Second Presidential Debate -- Question Nine
Washington University in St. Louis - St. Louis, MO -
October 8, 2004
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Kerry
Bush



GIBSON: The next question is for Senator Kerry.  And this comes from Norma-Jean Laurent.


LAURENT: Senator Kerry, you've stated your concern for the rising cost of health care, yet you chose a vice presidential candidate who has made millions of dollars successfully suing medical professionals.  How do you reconcile this with the voters?


KERRY: Very easily.  John Edwards is the author of the Patients' Bill of Rights.  He wanted to give people rights.  John Edwards and I support tort reform.  We both believe that, as lawyers -- I'm a lawyer, too.  And I believe that we will be able to get a fix that has alluded everybody else because we know how to do it.

It's in my health-care proposal.  Go to johnkerry.com.  You can pull it off of the Internet.  And you'll find a tort reform plan.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, important to understand, the president and his friends try to make a big deal out of it.  Is it a problem? Yes, it's a problem.  Do we need to fix it, particularly for OGBYNs (sic) and for brain surgeons and others?  Yes.

But it's less than 1 percent of the total cost of health care.

Your premiums are going up.  You've gone up, in Missouri, about $3,500.  You've gone up 64 percent.  You've seen co-pays go up, deductibles go up.  Everything's gone up.

Five million people have lost their health insurance under this president.  He's done nothing about it.

I have a plan.  I have a plan to lower the cost of health care for you.  I have a plan to cover all children.  I have a plan to let you buy into the same health care senators and congressmen give themselves.

I have a plan that's going to allow people 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare early.

And I have a plan that will take the catastrophic cases out of the system, off your backs, pay for it out of a federal fund, which lowers the premiums for everybody in America, makes American business more competitive and makes health care more affordable.

Now, all of that can happen, but I have to ask you to do one thing: Join me in rolling back the president's unaffordable tax cut for people earning more than $200,000 a year.  That's all.

Ninety-eight percent of America, I'm giving you a tax cut and I'm giving you health care.

GIBSON: Mr. President, a minute and a half.

BUSH: Let me see where to start here.

First, the National Journal named Senator Kennedy the most liberal senator of all.  And that's saying something in that bunch.  You might say that took a lot of hard work.

The reason I bring that up is because he's proposed $2.2 trillion in new spending, and he says he going to tax the rich to close the tax gap.

He can't.  He's going to tax everybody here to fund his programs.  That's just reality.

And what are his health programs?  First, he says he's for medical liability reform, particularly for OB/GYNs.  There's a bill on the floor of the United States Senate that he could have showed up and voted for if he's so much for it.

Secondly, he says that medical liability costs only cause a 1 percent increase. That shows a lack of understanding. Doctors practice defensive medicine because of all the frivolous lawsuits that cost our government $28 billion a year.

And finally, he said he's going to have a novel health care plan.  You know what it is?  The federal government is going to run it.

It's the largest increase in federal government health care ever.  And it fits with his philosophy.  That's why I told you about the award he won from the National Journal.

That's what liberals do.  They create government-sponsored health care.  Maybe you think that makes sense.  I don't. Government-sponsored health care would lead to rationing.  It would ruin the quality of health care in America.

GIBSON: Senator Kerry, we got several questions along this line, and I'm just curious if you'd go further on what you talked about with tort reform.  Would you be favoring capping awards on pain and suffering?  Would you limit attorney's fees?

KERRY: A follow-up...

GIBSON: Yes. A follow-up on this for...

KERRY: Yes, I think we should look at the punitive and we should have some limitations.

But look, what's really important, Charlie, is the president is just trying to scare everybody here with throwing labels around.  I mean, "compassionate conservative," what does that mean?  Cutting 500,000 kids from after-school programs, cutting 365,000 kids from health care, running up the biggest deficits in American history.

Mr. President, you're batting 0 for 2.

I mean, seriously -- labels don't mean anything.  What means something is: Do you have a plan?  And I want to talk about my plan some more -- I hope we can.

GIBSON: We'll get to that in just a minute.

Thirty seconds, President Bush.

BUSH: You're right, what does matter is a plan.  He said he's for -- you're now for capping punitive damages?

That's odd.  You should have shown up on the floor in the Senate and voted for it then.

Medical liability issues are a problem, a significant problem.  He's been in the United States Senate for 20 years and he hasn't addressed it.

We passed it out of the House of Representatives.  Guess where it's stuck?  It's stuck in the Senate, because the trial lawyers won't act on it.  And he put a trial lawyer on the ticket.

Q10 >