MSNBC Interview - Transcript

Interview

MSNBC Interview - Transcript

MSNBC Interview With Rep. Loretta Sanchez

Subject: Health Care Reform Interviewers: Carlos Watson, Angela Burt-Murray

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MR. WATSON: For more now on the president's uphill battle to get health care reform passed, I'm joined by Representative Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from California, a member of the Blue Dog Democrats, and if I may say, one of my favorite people in Congress.

REP. SANCHEZ: Thank you, Carlos. It's great to be with you.

MR. WATSON: Always good to have you. So Congresswoman Sanchez, you heard the president speak, trying to get health care forward. There's some worry that moderate Democrats, including some Blue Dog Democrats won't, ultimately, join him in this effort.

Do you think the president has the support he needs from moderate Democrats to get a major health care bill passed this year, in fact, by October or November?

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, certainly, the Democrats are working together, all of us, no matter whether you're liberal or conservative in trying to do just that, pass a health care reform. We understand that it's president's number one agenda item, and more importantly, now having been 13 years in the Congress, it took me no more than the first two months of being in the Congress to realize that this really is the number one issue for Americans.

So, of course, we want to pass a health care reform. It got slowed down a little bit in the last week or so when the Congressional Budget Office, the people who actually tells us how much is this going to cost said to the Senate, we think it might be as much $2 trillion over the next ten years, to which the president called everybody in and said, whoa, let's take a look at these numbers and let's figure out how we can make positive change for the American people, cover more people, make sure the people have health care, and yet, make it deficit-neutral, in other words, we don't want to subsidize it, where are we going to find the money for this, how are we going to find the savings in this program?

MR. WATSON: Congresswoman Sanchez, I heard a really interesting idea yesterday on MSNBC, Donnie Deutsch, the advertising executive and one of my MNBC colleagues said, "Why don't we support a dramatic increase in the taxes on cigarettes in order to pay for this?" Maybe cigarettes and alcohol, obviously, you've heard people talk about a soda tax.

Is any of that on the table right now to kind of move us past some of these deficit concerns and get to what you're talking about, which is a deficit-neutral plan?

REP. SANCHEZ: Let me tell you why it's so difficult. We are talking about a lot of money here. So what has been put on the table has been what we call the sin taxes, that would be a tax on alcohol, a tax on cigarettes, a tax on sugar consumption, for example, also for what has been put on the table is that people who have health care and some of that premium is being paid for by the employer, at a certain level, that would be taxed as ordinary income. That's on the table.

On the table is, of course, all the streamlining of trying to find savings, in particular, in the Medicare program that the government currently runs, and fourth would be these hospitals that put people in and take them out and then the same person comes back and take them out, there's about ten percent of the hospitals who do that and it might be that after the second time, if you're one of those hospitals, forget it, we're not going to pay for that person. But if we did all of that, maybe we would get to 50 percent of the monies that we are looking for.

So we are really taking a look at where do we get the rest of the money also? Everything is on the table.

MR. WATSON: Wow! Congresswoman Sanchez, my guest co-host today is Angela Burt-Murray, editor-in-chief of Essence and she's got a question for you.

REP. SANCHEZ: Okay, Angela.

MS. MURRAY: Last night, the president also talked about how the big insurers like Blue Cross & Blue Shield feel like this government plan is really going to have a serious impact on their business and that the government would be able to undercut their prices and that they wouldn't be able to competitive.

How do you feel about that conversation?

REP. SANCHEZ: Well, first of all, I'm one of those people that believes there needs to be sort of a cost containment player in that and that probably should be the government. Secondly, we shouldn't be subsidizing that if we're going to subsidize with taxes anywhere, it's going to be the people who actually come and make the choices between those different offerings.

Should we have a government player? I think most people think we should just in order to make sure that cost containment is a part of this reform because, remember --

MS. MURRAY: But if you're just talking about costs, when does the quality of care issue come into play? Because a lot of people are feeling like, I'm paying all this money or if I do have a plan that doesn't cost as much, my deductible is really high and the quality of care that I'm getting is still not at the level that it should be?

REP. SANCHEZ: And that's why we would have an exchange. We would have the Blue Cross. We would have the government plan. We would have others. Now, if I'm a person, I say, the only thing I can afford is a government plan that it's bare bones, well, at least I got something because probably right now I have nothing. If I'm a person who says, you know, I'd rather pay $15 more a month out of my pocket and have Blue Cross because I think they're giving better care, then I would have that choice to make.

MR. WATSON: Congresswoman Sanchez, thank you so much for joining us and look forward to having you join us again soon, in fact, here in New York.

REP. SANCHEZ: Thank you very much.

MR. WATSON: Good to see you.

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