MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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

Senator Sanders, thanks very much for joining us tonight.

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

MADDOW: The Republicans have decided that they would like to portray health care reform now as an attack on Medicare. What‘s your overall response to that allegation?

SANDERS: Well, my overall response is that in Washington, D.C., where hypocrisy levels are pretty high, this one is actually quite extreme. It really bounces off the charts. Here you have people whose whole mantra, whose reason for living is to tell us that government can‘t do anything, that government health care is the worst thing imaginable. They want to privatize almost every form of government activity, and now, because they think they can get a few votes, they‘re suddenly champions of Medicare.

I mean, it is totally absurd, and I think the American people and especially seniors who know the Republican record on Medicare will see right through this hypocrisy.

MADDOW: I went back today and looked at some of the contemporaneous coverage from the time that those 137 Republicans voted earlier this year that they wanted to abolish Medicare, they wanted to get rid of Medicare for everybody under age 55, and instead, force them into the private market. And at that time, they were willing to tell reporters that they were worried that vote was going to come back and hurt them. That it was going to look like an anti-seniors vote.

As yet, it doesn‘t seem to be coming back to hurt them. I wonder if you think that it will.

SANDERS: Well, I think it will. I think the more we make the point that here you have people today who are vigorously opposed--we don‘t have one Republican vote for a Medicare-type public option, all right, which would give people under 65 a Medicare-type program in opposition to private health insurance. I think very few people will believe that these people who are not supporting a public option, who historically have wanted to voucherize or privatize Medicare, are suddenly now strong supporters.

Clearly, this is 100 percent political, and I think the American people, and especially seniors, will see right through it.

MADDOW: You‘ve been a guest here over the last few months, frequently talking about progress on health care about not only the procedural battles but the principles at stake. At this point, looking ahead at this week and coming weeks with these crucial battles that are being fought now, how do you feel about the public option and the other important components of health reform that people have fought so hard for?

SANDERS: Well, you know, Rachel, there was just a poll in "The New York Times" where I think the numbers were 65 percent of the people wanted a public option to give them a choice as opposed to private health insurance. It is hard for me to believe that the Democrats are not going to respond to those numbers.

And what I can tell you, we are working very, very hard--a number of senators are working hard for two reasons. Number one, we think it‘s right that people have that choice. And, number two, if you are serious about cost containment, if we are serious about addressing the fact that we have almost a million people in this country this year who are going to go bankrupt because of soaring health care costs and medically-related bills, you have got to give competition to the private health insurance companies.

We are now spending almost twice as much per person on health care as any other major country, and yet our outcomes in many cases are not as good. So, clearly, we need to wring the waste out of this current system, the bureaucratic waste that exists, and provide quality care without kind of--spending the kind of money we currently are.

MADDOW: Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, thanks very much for your time tonight, sir. Good to see you.

SANDERS: Good to be with you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Thank you.

I don‘t watch a ton of local TV programming, but--no TV--but when the show is a full-length birthers infomercial that is playing in Lubbock, Texas, in the middle of the night and that infomercial is titled "Where Was Obama Born?" you better believe I will find that TV show on the Internet and I will watch it. We‘ll show it to you next.

Stay tuned.

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