Robert Reich: What An Honest President Would Say About Health Reform |
GLENN: There's something else that I want to play, and Pat, will you set this up for me?
PAT: This is
GLENN: But as Yoda?
PAT: Robert Reich this is, hmmm? Yes.
GLENN: Okay. So this is Robert Reich.
PAT: Robert Reich, who was Bill Clinton's labor secretary.
GLENN: Now, is it Robert Reich III, or is it Robert Third Reich?
PAT: Robert Third Reich. Robert is a huge Barack Obama supporter, proponent, advocate.
STU: Economic advisor as well.
GLENN: Yes, yes.
PAT: I was getting to that.
STU: Oh, okay.
PAT: Yeah, he's on both teams. He was officially with the Clinton administration, but he also served with Barack Obama's economic advisory.
STU: He's a heavy weight.
PAT: He is. And he's been advised and he was the one who said that white people shouldn't get all the stimulus jobs, white construction workers.
STU: I'm so glad
GLENN: I love him.
PAT: So glad. Well, here he is talking. This is Robert Reich talking about the way healthcare should be.
GLENN: Should be.
PAT: This was like a year ago, a year and a half ago.
GLENN: Now, this is wait a minute. Hang on. He said this is the way it should be, and this is the speech that if we were
PAT: That a presidential candidate should make, if he really had the guts. If he didn't care about winning or losing, this is the way he would set up the healthcare debate.
GLENN: Okay. Because he says this is the truth. So now here he is saying this is what the truth is, and if there was anybody that had the cojones to tell you the truth, this would be the speech that that person would give.
REICH: I will actually give you a speech made up entirely almost at the spur of the moment of what a candidate for president would say if that candidate did not care about becoming president. In other words, this is what the truth is and a candidate will never say, but what candidates should say if we were in a kind of democracy where citizens were honored.
GLENN: We're in a republic!
REICH: In terms of their practice of citizenship and they were educated in terms of what the issues were and they could separate myth from reality.
GLENN: Stop, stop, stop, stop. I can't take it.
PAT: That education thing, it just shows again, I am above you. I'm educated. That's why I
GLENN: And you can't separate myth from reality.
PAT: You're not educated. This, "I went, I'm summa cum laude from Dartmouth and I'm a former Harvard professor."
GLENN: I can't take these people, I can't take the arrogance of them.
PAT: It's unbelievable, unbelievable.
GLENN: So you go ahead. Stupid people, just try really hard to he may use some big words here. Try to understand.
REICH: In terms of what candidates would tell them: Thank you so much for coming this afternoon.
GLENN: This is the speech.
REICH: I'm so glad to see you, and I would like to be president. Let me tell you a few things on healthcare. Look, we are we have the only healthcare system in the world that is designed to avoid sick people. That's true. And what I'm going to do is I am going to try to reorganize it to be more amenable to treating sick people, but that means
GLENN: Stop. I'm confused. Amenable, does that mean that they are amoebas, that he's going to release amoebas? I don't even know what amoebas are but they sound delicious.
PAT: He wants amoebas to be treated because right now we're apparently not treating amoebas.
GLENN: He was using big words. I don't know if we've lost the audience. We'll translate later.
REICH: You, particularly you young people, particularly you young healthy people, you are going to have to pay more.
GLENN: Whoa. Listen to this. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Listen to this. This audience is so ready for saying, "Yes, yes, the young people should pay more. They should pay more, yes."
PAT: Wait until you see what else they clap for.
REICH: And by the way, we are going to have to, if you are very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive. So we're going to let you die.
PAT: Again, again Barack Obama's economic advisor, again this is what Sarah Palin alluded to.
GLENN: Death panels.
PAT: This is what we've talked about, this is what we warned you with, withhold Ren and Sunstein.
GLENN: I'm telling you
PAT: These guys all feel this way.
GLENN: Holdren and Sunstein are extraordinarily dangerous, extraordinarily dangerous. Between healthcare and the environment, those two men, those two men, in the wrong conditions, will be responsible for many, many deaths. Many deaths. You know, I because here's what I want. Here's what I want. I would like a member of the press to ask Cass Sunstein and Holdren the one question: You both talked about putting sterilants in drinking water, or something like that. I mean, you both were on this whole kick of
PAT: Forced abortions, population control, blah, blah blah.
GLENN: All of this stuff, you're all for that stuff. You now say that was discredited and you no longer believe those things. But that's because the population explosion turned out to be wrong. Is there any other explosion of anything? Is there global warming or is there too expensive healthcare or social programs that would make you say these things are reasonable? Because I haven't heard you discredit your solutions. I have heard you say that the problem was discredited, right, Stu?
STU: I mean, they certainly walked away from those old statements and then
GLENN: You don't say I'm going to put I think we should put sterilants in drinking waters; I think we should have forced sterilization; I think we should have forced abortions. You don't say those things and not know the moment you changed your mind and went, "Whoa, that was crazy."
STU: Right.
GLENN: You have that
PAT: And that moment should come before you join an administration.
GLENN: An administration.
STU: Yeah.
PAT: It can't be the excuse.
GLENN: Right.
PAT: "Oh, I'm different now."
GLENN: And what they say, they don't even say that.
PAT: No, they don't.
GLENN: "Look, that was a different time. The population explosion thing, that was real. That's been discredited. And then everything else they've said, they said that was just in an academic setting." So let me ask you this: If Rush Limbaugh would have said about McNabb, if he would have said it while on the campus of Harvard while he was teaching, would it have been acceptable?
STU: Ask Larry Summers who's sitting in the administration.
GLENN: Exactly right. Exactly right. There's something wrong, something big time wrong.
Now, so what we have here is Robert Third Reich say that he is going to you think that's bad?
PAT: (Laughing).
GLENN: Robert Reich say I mean, he's saying we're to the going to what he just said
PAT: He's saying you need to die! If you're old!
GLENN: We're going to have death panels!
PAT: Sorry, if you're old, you die; we don't treat you.
STU: Wait a minute. There's an important clarification there. He did not say anything about death panels. He was just making the decision.
PAT: You're right.
STU: There's no panel of information. You're just dead.
PAT: Because he's the presidential candidate; we're going to let you die.
GLENN: Now, he just said if you're old, you're too expensive, we're not going to spend that money and we're going to let you die. Now, as outrageous as that is, here is what's more outrageous. Listen to the reaction of the crowd. He just said we're going to let you die because it's too expensive.
(Applause)
PAT: Yeah!
STU: Yeah, death, woo hoo! Old people dead, woo hoo hoo! Yeah, yeah! Woo hoo!
GLENN: Okay, okay, okay, okay. Who reacts that way? Who happen reacts that way?
STU: I can't
PAT: I don't know.
STU: Why? Why would you
PAT: I don't know.
STU: Maybe you laugh because you think he's being blunt, but you certainly don't clap. There's nothing to clap about. He just said he was going to kill all the old people! They weren't worth the
GLENN: But wait, wait. You can say this is an academic example: He's just using an academic, he's just giving a speech. But he's giving the speech that he said should be given in the perfect republic I'm sorry, the perfect democracy!
STU: And he's being honest! It's true! That's what these policies bring!
GLENN: This is why I said last hour, you must root yourself in the truth. You must know what you believe. You must know who you trust. And then you don't have to do anything! You just have to repeat the facts. You just have to show these things to people. Because when they see these things, these people destroy themselves. In their arrogance they built a tower to reach the sky. In their arrogance, they are so overeducated, so far above you and me and us puny little ants that they could crush with their feet. They don't think that it matters that you know. Oh, they're so sadly mistaken. So sadly mistaken. Know which side you're on. Are you the side that says, "Oh, my gosh!" Or are you on the side that makes the Robert Reich statement or just the one on the side that is clapping for the, "Yeah, let's kill old people"? Or, are you the person and I think this is the worst one. Are you the person that is sitting there in the room and says, "Wow, that doesn't sound... good. I'll just... I'll just nevermind. It doesn't matter." Do not be that person. Do not be that person.
