MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. MAXINE WATERS (D), CALIFORNIA: You"re welcome. Delighted to be

here with you.

O"DONNELL: We know what the process has to be. The House, in an

unprecedented move, has to pass the Senate bill without changing anything

in it. That bill then gets signed into law and then, immediately, you

start working on a reconciliation bill to pass both the House and the

Senate that will correct many of the deficiencies or other issues in the

Senate bill that the House wants corrected and now, including some senators

want corrected.

Is the timetable of March 18th realistic for at least getting the

House to pass the Senate bill?

WATERS: I think this timetable is perhaps more realistic than any of

the other timetables that have been set in the recent past. I think that

members of the Democratic Caucus have gone through a grueling debate--

and, you know, many of us have fought very hard, starting out from wanting

single-payer to public option to national health exchanges.

But we realize, I think most of us, that we"ve got to move this bill.

I think the president is correct. The American people deserve

comprehensive universal health care reform, and that if we don"t get it

done now, perhaps it will be another--maybe 15, 20 years before it can

even be attempted again.

So, I think people are pretty much ready to move and get something

done.

O"DONNELL: When this two-stage process for passing the bill was first

floated, Speaker Pelosi a few weeks ago at that time said, "I don"t see the

votes for it at this time." What has changed since then in the House of

Representatives?

WATERS: I think what has changed is an understanding that there were

central elements in this bill such as preexisting conditions, subsidized

health care for the poor beyond Medicaid, involving all of the businesses

in providing health care for their employees or paying a fee so that the

other taxpayers wouldn"t have to pick up that cost. I think that people

have probably come to the conclusion that there are very, very substantial,

basic elements of this bill, that"s worth passing.

O"DONNELL: Now, the public option continues to gain support in the

Senate--the 35th member of the Senate has now signed on to--wanting to

do the public option in a reconciliation bill after--

WATERS: Yes.

O"DONNELL: -- the House passes the Senate bill. But President Obama

today has reported in the meeting with progressives from the House to have

said that in effect for him the public option is dead.

At this point, doesn"t that mean that President Obama is, in effect,

the biggest opponent to the public option?

WATERS: Well, it means that the president--even though he"s often

said he would support a public option--that he"s not really been out

there really fighting for it. But I think, if the Senate emerges with

enough votes to put it in, I don"t think he"ll resist it. I think he

probably does not believe that there"s enough votes in the Senate to get it

done.

But we"re all hopeful. Those of us who fought so hard first for a

robust public option and then accepted just plain old public option when we

passed it out of the House, we"re thrilled at what we see happening in the

Senate. And we hold out hopes for the possibility that public option will

end up in the bill.

O"DONNELL: Well, if the House bill didn"t pass the first time with

only a three-vote margin, Congressman Stupak--

WATERS: That"s right.

O"DONNELL: -- says that--and Congressman Stupak was included in

that group. He is saying that he and maybe 10 others will leave that group

if the abortion language isn"t corrected according to his specifications.

If that happens, it seems like you don"t have a winning margin in the

House.

WATERS: Well, I think that the congressman is hopeful that he can

have his way, that he can threaten in ways that will cause his language to

be acceptable. But I think what you"re hearing from Crowley and Nancy

Pelosi and others that we think that this bill is going to make it.

O"DONNELL: Representative Maxine Waters of California--thank you

for your time tonight.

WATERS: You"re welcome.

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