CNN "State Of The Union" - Transcript

Interview

Our next guests are uniquely qualified to help us understand the fine print. Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, Republican Congressman Tom Price of Georgia, and Democratic Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas. Senator Barrasso and Congressmen Price are also medical doctors, while Congresswoman Bernice Johnson is a registered nurse.

Thank you all for being with us today. Congresswoman, I want to start with you, because Secretary Sebelius at the top of the program made crystal clear that the public option that the president early on had said was a critical element and that your colleagues, especially, in the House Democratic Caucus have said is a central, critical component of health care reform, the White House now says too much attention on the public option, clearly signaling it is ready to sign a health care bill without one. Could you support one? Could other House Democrats support a health care reform measure that does not have a robust public option?

JOHNSON: It would be very, very difficult, because without the public option, we'll have the same number of people uninsured. If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they'd be insured. The only way that we can be sure that very low-income people and persons who work for companies that don't offer insurance can have access to it is through an option that would give the private insurance companies a little competition. The private insurance companies have been in charge so long that I think they feel that nobody else ought to be able to do it.

KING: You say, very difficult. I want to bring in our Republican -- your Republican colleagues here. When you say very difficult, would House Democrats -- would you go to your speaker and say, Madam Speaker, go down to the White House and say, no?

JOHNSON: We've already done that. We've already expressed that to the speaker.

KING: Congressman Price, you jump in on this point before I want to get up and go to the wall, because I want to mostly have a town hall discussion here today and raise some of the questions that are coming up around the country.

But if the president is signaling a public option is not essential, then would House Republicans maybe say it's time -- maybe you'll go down to the White House and say, Mr. President, here is what we can do.

PRICE: Well, we would love to go down to the White House and work with the president. And the fact of the matter is that this notion that there's just two options, the government option or a private insurance option, is just simply false. There's the third way, which is the right way, we believe, which is a patient way, a patient-centered way, to put patients in charge. And there is a way to get folks insured without having the government option. If you have the government option, then what that does is crowd out all sorts of folks from private personal insurance to the government-run program.

There are all sorts of studies that demonstrate that. The Congressional Budget Office demonstrates that, the Heritage Foundation. Tens of millions of individuals would be moved from their personal, private insurance to the government-run program. We simply don't think that's acceptable.

KING: I want to have a town hall here at "State of the Union," much like you're having at home. And Senator Barrasso, Dr. Barrasso, I want to go to you first and I want to go out to the state of Iowa. And I want to play for you a question that came up at a town hall for your Republican colleague, Chuck Grassley and I want your thoughts here. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): I'm a second-year medical student. If plans like these are going to drastically increase the number of people on plans who result in paying the low Medicare reimbursement that we get here in Iowa, how are you going to keep future doctors like me and thousands of doctors across the state in Iowa? (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Senator Barrasso, the question essentially being in the context of, if you have a public option, will the reimbursement rates be low, like in Medicare and Medicaid, in that student's opinion, so the doctors, as we've seen in many states, simply opt out?

BARRASSO: I had that same question at a town hall meeting in Wirling (ph), Wyoming in Washakie County just this past Friday. Physicians are very concerned, because in the past, Medicare and government payers -- government is the biggest deadbeat. They don't pay enough, the fair price. They don't even pay the ambulances enough to get the patient to the hospital, so then there's this dramatic cost shifting, John, that happens in America. But at a town hall, what I heard from people in Wyoming is, they are afraid that with this new plan that the president is proposing, is they're going to end up paying more and ending up with worse care overall.

BARRASSO: They're very concerned about all of this Washington spending, the major debt that we're facing, and they're really focused on the economy right now and saying that really ought to take priority over health care.

KING: Let's go to another question. And, Congressman Price, I want you to take this one. I'm going to zoom into the state of Maryland. Senator Ben Cardin had a town hall up here in the Hagerstown area, and you notice he's a Democrat, but this is a conservative part of the state up here. Here was the question put to Senator Cardin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Say my dad and my grandfather both came down with cancer. Would my dad get priority care because he's younger and can contribute longer to society?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Interesting question from the young man there. Would the government, Congressman Price, be involved in those decisions?

PRICE: Oh, it's very concerning, John. I'm up here in northern Michigan visiting my mom, who had a recent bout of cancer. And I believe that the surgery that she was allowed to have and the chemotherapy that she was allowed to have in the House bill would not be available to her.

And that's why you see seniors across this land so very concerned, because the proposal in the House is to decrease, is to cut $500 billion from Medicare. They know that that means a decrease in the quality of care and the level of care that they're able to receive, and it's not acceptable to them, and it's not acceptable to us, especially when there are positive ways to solve this problem without throwing everything out and making it so that the government's running the show.

KING: I want to let the Democrat in on that conversation. Congressman, you heard your Republican colleague there. And this does come up when you travel the country.

I was in your state recently, and it came up there, that if you're trying to squeeze all these savings from Medicaid and Medicare, no one disputes that there's not a lot of money to be saved in getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse in a bureaucracy, but doctors and patients do have a concern that if you squeeze too much, you ultimately do affect care. How do you guarantee, Congresswoman, that doesn't happen?

JOHNSON: First of all, we'll have another part of it -- part of the health care getting attention, primary care. With primary care, much of the hospital and the emergency room-type of care will be eliminated, because we really won't need it.

When people learn how to be self-sufficient and take care of themselves through our community health centers, there won't be as many emergency room patients, there won't be as many people going to the hospital, because they won't need it.

And it's not that care would be rationed. It's just that when they learn how to take care of themselves -- there's a big difference between a diabetic ending up in the emergency room in a diabetic coma versus one who has gone to a community health center and gotten instructions as to how to keep from having that blood sugar go up. There's a vast difference in what that would cost.

KING: All right, let's move on to another -- let's move on to New Jersey here. Another question that came up at a town hall -- and I want to stay with you, Congresswoman, first, because I think a Democrat should answer this question first. This one, again, in my travels to 30 states now in the past seven months, this one comes up quite frequently, especially because of anxiety that has nothing to do with the health care debate, but anxiety about the bailout money, government spending, and the big deficits. Here's another question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): (inaudible) rushed into the stimulus, we rushed into cap-and-trade. Nobody's read any of these things (inaudible)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: "Why so fast?" was the gentleman's question, Congresswoman, and especially when you see support going down and the bipartisan negotiations in the Senate hung up. Why so fast? Is it critical to Democrats to do this, this year, or is it more critical to get Republicans, like your colleagues right here with you on this program, on board so it's easier to sell to all Americans?

JOHNSON: I don't know if we can get them on board.

This is not "so fast." This has been worked on now 30 years, and we've not been able to get it passed. And the major reason is because many of the Republicans are so subservient to the insurance companies that -- and the insurance companies are the ones that will have to give some, because right now, they're in charge of medical care.

You know, it's interesting that we have Dr. Price, and I think you said the other gentleman was a doctor. The insurance companies are telling him how to practice medicine. Maybe that's why they left; I don't know. But we need a situation where doctors can be in charge of the care. I think it will be more efficient, patients can leave the hospital sooner when they get the proper care rather than waiting around four or five days to see whether or not an insurance plan is going to pay for a condition. There are many reasons why we should move ahead.

And to say something about the bailouts, we have made investments in these various large institutions that need the care and need the help in order to stay in business. We will get money back when they start to make money.

It's so interesting how this dialogue goes, because the misinformation that's being spread by most of the real loud people that they've recruited to go to these meetings is really just misinformation. They are not getting the correct information.

KING: I think this happens every day in medical offices all across the country. The nurse is telling the doctors, "You don't quite have this right." Gentlemen, I know you want to jump in. Let me work in a quick break here. We'll be right back, and we'll get the Republican colleagues involved. A lot more to dissect with Senator Barrasso, Congressman Price, and Congresswoman Bernice Johnson. Please stay with us.

And if you'd like to know more about the health care debate and how reforms could affect you and your family, go to the special "Health Care in America" Web site on cnn.com/healthcare. You can read the legislation in its entirety. Also, at our Facebook site right now, there is a fascinating debate on this very issue going forward. Take part if you'd like. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We're back with three medical professionals who now serve in the Congress, Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, Republican Congressman Tom Price of Georgia, and Democratic Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas.

Let's continue in our town hall format here. I want to go into the state of Maryland. Congresswoman Donna Edwards had a town hall recently, and I'll show her picture up here. She's conducting the town hall meeting.

One of the things CNN obtained at this meeting was an e-mail that conservatives are using across the country. It's gone out to millions of people, criticizing the Obama health care plan and the details. And you see it here.

And it goes line by line through many specific criticisms of the plan. I want to read you one of them. This e-mail says that, on page 427, lines 15 through 24 of the House bill, quote, "the government mandates program for orders for end of life. The government has a say in how your life ends." If you go to the actual legislation on that page, what it is, is advanced care planning consultations. The bill would cover the costs of sitting down with someone to discuss a living will, to discuss a DNR.

Congressman Price, I want to go to you first. Many conservatives have said, "You know what? To say there are death panels, that the government can pull the plug on grandma, is simply wrong." Does it hurt your cause when conservative critics are misleading people and are twisting the facts?

PRICE: Well, I think this is symptomatic of the process that we've been through, and that is that it's been mostly in secret, that it hasn't been a bipartisan way, certainly in the House.

PRICE: The concern that people have across this land is, what role is the government going to play? Who's going to make these crucial decisions? And when they go to that area of the bill and they see that the government will mandate, will dictate that the physician and the patient, who is eligible for Social Security, have that conversation at least once every five years, and then they see earlier this year that the Comparative Effectiveness Research Council was put in place, and the Congress refused to say that it would only deal with clinical situations, it would also deal with costs, and you put those things together, and people have a reasonable concern that the government is going to be making decisions that ought to be left to families and patients and doctors.

That's where these decisions ought to stay. The problem is, that's not what the bill says.

KING: Well, you say it mandates. Others who read the bill, including our organizations, fact-checkers and other organizations' fact-checkers, says that it covers and recommends you have these conversations.

Dr. Barrasso, the president says any talk of a death panel -- I'm holding up a newspaper here -- is simply dishonest. Do you view that as dishonest? And is someone who has legitimate questions about the cost of this bill, the scope of government involvement in this bill, Senator Barrasso, does it hurt your cause if things are being said and distributed that are misleading or take things out of context?

BARRASSO: You don't want anything to be misleading, but you want people to have the facts. In the Senate bill, the HELP Committee bill, John, this -- this is it, and it's not been bound together. This is what they came out with at committee four weeks ago. And the reason they haven't bound it together is because they don't want to put a price tag on it yet.

People want to read this all across America. We have the House bill, which is this 1,000-page bill. People want to read what's in the Senate HELP bill. It hasn't been bound together, so they don't have score on it, because there's going to be sticker shock again.

So I think when people can't get a copy of the bill to read, they may come up with ideas that say, "Gee, what does this really mean?" But I think some of this is so poorly put together and written that it can lead to different conclusions.

But you talk about misleading. I mean, yesterday -- and you played the tape of the president continuing to talk about, you know, you can keep the policy you want, you can keep what you have. Then, why in his town hall meeting yesterday did he immediately after saying that go and say, "But we're going to get rid of Medicare Advantage," a program that 11 million seniors in this country have, 3,000 in Wyoming, many in every congressional district, a program that actually does some things with prevention, does some things with coordinated care that Medicare doesn't do?

These are programs that people like. Eleven million seniors have this Medicare Advantage. The president wants to eliminate it, in terms of saving money, cutting costs to Medicare.

So I think he has to be cautious in terms of the things that he's saying, as well, because in the same -- in the same town hall meeting, he says one thing and then -- and then actually flips and says something very different about allowing people to keep what care they have. KING: Help me out. In the short time we have left, I'll go to each of you. Please take about a minute. Help me out, then. The three of you have worked as medical professionals, two doctors and a nurse. You understand how this works in the real world. You can read the bill and understand how it would work in real life after it leaves this town we call Washington.

Is there any way to reset this process and have a truly bipartisan conversation and meet the president's goal -- he was elected in a campaign in which he said he would do this out of the box -- and meet the president's goal of getting it done this year? Or as we have watched this miss the deadline to vote by August, go out into the country in August, have the prospects of a bipartisan bill this year simply evaporated?

Congresswoman, I'll go to you first. Ladies first.

JOHNSON: It's really difficult to tell, but it appears to be that the Republicans are just not going to cooperate, no matter what. They'd rather have a problem so they can talk about it.

KING: Is that right, Congressman Price?

PRICE: Not at all. In fact, the status quo is unacceptable. Everybody appreciates that. We believe strongly that there ought to be appropriate reforms. We need to keep what's good in the current system and fix what's flawed.

And the way to do that is to make certain that everybody is able to have health insurance, that that insurance is portable, they can take it with them if they change their job or they lose their job, and that medical decisions stay with doctors and patients. There's a way to do that in a responsible way, doesn't require increasing taxes one bit at all. I'm chair of the Republican...

(CROSSTALK)

JOHNSON: I'd like to know that way. KING: Let me move on. Senator Barrasso -- let me let Senator Barrasso have the last word. You are from what they call in Washington the world's most deliberative body. You're colleague from Wyoming, Mike Enzi, is in those conversations. And those Republicans in the room are increasingly pessimistic there can be a bipartisan deal. Do you share that pessimism?

BARRASSO: I want to work together with all people. My wife is a breast cancer survivor. Mike Enzi's wife is a colon cancer survivor. We know about pre-existing conditions; we know about the need to reform. I know it from the standpoint of being a doctor, as well as, you know, from -- from at home with my wife.

We've seen all the different sides of this. We need health care reform. It affects one-sixth of our economy. It matters to everybody in this country. We can do a much better job. We don't need a government takeover of health care, and we can do it without spending this incredible amount of money that we right now as a nation cannot afford.

KING: We will have all of you back, because we appreciate your unique insights. We're out of time at the moment. But, Congresswoman Bernie Johnson, Congressman Price, Senator Barrasso, thank you so much for coming in today, and we will welcome you back on another day.

PRICE: Thank you, John.

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