i think donna shalala is exactly right. this is not 1993.are very different, in large part because you have support of the pharmaceutical industry, hospital industry, of the physicians that the system not working in an efficient way. there's a lot of waste that goes on. it costs too much. and they've all been out and say, we support reform. that's very different from 1993. one of the big issues is the one you brought up, the public plan. the public plan has been put on the table by the democratic leadership and by the president of the united states. and it has lost support. the united states senate, my colleagues in a bipartisan way, have pretty much thrown the public plan out as fashioned by the president. that's the nationalized single payor medicare like plan. yes, you do have to have a backstop, but let's do it with local cooperatives. it could be state regulated where it has a lot more local control instead of this single -- national single payor type control. that seems to have a lot of support. i bet president obama comes around and s

. >> so donna shalala is your president? >> yes. >> i think that's a really good point because we -- how many interns are here? see, we have a lot of interns. [laughter] >> i know. i know. [applause] >> see, i think that is a great tribute to the state department, and i know there are interns over at usaid that we want to utilize the talents and hard work, often free, of interns like yourselves. so part of what we hope -- i know we run a very good intern program here and by the hands that went up, it's a very -- it has a lot of good outreach. but any of your ideas about how we could improve it, how we could utilize you more, whether there's a way to solicit opinions from young people like yourselves about your experience and your desire and interest and work full-time for our government particularly at state or usaid, i'm very interested in what you might have to offer us. so i think it would be useful to have an organized way to solicit the opinions and ideas of the interns who are here. i find it also is very telling that,

in bernadine healy, the health editor, also the former president of the american red cross, and donna shalalant to the university of miami. the two big concerns that people have. will private insurers be forced out of business because they won't be able to compete with a public plan? and the other one is, will there be a -- will private insurers be forced out of business because of a public plan? or will people not be able to resist the siren call because it'll be much cheaper than private insurance? >> well, i think what you said is correct. i think if the public option is going to be cheaper, we're talking about an 8% penalty if a employer doesn't offer insurance and that can be a lot lower than what they might be spending, maybe 10% or 12%. he said how can i not go into a public plan and save that amount of money that i'm currently spending for health care? so i think that is an unknown. and, in fact, those are the kinds of questions i wish the president had addressed last night. i don't think he moved the ball. we heard the same things he's been telling us for six months, but tell us abou

donna shalala is the president there. that is a very good point. how many interns are here? we have a lot of interns'. [applause] i think that is a great tribute to the state department. i know that there are interns over at usaid. we want to use the hard work of people like yourselves. we appreciate it. we run a very good intern program year. by the hands that went up, it has a lot of good out reach. any of your ideas about how we can improve its, utilize you more, whether there is a way to solicit opinions from young people like yourself about your experience and desire and interest to work full-time for the government, i am very interested in what you might have to offer us. i think it would be useful to have an organized way of soliciting the opinions and ideas of the interns who are here. i also find it very telling that technology is changing so quickly. you may have new ideas we have done even thought of. we have a vigorous effort under way to make us more techno- friendly to be involved in the new technology. we're always looking for new ideas all the time. you can u

if i was president, i would put donna shalala and line of succession, people with a lot of breadth ofexperience who are active, vigorous, intelligent,, who would have those qualities. if you want to keep them up to speed by having them get briefings on what is going on, you will have lots of people winning easy confirmation. >> i think that reflects to a real problem, a kind of condescension to the existing cabinet members who also have their own qualities and qualifications that you are in effect downgrading people who love served governors as chief of staff. in a case where it seems to me there are solutions with the existing system, i am putting aside now about taking congress of the line of succession. but the line of moving the cabinet to four people and then replacing them with some group of elders who are new their appointed by the president to run an executive agency nor elected, i find that a remarkable change that does not seem justified. >> if we are successful in getting in attention to this report from speaker pelosi, majority leader reid and others and actually have some