they gave for a stern lecture on hygiene as a result and she was fine. you can imagine that i felt good. i walked over to the major and pulled out my checkbook. the matron said we do it differently here, it is free. go home, free, no paper work, no copiague, no deductible. they just give you health care. they have it figured out. that is when i started thinking about the system in japan which is good. i covered ted kennedy's race for president in 1980. everywhere he went, he said many other countries to cover their people, why can't we. i got intrigued with that question.

how come they can cover everybody with high-quality care, spend as much as we do, how can they do it? i remember our own experiences and that is where the book came from. host: in your book is something called a "bad shoulder." guest: it is my right shoulder. i damaged in the navy. -- and damaged it in the navy. i dislocated my shoulder many times. i was in the u.s. navy. they took me to bethesda naval hospital. they screwed my shoulder to get there. it worked fine and we are getting old and now my shoulder only goes this type. i set off to see how other countries provide high-quality health care. i thought i would get my

shoulder fixed to see what other health-care look like. guest: what year was this? host: 1972 was when i had the procedure done originally. guest: 10 or 12 countries, you have to go to the general practitioner first and she refers you to the orthopedic surgeon. i saw at least 25 doctors. host: let's start with the american doctor after you get out of the needy. guest: that was in denver. the doctor fixed the other shoulder. i went to the doctor and i trusted him. he was an orthopedic surgeon. he was very confident and aggressive. i could not swim a golf club.

he said we would fix it. he came back with a little bread box and said here is your new shoulder. he was going to cut out the old shoulder and put in a new tightening shoulder. that is the american high-tech aggressive way. he had no idea what it would cost. it turned out to be a $47,000 procedure. i ask him what the risks were. he said was major surgery and there are always some risks like disease, paralysis, desperate -- death. i got like 20 other opinions. i took my shoulder around the world. i was looking for a cure for our health care system, as well. host: you are now working for the "washington post?

" guest: know, that operation would of cost me about $1,650, had i been. host: then what would happen? guest: in america, you have to go to a second doctor to find that it was necessary. i don't know what would cost. you cannot tell in america. host: give us another example of another doctor you visited. guest: japan had the widest choice of care. i went to a famous or to pick climate -- orthopedic clinic. you don't wait in japan that afternoon, i was in the office of the orthopedic surgeon.

he did something that no other doctor did. he called up my condition on a computer and read about it while he was treating a parade was very reassuring to me. in japan, their insurance would pay for the broadest range of treatment. he would have given me the operation, he would have given me months or years of physical therapy and he suggested monthly course of shots. that would been free in japan. they will also do traditional chinese medicine in japan for the debut acupuncture very big debut herbal remedies. all that is covered by japanese insurance. in japan, the operation would cost $10,000 but michael bay would have been about $65. -- but my copiague would have been about $65. -- but myco-pay would have been about $65.

they have private plans and the public option for it host: host: what does it cost a year for the public option? guest: it is not cheap. it is about $400 per month. the employer pays as well. host: you have an example of an indian doctor the treated you. guest: i did a film about traditional indian medicine. we took my shoulder to eight southern indian mayo clinic. it's the most ayurvedic clinic in the world. your body will hear itself -- heal itself, they don't cut. it is an agent burble and laying

on of hands medicine. you lie on a table and six guys decide to with warm oil. it was sweet. i did every day for five weeks. i was making a movie so they cover this whole. at the clinic, they gave me a suite that had my own miss such chamber in my hospital suite. they gave me all my meals, $42 per day, including the treatment. they take these oils and they put these birds and medications and they rob you like a rotisserie chicken. -- rub you like cape rotisserie chicken. they made me go to the temple and walked three times around a statue, the god of healing. i did not buy that.

it worked. i got more movement and less pain. if they ask if it -- if they want me to stay five more weeks, there would have been less pain. that was 2007. i made a movie and most of this mock movie, i was lying there getting a massage. i walked down the street in america. i always tell my kids out of that is to be a foreign correspondent. they never believed me. i walked down the street and people come up to make an either say, shoulder is or they saw me naked. that is what i get because there is a lot of nude scenes of me. i was being as such. -- i was being a massage. -- i was being massaged.

i did not by the religious background. it worked. there is no question. host: if you lived in india, what would have cost you? guest: probably the same $42 per day. that is significant for indians. india is a developing nation and there is no health care system. the system in those countries is out of pocket for it if you have the money to pay the doctor, you get treated. you have no money, you stay sick or you die. that is the system. it is brutal, simple. host: was the program you had a falling out with? guest: i made two films for pbs. one was the indian film. the other one is where went to a

doctor in five countries to see health care works. some people say it is politically impossible to fix a health care system. the last time we tried it, in 1994, the result was disastrous. that same year, in switzerland, a country famous for huge insurance companies and drug companies, they took on health care reform and change the system. today, they have universal coverage with high-quality. we have come to switzerland to see why they made the change and how it is working. those were pretty successful films. we made the movie "sick around america." i and the talent. i don't have money but they called me the talent. -- i don't have any but they called me the talent. we put this together in a

documentary. after seven weeks of editing base in the movie and it looked wrong. they suggested that the solution to our health care problem was to mandate everybody in a private, for-profit system. no other country would do that. no other country will allow things that happens in our country. it contradicted the film, the book, and i did not agree with it. they were happy with the movie. i did not want to be in the movie. guest: you are for dealing with them? host: i don't think front-line will use me anymore. gues\ host: does that surprise ? guest: they were pretty angry at me from withdrawing from the project.

host: will you do any more television? guest: lots of other producers have come to ask you to do films. it is fun work. i will do more. it is like being a reporter. i think it is easier. you have a producer to do a lot of stuff for you. i think i will do more but i will not appear on pbs frontline because i a bad guy there. host: we have talked over the years and most of the time you have been with"the washington post." i live in denver host:, years to work for the washington post? guest: about 30 years. i married peggy, who is a denver

native. " the washington post made me the bureau chief in denver. that was very nice. they shut down the bureau and i was getting into making films and writing more books. i have left "the washington post." guesthost: they said that you wa democrat and that you were interested in being appointed to the legislature in colorado. hostguest: i am now a democrat. my state representative from our district in denver was the leader in the cultural legislature on health care policy. she quit the job. she took something else. but to people came to me because i am doing health policy and

asked me to try for that right to apply for the job but i did not get the guy they picked is great. he is better than i would have been. host: can they appoint legislators? guest: yes, if a legislator which in the midterm, they should make her pay for the special election to replace them. they don't and lots of people in many state legislatures get the job that would permit one to our incumbent, you tend to win. host: will you run for office out there? guest: i might. the goal for american help policy is universal coverage at reasonable cost. that is where all other countries are. i am not sure we will get there this time for the summer is not promising. it might happen on a state-by- state basis. you read my chapter about canada. what happened in canada is one

province in canada, saskatchewan, is a lot like colorado. it is have mountains and have plans for there are no rivers so the orders are strict lines per the elected of very leftist governor. he was a premier. he said everyone should have health care in that province. he set up a state run single payer system in 1944. he called medicare. it worked. everyone in that province and medical care. lots of doctors came there because they knew they would get paid ver. other provinces copied it because it work. by 1961, it was so popular that the people of canada demanded that the federal government establish the same thing coast to coast. it started in one state. in 2004, the canadian

broadcasting company did a poll to name the greatest canadian history and millions of voters, the nominees were many and the winner was tommy douglas, who came up with the system. i have talked about this topic to several state legislators. i always say that if they could institute a health care system in the state that work, you would be collected the best american in history. that is what happened in canada. i think what will happen is we will get to universal coverage on a state-by-state experimentation. some state will get it right and the others will copy that. one reason that can happen is because what ever bill comes up congress this year, there will be a state waiver clause. that will give them waivers against national laws and leaves

room for experimentation. i will bet you that the next january, 25 states will have bills in the state legislature to try to get universal coverage on the state level. some state will make it work and everybody will copy. arisa is the national pension insurance regulating law. it has many desirable features which requires that employers treat their employees the same for health care. they cannot charge one employer more than another. that makes it hard. it makes it hard for a state to change the rules of health insurance or health payment for it they will give waivers on the block. that is in the statute. host: the kaiser foundation, how does that play into this? guest: it is a wonderful organization.

they can't and finance and do a lot of health policy research. they are good at this. i got i went to them with an expensive project. i ask him to helpmate and they gave me money and the kind of permission i could use to go overseas and see what was going on. people in germany have heard of kaiser. they help you with great deal. when pbs frontline sign yet to make the movie, in europe and most asian countries, the public broadcasting service is the big broadcaster. if you go to switzerland and tell them you are from american pbs, they think you are a big shot. i went to switzerland and told an item from american pbs and i wanted to talk to the health minister. they wanted me to talk to their

president. i talked to two presidents in switzerland. that helped a lot. to see doctors, it was useful to say i am here for the kaiser foundation people. host: their names involved with the foundation. on the board is bill frist. host: i know him but he didn't have anything to do with it. guest: cokie roberts did not have anything to do with it. host: there is another name you mention. uva reinhardt? guest: i signed a to do this book.

-- i signed up to do this book to find at other countries to health care. i signed up on a contract and i realized how big the project was. in the fall of 2006, i took a course at princeton i was going through the catalog when i got there. there was a graduate seminar and the title was "the political economy of health care systems." it was a formidable topic. there were charts and economics i knew we would be a great course. she was a marvelous teacher -- he was a marvelous teacher. i asked how they keep costs down for major surgery in germany. he knows everything.

he knows all the health care economist and every country. he would advise me when i want talks with particular country. if you are a journalist, you need that. at one point, i asked him to write the book with me. he refused. he said he was an economist and no one would understand him. academics are defense mark but we can say things in english in the way people can understand guest: he was born in germany? guest: he was born in germany and grow in canada so he knows those systems. he has been advocating for universal coverage in america for a long time. at one point, he wrote a letter to the journal of the american

medical association. he wants to pose a simple question -- in america, if the child of a rich family of a child of a poor family both contracts the same disease, should they both have access to the same care? his answer would be, yes. in every other country in the world, the answer would be yes. all these doctors wrote in and complained about his socialist views. the doctors said that we should not do that. you would not give that answer in any other country. all other countries have made a moral, ethical decision. everybody who needs health care should have access to health care. host: let's take your shoulder to germany. guest: they have good high-tech medicine. the doctor in germany, you have to go to the general

practitioner first -- if i call your office and complained about my shoulder, how long would it take me to see you? >> about two weeks. guest: it by coming here -- it by coming here and you suggest orthopedic surgeon, how long would that take? >> perhaps, another week or two. guest: what if they're needed to be an operation? how long the wait for that? >> not too long, two weeks. guest: she would send it to the orthopedic surgeon. he examined. he could have done the operation recommended in america. he did not think it was my need. my problem is limited movement. the operation is better for people with pain. in germany, they proposed a

regular regime of the regular -- of physical therapy which would be free and germany. health care is paid for through an insurance premium. traditionally, in germany, you never pay co-p0aay. germany came up with a shocking change. once a quarter, every three months, you have to pay co-pay, $14, every three months, and want to pay that all health care is covered for the next three months. if you have to come back on april 2, you can pay another 10 euros. there was an expatriate living in her town and he can end in

january -- he cavemen and said he had to pay and he came back in late february with another problem. he tried to pay me again. he had order paper that corporate -- he did not have to pay. in germany, i would have had to pay the co-pay. host: if i worked in germany and did not have insurance, what would happen to me? guest: it is taken out of your pay. there is no choice. if you have no job and the government takes the role of your employer. the government pays the employer's part of the premier bird if you do not have enough money to pay your half, the government pays that. most people in germany get help jurors -- health insurance through the employer.

100 to 2 million americans are on the german plan for in germany, the big difference is if you lose your job, you keep your insurance. the government takes over and pays your employer's part of the premium. europe is mystified by our health care system. they cannot figure out why rich company has so many people uninsured. the health minister of sweden asked me to explain something about america. in sweden, they feel if you lose your job, that is when you need health insurance. in america, when you lose your job, they take away your insurance. why would we do that? i have never figured that out, myself. that is arguably the cruelest of

all the cruelties in the american health-care prop -- policy. when you need the most, is when you lose it. host: your shoulder is now in france. guest: the doctor put my x-ray on light box and they put a stainless steel screw in my shoulder at bethesda. this guy sees that and he smiles. that is a french procedure. the french invented that upper -- that operation. here comes this american shoulder with a french expert in any he was very pleased. it is like seeing an old friend. he told me that we could have the procedure done in france which would cost 5000 euros which is $5,000. -- which is $6,000, american. he said he did not recommended.

he suggested physical therapy or paying bills or something. -- pain pills or something. he did not recommend it. host: who says that france is the number-one health care organization and the world? guest: the world health organization did a big study of 191 countries. the head of the organization said this would be afraid to be just another study. he wants to get attention for the study. they came up with a scheme to rate each of the health care systems in the world on grounds of equality and fairness. there raided the from 1 through 191 and france, and first?

is a good system in france but is it the best? host: the world health organization is the u.n.? guest: yes. host: most of the organizations that belong, they would not like anything america does? guest: that is wrong. there are 191 countries in the world health organization and only about 40 of the world's richest countries have any health care system at all. all the others are on this out of pocket system. most of them would be developing countries. they hired christopher murray at

harvard to do this study. it was not done by europeans. the big problem with america, we were rated number 37. the major reason was fairness. they are right. some americans get world-class health care. the problem is, we leave too many outside the door. according to the national academy of sciences, about 20,000 americans die every year of treatable diseases because they cannot afford the doctor. in france, that number is 0, germany is 0, great britain is zero. no other country let that happen.

about 70,000 americans go bankrupt because of medical bills. other countries don't have that problem. in terms of the fairness of our system, that is where we get rated down. host: a general practitioner makes a $140,000 per year? what is the same position in france worth? guest: they make about $60,000 in france. in japan, $80,000. host: you point out that their education is paid for by the government. guest: in most countries, medical education is free. their malpractice premiums -- i ask the doctor in japan who has a clinic with nine beds. i asked about at the malpractice.

he did not know. he called the office manager and she said that is included in the feet of $30 per month to belong to the medical association. they make less but there costs are less. they do not have a big loan to pay off. the fundamental difference is that their expectations are lower. doctors in france and germany and japan do not expect to make $500,000 per year. they want to help people. they like biology and science. all doctors everywhere complain that they are not paid enough. they are comfortable middle- class people overseas. their curing illnesses host: \ host: how would you tell this

story? your book says that our numbers stake in every poll in america. guest: we have the worst cost in the world. even on quality results, we rate lower than most of the other rich countries. that surprised me. host: even on longevity, we are low? guest: we are its 77 but the other rich countries are at like 79. neonatal death in the first year of life, we are two or three times worth than the other rich countries. that seems outrageous to me. i cannot stomach that one. we should have the best health- care system in the world. we definitely have the best medical and nursing schools and

pharmaceutical schools. we have world class and world leading medical research. i am convinced our hospitals are the best in the world. we have the finest facilities that care for you. they have all sorts of people to treat you. all that stuff, nobody can match upper the problem is that the payment system is badly screwed up. is very expensive and extremely unfair. we have not allocated the resources equally. all the other countries started by saying that they want everyone in the country who needs a doctor to have access. for some reason, i struggle with this question in the book, the richest country in the world has never made that commitment. i am tough on canada because of the waiting there.

i was talking to a minister in canada and i asked him about waiting for health care. he said that canadians don't mind waiting as long as the rich canadian and the poor canadian have to wait a set amount of time. that is the national culture. they are egalitarian. we don't have that. it is a standard in america that rich people will get better care. no other country does it that way. host: if you talk to people who run the famous clinics, they will have people fly in from all over the world to get their people treated. conservatives say the canadians are coming over the border to get treated. guest: there are studies on

canadian snowbirds. there are very few of them. canadians claim that more americans go across the border to get treated in canada. it is a small number either way. it is true that our oil sheikhs fly into the mayo clinic for treatment. at the top, nobody can match america. we have the best care of the world. we have the best schools. we of the best research. we have not made it available to all americans. that is a fundamental difference between our country and the others. host: you did france and japan and canada and great britain, germany. did you do it lead? guest: italy and spain rate high. those are british-style systems. americans would call that socialized medicine. it is a beverage model. health care there is the government's job. the government owns the hostels

and employs most of the doctors and pays the bills. guestthey pay in taxes. they still pay less than we do. they definitely pay for health care. you do not get a bill. that is the beverage mall. i call at socialized medicine. the striking thing is that, in many other rich countries, they are private. sometimes they are more private analyst socialist america and germany, the doctors a product of models are private, the laboratories are private, and the insurance plans are predicated everybody stays with private insurance cradle to the grave. that is less socialized in the u.s. host: how much of this is about

the profit in this country? kaiser is nonprofit. guest: when you talk about the cost and profit -- in my book, i divide health care into providers and the payers. most countries have decided it is ok for the providers to beat for profit. -- to be for profit. the american health insurance companies are the least efficient appears in the world. they have administrative costs that are 20% of premium dollars. they add 20% to every doctor build a paper in france, which

is private insurance, their administrative costs are 4%. germany is 5%. japan is about 5.5%. canada's paige: system is government. their administrative cost is 5.5%, one-quarter of what our insurance companies pay here. medicare is 3%. there is no marketing in medicare. they do not deny claims. the economic profit. that'll keep the administrative costs down host: shouldn't the doctors be allowed to make money? very few of them make several million dollars per year. guest: doctors here are the best paid doctors in the world. host: are they the best doctors in the world? guest: they are certainly the

best educated. our results in terms of recovery rates for major diseases, kind of mediocre. neonatal deaths, we're the worst. we have a very good doctors, well-trained, high-tech medicine, but we are about equal to other countries. host: how much of this is the 11 million illegals that come to this country? they are given health care in and they are figured in these averages? guest: the reason the averages are low because the people who cannot get health care. you take recovery rates from lupus which is a chronic disease that strikes young women. it is a serious disease of modern medicine knows how to manage it. if you get the right care, you will live to be 75 years old. in other rich countries, they

manage it but in america, if someone has no money to manage it, they die. many poor people get asthma that can i get medical care and they die much younger. host: when did you complete your research for the book? guest: it took me more than three years to do this book for it was harder than i thought. i missed the deadline by 18 months. my editor beat up on me for one year. my claim is that we did not know that the country would be obsessed with health care policy. it was sheer luck that i brought out the book at the right time. i am planning but i saw this

coming. that is my story and i'm sticking to it. host: how long were you were on the road? guest: i took my wife on a couple of trips. i tried to get my kids to go but they would not go. they lived with this in japan and britain so they were the guinea pigs. host: how old are they now? guest: 34, 27, and 25. when my kids is a runner and she was running and a female runner has to get a blood test to test mercury. -- i mean iron, she has to test her iron level for it she is a competitive runner in great that in great britain. she is on the team and a coach

said to go over to the hospital and get a blood test. she called me from princeton hospital in america and said they want water $20 for the blood test. -- $120 for the blood test. i after which he paid in great britain. she has never paid a penny in great britain. that was her idea what medical care should be like. that is addictive. host: did you have camera crews with you? guest: yes, i had been to all these countries and met most of the doctors. i have the -- i had to convince these doctors to go on camera. some of them said that was fine. some of them were a little shy.

in the end, they all did. we " uva reinhardt to help out. bill show helped out. he has designed many health care systems in egypt, cameroon, taiwan, and he is now designing a new system for china. he is a great resource. he went to taiwan with us. in the late 1980's, tie 1 health care was worse than america today. about half the population had no coverage at all. this man was one of the officials charged with designing a new system from scratch >> taiwan's a small island. we always look abroad for ideas. we say the track of the previous car is the teacher of the

following corporate guest: so it is saying to follow the tracks? host: yes. find a new track, if it does not work. guest: they asked william show to head up a panel. he designed to tie one health care system. this covers everybody. they adopted the canadian model. they did this in 1994. we went to a hospital and a fishing village on the coast and there was a woman in the hospital and she was taking blood pressure. i asked her if she worked there and she did it as a volunteer. after what she volunteered. in 1980, this was before they had a health care system in taiwan, her mother got breast cancer and died. there was nobody to treat her.

she died at like 46. in 2005, the daughter gets breast cancer but there is that a health care system that covers everybody and there is a hospital in town and she went in there and they treated for cancer and saved her life for free. i showed her bill showfdç who designed the system. she walked over to him, very deferential, she thanked him. she walks over to him and gives him the most imperceptible bowel, a one-inch dowel and walked away. i thought that was the first -- i thought that was the best way to say thank you. host: we have had many hours on

this network in the last few weeks of these town hall meetings. when you see very sincere people stand up and say they don't want someone to mess with their health care. what do you say to them? do you think the members of congress understand this? guest: i think they get it. the guys who say it is socialized overseas, they definitely don't get it. they need to read my book. many countries are less socialized and we are. i set out to figure out how other countries manage to cover everybody at half the cost. i think i got that in the book. i figured out along with that there was something more important and that is why do other countries cover everyone? what makes a country make that more commitment? i work hard on that.

if you think about that, why don't the world's richest country commit to cover everybody? why have we never done this? i struck by struggle with that in the book. -- i struggle with that in the book. we are going at it from a different direction. all the other countries i went to first aside the moral issue. everyone in that society gets help and we will find a mechanism to get the health care. our argument is all about the mechanism and we have lost sight of the basic moral goal. if we could focus on that goal than rather than say one assurances o b one insurance isd another is not, we could get something done. host: there is one side that

says universal health care is a great way to get votes. you have the other half o that says they're working for good private health care. what about the cynicism? guest: if it does not cost and it -- if they say it costs nothing, that is baloney. old woman in france -- a woman in france -- the system in france is a universal health- care system paid for by everybody. the argument could be that the organization that have been -- big winners like hospital

corporations, insurance corporations, many specialists, should perhaps pay more. they are sitting on more of our health care money. the crucial point is, we want everyone in our country to have health care. if we believe that, we could get there. i know we could. all the other rich countries have done it. host: we have been focusing on the virginia hospital center and the have a new radiation machine called the cyberknife. have you seen that around the world? guest: of course, the notion that other countries are backwards is nonsense. a lot of it starts here. a lot of it comes out of universities and governments. other countries with much lower costs structures have good innovation.

anyone out there was an artificial hip or knee or shoulder, that is french technology. they invented that. this deep brain stimulation that deals with alzheimer's, that is canadian. insulin is canadian. x-rays are german. host: what about drugs? guest: a lot the drugs come from swiss or british or german collapse including viagra. host: why is it the drugs sold here can be bought for less money in canada or europe or africa? guest: that is economic clout. in england, the government buys the bill and you get your prescription through that. they negotiate a good price. the drug company can charge twice as much. they are the only buyer. the do that in germany, in france, therefore, those countries have negotiated low

prices. the same bill made in the same factory costs 20 cents in britain and $1.20 in america. they have negotiated a price. we have so many different by years that we do not have the kind of economic clout. in medicare part d, the government agreed not to negotiate. you get good try prices in the veterans administration. -- good drug prices the drug companies say if we cut innovation america, we could not do good research. i don't buy that. they spent three times as much on marketing. people in japan have a higher per-capita income americans. why should i subsidize them to get cheaper pills? that does not seem right.

let's let the drug companies charge her but a fair price. host: you see politicians saying that they will be taken care of and the other side says it will cost more money. how you get past that? it seems that we are 50-years later and try to sell the idea that you were talking about. guest: i think it is fundamentally a moral issue. that is where the argument has debate. does a rich country have an obligation to see that everyone has health care? in every other developed country, the answer is yes. the united states has never made that commitment. as i say in the book, the guy who won the campaign, the president, he says providing

health care for all our men and women is not an illusionary whisper it is a moral demands on our country. the democratic president that said that was woodrow wilson in 1912 and we have never got there. i argue in the book because it is wea let the argument get awa. the other countries first made a moral commitment. they then found a way to do it. host: the book is selling and is high on the charts. guest: the reviews are good for once. host: your shoulder is still bothering you. where will you go? guest: i happen to be on the board of the university of colorado comedical school.

i have access to great health care in america. if i did not, i would not have any trouble going to a doctor in great britain. they treated my family grade. britain's national health service is dedicated to the proposition that you should never have to pay a medical bill. in the nhl is, there is no insurance premium, note the at alter the system covers everybody. my family got very good care very often had to wait to see a doctor. the newspapers here are full of nhs are stories. i came to london to see the national health service. is it an answer for the u.s.? japanese care is excellent. host: how about french? guest: french care is terrific. host: any place that is lower

and less than the others? guest: none of the rich, trees. i don't like would want to be treated in india. there's nothing wrong with it but i am not shirk their sanitary standards are as high. i got good care in india. i american. i would go to an american doctor. i would get great care and i have decent insurance that would pay for it. the problem is, tens of millions of our fellow citizens do not have the kind of coverage host: are you buying insurance other than medicare? guest: yes, people in america are subsidizing meat. i bought a medicare advantage plan. it was set up to prove that the private insurance companies could provide the same coverage as medicare more efficiently. as it turns out, they have not been able to. they get a subsidy from congress. they get about $49 per person

per year that is paid -- the about $4,900 per person per year. president obama and the democrats of congress say they will end that. i will probably lose my sweet deal. at the moment, it is not right but i have a good policy subsidized by the taxpayers. host: one year from now, will there be a health care bill that will pass congress? guest: a bill will pass and the democrats will declare victory but i do not think we will get to universal coverage. i think that as far off. it might happen state-by-state. by years from now, maybe we will have everybody covered. host: will you run for office? guest: if i thought we would do something in colorado on a state level, i would like to be there and work for it.

i would like to see as cover everybody. host: t.r. reid, we thank you for being with us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> for a copy of this program, call the number on your screen. >> coming up next, your phone

calls and comments on today's " washington journal." that will be followed by the policies of the obama administration on health care. president obama will speak to members of the afl-cio in cincinnati. as the debate over health care continues, cspan's healthcare hub is a key resource. you can go on line c- span.org/healthcare. >> and about one hour, we'll have a discussion on congressional debate on health care. a couple of hours from now, amy dean will talk about her book