Senator Harkin, In His Own Words

Transcript from MSNBC's The Ed Show, 1 March 2010

SCHULTZ: Now, Senator—Tom, we‘re friends now, OK?

HARKIN: Always have been, always will be.

SCHULTZ: My man, I need you to sign this public option letter. What is it going to—if the public option comes up for a vote for reconciliation, would you vote yes, Senator Harkin?

HARKIN: Look, Ed, you‘re talking to a guy who is for a single payer system.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

HARKIN: And I‘m for a public option, always have been. But I know that Speaker Pelosi said yesterday, I guess, on one of the talk shows, that it‘s off the table, simply because of the vote arrangement that we have to do. She has to count votes in the House side. So we‘ve got a deal with this very delicately.

God bless you. I appreciate what you‘re doing. You‘re on the right course in terms of pushing for the public option. This bill is not the Ten Commandments, Ed, as you‘ve heard me say
many times, carved in stone for all eternity.

This is a bill.

We pass laws around here. And then when we do, we come back and we amend them and we change them. I‘ll tell you this—if the public option is not in this bill—and it looks like it probably won‘t be because of the votes—that means we‘ll be back on it again, maybe even this year, maybe next year. But I‘m telling you, it‘s going to be coming back again and again and again. We are notgiving up on it.

SCHULTZ: But why do I sense a “yes” out of you? If it were to come to the floor, you would vote yes for the public option, would you not?

HARKIN: Ed, I‘ll tell you this straightforward. Not if it meant that it would sink the whole health care reform bill. There‘s a lot of other stuff in there I care very deeply about—getting rid of all of these pre-existing conditions, insurance rescinding these things, covering 30 million people, giving tax credits to low income so they can buy insurance, getting more competition out there. These are very important things to have for our country, and so I have to weigh all of that.

And if we have a bill sent to us from the House, a reconciliation bill that does not have the public option in there, then if we were to do that, if we were to add it here, that would sink the whole bill. And I don‘t want to sink this bill. I want to get this bill passed. I want it on Obama‘s desk and have him sign it.

SCHULTZ: Yes. We all do, Senator. But if it were just a single issue and a single reconciliation attempt at a public option, you would vote for that, wouldn‘t you?

HARKIN: Ed, not if it doomed the entire bill.

SCHULTZ: OK.

HARKIN: I‘ve got to be honest with you. Not if it doomed the entire bill.

SCHULTZ: OK. But in this case it might not be that scenario.

HARKIN: Well, I don‘t know. Well, Ed, let‘s see what the House sends us.

SCHULTZ: OK.

HARKIN: And we‘re working that out right now. As the chairman of the committee, I‘m involved in these talks. The Speaker is—I‘ll tell you, she is doing a great job.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

HARKIN: But she has to get 218 votes, Ed. And this is a very delicate balancing trick to make sure we get all these votes, and --

SCHULTZ: Well, they had a public option in the House bill before. Why would they not have the votes for it this time?

HARKIN: Well, because there are other things happening because the Senate bill is there and they have to pass the Senate bill. There are certain things in the Senate bill that cannot be fixed in reconciliation, and some House members are peeling off.

SCHULTZ: All right.

HARKIN: The Stupak Amendment, for example, we can‘t fix that in reconciliation. So some House members are peeling off. So Speaker Pelosi has a very tough job of making sure she gets all the votes together.