that's our

preference to properly deal with it. >> you have publicly said your supportive of -- >> i've gone as far as i'm going to go on the subject, barbara. >> okay. >> don't waste your time. >> i see you haven't lost your ability -- >> you taught me a lot. jon sitting over here. >> one last question and then we'll take questions from the audience. you mentioned the affordable care act in the opening here. do you think if the affordable care act had been in place would your healthcare have been any different? you were covered by insurance the whole time. what -- >> well, the insurance i had -- there was a time when i was 23, shortly before i got married, when i got sick, hospitalized, had no health insurance. i spent honeymoon money on medical bills. later on i learned i needed health insurance, and when i

went to work for the government i got the blue cross blue shield and kept that, and that financed the care, and then i believe when i left the white house i went on medicare at that point, i guess the way it worked. in terms of my concerns, there are a lot of them. we talk about, for example, importance of continuity in doctors. when i had my second heart attack in 1984, i was in the congress, and sent me to bethesda at that time, and the care was perfect. i'd been in hospitals that had -- this is my second heart attack but i'd been in on a couple other episodes. one thing concerned me was i never knew who my doctor was until they walked through the door. that's when i made the decision i need to find a first-rate cardiologist in the washington year because i planned to stay and embark on a political career, and to ask him to take my case and follow it over time.

and that ultimately led to jon. the continuity of those two doctors over time absolutely was crucial. i wouldn't be here tied without it. i worry when if hear this talk about you can keep the same doc if you want, but, sorry, we didn't mean it. i think that's a very bad sign. i worry very much about the device tax. we talk in the book, one of the great things jon does is write about the history of stints. came from two guys who didn't have any money. a -- a guy i know invested $250,000 with them and gave them enough to build and get a patent, sold at the johnson percent johnson, saved millions of lives. the initialtive and incentive for them to do that and make it

happen, didn't come from the government. it was something they put together themselves, and now under obamacare we're going to tax the makers of devices from the very first income. and they pay taxes on whatever profit like anybody else, but this is a new tax imposed on medical devices. i think that's one of the dumbest ideas i've heard, and i feel very strongly about it. but i literally am walking around proof of how great our -- and how innovative our healthcare system has been, and i can't imagine anything worse than -- well, i'm sure i can, but i think it's just an example of how ill-conceived parts of this program are. >> thank you. we'll go now to the audience for questions. we have people with microphones, and shall we go here. >> guest: do you have someone there who wants to ask a question? >> mr. vice president there are countless people waiting for

hearts in the united states. had you not been the vice president, do you candidly believe you would have received a heart when you needed one? >> i went through the process that everybody else has to go through. jon can speak to it with greater authority than i do. in the normal waiting time is 10 to 12 months. i waited 20 months. >> dr. reiner. >> i can answer that. there's no way to game the system. there was certainly no -- never any intent to even try to game the system. and even if there was, it can't be done. transplants are managed in the united states by the united network for organ sharing, which has very highly codified rules and regulations how organs are allocated in the united states. so, the answer your question is, yes, he absolutely would have received a heart if he were not the vice president. being vice president of the

united states offered no advantage, and in fact he waited 20 months for a heart. and what the vice president hasn't said but what we say in the book, is when he finally made the decision to go for transplant, he privately said, jon, i don't want any -- i'm going to wait my turn for this. i said, i understand that, sir, and of course. and he did. >> is the 20 months -- actually twice as long as the average wait. another question. >> thank you. mr. vice president, during your tenure in office, do you feel that enough information was

disseminated about your health to the public, and more pertinent, i think, do you have any thoughts about the way such information should be handled in the future for the president and vice president? >> i believe -- i can't think of another instance where as much information was provided on a regular basis for each and every one of the incidents i had. i could go into gw for a cath and the world would know about it. tv cameras would be outside. it was not like it was a secret, any part of the time i was off. when i had heart attacks when i was in congress, that was always in the hometown newspaper. when i had cottonwood of quadruple bypass we announced

it. so nothing was kept secret in my mind, and the book itself, i think, is the most complete disclosure of the health of any constitutional officer in the history of the republic. maybe somebody else has put out more. i don't know who it was. i just read a book that suggested that fdr had also cancer in his latter days in office, and then there's all the discussion about jack kennedy and all of his health problems that they clearly covered up. so i think our track record is pretty good in that regard. i think we put out the right amount of information. in the end you cannot substitute medical judgment for the political judgment, especially where the vice president is concerned. it's a decision the president makes, and we provided -- he had full and complete knowledge of

my situation. we had a situation where i didn't keep anything from him. i gave him all the reasons why he shouldn't pick me as his vice president. he went ahead and did it anyway. so i don't -- i'm reluctant to say we ought to have a medical board set up so you get a stamp on your forehead that is certified healthy enough to be vice president. the other point i'd make, you could have a very strong and healthy 40-year-old, might have been a great halfback for the redskins, whatever, great athlete, but -- >> good if there was good halfback, we could use it right now. but he picked me not based on my health. picked me on my experience, white house chief of staff. secretary of defense in wartime, et cetera, et cetera. he was looking for a set of

experiences, and from having done two vice presidential searches, one for jerry ford and one for george w. bush, i can tell you the perfect candidate does not exist, and you always end up with sort of the least worst option, except in my case, obviously. >> that's a good point on which to close out the evening, and call again on joe. >> i want to thank everybody for coming, and special thanks to the george washington university heart and vascular institute that helped promote this event tonight. and to the staff of the press club, nicole, julie, and elizabeth, and now, for a special occasion, we have -- if i can get up here without dropping them -- -- this is the big event of the night -- the national press club mug.

always presented to our special guests. thank you all for coming. [applause] >> keep coming back until he gets a set of a half dozen. please join me in thanking the vice president, dr. reiner, for a fabulous presentation, and as you can see the book is wonderful. so get it. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> mr. vice president i had an aortic valve replacement and i want to thank you on behalf of everyone who has had heart disease. >> 80 million people with heart disease. everytime i look at a crowd, 25% probably has some -- >> really important lesson from what you have done is taking charge of your own health care. and you've done that. thank you. >> sir, good to see you. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]