ABC "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" - Transcript

Interview

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STEPHANOPOULOS: The final vote was supposed to be on Tuesday, and we had deliberations all week long in Washington. We'll bring you two of the senators who were there: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York, John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. I want to get to health care, but let's begin with the economy.

You heard Chairman Greenspan there: no long-term stimulus, but he thinks that unemployment benefits have to be extended. The House's passed a bill. Will the Senate act this week?

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Yes. We're going to pass a bill this week, put it on the floor. I believe it will pass. It will extend unemployment benefits for four weeks for all states and another 12 or 13 weeks for all states above 8 percent...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Around where the House was?

SCHUMER: It will go beyond what the House was. We think that, you know, eight -- you have 8.5 percent unemployment, that's pretty bad, and you ought to get some help.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Will Republicans support that?

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: I think so. I don't know where the 8.5 percent cut off comes from, because people are comprised at 8 percent or whatever it is. For example, in Texas, now about 8 percent. And they need some help, too. So I hope we can work on that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

SCHUMER: We'd be happy to work on that, too.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it sounds like it's going to pass the Senate this week, so can (UNINTELLIGIBLE) that are more contentious.

CORNYN: I think if Texas was below 8.5, we need to have some (UNINTELLIGIBLE). STEPHANOPOULOS: How about the broader issue, Senator Cornyn? Chairman Greenspan says no other stimulus, but the president said yesterday he's going to have his team look at more job creation measures. Good idea?

CORNYN: Well, I think the stimulus so far has been unsuccessful in achieving the goals the president set out for it. He said, with the stimulus, we'd seen 8 percent -- no higher than 8 percent unemployment. And we now see, with 60 percent of the stimulus unspent, that that has not been successful. We're going to see unemployment over 10 percent.

Forty-three cents out of every dollar spent in Washington today is borrowed. And the American people are justifiably concerned, even scared, that the spending and the debt that's being racked up. And unfortunately, the health care issue threatens to make matters worse, not -- not better.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So still in pat (ph) is your position?

CORNYN: Well, no. I think there are things we need to do to help people who need help, like unemployment benefits and the like. But I think throwing more money at the problem and racking up more and more debt for children and grandchildren is not the answer.

SCHUMER: Bottom line, we -- we have to deal with the pain of people's unemployment now, so prolong (ph) unemployment benefits. I'd be for extending COBRA benefits, so...

STEPHANOPOULOS: And health care?

SCHUMER: Health care, as well.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you for that?

CORNYN: I'm for health-care reform, which means that in part what we do is we don't -- you don't have to get it from your employer to establish parity, where people get affordable health coverage...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You haven't (ph) extended it to the very people who are unemployed to buy...

CORNYN: COBRA.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK.

CORNYN: Sure, but COBRA's not really a great solution for a lot of people, because it costs so much money. So that's part of the overall problem about making it more affordable.

SCHUMER (?): That's true.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER (?): ... a longer (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and then we can do a couple of things. I'd be for extending the housing tax credit, which has helped get the housing market out of the severe depression it was in. It's getting a little better, has to go more. But...

STEPHANOPOULOS: You're ahead (ph) on that, too. So we have a lot of agreement here.

CORNYN: Well, Chuck and I agree on a lot of things, but -- well, some things. I mean...

SCHUMER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

CORNYN: But Johnny Isakson of Georgia has been championing the -- the tax credit for home purchases. Now it's getting ready to expire, and it's limited to $8,000 for first-time purchasers. His argument is, and I think he's right, is that the housing inventories, or excess housing inventories are what are dampening the recovery.

And I think he's right. So that's something we are...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: So we have agreement: extend unemployment benefits, extend health care benefits for people who are unemployed, and extend the housing tax credit.

SCHUMER: And let me just say one other thing here, broader-term. The stimulus is working. The American people see it. Forty percent has been spent. Before the stimulus, we were losing 700,000, 800,000 jobs a month, a huge amount. It's going down. The number now is about 300,000. And Alan Greenspan said, it should turn around soon.

So, before doing a second stimulus, let's see how the rest of the 60 percent works and try to deal with the pain of some people in terms of the job front, where John and I agree, and in certain targeted areas of the economy such as housing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, then, let's get to health care, where I expect you're going to see some bigger differences right now. Probably the most contentious debate you all had all week long was on this amendment by Senator Crapo, where he was saying he wanted to put forward an amendment that would basically implement the president's policy not to have any tax increases for anyone earning under $250,000.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL D. CRAPO, R-IDAHO: It simply provides that no tax, no fee or penalty imposed by this legislation shall be applied to any individual earning less than $200,000 per year or any couple earning less than $250,000 per year.

STEPHANOPOULOS: All but one Democrat voted against that. Why?

SCHUMER: Well, because it's the way that "tax" was defined. They're defining "tax" -- you tax the insurance companies. They made huge amounts of profit. It went from $2 billion to $12 billion in 10 years.

STEPHANOPOULOS: He left that out of his amendment, I think.

SCHUMER: No, his amendment was so broad, it could include just about anything.

They're calling the requirement that people have to buy health insurance a tax.

Now, you may like it; you may not like it. But it's never been a tax. We don't -- we've never called the requirement that you have to have auto insurance a tax.

So if it were narrowly defined and said, really, a direct tax on people $250,000 or lower, I think that's going to be in the bill. We're trying to avoid that in every possible way.

That's the president's promise and that's what the bill does.

CORNYN: Middle-class families are going to see higher health insurance premiums. They're going to see more taxes, more penalties under this bill.

The president can't keep his promise under the bill that's currently pending in the Finance Committee or any of the other bills that are currently in front of us.

One thing that we need to focus on is, you know, affordability is the single most important issue, bringing down the cost, bring the cost curve, making it more affordable so more people can get coverage.

Unfortunately, this bill makes things worse rather than better by imposing federal government mandates on coverage that, for example, in the Whole Foods in Austin, Texas, headquartered in Austin, Texas, they won't be able to keep their current health coverage now because it doesn't meet the minimum -- minimum actuarial value because it's a health high-deductible plan with wellness accounts that people like, but they won't be able to keep it.

Millions of people won't be able to keep what they have.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you sure you're going to be able to hold the line on this on the floor? I mean, that was a very close vote in committee.

SCHUMER: Yes, I think we will because, again, we are sticking to the president's promise. And here's the nub of this, George. It's difficult. The costs -- John and I agree with this -- are out of control. So it makes it very hard for middle-class families to afford health insurance, or for their employer to afford health insurance for them.

The clear thing is, if we do nothing, tens of millions of people are going to lose coverage in the next decade. Your employer will call you in and say, "Jim, Mary, you're doing a great job. I want you to stay with my company forever. Btu I can't afford health care for you."

So we have to get the costs down. Until we do, there's a push and pull here. Do you put the burden on the average middle-class person because, for -- when they're not covered; when some people are not covered, we all pay -- the average person pays $1,200 to give health insurance -- to pay for the costs of people who are not covered -- or do you wait a while?

And Olympia Snowe and I had an amendment that would both reduce the penalties significantly -- no penalties in 2013. The amount went down. And there's another idea we're doing to look at the penalties I'm going to propose on the floor, which is, instead of it being a penalty, it goes into an account like an IRA but should just go for health insurance.

And then, when you buy health insurance, that money will be used for it so it won't be a penalty at all.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... you mentioned Senator Snowe. She appears to be the only Republican who's in play on the Senate Finance Committee to vote for this bill.

And you've had your former leader, Bill Frist, come out and say he would vote for the bill. He says that's what leadership is about. So does the former leader Howard Baker, former leader Bob Dole.

And may I make the argument that the Republican Party can't afford to be seen as doing nothing on this issue. How do you respond?

CORNYN: Well, we're for health care reform, but we're not for a government takeover of the health care system, which is going to do nothing but increase health care costs and basically cannibalize Medicare to the tune of $500 billion in order to pay for a new government entitlement program.

And a lot of the best ideas we've had, like medical liability reform, to eliminate or reduce defensive medicine, and giving people more choices, have been rejected along party line votes in the Finance Committee.

So we all, I think, want to see health reform. We want to make it more affordable. We want to have targeted solutions that deal with people who can't -- who don't have coverage now. But I think what has been proposed will literally make things worse, not better.

SCHUMER: I -- let me just say, Senator Frist and others have a point. Ninety percent of the amendments that were offered by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were negative, were sort of little gotcha amendments. Senator Hatch had an amendment, states with the letter "U" shall be exempt.

They don't have a plan. It's very hard to do this. This is the hardest thing I've ever seen attempted to be accomplished in a legislative context in the 35 years I've been a legislator. We are coming together as Democrats. And we welcome Republicans. We hope Olympia Snowe will vote with us, and maybe a few others.

But the Republican Party is a party of "just say no." And this is not 1980. This doesn't work anymore.

CORNYN: George, the first amendment that was offered by Senator Jim Bunning was that this product, whatever it is, would be posted on the Internet at least 72 hours and we would know what it cost by the Congressional Budget Office at least 72 hours before there would be a vote in committee and on the floor.

Our Democratic friends voted against that. Senator Snowe has been really a champion of more transparency and accountability. And frankly I get the impression that now that our Democratic friends would rather the American people not know what is in the bill because of the more they find out about...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... there are secret deals in it, though. What did you mean by that?

CORNYN: Well, for example, the deal that we found out there was an $11 billion mistake by the Congressional Budget Office because the conceptual language that we voted on in the Finance Committee did not include a "hold harmless" agreement with the American Hospital Association, that they would not have to kick in anymore than $150 million toward this deal.

So those are side deals made behind closed doors, secret deals that not all of us know about. Pharma is another example. And...

SCHUMER: Let me just say, on the Bunning amendment, he wanted a two-week wait, we thought it was dilatory. Olympia Snowe reasonably said, let's get a CBO estimate, let's put the bill online for three days so that everyone can read it and see it and go over it. And that is what has happened. It went online Friday. We're not voting until Tuesday.

There is no attempt to rush this bill through. We've been at it for six or eight months. It's just that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want nothing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We're just about out of time. You said the Democrats are coming together. The Democrats still divided over this issue of a public option. Senator Reid says there will be a public option on the floor. You just heard Senator Baucus say the votes just aren't there. And you didn't have the votes to get it out of the Senate Finance Committee.

So what are you talking about here? Are you talking something that is more of a fallback plan like Olympia Snowe -- I don't see how you have the votes for your proposal?

SCHUMER: The more the public looks at the public option, the more they like it, because they see that it is an option. You want to keep your own insurance or go into the exchange? Do it. If you don't like it, you have an option. That's a good thing. Sixty-five percent support it.

My colleagues, to get -- we are going to come together on a public option. It will have some modifications. Senators like Tom Carper, one of the leaders of the moderate group, had made some proposals. Others are...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Allowing the states to create their own (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER: There are lots of different alternatives. But...

CORNYN: George...

SCHUMER: ... we need a public option simply for this reason. There is no competition in the insurance industry now -- or very little. In 94 percent of the markets, a public option will bring costs down by providing competition...

(CROSSTALK)

CORNYN: The public options is basically a pathway to a single-payer system...

SCHUMER: No, it isn't.

CORNYN: ... because the Congressional Budget Office points out that people will not be able to buy insurance commercially because the government will undercut that. And many people who now have what they like will not be able to get it.

This is the elevation of ideology over trying to find a practical solution to problems, which we agree with.

STEPHANOPOULOS: See that debate on the floor. Gentlemen, thank you both very much. The "Roundtable" is next with George Will, Cokie Roberts, Matthew Dowd, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel.

And later, the "Sunday Funnies."

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