to make sure that the people who are becoming eligible, that it is available for them and as i say, it is a very good medicaid program and we're going to keep it running just like it has been running. .

let me recount to the polluters may be. how about the local steel companies? this tax would put them out of business, because imports from china, india, dot will not be able to come here. -- will not be able to come here at the same prize. millions of americans will lose their jobs because they are in industries that use a lot of energy. as a result, we will see those jobs being shipped overseas. this is a very bad idea. >> which say it is in a single-

digit number? >> you would have to talk to someone else about that. >> about a few weeks ago, a 40 year-old economic development 13 state organization had a conference on energy. it is not just republicans who are concerned about how the president and the democrats energy policy and will affect people. two governments woere open about their concerns about the cost. i think every american should be concerned about what is the cost going to be to them, they're

electrabel, the price of gas, backed -- their electric bill, the price of gas, for dollar -- $4 a gallon. that will be an issue. they are going to make the problem worse by saddling american people with costs that would make american energy less affordable for american families and businesses. >> thank you all. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> in a few moments, president obama's news conference at the white house yesterday. on "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern, we will talk about the news conference, national security, and the economy. and today's agenda in the house includes spending for homeland security. members are back in session at 10:00 a.m. eastern. >> the senate health committee continues to mark up a health care bill this morning with senator chris dodd acting as chairman. he is sitting in for senator ted kennedy who is being treated for cancer. that is c-span3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern. it as the supreme court comes to an end, here supreme court justice chief bob burt's speak

-- chief roberts speak. live coverage on c-span saturday morning and 9:00 a.m. eastern. president obama held his fourth news conference yesterday at the white house. but of the questions in this hourlong event for about health care and iran. >> we have been outraged by the beatings and imprisonment that have gone over the last few days in iran. we are morning each and every innocent life that is lost. i have made it clear that the united states respects the sovereignty of the islamic republic of iran and is not

interfering with their affairs. we must also bear witness to the courage and dignity of the iranian people and the openings in iranian society. they are trying to have a debate about their future. some in iran -- iran government are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the united states and others in the west of instigating protests over the election. these accusations are false. they are an attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within the borders of iran. this strategy of using old tensions as scapegoats of other countries will not work anymore. this is not about the united states or the west. this is about the people of iran and the future that they will

choose. the iranian people can speak for themselves. that is what has happened over the last few days. in 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the rest of the world. despite the i iranians governed to expel journalists, powerful images have made their way to us through cell phones, computers, so we watched with the albanian people are doing. this is what we have witnessed. we have seen the time this dignity of thousands of iranians marching in silence. we have seen people of all ages risk everything to make sure that their votes are counted and heard. we as a courageous women stand up to the brutality of threats. we saw a woman bleeding to death on the street. this loss is a raw and painful. those who stand up for justice

are always on the bright side of history. the present ideas never succeed in making them go away. they have a universal right to assembly and free speech. if the iranian government 6 the respect of the international community, it must respect -- government seeks to respect -- the respect of the international community, it must respect those ideals. they are rights for every human. now want to address the clean energy economy of the united states. we are moving forward with legislation that will transform the way we use energy in america. this legislation will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the pollution

that threatens our planet. it was poor -- spur the development of new sources of energy. it will spur new energy savings like a efficient windows and other material to read these -- to reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. it will lead to the development of new technologies, new industries that can create millions of new jobs in america that will not be shipped overseas. at a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water, and pollute the air that we breed. it provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the transition to clean energy technology. i think this legislation is very important for our country.

i want to thank the energy and commerce committee, henry waxman, his colleagues, and everyone such as charlie rangel, the chair of the agricultural committee for their many ongoing contributions to this process. i want to express my appreciation to nancy pelosi for her leadership. we know what this is so important. the nation that leaves in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leaves the 21st century global economy. that is what we seek to achieve. we want a bill that will open the doors to a better future of this nation. i urge members of congress to come together and pass it. the last issue of want to address is health. congress is considering various health care proposals. this is a complicated issue. i am very optimistic about the

progress they are making. like energy, this is legislation that will be paid for. it will not add to our deficit over the next decade. we will find the money through savings and efficiencies through the health-care system, some of which we have already announced. we will insure that the reform we pass will bring down the cost of health care. we cannot have a system where we throw good money after bad habits. we need to control the skyrocketing costs for families, businesses, and our government, leading them into greater debt. americans who like their doctor and their health care plan should be able to keep them. unless we fix what is broken in our current system, everyone's health care will be in jeopardy. premiums will climb higher, but benefits will go lower.

one out of every $5 return will be spent on health care within a decade unless we act. the amount our government spends on medicare and medicaid will grow larger than what our government spends on everything else to date. when it comes to health care, the status quo is unsustainable an unexpected. reform is not a luxury but a necessity. i hope congress will continue to make progress on this issue in the weeks ahead. as we open it up for questions. >> is there any red line that your administration will not cross regarding one issue? >> what has happened in iran is profound.

we are still waiting to see how it plays itself out. my position coming into this office has been that the united states has poured national security interests in making sure that i run does not possess a nuclear weapon and that it does not support terrorism outside of its borders. we provided a task whereby iran can reach out to the international community, in gauge, and become a part of the international community. it is up to them if they choose that path. what we have been seen over the last several days and last several weeks is not encourage that. the fact that they are in the midst of an extraordinary debate taking place in iran, may end up

coloring how they respond to the international community as a whole. we are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any judgments about how we proceed. to reiterate, there is a patch available to iran where their sovereignty is respected, the traditions, culture, fate is respected, but one option which they are part of a larger community that has responsibilities. it operates according to international rules that are universal. we do not know how they're going to respond to it. that is what we are waiting to see. >> what about what has happened so far? >> i think the international community is bearing witness to what is taking place.

the iranian government should understand how they handle what is going on in their own country generated internally from the iranian people. it will help shape their future and their relationship to other countries. >i know one person is here from the huffington post. we have been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of iran. i know there may be questions from people there. >> i wanted to ask you a question directly from iran. we have got some questions tonight from people who are courageous enough to still be

communicating online. under which conditions would shoot except the election, and if you do except it with without any significant changes, is not that of a trail -- a trail of the -- a betrayal of the demonstrators? >> we cannot say definitively what would happen. what we know is that a sizable percentage of the iranian people themselves consider this alexian illegitimate. it is not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. there are significant questions about the legitimacy of the election. ultimately, the most important thing for the iranian government

to consider is the legitimacy in the eyes of their own people, not the eyes of the united states. i am very clear that this is up to the iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government. what we can do is to say unequivocally that their international principles about violence, about dealing with this peaceful dissent, that spans cultures and borders and what we have been seen over the internet and violates of those principles. i think it is not too late for the iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to

stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the iranian people. we hope they take it. >> switching gears, in light of the financial regulation reform you have made, how would you rate the performance of the fed in handling the financial crisis, and more specifically, how do you rate the performance of ben bernanke? >> i am not going to make news about ben bernanke. i think he has done a fine job under a very difficult circumstance. i would say that all financial regulators did not do everything they needed to do to prevent the crisis from happening. that is why we have put forward a bold as a set of reforms in financial regulation in 75 years. there were too many gaps.

there were laws on the books that would have brought about a prevention of the crisis. the enforcement was not there. there was not sufficient law in some cases. i think the fed probably performed better than most other regulators prior to the crisis taking place. they would be the first to a knowledge that in dealing with systemic risk and anticipating its, they did not do everything that needs to be done. since the crisis occurred, ben bernanke has performed very well. one of the central concept behind our financial regulatory reform is that there has got to be somebody who is responsible not just for monitoring the

health of the individual institutions but someone who is monitoring the systemic risks of the system as a whole. we believe the fed has the most technical expertise and the best track record in terms of doing that. that is not the only part of financial regulation. we are putting a huge amount of emphasis on consumer protection. whether it is sub-prime long -- loans that were given out because nobody was paying attention to what was being presented to consumers, how annuities are dealt with, but people can expect in terms of understanding their 401k sps. there are many instruments where consumers are not protected the way they should. there will be a consumer protection agency whose job will be to focus on those issues. the fed was one of the

regulators who had some of those consumer responsibilities. we think they are better off focusing on issues of broad systemic risk. we have just one agency that focuses on the consumer protection side. >> [unintelligible] >> if you look at what we have proposed, we are not expanding the fed's power as we are focusing what they need to do to prevent the kind of crises that are happening. resolution authority is another example. not long ago everybody was outraged about aig. the enormous amount of moneys the taxpayers had to put into aig to prevent it from dragging the entire financial system down with it. we have the kind of resolution authority and laws in place that

will allow an orderly winding down of aig then taxpayers could have saved a lot of money. we want that power to be available so that taxpayers are not a burden. >> -- are not burdened. >> you said you were appalled and outraged about iran. what took you so long? >> i do nothing that is accurate. track what i have been saying. right after the election, i said we have profound concerns about the nature of the election, but it was not up to us to determine what the outcome was. as soon as violence broke out, in anticipation of the violence, we were very clear in saying that violence was unacceptable.

that is not tell governments operate with respect to the people. we have been entirely consistent in terms of how we have approached this. my role has been to say the united states is not going to allow the iranian government to blame what is happening on the streets of iran on the cia or the white house. this is an issue led by an given voice to the frustrations of the iranian people. we had been very consistent the first day, and we will continue to be consistent in saying this is not an issue about the united states. it is an issue about the albanian people. but we have also been consistent about is saying there are some universal principles including freedom of assembly and speech, making should that governments are not using coercion and violent and oppression in terms of how they interact with these peaceful demonstrators.

we have been speaking out very clearly about that fact. >> [unintelligible] >> we do not have formal diplomatic collations with iran. -- diplomatic relations with iran. if iran chooses a path that abides by the international norms and principles, then we are interested in healing some of the wounds of 30 years in terms of the u.s.-iranian relations. that is a choice that they will have to make. >> america's health insurance plans and blue cross blue shield sent a letter to senate this morning saying that government

health insurance plan would dismantle private insurers. why are they wrong? >> but as talk about health care reform more broadly. in this debate, there has been some notion that if we stand [unintelligible] we are ok. that is not true. 80% of americans are satisfied with the health insurance they currently have. the only problem is premiums have been doubling every nine years. going up three times faster than wages. the u.s. government is not going to be able to afford medicare and medicaid on its current trajectory. businesses are having to make tough decisions about whether we drop coverage or restricted.

the notion that we can keep doing what we are doing and that is okay, that is just not true. we have a longstanding critical problem in our health-care system that is pulling down our economy, burdening families, businesses, and it is the primary driver of our federal deficit. if we start from the premise that the status quo is unacceptable, we will have to bring about some serious changes. our top priority has to be to control costs. it is not just mean getting rid of reimbursements for doctors for any given year because we are trying to fix our budget. it means that we look at the kinds of incentives that exists, what our delivery system is

like, why is that some communities are spending 30% less than other communities but getting better health care outcomes, and figuring out how we can make sure everybody is getting better quality and lower costs. it means prevention. all of these things are the starting point for reform. if any bill arrives from congress that is not controlling costs, that is not a bill i can support. it will have to be paid for and will control costs. what i have said is if we are going to spend $1 trillion, it will be funded through reallocating dollars that are already in the health-care system but are not being spent well. but we are spending one under $77 billion over 10 years to subsidize insurance companies --

$177 billion over 10 years to subsidize insurance companies, that is done a good deal for taxpayers. we will take the money and use it to provide better care at a cheaper cost to the american people. while we are in the process of dealing with the cost issue, it is also wise policy and the right thing to do to start providing coverage for people who do not have health insurance or are under insured. they are paying a lot of money for high deductibles. i get letters every day of a families who do not have health insurance or are going bankrupt or on the brink of losing their insurance, have deductibles that are so high that with insurance they have $50,000 worth of debt

and are at risk of losing their homes. that has to be part of reform, making sure that even if you have health insurance now, you are not worried that when you lose your job or your employer decides to change policy that you will be out of luck. i think about the woman in wisconsin who introduced me. 36 years old, a double mastectomy, breast cancer has moved to her bones. she has two little kids with the has been less a job. they have health insurance, but they are $50,000 in debt. if i do not survive this is going to be leaving $100,000 of debt. those of the things i am prioritizing. the public plan is an important tool to discipline insurance companies. what we have said is under our proposal, leus