your copy of c-span's 2009 congressional directory, with information on house and senate members, the cabinet, supreme court justices, and the nation's governors. plus, district maps and how to contact committees and caucuses. it is $16.95 online at c- span.org/products. or call 1-877-on-cspan. host: we want to wreck -- we want to welcome bernie sanders. .

guest: our system is geared toward making money for the private health insurance companies. the function of a private health insurance company is not to provide quality health care for the most people in a cost-effective way. you end up not only with 1300 separate health insurance companies, but you end up with thousands of different benefit packages which cost enormous amount of money to administer. the bottom line is we are not only the most expensive, bureaucratic, and wasteful system in the world because we are spending billions of dollars in administration, in

profiteering for insurance companies. a fellow who was the head of united health got $1.6 billion in stock options. the goal of health care should be to provide the best quality health care to all of our people in the most cost-effective way. to my mind, the way you do that and what we have learned from other countries is that a single payer system would work. host: this is from a physician from canada who wrote this article in "the wall street journal" this morning. he concludes with this question. "why are they rushing into a system of government health care when the countries that have experienced it for so long are

backing away?" guest: we are the odd guys out. if you compare the american system to canada, it is true canada has problems. so do we, but we spend almost twice as much per person. if we continue to spend that kind of money, $2.3 trillion, we can have a better system than the canadians. the correct question to ask is how does it happen that every other major countries such as health care is a right of all people? we do not do that. second of all, they come up with a much more cost-effective approach. 3, the outcomes are better. i think the evidence is overwhelming. our current system is not working. we have to work in a very different direction. we have to have the courage to

take on the private insurance companies that spend billions of dollars lobbying, the drug companies. host: there has been a lot of discussion in this town over the single payer plan. is it on the table? guest: i've arranged for a meeting between a number of physicians and nurses organizations with max baucus. months ago, he said single payer is not on the table. he indicated to us that he regrets saying that. the truth of the matter is, the power of the insurance companies that make so much money out of our current health care system is so strong that it is very hard for us to get the kind of hearing and the kind of success that we need to move toward a

single payer system. host: you are say you special interest are influencing the debate? guest: no, i think special interest on the debate. they're spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure we do not have a cost-effective, comprehensive universal health care system. host: what does that tell the person out there who does not have insurance in wondering what will happen next? guest: after i leave this interview, i will be meeting with the health education and labor committee. we will be talking about this. we do not know what the result will be. it is possible we will make some progress in terms of primary health care, in terms of disease prevention, in terms of making health care more affordable. my concern is that we are going to be pouring huge amounts of money into a system which is

largely dysfunctional. it is like a leaky bucket. you can keep pouring water into it, and you can keep some water in it, rather than understanding why the system is so wasteful and inefficient. in california, $1 out of $3 in health-care goes to administration. that is basically the crux of the problem. our system is designed to make money for the drug companies and the insurance companies, not to provide quality health care to all people. i did we have got to change the direction in a substantive way. host: one of the leading debaters is the subject in "the washington post" this morning. there's a reference to senator robert byrd.

there is a quote from mitch mcconnell in the peice. and also in "the new york times" -- will he be part of this debate? guest: i do not know. he was part of a conference call a week ago. he sounded good. we will be meeting today and my understanding is that he will not be there. it is not just a personal issue with people uninsured, underinsured, or paying close to $8,000, it is an economic situation. everyone is talking about general motors going bankrupt. general motors spends more money per automobile on health care than they do on steel.

small businesses cannot afford to put more money into an escalating health-care costs when they would like to reinvest in their business. as the president appropriately pointed out, it is not just a crisis of the individual level, it is a major economic crisis that we have got to address. host: john webster who agrees with you sent us this tweet. guest: let me also say this. the concept of single payer is not a friendlngey idea. 15,000 doctors in this country support the single payer system. they are sick and tired of being told what to do by the private insurance companies. doctors are spending between two and three weeks just arguing

with insurance companies about the kind of therapy that they can prescribe. people go into medicine and they go into nursing and they want to practice their profession. they want to work with people, not screamed at insurance companies, which prevents them from doing what they were trained to do. host: senator bernie sanders is our guest. j r joins us on the phone from kansas city. caller: you know what? in canada, they have a 10-year patent right. in america, we have a 20-year patent right. why doesn't congress do something about that? you're getting these companies the right to charge us as much as i can for medicine for 20 years.

and then the other thing is, i have been aa nephew who just bee a cover procter. his education is costing more than a quarter of a million dollars. guest: eyelid an hour away from the canadian border. i was the first member of the congress to take americans over the canadian border to purchase prescription drugs in montreal. i will never forget as long as i live the expression on the face of women, many of those poor with me were struggling with breast cancer. -- many of those women who were with me were struggling with breast cancer. they've paid 1/10 of the price for the same medication.

right now, many of us are fighting for a program that we call re-importation of medicine so americans do not continue to get ripped off. in terms of education, many of the people who graduate medical school today are very deeply in debt. at the university of vermont medical school, is about 100,000. what we have tried to do in the stimulus package is greatly expand a program which provides a debt forgiveness for those doctors and dentists who work in medically underserved areas. we need more doctors and nurses in those areas. we are making some success, but we have a long way to go. the cost of medical education is so much that the average person

graduates with $150,000 in debts. host: our guest is senator bernie sanders. patrick is on the phone from advtlanta. caller: senator bernie sanders, thank you for your honesty. you always talk the truth and there's no special interest money behind your campaign. you always represent the people and i want to thank you for your services. what are we going to do against the insurance companies when the bill is going through the congress and they try to strangle the same way they did in 1994 with hillary-care? guest: to the best of my knowledge, there's not one republican who wants a strong

public plan. the very least, a medicare plan for all americans. you have some conservative democrats who are also lavery on that issue. -- who are also wave green on that issue. a very strong grass-roots movement which says that health care in america must be a right of all people. it does not make any sense that a working person can go bankrupt if the ndp in hospital while somebody else has good care -- can end up in the hospital while somebody else has good care. it is a human right. we need to mobilize in the same way that we dealt with civil- rights, a women's rights, and other fundamental injustices in america. this is the civil rights issue of our time. it is wrong that families go

bankrupt because they cannot afford health care. we have 60 million people in america today who do not have a doctor of their own. we have almost 20,000 people who die every year from diseases which were preventable because they never went to the doctor. that is over six times the people we lost on 9/11. our position must be health care for all people, quality health care, regardless of income. we can do that. if we take on the private insurance companies. host: andy rosenberg, a democrat economist, is quoted as saying this --

guest: i don't get it. host: he is talking about the lobbyists. guest: lobbyist are the bloody problem. the pharmaceutical industry has spent hundreds of billions of dollars lobbying congress. huge amounts of campaign contributions and advertising. they have never lost in a battle with congress. i do not sit around worrying about the lobbyists. these guys making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year representing big money interest. maybe we need a little more energy for the middle class, the working people. host: the story goes that republican allies are mounting

a republican offensive. guest: of course they are. their job is to make sure that ceo's are making billions of dollars per year and that companies are very profitable. we are spending about $7,800 per person on health care. can you imagine that? what does a family who makes $30,000 per year do? and these guys are worried about the profits at insurance companies. that is an outrage. host: eddy is on the on the line for democratrepublicans. caller: the majority of your information is true. the previous representative from georgia was

not telling the truth as it relates to the insurance information. i have three insurance policies. i am a retiree. one is through my job, which i contribute. one is through my husband. he pays nothing and that is because his was through a union. he pays through union dues. the other is medicare. i am still paying through the nose for my share of health coverage. i have two types of drug coverage. one is my own personal retirement plan. one is to my husband. -- one is through my husband. i have a chronic illness. with my drug company, i paid $10

-- no, $20. through my husband, the same medication cost me $10. they are in cahoots. guest: health care is expensive. any system in the world is expensive. it makes no sense for us to spend $350 billion per year in wasteful administrative cost. we have an enormously complicated system. during the campaign, i happen to think it is one of the reasons barack obama won the election. he was talking about his mother who was dying of cancer, trying to summon up her energy to be strong, having to fight for the insurance company for coverage. all over america, that is what is going on. in the last 30 years, we have seen 25 times more jobs created for health-care bureaucrats who

are you with us about whether or not we are covered than we have seen in the increase of doctors. we need more doctors, dentists, and nurses. we are not getting that. we are paying for health-care bureaucrats who are out there arguing with us. we have an enormously complicated system. the way you save money is to come up with a simple system. frankly, no system is perfect. at the end of the day, you say, you are an american. you will have all of the health care you need. it is going to be paid for out of the public system. it will be paid for out of texas. you will not have 16 different programs. -- it will be paid for out of taxes. if we move in that direction, we save hundreds of billions of dollars in administration. host: jim center in this tweet.

guest: that is my goal and we have introduced that legislation. it is called single payer. host: good morning. gcaller: thank you very much for the fight you are fighting. i just had two major surgeries and prostate cancer surgery. my wife has been forced out of having health insurance. we are at the brink of bankruptcy. i fought very hard to get president obama elected, and i have become very bitter and very disillusioned when you have somebody like senator baucus who will not give single payer people and see that the table and he is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the people

that are treating the situation we have in this country. i would very much like to see a bill passed that no one in congress takes a dime from these people. they are ruining our country. they could care less about anything that has to do with what is good for the people of this country. guest: you have raised a very important issue. it has to do not just with health care and not just with the cost of prescription drugs not. with the -- not with the de most as regulation of wall street. we're talking about the impact of that big money has. the caller is right. it has an extremely negative impact. that is why we have to move to a public funding of elections.

candidates and incumbent members should not be dependent on big money interests. the gentleman talked about bankruptcy. in 2007, 62 percent of bankruptcy's in this country were related to medical bills. and the majority of those people have health insurance. even if in many cases you have health insurance, if you have large deductibles, off if your insurance policy does not cover all of your needs, you can go bankrupt. host: john e-mailed us this question. guest: nothing is perfect, but this is what we have so far. you have government's

administration. i can tell you that the veterans throughout this country are very supportive of the veterans administration system. you have medicare. does medicare have problems? it sure does, but the administration cost of medicare is a fraction of what private health insurance costs are. it runs more smoothly. the goal that we have is to create a simplified system. the complexity of the current system has to do with insurance companies, among other things, cherry picking. you are a good guy to cover. on the other hand, if you're 50 years old and had a cancer operation, we do not want to cover you at all because we will lose money on new. -- we will lose money on you.

it becomes a complicated process. we have to say as a nation, we are all in this together. we're all going to get coverage. we're going to put more money into disease prevention. we are going to put more money into primary care. 60 million americans today, 20% of our country, do not have access to a doctor on a regular basis. what happens to those people? when they get sick, they go to the emergency room but very expensive care, or they got into the hospital when they get sick and that is very expensive. we need a simplified system. we need a universal system. we need a comprehensive system. host: will senator baucus hold a hearing on the single payer system? guest: he apologized. he thought he should not have done that. he thinks it is probably too late for the finance committee.

on the other hand, i am on the health education committee. i believe we will have the testimony from single payer advocates. host: but who is leading this? guest: senator dodd, along with other senators. we will be meeting for three hours or four hours today going down the bill. host: is senator baucus open to your ideas? guest: not in a million years. host: does that bother you? guest: it bothers me. it is every republican. host: he is a democrat. guest: i'm an independent. host: but you caucus with the democrats. guest: we have some wonderful democrats who are fighting to do the right thing, but you have

some conservative democrats who will be working with republicans. from a political point of view, some people say we have to move forward in a bipartisan approach, which means that we have to have culture on a filibuster, which means that you have to the 60 votes. that means you have to make major compromises. my strong feeling is that if we end up with a bill that has 60 votes or 70 votes, it will be such a weak bill that it will not accomplish anything the american people want. i would rather pass a strong bill with 51 votes. the bottom line is that the current system is dysfunctional. we are wasting $300 billion and we need to move toward a cost- effective, comprehensive, universal program. this is a human right. we have to have the courage to take on the drug companies and the insurance companies. host: karen is a republican

joining us from iowa. caller: the biggest problem we have in america is agregreed. it goes all the way from the politician to the individual. whatever system is put in place ingreed will always find a loophole. people are not honest and people do not care about other people. i have kids on $5,000 per month, never went bankrupt, and never defaulted on a loan, and never had health insurance plan. i paid my bills. i did not buy a brand new cars and that is how i did it. my question is, what about putting a cap on how much these big ceo's can make? also, i'm looking for a

politician who's willing -- you know what? people fought and died for this country. we do noneed a politician who is willing to sacrifice his drop- off. guest: she is right. we saw this from people on wall street who are not content making 40% rates on return. she is right. greed permeates almost every aspect of our life. i would say to karen, was not living with health insurance -- that's a dangerous position to be in because you never know what is going to happen tomorrow. you do not know what kind of illness can develop and you do not know what kind of accident can happen. as a nation, we have to move toward health care for all people. in terms of putting one's job on the line, i think there are

people who are prepared to stand up to big money interest and take on the drug companies and insurance companies. host: we have a call and a twwet. this tweet from daniel. guest: this is another issue. we touched on bankruptcy. if you go to other countries around the world, people will criticize all the countries, but if you ask how many people go bankrupt because of illness in canada and other countries, it just does not have been. we have millions of people today who are stadium on their jobs because they have decent health insurance. they are ad