[King:] Back to continue our conversation. James Carville and Mary Matalin here, but also now with us, Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Senator, thank you for joining us. You were the 60th vote. Harry Reid would not be able to go forward as he will in the early morning hours Monday to advance the health care debate without your vote. You held out because you were concerned in part about abortion language. And the House bill that has passed has very restrictive language, sponsored by Bart Stupak, a congressman, a Democrat, who says no federal money will go anywhere near funding abortion. You have less restrictive language now that you have agreed to in the Senate that you believe still meets your test. But as you know, there are critics in the pro-life movement, the anti-abortion movement, who say, no, it does not. I want you to listen to a Republican colleague, Lindsey Graham, who was right here earlier today.
[Graham:] He gets a compromise. He never runs it by anybody. He gives a press conference saying he solved the problem. And when everyone who cares about it, including Bart Stupak, look at it, they say it's unacceptable. So that's really disappointing. I think Senator Nelson has lost a lot of trust of the pro-life community for pushing a compromise that no one on our side believes works.
[King:] That from Senator Graham. In your home state, Julie Schmit-Albin, the executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, says, "If this is so good for pro-life, why would Senator Boxer and Senator Schumer agree to this?" Senator Boxer and Senator Schumer, of course, liberal Democrats. Did you let down the pro-life movement?
[Nelson:] No, not at all. As a matter of fact, what they haven't said is that we tried to pass the Stupak language earlier in the Congress last week, and it was called the Nelson-Hatch-Casey bill. It didn't get enough votes. So the choice was do nothing or try to do something in case Stupak is not that language doesn't hold in the conference report. So what we were trying to do is find a way to solve the issue. I think the language does do it. I disagree with them. I think it's unfortunate they've taken the approach they have, because it's about the argument is about a staple. It's about a staple. It's about whether or not you have a rider that you staple to a policy. The rider covers abortion. Or whether you have it and for that, there's no separate check required. It would be just the requirement would be that the check cover both abortion and the person's portion of the premium. Whereas what we've proposed is you can have the language in the policy, because it becomes part of the policy as a rider or an endorsement, but you have to write a separate check for just the abortion portion of it. If it's $5.00 a year, it's $ $5.00, a separate check, as well as a separate check for the rest of your coverage. Only in public plans.
[King:] But if you had held out, Harry Reid can't do this without 60 votes. If you had said Stupak language or nothing, wouldn't you wouldn't Harry Reid have to give in eventually?
[Nelson:] Well, I don't know, you know. It seems to me that they're more likely with the harsh feelings about this issue, that it would be more likely that it would have then gone to reconciliation. I mean, I think people have to understand, 60 votes may be 60 votes to go through the ordinary process. But 50 votes, a simple majority, could be required by going through the whole process called reconciliation. Then you wouldn't have gotten Stupak, you wouldn't have gotten Nelson-Hatch-Casey. You would have gotten what's in the bill right now.
[King:] I want James and Mary to jump into the conversation at any point and ask a question of Senator Nelson, if you want. We'll have a conversation. I want to move on to another piece of the substance of what you negotiated in a minute, but let me start with politics for a second. There are some who say former governor, now Senator Ben Nelson, enjoys this perhaps a bit too much. Some of your liberal colleagues say, you know, you just love this, that you love the spotlight, you love the limelight, you love being able to be the guy with the leverage.
[Nelson:] Well, I don't think that's accurate at all. I mean, I couldn't create the opportunity to be the 60th vote. It happened. And to them, I would say, look, if you think it's fun having both sides on an issue mad at you when you're trying to do something in good faith, just think, it's like going home and getting bit by the family dog. So how who enjoys that?
[Carville:] Senator, if I could ask you, you were the governor of Nebraska for eight years, been in the Senate for some time now. Where would you write this health care fight? Is this the most contentious thing that you've ever been through of all of the struggles you went through in politics?
[Nelson:] I used to have to deal with a unicameral legislature, and occasionally we'd have a contentious subject we had to deal with, a policy issue. But this is the high, tense the high intensity here is as harsh and as unforgiving and unrelenting as I have ever seen it in my nine years.
[Carville:] You're surviving you're a Democrat in a very, very red state. Sometimes do you get frustrated if you see some commentators saying, well, you should do this or you should do that, and wondering if they ever knew what it was like? I'm living in Louisiana and I wonder if some of these people have any idea what it's like to run as a Democrat in a place like Louisiana and Nebraska.
[Nelson:] Well, you know, I'm an independent-minded sort of person. And I think that's demonstrated. I don't take my marching orders from a party or a group or any other entity. And as in this case, I put together what I thought was appropriate, and I'm sorry that both sides didn't enjoy it. And that's the way it works. I'm an independent type of person. I'm not a lone eagle. I do consult. I do get input. But at the end of the day, I make my own decision about what to do.
[Matalin:] Senator, can I ask you, since you were so instrumental in Bush's, President W. Bush's tax cuts I'll never forget the Cheney napkin, which I think you have in your office, where you read that's how we finished up with that brilliant tax cut, which resulted in the longest successive numbers of growth that we've had...
[King:] Mary is for the Bush tax cuts. I don't know if you noticed that, but Mary is for the Bush tax cuts.
[Matalin:] Which leads to my so thank you for that work, which leads to my real question, everybody's question and why the polls show consistently and have through the whole year, not just opposition but intense opposition. How are we going to pay for this? There is a number of things in there that are cost are payment vehicles, but none of them are sustainable. You know from your work on tax cuts that when you overtax something, you get less of it. You cannot sustain through tanning salon taxes this trillion dollar, 10-year, budget-busting legislation.
[Nelson:] Well, there are some opportunities in there for savings, and I think what really boils down to is the cost savings to individuals. The question really is, what happens if we don't do something here? When you've got the cost of health care and health insurance premiums going up at the rate of 10 percent per year over the last eight years and projected to go at that same level indefinitely, you have Americans just about to be priced out of the insurance market at some point. You already have a number of them falling off every day from the insurance rolls. So stepping to the forefront on this is extremely important. That's what why I finally at the end of it all decided there ought to be a way, and we need to try to work together to get something accomplished.
[King:] To that point and to Mary's point specifically about how do we pay for this and should we trust the numbers that say the deficit will go down and the cost curve will be bent, among the other things you negotiated was a few years down the road, the formula in the bill now would pass off some Medicaid costs to the states. And you cut a deal where you said the federal government is going to pay Nebraska's share. Again, Senator Graham, your Republican friend, was here this morning and he says that is a bad deal for the country.
[Graham:] Medicaid deal for Senator Nelson. There's one state of the union where new enrollees for Medicaid will be signed up and it won't cost anybody in that state money. It's not my state. I have got 30 percent African-American population, a lot of low-income African-Americans on Medicaid. I don't know what the numbers are in Nebraska, but I want my attorney general there are a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats, are upset by this. Is it constitutional? I want the attorney general of South Carolina to look at this.
[King:] Senator Graham asked the constitutional question, should you give one state or two states a special deal? Let me ask a different question. You were a governor. You know, and you did this on behalf of your governor, a Republican at home in Nebraska. But you know, and Mary Landrieu we were talking about this of Louisiana, did something on behalf of her Republican governor. But there are 48 other governors out there, Democrats and Republicans, and maybe there will be an independent or two. Do you have any expectation that the math in the current Senate bill will be viable two or three years down the road when every state in the country and every governor in the country says, I want what Nebraska got?
[Nelson:] Well, you know, look, I didn't ask for a special favor here. I didn't ask for a carveout. What I said is the governor of Nebraska has contacted me, he said publicly he's having trouble with the budget. This will add to his budget woes. And I said, look, we have to that fixed.
[King:] Arnold Schwarzenegger says it's $3 billion in California. When every one of these governors starts doing this, does that document the Senate Democrats put out that says it cuts the deficit, it bends the cost curve, is it worth the paper it's printed on once all these other governors start raising their hand?
[Nelson:] Well, if the money isn't there, then the requirement needs to go away. In other words, I've always opposed unfunded and unfunded federal mandates, as governor, as a senator. It happens all the time. Something is added that sounds good. Then the money is pulled back by the federal government. As a matter of fact, in 2003, as part of the tax cuts, Senator Collins and I, Senator Rockefeller and then-Senator Gordon Smith negotiated what was called the FMAP fix, and that was $20 billion that went to the states to cover their growing costs of Medicaid. I have got a track record of constantly trying to help the states deal with their Medicaid problems.
[King:] And if we keep coming back... In the future, but if we keep coming back to do that in the future, can we believe on this day, can we pour cement on the idea that this actually bends the cost curve and reduces the deficit, or does it bend the cost curve and reduce the deficit until everybody lines up for their fix?
[Nelson:] Well, or until the requirement that's put in place is relaxed and goes away. And then the obligation on the underfunded federal mandate is gone. And then we go on with the program that's there. So I mean, it's one or the other. If we're going to if we're going to mandate these things on the state, then we have to pay for them. We don't pay for them three years, then pull back on them, leave the mandate there and pull back the federal money. That was my objective, to get that fixed. They fixed it this way. It's not the way I would have fixed it, but it's fixed, at least at this point in time. But I think in the future, either the mandate goes away or the federal government provides the money, as it should.
[King:] Senator Nelson is going to stay with us. We're going to work in a quick break. We'll be right back. And joining us as well, the best political team on television. Don't go anywhere.