MSNBC Countdown w/ LAWRENCE O'DONNELL - 28 Sept. 2009: Lawrence O'Donnell covers the Dem uprising against the bad health care reformj, the Texas free clinic, Reid's latest on the Public Option, and the ads attacking the Baucus bill, and he interviews Dr. Dean.
O'DONNELL: New York Times today reports that the final Senate bill, the version Majority Leader Harry Reid will cobble together from the Health Committee bill and the Finance Committee bill, will NOT include a public option, according to unnamed senior Democratic aides. Responding to the story, a spokesman for Sen. Reid said any such decision would prejudice tomorrow's outcome for the public option. Okay... but will it be in the final Senate version? Reid's spokesman said "We don't know."
Let's bring in Dr. Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and chairman of the Democratic Party...
Gov. Dean, is there any reason to think the public option really has a shot in the Senate? You have unnamed Senate sources saying it will not be in the final bill and the best Sen. Reid's spokesman can come up with is 'I don't know' to the question of what will be in the final bill. What's your guess here?
DEAN: Well, look,
this is a bill that George Bush would love. It's a massive redistribution of government taxpayer's money to the insurance industry, exactly the same thing that was going on with the banking industry, and other industries on Wall Street. It is a bad bill, this Finance Committee bill. It doesn't insure people. It spends an awful lot of money and it gives it away to the insurance companies. So I do think ultimately the bill will have a public option because I don't think the Democratic Party is going to stand for this.
O'DONNELL: What is your theory about how you get it? If Jay Rockefeller doesn't succeed tomorrow and if they then go to the Senate floor without it, do you think it gets amended into the bill on the Senate floor; how will they get it?
DEAN: Well, first, there's no reason to go to the floor without it. You've already had one committee that's acted on this, Chris Dodd's committee, that has done the right thing and put in a public option. So there's no reason you shouldn't have it in the public bill. There will be a vote and we think that there are 51 or 52 Democratic Senators who will vote for some sort of public option. That is really essential. If you don't have a public option, you are wasting nearly a trillion dollars of government money and giving it to the health insurance industry. I think that is a terrible mistake. I know very well that is NOT what President Obama planned on when he was campaigning, and we have just got to get the 51 votes in the Senate to get this done. And I think we will.
O'DONNELL: Now, put on your hat as former chairman of the DNC, how do you feel about seeing Democrats attack Democrats politically over this, and some people trying to get up primary challenges against congressman like Jim Cooper in Tennessee? Is that something you would advise against as ultimately self-destructive, or is this a way to get what some might think of as stronger Democrats in those seats?
DEAN: Well, look, here's the problem. The problem is we have a very big majority, and if you don't use your majority, you lose your majority.
And that's exactly what's happening right now in the Democratic Party. There is no reason. Sixty-five percent of the American people in the CBS poll that was put out a couple of days ago want a public option. A public option is simply allowing people to sign up for Medicare if they are under 65. That's a very good public option, and there's no reason... I don't understand why these senators aren't voting for what 65% of their constituents want. That's what I don't understand. Of course people are going to be upset if they ask you to do something, they're paying your salary, and your voting with the people who give you huge campaign contributions. Of course they're going to get upset about that. So, as former DNC chair, I hate to see this happen to the Democratic Party, but I would just ask the Senators: 'Look, we've been through a tough time together; we worked really hard together to get you a majority. Please use your majority for the people of this country. Not the insurance industry.'
- snip -
Every Democrat is going to sink or swim together on this. If we pass a bill that is just a big giveaway to the insurance industry, which is what the Senate is working on right now, every Democrat will suffer, from President Obama right down to, even Democrats who vote for the right thing will suffer...
O'DONNELL:
Step me through a scenario in which a bill comes to the Senate floor that, for the final vote for it, is a bill that you oppose, it has no public option, no real cost controls, no ability to really subsidize insurance at the level it needs to be subsidized to make it affordable, and you end up recommending a vote against that, and let's say the vote against that carries on the Senate floor, do you then expect that this whole thing could be picked up and started over again and maybe passed next year?
DEAN: No. What I would do if that were to happen, is I would hope that people would strip out the money from the bill, 'cause it's stupid to give 60 billion dollars of taxpayers' money to the insurance industry every year, and pass the insurance reform. There is good insurance reform in this bill... This is stuff that we did 15 years when I was governor of Vermont, guaranteed issue and community rating. It won't insure a lot more people, but it will stop the insurance companies from kicking people off their rolls, as they do now, so there is some good stuff in this bill, it's just not worth spending all that taxpayer money on it.
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