GRASSLEY: Hello, everybody. I'm going to make just a short
statement about what I'm doing right now. We're continuing -- I'm in
the anteroom of the Senate Finance Committee. We're working to find a
bipartisan agreement on health care reform legislation.
I want to make health care coverage more affordable and
accessible and to slow down operating costs of health care. They're
spiraling. Those are goals that I've been talking about with you
folks for the last five or six months. They're still the goals.
Since the beginning of the year, we've had lots of meetings.
I've give you an example. I participated in 59 meetings with senators
about health care reform. We had nine Finance Committee hearings,
day-long discussions about health care.
I've held 87 meetings with constituents about health care this
year and given 10 speeches on the subject. Legislation this big --
because I keep trying to remind you -- I don't have to remind you, but
I keep saying it anyway -- that health care system reform isn't just
about reforming health care; we're affecting 17 percent of America's
economy. It touches the quality of life of every household, and ought
to be based on a broad consensus.
And unless you can help me think of some other piece of
legislation, I would say flat out, from my memory, that this is the
only piece of legislation I've ever worked on or I can think of
Congress ever passing that's restructured 17 percent of America's
economy.
And so a bill this big, making these sweeping impacts ought to be
supported by 80 senators. And that may be wishful thinking, but at
this point, that's our goal, and that's very much bipartisan.
And let me suggest to you something else that I think is
significant. You've got a group of 23 senators, maybe all of them
aren't here at one time, going on in these discussions right now that
I stepped out of to talk to you trying to seek I bipartisan proposal.
Think of what's going on in the Senate Health Committee, a strictly
partisan approach. Democrats lay down a bill, Republicans can amend
it, but no attempt to have bipartisanship there.
Then you've got, over in the House of Representatives, you've got
the Republicans offering a Republican bill. I think they're having a
news conference today on that point. Probably pretty soon, you'll get
a very partisan bill out of the Democrat caucus.
And then over here, you have people that have wide views of
opinion. You know, people that would be as conservative as, well, I
won't know name Republican senators. But several on the committee are
very conservative. Several on the Democrat side are very liberal
sitting down, starting out with a blank sheet of paper. Not right
now, we've developed beyond the blank sheet of paper, but we don't
have a bill to get us to the point where, hopefully, we have a
bipartisan bill.
Now, maybe tomorrow, if I were talking to you, it would all fail.
But right now, two things to keep in mind. We said we wanted a
bipartisan bill since the first of the year. We're still headed in
that direction.
Secondly, until yesterday, we were pretty much on schedule to get
a bill to the Senate floor by -- by the end of this month for debate
next month. Now, that slipped yesterday. How many -- whether it
slipped a day or a week, I don't really know. But part of that is
scoring by CBO. They're very sophisticated in their approach. We
don't necessarily get the information to them on time. We expect a
miracle out of them. You can't get a miracle as far as time delivery.
So things have slipped, but somewhat beyond the control of members of
the Congress -- or if it's all fault because we didn't have documents
to them in time.
So whether this will be done next Tuesday or a week from Tuesday
or, you know, maybe after the 4th of July break, right now, it's out.
But this is the first time that I had to kind of say we haven't met a
deadline.
Now, I'm ready for questions on this subject and who's going to
call the roll?
STAFF: Kerry in Centerville?
QUESTION: Yes. Thank you.
Senator, a question. What did you think -- I know you and Max
Baucus are very bipartisan and you work together very well. What did
you think of the president's speech the other day?
GRASSLEY: The one to the AMA?
QUESTION: Yes.
GRASSLEY: On several issues, it was less compromising than what
Senator Dodd, Grassley, Baucus and Enzi heard a week ago today at the
White House. We spent more than an hour with the president.
And I came out of that meet saying that he was willing to
compromise on almost everything or I said be flexible on most
everything except get it done yesterday, in other words, on time.
He -- it seemed to me, although I didn't read the speech in
whole, so if I've got it wrong, you tell me. But it seems to me, on
two areas that he discussed with us on public option and on -- and on
-- let's see, the other one was tort reform which actually tort reform
hasn't been too much of a discussion up here, but when it has come up
and we've discussed it with the president, he has brought it up and
said that he was willing to take on the tort attorneys.
And even though they've got a loud voice in his party. And he
took that on during the campaign, so this isn't something new. But
here...
QUESTION: That's very important that you get rid of the tort
reform. I mean, that's -- that has to be done, I think.
GRASSLEY: Yes, but he said he wasn't willing to cap punitive
damages which sounds to me like he's not willing to listen to one of
the best ways of doing it. Now, he may be willing to listen to
something else, but when I talked to him, he sounded very willing to
have that on the table, and it didn't sound that way yesterday.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
STAFF: Tom Beaumont at the Register?
QUESTION: Senator, you're talking about no deal yet. How far
apart are the parties from a deal in the Finance Committee? And what
are the -- the sticking points that you think with the most stubborn
right now?
GRASSLEY: Well, I can list -- I can answer the last one very
easily, but it's difficult for me to answer how far apart we are
because I'm not sure it's easy to delineate. But one would be whether
to cap the exclusion and maybe that's not only difficult for
bipartisan agreement, but if you heard me and Senator Baucus on
television, "Fox News Sunday," the Democrats -- at least Dodd speaking
for a lot of the Democrats -- they don't want to look at the exclusion
at all. And he left the impression that you could get -- pay for all
this out of savings.
GRASSLEY: Well, there is a lot of waste in health care, but if
you're going to save this all -- savings on Medicare and Medicaid,
just think how bad the situation is now in Iowa with reimbursement on
Medicare and how much worse it would be.
So -- so there's problems not only between Republicans and
Democrats on exclusion but within the Democrat Party. Then the other
one would be play-or-pay. Another one would be the -- now, wait a
minute. I've kind of lost my train of thought here.
Pay-or-play. Maybe an advisory board, whether or not it's got
power to preempt or to make decisions that may be Congress ought to
make on delay, denial, cost of reimbursement, and all those things.
Maybe some end-of-life issues -- oh, and the most obvious one is
public option.
QUESTION: Sure.
GRASSLEY: I'm sorry that I didn't mention that. Public option.
Maybe -- let's put it this way. Public option, pay-or-play, and the
whole financing issue.
QUESTION: Two-part question here. You said the CBO getting the
information to the CBO has -- you've missed your deadline. What I
want to understand is whether that was something that the committee
was responsible for. And, second, does it have anything to do with
the delay -- is any delay attributable to the CBO's report coming out
saying that, you know, the savings won't be realized?
GRASSLEY: Well, there would be a few days on the -- oh, on that
point. In other words, what the White House reported?
QUESTION: Yes.
GRASSLEY: And the group said to him. No, I don't think so. I
think it's pretty -- I think that even Democrats considered all that
propaganda not only on the part of the White House but on the part of
the organizations. And besides, was difference does it make? If it
can't be scored, it doesn't mean anything anyway. And a lot of those
things can't be scored, and if they could be scored, you know, a lot
of these savings that are down the road, too. So they aren't going to
help us immediately on our offsets.
So the first one I would say would be the responsibility of the
committee, yes, in answer to your first question, not the
responsibility of CBO.
QUESTION: Gotcha.
GRASSLEY: In fact, just let me tell you. Just last night at
6:30, 7:00, I had a conversation with Director Elmendorf, and he
wanted to assure -- he wanted me to know that -- and actually, Baucus
drives this more than I do, but he was being courteous to tell me
that, since I'm the negotiator for the Republicans, that he had to
have, by tonight -- now, wait a minute, maybe it was Thursday night.
But either tonight or tomorrow night, he -- if we wanted to mark
up a bill next Tuesday, he had to have everything finalized by
tomorrow night or he wouldn't be able to do it. And, you know, I told
him I can understand. My answer to him was that it's probably delayed
anyway for other reasons because we can't reach the compromise.
And secondly, I expect him, as long as they're intellectually
honest, and I believe they are intellectually honest and there's no
political pressure to do anything too fast that can't be justified
intellectually, I expect him to take whatever time it does to do it
right.
QUESTION: Thank you.
STAFF: Mike Myers?
QUESTION: Senator, let me go through a cliche, perhaps, the cart
and horse. On this matter of health care reform, is it the money --
finding the money savings that is most difficult? Or is it the policy
initiatives, the coverage of bringing this group in and doing this and
that -- are they both just equally difficult by the way they are
intertwined?
GRASSLEY: It's kind of a horse-and-cart analogy, and they're
both difficult. But I think you get the program put together and you
think is ideal. And then you decide how you're going to fund it.
And then you get those scored, and then there's actually a third step.
There has to be some reanalysis of that by CBO -- or, no.
The third step is that we would have to do what we call dial-down
or dial-up certain things both on the program end and on the financing
end. And then CBO has got to score it again.
So you've got, really, four steps in there before you get to mark
up.
QUESTION: What are you finding the greater consensus on overall
on any of these policy initiatives? What the so-called easy part?
GRASSLEY: Well, OK. Well, you know, we -- I just talked to Tom
about public option and about financing and about the payer -- the
play-or-pay. Those are difficult items, but they might only be three
items out of 50 items that we probably have agreement on 40 of them
because those are issues that there's a broad-based consensus that
needs to be done.
Let me suggest to you emphasis upon dealing with chronic
illnesses, five or six illnesses that take up 75 percent of the cost
of Medicare. Preventive medicine or changing the perverse incentives
by which, you know, your doctor tells you he wants to see you every
day and twice on Sunday because he is going to get paid for every time
he sees you.
So those perverse incentives drive up health care costs. So
there's a broad agreement on changing those, in other words, chronic
diseases, preventive medicine, and the perverse incentives that are in
health care. And they make up the largest items and the easiest to
agree to because there's probably less ideology involved in those
decisions; in other words, not the ideology that's behind public
option, as an example.
QUESTION: All right. I may have a follow-up. I'll pass for
now. Thank you.
STAFF: Mike Glover?
QUESTION: You've said in the past that this is the year health
care happens. Do you still feel that way?
GRASSLEY: Yes. And if it doesn't happen, it'll happen four
years from now because next year is an election year, the following
year, even though it's not an election year, is the start of a
presidential, you know, season. And it's probably not going to be a
part of that.
QUESTION: OK.
STAFF: Joe Morton?
Jim Boyd?
Mary Rae Bragg?
QUESTION: Senator, I hear complaints from readers that when it
comes to paying for reforming the health care system, it appears to be
cost shifting rather than cost saving that driving the proposals. Is
there going to be an end to $60 aspirin?
GRASSLEY: Do you know what? If you look at the first two or
three years, you're absolutely right. But if you look out 10 years,
and we get more emphasis upon the chronic disease, managing them so
they're less costly and a better quality of life, preventive medicine,
getting everybody insured because if you're insured, you probably
aren't going to get as sick as you are if you don't have insurance,
and so it's going to be easier to keep you well; you won't be using
the emergency room. There's going to be tremendous savings that's
going to benefit everybody.
But there is cost shifting, and even up front, there's some
increase in cost.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
STAFF: Ed Tibbets?
QUESTION: Senator, I wanted to ask you, you had said earlier
that, since this overhaul is going is affect such a large part of the
economy that it ought to be a bill that's supported by 80 senators.
Yet you've said that you oppose the public option. I guess I'm just
wondering if you can describe what a bill might look like that would
still get the support of 40 Democratic senators.
GRASSLEY: Well, if it didn't have any public option in it but it
was -- we got everybody covered, it seems to me that you'd get 40
senators to vote for it. But -- 40 Democrat senators to vote for it.
But let me suggest to you that -- well, then the ideal thing for me
would be not to have any public option or even the promotion of the --
of the idea that we don't have enough competition in insurance today
when you have 350 health insurance companies somewhere in the
United States even though they aren't all in Iowa.
It would be not to have any public option. But we're talking
about -- along the lines of what we know about in the Midwest,
cooperatives, maybe encouraging some cooperatives moving into health
insurance the same way that maybe 150 years ago county mutuals got
together to have fire insurance for farmers because nobody else would
insure farmers because they were so far from a fire station, you know,
things of that nature.
So there's still opportunities, maybe, to satisfy people that
wanted public option and still get it for Republicans. Listen, it's
probably not too far removed from Republican philosophy anyway that we
ought to have more competition, that it should be risk based, in other
words, the option to have the same solvency requirements as the other
insurance companies. And if it's all done entirely within the private
sector, you know, it doesn't seem to me it's got the faults that you
have when you've got the power to tax is the power to destroy by
having the government institute something.
QUESTION: So on the flip side of that, is it your assessment
that a bill that includes a public option won't get 20 (ph)
Republicans?
GRASSLEY: I don't think there's more than one Republican who
would vote for it, and that one Republican is very cautious about it
and maybe only to it under the condition that it be what we call a
backup. In other words, if there wasn't competition -- a certain
amount of competition in the state, then, in that particular instance,
you could have a public option; in other words, a government-run
health plan.
QUESTION: Does that suggest less willingness to compromise on
the Republican's part at least insofar as the public option?
GRASSLEY: Only on the public option thing.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: But then you'd think we're getting some consideration
on my side of following a co-op basis. And, by the way, I was told
yesterday that there's a leading Democrat, because, in his state,
there is some cooperative insurance on health care, that would maybe
bring a very liberal senator on board on that concept. That would
help sell it to some Democrats.
QUESTION: Like who?
GRASSLEY: I don't think I should give a name. I'm sorry. I
just don't feel comfortable repeating what I've heard privately.
QUESTION: Well, can you talk at all about who on the Democratic
side might be friendly to this idea?
GRASSLEY: Yes. I think it's being promoted by Senator Conrad,
which is very important to have a Democrat promote an option. And
it's getting favorable look-see at a lot of Democrats. Beyond that,
well, Senator Baucus would be one that would be looking at it.
QUESTION: OK.
GRASSLEY: And he's chairman of the committee. That's pretty
significant.
QUESTION: OK. Thanks.
GRASSLEY: Yes.
STAFF: Tim Rohwer?
QUESTION: Yes, Senator.
As I was driving to work today, on the radio, they mentioned that
many Republican senators where a little bit critical of President
Obama not being strong enough in some of his comments concerning the
situation over in Iran. Do you think that this country should react
more strongly to what's going on there right now with all the rioting
and the journalists being, basically to not report to what's going on?
GRASSLEY: I think, in rhetoric, very definitely because don't we
want to promote democracy wherever we can around the world? It's one
of our goals. And they presumably want democracy in that country. I
mean, they portrayed democracy by having their debates and their
multi-candidate elections and the secret balloting, et cetera, et
cetera.
If the votes aren't counted right, shouldn't we be speaking up
for democracy be a fact as well as fiction?
QUESTION: OK.
STAFF: John Skipper?
OK. Did anybody get added late or have a follow-up?
QUESTION: Senator, you told us you were going to meet with the
Supreme Court nominee on Monday. Did you get a chance to meet with
her?
GRASSLEY: Yes. I enjoyed the meeting very much. I had a one-
on-one meeting without her staff or my staff.
QUESTION: How did you feel about her? Do you think you might...
GRASSLEY: Yes. Well, let me tell you this. It's kind of a
situation where I had -- where I had, you know, a preconceived notion
about her, maybe from the press, maybe from seeing her talk a little
bit on television.
QUESTION: What was your preconceived notion?
GRASSLEY: And, well, you know, maybe I had a view that she was
very aggressive, maybe unfriendly, dogmatic. I didn't get that
impression at all. I got a favorable impression of her being
friendly, reserved, not aggressive, very conversational, a person that
you could like.
Now, I might be fooled when she gets before the committee. I
didn't get into any detail about law. In fact, I told her up front
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not going to try to tell you how smart I am
about the law if I haven't been to law school. And I'll be asking all
the legal questions in the committee.
So I said to her I want you to talk and tell me whatever you want
to tell me about yourself and about the law and about approaching this
and all those sorts of things. And she talked.
QUESTION: You're not totally saying you would not vote for her.
I mean, at this point?
GRASSLEY: Well, I hope I've been very clear on that in every
interview since she's been nominated. I did vote against her for the
court of -- circuit court. And this is a whole new thing. She's got
3,000 cases. She's got a whole new thing. And when -- and when
you're being appointed to the Supreme Court, as long as -- as well as
the circuit, there's a lot more at stake, a lot more attention to it.
I've got to give it a lot more thing, and I owe her the same
dispassionate approach that I expect her to use as a judge, you know.
In other words, it's a fresh review top to bottom.
QUESTION: OK. Thank you.
QUESTION: Senator, I had a hard time asking this question
before, so I'm going to try again. What I meant to say is does the
CBO report on the scoring of the health care bill make it seem less
likely that a deal can be reached this year? Does the hurt the
chances for legislation?
GRASSLEY: No, I don't think so. You're talking about on the
CBO's reaction to what the industry said they could save?
QUESTION: I was referring to the scoring that said it was going
to cost more than a trillion dollars over 10 years.
GRASSLEY: No. Because that causes us to sit down and modify our
mark.
QUESTION: And do you think that bodes well for the opponents of
a public plan and stuff like that?
GRASSLEY: No, I wouldn't say it has anything to do with that.
You know, for instance, when I said "dial down" or "dial up," our
staff was -- the staff of the two senators, Grassley and Baucus, were
working last night long hours to do just that, get further
modifications to CBO.
QUESTION: Anybody else want to ask a follow-up?
QUESTION: Hey, I do.
Senator, it's Ed Tibbets.
Just quickly, in your discussions with President Obama, what's he
had to say about this do of a cooperative?
GRASSLEY: He said he was willing to look at it. We didn't have
a deep discussion about it. We did have a deep discussion about
public option. He made it very clear that he thinks we ought to have
a public option, but he said he was open. And that's why, you know, I
was a little -- in answer to Kerry's question, I was a little
surprised about his speech to the AMA yesterday.
QUESTION: So what do you make of that? I mean, given the strong
Republican support...
GRASSLEY: You know what? We had a private conversation at the
White House. I think that that's the real Obama, and when you are out
in public, you can't look like you're compromising before you
absolutely have to compromise.
QUESTION: Senator, can I ask you a question (inaudible) have you
had as many conversations with the president prior to Obama as you
have had with Obama?
GRASSLEY: Oh, I suppose when you've got an opportunity to speak
with a senator almost every vote that I had a lot more conversation
with him as a senator, but they were never of the substance that...
QUESTION: I mean did you ever get to go talk to a president as
much as you've talked to Obama?
GRASSLEY: Oh, yes. I had more and longer conversations with
Bush than I have with Obama, but don't forget, that's -- that's eight
years compared to four months.
STAFF: OK. Thanks, everybody.
QUESTION: One more -- can we ask...
QUESTION: You have access to him, those, when you want to talk
to him?
GRASSLEY: Yes.
QUESTION: Senator, one more. On this inspector general matter
for the service corps...
GRASSLEY: Yes?
QUESTION: Do you suspect that the first lady's office has been
involved with the firing of Walpin?
GRASSLEY: The only thing I know about that is there was a
reference in the paper to requests made about e-mails and things of
that nature to find out, but it was more a case of trying to make that
determination as to whether to draw a conclusion. And your question
would imply that a conclusion has been drawn, and no conclusion has
been drawn in regard to the first lady's office.
QUESTION: Thanks.
GRASSLEY: You bet. Goodbye.