hethcare, will lose, loomi over thet --ooming immigration. an iigration incenses t same people tha are incensed by the idea of nationalized health care, but he cannot really subdue them on emration. you haveo have immigtion policy. >> t tragedy of that is suca volatile issue will be coming up in an election year. what is widely shared isthat nothing ever really gets done during an electi year, so it isot going t be given e consideration it is going need next year, i believe. probably, itill last untilhe next year afte that,ut for getting immigraon, which is in anof itself a csuming kind of issue, we have a ecomy that may be scratchg itself out of t deep morass' it was in at e start of the administration. we havehe start of this alth-care change that the president has decided he wants to make theignature of his adminiration, so we have those issues. >> [inaudible] nobody can underand it or ally wants to. >> trap and trades a lovely little expressn, but when yo start looking at all the exceptions, your eyes glaze er -- cap nd trade is a lovely

what wile be the sult, do you think, on the hethcare reform battle? >> i thi that something wil be passed. because i think that the democratic pty is not suffiently suicidal. to de their great hope legislative vtory on his major domestic licy. i think th it's likely to be something that doesn't have public option and stripped dn that arianna probably consider sell out to coorate interes. but i think it will pass, at the point at it passes willbe period where everybody hls the political genius of barack obama and ss,h, he had the all the w, it was like the campai. he never broke sweat and so on. and th the country will have deal with the conseqnces of reform. whatever those maye. >> charlie: wt do youhink the conconcerns aref he in fact ds to the democrats does get a bill but it is a bill tt does not have a public tion? will that affect his future leaderip for the rt ofsay the next two years? >> what would happen, a watered down version of healthcare reform without a public ops without abity to negotiate with phaa for substantial prices, cost reducti.

to iowa to montan and points beyond,mericans have flocked to town halls to voice thr opinions on hethcareorm his august. in charleston, wt virginia, larry medley stood tside a recent meeting held by democrat senator jay rockefeller. his sigsaid it all. >> i don't thi it makes a lot ense to, so quickly, surrend 1/6th of oueconomy to the government.< i thk we... i'm not saying that present h.r. system is perfect atll. i' not saying that at all. certnly, i think that we don't ed to jump in and throw the baby out withhe bathwater. >> odruff: amy bord was part of a small meetingith rockefeller. her son has leukemi and she and her husband recentlsaw their insurance cut o because ithad reached a cap on payment of $1 million. >> wwant to pay what we owe, fairly. but we're not able to dthat, and nobody's out the to help us. but if we didn'work and we didn't conibute, we wouldn't haveo worry about it. and we'be able to spend the time we do have at homeith our wins who we haven't seen for the pt four months because we've been at e hospital all the time. >> woodr rockefeller later made the ca for a

i'm not a hethcare analyst, it's not an area i cover remotely. i just continue to wonder why we spend as much as we do and relative to other nations, get so little. if you have unlimit resources, u can get fantastic healthcare coverage in the united states, but you have to be willing to write a big fat check. r most you may not have access to the top medical options. then you are fighting your insurance company to get whatever you need done and it is a whole crazy universe. my own experiencwith a tor rotatorcuff, i used to pitch in high school, just unbelievable insurance nightmare to deal with. so i'm biassed, i'm not objective and probably not the right person to ask about healthcare. the bottom line is as we look forward five years we'll eventually work our way out of this. the united states always has and m confident we will again. >> host: our guest has his own blog, a link available to c-span.org, his financial blog is called the big picture. from the book, lockheed bailouts led to the chrysler bailout in 1980, the chrysler bailout kickd th