MSNBC "Morning Joe" Interview With Representative James E. Clyburn - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "MORNING JOE" INTERVIEW WITH REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC)
SUBJECT: HEALTH CARE REFORM INTERVIEWERS: JOE SCARBOROUGH, MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MIKE BARNICLE, DONNY DEUTSCH

Copyright ©2009 by Federal News Service, Inc., Ste. 500, 1000 Vermont Ave, Washington, DC 20005 USA. Federal News Service is a private firm not affiliated with the federal government. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold or retransmitted without the written authority of Federal News Service, Inc. Copyright is not claimed as to any part of the original work prepared by a United States government officer or employee as a part of that person's official duties. For information on subscribing to the FNS Internet Service at www.fednews.com, please email Carina Nyberg at cnyberg@fednews.com or call 1-202-216-2706.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Here with us now, Democratic Representative of South Carolina and House Majority Whip Congressman James Clyburn.

Congressman, nice to have you.

REP. CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me. Good morning.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: (Chuckles.) Great.

I guess first of all we should ask about this disappearing act, or lack thereof, of your governor.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Oh, he didn't disappear -- (cross talk) -- people in South Carolina like to go hiking too, don't they, Congressman?

MS. BRZEZINSKI: I was hiking. No one worried about me.

REP. CLYBURN: (Laughs.) Yeah. Well, we do like the hiking. I wish he had chosen the Palmetto Trail to hike, rather than the Appalachian Trail. That's 2,000 miles in too many states.

The Palmetto Trail would have kept him within the state, and that would have been good. Yeah.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. All right.

Well, let's talk about health care. The president's going to the Rose Garden today, talking about health care.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Probably Iran, too --

MR. SCARBOROUGH: What type of health care plan -- and Iran.

What type of health care plan do you think the president needs to send to Congress to get passed?

REP. CLYBURN: First of all, it's got to be high-quality health care.

Second of all, it's got to be accessible to everybody. And thirdly, it has to be affordable.

I think all of us know that we've got the best health care in the world existing here in this country. The problem is it's not affordable, it's not accessible, and we need to make it affordable and accessible to everybody.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Mike Barnicle.

MR. BARNICLE: Hey, Congressman, this is Mike Barnicle in New York.

REP. CLYBURN: Yes, Mike?

MR. BARNICLE: And we just had Senator Daschle on --

First of all, I've got to tell you, every time I see you on TV you make me feel better. Just seeing you makes me feel better. You look like a solid, happy guy. It makes me feel good.

REP. CLYBURN: Oh, you're so kind. (Chuckles.) Thank you.

MR. BARNICLE: But we just had Senator Daschle on, and he indicated that he didn't think the principal ingredient of the health plan was spending more money, that that wasn't the answer, that it was building on what we have now.

Do you agree with that, that spending more money on a revamped health plan is not the big answer?

REP. CLYBURN: I absolutely agree with that. And you may be aware that some time ago I introduced H.R. 1296 to expand our community health centers in this country to 100 percent coverage. Because I do believe we ought to build upon what we've got.

Now, the fact of the matter is, as I said earlier, we've got a real good health care system, but it's not deliverable to everybody. We've to make it accessible; we've got to make it affordable.

And so just throwing money at it would not be the right thing.

We will have a bit contest between coverage and cost, and I would hope that we would emphasize coverage and then begin to look at the cost and how to pay for it.

MR. BARNICLE: Okay, so let me ask you about community health centers. Because you have health care. Everybody in Congress has terrific health care plans.

Donny Deutsch, Willie Geist and I, we're here in New York, we're going to be covered, we're going to be able to see a doctor, we're going to be able to get tests.

How do we get health care delivered to people who can't afford health care, who live in areas where there is no -- where there are no interns, there are very few hospitals around.

How do we get health care delivered to that percentage of the population?

REP. CLYBURN: Well, a lot of it will have to do with health IT -- information technology. We -- if --

I believe if we were to build out this network of health -- community health care centers, and we have the information technology to tie these health care centers to the hospitals that are available, that we increase our expenditures on training health care professionals, everybody would not have to be a specialist in heart disease in order to give good, solid health care.

We need to expand the training of health care professionals, along with this coverage.

And I do believe we can build out a network that is affordable, accessible, and would be high quality.

MR. DEUTSCH: Congressman, I'm a guy that ran a business for years, and Mike and Joe and everybody keeps asking questions that frankly there aren't any firm answers to.

And I'm going to throw something out I threw out earlier -- and Mika, I know you were excited about it; I'm not trying to be smug and glib -- is that the irony of this, we're trying to get our country healthy and we have an industry that we know kills a half a million people a year and costs us $100 billion in health care a year.

Why don't we just put the cigarette guys out of business? I mean, as a businessman, that's the way I would solve the problem.

I know it's near and dear; North Carolina's right next door. But wouldn't that make sense? If we landed from the planet Mars and we had no preconceived notions, isn't that what a sane person would do?

REP. CLYBURN: But isn't that was the president was doing on yesterday when he signed that legislation that his Congress passed to allow the cigarettes to be -- all tobacco -- to be FDA-covered?

I think that's what we were trying to do. And I do believe we'll get there. So I think --

MR. DEUTSCH: Well, that's a tiny, tiny step. That's not a revolution. We need a revolution in this country.

REP. CLYBURN: Well, we have a -- you know what they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

And we made that beginning on yesterday, and I think we'll do that when we build out this health care plan that we are going to do.

You know, one of the things we've got here is that I wish people would start looking at what we're doing in the House. Everybody keeps looking at what they're doing over in the Senate and using that as a template for their discussions.

If they looked at the program that we're putting together, the health care plan that we're putting together with those three committees in the House -- the Ways and Means, the Health -- not the Health, but the Energy and Commerce Committee -- I think they would see a plan that they could be proud of.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: All right. That's a good place. Start the people's House, Mika.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: Yes, I like that.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Forget the House of Lords. Let's concentrate on the people's House.

MS. BRZEZINSKI: And when you find your governor, say hi for us, Congressman Clyburn. (Laughter.)

(Cross talk, exchange aside.)

MR. SCARBOROUGH: And Jim Clyburn, thank you so much.

REP. CLYBURN: Yes. Thank you so much for having me.

Source