Health Care: What Will Obama Say?
BLITZER: Battle lines are drawn. Both sides are digging in when it comes to health care reform. Can President Obama break the deadlock with a crucial speech before congress tomorrow night? Let's talk about it. A key sticking point is the so-called public option, a government-run health plan that would compete with private insurers. Joining us now Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Republican Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana. Gentlemen, thanks very much for coming in. Chris Van Hollen, first to you, can health care reform pass the house without that government-run so-called public option?</s>REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, we're going to work very hard to get a bill that concludes the public option. It creates greater competition and choice, and that's what we want. We're trying to bring down the cost of health care. We're trying to bring down people's premiums, and it's hard to know what the other side is so afraid of. I understand why the insurance companies don't like the public option because it creates more competition for them, but it helps consumers, and that's why we're going to fight hard to try to get it past the house</s>BLITZER: What's wrong with a little more competition, Congressman Pence?</s>REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: Well, look, let me be very clear. Republicans support health care reform that lowers the cost of health insurance, Wolf, and lowers the cost of health care in the long term, but I think most Americans and Republicans in congress understand that if you introduce a government-run insurance plan to compete with the private sector, that tens of millions of Americans will lose the health insurance that they have at their employer now, not because the bill will require them to give up their health insurance, but in this difficult economy, an economy that's at 9.7 percent unemployment, you know, there's not an employer worth his salt who isn't going to look at the opportunity of canceling their coverage and sending people to a government-run health insurance plan. We don't need that. We need competition within the private sector, and Republicans have ideas about how to do that.</s>BLITZER: Well, what about that argue, Chris Van Hollen, that this would simply force a lot of private insurance out of business?</s>HOLLEN: Well, first, Wolf, I'd like to see the alternative plans that Mike Pence is talking about because the Republican leadership said they were going to have an alternative.</s>BLITZER: Before you get to that though, just answer the question that he suggests.</s>HOLLEN: Yes, the nonpartisan congressional budget office looked at the house bill, they looked at the interaction of these different proposals and what they concluded was just the opposite of what Mike Pence said, they said by the year 2019, by the time these plans are kicked in, you'll have more Americans on employer health care that you have today, that you would have 30 million Americans that choose to participate in the health insurance exchange, like a shopping market for different insurance proposals, that of the 30 million people that go into this exchange, 20 million will choose private insurance plans and 10 million will choose the public option. That's hardly the case of the public option swallowing up the private insurance market or swallowing up the employer sponsored bill. CBO, look, sometimes CBO comes up with numbers that we don't like but we all have to live with them, that was their conclusion, the year 2019, more Americans are on employer sponsored health care coverage.</s>BLITZER: Congressman Pence, have you read that CBO report?</s>PENCE: We have looked at it a little bit, and I respect the Congressional Budget Office, but that CBO report assumes a level of economic growth in the near term here, Wolf, that is hard to accept in an economy that shed 2 million jobs since the so-called stimulus bill was passed last February. Look, I got to tell you, I really do believe when I was home doing -- I did seven town hall meetings across Indiana; people understand that we need to bring real competition to the private marketplace. Chris, here's a Republican idea, let Americans purchase health insurance across state lines the way members of congress can through that federal employee health benefits plan. We ought to allow real competition and new health insurance products to come in. But a government option in this economy in particular is going to result in employers across this country saying to people, look, I love you, we appreciate you, but we're going to pay the 8 percent payroll tax and send you to the feds for your insurance.</s>BLITZER: Why not let the insurance companies compete across state lines instead of forcing every state to have a limited number of private insurance companies?</s>HOLLEN: That's what the health insurance exchange does, Wolf. What the health insurance exchange does is open up a national marketplace with set, basic requirements with respect to consumer protection, but then says to the insurance companies, why don't you go out there and compete based on cost, compete based on quality and in addition to have having the private insurance packages offered as part of this exchange, you're also going to have a public option because there's some parts of this country who are only going to have one or two insurance companies, they have a monopoly on the market, why not allow them to have a little more competition? The public option is very circumscribed, it has to support itself based on the premiums received. Any money advanced to it from the federal government for startup purposes has to be repaid, it has to play by the rules that all the private insurance companies have to as it should. Why not allow one more nonprofit entity to compete on the exchange?</s>BLITZER: Do you want to respond to that Congressman Pence?</s>PENCE: Well I do. The federal government competes with the private sector the way an alligator competes with a duck. It consumes it. In the federal employee health benefits plan that Chris and I are both a part of, our families are a part of, 10 million federal employees are a part of, there is not a public option. People choose between I think about five different private health insurance plans. We ought to bring competition. There is where Chris who I've known every day that we both been in Congress and I respect him, Chris and I agree, we have got to break these essentially monopolies at the state level by bringing competition, but why the federal government has to come in with a public option and with this structured exchange to do that, let's just let the American people buy health insurance the way they buy car insurance.</s>HOLLEN: But that's the point, Mike. The point Mike is it's an option. No one's required to go into this plan and no one has to buy it. I know why the insurance companies are scared of it, but why is everybody else so scared of more competition and more choice.</s>BLITZER: Very quickly guys.</s>PENCE: It's hard to keep your health insurance if your employer cancels it. And I've got to tell you, the American people get this, they understand it. We can do this without a public plan.</s>BLITZER: Let's continue this debate.</s>HOLLEN: Let's ask the nonpartisan studio to ask that.</s>BLITZER: It's an important debate and it's not going away. We'll continue with both of you. Thank you for joining us very much for joining us. President Obama opens up to some high schoolers today and takes some very personal questions about his dad.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But how do you think your life would have been different if he would have been there for you? Like if -- how would your education have been and would you still be president?</s>BLITZER: We talked to the student who posed that question to the president and he got a very emotional response from President Obama, stand by.