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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
In an interview with Link TV and Salon, the Ohio congressman slams the Vermont doctor on national healthcare, and says Bush is a bad president but shouldn't be impeached.
Dec 18, 2003 | When ABC's Ted Koppel suggested to Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich during last week's presidential debate that his low poll numbers and relatively meager campaign coffers made him a "vanity" candidate who should perhaps leave the race, it gave the four-term Ohio congressman a chance to answer a question that he probably knows others are asking, if only in whispers.
"I want the American people to see where the media take politics in this country," Kucinich responded. "We start talking about endorsements, now we're talking about polls, and then we're talking about money. Well, you know, when you do that, you don't have to talk about what's important to the American people." The studio audience roared applause as Kucinich added, "I'm the only one up here on the stage that actually voted against the PATRIOT Act and voted against the [Iraq] war -- the only one on this stage." Whatever his critics believe, it's clear Kucinich doesn't think his is a vanity campaign.
Fresh from his run-in with Koppel, this week Kucinich sat down with Link TV, a national satellite network whose programming reaches 21 million homes worldwide. Link TV has invited each of the 2004 presidential candidates to be interviewed as part of "The People's Voice: Election 2004," in partnership with Salon. All of the interviews will feature questions submitted by Link TV viewers and members of leading citizens groups. Groups participating in the Kucinich interview, which was taped at Link TV's studios in San Francisco Dec. 16, include the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Family Farm Coalition, the World Affairs Council, the U.S. Students Association and the youth Web publication Wiretap.
In the hour-long conversation Kucinich discussed how Saddam Hussein's capture changes the political landscape, his own shifting views on abortion, and his recent venture into tabloid celebrity, when he went on a date with a woman who won an Internet contest seeking to pick a first lady for Kucinich, a 57-year-old bachelor.
The Center for Public Integrity is going to publish a book next month called "The Buying on the President 2004," looking at all the presidential candidates and listing each of your biggest campaign contributors, not just in this race but throughout your time in public life. Nine of your 10 biggest contributors are labor unions. As president, will you be beholden to labor unions? And will you be able to work with business in a cooperative way?
First of all, there is some disclosure needed here. [He pulls a union card out of his wallet and displays it to the camera.] I'm not a missionary to labor. I come from the house of labor, and I fully intend to have worker's rights enshrined in a worker's White House: the right to organize, the right to collective bargaining, the right to strike, the right to decent wages and benefits, the right to a safe workplace, the right to a secure retirement, the right to participate in a political process. I would have no trouble whatsoever in working with business as long as business understands that it has a responsibility to pay people a living wage, as long as business understands that it has the responsibility to make sure that people when they're on the job have certain rights, as long as business understands that it needs to create a safe workplace -- [then] we'll have a marvelous working relationship with business.
Caller question (from Link TV viewer Sol Cohen of Vallejo, Calif.): Are you in favor of national health insurance, or a single-payer plan similar to that in Canada, and if so, how would you implement such a plan in view of the hostility of the healthcare industry and the high probability of a Republican Congress?
I've introduced legislation with John Conyers of Michigan, HR 676, to create a universal, single-payer healthcare system -- a national health plan, extended Medicare for all. Now, the way that we would accomplish it is this: Currently the United States pays $1.4 trillion for healthcare, that's from private resources and from the government. [But] hundreds of billions of dollars of that $1.4 trillion go for things like corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, lobbying, marketing, the cost of paperwork. We're already paying for a universal standard of healthcare but we're not getting it because of the allocation of dollars.
My plan is to take America away from a for-profit system, where healthcare is rationed by ability to pay, and create a not-for-profit system where all the resources go into providing Americans with medical care for all medically necessary procedures. Now there are some candidates for president who have said, "If you want fundamental change in the system I'm not your man." And one of those candidates is a doctor ...
Howard Dean, you're referring to.
Frankly. And I think that it's time to get a second opinion. Now, Governor Dean has said that he wants everyone to have health insurance. We must look at that description. Health insurance. That means you can have health insurance, but you're still going to be stuck with an insurance company that's going to raise your premiums, increase your co-pays, increase your deductibles and shrink you area of coverage. Because insurance companies make money not providing healthcare. My plan is to take it out of the hands of the private insurers and out of the hands of the pharmaceutical companies, and create a not-for-profit public healthcare system where everyone is cared for. That's a major difference between Governor Dean and me, and I think it's going to be one of those defining issues in this election.
