Title: MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript
Date: 03/12/2009
Interview
MSNBC "Morning Joe" - Transcript
MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH GOVERNOR JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D-MI)
SUBJECT: HEALTH CARE FORUM AT WHITE HOUSE
INTERVIEWERS: JOE SCARBOROUGH, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, NANCY SNYDERMAN
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MS. BRZEZINSKI: Here with us now, Democratic governor of Michigan, Governor Jennifer Granholm, who's hosting the first in a series of White House forums on health care today.
Governor, thanks for coming back to the show.
GOV. GRANHOLM: You bet. And I'm so glad to hear that you haven't forgot about adopting us. Jay Leno is coming to do a free concert for us, so I expect that you guys'll step up and come here one morning and really embrace your adopted city.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Oh, we're not just going to come there for one morning. We're going to be there all the time. (Laughter.) We are adopting Detroit.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: (Inaudible) -- we work together on that. But seriously, we need to connect on the adoption process.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Let's talk about health care reform --
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Health care, and --
MR. SCARBOROUGH: -- while we still have Dr. Nancy Snyderman here. I haven't said anything to offend her yet.
(Laughter, cross talk.)
Tell me what you're doing up there on health care reform and how it could be an example for other states.
GOV. GRANHOLM: Yeah, this is a part of President Obama's taking it to the country, really. We're the first place that -- these regional roundtables with the White House, and we're also doing it with Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin.
It's a bipartisan group of people, including the business community, the health care community, everyday citizens, small businesses, large businesses.
And Mika, if I can add to your morning papers, the story that's out this morning is that the U.S. Business Roundtable is saying that our health care costs are a liability as we compete globally -- something that we knew.
But we pay two and a half times what our competitor countries pay for health care. It's hurting business, and that's really the point of them coming here, because we in the auto industry here in Michigan know it very well -- $1,500 per car associate with health care. We need to be more competitive.
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Wow --
DR. SNYDERMAN: Governor, it's Nancy. We know that we pay more than anyone else, any other industrialized country, and we don't have the outcomes to show that the money's even being well spent.
But we seem to be walking round and round and round that argument. If, in fact, we are going to put health care reform on the front burner along with the banking implosion, how do you see restructuring health care in this country?
GOV. GRANHOLM: Well, obviously, this is part of this discussion about getting consensus on it.
But I think there are things that everybody agrees on, and that's why I think the stars are aligned now, because the business community is on board, saying we can't compete.
What they'll say and what I think citizens will say is that we don't want to fix what's not broken, so we want to keep choice in the system.
But you also want to make sure that we have coverage that's quality coverage for all. Our competitors do that, and let me give you an example.
More cars are built now in Ontario, Canada, than in Michigan. That had never happened before. And they aren't going to Ontario because the taxes are lower or the regulations are less. They're going there because there is a partnership on health care with the government.
There has to be a shared responsibility. There has to be investment, I think, in prevention, on the front side, on health care; computerization of records.
I think a lot of us agree on a lot of things, and that's what these forums around the country are supposed to surface.
DR. SNYDERMAN: Does that mean you like the idea of a single- payer system like Canada? And I think we should let people know --
GOV. GRANHOLM: No --
DR. SNYDERMAN: Canada, you can be in private practice as a physician. You just have a single payer. It's not socialized medicine; it's not the government telling you what to do. It's a single payer. Do you like that idea?
GOV. GRANHOLM: Right. Yeah, but I think that we have to devise a uniquely American solution to this health care crisis. I think there will be a shared responsibility, perhaps some from business, some from the individual, some from government.
But the bottom line is we don't have to copy what some other place does. We can create a system that has a lower cost, affordable, accessible to all.
We spend two and a half times what Canada does right now, and other competitors. We spend four to five times more than what our emerging-country competitors spend -- China, et cetera.
So we can shake the blanket and have reform of entitlements. We can have reform in cutting out the waste in the system. But we can also do it in a way that shares responsibility and preserves choice.
MR. SCARBOROUGH: All right, Governor. Thank you so much. We'll see --
MS. BRZEZINSKI: Governor Jennifer Granholm.
GOV. GRANHOLM: Come on down to Detroit. (Laughs.)
END.
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