Republican Whips Hold Media Avail on Health Care

"If his goal last night was to clarify the specifics of his proposal on health care reform and to try to reach out to those with whom he's had some disagreement to attempt to reach bipartisan compromise, it seemed to me that he failed significantly on both grounds...I thought the speech was partisan, uninformative, disingenuous, and not likely to encourage those who have honest disagreements with him to be able to work toward some kind of common solution." Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl, 9/10/09

Republican Whips Jon Kyl and Eric Cantor held a media availability today to discuss the President's remarks Wednesday night. The following is a rush transcript:

KYL: Well, my counterpart in the House, Eric Cantor, will be here momentarily, so -- but not to waste your time, let me go ahead.

I've been asked about my reaction to the president's remarks last night, and I must say I'm disappointed for a couple of reasons. First of all, if his goal last night was to clarify the specifics of his proposal on health care reform and to try to reach out to those with whom he's had some disagreement to attempt to reach bipartisan compromise, it seemed to me that he failed significantly on both grounds.

Let me start with the second. I don't think you reach out to people by continually throughout your speech referring to their arguments in the way that he did. And I must say, I've never heard a more partisan speech by a president in that House chamber. And I've -- I've listened to five presidents now as a member of the House and -- and the Senate.

The terminology he used, like "partisan spectacle," "unyielding ideological," "bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost," the president's good at setting up straw men and knocking them down.

Nobody can have a disagreement with him based upon a valid difference of opinion. It's always the other -- the motive of the other individual is a bogus motive. The arguments are false. It's a lie. To my Republican friends, I say that, rather than making wild claims, here's an issue that's been subjected to demagoguery and distortion, don't pay attention to those scary stories.

KYL: Of course, you didn't hear any scary stories from the president last night in his remarks. And then he said at the conclusion, "I won't waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than to improve it." Well, how about those of us who simply have legitimate differences of opinion with him?

And then the final coup de grace, "If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out." It sounded very much like the Chicago politics that I know he's familiar with, but I was perplexed by the fact that, throughout the entire speech, it appeared that -- as if he was trying to ram something through with political power rather than to refer to what the people have been saying to all of us over the last six or seven weeks, no reference to what the American people have said, no reference to their opposition to his plan, no concept of listening to what they have to say about what they want. It's basically his way or the highway.

Now, the second point has to do with the clarification of what's in his plan. At some points, I wasn't clear what he was referring to. For example, when he talked about the fact that there wouldn't be any deficit, clearly that -- he wasn't referring to either the House or Senate bill that have gone through committee, because CBO has projected that both of them have a deficit. So somehow there's going to be a different bill which is going to solve that deficit problem, I gather, but we didn't hear any detail about that.

But I think more than the lack of specificity was the disingenuousness of his arguments. And let me give you several examples of why I use that pejorative term.

For months, he's been saying, "If you like your insurance, you get to keep it." Anybody not heard that phrase" Well, we called him out on that. It's not true under the bills. Even if you like your insurance, there's a good chance you won't be able to keep it, as I'll mention.

Finally, I gather some of his staff said, "Mr. President, you can't keep saying that. It's not true." So they got the lawyers together and must have said, "Well, what can we say that is true?" And here was the formulation of it: "Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or doctor you have." And he repeated that. And, of course, that's true. Nobody ever said there was anything that would require that.

But the fact remains that, for at least three reasons, people who have coverage now and like it won't get to keep it. Start with the cuts in Medicare, and he referred to the subsidies, as he calls them, to the Medicare Advantage plan. A lot of seniors -- in fact, over 10 million seniors, 22 percent of the Medicare-eligible folks -- have Medicare Advantage plans. Arizona has one of the highest rates. About 39 percent of our Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.

And under the estimates about the reduction in subsidies, about 7 million of those seniors are going to lose their Medicare Advantage plan. So as a direct result of policies in the legislation, people will lose the coverage that they now like and enjoy.

If the government-run plan is part of this legislation, Lewin and associates, a bipartisan, nonpartisan -- I shouldn't say bipartisan -- nonpartisan recognized expert entity has estimated that over 88 million Americans who are currently employed will lose their coverage at the job and be put into the government-run plan. Why" Not because the government requires it, but because the penalties established in the legislation economically make sense for the employer to drop his expensive coverage and simply pay the penalty, which is much less than the cost of the coverage.

There are other reasons, as well, but those are the two primary reasons why it has always been the case that, under this legislation, if you like your insurance, you're not necessarily going to get to keep it. In fact, close to 100 million Americans will not be able to keep their insurance.

But the point is, the way he cleverly said it is, to suggest that anybody that suggests this is incorrect, no. He's technically legally correct, but it totally misses the point. And so he didn't deal with the critical commentary that we've made. I -- I don't think he wants to engage in an honest debate about the details of the plan.

He talked about medical liability reform. Now, here again, very disingenuous to say, "OK, I'll take you up on it. We'll revive the Bush administration idea to go to the states and encourage them to develop dispute resolution mechanisms." Well, after three different votes on the Senate floor -- at least there were two; I think there may have been three -- where Democrats defeated medical liability reform, the Bush administration said, well, at least to keep this debate going, we'd ought to be talking to the states about what they could do.

KYL: And there was never any effort to really pursue it, but the idea was that it would at least encourage states to develop alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. That's hardly medical liability reform.

If the president is serious about meeting us -- about taking us up on that effort, he will entertain the ideas that we've proposed about medical liability reform, including things like -- like Senator Enzi's health care courts and the other -- Senator Coburn has legislation. Senator Cornyn and I have legislation that mirrors the Arizona and Texas reforms which have made a big difference in our two states. So that was not a genuine proposal.

Incidentally, by putting the secretary of HHS in charge, I think we can see what'll happen to it. I think you know she was the director of the Kansas state trial lawyers association for a period of eight years.

He -- he talked about the proposals -- he said, quote, "The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally." And by their terms, that's a correct statement. But it is also correct that Democrats defeated proposed amendments in the House of Representatives that would have required some verification of eligibility. And so if there is no verification of eligibility required, it is quite likely -- indeed, I would say probable -- that a lot of people who are not eligible, including illegal immigrants, will be -- will end up receiving the benefits of the legislation.

He says no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. Representative Cantor should speak to this, because that's where the legislation -- or the amendments were in the House of Representatives. But I know when Senator Casey -- or, excuse me, when Senator Hatch offered an amendment to prohibit tax-funded abortions under the legislation, it was defeated. And I wonder what that tells you.

And then, finally, I'll just make this last point, on the point of disingenuousness. "Not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for this plan." Well, first of all, there aren't any dollars in the Medicare trust fund. It's broke! And nobody suggested that we were taking dollars out of a non-existent trust fund to pay for the program.

What he's doing is cutting payments to providers and cutting the allotment to the insurance plans that provide Medicare Advantage options. And those two things will result in a reduction of choice and, I submit, ultimately a rationing of care for seniors, the reduction of choice because the Medicare Advantage plans largely go away. And when you pay the doctors and the hospitals less even than they are being paid today, something has to give. Obviously, seniors are concerned that it will be their health care. And I think they have every reason to be concerned about that.

So, again, the point is not that we're taking money out of the trust fund to pay for something. The fact of the matter is, instead of helping to make the Medicare trust fund healthier, they reduce payments to providers and cut the allocations to Medicare Advantage in such a way as to disadvantage seniors without really creating any money to pay for anything else.

I didn't hear anything about how these plans were going to be paid for last night. And we could go through all of the different ways in which people are taxed -- individuals are taxed, big businesses are taxed, small businesses are taxed. Premium holders will end up paying the taxes. So no detail about that.

Bottom line: I thought the speech was partisan, uninformative, disingenuous, and not likely to encourage those who have honest disagreements with him to be able to work toward some kind of common solution.

Republicans remain committed to working together, if we can achieve that. You know about our ideas. We've repeated them many times, and I'd be happy to repeat them again here. That's what we'd like to see: Push the restart button and engage in real bipartisan discussion, rather than the kind of threats that were the major thrust of the president's remarks last night.

My colleague and counterpart in the House of Representatives from Virginia, Representative Eric Cantor.

CANTOR: Thank you very much, Senator.

Good afternoon. There's no question that the bar was set very high for this president and his speech last night. He -- his performance did not match those expectations. And, in fact, I don't think that he did reach that bar.

If we listen to his speech, what was so striking was there was a disconnect between his message and where the American people are in terms of their fear of where Washington is headed, in terms of changing their health care.

CANTOR: I know that I wanted to hear some specifics. A lot of us did. And what we heard is much of what the president has been out saying before. In fact, there were at least 100 speeches prior in which this president talked about health care. Not much new came out of this speech.

The president did say he is open to the Republicans bringing forth ideas. Well, I'm going to take him at his word, just like we attempted to take him at his word when we began the process in January over the question of a spending stimulus bill that was in the makings then.

I'm hopeful that this process will result in a better product for sure, especially as we're dealing with something that is so personal to the American families.

Now, if the president is serious and wants our participation and wants our input, I think we ought to start in three directions. One is to provide and make sure that the American people know that we're going to guarantee that there will be no government substitute for the decision-making power that patients and doctors have over their health care.

Two, that there will be a guarantee for the American people that there will be no government rationing, that there will be no government-forced discrimination on any basis, as far as health care access and delivery is concerned.

And, third, to guarantee to the American people that we're not going to break the bank in passing a health care bill. People are very cognizant of the enormous amount of debt that's being piled up by this town, and they're asking the question all over the country, who is going to pay for all of this?

So if we can get straight on these type of prerequisites and have some substantive agreement on that, there are some things that we can work together on. You know, the president mentioned Senator McCain last night and his proposals that had to deal with pre-existing conditions. These are individuals who may face a disease, such as M.S., Crohn's disease, or what have you, that tend to cause insurance premiums to skyrocket. They may find themselves in the individual market and unable to afford insurance coverage.

Senator McCain has a proposal sometimes called high-risk pools at the state level. I like the term "universal access programs." These are efforts I think we can have bipartisan agreement on and deal with the question of pre-existing conditions.

The other issue is the issue of portability. The president was right in saying that you shouldn't have to necessarily lose your health care if you lose your job. Well, let's go ahead and work on that. We can do that. We can provide the flexibility and insurance laws to make sure that no one has to lose their health care if they lose their job.

And, lastly, the area of medical liability reform that Senator Kyl mentioned, I, too, was very disappointed by the proposals being suggested by this president and that somewhat we're going to be able to accomplish real medical liability reform, the end of lawsuit abuse, by somehow administratively engaging in pilot projects.

Well, I think we know, the American people know you cannot effect real tort reform in this country unless you do something at state law or something here in Washington to affect the operation of that state law to finally address getting the lawyers out of the examining room, which would bring down the cost of health care in this country.

Thank you.

KYL: Questions?

QUESTION: Yes, the (OFF-MIKE) most of the reform would be paid for with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, is -- savings, as he calls them. In your view, is this possible" And if so, why haven't these large savings been achieved before?

KYL: First of all, one reason they haven't been achieved before is because it's a very amorphous notion that somehow we can easily cut waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare. Politicians have talked about doing that for longer than either of us have been in the Congress, and it's very hard to do.

KYL: And there's nothing specific in these bills that suggest how that's going to be done, which leads most people to believe that the two ways that Medicare reductions will occur are the reductions in the allocations to the Medicare Advantage plans, number one. That's something less than $200 billion. And the other 60 percent or so by reducing payments to providers, precisely what I mentioned would reduce care.

The other roughly half -- that's between $400 billion and $500 billion -- the other half of the roughly trillion-dollar cost -- comes in all these taxes that I mentioned, the taxes on -- the taxes on jobs, the taxes on small business, the taxes on the chronically ill, which is the limitation on flexible savings account, the penalties for the middle class, and so on. So there are a series of new taxes which are designed to raise the other roughly one-half.

QUESTION: Congressman Cantor, in addition to Congressman Wilson's outburst last night, we saw a number of your members waving signs on the floor (OFF-MIKE) I was wondering if those are the sort of things (OFF-MIKE) discourage (OFF-MIKE) your reaction to Congressman Wilson's outburst?

CANTOR: Well, let me go with Joe Wilson first. I think all of us who know Joe Wilson know that he did the right thing in apologizing to this White House. I don't think anyone accepts the type of outburst and the lack of decorum in the House chamber, and I think Joe Wilson has also said as much, and he did the appropriate thing in apologizing.

As far as any other type of protest going on in the House, I was unaware of it around me, but I will tell you that, you know, we all do need to dedicate ourselves to working in a civil manner to try and address a very important issue for the American people.

There is some severe disagreements over how we're going to affect health care reform in this country. And if you listen to what the president said, it's almost as if there is a certain amount of tone- deafness on the part of the White House. The American people are clearly in the position where they think that Washington is going to produce a replacement for the health care system that they know.

And if you then take the facts that most people in this country have health care, most people that have it like it, it's just too expensive, which then aggravates (ph) the number of uninsured. So if we can start with what works in this country and guarantee that we're going to preserve those principles and the operation of what works, and then try and affect the piece that doesn't, I think we could all seem to -- to move towards a -- a final product that actually gets it right.

And if the president would demonstrate that it's more important we get it right than just get it done, I think that would go a long way, as well.

QUESTION: Senator Kyl (OFF-MIKE) complaints by Democrats and by others that they're owned by UnitedHealthcare (OFF-MIKE) and could you address (OFF-MIKE)

KYL: The Lewin Group has for years been a highly respected think-tank and research entity that evaluates all different kinds of health care issues, plans, proposals. And I have never heard anyone contend that they have been biased or that they have an agenda which they pursue in their work. And if anybody would like to make that presentation, it can certainly be evaluated.

There is a difference in assumptions between the CBO and the Lewin Group with respect to some of the proposals. And that is the reason why there are some different outcomes in the research. I happen to think the assumptions that Lewin Group are better assumptions than those made on one of the particular pieces of analysis that I've seen, but I've -- I've seen nobody contend that the Lewin Group has not approached their work in a -- in a totally objective and constructive way.

STAFF: Guys, we can take one more question.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) could you -- could you envision a time wherein you might put together the kinds of things you and Eric Cantor have been talking about into a bill and present it on the floor" And what do you think of Vice President Biden's suggestion of Thanksgiving as a time to have had votes on -- have a final bill in Congress?

KYL: Somebody else needs the room, but I'd be happy if we can finish with your question. It's fine.

First of all, Republicans have been talking about a variety of approaches to the cost and access issue for months, both in the House and in the Senate. They're fairly well known.

My personal suggestion is that we should simply go ahead and introduce a series of six or seven bills that embody these individual principles so that we can, in effect, take it one bite at a time. It's not going to scare anybody, I think, if we create a piece of legislation that allows small businesses to join together and negotiate with insurance companies with the same purchasing power as big businesses, the association health plans.

It shouldn't scare anybody to have a piece of legislation -- well, some object -- but to allow insurance to compete across state lines. That -- that will cause some insurance companies to get their backs up because they don't like the competition, but it's a good thing for consumers if they do have to compete.

You buy your auto insurance from some company in New Jersey or wherever you buy it, and they sell the same kind of policies all over the country. You can do it for health care, too.

On medical malpractice reform, we should have a couple of specific bills. Senator Cornyn and I are working those. I mentioned both Senator Enzi and Senator Coburn have legislation, as well.

So my point is, how about starting with those things that most people agree are good ideas and don't try to reform the whole way that health care is delivered today, as Representative Cantor said, but try to target specific solutions to specific problems?

And rather -- my own personal preference is, rather than put them in one, big comprehensive bill -- because that begins to -- it's simply harder to get a big comprehensive bill done. A 1,300-page bill -- first of all, people don't read it. And, secondly, it scares people. So if you could do it in smaller pieces, that would be my preference.

Republicans have those proposals. I think we'll just go ahead -- at least some of us will -- to just introduce the legislation and -- and see if we can get people to buy into that.

STAFF: Thank you.

CANTOR: Thank you.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

KYL: Yes, yes, I'm sorry. Let me just take this last question here.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) Joe Wilson (OFF-MIKE) president said that (OFF-MIKE)

KYL: Yes.

QUESTION: You in your comments today said that the (OFF-MIKE) disingenuous.

KYL: Correct.

QUESTION: You said you didn't think (OFF-MIKE) honest debate. And I just wondered, it seems sort of like a new low around here on a very important issue. And do you think that the Congress will be able to get beyond (OFF-MIKE) and deal with the issue at hand?

KYL: It's not constructive to a bipartisan dialogue. But when I'm asked for my honest impressions of a president who spoke in a very particular and political way last night and a way that I think is unconstructive, I think it's my obligation to point out the fact that this isn't the way that you get people to cooperate with you.

You don't say that, if you disagree with us, we're going to call you out, and -- and use all of those pejorative terms that he used. Now, if it's harsh for me to criticize him for doing that -- and it may certainly seem that way -- I think it's honest.

And I'm trying to convey something here, which is, if you want cooperation, then let's throw all of that overboard -- I said push the reset button -- and talk about things that you know we've been concerned about for years. And don't just say, we'll meet you halfway on medical malpractice by trying to, quote, "encourage states" to engage in alternative dispute resolution. That's not meeting us halfway.

So if -- if my -- my words seem harsh, I'm trying to make a point here, which is, I didn't think the president advanced the bipartisan ball last night by the way he discussed things. I think that needs to be pointed out in clear, honest language. But I am ready to drop that at this moment to engage in real bipartisan conversations, if we can do that.