In that hearing today, Secretary Kennedy made a number of questionable or misleading claims about vaccines, COVID, and the health of Americans.

Joining us now to unpack some of those is Dr. Richard Besser.

He's former acting director of the CDC and the Obama administration, now president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And for the record, we should note the foundation is a funder of

the news hour. Dr. Besser, welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining us. Great to be here. Thank you.

So Secretary Kennedy made a big claim in the hearing I want to ask you about. He said that America is the

sickest country in the world. Take a listen to how he put it. If we don't end this chronic disease, we are the sickest country in the world.

That's why we have to fire people, the CDC, they did not do their job.

This was their job to keep us healthy.

Dr. Bester, the U.S. spends more than any other nation on health care.

Is it accurate to say we are the sickest country in the world?

Well, I don't think I would say we're the sickest country in the world, but I would agree

with the Secretary that we're not getting the return on the investment.

And a lot of that has to do with where we're spending our money.

We're spending our money on health care services rather than on public

health and other approaches to prevention.

He cites as part of the argument there. What he says is a huge spike we've seen in the country

in chronic disease. He actually made the claim that CDC data shows some 76 percent of Americans

have a chronic disease.

That number caught a lot of people's attention.

Is that true?

Well, I would have to go back and look at that number

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