Well, my husband, Charles Kessler, who's a friend of yours, too.
Yes, indeed.
Our house is in Pasadena, and we have an office now in Pasadena.
We've had it for about...
Three and a half years.
Our main office is in San Francisco.
I spend probably a week and a half a month in San Francisco, as little time as possible because I have to Uber to work.
It's not safe to walk to work just from Knob Hill down to the financial district because of the homeless situation, the mess on the streets, the drugs, the needles, everything.
So Pasadena seems very calm and quiet compared to San Francisco.
Before I get to your very important, the short book here, very important, I'm curious to know, does the average San Francisco leftist know this situation, and if so, what or whom do they blame?
Well, they blame people, dentists like you and like me.
I mean, they think that government can solve this problem.
More and more money from the city government, from the federal government, from state government is going to solve the problem of the homeless.
Even Gavin Newsom said he's going to bring in legislation to provide more money.
Pouring more money at the homeless situation, either in Los Angeles or in San Francisco, is not going to solve the problem.
And, you know, the issue is that most of these people who are homeless, many of them don't want to live in a shelter or whatever.
Many of them are mentally ill or drug addicts.
So the number of people who have lost their job who are living on the street is very small.
So we have to be able to deal with the issue of who these people are and how do you deal with them and take care of them.
Because, as you know...
Many of the institutions that kept these people for many years were shut down, and these people came out on the street.
Even last night in L.A., going to a restaurant, a homeless person came up to our car just on Alameda, and I was saying, Charles, drive through the light.
I mean, you don't know.
How do you know if this person has a gun or whatever?
But he was wandering around our car at the stoplight.
Wow.
All right, to your book.
The book is False Premise, False Promise.
The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All.
So that's the thing.
So I don't expect you to know the answer because your arena is healthcare.
But I'm just off the top of my head, perhaps your husband or my spouse, Alan.
Yes.
I have two spouses, my wife and Alan.
Yes.
Can tell me, of the six remaining Democratic nominees, who has come out for Medicare for All?
So, obviously, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren.
Buttigieg has not, correct?
Well, you can't really say he hasn't.
He supports the public option, which is a government-run insurance plan that would compete against private insurers.
And he has said this is the way he wants Medicare for all who want it.
But he does come out and say that if the public option doesn't get everybody covered, he still is going to support Medicare for all.
So this would be a stepping stone approach, just like Elizabeth Warren is...
She's saying, I'm not for Medicare for All right now.
Within the first hundred days, I would introduce a public option.
The third year of my presidency, those people would love government-run health care so much that then we would have Medicare for All.
All right, wait.
Who promised to take away people's private care?
Well, Bernie Sanders is the one who has been talking about this for years, but only in 2016, when he was running against Hillary Clinton for the nomination, did he really start pushing for Medicare for All, no private coverage, and of course, it would be free.
So who's left?
Let's see.
Amy Klobuchar.
What's her stance?
Do you know?
Well, Amy Klobuchar...
By the way, it turns out Sally knew all of this.
Yeah.
We really didn't need you guys.
I gotta just say for the record.
Yeah.
Because I'm a freak.
I live and breathe this 24 hours a day.
Amy Klobuchar has said in the last debate on January 14th in Des Moines that she's not for...
Completely getting rid of private insurance.
Because, you know, Dennis, 180 million Americans have employer-sponsored coverage.
71% of them rate it as good or as excellent.
So Amy Klobuchar says, we couldn't afford to just shut down the whole private sector and have put everyone in a government plan.
So she's more for allowing competition between the employer-sponsored coverage and sort of not really, you know, moving to single-payer.
The people who say public option, I don't understand public option.
I don't want to spend money on private health care so I will be insured by the government.
Right, so the public option, if you go back, the Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, will be 10 years old on March 23rd.
When it was in the House, and Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker, she pushed for the public option, and they put it in the bill.
When the bill went to the Senate, they took out the public option.
The public option being a government insurance plan that would compete against private insurers.
And as you know, Dennis, the government plan would be priced cheaper than private insurers can offer coverage.
So private insurers would be crowded out and we would all be left in a government Medicare for all single payers.
So it's really a, I don't want to say fraud, but it's sort of a cover for what is going to really happen.
Public option and...
Medicare for All are almost synonymous.
One is like full in, as Bernie Sanders said, in my first week of being the president, I would introduce Medicare for All.
Wipe out all private insurance.
He admitted several months ago it would cost $30 to $40 trillion over 10 years.
I know that doesn't relate to our income level, but $30 to $40 trillion over 10 years.
He has now come out and said, well, that number's too big, I don't want to talk about it.
But of course there would be increased taxes.
On the wealthy, on financial institutions.
Anyone earning over $29,000 would face a 4% increase in their income tax.
There would be a new payroll tax.
All of these things which are going to be very expensive.
And as Warren has said, one to two million people who are in the insurance industry would all lose their jobs.
Sanders said we have to have a government transition program to retrain these people because Sanders thought they could work in the auto insurance industry.
These are not transferable skills.
So, I have another question that gnaws at me.
If the government does literally Medicare for all, it means it will pay hospitals and doctors Medicare prices.
Exactly.
They're not enough for most hospitals and doctors to live on.
Well, exactly.
I mean, Bernie Sanders' plan, and he has said this when questioned, he said, well, you know, we're going to have to, you know, in order to cover part of the cost of this, Charles Blayhouse has said, if you doubled all the corporate income taxes, all the personal income taxes, it wouldn't be enough to cover the cost of Medicare for all.
But Sanders said, well, we're going to have to tie doctors' rates to Medicare rates, which are about 40% below what doctors get paid for treating private patients.
My own OBGYN said, I lose money on Medicare.
Cal patients, I break even on Medicare, and I make my money for treating people like you who have private coverage.
So what is going to happen?
Going to be basically civil servants, public servants.
A lot of them will retire early.
We've seen that under Obamacare.
And I believe that the best and brightest kids who've traditionally in this country gone into medicine, there's a lot of competition, they're not going to go into medicine if they think they're going to have the government determine what kind of health care.
Well, they'll never be able to pay their medical school bills.