prices paying 50% of what medicare is paying. does that make any sense? one government agency paying half as much as another government agency? we are working very hard to make that happen. one of the reasons, and i know you ve spoke on it him and heard him say publicly, senator joe manchin refuses to endorse some of the medicare expansion in this, is because he believes that the inflation crisis in this country is very bad, and that also on medicare coverage, he believes that expanding medicare, which is what you re saying should be done, will hurt the actual underlying will hurt the trust fund and make it hard for people to get basic medicare. how do you convince him that s he s wrong on that? the way to convince him and the simple reality is we are paying for this, inflation today is a serious issue, no question about it. but what we are doing in this legislation is demanding that
times more for some drugs than the canadians or the mexicans do. that fight continues, and the fight to expand medicare look, poll after poll shows that the american people understand, it is not acceptable that elderly people have teeth in their mouth that are rotting, can t digest their food, don t have the vision they need in order to read a newspaper. we are continuing that effort. it pains me very much sorry, go ahead. i want to make sure that i understand what you re saying. you re continuing that effort. you want to add it before the house votes? you want to add it to the bill? absolutely. look, we re working as everybody should know, on two separate bills, bipartisan infrastructure bill, which will finally begin to address the reality that our roads and our bridges and our water systems are crumbling. that s one bill. but we want to move both bills in tandem, and the second bill,
the prescriptions that their doctors write. people are dying, the cost of insulin is ten times more in this country. anyone tells me you re talking about how important it is. would you vote forea bill that doesn t include ing changing what you re describing is a very big problem? as soon as i leave this studio i am going back home to get on the phone to make sure we have it. over 80% of the american people, give you an example, the veterans administration is paying half because they negotiated prescription drug prices paying 50% of what medicare is paying. does that make any sense? one government agency paying half as much as another government agency? we are working very hard to make that happen. one of the reasons and i know you ve spoke on it him and heard him say publicly senator joe manchin refuses to endorse some of the medicare expansion in
this, is because he believes that the inflation crisis in this country is very bad, and that also on medicare coverage, he believes that expanding medicare, which is what you re saying should be done, will hurt the actual underlying will hurt the trust fund and make it hard for people to get basic medicare. how do you convince him that s wrn he s wrong on that? the way to convince him and the simple reality is we are paying for this, inflation today is a serious issue, no question about it. but what we are doing in this legislation is demanding that the wealthiest people and largest corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. this bill is going to be totally paid for in terms of medicare solvency, i have no objection. i think it s a good idea that we raise addition al revenue by
the wealthiest people and largest corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. this bill is going to be totally paid for in terms of medicare solvency, i have no objection. i think it s a good idea that we raise additional revenue by lowering the cost of saving taxpayers money in medicare and putting that into expanding medicare solvency. i am supportive of that idea. let me follow up on one part of this which is people don t understand maybe why there s such a fight here, and it is because there are philosophical differences within the democratic caucus, big ones. you say this is going to be paid for. joe manchin just doesn t believe it and believes it will add to the debt and the deficit and it will contribute to big government spending. how do you bridge that gap? well 48 let s also back up a little bit and make sure