| |
MS. IFILL: Next question goes to you, Mr. Vice President. I want to
read something you said four years ago at this very setting: "Freedom
means freedom for everybody." You said it again recently when you were
asked about legalizing same-sex unions, and you used your family as
an experience, your family experience as a context for your remarks.
Can you describe then, your administration's support for a constitutional
ban on same-sex unions?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Gwen, you're right. Four years ago in this debate,
the subject came up and I said then  and
believe today that freedom does mean freedom for everybody. People ought
to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It's really no one else's
business.
That's a separate question from the issue of whether or not government
should sanction or approve or give some sort of authorization, if you
will, to these relationships. Traditionally, that's been an issue for
the states. States have regulated marriage, if you will. That would
be my preference.
In effect, what's happened is that in recent months, especially in
Massachusetts but also in California, but in Massachusetts we had the
Massachusetts Supreme Court direct the state of -- the legislature in
Massachusetts to modify their constitution to allow gay marriage. And,
the fact is that the president felt that it was important to make it
clear that that's the wrong way to go, as far as he's concerned. Now,
he sets policy for this administration, and I support the president.
MS. IFILL: Senator Edwards, 90 seconds.
SENATOR EDWARDS: Yes. Let me say first, on an issue that the vice president
said in his last answer before we got to this question, talking about
tax policy. The country needs to know that under what they have put
in place and want to put in place, they -- millionaires sitting by their
swimming pool, collecting their statements, to see how much money they're
making, make their money from dividends, pays a lower tax rate than
the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving on the ground
in Iraq.
Now, they may think that's right. John Kerry and I do not. We don't
just value wealth, which they do. We value work in this country, and
it is a fundamental value difference between them and us.
Now, as to this question: Let me say first that I think the vice president
and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And
you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing
to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter; the fact that
they embrace her is a wonderful thing.
And there are millions of parents like that who love their children,
who want their children to be happy. And I believe that marriage is
between a man and a woman, and so does John Kerry. I also believe there
should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples in long-term,
committed relationships. But we should not use the Constitution to divide
this country. No state for the last 200 years has ever had to recognize
another state's marriage. This is using the Constitution as a political
tool, and it's wrong.
MS. IFILL: New question, but same subject. As the vice president mentioned,
John Kerry comes from the state of Massachusetts, which has taken as
big a step as any state in the Union to legalize gay marriage, yet both
you and Senator Kerry say you oppose it. Are you trying to have it both
ways?
SEN. EDWARDS: No. I think we've both said the same thing all along.
We both believe that -- this goes onto the end of what I just talked
about. We both believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but
we also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those
who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully,
they deserve to have benefits. For example, a  gay
couple now has a very difficult time, one, visiting the other when they're
in the hospital; or, for example, if, heaven forbid, one of them were
to pass away, they have trouble even arranging the funeral. I mean,
those are not the kind of things that John Kerry and I believe in. I
suspect the vice president himself does not believe in that. But we
don't -- we do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
And I want to go back, if I can, go back to the question you just asked,
which is this Constitutional amendment. I want to make sure people understand
that the president's proposing a Constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage that is completely unnecessary. Under the law of this country
for the last 200 years, no state has been required to recognize another
state's marriage. Let me just be simple about this. My state of North
Carolina would not be required to recognize a marriage from Massachusetts,
which you just asked about.
There is absolutely no purpose in the law and in reality for this amendment.
It is nothing but a political bill. And it's being used in an effort
to divide this country on an issue that we should not be dividing America
on.
We ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's
happening in Iraq, not using an issue that divides this country in a
way that's solely for political purposes. And it's wrong.
MS. IFILL: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for
the kind words that he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate
that very much.
SEN. EDWARDS: You're welcome. You're welcome.
MS. IFILL: That's it.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: That's it.
MS. IFILL: Okay. Then we'll move on to the next question. This one is
for you, Mr. Vice President. President Bush has derided John Kerry for
putting a trial lawyer on the ticket. You yourself have said that lawsuits
are partly to blame for higher medical costs. Are you willing to say
that John  Edwards,
sitting here, has been part of the problem?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, Gwen --
MS. IFILL: Mr. Vice President?
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: -- I, first of all, I'm not familiar with his
cases. My concern is specifically with what's happened to our medical
care system because of rising malpractice insurance rates because we
failed to adequately reform our medical liability structure.
I was in New Mexico the other day and met with a group of OB-GYN docs.
And they were deeply concerned because they were fearful that there
would be another increase in malpractice insurance rates as a result
of what they believe are frivolous lawsuits, and that that would put
them out of business. One doctor indicated that her rates have gone
up so much that she's now to the point where she is screening patients.
She won't take high risk patients any more because of the danger that
that will generate a lawsuit, and a lawsuit will put her out of business.
This has had a devastating impact in a lot of communities. My home state
of Wyoming, we've lost the top insurer of malpractice insurance in the
state. The rates for a general practitioner have gone from $40,000 a
year to $100,000 a year for an insurance policy. We think this has a
devastating impact on the quality of health care -- as I say, high-risk
patients don't get covered anymore. We've lost one out of 11 OB-GYN
practitioners in the country. We think it can be fixed, needs to be
fixed.
Now specifically what we need to do is cap noneconomic damages, and
we also think you need to limit the awards that the trial attorneys
take out of all of this. Over 50 percent of the settlements go to attorneys
and for administrative overhead.
We passed medical liability reform through the House of Representatives.
It's been blocked in the Senate. And Senator Kerry's voted 10 times
against medical liability reform, and I don't believe Edwards supports
it either -- not the kind that would be meaningful.
MS. IFILL: Senator Edwards?
SEN. EDWARDS: Yes. Well, let me say, first of all, I'm proud of the
work I did on behalf of kids and families against big insurance companies,
big drug companies and big HMOs. 
We do have too many lawsuits, and the reality is, there's something
that we can do about it. John Kerry and I have a plan to do something
about it. We want to put more responsibility on the lawyers to require,
before a case of malpractice, which the vice president just spoke about,
have the case reviewed by independent experts who determine the case
is serious and meritorious before it can be filed; hold the lawyers
responsible for that, to certify that and hold the lawyers financially
responsible if they don't do it; have a "three strikes and you're
out" rule, so that the lawyer who files three of these cases without
meeting this requirement loses their right to file these cases. That
way, we keep the cases out of the system that don't belong in the system.
They talk about frivolous cases. We believe cases that don't belong
in the system should never be in the system.
But we don't believe that we should take away the rights of people like
Valerie Lakey, who was a young girl who I represented -- 5 years old,
severely injured for life on a defective swimming pool drain cover.
It turns out the company knew of 12 other children who had either been
killed or severely injured by the same problem. They hid it. They didn't
tell anybody. They could have fixed it with a 2-cent screw. That's wrong.
John Kerry and I are always going to stand with the Valerie Lakeys
of the world, and not with the insurance companies.
MS. IFILL: Senator Edwards, a new question to you, same topic. Do you
feel personally attacked when Vice President Cheney talks about liability
reform and tort reform, and the president talks about having a trial
lawyer on the ticket?
SEN. EDWARDS: Am I personally attacked? I think the -- I think the truth
is that what they're doing is talking about an issue that really doesn't
have a great deal to do with what's happening with medical costs in
this country, which I think is a very serious issue.
And I would be the first to say that -- the vice president described
a few minutes ago problems with malpractice premiums -- that's true;
it's real. It's very real. I mean, what doctors talk about is very serious,
and they're getting squeezed from both sides, I mean, because they have
trouble getting reimbursed, first of all, for the care that they provide
-- you know, from the government or from a health care provider -- I
mean health care companies.
And on the flip side, their malpractice costs are going up. That's very
real, which is why we have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the
system that don't belong there.
But it's very important to put this in context because in context, everything
they're proposing, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget
Office, amounts to about half of 1 percent of health care costs in this
country, half of 1 percent. We have double-digit inflation in health
care costs. We've seen the largest rise in medical costs in the last
four years in the country's history, $3,500 nationally. And nobody who's
watching this debate needs me to explain this to them; they know it.
Medicare premiums up 17 percent on their watch. Again, largest increase
in Medicare premiums in the history of Medicare.
We think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system
out, but we also do what they haven't done. Five million Americans have
lost their health care coverage, medical costs skyrocketing. We have
a serious health care plan to bring down costs for everybody, to cover
millions more Americans, and to actually stand up to drug companies
 and
insurance companies, which this administration has been unwilling to
do.
MS. IFILL: Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Yes, Gwen, we think lawsuit abuse is a serious
problem in this country. We think badly need tort reform.
I was in Minnesota the other day, where I visited a -- an aircraft manufacturing
plant. It's a great success story. This is a company that started 20
years ago with nothing. Today they're the second-leading producer of
-- of piston-driven aircraft in the country. He told me that if it weren't
for the increased cost of his liability insurance -- in this case, product
liability -- he could hire 200 more people in his factory. We've built
into the system enormous costs as a result of our -- our practice with
respect to litigation. We have to find ways to get a handle on it.
You mentioned Medicare up 17 percent, somehow that that was something
we caused. No. The 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums was the
direct result of a statute adopted in 1997. John Kerry voted for it.
It establishes a formula for Part B of Medicare that says, in effect,
it has to cover 25 percent of the cost of the program. And the reason
the money had to go into the trust fund was to make certain that we
could cover those eligible for benefits.
While you were in private practice of law and as a senator, you had
a advantage of a special tax loophole, Subchapter S corporation, which
you set up so you could avoid paying $600,000 in Medicare taxes that
would have gone into the fund. And it's those kinds of loopholes that
necessitate a premium increase under the law that was enacted in 1997,
supported by John Kerry.
MS. IFILL: You have 30 seconds to respond.
SEN. EDWARDS: Well, first of all, I've paid all the taxes that I owe.
When the vice president was CEO of Halliburton, they took care -- took
advantage of every offshore loophole available. They had multiple offshore
companies that were avoiding taxes. Those are the kind of things we
ought to be closed -- they ought to be closed. They ought to be closed
for anybody. They ought to be closed whether they're personal and they
ought to be closed whether they apply to a corporation. But the reality
is health care costs are going up every day for the American people.
And I hope we're going to get a chance to talk more about health care.
MS. IFILL: Thirty seconds, Mr. Vice President.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: We've done a lot to reduce the costs of health
care. The Medicare drug benefit that we'll be providing to seniors in
'06 will provide upwards of $1,300 a year to help them buy prescription
drugs. The drug savings -- drug discount card that's now available saves
an estimated 15 to 30 percent off the cost of prescription drugs for
senior citizens. So we're moving in as many areas as we can to make
certain we hold down and reduce health care costs.
|
|
