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REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: My pleasure. Thanks.
MADDOW: "The L.A. Times" have a story they say for people who are
under the age of 65, who don"t yet qualify for Medicare, one in four
Californians are uninsured. If you look just 18 to 64, it"s closer to one
in three.
I"m a native of California. That number blows me away.
Can you tell me that this long national nightmare is finally going to
be over sometime soon?
WEINER: Well, the important thing to remember about those statistics
is all of those people are getting health care. They"re getting it in a
terribly inefficient way, and if they slip and fall, or they get hit by a
bus, or they get H1N1 flu, they"re going to hospital emergency rooms and
we"re winding up paying the bills. So--
MADDOW: Or they"re going bankrupt trying to pay the bill.
WEINER: That"s exactly right. So, the fact of the matter is, that
it"s having a drain on society, the status quo is unsustainable. But what
you said in the introduction about the Republican thrust here is exactly
the conversation going on with wavering members of the House right now. We
are saying to them, look, you are going to get beaten up on health care
whether you vote yes or no. The difference is, if you vote no and this
bill goes down, they are going to keep making stuff up about the bill.
MADDOW: Right.
WEINER: At least if it passes, you"ll be defending an actual thing,
that accomplishment. And all of us have compromised a great deal from what
we would have liked. I talked to a thousand times of things I would have
liked to have different. But that"s what it comes to, is whether or not we
are going to allow more and more people to lose their health insurance.
And I"ll tell you something else where you"re going to fight--if you
look at the last 10 years, incomes for people have been flat because every
dime that employers have are going into health benefits.
MADDOW: Yes.
WEINER: So, we"re not getting raises and the economy is at a
standstill because of it. So, hopefully, when we cast this vote, you know,
Saturday or Sunday, whenever it"s going to be, we"ll finally be on the road
to solving this problem.
MADDOW: Saturday or Sunday. What"s the--what can you tell us about
the schedule, about what happens next? About what to watch for?
WEINER: Well, I"m taking Siena plus, four points in their first game.
And I"m taking the Democrats plus three or four. I don"t know.
I mean, the timing of it is--I mean, this is going to have to become
public and visible and transparent for 72 hours according to our rules,
which means probably tomorrow, the next day, we"ll actually see the
documents. Just to put into some context, and we hear a lot about how many
pages the bill is, we"re talking maybe another 100 pages to the 2,000 or so
pages. There are relatively modest changes--
MADDOW: OK.
WEINER: -- to the Senate bill, but they"re important changes.
Because the Senate bill did not do enough for affordability, we"re going to
add that. It doesn"t close the donut hole. We"re going to add that.
And these things are going to get put together. And, hopefully, by
Saturday, I mean, I don"t know the exact timing of it, but we"ll vote on it
when it"s ready.
MADDOW: Is there going to be anything in that, say, 100 pages, in
those fixes, that are things that we haven"t been told to expect? Are you
do you think there are going to be any surprises? Is there anything
still being negotiated at this point as to what goes in this bill?
WEINER: Well, I don"t know how much is being negotiated. But there
are some things that have been kind of below the surface of this debate.
You know, the Senate bill was written essentially by small state senators.
And so, it doesn"t do nearly what it should for poor people.
And in states like California and New York where we have robust
Medicaid programs, we have to make some changes. There are some things
that have to be in it. We"re not going to further scale-back a woman"s
right to choose. That"s not going to happen.
MADDOW: Yes.
WEINER: I think that if we are going to add a public option, which is
something we"re still fighting for, we need to see the Senate do it. The
House has already included it in our bill. The Senate, in its amendments,
I think is going to be the place that that"s going to do it (ph).
MADDOW: I thought the House has to do it first before the--
WEINER: The House has to initiate the bill, but there"s nothing
stopping the Senate from putting something in. There"s nothing--you
know, we are at a conventional legislative mode actually. We now have a
bill. This bill can go back--can go to the Senate and come back.
You know, a lot of us are exasperated with some of the phoniness of
the Senate. You know, they are signing letters that say they want the
public option. Durbin says I"m going to whip the public option, and then
they"re pointing to Nancy Pelosi and says, "What"s your problem?"
The real problem is the Senate has to say, "We want to take this up"
and they haven"t done so. But for the most part, the bill that the
president described and the one that he talked about when he had the health
care forum is the one we"re going to consider. And it ain"t perfect, but,
boy, is it better than the status quo.
MADDOW: You mentioned the issue of abortion. We talked a lot on this
show about Congressman Bart Stupak. We raised the issue of how many people
he actually seems to speak for. He said he speaks for a lot of people. We
don"t exactly know who those folks are. A lot of pro-life Democrats are
now saying they can live with--strongly anti-abortion Democrats saying
they can live with the Senate"s restrictions on abortion funding, that they
see it as not expanding federal funding for abortion in any way.
Do you think the Stupak threat to essentially hang health reform on
this issue of abortion is over?
WEINER: I don"t know. I mean, maybe he is going to vote no. Maybe
he has some colleagues who are prepared to say, "We"re going to deny health
care for 35 million Americans. We"re going to stop the rise of costs
because we don"t believe that simply banning abortions with the public
taxpayer dollars is enough."
MADDOW: Enough.
WEINER: And--look, I"m not happy about the Nelson language. You
know, I think a lot of people should not be.
MADDOW: Yes.
WEINER: And I think that--that it is a marginal setback that we
have to be concerned about. But one thing--you know, a lot of us are
over it, over this idea that two or three or four members of the House or
Senate are holding the rest of the place hostage. And, you know,
unfortunately, Congressman Stupak, he"s a friend of mine, is falling into
that category.
You know, if you really can"t get by the idea that we"re going to have
the Hyde Amendment whether or not you vote for it or not, the restrictions
are going to be there and you are prepared to deny the people of Michigan
health care on author of some philosophical argument, then, you know,
there"s not--there"s nothing we can do to win their vote.
MADDOW: Yes. It should also be noted that there"s not a single
abortion provider in all 33 counties that encompass his district.
Congressman Anthony Weiner, it"s great to have you.
WEINER: Thanks. Great to have you in Washington.
MADDOW: Thank you.
WEINER: Stay was long--put anything you want on my tab.
MADDOW: Excellent. I have to go now.
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