news analyst juan williams. that is on book tv's "in depth.">> o >> on c-span radio, hear lbj phone calls with dean ross. . . relationship you will have with your doctor and the relationship that government will have in that. . and our argument has been that that chart shows the interference of the government which will exist between you and your doctor with some 50-plus organizations, agencies, task forces, czars, bodies of different type. mr. akin: i'd like to also it go

-- we've been joined this evening by my good friend, congressman bishop. be, and i'd like to recognize him -- bishop, and i'd like to recognize him. please proceed, i yield. mr. bishop: this is one of the few times i'm here without few times i'm here without charts and i feel totally nake on the floor. i apologize for that but i also appreciate the chart that was here in and any effort you can get to maybe publicize that because it speaks to the problem that we have if indeed this kind of expansion of the government takes place. that chart is the reason why the federal code of our laws cover 35 volumes, 1/6 of which is about the federal regular laces and the bureaucracy. but the federal regulations is a 200-volume document and why it has grown from john f. kennedy's time of 15,000 words to 77,000 words, why kennedy was able to appoint within two months about 300 officials that ran the bureaucracy, for george w. bush

it took him almost a year because he had to do 3,300 officials appointed, having being subject to advise and consent from the senate. we have expanding this thing enormously and in this particular project, because my committee, unfortunately, spent 20 hours going through the organizational part, most of the questions that our side of -- questions that our side of -- had of h under the new agreement, the secretary will have to negotiate individually with providers to come up with the rates. it would help relieve some disparities that affect rural hospitals. >> the committee did not meet wednesday. why is that? >> there have been some problems

with some more liberal members of the house. the new democrats and the others are putting together a very will bust public auction. -- option. henry waxman was meeting with other democrats on his committee to explain what the changes were with the blue dogs to address some of their concerns. we will have to see whether waxman feels he can put the agreement that he made with the blue dogs has everyone else. >> the chairman of the senate finance committee had some news about the senate version of the health-care real -- bill. what did he say? >> that bill will cost about $900 billion over the next 10 years which is good news. everyone is concerned about the

cost of the bill. it is likely expected that a number of the provisions they are working on will be in the final product. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> part of president obama's health care legislation, he visited to two towns to talk about it. as he made his remarks at one meeting, committee members restarted formal negotiations on health-care legislation. this is just under one hour.

>> thank you so much. thank you for the wonderful introduction. i want to thank all of the employees and managers here at kroger who have been a great host to me today. this is the first time i have been in a grocery store in a while. [laughter] they do not let me do my own shopping. i miss it. i may pick up some food on the way out. [laughter] i just wanted you to know. there are a few other people i want to acknowledge. the ceo is here. where did he go? there he is over there. [applause] uscw shop store is here. hello. [applause]

a few people want to acknowledge, the mayor is here. [applause] good to see you again. if you people cannot be here, your outstanding governor, you're senators, and i want to give a special shot out to my friend and your congressman. [applause] he cannot be here today. rick is working hard in washington as we speak. he was an early supporter of my campaign. he is an important voice in our efforts to reform our health- care system. he is a leader in guaranteeing that clean coal technologies are a part of our clean energy future and will create jobs all across the country and right here in this area. i want you all to no that i

love him. please give them a big round of applause. [applause] this is a town hall meeting. i want to listen to you and answer your questions. i want to give some brief remarks. it is wonderful to be back in virginia, a state that has been good to me. this is the first time -- since the first time i visited it in the general election after a one my party's nomination, in my mind, this is where change began. that is what i have come back to talk to you about how we are going to deliver on that promise of change. i do not want to talk to long -- too long, because i want to take some questions from you and michelle is probably emailing need to grab some milk on the way home.

i do not know if you have noticed some of the "newsweek" magazines at the checkout stand. it said the recession is over. i assure you found the new the startling. i did. people are going through a tough time all across the country. what is true is that the economy has stopped going through the free fall that we saw the beginning of the year. the market is up. the financial system is no longer on the verge of collapse. we got news yesterday that for the first time in three years housing prices have actually gone up. when i took office we were losing jobs at nearly double the rate we are losing them now. we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession. but as i said before, that is no

comfort to the people who lost their jobs and have not found another one. virginia is weathering this recession a little bit better than many of the other states. i would like to think that some of that has to do with the great leadership here in virginia. unemployment even in virginia is now over 7%. many virginia families are being crushed by health-care premiums that have doubled over the past nine years. that is something i want to talk about in a minute. when the tough times are not over. we also know without the steps we took early on, six months ago, our troubled economy and the pain it is inflicting on virginia families would be much worse. let me run through a few facts. when my administration came into office, we were facing the worst economy in our lifetime. we were losing an average of 700,000 jobs a month.

it was nearly impossible to take out a home loan or a car loan or a student loan or loans for small businesses to make payroll and keep the doors open. economists across the spectrum all thought that it was possible that we would slip into another great depression. at the time, some thought that doing nothing was an option. i disagreed. i thought we had to act boldly and firmly. we took steps to end the housing crisis and stop the collapse of our financial system. we enacted the most sweeping recovery package in history one month after i took office. there is a lot of misinformation about the recovery package. i want to get the record straight. roughly a quarter of the

recovery plans funding has been submitted. over 30,000 projects have been approved. thousands have been posted on line as our effort to be transparent and in canada when it comes to economic recovery. the play -- when it comes to economic recovery. this is about tax cuts for you -- one aspect of the plan. for americans who are struggling to pay rising bills with shrinking wages, we kept the promise i made during the campaign. put a middle-class tax cut in the pockets of 95% of americans. they are getting a tax cut that started about three months ago. you may not have noticed it, but it is coming in your paychecks each time you get one. it is spread out over the course of the year. small businesses are also

receiving tax cuts. about one-third of the stimulus package was tax cuts to help people pay their bills whether its shopping here or paying their electricity bill or being able to pay down some credit card bills that they already had. all helps stimulate the economy and boost demand. that is about one-third of it. another one-third of the stimulus package was to help people and states who had fallen on hard times because of the tremendous financial crisis. for americans that were laid off, and some of you probably know those people, we expanded the unemployment benefits. that has made a difference in the lives of 12 million americans and about 150,000 people right here in virginia. they have extended unemployment here. we are making health insurance 65% cheaper for families who

are relying on cobra while looking for a job. anybody ever been on cobra? this is a program that allows you to keep your health care premiums, pay them if you lose your job. if you lost your job, a lot of time you cannot afford those payments. we picked up 65% of those premiums so that if they lost their jobs, they could keep their health care. and we provided assistance to the states who are facing a historic budget shortfalls. that has saved the jobs. it meant that you did not have to lay off teachers, police officers, or firefighters. that meant that 13,000 staffers still working in your state that otherwise would of been laid off. many sheriffs are keeping your

community safe. universities like virginia tech had not had to raise tuition as much as they would have. tax cuts for you and help for people who have lost their jobs and losing their health care or for states so they do not have to lay off teachers and officers and firefighters and other people of a central service. that is what this recovery package is all about. the last one-third of the recovery package was making vital investments that are putting people back to work and creating a stronger economy in the future. we are already seeing the results of these investments including upgrades to community health centers and allow an hospitals to serve more patients who need more care. all across virginia and this country, we are we building our crumbling roads, highways, and bridges as part of an investment in the infrastructure in america

since eisenhower built the interstate system years ago. this is not solving all of our problems at once. but we are stabilizing this economy and moving it forward in part because of the action that we are taking. we are not going to rest. we will not impressed until everybody will want to find a job can find a job. there is debate that the steps we have taken helped to stop this economic free fall. this has cost money to do. when i hear some of the critics talking about out of control spending, i cannot help but remember the same critics who contributed to the deficit i inherited when i walked in. they basically handed me a bill for $1.30 trillion and said, here, fix it. now they are on tv saying, why have you not fixed this yet?

we have to keep this in protection. what is true is because of the significant debt and deficits that we have, a lot of people are saying that we cannot go any further to deal with this long- term problems such as health care. i understand why people feel like they have to cut back and why should not the government cut back as well. it is not a time for the government to which it in and do something about health care. i think it is. we are having this meeting because dirk stork -- because your store provides health insurance to its employees as many of them as they can. that is different than a lot of companies out there who are not providing health insurance for their employees. in some cases, it is not because they do not want to, but because they cannot afford to. the fact of the matter is that health care is going up so fast

that i hear from small businesses and large businesses alike that say it is unsustainable. our costs are going up 20% a year or 30 cents a year just on health care costs. what happens? overtime employers either start to push more costs on to their employees in the form of higher premiums and higher deductibles and out of pocket costs, or they stop providing health insurance altogether. that is why even if you have health insurance, you have to make sure that we can turn this system around. these premiums are going up one- third faster than wages. we spent $6,000 more per person on health care in this country than any other nation on earth. we're not getting a good deal for the amount of money we are

spending. i said this the other day, if somebody told you the worst of it -- spending $6,000 more on the car you bought than your neighbor, you would be annoyed. you would say, i want a better deal. and yet we do not do the same thing when it comes to health care. we do not get the best deal that we can. that is why we have to reform. let me talk about what exactly we are trying to do and what it will mean for you. first of all, no one is talking about a government takeover plan. people were very riled up. they are listening to certain radio programs and watching certain cable shows. somehow they think we will take over health care. i tried to say this over and over again. if you are having with your health care, having with your

doctor, we are not going to force you to change it. this store has been providing health care to its employees. we will not change a system. what we will try to do is work with others to see if we can control the costs so they can keep on providing health care at an affordable cost to all of you. we are not going to be changing your system if you are happy with what you have. under the reform that i proposed, if you like your doctor, keep your doctor. if you are one of 46 million americans who do not have health care coverage, you'll be able to get quality, affordable coverage. a lot of the chatter out there has not focused on the people that have insurance oftentimes are not getting a good deal. the reforms we are proposing will help make dealing with

insurance companies a little bit easier for the american people. that may give you some examples. right now we have a system that works well for the insurance industry and not for its customers. what we need and what we will have when we pass these reforms are consumer protections to make sure that those that have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable. let me be specific. when will stop insurance companies from denying you coverage because of your medical history or because you have a pre-existing medical condition. i will never forget watching my mother on her hospital bed dealing with cancer, trying to argue with health insurance companies, even though she had paid her premiums, saying that her cancer was a pre-existing condition even though it and not been diagnosed when she first got her health insurance. that is not right. i bet many of you have heard of some one or experience that same type of situation.

with reform, insurance companies will have to abide by a rule that says they cannot jockey because of a pre-existing condition. that means that if you lose your job or change jobs or start your own business you are not prevented from getting health insurance. that will give you some security, especially in a tough, economic situation. insurance companies will have to abide by a yearly cap by how much you can be charged for out- of-pocket expenses. no one in america should go broke because they are sick. we will require insurance companies to take routine checkups and preventative programs. that's why we can prevent bonuses instead of just paying for them when they are going to the emergency room. no longer will insurance companies be able to drop a watered down coverage for someone who becomes seriously ill. it is not right or fair. where will stop insurance

companies from placing caps on coverage that you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. whether or not you have health insurance right now, the reforms we seek will bring stability and security that you do not have today. those reforms become more urgent each year. in washington, there has been a lot of talk about politics in health care. they have been saying that obama has to get this done for his political survival. i am only six months in a four year term. i am not thinking about the politics of this right now. i am thinking about the fact that if we do nothing, i can guarantee you that your premiums will double, more and more people will lose coverage, business profits will be strained which means they will be able to hire fewer people, and our federal budget is going to blow up. most of the growth in our

federal budget is not on some government spending plan. most of the growth and in the federal budget is medicare and medicaid spending. if we cannot control the rate of inflation on health care, then i could eliminate every single program out there, and you would still have a huge deficit. the only way we get control of this is if we control our health care costs. that is why it is so important. i am confident that we will get it done. we will get it done because of you. i think the american people even though they are suspicious of what goes on in washington, all recognize that when we meet a challenge, we do not shy away from it. this is a major challenge, keeping the economy back on track, fixing our schools,

getting energy independence for the future, and fixing our health-care system so that families are secure in our economy is strong. i hope i can count on your help. i appreciate you hosting me today. i want to start taking some questions. thank you very much, everybody. thank you. [applause] >> i am going to call on people as they raise their hand. i will go girl, boy, girl, boy, so that people do not think i am biased. we have one young lady here and one gentleman here who have microphones. please introduce yourself. when i call on you, if you can stand up so everybody can see and hear you, i will try to answer your question.

this gentleman here right in the front. you can let her go. [inaudible] >> you are right that medicare covers people 65 years old and over. this week is the 44th anniversary of medicare being put in place. you should know that the same argument that you are hearing now about health care reform, you were hearing back then about medicare. everybody was saying this is

socialized medicine, the government is taking over. now the senior citizens will tell you, they are very satisfied with medicare except for one exception. that is prescription drugs because there is a doughnut hole. i will talk about that in a second. you could say, why not include everybody under medicare? the problem we have is first of all, a majority of people feel -- get health care through private insurers. if all we did was take the uninsured and put them in medicare, then the cost would be so high we could not pay for it because medicare is a pretty expensive program. what we want to do is change how the delivery system in medicare works to make it more efficient and to squeeze out some of the waste in it.

under medicare, we spent about $177 billion in subsidies to insurance companies who participate in medicare advantage. it is like medicare but private insurers manage it. why are we giving that money to insurance companies. we could use that money to cover more people. that seems like a sensible thing to do. [applause] it may be that over time what we look at is who is eligible for medicare and the one ways we can include some people who currently do not qualify. right now but we have proposed is instead of using medicare as the model, use the kind of model as the health insurance that congress has. it is a pretty good deal. set up so that there is a health

insurance exchange. if you do not have insurance right now, you could go to the exchange and select the plan that you thought was best, which is what members of congress do, and then you get a subsidy to help pay for the premiums. because you are part of a big pool customers, you will have leverage in negotiating with the insurance company to drive down the costs so that you can afford health care and high quality. we will make sure the insurance companies have to abide by the rules i just talked about. they cannot prohibit you from joining because of a pre- existing condition. if you lose your job you can still keep your health insurance. all of those things that will give you more security. i do not want to replace the private insurance business. but i want to make sure that people could do not have access because they do not work for a good company like this one where they work for a small business that wants to give them health

insurance but cannot afford it, they are able to get the same as you. the young lady right here. you can pass the microphone down. >> as as a plan that you would make [inaudible] >> yes. this is the plan i had when i was a member of congress. the federal employere's benefit plan -- you have a menu of options. you choose the plan you think is best. you can pay your premium out. as a member of congress, i was making more than a lot of people are, so i did not need a subsidy.

we would have to provide some help for people so they could afford the premiums. but you have a big pool that gives deleverage for -- leverage so you can compete. in lots of people think the -- a lot of people think the piblic option is a government-run health system. we just want to have an option that is not for profit, set up by the government, and can keep administrative costs low and insurance companies honest. if you have insurance companies increasing the rates, and you could go into the public option and the private insurers would start losing a lot of people, so they would have to compete for you. i think that is a good idea.

some people disagree with me on this. in terms of quality of care, i would participate. as president, i have a doctor that follows me everywhere. and an ambulance. so i do not want to pretend that i do not have a super grouper care -- duper care. i do not think that last after i leave. the gentleman right here. >> hello, mr. president. >> however you? >> [unintelligible] [applause] >> fantastic. wasn't jimmy johnson here the last time i was here? anyway.

i know a little bit about racing. is it still working? there you go. >> i have been fortunate to work for a company for 36 years that does have health care. our union has settled health- care business first. if there is anything left, we get a raise. if we do not, we do not. what you propose -- how do you think we could force other companies to be as responsible. when i go to the emergency room, i do not have to pay three times the cost because other companies are paying -- carrying the same burden that kroger is. >> he make a great point. emmitt thought about this for a second. one of the reasons that a lot of americans are not sure if we can reform the health-care system is that they have health insurance now and they are thinking as

long as i have it, i do not want to see any changes to it. what they do not realize is that the costs are going up for the employers at such a high rate that they are not getting raises, higher wages because that money is going into health care. if you are collectively bargaining as a member of the union, then you realize that because you are involved in the negotiations. the employer says what can i do? our health care cost just went up 20%. here is my margin in my province. i do not have enough money to give bigger wages. a lot of people do not realize that. this is one of the reasons that wages and income has been flat for everybody except the top wealthiest americans over the last 10 years, even before this recession hit. people were not getting raises.

they're not getting higher wages and incomes partly because a lot of it was being gobbled up by health care. if we can control health-care costs, it will free up more money for higher wages, higher salaries. but you are right, part of controlling costs is making sure we are not paying it for other people who do not have health insurance because their employers are not doing the right thing. [applause] that is very important. i will not name any names. it is fair to say that there are some kroger competitor is that are not providing the same level of health care. that undercuts your business, but it also means that those people who are going on medicaid which you pay for out of your taxpayer dollars or they do not have health insurance and they show that the emergency room to get care, and the

hospitals because they have all of this uncompensated care. they increase everybody else's insurance premiums to help cover their costs. one way or another, we are all paying for other companies not providing health insurance. what we have said is a small businesses, if you have three employees, we want to make it easier for them. we will provide them some tax credit so they can help provide health insurance for their employees. if there are companies of a certain size that are making a certain profit and they are still not providing health insurance to their employees, but we will do is say, either you pay or you play. if you are providing health insurance, we will help you. if you are not, then you need to pony up some money and pay for the fact that somebody somewhere

is. to take care of the health care of your employees. i think that is only fair and will level the playing field between your store in some of your competitors. [applause] the young lady right here. >> thank you, mr. president. my name is charlotte norman from bristol, tenn., i have a mother who is almost 90 years old. if we get this new health care system in that we will not get the health care and our doctors that we do not have now -- that we have now. older american citizens will be put out to pasture. please tell me it is not so. >> it is not so. [applause]

nothing burns me up more than hearing some of these scare tactic is directed at seniors. the overall -- they are vulnerable and get scared that they might lose their care. let me be absolutely clear, medicare is in place and as long as i am there and even after i am gone, medicare will continue to be in place. we are not going to mess with medicare. [applause] we want to make it more efficient because the problem we have right now is that it is running out of money. for the same reason that health care systems generally are having problems, the costs are going up faster than the amount of revenue that is coming in. if we do not do anything,

medicare is going to be in the red in the next eight years. eight years from now, it would be in the red. think about that. but we have said is let us make it more efficient, let us work with doctors and hospitals to figure out instead of taking five tests if your mom has something that she needs to check up with a doctor, instead of her having to take these tests and then he calls a later and says this is what i think is wrong and refers you to a specialist in take another trip to another doctor and is yet another test. why not just have her make one visit and have all the doctors show at that one visit, take that one test, diagnose her right there? that is what really good health care systems do, but not enough of them are doing it. a lot of them do not have computers that can send the test results electronically so that they do not have to take

multiple tests. there are many things we can do to make the system more efficient. the second thing she should like depending on how much she uses prescription drugs, we pay 77% more for prescription drugs as americans than any other country on earth. think about that. 77% more than canada, france, mexico. why is that? the drug companies will tell you because we invent a lot of these drugs and we put a lot of money into research and development. that might be true for about one-third of the difference. the rest is it has to do with the fact that they pay for all of the television advertisements. they do not give discount and we do not negotiate them. they did not negotiate with the drug companies for the cheapest available price when they did

the medicare plan. we said, let us negotiate. the taxpayers are paying all this money to drug companies, and the least they can do is give taxpayers a good deal on their medicine. to their credit, pharmaceutical companies have already agreed to put up $80 billion, they put it on the table. is that we will help you to close the so-called doughnut hole that is causing a lot of people in a lot of grief. i do not know if everybody knows what it is. after a certain level of prescription drugs out of medicare, you get help until he spent several thousands of dollars. a lot of seniors cannot afford it. they end up cutting the medications in half or they do not take their medications at all, because they cannot afford it that month. that is not good. and it ends up being more expensive, because they do not

take the medication, they may end up in the emergency room and have to pay more anyway. tell your mother, no one is messing with her doctors or her medicare. people should not believe everything they hear -- i got one letter from a woman. she said i do not want a government-run health care. i do not want your socialist plan. do not touch my medicare. [laughter] pie had to ride back to her. medicare is a government program. but do not worry. i will not touch it. sometimes people get stirred up without necessarily having all of the facts available to them. it is the turn of this german right here. -- gentleman right here. >> mr. president, you already just figuring talking about one

of the things i was. to ask you about which is the drug manufacturers charging us so much more. there has only been a couple of states that have passed a tort reform. i think one of the other reasons that medical practices are going up is because of the malpractice insurance. if we have some really good laws governing tort reform, that should help. >> i appreciate the comment. i am in favor of a figuring out ways to lower malpractice insurance for doctors. in some cases, it is very high especially for obgyn's and neurologists. there are some specialists where they have to pay $250,000 a year for malpractice insurance.

in rural communities were committees where the cost of living is lower, it means that you do not get a lot of people going into those communities because their income cannot support the insurance. that is a problem. i asked a bunch of health-care experts about this. is the reason that costs are going up because of high malpractice costs and what the call defense of madison? doctors are doing by tests because they are worried that they may get sued if they do not do those tests. that is a very small, maybe not even a measurable factors in the reason that health care costs are going up. the reason they know that is because they look at texas and these other states with caps and it turns out that their health- care costs are going up just as fast.

there was an article recently where the places where costs are going up that this is where purposing care is highest in the country is in texas. would you find out is that more than anything it had to do with how we are reimbursing doctors, hospitals. are we asking for high-quality care rather than more care? the problem is right now we have a system of fee-for-service. if a doctor is reimbursed for each time he takes out something but not reimbursed for providing counseling for a child who got an elegy, overtime, even if each individual doctor is doing their best, more are getting their

tonsils taken out because there is an economic imperative moving in that direction. hospitals -- let me ask you a question. some of you have cars you love and everyone's in a while the breakdown. if you do not do your own work, you take it into the shop. they fix it. let us say that three weeks later, the exact same thing breaks. if you went back to the car shop, you would expect that they would not charge you to fix what you thought you already paid for. that is not how it works in medicine. in medicine, a hospital is supposed to fix you up. three weeks later you end up back in the hospital, and they get paid all over again. part of what we can do is to

say, we will give a bonus to hospitals that lower the readmission rate that get it right the first time. those things turn out to be the biggest factors in my health care costs are going up faster and faster. i am still a believer in fixing the insurance system so that we do not discourage doctors from going into certain occupations where specialties or in certain regions. that is not the main driver of cost in the system. the term is now the young ladies. i'll come back around this way. i know this group feels ignored. >> thank you so much for being here, president obama. it means so much to all of us. i have medicare and i am happy as i can be. i never pay 1 cent for my medical care. i think medical care is a human

right that everybody in this world deserves. i wish, as i think you do -- [applause] that we had single payer like all other developing nations. i am so glad that you are going to insist upon a government auctoption and we trust that you will hold tight to that. thank you so much. >> thank you so much. i want to emphasize that i have been talking a lot about costly because it is important. medical care gets more expensive. even if we decide to cover everybody under medicare, for example, sooner or later, we would run out of money and be right back where we started. we have to control costs. but i do not want to lose sight of the personal element of this.

i get letters every day -- some of you know, we get about 40,000 letters a day. we get a lot. letters and emails. my correspondence office shoes to 10 for me to read each day. at least half of them have to do with health care. some of these letters are heartbreaking. parents who have adult children who contract cancer, but the children are unemployed where do not have health insurance. the parents who were saving for their retirement have to drain all of their retirement savings to help keep the child alive. you have people who had a small business and that a certain

point had to give up their business, because they could not afford the health care premiums as a self-employed person. they had to give up their dream. people who were bankrupt. there is a woman in wisconsin met, she is 36 years old. she had a double mastectomy. now the cancer has traveled to her bones. she has two kids. her and her husband have health insurance and are $50,000 in debt because of the care. she is fighting for her life. she is worried that if she passes away, all she is leaving behind two kids are medical bills. that does not make sense. we are the wealthiest country on earth. for us to be the only advanced nation where everybody cannot

count on basic health care is shameful. america is the greatest nation on earth, so we should be able to solve this problem. we have to put our minds to it and overcome all the scare tactics and misinformation that is out there and just fix it. [applause] the gentleman right here. >> thank you, mr. president for being here. we just finished the 10th annual round and i tried every way i could to get you down there. the role medicare -- rurak =

l medicare -- >> you did extending -- you all did expect -- outstanding work. >> i felt that if you could have made it, these people who have all these questions about whether we need health care reform or not, they would have seen that we need a bad. my follow-up question was the people do have medicare now, why cannot some people get on it now? >> that is the same question that this gentleman asked. as i said before, there are some people who proposed in the past medicare for all. that is called a single payer system. a lot of countries have that plan. politically, it would have been

difficult and very destructive, because a lot of companies who are currently providing care, their attitude would have been, if i can get the government to pay for this instead of me, let me drop coverage. and lots of people who currently would have coverage, would find their coverage dropped. they would have to sign up for medicare, and then everybody would be on medicare, but we do not have the tax base to pay for everybody being on medicare. what we are trying to do is build on the employer-based system that we already have. it has some disadvantages. i will not like you. it is a system that people are accustomed to. if people are nervous, even when i tell them, you will not have to change your health care and be part of the government plan, then imagine how nervous they

would be if i told them we would open up medicare to everybody. then i think people would worry that they would lose their doctor and their plan. i still think the notion of having a public option that people can sign up for voluntary is something that needs to be part of overall health care reform. ok? the young lady right next to her. and i have just been alerted that this is the last question. you get the last word. >> i am an independent pharmacist. my question is with this new health plan, there could be new prescriptions for patients, and how will they have access to the medications?

can you tell me that it will not be as bad as this part b plan has been. they have great coverage for three months, but no coverage for the rest of the year because they cannot afford the out of pocket. >> i am glad to know that there are still some independent pharmacists around. it used to be that the pharmacists were one of the most trusted members of the health- care system. it is harder to be an independent pharmacists because of the big pharmacy operations that are out there. i think that any plan that we have has to have prescription drugs a part of it, because that is a bigger part of health care today. the deal that we need to strike with the drug companies is, you will have a bunch of new consumers. you have to cut a better deal so

that they and not three months or six months into the year and suddenly they have used up their entire benefit. they cannot afford out of pocket costs, and they suffer until they can get back when the new york -- new year starts. that is going to be a battle with the drug companies. to their credit, they have been willing to negotiate. let us face it. they like making a profit. the prescription drug plan as currently constituted has been very profitable for them. there will be some tough negotiations. obama but i want to make sure i am negotiating on behalf -- i want to make sure i am negotiating on behalf of your customers. they need help. as we are increasing access to doctors, we will have to make sure that drugs are affordable.

we have to make sure there are enough doctors out there especially in rural communities. that is one of the reasons why we have said let us make sure that the reimbursement system that we have under medicare and these other plans reimburses family physicians, primary care physicians, people who are doing regular checkups, helping to prevent illness is ahead of time. they are the lifeline for health care in a lot of communities especially rural communities. we have to make sure we are encouraging more and more people to go into that practice. i want to provide scholarships for medical students to go into these kinds of practices as well. you have been terrific. i had a wonderful visit. i apologize to any customer who has been trying to shop while we were doing this town hall meeting. [laughter] i really enjoy the time i spent

here. i hope to get the information you need. please spread the word to your friends and neighbors. as i said before, there is a lot of misinformation out there. if you have health care, you will be able to keep it. we will fight in work to make sure that health-care inflation goes down, you have better access, better quality, cover people that currently do not have it. we make sure insurance companies are treating you fairly. i think we can get that done with your support. thank you very much, everybody. [applause] ♪ [presidential music] ♪ hos[captioning performed by national captioning institute]

♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] ♪ >> the house energy and commerce committee continued its markup of health care legislation today. you can watch the proceedings in its entirety on c-span3 and on our website apple c-span.org. -- and on our website at c- span.org. the senate judiciary committee this week recommended to

confirm sonia sotomayor. you can watch it on c-span saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern. the confirmation list to the floor next week. live coverage on c-span2. in october, tour the home of america's highest court, the supreme court. .