NBC " Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Affordable Care Act
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Well, joining me now is Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who represents
residents of a state where health care enrollment is working.
Senator, thanks for coming on.
You haven`t been on much, but I would love you to just give us a sense, a
feel for the state of Connecticut and why it would be the kind of place and
is the kind of place where a new program that might be sophisticated would
work.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Yes.
So, we made a decision early on to actually implement this law and try to
make sure that residents could use it. So we hired a topnotch
administrator to run the program. We got the Web site up and running
early. We set up storefronts that are open so that people can come in off
the street and see people who can assist them in enrollment.
And we actually went about the business of connecting people with a
valuable resource. And guess what? People are lining up in the streets to
sign up for this new law. I went to one of these enrollment centers on
Monday morning. And at 10:00, when it opened, there was a line out the
door.
It`s why Connecticut is way ahead of our initial enrollment estimates.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MURPHY: We have signed up about 15 percent of the people that we want to
sign up over the entire scope of the program.
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And it`s not a coincidence that, when you don`t undermine the law, when you
actually try to make it work, the product sells.
MATTHEWS: I was thinking that you could almost have kept a diary of your
efforts to make it work and put in reverse each one of the steps you took
to make sure it worked--
MURPHY: Right.
MATTHEWS: -- and say, this is how you could undermine the thing, if you
wanted to.
MURPHY: Yes. Yes.
And the question is on the states that use the federal exchange, once the
technology is up to snuff, are people going to buy the product? And I
think the answer to that is unequivocally yes, because when you can access
it in places like California and Kentucky and Connecticut, people are
buying it. And even in Connecticut, some of the people who have had their
policies canceled and were legitimately angry about that are coming in and
finding out that they have a lot more affordable options.
I`m not as apoplectic about the technology mishaps, because I know that
once it`s up and running, people in those states are going to have the same
experience that people in Connecticut have had, notwithstanding a lot of
the efforts to try to undermine it in those red states.
MATTHEWS: I`m going to ask you to make a call now. It`s a tricky one. Do
you believe the standards set for a decent health care policy that have
been implemented now as part of the rollout were fair or they were overly
politically correct?
Were they fair? In other words, did they decide this was a no-good policy,
as opposed to a good policy, rather than setting super good standards that
most people would think extreme? Was it fair, what was done in setting the
standards for a decent policy?
MURPHY: I absolutely think it was fair. And I think it was fiscally
responsible, because the problem is, is that when people walked into the
hospital and found that they didn`t have coverage for maternity, not only
was that a raw deal for them from a moral perspective, but we all picked up
the cost, because that person just didn`t have money squirreled away for
pay for -- to pay for those costs. And so it got put onto other people`s
premiums or on to the taxpayers. The
So, the reason why we set a minimum floor, despite how controversial it is
in the initial rollout, is because it`s going to save the system money in
the long run. So, I get that there`s disruption when you reorder one-sixth
of the American economy, which is our health care system. But it`s
disruption we needed and a disruption that will result in less money being
spent in the long run.
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MATTHEWS: Thank you so much. It`s a refreshing time to have you on,
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, where things are working well.
MURPHY: Thanks, Chris.
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