Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held a press conference today to announce that the Senate health care reform bill will include an opt-out public option. Here’s the full transcript, via Congressional Quarterly:
REID: Good afternoon, everyone.
The last two weeks has been a great opportunity to work with the White — White House, Senators Dodd and Baucus on this critical issue of reforming our health insurance system.
We’ve had productive, meaningful discussions about how to craft the strongest bill, the strongest bill coming from a meld of the two bills, the HELP bill and the Finance bill.
I feel good about the consensus that was reached within our caucus and with the White House. And we’re all optimistic about reform because of the unprecedented momentum that now exists.
I’m aware of the issue of the public option. It’s been a source of great discussion for many weeks now. As I’ve said here on a number of occasions, I’ve always been a strong supporter of the public option.
While the public option is not a silver bullet, I believe it’s an important way to ensure competition and to level the playing field for patients with the insurance industry.
As we’ve gone through this process, I’ve concluded –with the support of the White House, Senators Dodd and Baucus — that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with the opt-out provision for states.
Under this concept, states will be able to determine whether the public option works well for them and will have the ability to opt out, if they so choose.
I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition. And that’s why we intend to include it in the bill that we submitted — that will be submitted to the Senate.
We’ve spent countless hours over the last few days in consultation with senators who’ve shown a genuine desire to reform the health care system. And I believe there’s a strong consensus to move forward in this direction.
Today’s development — that is, my sending in the next few hours to CBO a number of — anyway, the proposal that we’re sending to them for their scoring, will make us a step closer to achieving a bill this year that lowers costs, preserves choice, creates competition and improves quality of care.
Questions?
QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)
REID: I’m sorry. Say — that that again?
QUESTION: Do you have a greater sense of (inaudible) with a public option (inaudible)?
REID: Obviously, public option is something that’s been talked about a lot.
REID: It’s something I believe in the state of Nevada. All the national polls show a wide majority of Americans support the public option. I think it’s important that the matter that we work on in the Senate have a public option in it.
QUESTION: (inaudible) or is there a period of time where they have to (inaudible)?
REID: They’ll have until 2014.
QUESTION: Two quick questions. One is, after your canvassing of senators on Friday and over the weekend in your caucus, do you feel 100 percent sure right now that you have the 60 votes (inaudible) to the bill (inaudible)?
REID: We’ve been working on health care as a Democratic Party, and much of that time we had Republicans helping us, since 1948. We’ve made significant progress these past months. As I’ve indicated, the American people believe there should be health care reform. I believe there should be health care reform and my caucus believes strongly there should be health care reform.
QUESTION: But Senator Reid, particularly on this idea of a public option with an opt out…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: (inaudible) trigger proposal for (inaudible) as well? And how close are you on that?
REID: No. .
QUESTION: No?
QUESTION: Senator Reid, with all due respect, is it possible to answer the question on whether or not you have the votes for this particular issue, the public option with states having the ability to opt out (inaudible)?
REID: I believe that — I believe that we will be — as soon as we get the bill back from CBO and people have a chance to look at it, which we’ll have ample time to do that, I believe we clearly will have the support of my caucus to move to this bill and start legislating.
QUESTION: Senator, can you talk about your thinking in terms of why you went with the opt-out, as opposed to the trigger option, which we know is something you considered (inaudible)?
REID: I think it’s the fairest way to go. I think at this stage in the proceedings, a public option, which has received so much attention, and the public option with an opt-out, is one that’s fair and gives states — in fact, if they don’t want to be part of public option, opportunity to get out.
QUESTION: Senator (inaudible) explain how — exactly how states will opt out (inaudible)? And what about Olympia Snowe, who says no to the opt out?
REID: I spoke to Olympia on Friday. I’ve talked to her on a number of occasions. And at this stage she does not like a public option of any kind.
And so we’ll have to move forward on this, and there come a time, I hope, where she sees the wisdom of supporting a health care bill after having had an opportunity, her and others, to offer amendments.
QUESTION: What determinations, Senator, have you made — what determinations have you made on…
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Well, just a second here.
QUESTION: What determinations have you made on the other controversial parts of this, the affordability measures, subsidies, all those other things that are dividing senators?
REID: What I said in the beginning is this: We had a bill from the HELP Committee and a bill from the Finance Committee. This is a meld of those two bills. We’ve sent to the Congressional Budget Office a number of proposals, a number of alternatives that is a different meld of those two bills. And so that’s what we did.
And it has information from both of those committees in it. Decisions had to be made as to what different issues would have to be eliminated from one of the two bills, and we did that. And we’re now within hours of CBO getting it. I’ve had a number of conversations today, meetings with Doug Elmendorf, the head of CBO. I understand that situation quite clearly.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Senator, does this mean then that the co-op idea goes by the wayside or will there be a co-op in this bill along with…
REID: There will be a co-op in this bill.
QUESTION: How so?
How would it…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: There will be a co-op?
REID: Um-hmm, same one from the Finance bill.
QUESTION: Senator Reid, on the tax on high-cost insurance plans, AFL-CIO (ph) (inaudible) today said it’s bad policy.
I understand you’re raising the threshold on families from $21,000 to $23,000.
REID: You do? How do you know that?
QUESTION: I could be totally wrong. You know better than I do.
(LAUGHTER)
But tell me — but AFL-CIO, labor says it’s still bad policy. How do you respond to that, (inaudible) putting the costs of health care reform on the backs of middle-class families. What’s your response to that?
REID: This bill is for middle-class families. Barack Obama, when we were involved in this health care, in the initial stages, in a telephonic conference call we had — one of the things that President Obama said is we have to make sure, when we’ve finished this legislation, it is not legislation that’s only for poor people; it’s for the American middle class.
And that’s where I’ve legislated since then, and that’s what this bill does.
QUESTION: Senator Reid…
(CROSSTALK)
REID: Yes?
QUESTION: Senator Reid, the Democrats have been working for months for Olympia Snowe. Can you explain a little bit more about the confirmation (ph) to do with that? Are you looking at a Democrats-only approach now? Are you willing to look on the Senate floor, if that’s where the votes are…
(CROSSTALK)
REID: I’m always looking for Republicans. We looked for Republicans on this. We looked for them on extending benefits for unemployment insurance. It’s just a little hard to find them, and we’ve had to do a lot of this on our own.
We’re going to continue working. We invite Republicans to come and try to improve this legislation.
You know, one of the things that’s been so astounding to me is, when I came here to the Senate, we had a lot of moderate Republicans who worked with us on everything, and we worked with them.
But, of course, now, the moderates are extremely limited. I could count them on two fingers. And as a result of that, it makes it…
(LAUGHTER)
… it makes is really hard — it makes is really hard to get help from them. I think they’re making a big mistake, not helping some things, as I’ve indicated, like unemployment extension, FAA extension, highway extensions, all these things that are some important to the American people, and of course, health care, which Republicans in years past have worked on health care.
We’ve had Republican — we had a Republican president who worked extremely hard on health care reform.
But this modern Senate Republican, who, in my opinion, don’t represent the thought process of Republicans throughout the country, haven’t been willing to help us on anything.
So we hope that Olympia will come back. She’s worked hard. She’s a very good legislator. I’m disappointed that the one issue, the public option, has been something that’s frightened her.
QUESTION: Senator Reid, is the opt-out the only option that you’re sending to the CBO? Is the opt-out…
REID: No, the — yes. On that — on the public option?
QUESTION: Yes, sir.
REID: Yes, that’s right.
QUESTION: You said earlier that you had the support of the White House. Did you ask them to make the calls on this? Are you going to ask them to help you get to the 60 votes?
REID: I haven’t asked them to make any calls. They haven’t been — it hasn’t been necessary to this point. QUESTION: Senator Reid, the moderates seemed more comfortable with the opt-in approach. Why did you go with the opt-out instead?
REID: We have 60 people in the caucus. It’s a comfort level is kind of — we all hug together and see where we come out.
