Closer Look at Nationalized Health Care

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," July 15, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And tonight in "Your America," now as we have been telling you, the Democrats' health care plan includes massive tax hikes and forces millions of Americans to switch service providers. And if they have their way, socialized medicine could become a reality in the U.S. in just a few short weeks.

Now, earlier today, House minority leader John Boehner wanted to show just how ridiculous, insane, inane the Democrats plan is so he unveiled a so-called organizational chart outlining the system.

Now here with a closer look a t this bureaucratic nightmare is FOX News channel's Griff Jenkins. Griff?

GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Sean. They call it a bureaucratic nightmare. House Republicans unveiling a flow chart of the Democrats' health plan. I call it Candy Land. Whatever it is, it's a lot of government between you and your doctor.

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Let's take a look. You have the health care provider here. That's this nice nurse. You have the health insurance exchange. You have the Bureau of Health Information. You have mandated insurance. You have Medicaid, SCHIP, Medicare. You have the Congress. You have the president, you have ANHQ, a bunch of letters. I don't know what that means.

You have this thing and that thing and what's that? Well, that's a lot of circles.

Now let's take a quick look at this and see if we can get through Candy Land, through the gum-drop mountains to your doctor. If you start with the health care and go over here, Sean, to the health insurance exchange, might send you to your private insurance, but might send you through the government inspector general, got to go through Medicaid, Medicare, got to go through the Health Insurance Information area, got to go over here, got to do that, got to do this. Go over here.

Now I'm lost, I don't know where I am. And then whoa! What's that? Oh wow. That's the IRS. And what's it connected to? Uh-oh. Come down here. It's the consumer. The American taxpayer. That's who it is.

Now I was playing around with it a little bit. What happens, Sean, if the advisory committee decides to look into the community health care center and they decided that the financial disclosure, folks going to the Bureau of Health Information, stick with me here, decided that the reinsurance program didn't work, what do you got?

You got a sad face there. Well, for argument's sake, the Democrats say what if you just started — I mean the Republicans, that is, say what if you just started with the doctors and went straight to the consumers? You would have — well, you'd have straight forward health care. You wouldn't have all of that. Sean?

HANNITY: All right. And thanks, Griff.

And joining me now to weigh in on this universal health care nightmare is former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts.

Congressman, always good to see you. Thanks for being with us.

J.C. WATTS, FORMER OKLAHOMA CONGRESSMAN: Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

HANNITY: All right. Well, first of all, I got my chart version here. We'll put it up on the screen. You see this entire bureaucratic nightmare. Your initial thought.

WATTS: Well, I saw the government chart. I saw this chart online today. But Sean, what this basically amounts to is bureaucratic goo to you, the consumer. And it's going to be very, very devastating to health care, all the arguments that's been given. They are accurate.

It's going to cost us more. It's going to — you're going to have a government doctor that has the demeanor of the IRS so it's not going to be good for the end user which is the consumer. Nor will it be good for doctors.

HANNITY: All right. The Democrats put out their talking points. We know how they're going to sell it and it's going to be the same mantra. We're going to hear this for the entire time we debate this that, quote, "it will increase cost and competition."

That's not true. The CBO scored it, they told us otherwise. Quote, "It's going to give Americans peace of mind. It'll improve the quality of care for every American. It will ensure shared responsibility."

Well, that sounds like Karl Marx would be pretty proud. But as you listen to these talking points that they're going to regurgitate in these bumper stickers, will that be effective in terms of convincing the American people?

WATTS: Well, I think the American people are catching on. I think — you know, you've got to be repetitious in terms of opposing it and I think in putting out there the facts as to why we do oppose it. And I think the opposition is, is that it's not going to create competition when you got a government-run system.

The mission is to run everything into the government. What's it going to cost? It's going to make our premiums go up. Nobody wants that to happen. And how — how do we pay for it?

Sean, when you have bureaucrats — when you have bureaucracy like this, the only way you can get money into the government system, tax on one's personal income, tax the corporate income, or put a fee on something that they use, or to borrow it.

But if you borrow it and you pay it back by taxing someone's personal income, taxing the corporate income or putting a fee on something, that the American people use. This is going to be a monstrous cost to the end user which is the consumer.

You're going to have the demeanor of your doctors. They will have the demeanor of the IRS. Not good, no way you look at it.

HANNITY: All right. Not good, no way you look at it? All right. How bad on a scale of 1-10?

WATTS: Well, I think any time the government takes over something, it's not good. Look at everything over the last 45 years or 40 years that the government has gotten involved in something. It's worse today than it was when they got involved.

Delivering social services, you know, education. We're fighting battles in terms of education. We're fighting battles in terms of — you know of public housing. I mean you name it. Everything that the government's gotten involved in, they take it over. They push out the competition.

And it becomes bad and costs more to the consumer and to the taxpayer. So just use the common sense arguments and ask the question, what has government done over the last 40 years that it's better in the government than it is in the private sector?

HANNITY: I can answer the question. I know the — nothing. And that's the point. Now, Medicare, their projected costs was — it was seven times what they had projected that it would ultimately cost the American people back when the numbers came out in 1990.

Where are we with the political reality? Democrats are now suggesting that they can do this on their own. That they don't need any Republicans. You got 52 blue dog Democrats saying you know what? We're a little skittish about it. The American people are upset about spending. They think we're in the wrong direction.

Politically, can Democrats pull this off?

WATTS: Well, I think if you — you got some Midwestern Democrats. You got some conservative Democrats from the south. You got the blue dogs. And I do think they're pretty responsible people. I hope that they will take a serious look at it. I hope they will not push this down the throats of the American people.

Politically, they've got the numbers. With the majority that they have in the house, they could allow those Midwestern southern Democrats — allow them a pass and still pass it. So still a lot of work that needs to be done to get this thing defeated.

HANNITY: All right. JC, good to see you. Thank you as always for being with us.

WATTS: Thank you.

HANNITY: We appreciate it.

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