AuH20
12-06-2011, 10:08 AM
Quality interview.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-doesnt-hold-back-in-gingrich-interview-tough-questions-on-mandates-big-govt-and-global-warming/
The Medicare Part D exchange:
GLENN: All right. You said if you are a fiscal conservative who cares about balancing the federal budget, there may be no more important bill to vote on in your career than in support of this bill. This was what you said about a new you entitlement, Medicare prescription drug program.
GINGRICH: Which also included Medicare Advantage and also included the right to have a high deductible medical savings account, which is the first step towards moving control over your health dollars back to you. And I think is a very important distinguishing point. On the government, my position is very straightforward. If you’re going to have Medicare, which was created in 1965, and was created at a time when practically drugs didn’t matter. There weren’t very many breakthroughs at that point. To take a position that we won’t help you with insulin but we’ll pay for your kidney dialysis is both bad on a human level and bad on financial level. Kidney dialysis is one of the fastest growing centers of cost and we spend almost as much annually on kidney dialysis as the entire National Institute of Health research budget, about $27 billion a year right now. If we say to you we’re going to pay for open heart surgery but we won’t pay for Lipitor so you can avoid open heart surgery, it’s both bad (inaudible) but it’s also just bad financially. So we ‑‑
GLENN: But aren’t you starting with a false premise here? If we’re going to have the Johnson Act, then well, then we should do this. Isn’t that starting with a false premise? Shouldn’t we be going the other direction instead of building on ‑‑
GINGRICH: Which is why ‑‑ which is why they had both Medicare Advantage, which is the first (inaudible) diversity and choice in Medicare, and it’s why they put in the health savings account model, which is the first big step towards you being personally in charge of your own savings. And I think that that’s a ‑‑ your point’s right. The question is how do you manage the transition so it is politically doable. And I ‑‑
GLENN: But you believe ‑‑ no offense, but you believe voting for something that is ‑‑ you’re trying to transition into smaller government by also supporting a bill that has in it a gigantic giveaway?
GINGRICH: Well, you’ve already given away ‑‑ that’s my point. I don’t see how one defends not having the ability to avoid the requirement for surgery, which is what this is all about. And the question is can you live longer and more independently and more healthily with the drug benefit than without it, and I think that if ‑‑ and you can make the (inaudible) and say, well, Medicare. A, you won’t win that in the short run. So you’re going to have Medicare. And the question in the short run is, so you want to have a system that basically leaves people with bad outcomes, or do you want to, in fact, maximize how long they can live and how independently they can live.
GLENN: All right.
GINGRICH: And that’s just a fundamental difference.
Global Warming:
GLENN: Let me just ‑‑ I just want to get to a few things. You’ve supported the ‑‑ you voted for the Department of Education, you in 2007 said very cautious about changing Fannie and Freddie. On global warming, with sitting down on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, and I would agree with you that was the dumbest moment ‑‑ you know, it would have been the dumbest moment of my life. And I agree with that. But when you look at, it’s not a moment of your life. In speech after speech, in your book Contract with the Earth, even with John Kerry in a debate, you said this.
GINGRICH: Evidence is sufficient, but we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon looting of the atmosphere.
GINGRICH: Well, I never believed in Al Gore’s fantasies and, in fact, if you look at the record, the day that Al Gore testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of cap and trade, I was the next witness and I testified against cap and trade. And in the Senate, I worked through American solutions to help beat the cap and trade bill. Cap and trade was an effort by the left to use the environment as an excuse to get total control over the American economy, centralizing a Washington bureaucracy. In the end it had nothing to do with the environment. It had everything to do with their desire to control our lives.
GLENN: Newt, I have to tell you, I ‑‑ you know, because, you know, it’s obvious it was very clear in advance and I hope my staff made this very clear that this isn’t going to be an easy interview but I think you’ve ‑‑ you know, there was no gaffes here by any stretch of the imagination. I didn’t expect any. But I appreciate the willingness to come on and answer the tough questions, and I wish you the best.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/beck-doesnt-hold-back-in-gingrich-interview-tough-questions-on-mandates-big-govt-and-global-warming/
The Medicare Part D exchange:
GLENN: All right. You said if you are a fiscal conservative who cares about balancing the federal budget, there may be no more important bill to vote on in your career than in support of this bill. This was what you said about a new you entitlement, Medicare prescription drug program.
GINGRICH: Which also included Medicare Advantage and also included the right to have a high deductible medical savings account, which is the first step towards moving control over your health dollars back to you. And I think is a very important distinguishing point. On the government, my position is very straightforward. If you’re going to have Medicare, which was created in 1965, and was created at a time when practically drugs didn’t matter. There weren’t very many breakthroughs at that point. To take a position that we won’t help you with insulin but we’ll pay for your kidney dialysis is both bad on a human level and bad on financial level. Kidney dialysis is one of the fastest growing centers of cost and we spend almost as much annually on kidney dialysis as the entire National Institute of Health research budget, about $27 billion a year right now. If we say to you we’re going to pay for open heart surgery but we won’t pay for Lipitor so you can avoid open heart surgery, it’s both bad (inaudible) but it’s also just bad financially. So we ‑‑
GLENN: But aren’t you starting with a false premise here? If we’re going to have the Johnson Act, then well, then we should do this. Isn’t that starting with a false premise? Shouldn’t we be going the other direction instead of building on ‑‑
GINGRICH: Which is why ‑‑ which is why they had both Medicare Advantage, which is the first (inaudible) diversity and choice in Medicare, and it’s why they put in the health savings account model, which is the first big step towards you being personally in charge of your own savings. And I think that that’s a ‑‑ your point’s right. The question is how do you manage the transition so it is politically doable. And I ‑‑
GLENN: But you believe ‑‑ no offense, but you believe voting for something that is ‑‑ you’re trying to transition into smaller government by also supporting a bill that has in it a gigantic giveaway?
GINGRICH: Well, you’ve already given away ‑‑ that’s my point. I don’t see how one defends not having the ability to avoid the requirement for surgery, which is what this is all about. And the question is can you live longer and more independently and more healthily with the drug benefit than without it, and I think that if ‑‑ and you can make the (inaudible) and say, well, Medicare. A, you won’t win that in the short run. So you’re going to have Medicare. And the question in the short run is, so you want to have a system that basically leaves people with bad outcomes, or do you want to, in fact, maximize how long they can live and how independently they can live.
GLENN: All right.
GINGRICH: And that’s just a fundamental difference.
Global Warming:
GLENN: Let me just ‑‑ I just want to get to a few things. You’ve supported the ‑‑ you voted for the Department of Education, you in 2007 said very cautious about changing Fannie and Freddie. On global warming, with sitting down on the couch with Nancy Pelosi, and I would agree with you that was the dumbest moment ‑‑ you know, it would have been the dumbest moment of my life. And I agree with that. But when you look at, it’s not a moment of your life. In speech after speech, in your book Contract with the Earth, even with John Kerry in a debate, you said this.
GINGRICH: Evidence is sufficient, but we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon looting of the atmosphere.
GINGRICH: Well, I never believed in Al Gore’s fantasies and, in fact, if you look at the record, the day that Al Gore testified at the Energy and Commerce Committee in favor of cap and trade, I was the next witness and I testified against cap and trade. And in the Senate, I worked through American solutions to help beat the cap and trade bill. Cap and trade was an effort by the left to use the environment as an excuse to get total control over the American economy, centralizing a Washington bureaucracy. In the end it had nothing to do with the environment. It had everything to do with their desire to control our lives.
GLENN: Newt, I have to tell you, I ‑‑ you know, because, you know, it’s obvious it was very clear in advance and I hope my staff made this very clear that this isn’t going to be an easy interview but I think you’ve ‑‑ you know, there was no gaffes here by any stretch of the imagination. I didn’t expect any. But I appreciate the willingness to come on and answer the tough questions, and I wish you the best.