Dean: "Are we in charge of the country, or are the insurance executives in charge of the country?"

[madfloridian]

Howard Dean said that on Democracy Now today with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. It was an hour long interview, quite probing, and revealing. It was overall an excellent interview.

Here is the part with the quote: Dean sounds discouraged a little here.

AMY GOODMAN: The problem is, they are paying—what was the Washington Post exposé – “The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members”—

HOWARD DEAN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: —“and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues.”

HOWARD DEAN: Right, but this—but, you know, there’s reason to be cynical. We’re on a—we’ve really gone through the most extraordinary election in my lifetime. More people under thirty-five voted in this country than voted who were over sixty-five to elect Barack Obama president of the United States and ask for a real change that we can believe in. This is the test. Are we in charge of the country, or are the insurance executives in charge of the country? And everybody gets to vote on this in Washington. Watch their votes. Watch their votes.

I will be watching their votes.

I notice someone else posted the video and part of the transcript. And the usual criticisms are starting because Dean did not embrace the single payer as a starting point.

I honestly believe that there are DUers who are ready to blame Dean and those of us here who supported the public option from the start for not getting a perfect plan.

Quite frankly I think the insurance executives are in charge of the country. I think Dean tried very hard to speak out clearly why he did NOT oppose single payer, just supported the public option because there was a possibility we could get it.

It really is of no importance anymore whether we have a majority of Democrats or a majority of Republicans. The corporations have bought off enough in each party to screw us. I don't think we will end up with a true public option that will make the insurance companies competitive.

Here is the interview, video and transcript.

Howard Dean interview on Democracy Now

Just a few segments from the transcript so folks can rip it apart.

About the AMA endorsement:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And your—what is your sense as to why the AMA made this switch? There were some reports that the members of Congress agreed to not implement cuts in reimbursements to doctors through Medicare as part of the compromise.

HOWARD DEAN: Well, yeah, and that’s smart for both sides. The truth is that you’re getting fewer and fewer primary care physicians in this country. Nine percent of the current graduating classes indicated they’re going into public—to internal medicine and primary care. And that’s because—in part because of these enormous cuts. It’s also because of the disgraceful behavior of the insurance industry in interfering with doctor and patient relationships. So, you need to have more primary care people, not just physicians, but also nurse practitioners and so forth. In order to do that, you can’t cut reimbursements. So it was a win for both sides. The AMA got what it needed to serve the—continue to—for doctors to continue to serve the public. And the House got a very powerful advocate because of the surprise of this conservative organization now coming out and supporting the public option.

It's amazing if that is true. Obama has called for billions of dollars of cuts to Medicare and hospitals

President Obama today will outline $313 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts over the next decade to help cover the cost of expanding coverage to tens of millions of America's uninsured.

Among the proposed policy changes outlined by the president are:

* Reductions in payments to providers to reflect increased efficiencies in the system, which the White House estimates could save $110 billion over the next decade.

* Cuts in federal subsidies to hospitals that treat large populations of uninsured patients, estimated to save $106 billion over the next decade.

* Cuts in how much the federal government pays pharmaceutical companies to provide prescription drugs to seniors and others, estimated to save $75 billion over the next decade.

So the AMA made a deal to keep doctors from getting their payments cut so much.

SO...SO..we gave the Democrats a majority with our votes. They are ready to start taking billions away from Medicare.

Am I angry about that? You bet.

Here is more from the Democracy Now transcript.

HOWARD DEAN: Well, it’s hard to define—here’s the—you get into a very sort of a delicate game about single payer. I think what single-payer advocates mean is that everybody should be in a government-run system. But if you’re going to argue, as the book does, that we shouldn’t have politicians and bureaucrats and insurance companies making this decision, this decision belongs in the hands of the American public, which is why this movement for—to change the healthcare system is so much more powerful this time around than it was fifty years ago, if you’re going to make that argument, then it’s pretty hard to turn around and say, “Well, on the other hand, the government can make a choice and put you all in their system.”

The other problem is, nobody really knows what a single payer is. Single payer, I said, is Medicare. But there are a lot of private insurance and private dollars in Medicare. The British, which have arguably the most, quote-unquote, “pure” single payer or socialized system in the Western world, 15 percent of all the dollars in healthcare in Britain are private dollars. So there is no such thing as a pure single-payer system.

And what the President is arguing, what I argue, is give people a choice. Let them choose whether they want a government system, or they would like what they have, they can keep it.

Give people a choice of keeping what they have or a public option. Now in the new House proposal that does not even look possible. Yet people at DU in another post are saying that Dean criticized Single Payer.

The insurance executives control the message, and they control Congress. I have been thankful that Howard Dean has kept the possibility of real reform viable. Yet he is condemned by many here at DU, especially one who had a question answered on the DN show.

AMY GOODMAN: Governor Dean, we let people know that you were going to be on our show today, and we have been getting calls and questions, emails, tweets, everything from all over the country nonstop for the last twenty-four hours, and we hardly have time for any. But this is one from David Swanson. He asked, do support Representative Kucinich’s amendment to allow states to create single-payer healthcare, if they so choose?


HOWARD DEAN: Sure, absolutely. I’ve always believed that states ought to be able to try different things, and the states—our state was the first state, I think, to have universal healthcare for kids, 99 percent eligible. Massachusetts—actually, Hawaii technically was the first state to do universal healthcare in its entirety, because they were—for technical reasons, it had to do with the Employment Retirement Insurance Security Act . Massachusetts, most recently, has done some groundbreaking things. I absolutely believe that if the people of a state want to try something different, that they ought to be able to try, within the federal framework. And that’s certainly within the federal framework.

Hubby and I worked our butts for the party and the country since early 2003. We were thrilled to fight hard for the majority we have right now. We donated so much that we are now beseiged with calls about why we are not donating. I tell them we are waiting.

We are waiting to see who is in control of this country right now.