MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

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O"DONNELL: Lots to talk about with Congressman Frank Pallone, Democrat of New Jersey.

Congressman Pallone, as we mentioned, the White House said today that President Obama would make an announcement next week on the way forward. What do you expect the president to say and how specific do you expect him to be on what the legislative half should be?

REP. FRANK PALLONE (D), NEW JERSEY: Well, I don"t know if he"s going to get specific in terms of the process and actually say, let"s do reconciliation. I mean, obviously, that"s one option. I suspect that it"s going to be more substantive about what"s going to be included in the bill. And it may be broad outlines or it maybe more specific.

But I really don"t know. We haven"t been told, obviously, what the president is going to do specifically.

O"DONNELL: Do you believe now that the Democrats are going to go forward in reconciliation on both houses on this?

PALLONE: I don"t think that decision has been made. I mean, it"s certainly an option. If you do reconciliation, you can do a lot of the things that the president would like to do.

You know, I always talk about three things. One is to try to cover most Americans. The second is to try to control cost. And the third one is to eliminate any discriminatory practices, like buying or having health insurance available because of a preexisting condition.

The discriminatory practices part is a little difficult to do in reconciliation and that may have to be done separately or some parts of that separately. But anything related to money or the budget is certainly could be done in reconciliation.

O"DONNELL: Well, can you--explain to me how you would get wavering Democrats to vote for the Senate bill? Which is what everyone is saying would be necessary, pass the Senate bill first and then pass a reconciliation bill that would correct and repeal change, some of the elements in the Senate bill.

You would be asking them if they--if you ask them to vote for the Senate bill, as it is now, you"d be asking them to vote for the giveaway to Ben Nelson in Nebraska, you"d be asking them to vote for the carve-out on Medicare for Florida, and you"d be asking them to vote on the deal Mary Landrieu"s vote in Louisiana, and every one of those Democrats would face opponents in the upcoming election saying that they voted for all of those things and that their defense, their comeback would have to be, "Well, I voted for it before I voted against it."

How do you convince--

PALLONE: Well, Lawrence, I don"t--

O"DONNELL: -- wavering Democrats that that"s a workable proposition?

PALLONE: Well, Lawrence, I don"t think that the Democrats are going to see it that way. I mean, I don"t want to get into the specifics of the process, but essentially, the Senate bill is there and you"re voting on amendments to the Senate bill, and eventually, it"s the amended bill that goes to the president. So, I don"t think that my colleagues are going to be thinking much about other than what ultimately goes to the president. And so, those provisions would come out.

The problem is that a lot of the things that are not money-related, such as discriminatory practices, those types of things would not be changeable or be able to dealt with effectively perhaps in reconciliation. But I wouldn"t worry about, you know, whether it"s the Senate bill first or it"s get amended. Eventually, what goes to the president would be a bill that the House Democrats would like, and the provisions that you"re talking about would be out when they got to the president"s desk.

O"DONNELL: But you all would have had to vote on those provisions and vote in favor of those provisions, and you"re going to trust your Republican opponents in the fall simply not to mention that vote you made on the way to the final vote?

PALLONE: Lawrence, you know, your opponent will make up whatever they want. In my own experience that, you know, they"ll say whatever they want, so it doesn"t matter.

I think the bottom line is, what is going to the president. And if you do reconciliation, most of what we"re concerned about in terms of setting up the process to cover all Americans through health exchange with subsidies, with the expansion of Medicaid so that something like, you know, 96 percent, 97 percent of Americans would be covered. That would all be in there and you would have the competition with the health exchange to bring costs down so that, you know, you wouldn"t see this continual rise every year. We"re talking about 20 percent or 30 percent increase in premiums that are being announced.

So, that"s what the American people want to see. A bill that, you know, basically puts a stop to those large increases every year, that covers most Americans and that eliminates discriminatory practices--you can"t get insurance because of a preexisting health condition, for example.

O"DONNELL: And, Congressman, quickly, before we go, why is Nancy Pelosi suddenly willing to take a backseat to the Senate? She"s never done that before. She"s never said the Senate has to go first, before.

PALLONE: Well, Speaker Pelosi is the most practical person I know, and she realizes that the Senate is a problem right now. I mean--and so, you know, we"re going to try to do whatever we can to get the votes in the Senate and, you know, accommodate them as best we can. But we can"t pass the Senate bill the way it is for some of the reasons that you mentioned and others. But I think we can, through reconciliation, make the changes that the House wants so that the House--so we can have a majority in the House and still have a majority in the Senate.

O"DONNELL: Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey--many thanks for your time tonight.

PALLONE: Thank you, Lawrence.

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