on the agenda is a bill to lower prescription drug costs and improve access to health care plans. on c-span two the senate is voting on judicial and executive nominations including jeffrey rosen to be the next hippie attorney general. later in the day, senator elizabeth warren holds a town hall in fairfax, virginia. nadler and jerrold mary gay scanlon lead a public reading of the mother report with other house democrats -- the molar report -- the mueller report with other house democrats. it is expected to last throughout the day and evening. >> on today's washington journal, we will discuss the future of health care and prescription drug costs with the previous health and human services secretary during the clinton administration.

then more on the topic with former oklahoma senator tom coburn. talks aboutannon how voters view the current health care system. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ host: good morning. it is thursday, may 16th. president trump a set to unveil a new immigration plan that would move the -- the united states towards a air it based --tem -- merit faced system towards a merit-based system. how would you change u.s. immigration laws? democrats can call in at 202-748-8000. .epublicans, 202-748-8001 independents, it is 202-748-8002 . with a special line for border state residents, 202-748-8003.

you can also catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good thursday morning to you. you can start calling in now. the president's address on this immigration plan is set to take place in the rose garden at 2:30 pm we will cover it on c-span.org and c-span radio. here is some of the reporting. it was developed by a senior advisor and trump's son-in-law, jared kushner, also said to have played a role in the plan is stephen miller. it includes border security measures that would be nuked under the budget, but the heart of the plan is it overhauls the legal immigration system, focusing on picking immigrants based on merit through a point system that rewards highly skilled workers. it would curtail family-based

migration and legal immigration. the plan is expected to include some streamlining of u.s. asylum processes and seeks to get rid of some of the so-called magnets for illegal immigration in this country. the washington times, stephen dinan, a reporter with more reporting about the heart of this plan though the merit-based system the country -- president is looking to move the country towards. the key change is to shift the system away from one where immigrants pick the united states and towards one where the u.s. picks immigrants. about two thirds of visas are doled out based on family ties where only little more than 10% go to employment-based. most are humanitarian visas. merit-based visas would rise to more than half. it would award those with needed skills and other factors such as the ability to speak english or

how likely they are to support themselves. we want to hear from you. democrats, it is 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. and that special line for border state residents, 202-748-8003. as you are calling in, some response already even before the plan is unveiled by democrats on capitol hill. here is pramila jayapal, cochair of the congressional progressive caucus. no solution for dreamers, nothing to address the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country, reduces family immigration, funds of vanity wall. jared has stephen miller whispering in his ear and that means dead on arrival. kathleen rice saying in immigration plan without a path dacatizenship for dhaka --

and tps recipients is a nonstarter. i am not sure how you get away with calling this a plan. no thanks. one more tweet from frank thorpe with nbc news, some reporting on what senator chuck schumer had to say to reporters yesterday. schumer saying i will tell you they have not talked to democrats and win stephen miller is in the room, it is a failure. do not come up with a deal stephen miller rubberstamped and now say pass it. it will not happen. we want to hear from you. phone lines are open. mike is first calling from california. good morning. caller: how is it going? , i just want to comment that i agree with president donald trump because something has to happen. .t is getting out of hand sanctuary cities, all kinds of

crime going on. i don't know if that is the right step to do it, but something has to happen and has to happen now. host: that is mike izzy in new york. good morning. forer: this is -- thank you taking my call. the question was what changes should be made to the u.s. immigration policy. i think if we become more citizen to the canadian system, that would be the best option for us. i think that has done well for them. they have a good minsk of -- mix of educated labor force and more basic labor force. that would be good for this country also. the current system we have right now is causing a lot of problems for us socially and economically. going to a mayor -- merit-based endpoint based system would be

the best option. host: thanks for the call from new york city on a system more like the canadian system, that is what john writes on twitter saying an immigrant must have a job before immigrating, and immigrant must have a secure job before emigrating and a citizen sponsor and be able to understand english, those are the four points of john's plan leading towards a more canadian style system. give a legal ash immediate legal recipients.ca only need a wall at key traffic points. lawsh employers violating -- employment laws. easy to understand codes while enforcing them. angie writes there will never be an immigration deal without peopleg law-abiding daca citizenship. republicans refuse, so no deal

on anything they want either. , phone to hear from you lines as usual, democrats, republicans, and independents. peggy and fort myers, florida. republican, good morning. go ahead, peggy. are you with us? in mclean,to stacey virginia, independent. caller: good morning. my comment was if you can remember 20 years ago when george w. bush went for president, he said those poor people were coming over to get jobs and do jobs americans did they broughto when them over here to us the unions and bring the wages down. now that they don't want them anymore, they want to ship them out and vilify them. the problem is republicans created this problem and now

they want to vilify everybody coming over here. these people cannot get any public assistance or anything, they are not qualified for it and they do work. my problem is it was the republicans who wanted this cheap later -- cheap labor to bus the unions and they were able to bring the wages down and now that they want rights, they want to kick them out. more of your calls and a second, want to show you reporting from the washington post of morning, comments they received from members of the administration. specialized vocations, that is the heart of the proposal a senior administration official said in a meeting on wednesday with the washington post -- the administration wants doctors, nurses, engineers, and computer programmers, individuals who provide a cure for cancer or build that first subdivision on mars. we see immigration as the competitiveness issue and our

hope is we can create a system that is in line and allows us to be competitive with the rest of the world from the washington post to this morning. we mentioned part of the immigration proposal that is expected out of the president today is expected to include streamlining of u.s. asylum process. efforts to shut down magnets for immigration. senator lindsey graham, the chairman of the senate judiciary committee released his own plan on that front yesterday and he spoke with reporters on capitol hill. here he is talking about his plan. [video clip] >> i would do four things required to stop this humanitarian crisis and threat to our sovereignty. in the future, you can apply for asylum from central america, but you have to do so in an american consulate or embassy in your home country and we will set up

a facility in mexico. no more asylum claims at the u.s. border if you are from central america. if you are an unaccompanied minor, we are going to change the law to allow the minor to be sent back to their home country in a safe and secure fashion as if the child was from mexico or canada. there is a loophole in our law that we are going to close. instead of having 20 days to process a family with a minor child, we will increase to 100 days so the family can be detained humanely and we can get not have processed and to release them into the country . we are going to hire 500 new immigration judges to deal with the 900,000 person asylum backlog to clear the backlog. if we will do these four things, then the incentive created by

our laws will cease to exist, this humanitarian disaster will begin to repair itself and i am willing to sit down with democrats to find a way to address the underlying problem in central america. i am willing to put other immigration ideas on the table to marry up with this. what i am not willing to do is ignore this problem any longer. host: we will find out at 2:30 today in the president's rose garden speech whether some or all of lindsey graham's proposal will be included. lindsey graham's plan on capitol hill received pushback from democrats after he unveiled it. here is senator dick durbin, the minority whip. [video clip] >> it is my understanding senator graham's proposal is the white house proposal and i know it is going to be closely scrutinized. we want to make sure there is

humanitarian treatment of those who present themselves at our borders and we understand there are conditions in central america which are creating this exodus toward the united states. i hope the administration will take this challenge as an opportunity to sit down and address the reality of the need for copperheads of immigration reform. he said he would hold a hearing and democrats would offer what they want. it does? >> many efforts when it comes to immigration reform under this president. i am skeptical as to whether he truly wants to deal with immigration reform. i know he wants a wall, he said that so many times. i would take at face value senator grampa's offer. if we have a real committee markup and discussion and it might lead to a bill coming to the floor of the united states senate with amendments and debate, people would vote on the floor of the senate on something

other than a macconnell tradition nomination, what a breakthrough. it is something called the united states senate, you might remember that from the movies. on 7:15 anding up we are having this conversation about u.s. immigration laws in this first half-hour of our program, but we will return to it in the last 45 minutes. if you don't get in in this first have our, stick around for that discussion later. this is virginia from new jersey, independent. how would you change u.s. immigration laws? my first recommendation is that we do not rush making a law because the law itself has to be something we can implement. if you make a law you cannot enforce, it breeds more lawlessness. that is why we see the effect we have now where we are getting

more and more people at our border creating this crisis, that is the first thing. we do not address a crisis with a law that has a long-term effect. we cannot say this law has to be a long-term effect. systeme have to have a that supports the american citizenship. that means when people want to immigrate to the united states, they have to want to be american citizens, they have to agree they are going to speak the language of the country and they are going to have to be able to support and work for themselves. that is important for the long-term immigration fix that we have to make. and the last thing i want to say is we have a crisis at our border because we are not being supported by our fellow

countries of mexico and canada. going tople are thousand miles through mexico to get to our border. down ato stopped them the border into mexico, they can stop them. action of our diplomacy to get mexico to help us in this crisis? .hose are important things nobody, not congress, not the president, and not our law, which is, is addressing any of these issues at this time. host: virginia in new jersey. this is rich in ohio, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. a lot of great comments. one of the things that gets left out is being in good health

because we will be the magnet for the world on health. canada has rejected people even when they have jobs and houses because someone in their family does not have good health. it is a big cost to our country a the only thing we get is magnet of our health care system. host: when you say good health, what requirements would you put on that? we lost rich. kathy in pennsylvania, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment about immigration is this, i think we are ignoring the basic problem that the people that are coming to the united states are coming from the impoverished countries in central and south america and mexico. i think if president trump would increase his foreign aid to

these countries, perhaps this flow of information -- immigration would trickle down. unless we do our job as americans helping others and , iing those countries aid don't think any immigration law will be effective until that occurs. thank you. independent, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? host: i am doing well, thank you. caller: interesting conversation. immigration and illegal immigration is as american as apple pie. let me tell you some of the immigrants that came to america, father was from syria. elon musk, south africa. jeff bezos, his father was from cuba. we act like immigration is something brand-new and that is

what keeps america fresh and makes america great, thank you. host: we have that special line for border state residents. we will head down to arizona, this is sean. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a registered nurse, president trump trying to bring in nurses is something they are not able to practice until they get additional training in schools. the other thing i want to talk about is border security. i really like president trump and a lot of things he has done, but the one thing he has not done is 24/7 creating a border wall. he should have somebody creating that wall. thisin arizona so i know, should be completed 24/7 and people should be working on it all the time. we need to secure the border. it is getting really bad in arizona. host: can i ask you about the nursing license? caller: please. host: the u.s. nursing license,

obviously different requirements than a nursing license in other countries,. caller: exactly. host: is that something someone can work on and receive before they come to the united states? is that something you can do overseas? caller: what they usually do. i teach at college and stuff like that and i am somebody who deals with the students who come from other countries. what they usually have to do is they have to take either additional training or they can test out. additional training means not only taking courses, but also going and doing clinicals at a facility and things like that. those things they cannot do until they get to america. what i am trying to say is even though president trump may like nurses to come here because they are educated, they are not going to be able to work here, so they will not be able to contribute for a while.

host: on those clinicals, how long does that usually take? what does that process entail? caller: it could be anywhere from 40 hours clinical at least in arizona to a couple years. host: thanks for talking about it this morning. a some more reporting on the president's immigration plan, specifically as we said the heart of the plan that will be unveiled today moving toward a merit-based system. you probably heard proposals like that before. that is because we talked about that before. david produce said this week with senateg conservatives and the white hase about legislation he already introduced. he expected illegal immigration levels to stay the same, but the type of visas would change. the wall street journal noting kushner briefed senate republicans tuesday this week and he was joined by stephen miller.

while he consulted with business representatives and advocates of restrictionists have indicated their displeasure with anything short of a cut in immigration. one of those restrictionists who called for less overall .mmigration is mark kerkorian c-span viewers have talked to him before and here is what he wrote yesterday in the national review. the two nearly equal pillars of the president's support among his base are building the wall and curbing legal immigration. you would think including at least a token tiny practically symbolic 5% cut in total legal immigration numbers would not be too much to ask. let's hope they come to their senses before the plan is finalized and presented to the public.

back to your phone calls, mike has been waiting in illinois, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. one of the biggest things a lot of american citizens don't realize is it is difficult to marry somebody outside of the country and there is no fast tracking of it. it is very difficult to get a green card for someone you wanted to marry. you overstay your visa, what most people realize is there is a 10 year ban for people to come into this country . that is the biggest problem why you have so many people going home. their penalty is what caused such a large population of immigrants that are illegal. if they would have made it a penalty, may be a ten-year pent -- they made it a 10 year penalty and that is the biggest problem. host: this is patty in connecticut, and independent. good morning. caller: good morning.

good morning. host: are you there -- are you there? host: yes, ma'am, go ahead. caller: this 11.5 number, those who have been here already, it is a hoax. eisenhower sent them back many times, put them on an airplane immediately and brought them to the southern part of mexico to release them. you can look this up, they called it operation wetback. saidalms about it, no one a word, he did this constantly. i don't know why they just can't -- they are breaking the law. host: you are talking about illegal immigration. how would you change the legal immigration system? caller: that ought to be cut back, too. it too many people in this country. host: do you have a sense of how

much you would like to see it cut back? caller: there should be a cut in everything. like east at -- he said with , it is bad ins all parts. -- goinge need a clear through the united states and clean it out. there are people here that don't belong. illness. border patrol, the people there , this outbreak of measles. host: that is patty in connecticut. a reminder of when you can see this press conference by the president in the rose garden, 2:30 and we will air it live online at c-span.org. you can listen to it on the c-span3 radio app. we will also air it here on c-span tonight at 8:00 p.m. if you want to watch as well. a busy day on capitol hill and

we want to keep you up-to-date on what else is going on. house democrats set to hold a news conference on special russia robert mueller's investigation. lawmakers are set to read the entire redacted mother report and they are being -- eula report and be -- and they are being led by jerry nadler. you can watch that on c-span 3 and the reading of the redacted mueller report expected to go late into the evening. elsewhere on capitol hill and off capitol hill, elizabeth warren is set to hold a town hall at george mason university across the virginia, potomac river. live coverage of that event at 6:00 p.m. and you can watch it on c-span.org, listen on the free c-span radio app. , the murderedi

washington post columnist, his widow will be before the house foreign relations committee today talking about the dangers of reporting on human rights. that is happening at 2:00 p.m. today. you can watch that at c-span.org . stay with us throughout the day on the c-span networks. time for a few more of your phone calls as we continue to ask you what changes you would make to u.s. immigration laws. colorado, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i think i would make it illegal to hire an illegal immigrant so they would stop coming here. millions come here because there is a job waiting for them. host: are you talking about the e-verify system or the laws on the books already about hiring? caller: i would stiffen the laws .reatly i would make it about a $1000

fine to hire one no matter what. people would think twice, they would look for an american first in every situation. people would stop coming here if there were not good jobs waiting for them, they would stop coming here. host: this is a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call and i would like to say i agree with the last two callers. this is a personal experience i had. i had some illegals in front of me at walmart and he had like four children with him. host: how did you know he was illegal? just by what he was doing. i just knew. i just knew. host: how can one just know? strange liketed

watching behind him and watching in front of him and being sure no one was around that would know. what he did -- he had four kids with him. host: can citizens not act strange? to go: i ain't even going there. my point being he had four children with him, he had food stamps, paid for all of this and then he opens his wallet and it .s packed full of cash, okay if they get over here, i think the law should be they cannot keep having one child after another because the more children they have, the more we have to keep them up. i had children and i had to fend for them by myself. we went in the potato fields after they plowed potatoes and me and my children picked potatoes, dug in the dirt and

kept from starving to death. they don't need to be over here, we should come first. children of illegal immigrants in the united states, this story from the washington post, a two point five-year-old guatemalan boy apprehended at the border died tuesday night in el paso after several weeks in the hospital. another person with knowledge of that case, a high profile case, the boy arrived at the border days after now acting homeland security secretary kevin mcaleenan near a holding facility march 27 -- march 7 -- pushing the system to its breaking point. the boy is the fourth migrant child to die since december after being apprehended and taken to the hospital, all have been from guatemala.

they are experiencing severe drought and poverty. laurel, maryland, independent. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. good morning, everyone. one of those stuck in the green so ibackyard -- backlog, wanted to share my story. i came here in 2002 and .ompleted my masters in 2004 i decided to become part of america and applied for the green card. for 10 years or so, kind of stuck in the backlog. it might take another 5, 10 years. host: what is the reason it has taken that long? what explanation do you get when you ask? caller: it is based on your country of birth. i am from india, so a lot of

people apply from that country, so there is only 3000 or so each country that you get in one year . it might take another 5, 10 years at least to get a green card. if i get it or it has been so long, i have gotten used to it and maybe learn to live with it. host: as you are in that process for green card, is there any chance you could be asked to leave this country before that happens or if you are in the queue, is that not possible? caller: there is always a chance . i don't think i have broken any law, i think i have followed more laws than anybody else in .his country say how much it has cost you in terms of the dollar amount so far?

what do you think you will end up spending on this process? caller: i am not thinking about money and such, but it is hard to say, may be a few thousand dollars. it is not about the money, it is just the peace of mind. money comes and goes, that is part of life, you can move -- lose money anyway. apply for itice to not realizing it would take that long, not that i am not happy here. i am happy here. you are not kind of grounded, as such. things go wrong, you have to change your life. host: do you think under what we know so far under this proposal of moving to a merit-based system, do you think that would benefit your situation and move you up in the queue? caller: it fasterelp me move things

. i have been following immigration laws for the past 10 years now. if you learn something from history, none of them ever goes anywhere. like that, ito be don't want to lose hope, but i kind of know what is going to happen. if something happens, you know, that is good. if it doesn't, i have gotten used to it. host: thanks for the call. our last caller in this first segment, but we will return to this discussion about this new immigration proposal in the last 45 minutes of our program. up next, we will turn to the topic of health care in this country. we will be joined by florida democratic congresswoman donna shalala, former secretary of health and human services. she will talk about the future of u.s. health laws and 8:00 a.m., we will continue that health care discussion with dr.

and former oklahoma republican senator tom coburn. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ for 40 years, c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington, d.c. and around the country, so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1970 nine, c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. >> sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern

on american artifacts, we are at the library of congress to learn about a muslim scholar from west africa, where he was captured, shipped to south carolina, and sold into slavery. he wrote the only known slave -- in arabic -- slave narrative in arabic. >> it went from hand to hand. people thought it was important enough to carry it on. there were others written by people who were enslaved, but this is the only known existing written byin arabic, a slave. >> watch american artifacts sunday at 6:00 eastern on c-span 3. "washington journal" continues. host: donna shalala is the rare freshman member who came to congress with over 300 videos in the c-span video library and

that is in large part because of your numeral eight years of work at the health and human services department during the clinton administration. what lessons did you take from that job to this job? guest: it is pragmatism, it is what you can get done, it is a deep understanding for example in health care of the culture of health care, the politics around aery idea everyone has and kind of desire to find a way in which we can improve life for all americans, particularly improve their health without creating a politics of division as opposed to people coming together. host: you know the hhs secretary well, how would you rate job -- alec cesar? caller: i am a tough -- guest: i am a tough greatr. i don't think he is running health policy, i think it is

being run out of the white house, frankly. i am deeply concerned about what they are doing with these children that have come in and been separated by their families . there are 3000 of them in south florida being warehouse and we have not put kids in orphanages in decades. we need to get them out as fast as possible. it is no way to treat children and i think most americans agree with that. we are diverting resources. we should be focusing resources on taking care of those children. of all the things we can do, we can make sure children get a safe home. host: we spent the first half-hour talking about immigration. any thoughts on this proposal we are expecting to hear from the president today? guest: my understanding is republican senators had questions about it because it is not filled out. i am for safe borders.

i am for regular order in immigration, a fair system. i am for investing in countries in central america to keep people there. if they feel safe in their own country, they are not going to come to our border. at the same time, we need to treat amnesty with the respect our constitution expects of us. more than everything else, we have what are called unaccompanied children. many of them have family members in this country. we need to take care of them first. host: the house is in at 10:00 and they will be voting on a package of health care legislation. what is in that package? what would it do? guest: we want to stop the administration from supporting junk health care plans. there are health care that really do not cover pre-existing conditions. republicans have said they do because they have the words in

there, but they allow higher premiums if you have a pre-existing condition. more importantly, they allow a limit -- an annual limit on what the plan is willing to spend. that combination means pre-existing conditions are not covered. it is consumer fraud, it will actually deceive people into thinking they really have health insurance. host: does this legislation have support on the senate side? guest: nothing has gone anywhere on the senate, they have not taken votes. they are not moving anything, even where we have bipartisan support, issues like venezuela, which are important to my community where we have bipartisan -- florida legislators that want to move , they are just not voting in the senate because mitch mcconnell will not put these bills on the floor. host: do you have bipartisan

support for this package expected to move in the house today? guest: we have bipartisan support for pharmaceutical recommendations, making big pharma cannot buy their way by delaying generic drugs from coming to the market. we have bipartisan support on some bills we have. we will introduce later health care bills like surprise billing where people suddenly find out someone that took care of them was out of network and is not covered by their insurance plan. we can get bipartisanship in health care, but we cannot get his get the senate to take these bills seriously and schedule votes. loweringthat idea of prescription drug prices, the pharmaceutical side, is that something that can pulled out separately in this package if there is support and move? guest: we will pull out what we need to pull out, this is the first step. if you really want cost down, you have to negotiate with

pharmaceutical companies. i went online to take a look at what the v.a. pays prayed everyone is looking at canada and other countries, look at what the v.a. pays, the contracts are online and you can tell exactly what they pay. why is medicare paying so much more than the v.a. is paying to purchase drugs? there are straightforward things we can do. at the end of the day, we have to negotiate on behalf of millions of people in medicare to get drug prices down and that will help the entire market. host: donna shalala with us until the top of the hour. phone lines are open if you want to join the conversation. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. you bring up medicare, a big topic of debate on the 2020 campaign trail. how do you feel about medicare for all? guest: out of my own experience

and out of what my constituents tell me, they want to keep their private health insurance, they do not necessarily want to go into a government program. for those people who have very good private health insurance, they don't want to go to a lesser program. medicare is not as good as many private insurance plans, we would have to upgrade medicare. why should we spend money when people have good, private health insurance? we need to cover those that don't have coverage, 29 million americans have not been able to get good health care coverage in some cases because states have not extended medicaid. medicaid that this government would pay for and a state like mine is leaving billions of dollars on the table and we just have thousands of people that desperately need health care that would have it if they had extended medicaid. host: katie is up first from

massachusetts, independent. good morning. caller: good morning. i was curious what representative shall a look -- a's feelings about these anti-choice laws coming across the country and i find it fascinating they are targeting doctors to deny women this procedure. i think they need to target the men and mandate vasectomies and that will prevent any unintentional pregnancies in order to do that because women don't impregnate themselves and that is what is being missed here on the mark. if you try to target women and punish women, it is never going to reach their goal, the anti-choice people's goals stopping abortion. stop men from is

impregnating women unintentionally. guest: unintentional pregnancies are down in this country because we have worked very hard to educate people, including teenagers. we brought pregnancies down. what alabama has done is unconstitutional and also unconscionable that you would target the doctors, but also the here.that are involved it is cute to say we ought to target the men, but the fact is we all have to take responsibility. i believe abortion should be rare and the only way to do that is to reduce the number of pregnancies. the fact this administration is taking money out of family planning is unacceptable, but what they did in alabama is more than unacceptable, it is despicable because it simply hurts everyone involved in a thatsensitive decision

women and their loved ones need to make. no one goes into this without a heavy heart. it is unconstitutional. it is unacceptable and the way in which alabama has done it is unconscionable. host: on the topic of women's issues, it was the subject of a panel appearance by the national conference of democratic mayors in 1984. that was at hunter college. we want to show viewers a clip of that. [video clip] >> some people have suggested colleges and universities ought to stay out of politics and their presidents ought to stay in their ivory towers, my tower is not ivory and this college loves politics. [applause] at hunter, we intend to stay involved in politics as long as there are children in america who are hungry, as long as there are women in this world in

slavery, as long as there are young blacks and hispanics in our cities with no jobs and no hope. congresswoman dahle -- donna shalala, our first video of you. guest: that is amazing. in some ways it is a sad video because college presidents have been reluctant to speak out on great public issues. they are so concerned about their donors and other people that might criticize them that they are no longer leaders in this country on great public policy issues. what was i talking about? i was talking about poor kids. i am still talking about poor kids and opportunities for them. whether i am a college president or member of congress, that is what i deeply care about. host: mustang, oklahoma, kathy is a democrat, good morning. kathy, are you with us? we will go to kevin in maryland, independent.

good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the congresswoman, do you know what percentage of health care costs are made up of pharmaceutical spending? than you is lower think, probably between 10% and 15%, it is a peace -- piece of a have gotrategy that we to have and that is we have high administrative costs not with government programs, but other programs, compliance has added costs to health care, we are spending less on patients than we should be. frankly, we spent the last 6 decades expanding health care to people without paying as much attention to the cost of health care and where we are putting the money. the politics of that is difficult, i am for universal care and i think there are different ways to get there, to get universal coverage, but i want to get it in an efficient

way that produces good outcomes. host: it sounded like you had follow-up? guest: she quickly changed the subject because the point is given that pharmaceutical spending is only about 12% of overall health care spending, attacking the pharmaceutical industry is a political coin. even if you drove to zero, it would not bring down overall health care cost. guest: we bring it down 5% and it will help overall health care cost, it is the out-of-pocket spending for pharmaceuticals that is hurting people. often, the rest of their health care is covered, but they have out-of-pocket cost related to pharmaceutical. what we want is fair prices for americans. at the same time, we don't want to destroy a delicate balance between the producers of pharmaceuticals and those actually doing the scientific work in the great research

universities. every piece of the health care system needs to be looked at if we are going to hold down overall cost. i answered your question. 15%. between 10% and every percentage has to be looked at, that is my only point. host: you mentioned medicaid expansion in florida. can you tell me if there are any bills working their way through the florida legislature to expand medicaid? guest: nothing working their way few because democrats have made the repose and republicans will not take them up. there will be a ballot initiative on that in 2020. look out for that ballot initiative to try to get the expansion of medicaid. next, virginia. good morning. heidi, are you with us? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: thank you for c-span. i think it should be mandatory viewing for high school students .n this country

i think it is telling that in an earlier show you had lots of people called in about pharmaceutical prices and no one i heard in that show mentioned democrat or republican, everyone is impacted it and i wish we could discuss that topic in the same way where we are not so divided. i think that would help the country. shows like this have a republican on and talk about the same topics, which you do. host: stick around and we will keep talking about health care at the top of the hour with republican senator tom coburn. go ahead. caller: okay. i think also people are -- there is a lot of talk about improvement in the economy. with health prices rising and being such a large part of being taken out of people's paychecks,

i don't see that in our lives. we are getting hit hard by those .osts --question today is what is how would like a medicare for all, which people report being 60% to 70% happy having medicare , if that ever became possible, how would that impact like the country's gdp and the overall economy if that were to happen and would health care companies have some? part in that system? -- some part in that system? host: thanks for the question. guest: medicare now is delivered increasingly by private health insurance plans, particularly medicare advantage. i don't see a world in which private health insurance is .aken out of the discussion

the medicare program as it is currently designed, probably a fee-for-service program. all i have said is all of us are for universal health care. we want universal coverage. medicare for all is one way to get there. you have to beef up medicare. it's not the cost of current medicare because medicare now dental, cover eyeglasses, long-term care, it does not have a cap on out-of-pocket expenditures. you are talking about a different program when you talk about expanding to everyone. i am very pragmatic about this. there are 29 million people that don't have health insurance, let's get them covered and let's simultaneously see what we can do about overall cost in health

care. we are spending too much on the administrative side and not a lot -- not enough directly on the patients. arkansas, republican. good morning. caller: hello. i would like to know how the heartbeat in the womb, how any democrat can say that belongs to the mother and not a baby. guest: i think we believe deeply, and i have said this ought tohat abortions be legal and they ought to be where and the decision on what to do with their own bodies ought to be left to the woman and religious advisors and their family and consultations with family members. these are painful decisions for women, but we believe women ought to be able to control their own bodies. that is why we are pro-choice.

at the same time, we believe the other party ought to make a commitment to life. they ought not be cutting off family planning, which is a way of presenting unwanted pregnancies. they ought not to be cutting programs for low income children. they ought not to be cutting childcare programs and they certainly ought not to be warehousing thousands of inldren from central america warehouses because it simply is not what americans do. host: a chart in the new york times, how limits on abortion have changed in just this year, showing the states that have put new limits on abortions. the alabama one is the one getting the most attention and the strictest, georgia, kentucky, mississippi, ohio, utah, all states that have put more stricter limits on abortion in the past year.

joe, baltimore, maryland, independent. you are next. the topic ofart on abortion, my thought is the following. the right to choose stops at the age of the -- meaning if the person did not make their choice should not be given the right of a pregnancy -- that means you have the right to choose not to climb into bed, and if you do, assume the responsibility. i believe georgia went too far. a victim of incensed, that becomes quite complicated and condition,other beyond that and the danger to

the mother. host: that is not the majority of americans feel about this. i believe abortions should be safe, they should be rare, they isuld be legal, and that just my personal position. it is also the position of the vast majority of americans and the vast majority of american women. host: less than five minutes left with you in our chair. yesterday morning you were in the speaker's chair on the floor of the house. i want to play a minute of congressman al green's speech on the floor during the opening of the house yesterday and what you said after his speech. [video clip] >> the president has no fear, he does not believe there are consequences for his going beyond what the constitution allows. he will engage in conduct that article 2, section 4 of the

constitution would prohibit. he will engage in impeachable offenses because he knows the congress will not impeach him. it is impeachment that is the ultimate guard against a reckless, ruthless, lawless president. if we do not exert our authority , this president, knowing that we will not, is capable of doing things that we cannot imagine. madame speaker, i love my country and i yield back the balance of my time. tomembers are reminded refrain from engaging in personalities toward the president. host: we hear that term occasionally in the house, what is a personality toward the president? guest: it means you should not be attacking the president personally on the floor of congress or another number -- member of congress and i had to remind someone else about attacking the speaker on the floor.

there is a certain decorum on the floor of the house of representative, probably rules we should all apply wherever we are, but i have deep respect for representative green, but he was right up to the line and i simply reminded him that we have rules on the floor about what we are allowed to say and who we are allowed to say it about. host: when you are in that chair, is it your call when you remind him or another member? guest: basically, but there are staff people standing next to you and i knew he had gone close to the line, so i knew i had to remind him with the formal words of the floor of the speaker that you cannot personally attack either another member of congress or the president of the united states. itt: what happens if he does again? are there consequences beyond that reminder? guest: i don't know because i

have never seen anyone do it again. remember, i am a freshman. host: just a few minutes left with freshman congresswoman donna shelley love. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning to both of you. i want to take a few moments to commend the congress lady on her work here on medicaid and a few weeks ago i saw her with the education secretary and her advocacy was phenomenal. needs three special children and a mother buried in a small town in florida. she would be ecstatic and elated by the congresswoman's work. ever -- i want to let you know i am not sure what your religious beliefs are or what god you may or may not

serve. god bless you, congresswoman. guest: i appreciate that. my responsibility as a member of congress is not to -- not just to represent my situate see, but hold government officials accountable. i do not have lower standards because people-- i'm going to he secretary of education responsible for protecting children. that's what i intend to do. host: less calls from a member of the different party, susan, a republican, from virginia. caller: i read an article yesterday about aarp and how they are against president trump trying to reduce drug prices. something about this big list that lobbyist put out for what drugs are covered and what is not covered. apparently aarp makes 671

million dollars of drugs. so, that's my comment. oh, the big thing was, medical lost -- costs are so high because we don't try the free trade approach. thank you. host: you have the last minute. guest: i really believe we can come together, republicans and democrats, on pharmaceutical costs and on what we want to do to make sure that people have good coverage. it will take some really hard work, and all of us will have to give a little. but our first responsibility is to make sure every american has affordable, high-quality health insurance and access to good providers. host: congresswoman donna shalala, a democrat from florida. thank you so much for your time. will continue this discussion on the u.s. health care system and we will be joined by the former oklahoma

republican senator tom coburn, and later carl cannon will be here to talk about the results of a new poll looking at voters thoughts on the current health care system and what changes should be made to improve care. stick around, we will be right back. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> to the city of milwaukee, harley davidson really is i think morimoto site -- more than a motorcycle company. it really captures the arrival of milwaukee as one of those americanere great machines are built and made. iconic is overused, but mill walk -- but miller is an iconic company. there is a tangible expression of an economic legacy that was really important and remains important.

>> c-span cities tour is on the road, exploring the american story. we will take you to milwaukee, wisconsin, with the help of our located on the shores of lake michigan, this has one of the highest concentrations of german ancestry in the country. it was here that the socialist movement got a start. milwaukee was becoming a machine shop, and you had this huge pool of largely immigrant receptiveho were very to a message that promised to benefit the working class. we will visit america's black holocaust museum, to learn about james cameron, a survivor of an attempted lynching. >> the reason that this was so important was because he realized that lynching was such an important part of american history, and a part of american history that was never taught in schools.

he wanted people to get an eyewitness account of a survivor of lynching, to see what the dynamics of the lynching and what they were. tour of c-span's cities milwaukee, wisconsin. working with our cable affiliates as we explore the american story. washington journal continues. tom coburn, former senator, we continue our conversation, last month, your former colleague, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said that when it comes to health care, the gop message today is preserve what works and fix what doesn't. start with that first part. what works right now in the health care system in this country? guest: most of the time it's very high-quality, exceptionally

too high of cost. problems not really a but what we do not have is a control on costs, and when you have the cost like we have, when you spend 18%, almost 19% on health care, and multiple studies over the last five or six years say close to 25% of that does not keep anyone from getting sick or have anyone get well. that's $800 million a year. certainly we can come together on how to fix that. and what's bad is that you don't know what you're going to pay when you go. opaque.ique and one of the principles that we all agree on is that you ought to know what you're going to pay for something before you buy it. there's only 10% of health care that is emergent or mental health. host: so we can bring together

people and controlling the cost, we are in a divided government, what is a way that you think congress can do that? says youss a law that have to have price transparency. if you participate in health care, -- a consumer ought to be able to know what it costs them before they get all of these crazy bills and bankrupt there account for the next four months because they had a child go to an emergency room and have a laceration sewn up. what's happening is no transparency to price. when there is no price discovery, is no allocation of resource based on competition. what will happen is once we get price discovery, none of this cap list, price discovery, the insurance companies don't want to. the hospitals don't want to. now patient centers don't want it -- outpatient centers don't want to because they don't want

you to know. and they have glad -- gag clauses saying they cannot tell you what they are getting paid. guest: here's the headline from the wall street journal today, what has eyes disclosure of health prices, the story noting that the push relies on existing administrative tools, according to this mill you're with the discussions going on it includes the labor department powers under the law that sets minimum standards for private industry health plans and current hospital payments under medicare. can you slain what that means? laws likere's a few the 21st century tears act and the affordable care act. if you take the authority given to the administration under these laws, they can mandate absolute price disclosure by everyone in health care. i hope they do it, once they do it what's going to happen is prices will come down. there is a 700% differential in the price of an mri in tulsa,

oklahoma. from a freestanding mri center to a hospital. 700% more to get it at the hospital. most people don't know that. once you see try it -- price transparency you will see apps develop and everyone will say i need this procedure done, where we get price- once transparency the differential will be outcomes. why shouldn't we have a policy that says we want to have the best preventative medicine and outcomes at the best prices? we should. once you start seeing a differential on price go away, what you will see is a differential on outcomes. another core principle ought to be that everyplace that deals in health care on to publish their outcomes, so you can know. how many messed up surgeries to this brain surgeon have? doctors didunion this orthopedist have?

it does not matter what the number is, what matters is the relative difference. we ought to be incentivizing excellence in health care, not mediocrity. host: dr. coburn is with us until the bottom of the hour. if you want to join the conversation, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for republicans (202) 748-8001, for independents (202) 748-8002. you're currently working as a senior advisor with the convention of the states project, what is that? country, 4across the million strong, that are trying to organize and amendments convention that is allowed under article five of our constitution . the reason we are doing that is that the real problems, kicking the can down the road, always in washington instead of being fiscally responsible. expanded scope and jurisdiction of the federal government always growing, and term limits. trying to fix all three of those things through and amendments

convention called by the states. 15 states have passed it, we will probably have 20 by this time next year. you have to be at 34 before that happens. talk about that effort or health care as the lines open. texas, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. is, who invented hospice? and why? because that's a bad thing. host: why is hospice a bad thing? people, youurders take your loved one to the hospital to get them well and then they don't. they give the medications that are bad. and the first thing they want is to put them on hospice. host: we will let dr. coburn talk about hospice.

guest: other than being abused and medicare, the rules on hospice is that if you have a life expectancy of less than six months. it has been abused by a lot of doctors but hospice is a great care. it's palliative care for those who are in the last months of their lives. people who are dying from cancer, kidney disease, kidney failure, or other diseases. it's a wonderful way to help the families deal with that. i would disagree with her that hospice is bad, i think it's good. i think it's highly abused in the medicare program. host: we mention your service as a doctor. i delivered 4000 babies, i took care of mothers and fathers, it was great, 25 years doing that. host: why did you get out of that job? guest: i thought someone with real-world extremes ought to

come to washington. there were politicians who had never done anything other than be politicians. host: why did you leave washington? guest: i term limited myself, and i discovered we are not going to fix major problems here. next, ahnny is republican, from arizona. good morning. caller: good morning. is that we have a health department. i think the medical thing is overkill. all my life i went to the health department. for $10 you can get a pap smear. for an emergency you go to the hospital. i think our focus on to be on preventions, and use what is already here, which is the health department, which has very good women's clinics. they check your cholesterol,

diabetes, everything. i never pay more than $20. our men in our society are not being taught to restrain themselves. we have so many acts of violence , and these college incidents show that these boys do not know how to act. womanoice for a man and a is not to have sex. once you have sex, and you have a child, you cannot kill it. it is a human being. and until we come together and innocent,ecting the our country is going down. health department's and a

lot of state are very effective -- in a lot of states are very effective. title ix grants and federal money goes to those, and women's care and most of them is very good. i would agree with the caller on that. and prevention is the key. andaste a ton of money chronic disease because we have not prevented that disease. host: what you make of the new alabama portion law? guest: i haven't looked at it yet. my theory is, if 50 states and , if death istories defined by the absence of a heartbeat and brain waves, the opposite of that has to be life. michael, an independent, good morning. is, i spokeuestion to a lot of doctors and they are saying that a lot of the cost

's are charging for our administrative's, because they had to have so many administrative people dealing with non-streamlined insurance information that they fill out. if they do not fill out properly they have to redo it again. you wouldnything that suggest that we could do to mitigate that? there is a lot hospitals can do. i have been going around the country and looking at hospital employee parking lots in the middle of the night in the middle of the afternoon before the evening shift starts. you see six to eight times more cars in the employee parking lot during the day. that means other than the surgery, most of that is overhead. there are very few hospitals that use continuous process improvement. think about it, every other business in america that wants to be efficient uses just-in-time inventory and other

stuff. and we don't see it. what i would tell you, and the reason the hospitals are fighting against price disclosures is because they are inefficient. one of the ways to make them better is to make it harder to make the excess profit that they are making. 60% of the costs are hospitals. a large portion of that occurs in the last year of life of seniors. we ought to be looking at how do we actually force competition in health care by transparent pricing. because don't you want to get your next hernia operation at the place that doesn't the best and the cheapest? ath the average deductible $5,900, that's not the average, that's the lowest average of the low plan. before you shell out 5900 dollars, don't you want to know that this is the best price and quality? and incentivize good care?

here's a question for your listeners, why do we pay the worst doctors the same as we pay the best doctors? we do, why? that's crazy. we ought to have market forces allocating the scarce resource and we ought to have transparency in the market so you can see what's out there. 15 minutes left with dr. tom coburn. rhonda has been waiting, good morning. caller: good morning, i have a question for you regarding our health care law, now that they sentrying -- well, trump it watch, the supreme court to , were down the whole law millions -- all of us are not can have health care? i can't understand how people can support this man, and about this new abortion law they are

doing. childare more about the that has not even been born than they do the thousands of babies that are already on the mexican border, laying there on the ground. what is wrong with america? it's like we are turning into venezuela. guest: i don't know how to respond to that. i have not seen babies on the ground in mexico, maybe it has happened, i don't know. the social issues that divide our country, the reason they divide us is because the supreme a 5-4 decision that should've been left to the states. if you take these controversial social divisions in our country and say, have we let individual states decide these, and new york do it one way in oklahoma and another and still in the law because that's what the

enumerated powers says, here's the power of the federal government, everything else is to be left of the people in the state. i don't think we would see this division. i don't think abortion would be that big of a topic. health care, i don't know what will happen to health care. i know we spend too much. it cost too much, it's to hive a percentage of family budgets and we cannot -- high of a percentage of family budgets, and we cannot see transparency of the price outcome. everything else you know what you get when you buy and you have recourse if you don't. host: on what had happened to health care, here's chuck schumer on the floor talking about the trump administration's efforts when it comes to the aca. 133 million americans under 65 years of age are living with a pre-existing condition of some kind. right now, because of the laws on the books, insurance companies cannot charge those americans more, or deny them

coverage simply because they have pre-existing conditions. that's a great thing. that is something americans along for before these protections became law. but unfortunately, that could all change and go away if the lawsuit against our health care brought by the republican attorneys general's unsupported by the trump administration succeeds. it would deprive coverage for tens of millions of americans, and risk denial of coverage or torbitant premiums for up 133 million americans with pre-existing conditions. that scale of cruelty is so large it's almost unimaginable to tell 133 million americans that you will not get protection if god forbid you have an illness, and your insurance company wants to cut you off. and yet those are the practical consequences of the lawsuit that

the trump department of justice continues to support. host: senator coburn, on the lawsuits working their way through the courts on the aca? guest: i think the number one thing, i have a list of 13 things i think everyone can agree about in health care. and if they would focus on that then we would solve and it would not be a divisive issue. host: where can we find that list? guest: right here. this is going to be in a four page document coming out next month. but we all should agree that nobody loses their home because they have an illness. in this country? we should agree to that. or loses their life savings because they have an illness. we ought to be able to cover everyone as to whether or not they have pre-existing conditions. but we ought to have transparency. true, all the way from

mckenzie to the institute of medicine has said, somewhere between 400 billion and one trillion -- $1.2 trillion is wasted, that pays for everyone's premiums and pre-existing conditions. say, instead't we of making health care a controversial political issue, why don't we find the core things we can agree on and let's write the legislation based on what we agree on? host: what else is on that list question mark -- list? becauserade is impacted of excess health care cost, wage growth has stalled because of health care cost, we don't have real insurance, we have a prepaid expense that goes up anytime we use it. if you use your insurance it goes up the next year. there is no transparency in health care. $150 billion worth of fraud every year in federal health , that's just

medicaid and medicare. would then address it on the affordable care act? everybody goes after it, but they don't ever decrease it. you should know what you're health care encounter, your medical out-of-pocket costs are before you buy. what is this going to cost? price transparency, if you're going to go in and have a tonsillectomy, was the total cost and what's my share before you do that. nobody tells you that. if you go to a hospital they cannot tell you. they don't know. our strategic goal to be the best health care with the best outcomes at the lowest cost. that ought to be the american goal and we ought to have access and care, not just access but also price efficient care at every level host: host:.

-- at every level. carol, a republican from north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? we are understand why still talking about all this health care stuff. first hillary wanted it, she couldn't get it, obama got it, and mess of everything, nobody should be mandated, another talking bout again running on that. i can't believe anybody would want to touch health care again after what they did. there are kids who went without christmas, people cannot pay their rent bills because of that mandate. that was ridiculous. if health care could be purchased across state lines, that would bring in concert -- competition, and you could get pre-existing condition insurance, you may have to pay more for it, that makes sense

and they should have to pay it. but it should be offered. people with insurance are always charge more for procedures than cash paying patients. you can ask for the cash price of the procedure. i have done it, versus the cost of insurance and decide if you want to use your insurance or if you want to pay cash for it. competition is good. there are lines for people to call in on fraud that are getting bills for procedures that were not done for them. there is so much money and fraud, that could be collected. i don't get why we don't put money into that instead of all of this other insurance crab. and covering everyone with medicare? you cannot do it. bring up a you for lot of topics for us this morning. guest: what she's addressing really is this tremendous amount of money that is spent in health care that does not help anyone. we created a false market with

the affordable care act. it was a false market. if you want real insurance, you have to indemnify across everyone. so you have to share the risk. that aside, you are never going to be able to share the risk until you have price transparency and real competition in health care. in tulsa,n app oklahoma, that tells you where you can get the cheapest mri. the cheapest ct, the cheapest outpatient procedure done. that's available and people are using it and costs are going down. just based on technology. so in the future, you will be able to know, especially the trumpet ministration puts out these guidelines, mandating truck -- price transparency, mandating it ahead of the time, everyone is with their deductible is, they know what the percentage of co-pay is. if you tell them here's what the cpt code cost is coming from us and you can decide whether you

want to pay that or not and you can shop it. but the fact is, there is no shopping. host: she ended her comments on medicare for all, your thoughts on those proposals? medicare for see all you will see a v.a. system host:. host:donna shalala was with us before you came on, she did not necessarily support medicare for she but did say that supports universal coverage, is that something you can get behind? guest: i think the market will take care of that. i believe in freedom, if you don't want to purchase health insurance you should not be forced to. tell me where that is in our constitution of the government can tell you you have to purchase health insurance, would you have to purchase toenail insurance? do you have to buy homeowners insurance on your house if you own it? you do not. it's only if you have to mortgage. so where do we get off telling people that they have to do it.

host: do you have to have car insurance? guest: sure, but that's a state law, that's decided at the state level. if oklahoma wants to mandate everyone to do that, that's fine . because that could be within the confines. what i'm saying is that we are fixing the wrong problem. as a doctor i'm supposed to diagnose the disease, not the symptoms. the diseases that health care cost too much, there's no transparency, no price discovery and you cannot evaluate what you are buying. once you change that, we are going to see hundreds of billions of dollars of savings a year, and health care costs are going to go down, not up. past 8:30, sothe there are -- there is time for a few more calls. joseph has been waiting in scranton, pennsylvania, and independent. --an independent. caller: thank you. i have been in government and

business for 35 years, i believe he won two world wars, the cold war, wars in the middle east, i think it is safe to say that it's ok to start awarding americans. -- rewarding americans. i don't believe the democrat idea of medicare for all is sustainable. i don't believe that expanding medicare is socialism. idea, 55 stay alive, at 55 years old you should be able to get basic health insurance, medicare, and basic social security. many people, when they reach 62 they can get social security but they can't get health insurance. by the time they reach 65 they don't even make it to the finish line. hospitals are filled with americans that are -- that should not have these diseases in the first place. what's going to happen is that it will pay for itself. here's why, for every working

american that's 55 and older, there will be two workers feeling that vacuum, because they are making twice as much as the young worker coming in. he will have two workers filling that void. right off the bat, the system pays for itself. at 55 you can get the boat in florida, retire, get the rv, enjoy your life because you worked hard. that's it, that's my idea. thank you. idea but's not a bad the problem is the economics of what we have today does not come anywhere close to covering the promises that we made. we are six years away from .edicare part a being kaput less than 10 years away from social security being kaput. social security disability is already kaput. i think the idea of having a synchronization of social security and medicare is dead on. why should you do one at one

time and the other at another time? i think he's right. but i don't think we need people to retire earlier. we need to induce people to work longer because actually their health is better when they are not retired. host: on competitiveness in the market. we have on twitter, before obama we had a competitive market and i was not impressed. guest: what was competitive? your insurance premium? that wasn't competitive, because you had no idea what they were paying for, adding reimburse. we had nonprofit blue cross blue shield. we had nonprofit and profit insurance companies, i know that the nonprofit hospitals made tens of billions of dollars profit last year, and it's close to being the same amount that the for-profit hospitals make

and they are nonprofit and they don't pay any taxes on that? what are they doing with the excess money? things, -- lot of looking, market forces and everything else we buy allocate scarce resources. we don't have competitive pricing, you can say that you can get a bid for insurance but there's always a catch. if you're getting a bit -- a better deal from this country -- company than this one. look at the swiss system, it has everybody ensured, and you have to participate, and they look at the loss ratios of the individual companies and transfer money around from those individual companies to other companies to make sure they are all carrying the load. in other words it creates an absence of adverse selection for the healthiest people. because real insurances indemnification across a large group of people. when insurance companies try to

do is try to not have that. they want to healthy people because that's how they make money. the point out to be how do we get the best health care the best price in the most efficient way with the least amount of our income going towards health care with the best outcomes. janet, here in washington, d.c., democrat. caller: i have a few quick comments, i'm really ofappointed with this idea making a competitive end like a market system and knowing the price of things and procedures. there is a standard of care for certain things, so somebody goes in for a heart attack there are things you would do the same in one hospital as you would somewhere else in another hospital across the country and if you start doing things like saying well, this tylenol will cost you eight dollars here but 16 over there people will walk away and say i can't of order

this -- afford this. i feel like if there's a standard of care, that's what we should have. the real thing is the insurance companies drive up the cost. they purchase hospitals, other insurance companies, and i think it's too risky and it would ruin the whole system. the other thing is you make some comments about hospice being and hospiceedicare being abused, as a former social worker with hospice i have to say that i've seen a lot of people come into the emergency and to have their care they've never had any insurance, or any preventative care and their whole life and it's almost too late. and they are immediately referred to hospice because they have less than six months to live. it's unethical and it's criminal . there are sony standards that work canst people and i would like to know if you are working for an insurance company or you are working

for an insurance company or consulting because it's detrimental to people into the future of health care. guest: actually i don't work for anyone in health care business, and i don't work for an insurance company for sure because i'm not very happy with them. i think you are misguided. the thing that's important is what are the outcomes. you can get a heart stent and a lot of hospitals, but the hat outcomes in certain hospitals are far better. price, and outcomes, which i always put together are the important parameters for which you should make a decision. hospice is needed, i never said it was not, i just said that i saw a lot of abuse as a practicing physician over 25 years of hospice being used when it was not appropriate. host: on the idea of mandating insurance coverage, and people being able to choose to not have insurance coverage, vivian wrightson on twitter, people who don't have insurance should have to pay for hospital services, why should we for taxpayer --

the taxpayer have to pay for those who do not want to contribute. no insurance, no free medical services, would you agree? guest: i think we ought to incentivize people to do good things. if you are saying, here is my family budget and i'm spending $800 a month on health care and we don't have enough money to pay everything else and we are basically pretty healthy -- and if they have an event they ought to be responsible. that's called accountability. but to have the government say, no matter what your health care is, and you are going to get a penalty, attacks, or a fine, if you don't purchase health insurance, i think that's antifreedom. the ability to make the decision. with that comes the responsibility -- you have to come up with it. so how do police that? you can't. the next best thing is to have really transparent markets,

where people can actually walk withhere they their dollars based on what they see is the best value, not what the best advertising is from the best hospital in town. that's where we ought to be going. and people will do that. priceou have transparency, there will be a nap in every city on the best app and -- and cap -- an in every city on the best price. the end -- the underlying assumption, that americans are not smart enough to purchase health care. i reject that flat out. 50% of my practice was medicated, they are plenty smart, they know how to manipulate that program to their own benefit. and people will do that to the benefit of both their health, and their pocketbook. and we do not allow them that opportunity now.

they don't get the opportunity to decide. they have a mandated budget from an insurance company, and tell me anyone who can explained in -- can explain an eob to the average person. you ought to know it ahead of time. host: patrick, a republican. good morning. thoughts,st a couple one thought about health care and one thought about abortion. on health care, i completely agree with with the doctor about the infrastructure of health care in the united states. $6,000 a year to omaha mutual to have a health care plan. if you have that that's not much, but if you don't, that's another issue.

in reference to the abortion , there are 61 million children aborted since 1973. that's two generations of americans, doctors, lawyers, judges, railroad workers, dairy , maybe evendrivers some scientists that could cure cancer. , i think the alabama people down there see that. i would like to know what you , the 61 million children that were aborted. about the women that did the abortion, and not just about the doctors who did the abortion. that, i always thought

life was a sacred thing, that was a sacred tat -- trust when the doctor was working. what do you think? physician, i have done some abortions because women were going to lose their life. i've delivered babies that were 14 or 15 weeks that you could hold in your hands and move them to try to breathe. i've delivered them all the way up to full term, over 4000 of them. my conviction is that life begins at conception. that's not the majority viewpoint in our country anymore. but i also believe we ought to have the logic to say that if this is death, than the opposite of that is life. and that ought to be our guideline. and unless we are going to change our definitions of death,

the opposite ought to be the definition of life. but i would make the point, and here's the other point. if we had 61 million more people working in our country we would not have a problem with social security and medicare funding. we would have generated the revenues to make them healthy, but the fact is, we don't. it's a heart ache for me to see our country so divided on so many issues, and i blame that on the supreme court. those issue should have been decided at the state level. and you would not see the angst in our country and the hardness and harshness that we see. issue is the issue of impeachment. back in 2013, a story about the case for impeaching then president obama. it quotes he was calling president obama a personal friend, but at the time that he was getting perilously close to impeach ability.

i wondered what your thoughts are on calls for impeaching president trump. guest: i try not to pay attention much to the washington climber. i find it to be polarizing. again, as i age, i'm 71 years of age and i don't want to hear it. i'm tired of hearing it. i think the average american is tired of hearing stuff out of washington. i think they are turning it off. i don't know the details because i'm not following it. i don't want to follow it. my friend, barack obama, did what he thought was right in his own mind and heart. but that does not mean that he was not close to having people consider some of the things he impeachable. that does not necessarily mean someone should be impeached. the next question is how do we

work through that. but this is such an angry place anymore, i'm so happy i'm not here as far as being a member of the senate, because i don't think you can get anything done. host: time for one or two more phone calls. steve, in new mexico, an independent. colborne -- dr. colborne, we miss you in the senate. i have a couple things. it seems to me the government screws up so many things, mainly through unintended consequences. let me make a couple points on that. to my understanding, when medicare was approved, years ago, i'm on medicare and i'm very happy. everything was covered. there was no cost control at all by the government. they let it go willy-nilly. i don't know about medicaid, but i'll believe it was the same thing. until he got out of hand. now we are trying to bring it

back. but the fact that they allowed to go uncontrolled control is one point. two, politicians use pharmaceutical companies as a whipping boy. yes there are problems and costs , but it's only 10% to 15% of but everyone points the finger at them saying we have to take care of that. and finally, you discuss problems we have in medicare and social security. i understand that if the government did not borrow the pots that weree supposed to be for those services that there would not be a problem, or if the government would pay that back. we miss you, thank you for your service. onst: your understanding that is wrong. there is $144 trillion in unfunded liabilities, which

include social security, medicare, medicaid, and government employee and military employee retirement pensions. that's doing the next 50 years. we are transferring that to the next generation, that actually works out for the average millennial as $30,000 per year over the next 50 years. is median family income $64,000. if a malaria -- if a millennial mary's millennial, they are getting ready to get undermined it in terms of their future. the tragic thing -- nobody appear wants to fix medicare. who'd you see working on fixing medicare or social security? nobody. because getting reelected is much more important than fixing the real problems in the country. that's how this place has degenerated, it's always the next election and they own -- and then they will do something.

it's been that way for 15 years, that's one of the reasons i left. and the reason i'm doing the convention of states is the only real solution for the problem we have that's big enough to fix it is an article five convention that forces the government to make decisions to fix medicare and social security, that puts term limits -- and limits to scope -- the scope and jurisdiction and returns that to where it belongs on the state. there,e have to ended you can find the convention of states project on their website and on twitter. thank you. guest: glad to be with you. host: up next we are joined by carl cannon to talk about the results of a new poll looking at voters thoughts on the current health care system, and what changes should be made to improve care. stick around, we will be right back. ♪

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cannon joins us to discuss a new poll on american's views on the health care system. two numbers that jump out, 4% of americans think the health care system in the united states is working well. but at the same time, 72% of americans rate the overall quality of their own health care as good or excellent. explain why those two things can happen at the same time. >> -- guest: we started polling before disaggregating, and we did our own poll. tried to go deep into these issues, because it's not a horse race poll. and there are some fascinating things. the 4% you mention, they think health care is so good that they don't want any significant changes to it. 4%. 28% want to start over, the rest of the people are in the middle.

but they want some change. you look at this and you go holy cow, people are really upset with this system and they don't believe in it. and you ask people about how about your health care, 22% at excellent, 50% good, most fair, only 6% corp. -- poor. so what are they telling us? john noticed, he asked them to rate their own health care and as to separate question, how would you rate the health care of other people, those numbers went down. so you have this disconnect. we are right across from the capital, people like their own member of congress but they like -- but they don't like congress. host: we want to hear from folks about your opinion on health care, your views on america's health care in general, the phone numbers are as usual, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for

republicans (202) 748-8001, for independents (202) 748-8002. we will of course look for your comments on twitter and on facebook. carl cannon, let's talk about the methodology, who did your poll? are these voters, americans? registered voters, 2000 of them. we split the panel into for one question and you will see why. we asked do you believe in medicare for all? that's a program for not just elderly people or retirees but all americans. .5% said yes the other half is asked this question, do you support medicare for all and private insurance goes away, then the number drops to 55%.

still significant. if you're a democrat, still something you say maybe we are onto something, but lower. and other pollsters have looked at this, we did not in this, another say but then your taxes will go up and you will not choose your doctors and the support starts to erode. but if you ask straight up it's a popular idea. host: what is that mean for republicans who want to talk about medicare for all and there are concerns about what that would do to the u.s. health care system? guest: until now, when you talk about medicare for all or even obamacare with republicans, or any of these coercive plans they would say socialized medicine. were obamacare you supposed to keep your doctor and you could not always. this poll suggest that's no longer enough. you noticed that the previous guest, he knows more about health care than most people in the senate put together, he was

asked about that by a caller and he said if you like the v.a., and their medical system has some problems. but this poll suggest that will not be enough. their republic wants change. they are very concerned -- the public wants change. they are concerned with costs. democrats and republicans and and they all want change. democrats are the most expanded -- the most interested in expansion. , or soon,trump today will unveil an immigration plan. 36%, rated as the top issue, immigration is 15%. host: if you want to see the numbers from this poll, it's on their website. carl cannon has the lead story about this, here's one of the other numbers, those who say

they are financially burdened by health-care costs, 44% of respondents say they are, 56% say they are not. what do you think from that? , that was onehigh didhose answers where it not matter with ideology, it battered with age. millenials field -- deal burdened by health care. they are looking at copayments, and things they have not dealt with before. and they are making less money. and they are not on medicare. billu get a $400 dental when you are a freshman in the workforce, that's a big blow. that shows that people are really concerned with the cost and it's going up. host: we want to let you chat with some callers, joy, from tennessee, a republican. caller: i wanted to say

something about abortion, i had an abortion in 1998. something was wrong with my child. i went to atlanta to have an abortion, and i'm sitting in a room with eight people. they were talking about an abortion they had six months ago, i had this, i had that, they were in their thinking it was like birth control for them. and here i was, about to cry. sleepey had not put me to , i would have change my mind, knowing i should not have. they don't care. go.of these people just host: joyce, we appreciate you sharing your story. carl cannon, did you pull on the issue of abortion? guest: we did not do that.

and i don't have any sex -- expertise on this. my heart goes out to the caller. teddy, in louisiana, a democrat. good morning. caller: i wanted to comment that the health care systems in other countries are way cheaper and more efficient, and the outcomes are better healthwise. i think we can adapt some of those systems and practices from other countries and use that as a starting point. we don't have to reinvent health care. i think we just don't have efficiencies because we don't want to adapt those practices, simply because we are american in our system is better. we can use that as a starting point to make health care more efficient, and make it more cost-efficient and health

efficient with better outcomes. host: thank you for bringing up the topic, that was one of the questions you ask in your survey, about which industries or institutions would be the ones improving the quality of health care in the decades to to 3%in technology, six of respondents say it will improve -- 63 percent of respondents say it will improve health care. guest: americans are so optimistic. that caller talked about other countries, some of these have twice the tax rate, unless we are willing to do that we will probably not move to that system and i don't know that those other systems are more efficient with better outcomes. but i know americans want better outcomes and more efficiency. in that poll we say who do you trust to do it in the future, republicans, 30% of congressional republicans and 40% of democrats, better than republicans but not very good, say the technology sector, these futuristic industries.

futurists,re still californians, we think we can advent -- invent new products and systems and we will live longer and healthier. that was one thing to me that was kind of optimistic. the: interesting, and health insurance industry, people are more optimistic that they would help them improve health insurance in this country more than republicans in congress, 36% to 30%. guest: nothing to brag about though, the health insurance industry, by our numbers, they have some work to do. host: in west virginia, and independent. good morning --an independent. caller: i do not believe in universal health care because insurance will go up. second, i'm a registered dietitian and i see a lot of patients who do not take care of themselves. i believe the center of health

.are is the patient himself i have had patients who say, i don't take my hypertension .edicine or don't do anything else to help. i have seen diabetics who do not take their insulin or their hypertension medicine or oral agents. part of the problem is the patient is not being responsible for their own health. which also increases health care. ihave had patients who say, am on a pill for hypertension. i ask are you watching your sodium intake? -- oh,is that important is that important? doctors are not telling patients how to take their medicine and what else they have to do in order to help improve their health. for talkingyou about your experience. what are you seeing in the polling that matches up with what she is talking about? guest: we did not pull exactly

on that, but there is health care, she says that she is not for universal coverage, because premiums would go up, because everyone's costs would go up, and i get that. the debate is moving and it is not the same, i covered clinton's white house, and the debate is not what it was. this idea among the democratic party, let's start with them, that health care is a right. bernie sanders says it just that way. say that theyts favor medicare for all. the debate is there. for republicans to join the debate, they have to have an answer for that. what she is saying is the old things, but right now, washington is trying to figure out, if it is all right, how do we make sure everyone has it without breaking the bank. host: what about where the

health care debate is going to be in the 2020 election? how does it compare to some of the other major issues in your polling? guest: it is the top issue. we have six issues. the environment that this , the publicproblem does not believe that. we are a nation of isolationists, but health care is number one. it is not an academic exercise. election was waged in these congressional races and that is a big issue, maybe the top issue. nancy pelosi said talk about health care. that helped them. now politics are not static and republicans are going to have to have an answer in 2020. ,hey are going to have to say here is our plan. -- the the bottom

default position now, the baseline is everyone should have access to health care in this country. not necessarily mean health insurance, but access to health care. host: long beach, new york, and independent. good morning. seems: i see the emphasis to be on republicans and democrats talking about single-payer, paperwork, efficiencies, but the dietitian who called in earlier spoke, 86% of the health care dollars, roughly $3 trillion are spent on chronic diseases. the cdc says that chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension are 100 percent preventable and wonder percent reversible. 100%gives about -- preventable and wonder percent reversible -- and 100% reversible. that gives nearly $3 trillion.

host: thank you for bringing it up. did you talk about preventative measures or preventions? guest: we didn't, but this caller strikes me at the core. i have given up the hot dogs myself, and the nationals are playing a game this afternoon. he reminded me, no hotdogs for you. host: the nationals plate? guest: they play the mets. next, aarles is democrat in georgia. caller: good morning, how are you? host: go ahead. ifler: it would have worked they had worked with obama, but the 19 states that would not do anything to try to help the acl put people on medicaid, they would not do it. this lady called from north carolina and talked about how it

drove up someone's costs for people who are supposed to be on it. if you made $400, your cost to your insurance was $32 a week. if you made $400 a week. this lady from west virginia says the insurance just keeps going up and up. the insurance has been going up and up ever since before my time. matter of fact, i have been in a union for the last 40 years, and every three years, we negotiating how to get a different insurance company to try to drive prices down. you cannot put that on obamacare. host: thank you for that call. on the aca. guest: this caller is right in my view. the affordable care act will supposed to lower cost, it did not do that. ost the more higher-c

insurance, once you say something is the law, you have to have health insurance. this went to the regulations, birth control, mental health, and it became expensive. a lot of people felt they had been misled. the president said over and over again, if you like your health care you like your doctor -- that was never going to be the case. it was almost like the people on the campaign were not talking to the legislature. shows that the shows that the debate has moved on. the people expect the government and the private sector to make affordable health care.

coburn had some ideas, but everyone agrees that cost control has to be a part of the solution. host: have you seen any polling on the trump administration's judicial efforts in supporting their state cases against the aca? guest: no, i haven't. chuck schumer said recently that this is a menacing development peoplet 130 million would lose their insurance. you should not be able to get kicked off of your insurance because you have a pre-existing medical condition. that polls well. if our poll is right, they may be fighting the last war. host: the comment you are referring to was chuck schumer on tuesday in his opening remarks on the floor of the senate.

if viewers want to see that, you can find on c-span.org, and in the search bar at the top of the page, type in chuck schumer and it is tuesdays session. republican waiting in illinois. caller: good morning. i am very grateful that you have brought this topic up. this is a very good dilemma and our family, with two of my last -- i was ableive to have five signs, beautiful -- sons, beautiful, we had affordable health care. and all ofn came in, a sudden, we are paying close to $440 a person for health insurance premiums because my husband works for a small chemical laboratory that does analysis for environmental work. thank you for putting this show

on. now i understand why they are hounding president trump so he cannot do anything and fix this health care mess. host: let me ask you, the pole that we are talking about, this is some of the categories about the health care system that they pulled people on. where do you think you would fall in, do you think the health care system in america is broken and needs to be completely overhauled? do you think it is not working well and it needs to be improved? do you think it is good or working well? where would you put yourself? guest: i -- is broken andk it we need more cook county hospitals for those people for minimum wage to have to choose between rent, mortgage, and health care insurance. it is the american society of socialism, the a s s. guest: you see her dilemma.

the affordable care act for driving up premiums, but she thinks that access to health --e, she think the thinks the current system is broken and needs access to health care. affordable health care. is the tople, what thing you care about? republicans, containing costs. democrats, availability. but also, democrats rated costs very high. libertarians, independents, cost and accessibility. this is the riddle. no one has the magic bullet yet. but the republican voter called, she wants to hear the president's plan. host: about five minutes left. the numbers and survey we are talking about available at

realclearpolitics.com. jerry and somerset, kentucky. good morning. mr. colburn like myself comes from kentucky. we are both in the bible belt. the bible belt, if you take the outline, it fits perfectly. the same thing for the cancer belt. i do not think mr. colburn is someone we take health advice from. pretty united states much lacks in the health. what do the rest of the countries have that we don't? and obviously, universal health care which gives everyone good, preventative health care. thoughts on your medicare for all? think they could work

out a better system than that. host: what should that system look like? caller: i don't think that americans are going for a total government controlled system, so it will have to be a combination of business and government together. thank you. host: we should note, senator colburn from oklahoma. this shows you what people are worried about and are we going to have a health insurance industry. we need it, doesn't it give efficiencies, inefficiencies. say thatlers that countries have perfect health care, i do not know that they want to pay the taxes, and i do not know if the system they are describing would get us to where we want to go.

the great breakthroughs in cancer that happened in this country because of the free market. health insurance becomes a term that people are not comfortable with, they ought to think about where these drugs are invented and why they are invented. it is more complicated than just saying we ought to emulate cuba or something. [laughter] host: a few more calls for you, renee in west chester, pennsylvania. a democrat. yes, this has to do with the affordable care act. i know you said employers have been cutting and hiring more part-time employees and keeping them under, i think it is thus 30 or 31 hours a week so they do 30 or 31think it is hours a week so they do not have to pay for health care. i had a coworker that was pregnant, and her hours were

cut. so they did not have to pay health care. that should not be allowed. in the middle of a pregnancy, she was cut -- no health care. still working for the employer, and that is what a lot of them are doing now. under the affordable care act, they found their loophole and that is the way where they do not have to pay health care. host: we have seen this debate on capitol hill. guest: these anecdotes, you want to take a step back and say, more people are working than ever before in this country, unemployment is low, workers are in high demand. on the other hand, if it happened to you, you do not care if the unemployment rate is 4.6%, if it happened to you or relatives, it is an outrage. this is the kind of stories that people have that lead people to answer the question -- like 28% of the people and our poll said that the system is broken and we

need a new one. these are the stories they carry with them in our hearts, memories, and some of them are legends. she knows this person. somebody's insurance while they are pregnant? who would do that? the employer might say, i had to do it, obamacare doubled my premiums. host: these stories that they also bring into the rooms. what are some other poles that people should look for in the months to come? guest: we started pulling last october and the first on we did was our american just republicans and democrats? we ended up with five tribes, and it is tribal. attitudes,g, hard and very partisan. the next one we did was on the american dream.

it?eople still believe in both of the poles are on my website and i have links to them in my story that ran yesterday. it is free and easy to find on realclearpolitics.com. environment, the energy, we are going to go into these issues and see with the public is trying to tell us. host: on the american dream, did you give one definition? guest: no, we did not have one, and youou work hard play by the rules, you should get ahead. your children should be better off then you are, and we had liquid like that. the answer, the short answer is that people think it is a light and millennials think it is really threatened. baby boomers are worried about millenials. host: jacksonville florida,

george, republican, you are up next. caller: two points. one, i worked overseas. second, i have reduced my visit to doctors and hospitals by 90%. on the first, you pointed out that places like europe has extremely high taxes to have the health care system and people do not like that. mexico, itlaces like is almost nonexistent. and thel them hospice, doctors are paid well, but they show up one hour a week and then have their own practice on the side and it is a dual system. got really sick overseas and i look for solutions and i did not find any with our health care system. i found a testing system that tests 90,000 health problems, and then it tells doctors what to do about it. it goes back 3000 years, but the most recent efforts are in the last 20 years to develop and

that is approved by the fda, and doctors are not taught about this in schools. it goes over each infection. host: does the system have a name? caller: yes. three different versions of it as they have built new ones. xcio, and the third one is indigo. even their details on the website do not describe because they don't want people to know. from dave, democrat california. theer: until you take profit out of health care, it is never going to be six. people are in prison, people -- it is never going to be fixed. he keeps talking about obamacare and how you can keep your insurance, but when obamacare

was talking about keeping your health insurance, he when they were not covered. the best thing to do for the affordable care act is to give people health care. they need health care out here. they cannot go to the emergency room and go to prison -- someone has to pay for that. let's work it out. host: what do you take? know anythingt about the indigo sing at all, thing atu -- indigo all. but if you take the profit out, that sounds great, we will all do the right thing. but these companies spend a lot of money to do research and invest in new cancer therapies and breakthroughs. that is an issue i care about. inventionsthese happen here, breakthroughs.

to me, i think the market has a role to play and this is the great riddle that republicans , democrats, and independents are wrestling with. making sure that everybody at the same time, we are giving people health care that need at an affordable rate. to come up with this solution actif washington gets its together, we will be happier people. litics.com isarpo where you can go to see the polling numbers we were talking about, carl cannon is the chief there. thank you. guest: glad to do it. host: we will return to the question that we talked about at the top. the president is set today to unveil the new immigration proposal and we are asking you what changes you would like to make.

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the 2019 congressional directory is a handy, spiral-bound guide. order your copy from the c-span online store for $18.95. >> "washington journal" continues. host: the president is set to unveil a new immigration proposal today. it is happening at 2:30 in the rose garden. we will bring you live coverage on c-span radio. here is some of what we know about the details of that plan the president will be talking about. by jared kushner and stephen miller is also said to have played a key role in its development. it will include new border security measures, but it overhauls the legal immigration system in this country, focusing on picking immigrants based on merit that rewards highly skilled workers and at the same urtail --would cartel

curtail family-based migration. a writing about this effort to move towards a merit-based -- he says the key change is to shift the immigration system away from one where immigrants pick the u.s. and towards one where the u.s. picks immigrants. currently about two thirds of immigrant visas are based on family ties with only 10% going towards employment based visas, the rest are humanitarian based visas. under the trump plan, the point system would reward those with needed skills and other factors such as the ability to speak english and how likely they are to support themselves. some other reporting on the immigration plan, that it would include efforts to streamline the asylum process and the so-called magnets that bring in illegal immigrants into

the country. we will go over more about that plan and other plans on capitol hill. we want to hear from you on what changes you would make to the u.s. immigration system. democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans (202) 748-8001, , andendents (202) 748-8002 also a special line for those border state residents, (202) 748-8003. jennifer jacobs, white house reporter with a tweet this morning with more information about the white house proposal and a press gaggle after her news appearance this morning, sarah huckabee sanders was asked why the new white house immigration plan does not include protections for daca. every time we have included it in a plan, it has failed, she said, and this plan is focused on a different part of the immigration system.

that is some of the reporting today and we will find out together at 2:30 one the president addresses the country from the road garden. -- rose garden. we want to hear from you. jane, an independent from mississippi. good morning, how would you change u.s. immigration laws? caller: good morning. enjoy your program. i would like to start out with the first thing -- you got through talking about health care. this is going to put a huge, huge problem for health care for coming in, which we have been having. we have much more in this country than anybody could ever imagine, and all of the laws have to be changed. they are completely off. we have to get a merit system.

we definitely have to get a wall. , that theycome in pass these immigration laws, and people that want to come in that are waiting now, it is so, so unfair. it needs a total makeover, and i sure hope they can get together and do it. host: here is some reporting from "the washington post" this morning. they sat down with it senior white house advisors and reporters from the editorial board. here are some of the quotes from those senior administration officials. proposal, thehe administration wants doctors, nurses, engineers, and computer programmers, individuals who provide a cure for cancer or the first subdivision on mars. another official says, we see

immigration as really a competitiveness issue and our hope is that we can create a system that really isn't in line and allows us to be competitive with the rest of the world. line and allows us to be competitive with the rest of the world. here is a reaction from democrats already calling it "dead on arrival." this is a congresswoman on twitter yesterday saying, the supposed plan is not a plan at all. no solution for dreamers, nothing to address 11 million undocumented immigrants. it reduces family immigration and funds a vanity wall. jared has stephen miller whispering in his ear and that just means dead on arrival. democrat,congressman, it is dead on arrival in the democratic house. we need comprehensive immigration reform and the not more from the anti-immigrant trump administration. some reporting on capitol hill

yesterday, nbc news quoting chuck schumer saying, i will tell you a, they have not talked the democrats ,b, when stephen miller is in the room, it is a surefire failure. do not come up with a planet stephen miller says, now pass it. it is not going to happen. we are talking to you asking what changes you would make. sofia in the bronx, republican. caller: yes, how are you? you are the first person 20 months ago when i called about the immigration, i was saying that they need to speak english. i make it so short now. he is trying to get a credit now, you know why? president obama, which i did not vote for, he deported over 3 million illegals and signed a countryorder from their

that they can apply asylum to come in this country. the one mr. trump did, so what did those people do? flag.ame in with their they can go back to mexico and go back to their country and apply for asylum. we are not stupid. not, we are paying attention. thank you for listening to me because it is going to pass, because the democrats, they are going to allow it because that was president obama's idea of what he did. did, it is. trump coming right back to bite him in the back. host: that is sophia in the bronx this morning and referring to lindsey graham yesterday on capitol hill releasing his own

plan. --s it's difficult it specifically focused on reducing magnet illegal program. [video clip] things thato four are required to stop this humanitarian crisis and threat to our sovereignty. in the future, you can apply for asylum from central america, but you have to do so and an american consulate embassy in your own home country. no more asylum claims at the u.s. border if you are from central america. if you are an unaccompanied minor, we are going to change the law to allow the miner to be sent back to their home country in a safe and secure fashion as if the minor child was from mexico or canada. there is a loophole we are going to close.

instead of having 20 days to process a family with a minor child, we are going to increase it to 100 days so that family can be detained humanely, and we can get the claim processed and not have to release them into the country. 500re going to hire immigration judges to deal with the 900,000 person asylum black -- the backlog 900,000 person asylum backlog. if we do these things, this will cease to exist. the humanitarian disaster will begin to repair itself. i am willing to sit down with democrats to find a way to address the underlying problem in central america. i am willing to put other immigration ideas on the table to marry up with this. what i am not willing to do is to ignore this problem any longer. grahamenator lindsey

saying there that he is willing to sit down with democrats. democrats responded yesterday to that proposal that he released. , theis senator dick durbin minority whip from illinois. [video clip] >> it is my understanding that senator graham's proposal is the white house proposal. i know it is going to be closely scrutinized. we want to make sure there is humanitarian treatment of those who present themselves at our borders. we understand as well that there are some conditions and central -- in centralare america which are creating this exodus. i hope the administration will take this challenge as an opportunity to sit down and address the reality of the need for comprehensive immigration reform. does that give you hope that this might be different from the last couple of times? sen. durbin: there are been so

many efforts when it comes immigration reform when it comes to this president and i am skeptical of whether he truly wants to deal with immigration reform. i know he wants a wall, he said that many times. i would just take at face value senator graham's offer. if we are going to have a real markup, people -- whatte on the floor a breakthrough. it is almost like something called the united states senate, you may remember that from the movies. host: all of lindsey graham's plan has been included in the white house proposal that president trump will unveil from the rose garden today. c-span.orgch live on and you can listen to it on the free c-span radio app, and we will re air it this evening

on c-span. some of the other events taking place, house democrats holding a news conference on special counsel robert mueller's report and following that news conference today, the lawmakers will read the entire redacted report. they are led in this ever by jerry nadler. that is expected to begin by 11:30 today and go well into the evening today. also, off of capitol hill today, presidential candidate elizabeth warren will hold a town hall at george mason university. that begins at 6:00 p.m. and will be showing it on c-span two, c-span.org, and the free c-span radio app. and one more hearing, the wife and widow of the late washington

khashogginist jamal will be talking about the dangers of reporting on human rights. that is happening at 2:00 p.m. and you can watch that c-span.org. back to your phone calls and 25 minutes we have left until the house comes in. we are asking you, what changes you would make to the u.s. immigration system and laws. elise out in california, democrat. caller: good morning. list the hundreds and thousands thatople, asylum-seekers are running out of their country because of the violence, drugs, and murders going on and coming up to america for asylum, which is legal, i believe that everything could be taken care of pretty easily if we had more judges. your show thaton

lindsey graham had put that the bottom of his list, and asked for 500 more judges. i am sure there are thousands of judges that would jump at the opportunity to help because it is terrible. up and these people children sleeping on the ground. i am appalled by it all. this is not the america that we were promised and not the america that we want. we need more judges to process these asylum-seekers so they cannot get lost in the system because they seem to be getting lost in the system. that is my opinion, thank you. borderlise from the state of california, and now to renee from the border state of texas. caller: buenos dias. asylumff, the only legal claim has to be made through a port of entry. some of the changes i would make, i would require laws to be

enforced the way they were written. no more wet foot, dry foot for green card over stays and visa overstates need to be enforced. we need to make it easier for people to apply for the asylum and with the internet, we can use it to expedite. also, i would ask for clarification between the dreamers and daca. they are not the same thing. commonactual account of people are here undocumented. of how they going to -- many people are undocumented. how are they going to be covered? host: come back to the difference between dreamers and daca. caller: there is a process you have to go through and for daca, you have to have certain threshold requirements.

when you use the word dreamers, that means something else. there could be a variance of four or 500 people between the two. host: what do you think the threshold should be when it comes to defining daca? ifler: i do think that someone came here when they were young and their parents brought them along, i think they should get a shot at citizenship provided they do not do crimes. there are a lot of folks that get in trouble with dwi, and they cannot do that. you cannot get in trouble while you are in that situation. that would disqualify you and also, lying on your application. host: how young is young in your definition for those that should qualify, and how far back should that go? caller: we had the first amnesty, in 1986. i do not know how you can go after that, you definitely have to have a certain timeline.

i would probably say 1990. 2006 when this immigration started bubbling up again, but i am just throwing out numbers. host: thanks for the call. terry is next, florida, independent. c-span.thank you for and allowing americans to call in and give their feedback. all of thehank listeners. thank you in advance to listening to what i'm saying about the question to the changes they should make. it is just to keep it real simple, first, i would make it everyone that is coming ,nto the country to register

just make it where they register first, and then you can start the process and get involved with the system. startcond thing i would borderd this is build towns right along the border, build the cities and towns and everyhing, and infrastructure that you would need to do the process and every alien immigrants coming into the country on the border town, to go to the process, you can build everything you need and have the judges, and do everything. for taking mynks suggestions. host: a few more suggestions from facebook folks who have answered this question of what changes you would make immigration law.

the border, close and enforce our laws. another saying, at least president trump is trying to do something about it and keep in mind that congress had a lot of years to fix it and trump is only had three years in office. saying, remove immigration and customs enforcement from the power of the executive and put them into the judicial branch, and stop putting kids in cages. laura saying that immigrants need to apply for asylum in their own country. build a border wall and no supporting anyone who comes here to live. some of the comments from facebook. you can join that discussion from facebook.com, and the twitter conversation takes place .@cspanwj republican is next, how are you? caller: good morning. how are you doing? we have to look at the situation

for immigration that is mostly driven by drugs in -- and the drug cartel. the people who are fleeing from down there are being abused. here,he people come up the first thing we have to do is make it mandatory that they going to the military. service. people to gose down there and fight the drug cartels. ,t is pretty simple solution and then the other problem is, when we had invited those people, there is bigger money to be made in the united states. the money that the companies are making from those for people not paying them a piece in salary and they know they can get better money here in united states ought to be changed. they ought to not be allowed to go down there to other countries

-- pay less money than then i then they are paying here in the united states. maybe they will stay home instead of coming here to the united states to get more money. pretty simple fixes instead of going and beating around the bush by everything. it is getting rid of the drug cartel. host: chris, dallas, texas. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i live in farmers branch, texas. i am in the 24th congressional district. if i could give a suggestion on we may promote better legislation, i think we need to focus a lot on employers. allen, texas, there

was a big raid where they went in and arrested over 100 employees that were found to be undocumented. hired through a temporary agency. there is a lot of loopholes and our system -- in our system, and i would just like to focus on employerser's -- that knowingly hire illegally. host: we will stay in texas in san antonio, alfred. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was born and raised in san antonio, texas. i am a mexican-american. we have never viewed this problem as a problem. problemhis as a for the republican party wanting to win votes strictly.

how many people from east germany across the border to get to west germany, so i see it more as a republican way of getting elected. host: alfred, i am listening, so keep going. caller: ok, so that is my concern here. concentrating more on the economy and concentrating more on health care, and also, american companies in mexico paying a decent wage to the people, but in mexico, they make like $14.25 a day in mexico, and in america, they pay like three dollars a day. that would be a great american dream, a great way to be an ambassador of the ideals of the american dream. alfred, when you say concentrate more on the economy, concentrate more on health care, as a delta -- as a democrat

looking at a very crowded presidential field, you think the candidates are doing that and if so, who do you think is saying the right things? caller: bernie sanders. i think he is the man. thanks to him, he had generated the issue of health care, and also, the multinational corporations did not pay any dime in taxation, and that would solve the problem for health care. of course, we will pay attention to how low the costs of health care for the pharmaceutical companies. compete for go and lower prices on the pharmaceuticals. and also by american corporations paying therefore are.their fair sh billions ofng dollars and not paying any taxes at all. they do not pay for social

security, and i am 55 right now. right now. so i am voting for bernie sanders. of the 2020ng democratic presidential field, it has grown again today, bill de blasio, the democratic mayor from new york is announcing today that he is running for president. brand ofowing his urban progressive leadership can be a model for the rest of the nation, noting that he becomes the 23rd democratic candidate to enter the race. depends on howit you count the field right now. he does so in many of his trusted advisors, in the face of two centuries of history, no mayor has. are to your calls, we

asking how you would change u.s. immigration laws. wendell in louisiana. all of them democrats worried about them people coming across the border, i do not think they should die, but we are going to be like france. all these democrat so worried about the republicans -- do not cut me off. host: i am listening, finish her comment. -- your comment. caller: why don't they quit killing these babies, they are killing babies. they are baby killers -- democrats wake up. int: this is jim mississippi, and independent. caller: first of all, i would like to say that the 14th amendment was not meant for someone from china can come over here and have a baby for 80 years.

african-americans have been needing reparations, and we are the bedrock. my hometown ofof chicago, illinois. if i want to get a job at mcdonald's, i have to speak spanish. of thes or rosacea and 14th amendment is the reason why we are in the situation. it was not meant to that anybody from china comes over here, have a baby. -- what six are you suggesting that -- what fix are you suggesting? caller: merit-based. you come here, you have a sponsor, you learn english, and they need to spend some time, a year or two in the military. if you are not a part of us, you are a potential enemy. i think they need to pay their dues, they need to pay back fees

or whatever, and i do not feel that everyone cannot come here. we cannot take care of the world. not just that -- host: do you think we need to cut down on the number of illegal immigrants in this country? caller: most definitely. immigrants in this country? caller: most definitely. where did they go, they go right to the black community. it is killing us. the: the proposal that president is expected to announce today at 2:30 in the rose garden, not expected to lower the overall number of illegal immigration in this country, just change the system to move towards more merit-based. journal" notest today pushing for the total number of restrictions are not happy with that.

will know this person from being on this program before and he wrote in the national review yesterday, certainly pushed to lower the number of immigrants allowed in this country overall and he said and his national review piece, that two nearly equal pillars that the president supports among his base are building the wall and curbing legal immigration. you think throwing them a bone and including at least a token, tiny, practically symbolic 5% cut in total legal immigration numbers would not be too much to ask. let's hope they come to their senses before it the finalized -- before it is finalized. if you want to watch and listen to it live, you can watch it on c-span.org, on the free c-span radio app app. and we are airing it tonight on c-span at 8:00.

daniel, good morning. caller: good morning. host: how would you change u.s. immigration law? caller: i am with graham and his pozo. i believe we need to stop the bleeding -- and his proposal. i believe we need to stop the bleeding and people coming to our country by way of a silent. that is a big problem. californiaouthern and there are millions of illg l -- illegal immigrants. i live was three of them. i cannot get housing because i am a disabled man. the democrats want to bring other things to the table right now, and right now we need to stop the influx of people coming into this country and i think that graham's has it right. the democrats do not want to believe that. they want to make it a political dacaem and try to bring in

and other things to the table right now. right now is not a time and we need to stop the bleeding. live daniel, you say you with three illegal immigrants now? what do you think should happen to them? caller: that is another subject at another time, but they have been here for a while. they work and make good money and they work for themselves. of money backt home to their countries to start other businesses over there. need to findhey out if they can stay here illegally, but that is a tough subject. i do not think that they should have a path to be an american citizen, no. they want to be here temporarily to make money and take it back home, and eventually they will go back home and start businesses and take them over. i am in a wheelchair, i cannot

get around this place and i live and a tiny apartment, and they keep bringing them over here and having their families move in. there are two guys living in the living room and i can barely get through with my wheelchair, but i bagged my government to help me but they said, there is no funding for housing right now. i am frustrated with it all and i live with it. if you drive around this whole city in southern california, i don't care what city it is, over the years, over the past 20 years, the children of the illegals are here and born here, everybody has moved out. i generation is gone and am almost 60 years old. i grew up surfing and fishing on the coast, huntington beach. host: thank you for sharing your story. lindsey graham's proposal released yesterday focusing on

the asylum process. we played that clip of lindsey graham talking about legislation and he went on to talk about his conversations with president trump about getting his legislation included in the president's [video clip] plan. graham: he said, we have to stop it. how do we stop it, lindsay? while we talk to the people. they know if they bring the small child, your chance of being deported goes down to almost zero. if they ask for asylum, we do not have enough space to hold you for your hearing for three years, they let you loose in the country. until you change these magnets, these laws, no wall is going to stop the flow. i think he got that. and the aid makes sense only if you turn off the faucet. this is what i did tell him, that we are not going to pass my bill as written. you are going to have to get

democrats in the room, and this is the time for the trump to show up and got us all in a room and said, i am going to work with you to solve this problem and to make sure we do not repeat it for the next president. what i would urge the president to do is that when i introduced his legislation, will knee have a hearing to actually try to legislation, we will have a hearing tax to try to work through. host: senator lindsey graham just yesterday on capitol hill. just a couple of minutes before the house gavels in for the day. until then, your calls on what --nges you would make a in u.s. immigration laws on this day as the president get set to unveil a new immigration plan. larry is in texas. caller: hello. if they hadng,

stopped given all of this aid and stuff to these other countries and stop immigration coming in, we take care of our own people here. many people on the streets, needing food, and we are trying to give money to other countries to support them, and let all of these people in. it all needs to stop for a while. if they want to apply for asylum, let them do it in their own country completely. if they come to our border, they are automatically sent back. that is just the way i feel about it. arenz is next in louisiana. caller: good morning. my comment is that these people that is coming up here i having problems in their countries and that the u.s. should get with allies and let them help with some of these people, set up some aircraft down there, and as

soon as they come out, put them on a plane and fly them to denmark, our other allied countries, and that way that would help relieve us. to speed up the immigration bill where they can go in, they get approved, they are approved and if not, they send them to another country. but with this big rush coming, they need to get with the allied countries. host: if other allied countries are your seeing large influxes of immigrants, should we then take some of those immigrants off their hands? caller: we have been. that is what we have been doing. we brought in millions of people from other countries. would stop this influx of coming in. it seems like there is no negotiation going on to try to get these other allies -- even take russia.

russia could take some people in. host: this is spring hill, tennessee. a republican. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: yes, i think we should stop all immigration for the time being. and no benefits. they are their own responsibility. take away this saying that they have rights. they do not have rights, they do have any rights of the american people. host: would you say we should stop all immigration, do you mean legal immigration as well? caller: yes. yeah. stop at all. all.op it we need a time to catch up. host: how long should that be? ofler: at the least amount time, two years, and i would say five years and then we can start

over again. host: our last call her on today's "washington journal." hispresident speaking about immigration plan at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon live at c-span.org. we take you to the floor of the house of representatives for the gavel-to-gavel coverage. we will see you tomorrow morning on "washington journal." he house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. may 16, 2019. i hereby appoint the honorable sheila jackson lee to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2019, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will