ARMSTRONG, LANCE: I just want to say hello to Elizabeth because she is a good friend of mine and a good friend of ours and as a cancer survivor, you know, I want you to know that we're all thinking about her.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: I know that she wasn't able to be here today but as a cancer survivor, I just wanted to recognize her and wish her my best.
EDWARDS, JOHN: Thank you Lance.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: You want to start, boss?
MATHEWS, CHRIS: Let me ask you why, of all the countries that are called industrialized countries, sort of a euphemism, advanced countries, economically like ours, we're the only one without health insurance.
MATHEWS, CHRIS: Explain it to somebody on Mars. Why doesn't America have a health care system if Britain has one, France has one, Canada has one and we don't. Why not?
EDWARDS, JOHN: Well, I think you'd have to go to Mars to find somebody who doesn't understand why we don't have universal health care. I think most people in American know why we don't have universal health care.
EDWARDS, JOHN: The reason we don't have it is because of entrenched interests in Washington that stand between us and the universal care that we need: insurance companies, drug companies and their lobbyists.
EDWARDS, JOHN: They're the obstacles to us having the health care that we need.
MATHEWS, CHRIS: So you say we cannot solve the problem or get to where we have to get with cancer, which is money, and commitment as long as politicians take money from the health industry. You're saying that?
EDWARDS, JOHN: I think that's a piece of it. I wouldn't make it the whole thing.
MATHEWS, CHRIS: Well, is that a necessary condition to change. I'm not saying it's sufficient. Is it necessary to change?
EDWARDS, JOHN: Yes, I believe it's a necessary condition to change.
MATHEWS, CHRIS: So Hillary Clinton, who just sat here, is wrong to take this money, a million dollars last election, this recent election a million two. You've said that. I'm just repeating what you said
EDWARDS, JOHN: We have a basic disagreement. Here's what I believe. .I believe that the insurance companies, the drug companies and their lobbyists killed the health care reform that was attempted in the 1990s by Senator Clinton and we applaud her for her work.
EDWARDS, JOHN: But I think they're the people who killed it.
EDWARDS, JOHN: And I think the lesson from that, my lesson is not the same as hers. I mean her lesson is give them a seat at the table. At least that's what I heard her say just a few minutes ago. I think if you give insurance companies,
EDWARDS, JOHN: drug companies, and their lobbyists a seat at the table, they'll eat all the food.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I think you have to take their power away from them and I don't think they're ever going to voluntarily give away their power and I think you have to take them on, you have to confront them, and you have to fight them and they have to be beaten.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I think that's the way we have universal health care.
EDWARDS, JOHN: If you could do it by compromise and negotiation, why don't we have universal health care today? I mean they've been in this place for years and years and years. They have stood as an obstacle for what we need with health care in America.
EDWARDS, JOHN: If the answer is compromise and negotiation, well it hasn't worked.
EDWARDS, JOHN: That's what I know. I think we have to confront them head on, fight them, and bring about the change that we need for universal health care.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: I want to talk a little about funding because I know you mentioned it up there but I just want to drill down and get a little specific.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: As you said, the economic impact of this disease, not even counting the personal and emotional one but the economic impact of treating people with cancer and the ultimate loss of productivity is about $200 billion a year.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: Two hundred billion.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: We as a nation spend about $5 or $6 billion dollars a year on the disease. As commander in chief, do you have any kind of idea of what you would like to spend in order to offset $200 billion dollars in lost costs and productivity
EDWARDS, JOHN: I can't give you an exact number, but I would dramatically increase what we're doing today for all of the reasons that I spoke about just a few minutes ago.
EDWARDS, JOHN: Just from a basic cost perspective, a billion dollars put into -- In fact I saw somebody at the University of Texas, in your hometown, speaking about this the other day, You think about this just in basic logic.
EDWARDS, JOHN: The hundreds of billions of dollars that we spend taking care of people with cancer.
EDWARDS, JOHN: If we invest a billion, or two billion, or five billion, or ten billion dollars in finding a cure, think about the extraordinary economic benefit from that. Just the economic benefit.
EDWARDS, JOHN: That's not even thinking about stopping the spread of the disease and stopping people from getting sick. So I am committed as commander in chief to dramatically increasing our research in this area.
EDWARDS, JOHN: And I mention this, and I do think it's important. I think what's happened is, under President Bush, what's happened is there's been a conservative approach to these research grant requests.
EDWARDS, JOHN: And some of that conservatism is ideological. I mean, we've seen limitations on things like stem cell research that should not exist, in my judgment. We have to expand stem cell research in this country.
EDWARDS, JOHN: But on top of that it's also conservative in another sense. It's conservative in that if you almost can't guarantee the result, then they don't fund it.
EDWARDS, JOHN: Well, if you could guarantee the result, we'd know the answer already.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I mean, the most critical thing for us to do is to turn loose these young, creative researchers and allow them to run in an open field.
EDWARDS, JOHN: And that means we're going to have to be willing to take some risk, and there's some costs associated with taking risk.
EDWARDS, JOHN: So if you decide on the front end that you're going to be conservative in what research you fund, it's self-limiting.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I mean, it's obvious that you're going to limit the possible beneficial effects of the research that's being done.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: I was talking to Dr. Bernadine Healy the other day, who's a cancer survivor, and she said that one of the issues that politicians don't want to talk about is the call in the scientific community for what are called designer embryos,
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: embryos created for the purpose of experimentation and for development of tissue that can be used to save lives.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: Are you for that or only for the use of existing stem cells that come from embryos that came from fertility clinics?
EDWARDS, JOHN: The honest answer to that is I haven't thought about it.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: But are you against in principle the idea of inseminating an egg to create an embryo...
EDWARDS, JOHN: For the purpose of doing research?
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: For the purpose of research and for the purpose of creating stem cells that could be used, the kind that the scientists need or say they need in some cases...
EDWARDS, JOHN: Well, I think I'd have to know an answer to a scientific question that I don't know the answer to...
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: But you don't have a philosophical objection to creating stem cells through the creation of embryos?
EDWARDS, JOHN: Just for the purpose of doing research?
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: Yes.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I might. I might. I think I'd have to think about...
EDWARDS, JOHN: The first question I'd need to know the answer to that I don't know the answer to -- maybe you do -- which is, can we do the same research with the existing embryos?
EDWARDS, JOHN: I mean, is there a reason -- if we remove the ideological limitations that Bush has put on funding for stem cell research, can we do the research spending that needs to be done with existing embryos?
EDWARDS, JOHN: My guess is the answer to that is yes but I don't know the answer.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: What I heard from her is that scientists would like to get, as you say, a freer rein into what they can do. If they can design embryos.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: It's a terrible word design but creation of embryos that can be more useful to the harvesting of the stem cells. Of course, we're all beyond our ken here but I was trying to get a philosophical answer.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: Let me ask you about. Let me give you a question, a very clear question, from Patricia Le Shay from Glendale Arizona
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: I have terminal breast cancer and knowing that I have insurance to pay for my treatment is very comforting but what about the thousands of people who die because they do not have health insurance and no money for treatment.
MATTHEWS, CHRIS: What do you plan to do for them?
EDWARDS, JOHN: Well, there's an easy answer for that. I am proud of the fact that I was the first candidate to come out with a truly universal health care plan that requires every single man and woman in America to have health care coverage.
EDWARDS, JOHN: And I actually think there is a question that ought to be put to every candidate, Democratic or Republican, in this race.
EDWARDS, JOHN: If your health care plan does not cover everybody, then you should have to explain why this particular woman or this particular child is not entitled to health care because my view is every single one of us have equal value,
EDWARDS, JOHN: equal worth, and everybody's health is precious and everybody's entitled to health care coverage and I think any plan
EDWARDS, JOHN: My answer to the question is, you know, there are thousands and thousands of women who are being diagnosed with breast cancer. Let's use that as the example for talking about this.
EDWARDS, JOHN: I want somebody to explain why any single one of those women is not entitled to the health care that they need. And my view is, and we have a lot of Iowa caucus goers here with us today.
EDWARDS, JOHN: If any candidate says what they want to do in Iowa when we campaign here. If you're looking for a candidate and you ask them all those women who are being diagnosed with breast cancer.
EDWARDS, JOHN: Is there a single one of them in your health care plan that will not be covered. If the answer to that question is yes, there's one woman whose not covered, you should find yourself another candidate because every single man and woman in this country should have health care coverage including the woman you just asked the question about
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: I want to ask a tobacco question. The World Health Organization's framework convention on tobacco control is aimed at controlling the global epidemic of tobacco use.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: The U.S. is not among the 148 nations who have ratified the convention. If you were elected president would you push U.S. ratification of this treaty?
EDWARDS, JOHN: I would push for anything that
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: Let me just, Just for the audience.
ARMSTRONG, LANCE: This has to do with warning labels on packages, with advertising in certain places, certainly other significant issues, but again, the U.S. being one of the few countries that has yet to do that.
EDWARDS, JOHN: The answer to your question, and I'll give you even a broader answer. I would push for anything that will reduce smoking in the United States of America, including, beyond that, a significant increase in funding for smoking cessation programs.
EDWARDS, JOHN: Smoking is the one thing we know with certainty is a huge risk factor for cancer.