Ron Paul attacked the government for fighting undeclared wars; the sooner we end them, the better, because they are one of the causes of the US government’s de facto bankruptcy.

Rand Paul stated that the government’s primary purpose is national defense; therefore, any potential war should be carefully debated before it is actually started.

Rand Paul is running for the US Senate in Kentucky. Check out his website at RandPaul2010.com

Show: Situation Room
Host: Wolf Blitzer
Channel: CNN
Date: 02/23/2010

Transcript coming soon

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Date: 12/31/2009
Host: Jack Hunter
Station: 1250 AM WTMA, Charleston, South Carolina

Transcript

Jack Hunter: Texas congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul. How you doing this morning, Ron?

Ron Paul: I’m doing fine. Nice to be on your show.

Jack Hunter: I appreciate you joining us. We’ve been talking a little bit about everything this morning. I think we should start with the big story that happened last week; of course the healthcare bill that passed the U.S. Senate. I know you were opposed to it. Explain to us, to the listeners, why this is just such a bad, raw deal for the American people?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s doing the wrong thing and it’s going to do a lot of harm. They think it’s going to get free medical care to a lot more people, but that’s absurd. The people don’t believe that. They tell you they’re going to add 30 million people on to healthcare paid for by the government, and they’re going to cut out enough waste and fraud out of Medicare, and all of a sudden they’re going to save enough money to pay the bills and lower the deficit.

Well, fortunately the people in the country aren’t quite that naive and they’re saying this is a total hoax. But the government has been involved in delivering medical care for a long time. When I started medical training in my early practice, government wasn’t involved in the 1960s. It just started and Medicaid came in in the middle 1960s. For quite a few years we were still doing it the old fashioned way and it wasn’t anything like they described; like everybody was out on the streets had no medical care. We systematically have increased the role of government in medical care since 1965. It doesn’t work. We probably are involved in 65% of the care already, and now they’re going to boost it up to about 85% or 90% and they’re going to make it more difficult for you to buy your own insurance. They’re going to make it more difficult for you to do your medical savings account. If you’re a young person and you think you just need major medical; those kinds of rules are all going to be changed. So it’s a real tragedy, it’s going to upset the doctors and the hospitals and it’s not going to solve our problems.

Jack Hunter: And it’s all related to the economy. We don’t have the money for these big programs any longer. That was the big story of last week. And, of course, we’re hearing much less about this particular issue this week. We’re hearing all about the Christmas bomber; the foiled attempt in Detroit, the gentleman tried to blow up the plane en route to Detroit from Nigeria. We’re hearing people like Joe Lieberman say maybe we need a preventive war in Yemen, of all things. I’ve been making the case all week that when you hear these discussions on television, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and even the local affiliates, people are saying, do we need to bomb Yemen? Do we need to do in Yemen what we’ve been doing in Afghanistan? Do we need to do in these places what we’ve been doing in Iraq? And I’ve made the point time and again that it is our involvement, our interventionism, that motivates the terrorists. But that’s a conversation you never year. We can’t even begin to solve the terrorism problem until we address that.

Ron Paul: You know, we’ve been hearing a little bit about Yemen even before this guy attempted to ignite this bomb. He is connected to Yemen; there is no doubt about it. He was concerned about it. But we’ve been involved there. We’ve been involved with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been interfering [in Yemen] and anything Saudi Arabia does is us. Just like if Israel does something to the Palestinians, we have a moral responsibility because it’s our money and our weapons and we conceded. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia doing something in Yemen it’s the same thing. So this upsets people. This doesn’t mean that Saudi Arabia is wrong on her policies, but it means you ought to understand why the people of Yemen might be upset. They might not like somebody 7,000 miles away interfering in their tribal living. They might like what they have and they might not want any outsiders. This could be said to be true in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. And yet we continue to pursue it and there is a lot of resentment. The more we pursue it, the more the numbers grow of those people who would like to do us harm.

Jack Hunter: It seems that what we call the war on terror is often a war for terror. The chicken and the egg argument. Do they attack us because we’re over there? Or do we need to go over there because they attack us? Regardless, the fact that we’re over there is what recruits Al-Qaida, it increases the terrorist numbers, and on and on and on. And I’ve argued and you’ve argued that we need to look at the United States national interest. Our constitutional duty, you as a congressman, is to look after the U.S. national interest. And people bring out, “What about our alley, Israel?” Well, of course, they are an ally of ours, we need to maintain that. But they should be able to fight their own wars, look out for their own interest. When people bring up your view or my view on interventionist foreign policy, they always throughout that cuss word “anti-Semitic”. It’s like conservatives who criticize Barack Obama, saying, “Well, you must just have a problem with a black president.” No, I actually disagree with his policies. On Larry King Monday night, I played the clip in the last break, you and former Nixon staffer, economist, MTV celebrity, Ben Stein got into it on Larry King where you basically laid out your idea of what our foreign policy should be in relation to terrorism. And he pulled out that cuss word, “anti-semitic”. Would you like to comment on that?

Ron Paul: His basic argument was that if I didn’t agree with our policies of bombing and interfering in Yemen; therefore, I’m anti-semitic. Which means what he’s saying is that if somebody is over there doing that and he said it was for our national defense, which I’ve argued, how’s it going to be helpful to our national defense? So what he’s saying is if you don’t support that, you hate Jews. And I don’t know where he gets that.

Jack Hunter: It’s absurd.

Ron Paul: You’re anti-semitic, he throws that word out. But what he’s inferring is even more sinister because he confirms what some people suspect. That Israel has a lot of influence on our foreign policy. So if we object, if you and I say, “Well, we don’t think this is a good idea. We don’t have the troops and the money and it’s probably not going to help things and it’s not going to be productive”, then you hate Israel. But hopefully some day that will change and people will finally wake up. I think it is. You know, I’ve had this position for 35 years and they do throw the term at me on occasion. But for the most part there is no serious belief that I’m anti-Jewish and anti-Israel. Because even in the debates you may remember that this came up and I said, my position is to stop all foreign aid. And if we stop all foreign aid, actually we take more aid away from the Arabs. They get more aid than Israel. So Israel is a net gainer and the fact that we give so much to Israel teaches them to be dependent on us. If they have problems with their borders they shouldn’t depend on us. There’s a lot to be argued that they need self-reliance, and they need national sovereignty and they shouldn’t have to ask us permission to do what they do. But once they get our money, it’s a different story. I actually think their security would be better if we weren’t involved there, because just think of what’s happened here in the last few years. Whether it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, or Yemen. This is provoking a lot of people which I think is not healthy for either us or Israel.

Jack Hunter: And if we did withdraw, our security would be better. One last question before we go. You said that you feel like things are getting better. In a recent survey 49% of the American people said we should start minding our own business. When asked about Barack Obama and his agenda, both domestic and foreign, 56% disapproval rating. People are not comfortable with the money we’re spending. A majority of the American people are against this healthcare bill. Do you see things whether as somebody who’s traditionally been within the conservative movement on the right, or the Republican party, do you see things getting better? Because let’s face it, a year ago or two years ago you were sort of the outcast of the Republican Party. You couldn’t even be at the convention. Now more Americans agree with Ron Paul than ever on both domestic policy and foreign policy. Stop spending money, let’s start minding our own business. Do you see any hope for 2010 and beyond?

Ron Paul: Well, I think things are getting better but it’s probably only half of the fact, and that is that we’re getting better because more people are realizing that this system isn’t viable, that it’s costing too much and we’re bankrupt. Even those who want more stuff from the government know that this can’t continue. So the numbers are growing, like you pointed out more than half the people right now are very upset with the government. The Republicans are benefiting to some degree with this. But they shouldn’t be overly complacent because I think people realize that the Republicans had their chance and they’ve messed up. So the good part is the people are upset, they’re looking at the government, they’re complaining and that’s good. The challenge is, if this system isn’t working, what are we going to replace it with. And that’s what I talk about when I go around the count: on what the role of government ought to be. It should be minimal, it should be the Constitution, it should be sound money, it should be markets, we should change the foreign policy. And there is no agreement on that yet. Even at the tea parties we have a mixed group of people, too, because they might just be people who are angry at Obama. And I want it to be a lot more than that.

Jack Hunter: Well, things are certainly moving in your direction. Unfortunately things are going to get worse, something you’ve predicted. You didn’t hope for, none of us hope for. But you called them like you see them, and they’re heading in the direction. The American people are moving in the Ron Paul direction. I appreciate you being with us today, sir.

Ron Paul: Thank you, Jack.

Jack Hunter: Take care. Texas congressman Ron Paul, 2008 presidential candidate, in my opinion the man who should have been president.

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Healthcare Reform is a Lump of Coal

by Ron Paul

Last week on Christmas Eve, after many backroom deals were made, the Senate passed the healthcare reform bill with a strictly partisan vote. I was pleased that my colleagues in the GOP are on the right side of this bill. Although this vote was a major step in healthcare reform becoming reality, they still have to reconcile the Senate bill with the House-passed version in conference committee. This could prove even more difficult and costly than the Senate vote.

There was a little bit of controversy surrounding one particular Senator who was initially against the bill, but then, coincidentally, a large amount of Medicare funding specifically for his state was tucked inside and he ended up voting for it. One wonders how much more of that will have to go on to achieve final passage.

But this is how politicians in Washington deal with problems: they throw your money at them. Healthcare reform is no different. The Senate version of the bill, at last count, will cost $871 billion. The House version tops $1 trillion. But they tell us this is for the health of Americans, and how dare we count the cost?

Such is the arrogance of politicians. There seems to be no end to the problems they feel capable and duty-bound to solve through legislative proclamation and plenty of your money. To hear them talk, one might think that a few words spoken on Capitol Hill would make problems just disappear. All it takes it good intentions.

But no good can come from 2400 pages of Washington’s good intentions.

I have observed quite the opposite throughout my political career in the House of Representatives, and fear that with this immense legislation, our healthcare problems are only just beginning. Over the last few decades, I have seen healthcare subjected to more and more creeping red tape that only creates bottlenecks and increases costs as new bureaucratic hurdles are put in place.

Politicians cannot solve the problems created by ever-increasing intervention by exponentially increasing their intervention. Similarly, they cannot improve the quality of healthcare and expand access to it for all Americans simply by legislative decree. If only it were that simple! The reality is the free market, when allowed to function, naturally increases access and drives prices down through competition. The free market keeps service providers accountable by allowing people to take their business elsewhere.

This government intervention will eventually create a near monopoly of providers in health insurance as smaller companies are squeezed out and innovation comes to a grinding halt due to formidable barriers to entry. The government will determine prices and levels of service that will apply to everyone, regardless of want or individual circumstances. The true insurance model of healthcare cost management, meaning major medical coverage only, will basically become illegal. Opting out of the system will incur heavy tax penalties.

Expanding government reach so deeply into this very sensitive area of our personal lives and such a major part of our economy means more opportunities for waste, fraud and abuse of the system. One need only remember the recent bailouts for an example of how government handles systemic waste, fraud and abuse.

So while the Senate patted itself on the back last week for delivering a Christmas gift to Americans, time will prove it was instead a great big lump of coal.

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Show: Larry King Live
Channel: CNN
Date: 12/16/2009

Transcript

Larry King: Good evening. The healthcare fight in Congress has stalled in the short run. Is it going anywhere in the long run? Joining us to debate the issue are two top members of the United States Congress. Barney Frank, Democrat from Massachusetts. He chairs the House Financial Services Committee. And Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, a member of the House Financial Services Committee as well. Ron is also a medical doctor.

Okay, Congressman Frank, we’ll start with you. Is this dead on arrival in the senate, or do we have a shot there?

Barney Frank: You know, one of the things that’s most troublesome to me is the lack of interaction between the House and the Senate. There is just an institutional barrier. They tell you this; I’m not really sure what’s going on. I’ve been pretty preoccupied up to last Friday with the financial reform regulation. So I haven’t looked at it. But I don’t think it is dead. There was a great need to do something. We do have some people who are always going to say, “It can’t be perfect, I’m against it”. Those are not the kind of people who ought to be elected in office, because that’s not the way a democracy works. So I believe you are still going to see a pretty good bill.

Larry King: And what do you believe, Ron Paul?

Ron Paul: I’m afraid he’s right. That’s something that will come down. Since I take the approach that we don’t need more government in medicine and blame so many of our problems that we’ve had too much government in medicine already. So I’m not anxious for anything to come. But really the question is how you pay for it. And I think more and more Americans, at least now, are getting worried about how you pay for it. And even though I have an idealistic approach to medicine and everything that I do, that we should do it with less government, I do think everybody should be concerned about paying for it. And that is the reason why we can’t hardly ever talk about anything economical without talking about foreign policy. And that’s why I’ve emphasized that the waste overseas is so bad and it gets us into trouble. And we’re fighting these wars that are never declared and they’re endless. So I’d save hundreds of billions of dollars by bringing our troops home. And I would be willing to put a lot of that into medical care. But I still wouldn’t endorse the idea that we need more government management of care.

Larry King: Do you both philosophically believe that no American should go without healthcare?

Barney Frank: Well, I don’t think we can guarantee that by the government. But I have to say something first, and I’m afraid it’s going to be very disappointing to many of your viewers. I agree 100% with what Ron Paul just said. The hundreds of billions, the trillions we are on the verge of wasting in wars that do us more harm than good. That surely is very important. And Ron Paul has spoken very accurately and I do believe that we ought to have a system that extends medical care. But you can’t guarantee it. I think we can do a lot better in providing it. And I would also say that, whatever my difference with Ron Paul is, I think Medicare is a good thing. I think for older people they’re better off on Medicare than what replaced it; and that’s government medicine. I would also say the most popular form of medicine in my experience is the wholly government medicine that is dispensed by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs. The veterans I talked to would get very angry and someone said we’ll abolish medical services of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, which is after all wholly government owned.

Larry King: Congressman Paul, would you agree that the public at large doesn’t want you as a body to fail again to come up with something that improves what we have?

Ron Paul: Well, everybody does, but I might believe very sincerely that you can improve it with less government. Others would believe that you have to have more government. For instance, in the imperfect world that we have, I don’t think we should be cutting out funds from Medicare. You know, it’s in big trouble already. But they were talking about taking 400 billion dollars out of Medicare to so-called pay for these others. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. No, I agree with the idea that everybody should have good healthcare. But I just don’t believe that government delivers on their promises. And when you think about houses; we were going to give everybody a house. And look, the poor people lost their houses. It was good intention, but the programs didn’t work. So that’s why I’m afraid that when you promise people healthcare, that some of them will come up short.

Barney Frank: Ron, I think there is a difference here. The mistake that was made by frankly the Bush administration more than anybody else, but some others joined in, which was to give everybody a house to own. I continuously argue that for some people in certain economic categories and in some social categories, rental housing is the appropriate form.

Larry King: Barney, didn’t you support Fannie Mae and the like?

Barney Frank: For rental housing, yes. I was very critical. In 2004 George Bush ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start buying low-income mortgages from low-income people. I opposed it. I made a big distinction. I think pushing people into owning houses when they couldn’t afford it and weren’t organized enough to do it was a mistake. I was pushing them to do more rental housing and that’s a big distinction.

Ron Paul: I don’t think that we should make those decisions. He may be right about what you should have rental or buying. I like people to make their own choices. But I do think that we push some of these programs with community reinvestment acts and easy credit. There were a lot of things that encouraged this. I am convinced that if had a little sounder monetary system and we didn’t have this so easy credit, people wouldn’t be making so many mistakes.

Barney Frank: I have to respond to that because Ron there has got it backwards. The Community Reinvestment Act is not the problem. The Community Investment Act only covers banks, things that are technically called banks, that take insurance deposits. And they made a small percentage of the bad loans. The bad loans were made overwhelmingly by banks not covered by the Community Reinvestment Act. And the problem was too little government; not too much. You had private citizens lending money to other private citizens without regulation. Many of us tried to get rules adopted to prevent that because we saw the negative consequences. The Community Reinvestment Act was not involved.

Ron Paul: Barney, I wanted to bring it up because I didn’t want him to think that we agreed on everything. But no. Okay, go ahead.

Larry King: The Republicans today had a freeze for few hours on the debate, insisting that the 767 page amendment be read aloud. There is obviously some stop. Key question: Barney and then Ron. Barney, are we going to get a bill?

Barney Frank: I believe you will. You know, they used to read things aloud in the parliament in England in 1600 because they didn’t have any typewriters, much less computers. But I think you are going to get a bill.

Larry King: Ron, we’re going to get a bill?

Ron Paul: No, I’m saying that we will not. We will get something, but not a real bill. I think there will be some incremental increase in government involved in medicine, but it won’t solve our problems. So I guess in a sense there will be a bill, but it’s going to be very, very minimal. And it will be just something where they can say, “Look, we did something”. But we’ve been doing this for 35 years; incrementalism. But we have corporatism, the corporations run this show. The drug companies, the insurance companies, the management companies. They run it, so the corporations are still being protected even with this administration.

Larry King: Barney Frank and Ron Paul remain with us. Ben Bernanke is Times Person of the year. Some other panelists join us. Should he be? That’s next.

(break)

Larry King: Barney Frank and Ron Paul remain. Joining us now in Los Angeles Tanya Acker, the political analyst with the Huffington Post, and Ben Stein, the economist and former presidential speechwriter and columnist for Fortune Magazine. Before we get back to the total economy, what are your thoughts, Ben and Tanya, about the role Joe Lieberman is playing in this healthcare question? Tanya, you first.

Tanya Acker: I have to say I am so shocked and appalled. Actually I shouldn’t say shocked; but I do find his behavior fairly appalling. Particularly his new stance about the Medicare buy-in. You know, he said in an interview last night with Daniel Bash that he had to take a principled stance against this bill. But it seems that he’s really taking a principled stance against himself. Because he used to support these provisions, but apparently doesn’t like them now because people he doesn’t like are supporting them. I think that he’s really a big disappointment.

Larry King: Ben, what’s your take on Lieberman?

Ben Stein: Well, last time I looked, he represents the state of Connecticut which still has a very, very heavy presence of insurance companies. I’m sure he’s obliged them, I’m sure he wants to please them. And anyway buyins for people 55 to 64 for Medicare would be very, very expensive to a government and a people who are already basically broke by government overspending. But he represents the state where the insurance companies are. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Larry King: But the people are very liberal.

Ben Stein: The people are very liberal but the people have lots and lots of money and who can give it in a concentrated way are with the insurance companies.

Larry King: Let’s get to business. We start with Barney Frank. What do you make of the Federal Reserve chairman being named Time’s Man of the Year? They said he just doesn’t reshape U.S monetary policy, he’s led an effort to save the world economy. There you see the cover. What do you think, Barney?

Barney Frank: Well, first of all I don’t subscribe to the concept of a man of the year or a woman of a year. I think it is kind of agonistic. When reporters ask me, “What’s the one thing you would do?” And I said, “Well unfortunately I have more than one thing to do”, so I never make the pick. I do believe that it is accurate to say that he’s been a major force; after all he is a major piece of continuity. He starts under the Bush administration. Ben Bernanke was a high ranking George Bush appointee, first on the council of economic advisors, then as chairmen of the Federal Reserve. He’s the one who initiated the whole intervention. It was his decision; not Congress and not technically the executive’s decision; although the Bush administration supported him, to give the money to AIG. The whole question of this intervention, or what’s been called bailouts, began in September. So, in fact, as a description of his impact, yes. Now I think he made a mistake in the way in which he did the AIG thing. On the whole, though, I think what he has done has been constructive. I guess I would say this. He gets partial blame for the fact that the crisis arose. Although I think more of it went down with Greenspan. I think he gets a lot of credit for the way in which he’s coped with it.

Larry King: Ron, what do you make of this selection?

Ron Paul: I think it’s pretty neat. He’s the most important guy in the world. And anybody that can create trillions of dollars secretly behind the scenes and spend it with no oversight, I mean that’s pretty important. And he is a counterfeiter. So he is the chief counterfeiter of all history. And I would say that’s very good. And I like it because it draws attention to the Fed, because the source of so many of our problems come from the Fed. The business cycle comes from the Fed. So this, to me, is a real delight. So I don’t have to agree for the reasons that they gave him Man of the Year. Well, yes. But it’s very important that we understand why he is so important and powerful.

Larry King: Tanya, were you surprised at this selection?

Tanya Acker: I was a little surprised, but I have to say, with all due respect to Congressman Paul, I think here was a man who had to come onboard and run and manage things when we were really on the precipice of disaster. And you can call it counterfeiting or, you know, my understanding is the congressman has a very different view of government, the role of government, than I certainly do. But I would say that he deserves some kudos for at least staving off a much bigger disaster. There is still a lot more work to be done. But I think it was a good choice. Bravo.

Larry King: And Ben, what do you think?

Ben Stein: Well, he made terrible mistakes letting the monetary crisis get out of hand in the first place. Way, way, way too little regulation. Way, way, way, too much easy money going into people making mortgage loans. Way too little regulation of Wall Street. Wall Street was playing games with all of our monies walking off with billions in their own pockets and leaving us with trillions in liabilities. But even though he helped to create the problem, he helped create the solution; which was to flood the economy with money and you can call it counterfeit money if you want, representative. But it is money and it is under law money. And he did save the economy, but he had a huge part in harming it. But to me the man of the year is the American fighting men and woman fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe they should be there, maybe they shouldn’t. But they are the real stars in this world.

Larry King: Let me take a break and when we come back Palin and Schwarzenegger are going at it. We’ll talk about that later. We’ll be back in 60 seconds.

Let’s take a call on all of this. Bill [...], Georgia, hello. Are you there? Are you there, Bill? Last chance.

Bill: Yes.

Larry King: Okay, what’s your question?

Bill: I want to ask a question: when do these individuals here… I know Bernanke was awarded the prize and that’s all great and wonderful. When do we anticipate seeing these community banks be able to turn lose the money to get the lower middle class and the middle class back to being able to borrow money?

Larry King: The other night Donald Trump said the banks have the money but they’re not loaning it, Barney.

Barney Frank: I’m frustrated by that. And I think here’s the problem; there was certainly no government or obstacles in policy. But you have this problem. The bank examiners, the people who work for the federal deposits insurance commission for the control of the currency. They go out and examine each bank. I’m afraid their culture has been to be too tough. No bank examiner has ever been rebuked because of a loan that should have been made, and wasn’t made. But more often they are rebuked for loans that were made that shouldn’t have been made. And I’ve tried very hard, we have talked to the chiefs of those agencies to urge them to get people to lend. A part of it, frankly, can be counted on the accounting rules can be a problem there. Because as the value of their assets deteriorates and the amount they can lend deteriorates, we’ve tried to fix that. But I think it’s fundamentally probably a problem of the culture of the bank examiners that we’re trying to change.

Larry King: You agree, Ron?

Ron Paul: Yes, to a large degree. I think several things happen. After there is a bubble burst, then even borrowers get very skittish. Even if interest rates are low, they’re worried. Bankers get skittish because they lost all their money and they get frightened. I think Barney makes a very good point that the regulators get overzealous. That, of course, is the reason I don’t like regulators. But he mentions and he has talked to the regulators. They’re overzealous. They overreact because, in a way, they’re a third factor. You have the consumer not wanting to borrow, the bankers not wanting to lend. Then the overzealous regulators come in and say, “You better be careful” and they change the rules right in the middle of the game. So I think that’s what we’re facing.

Barney Frank: The small business people already. They did have a problem. They are ready and we have got to regulators to tell us they agree and it’s just a very uphill battle. I tell you this and maybe this is where I think government can do more. The chairman of the Alaska small business community had proposed that we up the Small Business Administration instead of guaranteeing loans made by the community banks, make the loans directly for a while. I think the community banks once they see that they’d better get back in business. I think direct loans would be the way to go.

Larry King: Got to take a break. We’ll pick up with more when we come back.

(break)

Larry King: Okay, Tanya and Ben, you get in on this. Two big names in the Republican Party are in a public spat. Arnold Schwarzenegger questions Sarah Palin’s interest in climate change, saying it has more to do with her career and winning the nomination. Meanwhile, she shoots back saying, “Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sort of policies in Copenhagen that drove his state into record deficits? What do you make of that spat, Tanya?

Tanya: I think that’s absurd. I think that’s another one of the absurdities that we’ve heard from former governor Palin in recent weeks. As a citizen of the state, trying to reduce emissions is not what’s pushed California to the brink of disaster. That simply isn’t it. And the fact that she’s one of these global warming deniers for whom the jury is still out, I think really speaks to how she values science. Or rather how she refuses to value science. I firmly stand behind my Republican governor. That’s my bi-partisan moment for the week.

Larry King: Alright. Ben, what do you think? I know that you’ve put your face in your hands.

Ben Stein: Well, because I am somewhat a fan of Sarah Palin, I’m totally with her about climate change. I think the jury is still out. There are thousands and thousands of reputable scientists who say the jury is out. There is a lot of data that the earth is cooler than what it was 500 years ago or 1,000 years ago or 2,000 years ago. So the jury is very much still out about whether or not there is global warming that is caused by man. But the connection between that and California’s budget problems is nil. There is simply no connection at all. There is one big issue: climate change may be a fraud, anthropogenic climate change may be a fraud. California’s budget problems are incredibly real and painful, and they are not a fraud.

Larry King: You don’t like person or man of the year, Barney, but having said that, who would you have selected?

Barney Frank: I wouldn’t have selected anybody. I do want to get in on the Palin-Schwarzenegger disussion. I think government Palin is critical of Governor Schwarzenegger because he didn’t have the courage to quit his governorship. She defines courage as quitting. And she’s shaming him for not having the guts to quit the way she did.

Larry King: Who would you have named, Ron? I’ll try to see if you answer to the question.

Ron Paul: Well, I haven’t complained too much about Bernanke, he’s a good target. And I get to make my points about the Fed. And, you know, they don’t always pick people for that role for positive things. It could be for negative things. I think the biggest counterfeiter in the world is a pretty good event that we should concentrate on because it wipes out the middle class and hurts the poor and gives us unemployment.

Barney Frank: Ron Paul thinks all money is counterfeit.

Larry King: Barney, who would you have picked?

Barney Frank: I would go with Ben’s pick.

Ben Stein: I would, without question, pick the American serviceman and servicewoman fighting and serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, putting his or her life on the line day after day. Absolutely without question.

Larry King: Tanya?

Tanya Acker: I’m going to second that. I’m going to second that. I am.

Larry King: Alright. Obama writes a personal letter to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. The United States envoy delivers it. What happened to the axis of evil? Obama wants denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Do you see anything wrong with that? Ron Paul? You see anybody wrong?

Ron Paul: Oh no. I like that. I’d much rather him do that. I wished he’d write some more letters. I’d wish he’s write more letters to the Middle East, to the people in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iran instead of putting on sanctions and stirring up trouble and sending in more troops. So we need more letters and more talk. I mean, we left Vietnam in a terrible situation. Now it’s unified, they trade with us and they talk to us and there was no domino theory. The domino was towards capitalism and the West. But Korea, it’s divided. We have troops there, we spend all this money, so it’s about time we wrote some letters. I say more letters, more trade. Let the Koreans get together, let them settle their problems. Best thing in the world we can do is just come home from Korea, save another 100 billion.

Larry King: Ben, what do you think?

Ben Stein: Kim Jong-il is probably as evil a person as there is on the planet. He’s made his entire country into a penal colony, a gulag. He starves people to death by the millions while he lives the life of an incredible international playboy. This is a guy that has flawed every international law. The idea that you can change him by writing him a letter is comical. And the idea that we should not be defending South Korea against them is comical. I don’t know where these ideas come from, but it’s just comical.

Tanya Acker: I think the issue really is one of engagement. I think it’s been well known since his former boss President Nixon engaged with the really bad guy Mao Zedong who was running China. And so I think the whole issue was whether or not we were going to engage. Now, you know, whether it is writing a letter or picking up the phone. Look, I’m not going to speak to what are the mechanics of how we engage with people who we don’t like. But we’ve come up with the foreign policy where we’ve treated our interests like a video game where we said, “You don’t like us, we’re not talking to you until you do exactly what we say when we say it.”

Ben Stein: [...] had already said he wanted to have an approach with the United States and already sent many messages to Nixon about that. If that happened with Kin Jong-il I’d be with you entirely. It hasn’t.

Larry King: Barney, quickly, what do you think?

Barney Frank: I’m very close to Ben Stein’s view. I would try sanctions, and I thought my friend Ron was being too cavalier about this. This is a terrible man who has done terrible things. South Korea has become a democracy with our help and we should be very proud of that. The frustrating thing is that the People’s Republic of China, who wants to be a responsible nation, is failing on its responsible by not helping us put pressure on North Korea. But North Korea with nuclear weapons is a very scary thought and it takes strong action to stop it.

Larry King: We thank Barney Frank, Ron Paul, Tanya Acker, and as always Ben Stein.

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The U.S. Preventive Task Force caused quite a stir recently when they revised their recommendations on the frequency and age for women to get mammograms. Many have speculated on the timing for this government-funded report, with the Senate vote on health care looming, and cost estimates being watched closely. Just the hint that the government would risk women’s health to cut costs is causing outrage on both sides of the aisle.

Even the administration is alarmed at its own panel’s recommendation. One official, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius told women to ignore the new guidelines, keep doing what they are doing and make the best decisions for themselves after consulting with their doctors.

This sounds like an excellent idea to me. As a physician myself, I understand the importance of ensuring that patients are able to consult their doctors and make their own decisions without interference from government bureaucrats or government-favored corporations.

However, I am confused by the administration’s reasoning and apparent change of heart. Have they reversed their position on healthcare reform and now decided that patients and doctors should be in control of individual healthcare decisions? Or are they still in the healthcare central planning business? The healthcare reform plans currently aim to empower Congress to dictate to insurers minimal standards of coverage. Those government standards will ultimately be determined by politicians and bureaucrats, not individual patients and doctors.

It is naive to think that recommendations by an authoritative government panel will never be used to deny services to people that want them. It is sad to think that people will be forced to spend their hard-earned money for a one-size fits all, government mandated healthcare delivery model, but then have to scrape together additional funds to pay out of pocket for healthcare they really want or need – that is, if the government allows them to at all. After all, the federal government currently forbids Medicare beneficiaries from spending their own money on services covered by Medicare, if for whatever reason they need to. Why wouldn’t the government eventually apply these kinds of restrictions to everyone, if they are successful with this takeover? Beware of the supposed gifts offered to you by government, for when it gives you things with one hand, the other hand takes away your liberty and independence.

It remains to be seen what provisions will be in the final bill. We do know we have no funds to pay for it except for debt and money printed out of thin air. We know that the nation’s creditors are getting very nervous about the government’s continuous spending sprees and bailouts. We know this healthcare bill, like all government programs, will be expensive.

There will be a day of reckoning when the credit stops and the bills for all this spending come due. When that day comes and politicians and bureaucrats have to deal with reality, it will be very uncomfortable to find yourself in their liability column, which is where healthcare reform will put many more Americans.

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Competition With the Government?

by Ron Paul

Last Saturday many concerned Americans watched in horror as the House passed the healthcare reform bill. If this bill makes it through the Senate, it would massively overhaul the way healthcare is delivered in this country. Today, obviously, we don’t have a perfect system, but this legislation takes all the mistakes we are making with healthcare and makes them worse. Most of what is wrong with healthcare stems from decades of government intervention and the resulting unintended consequences.

But the government’s prescription for the ills caused by intervention is always more intervention. We see this not only in healthcare policy, but also in foreign policy, in economic policy, and in monetary policy – basically, in all areas of public policy. It was even claimed that the House bill would increase competition in healthcare, and thereby improve the private sector’s business model for insurance.

It is fascinating that politicians would use the language of the free market in this way to justify more corporatism. This demonstrates a couple of things. One, that politicians truly do not understand the very basic tenets of a free market. By definition, a free market is free from government intervention. But once a little intervention is accepted as legitimate, politicians will blame the problems created by their intervention on the free market and present themselves as saviors that must intervene even more.

It also demonstrates that politicians know that Americans still believe the free market is a good thing. People know and understand that competition among businesses is better for the consumer than a monopoly. However, competition between a private business and a government or government-favored entity is not real competition.

In real competition, your competitor can go bankrupt if they do a bad job. Everyone knows a government program is forever, no matter how poorly it performs. In real competition, efficiency is necessary for survival. In government programs, waste is rewarded as budgets are often determined by how much money a department is able to consume in a year. In real competition, one business does not have regulatory or taxation authority over its competitors. In real competition, businesses get sued and punished for breaking contracts and defrauding people, and are kept accountable in this way. But just try to sue the government when you are unjustly harmed by it!

The reason real competition is a good thing is because good businesses get bad ones out of the consumer’s way. Can the government put someone out of business? Most certainly! But it will have the opposite effect: an otherwise good business will be replaced by a poorly performing government agency, or a government-favored monolithic business that behaves almost like a government agency.

If Washington really wanted to give consumers more choices they would remove legislative and regulatory barriers to competition across state lines for health insurers. They would remove barriers for new and innovative models of healthcare and tort reform. They wouldn’t have run so many church and charitable hospitals out of business. Washington is keenly interested in healthcare reform, but it is certainly not going to increase competition or to expand your options for healthcare.

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Healthcare Reform is Economic Malpractice

by Ron Paul

As Washington continues debating healthcare reform the rest of the country is primarily concerned about jobs and the economy. It is still uncertain what policies will be implemented, but I am certain about one thing: It will only further devastate our economy and our dollar.

The leadership has come up with a proposal they are confident will be what they consider fiscally responsible, only to have it scored as nearly twice as expensive by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Estimates of past healthcare spending programs have been off by as much as 100 percent so there is no telling what the actual cost will be.

The past century should have taught us one thing: that government intervention is expensive. Government programs lend themselves so easily to waste, fraud and abuse. Combine that with overall inefficiency and it all adds up to a hefty price tag for the taxpayer, with not much leftover for actual services. An outright takeover of an entire sector of the economy, especially one as important as healthcare, is something that we just cannot afford for the government to do right now. Not to mention the fact that it is completely unconstitutional. But Washington insists on torturing the numbers and tinkering around the edges rather than facing this truth.

If healthcare reform does indeed pass, we should not be under the illusion that it will be free. The money to pay for it will have to come from somewhere. They say they will get the money from cutting waste, fraud and abuse, but all of that is seemingly intrinsic to government programs. Since they want to expand the government’s reach we have to assume we will be trading waste, fraud and abuse for waste, fraud and abuse with a bigger budget. The powers that be have insisted the money won’t come from higher taxes, it won’t come from rationing of care, and it won’t come from higher premiums. This can only then put more pressure on the Fed to print the money out of thin air. We already have a weakening dollar. They are accelerating everything that weakened it in the past. Adding this new, monumental pressure could very well be the straw that will break the dollar’s back.

Foreign creditors are already nervous about continuing to invest in the US because of our skyrocketing debt. The explosion of debt that is certain to accompany the enactment of this national health care bill can only add to that nervousness.

Ironically, enactment of the health care bill could help the cause of liberty by hastening the day when Congress is forced by economic circumstances to stop increasing the welfare-warfare state and return to the Constitution.

There are many problems with our current healthcare system, to be sure. There are many tragic stories to be told. However, we need to look at the root of our problems in order to address them properly. More government intervention and bureaucracy injected into healthcare will take a flawed system and make immeasurably worse.

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Channel: Russia Today
Date: 11/01/2009

Transcript

Dina Gusovsky: A national emergency is declared in the United States, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan, the economic crisis, or nukes in Iran. Instead, it’s H1N1, the swine flu. But is all this media hysteria really justified, and is the threat as dire as some would have us believe?

Joining me to discuss this and other burning issues, both here in the U.S. and abroad, is Congressman Paul. Thank you so much for speaking with me.

So you have called this full vaccination program a failure. Why?

Ron Paul: Well, they have failed to get the vaccine to the people that need it. They’ve been working on it for months and months, they’ve spent a couple of billion of dollars and I have several physicians in my family and they don’t have any vaccine in their office, so even if they wanted to give it they don’t have it. This just demonstrates that when governments decide to do something, they’re pretty inept at doing it even though a lot of money was spent. And yet the American people are indicating that they want federal government to take over medical care, but if they can’t even deliver a vaccine, I don’t see how they can deliver medical care to everybody any more efficiently.

Dina Gusovsky: You have questioned before why Barack Obama doesn’t get his own children vaccinated, and just recently we found out that he, in fact, had Sasha and Melia get the shot. Do you think that this was a response at all to what you might have said?

Ron Paul: I don’t know the exact sequence. I know when I did it I obviously believed he hadn’t because he had announced in a press conference, “Oh no, they have not had a shot”. But I thought he probably figured it was in their best interest politically to do it. But isn’t that sort of sad that if he deep down in his heart didn’t want his kids to have it, that he was willing to do this. Of course, the analogy I made there was, you know, so many of our presidents, Republicans or Democrats, always pushed government education. At the same time our Presidents don’t send their kids to public school here in DC. So they talk big that they’re going to take care of everybody, but they want special treatment for their own children.

Dina Gusovsky: You talk about having the freedom of choice when it comes to this. You know, we’ve seen rallies in New York where doctors and nurses were saying, “We don’t want this to be mandatory”. Do you think that Americans will ever come to a point where they will have to get this vaccine, it won’t be an option anymore?

Ron Paul: Of course, while a lot of Americans are fearful of this – even I’m fearful – I don’t want to do away with the vaccines. I do think that we give too many vaccines and we can overdo it. But I want these choices to be made by patients and doctors, not by government. And the fact that New York is forcing government employees, it might be a sign of the times if it’s not reversed. If the American people go along with it, that’s what’s going to happen. And under these emergency powers that were declared they can actually, you know, quarantine people in large numbers and say, “You either do it or else we’ll put you here and we’ll inoculate everybody”. That is hardly the way I want to accomplish this and solve our problems.

Dina Gusovsky: You’re a doctor and critics of the vaccine itself are coming out and saying that in the long run it’s actually going to do more harm than good. Do you agree with this?

Ron Paul: I think it can do damage and some children can be affected. It is a live virus, it’s attenuated, it’s not supposed to be as virulent. But yes, there are rare cases of people dying from reaction to medication. And if this flu is not so serious, which it doesn’t sound to be… you know, they were yelling and screaming about a 1000 deaths. Well, regular flu kills many, many more than that every year and nobody gets up in arms about it. This whole idea about working so hard on this one vaccine actually makes shortages in the other vaccine as well. So it really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Dina Gusovsky: There seems to me so much media uproar regarding this issue. Perhaps even taking precedence over other burning issues, particularly when it comes to foreign policy and the situation in Afghanistan. Because the real crisis seems to be occurring within the White House with that debate to send more troops or change the military strategy completely. What are your thoughts on this?

Ron Paul: My first thought is, “Aren’t they a little bit late?” I mean, this is the good war, we’ve only been there 8 years, and now we have the war and now we have the fighting, now we’re looking for the reason. Why are we in there, what are we doing, what is the result, what is the end point? I think they have it turned around. That’s why I argue for the case that when we go war it should be very, very precise and very, very deliberate under a precise vote of declaration and knowing what the Congress wants and what the people want and stand up for it. But when we got to war under U.N. resolutions or under NATO or because it feels good that we’re doing this to promote democracy, it’s vague, it’s political, there is no endpoint and there is no precise enemy. And, therefore, they keep fighting and we go into these countries and we become occupiers.

The people who live there resent it and they start fighting us. So we call them terrorists and say, “We’ll they’re terrorist there, they’re bad people. We have to send more troops in”. And the citizens die from these bombing raids. They’ve even dying in Pakistan. All that does is incite more people to resent what we’re doing. So it’s a cycle. And here we are at a point of a cycle where few people are questioning it: “Do we really need more”. And, of course, the military wants more, and Obama probably is honestly in a box because he supports the war, he supported it during the campaign, and the military wants more troops, but a lot of Americans don’t, especially the Democratic base. So he has a dilemma. So it would be much better to have a precise position, non-intervention, you know what you’re supposed to do. Just stay out of these places.

Dina Gusovsky: I’m glad you mentioned Pakistan; it’s becoming more and more crucial in this fight. We’ve seen violence increasing. What is the future going to hold?

Ron Paul: More chaos, more killing and more resentment towards Americans and, you know, there is a big fuss because we just voted for more foreign aid, and rightfully so the civilian population sees that as more control. And the Pakistanis have quite frequently [fought] internally over civilian control versus military control. The last thing that we need is us being involved there. But our policy in Afghanistan has spilled over because some of the people we were trying to kill in Afghanistan have gone into Pakistan, so there is much more violence there and I think the resentment will be towards us. It just doesn’t look like there is an easy end to this, unless they change overall policy. And, of course, that’s what I’ve advocated all along: changing overall policy.

Dina Gusovsky: Now, switching gears to Iran. Do you think that the United States in this case is justified to pressure Iran to give up its nuclear program?

Ron Paul: I think we’re completely wrong, because so far our own intelligence reports, NIE in 20 07, said that they haven’t been trying to do anything since 2003. And they’re allowed to have enrichment for peaceful purposes and the United Nations has never written a sanction against the Iranians for breaking the NPT treaty. They’ve never been accused of that. And the new place in Guam; they reported that and they said the IEA could come in and inspect it. And we’re about to put on more sanctions; we had that coming up in our committee today. And they want to prohibit anybody from delivering gasoline, so we’re going to punish the people of Iran. And the people aren’t going to get mad at their Ayatollahs and their radicals, they’re going to get mad at us and they’re going to solidify behind their radical leadership. So it backfires on us and it really helps China, because China will probably go in, sell them oil, develop their oil and they’ll have more influence there because they’re pretty good capitalists these days. And here we are, using aggression to try to control what’s happening in Iran. Our policy makes no sense.

Dina Gusovsky: Even so, some experts are hinting that a military strike might even be possible. That perhaps the United States and Israel are training or might be getting ready to strike Iran militarily. What do you think about this? Is this an option?

Ron Paul: Let’s hope not. I know some people go for the sanctions; they go for the sanctions believing that it is something better than going to war. But sanctions are an act of war. The point I made in the committee today was, “What would we think if somebody said we can’t import any oil”? We’d be furious and it would be an act of war. We wouldn’t put up with it one bit. So yea, it is an act of war. It encourages even more effort by the Chinese to come in there and help the Iranians, both to drill for oil and to refine their oil. And also it gives a real boom to the black market. And the people will suffer, the privileged will benefit, and American foreign policy will suffer another consequence.

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Show: Michael Berry Show
Host: Michael Berry
Date: 10/15/2009

Transcript:

Michael Berry: We’re talking healthcare, trying to answer the questions that we’ve been hearing from you. Our next guest is a member of Congress, former Presidential candidate and a doctor. Dr. Ron Paul, thanks for being our guest.

Did I hit the wrong line? Oh, my apologies.

Dr. Ron Paul, thanks for being our guest.

Ron Paul: Good to be with you.

Michael Berry: That was a great interview, and then I blew it.

Ron Paul: Hahaha.

Michael Berry: You’ve read the Bachus bill, you’ve one of the few out there that would actually understand it, having practiced medicine. Should we be worried?

Ron Paul: Well, I think you ought to be. I think everybody should be. And I think a lot of people are [worried]. From the views that I am getting lately, you know, a lot of people are very, very worried about it. And our phone is ringing off the line and I asked my staff today… they said we get no calls for any of that stuff, so…

Michael Berry: What worries you most about the bill?

Ron Paul: Well, two things. One is that it is going to cost a lot of money; much more than they claim. They claim it won’t cost anything, they’re going to raise fees and stop fraud and they’re going to pay for it. But the worst thing is that it’s going to ruin medical care. It will ruin medical care and the costs are going to go up. Government has never improved medical care. All they do is pump more money into it and it costs a lot. But all that does is push prices up, it doesn’t improve distribution of anything, whether it’s a service or a product. All they do is push costs up whether it’s medical care or education. The quality of education doesn’t go up by pumping more money into the Department of Education. I think the same thing is true with medical care.

Michael Berry: How do they harm the quality of healthcare?

Ron Paul: Well, for one it makes it a bureaucracy greater than it is now. For instance, in a bill in the spring in the stimulus package they gave the authority to the federal government to control every transaction. Not control every transaction, but to register and measure every medical transaction, everything that would happen. And in one of the bills they had 50 billion dollars in order to just keep records at the federal level to make sure that doctors do the right things, that nurses do the right things, the right drugs are used, nobody every prescribes …, you don’t go to the doctors too often. It’s monitored by bureaucrats. And that’s just very, very expensive and it can’t be efficient.

Michael Berry: I don’t understand what your problem with that is. I mean, they do the drivers license program and that’s incredibly efficient.

Ron Paul: I haven’t noticed that.

Michael Berry: Of course you haven’t. Dr. Paul, one of the issues that comes up repeatedly, and I hear this from a lot of people: are older Americans, maybe they lose their job that may have a pre-existing condition and insurance companies make a financial decision… I don’t blame them for that… they make a decision and say “Hey, it’s not profitable to insure you. The payout would be more than the premiums we would collect”. What’s the solution for those people?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s not easy because the first thing is that government has interfered with insurance and therefore it is not always insurance. They want everybody to have insurance, but they want prepaid care which is a social welfare program. The contract is supposed to solve this kind of problem. One thing that we don’t have, because of the way medicine has been working for the last 30 or 40 years, is that the insurance companies have been able to benefit. They should have a policy like somebody at the age of 20 ought to be able to buy insurance policy that is for a lifetime, and they can’t drop you. They do this with life insurance.

Michael Berry: Right.

Ron Paul: And it is real cheap when you’re 20 years old and they don’t dump you. As a matter of fact, the policy itself says, “Well, okay, we’re going to give you this policy for life. Oh, you just got diabetes and we change it.” They don’t do that for life insurance. So there are some quirks in the medical insurance that have not permitted that to happen, and that’s what we need. Usually when there is real competition, people will compete and try to provide a product. One thing we could do is make sure that these are all tax-deductable insurance policies. If you’re trying to get away from government medicine being involved, what we could do is have individuals have the medical saving account and get everything deductible. What makes it inefficient is when you get the first dollar paid. The routine care should be paid out of the pocket. It’s sort of like car insurance. It’s more like insurance because you buy car insurance and it’s for an accident, or for a fire or something. But you don’t get paid for your gasoline and your repair bills, because that causes a different kind of behavior. You don’t have food insurance, you don’t go to an insurance company and buy insurance and say, “Okay, we all want food.” You might eat differently than I do. I might not eat as much. You might want to eat steak. We’re all thrown into the insurance pool and it just doesn’t work and that’s what has happened to medicine. Everybody is all in one thing and that’s come about because of our tax laws and our ERISA laws and through retirement benefits. This is what has prompted all that. So we’ve gotten away from having insurance for medical reasons. So that, to me, would have to change if we’re expected to move in the right direction.

Ron Paul: Dr. Paul, two distinct issues that often get clunked together… Number 1 is quality of health care, and Number 2 is how you pay for it and how the fact that some people don’t want to pay for it or claim they can’t pay for it. And yet people want to give them some level of healthcare even if it is not a good level of healthcare. How do you deal with the latter issue when a number of people claim they can’t pay for healthcare but they can still pay for the things they want to pay for, like cellphones and beer and cigarettes and whatever else it is. How do you fix that problem? How do you solve that?

Ron Paul: Probably not by offering free services. Maybe some people figure, “Well, I don’t think I’m going to get sick. I’m going to try to get by. If I get sick I’m going to the emergency room”. So, when you have that offer out there it is sort of like, you know, when illegal aliens come in and they don’t have to worry about medical care because they know that they can go to the emergency room. As long as that is the case people don’t have the incentive to take care of themselves. And some of that I don’t entirely understand, but I know that I was raised in the 1930s and the 1940s and my parents didn’t have insurance. We never even thought about it. The costs weren’t that high and my parents were responsible. They would save money and they would pay their bills.

Michael Berry: How did the costs escalate to the point that they are now?

Ron Paul: Well, especially since the 1970s, that’s when government got involved. As a matter of fact, from the 1960s the government got involved and they pushed money into medical care and the prices go up. But there is inflation. Inflation means that the dollar doesn’t buy as much and certain things go up faster than other things. Things that government gets involved in, those prices go up much faster. So it is tough to pay for all these bills. But we don’t have true competition in medicine, either. If you had free entry into medical care outside of the licensing of every procedure, prices would tend to go down. And that is anathema to organized medicine.

Michael Berry: What would be some of those unlicensed procedures?

Ron Paul: Well, I don’t like the idea of licensing for anything. I think if somebody could come to your house and you trust him and he knows how to do his job, but he happens to live in the city the law says, “Oh no, you can’t do your plumbing here. You’re not a licensed plumber, you’re not a licensed electrician”. Well, maybe somebody who’s not licensed and doesn’t have a license can do just as good a job and do it for half the price, and that drives the price down.

You know, in the military 50 years ago… I guess it wasn’t quite that long ago, but it was long time ago… we had corpsmen do all the suturing. You know, you could have clinics and people could do that and you could have competition. Nurses could treat sore throats. And then for the expensive procedures the person that was not licensed but who was properly trained could do it. The only thing is you can’t use fraud, you can’t claim you can do something which you can’t. But there is no free entry into probably anything on medical service. So there are a lot of people who are involved in keeping the prices up: The medical profession, the health industry, the insurance industry, the drug industry, the management companies and the hospital management companies. These all have an incentive to go to Washington and try to get the regulations written for their benefit. And there is no change on that. Even with the administration and all the people complaining “Oh, we’re going to get socialized medicine.” I don’t think we are. That’s when government actually owns and runs everything. But we’re going to have a lot more of what we have, which means the corporations are going to run medicine. And this means the costs will go up and there will be more bureaucracy and the companies will be regulated by government. But you won’t see any quality improvement.

Michael Berry: Congressman and Dr. Ron Paul, I wish we could keep you for longer, but we promised your people we’d keep you moving because I know you have some other things to do this evening.

Ron Paul: Thanks for having me.

Michael Berry: Thank you for what you do.

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Venue: House of Representatives
Date: 9/23/2009

Transcript:

Government has been mismanaging medical care for more than 45 years; for every problem it has created it has responded by exponentially expanding the role of government.

Points to consider:

1. No one has a right to medical care. If one assumes such a right, it endorses the notion that some individuals have a right to someone else’s life and property. This totally contradicts the principles of liberty.
2. If medical care is provided by government, this can only be achieved by an authoritarian government unconcerned about the rights of the individual.
3. Economic fallacies accepted for more than 100 years in the United States has deceived policy makers into believing that quality medical care can only be achieved by government force, taxation, regulations, and bowing to a system of special interests that creates a system of corporatism.
4. More dollars into any monopoly run by government never increases quality but it always results in higher costs and prices.
5. Government does have an important role to play in facilitating the delivery of all goods and services in an ethical and efficient manner.
6. First, government should do no harm. It should get out of the way and repeal all the laws that have contributed to the mess we have.
7. The costs are obviously too high but in solving this problem one cannot ignore the debasement of the currency as a major factor.
8. Bureaucrats and other third parties must never be allowed to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship.
9. The tax code, including the ERISA laws, must be changed to give everyone equal treatment by allowing a 100% tax credit for all medical expenses.
   Laws dealing with bad outcomes and prohibiting doctors from entering into voluntary agreements with their patients must be repealed. Tort laws play a significant role in pushing costs higher, prompting unnecessary treatment and excessive testing. Patients deserve the compensation; the attorneys do not.
10. Insurance sales should be legalized nationally across state lines to increase competition among the insurance companies.
11. Long-term insurance policies should be available to young people similar to term-life insurances that offer fixed prices for long periods of time.
12. The principle of insurance should be remembered. Its purpose in a free market is to measure risk, not to be used synonymously with social welfare programs. Any program that provides for first-dollar payment is no longer insurance. This would be similar to giving coverage for gasoline and repair bills to those who buy car insurance or providing food insurance for people to go to the grocery store. Obviously, that could not work.
13. The cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed.
    Early on medical insurance was promoted by the medical community in order to boost re-imbursements to doctors and hospitals. That partnership has morphed into the government/insurance industry still being promoted by the current administration.
14. Threatening individuals with huge fines by forcing them to buy insurance is a boon to the insurance companies.
15. There must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field. Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care. A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced. The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities and especially homeopathy. We continue to suffer from these changes which were designed to protect physician’s income and promote allopathic medicine over the more natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.
16. We must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must remove the threat of further regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.

True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.

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