MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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SCHULTZ: Well, you need to call a bootleg. It"s called reconciliation. The White House not giving up on health care reform. Today, the president said he wants a bill not just this year but soon. And with reconciliation a possibility, at least some parts of the bill, the public option, could be back on the table, believe it or not. Two democrats in the House are leading the charge to resurrect the public option. One of them is Colorado Congressman Jared Polis.

Congressman, good to have you with us tonight. How in the world are you going to get the public option back on the playing field? What"s the game plan?

REP. JARED POLIS (D), COLORADO: Well, you know, Ed, we in Colorado are accustomed to fourth quarter comebacks. We"re the state of John Elway. We know how to get this kind of thing done.

SCHULTZ: He"s been gone ten years. How are you going to get this to work?

POLIS: You know, we"re keeping the legacy alive. Look, it"s a whole different ball game. When we needed 60 votes, the truth was that any one senator, two senators, could hold things up, got rid of the public option. Now we"re going with simple majority rule reconciliation, the regular process of the Senate. All we need is 51 senators to stand up and say yes, let"s have a public option. We now have over 93 signers for Representative Hindery and my letter in the House of Representatives supporting the public option. It"s the fiscally responsible thing to do. It"s one of the most popular things in the health care bill.

SCHULTZ: You"re getting a lot of help from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. They got over 350,000 members across the country. What I think you need--and tell me what you think--be nice to have the White House come out and make a strong statement, if you think you can go down this road and get reconciliation. What do you think?

POLIS: You know, everybody in the Washington--sort of the favorite parlor game now--they"re sitting around saying how do we get to 218 in the House, how do we get to 51 in the Senate? I think the public option--and the American people have known this all along. The public option is one of the best ways to do that. It saves taxpayer money, between 25 and 110 billion dollars. If we have the public option, we can reduce the deficit. We can cut some of the taxes that were in the bill that people don"t like.

It"s a more popular bill overall. I think that"s what we need to take away from Massachusetts. Some of the thing that the Senate has stripped out of the bill, like the public option, has made it less popular. If there is a mandate, people want to be able to choose a public option, and not go back after the same insurance companies they were choosing. So the public option is picking up momentum every day.

SCHULTZ: I hope so.

POLIS: We have a real shot at getting it in the bill.

SCHULTZ: Congressman Polis, good luck to you. We"ll follow the story. We"ll visit again. Thanks so much.

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