MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Interview - Transcrip

MSNBC Interview With Senator Olympia Snowe

Subject: Budget-Neutral, Quality, Affordable Health Care

Interviewer: Andrea Mitchell

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MS. MITCHELL: Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. SNOWE: Thank you, Andrea.

MS. MITCHELL: Welcome. There was a letter that was circulated by members of the Finance Committee, and you're the only Republican who did not join in opposing the public option. Does that mean you're holding out the possibility of joining in a compromise, a bipartisan compromise?

SEN. SNOWE: Well, I'm certainly looking for bipartisanship. I don't think that a public, national plan needs to be constructed that goes head-to-head with private insurers. I think that a fallback plan in the event that the private plans do not work to provide affordable, quality health insurance to Americans is the way to go.

And so I know some of my side view that as a government option as well. But I do think we have an obligation to make sure that every American has access to affordable plans that have quality standards as well, not just in choices, but affordability and quality.

MS. MITCHELL: What do you think about Democratic Senator Kent Conrad -- the Budget Committee's proposal for cooperatives, nongovernment cooperatives, that would provide insurance?

SEN. SNOWE: Well, you know, that was an issue under discussion today, and I commend Senator Conrad for offering it. It's an innovative proposal. Obviously, we haven't seen anything in concrete form. States today can create co-ops, as a matter of fact. But we want to make sure that we're not just incorporating the status quo.

In other words, if these co-ops were to be formed and Americans still could not have access to affordable, quality plans, then you really do have to have a contingency plan with a fallback plan of some kind to make sure that you have the conditions to ensure that Americans do have access to affordable plan(s).

Today, for example, in a state like Maine, you don't have the purchasing power necessary to leverage competitive prices. So it really has kept so many people and so many small businesses out of the market. So we want to make sure that's not what we repeat as we try to reform and provide universal access and coverage to all Americans.

MS. MITCHELL: You want to make sure that, if there is something like this private cooperative, that it does expand health care options enough to those who need it. What about the AMA, which -- the doctors came out today against the public option, and that could be a major obstacle to what the president's trying to accomplish, couldn't it?

SEN. SNOWE: Yeah, but there are -- yes, and there are different ways, though, of devising alternatives that could achieve the goal. If everybody agrees that we have to make sure Americans get access to an affordable plan that has quality standards, then we have to determine how best to effect that.

We want the private markets to work, but we can't depend on them necessarily given what we're facing today. So we create the standards. We create the competition. But if it -- in the event that that fails, you have to make sure that Americans have immediate access. I'm not talking five or six years down the road, but now in terms of having access to an affordable plan. I mean, that's the key.

And so I will develop an option to create the conditions for the entry of a fallback in the event if we go co-op route, for example, but no matter what, that Americans will access to it rather than having a national plan at the outset that competes with private plans that may deter many private plans from entering the market and create adverse conditions because obviously the government would have an enormous advantage under that scenario.

MS. MITCHELL: Clearly. One issue, though, that does come to mind is cost and savings. The president today repeated that $2 trillion figure that was initially suggested by some of the industry groups as possible savings. Then they retreated from that. He's still repeating it as gospel today.

Are you persuaded that these savings are going to be realized? Or will they up-front costs be so large that that's a real barrier? I mean, where do you stand on this whole economic debate on whether the savings really are achievable?

SEN. SNOWE: Well, you know, that's an excellent question, Andrea. And it's a question that I have. In fact, I raised it this morning as we, you know, go forward on this ambitious time frame, because I am concerned that we won't have all the numbers to know exactly how much we're going to achieve in savings. And the fact is, so far in the committee, we've only identified $350 billion in cost savings through reforms.

We have a ways to go. Whether it's a 1.5 trillion (dollar), a 2 trillion (dollar), a 1.2 trillion (dollar), you see various numbers that have been projected. So I'd be interested if the president has additional numbers in terms of cost savings because, thus far, under what we know today in terms of cost savings, it's $350 billion.

Now, we have to, obviously, discuss other issues such as employer exclusion for tax benefits. Again, that's another issue, but it also could raise some troubling concerns in terms of regional disparities. So, in any event, we have not identified those. And this has to be budget neutral. And so we all have to pitch in. So we don't want to engage in this process without the numbers, the accuracy and exactly what it's going to cost and what these provisions are going to do.

I don't want to repeat what happened in the stimulus when it emerged from conference when, all of a sudden, people were surprised about what was in it and what wasn't in it. And that was a thousand pages. I think we can fully expect, between Health and the Finance Committee, there's going to be more than a thousand pages when it comes to this historic endeavor of more than $2 trillion.

So I would hope that we all take great care. It's better to be right than quick. And so we have a ways to go in this process, and certainly on the issue of cost, as you mentioned.

MS. MITCHELL: Well, right. Olympia Snowe, thank you very much. A lot of work still to do on health care.

SEN. SNOWE: Thank you.

MS. MITCHELL: Thanks for being with us.

SEN. SNOWE: Thank you.

END.

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