LARRY KING: Well, everyone talks about the weather, no one does anything about it. That's an old Mark Twain statement. Right now, that weather is affecting our signal in Vermont, because of those weather storms up along the East Coast. So we'll check in with Howard Dean in a moment.

Joining us right away from Nashville is former Senator Bill Frist, professor of medicine and business at Vanderbilt, former Senate majority leader, a heart transplant surgeon. And a new book his -- of his coming out in October, "A Heart To Serve: A Passion To Bring Health, Hope and Healing," due in October.

A key area, Senator, in the health care debate is the so-called public option. Sunday on CNN, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said it was not essential. Today, she's totally behind it.

Now let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KATHLEEN SEBELIUS, HHS SECRETARY: Here's the bottom line -- absolutely nothing has changed. We continue to support the public options that will help lower costs, give American consumers more choice and keep private insurers honest. If people have other ideas about how to accomplish these goals, we'll look at those, too. But the public option is a very good way to do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Senator Frist, do you like the public option or not?

BILL FRIST, FORMER SENATE MAJORITY LEADER, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE & BUSINESS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Larry, I don't think it's necessary. The public option, if you look at it very simply, is a single payer system that is nationalized. And I think that what it does, it crowds out a lot of the innovation, a lot of the creativity, a lot of the change that we know is necessary to keep up with the biological systems that we have to treat, the health care prevention through wellness.

KING: Doesn't it force the other insurance companies, though, to reduce costs when the government is one of their computers?

FRIST: Well, you know, that's what the line is. And if you pay -- the public plan over the national plan, a single payer plan, would pay physicians less, would pay hospitals less, by definition. And the real fear -- and I think it would happen because we saw it happen, actually, through a very similar plan here in Tennessee, is that it causes the employer-sponsored insurance industry to diminish because all of those people on those more expensive plans get dumped onto the private plan.

Over a period of time, that -- or the public plan. That public plan, over a period of time, continues to grow and grow and grow. The private insurance diminishes. And it's in the private insurance market that we see all the innovation and the choice.

And then you end up with a single payer national plan that people simply don't have the choice that they would otherwise.

KING: But we, also, Senator, obviously, there's something wrong if 48 million people aren't insured, if -- if all other major civilized countries have some sort of national health insurance and we don't.

Do you think, philosophically, that we're entitled to health?

FRIST: I do. And I think that the time has come, in a nation that is as rich as ours, that everybody is entitled to affordable access of some kind of health insurance policy.

You said we have 48 million people uninsured. We have about 20 million people who are hard core uninsured today. And I think, in the 21st century, in the United States of America, now is the time to bring them into the insurance market and then focus on having to -- how to make those insurance markets work -- have more competition, more transparency, more choice, because you're right. We have huge health care problems today.

But the real answer, to me, is not more public health, not more single payer, not more national health, but more transparency, where you can empower consumers to make choices for what is best for them and then address the uninsured issue -- the 20 million hard core.

But you don't have to do what President Obama has promised people in the past, and that is to give all 46 million people...

KING: All right...

FRIST: ...a very expensive health care plan, like the president has or a United States senator has.

KING: But you are not, as some are -- on the left are charging -- saying that the Republicans just don't want health care reform?

FRIST: No. Listen, I was majority leader of the United States Senate. And under our leadership, under Republican leadership and working with President Bush, we passed about a $600 billion health care plan that gave affordable access to prescription drugs to 40 million seniors under Medicare who didn't have it.

So, no, I am hard-charging for reform, but I want to do it in a smarter way, with smarter purchasing, more choice, instead of having centralized bureaucratic control coming from the top. Come back to the doctor.

KING: Moments...

FRIST: Come back to the patient.

KING: Moments ago, Senator, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts wrapped up a town hall meeting on health care in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Watch this exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAUREEN: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy?

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Maureen...

MAUREEN: Why are you supporting it?

REP. BARNEY FRANK (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Let me...

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: Wait, I will...

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: When you asked me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question -- on what planet do you spend most of your time?

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: Do you want me to answer the question?

MAUREEN: Yes.

FRANK: Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said, before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.

(APPLAUSE)

FRANK: And trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We are now connected with Governor Dean.

You can see a lot of this occurring across the country and comparing the president to Hitler and conceptions like that.

How did it get to this, Howard?

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER DNC CHAIRMAN: Look, I think this is very complicated.

And do you really want to talk about this or do you want to talk about health care?

I'm happy to talk about this (INAUDIBLE)...

KING: No, I do. But I did...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: But health care has come under this kind of concept that (INAUDIBLE)...

DEAN: Well, this has nothing to do with health care, Larry. This has nothing to do with health care. This is a group of very angry, frustrated people, well organized. This has been -- this kind of anger politics has been going on for -- been going on for 30 years.

Look, we've had a huge shift in this country as a result of this past election and for the first time, more than -- more people who are under the age of 35 voted than over the age of 65. And there are a lot of people who are kind of feeling adrift of that. They're in a big recession, which they didn't cause, and they're very angry about that.

So this is a much bigger deal than health care, all this kind of mass anger...

KING: All right...

DEAN: And it really doesn't have a lot to do with health care.

KING: Have you -- have you been listening -- and I know we had a bad connection, but -- we couldn't make a connection because of the weather.

DEAN: I -- I could hear everything.

KING: Have you heard?

All right.

DEAN: I have heard everything Bill said.

KING: What are your comments on what...

DEAN: Well, I (INAUDIBLE)...

KING: What are your comments on what he said?

DEAN: Well, first of all, I always enjoy Bill, because he doesn't exaggerate. He doesn't give the party line so much as some of the other folks I get on the show. And so, Bill, it's great to be on with you again.

I think that's true, the public option is a form of nationalized, government-run health care. That's what Medicare is. We already have 50 million people in the Medicare system. We have a Veterans Affairs system which is very, very good. And so that we already have nationalized care.

There's already another group of people, of which Senator Frist was one, Congress has a socialized health care. If you get sick, you can go downstairs to the doctor. You can go to Walter Reid Hospital. That's all government run.

The question is here, who's going to choose?

My question is, why can't we, given the successes of this national health care system, why can't we let more Americans make their own choices?

The truth is not very many people will actually choose the public option. Now, Senator Frist talked about that Medicare Part D, which has been very successful. Only 6 percent choose the public option there.

But to have the public option, if you can't get into an insurance company; if they cut you off, as, unfortunately, so many of them do, if you get sick; if you move; if you lose your job; the public option is always there. Another wonderful thing about Medicare, they don't charge you any differently whether you're healthy or sick. Those are the things... KING: All right. Hold on.

DEAN: That's the way -- that's the way a health insurance system should be.

KING: Hold on, Howard.

We're going to...

DEAN: Yes?

KING: Let me let Senator Frist respond.

We'll be back right away.

DEAN: OK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: All right. Senator Frist, is Governor Dean right?

Haven't a lot of these federal programs worked?

FRIST: Well, Larry, he said Medicare. Medicare, I think, overall, has worked pretty well. It's a -- I think it's -- it's a great program. And as a physician, obviously, I've had thousands of patients who are in it.

He didn't mention the Indian Health Services, though, which is probably the most miserable -- one of the most miserable, under supported, inadequate -- inadequately managed programs and it's a federal health program. Or Medicaid, which has about 35 million people and it's a federal government -- it is a federal government program that is a federal state program. And he didn't mention that, where physicians are getting paid 20 percent less what they are in the private sector.

In a state like Tennessee, people flee from Medicaid. Only about 40 percent of the physicians in the Tennessee have stayed in the program because they are underpaid. And the ones that do stay...

DEAN: But, Bill, I don't -- I don't mean to interrupt, but, in fairness, every child in -- essentially, every child in Vermont has health insurance because of -- because of Medicaid. So it's allowed...

FRIST: I'm just -- yes.

DEAN: ...that changes from state to state.

FRIST: No, it's very good. But we -- and I don't think you would want Medicaid to be the program throughout the country today.

DEAN: Well, we raised...

(CROSSTALK) DEAN: What we did was we raised reimbursement rates, you're right about that.

FRIST: And that's...

DEAN: In order to make it work for us...

FRIST: And that's what happened...

DEAN: ...we raised reimbursement rates.

FRIST: And that's what happened in Tennessee in 1994. We put a universal coverage program in called TennCare. And, Howard, you're familiar with it. And...

DEAN: Yes.

FRIST: And we extended coverage. It worked great for about three years. But after about four or five years, the cost went exactly what you said -- you had to start escalating it. And it ended up, eight years later, costing three times -- both per capita and at the state level and just about drove the state bankrupt -- an experiment that didn't work in Tennessee -- 140,000 people were taken off the rolls a year ago by a Democratic governor because it failed.

And America doesn't want to have an experiment that failed in Tennessee to be taken nationally. And that's what (INAUDIBLE)...

DEAN: But we're not talking about that.

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Bill, we're not talking about that.

FRIST: This is a government program...

DEAN: We're talking about using...

FRIST: This is a government program -- no, you're -- you're choosing...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Let him -- let him speak.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Governor, let him talk.

DEAN: We've had it for 45 years.

KING: I mean Senator, let him talk.

(CROSSTALK)

FRIST: You clearly believe that the federal government is the answer and you used Medicare, which it is a good program...

DEAN: No, I...

(CROSSTALK)

FRIST: But I'm saying you don't mention the Indian Health Services.

DEAN: I don't think...

FRIST: You don't mention Medicaid and you don't mention (INAUDIBLE)...

KING: All right. Let him respond.

DEAN: I don't...

KING: Senator, let him respond.

DEAN: I don't think the federal government is necessarily the answer. I think the American people are the answer. I think if you put two choices out there, the private sector and the public sector, and let the American people choose, they'll reform health care as they see fit.

If the public sector program is no good, they won't use it, just as they haven't used it very much in Part D in Medicare.

If it's great, the insurance companies are going to have to start behaving themselves and not cutting people off and doing all these terrible things they do to people.

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Let the American people choose. I think the American people deserve to have this choice.

FRIST: But if you let the (INAUDIBLE)...

KING: All right, gentlemen -- gentlemen, I'm sorry. We have limited time. We're going to do a lot more with both of you.

A quick question for each.

Are we going to get a program passed, Howard?

DEAN: Yes. A public option will be included in the final program. It will be up to the American people to choose whether they want it or not and the president will sign it in December.

FRIST: And I agree (INAUDIBLE)...

KING: Senator, are we going to get a plan?

FRIST: We will have a plan passed in November. It will be about $800 billion. It will insure about 20 million more people. It won't cover everybody. It will have a public plan -- not Howard's type -- as a backup plan, as a fall-back option...

KING: OK.

FRIST: (INAUDIBLE) a cooperative type plan.

KING: Off the topic, one quick question, Senator, before we leave. We understand from our crack staff that you took advantage of the Cash for Clunkers program. We understand you traded a 1991 Chevy Suburban for a 2009 Prius.

FRIST: And in Tenn...

KING: True or false?

FRIST: And in Tennessee, the Prius is, for a Republican -- you don't see a lot of Republicans driving a Prius. But I'm going to get 50 miles to the gallon. My -- my 18-year-old Suburban is going to have that -- that junk put in it which is going to kill it. So I'm very sad. But the taxpayer gave me $6,000 to do it and so I'm out there driving my Prius.

DEAN: And as a good governor, I'm about to do the...

KING: Thank you both.

DEAN: I'm about to do the same, but I'm going to get a Ford Escape because I like to buy American.

KING: Whoa.

FRIST: You got me there.

KING: Howard Dean and Bill First going at it. Thank you both very much.