p.m. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org. >> earlier todayaspatel faced questions on his nomination to beheext director of the f.b.i. watch the full confirmation hearing at 8:00 p.m. and online at c-span. org. democracy, it isn't just an idea, it's a process, a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and guarding its basic presumes and -- principles. and the nation's course is

charted. democracy in real-time. this is your government at work. this is c-span giving you your democracy unfiltered. he's president of paragon health institute. welcome. guest: thanks for having me. host: talk to us about paragon health institute, your mission and funding. guest: paragon was founded about three and a half years ago, we are a policy research institute that is dedicated to evaluating how government programs are working and developing sense of reforms that empower patients and inform government programs by changing incentives, so that people are oriented and all of the actors are oriented, getting as much of a system as

possible. we are a nonprofit, so we are funded by individuals and foundations. paragon takes no corporate funding. host: why did you feel the need to create paragon health? what are the issues you're are trying to solve? guest: health policy is the most important domestic policy issue facing the country. it is a huge part of family budgets. it's a huge part of what the federal government does. it's a huge part of what states do. policies are not working for the american people. they are not working for patients. the quality of health care is underwhelming. they are not working for the hard-working american families and taxpayers that are financing these programs. there are a lot of things that are broken that need to be fixed. host: why is health care so expensive in this country and the quality is not there? guest: i could answer that for a long time. host: what's the biggest reason?

guest: a lot of it goes back to the creation of medicare and medicaid in the 1960's. they used cost base reimbursement. hospitals were getting as much from the pair as they claimed their cost to be which led to an inflationary increase. we have separated the edge user of health care from the price of those services. 90% of what we spend in health care comes from third-party payers. it comes from the government bureaucracy or it comes from health insurance companies. we have created this big wedge between the supplier, the producer of the service and the user of that service. and there is a lot of intermediaries in the process and some of them play valuable roles and some of them i think are less valuable. they have led to escalating costs over the past several decades. host: i want to play you a

portion of rfk juniors confirmation hearing from yesterday. he talked to senators. this is senator michael bennet, a democrat of colorado, talking about his previous views on health issues. then i will get your response. >> did you say that covid-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black-and-white people but spared ashkenazi, jews and chinese people? >> i did not say it was deliberately targeted. i quoted an nih funded and nih funded study. >> did you say -- >> i quoted an in age study -- an nih study. >> i will take that as a yes. i have to move on. did you say that line disease is highly likely a materially engineered bioweapon?

i made sure to put in the highly likely. did you say lime disease is a highly likely a materially engineered bioweapon. >> i likely -- >> i want them to hear it. did you say exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender? >> no. >> i have the record i will get to the chairman and he can make his judgment about what you said. did you write in your book that it is undeniable that african aids is an entirely different disease from western aids? yes or no. >> i'm not sure. >> i will give to the chairman, mr. kennedy. my final question, did you say on a podcast "i would not leave it, abortion, to the states." my belief is we should leave it to the woman. we should not leave it to the

government, even if it is full term. >> i believe every abortion is a tragedy. >> did you say it, mr. kennedy? this matters, it doesn't matter what you come here and say that isn't true that is not reflective of what you believe that you have not said over decade after decade after decade. unlike other jobs we are confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life-and-death for the kids that i used to work for in the denver public schools and for families all over this country that are suffering from living in the richest country in the world that can't deliver basic health care and basic mental health care to them! it's too important for the games you are playing, mr. kennedy. and i hope my colleagues will say to the president, i have no influence over him. i hope my colleagues will say to the president, out of 330 million americans, we can do better than this.

host: what do you think of that? guest: it does not sound like senator bennet is ready to confirm mr. kennedy. i think the president selected mr. kennedy because of the compelling message around make america healthy again. host: which we will talk about. i want to ask you do you believe he is qualified for the position? guest: i do. he was selected by the president. host: do you believe he is qualified because he was selected by the president or because of his qualifications? guest: i think both. it is a really important position. i think that mr. kennedy brings attributes and skills to that position that are going to be a good fit. host: make america healthy again. walk us through some of those key points. guest: i think it is diagnosing

the state of american health. if you look at many measures of american health, one of the principal ones being life expectancy, we have been in decline. starting in 2014, for three straight years, life expectancy in the u.s. decline. and then of course, we had the pandemic and the tragedy around the pandemic. life expectancy is lower now than it was a decade ago. i think you have an increase in many chronic diseases. diabetes, obesity. i think during the hearing yesterday, there were about two out of three americans who struggle with obesity or being overweight. and there are problems with

children, too. american health has stagnated the last 15 years. i mean, public policy has failed to recognize that. there have been different things in health policy, and that brings us back to it matters for american health. host: we will take your calls with brian blase. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independent, (202)-748-8002. republicans, (202)-748-8001 republicans., what regulation do you think is needed right now? guest: it overlaps with the usda and the guidance that the federal government puts out. host: with help to consumers. guest: yes, one of the main

problems and that advice put out was back to what was created several decades ago. and it really overplayed problems with that and what we learned now from nutrition sciences with that guidance to be an american families. we did not need to have high sugar, excess sugar is what is problematic. if i'm looking at from what they should do first, we should look at what information t