ABC "Top Line" - Transcript

Interview

ABC News' Rick Klein reports:

Passing health care reform in the House means balancing the concerns of liberal and conservative Democrats -- with the former group saying they won't support a bill that doesn't have a "robust" public option, and some in the latter camp saying they won't support anything that does have one.

But on ABCNews.com's "Top Line" today, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. John Larson, said the competing camps will come together to support the bill introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today.

"What I think everybody in the caucus sticks by is the notion that they understand how important it is to have healthcare reform," said Larson, D-Conn.

"We're going to pass health care reform, and we've got the votes to do it," he said. "I know it appears to you guys -- and it is a lot like herding cats. But nonetheless, we're unified and we're coming together behind the great leadership of Nancy Pelosi."

Larson said the provision favored by the House Progressive Caucus -- to link rates under the public option to Medicare's payment rates -- had to be jettisoned because of political realities.

"The choice became between negotiated rate or Medicare-plus-five," he said. "Where the votes were were with the negotiated rate. And so that's why we are going to have a public option, why there is going to be lowering of the costs, and that's what's so vitally important about the bill. And getting Democrats to come together on this historic day, and to have legislation that is tantamount to the passage of Social Security and Medicare, and to have 36 million Americans who otherwise wouldn't get insurance have it, is a matter of character and morality as much as it is part of the economy."

But -- previewing what's likely to be a major sticking point in negotiations with the Senate -- Larson said the Senate mechanism of taxing high-end benefit plans would violate President Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.

"We don't think taxing firefighters and teachers and others makes [sense]. … One man's Cadillac is another person's Edsel," Larson said. "I just think at the end of the day that the people will prevail, and that when it comes to taxing people's benefits, that I think there's a great sensitivity around that. And I think that violates what the president was talking about in terms of [not] creating a tax on the middle class."

Larson also said his home-state senator, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a self described "Independent Democrat," is out-of-step with Connecticut voters as well as Connecticut-based insurance companies with his threat to vote against a public option as part of health care reform.

"Connecticut overwhelmingly supports a public option," Larson said. "Joe is Joe, and I can't account for Joe, and I'm sure he believes this. I don't question his motives, but the state of Connecticut and the people there -- and we have strong insurance influence -- in fact some of our companies would prefer the public option. They want those 47 million more customers."

Click HERE to see the interview with Rep. John Larson.

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