MSNBC "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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Lots to talk about tonight with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat of Rhode Island, until recently a member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, better known as the HELP committee, where he and Senator Brown wrote the full national public option in the committee draft of the bill.

Senator, thanks for your time tonight.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D), RHODE ISLAND: Good to be with you, Keith.

OLBERMANN: The opt-out. The CBO guesses it will end up with a third of the population being opted out by their states by legislative action in the states. Can you live with that?

WHITEHOUSE: I think it‘s unfortunate, but I think the important thing is that the public option gets a foothold, because the public option is the device through which the private insurance industry is going to be held to account. It‘s going to be the device that takes the innovative, really experimental, bold steps to improve the quality of care and the way in which we deliver health care in this country.

And I think once a few get going and a few get doing it right, we‘ll find that there‘s a very big interest in following behind, because this is really important.

OLBERMANN: Of course, that won‘t happen immediately. The timetable of this: the public option in the House bill would not go into effect until 2013 and then in the Senate bill, it‘s not until 2014. A lot of people have to suffer even under optimum circumstances?

WHITEHOUSE: Unfortunately, that‘s the way it is. If there‘s a way to accelerate it, particularly if states show a willingness to step up sooner than that, I hope we can work with them to do that. But for now, this is where the bill is. And I think it‘s important that we get it passed and then work on it going forward.

OLBERMANN: That‘s something I‘ve not heard before. Maybe that‘s my fault. Is there a process by which states could start early?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, there‘s generally a waiver process relating to a great number of the federal programs that provide health care in the states. And I‘m confident that under this administration, we‘d be able to work with the leadership, if we had a good plan that stood up.

OLBERMANN: The politics of this internally--Senator Bayh says he will vote for cloture. Senator Pryor says he will vote for cloture. And as I just mentioned, Senator Ben Nelson hinted yesterday he‘ll vote for cloture.

Do you think the Democrats have now averted a filibuster fight at the start of this?

WHITEHOUSE: I think so. I think that there may be a last few wrinkles for Majority Leader Reid and for his leadership team to iron out. But I think we can be very confident about the vote. I don‘t want to say 100 percent but very confident.

OLBERMANN: We get a sense--and a lot of this comes from the Hatch version of the Stupak Amendment in the House, what Republicans want to do with their amendments in that process apart from, again, continuing to stall this as long as they can. What do you want to do with your amendments?

WHITEHOUSE: I think there‘s going to be some important amendments to get aired with respect to the pharmaceutical industry. I don‘t know why we should preserve a situation in which Americans pay more for the exact same pharmaceutical product than Canadians do just over the border. I think it would be good to fill the doughnut hole completely and allow the government to negotiate freely with the pharmaceutical industry rather than have to take whatever price they impose.

So, I think some of those things are important. And, frankly, I think we‘ll have a good debate on the public option. And I believe once everybody has had a chance to air their views and be heard and be voted on, that will increase people‘s familiarity with these programs and their support for the bill.

It‘s one thing to be against a bill when you haven‘t had your views aired. It‘s another thing to get a full hearing, everything you need to say said, a vote on your proposal and then not vote for it just to be a spoil sport. That‘s not--that‘s a much more difficult position.

OLBERMANN: Do you think at the end of this, the process by which insurers can avoid some of the more rigorous state laws by migrating to places where it‘s business first, last and always, that provision here might somehow be excised or toned down to control them a little bit better?

WHITEHOUSE: I think that it‘s important to control the insurance industry in that respect. We saw when we let the credit card industry migrate to the states with the worst consumer protection programs where it ended up, with all those tricks and traps and the credit card with contract 20 pages long, with 30 percent interest rates, with a filing date that they deemed ended at 10:30 in the morning and didn‘t open the mail until 11:00, so they could catch people whose mail came in that day. All that nonsense happens when you let there be a race to the bottom.

OLBERMANN: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat of Rhode Island, we‘ll be thinking of you on Saturday night. Many thanks.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.

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