[captioning made psible by kcet plic television] vis: good evening. i'm tavis smiley. first up tonight, the ste of heal care in the u.s. an dr. michael roin from the cleveland clinic. it is hell ups a model for what a health provir should ok like. he's at the forefnt of effts to supportealthy lestyles. also tonight, a conversation with a lendary figure in business. peter peterson. he went on to serve in number ofey positions, including secretary of commerce. his memoirs, the -- comingp

right no tavi dr.ichael roizen from the clevelandlinic. he'slso a best selng author

o has critten a series of bos. he joinss tonight. it inice to have you on the ogram, sir. >>rivilege, tavis. tavis: let me starty askg this queion, how hopef you are about the conversatiowe're having rht now around hlth care in america. as you kw, we tried this before. >>f we reay focus on heah care andot just illnessare d if w focus on more than just accs, access is important, but if we focus on more than just access, i'm really hopef, because we have a chance of radicallymprfing health a radical decreasing costs if we i right. tavi tell me about theirst distinion that you referend. >> the cleveland clinic is rated number one in heart care by "u.s. news and wld report" 15 years in a row. but our leade realized if we have lead, we can't just be

grad illness care, we got to be great at tt, but we've got to get interes health carend that iseeping people well. we want, in fact,e need a lot of organizions to join us i this. we spend a lot of money on illness care and if we go to heal care, we can reduce that substantiay. tavis: inow whatllness care is. te fine for me what you mnnd the cleveland clinic dines as wellness care. >> wellness care and the focus on lifestyle changes is tobacco, phsical inactity. food choes and stress account for er 7 of our total cost of care. that i we're twice as eensive europe and three times as asia, because we have twice the chronidisease of europe a three times of asia because of those factors. tobco, inactivit food choices and stress. those are under our control and

helping our employees get control of those is what we're doing. tavis: a lot of tho things are linke u know that better than i do. so where does one start with wellness care? >> we started wh tacco if you will cause iis the greatest cause of getting all toxins off thenvironment. and tn doing t others simultaneously, helping educate and nud and coax and make people undstand that it is in their st interests, not just from an econoc standpot but from jobs standpoint, and fro a feelingf energy quality of life,f doing more physical activity. just walng is a keyomponent. and the it is -- o making the right food choices, s we don't eat the fi foods that age you. an then, lrning how t manage stress, which is really a -- a small component iyou will of time, but a huge component o

how wel you live and- live life. tavis: i don't mean to a nic with thisuestion, but i'm curious about your take on this. pretty much everytng you listed, those thingthat a preventable, are things any amican with a bit of good sense. i'moing to assume most o us haves some sense,e know theye bad for us. we know smoking is pad. you play choose tomoke but you know it bad for you. you choose to eat bad foods. you ow bad foods are bad for you. you know overweigh is bad for you you know when yore tpwhot overweightnd you know exerce is good for you. i'm walking through that delibately so i can ask thi question. sincthis is stuff we alrdy know, h do we get traction on thes issues? >> thiis part of what we're doing and part othe continued effort of getng you, getting each of our emplyees, gting

ch of the citizatients d our grr comnities emotionally involved with the bodies. that's what we have been doing with the books. now we're showing at t cleveland clic that we can do thisor our employees. we lowered our health care cos from 50% of the national average for health carerganizations on a per person age adjusted basis to 44%. so we're doing what that bding the curve,e're actuall bending it backwards and we can do that because when you get pple emotionally involved with thei health, they stt to do those things that you have alrea said, you go to our sky ws, if you went there 21/2ears ago, they we empty summ and winter. peop weren't walking now they're crowded. that's a great sign. we have taken r fitness clubs d they have more thanoubled sie we made them free. whene made tobacco cessation,

we banned it onampus andut teeth behind itnd aually sa we're giving it away. e're giving tobacco cessation programs a w, not onlyo e emoyees and everyone ithe community weid for six months. weot 16,000 people our coty off of cigartes. weot 4,000 of our employe and 1,000 dependents off so you could do these things and it actually is changing costs. t question is does it return on investment? we're showing thathese thing have a realeturn on vement. we take patientsith diabetes and coronaries artery disease or any one of1 diseases and get them into a program where we teach them how t cook a stress manement d a ltle physical aivity. say it is reallyifestyle treatment of chronicisease. we'rlowering those costs a making them feel healter.

they're feelg better in a sht period of time. >> you hit on sething i want to go back t now. i think it is one of the linchpins r turning health care around in ts country. that is that moos arican companies are realizing, and i think the wd is getting out to every y herns tt work ithe companies, whats bankrupting america and theystem is these corporations cant continue to carry the cts of unhealthy rkers. and so i wt to come back to e point you made now about the cleveland cliniand how it enges its workers. twooints. the first is sething that blew me away when i learned this. at the cleveland clinic you all n't even hire people who do oke and somehow that's legal. >> in something around 43 states, it is legal to not hire smokers. tt is we test them. we -- if they smo and we're going to offer them j, we ofr them free smoking ceation program. we'lleoffer them the job after

they gets off cigettes. we think -- we really believe that w should be a toxin-free environment. our wall covers, our carpets, we aren't replang the ones but as we g to replace tm, they will be replaced with things at anyone could eat. so the poi is, weelieve that is better for ourpatients, tter for our employees to be in a totally toxin-fre environment. the greatest toxin we have in america is cigartes. tavis: tk to me sondarily about how it is tt we can in fact turnhis process around, dr. roizen i america if we can figure out atrategy, a system by whichompanies don't have to carrynhealthy employees. >> well, i don't know that we should s we don't carry unhealthy employees. we motivate healthy employe and knock down barriers so unhealthy employees c get health people come in my office a

say, you can't wk here from the her side of the room and --n four months, we get them so they'realking 1000 steps a day and feeli much better. it is only too le to reverse theroblem for the individl when you're six ft under. unti then, we get tchange it. you get to ange it d it is such an important problem for our competiveness, for jobs and for our standd of living, we've ma it an issuerying to otivate people. the t motivation has to be fun. it has to be edgy like your show. it als has to be scientifically valid. we can make it tha way. tavis:elp me understand from yo perspective, how ts nversation can be -- to the extent that it wille at the eppie cenr at whatever kind of ealth care legislation we're ulmately, we hope going to get frothe obama adminisation signed into law.

>> what we have had so far or we've seen is a plan that gets better access and i worried about being it with getting a little better competitivenes. but the real discussn is -- are we going to continue dietic tick treatment as the eatment with medicines and surgery only. are we going to srt to pay for lifestyle treatment so that we can bd the curve by teaching people how to take better care of themselves. we in america have knock out thatrocess of paying for eaching people how too this themselves. if we can get that into the discussion. ife could get a lifestyle treatment in this, ratherhan better aess and rather tha just a littl less expensive drugs or less expensive surge or e more efficient systems. we need those. dot get me wrong, but we c really bend the needle and the curve when weet lifestyle treatment if chronic disease and then get pple to infuse the

culture by doing tha all the ti. tas: the cleveland clini is leading the way on this wellness nversation. dr. roizen is thchief wellness ficer at the cleveland cnic. congrulations on the success you had already. thanks for shari your ibr insits. up next former commerce secretary pe peterson. stay with us. peter peterson's life wold sound like the sff of a great american fiction piece ift ren't all true. e son of freng immrants worked at a diner in nebrask before turni blackstone int a bilon dollar em peer. he's secretary of commerce. and as for his legacy younly need to look at the money tt is endowed for his fouation. he joins us tonight from new ork. nice to ha you on the program,

sir. >> thank you so much. tavis: it is hd to know where to start ts conversation. suspect that what makes sense is to start at let from my tastes, with the name,eter g. peteon. you tell a fcinating story about how your fher chaed the name. tell me that sry. my father' older bther came over from gast first and he was working onhe railroad and he at least alleges that they were complning that pet drop liss which was their origal name,/ a poulos in greece was t hd to pronounce and why didn'they changet. so the changed it to peterson. son of peter, which i a direct transhation of what the name is in greek. tavis: i wonr, to your point, he aeges how you think your life might have bone fferent

without the ring, this peter g. peterson h a ring to it. had your fher stuck with that original name, what dyou think your life might havbeen? >> wn i pronounce my nam peter petson it sounds le i was born to beedundant. [laughr] itis an interesting question as to whether in those early days having a long greekame might have been a problem. never experiencedhat diectly. but as you kno prejudice can be very indirect and impcit. i do rember this much. the includelux klan ptured my father'sestaurant wit the sign that said d't eat wit the greek. so thereas obviously some prejice there. and they didn't ve any blacks and -- in nraska, so they took anothestep and went to e

freaks, i guess, sohere must have been som prejudice. tavis: how were you aut this time, do you recall >> i w about eht or nine years old when i started working in th restaurant. took cash. always prey good at math. i made changest the cash register. i wa an aggressive cracter. my father had meal tickets in ich you could get $5.50orth of fd for $5 if you paid the $5 inash. i keptareful track at the cash regier of which meal tickets were nearlyunning out. when i sawne that waslmost out, i would runver to the table and say, are you sure you don't want a meal ticket? because i wanted the receipts to as high as possible that d. 1c06 you were sellingven as kid. i asked h old you were around theime of that clan story, because i'm curious as t what kind of impact tha has on a kid when h sees his father's

business bng pictured clearly because of race or e-ethnicity. >> they shidled me from eing it so all heard was the ories. my reactiowould have been diffent if i had seen the robes that the klanore, butt di't have a great deal of impact o me, no. tavi coming here with nothing, how did your father get in position to o a business in the first place? >> he took a job no one else wanted as a dishwashe in the caboose of the uni pacific raroad that was being built. the reaso no one wanted it, a you probabl know, sitting in the sun in nebrska without air conditiong in the summe 120 degrees, outsidei can't imagine what it was insid washin dishes with this steaming t dishes and

everything nobody wanted th job but he took it because heas smart enough to realize thate could sleep on the coose and g free meals on the coose, so he was ae to save every penny he madeo put in the restaurant. i leaed a lot from him about bei a workaholic. some wld say i learnedhe lessonoo well and saving if the future. he taught me that. he also taught me philanthropy. theysed to call them bums in those days, hos, but you play recall during the depression, unemployment was 25 t -- percent or so average but it was hier than that in certain farm &s. so everyay so cled bum or hobos wouldine up at the back door of theitchen and my fatherad his own welfare for -- or -- -- wor for welre

prograthat as long as each of these people it work, he would feed them something he did ts same thingith his village back homee paid -- he paved e streets and paid for a water syste and he really made itmportant to my life t ge money ba and -- he loved ts country. the only sg he knew was god bls america. an whenevere sang it, trs ould run down his cheeks. so he taught me a l about har work and saving for the future and about giving bac and i -- i wil aays be gratefulor him. iny book i menon lessons i learned and one i always focus in your work on two areas if you can. number one, those areas where you have se kindf comparative advantage. in your own words, yr rength. the sond criterion is having paion for yourork.

becau if you're good at it and yourassionate about it, you're much mor likely to succeed. and the corollary of that is -- avoi jobs that playay a little more that don't play to ur strengths, that play to your weaknses like railing in t case of peter g. peterson jobs you don't have much passion for because you're not likelyo be successful those long-te. even though ty play pay a little more or have a bigge office or hava bigger title at the beginning but you ought toe in a career for theong-term, not the immediate term. tavis: was it alys your goal to make mey orid you end u making money by the choes that you made? >> i've been called relentless lianeit cal, so i decided i ought toet into a fieldhat w -- that in which the heart of the business wa analysis. so i went to work for a market

research firm and god, what a contrast between market research an retailingor me. it was all analyzing pple's attitud andtatistics and so forth. an i was not only pretty good it but i loved it. i rose very rapidly in that field as a result. tavis:hat was it about -- that kind ofesearch that hado muc money int? >> well, youere particiting in certain ratr big decisions. for exale one client was ford motor comny. and theyere looking if ideas on how they cld sell mor ford cars. so we did some very interesting research onow people felt like -- about fords versus chevys and plymoths. for exale, we showed people a picture of a car tt had just ben in an accident.

but yououldn't seehat kind of car it was. wesked people, tell us the story about how ts happened. and if- if there were a wreck there, they re much more likely to say it was ford owner. in your own words, peopleended to think of fords as being drin by people who just loved power and they didn'think that cars were made vy ell. and we told them that if they wanted toell more fords to chy owners, they wou have to cover some of their concern and their concern were, that the cars were -- wen't really built terribly wl anderen't terribly safe. so then told them, how people decided what mad a car se or not safe. andou remember evybody says they wanto kick the tires? wellhat turned o to be a cliche that was nothe case. when weried to find out how did people decidef a car was

solid not, it was by openg and chosinghe door. d you know, heari the click. that comes when the car is about the we -- built well. we did that kindf, what you might cl psycholical analysis. tavis: iet it now. i get it nowow it is tt compans would pay a hot of money forhat kind of research and infortion. it leads to the oious question for , which is whetherr not you believe today's world that kind of data research, that information is stills valuae and as accure? >> i'm sure it is. ere's nothing like understanding the consumer. i'm a big admirer of the gentleman that runs proctor and mble that has so many, you know,uccessful products for th home. and -- talk to him oneay aut his secret. effect, he was his own kind of consumer reseah man. for example, he told mehen he went to a foreign country, one of the things he wld go is

spend a couplef days in people's homes. and would watch them using his -- their categories of product then he would ask them estions about whathey wanted and what theyiked and what they didn't like. and so forth. i think if you're gog to be successful today, whether you do formal mart research o informal market research. you've got to understand the consumer and wha that consume is looking for. tavis: does yourife. it is n over yet, and i'm glad it is notut does it feel colete? does it feel likyou covered the bases and you've come full circlbeing able to do the philanropy that you're doing now? i askedhat because you tlked about your father an the leons he taught you it sounds like given your philanthropy now a you've arned those lessons. >> i never tught in a billion years i wld ever have a

billion dollars and i had more than enough, so i decided to ve it tohis foundation that i set up and -- theain purpose of this foundation is to ke it poible for the next generatn to alsonjoy the arican dream the way i did and one of the things that worries me a great dl about this country today is we piled up such huge debts and, it is huge obligations that we're doing something quite immal that imperilshe american dream. we're haning of trls of dollars o debt to our own children that,hat areot going to financeab. we are handi over trlsf omises that would mean tremendous incases in taxes on our ow kids. and the idea of slipping your kidshe check for our free lunchs not my idea of what my fatheras trying to teach me. tavis:t is a gat legacy a back storyo the legacy of

peter g. peterson. his bo is calle "the education of an american dreamer ." how he earned his w from a dinero wall street and beyond. all the bt to you, sir. >> thank you so mu. tavis: catche on the weekends onublic radio international. you can catchs at pbs.org. i'll see you nt time. til then, good night from l.a and as alway keep the fth. >> for morinformation visit tavis atbs.org. tavis: join me nt time for a look at bestancer and cance surviv, diane carroll. wel see you the

natioide insurance proudly supporters tis slely. tavis and nationwe insurance working to improve financial literacynd the economic empowerment that comes with i nationwidis on your side. and by contributions to your p ations from viewers lik you. and by contributions to your p ations from viewers lik you. thank you.