MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. ROB WOODALL ®, GEORGIA: For me, it"s about promises made and promises kept, Chris.

The big surprise to me is that we"re actually keeping this promise. This was something I talked about this for nine months on the campaign trail.

MATTHEWS: To vote on it. But you can"t get rid of it.

WOODALL: We will bring it to a vote. We can"t get rid of it because we don"t have enough votes in the Senate and we don"t have the White House. But you need to keep your promises. And we made this...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How is America going to be better for this debate?

WOODALL: They"re actually because we"re actually having the debate.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Why is that better for America?

WOODALL: I sat through 12 hours of Rules Committee hearings on this last week.

Time after time, folks came before the committee and said, we will repeal it all, except for this one stand-alone provision or this one stand-alone provision.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

WOODALL: We should have brought this entire bill to the floor last year one stand-alone provision at the time. And if they had done that, Chris, if we had been able have a real debate on each provision, we wouldn"t be able to repeal it today.

MATTHEWS: Is it possible, Mr. Andrews, to improve this bill?

In other words, Republicans say they can get--they can deal with the preexisting conditions issue, they can allow people to be carried on their parents" insurance policies through their early 20s, they can achieve many of the goals of the Democratic bill that was passed and signed by the president without all the bureaucracy and all the costs.

Is that possible, or do you lose it all if you kill parts of it?

REP. ROBERT ANDREWS (D), NEW JERSEY: You know, they say they want to do all those things. They"re going to repeal them tomorrow.

I would ask my new friend from Georgia, how do you avoid a massive premium increase on insured people if you cover preexisting conditions and don"t add a lot of new people to the insurance pool? How do you do that?

WOODALL: Well, you"re exactly right, Rob. I mean...

MATTHEWS: Well, how do you do it?

ANDREWS: How do you do it?

WOODALL: You"re exactly right that it requires the unconstitutional mandate for this whole house of cards...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: So, how do you do what you want to do? Answer the question.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: Yes, I know the speech. How do you do it? How do you do it?

WOODALL: No. It"s not the speech, though, Rob. Let"s be honest.

Republicans get a bad rap for not doing this on Republicans" watch.

But, Chris, you know, Republicans did exactly this in 1996. With the HIPAA bill, we tackled preexisting conditions. Now, we were principled enough to...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How do you get insurance companies to cover people who are bad risks, without getting a lot of good risks, young, healthy people, to join insurance programs?

WOODALL: We did exactly that.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How do you do it?

ANDREWS: How do you do it?

WOODALL: We did it.

MATTHEWS: Tell me how.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: At the federal level, what we said is, you will need to go through a waiting period and you will need have skin in the game. But if you sign up in any ERISA-covered plan and you never let that plan drop, you will never be excluded based on preexisting conditions.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: And, Rob, Republicans did this.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: Did it work? Do people in Georgia tell you that when they have cancer or diabetes, it works just fine and they don"t get discriminated against because they have a preexisting condition? Did it work?

WOODALL: Rob, that"s exactly right.

What you"re talking about--and I understand what you"re...

ANDREWS: Did it work?

WOODALL: It worked perfectly for those ERISA plans.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: Absolutely it did.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: It was great.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: Rob, you got to give us credit for that...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Just to follow up here, can a Georgian watching television right now get insured if they have cancer? Can they get insured if they got have diabetes? Can they get a decent policy at a decent price if they have those problems?

WOODALL: Not just...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Can they in Georgia?

WOODALL: But any American on an ERISA plan is completely eliminated from any preexisting conditions statutes, as long as they have been covered in the past, as long as they didn"t let their coverage lapse, because, as Rob said, you have to have skin in the game. You have to have that coverage.

MATTHEWS: Well, that"s what a preexisting condition is, by definition. You don"t have a policy and you have to go buy one.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Congressman, your turn. Go ahead.

ANDREWS: Well, can I ask my friend this?

If this all worked so well in 1996, this is news to most Americans. But if did it, why did your side bring a substitute to the floor in 2009 that tried to do more then? Why did they have to do that?

WOODALL: Rob, I asked that question too.

In 1996, we did just those things that were federal responsibilities.

ANDREWS: Did they work?

WOODALL: What the Obama package does is it completely preempts state law and takes away all of those opportunities.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: Did they work?

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: If somebody has asthma or diabetes or breast cancer, can they get insurance today in this country at the same price someone without it can? Can they do that?

WOODALL: Rob, in any ERISA plan in the country. Hear me.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Forget the ERISA.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Can you walk into a company, insurance company, and buy it?

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: But you can"t forget it.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You"re saying if they"re already insured, they can be insured.

WOODALL: No, I"m saying that we have two kind of regulators in this country. We have state regulators and we have federal regulators.

Now, I want to leave the state regulatory questions to the state regulators. But if you"re in a federally regulated plan...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Let me ask a HARDBALL question.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: I think the answer is a no.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Mitt Romney is running for president. Mitt Romney believes in an individual mandate at the state level. Do you believe in an individual mandate at the state level?

WOODALL: I believe...

MATTHEWS: No. Do you believe in an individual mandate? Do you believe they were right in Massachusetts to require young people who are healthy to buy insurance to help cover the costs of older, unhealthy people?

WOODALL: I don"t believe in any mandate at all, but I respect the rights of the states to make those decisions one by one.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Yes, Congressman Andrews? Yes, sir?

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: I just want to ask my friend from Georgia, are there death panels in this bill?

WOODALL: Rob, if what you"re asking is, does this bill lead to rationed care, somebody has to make these tough decisions.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: Rob, why don"t you even want to go down that...

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: ... past?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, why don"t you just say no?

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: Why don"t you just say no?

MATTHEWS: Mama grizzly says death panels. Is she right?

WOODALL: She"s right that care will be rationed. And if she wants to put a death panel label on it...

MATTHEWS: Will there be people coming around and telling you you"re going to die?

WOODALL: Is there a federal agency, Mr. Woodall, that...

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: This is a real easy one.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Congressman, there"s a larger question here.

ANDREWS: This is a real easy one. It"s yes or no.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Don"t ask a member of the Republican Party to question the wisdom of Sarah Palin.

WOODALL: It"s not--it"s that, why can"t we talk about policies, instead of all the silly labels?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Because she is a front-runner for president.

WOODALL: How much time have we spent debating the name of this bill?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You guys called it--you called it the job-killing bill.

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: What about the substance of the bill?

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: I didn"t get an answer to my policy question.

Is there a federal agency in this law that has the power to deny someone care who is ill? Is there such an agency?

WOODALL: Rob, my reading of the bill is, you actually expand the entitlements...

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: That"s nice.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: Is there such an agency?

(CROSSTALK)

WOODALL: ... so large, that it"s a completely unlimited entitlement.

And you will spend dollars that we don"t have.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: For the further debate, go watch C-SPAN. There"s more of this going on, on the floor right now.

(CROSSTALK)

ANDREWS: I think it was no. I think that was a long way of saying no.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Thanks, Congressman Andrews.

Thank you, Congressman Woodall.

ANDREWS: Take care.

MATTHEWS: A lively debate.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source