FOX "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Affordable Care Act

Interview

REP. TOM PRICE, R-GA.: Yes.

ROBERTS: ... have signed on to a bill that would defund and delay ObamaCare for a year. If it comes to the floor and passes, it will most certainly hit a brick wall in the Senate. Are you willing to go as far as shutting down the government to get what you want?

PRICE: Well, John, thanks so much. As the speaker said, it's time to put the ball in the Senate's court. But what we're interested in is stability and security and fairness. Stability for the government. Funding the government for a full year period of time. Security so that the men and women who protect us every single day have the resources that they need to be able to carry out that protection. And then fairness. Fairness as it relates to ObamaCare. This administration has already delayed or waived fully a third of this legislation, and we believe that it's only fair for the American people now to have that same delay. And that's the proposal I believe that will be coming forward this week. That's the proposal that we support. We hope that some of our colleagues -- Democratic colleagues in the House support it like they did, the delay of the individual mandate and the employer mandate. The bipartisan position here is to delay this law for a year. I'm hopeful the administration will come on board and that the Senate will see the light as well.

ROBERTS: But again, are you willing to shut down the government to get what you want?

PRICE: Well, there's 15 days between now and that deadline. And what we need is the House to act and then the Senate to act. And this is the dynamic nature of legislating.

ROBERTS: You told our Neil Cavuto last week, you said if that's the only way, I'm there. Are you still there?

PRICE: The president is the individual who's talking about shutting down the government. The Democrats in the House and the Senate are the individuals that are talking about shutting down the government. We want to fund the government and protect the American people from a destructive law as it relates to health care. I'm a physician. The last thing that this nation needs is this law that will destroy quality health care in this country. You've got James Hoffa, the president of the Teamsters Association, saying that it's going to destroy the 40-hour workweek.

You've got the AFL-CIO saying this isn't as was billed. Look, you need to change it, or delay it or repeal the whole doggone thing. So, people across the political spectrum all across this country recognize that this law is not good for the American people. It's not good for our country. It's time to delay it.

ROBERTS: Congressman Van Hollen, let me talk about the union aspect of this. You know what happened at the AFL-CIO convention earlier this week. They were up in arms about it, thinking that people were going to get thrown out of employer-based health care. They wanted -- they wanted subsidies. Let's listen to what Terrence O'Sullivan from the Laborers International Union said about it. He was incensed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY O'SULLIVAN, PRESIDENT, LIUNA: But we'll be damned if we're going to lose our health insurance because of unintended consequences in a law! It needs to be changed! It needs to be fixed! And it needs to be fixed now, brothers and sisters!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: So the unions are demanding a fix. There's a lot of problems with this bill. Why not just delay it? You've delayed the employer mandate. You've delayed the cap on out-of-pocket maximums. You've delayed the eligibility requirements. Why not just say, you know, let's take a pause for a year and figure this all out?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, first, John, let's just make sure we understood what Tom's answer was. The answer was that he's prepared to shut down the government if we don't shut down ObamaCare for a year.

ROBERTS: He didn't come right out.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I mean -- OK, look.

ROBERTS: As much as I tried to get him out.

VAN HOLLEN: Look, he said that on an earlier Fox show. He just didn't say it on -- here. So listen. The reality is that ObamaCare is already in place for millions of Americans.

ROBERTS: But it's been delayed for millions of others.

VAN HOLLEN: No, no, no. The employer mandate, which affects only five percent of businesses in this country, which is a relatively small part ...

ROBERTS: But still how do you say ...

VAN HOLLEN: ... of the overall system.

ROBERTS: How do you say to employers, we're going to give you a year, how do you say to insurance companies, we're going to give you a year, but you say to individuals in this country, you're still on the track. You've got to sign up for these exchanges. And as of January 1, you have to have health insurance when you've delayed it for other people.

How is that fair?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the reality is that the business piece is not central to the overall idea behind ObamaCare. We're going to open up these supermarkets of health care plans. People will be able to purchase insurance in those exchanges. So the physician that says, let's delay it for a year is to deny access to affordable insurance for millions of Americans for another year. That's not acceptable.

ROBERTS: But then at the same time the union say, this is going to make it unaffordable.

VAN HOLLEN: The issue with the unions has to do with the ability to both claim tax credits in the exchange and get the tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance. So, as the president has said all along, we're willing to work out the kinks in this, but we're not going to throw out the central idea, which as you know, was the same idea that Republicans put forward in the 1990s and is the basis for Romneycare in Massachusetts. They didn't throw it out in Massachusetts. It's working in Massachusetts.

ROBERTS: Let me bring in the congressman from Georgia because he's being very patient here. The Treasury Department, through the president, I guess, affirmed, Congressman Price, on Friday that the unions would not be getting any subsidies for their multiemployer- based health care plans. Are you concerned that the White House, because the unions are incensed about this, will try to backdoor something to satisfy them, to keep them on board? PRICE: Well, apparently the White House said on Friday that they wouldn't do that, but the White House has always picked winners and losers in this. And that's why they have chosen to delay or waive fully a third of this piece of legislation. We believe, however, that it needs to be waived and delayed for the entire American people, for the entire country. That's the only fair thing to do. Now, what the unions have done, what the AFL-CIO has done and what the teamsters have done is finally read the bill and recognized what's in it. And they know that what the president said, that is if you like what you have, you can keep it, simply is not true. And they believe they've been lied to, and they believe that we need to step back and say, let's just stop the madness. Let's delay this for a year. And see if we can't get it right. Move in the direction of patient-centered health care where patients and families and doctors are making medical decisions, not Washington, D.C. That's what we need to be doing.

ROBERTS: You know, I didn't want to make this discussion all about ObamaCare, but certainly, a lot of people care about this. There are obviously, Congressman Van Hollen, things that a lot of people like. They like being able to keep the kids on till age 26. They like the idea of pre-existing condition exclusion. They like that. But the further we get in this bill as Congressman Price just said, the more these problems start to arise, was this -- you know, and remember Nancy Pelosi saying we have to pass the bill, so that we can find out what's in it. Now, that people are finding out what's in it, I mean even your most strident supporters, the unions, are saying this is wrong.

VAN HOLLEN: John, look. Any time you have a piece of legislation that's this comprehensive, there are going to be issues you have to deal with along the way. And we have said to our Republican colleagues, we're happy to work with you to try and fix those parts where there are issues. But our Republican colleagues have taken the position that they just want to wipe the whole thing off the map including the important provisions you talked about, including the core idea, which had been a Republican idea, that individuals have a responsibility to get health care, that those who can't afford it will get a tax credit to help them do it. That's the core idea. Republicans right now, I really believe, are not afraid that this is going to fail. I think they're afraid that it's going to work. And all the scaremongering we have heard from them is going to be proven to be false. That's what's happening.

Now, it's interesting, Tom said we should move to a patient- centered health care system. The fact of the matter is in the House, the Republicans have voted over 40 times to repeal ObamaCare. They've never put on the floor of the House a replacement. Tom has a replacement bill. Less than ten percent of the members of Congress have signed on. Not his own party hasn't accepted that. So they just want to take us back to the days when the insurance companies got to deny care based on preexisting conditions, and that's not right.

ROBERTS: Well, 43 Republicans have signed on to this Graves's bill, which might come to the floor of the House. So we'll see where it goes from there. I assume you won't be voting for it.

VAN HOLLEN: But that's not -- that's not a new -- that's not a replacement for ObamaCare. That's just designed to kill it.

ROBERTS: Congressman Van Hollen ...

PRICE: What it allows us to do -- what it allows us to do, is to get to the stability for the country for a year, make certain we provide for security and fairness for the American people on ObamaCare.

VAN HOLLEN: Now, they just want to turn it back over to the insurance industry and let them discriminate based on preexisting conditions and that's just not acceptable.

ROBERTS: Congressmen Van Hollen and Congressmen Price, we've got to run, but thanks so much for joining us. Our Sunday panel returns ...

PRICE: Thank you.

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