those lines with a very simple question. do we, referring toing to the government, need to regulate speculation? and will we see more of that ahead? guest: we do need to regulate the markets. we need to regulate lending practices. yes, we need to go back to a series of regulations so that markets don't get out of hand. when greenspan was the fed chairman, there was a 50% margin requirement. that is, you could buy stock putting up only 50% of the price of the stock. and the market was getting out of hand and there was a bubble developing and so forth. that was a moment, i would say, when margin requirements should have been raised to slow down the economy. that's one issue. and without going into a lot of

details, there's hundreds of different ways in which the market must be not controlled, not interfered with, but regulated so that it doesn't get out of hand. host: a veteran of the associated press and also a former journalism instructor at columbia university, our guest louis uchitelle, who spent the last 22 years at "the new york times." he's also the author of the book "the disposable american: layoffs and their consequences." thanks, as all, for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. host: please come back again. the economy and health care among the issues we'll be talking about tomorrow morning on c-span's "washington journal." and foreign policy. secretary of state hillary clinton is appearing on nbc's "meet the press," a program that airs on c-span radio in the afternoon. and we'll take a look at some of her answers and talk with matt lee of the associated press about her performance thus far six months into the obama presidency. "washington journal" every day at 7:00 a.m. east coast time.

thanks for being with us. enjoy the rest of your weekend. and have a great week ahead. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] . later, president obama on health-care legislation. >> tonight, susan jacoby on the

ongoing fascination the trial of alger hiss, whitaker chambers, and the house un-american activities hearing. >> prime minister gordon brown takes questions on politics, the economy, and afghanistan, in the last session before parliament takes a summer break. >> today, sarah palin officially stepped down. she will turn over power at a ceremony in francs -- fairbanks. you can watch the speech is an ceremony tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> this week, james cliburn is our guest.

healthcare is a moving target. where do we stand? >> in the house we are closer to consensus. we're not there yet. we have had meetings, all day yesterday, thursday, later into the night, and friday morning we works on a, and around 10:00, we had success on a critical part of this having to do with reasonable disparities. one of the big problems happened to be the fact that some states have investment rates much lower than they should be.

we have concerns with that. so we're trying in this legislation to make sure we lock people in with a disadvantage to these disparities and we're trying to put in the process of boom allowing us to focus on the value of health care. part of what we have been hearing around the country -- some of you may have read the "new yorker," comparing mcallen, texas with al pastor, texas. that is the kind of thing we're trying to work through. and we're getting closer to consensus.

>> it seems to have stalled. who was a mistake to lay down a mark before dealing with the blue dogs? >> i do not think we did that. i'm a fan of harry truman. i went to his library. he left the presidency 57 years ago, and the things he regretted not getting done was health care for all americans. he called on congress to do the 61 years ago. so we spent two years talking about the plans.

we have had 79 hearings on health care, 45 hours of marked up in three committees. why would anybody do this when you had this kind of backdrop going home? i do not understand that. the fact of the matter is that we have been very slow and deliberate trying to put this together. " we have now is a caucus with 51 blue dogs, 40 to african- americans, democrats, progressive democrats, asians, pacific islanders. we of all these caucuses to deal with.

the diversity of the country is reflected in our caucus. so i expect this to go through a process that is a little bit different from what republicans go through, because they do not have the diversity we have. >> to follow up, there is talk today, given the pro-active negotiation, to bypass a markup and go directly to the floor. what do you think of that idea? >> last week, you may recall that i said even if we can get this boat done today without consensus, i would much rather wait another week if it meant going to consensus. so i'm all for trying to do this with consensus among our membership.

there is no consensus in the larger caucasus for the committee. i expected that the speaker and other members of the leadership will sit down and make a determination, but personally i would rather see us go through regular order and to do this and have all members feeling positivity rather than negativity. >> so you might not be willing to allow a subset of the blue dogs to warm up this bill any further than the have? >> that is what i feel. i guess they understand it will go pretty well. and he says to the speaker that says he wants to do it, they can

make the determination and i will sit with her and let my fears about this be noted that time. what i would do, though, is continue as i have been doing. six caucuses two weeks ago to make sure what we were doing finds favor with the broader caucus. >> the president had a conference the other day, and the bill did not seem to gain momentum after that. should we have been doing something more or different to move the process along? >> it is hard. this is not anything easy to do. i think everybody knows that

this is the president's top priority, i believe. when you look at how we got to this point, we had a two-year campaign bloom, and everyone said health care was number one. and we get to energy problems being number one, then education. just before the elections, we had a collapse on wall street, and just after, we saw numbers falling, unemployment going up, and we had to do things in order to get things stabilized. so we have to do first things

first. and now they are focusing on things that are a broader range. we are about to go into 2013, and i think he did the right thing with progress. you work your will. there is a place for it. you will flesh this out. that is recognizing the role of congress. a lot of people say he could do more. he probably could. i am pleased with what he has done. the problem is we have to deal with differences in our congress. unicorp is for the southeast and the northwest on the same page when it comes to reimbursement

rates, and you have other people doing pretty good, and they feel that you're bringing rates down instead of up. the question is, how do you determine what the rates are? i do not think it can get that kind of result from the president. we are the ones that have to flesh that out. it will not get us to where we need to be, because the differences are reinforced when we go of. that is what people sent us to washington, to sit down together, work these things out, and try to come up with legislation that respects the needs of all regions of the country.

you cannot do that in your own district. you have to do it out here, in this body. >> you said you do not want the house to leave before august without taking up this bill. what with the repercussions be, not just for health care, but for president obama and your broader legislative agenda if you leave here without a senate or house vote? >> it all depends. if he said to your listeners and your readers that they went on vacation without doing this, it would be tough. for the headlines, it would be

tough forced to go home without taking definitive action on legislation. >> to talk about talking to constituents -- does a month delay in passing a bill lead to political trouble? >> you know, we've -- no. this legislation must be passed by both houses of congress. whatever other house passes is not the final product. so i said to the house of representatives, let's get as much consensus as possible. let's vote this bill out, and hopefully the senate will do the same thing.

and then we will go to conference. at that time, we will be joined by the white house and work out all these differences so that both houses and the white house will have incentives. if we keep waiting for all three bodies to get together before taking the first step, that is less then would make sense to me. let's do this thing as we know it should be done. but if you think we're going to rot over here until such time as all three groups get together, that is a problem and i think people have irrational thought about it. >> our guest is the majority whip of the house. we also have to double

reporters. -- two reporters. >> you said many of your members want to see what the finance committee will do or see some sort of senate product before they will feel comfortable voting. are you frustrated with the process, the progress in the senate and finance committee? >> no. i respect the process and i know how tough it is to get consensus. i have been up here 17 years. before i came, i spent 18 years in state government, and my job was to seek out, fine, and implement a consensus. that is what i did for 18 years at the state level.

that is one reason i got elected whip. i can with people in to consensus. if you get frustrated trying to get people to consensus, you ought to be in this business. so it does not frustrate me at all. there are times when intimations get a little bit different, but i am always trying to get there. i always see the glass as being half full, rather than half empty. >> polls show and the president acknowledged that as the process moves along and people here more, and site levels grow and people have questions about pieces of legislation like this, such a big change for many people. what does the democratic caucus to when you come up with your vision of the bill to sell in august to the american people

and you know republicans will be out there beating the drum against it. what will change when you come back in september? how will mentum keep going? >> i hope that the american people will hear honest talk about what we're trying to do here. i did not know of the single- family that has not been hit with things like pre-existing conditions. been denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition. i say to folks in south carolina, the fastest-growing disease in the country is diabetes, and south carolina leads in the detection and education -- a reputation of limbs. -- amputate limbs. this plan gets rid of that.

diabetes is preventable. so we are saying that for prevention programs, we're no longer going to have deductibles and co-payments for prevention programs. so we're saying to people that if you take the pills you are supposed to take to prevent the onslaught of diabetes, do the opposite the visits said examinations, you get a dividend back. a lot of people do not do it today because they do not have the deductibles or the money to pay for the deductibles or co- payments. we're trying to put in place a health care system rewarding wellness and health, rather than sickness and death. that is a choice people are making. how many people are making choices about their professions because the can afford to lose

their insurance? you have got insurance now, you're diagnosed with diabetes or some other illness and have an opportunity to go to a new job, but you know on the basis of a pre-existing condition. so that is the kind of thing we're trying to get people to understand we are trying to do here. and small businesses, we are saying that we know that this exchange is being put together pretty can get into it and benefit from this big cool the same way big businesses have benefited from it. so the problem we've got now is everybody has seen the cost of putting it into place but no one is looking what it costs us for not doing it. each family, $1,200 more on premiums each year to pay for uncompensated care. my own wife had heart surgery,

and when i saw what we were paying for aspirin, because we pay for people without insurance, that is happening to every family i know. so i think as people begin to focus on the cost that we have now, treatment doubled in the last nine years. but everyone wants to focus on the other big cost. the fact of the matter is, we have scored because of savings and know we can get too big savings not being scored, and as a result, what people see as a cost is not a real cost, simply because you can get the kind of savings out of these wallace programs on the other and that

the office is not able to score because they cannot prophesies. so this plan will cost additionally, but some people think it will not from what we're paid already. >> the president has talked about october 15. is that doable? >> it is our goal. and i do believe that the american people want this done, and i know that our economy needs for this to be done, because even if we turn things around, and things are about to turn around, or even turning around, we will not sustain new growth in the economy without fixing the health care costs in this country. i do believe the biggest

contributor to the failure of the big three has been health care costs. i think we've got to fix this health-care thing, or we will not be able to get our economy on a sustained growth out and don't for work -- going forward. >> mr. waxman said if you cannot reach agreement with blue darks, you will skip past the committee. the speaker has said she thinks she has votes, but members told me this week there 100 short on a good bit. can you pass this by skipping over committee, and are you daring members to vote against the priority? >> i do not know what waxman has

in mind or what the speaker is thinking along those lines. i do know this. i do believe much more of a consensus in the bigger culprit and you have in the committee. enough to get to 218? i have not seen yet, so i do not know. but i do know that there is probably much more support in the bigger body of the caucus than there seems to be inside the committee. my position is, let's follow the regular order and throw to the floor and maintain what was

permitted. those regional meetings have worked extremely well and started out with decisions two years ago -- two weeks ago, and now they have produced a tremendous document on regional disparities. >> we only have three minutes or four minutes left. other topics of interest to you? >> i would like to ask one more question. what you tell -- there are a lot of members, democrats and younger members from swing districts in the last two elections who were very nervous about this vote. they say this will be used to clobber them over the head, along with the energy vote july 4. what do you say to them about why did they vote for the bill? >> i came here in 1992.

we have the same watershed election in 1994. i would say to them that so much what you will face will have to do with the public perception of how well democrats are doing at responding to their needs and dreams. be careful as you look at this, because so much of this is not just how you voted on any issue, but how people will about democrats as a party, and that will determine a lot about their attitude. so look at this -- be sure you're not separating yourself

from the overall issue you have your, because i do not know the single person that wants to see their child be denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. i do not know of a business that wants to go into bankruptcy. i had a gentleman in a conference to said that his business is being hurt, and he was having to deny loans to people because they got behind in health care plan payments. if that should not be. be careful that you are not more into this reaction. >> there is an issue that has

come up with the arrest of professor gates. primarily, he thought the president overstepped when he said the police department in cambridge, mass., acted stupidly. what is your take? >> that is not what he said. i spent 18 years in south carolina, places where there's a history of these kinds of experiences, and i know dr. gates reacted based upon experiences and the president's went to school and community, reacting for his experiences. i would hope all this would take all this into account and remember we can be no more