MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

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Joining us now is Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. He is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee.

Senator, thanks very much for coming back on the show.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Great to be with you, Rachel.

MADDOW: The common wisdom about the health care fight this year is that many of the big corporate interests in health care have been brought along, that they‘re pro-reform this time around, at least more so than they were in the ‘90s. Is this a situation where we should be sort of watching what they do not what they say?

SANDERS: Absolutely. I mean, for a start, please understand, there is a reason why in the United States, we spend twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation on Earth. And there is a reason why the insurance companies, year after year, make huge profits and pay their CEOs tens and tens of millions of dollars in compensation salaries. And the reason for that is that these guys exert enormous influence over the political process in Washington.

Right now, according to “The Washington Post,” the health care industry is spending $1.4 million every single day on lobbying alone—just lobbying. And then you got our friends on Wall Street who precipitated the great recession that we‘re in right now. They‘re spending a fortune to make sure that there is not financial reform. Then you have our friends in the oil industry and the coal industry spending huge amounts of money making sure we don‘t deal with global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.

So, what you are doing, Rachel, is extremely important. And unfortunately, it happens far too rarely. And that is, you are exposing how things happen and the power of big money in the political process, and I applaud you for doing that.

MADDOW: Well, thank you. I mean, we‘re just trying to report what‘s really happening. And it started with these town halls, but it really is so many of these grassrootsy-looking events.

So, I have to ask you, as a long-time member of Congress, now in the Senate, after having been in the House for many years—is there a real impact on legislation of these industry ginned up events? Does it affect votes? Does it affect the way that members of Congress see issues to see people bussed in to these events?

SANDERS: Well, of course, it does.

MADDOW: It does.

SANDERS: Absolutely, it does. You‘ve got TV cameras there and people are yelling and screaming, “Get government out of health care.” You know, and does that have an impact on the average member of Congress? Of course, it does. Of course, it does.

I think many members of Congress become intimidated by that, and then on top of that, you got lobbying. On top of that, you got campaign contributions. On top of that, you have all kinds of advertising.

Does this have an impact? Of course, it is. There is a reason why

the United States is the only nation in the industrialized world not to

have a national health care program guaranteeing health care to all people

and that is one of the reasons.

MADDOW: We are getting some late-breaking reporting tonight that on the health care issue, the White House may be considering breaking up the legislation into parts. Some parts of it to be passed presumably through budget reconciliation rules so it would only require 50 votes. It wouldn‘t be susceptible to a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Do you know if—do you know if that reporting is true? Is that being considered, and what‘s your opinion about that idea?

SANDERS: Well, look, first thought, I have believed from day one that when the Democratic Caucus has 60 members, we have a strong majority in the House, we have a Democratic president. While we, of course, want bipartisanship, but if you have the Republicans stonewalling, stonewalling, stonewalling, if you don‘t have one Republican in Congress who is supportive of a public option, then finally, what you have to say to the Democratic Caucus from the Senate, “Look, we got 60 votes. Let‘s say no to Republican filibusters and let‘s come up with strong legislation.”

Now, there has been discussion about dividing this thing up. For example, I think it is very clear that the overwhelming majority of the American people are disgusted with the private health insurance companies who deny health care. We hear story after story about this in my office—deny people health care because they have a preexisting condition. And then you have these private health insurance companies who are refusing to renew people‘s insurance because they committed the crime of being sick in the previous year.

Meanwhile, we got 1 million people a year—this year—going bankrupt in the United States because of medically-related bills.

So, I think what you can do is you can be dealing with insurance reform. We could deal with primary health care reform.

Rachel, we have 60 million Americans in this country who do not have access to a doctor on a regular basis. They end up in the emergency room at great costs or they get sick and they end up in the hospital. That is insane.

So, what we can do is greatly expand community health centers all over this country. We can greatly expand the National Health Service Corps. Get doctors—primary health care doctors into rural areas, into urban areas.

We can do a heck of a lot more in terms of disease prevention. So that we‘re not just spending money treating diabetes or heart conditions, we are trying to prevent it.

We can do more in quality control, understanding why certain facilities provide high quality care at low cost while others do exactly the opposite.

So, there‘s a lot that you can do quickly which I think should have the support of the vast majority of the American people. We say we‘re making progress and we can tackle some of the harder issues a few months down the line.

MADDOW: Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, provocative stuff—thank you very much for your time tonight, sir. It‘s nice to see you.

SANDERS: Good to be with you, Rachel.

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