STAFF: The following is an unrehearsed interview with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, speaking to you live from Waukee. Participating in today's public affairs program are Nick Wilkens with KCII Radio in Washington and Eric Owomayela with the Mount Pleasant News in Mount Pleasant.
The first question will be from Nick Wilkens.
QUESTION: Good morning, Senator Grassley. I think my first question for you, what specifically did you not like about the health care bill that became law last week?
GRASSLEY: I think the most important thing is the unconstitutional individual mandate, where the federal government says you have to buy insurance. I think it's unconstitutional because, unlike state governments that can make you buy car insurance, states can do anything that's not prohibited in the federal Constitution. But the federal government can only do those things that are permitted in the federal Constitution. So it doesn't give the federal government the authority to do that.
I think -- that's pretty specific, but on a broader basis, when you talk about reform, people expect health care costs to go down. This doesn't do anything about health care costs. They expect premiums to go down.
Premiums are going up. They didn't expect to have a $500 billion increase in taxes, and they didn't intend to start us down the road of rationing.
And those bad things about big tax increases, increases in premiums, not doing anything about rationing or inflation of health care, and the individual mandate, people don't call that reform. And then in top of it, taking $500 billion out of Medicare to finance a new health program.
STAFF: Eric, your first question?
QUESTION: Hi, Senator, I suppose I'd just like to flip that on its head and ask, what were any of the measures in the law that you do like or that you would like to keep?
GRASSLEY: Well, there are several that I got in there that are probably non-controversial, so I won't raise so much issue to mention them. But one of the things that is good about it is the emphasis upon preventive medicine and wellness programs. Another thing in it that's good is accountable care organizations, where you're going to have teams of physicians working together to concentrate on the five -- the five diseases that we call chronic diseases that eat up 75 percent of all the health care dollars.
And then things that I would add that aren't in there would be medical malpractice reform, selling insurance across state lines -- let's see -- issues like -- well, take the individual mandate out and have bigger pools for small business, national pools for small business, like through association health accounts.
STAFF: Back to Nick?
QUESTION: Senator Grassley, many Republican leaders have said they'll try to repeal this measure. Is that something you support? And why or why not?
GRASSLEY: Well, I think we've -- we've long had a program that we -- we ought to start over and start with a clean sheet of paper and do things more incrementally. That means that you would include some things that are in this bill and that you would add some things that aren't in the bill. And I suppose you'd take out some things that are in the bill.
And so I think a better way would be to say repeal and replace.
STAFF: Back to Eric?
QUESTION: All right. Senator, one of the arguments against, I suppose, a more incremental or gradual approach has been that you can't create a system in which insurers are barred from denying coverage without also ensuring that people don't just opt out of the system. Is -- do you see any value in that argument? Or do you think there's another way to address it?
GRASSLEY: Yes, there's another way to address it than the individual mandate, and that would be to make sure that we follow on risk pools that states have and enhance those risk pools. And the -- but the other thing is, even if you like individual mandates, you can't do it if it isn't constitutional.
And -- and the other thing is that even this massive bill that's going to cost $2.5 trillion when it's
fully implemented is -- is still going to leave 20 million to 25 million people uninsured. And out of the 30 million people that are going to have health care that don't have it now, you want to remember that a good share of those could buy it now. They've got incomes to buy it, but decide not to buy it. And then you've got a lot of people that could be covered by Medicaid now that don't want to get into that program, the Children's Health Insurance Program. Why? I don't know.
And then you want to remember the 15 million to 16 million who are going to be put on Medicaid besides the 12 million to 14 million that are going to have subsidized health insurance, that those going on Medicaid don't have the same choice as those that are going to be in the subsidized program, and then Medicaid only pays 62 percent of costs, so consequently, there's a lot of people that are going to have a false sense of security that they have health insurance -- and they do under Medicaid, but maybe they won't have doctors to service them.
So this bill is a long ways from universal coverage.
STAFF: Back to Nick?
QUESTION: Senator Grassley, I know some have said that -- they've said the health care bill got rammed down the throats of Americans. And some Republicans -- I believe Senator McCain said President Obama has poisoned the well now, as far as working with Republicans. I know he started two pretty ambitious initiatives here, a jobs bill and financial regulation on banks. Are you still willing to work with President Obama on some of these new initiatives?
GRASSLEY: Chance (ph), can you repeat that for me? I couldn't hear.
QUESTION: He was wondering if -- if you're willing to work by -- work in a bipartisan way to -- with President Obama's initiatives going forward.
GRASSLEY: Yes, well, you may forget what I was involved in last summer, but we had 31 meetings, three Republicans and three Democrats, working on a bailout bill, and September the 15th come, and -- and the White House decided they didn't want to wait any longer for us to develop a bill, because this bill had to pass right now based on the proposition that it's got to take effect by 2014, which I don't understand.
But we had a big bipartisan effort to get a bipartisan bill. In fact, when Senator Baucus and I started on this a year ago, we felt that we ought to have 75 to 80 votes for reshuffling one-sixth of the economy. So then after this bill passes -- and it was a partisan bill -- Senator Baucus and I started out again on our bipartisan approach, and we -- we passed a jobs bill.
We developed a jobs bill and made it public. We thought we were working in conjunction with the Democrat leader, Reid, but two days after we announced our bipartisan jobs bill, you read a headline in the paper that says, "Reid Scuttles Baucus Bill." That's a knife in the back of his own chairman.
So I'm a little anxious about bipartisanship when you get treated the way we were treated on health care, when you worked 31 meetings to develop one, and -- and they decide to go partisan, just because we aren't moving fast enough. And then right after that, we work on this jobs bill, and they ditch us there. So do they want bipartisanship, I think is a legitimate question.
STAFF: Back to Eric.
QUESTION: All right, Senator, I'd like to look ahead at one of the next big issues that's working through Congress, the financial reform bill. What is your perspective of the legislation as it stands right now? And what sort of concerns do you have?
GRASSLEY: On immigration?
QUESTION: No, the financial reform.
GRASSLEY: Oh, financial reform?
QUESTION: Yes.
GRASSLEY: Well, I think -- one word, but I'll give you more than one word, but I think transparency is what we need, because I think, before the bubble burst, what happened was -- maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission wasn't doing its job, but there was a lot of developments and new securitized instruments that they didn't know about, and they were turning over so fast that maybe even if they knew about them, they couldn't keep on top of it.
So we have to have some reporting and some transparency of what these new instruments are. Beyond that, I don't have any strong convictions, although there's a bill out -- and I think we've got to make sure that we take care of Wall Street -- or take care of Main Street instead of Wall Street.
STAFF: Thank you, Nick and Eric, for participating in today's public affairs program. This has been Senator Chuck Grassley reporting to the people of Iowa.
QUESTION: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Thank you.