New call to end certain medical exams, procedures

2012 candidate Ron Paul on doctors' plan to limit tests for patients, GOP race

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," April 4, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF "YOUR WORLD": All right, to another doctor. You might better know him as Ron Paul the presidential candidate, but he is a doctor by training.

So, Dr. Paul, what do you make of this?

REP. RON PAUL, R-TEXAS: Well, I think it is not a bad idea to look at over testing.

But I don’t think you can deal with over testing without talking about the legal and the lawsuits. When you go to the emergency room, believe me, you over tested, but it’s the threat of a lawsuit that prompts so much of that.

The decisions of over testing or under testing should be made the old- fashioned way, a decision between the doctor or patient. So once the government gets involved or insurance companies, when they become the third party, third party payment encourages over testing as well.

And when that happens, then there is sort of a type of rationing and the insurance company will ration by making you get pre-approval and dictate how you practice medicine. But when the government gets involved, and I think this might be trying to head off the rationing and the concern about over expenditures...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Right. That was my follow-up question, whether that is what is going on here and the doctors, in other words, this group is saying, all right, ahead of that, here is this.

PAUL: Yes, I think so because the insurance companies are very much in bed with the government.

When there is negotiations in Washington, whether it is prescription drug programs or health care, the health companies, the insurance companies are very much involved and the drug companies as well. So, they are very close to government. Blue Cross and Blue Shield actually started and they work very, very closely with Medicare and Medicaid, and especially Medicare. So, yes, I don’t think it is so easy to separate those two, but if doctors and patients had the control and the patients spent their early money and if they had these medical savings account and they go to the doctor and decide on this, that is who is supposed to be making the decisions, not blanket decisions.

But professional groups -- I am an OB doctor. If I got a recommendation medically, that would influence me in my thinking. But I think medicine is much more complicated and we have way too much government and the expenses are up. Once you pump money into anything, whether it is education, or housing or medicine, prices go up, and then they start worrying about rationing care. I think that is what is really coming to us.

CAVUTO: That would be inevitable, just doing the math.

But, Congressman, on what the president has been saying about the Supreme Court and about justices and their role and about being activists, and what have you, I thought strange, his talking about political activism one way or the other. But be that as it may, I am beginning to think that someone has told him on the court he will go down on this.

I don’t know if that is right, but what do you think his, I wouldn’t call it belligerent, but clearly in your face approach to the Supreme Court?

PAUL: Well, it is more than he should be, but that is what the tradition of the presidents have been in the last half-century.

The presidents write too many executive orders. They go to war without declarations. And they act outside the law. For them to overstep and tell the Supreme Court what to do or have political influence that really is to be expected. The whole question of judicial review should be rethought because in our early history, and Jefferson didn’t think a whole lot about it, that if it was a bad law and was unconstitutional and the states didn’t like it, they didn’t have to live by it, or if they didn’t like what the Congress was doing and they were doing these things, we were supposed to throw our congressmen out.

Originally thought -- it was never thought that the Supreme Court was to have control over every piece of legislation. Just look at the power of one Supreme Court justice. One justice can make all the difference in the world on this. Let’s say they were trying to do some good and one justice ruled against it, and canceled it all out. It was never meant to have that much power.

CAVUTO: That might happen here. Justice Kennedy is in that role.

PAUL: Yes. Right.

CAVUTO: Right.

Let’s switch to -- we had three more primaries last night. And you didn’t win any of them and you have yet to win one. You have come close in a lot of them, sir, but it is a tough sledding for you, now, is it not? Is it your view that Mitt Romney is the inevitable nominee now?

PAUL: He is getting pretty close to that. But, you know, the straw votes are not the final tally. The tally is the delegates.

And we have several states, it is up to six, where we can win possibly win the plurality in those states and carry those delegations. So, yes, it is a challenge, but we are fighting the lack of coverage that we get. Last night, we had 6,200 show up at Chico, at the university. I looked on the Internet today to find out how...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: A record crowd.

PAUL: Yes. I looked for a release on this or an article. So I looked at the Internet. And they said where is Ron Paul? He has disappeared; he is awfully quiet these days.

Of course, we didn’t think we were very quiet last night. We thought we had a great turnout. But, you know, we have to buck the trends of the status quo and the people in charge are not too interested in hearing the challenges that I have with our foreign policy and our military policy.

CAVUTO: But you are staying in this race. You are not going anywhere. It doesn’t look like Newt Gingrich, even though he’s downsized his campaign a bit, is leaving the race, per se. Rick Santorum staying on at least through Pennsylvania, so you guys are sticking this through, right?

PAUL: Well, I think that is what the people who support me want me to do because they don’t think we should quit when we are only halfway through the race. There are a lot of people working their way through the delegate process and that takes a while and that could be until June or so before we even know what...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Understood. But to what end, then, Congressman? It is a given you will have a big role at the convention, and I think Mitt Romney has told me that himself. But beyond that, what would you want?

PAUL: Well, what I want is to live in a free country.

And I believe we are going in the wrong direction. I think we do more harm to ourselves than any threat from outside force. We undermine our civil liberties and we’re bankrupting our country. Our financial situation is much worse than the people really understand and we fight wars that we shouldn’t be fighting.

So this is what I want to change.

CAVUTO: All right.

PAUL: And we are getting the support, especially from the young people. And they don’t like what they are getting. And I think we are in the midst of a real serious intellectual revolution in this country, not only because people are changing their mind, but the system we have is failing.

CAVUTO: All right.

PAUL: I think more and more people are realizing the foreign policy is a failure, monetary policy is a failure and the Federal Reserve is failing. And this debt crisis is a symptom of a total failure.

CAVUTO: All right.

Well, I am not blowing you smoke, Congressman, but I have covered you for many years now. And you are as honest as the day is long and as prescient on these economic developments as anyone I know, long before anyone else. You do have a role to play, a big role.

Congressman, always a pleasure. Thank you.

PAUL: Thank you very much.

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