C-SPAN/NEWSMAKERS

Host: Greta Brawner

Guest: Senator Tom Harkin, (D-IA)

Reporters: David Herszenhorn, Jeffery Young

GRETA BRAWNER, NEWSMAKERS, C-SPAN: This week on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers, Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. Welcome, sir; thank you for being here.

SENATOR TOM HARKIN, (D-IA), CHAIRMAN OF THE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR & PENSIONS COMMITTEE: Nice to be with you today (ph).

BRAWNER: And we’re joined by two reporters as well; Jeffrey Young of The Hill, and David Herszenhorn of the New York Times. David, you have the first question. Go ahead.

DAVID HERSZENHORN, REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES: Thanks. Well, Senator, we know we’re headed to a point where the Senate has the challenge of combining two big healthcare bills. One of them is out of your committee, Health, Education, Labor & Pensions. I was wondering if you could tell us, what are the – what are the really important things in your bill that might not be in the Finance bill that you want to make sure are in there when that – when that final package comes to the floor.

HARKIN: Well, as you know, one of the things I have been working on for many years to get into healthcare in the country is a strong prevention and wellness program. And we have a large part of our bill deals with that and so I’m hopeful that the bill that we have, that that will make it into the final merged bill. And it will; believe me.

I think everyone recognizes that we’ve got to do more on the front end of keeping people healthy and keeping people out of the hospital in the first place. That really is the best way to bend the cost curve, by the way, even though CBO might not agree with some of those things. So that’s one big part that we’re going to have from our bill in there.

Making sure that, well, we have a public option in our bill that the Finance Committee didn’t have in there and so we’re going to have to work on some way of having some kind of a public option in that – in that merged bill.

The coverage aspects of it, we’re going to have to work with the Finance Committee on. That means we’ll probably be going more towards their bill, because they cover more than we do, but see, we didn’t have jurisdiction over Medicare and Medicaid, so those things will be in that bill, plus a lot of the things that we put in our bill for the structures.

I like to tell people that the difference between the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee is we set up the structure and the Finance Committee has to pay for it. And so the structures that we have set up are exchanges and the way the exchanges work. All of that’s in our bill and that probably will be in the merged bill also.

HERSZENHORN (?): Tell us a little bit – and then I’m just going to come back to the public option, but tell us a little bit about what do you mean by prevention and wellness? For the folk’s back home, what do they – what do they get out of that and also what’s it going to cost?

HARKIN: Well OK, in three different levels, we – at the federal level, we set up in our bill and interagency kind of a structure so that every department in the federal government will have to look at what they’re doing for prevention and wellness. Not just the Department of Health and Human Services; I meant the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, all of them, even the Department of Treasury.

What are they doing in their programs, their structures, what they’re funding; how are they addressing the issue of wellness and prevention so that it’s coordinated among all the federal branches. For example, let’s take Transportation.

I tried the last Transportation bill to get an amendment in that just said that when you get federal money to build a highway or a bridge or a street, you have to incorporate in your plans walking paths and bike paths. Now I didn’t get that amendment adopted. I will this time. But that’s what I mean; just getting things so that the people in all these different departments start looking at how we do it. That’s the federal level.

And then on the clinical level, we have in our bill a provision that says that all – anything that is approved by the United States Preventative Services Taskforce – that’s a mouthful, but it’s been in existence since the 1980s. And they give letter grades, like A, B, F to certain preventative practices.

In our bill we say if a practice gets an A or a B, it must be covered by the insurance companies without copays or deductibles. Now some specific things we put in there of course was like mammograms screenings, colonoscopies, annual physical checkups, vaccinations; all of those will be – if you’re an insurance company and you’re on the exchange, you have to provide those free of charge to people. So that’s on the clinical level.

On the community level we have a trust fund set up that will use money to go out for community-based wellness type programs. Now what do I mean by that? Well the Center for Disease Control and Prevention puts money out all over the country for certain preventative activities and interventions. One is heart disease and stroke, the number one killer in this country.

But right now they only put out $50 million a year for 50 states. That’s nothing in terms of getting information out and support systems out to people to let them know how they can prevent heart attacks and how they can provide for healthy hearts. Well our trust fund will boost that a lot. That’s just one of them.

HERSZENHORN (?): And how much will all this – do you feel constrained? I mean you’ve only got about $70 billion, right, but you want the CBO score to just show the Finance Committee bill as that and the 900 billion that President wants. Do you feel constrained by that $900 billion number? Can you squeeze this all in? What are the numbers?

HARKIN: Let’s see where this all comes out at the end, David. Let’s see where this comes out at the end. It may be a little bit more than that, OK?

But in our bill, we provided a lot for prevention of illness. We provided a trust fund that goes up to $80 billion; 80 billion. Now that’s faded in over a period of time.

HERSZENHORN (?): But that’s over the ten years, so that alone would – if you add it to the …

HARKIN: That alone would (ph) …

HERSZENHORN (?): … to the Finance bill would take you to 900. Obviously you’d make it seem smaller .

HARKIN: Well as you know we have the Class Act in our bill – I’d need to go into that, which raises about $80 billion over ten years. Now we’re not going to use that all for prevention. We have to use if for a number of other things; affordability and things like that. But I just – I use that $80 billion figure to show you the kind of support that it had among Republicans and Democrats to put more emphasis on prevention and wellness.

Now we probably won’t get to $80 billion, but I believe it will be at 20 billion or more; 20 billion or more. I mean that’s $20 billion dollars more than we’re doing right now.

HERSZENHORN: That’s right.

JEFFREY YOUNG, HEALTH CARE REPORTER, THE HILL: Now, Senator (ph), I think you’ve short shrift (ph) through all the other things that are in these bills, because there’s a lot that would potentially (ph) transform a lot of aspects to the healthcare system. But the political debate, and you touched on this a moment ago, keeps returning to this question of the public option.

You talked about the importance of having it in the final bill when it goes in there. Senator Reid has said that you know his expectation is that when the bill comes to the floor and it leaves the floor, there’ll be some form of public option in there. As you know, Senator Baucus’ contention is that he’s counted out where the votes are and he doesn’t see 60 votes for this. Do you have a different count?

HARKIN: Well I believe there are 60 votes. I mean you don’t know until you vote, do you? I mean there is a lot of people that are sort of on the edge on this. It kind of depends on how it’s shaped and form. I believe that we will have a public option in the merged bill and I believe it will get 60 votes.

HERSZENHORN (?): Do you think it’ll be – do you think it’ll look substantially different from what you passed out of your committee?

HARKIN: Well …

HERSZENHORN (?): There are – there are counterproposals about compromise ideas. I mean I know what your first choice is.

HARKIN: Sure.

HERSZENHORN (?): But do you think ultimately it will look different from what you already approved in committee?

HARKIN: Well I don’t know. Look I – this is my committee, we passed it, and I think we have a good public option in our bill. In fact our public option plan was adopted by the Blue Dogs in the House. So it sort of passed muster with the more conservative Democrats in the House as a bridge, so I think we kind of hit upon the right formula in our – in our – in our bill. I know that both Senator Merkley and Senator Hagan, from Oregon and North Carolina worked very hard to put this together and had a lot of support on our committee.

So now – so I’m advocating for that because I think that is the right approach. Now there may be some little difference of that when it gets in the merged bill. I don’t know. That’s yet to be determined I guess, in the next few days.

HERSZENHORN (?): But, Senator, let’s go back to the numbers for a second, cause I talked to, for instance, Senator Blanche Lincoln, who’s your successor on the Agriculture Committee. She voted against a public option – two different version of the public option on the Finance Committee. Senator Baucus, the Chairman of the – of the Finance Committee voted against it.

I mean Democrats only have 60 votes. I means it’s hard to imagine we’re saying only 60, but you can’t spare even one, right, to get to 60; or maybe just one if Senator Snowe gets one, but she too has said you know it’s no-go on the – on the public option. So how do you – how do you convince – how do you convince folks to come along, given that it seems like there are more than a few Democrats who are saying I just won’t vote for that?

HARKIN: Well, as you know, it’s one thing to vote on a bill specifically dealing with something and then another thing to vote on a comprehensive bill that might include it. So I think when the bill comes out on the floor, I mean there’s a lot of things that Democrats really support in this bill, like the prevention and wellness programs that I just spoke about, the coverage aspects, the exchanges and all the insurance reforms.

No preexisting conditions clauses will be allowed any longer; no lifetime caps, no annual caps. Your children can stay on your family plan until they’re age 26. As I mentioned, all of your mammograms and colonoscopies and exams will all be free of – free; no copays, no deductibles. Well that’s a lot. And so if there is within that bill some form of a public option, I think that most Democrats – I think – I think 60 Democrats will step forward and say the bill should go forward. The bill should go forward.

And then, when we get on the floor and there are amendments offered to change the public option or to modify it or to do away with it, well then they’re going to have to vote as they see fit on the …

HERSZENHORN (?): And you want to see it in the – in the bill that comes out on the floor. You want it to be in there first and then the amendment should be to take it out, not the other way around.

HARKIN: Yes.

HERSZENHORN (?): Not, absolutely (ph) not …

HARKIN: Yes. And it – and it will be. And it will be in there.

BRAWNER: Senator, who …

HARKIN: As I said, it will be in there. It may not be exactly what I have in our bill, but close.

YOUNG (?): So your expectation – and this is something I’m guessing that you may be insisting upon in the process that Senator Reid goes through to combine these bills is that there has to be something already in the bill when it goes to the floor, as opposed to …

HARKIN: Yes.

YOUNG (?): … someone raising an amendment to add it to the base package.

HARKIN: Yes.

YOUNG (?): Otherwise that dynamic you talked about where Democrats in the Senate have to decide whether they can accept the whole package doesn’t work.

HERSZENHORN (?): And have you had those meetings yet? Has – is there any assurance from the White House or from the – from the leaders’ offices or is that something that will happen in the days ahead?

HARKIN: I think in the next few days you’ll see that happen.

YOUNG (?): How much help are you getting from, whether it’s the President or people in the White House, Senate Chief of Staff or anybody else to persuade your colleagues that this is the right approach to take?

HARKIN: I think, beginning now, the White House is going to be very heavily involved in this. And they haven’t been in the past and I think, quite frankly, that has been the right approach, to let the Congress work its will. You know our committee, under the leadership of Senator Dodd, who by the way will still continue to be our point person on healthcare; we had, what, 13 days, 54 hours, we considered 278 amendments.

We accepted 161 Republican amendments, so we went through an open process on this. And I think that that’s – that was the best way to proceed. But I think now is the proper time for the administration to weigh in. And they will do that; I know.

BRAWNER: Senator, which senators are on edge, as you said previously? And what can you add to the bill to put them over the edge and have them vote for something that includes a public option?

HARKIN: Well look, I’m not into naming people and stuff like that. You people have all kind of discerned that yourself I guess. I’ve spoken with all of them about this and what I’ve detected is that there’s no real hard line in the sand, saying I absolutely, positively will not vote for this if this is in there. It’s sort of – people have different ideas on how we should approach this public option, if that’s – if that’s what we’re talking about.

And quite frankly, there are some interesting ideas out there. I’ve talked to Olympia Snowe about this. I’ve talked to other people on our side about it. And I haven’t drawn a line in the sand either. I’m going to try to find something that works and that passes muster, but that will act as a check on the insurance companies and on their prices, on the affordability issue of the private insurance policies and an option that is national in scope, so that no matter where you live, no matter for whom you work or your station in life, you can get that insurance coverage.

HERSZENHORN (?): Let me ask in a different – you name one name. Your colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley is staunchly against the public option. You and Senator Grassley represent the same great state of Iowa and the same people. How could – how could two senators reach such dramatically different conclusions? Help us understand why the – what the country may be so divided on this bill (ph).

HARKIN: I think, as you see, the polls are kind of divided. But on the public option, the polls in Iowa show that the majority of Iowans are for a public option, the same as nationally. I think nationally it’s well over 50 percent; 55, 60 percent of people in this country support a public option. I think something over 65 percent of all the doctors support a public option. I think you would find that true in the State of Iowa also, so I think – I think it may be close, but I think the majority of Iowans would like to see a public option.

YOUNG (?): The circumstance you had – excuse me. The circumstance you had talked about where you know it’s the moment of truth for the Senate and you have the full package there and people have to decide whether they want to support or not support it, even if they have misgivings about components about it, such as the public option.

HARKIN: Yes.

YOUNG (?): The flipside is also true for senators such as yourself who feel strongly about this public option, if it ends up not being in the bill you may have to make the same choice. Have you contemplated that?

HARKIN: Look, five committees have reported a bill out on healthcare. Four of them have a public option; one doesn’t. So you would think the weight would be on the side of having a public option in the bill and that’s where it is. As I said, the majority of the American people support it. The vast majority of Democrats, over 50 – I would say probably pretty close to 52, maybe 53 Democrats in the Senate support a public option.

So why would we then sort of contemplate not having a public option? I think the burden’s on those who are opposed to public option to say why they should have it when the majority of people and the majority of Democrats are in favor of that. And that’s why I say, the bill we send to the President will have a public option in it. Make no mistake about it; it will have a public option.

HERSZENHORN (?): Senator, one of the – one – we know one of the groups that’s really vulnerable in terms of health coverage are the early retirees; folks in the 55 to 64 group.

HARKIN: Yes.

HERSZENHORN: This isn’t talked a lot about, but in your bill you’ve got some ideas to help that group that have trouble finding insurance maybe on their own. Tell us a little bit about that.

HARKIN: Well in our bill, and thanks for bringing that up, David; we have – we have a reinsurance program where the Secretary of Health and Human Services can then setup a reinsurance program that will subsidize employers to keep people on their health insurance after the age of 55; between 55 and 65, until they’re eligible for Medicare. So that’s in our bill. I believe it’s a good provision and I think it’s one that we will – we will hold.

YOUNG (?): I’d like to ask a couple of things about the Finance Committee bill, the Congressional Budget Office score that came out on Wednesday, and what effect that sort of has on the dynamic of this, not only in the Senate, but overall, for you know from the President’s push on down, the whole party trying to move this thing forward.

HARKIN: Yes.

YOUNG (?): The first is that do you think that – and you mentioned before that the Finance Committee has the responsibility and the authority to find the things to pay for it; taxes and Medicare and Medicaid spending and those things, which you didn’t have access to. But do you think that going into the process of melding this bill that Senator Baucus was able to put something together that the CBO scored as cutting deficit over ten years and potentially having further deficit reduction in the future? Does that – does that – does that give his bill a different positioning than yours going into that process? Does that give an advantage to the Finance Committee, so to speak, in the melding process?

HARKIN: Well first of all, I think Senator Baucus did a great job. I know a lot of people are sort of wondering about this, but I think he handled it magnificently, with the committee he has and with the job he had to do. And now, as you know, we got the CBO scoring back, which gives us a great score on his bill, which allows him to get it out of his committee. And that vote will be taking place this Tuesday and then we can move forward.

So – and there is – as you know, there will – there is, by CBO scoring, some deficit reduction in that bill, so that I think will allow us to get through the Senate. Now we have to go to Conference and so we have to deal with the House bill, which is a little bit different than ours and they have different sources of revenue that they’re raising in the House bill. And that will have to – we’ll just have to – have to see where that all comes out when we go to Conference.

YOUNG (?): And thinking of it in a – in a kind of bigger picture sense, if you look at where this process is now, where the legislation is now; the Finance Committee, as you mentioned, will vote in a few days and then not long after that, Senator Reid wants to bring the whole package to the floor and begin the debate.

HARKIN: Yes.

YOUNG (?): Which of course, when that moment comes, will bring it much, much closer to getting something to the President. It seems – it seems like that you’ve – it’s come a long way since August, when you know the headlines and the – and the TV coverage was about town halls and deep skepticism and you know it appeared as though, to use a bit of a cliché, that the momentum had sort of shifted and now maybe it’s going the other direction. I wonder, what’s your view on where things are right now, what you think has changed, and why?

HARKIN: I think with the CBO scoring that they gave to the Finance Committee really did put the wind at our backs. There’s no doubt about it. And I think it’s given a little bit of comfort to some of the more conservative members of our party to be able to support and I hope to some of the more moderate members of the Republican Party and Republican senators who might now be able to support it with that scoring they got from CBO. So the dynamic has changed.

I think the wind is at our back. I think that people now see that this is actually going to happen. We’re actually going to pass a healthcare bill. We’ll have it on the floor of the Senate, probably within about a week. How long will it take? I don’t know; two weeks, three weeks, but there will come a point where, after we’ve had all the legitimate amendments and stuff, we’ll have to have a cloture vote. I have no doubt about that. But I’m convinced that we’ll have the 60 votes for cloture. I have no doubt about it.

HERSZENHORN (?): Does this feel different than 1994? You were here when the Clinton health care proposal fell apart.

HARKIN: A lot different; a lot different. And I was involved in that too. I was on the committee. I wasn’t Chairman then of course, but I was on the committee. And I remember it well and it just feels so much different. Well we have many more players right now that are supporting it. I mean we really didn’t have the healthcare community, basically, on our side.

We’ve got doctors who are supporting this. We – the pharmaceuticals are supporting it. The business community all over America; they weren’t onboard in 1994 and a lot of people think that all the labor unions were on our side in 1994 and that wasn’t true either. They had all their nice plans. They were – they were satisfied. And so you really didn’t have the impetus, the big push in 1994 that you’ve got right now. And that’s what’s really different. This – the momentum is with us and I have no doubt – and the President has – as I’ve said many times, the President’s put all his chips on the table in this one. And he’s not going to take no for an answer.

HERSZENHORN (?): Are the labor unions with you now? I mean there’s some concern I heard about the excise tax on high-cost plans, some of those …

HARKIN: Well …

HERSZENHORN (?): You negotiated generous benefits in lieu of wages, right?

HARKIN: You’re right. And we’re going to fix that. We’re going to fix that. And we’re looking at it now. Well for example, as you know in our bill, we have a – what we call a Class Act, which is a voluntary program for people to join, where they can voluntary put in money during their working years and if they get disabled, they can get up to $75 a day to help them defray disability costs if they get disabled.

The CBO scores the savings on that at about $80 billion over ten years. So in other words, we save $80 billion and we save a lot of Medicaid money also. We can use that money. Some of that money will be used for our prevention and wellness programs I mentioned, but some of that will also be used to raise that level on the excise tax. Right now it’s about $21,000. We think we can get it to maybe 23,500 maybe or 24 and that would get us kind of over the hurdle in terms of what the labor unions are concerned about in terms of taxing their benefits.

YOUNG (?): So when you say fix, you don’t mean eliminate; just reduce the number of people it would affect and make sure that people who …

HARKIN: Yes, raise the level.

YOUNG (?): Right, OK.

HARKIN: Raise it up about 21,000, absolutely.

HERSZENHORN (?): And you think the House will – House Democrats will go along; some of them who’ve been pretty apprehensive …

HARKIN (?): Well you explain.

HERSZENHORN (?): … and different ways of paying for this bill. They have (ph) an income surtax.

HARKIN: Right now, I’m just focusing on getting this through the Senate, OK. And so, as I said earlier, I mean obviously we have to go together with the House. Now if the House wants to raise it further than that, well then they’re going to have to you know show us the money; where – how are they going to pay for it.

I know how we can pay for it. The House will have to show us how they want to pay for it and we’ll see if we go along with that. I mean as you know, the House has a tax on the – on the wealthy. They have a surtax on incomes I think over – starting at 300,000, if I’m not mistaken, and then 500,000 and then a million dollars, different percentages.

That’s in the House Ways and Means bill and we don’t have that. Now how that’s all going to come out in Conference, I don’t know yet.

BRAWNER: Go ahead.

HERSZENHORN (?): The Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell has said that, in response to the CBO score, well the real bill’s going to be written in secret, when these bills are melded together. Can you tell us a little bit about what – will the Democrats be going into a secret room in the Capitol. Who do you expect to be with? Is it Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, obviously with Jim Baucus, but tell us a little bit about how that process of the next few days might look. You all sit around a table and pass the popcorn, or what?

HARKIN: No, this is not – there’s not a room that we’re going to sit in. Look, under the rules the Majority Leader has the authority and responsibility of taking these two bills and putting them together and getting one bill on the floor. And we’ve all been talking with Senator Reid as we go forward on this. I know our staffs have been talking. That is the Finance Committee staff, our committee, the HELP Committee staff and Senator Reid’s staff and White House have all been discussing and sort of working this.

And that will continue this week and I hope that will be finished by the end of this week, so we can have the bill on the floor by next week. But it’s a consultative process. It’s not sitting in a room; it’s everybody consulting with one another and reaching agreements on what should be in the bill. It’s not a big secret deal at all.

BRAWNER: Chairman Harkin, as we wrap up this interview with you and as you take over as Chairman of the HELP Committee, succeeding the late Senator Ted Kennedy, what are some of your priorities for this committee, for legislation going forward beyond this healthcare debate?

HARKIN: Well we have a big agenda. And quite frankly, it is a – it is for me an awesome responsibility to succeed – I’m glad you used that word, succeed, cause I don’t replace him. I know I couldn’t replace Ted Kennedy.

But I’ve been on this committee 22 years. I love the work of this committee and someone once said about this committee, the HELP Committee; they said that you know the Armed Services Committee is the committee that defends America. The HELP Committee is a committee that defines America; who we are as a people, how we care about our health and our education, our working people, our pensions, our biomedical research, all the things that pull us together as a society. So I am very privileged to be able to lead this committee.

Looking ahead, well we mentioned healthcare. OK, we’ve got the Ryan White AIDS bill; that will be taken care of shortly. We have a big education bill that we have to do this fall. We’re removing from the guaranteed loans to direct student loans. That saves us a lot of money and we’re going to use that to increase Pell grants. We’ll be – the House has already passed it. We’ll be doing – we’ll be taking it up as soon as healthcare gets off the agenda.

Then after that, we have food safety. This is a big issue. We have got to address the food safety issue in this country. Too many people are getting sick eating food. There was a front page story in the New York Times last week; it was devastating, about this woman who had paralyzed from the waist down and we all know people who’ve gotten sick from eating foods and we’ve got to have a better food safety system in this country. So we’re going to bring that up and we’re going to deal with that very shortly.

And then next year we have the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which we all know as No Child Left Behind. And I’ll be working with Chairman George Miller on the House side to pull together that. I’ve already met with Secretary Duncan about this and we’re going to make some changes and make sure that we invest very heavily in our elementary and secondary education. So those are all the things that are sort of on tap right now for our committee.

There’s one other issue, though, that I want to address with this committee. Starting next year, but going at – it’s going to take a while, but I think we’ve got to focus on two things; jobs, we’re losing too many jobs in this country and that’s our committee. Focus on how we’re going to get people back to work in this country. And the second thing is pensions. Too many people have lost their pensions. Too many people who thought they had a cushion for the retirement years now find out that they don’t have it and they’ve lost it.

We have got to have a system in this country that we have Social Security, but then we have another retirement type system, where people can invest in and know that they’re going to get their retirement in their later years, so those are two big things I’d like to be working on in the future.

BRAWNER: Chairman Harkin, thank you very much for joining us on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers.

HARKIN: Thanks, Greta.

BRAWNER: David Herszenhorn, New York Times, what did you hear form Senator Harkin – Chairman Harkin of the HELP Committee about moving his bill forward, along with the Senate Finance Committee’s bill?

HERSZENHORN: Well I think you’re hearing two things. One is he’s very confident you know. I think that echoes what Democrats are saying. They really believe they’re going to get that done, which would be tremendous, right. It’s been decades and decades that folks were trying to do healthcare reform in this country. And that he’s going to fight really hard for this public option, which could be an uphill battle. I’ve talked to a number of his colleagues who are adamant that they won’t vote for that.

BRAWNER: Well he said make no mistake about it; that the public option is going to be in this bill. What did you take away from that?

HERSZENHORN: That he probably has some conversations to have with President Obama and Harry Reid, the Majority Leader. I’m not sure everybody’s on the same page yet.

BRAWNER: Well, Jeffrey Young, he said that there are a few senators on the edge. He didn’t want to name who they are. Do we know who they are and what do you think he’s talk – has he you know who’s talking to these senators?

YOUNG: Yes. I mean there are – I mean he sort of alluded this, that there being usual suspects you know sort of moderate Democrats, like Senator Bayh or Senator Nelson gets talked to a lot about these things, but you know Senator Lieberman, people like that, where maybe they can be persuaded. Maybe you can structure in a way that can make them – make them feel like they can tell their constituents, no; this is not a government takeover.

But it sounds like – it sounds like that the strategy here may not be so much to count up votes, but to count up almost enough votes and then force members of the party to sort of have a gut-check moment on the floor. Are you going to sink this whole thing over this one piece, even though it’s this big very controversial piece?

I don’t know whether that would be effective, but it – I don’t really know how else you’d do it the way things stand right now, because there are a few Democrats who’ve said no and a bunch of other ones who’ve said well, I don’t really know about this; I’m pretty skeptical. I, you know.

BRAWNER: Well being up on Capitol Hill, what is going to be happening over the next coming weeks, before this bill comes to the floor? How – what role will the White House play? What role will Democratic leaders play? And then as they’re trying to meld the Senate Finance Committee bill with the Senate HELP bill, does the House side of this also get involved, David?

HERSZENHORN: Well they’re working simultaneously, so the House is trying to meld three bills on their side, three different committees that have done similar versions of the legislation, but they’ve got to put that package together, keeping in mind what the Senate has done. And the Senate will work on its two bills and packaging those together. The White House is talking to everybody behind the scenes and they’re trying to position this strategically, so it has the best chances on the floor in both chambers.

You know one thing to remember is don’t count out the Republicans. They have serious reservations; opposition to this legislation. They’re going to put up a big fight. They’re going to look to dry out the Democrats on all the different weak spots in these bills and you know they’re plotting strategy too. They know that having one big Republican alternative is not necessarily the best answer for them, cause it just gets shot at. They’ll be going at that in very specific provisions in all these plans you know forcing votes that might try to expose why they think it’s wrong.

BRAWNER: Senator Harkin said he feels like the momentum has shifted now that the Congressional Budget Office has put forth an estimate on Wednesday; that he feels like the wind is at their back. Do you sense that Republicans are going to start to change how they argue against this bill?

YOUNG: No. I don’t – I mean I don’t – I don’t – I mean I haven’t seen it yet. I think what David just said about you know zeroing in and rifle shot things on some of the more controversial aspects of this; some of the things that Democrats, particularly those in representing you known Republican or moderate states may feel uncomfortable about.

We saw that was the strategy that Republicans used, both in the Finance Committee and in the HELP Committee markups, picking out individual pieces of it and forcing the members to vote, are you really for this. You know the kind of votes that can be used in campaign ads that makes people uncomfortable, but …

HERSZENHORN: And you heard it from Senator Harkin, right. He wants to make this about the totality of the bill, because it’s a big bill. There’s probably a lot in it for a lot of people to love. But if you you know you can make this discussion about one or two things that people just say they can’t vote for. They don’t have too many votes to give up. You know they need that 60 vote threshold in the Senate. It’s a – it’s a tough climb.

YOUNG: And in the meantime, you know all those skeptical senators; there are probably things you can do for them you know to win their votes all across the board. It doesn’t necessarily have to be healthcare, but those – that’s a very tricky game to play and the President, I think, probably has to be careful not to use too many of those chips that Senator Harkin said he put on the table in this stage, because he’s going to need them for the rest of the year, too; especially when – if the House and Senate pass their bills and they combine them, they’re going to have to go through this again.

BRAWNER: This conversation will continue, but we’re out of time for this week’s Newsmakers. David Herszenhorn with the New York Times, Jeffrey Young with The Hill; thank you both.

YOUNG: Thank you.

HERSZENHORN: Thank you.

END