Lou Dobbs Tonight - Interview

SHOW: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT 06:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

HEADLINE: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT; CNNfn

GUESTS: Mitch McConnell

BYLINE: Lou Dobbs, Jamie McIntyre, David Ensor, John King, Kitty Pilgrim, Casey Wian, Susan Lisovicz, Jeffrey Toobin, David Grange, Peter Viles

BODY:
DOBBS: Turning now to a bill that could help millions of Americans pay for prescription drugs, the Medicare prescription drug benefit is expected to pass easily in both the House and the senate.

My next guest has been pivotal in winning Senate backing for that bill. Senator Mitch McConnell is one of the Republican leaders, the Senate Majority Whip, and joins us tonight from Capitol Hill.

Senator, good to have you here.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: Glad to be with you, Lou.

DOBBS: Passage assured in this legislation?

MCCONNELL: Yes. It will pass the Senate probably later tonight, certainly no later than tomorrow.

DOBBS: And that legislation, the House version or the Senate version will -- I'm going to ask you to go into the prognostication business.

MCCONNELL: It's an important conference. The term for the House and Senate sitting down together and resolving the differences. This is the most important social legislation passed around here in my memory. And we want to make sure we do it just right. We particularly want to make sure that there's a genuine opportunity for the private sector to actually compete in offering this new drug benefit to Medicare recipients. We think it's going to provide for the beneficiaries the kind of choice people that work for the federal government have had for a long time.

DOBBS: Surprisingly to some, Senator Edward Kennedy supporting this legislation, surprising also to some, conservatives unhappy that there isn't more of what you are referring to. That is the private providing organizations in this bill.

Are you going to be able to satisfy both Senator Kennedy and his constituency and the conservatives?

MCCONNELL: Well, you never satisfy everyone. Legislation is not easily achieved. But let me just say this, the final form of this bill is yet to be determined. That will be determined in this conference between the House and the Senate. I think there is virtually no chance that it won't have a strong private sector component. That is a big change. That the genuine Medicare reform. We're not just simply adding a new benefit, an important new benefit that seniors certainly want and deserve.

We're not simply adding a new benefit to the 1960s version of Medicare. We're updating and reforming and preserving Medicare and adding the benefit. And I think that a lot of conservatives are going to end up voting for this bill. I'm certainly in the conservative camp myself. I intend to vote for it. I think it's going to get better still in conference.

DOBBS: And estimated cost, about $400 billion over a decade?

MCCONNELL: Yes, that's all the budget allows us to spend. They're the way we're crafting the bill.

DOBBS: And the conference, how soon will be see the bill on its way to the president for his signature?

MCCONNELL: I think by tomorrow. Oh, to the president? I think the conference will go on for a while, certainly all the month of August, and you know, could go into the fall. I think this is a conference that needs not -- you know, that speed is not necessarily required. We want to make sure that -- it is a very complicated piece of legislation. We want to make sure that it's drafted just as well as it can possibly be done so that it lasts for many, many years. And so we want to get it right rather than just speed it through.

DOBBS: Well, as you say, senator, this legislation destroyed nearly important to millions of Americans. And we thank you for being here to advance, if you will, the story. And we wish you good luck in getting the bill through this evening.

MCCONNELL: Thank you, Lou.

DOBBS: Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate majority whip.