I don't know when the show airs, I assume this week. As usual it is not on in our area for that episode that I can find. It is not on either PBS channel we get.
Here is the partial transcript from NOW with Howard Dean and David Brancaccio. Website says video will follow, so I will have to wait for that.
Howard Dean about Medicaid and the future of health care in America. He speaks of expanding Medicaid as part of Universal Health Care for people under 25. He makes it clear he learned that privatizing the program costs more...he learned from his mistake in Vermont.
To those here unclear about the difference between Medicare and Medicaid...everyone automatically goes on Medicare at age 65. Medicaid is needs based.
DB: When you were governor of Vermont, you built upon Medicaid in your home state to get a lot of people covered.
HD: The truth is there's no excuse for not covering people under 18 in this country. It's insane not to because if you don't, you pay for all that stuff later on when they turn 30 or 40 or 50 or 60. You can use Medicaid as one of the building blocks of universal health insurance. And we certainly ought to do it for people probably under 25.
..."DB: Would you increase money for Medicaid during this difficult period temporarily or would you make it permanent?
HD: I would make it permanent. We need a universal health care system in this country. We don't have one. We're the only industrialized democracy in the world that doesn't have one, and we pay a fortune because we don't have one.
HD: We're losing jobs to Canada because Canadian companies don't bear the tremendous inflationary costs of their health care system, and our companies do. Look at the automobile companies right now. They're suffering enormously and what's the biggest problem? Retiree health care. We are killing our own companies by not having a health care system that works for everybody, and we have to stop that.
Dean also said: "We end up paying almost twice as much as the next country because of our incredible inefficiency. America is a very efficient country, except in health care where we are the most inefficient country. And we cover the fewest—percentage wise—of our population compared to any other country in the industrialized world."
More of the interview:
DB: There's a public perception that Medicaid is wasteful, that it's a government program with corruption in it and a lot of bureaucratic overhead. That's not your understanding?
HD: When I was governor, I had a big fight on the left as well as on the right when we put through universal health care. So we contracted out our Medicaid program to be administered by a private insurance company. After three years, we had to take it back because the expenses associated with our running Medicaid was about four percent. And the expenses by the private insurance company were 12 percent. The truth is the private sector does not do a good job running health care. They just don't. I don't say that because I don't like the private sector. I was part of the private sector. My wife is part of the private sector delivering health care. But the numbers are clear: One-third of the cost is what's spent by Medicare and Medicaid in administration costs compared to private health care concerns.
I agree with Dean completely when he said this in the interview:
DB: Do you think we'll be able to be successful at health care reform this time around?
HD: I hope so. We have a huge Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate. We've got a Democratic president who's promised and campaigned on universal health care. There's no excuse for it. If the Democrats don't do it, we probably won't get hired again.
We need to remember that the ones who have been
working behind closed doors for months on this health care issue may have their own best interests in mind.
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