does he wt a publicption? does he wt, what? woulhe sacrifice both for the ll? how is hgoing to pafor it? will h just tax billionaires' like nancy pelosi once? -- wants? how far is he willing to go to get to the house and senate? would hfind a filibter? on and none of those critica points has thereeen any cavi. >> a there is a good reason, i think, fort. you start out th something ke health care that h been debated for 50 years. ou have to knowhere everybody is on the issu yo have 535 members up there. you have to know where they stand. he is taking tio flush them t. you need to know whereour votes are on the public option. yoneed to know whereyour voteare on all of these issues before you answerto -- time is his side. >>i don't think so. >> time is on his side and we will talk ofce next january -- talk about this next january -- >> it has been a long and costly flush if that is the cas >> let me ask about the letter ted kenny wrote to the governor of massachusetts asking to change in law -- a l so that the is no vacancy the senate seat before specia election. h

when i see dick durbin on television saying that the publicption is dead, i will believe it. >> im reminded of the general chesty puller. he was srounded and he said, "we ha them just where we want them." that is whereobama finds himself. hes surrounded. he has conrvatives after him, as the blu dogs after him,he liberals after him, the commentators,olitical commtary class after him. do not think that he is going to pull a chesty puller, but i not thinke iout of the ga yet. why do i say that? lyndon johns sd to clarence mitchell and the naacp wn they're pushing the civil-rights bill -- mitchl went to himnd said he hadomething he really had to ruff, and g elected him and said, "how many vot do you have, crence?" that is wt it will come down to with obama. >> the wascally wabbi is dead. in the e, liberals are bluffing. ra liasson npr t it coectly. there no left wing democrat who will losa seat if the option is leftout of the bill. there are moderate docrats who wi lose seats if the option is in the bill. th will determine how it goes. ere will be no pubc oion. ther might be a co-opdea, whicis

he does not support a cl for a publicption if the health care debate b does want to e universal coverage. how is that possib? also tonightormer massachusetts senatordward brooke h his thoughts othe life and legacy of ted kennedy and finally a look at dr. king's onic speech at the march in washington given 46 years ago this week. eric sundquist is theuthor of a book o thi subject called "king's dream." there are so many things th wal-mart is lookg forward to ing, like helping people liv betterut mostly we're looking forward to helping build relationips becae with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurancproudly supportsavis smiley. tavis and nationwide insance working to irove financial literacy a the economic powerment that comes with it. ♪ nationwide is on yo side ♪ >>nd by contributions to your pbs station from vwers like you. thk you. [captioning ma possible by kcetublic television] tavis: ron serena wiiams the c.e.o. o aetna, on -- ron williams is the c.e.o. o one of theeading insurance compani. aetna. he joins me tonigt. mr. wliams, it is an honor to haveou on the p

before we wind up, i nt to get to a couple questios we have on the public optio the so-called publicption. that is the sis for many questions wheth this is going to be a governmet-run insurance prram. im concurrently unemployed, will the plan gve me an option th is free such as one that is the united kingdom free, probably not unless she were to quali for medicaid which isur current system of health care for the oorest of the poor in this country and even thn, that is geneally not free. there e still co-payments that individus make. so, no. on the other and, there is vision hat peope of limted income might get se knd of discount. sometimes they're desibed as subsidies at could go to this thing called te exchange, think of it alost like a helth care bazaar, a marketplace where there are lots of different heth plans lined up and presumely ey would tell you the price and what kind o covege you would get and you can ty to pick one maybe wi your iscount couon if y're eligible foit. now, tt doesn't get into he public plan, which is a whole anotheissue tht we can -- gwen: but the pup oion would

the people who upport the publicption aren't sure they can get the 51 voths that they need to get this through. there ishis issue caled reconciliation which is ether or not they wi be able to pass at east some of the provisions ofhe health care vote ned. that ould be a huge delopment. gwenthe time flies y. we havea lot more qustions to geto. but we'll tackle more of your questions online,n a special expaded "washingtoweek" webcast. you can find it at pbs.org/waington week. and before we tonight..."washington week" condonces go out to the families of twoiants in our biness. robert novak, one of th hardest-working d most influential shington columnists of his generation. and don hewitt, the cator of 60 minutes and dving force behind much of the century's best journalism. each in is own way changedhe y we do business. thewill be missed. as always, keep up with daily velopments on thenewshour with jim lehrer." and wel see you again right here, nt week, on "washington week." good night. >> corporate funding for "washinon week" is provided by boeing and he natonal mining association. major f

. >> ifill: theris a plan for health exchanges th pops up every now ahen when it looks like publicptionfading. >> that's a sepate issue. it's a queion of how are you going organize purchasing ols so that people can buy coverage anhave their riks in effectpread across a big pool. it's the same principlececi is talkg about. i'm a peon who gets my insurance through employe in effect have group coverage, if i'm a healt person the risks are pushed acro the whole pol so the notion is to create new health insunce exchanges, or gateways, on aederal level the state vel, or th in various bis, different approaches are spelled out, and this would enable peop who don't currently havecoverage thugh an employer t access coverage thrgh the pool. there would be standardized benefit packas, you wou be able to comparin shop, i could buy the aetna covege pakage, i could b the blueross coverage package and the ol idea was that the public pln ould also participate in th pool anbe an option, and that's theption that seems to be fading now. >> ifil: let's talk about the political reaty check here, which is tha

if you do the publicption, no. suaxes, no. gher taxes on capital gains, no.but if you have an ideas to how to slow thgrowth in medica, if you want to do things like this healt exchanges, making itasier to afford to ke it easier to buy across state lin, well, good luck to you. thatounds pretty good. and if you're prepared ttake e political heat, again, you know, good luck to you. >> moyers: i'm remindethat you grew up canada. >> i did. moyers: couldn't the conservative, a calm conservative make case for that kd of national insurance plan in this count? >> look, where tho plans have growup, as in britain, for example, y've seen conservatives ma their peace with them, athe british conservatives have de. and once somethings integrated into the status o of your country, it gets conservate. there are, i think, a lot of reasons not toegard it as a preferable system. it stifles the posbility of invation and diversity. it means that ideas thatet into the minds opeople in washingtonre very difficult to get out. anit creates a... it also creates this tremends problem wh