what does it mean politically for president obama. with us house majority leader republican dick armey, republican senator top coburn of oklahoma, a medical doctor and member of the committee on health, education and pension. former senate majority leader democrat tom daschle. informal adviser to the white house and author of "critical, what we can do about the health care crisis." and rachel maddow, host of msnbc's "the rachel maddow show." plus additional perspectives around the country, charlie rangel of new york, bruce josten, vice president of the chamber of commerce, bill ritter of colorado. >> but first making sense of health care reform for the entire hour, welcome to our

panel here. the president wrote this the great debate for america right now. i think what the public also wants is a civil and informative debate, which is what i think we'll have this morning. i want to talk in a few minutes about three major areas of contention in this health care debate." first i want to talk about the anger, fear out there. senator daschle, i want to talk to you. have all of these town halls altered or derailed the chance for reform on this issue? >> i think it's been a good thing. i think it's drawn a greater focus on the issue. you have president obama talking and trying to set the record straight. these are emotional issues. this is the voice of democracy. you ask people about what to do about health care, you're going to get a lot of different ideas, some very emotional. but the bottom line, it really does help a lot. >> it hurt, doesn't hurt. you really believe it doesn't

hurt. >> obviously the misinformation hurts. if you provoke fear, that hurts. the opportunity we have to keep the record straight, focus on the issue, recognize there are millions of people out there that don't have health care, to recognize there's so many people left -- 12 million people discriminated against because they have an illness. huge cost problems, quality problems. this is our opportunity to lay the record straight, to lay the focus where it belongs and get this job done for the first time in 07 years. >> let's talk about the tone of debate. there have been death threats, nazi references. the president being called a nazi. his reform effort being called nazi-like, referring to nazi germany, then this outside new hampshire, a town hall the president had, this man with a gun strapped to his leg held this sign, it is time to water

the tree of labradorite. it's a reference to the thomas jefferson quote, the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots. timothy mcvay, the oklahoma city bomber, had that quote on his shirt the day of the bombing when 168 people are killed. senator coburn, you are from oklahoma. when this element comes out in larger numbers because of this debate, what troubles you about that? >> i'm troubled any time when we stop having confidence in our government, but we've earned it. you know, this debate isn't about health care. health care is the symptom. the debate is an uncontrolled federal government that's going -- 50% of everything we're spending is for the next generation. >> hold a minute there. i'm talking about the tone, the violence against the government. >> the tone is based on fear of loss of control of their own government. what is the genesis behind

people going to to such extreme statements? what is it? we have lost the confidence to a certain degree, and it's much worse than when tom was the leader of the senate. we have raised the question of whether or not we're legitimately thinking about the american people and their long-term best interest. that's the question. the mail volume didn't go up on the health care debate, it went up when we started spending away our future. that's not republican or democrat. that's been a problem for years, but it's exacerbated now that we're in this kind of situation. >> senator armey, getting together a lot of folks out for the protest, do you bear some responsibility for the tone of the debate? >> not whatsoever. not when you see the kind of extreme thing you just saw.

i've had my differences, they were aware of that. when move on.org ran ads that compared him to adolf hitler, i thought it was despicable. >> they never ran an ad that compar compared. it was a horrible thing. it was horrible to see this, but i haven't had town hall meetings since 1984. there are always a lot of colorful people that show up at town hall meetings. a lot of people with a lot of colorful statement. when we encourage them to go and make their points clearly, assertively and with good manners. i don't know who these folks are. >> you say good manners.

nancy pelosi wrote an op-ed and said drowning out the facts is how we failed at this effort for many decades. un-american, rachel? >> well, i think any time you're trying to stop discussion, i think that's un-american. i take issue with the fact the government has done anything to earn the kind of threats of violence we have seen. >> i didn't say that. >> david -- >> it's indicative of loss of confidence. when people are afraid, they do all sorts of things they wouldn't normally do. we have undermined by our actions whether it be earmarking, corruption, disconnection between integrity and character and what we do and what the people expect. and these are just symptoms of a lack of confidence. >> whether or not the government has acted in a way you feel is defensible, i don't think the government has done anything to earn, in your words, the threat that the blood of tyrants must

run in the street, which is what the literal threat was from the man with the gun strapped to his leg in new hampshire. i also don't think there is an equivalent between what move on.org has done and the comparisons of the president to hitler we've seen so often in this debate. some of the major organizations organizing these events, americans for prosperity, some similarities to freedom works but definitely a different group. they have had speakers going around the country not only comparing to hitler but pol pot and stalin. i don't think the government has done anything to earn that. >> i don't know what americans for prosperity is, but if they deserve fire in their bunker, put it on their bunker. i don't want it on my bunker. fact of the matter is we had nancy pelosi stand up before a vocal and raucous group and say i love disrupters. there's the speaker of the house

saying i love disrupters. the fact of the matter is there's been some provocation by officially elected people. and that is not -- that's not a happy thing. move on.org has been a very aggressive organization. what we believe you should have is people show up, people assertively answer the very difficult questions and for people to be well mannered. now, i'd like -- >> you have to admit, the notion that people are being well mannered is not happening. >> that may be with some people. i'm appalled by what i see, too, by some people. >> the nazi imagery and all that, you repudiate that? that has no place in the dispute. >> i repudiated it when move on.org did it to george bush. did anybody here do that. we just heard it was all right when move on did it? >> your organization is a member of the coalition with called tea

party patriots, health care freedom coalition partners. that's what americans for prosperity is. if you go to tea party patriots, what they have got on their front page, the top item, a video showing the violence at the town hall in ybor city in tampa, promoting that, as if that's a good thing, what the health care freedom coalition wants to have done as part of the debate. you can say you denounce this, but the organization you head is part of it. >> listen, one of the fascinating things about the tea party movement, it is enormously impressive kbras root uprising across the country of loosely affiliated people. there's probably 100, 200 different websites by different people. somebody in oregon has one, illinois. we have a situation where somebody in connecticut we did

not know and did not know us put out something mischaracterized and attributed to us by somebody who obviously didn't have enough diligence in their ability to do the research to get their facts straight. these things happened. people get blamed for what other people do. the fact is that just causes further aggravation. especially when you start talking about elected officials, people that have the privilege of having news shows under the license branded by the federal government. they should at least have the adult discipline to get their facts correct. >> are you a member of the tea party patriots? >> i am a member of freedom works and freedom works works with many people that fight for and argue on behalf of individual liberty. >> one of the issues is inab raise, myths in the debate. what has dominated this weak is the idea of death panel being part of the health care reform effort. the idea somehow the government would countenance euthenasia for older americans close to death.

even chuck grassley, from iowa, negotiating for the senate finance committee said this during an convenient on wednesday. >> in the house bill there's counseling for end of life. >> that's it. >> from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. you shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. you ought to have counseling 20 years before you die. we should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma. >> pull the plug on grandma. that's not part of the debate. >> it's hyperbolic, fear mongering, politics at its worst. it generates anger and fear and anxiety people have today. it's amazing to me that a very good idea, one i'm sure maybe even all of us agree with, that there ought to be some consultation, some opportunity to talk about these things outside of that moment when you're at your most emotionally

vulnerable state in life. the amazing thing is that johnny isaacson, a member of the health committee offered it as a mandatory requirement, there be this mandatory counseling. it turns out they persuaded him to offer it as a voluntary measure. that voluntary counseling is something we ought to be encouraging not discouraging. >> senator coburn, the drug bill passed in 2003 had a similar provision, did it not? >> i don't know. i wasn't in congress in 2003, so i'm not familiar with that, but i was adamantly opposed to the prescription drug bill mainly because it added $10 trillion to our grandkids' debt. look, the idea that we ought to talk about our future health and what we want done is a good idea. what is not legitimate is having

government even weigh in on it. it is intensely personal, your health care, plans, family, there is no role for government in that. and where we've seen a role, and this happens all the time, which goes to one of the things that never gets talked about in health care, we have statements of living wills. we have people who have made those very tough decisions. and then because they have made them, because of the malpractice liability they are ignored. we still intubate, put people on ventilators who never wanted it because a family member threatens through a situation, even though you have that end of life counseling there. so we need to get down to the basics of what is really wrong with health care and there's a lot. and it's not the people who are complaining and debating, the fact is everybody wants to see some change. republicans want to see change. we just want to get there in a different way. but the fact is we have a way

too expensive health care system. it is one of the best in the world and we ought to see about changes. >> you want a reasonable debate? >> absolutely. >> you said, however, this is from the washington times, july 16th, coburn, dems health plan will kill america. that is reasonable? >> yes, it is reasonable. i still practice medicine almost every month. i see patients. how many people that are involved in this debate are actually in the health care system. very few. the fact is if you create a comparative effectiveness board, which there's no question 70% of the people it will help and it will help control some costs, but 30% of the people it's going to hurt. we're not going to use -- >> you can't make that assertion. >> we can. >> recommendation, mayo clinic, you're saying mayo clinic, 30% at mayo clinic are disadvantaged

because they have comparative effectiveness program? >> yes, they do but they don't apply it in the same way. >> the best institutions in the country use it and everybody benefits. the point about the fact we can't have government involved with some kind of consultation, government runs the medicare program. the medicare program runs every senior in the country today. if you're not going to have them do it through medicare who is? you can't simply say find a way to do it. we know the status quo is a disaster. what jim is arguing for is more status quo. >> in the meantime -- >> jim is my brother. >> let me take a break. some outside perspectives in the debate. governor ritter of colorado, he was the -- with the president doing a town hall last evening in grand junction, colorado. governor, i want to ask you about the president's effectiveness right now and whether he is winning this argument that's certainly been a motivation for him being around

the country doing his own town halls. this is the gallup poll on the president's handling of the health care crisis. approval at 43%, disapproval at 49%. those are similar numbers that president clinton had back in 1993, 1994. what do you think he's doing wrong? >> i don't know that you can blame the president for this. i think a good part has to do with how you opened the show, david, sort of partisan wrangling. >> they are capturing attention, where the conflict is, where the swords are crossed but they are not getting all the information. my time with the president and at the town hall meeting leads me to believe people wondering about it, hear and speak about what this does entail, they are impressed by his vision how we

go forward with respect to reform. it was a good town hall meeting. he took questions who disagreed with him coming into it. maybe they disagreed with him as they all left. i would say for those folks on the bubble, they have to respect we need to do this and he has a vision how to do it. >> governor ritter, what do you hear most, rocky mountain west is a key area for independent voters in the country. the president successfully courted and won their vote last year. it's the independents who have a concern about the role of government, mounting debt associated with this health care plan. what are you hearing? >> what i hear is this, it's broken. while there's concern about the deficit, there's real concern about the fact the system is broken. people view it as unsustainable. people don't view their health plan as something secure for them. they could lose it tomorrow if their employer takes it away or they lose their job.

they want it fixed. so they want it fixed but also are concerned about federal spending, the deficit and they want to know can you reform health care and at the same time do what's necessary to control federal spending or to bring down the deficit. the president actually addressed this yesterday in his town hall meeting in a very effective way. >> governor ritter from colorado, thanks as always. always good to talk to you. rachel maddow, does the president bear some responsibility? does it undermine his responsibility when he makes some claims like, if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. a lot of people have said not really. employers could drop people from insurance if they wanted to move people into a public plan, if that existed. it may be an as operation but he can't gaesht uarantee it. >> what he's suggested he could guarantee. give the congress more direction. i find it strange the american people have decided there will be a lot more democrats in congress than republicans. democrats have a huge 60 seat

majority in the senate and therefore they have got big majorities on every committee, too. max baucus decided on the senate finance committee, a key role in what's going to happen next they will not have the whole committee do it, three democrats and three republicans who will make that decision. one of those republicans is going around the country giving out copies of glen beck's group and saying health care reform will pull the plug on grandma like senator grassley. for dems in congress giving up their majority, deciding which way it will pass, is something the president should weigh in. there's a reason they have a 60% majority, the people voted on it. >> the political tactics involved, he wrote president and friends receiving advice frustrated the white house has not been more aggressive in firing back at reform critics, attacking a strategy designed to bring down obama's presidency. do you think that's what conservative opponents of health care reform have in their sights

this morning? >> absolutely not. this is the largest hostile government takeover in the history of the country. one-sixth of the entire economy and it's the most intimate. you have people on the streets today, real people saying am i going to end up with a decision how my liver infection is going to be treated, someone in a beaurocracy with a degree in sociology. you read this bill, it is frightening, i was reading it yesterday. it is unnerve because of the growth of beaurocracy. i'll give you an example. a fellow got in touch with me, he's been on social security disability for about seven years all of a sudden, we're taking

you off. he can't figure out who made the decision. he calls his congressman, i don't know what i can do about that. he tries to call his senator and can't get a call through. he calls me and i don't live in texas. >> that argument suggests dick enjoys the status quo. the status quo eliminates 50 million people from insurance, 12 million because they are discriminated against because they have disabilities. 18,000 died because they didn't have insurance. that's the status quo. rather than have government do it, apparently dick would rather have the insurance companies doing it. that's who is doing it now. jon stewart calls it the american lottery, you send in forms and hope to get something back from your insurance company. that is why people want to see change. they want to see change because of cost, they understand the quality is going down in this country and they want to see change because so many people aren't covered. status quo -- >> there is no cater anywhere in

this country that the quality of medicine has declined. that is absolutely true. >> what are we ranking in life expectancy? >> life expectancy is not an cater when you have a society built this way. let me finish, tom. we talk about neo-natal mortality. where is it? it's not in private insurance plans, it's medicaid. here is the government-run program failing us in terms of neo-natal mortality, yet we use as an cater for neo-natal mortality, so we need more government not less. let me finish. the very fact that the president would suggest that doctors take tonsils out to make money rather than because it's an indicated procedure is ludicrous. most people who get a referral to an ent have already had one

opinion. >> let's get a break. >> out of 19 industrialized countries, we rank 19th overall. world health organization listed as 37th below costa rica and above slovenia. you can rationalize all you want, the fact is we have a sea of mediocrity. >> let me get in here. we're going to take a break. we're going to come back and talk about those three most contentious areas. i want to get through all of them so we can debate it. we'll come back for our discussion after this brief break. to debate it. come back, more of the discussion after a brief break. i'm racing cross country in this small sidecar,

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we are back to continue our discussion on health care take armey, rachael maddow, tom daschle and tom coburn. as i mentioned, i want to get to the three most contentious issues in the debate. we're going to get to it all. we're going to try. there's a lot more to discuss even than just this. the first has to do with funding. how will the performance be expensive, $50 million without insurance. a price tag of $1 trillion to be able to do that. the chairman of the house ways and means committee. congressman, welcome. i want to take you to montana. this is a town hall debate that the president had. listen to randy rathy, what he had to say. >> max baucus, our senator, has been locked up in a dark room there for months now trying to come up with some money to pay for these programs and we keep getting the bull. that's all we get is bull. you can't tell us how you're going to pay for this.

you're saving here, you're saving over there. going to take a little money there, take a little money there. you have no money. the only way to get that money is to raise our taxes. you said you wouldn't. max baucus says he doesn't want to put a bill out that will. but that's the only way you can do that. >> congressman, isn't he right? >> i can't believe that -- that our democracy is so fragile that people have no answer to a very serious problem would just try to create animosity and hatred rather than try to sit down and first find out what is the problem, how costly is it and what does it take in order to stop it. there's no question that almost everyone listening to this show have known some horrible story where someone has lost their home, their job, their -- the -- as a result of not being able to -- being able to cope with the costs of health care. it's getting worse. more and more people are losing

health insurance and the people who have it don't have it. we're going to have to pay for it. but it's going to be less in doing something right now than if we just let these things turn over -- >> how are you going to pay for it? you're for a surtax. is that going to work in the senate, congressman? >> first of all, when we start talking about how to pay for it, you have to stop the hemorrhage. we can do that. much of the thing that we're doing out there is the cause of the problem we're in can be taken care of by having the right procedures given to the right people and making certain that we cut down health care. and when the people of the industry can tell you that they can save tens of trillions of dollars by working with the president, then you know that we can resolve most of this by stopping what we're doing wrong. yes, it does take some money. >> i want to focus on that. it does take some money. >> let's talk --

>> my question to you -- can the surtax survive in the senate? you want to raise $544 billion of this price tag with surtax on the wealthy. can that prevail in the senate? >> i don't know what can prevail in the senate. all i know is this -- people are trying to use hatred as a substitute for discussion. we should be talking about how much does it cost. is it costing too much. what is the senate going to do? what is the house going to do? when people are paid to work up on town hall meetings, it's clear they're not looking for a solution. they're looking for a political out out of this serious question. >> congressman -- >> so we should be talking with the senate. we should be talking to them now. they don't even have a bill. >> congressman, if you look at the longer-term picture here, beyond 2019, the ten-year window for this plan, the congressional budget offense said that health care will go up at such a rate

that tax increases and savings cannot keep pace and the deficit will rise. can the president keep his promise to not raise taxes on those making $250,000 or less? >> yes, he can. and he will. the problem that we have is what do you score? what does the congressional budget office count as being a savings? people, what happened in the last few years of someone's life, is it the overcharging that pharmaceuticals and doctors have? is it the number of people that go in and out of hospitals that we don't reward those who do the right thing? these are questions that we should be talking about. but what is happening now is they're building up of hatred. and i'm so surprised that our churches and our synagogues and our mosques are not coming here and saying that what the right thing done by poor folks who can afford health care, working people who don't have health care and should have it and people who do have health plans that really are hemorrhaging in increases and costs. this is not a republican or

democratic issue. this is a american humane issue. we're not dealing with it with these types of town hall meetings. >> congressman rangel, always good to have you. thank you very much for joining this discussion. senator daschle, the savings the president talked about, there can be tax hikes on the rich. we talked about 2/3 of the program being paid for by other kinds of savings within medicare. is that realistic or theoretical savings options? >> keep in mind, in the next ten years, the country will spend $35 trillion on health care. that's the projection today. that $35 trillion dwarfs the $1 trillion of up front costs we have to construct in order to put this new infrastructure in place, including for the first time covering 50 million new americans insured. i don't think there's any question that we can find within $35 trillion the savings necessary to come up with part of the cost of the infrastructure. i think the president's plan is about right.

the balance between revenue on one side and cutting costs on the other. >> i think the policy about what we do makes a big difference on how much we have to spend and how much savings we get. one of the reasons the liberals and democrats are not in favor of the strong public option is that administrative costs are so much lower in a government program than in private insurance. we waste so many billions of dollars on the administrative costs of having the system we have now. you compare the industrialized country that doesn't have the reliance on thousands of insurance companies, we're wasting a lot of money moving paper around. ask health care professionals how frustrated they are on the paperwork. >> are taxes going to go up? beyond just the wealthy? >> of course taxes are going to go up. one of the things about how to pay for it that i think is really causing a lot of distress and anxiety especially among seniors, and if you want to talk

about a miserable instability i've observed the last couple of weeks, seniors today are captured by medicare. they have no choice. they can't get out of it if they want to without being punished by the government. and it's got $46 trillion worth of unfunded liability. they're seeing the baby-boomers coming in. they're scared to death for themselves right now and this bill says they're going to cut medicare by $500 billion. and the senior goes to the town hall meeting and he's frightened by this. and he says, leave your hands off my medicare. he's mocked by people in the news and he's made a joke by the president of the united states, it's no wonder these folks are frustrated and angry. they're scared to death of what the government is going to do. >> do you really think there's a major uprising of seniors wanting to get out of medicare. you're suing for your right personally to get out of medicare. do you think that's the problem that seniors hate medicare and they want out? >> i didn't say that. i was talking to my minister the

other day. my minister said, dick, i'm so fortunate i'm in medicare. i said, bless you, my friend, that you get to be in it if you choose to be so. but give a government program and you let me choose to be in and choose to be out, that's generosity. if you force me in irrespective of my desires, that's tyranny. now if medicare's $46 trillion in the red, with no idea how we're going to pay for it, why do they let people who don't want to be in out? >> that's a -- this is a really important point. >> this defies logic. >> the anti-health care reform lobby thinks health care is tyranny. you said in 1995 that medicare is a program i would have no part of in a free world. you said in 2002, we're going to have to bite the bullet on social security and phase it out. >> it's exactly what i'm talking about. >> americans need to know this is -- >> the medicare law that was written by the chairman of the

ways and means committee and the chief lobbyists of the blue cross/blue shield voted on in amendment as an amendment to social security first imposes severe sanctions on physicians and medical providers that don't comply with the requirement. and it says to seniors, at the age of 65, you can no longer buy the insurance that you bought prior to 65. and now by virtue of an internal memo, not a regulation, not a law, they tell seniors today, if you don't sign up for medicare, you lose your social security. you tell me what -- what that has to do with anybody's notion of liberty and freedom? >> okay -- >> even if -- >> i want to move on -- congressman! >> one final point. >> even in canada just last month, the supreme court of canada said -- ruled that the canadian government cannot deny the canadian citizen the right

to buy private insurance. >> i'm google to move on. i'm going to move on. >> another area of contention, as if that's not contentious enough -- is the issue of public option. this is the idea. we're still talking about overall costs. public option in a moment. the overall sense of cost. senator daschle, is it appropriate for the president to be singling out the insurance companies when he's not also talking about hospitals -- hospitals that are losing money over medicare and medicaid are then charging people with health care insurance more for the costs of the procedures, the costs being passed on to the consumers. shouldn't we be talking about hospitals as well as insurance companies? >> you listen to the town hall meetings, every one of the different stake holders come in to the debate. they should. there are big concerns with regard to quality across the board. but when you talk about insurance, we're talking about

too many people today who are the victims of our current system, who above and beyond anything else want to have the confidence in knowing they can buy insurance. they want to know they're not going to be prohibited because they have a pre-existing condition. they want to know they can afford the premiums. they want to know they're not one illness away from bankruptcy. they want to know we have more stability and more ability to deal with the problems we're facing in the health care system through and in part of the health care system we create. that's what the president is advocating. >> what about the specific point about hospitals versus the insurance companies? >> obviously, he's talking about hospitals, he's talking about the need for comparative effectiveness. he's talking about the need for major change in the way we deliver health care. he's talking about chronic care management and recognizing the importance of prevention. many of the things that the hospitals are going to have to be a part of as well. it's imperative if you look at the entire context of the debate. he's going to single out insurance companies, doctors, drug companies. he's done all of that. but i think everybody, at least so far, is of a mind that we've

got to fix this system because of status quo is unacceptable. >> senator coburn, isn't it a big area of personal responsibility. you talk about health care costs. there's no consumer sentiment involved here. it's not like buying a car when you know how much it costs and what it means to the bottom line. three-quarters of americans get benefits from their employers. most people don't pay the bills for their health care. they don't know what it costs. look at this. this is an average health care premiums to a family. $12,000 worth of premiums. your employer pays $9300 of that. the individual worker pays $3300 of it. people don't know what the costs are. >> there's a disconnect, david. there's no question. therefore, we don't have a transparent market for price and quality, which i think everybody would like to see. we would like to see it reconnected so we have some personal responsibility. the propoals before us really aren't reformed, though.

what they are is more of the same. rachel just mentioned how efficient medicare is. it's not efficient. the fraud rate is 25%. if you add the overhead to fraud rate, they're seven points above what the average 10-k report for the profit for private insurance. they have a different motivation. the point is, any bill that comes through that increases costs is a failure. because we spend too much today. we ought to be getting more efficiency, in other words, reconnect that economic. we have one, i think tom and i think agree with it, we have way too much to go to prevent somebody from getting sick and help somebody from getting well. how do you redirect that? you can redirect it with a government or you can redirect it by reconnecting, as you suggest, the economic consideration of an individual. we have a bill -- several senators, that say $70 billion the first ten years and well close to $1 trillion plus $960

billion for the states in terms of doing just that. in other words, we take medicaid and put it in to private care where we're really competing. >> in our remaining time here, i want everybody to be heard on this. i want to get to the final area that's so contentious. the idea of a public plan. the idea here is you'd have the public plan, government plan to be sponsoring the consumer choices alongside a private plan. senator daschle, the president appears he would be open to reform without a public plan. kathleen sebelius saying he would be open to a cooperative rather than a public plan. does a public plan have to be in this reform effort for the president to sign it. >> if you want to control costs most effectively. if you want to make sure there's adequate competition, keep the insurance companies accountable. if you want to do everything possible to give the american people as much choice as possible, if you want to do all of that in the public plan -- >> would the president live without it? >> i can't speak for the president. all i know is he wants to get

the bill done. he wants to go as far as he can to get that public plan, because he's advocated at every single stop. but whether or not he's there at the end of the day is something only congress -- >> is a public option competition or is it an unfair fight? >> it's an unfair fight. you read the bill. they built in taxes, regulations, administration, requirements, fine, penalties that discourage the private option. but we have 1300 private insurance companies in america. if you want the competition in the purchase of insurance, listen to the congressman shaddock from arizona and let people buy across lines. why can't i live in texas and buy my insurance in oklahoma. if you live in michigan, you can't buy a car made in alabama. it would be silly. what you have now -- but the fact of the matter is, let us have fair competition like freedom to choose among the 1300 already existing private companies. the government is what prevents

that from happening. >> i don't know what state in the country has secretly more awesome health care than every other state in the country. i feel like every state in the country is in the same pickle when it comes to out-of-control costs, dissatisfied coverage and a huge number of uninsured people. it's not going to be made better by allowing insurance to be bought across state lines. i think private insurance companies would be really, really, really excited if what came out of this debate was a requirement that americans buy more private insurance, that they were dissatisfied with that allows them to be dropped for pre-existing conditions and all the other things they do. there needs to be serious reforms of private insurance and the only way to get that is to have a public option that people can choose if private insurance continues not to serve our needs as a country. >> let me bring in bruce josten, executive vice president of the chamber of congress. they have a perspective on this. your organization and chamber

has been buying ads opposing the public option. the cbo, the congressional budget office did a study that in fact the number of those in private health care plans would go up if it's a public option. and 11 million would choose a public option, which is far fewer than opponents say would be the case. >> we do oppose the public option in part because of what you touched on earlier. we have a long history of medicare and medicaid underreimbursing doctors and hospitals, 70 to 78% of what private pairs do. those underreimbursements are cost shifted back to the premium payers, which are the companies in america, that you pointed out in your show are providing the coverage to a vast majority of americans, over 160 million of them. with respect to the need for insurance reform and health care reform, the business community is one of the strongest proponents. and we have been for several years. we ran, in fact, ads last year calling for reform. and more choices and bending the cost curve on health care.

but when you underreimburse and it gets cost shifted and you have doctors practicing defensive medicine out of a fear of liability, we're corrupting the system. if we're going to have a level playing field, the public plan is an uneven playing field. destabilize private insurance and independent researchers and health care analytically as well as cbo have expressed concerns that many employees could my great away from employer-sponsored cover because of the cost initially with federal government back stopping. >> thank you very much. senator daschle? >> the basic question, are we building the new system for the american people or the insurance company? that's the key question. how will they be better served? we have a public option for medicare part d today. six percent of the people participate. there's a very small percentage of people who for all kinds of reasons have chosen the public plan when it comes to drugs. the argument is interesting --

this is going to be so popular that people are going to leave the private sector and go to the public sector. that's what choice is all about. i think what we've got to do is ensure we've got a level playing field marks sure the competition is fair. but you have a choice -- you're going to have a competition or you have a regulatory framework in which the insurance industry is going to have to work. >> big difference on what he said on medicare part d. you allowed nationwide competition of insurance. >> that's what we're doing. >> no, you're not. you're regionalizing it. look at the house bill, look at the senate bill. you regionalize it. make it the state base. the difference is new jersey is a mandate. what we need -- we need more competition among the insurance industry. but the way to get it is to open it up. >> let me ask you about a point of news here today. if the president is willing to accept the form without a public plan, without a public option. if he can live with strong, you

know, cooperatives that allowed some choice for consumers, can that attract more bipartisan support? will republicans sign off? >> i think there's potential for that. i think the other thing we need to remember is inside the house bill and inside the senate bill is 87 new government programs requiring well over 150,000 new federal employees. we can't accept that. because that is government management of health care and not individual management. i want to make one other point. on comparative effectiveness. the problem with comparative effectiveness is it divides the loyalty of the physician away from the patient. it takes what is important to you as my patient and all of a sudden, i'm looking over here because somebody here is telling me what i can do rather than what i know needs to be done in your best -- >> this is just a consumer report on best practices. that's what we're talking about with regard to health care. consumer reports. >> why would they block a prohibition --

>> going to have to respond. almost out of time. >> just to your point about bipartisanship, bob doll, howard baker, and i put together a plan that did exactly what i'm talking about. they were very, very supportive of it. i think there's a very good opportunity for us to do bipartisan product in congress. >> you said it was 50-50 whether you get reform. >> that's correct. >> 50-50. rachel, let me ask you this question, what will progress i was, liberals, the president's base accept as reform. do the independent voters he's courting out in colorado and montana need to be placated in a big part of his base or not? >> i don't think liberals monolithically feel about it. most would prefer a single payer system. a reform effort which doesn't include a public option is he will have spent a ton of political capital riled up in an angry right wing base that's been told this is a plot to kill

grandma and he will achieve something that doesn't save us much money and won't do much for the american people. it's not a good thing to spend a lot of capital on. >> tactically -- i you -- know you oppose philosophically, tactically. you said it was crucial for republicans taking over the house. does the president achieve something this time? >> i don't think he does. and i think the fact that he's now signaling his willingness to back off on the public auction and put him to surrogate, which is the government-sponsored cooperatives which is what we will be calling them pretty mad or fannie madd is ghc's finance ministry is horrible. but it's interesting, when we argued for years that we should have private cooperatives, associations could put together, these -- >> okay. >> -- all the liberals were against that.

now we have government sponsor cooperatives. but don't make a mistake about that government-sponsored cooperative. >> i'm going to let that be the last word. thank you, all. there's more on this to come. the challenge the president has is making this the big issue of the day. we'll be back. we'll have a special take two with rachel maddow, asking her some questions that the viewers submitted e-mail and twitter. take two extra this afternoon on the website. also, updates from me throughout the week at mtp.msnbc.com. when we come back, the remarkable life and legacy of eunice kennedy shriver.

and finally here in the heat of august and in the heat of the moment for the health care debate, the country marked the loss and celebrated the life of an inspirational woman, eunice kennedy shriver. she died this week at the age of 88. shriver was well known to many because she was a kennedy, a strong sister to some very

famous kennedy men. john, bobby, and teddy. she will be remembered, however, because of what she did for others. shriver founded the special olympics in 1968. she was devoted to helping those like her sister, rosemary, who had intellectual difficulties, what used to be called mental retardation. here she was speaking to special olympians. >> the world said the people with intellectual problems should not be seen in public. tonight we're part of the largest sporting event in the world, and the world is watching. >> her daughter, maria this week at her mother's funeral. >> she was the real deal -- a woman who did everything women aspire to. she had a great husband, she had a great family, a deep, deep faith in god. and she combined that with being a fearless warrior for the voiceless. >> tim russert once asked senator ted kennedy here whether his sister, eunice, would be a good president. >> that's what my brother jack

always said. he said that she was the best on it. i -- jack was always right. >> but she never ran for office. instead, she did what her strong faith in god called her to do -- she worked to make things better for others. >> her son robert said it well in the 2004 interview, quote, my mom never ran for office and she changed the world. period, end of story. we'll be right back. ice and se we know why we're here. to design the future of flight, inside and out. to build tomorrow's technology in amazing ways. and reshape the science of aerospace... forever. around the globe, the people of boeing... are working together -- for the dreams of generations to come. that's why we're here. hey, bob. what's up?

oh, i just talked to someone at fidelity about saving for my kid's college. huh. what's this? well, that's how i'm going to get there. it's guidance. oh, so may i should follow it, too. it doesn't work that way, pete. you see, this is my own personalized plan. you've got to get one that's right for you. okay. but i can still walk along it while we talk, right? [ laughing ] ah, come on. whatever your destination, fidelity has the people, guidance, and investments to help you find your way. fidelity investments. turn here. according to a study presented by better homes and gardens, definity color recapture. it corrects the look of wrinkles and discoloration.

>> that is all for today. we'll be back next week. if it's sunday, it's "meet the if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

21 years ago jack mcgarey and an accomplice hatched an evil plan. >> the levee had always been like the deep woods to us. >> to murder mcgarey's best friend. >> i pulled up, and he was walking around with it. i didn't know what was going to happen. >> things got desperate. >> he hit him with a pair of nunchakus in the head. and i froze. then i heard cops. i started running.

>> but for mcgarey, the horror had just begun. >> he was screaming for god the whole time.