Our next guest is Philip Longman, whose book "The Best Care Anywhere: Why V.A. Health Care is Better Than Yours" explores in details, if I might coin a phrase, why the V.A. health care is better than yours?

Thanks for joining me tonight. Phil, can you explain what the V.A.`s government-run health care plan is and why it works?

PHILLIP LONGMAN, AUTHOR, "BEST CARE ANYWHERE": Well, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates about 153 hospitals and some 900 clinics in every state of the Union and in many of our territories. It`s the primary vehicle for providing care to the veterans who qualify.

I came to find out about it a couple of years ago when "Fortune" magazine called up and asked me to find out for them who might be the Jack Welch of health care -- Jack Welch, of course, being the fabled CEO of General Electric at the time. And I thought that was a pretty interesting assignment, so I went off to search for the Jack Welch of health care.

And discovered, as I looked around for innovation and who was winning the highest marks for quality and cost effectiveness in American health care, it was the institution that I couldn`t believe could possibly be delivering these results -- because, like many Americans, I didn`t have much contact with it. And what I did know about it came from movies like "Born on the Fourth of July." But it turns out -- this is an amazing system and a really good news story for health care going forward. Original clip