MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Joining us now is Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. He"s a member of the Senate Finance Committee.

Senator Wyden, it"s good to see you. Thanks very much for coming in.

SEN. RON WYDEN (D), OREGON: Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: I know it"s uncomfortable for senators to sit through somebody else criticizing other senators. And so, I realize this isn"t the easiest discussion to have. But I have to ask you, if what my take is on Senator Lieberman"s position seems right to you. Am I getting any of this wrong?

WYDEN: Listen, it"s obvious that he is looking at this proposal. He has mixed feelings about it. But this cake is far from baked. We are waiting now from the Congressional Budget Office, their positions.

I think we ought to send a message to progressives all across the country, let"s keep fighting. We want to turn the tables on the insurance lobby. I"ve been working on this since before you were born. It"s hard for me to admit it. I was co-director of the Gray Panthers.

Insurance companies were ripping people off then, they are still doing it. And Democrats in our caucus are going to stay at it until we get real reform.

MADDOW: I know you were in the closed-door meeting tonight among Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill. Can you tell us about what the strategy is, either of the leadership or of the caucus as a whole moving forward?

WYDEN: It was a very powerful session. Senators walked into that room, knowing that folks at the grassroots level are counting on us. They"re counting on us to really get health reform right. Single moms from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, who go to bed at night in a cold sweat, want to know, for example, that insurance companies can"t cancel them if they get sick. They want to make sure that there"s real competition, that there"s real choice, that there"s a way to hold those insurers accountable.

I think it"s the view of the caucus that what we need to do is lay a strong foundation--a foundation that we can build on in the years ahead. We are not going to get everything that we want in round one, but we"re going to get a foundation that we can build on in the years ahead.

MADDOW: If what is passed, if what you can get done politically right now is no public option and no expansion of Medicare, so, essentially, while private insurance will be reformed, Americans will be forced through the mandate to buy private insurance. If that is what can be done in round one, is there not a risk that Americans will be so aggravated by being forced to spend money on the private insurance industry, which we all feel is ripping us off, that there will be no political capital left to go back to the health care reform again?

WYDEN: We certainly have to make health coverage affordable. For example, I"m particularly concerned about the years before 2014 when the bill kicks in. So, I"ve suggested that that insurance premium fee, it"s about $6.7 billion, it"d be adjusted. If insurance companies hold their premiums down, they wouldn"t pay as much tax. If they don"t, they"d pay more tax.

So you bet, we need to take additional steps to make coverage more affordable, to offer more choice, and Senator Reid made it clear tonight that he"s open to good ideas that can help us get the votes we need to pass reform.

MADDOW: Is there going to be any competition for private health insurance companies?

WYDEN: We"re going to make a start here. I believe that the proposal with the Office of Personnel Management, this is the proposal that"s modeled after members of Congress, if we can make sure that folks across this country have a wide array of choices the way members of Congress do, and we can get folks into big groups--groups with a lot of healthy people, so there"s not the adverse selection that jacks up premiums, we can make a start and start particularly with insurance reform.

MADDOW: I can tell the contrast between when you and I have talked about what"s possible on health reform today versus what we"ve talked about in previous days. And I realize that there"s still, to get anything is still going to be a big public push from the Democrats.

If what"s possible right now has become so limited, because of the opposition of conservatives within the Democratic Caucus--does it make sense to use reconciliation, which would require only 51 votes, not 60, but would probably make the process take longer and would require it to be revisited in five years?

WYDEN: First of all, with reconciliation, you can"t get any of the insurance reforms. Reconciliation deals with budget matters. So you can"t get the protection for folks from preexisting conditions. You can"t protect them from cancellations. You can"t even get the exchanges up and running.

Let"s make sure folks know what we are going to get. We"re going to get 30 million people covered. We"re going to get these insurance reforms, lifetime limit protections. We"re going to get a real foundation.

I don"t want people across the country, activists who have worked for months and months to understand that we are getting everything that we have sought. But I think we are getting enough to say that this is a foundation and we"ll will able to send a message to those activists that their hard work has paid off.

MADDOW: Is there anything that"s likely to pass that would go into effect in 2010?

WYDEN: Absolutely. I want to make sure, for example, that protection with respect to pre-existing conditions, if that goes into effect, we"re going to have at a minimum a re-insurance pool, so that those protections get in place quickly.

MADDOW: Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, it"s a real pleasure to talk to you about this. Thank you for coming in.

WYDEN: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source